"Brooke has taken him up," said Mr. Hawley, "because that is whatno man in his senses could have expected. Casaubon has devilish goodreasons, you may be sure, for turning the cold shoulder on a youngfellow whose bringing-up he paid for. Just like Brooke—one of thosefellows who would praise a cat to sell a horse."
And some oddities of Will's, more or less poetical, appeared tosupport Mr. Keck, the editor of the "Trumpet," in asserting thatLadislaw, if the truth were known, was not only a Polish emissary butcrack-brained, which accounted for the preternatural quickness andglibness of his speech when he got on to a platform—as he did wheneverhe had an opportunity, speaking with a facility which cast reflections onsolid Englishmen generally. It was disgusting to Keck to see a strip of afellow, with light curls round his head, get up and speechify by the houragainst institutions "which had existed when he was in his cradle." Andin a leading article of the "Trumpet," Keck characterized Ladislaw'sspeech at a Reform meeting as "the violence of an energumen—amiserable effort to shroud in the brilliancy of fireworks the daring ofirresponsible statements and the poverty of a knowledge which was ofthe cheapest and most recent description."
"That was a rattling article yesterday, Keck," said Dr. Sprague, withsarcastic intentions. "But what is an energumen?"
"Oh, a term that came up in the French Revolution," said Keck.
This dangerous aspect of Ladislaw was strangely contrasted withother habits which became matter of remark. He had a fondness, halfartistic, half affectionate, for little children—the smaller they were ontolerably active legs, and the funnier their clothing, the better Will likedto surprise and please them. We know that in Rome he was given toramble about among the poor people, and the taste did not quit him inMiddlemarch.
He had somehow picked up a troop of droll children, little hatlessboys with their galligaskins much worn and scant shirting to hang out,little girls who tossed their hair out of their eyes to look at him, andguardian brothers at the mature age of seven. This troop he had led outon gypsy excursions to Halsell Wood at nutting-time, and since the coldweather had set in he had taken them on a clear day to gather sticks fora bonfire in the hollow of a hillside, where he drew out a small feast ofgingerbread for them, and improvised a Punch-and-Judy drama withsome private home-made puppets. Here was one oddity. Another was,that in houses where he got friendly, he was given to stretch himself atfull length on the rug while he talked, and was apt to be discovered inthis attitude by occasional callers for whom such an irregularity waslikely to confirm the notions of his dangerously mixed blood and generallaxity.
But Will's articles and speeches naturally recommended him infamilies which the new strictness of party division had marked off on theside of Reform. He was invited to Mr. Bulstrode's; but here he could notlie down on the rug, and Mrs. Bulstrode felt that his mode of talkingabout Catholic countries, as if there were any truce with Antichrist,illustrated the usual tendency to unsoundness in intellectual men. At Mr. Farebrother's, however, whom the irony of events hadbrought on the same side with Bulstrode in the national movement, Willbecame a favorite with the ladies; especially with little Miss Noble,whom it was one of his oddities to escort when he met her in the streetwith her little basket, giving her his arm in the eyes of the town, andinsisting on going with her to pay some call where she distributed hersmall filchings from her own share of sweet things.
But the house where he visited oftenest and lay most on the rug wasLydgate's. The two men were not at all alike, but they agreed none theworse. Lydgate was abrupt but not irritable, taking little notice ofmegrims in healthy people; and Ladislaw did not usually throw away hissusceptibilities on those who took no notice of them. With Rosamond, onthe other hand, he pouted and was wayward—nay, oftenuncomplimentary, much to her inward surprise; nevertheless he wasgradually becoming necessary to her entertainment by his companionshipin her music, his varied talk, and his freedom from the gravepreoccupation which, with all her husband's tenderness and indulgence,often made his manners unsatisfactory to her, and confirmed her dislikeof the medical profession.
Lydgate, inclined to be sarcastic on the superstitious faith of thepeople in the efficacy of "the bill," while nobody cared about the lowstate of pathology, sometimes assailed Will with troublesome questions.One evening in March, Rosamond in her cherry-colored dress withswansdown trimming about the throat sat at the tea-table; Lydgate,lately come in tired from his outdoor work, was seated sideways on aneasy-chair by the fire with one leg over the elbow, his brow looking alittle troubled as his eyes rambled over the columns of the "Pioneer,"while Rosamond, having noticed that he was perturbed, avoided lookingat him, and inwardly thanked heaven that she herself had not a moodydisposition. Will Ladislaw was stretched on the rug contemplating thecurtain-pole abstractedly, and humming very low the notes of "When firstI saw thy face;" while the house spaniel, also stretched out with smallchoice of room, looked from between his paws at the usurper of the rugwith silent but strong objection.
