 20. A child forsaken, waking suddenly, whose gaze affired on all things round Dothrove, and seeth only that it cannot see the meeting eyes of love. Two hours later, Dorothea was seated in an inner room or border of a handsome apartment in the Via Sestina. I am sorry to add that she was sobbing bitterly with such abandonment to this relief of an oppressed heart as a woman habitually controlled by pride on her own account, and thoughtfulness for others will sometimes allow herself when she feels securely alone, and Mrs. Cosobon was certain to remain away for some time at the Vatican. Yet Dorothea had no distinctly shape and grievance that she could state even to herself, and in the midst of her confused thought and passion, the mental act that was struggling forth into clearness was a self-accusing cry that her feeling of desolation was the fault of her own spiritual poverty. She had married the man of her choice, and with the advantage over most girls that she had contemplated her marriage chiefly as the beginning of new duties. From the very first she had thought of Mr. Cosobon as having a mind so much above her own, that he must often be claimed by studies which she could not entirely share. Moreover, after the brief narrow experience of her girlhood she was beholding Rome, the city of visible history where the past of a whole hemisphere seems moving in funeral procession with strange ancestral images and trophies gathered from afar. But this stupendous fragmentariness heightened the dreamlike strangeness of her bridal life. Dorothea had now been five weeks in Rome, and in the kindly mornings when autumn and winter seemed to go hand in hand like a happy aged couple, one of whom would presently survive in chiller loneliness, she had driven about at first with Mr. Cosobon, but of late chiefly with tantrip and their experienced courier. She had been led through the best galleries, had been taken to the chief points of view, and had been shown the grandest wins and the most glorious churches. And she had ended by often as choosing to drive out to the campagna where she could feel alone with the earth and sky away from the oppressive masquerade of ages in which her own life too seemed to become a mask with enigmatic costumes. To those who have looked at Rome with the quickening power of a knowledge which breeds a growing soul into all historic shapes and traces out the suppressed transitions which unite all contrasts, Rome may still be the spiritual center and interpreter of the world, but let them conceive one more historical contrast, the gigantic broken revelations of that imperial and papal city thrust abruptly on the notions of a girl who had been brought up in English and Swiss puritanism, fed on meager protestant histories and on art chiefly of the handscreen sort, a girl whose ardent nature turned all her small allowance of knowledge into principles, fusing her actions into their mould, and whose quick emotions gave the most abstract things the quality of a pleasure or a pain, a girl who had lately become a wife, and from the enthusiastic acceptance of untried duty found herself plunged in tumultuous preoccupation with her personal lot. The weight of unintelligible Rome might lie easily on bright nymphs to whom it formed a background for the brilliant picnic of Anglo-Foreign society, but Dorothea had no such defense against deep impressions. Ruins and basilicas, palaces and Colossae set in the midst of a sordid present where all that was living and warm-blooded seemed sunk in the deep degeneracy of a superstition divorced from reverence. The dimmer but yet eager titanic life gazing and struggling on walls and ceilings, the long vistas of white forms whose marble eyes seemed to hold the monotonous light of an alien world. All this vast wreck of ambitious ideals, sensuous and spiritual, mixed confusedly with the signs of breathing forgetfulness and degradation, at first jarred her as with an electric shock and then urged themselves on her with that ache belonging to a glut of confused ideas which check the flow of emotion. Forms both pale and glowing took possession of her young sense and fixed themselves in her memory even when she was not thinking of them, preparing strange associations which remained through her after years. Our moods are apt to bring with them images which succeeded each other like the magic lantern pictures of a dose and in certain states of dull, forlornness Dorothea all her life continued to see the vastness of St. Peter's, the huge, bronze canopy, the excited intention in the attitudes and garments of the prophets and evangelists in the mosaics above and the red drapery which was being hung for Christmas spreading itself everywhere like a disease of the retina. Not that this inward amazement of Dorothea's was anything very exceptional. Many souls in their young nudity are tumbled out among incongruities and left to find their feet among them while their elders go about their business. Nor can I suppose that when Mrs. Cosobon is discovered in a fit of weeping six weeks after her wedding the situation will be regarded as tragic. Some discouragement, some faintness of heart at the new real future which replaces the imaginary is not unusual and we do not expect people to be deeply moved by what is not unusual. That element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of frequency has not yet wrought itself into the coarse emotion of mankind and perhaps our frames could hardly bear much of it. If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heartbeat and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is the quickest of us walk about well-weighted with stupidity. However Dorothea was crying and if she had been required to state the cause she could only have done so in some such general words as I have already used. To have been driven to be more particular would have been like trying to give a history of the lights and shadows. For that new real future which was replacing the imaginary drew its material from the endless minutiae by which her view of Mr. Cosobon and her wifely relation now that she was married to him was gradually changing with the secret motion of a watch hand from what it had been in her maiden dream. It was too early yet for her fully to recognize or at least admit the change. Still more of her to have readjusted that devotedness which was so necessary a part of a mental life that she was almost sure sooner or later to recover it. Permanent rebellion the disorder of a life without some loving reverent resolve was not possible to her but she was now in an interval when the very force of her nature heightened its confusion. In this way the early months of marriage often are times of critical tumult whether that of a shrimp pool or of deeper waters which afterwards subsides into cheerful peace but was not Mr. Cosobon just as learned as before had his forms of expression changed or his sentiments become less laudable of wave-wordness of womanhood. Did his chronology fail him or his ability to state not only a theory but the names of those who held it or his provision for giving the heads of any subject on demand and was not Rome the place in all the world to give free play to such accomplishments besides had not Dorothea's enthusiasm especially dwelt on the prospect of relieving the weight and perhaps the sadness with which great tasks lie on him who has to achieve them and that such weight pressed on Mr. Cosobon was only planer than before. All these are crushing questions but whatever else remained the same the light had changed and you cannot find the pearly dawn at noon day. The fact is unalterable that a fellow mortal with whose nature you are acquainted solely through the brief entrances and exist of a few imaginative weeks called courtship may when seen in the continuity of married companionship be disclosed as something better or worse than what you have preconceived but will certainly not appear altogether the same and it would be astonishing to find how soon the changes felt if we had no kindred changes to compare with it. To share lodgings with a brilliant dinner companion or to see your favorite politician in the ministry may bring about changes quite as rapid. In these cases too we begin by knowing little and