 CHAPTER 45 IT IS THE HUMOUR OF MANY HEADS TO EXTALL THE DAYS OF THEIR FOUR FATHERS AND DECLAME AGAINST THE WICKEDNESS OF TIMES PRESENT, WHICH NOT WITHSTANDING THEY CANNOT HANDSOMELY DO, WITHOUT THE BORROWED HELP AND SATIRE OF TIMES PAST, CONDEMING THE VICES OF THEIR OWN TIMES, BY THE EXPRESSIONS OF VICES IN TIMES WHICH THEY COMMEND, WHICH CANNOT BUT ARGUE THE COMMUNITY OF VICE IN BOTH. Horese, therefore, Givenel and Perseus were no prophets, although their lines did seem to indigitate and point at our times. Sir Thomas Brown, Pseudodoxia Epidemica. That opposition to the new fever hospital which Litgate had sketched to Dorothea was, like other oppositions, to be viewed in many different lights. He regarded it as a mixture of jealousy and dunderheaded prejudice. Mr. Bullstrode saw in it not only medical jealousy, but a determination to thwart himself, prompted mainly by a hatred of that vital religion of which he had striven to be an effectual lay representative, a hatred which certainly found pretext apart from religion, such as were only too easy to find in the entanglements of human action. These might be called the ministerial views, but oppositions have the illimitable range of objections at command which need never stop shot at the boundary of knowledge, but can draw forever on the vasts of ignorance. What the opposition in Middlemont said about the new hospital and its administration had certainly a great deal of echo in it, for heaven has taken care that everybody shall not be an originator. But there were differences which represented every social shade between the palest moderation of Dr. Minchin and the trenchant assertion of Mrs. Dallup, the landlady of the tankard in Slaughter Lane. Mrs. Dallup became more and more convinced by her own assertion that Dr. Litgate meant to let the people die in the hospital, if not to poison them, for the sake of cutting them up, without saying by your leave or with your leave, for it was a known fact that he had wanted to cut up Mrs. Gobi, as respectable a woman as any in Parley Street, who had money in trust before her marriage. A poor tale for a doctor who, if he was good for anything, should know what was the matter with you before you died, and not want to pry into your inside after you were gone. If that was not reason, Mrs. Dallup wished to know what was. But there was a prevalent feeling in her audience that her opinion was a bulwark. And that if it were overthrown, there would be no limits to the cutting up of bodies, as had been well seen in Burke and Hare with their pitch ballasters. Such a hanging business as that was not wanted in Middlemarch. And let it not be supposed that opinion at the Tankard in Slaughter Lane was unimportant to the medical profession. That old, authentic public house, the original Tankard, known by the name of Dallup's, was the resort of a great benefit club, which had some months before put to the vote whether its long-standing medical man Dr. Gambit should not be cashier in favor of this Dr. Litgate, who was capable of performing the most astonishing cures and rescuing people altogether given up by other practitioners. But the balance had been turned against Litgate by two members, who for some private reasons held that this power of resuscitating persons as good as dead was an equivocal recommendation and might interfere with providential favors. In the course of the year, however, there had been a change in the public sentiment of which the unanimity at Dallup's was an index. A good deal more than a year ago before anything was known of Litgate's skill, the judgments on it had naturally been divided, depending on a sense of likelihood, situated perhaps in the pit of the stomach or in the pineal gland and differing in its verdicts, but not the less valuable as a guide in the total deficit of evidence. Patients who had chronic diseases or whose lives had long been worn threadbare, like old feeder stones, had been at once inclined to try him. Also, many who did not like paying their doctor's bills thought agreeably of opening an account with a new doctor and sending for him without stint if the children's temper wanted a dose. Occasions when the old practitioners were often crusty and all persons thus inclined to employ Litgate held it likely that he was clever. Some considered that he might do more than others where there was liver. At least there would be no harm in getting a few bottles of stuff from him, since if those proved useless, it would still be possible to return to the purifying pills, which kept you alive if they did not remove the yellowness. But these were people of minor importance. Good middle-march families were of course not going to change their doctor without reasons shown, and everybody who had employed Mr. Peacock did not feel obliged to accept a new man merely in the character of his successor, objecting that he was not likely to be equal to Peacock. But Litgate had not been long in the town before there were particulars enough reported of him to breed much more specific expectations and to intensify differences into partisanship. Some of the particulars being of that impressive order of which the significance is entirely hidden, like a statistical amount without a standard of comparison, but with a note of exclamation at the end. The cubic feet of oxygen yearly swallowed by a full-grown man, what a shudder they might have created in some middle-march circles. Oxygen? Nobody knows what that may be. Is it any wonder that cholera has got to dance sick? And yet there are people who say quarantine is no good. One of the facts quickly rumoured was that Litgate did not dispense drugs. This was offensive both to the physicians whose exclusive distinction seemed infringed on, and to the surgeon Apothecaries with whom he ranged himself, and only a little while before they might have counted on having the law on their side against a man who without calling himself a London-made MD dared to ask for pay, except as a charge on drugs. But Litgate had not been experienced enough to foresee that his new course would have been more offensive to the lady, and to Mr. Momsay, an important crosser in the top market who, though not one of his patients, questioned him in an affable manner on the subject. He was injudicious enough to give a hasty popular explanation of his reasons, pointing out to Mr. Momsay that it must lower the character of practitioners and be a constant injury to the public if their only mode of getting paid for their work was by their making out long bills for drots, boluses and mixtures. It is in that way that hard-working medical men may come to be almost as mischievous as quarks, said Litgate, rather thoughtlessly. To get their own bread they must overdose the king's leeches, and that's a bad sort of reason, Mr. Momsay, undermines the constitution in a fatal way. Mr. Momsay was not only an overseer, it was about a question of outdoor pay that he was having an interview with Litgate. He was also asthmatic and had an increasing family. Thus, from a medical point of view as well as from his own, he was an important man, indeed an exceptional grocer, whose hair was arranged in a flame-like pyramid and whose retail difference was of the cordial encouraging kind, jacosly complementary, and with a certain considerate abstinence from letting out the full force of his mind. It was Mr. Momsay's friendly jacosness in questioning him which had set the tone of Litgate's reply, but let the wise be warned against too great readiness at explanation. It multiplies the sources of mistake, lengthening the sum for reckoners sure to go wrong. Litgate smiled as he ended his speech, putting his foot into the syrup, and Mr. Momsay laughed more than he would have done if he had known who the king's leeches were, giving his good morning, sir, good morning, sir, with the air of one who saw everything clearly enough. But in truth his views were perturbed. For years he had been paying bills with strictly made items so that for every half-crown and 18 pence he was certain something measurable had been delivered. He had done this with satisfaction, including it among his responsibilities as a husband and father, and regarding a longer bill than usual as a dignity worth mentioning. Moreover, in addition to the massive benefit of the drugs, to self and family he had enjoyed the pleasure of forming an acute judgment as to their immediate effects, so as to give an intelligent statement for the guidance of Mr. Gambit, a practitioner just a little lower in status than wrench or taller, and especially esteemed as an acouture. Of whose ability Mr. Momsay had the poorest opinion on all other points, but in doctoring he was wont to say in an undertone he placed Gambit above any of them. Here were deeper reasons than the superficial talk of a new man, which appeared still flimsier in the drawing-room over the shop, when they were recited to Mrs. Momsay, a woman accustomed to be made much of as a fertile mother, generally under attendance more or less frequent from Mr. Gambit, and occasionally having attacks which required Dr. Menchin. Does this Mr. Litgate mean to say there is no use in taking medicine? said Mrs. Momsay, who was slightly given to drawing. I should like him to tell me how I could beer up at fair time, if I didn't take strengthening medicine for a month beforehand. Think of what I have to provide for calling customers, my dear. Here Mrs. Momsay turned to an intimate female friend who sat by, a large wheel pie, a stuffed fillet, a round of beef, ham, tongue, etc. etc. But what keeps me up best is the pink mixture, not the brown. I wonder Mr. Momsay, with your experience you could have patience to listen. I should have told him at once that I knew a little better than that. No, no, no, said Mr. Momsay. I was not going to tell him my opinion. Hear everything and judge for yourself is my motto. But he didn't know who he was talking to. I was not to be turned on his finger. People often pretend to tell me things when they might as well say, Momsay, you are a fool. But I smile at it. I humor everybody's weak place. If physics had done harm to self and family, I should have found it out by this time. The next day Mr. Gambit was told that Litgate went about saying, physics was of no use. Indeed, said he, lifting his eyebrows with cautious surprise. He was a stout husky man with a large ring on his fourth finger. How will he cure his patience then? That is what I say, returned Mrs. Momsay, who habitually gave weight to her speech by loading her pronouns. Does he suppose that people will pay him only to come and sit with them and go away again? Mrs. Momsay had had a great deal of sitting from Mr. Gambit, including very full accounts of his own habits of body and other affairs. But of course he knew there was no innuendo in her remark, since his spare time and personal narrative had never been charged for. So he replied humorously, well, Litgate is a good-looking young fellow, you know. Not one that I would imply, said Mrs. Momsay. Others may do as the please. Hence Mr. Gambit could go away from the chief grasses without fear of rivalry. But not without a sense that Litgate was one of those hypocrites who tried to discredit others by advertising their own honesty, and that it might be worth some people's while to show him up. Mr. Gambit, however, had a satisfactory practice, much pre-vaded by the smells of retail trading, which suggested the reduction of cash payments to a balance. And he did not think it worth his while to show Litgate up until he knew how. He had not indeed great resources of education, and had had to work his own way against a good deal of professional content. But he made none the worse a co-chair for calling the breathing apparatus longs. Other medical men felt themselves more capable. Mr. Toller shared the highest practice in the town, and belonged to an old middle-march family. There were tollers in the law and everything else above the line of retail trade. Unlike our irascible friend, Wrench, he had the easiest way in the world of taking things which might be supposed to annoy him. Being a well-bred, quietly facious man who kept a good house, was very fond of a little sporting when he could get it, very friendly with