"Not at all. He is practising at a German bath, and has married a richpatient."
"Then my notions wear the best, so far," said Lydgate, with a shortscornful laugh. "He would have it, the medical profession was aninevitable system of humbug. I said, the fault was in the men—men whotruckle to lies and folly. Instead of preaching against humbug outside thewalls, it might be better to set up a disinfecting apparatus within. Inshort—I am reporting my own conversation—you may be sure I had allthe good sense on my side."
"Your scheme is a good deal more difficult to carry out than thePythagorean community, though. You have not only got the old Adam inyourself against you, but you have got all those descendants of theoriginal Adam who form the society around you. You see, I have paidtwelve or thirteen years more than you for my knowledge of difficulties.But"—Mr. Farebrother broke off a moment, and then added, "you areeying that glass vase again. Do you want to make an exchange? You shallnot have it without a fair barter."
"I have some sea-mice—fine specimens—in spirits. And I will throwin Robert Brown's new thing—'Microscopic Observations on the Pollen ofPlants'—if you don't happen to have it already."
"Why, seeing how you long for the monster, I might ask a higherprice. Suppose I ask you to look through my drawers and agree with meabout all my new species?" The Vicar, while he talked in this way,alternately moved about with his pipe in his mouth, and returned tohang rather fondly over his drawers. "That would be good discipline, youknow, for a young doctor who has to please his patients in Middlemarch.You must learn to be bored, remember. However, you shall have themonster on your own terms."
"Don't you think men overrate the necessity for humoringeverybody's nonsense, till they get despised by the very fools theyhumor?" said Lydgate, moving to Mr. Farebrother's side, and lookingrather absently at the insects ranged in fine gradation, with namessubscribed in exquisite writing. "The shortest way is to make your valuefelt, so that people must put up with you whether you flatter them ornot."
"With all my heart. But then you must be sure of having the value,and you must keep yourself independent. Very few men can do that.Either you slip out of service altogether, and become good for nothing, oryou wear the harness and draw a good deal where your yoke-fellows pullyou. But do look at these delicate orthoptera!"
Lydgate had after all to give some scrutiny to each drawer, the Vicarlaughing at himself, and yet persisting in the exhibition.
"Apropos of what you said about wearing harness," Lydgate began,after they had sat down, "I made up my mind some time ago to do withas little of it as possible. That was why I determined not to try anythingin London, for a good many years at least. I didn't like what I saw whenI was studying there—so much empty bigwiggism, and obstructivetrickery. In the country, people have less pretension to knowledge, andare less of companions, but for that reason they affect one's amour-propre less: one makes less bad blood, and can follow one's own coursemore quietly."
"Yes—well—you have got a good start; you are in the rightprofession, the work you feel yourself most fit for. Some people missthat, and repent too late. But you must not be too sure of keeping yourindependence."
"You mean of family ties?" said Lydgate, conceiving that these mightpress rather tightly on Mr. Farebrother.
"Not altogether. Of course they make many things more difficult. Buta good wife—a good unworldly woman—may really help a man, andkeep him more independent. There's a parishioner of mine—a fine fellow,but who would hardly have pulled through as he has done without hiswife. Do you know the Garths? I think they were not Peacock's patients."
"No; but there is a Miss Garth at old Featherstone's, at Lowick."
"Their daughter: an excellent girl."
"She is very quiet—I have hardly noticed her."
"She has taken notice of you, though, depend upon it."
"I don't understand," said Lydgate; he could hardly say "Of course."
"Oh, she gauges everybody. I prepared her for confirmation—she is afavorite of mine."
Mr. Farebrother puffed a few moments in silence, Lydgate not caringto know more about the Garths. At last the Vicar laid down his pipe,stretched out his legs, and turned his bright eyes with a smile towardsLydgate, saying—
"But we Middlemarchers are not so tame as you take us to be. Wehave our intrigues and our parties. I am a party man, for example, andBulstrode is another. If you vote for me you will offend Bulstrode."
"What is there against Bulstrode?" said Lydgate, emphatically.
"I did not say there was anything against him except that. If you voteagainst him you will make him your enemy."
"I don't know that I need mind about that," said Lydgate, ratherproudly; "but he seems to have good ideas about hospitals, and hespends large sums on useful public objects. He might help me a gooddeal in carrying out my ideas. As to his religious notions—why, asVoltaire said, incantations will destroy a flock of sheep if administeredwith a certain quantity of arsenic. I look for the man who will bring thearsenic, and don't mind about his incantations."
