"I made a great study of theology at one time," said Mr. Brooke, as ifto explain the insight just manifested. "I know something of all schools. Iknew Wilberforce in his best days. Do you know Wilberforce?"
Mr. Casaubon said, "No."
"Well, Wilberforce was perhaps not enough of a thinker; but if I wentinto Parliament, as I have been asked to do, I should sit on theindependent bench, as Wilberforce did, and work at philanthropy."
Mr. Casaubon bowed, and observed that it was a wide field.
"Yes," said Mr. Brooke, with an easy smile, "but I have documents. Ibegan a long while ago to collect documents. They want arranging, butwhen a question has struck me, I have written to somebody and got ananswer. I have documents at my back. But now, how do you arrangeyour documents?"
"In pigeon-holes partly," said Mr. Casaubon, with rather a startled airof effort.
"Ah, pigeon-holes will not do. I have tried pigeon-holes, buteverything gets mixed in pigeon-holes: I never know whether a paper isin A or Z."
"I wish you would let me sort your papers for you, uncle," saidDorothea. "I would letter them all, and then make a list of subjects undereach letter."
Mr. Casaubon gravely smiled approval, and said to Mr. Brooke, "Youhave an excellent secretary at hand, you perceive."
"No, no," said Mr. Brooke, shaking his head; "I cannot let youngladies meddle with my documents. Young ladies are too flighty."
Dorothea felt hurt. Mr. Casaubon would think that her uncle hadsome special reason for delivering this opinion, whereas the remark layin his mind as lightly as the broken wing of an insect among all the otherfragments there, and a chance current had sent it alighting on her.
When the two girls were in the drawing-room alone, Celia said—
"How very ugly Mr. Casaubon is!"
"Celia! He is one of the most distinguished-looking men I ever saw.He is remarkably like the portrait of Locke. He has the same deep eye-sockets."
"Had Locke those two white moles with hairs on them?"
"Oh, I dare say! when people of a certain sort looked at him," saidDorothea, walking away a little.
"Mr. Casaubon is so sallow."
"All the better. I suppose you admire a man with the complexion of acochon de lait."
"Dodo!" exclaimed Celia, looking after her in surprise. "I never heardyou make such a comparison before."
"Why should I make it before the occasion came? It is a goodcomparison: the match is perfect."
Miss Brooke was clearly forgetting herself, and Celia thought so.
"I wonder you show temper, Dorothea."
"It is so painful in you, Celia, that you will look at human beings asif they were merely animals with a toilet, and never see the great soul ina man's face."
"Has Mr. Casaubon a great soul?" Celia was not without a touch ofnaive malice.
"Yes, I believe he has," said Dorothea, with the full voice of decision."Everything I see in him corresponds to his pamphlet on BiblicalCosmology."
"He talks very little," said Celia
"There is no one for him to talk to."
Celia thought privately, "Dorothea quite despises Sir James Chettam;I believe she would not accept him." Celia felt that this was a pity. Shehad never been deceived as to the object of the baronet's interest.Sometimes, indeed, she had reflected that Dodo would perhaps not makea husband happy who had not her way of looking at things; and stifledin the depths of her heart was the feeling that her sister was too religiousfor family comfort. Notions and scruples were like spilt needles, makingone afraid of treading, or sitting down, or even eating.
When Miss Brooke was at the tea-table, Sir James came to sit downby her, not having felt her mode of answering him at all offensive. Whyshould he? He thought it probable that Miss Brooke liked him, andmanners must be very marked indeed before they cease to be interpretedby preconceptions either confident or distrustful. She was thoroughlycharming to him, but of course he theorized a little about his attachment.He was made of excellent human dough, and had the rare merit ofknowing that his talents, even if let loose, would not set the smalleststream in the county on fire: hence he liked the prospect of a wife towhom he could say, "What shall we do?" about this or that; who couldhelp her husband out with reasons, and would also have the propertyqualification for doing so. As to the excessive religiousness allegedagainst Miss Brooke, he had a very indefinite notion of what it consistedin, and thought that it would die out with marriage. In short, he felthimself to be in love in the right place, and was ready to endure a greatdeal of predominance, which, after all, a man could always put downwhen he liked. Sir James had no idea that he should ever like to putdown the predominance of this handsome girl, in whose cleverness hedelighted. Why not? A man's mind—what there is of it—has always theadvantage of being masculine,—as the smallest birch-tree is of a higherkind than the most soaring palm,—and even his ignorance is of asounder quality. Sir James might not have originated this estimate; but akind Providence furnishes the limpest personality with a little gunk orstarch in the form of tradition.
