"Not exactly the same materials," said Will, thinking that he would beduly reserved. "He is not an Orientalist, you know. He does not professto have more than second-hand knowledge there."
"But there are very valuable books about antiquities which werewritten a long while ago by scholars who knew nothing about thesemodern things; and they are still used. Why should Mr. Casaubon's notbe valuable, like theirs?" said Dorothea, with more remonstrant energy.She was impelled to have the argument aloud, which she had beenhaving in her own mind.
"That depends on the line of study taken," said Will, also getting atone of rejoinder. "The subject Mr. Casaubon has chosen is as changingas chemistry: new discoveries are constantly making new points of view.Who wants a system on the basis of the four elements, or a book torefute Paracelsus? Do you not see that it is no use now to be crawling alittle way after men of the last century—men like Bryant—and correctingtheir mistakes?—living in a lumber-room and furbishing up broken-legged theories about Chus and Mizraim?"
"How can you bear to speak so lightly?" said Dorothea, with a lookbetween sorrow and anger. "If it were as you say, what could be sadderthan so much ardent labor all in vain? I wonder it does not affect youmore painfully, if you really think that a man like Mr. Casaubon, of somuch goodness, power, and learning, should in any way fail in what hasbeen the labor of his best years." She was beginning to be shocked thatshe had got to such a point of supposition, and indignant with Will forhaving led her to it.
"You questioned me about the matter of fact, not of feeling," saidWill. "But if you wish to punish me for the fact, I submit. I am not in aposition to express my feeling toward Mr. Casaubon: it would be at besta pensioner's eulogy."
"Pray excuse me," said Dorothea, coloring deeply. "I am aware, asyou say, that I am in fault in having introduced the subject. Indeed, I amwrong altogether. Failure after long perseverance is much grander thannever to have a striving good enough to be called a failure."
"I quite agree with you," said Will, determined to change thesituation—"so much so that I have made up my mind not to run that riskof never attaining a failure. Mr. Casaubon's generosity has perhaps beendangerous to me, and I mean to renounce the liberty it has given me. Imean to go back to England shortly and work my own way—depend onnobody else than myself."
"That is fine—I respect that feeling," said Dorothea, with returningkindness. "But Mr. Casaubon, I am sure, has never thought of anythingin the matter except what was most for your welfare."
"She has obstinacy and pride enough to serve instead of love, nowshe has married him," said Will to himself. Aloud he said, rising—
"I shall not see you again."
"Oh, stay till Mr. Casaubon comes," said Dorothea, earnestly. "I amso glad we met in Rome. I wanted to know you."?
"And I have made you angry," said Will. "I have made you think ill ofme."
"Oh no. My sister tells me I am always angry with people who do notsay just what I like. But I hope I am not given to think ill of them. In theend I am usually obliged to think ill of myself for being so impatient."
"Still, you don't like me; I have made myself an unpleasant thoughtto you."
"Not at all," said Dorothea, with the most open kindness. "I like youvery much."
Will was not quite contented, thinking that he would apparently havebeen of more importance if he had been disliked. He said nothing, butlooked dull, not to say sulky.
"And I am quite interested to see what you will do," Dorothea wenton cheerfully. "I believe devoutly in a natural difference of vocation. If itwere not for that belief, I suppose I should be very narrow—there are somany things, besides painting, that I am quite ignorant of. You wouldhardly believe how little I have taken in of music and literature, whichyou know so much of. I wonder what your vocation will turn out to be:perhaps you will be a poet?"
"That depends. To be a poet is to have a soul so quick to discern thatno shade of quality escapes it, and so quick to feel, that discernment isbut a hand playing with finely ordered variety on the chords ofemotion—a soul in which knowledge passes instantaneously into feeling,and feeling flashes back as a new organ of knowledge. One may havethat condition by fits only."
"But you leave out the poems," said Dorothea. "I think they arewanted to complete the poet. I understand what you mean aboutknowledge passing into feeling, for that seems to be just what Iexperience. But I am sure I could never produce a poem."
"You are a poem—and that is to be the best part of a poet—whatmakes up the poet's consciousness in his best moods," said Will, showingsuch originality as we all share with the morning and the spring-time andother endless renewals.
"I am very glad to hear it," said Dorothea, laughing out her words ina bird-like modulation, and looking at Will with playful gratitude in hereyes. "What very kind things you say to me!"
"I wish I could ever do anything that would be what you call kind—that I could ever be of the slightest service to you I fear I shall neverhave the opportunity." Will spoke with fervor.
"Oh yes," said Dorothea, cordially. "It will come; and I shallremember how well you wish me. I quite hoped that we should befriends when I first saw you—because of your relationship to Mr.Casaubon." There was a certain liquid brightness in her eyes, and Willwas conscious that his own were obeying a law of nature and filling too.The allusion to Mr. Casaubon would have spoiled all if anything at thatmoment could have spoiled the subduing power, the sweet dignity, ofher noble unsuspicious inexperience.