"Very good. But then you must not offend your arsenic-man. You willnot offend me, you know," said Mr. Farebrother, quite unaffectedly. "Idon't translate my own convenience into other people's duties. I amopposed to Bulstrode in many ways. I don't like the set he belongs to:they are a narrow ignorant set, and do more to make their neighborsuncomfortable than to make them better. Their system is a sort ofworldly-spiritual cliqueism: they really look on the rest of mankind as adoomed carcass which is to nourish them for heaven. But," he added,smilingly, "I don't say that Bulstrode's new hospital is a bad thing; and asto his wanting to oust me from the old one—why, if he thinks me amischievous fellow, he is only returning a compliment. And I am not amodel clergyman—only a decent makeshift."
Lydgate was not at all sure that the Vicar maligned himself. A modelclergyman, like a model doctor, ought to think his own profession thefinest in the world, and take all knowledge as mere nourishment to hismoral pathology and therapeutics. He only said, "What reason doesBulstrode give for superseding you?"
"That I don't teach his opinions—which he calls spiritual religion;and that I have no time to spare. Both statements are true. But then Icould make time, and I should be glad of the forty pounds. That is theplain fact of the case. But let us dismiss it. I only wanted to tell you thatif you vote for your arsenic-man, you are not to cut me in consequence. Ican't spare you. You are a sort of circumnavigator come to settle amongus, and will keep up my belief in the antipodes. Now tell me all aboutthem in Paris."
CHAPTER XVIII.
"Oh, sir, the loftiest hopes on earth
Draw lots with meaner hopes: heroic breasts,
Breathing bad air, ran risk of pestilence;
Or, lacking lime-juice when they cross the Line,
May languish with the scurvy."
Some weeks passed after this conversation before the question of thechaplaincy gathered any practical import for Lydgate, and without tellinghimself the reason, he deferred the predetermination on which side heshould give his vote. It would really have been a matter of totalindifference to him—that is to say, he would have taken the moreconvenient side, and given his vote for the appointment of Tyke withoutany hesitation—if he had not cared personally for Mr. Farebrother. But his liking for the Vicar of St. Botolph's grew with growingacquaintanceship. That, entering into Lydgate's position as a new-comerwho had his own professional objects to secure, Mr. Farebrother shouldhave taken pains rather to warn off than to obtain his interest, showedan unusual delicacy and generosity, which Lydgate's nature was keenlyalive to. It went along with other points of conduct in Mr. Farebrotherwhich were exceptionally fine, and made his character resemble thosesouthern landscapes which seem divided between natural grandeur andsocial slovenliness. Very few men could have been as filial and chivalrousas he was to the mother, aunt, and sister, whose dependence on him hadin many ways shaped his life rather uneasily for himself; few men whofeel the pressure of small needs are so nobly resolute not to dress uptheir inevitably self-interested desires in a pretext of better motives. Inthese matters he was conscious that his life would bear the closestscrutiny; and perhaps the consciousness encouraged a little defiancetowards the critical strictness of persons whose celestial intimaciesseemed not to improve their domestic manners, and whose lofty aimswere not needed to account for their actions. Then, his preaching wasingenious and pithy, like the preaching of the English Church in itsrobust age, and his sermons were delivered without book. People outsidehis parish went to hear him; and, since to fill the church was always themost difficult part of a clergyman's function, here was another ground fora careless sense of superiority. Besides, he was a likable man: sweet-tempered, ready-witted, frank, without grins of suppressed bitterness orother conversational flavors which make half of us an affliction to ourfriends. Lydgate liked him heartily, and wished for his friendship.