believing much and we sometimes end by inverting the quantities. Still such comparisons might mislead for no man was more incapable of flashy make-believe than Mr. Cosobon. He was as genuine a character as any ruminant animal and he had not actively assisted in creating any illusions about himself. How was it that in the weeks since her marriage Dorothea had not distinctly observed but felt with a stifling depression that the large vistas and wide fresh air which she had dreamed of finding in her husband's mind were replaced by anterooms and winding passages which seemed to lead no wither. I suppose it was that in courtship everything is regarded as provisional and preliminary and the smallest sample of virtue or accomplishment is taken to guarantee delightful stores which the broad leisure of marriage will reveal but the dorsal of marriage once crossed expectation is concentrated on the present. Having once embarked on your marital voyage it is impossible not to be aware that you make no way and that the sea is not within sight. That in fact you are exploring an enclosed basin. In their conversation before marriage Mr. Cosobon had often dwelt on some explanation or questionable detail of which Dorothea did not see the bearing but such imperfect coherence seemed due to the brokenness of their intercourse and supported by her faith in their future she had listened with fervid patience to a recitation of possible arguments to be brought against Mr. Cosobon's entirely new view of the Philistine god Dagon and other fish deities thinking that hereafter she should see the subject which touched him so nearly from the same high ground when stoutless it had become so important to him. Again the matter of course statement and tone of dismissal with which he treated what to her where the most stirring thoughts was easily accounted for as belonging to the sense of haste and preoccupation in which she herself shared during their engagement but now since they had been in Rome with all the depths of her emotion roused to tumultuous activity and with life made a new problem by new elements she had been becoming more and more aware with a certain terror that her mind was continually sliding into inward fits of anger and repulsion or else into forlorn weariness. How far the judicious hooker or any other hero of erudition would have been the same at Mr. Cosobon's time of life she had no means of knowing so that he could not have the advantage of comparison but her husband's way of commenting on the strangely impressive objects around them had begun to affect her with the sort of mental shiver he had perhaps the best intention of acquitting himself worthy but only of acquitting himself what was fresh to her mind was worn out to his and such capacity of thought and feeling as had ever been stimulated in him by the general life of mankind had long shrunk to a sort of dried preparation a lifeless embalmment of knowledge when he said does this interest you Dorothea shall we stay a little longer I'm ready to stay if you wish it it seemed to her as if going or staying were alike dreary or should you like to go to the farnex in a Dorothea it contains celebrated frescoes designed or painted by Raphael which most persons think it worthwhile to visit but do you care about them was always Dorothea's question they are I believe highly esteemed some of them represent the fable of cupid and psych which is probably the romantic invention of a literary period and cannot I think be reconned as a genuine mythical product but if you like these wall paintings we can easily drive didder and you will then I think have seen the chief works of Raphael any of which it were a pity to omit in a visit to Rome he is the painter who has been held to combine the most complete grace of form with sublimity of expression such at least I have gathered to be the opinion of cognoscenti this kind of answer given in a measured official tone as of a clergyman reading according to the rubric did not help to justify the glories of the eternal city or to give her the hope that if she knew more about them the world would be joyously illuminated for her there is hardly any contact more depressing to a young ardent creature than that of a mind in which years full of knowledge seemed to have issued in a blank absence of interest or sympathy on other subjects indeed mr. Kossamon showed a tenacity of occupation and an eagerness which are usually regarded as the effect of enthusiasm and Dorothea was anxious to follow this spontaneous direction of his thoughts instead of being made to feel that she dragged him away from it but she was gradually seizing to expect with her former delightful confidence that she should see any wide opening where she followed him poor mr. Kossamon himself was lost among small closets and winding stairs and in an agitated dimness about the cabaret or in an exposure of other mythologists ill-considered parallels easily lost sight of any purpose which had prompted him to these labours with his taper stuck before him he forgot the absence of windows and in bitter manuscript remarks on the other men's notions about the solar deities he had become indifferent to the sunlight these characteristics fixed and unchangeable as born in mr. Kossamon might have remained longer unfelt by Dorothea if she had been encouraged to pour forth her girlish and womanly feeling if he would have held her hands between his and listened with the delight of tenderness and understanding to all the little histories which made up her experience and would have given her the same sort of intimacy in return so that the past life of each could be included in their mutual knowledge and affection or if she could have fed her affection with those childlike caresses which are the bent of every sweet woman who has begun by sharring kisses on the hard pit of her bald doll creating a happy soul within that woodenness from the wealth of her own love that was Dorothea's bent with all her yearning to know what was afar from her and to be widely benignant she had ardor enough for what was near to have kissed mr. Kossamon's coat sleeve or to have caressed his shoe latchet if he would have made any other sign of acceptance than pronouncing her with his unfailing propriety to be of a most affectionate and truly feminine nature indicating at the same time by politely reaching a chair for her that he regarded these manifestations as rather crude and startling having made his clerical toilet with due care in the morning he was prepared only for those amenities of life which were suited to the well adjusted stiff cravat of the period and to a mind weighted with unpublished matter and by a sad contradiction Dorothea's ideas and resolves seemed like melting ice floating and lost in the warm flood of which they had been but another form she was humiliated to find herself a mere victim of feeling as if she could know nothing except through that medium all her strength was scattered in fits of agitation of struggle of despondency and then again in visions of more complete renunciation transforming all hard conditions into duty poor Dorothea she was certainly troublesome to herself chiefly but this morning for the first time she had been troublesome to mr. Kossamon she had begun while they were taking coffee with a determination to shake off what she inwardly called her selfishness and turned a face all cheerful attention to her husband when he said my dear Dorothea we must now think of all that is yet left undone as a preliminary to our departure i would feign have returned home earlier that we might have been at low wick for the christmas but my inquiries here have been protracted beyond their anticipated period i trust however that the time here has not been passed unpleasantly to you among the sites of europe that of Rome has ever been held one of the most striking and in some respects edifying i will remember that i considered it an epoch in my life when i visited it for the first time after the fall of napoleon an event which opened the continent to travelers indeed i think it is one among several cities to which an extreme hyperbole has been applied see rome and die but in your case i propose an invitation and say see rome as a bride and live henceforth as a happy wife