"Let me hope that you will rescind that resolution about the horse,Miss Brooke," said the persevering admirer. "I assure you, riding is themost healthy of exercises."
"I am aware of it," said Dorothea, coldly. "I think it would do Celiagood—if she would take to it."
"But you are such a perfect horsewoman."
"Excuse me; I have had very little practice, and I should be easilythrown."
"Then that is a reason for more practice. Every lady ought to be aperfect horsewoman, that she may accompany her husband."
"You see how widely we differ, Sir James. I have made up my mindthat I ought not to be a perfect horsewoman, and so I should nevercorrespond to your pattern of a lady." Dorothea looked straight beforeher, and spoke with cold brusquerie, very much with the air of ahandsome boy, in amusing contrast with the solicitous amiability of heradmirer.
"I should like to know your reasons for this cruel resolution. It is notpossible that you should think horsemanship wrong."
"It is quite possible that I should think it wrong for me."
"Oh, why?" said Sir James, in a tender tone of remonstrance.
Mr. Casaubon had come up to the table, teacup in hand, and waslistening.
"We must not inquire too curiously into motives," he interposed, inhis measured way. "Miss Brooke knows that they are apt to becomefeeble in the utterance: the aroma is mixed with the grosser air. We mustkeep the germinating grain away from the light."
Dorothea colored with pleasure, and looked up gratefully to thespeaker. Here was a man who could understand the higher inward life,and with whom there could be some spiritual communion; nay, whocould illuminate principle with the widest knowledge a man whoselearning almost amounted to a proof of whatever he believed!
Dorothea's inferences may seem large; but really life could neverhave gone on at any period but for this liberal allowance of conclusions,which has facilitated marriage under the difficulties of civilization. Hasany one ever pinched into its pilulous smallness the cobweb of pre-matrimonial acquaintanceship?
"Certainly," said good Sir James. "Miss Brooke shall not be urged totell reasons she would rather be silent upon. I am sure her reasons woulddo her honor."
He was not in the least jealous of the interest with which Dorotheahad looked up at Mr. Casaubon: it never occurred to him that a girl towhom he was meditating an offer of marriage could care for a driedbookworm towards fifty, except, indeed, in a religious sort of way, as fora clergyman of some distinction.
However, since Miss Brooke had become engaged in a conversationwith Mr. Casaubon about the Vaudois clergy, Sir James betook himself toCelia, and talked to her about her sister; spoke of a house in town, andasked whether Miss Brooke disliked London. Away from her sister, Celiatalked quite easily, and Sir James said to himself that the second MissBrooke was certainly very agreeable as well as pretty, though not, assome people pretended, more clever and sensible than the elder sister.He felt that he had chosen the one who was in all respects the superior;and a man naturally likes to look forward to having the best. He wouldbe the very Mawworm of bachelors who pretended not to expect it.
CHAPTER III.
"Say, goddess, what ensued, when Raphael,
The affable archangel . . .
Eve
The story heard attentive, and was filled
With admiration, and deep muse, to hear
Of things so high and strange."
—Paradise Lost, B. vii.
If it had really occurred to Mr. Casaubon to think of Miss Brooke asa suitable wife for him, the reasons that might induce her to accept himwere already planted in her mind, and by the evening of the next day thereasons had budded and bloomed. For they had had a long conversationin the morning, while Celia, who did not like the company of Mr.Casaubon's moles and sallowness, had escaped to the vicarage to playwith the curate's ill-shod but merry children.