Rosamond bringing Lydgate his cup of tea, he threw down the paper,and said to Will, who had started up and gone to the table—
"It's no use your puffing Brooke as a reforming landlord, Ladislaw:they only pick the more holes in his coat in the 'Trumpet.'"
"No matter; those who read the 'Pioneer' don't read the 'Trumpet,'"said Will, swallowing his tea and walking about. "Do you suppose thepublic reads with a view to its own conversion? We should have awitches' brewing with a vengeance then—'Mingle, mingle, mingle,mingle, You that mingle may'—and nobody would know which side hewas going to take."
"Farebrother says, he doesn't believe Brooke would get elected if theopportunity came: the very men who profess to be for him would bringanother member out of the bag at the right moment."
"There's no harm in trying. It's good to have resident members."
"Why?" said Lydgate, who was much given to use that inconvenientword in a curt tone.
"They represent the local stupidity better," said Will, laughing, andshaking his curls; "and they are kept on their best behavior in theneighborhood. Brooke is not a bad fellow, but he has done some goodthings on his estate that he never would have done but for thisParliamentary bite."
"He's not fitted to be a public man," said Lydgate, with contemptuousdecision. "He would disappoint everybody who counted on him: I can seethat at the Hospital. Only, there Bulstrode holds the reins and driveshim."
"That depends on how you fix your standard of public men," saidWill. "He's good enough for the occasion: when the people have made uptheir mind as they are making it up now, they don't want a man—theyonly want a vote."
"That is the way with you political writers, Ladislaw—crying up ameasure as if it were a universal cure, and crying up men who are a partof the very disease that wants curing."
"Why not? Men may help to cure themselves off the face of the landwithout knowing it," said Will, who could find reasons impromptu, whenhe had not thought of a question beforehand.
"That is no excuse for encouraging the superstitious exaggeration ofhopes about this particular measure, helping the cry to swallow it wholeand to send up voting popinjays who are good for nothing but to carry it.You go against rottenness, and there is nothing more thoroughly rottenthan making people believe that society can be cured by a politicalhocus-pocus."
"That's very fine, my dear fellow. But your cure must beginsomewhere, and put it that a thousand things which debase a populationcan never be reformed without this particular reform to begin with. Lookwhat Stanley said the other day—that the House had been tinkering longenough at small questions of bribery, inquiring whether this or that voterhas had a guinea when everybody knows that the seats have been soldwholesale. Wait for wisdom and conscience in public agents—fiddlestick!The only conscience we can trust to is the massive sense of wrong in aclass, and the best wisdom that will work is the wisdom of balancingclaims. That's my text—which side is injured? I support the man whosupports their claims; not the virtuous upholder of the wrong."
"That general talk about a particular case is mere question begging,Ladislaw. When I say, I go in for the dose that cures, it doesn't followthat I go in for opium in a given case of gout."
"I am not begging the question we are upon—whether we are to tryfor nothing till we find immaculate men to work with. Should you go onthat plan? If there were one man who would carry you a medical reformand another who would oppose it, should you inquire which had thebetter motives or even the better brains?"
"Oh, of course," said Lydgate, seeing himself checkmated by a movewhich he had often used himself, "if one did not work with such men asare at hand, things must come to a dead-lock. Suppose the worst opinionin the town about Bulstrode were a true one, that would not make it lesstrue that he has the sense and the resolution to do what I think ought tobe done in the matters I know and care most about; but that is the onlyground on which I go with him," Lydgate added rather proudly, bearingin mind Mr. Farebrother's remarks. "He is nothing to me otherwise; Iwould not cry him up on any personal ground—I would keep clear ofthat."
"Do you mean that I cry up Brooke on any personal ground?" saidWill Ladislaw, nettled, and turning sharp round. For the first time he feltoffended with Lydgate; not the less so, perhaps, because he would havedeclined any close inquiry into the growth of his relation to Mr. Brooke. "Not at all," said Lydgate, "I was simply explaining my own action. Imeant that a man may work for a special end with others whose motivesand general course are equivocal, if he is quite sure of his personalindependence, and that he is not working for his private interest—eitherplace or money."
"Then, why don't you extend your liberality to others?" said Will, stillnettled. "My personal independence is as important to me as yours is toyou. You have no more reason to imagine that I have personalexpectations from Brooke, than I have to imagine that you have personalexpectations from Bulstrode. Motives are points of honor, I suppose—nobody can prove them. But as to money and place in the world." Willended, tossing back his head, "I think it is pretty clear that I am notdetermined by considerations of that sort."