mr. Kossamon pronounced this little speech with the most conscientious intention blinking a little and swaying his head up and down and concluding with a smile he had not found marriage a rapturous state but he had no idea of being anything else than an irreproachable husband who would make a charming young woman as happy as she deserved to be i hope you are thoroughly satisfied with her stay i mean with the results so far as your studies are concerned said dorothea trying to keep her mind fixed on what most affected her husband yes said mr. Kossamon with that peculiar pitch of voice which makes the word half a negative i have been led farther than i had foreseen and various subjects for annotation have presented themselves which though i have no direct need of them i could not pre-term it the task notwithstanding the assistance of my amenuensis has been a somewhat laborious one but your society has happily prevented me from that two continuous prosecution of thought beyond the hours of study which has been the snare of my solitary life i'm very glad that my presence has made any difference to you said dorothea who had a vivid memory of evenings in which she had supposed that mr. Kossamon's mind had gone too deep during the day to be able to get to the surface again i fear there was a little temper in her reply i hope when we get to lovik i shall be more useful to you and be able to enter a little more into what interests you doubtless my dear said mr. Kossamon with a slight bow the notes i have here made will want sifting and you can if you please extract them under my direction and all your notes said dorothea whose heart had already burned within her on this subject so that now she could not help speaking with her tongue all those rows of volumes will you not now do what you used to speak of will you not make up your mind what part of them you will use and begin to write the book which will make your vast knowledge useful to the world i will write to your dictation or i will copy and extract what you tell me i can be of no other use dorothea in a most unaccountable darkly feminine manner ended with a slight sob and eyes full of tears the excessive feeling manifested would alone have been highly disturbing to mr. kossamon but there were other reasons why dorothea's words were among the most cutting and irritating to him that she could have been impelled to use she was as blind to his inward troubles as he to hers she had not yet learned those hidden conflicts in her husband which claim our pity she had not yet listened patiently to his heart beats but only felt that her own was beating violently in mr. kossamon's ear dorothea's voice gave loud emphatic iteration to those muffled suggestions of consciousness which it was possible to explain as mere fancy the illusion of exaggerated sensitiveness always when such suggestions are unmistakably repeated from without they are resisted as cruel and unjust we are angered even by the full acceptance of our humiliating confessions how much more by hearing in hard distinct syllables from the lips of a near observer those confused murmurs which we try to call morbid and strive against as if they were the oncoming of numbness and this cruel outward accuser was there in the shape of a wife nay of a young bride who instead of observing his abundant pen scratches and amplitude of paper with the uncritical awe of an elegant minded canary bird seemed to present herself as a spy watching everything with a malign power of inference here towards this particular point of the compass mr. kossamon had a sensitiveness to match dorothea's and an equal quickness to imagine more than the fact he had formally observed with the approbation her capacity for worshiping the right object he now foresaw with sudden terror that his capacity might be replaced by presumption this worship by the most exasperating of all criticism that which sees vaguely a great many finance and is not the least notion what it costs to reach them for the first time since dorothea had known him mr. kossamon's face had a quick angry flush upon it my love he said with irritation reigned in by propriety you may rely upon me for knowing the times and the seasons adapted to the different stages of a work which is not to be measured by the facile conjectures of ignorant onlookers it had been easy for me to gain a temporary effect by a mirage of baseless opinion but it is ever the trial of this cripplest explorer to be saluted with the impatient scorn of chatterers who attempt only the smallest achievements being indeed equipped for no other and it were well if all such could be admonished to discriminate judgments of which the true subject matter lies entirely beyond their reach from those of which the elements may be compassed by a narrow and superficial survey the speech was delivered with an energy and readiness quite unusual with mr. kossamon it was not indeed entirely an improvisation but had taken shape in inward colloquy and rushed out like the round grains from a fruit when sudden heat cracks it dorothea was not only his wife she was a personification of that shallow world which surrounds the appreciated or desponding author dorothea was indignant in her turn had she not been repressing everything in herself except the desire to enter into some fellowship with her husband's chief interests my judgment was a very superficial one such as i am capable of forming she answered with a prompt resentment that needed no rehearsal you showed me the rows of notebooks you have often spoken of them you have often said that they wanted digesting but i never heard you speak of the writing that is to be published those were very simple facts and my judgment meant no farther i only begged you to let me be of some good to you dorothea rose to leave the table and mr. kossamon made no reply taking up a letter which lay beside him as if to reproduce it both were shocked at their mutual situation that each should have betrayed anger towards the other if they had been at home settled at lovik in ordinary life among their neighbors the clash would have been less embarrassing but on a wedding journey the express object of which is to isolate two people on the ground that they are all the worlds to each other the sense of disagreement is to say the least confounding and stultifying to have changed your longitude extensively and placed yourself in a moral solitude in order to have small explosions to find conversation difficult and to hand a glass of water without looking can hardly be regarded as satisfactory fulfillment even to the toughest minds to dorothea's inexperience sensitiveness it seemed like a catastrophe changing all prospects and to mr. kossamon it was a new pain he never having been on a wedding journey before or found himself in that close union which was more of a subjection than he had been able to imagine since this charming young bride not only obliged him to much consideration on her behalf which he had sedulously given but turned out to be capable of agitating him cruelly just where he most needed soothing instead of getting a soft fence against the cold shadowy and a plosive audience in his life had he only given it a more substantial presence neither of them felt it possible to speak again at present who have reversed a previous arrangement and declined to go out would have been a show of persistent anger which dorothea's conscience shrank from seeing that she already began to feel herself guilty however just her indignation might be her ideal was not to claim justice but to give tenderness so when the carriage came to the door she drove with mr. kossamon to the Vatican walked with him through the stony avenue of inscriptions and when she parted with him at the entrance to the library went on through the museum out of mere listlessness as to what was around her she had not spirit to turn around and say that she would drive anywhere it was when mr. kossamon was quitting her that no man had first seen her and he had entered the long gallery of sculpture at the same time with her but here no man had to await ladislaw with whom he was to settle a bet of champagne about an enigmatic medieval looking figure there after they had examined the figure and had walked on finishing their dispute