Mr. Hawley, and hostile to Mr. Bullstroll. It may seem odd that with such pleasant habits, he should have been given to the heroic treatment, bleeding and blistering and starving his patients with a dispassionate disregard to his personal example. But the incongruity favored the opinion to his ability among his patients, who commonly observed that Mr. Toller had lazy manners, but his treatment was as active as you could desire. No man said they, carried more seriousness into his profession. He was a little slow in coming, but when he came, he did something. He was a great favorite in his own circle, and whatever he implied to anyone's disadvantage told doubly from his careless ironical tone. He naturally got tired of smiling and saying, when he was told that Mr. Peacock's successor did not mean to dispense medicines, and Mr. Hackbert, one day mentioning it over the wine at a dinner party, Mr. Toller said, laughingly, debits will get rid of his stale drugs then. I am fond of little debits, I am glad he is in luck. I see your meaning, Toller, said Mr. Hackbert, and I am entirely of your opinion. I shall take an opportunity of expressing myself to that effect. A medical man should be responsible for the quality of the drugs consumed by his patients. That is the rationale of the system of charging which has hitherto obtained, and nothing is more offensive than this ostentation of reform, where there is no real amelioration. Ostentation, Hackbert, said Mr. Toller ironically. I don't see that. A man can't very well be ostentatious of what nobody believes in. There is no reform in the matter. The question is whether the profit on the drugs is paid to the medical man by the drugist or by the patient, and whether there shall be extra pay under the name of attendance. Ah, to be sure, one of your damned new versions of old humbug, said Mr. Hawley, passing the decanter to Mr. Wrench. Mr. Wrench, generally abstemious, often drank wine rather freely at a party, getting the more irritable in consequence. As to humbug, Hawley, he said, that's a word easy to fling about. But what I contend against is the way medical men are fouling their own nest, and setting up a cry about the country as if a general practitioner who dispenses drugs couldn't be a gentleman. I throw back the imputation with scorn. I say, the most un-gentlemanly trick a man can be guilty of is to come among the members of his profession, with innovations which are a libel on their time or not procedure. That is my opinion, and I am ready to maintain it against anyone who contradicts me. Mr. Wrench's voice had become exceedingly sharp. I can't oblige you there, Wrench, said Mr. Hawley, thrusting his hands into his trouser pockets. My dear fellow, said Mr. Taller, striking in pacifically, and looking at Mr. Wrench, the physicians have their toes trodden on more than we have. If you come to dignity, it is a question for Mention and Sprague. Does medical jurisprudence provide anything against these infringements? Said Mr. Hackbert, with a disinterested desire to offer his lights. How does the law stand, eh, Hawley? Nothing to be done there, said Mr. Hawley. I looked into it for Sprague. You would only break your nose against a damned judge's decision. For no need of law, said Mr. Taller. So far as practice is concerned, the attempt is an absurdity. No patient will like it. Suddenly not peacocks, who have been used to depletion. Pass the wine. Mr. Taller's prediction was partly verified. If Mr. and Mrs. Momsay, who had no idea of employing litgate were made uneasy by his supposed declaration against drugs, it was inevitable that those who called him in should watch a little anxiously to see whether he did use all the means he might use in the case. Even good Mr. Powderall, who in his constant charity of interpretation was inclined to esteem litgate the more for what seemed a conscientious pursuit of a better plan, had his mind disturbed with doubts during his wife's attack of Erisipelis, and could not abstain from mentioning to litgate that Mr. Peacock on a similar occasion had administered a series of bolusas, which were not otherwise definable than by the remarkable effect in bringing Mr. Powderall round before Michael Maas from an illness which had begun in a remarkably hot August. At last indeed in the conflict between his desire not to hurt litgate and his anxiety that no means should be lacking, he induced his wife privately to take Bigeon's purifying pills and esteemed middle-march medicine which arrested every disease at the fountain by setting to work at once upon the blood. This cooperative measure was not to be mentioned to litgate, and Mr. Powderall himself had no sudden reliance on it, only hoping that it might be attended with a blessing. But in this doubtful stage of litgate's introduction, he was helped by what we mortals were actually called good fortune. I suppose no doctor ever came newly to a place without making cures that surprised somebody, cures which may be called fortune's testimonials and deserve as much credit as the written or printed kind. Various patients got well while litgate was attending them, some even of dangerous illnesses, and it was remarked that the new doctor with his new ways had at least the merit of bringing people back from the brink of death. The trash docked on such occasions was the more vexacious to litgate, because it gave precisely the sort of prestige which an incompetent and unscrupulous man would desire, and was sure to be imputed to him by the simmering dislike of the other medical men as an encouragement on his own part of ignorant puffing. But even his proud outspokenness was checked by the discernment that it was as useless to fight against the interpretations of ignorance as to whip the fog, and good fortune insisted on using those interpretations. Mrs. Larcher, having just become charitably concerned about alarming symptoms in her charwoman, when Dr. Minchin called, asked him to see her then and there, and to give her a certificate for the infirmary, whereupon after examination he wrote a statement of the case as one of Tumor, and recommended the beerer Nancy Nash as an outpatient. Nancy, calling at home on her way to the infirmary, allowed the staymaker and his wife, in whose attic she lodged, to read Dr. Minchin's paper, and by this means became a subject of compassionate conversation in the neighboring shops of Churchill Lane, as being afflicted with a tumor at first declared to be as large and hard as a duck's egg, but later in the day to be about the size of your fist. Most hearers agreed that it would have to be cut out, but one had known of oil and another of squid chineal as adequate to soften and reduce any lump in the body when taken enough of into the inside, the oil by gradually supling, the squid chineal by eating away. Meanwhile, when Nancy presented herself at the infirmary, it happened to be one of Litgate's days there. After questioning and examining her, Litgate said to the house surgeon in an undertone, it's not tumor, it's cramp. He ordered her a blister and some steel mixture, and told her to go home and rest, giving her at the same time a note to Mrs. Larcher, who she said was her best employer to testify that she was in need of good food. But by and by Nancy in her attic became potentiously worse, the supposed tumor having indeed given way to the blister, but only wandered to another region with angrier pain. The staymaker's wife went to fetch Litgate, and he continued for a fortnight to attend Nancy in her own home, until under his treatment, she got quite well and went to work again. But the case continued to be described as one of tumor in Churchill Lane and other street's name by Mrs. Larcher also, for when Litgate's remarkable cure was mentioned to Dr. Minchin, he naturally did not like to say the case was not one of tumor, and I was mistaken in describing it as such. But answered, indeed, ah, I saw it was a surgical case, not of a fatal kind. He had been inwardly annoyed, however, when he had asked at the infirmary about the woman, he had recommended two days before to hear from the house surgeon, a youngster who was not sorry to vex Minchin with impunity exactly what had occurred. He privately pronounced that it was indecent in a general practitioner to contradict a physician's diagnosis in that open manner, and afterwards agreed with wrench that Litgate was disagreeably inattentive to etiquette. Litgate did not make the affair a ground for valuing himself or very particularly despising Minchin. Such rectification of misjudgments often happening among men of equal qualifications. But report took up this amazing case of tumor, not clearly distinguished from cancer, and considered the more awful for being of the wandering sort, till much prejudice against Litgate's method as to drugs was overcome by the proof of his marvelous skill in the speedy restoration of Nancy Nash after she had been rolling and rolling in agonies from the presence of a tumor both hard and obstinate, but nevertheless compelled to yield. How could Litgate help himself? It is offensive to tell a lady when she is expressing her amazement at your skill that she is altogether mistaken and rather foolish in her amazement, and to have entered into the nature of diseases would only have added to his breaches of medical propriety. Thus he had to wince under a promise of success given by that ignorant praise which misses every valid quality. In the case of a more conspicuous patient, Mr. Bordthrop Trumbull, Litgate was conscious of having shown himself something better than an everyday doctor, though here too it was an equivocal advantage that he won. The eloquent auctioneer was seized with pneumonia and having been a patient of Mr. Peacock's sent for Litgate, whom he had expressed his intention to patronize. Mr. Trumbull was a robust man, a good subject for trying the expectant theory upon, watching the course of an interesting disease when left as much as possible to itself, so that the stages might be noted for future guidance, and from the air with which he described his sensations, Litgate surmised that he would like to be taken into his medical man's confidence, and be represented as a partner in his own cure. The auctioneer heard without much surprise that his was a constitution which, always with you watching, might be left to itself, so as to offer a beautiful example of a disease with all its phases seen in a clear delineation, and that he probably had the rare strength of mind voluntarily to become the test of a rational procedure, and thus make the disorder of his pulmonary functions a general benefit to society. Mr. Trumbull acquiesced at once, and entered strongly into the view that an illness of his was no ordinary occasion for medical science. Never fear, sir, you are not speaking to one who is altogether ignorant of the vis medicatrix, said he, with his usual superiority of expression made rather pathetic by difficulty of breathing. And he went without shrinking through his abstinence from drugs, much sustained by application of the thermometer which implied the importance of his temperature, by the sense that he furnished objects for the microscope, and by learning many new words which seemed suited to the dignity of his secretions, for Litgate was acute enough to indulge him with a little technical talk. It may be imagined that Mr. Trumbull rose from his couch with a disposition to speak of an illness in which he had manifested the strength of his mind as well as constitution, and he was not backward in awarding credit to the medical man who had discerned the quality of patient he had to deal with. The auctioneer was not an ungenerous man, and liked to give others their due, feeling that he could afford it. He had caught the words expectant method, and rang chimes on this and other learned phrases to accompany the assurance that Litgate knew a thing or two more than the rest of the doctors was far better versed in the secrets of his profession than the majority of his peers. This had happened before the affair of Fred Vincy's illness had given to Mr. Rent's enmity towards Litgate more definite personal ground. The newcomer already threatened to be a nuisance in the shape of rivalry, and was certainly