"You quite mistake me, Ladislaw," said Lydgate, surprised. He hadbeen preoccupied with his own vindication, and had been blind to whatLadislaw might infer on his own account. "I beg your pardon forunintentionally annoying you. In fact, I should rather attribute to you aromantic disregard of your own worldly interests. On the politicalquestion, I referred simply to intellectual bias."
"How very unpleasant you both are this evening!" said Rosamond. "Icannot conceive why money should have been referred to. Polities andMedicine are sufficiently disagreeable to quarrel upon. You can both ofyou go on quarrelling with all the world and with each other on thosetwo topics."
Rosamond looked mildly neutral as she said this, rising to ring thebell, and then crossing to her work-table.
"Poor Rosy!" said Lydgate, putting out his hand to her as she waspassing him. "Disputation is not amusing to cherubs. Have some music.Ask Ladislaw to sing with you."
When Will was gone Rosamond said to her husband, "What put youout of temper this evening, Tertius?"
"Me? It was Ladislaw who was out of temper. He is like a bit oftinder."
"But I mean, before that. Something had vexed you before you camein, you looked cross. And that made you begin to dispute with Mr.Ladislaw. You hurt me very much when you look so, Tertius."
"Do I? Then I am a brute," said Lydgate, caressing her penitently.
"What vexed you?"
"Oh, outdoor things—business." It was really a letter insisting on thepayment of a bill for furniture. But Rosamond was expecting to have ababy, and Lydgate wished to save her from any perturbation.
CHAPTER XLVII.
Was never true love loved in vain,
For truest love is highest gain.
No art can make it: it must spring
Where elements are fostering.
So in heaven's spot and hour
Springs the little native flower,
Downward root and upward eye,
Shapen by the earth and sky.
It happened to be on a Saturday evening that Will Ladislaw had thatlittle discussion with Lydgate. Its effect when he went to his own roomswas to make him sit up half the night, thinking over again, under a newirritation, all that he had before thought of his having settled inMiddlemarch and harnessed himself with Mr. Brooke. Hesitations beforehe had taken the step had since turned into susceptibility to every hintthat he would have been wiser not to take it; and hence came his heattowards Lydgate—a heat which still kept him restless. Was he notmaking a fool of himself?—and at a time when he was more than everconscious of being something better than a fool? And for what end?
Well, for no definite end. True, he had dreamy visions ofpossibilities: there is no human being who having both passions andthoughts does not think in consequence of his passions—does not findimages rising in his mind which soothe the passion with hope or sting itwith dread. But this, which happens to us all, happens to some with awide difference; and Will was not one of those whose wit "keeps theroadway:" he had his bypaths where there were little joys of his ownchoosing, such as gentlemen cantering on the highroad might havethought rather idiotic. The way in which he made a sort of happiness forhimself out of his feeling for Dorothea was an example of this. It mayseem strange, but it is the fact, that the ordinary vulgar vision of whichMr. Casaubon suspected him—namely, that Dorothea might become awidow, and that the interest he had established in her mind might turninto acceptance of him as a husband—had no tempting, arresting powerover him; he did not live in the scenery of such an event, and follow itout, as we all do with that imagined "otherwise" which is our practicalheaven. It was not only that he was unwilling to entertain thoughtswhich could be accused of baseness, and was already uneasy in the sensethat he had to justify himself from the charge of ingratitude—the latentconsciousness of many other barriers between himself and Dorotheabesides the existence of her husband, had helped to turn away hisimagination from speculating on what might befall Mr. Casaubon. Andthere were yet other reasons. Will, we know, could not bear the thoughtof any flaw appearing in his crystal: he was at once exasperated anddelighted by the calm freedom with which Dorothea looked at him andspoke to him, and there was something so exquisite in thinking of herjust as she was, that he could not long for a change which mustsomehow change her. Do we not shun the street version of a finemelody?—or shrink from the news that the rarity—some bit of chisellingor engraving perhaps—which we have dwelt on even with exultation inthe trouble it has cost us to snatch glimpses of it, is really not anuncommon thing, and may be obtained as an every-day possession? Ourgood depends on the quality and breadth of our emotion; and to Will, acreature who cared little for what are called the solid things of life andgreatly for its subtler influences, to have within him such a feeling as hehad towards Dorothea, was like the inheritance of a fortune. What othersmight have called the futility of his passion, made an additional delightfor his imagination: he was conscious of a generous movement, and ofverifying in his own experience that higher love-poetry which hadcharmed his fancy. Dorothea, he said to himself, was forever enthronedin his soul: no other woman could sit higher than her footstool; and if hecould have written out in immortal syllables the effect she wroughtwithin him, he might have boasted after the example of old Drayton,that,—