they had parted ladislaw lingering behind while no man had gone into the hall of statues where he again saw dorothea and saw her in that pruding abstraction which made her pose remarkable she did not really see the streak of sunlight on the floor more than she saw the statues she was inwardly seeing the light of years to come in her own home and over the english fields and elms and hedge bordered high roads and feeling that the way in which they might be filled with joyful divertedness was not so clear to her as it had been but in dorothea's mind there was a current into which all thought and feeling were apt sooner or later to flow the reaching forward of the whole consciousness towards the fullest truth the least partial good there was clearly something better than anger and despondency end of chapter 20 recording by red abriss january 2008 chapter 21 of middle march this is a lubervox recording all libervox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libervox.org middle march by george elliott chapter 21 high for condo at full womanly and plain no contraveted terms had she to seem unwise chaucer it was in that way dorothea came to be sobbing as soon as she was securely alone but she was presently roused by a knock at the door which made her hastily dry her eyes before saying come in tantrip had brought a card and said that there was a gentleman waiting in the lobby the courier had told him that only mrs. casabon was at home but he said he was a relation of mr casabons would she see him yes said dorothea without pause show him into the salon her chief impressions about young ladders law were that when she had seen him at lowic she had been made aware of mr. casabon's generosity towards him and also that she had been interested in his own hesitation about his career she was alive to anything that gave her an opportunity for active sympathy and at this moment it seemed as if the visit had come to shake her out have herself absorbed discontent to remind her of her husband's goodness and make her feel that she had now the right to be his helpmate in all kind needs she waited a minute or two but when she passed into the next room there were just signs enough that she had been crying to make her open face look more youthful and appealing than usual she met ladders law with that exquisite smile of goodwill which is unmixed with vanity and held out a hand to him he was the elder by several years but at that moment he looked much the younger through his transparent complexion flushed suddenly and he spoke with a shyness extremely unlike the ready indifference of his manner with his male companion while dorothea became all the calmer with the one dream desire to put him at ease i was not aware that you and mr. catabon were in rome until this morning when i saw you in the Vatican museum he said i knew you at once but i mean that i concluded mr. catabon's address would be found at the post iris stanti and i was anxious to pay my respects to him and knew as early as possible pray sit down he is not here now but he will be glad to hear of you i am sure said dorothea seating herself unthinkingly between the fire and the light of the tall window and pointing to a chair opposite with the quietude of a benign and matron the signs of girlish sorrow in her face were only the more striking mr. catabon is much engaged but you will leave your address will you not and he will write to you you are very good said ladislaw beginning to lose his dividends in the interest with which he was observing the signs of weeping which had altered her face my address is on my card but if you will allow me i will call again tomorrow at an hour when mr. catabon is likely to be at home he goes to read in the library of the Vatican every day and you can hardly see him except by an appointment especially now we are about to leave Rome and he is very busy he is usually away almost from breakfast till dinner but i am sure he will wish you to dine with us will ladislaw was struck mute for a few moments he had never been fond of mr. catabon and if it had not been for the sense of obligation would have laughed at him as a bat of erudition but the idea of this dried-up pedant this elaborator of small explanations are they are as important as the surplus stock of false antiquities kept in a vendor's back chamber having first got this adorable young creature to marry him and then passing his honeymoon away from her groping after his moldy futilities will was given to hyper bowl this sudden picture stirred him with a sort of comic disgust he was divided between the impulse to laugh aloud and the equally unseasonable impulse to burst into scornful inventive for an instant he felt that the struggle was causing a clear contortion of his mobile features that with a good effort he resolved it into nothing more offensive than a merry smile dorothea wondered that the smile was irresistible and shone back from her face too will ladislaw's smile was delightful unless you were angry with him beforehand it was a gush of inward light illuminating the transparent skin as well as the eyes and playing about every curve and line as if some aerial were touching them with a new charm and vanishing forever the traces of moodiness the reflection of that smile could not but have a little merriment in it too even under dark eyelashes still moist as dorothea said inquiringly something amuses you yes said will quick in finding resources i am thinking of the sort of figure i cut the first time i saw you when you annihilated my poor sketch with your criticism my criticism said dorothea wondering still more surely not i always feel particularly ignorant about painting i suspected you of knowing so much that you knew how to say just what was most cutting you said i dare say you don't remember it as i do that the relation of my sketch to nature was quite hidden from you at least you implied that we will could laugh now as well as smile that was really my ignorance said dorothea admiring will's good humor i must have said so only because i never could see any beauty in the pictures which my uncle told me all judges thought very fine and i have gone away which is the same ignorance in rome there are comparatively few paintings that i can really enjoy at first when i enter a room where the walls are covered with frescoes or with rare pictures i feel a kind of awe like a child present at great ceremonies where there are grain robes and processions i feel myself in the presence of some higher life than my own but when i begin to examine the pictures one by on the life goes out of them or else is something violent and strange to me it must be my own dullness i am seeing so much all at once and not understanding half of it that always makes one feel stupid it is painful to be told that anything is very fine and not be able to feel that it is fine something like being blind while people talk of the sky oh there is a great deal in the feeling for art which must be acquired said will it was impossible now to doubt the directness of dorothea's confession art is an old language with a great many artificial affected styles and sometimes the chief pleasure one gets out of knowing them is the mere sense of knowing i enjoy the art of all sorts here immensely but i suppose if i could pick my enjoyment to pieces i should find it made up of many different threads there is something endorbing a little one self and having an idea of the process you mean perhaps to be a painter said dorothea with the new direction of interest you mean to make painting your profession mr. chazabon will like to hear that you have chosen a profession oh oh no said will with some coldness i have quite made up my mind against it it is too one-sided alive i have been seeing a great deal at the german artists here i traveled from frankfurt with one of them some are fine even brilliant fellows but i should not like to get into their way of looking at the world entirely from the studio point of view that i can understand said dorothea quarterly and in rome it seems as if there were so many things which are more wanted in the world than pictures but if you have a genius for painting would it not be right to take that as a guide perhaps you might do better things than these all different so that there