a nuisance in the shape of practical criticism or reflections on his hard driven elders who had had something else to do than to buy themselves with untried notions. His practice had spread in one or two quarters, and from the first the report of his high family had led to his being pretty generally invited, so that the other medical men had to meet him at dinner in the best houses, and having to meet a man whom you dislike is not observed always to end in a mutual attachment. There was hardly ever so much unanimity among them as in the opinion that Litgate was an arrogant young fellow, and yet ready for the sake of ultimately predominating to show a crawling subservience to Bulls Road. That Mr. Fairbrother, whose name was a chief flag of the anti-Bulls Road party, always defended Litgate and made a friend of him was referred to Fairbrother's unaccountable way of fighting on both sides. Here was plenty of preparation for the outburst of professional disgust at the announcement of the laws Mr. Bulls Road was laying down for the direction of the new hospital, which were the more exasperating because there was no present possibility of interfering with his will and pleasure. Everybody except Lord Medleycote having refused to help towards the building on the ground that they preferred giving to the old infirmary. Mr. Bulls Road met all the expenses and had ceased to be sorry that he was purchasing the right to carry out his notions of improvement without hindrance from prejudiced co-adjuders, but he had had to spend large sums and the building had lingered. Calib Garth had undertaken it, had failed during its progress, and before the interior fittings were begun had retired from the management of the business, and when referring to the hospital he often said that however Bulls Road might ring if you tried him, he liked good solid carpentry and mastery, and had a notion both of drains and chimneys. In fact the hospital had become an object of intense interest to Bulls Road, and he would willingly have continued to spare a large yearly sum that he might rule it dictatorially without any board, but he had another favorite object which also required money for its accomplishment. He wished to buy some land in the neighborhood of Middle March, and therefore he wished to get considerable contributions towards maintaining the hospital. Meanwhile he framed his plan of management. The hospital was to be reserved for fever in all its forms. Litgate was to be chief medical superintendent that he might have free authority to pursue all comparative investigations which his studies, particularly in Paris, had shown him the importance of. The other medical visitors having a consultative influence, but no power to contravene Litgate's ultimate decisions, and the general management was to be lodged exclusively in the hands of five directors associated with Mr. Bulls Road. Who were to have votes in the ratio of their contributions? The board itself filling up any vacancy in its numbers, and no more of small contributors being admitted to a share of government. There was an immediate refusal on the part of every medical man in the town to become a visitor at the fever hospital. Very well said Litgate to Mr. Bulls Road, we have a capital house surgeon and dispenser, a clear-headed, neat-handed fellow. We'll get Weber from Crabsley, as good a country practitioner as any of them, to come over twice a week, and in case of any exceptional operation. Prothiro will come from Brassing, I must work the harder, that's all, and I have given up my post at the infirmary. The plan will flourish in spite of them, and then they will be glad to come in. Things can't last as they are, there must be all sorts of reforms soon, and then young fellows may be glad to come and study here. Litgate was in high spirits. I shall not flinch, you may depend upon it, Mr. Litgate, said Mr. Bulls Road. While I see you carrying out high intentions with Vigor, you shall have my unfailing support, and I have humble confidence that the blessing which has hitherto attended my efforts against the spirit of evil in this town will not be withdrawn. Suitable directors to assist me, I have no doubt of securing. Mr. Brook of Tipton has already given me his concurrence, and a pledge to contribute yearly. He has not specified the sum, probably not a great one. But he will be a useful member of the Board. A useful member was perhaps to be defined as one who would originate nothing, and always vote with Mr. Bulls Road. The medical aversion to Litgate was hardly disguised now. Neither Dr. Sprague nor Dr. Minchin said that he disliked Litgate's knowledge on his disposition to improve treatment. What they disliked was his arrogance, which nobody felt to be altogether deniable. They implied that he was insolent, pretentious, and given to that reckless innovation for the sake of noise and show, which was the essence of the charlatan. The word charlatan once thrown on the air could not be let to draw. In those days, the world was agitated about the wondrous doings of Mr. Saint John Long, noblemen and gentleman, attesting his extraction of a fluid-like mercury from the temples of a patient. Mr. Taller remarked one day, smiling to Mrs. Taft, that Bulls Road had found a man to suit him in Litgate. A charlatan in religion is sure to like other sorts of charlatans. Yes indeed, I can imagine, said Mrs. Taft, keeping the number of 30 stitches carefully in her mind all the while. There are so many of that sort. I remember Mr. Cheshire with his irons trying to make people straight when the Almighty had made them crooked. No, no, said Mr. Taller. Cheshire was all right, all fair and above board. But there's Saint John Long, that's the kind of fellow we call a charlatan. Advertising cures in ways nobody knows anything about, a fellow who wants to make a noise by pretending to go deeper than other people. The other day, he was pretending to tap a man's brain and get quick silver out of it. Good gracious, what dreadful trifling with people's constitutions, said Mrs. Taft. After this, it came to be held in various quarters that Litgate played even with respectable constitutions for his own purposes, and how much more likely that in his flighty experimenting, he should make sixes and sevens of hospital patients. Especially, it was to be expected as the landlady of the tanker had said that he would recklessly cut up their dead bodies. For Litgate having attended Mrs. Gobi, who died apparently of a heart disease, not very clearly expressed in the symptoms, too daringly asked leave of her relatives to open the body, and thus gave an offense quickly spreading beyond Parley Street, where that lady had long resided on an income such as made this association of her body with the victims of work and hair, a flagrant insult to her memory. Affairs were in this stage when Litgate opened the subject of the hospital to Dorothea. We see that he was bearing enmity and silly misconception with much spirit, aware that they were partly created by his good share of success. They will not drive me away, he said, talking confidentially in Mr. Fairbrother's study. I have got a good opportunity here for the ends I care most about, and I am pretty sure to get income enough for our wants. By and by I shall go on as quietly as possible. I have no seductions now away from home and work, and I am more and more convinced that it will be possible to demonstrate the homogeneous origin of all the tissues. Raspel and others are on the same track, and I have been losing time. I have no power of prophecy there, said Mr. Fairbrother, who had been puffing at his pipe thoughtfully while Litgate talked. But as to the hostility in the town, you will weather it if you are prudent. How am I to be prudent? said Litgate. I just do what comes before me to do. I can't help people's ignorance and spite any more than Vesalia's could. It isn't possible to square one's conduct to silly conclusions which nobody can foresee. Quite true. I didn't mean that. I meant only two things. One is, keep yourself as separable from Bull's Road as you can. Of course, you can go on doing good work of your own by his help, but don't get tired. Perhaps it seems like personal feeling in me to say so, and there's a good deal of that. I own, but personal feeling is not always in the wrong if you boil it down to the impressions which make it simply an opinion. Bull's Road is nothing to me, said Litgate carelessly. Except on public grounds, as to getting very closely united to him, I'm not fond enough of him for that. But what was the other thing you meant, said Litgate, who was nursing his leg as comfortably as possible and feeling in no great need of advice. Why this? Take care. Expert to credit. Take care not to get hampered about money matters. I know by award you let fall one day that you don't like my playing at cards so much for money. You are right enough there, but try and keep clear of wanting small sums that you haven't got. I am perhaps talking rather superfluously, but a man likes to assume superiority over himself by holding up his bad example and sermonizing on it. Litgate took Mr. Fairbrothers' hints very cordially, though he would hardly have borne them from another man. He could not help remembering that he had lately made some debts, but these had seemed inevitable, and he had no intention now to do more than keep house in a simple way. The furniture for which he owed would not want renewing, not even the stock of wine for a long while. Many thoughts cheered him at that time, and justly. A man conscious of enthusiasm for worthy aims is sustained under petty hostilities by the memory of great workers who had to fight their way not without wounds, and who hover in his mind as patron saints invisibly helping. At home, that same evening, when he had been chatting with Mr. Fairbrother, he had his long legs stretched on the sofa, his head thrown back, and his hands clasped behind it, according to his favorite ruminating attitude. While Rosamund sat at the piano and played one tune after another, of which her husband only knew, like the emotional elephant he was, that they fell in with his mood as if they had been melodious sea breezes. There was something very fine in Ridgate's look just then, and anyone might have been encouraged to bet on his achievement. In his dark eyes and on his mouth and brow, there was that placidity which comes from the fullness of contemplative thought. The mind not searching but beholding, and the glance seeming to be filled with what is behind it. Presently Rosamund left the piano and seated herself on a chair close to the sofa and opposite to her husband's face. Is that enough music for you, my lord? She said, folding her hands before her, and putting on a little air of meekness. Yes, dear, if you are tired, said Ridgate, gently turning his eyes and resting them on her, but not otherwise moving. Rosamund's presence at that moment was perhaps no more than a spoonful brought to the lake, and her woman's instinct in this matter was not dull. What is observing you, she said, leaning forward and bringing her face nearer to his. He moved his hands and placed them gently behind her shoulders. I'm thinking of a great fellow who was about as old as I am, three hundred years ago, and had already begun a new era in anatomy. I can't guess, said Rosamund, shaking her head. We used to play at guessing historical characters at Mrs. Lemons, but not anatomists. I will tell you. His name was Vesalius, and the only way he could get to know anatomy as he did was by going to snatch bodies at night from craveyards and places of execution. Oh, said Rosamund, with a look of disgust on her pretty face. I am very glad you are not Vesalius. I should have thought he might find some less horrible way than that. No, he couldn't, said Litgate, going on too earnestly to take much notice of her answer. He could only get a complete skeleton by snatching the whitened bones of a criminal from the gallows and barring them and fetching them away by bits secretly in the dead of night. I hope he is not one of your great heroes, said Rosamund, half playfully, half anxiously. Else I shall have you getting up in the night to go to St. Peter's Churchyard. You know how angry