"And there is one thing even now that you can do," said Dorothea,rising and walking a little way under the strength of a recurring impulse."Promise me that you will not again, to any one, speak of that subject—Imean about Mr. Casaubon's writings—I mean in that kind of way. It wasI who led to it. It was my fault. But promise me."
She had returned from her brief pacing and stood opposite Will,looking gravely at him.
"Certainly, I will promise you," said Will, reddening however. If henever said a cutting word about Mr. Casaubon again and left offreceiving favors from him, it would clearly be permissible to hate him themore. The poet must know how to hate, says Goethe; and Will was atleast ready with that accomplishment. He said that he must go nowwithout waiting for Mr. Casaubon, whom he would come to take leave ofat the last moment. Dorothea gave him her hand, and they exchanged asimple "Good-by."
But going out of the porte cochere he met Mr. Casaubon, and thatgentleman, expressing the best wishes for his cousin, politely waived thepleasure of any further leave-taking on the morrow, which would besufficiently crowded with the preparations for departure.
"I have something to tell you about our cousin Mr. Ladislaw, which Ithink will heighten your opinion of him," said Dorothea to her husbandin the coarse of the evening. She had mentioned immediately on hisentering that Will had just gone away, and would come again, but Mr.Casaubon had said, "I met him outside, and we made our final adieux, Ibelieve," saying this with the air and tone by which we imply that anysubject, whether private or public, does not interest us enough to wishfor a further remark upon it. So Dorothea had waited.
"What is that, my love?" said Mr Casaubon (he always said "my love"when his manner was the coldest).
"He has made up his mind to leave off wandering at once, and togive up his dependence on your generosity. He means soon to go back toEngland, and work his own way. I thought you would consider that agood sign," said Dorothea, with an appealing look into her husband'sneutral face.
"Did he mention the precise order of occupation to which he wouldaddict himself?"
"No. But he said that he felt the danger which lay for him in yourgenerosity. Of course he will write to you about it. Do you not thinkbetter of him for his resolve?"
"I shall await his communication on the subject," said Mr. Casaubon.
"I told him I was sure that the thing you considered in all you did forhim was his own welfare. I remembered your goodness in what you saidabout him when I first saw him at Lowick," said Dorothea, putting herhand on her husband's.
"I had a duty towards him," said Mr. Casaubon, laying his otherhand on Dorothea's in conscientious acceptance of her caress, but with aglance which he could not hinder from being uneasy. "The young man, Iconfess, is not otherwise an object of interest to me, nor need we, Ithink, discuss his future course, which it is not ours to determine beyondthe limits which I have sufficiently indicated." Dorothea did not mention Will again.
BOOK III.WAITING FOR DEATH.
CHAPTER XXIII.
"Your horses of the Sun," he said,
"And first-rate whip Apollo!
Whate'er they be, I'll eat my head,
But I will beat them hollow."
Fred Vincy, we have seen, had a debt on his mind, and though nosuch immaterial burthen could depress that buoyant-hearted younggentleman for many hours together, there were circumstances connectedwith this debt which made the thought of it unusually importunate. Thecreditor was Mr. Bambridge a horse-dealer of the neighborhood, whosecompany was much sought in Middlemarch by young men understood tobe "addicted to pleasure." During the vacations Fred had naturallyrequired more amusements than he had ready money for, and Mr.Bambridge had been accommodating enough not only to trust him for thehire of horses and the accidental expense of ruining a fine hunter, butalso to make a small advance by which he might be able to meet somelosses at billiards. The total debt was a hundred and sixty pounds.Bambridge was in no alarm about his money, being sure that youngVincy had backers; but he had required something to show for it, andFred had at first given a bill with his own signature. Three months laterhe had renewed this bill with the signature of Caleb Garth. On bothoccasions Fred had felt confident that he should meet the bill himself,having ample funds at disposal in his own hopefulness. You will hardlydemand that his confidence should have a basis in external facts; suchconfidence, we know, is something less coarse and materialistic: it is acomfortable disposition leading us to expect that the wisdom ofprovidence or the folly of our friends, the mysteries of luck or the stillgreater mystery of our high individual value in the universe, will bringabout agreeable issues, such as are consistent with our good taste incostume, and our general preference for the best style of thing. Fred feltsure that he should have a present from his uncle, that he should have arun of luck, that by dint of "swapping" he should graduallymetamorphose a horse worth forty pounds into a horse that would fetcha hundred at any moment—"judgment" being always equivalent to anunspecified sum in hard cash. And in any case, even supposing negationswhich only a morbid distrust could imagine, Fred had always (at thattime) his father's pocket as a last resource, so that his assets ofhopefulness had a sort of gorgeous superfluity about them. Of whatmight be the capacity of his father's pocket, Fred had