might not be so many pictures almost all alike in the same place there was no mistaking this simplicity and will was won by it into frankness a man must have a very rare genius to make changes of that sort i am afraid mine would not carry me even to the picture of doing well what has been done already at least not so well as to make it worthwhile and i should never succeed in anything by dint or drudgery if things don't come easily to me i never get them i have heard mr kuzabon say that he regrets your want of patience said dorothea gently she was rather shocked at this mode of taking all life as a holiday yes i know mr kuzabon's opinion he and i did the the slight streak of content in his hasty reply offended dorothea she was all the more susceptible about mr kuzabon because of her morning's trouble certainly you did the she said rather proudly i did not think of comparing you such power of persevering devoted labor as mr kuzabon's is not common will saw that she was offended but this only gave an additional impulse to the new irritation of his latent dislike towards mr kuzabon it was too intolerable that dorothea should be worshiping this husband such weakness in a woman is pleasant to no man but the husband in question mortals are easily tempted to pinch the life out of the neighbor's buzzing glory and think that such killing is no murder no indeed he answered promptly and therefore it is a pity that it should be thrown away as so much english scholarship is for want of knowing what is being done by the rest of the world if mr kuzabon read german he would save himself a great deal of trouble i do not understand you said dorothea startled and anxious i merely mean said will in an offhand way that the Germans have taken the lead in historical inquiries and they laugh at results which are got by groping about inwards with a pocket compass while they have made good roads when i was with mr kuzabon i saw that he'd deafened himself in that direction it was almost against his will that he read a latin presides written by a german i was very sorry will only thought of giving a good pinch that would annihilate that faunted laboriousness and was unable to imagine the mode in which dorothea would be wounded young mr ladisthor was not at all deep himself in german writers but very little achievement is required in order to pity another man's shortcomings poor dorothea felt a pang at the thought that the labor of her husband's life might be void which left her no energy to spare for the question whether this young relative who was so much obliged to him ought not to have repressed his observation she did not even speak but sat looking at her hands absorbed in the piteousness of that thought will however having given the annihilating pinch was rather ashamed imagining from dorothea's silence that he had offended her still more and having also a conscience about plucking the tail feathers from a benefactor i regretted it especially he resumed taking the usual course from detraction to insecure eulogy because of my gratitude and respect towards my cousin i would not signify so much in a man whose talents and character were less distinguished dorothea raised her eyes brighter than usual with excited feeling and said in her saddest recitative how i wish i had learned german when i was at lasagne there were plenty of german teachers that now i can be of no use there was a new light but still a mysterious light for will in dorothea's last words the question how she had come to accept mr casabon which he had dismissed when he first saw her by saying that she must be disagreeable in spite of appearances was not now to be answered on any such short and easy method whatever else she might be she was not disagreeable she was not coldly clever and indirectly satirical but adorably simple and full of feeling she was an angel for gold it would be a unique delight to wait and watch for the melodious fragments in which her heart and soul came forth so directly and ingeniously the alien half again came into his mind she must have made some original romance for herself in this marriage and if mr casabon had been a dragon who had carried her off to his lair with his talents simply and without legal forms it would have been an unavoidable feat of heroism to release her and fall at her feet but he was something more unmanageable than a dragon he was a benefactor with collective society at his back and he was at that moment entering the room in all the unimpeachable correctness of his dominion while dorothea was looking animated with the newly roused alarm and regret and will was looking animated with his admiring speculation about her feelings mr casabon felt a surprise which was quite unmixed with pleasure but he did not swerve from his usual politeness of greeting when will rose and explained his presence mr casabon was less happy than usual and this perhaps made him look all the dimmer and more faded else the effect might easily have been produced by the contrast of his young cousins appearance the first impression on seeing will was one of sunny brightness which added to the uncertainty of his changing expression surely his very features changed their form his jaw looked sometimes large and sometimes small and the little ripple in his nose was a preparation for metamorphosis when he turned his head quickly his hair seemed to shake out light and some persons thought they saw decided genius in this crustacean mr casabon on the contrary stood braless as dorothea's eyes were turned anxiously on her husband she was perhaps not insensible to the contrast but it was only mingled with other causes in making her more conscious of that new alarm on his behalf which was the first stirring of a pitting tenderness fed by the realities of his lot and not by her own dreams yet it was a source of greater freedom to her that will was there his young equality was agreeable and also perhaps his openness to conviction she felt an immense need of someone to speak to and she had never before seen anyone who seemed so quick and pliable so likely to understand everything mr casabon gravely hoped that will was passing his time properly as well as pleasantly in rome had thought his intention was to remain in south germany effect him to come and die in tomorrow when he could converse more at large at present he was somewhat weary ladders law understood and accepting the invitation immediately took his leave dorothea's eyes followed her husband anxiously while he sunk down wearily at the end of a sofa and resting his elbow supported his head and looked on the floor a little flushed and with bright eyes she seated herself beside him and said the kidney for speaking so hastily to you this morning i was wrong i fear i hurt you and made the day more burdensome i am glad that you feel that my dear said mr casabon he spoke quietly and bowed his head a little but there was still an uneasy feeling in his eyes as he looked at her but you do forgive me said dorothea with a quick salt in her need for some manifestation of feeling she was ready to exaggerate her own fault would not love see returning penitence afar off and fall on its neck and kiss it my dear dorothea who with repentance is not satisfied is not of heaven nor earth you do not think me worthy to be banished by that severe sentence said mr casabon exerting himself to make a strong statement and also to smile faintly dorothea was silent but a tear which would come up with the sob would insist on falling you are excited my dear and i also am feeling some unpleasant consequences of too much mental disturbance said mr casabon in fact he had it any thought to tell her that she ought not to have received young ladderslaw in his absence but he abstained partly from the sense that it would be ungracious to bring a new complaint in the moment of a penitent acknowledgement partly because he wanted to avoid further agitation of himself by speech and partly because he was too proud to betray that jealousy of disposition which was not so exhausted on his scholarly compares that there was none to spare in other directions there is a sort of jealousy which needs very little fire it is hardly a passion but a blightbread in the cloudy damp despondency of uneasy egotism i think it is time for us