you told me the people were about Mrs. Gobi? You have enemies enough already. So had Vesalius, Rosie. No wonder the medical foggies in the middle march are jealous, when some of the greatest doctors living were fears upon Vesalius because they had believed in Galen and he showed that Galen was wrong. They called him a liar and a poisonous monster but the facts of the human frame were on his side and so he got the better of them. And what happened to him afterwards? said Rosamund with some interest. Oh, he had a good deal of fighting to the last and they did exasperate him enough at one time to make him burn a good deal of his work. Then he got shipwrecked just as he was coming from Zeruzalum to take a great chair at Padua. He died rather miserably. There was a moment's pause before Rosamund said, Do you know Tertius? I often wish you had not been a medical man. Hey, Rosie, don't say that, said Litgate, drawing her closer to him. That is like saying you wish you had married another man. Not at all. You are clever enough for anything. You might easily have been something else and your cousins at Qualingham all think that you have sunk below them in your choice of a profession. The cousins at Qualingham may go to the devil, said Litgate with scorn. It was like their impudence if they said anything of the sort to you. Still, said Rosamund, I do not think it is a nice profession, dear. We know that she had much quite perseverance in her opinion. It is the grandest profession in the world, Rosamund, said Litgate gravely. And to say that you love me without loving the medical man in me is the same sort of thing as to say that you like eating a peach but don't like its flavor. Don't say that again, dear. It pains me. Very well, Dr. Graveface, said Rosie, dimpling. I will declare in future that I do not on skeletons and body snatchers and bits of things in flulse and quarrels with everybody that end in your dying miserably. No, no, not so bad as that, said Litgate, giving up remunstions and petting her resently. End of Chapter 45 Recording by Red Abras, February 2008 Chapter 46 of Middle March This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Red Abras. Middle March by George Eliot, Chapter 46 Poes no Podemos, Heber Aquelo Cue Cueramos, Cueramos Aquelo Cue Podemos. Since we cannot get what we like, let us like what we can get. Spanish Proverb While Litgate safely married and with the hospital under his command felt himself struggling for medical reform against Middle March, Middle March was becoming more and more conscious of the national struggle for another kind of reform. By the time that Lord John Russell's measure was being debated in the House of Commons, there was a new political animation in Middle March and a new definition of parties which might show a decided change of balance if a new election came. And there were some who already predicted this event, declaring that a reform bill would never be carried by the actual parliament. This was what Will Ladisler dwelt on to Mr. Brook as a reason for congratulation that he had not yet tried his strength at the hustings. Things will grow and ripen as if it were a comet year, said Will. The public temper will soon get to a cometary heat, now the question of reform has set in. There is likely to be another election before long, and by that time Middle March will have got more ideas into its head. What we have to work at now is the pioneer and political meetings. Quite right, Ladisler, we shall make a new thing of opinion here, said Mr. Brook. Only I want to keep myself independent about reform, you know. I don't want to go too far. I want to take up Wilbur forces and Romilly's line, you know. And work at Negro emancipation, criminal law, that kind of thing. But of course, I should support Gray. If you go in for the principle of reform, you must be prepared to take what the situation offers, said Will. If everybody pulled for his own bit against everybody else, the whole question would go to Tatters. Yes, yes, I agree with you. I quite take that point of view. I should put it in that light. I should support Gray, you know. But I don't want to change the balance of the constitution. And I don't think Gray would. But that is what the country wants, said Will. Else there would be no meaning in political unions or any other movement that knows what it's about. It wants to have a House of Commons, which is not weighted with nominees of the landed class, but with representatives of the other interests. And as to contending for a reform short of that, it is like asking for a bit of an avalanche which has already begun to thunder. That is fine, Ladislaw. That is the way to put it. Write that down now. We must begin to get documents about the feeling of the country, as well as the machine-breaking and general distress. As to documents, said Will, a two-inch card will hold plenty, a few rows of figures are enough to deduce misery from, and a few more will show the rate at which the political determination of the people is growing. Good. Draw that out a little more at length, Ladislaw. That is an idea. Now, write it out in the pioneer. Put the figures and deduce the misery, you know, and put the other figures and deduce, and so on. You have a way of putting things. Burke. Now, when I think of Burke, I can't help wishing somebody had a pocket borrow to give you Ladislaw. You would never get elected, you know, and we shall always want talent in the house. Reform, as we will, we shall always want talent. That avalanche and the thunder now was really a little like Burke. I want that sort of thing, not ideas, you know, but a way of putting them. Pocket borrows would be a fine thing, said Ladislaw, if they were always in the right pocket, and there were always a Burke at hand. Will was not displeased with that complementary comparison, even from Mr. Burke. For it is a little too trying to human flesh to be conscious of expressing one's self better than others and never to have it noticed, and in the general dearth of admiration for the right thing. Even a chance-bray of applause falling exactly in time is rather fortifying. Will felt that his literary refinements were usually beyond the limits of middle-march perception. Nevertheless, he was beginning thoroughly to like the work, of which, when he began, he said to himself rather languidly, why not? And he studied the political situation with as ardent an interest as he had ever given to poetic meters or mediaevalism. It is undeniable that, but for the desire to be where Dorothea was, and perhaps the want of knowing what else to do, Will would not at this time have been meditating on the needs of the English people or criticising English statesmanship. He would probably have been rambling in Italy, sketching plans for several dramas, trying prose and finding it too Jejun, trying verse and finding it too artificial, beginning to copy bits from old pictures, leaving off because they were no good, and observing that, after all, self-culture was the principal point, while in politics, he would have been sympathising warmly with liberty and progress in general. Our sense of duty must often wait for some work which shall take the place of delay tantism and make us feel that the quality of our action is not a matter of indifference. Ladisla had now accepted his bit of work, though it was not that indeterminate, loftiest thing which he had once dreamed of as alone worthy of continuous effort. His nature warmed easily in the presence of subjects which were visibly mixed with life in action, and the easily stirred rebellion in him helped the glow of public spirit. In spite of Mr. Cossibon and the banishment from Loic, he was rather happy, getting a great deal of fresh knowledge in a vivid way and for practical purposes, and making the pioneers celebrated as far as brassing. Never mind the smallness of the area, the writing was not worse than much that reaches the four corners of the earth. Mr. Brooke was occasionally irritating, but Will's impatience was relieved by the division of his time between visits to the grunge and retreats to his middle-march lodgings which gave variety to his life. Shift the pegs a little, he said to himself, and Mr. Brooke might be in the cabinet while I was undersecretary. That is the common order of things. The little waves make the large ones and are of the same pattern. I am better here than in the sort of life Mr. Cossibon would have trained me for. Where the doing would be all laid down by a precedent too rigid for me to react upon. I don't care for prestige or high pay. As Lidgett had said of him, he was a sort of gypsy, rather enjoying the sense of belonging to no class. He had a feeling of romance in his position and a pleasant consciousness of creating a little surprise wherever he went. That sort of enjoyment had been disturbed when he had felt some new distance between himself and Dorothea in their accidental meeting at Lidgett's. And his irritation had gone out towards Mr. Cossibon who had declared beforehand that Will would lose caste. I never had any caste, he would have said. If that prophecy had been uttered to him and the quick blood would have come and gone like breath in his transparent skin. But it is one thing to like defiance and another thing to like its consequences. Meanwhile, the town opinion about the new editor of the pioneer was tending to conform Mr. Cossibon's view. Will's relationship in that distinguished quarter did not, like Lidgett's high connections, serve as an advantageous introduction. If it was rumored that young Ladislaw was Mr. Cossibon's nephew or cousin, it was also rumored that Mr. Cossibon would have nothing to do with him. Brooke had taken him up, said Mr. Hawley, because that is what no man in his senses could have expected. Cossibon has devilish good reasons, you may be sure, for turning the cold shoulder on a young fellow who's bringing up he paid for, just like Brooke, one of those fellows who would praise a cat to sell a horse. And some oddities of Will's, more or less poetical, appeared to support Mr. Keck, the editor of the trumpet, in asserting that Ladislaw, if the truth were known, was not only a polished emissary but crack-brained, which accounted for the preter natural quickness and glibness of his speech when he got on to a platform, as he did whenever he had an opportunity, speaking with a facility which cast reflections on solid Englishmen generally. It was disgusting to Keck to see a strip of a fellow, with light curls round his head, get up and spittify by the hour against institutions, which had existed when he was in his cradle. And in a leading article of the trumpet, Keck characterised Ladislaw's speech at a reform meeting as the violence of an enargument, a miserable effort to shroud in the brilliancy of fireworks, the daring of irresponsible statements, and the poverty of a knowledge which was of the cheapest and most recent description. That was a rattling article yesterday, Keck, said Dr. Sprague, with sarcastic intentions. But what is an enargument? Oh, a term that came up in the French Revolution, said Keck. This dangerous aspect of Ladislaw was strangely contrasted with other habits, which became matter of remark. He had a fondness, half artistic, half affectionate, for little children, the smaller they were, on tolerably active legs, and the funnier their clothing, the better we liked to surprise and please them. We know that in Rome he was given to ramble about among the poor people, and the taste did not quit him in middle-march. He had somehow picked up a troupe of drawl children, little hatless boys, with their galle-gaskins much worn and scant, shirting to hang out, little girls who tossed their hair out of their eyes to look at him, and guardian brothers at the mature age of seven. The troupe he had led out on a gypsy excursion to Hal Selwood at nothing time, and since the cold weather had set in, he had taken them on a clear day to gather sticks for a bonfire in the hollow of a hillside, where he drew out a small feast of gingerbread for them, and improvised a punch and judy drama with some private homemade puppets. Here was one oddity, another was that in houses where he got friendly, he was given to stretch himself at full length