Dorothea by this time had looked deep into the ungauged reservoirof Mr. Casaubon's mind, seeing reflected there in vague labyrinthineextension every quality she herself brought; had opened much of her ownexperience to him, and had understood from him the scope of his greatwork, also of attractively labyrinthine extent. For he had been asinstructive as Milton's "affable archangel;" and with something of thearchangelic manner he told her how he had undertaken to show (whatindeed had been attempted before, but not with that thoroughness,justice of comparison, and effectiveness of arrangement at which Mr.Casaubon aimed) that all the mythical systems or erratic mythicalfragments in the world were corruptions of a tradition originallyrevealed. Having once mastered the true position and taken a firmfooting there, the vast field of mythical constructions became intelligible,nay, luminous with the reflected light of correspondences. But to gatherin this great harvest of truth was no light or speedy work. His notesalready made a formidable range of volumes, but the crowning taskwould be to condense these voluminous still-accumulating results andbring them, like the earlier vintage of Hippocratic books, to fit a littleshelf. In explaining this to Dorothea, Mr. Casaubon expressed himselfnearly as he would have done to a fellow-student, for he had not twostyles of talking at command: it is true that when he used a Greek orLatin phrase he always gave the English with scrupulous care, but hewould probably have done this in any case. A learned provincialclergyman is accustomed to think of his acquaintances as of "lords,knyghtes, and other noble and worthi men, that conne Latyn but lytille."
Dorothea was altogether captivated by the wide embrace of thisconception. Here was something beyond the shallows of ladies' schoolliterature: here was a living Bossuet, whose work would reconcilecomplete knowledge with devoted piety; here was a modern Augustinewho united the glories of doctor and saint.
The sanctity seemed no less clearly marked than the learning, forwhen Dorothea was impelled to open her mind on certain themes whichshe could speak of to no one whom she had before seen at Tipton,especially on the secondary importance of ecclesiastical forms andarticles of belief compared with that spiritual religion, that submergenceof self in communion with Divine perfection which seemed to her to beexpressed in the best Christian books of widely distant ages, she foundin Mr. Casaubon a listener who understood her at once, who couldassure her of his own agreement with that view when duly temperedwith wise conformity, and could mention historical examples beforeunknown to her.
"He thinks with me," said Dorothea to herself, "or rather, he thinks awhole world of which my thought is but a poor twopenny mirror. Andhis feelings too, his whole experience—what a lake compared with mylittle pool!"
Miss Brooke argued from words and dispositions not lessunhesitatingly than other young ladies of her age. Signs are smallmeasurable things, but interpretations are illimitable, and in girls ofsweet, ardent nature, every sign is apt to conjure up wonder, hope,belief, vast as a sky, and colored by a diffused thimbleful of matter inthe shape of knowledge. They are not always too grossly deceived; forSinbad himself may have fallen by good-luck on a true description, andwrong reasoning sometimes lands poor mortals in right conclusions:starting a long way off the true point, and proceeding by loops andzigzags, we now and then arrive just where we ought to be. Because MissBrooke was hasty in her trust, it is not therefore clear that Mr. Casaubonwas unworthy of it.
He stayed a little longer than he had intended, on a slight pressure ofinvitation from Mr. Brooke, who offered no bait except his owndocuments on machine-breaking and rick-burning. Mr. Casaubon wascalled into the library to look at these in a heap, while his host picked upfirst one and then the other to read aloud from in a skipping anduncertain way, passing from one unfinished passage to another with a"Yes, now, but here!" and finally pushing them all aside to open thejournal of his youthful Continental travels.
"Look here—here is all about Greece. Rhamnus, the ruins ofRhamnus—you are a great Grecian, now. I don't know whether you havegiven much study to the topography. I spent no end of time in makingout these things—Helicon, now. Here, now!—'We started the nextmorning for Parnassus, the double-peaked Parnassus.' All this volume isabout Greece, you know," Mr. Brooke wound up, rubbing his thumbtransversely along the edges of the leaves as he held the book forward.
Mr. Casaubon made a dignified though somewhat sad audience;bowed in the right place, and avoided looking at anything documentaryas far as possible, without showing disregard or impatience; mindful thatthis desultoriness was associated with the institutions of the country,and that the man who took him on this severe mental scamper was notonly an amiable host, but a landholder and custos rotulorum. Was hisendurance aided also by the reflection that Mr. Brooke was the uncle ofDorothea?