to dress he added looking at his watch they both rose and there was never any further illusion between them to what had passed on this day but dorothea remembered it to the last with the vividness with which we all remember epochs in our experience when some dear expectation dies or some new motive is born today she had begun to see that she had been under a wild illusion in expecting a response to her feeling for mr casabon and she had felt the waking of a presentiment that there might be a sad consciousness in his life which made as great a need on his side as on her own we are all of us born in moral stupidity taking the world as another to feed our supreme selves dorothea had early begun to emerge from that stupidity but yet it had been easier to her to imagine how she would devote herself to mr casabon and become wise and strong in his strength and wisdom than to conceive with that distinctness which is no longer reflection but feeling an idea brought back to the directness of sense like the solidity of objects that he had an equivalent center of self whence the lights and shadows must always fall with a certain difference end of chapter 21 chapter 22 of middle march this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox.org middle march by george aleat chapter 22 nor cause a may long temps el etet simple abon ni se shun par lamel el versa li bien de richeses du corps el mi fit lamon etut end accountant com le cure si don san's ossary pensy jay lou donnell le mian el importer ma vie a nin su yamara riem el prudy masat will latest law was delightfully agreeable at dinner the next day and gave no opportunity for mr. casabon to show disapprobation on the contrary it seemed to dorothea that will had a happier way of drawing her husband into conversation and of differentially listening to him that she had ever observed in anyone before to be sure the listeners of our tipton were not highly gifted will talked a great deal himself but what he said was thrown in with such rapidity and was such an unimportant air of saying something by the way that it seemed again little chime after the great bell if will was not always perfect this was certainly one of his good days he described touches of incident among the poor people in Rome only to be seen by one who could move about freely he found himself in agreement with mr. casabon as to the unsound opinions of middleton concerning the relations of judicism and Catholicism and passed easily to a half enthusiastic half playful picture at the enjoyment he got out of the very miscellaneousness of Rome which made the mind flexible with constant comparison and saved you from seeing the world's ages as a set of box like partitions without vital connection mr. casabon's studies will observed had always been of too broader kind of that and he had perhaps never felt any such sudden effect but for himself he confessed that Rome had given him quite a new sense of history as a whole the fragments stimulated his imagination and made him constructive then occasionally but not too often he appealed to Dorothea and discussed what she said as if her sentiment were an item to be considered in the final judgment even of the Madonna default no or the leia cum a sense of contributing to form the world's opinion makes conversation particularly cheerful and mr. Casabon too was not without his pride any young wife who spoke better than most women as indeed he had perceived in choosing her since things were going on so pleasantly mr. Casabon statement that his labors in the library would be suspended for a couple of days and that after brief renewal he should have no further reason for staying in Rome encouraged will to urge that mrs. Casabon should not go away without seeing a studio or two would not mr. Casabon take her that sort of thing or not to be missed it was quite special it was a form of life that grew like a small fresh vegetation with its population of insects on huge fossils will would be happy to conduct them not to anything wearisome only to a few examples mr. Casabon seeing Dorothea look earnestly towards him could not ban ask her if she would be interested in such visits he was now at her service during the whole day and it was agreed that will should come on the morrow and drive with them will could not admit Thor Waltson a living celebrity about whom even mr. Casabon inquired but before the day was far advanced he led the way to the studio of his friend Adolf Newman whom he mentioned as one of the chief renovators of Christian art one of those who had not only revived but expanded that grand conception of supreme events as mysteries at which the successive ages were spectators and in relation to which the great souls of all periods became as if were contemporaries will added that he had made himself Newman's pupil for the nonce I have been making some oil sketches under him said will I hate copying I must put something of my own in Newman has been painting the saints drawing the car of the church and I have been making a sketch of Marlowe's tambourine driving the conquered kings in his chariot I am not so ecclesiastical as Newman and I sometimes tweet him with his excess of meaning but this time I mean to out do him in breadth of intention I take tambourine in his chariot for the tremendous course of the world's physical history lashing on the harness dynasties in my opinion that is a good mythical interpretation Will here looked at Mr. Cazabon who received this of hand treatment of symbolism very uneasily and bowed with a neutral air the sketch must be very grand if it conveys so much said Dorothea I should need some explanation even of the meaning you give do you intend tambourine to represent earthquakes and volcanoes oh yes said will laughing and migrations of races and clearings of forests and America and the steam engine everything you can imagine what a difficult kind of shorthand said Dorothea smiling towards her husband it would require all your knowledge to be able to read it Mr. Cazabon blinked furtively at will he had a suspicion that he was being laughed at but it was not possible to include Dorothea in the suspicion they found Newman painting industriously but no model was present his pictures were advantageously arranged and his own plain vivacious person set off by a dull colored blouse and a maroon velvet cap so that everything was as fortunate as if he had expected the beautiful young English lady exactly at that time the painter in his confident English gave little dissertations on his finished and unfinished subjects seeming to observe Mr. Cazabon as much as he did Dorothea will burst in here and there with ardent words of praise marking out particular merits in his friend's work and Dorothea felt that she was getting quite new notions as to the significance of Madonna's seated under inexplicable canopy thrones with the simple country as a background and of saints with architectural models in their hands all knives accidentally wedged in their skulls some things which had seemed monstrous to her were gathering intelligibility and even a natural meaning but all this was apparently a branch of knowledge in which Mr. Cazabon had not interested himself I think I would rather feel that painting is beautiful than have to read it as an enigma but I should learn to understand these pictures sooner than yours with the very wide meaning said Dorothea speaking to Will don't speak of my painting before Newman said Will he will tell you it is all fissure which is his most uproperious word is that true said Dorothea turning her sincere eyes on Newman who made a slight grimace and said oh he does not mean it seriously with painting his war must be ballet lettery that is why Newman's pronunciation of the vowel seemed to stretch the words satirically Will did not half like it but managed to laugh and Mr. Cazabon while he felt some disgust at the artist's German accent began to entertain a little respect for his judicious severity the respect was not diminished when Newman after drawing Will aside for a moment and looking first at a large canvas then it Mr. Cazabon came forward again and said my friend Ladislaw thinks you will pardon me sir if I say that a sketch of your head would be invaluable to me for the St. Thomas Aquino in my picture