on the rug while he docked, and was apt to be discovered in this attitude by occasional callers for whom such an irregularity was likely to confirm the notions of his dangerously mixed blood and general laxity. But Will's articles and speeches naturally recommended him in families which the new strictness of party division had marked off on the side of reform. He was invited to Mr. Bulsroad's, but here he could not lie down on the rug, and Mrs. Bulsroad felt that his mode of talking about Catholic countries, as if there were any truths with Antichrist, illustrated the usual tendency to unsoundness in intellectual men. At Mr. Fairbrothers, however, whom the irony of events had brought on the same side with Bulsroad in the national movement, Will became 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 street with her little basket, giving her his arm in the eyes of the town, and insisting on going with her to pay some call where she distributed her small filchings from her own share of sweet things. But the house where he visited oftenest and lay most on the rug was the gates. The two men were not at all alike, but they agreed none the worse. The gate was abrupt, but not irritable, taking little notice of megrims and healthy people, and Ladislaw did not usually throw away his susceptibilities on those who took no notice of them. With Rosamund on the other hand, he pouted and was wayward, nay, often uncomplementary, much to her inward surprise. Nevertheless, he was gradually becoming necessary to her entertainment by his companionship in her music, his varied talk, and his freedom from the grave preoccupation which, with all her husband's tenderness and indulgence, often made his manners unsatisfactory to her, and confirmed her dislike of the medical profession. Litgate inclined to be sarcastic on the superstitious faith of the people in the efficacy of the bill, while nobody cared about the low state of pathology, sometimes a sailed will with troublesome questions. One evening in March, Rosamund in her cherry-coloured dress, which once down, trimming about the throat, sat at the tea table. Litgate, lately come and tired from his outdoor work, was seated sideways on an easy chair by the fire with one leg over the elbow, his brow looking a little troubled, as his eyes rambled over the columns of the pioneer, while Rosamund, having noticed that he was perturbed, avoided looking at him. And inwardly thanked heaven that she herself had not a moody disposition. Will Ladislow was stretched on the rug, contemplating the curtain pole abstractedly, and humming very low the notes of, when first I saw thy face, while the house spaniel, also stretched out with small choice of room, looked from between his paws at the usurper of the rug, with silent but strong objection. Rosamund, bringing Litgate 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 brook as a forming landlord, Ladislow, 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 the public reads with a view to its own conversion? We should have a witchess brewing with a vengeance then. Mingle, mingle, mingle, mingle, you that mingle may, and nobody would know which side he was going to take. Fair brother says he doesn't believe brook would get elected if the opportunity came. The very men who profess to be for him would bring another member out of the bag at the right moment. There is no harm in trying, it's good to have rest and members. Why? said Litgate, who was much given to use that inconvenient ward in a curt tone. They represent the locals to pretty better, said Will laughing and shaking his curls, and they are kept on their best behaviour in the neighbourhood. Brook is not a bad fellow, but he has done some good things on his estate that he never would have done but for this parliamentary bite. He is not fitted to be a public man, said Litgate, with contemptuous decision. He would disappoint everybody who counted on him. I can see that at the hospital. Only their bullstroid holds the reins and drives him. That depends on how you fix your standard of public men, said Will. He is good enough for the occasion when the people have made up their mind as they are making it up now. They don't want a man, they only want a vote. That is the way with your political right is Ladisla, crying up a measure as if it were a universal cure, and crying up men who are a part of the very disease that wants curing. Why not? Men may help to cure themselves off the face of the land without knowing it, said Will, who could find reasons impromptu when he had not thought of a question before hand. That is no excuse for encouraging the superstitious exaggeration of hopes about this particular measure, helping the cry to swallow it whole, and to set up voting popinjes who are good for nothing but to carry it. You go against rottenness, and there is nothing more thoroughly rotten than making people believe that society can be cured by a political hocus pocus. That's very fine, my dear fellow, but your cure must begin somewhere and put it that a thousand things which debase a population can never be reformed without this particular reform to begin with. Look what Stanley said the other day, that the house had been tinkering long enough at small questions of bribery, inquiring whether this or that voter has had a guinea when everybody knows that the seats have been sold wholesale. Wait for wisdom and conscience in public agents, fiddle stick. The only conscience we can trust to is the massive sense of wrong in a class, and the best wisdom that will work is the wisdom of balancing claims. That's my text, which side is injured? I support the man who supports 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 follow that I go in for opium in a given case of gout. I am not begging the question we are upon, whether we are to try for nothing till we find immaculate men to work with. Should you go on that plan? If there were one man who would carry you a medical reform and another who would oppose it, should you inquire which had the better motives or even the better brains? Oh, of course! said Litgate, seeing himself checkmated by a move which he had often used himself. If one did not work with such men as are at hand, things must come to a deadlock. Suppose the worst opinion in the town about Bull's Road were a true one, that would not make it less true that he has the sense and resolution to do what I think ought to be done in the matters I know and care most about. But that is the only ground on which I go with him. Litgate added rather proudly, bearing in mind Mr. Fairbrothers' remarks, he is nothing to me otherwise. I would not cry him up on any personal ground. I would keep clear of that. Do you mean that I cry a brook on any personal ground? Said Will Ladislaw, netled and turning sharp round. For the first time he felt offended with Litgate, not the less so perhaps because he would have declined any close inquiry into the growth of his relation to Mr. Brooke. Not at all, said Litgate. I was simply explaining my own action. I meant that a man may work for a special end with others whose motives and general course are equivocal. If he is quite sure of his personal independence and that he is not working for his private interest, either place or money. Then why don't you extend your liberality to others? Said Will, still netled. My personal independence is as important to me as yours is to you. You have no more reason to imagine that I have personal expectations from Brooke than I have to imagine that you have personal expectations from Bull's Road. Motives are points of honour. I suppose nobody can prove them. But as to money and place in the world? Will ended, tossing back his head. I think it is pretty clear that I am not determined by considerations of that sort. You quite mistake me, Ladislaw, said Litgate, surprised. He had been preoccupied with his own vindication and had been blind to what Ladislaw might infer on his own account. I beg your pardon for unintentionally annoying you. In fact, I should rather attribute to you a romantic disregard of your own worldly interests. On the political question, I referred simply to intellectual bias. How very unpleasant you both are this evening, said Rosamund. I cannot conceive why money should have been referred to. Polities and medicine are sufficiently disagreeable to quarrel upon. You can both of you go on quarreling with all the world and with each other on those two topics. Rosamund looked mildly neutral as she said this, rising to ring the bell and then crossing to her work table. Poor Rosy, said Litgate, putting out his hand to her as she was passing him. Disputation is not amusing to cherubs. Have some music. Ask Ladislaw to sing with you. When Will was gone, Rosamund said to her husband, What put you out of temper this evening, tertious? Me? It was Ladislaw who was out of temper. He is like a bit of tinder, but I mean before that. Something had vexed you before you came in. You looked cross, and that made you begin to dispute with Mr. Ladislaw. You hurt me very much when you look so tertious. Do I? Then I am a brute, said Litgate, caressing her penitently. What vexed you? Oh, outdoor things, business. It was really a letter insisting on the payment of a bill for furniture, but Rosamund was expecting to have a baby, and Litgate wished to save her from any perturbation. Chapter 47 It happened to be on a Saturday evening that Will Ladislaw had that little discussion with Litgate. Its effect, when he went to his own rooms, was to make him sit up half the night, thinking over again, under a new irritation, all that he had before thought of his having settled in middle-march, and harnessed himself with Mr. Brooke. Hesitations before he had taken the step had since turned into susceptibility to every hint that he would have been wiser not to take it. And hence came his heat towards Litgate, a heat which still kept him restless. Was he not making a fool of himself, and at a time when he was more than ever conscious of being something better than a fool, and for what end? Well, for no definite end. True, he had dreamy visions of possibilities. There is no human being who, having both passions and thoughts, does not think in consequence of his passions, does not find images rising in his mind, which soothe the passion with hope, or sting it with dread. But this, which happens to us all, happens to some with a wide difference, and Will was not one of those whose wit keeps the roadway. He had his bipaths, where there were little choice of his own choosing, such as gentlemen cantering on the high road might have thought rather idiotic. The way in which he made a sort of happiness for himself out of his feeling for Dorothea was an example of this. It may seem strange, but it is the fact that the ordinary, vulgar visions of which Mr. Cossabon suspected him, namely, that Dorothea might become a widow, and that the interest he had established in her mind might turn into acceptance of him as a husband, had no tempting, arresting power over him. He did not live in the scenery of such an event, and follow it out, as we all do, with that imagined otherwise which is our practical heaven. It was not only that he was unwilling to entertain thoughts which could be accused of baseness, and was already uneasy in the sense that he had to justify himself from the charge of ingratitude. The latent consciousness of many other barriers between himself and Dorothea, besides the existence of her husband, had helped to turn away his imagination from speculating on what might befall Mr. Cossabon, and there were yet other reasons. Will, we know, could not bear the thought of any flaw appearing in his crystal. He was at once exasperated and delighted by the calm freedom with which Dorothea looked at him and spoke to him, and there was something so exquisite in thinking of her just as she was that he could not long for a change which must somehow change her. Do we not shun the street version of a fine melody, or shrink from the news that the rarity, some bit of chiseling or engraving perhaps, which we have dwelt on even with the exaltation in the trouble it has, cost us to snatch glimpses of it, is really not an uncommon thing and may be obtained as an everyday