only a vaguenotion: was not trade elastic? And would not the deficiencies of one yearbe made up for by the surplus of another? The Vincys lived in an easyprofuse way, not with any new ostentation, but according to the familyhabits and traditions, so that the children had no standard of economy,and the elder ones retained some of their infantine notion that theirfather might pay for anything if he would. Mr. Vincy himself hadexpensive Middlemarch habits—spent money on coursing, on his cellar,and on dinner-giving, while mamma had those running accounts withtradespeople, which give a cheerful sense of getting everything one wantswithout any question of payment. But it was in the nature of fathers,Fred knew, to bully one about expenses: there was always a little stormover his extravagance if he had to disclose a debt, and Fred disliked badweather within doors. He was too filial to be disrespectful to his father,and he bore the thunder with the certainty that it was transient; but inthe mean time it was disagreeable to see his mother cry, and also to beobliged to look sulky instead of having fun; for Fred was so good-tempered that if he looked glum under scolding, it was chiefly forpropriety's sake. The easier course plainly, was to renew the bill with afriend's signature. Why not? With the superfluous securities of hope athis command, there was no reason why he should not have increasedother people's liabilities to any extent, but for the fact that men whosenames were good for anything were usually pessimists, indisposed tobelieve that the universal order of things would necessarily be agreeableto an agreeable young gentleman.
With a favor to ask we review our list of friends, do justice to theirmore amiable qualities, forgive their little offenses, and concerning eachin turn, try to arrive at the conclusion that he will be eager to oblige us,our own eagerness to be obliged being as communicable as otherwarmth. Still there is always a certain number who are dismissed as butmoderately eager until the others have refused; and it happened thatFred checked off all his friends but one, on the ground that applying tothem would be disagreeable; being implicitly convinced that he at least(whatever might be maintained about mankind generally) had a right tobe free from anything disagreeable. That he should ever fall into athoroughly unpleasant position—wear trousers shrunk with washing, eatcold mutton, have to walk for want of a horse, or to "duck under" in anysort of way—was an absurdity irreconcilable with those cheerfulintuitions implanted in him by nature. And Fred winced under the ideaof being looked down upon as wanting funds for small debts. Thus itcame to pass that the friend whom he chose to apply to was at once thepoorest and the kindest—namely, Caleb Garth.
The Garths were very fond of Fred, as he was of them; for when heand Rosamond were little ones, and the Garths were better off, the slightconnection between the two families through Mr. Featherstone's doublemarriage (the first to Mr. Garth's sister, and the second to Mrs. Vincy's)had led to an acquaintance which was carried on between the childrenrather than the parents: the children drank tea together out of their toyteacups, and spent whole days together in play. Mary was a littlehoyden, and Fred at six years old thought her the nicest girl in the worldmaking her his wife with a brass ring which he had cut from anumbrella. Through all the stages of his education he had kept hisaffection for the Garths, and his habit of going to their house as a secondhome, though any intercourse between them and the elders of his familyhad long ceased. Even when Caleb Garth was prosperous, the Vincyswere on condescending terms with him and his wife, for there were nicedistinctions of rank in Middlemarch; and though old manufacturerscould not any more than dukes be connected with none but equals, theywere conscious of an inherent social superiority which was defined withgreat nicety in practice, though hardly expressible theoretically. Sincethen Mr. Garth had failed in the building business, which he hadunfortunately added to his other avocations of surveyor, valuer, andagent, had conducted that business for a time entirely for the benefit ofhis assignees, and had been living narrowly, exerting himself to theutmost that he might after all pay twenty shillings in the pound. He hadnow achieved this, and from all who did not think it a bad precedent, hishonorable exertions had won him due esteem; but in no part of the worldis genteel visiting founded on esteem, in the absence of suitable furnitureand complete dinner-service. Mrs. Vincy had never been at her ease withMrs. Garth, and frequently spoke of her as a woman who had had towork for her bread—meaning that Mrs. Garth had been a teacher beforeher marriage; in which case an intimacy with Lindley Murray andMangnall's Questions was something like a draper's discrimination ofcalico trademarks, or a courier's acquaintance with foreign countries: nowoman who was better off needed that sort of thing. And since Maryhad been keeping Mr. Featherstone's house, Mrs. Vincy's want of likingfor the Garths had been converted into something more positive, byalarm lest Fred should engage himself to this plain girl, whose parents"lived in such a small way." Fred, being aware of this, never spoke athome of his visits to Mrs. Garth, which had of late become morefrequent, the increasing ardor of his affection for Mary inclining him themore towards those who belonged to her.