there it is too much to ask that I so seldom see just what I want the idealistic in the real you astonish me greatly sir said Mr. Cazabon his looks improved with the glow of delight but if my poor physiognomy which I have been accustomed to regard as of the commoner's daughter can be of any use to you in furnishing some traits for the angelical doctor I shall feel honoured that is to say if the operation will not be a lengthy one and if Mrs. Cazabon will not object to the delay as for Dorothea nothing could have pleased her more unless it had been a miraculous voice pronouncing Mr. Cazabon the wisest and worthiest among the sons of men in that case her tottering faith would have become firm again Newman's apparatus was at hand in wonderful completeness and the sketch went on at once as well as the conversation Dorothea sat down and subsided into calm silence feeling happier than she had done for a long while before everyone about her seemed good and she said to herself that Rome if she had only been less ignorant would have been full of beauty its sadness would have been winged with hope no nature could be less suspicious than hers when she was a child she believed in the gratitude of wasps and the honorable susceptibility of sparrows and was proportionately indignant when their baseness was made manifest the adroit artist was asking Mr. Cazabon questions about English polities which brought long answers and will meanwhile had perched himself on some steps in the background overlooking all presently Newman said now if I could lay this by for half an hour and take it up again come and look latter thought I think it is perfect so far will vent at those enduring interjections which imply that admiration is too strong for syntax and Newman said in a tone of piteous regret are now if I could but have had more that you have other engagements I could not ask it or even to come again tomorrow oh let us stay said Dorothea we have nothing to do today except go about have we she added looking entreatingly at Mr. Cazabon it would be a pity not to make the head as good as possible I am at your service sir in the matter said Mr. Cazabon with polite condescension having given up the interior of my head to idleness it is as well but the exterior should work in this way you are unspeakably good now I am happy said Newman and then went on in German to will pointing here and there to the sketch as if he were considering that putting it aside for a moment he looked round vaguely as if seeking some occupation for his visitors and afterwards turning to Mr. Cazabon said perhaps the beautiful bride the gracious lady would not be unwilling to let me fill up the time by trying to make a slight sketch of her not of course as you see for that picture only as a single study Mr. Cazabon bowing doubted not that Mrs. Cazabon would oblige him and Dorothea said at once where shall I put myself Newman was all apologies in asking her to stand and allow him to adjust her attitude to which she submitted without any of the affected airs and laughs frequently thought necessary on such occasions when the painter said it is a Santa Clara that I want you to stand leaning so with your cheek against your hand so looking at that still please so will was divided between the inclination to fall at the saint's feet and kiss her robe and the temptation to knock Newman down while he was adjusting her arm all this was impudence and desecration and he repented that he had brought her the artist was diligent and will recovering himself moved about and occupied Mr. Cazabon as ingeniously as he could but he did not in the end prevent the time from seeming on to that gentleman as was clear from his expressing a fear that Mrs. Cazabon would be tired Newman took the hint and said now sir if you can oblige me again I will release the lady white so Mr. Cazabon's patience held out further and when after all it turned out that the head of Saint Thomas Aquina would be more perfect if another sitting could be had it was granted for the morrow on the morrow Santa Clara too was retouched more than once the result of all was so far from displeasing to Mr. Cazabon that he arranged for the purchase of the picture in which Saint Thomas Aquina sat among the doctors of the church in a disputation too abstract to be represented but listened to with more or less attention by an audience above the Santa Clara which was spoken of in the second place Newman declared himself to be dissatisfied with he could not in conscience engage to make a worthy picture of it so about the Santa Clara the arrangement was conditional I will not dwell on Newman's jokes at the expense of Mr. Cazabon that evening or on his ditty rams about Dorothy's charm in all which will join but with a difference no sooner did Newman mention any detail of Dorothy's beauty than will got exasperated at his presumption there was grossness in his voice at the most ordinary words and what business had he to talk of her lips she was not a woman to be spoken of as other women were will could not say just what he thought but he became irritable and yet when after some resistance he had consented to take the Cazabons to his friend's studio he had been allured by the gratification of his pride in being the person who could grant Newman such an opportunity of studying her loveliness or rather her divineness that the ordinary phrases which might apply to mere bodily prettiness were not applicable to her certainly all Tipton and its neighborhood as well as Dorothy herself would have been surprised at her beauty being made so much old in that part of the world miss Brooke had been only a fine young woman oblige me by letting the subject drop Newman Mrs. Cazabon is not to be talked of as if she were a model said will Newman stared at him she got I will talk of my quinae the head is not a bad type after all I dare say the great scholastic himself would have been flattered to have his portrait asked for nothing like these duchy doctors for vanity it was as I thought he cared much less for her portrait than his own his accursed white-blooded pedantic cox cone said will with gnashing in petuicity his obligations to Mr. Cazabon were not known to his hero but will himself was thinking of them and wishing that he could discharge them all by a check Newman gave a shrug and said it is good they go away soon my dear they are spoiling your fine temper all will hope and contrivance we're now concentrated on seeing Dorothea when she was alone he only wanted her to take more emphatic notice of him he only wanted to be something more special in her remembrance that he could yet believe himself likely to be he was rather impatient under that open ardent goodwill reach he saw was her usual state of feeling the remote worship of a woman thrown out at their reach plays a great part in men's lives but in most cases the worshipper longs for some queenly recognition some approving sign by which he sold sovereign may cheer him without descending from her high place that was precisely what will wanted but there were plenty of contradictions in his imaginative demands it was beautiful to see how Dorothea's eyes turned with widely anxiety and beseeching to Mr. Cazabon she would have lost some of her halo if she had been without the duties preoccupation and yet at the next moment the husband's sandy absorption of such nectar was too intolerable and wills longing to say damaging things about him was perhaps not the less tormenting because he felt the strongest reasons for restraining it will had not been invited to dine the next day hence he persuaded himself that he was bound to call and that the only eligible time was the middle of the day when Mr. Cazabon would not be at home Dorothea who had not been made aware that her former reception of will had displeased her husband had no hesitation about seeing him especially as he might become to pay a farewell visit when he entered she was looking at some cameos which she had been buying for Celia she greeted will as if his visit were quite a matter of course and said at once having a cameo bracelet in her hand i am so glad you are come perhaps you understand all about cameos and can tell me if these are really good i wished to have you with us choosing them but mr. Cazabon objected