position? Our good depends on the quality and breadth of our emotion. And to Will, a creature who cared little for what are called the solid things of life, and greatly for its subtler influences, to have within him such a feeling as he had towards Dorothea was like the inheritance of a fortune. What others might have called the futility of his passion made an additional delight for his imagination. He was conscious of a generous movement and of verifying in his own experience that higher love poetry which had charmed his fancy. Dorothea, he said to himself, was forever enthroned in his soul. No other woman could sit higher than her footstool. And if he could have written out in immortal syllables the effect she wrought within him, he might have boasted after the example of old Drayton that queens hereafter might be glad to live upon the arms of her superfluous praise. But this result was questionable. And what else could he do for Dorothea? What was his devotion worth to her? It was impossible to tell. He would not go out of her reach. He saw no creature among her friends to whom he could believe that she spoke with the same simple confidence as to him. She had once said that she would like him to stay and stay he would. Whatever fire-breathing dragons might hiss around her. This had always been the conclusion of Will's hesitations, but he was not without contradictoryness and rebellion even towards his own resolve. He had often got irritated as he was on this particular night by some outside demonstration that his public exertions with Mr. Brooke as a chief could not seem as heroic as he would like them to be. And this was always associated with the other ground of irritation that notwithstanding his sacrifice of dignity for Dorothea's sake he could hardly ever see her. Whereupon, not being able to contradict these unpleasant facts, he contradicted his own strongest bias and said, I am a fool. Nevertheless, since the inward debate necessarily turned on Dorothea, he ended as he had done before, only by getting a livelier sense of what her presence would be to him. And suddenly reflecting that the morrow would be Sunday, he determined to go to Lovik Church and see her. He slept upon that idea, but when he was dressing in the rational morning light, objection said, that will be a virtual defiance of Mr. Kossabon's prohibition to visit Lovik and Dorothea will be displeased. Nonsense, argued inclination. It would be too monstrous for him to hinder me from going out to a pretty country church on a spring morning. And Dorothea will be glad. It will be clear to Mr. Kossabon that you have come either to annoy him or to see Dorothea. It is not true that I go to annoy him, and why should I not go to see Dorothea? Is he to have everything to himself and be always comfortable? Let him smart a little, as other people are obliged to do. I have always liked the quaintness of the church and congregation. Besides, I know the tuckers, I shall go into their pew. Having silenced objection by force of unreason, Will walked to Lovik as if he had been on the way to paradise, crossing Halsell Common and skirting the wood, where the sunlight fell broadly under the building pose, bringing out the beauties of moss and lichen, and fresh green growths piercing the brown. Everything seemed to know that it was Sunday, and to approve of his going to Lovik church. Will easily felt happy when nothing crossed his humour, and by this time the thought of vexing Mr. Kossabon had become rather amusing to him, making his face break into its merry smile, pleasant to see as the breaking of sunshine on the water, though the occasion was not exemplary. But most of us are apt to settle within ourselves that the man who blocks our way is odious, and not to mind causing him a little of the disgust which his personality excites in ourselves. Will went along with a small book under his arm, and a hand in each side pocket, never reading, but chanting a little, as he made scenes of what would happen in church and coming out. He was experimenting in tunes to suit some words of his own, sometimes trying a ready-made melody, sometimes improvising. The words were not exactly a hymn, but they certainly fitted his Sunday experience. O me, O me, what frugal cheer, my love doth feed upon, a touch array that is not here, a shadow that is gone, a dream of breath that might be near, an inly echoed tone, the thought that one may think me dear, the place where one was known, the tremor of a banished fear, an ill that was not done. O me, O me, what frugal cheer, my love doth feed upon. Sometimes when he took off his hat, shaking his head backward, and showing his delicate throat as he sang, he looked like an incarnation of the spring whose spirit filled the air, a bright creature abundant in uncertain promises. The bells were still ringing when he got to Lovic, and he went into the curate's pew before anyone else arrived there, but he was still left alone in it when the congregation had assembled. The curate's pew was opposite the rectors at the entrance of the small chancel, and Will had time to fear that Dorothea might not come while he looked round at the group of rural faces which made the congregation from year to year within the whitewashed walls and dark old pews, hardly with more change than we see in the bows of a tree, which breaks here and there with age, but yet has young shoots. Mr. Rick's frog face was something alien and uncountable, but notwithstanding the shock to the order of things, there were still the wales and the rural stalk of the powder else in their pews side by side. Brother Samuel's cheek had the same purple round as ever, and the three generations of decent cottagers came as of old with a sense of duty to their betters generally. The smaller children regarding Mr. Cosmon who wore the black gown and mounted to the highest box, as probably the chief of all betters, and the one most awful if offended. Even in 1831 Lovick was at peace, not more agitated by reform than by the solemn tenor of the Sunday sermon. The congregation had been used to seeing Will at church in former days, and no one took much note of him except the choir who expected him to take a figure in the singing. Dorothea did at last appear on this quaint background, walking up the short aisle in her white beaver bonnet and grey cloak, the same she had worn in the Vatican. Her face being from her entrance towards the chancel, even her short-sighted eyes soon discerned Will, but there was no outward show of her feeling except a slight paleness and a grave bow as she passed him. To his own surprise Will felt suddenly uncomfortable and dared not look at her after they had bowed to each other. Two minutes later, when Mr. Cosmon came out of the vestry and entering the pew seated himself in the face of Dorothea, Will felt his paralysis more complete. He could look nowhere except at the choir in the little gallery over the vestry door. Dorothea was perhaps pained, and he had made a wretched plunder. It was no longer amusing to vex Mr. Cosmon, who had the advantage probably of watching him and seeing that he dared not turn his head. Why had he not imagined this beforehand? But he could not expect that he should sit in that square pew alone, unreleaved by any tuckers, who had apparently departed from Loic altogether. For a new clergyman was in the desk. Still he called himself stupid now for not foreseeing that it would be impossible for him to look towards Dorothea. Nay, that she might feel his coming and impertinence. There was no delivering himself from his cage, however, and Will found his places and looked at his book as if he had been a school mistress, feeling that the morning service had never been so immeasurably long before, that he was utterly ridiculous, out of temper and miserable. This was what a man got by worshiping the sight of a woman. The clerk observed with surprise that Mr. Ladislaw did not join in the tune of Hannover and reflected that he might have a cold. Mr. Cosmon did not preach that morning, and there was no change in Will's situation until the blessing had been pronounced and everyone rose. It was the fashion at Loic for the betters to go out first. With the sudden determination to break the spell that was upon him, Will looked straight at Mr. Cosmon. But that gentleman's eyes were on the button of the pew door which he opened, allowing Dorothea to pass and following her immediately without raising his eyelids. Will's glance had caught Dorothea's as she turned out of the pew, and again she bowed, but this time with a look of agitation as if she were repressing tears. Will walked out after them, but they went on towards a little gate leading out of the churchyard into the shrubbery, never looking round. It was impossible for him to follow them, and he could only walk back sadly at midday along the same road which he had trodden hopefully in the morning. The lights were all changed for him, both without and within. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Red Abrus Middlemarch by George Eliot Chapter 48 Surely the golden hours are turning grey and dance no more, and vainly strive to run. I see their white locks streaming in the wind. Each face is haggard as it looks at me. Slow turning in the constant clasping round, storm driven. Dorothea's distress when she was leaving the church came chiefly from the perception that Mr. Kosobon was determined not to speak to his cousin, and that Will's presence at church had served to mark more strongly the alienation between them. Will's coming seemed to her quite excusable. Nay, she thought it an amiable movement in him towards a reconciliation which she herself had been constantly wishing for. He had probably imagined, as she had, that if Mr. Kosobon and he could meet easily, they would shake hands and friendly intercourse might return. But now Dorothea felt quite robbed of that hope. Will was banished further than ever, for Mr. Kosobon must have been newly embittered by this thrusting upon him of a presence which he refused to recognize. He had not been very well that morning, suffering from some difficulty in breathing, and had not preached in consequence. She was not surprised, therefore, that he was nearly silent at luncheon. Still less that, he made no allusion to Will Ladisla. For her own part, she felt that she could never again introduce that subject. They usually spent apart the hours between luncheon and dinner on a Sunday. Mr. Kosobon in the library dozing chiefly and Dorothea in her border, where she was wont to occupy herself with some of her favorite books. There was a little heap of them on the table in the bow window of various sorts, from Herodotus, which she was learning to read with Mr. Kosobon, to her old companion Pascal, and Keble's Christian ear. But today opened one after another and could read none of them. Everything seemed dreary. The portents before the birth of Cyrus, Jewish antiquities, oh, tear, devout epigrams, the sacred chime of favorite hymns, all alike were as flat as dunes beaten on wood. Even the spring flowers and the grass had a dull shiver in them, under the afternoon clouds that hid the sun fitfully. Even the sustaining thoughts which had become habits seemed to have in them the weariness of long future days in which she would still live with them for her sole companions. It was another or rather a fuller sort of companionship that poor Dorothea was hungering for, and the hunger had grown from the perpetual effort demanded by her married life. She was always trying to be what her husband wished and never able to repose on his delight in what she was. The thing that she liked, that she spontaneously cared to have, seemed to be always excluded from her life, for it was only granted and not shared by her husband. It might as well have been denied. About Will Ladislaw there had been a difference between them from the first, and it had ended since Mr. Casabon had so severely repulsed Dorothea's strong feeling about his claims on the family property. By her being convinced that she was in the right and her husband in the wrong, but she was helpless. This afternoon the helplessness was more wretchedly benumbing than ever. She longed for objects who could be dear to her, and to whom