With this feeling uppermost, he continued to waive the question ofthe chaplaincy, and to persuade himself that it was not only no properbusiness of his, but likely enough never to vex him with a demand for hisvote. Lydgate, at Mr. Bulstrode's request, was laying down plans for theinternal arrangements of the new hospital, and the two were often inconsultation. The banker was always presupposing that he could count ingeneral on Lydgate as a coadjutor, but made no special recurrence to thecoming decision between Tyke and Farebrother. When the General Boardof the Infirmary had met, however, and Lydgate had notice that thequestion of the chaplaincy was thrown on a council of the directors andmedical men, to meet on the following Friday, he had a vexed sense thathe must make up his mind on this trivial Middlemarch business. Hecould not help hearing within him the distinct declaration that Bulstrodewas prime minister, and that the Tyke affair was a question of office orno office; and he could not help an equally pronounced dislike to givingup the prospect of office. For his observation was constantly confirmingMr. Farebrother's assurance that the banker would not overlookopposition. "Confound their petty politics!" was one of his thoughts forthree mornings in the meditative process of shaving, when he had begunto feel that he must really hold a court of conscience on this matter.Certainly there were valid things to be said against the election of Mr.Farebrother: he had too much on his hands already, especiallyconsidering how much time he spent on non-clerical occupations. Thenagain it was a continually repeated shock, disturbing Lydgate's esteem,that the Vicar should obviously play for the sake of money, liking theplay indeed, but evidently liking some end which it served. Mr.Farebrother contended on theory for the desirability of all games, andsaid that Englishmen's wit was stagnant for want of them; but Lydgatefelt certain that he would have played very much less but for the money.There was a billiard-room at the Green Dragon, which some anxiousmothers and wives regarded as the chief temptation in Middlemarch. TheVicar was a first-rate billiard-player, and though he did not frequent theGreen Dragon, there were reports that he had sometimes been there inthe daytime and had won money. And as to the chaplaincy, he did notpretend that he cared for it, except for the sake of the forty pounds.Lydgate was no Puritan, but he did not care for play, and winning moneyat it had always seemed a meanness to him; besides, he had an ideal oflife which made this subservience of conduct to the gaining of smallsums thoroughly hateful to him. Hitherto in his own life his wants hadbeen supplied without any trouble to himself, and his first impulse wasalways to be liberal with half-crowns as matters of no importance to agentleman; it had never occurred to him to devise a plan for getting half-crowns. He had always known in a general way that he was not rich, buthe had never felt poor, and he had no power of imagining the part whichthe want of money plays in determining the actions of men. Money hadnever been a motive to him. Hence he was not ready to frame excuses forthis deliberate pursuit of small gains. It was altogether repulsive to him,and he never entered into any calculation of the ratio between the Vicar'sincome and his more or less necessary expenditure. It was possible thathe would not have made such a calculation in his own case.
And now, when the question of voting had come, this repulsive facttold more strongly against Mr. Farebrother than it had done before. Onewould know much better what to do if men's characters were moreconsistent, and especially if one's friends were invariably fit for anyfunction they desired to undertake! Lydgate was convinced that if therehad been no valid objection to Mr. Farebrother, he would have voted forhim, whatever Bulstrode might have felt on the subject: he did notintend to be a vassal of Bulstrode's. On the other hand, there was Tyke,a man entirely given to his clerical office, who was simply curate at achapel of ease in St. Peter's parish, and had time for extra duty. Nobodyhad anything to say against Mr. Tyke, except that they could not bearhim, and suspected him of cant. Really, from his point of view, Bulstrodewas thoroughly justified.
But whichever way Lydgate began to incline, there was something tomake him wince; and being a proud man, he was a little exasperated atbeing obliged to wince. He did not like frustrating his own best purposesby getting on bad terms with Bulstrode; he did not like voting againstFarebrother, and helping to deprive him of function and salary; and thequestion occurred whether the additional forty pounds might not leavethe Vicar free from that ignoble care about winning at cards. Moreover,Lydgate did not like the consciousness that in voting for Tyke he shouldbe voting on the side obviously convenient for himself. But would theend really be his own convenience? Other people would say so, andwould allege that he was currying favor with Bulstrode for the sake ofmaking himself important and getting on in the world. What then? Hefor his own part knew that if his personal prospects simply had beenconcerned, he would not have cared a rotten nut for the banker'sfriendship or enmity. What he really cared for was a medium for hiswork, a vehicle for his ideas; and after all, was he not bound to preferthe object of getting a good hospital, where he could demonstrate thespecific distinctions of fever and test therapeutic results, before anythingelse connected with this chaplaincy? For the first time Lydgate wasfeeling the hampering threadlike pressure of small social conditions, andtheir frustrating complexity. At the end of his inward debate, when heset out for the hospital, his hope was really in the chance that discussionmight somehow give a new aspect to the question, and make the scaledip so as to exclude the necessity for voting. I think he trusted a littlealso to the energy which is begotten by circumstances—some feelingrushing warmly and making resolve easy, while debate in cool blood hadonly made it more difficult. However it was, he did not distinctly say tohimself on which side he would vote; and all the while he was inwardlyresenting the subjection which had been forced upon him. It would haveseemed beforehand like a ridiculous piece of bad logic that he, with hisunmixed resolutions of independence and his select purposes, would findhimself at the very outset in the grasp of petty alternatives, each ofwhich was repugnant to him. In his student's chambers, he hadprearranged his social action quite differently.