she could be dear. She longed for work which would be directly beneficent like the sunshine and the rain, and now it appeared that she was to live more and more in a virtual tomb, where there was the apparatus of a ghastly labour producing what would never see the light. Today she had stood at the door of the tomb and seen Will Ladislaw receding into the distant world of warm activity and fellowship, turning his face towards her as he went. Books were of no use, thinking was of no use. It was Sunday, and she could not have the carriage to go to Celia, who had lately had a baby. There was no refuge now from spiritual emptiness and discontent, and Dorothea had to bear her bad mood, as she would have borne a headache. After dinner at the hour when she usually began to read aloud, Mr. Gossabon proposed that they should go into the library, where he said he had ordered a fire and lights. He seemed to have revived and to be thinking intently. In the library Dorothea observed that he had newly arranged a row of his notebooks on a table, and now he took up and put into her hand a well-known volume, which was a table of contents to all the others. You will oblige me, my dear, he said, seating himself. If instead of other reading this evening you will go through this aloud, pencil in hand, and at each point where I say mark, will make a cross with your pencil. That is the first step in a sifting process which I have long had in view, and as we go on I shall be able to indicate to you certain principles of selection, whereby you will, I trust, have an intelligent participation in my purpose. This proposal was only one more sign added to many since his memorable interview with Lidgate, that Mr. Gossabon's original reluctance to let Dorothea work with him had given place to the contrary disposition, namely, to demand much interest and labour from her. After she had read and marked for two hours, he said, We will take the volume upstairs and the pencil, if you please, and in case of reading in the night we can pursue this task. It is not verisome to you, I trust Dorothea. I prefer always reading what you like best to hear, said Dorothea, who told the simple truth, for what she dreaded was to exert herself in reading or anything else which left him as joyless as ever. It was a proof of the force with which certain characteristics in Dorothea impressed those around her, that her husband, with all his jealousy and suspicion, had gathered implicit trust in the integrity of her promises, and her power of devoting herself to her idea of the right and best. Of late he had begun to feel that these qualities were a peculiar possession for himself, and he wanted to encourage them. The reading in the night did come. Dorothea in her young weariness had slept soon and fast. She was awakened by a sense of light which seemed to her, at first like a sudden vision of sunset, after she had climbed a steep hill. She opened her eyes and saw her husband wrapped in his warm gown seating himself in the armchair near the fireplace where the embers were still glowing. He had lit two candles, expecting that Dorothea would awake, but not liking to rouse her by more direct means. Are you ill, Edward? she said, rising immediately. I felt some uneasiness in a reclining posture. I will sit here for a time. She threw wood on the fire, wrapped herself up, and said, You would like me to read to you? You would oblige me greatly by doing so, Dorothea, said Mr. Koswan, with a shade of more meekness than usual in his polite manner. I am bickful. My mind is remarkably lucid. I fear that the excitement may be too great for you, said Dorothea, remembering Lidgate's cautions. No, I am not conscious of undue excitement. Thought is easy. Dorothea dared not insist, and she read for an hour or more on the same plan as she had done in the evening, but getting over the pages with more quickness. Mr. Koswan's mind was more alert, and he seemed to anticipate what was coming after a very slight verbal indication, saying, That will do. Mark that. Or pass on to the next head. I omit the second excursus on Crete. Dorothea was amazed to think of the birdlike speed with which his mind was surveying the ground where it had been creeping for years. At last he said, Close the book now, my dear. We will resume our work tomorrow. I have deferred it too long, and would gladly see it completed. But you observe that the principle on which my selection is made is to give adequate and not disproportionate illustration to each of the thesis enumerated in my introduction, as at present sketched. You have perceived that distinctly, Dorothea? Yes, said Dorothea, rather tremulously. She felt sick at heart. And now I think that I can take some repose, said Mr. Koswan. He let down again, and begged her to put out the lights. When she had lain down too, and there was a darkness only broken by a dull flow on the earth, he said. Before I sleep, I have a request to make Dorothea. What is it? said Dorothea, with dread in her mind. It is that you will let me know deliberately whether in case of my death you will carry out my wishes, whether you will avoid doing what I should deprecate and apply yourself to do what I should desire. Dorothea was not taken by surprise. Many incidents had been leading her to the conjecture of some intention on her husband's part, which might make a new yoke for her. She did not answer immediately. You refuse? said Mr. Koswan, with more edge in his tone. No, I do not yet refuse, said Dorothea, in a clear voice. The need of freedom asserting itself within her. But it is too solemn, I think it is not right, to make a promise when I am ignorant what it will bind me to. Whatever affection prompted I would do without promising. But you would use your own judgment, I ask you to obey mine, you refuse? No, dear no, said Dorothea, beseechingly, crushed by opposing fears. But may I wait and reflect a little while? I desire with my whole soul to do what will comfort you. But I cannot give any pledge suddenly, still less a pledge to do. I know not what. You cannot then confide in the nature of my wishes? Grant me till tomorrow, said Dorothea beseechingly, till tomorrow then, said Mr. Koswan. Soon she could hear that he was sleeping, but there was no more sleep for her. While she constrained herself to lie still, lest she should disturb him, her mind was carrying on a conflict, in which imagination ranged its forces first on one side and then on the other. She had no pre-sentiment that the power which her husband wished to establish over her future action had relation to anything else than his work. But it was clear enough to her that he would expect her to devote herself to sifting those mixed heaps of material which were to be the doubtful illustration of principles still more doubtful. The poor child had become altogether unbelieving as to the trustworthiness of that key which had made the ambition and the labour of her husband's life. It was not wonderful that, in spite of her small instruction, her judgment in this matter was truer than his, for she looked with unbiased comparison and healthy sense at probabilities on which he had risked all his egoism. And now she pictured to herself the days and months and years which she must spend in sorting what might be called shattered mummies and fragments of a tradition which was itself a mosaic wrought from crushed ruins, sorting them as food for a theory which was already withered in the birth like an elfin child. Doubtless a vigorous error vigorously pursued has kept the embryos of truth a breathing. The quest of gold being, at the same time, questioning of substances, the body of chemistry is prepared for its soul and Lavoisier is born. But Mr. Cossabon's theory of the elements which made the seed of all tradition was not likely to bruise itself unawares against discoveries. It floated among flexible conjectures no more solid than those etymologies which seemed strong because of likeness in sound until it was shown that likeness in sound made them impossible. It was a method of interpretation which was not tested by the necessity of forming anything which had sharper collisions than an elaborate notion of Gog and Magog. It was as free from interruption as a plan for threading the stars together, and Dorothea had so often had to check her weariness and impatience over this questionable riddle guessing as it revealed itself to her instead of the fellowship in high knowledge which was to make life worthier. She could understand well enough now why her husband had come to cling to her as possibly the only hope left that his labours would ever take a shape in which they could be given to the world. At first it had seemed that he wished to keep even her aloof from any close knowledge of what he was doing, but gradually the terrible stringency of human need, the prospect of a too speedy death. And here Dorothea's pity turned from her own future to her husband's past. Nay, to his present hard struggle with a lot which had grown out of that past. The lonely labour, the ambition breathing hardly under the pressure of self-disrust, the gold receding and the heavier limbs, and now at last the sword visibly trembling above him. And had she not wished to marry him that she might help him in his life's labour, but she had thought the work was to be something greater which she could serve in devoutly for its own sake. Was it right even to soothe his grief? Would it be possible even if she promised to work as in a treadmill fruitlessly? And yet could she deny him? Could she say I refuse to content this mining hunger? It would be refusing to do for him dead what she was almost sure to do him for living. If he lived as Lydgate had said he might for fifteen years or more, her life would certainly be spent in helping him and obeying him. Still there was a deep difference between that devotion to the living and that indefinite promise of devotion to the dead. While he lived he could claim nothing that she would not still be free to demonstrate against and even to refuse. But the thought passed through her mind more than once, though she could not believe in it. Might he not mean to demand something more from her than she had been able to imagine since he wanted her pledge to carry out his wishes without telling her exactly what they were? No. His heart was bound up in his work only. That was the end for which his fading life was to be eked out by hers. And now if she were to say no if you die I'll put no finger to your work. It seemed as if she would be crushing that bruised heart. For four hours Dorothea lay in this conflict till she felt ill and bewildered, unable to resolve praying mutely. Helpless as a child which has sobbed and sought too long, she fell into a late morning sleep, and when she waked Mr. Kossabon was already up. Tantrip told her that he had read prayers, breakfasted, and was in the library. I never saw you look so pale, madam, said Tantrip, a solid-figured woman who had been with the sisters at Lausanne. Was I ever high-colored, Tantrip? said Dorothea, smiling faintly. Well, not to say high-colored, but with a bloom like a shiny rose. But always smelling those leather books, what can be expected? Do rest a little this morning, madame. Let me say you are ill and not able to go into that closed library. Oh no no, let me make haste, said Dorothea. Mr. Kossabon wants me particularly. When she went down she felt sure that she should promise to fulfill his wishes, but that would be later in the day, not yet. As Dorothea entered the library, Mr. Kossabon turned round from the table where he had been placing some books and said, I was waiting for your appearance, my dear. I had hoped to set to work at once this morning, but I find myself under some indisposition, probably from too much excitement yesterday. I am going now to take a turn in the shrubbery, since the air is milder. I am glad to hear that, said Dorothea. Your mind, I feared, was too active last night. I would feign have it set at rest on the point I last spoke of Dorothea. You can now, I hope, give me an answer. May I come out to you in the garden presently? said Dorothea, winning a little breathing space in that way. I shall be in the U-tree walk for the next half hour, said Mr. Kossabon, and then he left her. Dorothea, feeling very weary, rang and asked Tantrip to bring her some raps. She had been sitting still for a few minutes, but not in any renewal of the former conflict. She simply felt that she was going to say yes to her own doom. She was too weak, too full of dread at the thought of inflicting a keen edged blow on her husband, to do anything but submit completely. She sat still and let Tantrip put on her bonnet and shawl, a passivity which was unusual with her, for she liked to wait on herself. God bless you, madam, said Tantrip, with an irrepressible movement of love towards the beautiful gentle creature for whom she felt unable to do anything more now that she had finished tying the bonnet. This was too much for Dorothea's highly strong feeling, and she burst into tears, sobbing against Tantrip's arm. But soon she checked herself, dried her eyes, and went out at the glass door into the shrubbery. I wish every book in that library was built into a catacomb for your master, said Tantrip to Pratt, the butler, finding him in the breakfast room. She had been at Rome, and visited the antiquities as we know, and she always declined to call Mr. Cossabon anything but your master when speaking to the other servants. Pratt laughed. He liked his master very well, but he liked Tantrip better. When Dorothea was out on the gravel walks, she lingered among the nearer clumps of trees, hesitating as she had done once before, though from a different cause. Then she had feared lest her effort at fellowship should be unwelcome. Now she dreaded going to this part where she foresaw that she must bind herself to a fellowship from which she shrank. Neither law nor the world's opinion compelled her to this. Only her husband's nature and her own compassion, only the ideal and not the real yoke of marriage. She saw clearly enough the whole situation, yet she was fettered. She could not smite the stricken soul that entreated hers. If that were weakness, Dorothea was weak. But the half hour was passing, and she must not delay it longer. When she entered the uteri walk, she could not see her husband. But the walk had bends, and she went, expecting to catch sight of his figure wrapped in a blue cloak, which, with a warm velvet cap, was his outer garment on chill days for the garden. It occurred to her that he might be resting in the summer house, towards which the path diverged a little. Turning the angle, she could see him seated on the bench, close to a stone table. His arms were resting on the table, and his brow was bowed down on them, the blue cloak being dragged forward and screening his face on each side. He exhausted himself last night, Dorothea said to herself, thinking at first that he was asleep, and that the summer house was too damp a place to rest in. But then she remembered that, off late, she had seen him take that attitude when she was reading to him, as if he found it easier than any other, and that he would sometimes speak as well as listen with his face down in that way. She went into the summer house and said, I am come, Edward, I am ready. He took no notice, and she thought that he must be fast asleep. She led her hand on his shoulder and repeated, I am ready. Still he was motionless, and with a sudden confused fear, she leaned down to him, to cough his velvet cap, and leaned her cheek close to his head, crying in a distressed tone, wake, dear, wake, listen to me, I am come to answer. But Dorothea never gave her answer. Later in the day, Litgate was seated by her bedside, and she was talking deliriously, thinking aloud, and recalling what had gone through her mind the night before. She knew him and called him by his name, but appeared to think it right that she should explain everything to him, and again and again begged him to explain everything to her husband. Tell him I shall go to him soon, I am ready to promise, only thinking about it was so dreadful. It has made me ill, not very ill, I shall soon be better, go and tell him. But the silence in her husband's ear was never more to be broken. End of Chapter 48. Recording by Red Abras February 2008 Chapter 49 of Middle March This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Red Abras Middle March by George Eliot Chapter 49 A task too strong for wizard spells the squire had brought about. It is easy dropping stones and wells, but who shall get them out? I wished to God we could hinder Dorothea from knowing this, said Sir James Chetam, with a little frown on his brow, and an expression of intense disgust about his mouth. He was standing on the hearth rug in the library at Lowwick Ranch, and speaking to Mr. Brooke. It was the day after Mr. Cossabon had been buried, and Dorothea was not yet able to leave her room. That would be difficult, you know, Chetam, as she is an executrix, and she likes to go into these things, property, land, that kind of thing. She has her notions, you know, said Mr. Brooke, sticking his eyeglasses on nervously, and exploring the edges of a folded paper which he held in his hand, and she would like to act, depend upon it. As an executrix, Dorothea would want to act, and she was 21 last December, you know, I can hinder nothing. Sir James looked at the carpet for a minute in silence, and then lifting his eyes suddenly fixed them on Mr. Brooke saying, I will tell you what we can do, until Dorothea is well, all business must be kept from her, and as soon as she is able to be moved, she must come to us. Being with Celia and the baby will be the best thing in the world for her, and will pass away the time. And meanwhile, you must get rid of Ladislaw, you must send him out of the country. Here, Sir James, look of disgust, returned in all its intensity. Mr. Brooke put his hands behind him, walked to the window, and straightened his back with a little shake before he replied. That is easily said, Chetam, easily said, you know. My dear sir, persisted Sir James, restraining his indignation with respectful forms. It was you who brought him here, and you who keep him here, I mean by the occupation you give him. Yes, but I can't dismiss him in an instant without assigning reasons, my dear Chetam. Ladislaw has been invaluable, most satisfactory. I consider that I have done this part of the country a service, by bringing him, by bringing him, you know. Mr. Brooke ended with a nod, turning round to give it. It's a pity this part of the country didn't do without him. That's all I have to say about it. At any rate, as Dorothea's brother-in-law, I feel warranted and objecting strongly to his being kept here, by any action on the part of her friends. You admit, I hope, that I have a right to speak about what concerns the dignity of my wife's sister? Sir James was getting warm. Of course, my dear Chetam, of course. But you and I have different ideas, different, not about this action of Kosobon's, I should hope, interrupted Sir James. I say that he has most unfairly compromised Dorothea. I say that there never was a meaner, more un-gentlemanly action than this. A cortisol of this sort to a will which he made at the time of his marriage with the knowledge and reliance of her family, a positive insult to Dorothea. Well, you know, Kosobon was a little twisted about Ladislaw. Ladislaw has told me the reason, dislike of the bent he took, you know. Ladislaw didn't think much of Kosobon's notions. Thought and Dagon, that sort of thing. And I fancy that Kosobon didn't like the independent position Ladislaw had taken up. I saw the letters between them, you know. Poor Kosobon was a little buried in books. He didn't know the world. It's all very well for Ladislaw to put that colour on it, said Sir James. But I believe Kosobon was only jealous of him on Dorothea's account. And the world will suppose that she gave him some reason. And that is what makes it so abominable, coupling her name with this young fellows. My dear Chetam, it won't lead to anything, you know, said Mr. Brooke. Seating himself and sticking on his eyeglass again. It's all of a piece with Kosobon's oddity, this paper now. Sinoptical tabulation and so on for the use of Mrs. Kosobon. It was locked up in the desk with the will. I suppose he meant Dorothea to publish his researches, eh? And she'll do it, you know. She has gone into his studies uncommonly. My dear Sir, said Sir James impatiently. That is neither here nor there. The question is whether you don't see with me the propriety of sending young Ladislaw away? Well, no, not the urgency of the thing. By and by perhaps it may come around. As to gossip, you know, sending him away won't hinder gossip. People say what they like to say, not what they have chapter and verse for, said Mr. Brooke, becoming acute about the truths that lay on the side of his own wishes. I might get rid of Ladislaw up to a certain point, take away the pioneer from him, and that sort of thing. But I couldn't send him out of the country. If he didn't choose to go, didn't choose, you know. Mr. Brooke, persisting as quietly as if he were only discussing the nature of last year's weather and nodding at the end with his usual amenity, was an exasperating form of obstinacy. Good God, said Sir James, with as much passion as he ever showed, let us get him a post, let us spend money on him, if he could go in the suit of some colonial governor. Grandpa might take him and I could write to folk about it. But Ladislaw won't be shipped off like a head of cattle, my dear fellow. Ladislaw has his ideas. It's my opinion that if he were to part from me tomorrow, you would only hear the more of him in the country. With his talent for speaking and drawing up documents, there are few men who could come up to him as an agitator. An agitator, you know. Agitator, said Sir James, with bitter emphasis, feeling that the syllables of this word properly repeated were a sufficient exposure of its hatefulness. But be reasonable, Chatham Dorothea now, as you say, she had better go to Silya as soon as possible. She can stay under your roof, and in the meantime, things may come round quietly. Don't let us be firing off our guns in a hurry, you know. Standish will keep our council, and the news will be old before it's known. Twenty things may happen to carry your Ladislaw without my doing anything, you know. Then I am to conclude that you decline to do anything. Decline, Chatham? No, I didn't say decline. But I really don't see what I could do. Ladislaw is a gentle man. I'm glad to hear of it, said Sir James. His irritation making him forget himself a little. I'm sure Kossabon was not. Well, it would have been worse if he had made the codicil to hinder her from marrying again, at all, you know. I don't know that, said Sir James. It would have been less indelicate. One of poor Kossabon's freaks that attack upset his brain a little. It all goes for nothing. She doesn't want to marry Ladislaw. But this codicil is framed so as to make everybody believe that she did. I don't believe anything of that sort about Dorothea, said Sir James, then frowningly. But I suspect Ladislaw. I tell you frankly, I suspect Ladislaw. I couldn't take any immediate action on that ground, Chatham. In fact, if it were possible to pack him up, send him to Norfolk Island, that sort of thing, it would look all the worse for Dorothea to those who knew about it. It would seem as if we distrusted her. Distrusted her, you know. That Mr. Brook had hit on an undeniable argument, did not tend to soothe Sir James. He put out his hand to reach his hat, implying that he did not mean to contend further, and said still with some heat. Well, I can only say that I think Dorothea was sacrificed once, because her friends were too careless. I shall do what I can as her brother to protect her now. You can't do better than get her to fresh it as soon as possible, Chatham. I approve that plan altogether, said Mr. Brook, well pleased that he had won the argument. It would have been highly inconvenient to him to part with Ladislaw at that time, when a dissolution might happen any day, and electors were to be convinced of the course by which the interests of the country would be best served. Mr. Brook sincerely believed that this end could be secured by his own return to parliament. He offered the forces of his mind, honestly, to the nation.