he thought there was not time he will finish his work tomorrow and we shall go away in three days i have been uneasy about these cameos pray sit down and look at them i am not particularly knowing but there can be no great mistake about these little homeric bits they are exquisitely neat and the color is fine it will just suit you oh they are for my sister who has quite a different complexion you saw her with me at Loic she is light-haired and very pretty at least i think so we were never so long away from each other in our lives before she is a great pet and never was naughty in her life i found out before i came away that she wanted me to buy her some cameos and i should be sorry for them not to be good after their kind dorothea added the last words with a smile you seem not to care about cameos said will seating himself at some distance from her and observing her while she closed the cases no frankly i don't think them a great object in life said dorothea i fear you are a heretic about art generally how is that i should have expected you to be very sensitive to the beautiful everywhere i suppose i am dull about many things said dorothea simply i should like to make life beautiful i mean everybody's life and then all this immense expense of art that seems somehow to lie outside life and make it no better for the world pains one it spoils my enjoyment of anything when i am made to think that most people are shut out from it i call that fanaticism of sympathy said will impetuously you might say the same of landscape of poetry of all refinement if you carried it out you ought to be miserable in your own goodness and turn evil that you might have no advantage over others the best party is to enjoy when you can you are doing the most then to save the earth's character as an agreeable planet and enjoyment radiates it is of no use to try and take care of all the will that is being taken care of when you feel delight in art or in anything else would you turn all the youth of the world into a tragic chorus wailing and moralizing over misery i suspect that you have some false belief in the virtues of misery and want to make your life a martyrdom will had gone further than he intended and checked himself but dorothea's thought was not taking just the same direction as his own and she answered without any special emotion indeed you mistake me i am not a sad melancholy creature i am never unhappy long together i am angry and naughty not like cilia i have a great outburst and then all seems glorious again i cannot help believing in glorious things in a blind sort of way i should be quite willing to enjoy the art here but there is so much that i don't know the reason of so much that seems to me a consecration of ugliness rather than beauty the painting and sculpture may be wonderful but the feeling is often low and brutal and sometimes even ridiculous here and there i see what takes me at once as noble something that i might compare with the urban mountains or the sunset from the pincean hill but that makes it the greater pity that there is so little of the best kind among all that mess of things over which men have toiled so of course there is always a great deal of poor work the rarer things want that soil to grow in oh dear said dorothea taking up that thought into the chief current of her anxiety i see it must be very difficult to do anything good i have often felt since i have been in Rome that most of our lives would look much uglier and more bungling than the pictures if they could be put on the wall dorothea parted her lips again as if she were going to say more but changed her mind and paused you are too young it is an anchorism for you to have such thoughts said will energetically with a quick shake of the head habitual to him you talk as if you had never known any youth it is monstrous as if you had had a vision of hades in your childhood like the boy in the legend you had been brought up in some of those horrible notions that choose the sweetest women to devour like minotaurs and now you will go and be shut up in that stone prison at lowick you will be buried alive it makes me savage to think of it i would rather never have seen you than think of you with such a prospect will again fear that he had gone too far but the meaning we attach to words depends on our feeling and his tone of angry regret had so much kindness in it for dorothea's heart which had always been giving out ardor and had never been fed with much from the living beings around her that she felt a new sense of gratitude and answered with a gentle smile it is very good of you to be anxious about me it is because you did not like lowick yourself you had set your heart on another kind of light but lowick is my chosen home the last sentence was spoken with an almost solemn condense and will did not know what to say since it would not be useful for him to embrace her slippers and tell her that he would dive for her it was clear that she required nothing of the sort and they were both silent for a moment or two when dorothea began again with an air of saying at last what had been in her mind beforehand I wanted to ask you again about something you said the other day perhaps it was half of it your lively way of speaking I noticed that you like to put things strongly I myself often exaggerate when I speak hastily what was it said will observing that she spoke with a timidity quite new in her I have a hyperbolical tongue it catches fire as it goes I dare say I shall have to retract I mean what you said about the necessity of knowing German I mean for the subjects that Mr. Cassabon is engaged in I have been thinking about it and it seems to me that with Mr. Cassabon's learning he must have before him the same materials as German scholars has he not Dorothea's timidity was due to an indistinct consciousness that she was in the strange situation of consulting a third party about the adequacy of Mr. Cassabon's learning not exactly the same materials said will thinking that he would be duly reserved he is not an orientalist you know he does not profess to have more than second-hand knowledge there but there are very valuable books about antiquities which were written a long while ago by scholars who knew nothing about these modern things and they are still used why should Mr. Cassabon's not be valuable like theirs said Dorothea with more remonstrant energy she was impelled to have the argument allowed which she had been having on her own mind that depends on the line of study taken said will also getting a tone of redrawing up the subject Mr. Cassabon has chosen is as changing as chemistry new discoveries are constantly making new points of view who wants a system on the basis of the four elements or a book to refute Paracelsus do you not see that it is no use now to be crawling a little way after men of the last century men like Bryant and correcting their mistakes living in a lumber room and fervishing up broken-legged theories about chas and miserable how can you bear to speak so lightly said Dorothea with a look between sorrow and anger if it were as you say what could be sadder than so much ardent labor all in vain I wonder it does not affect you more painfully if you really think that a man like Mr. Cassabon of so much goodness power and learning should in any way fail in what has been the labor of his best years she was beginning to be shocked that she had got to such a point of supposition and indignant with will for having led her to it you question me about the matter of fact not a feeling said will but if you wish to punish me for the fact I submit I am not in a position to express my feeling toward Mr. Cassabon it would be at best a pensioners eulogy pray excuse me said Dorothea coloring deeply I am aware as you say that I am in fault in having introduced the subject indeed I am wrong altogether failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure I quite agree with you said will determine to change the situation so much so that I have made up my mind not to run that risk of never attaining a failure Mr. Cassabon's generosity has perhaps been dangerous to me and I mean to renounce the liberty it has given me I mean to go back to England shortly and work my own way depend on nobody else than myself that is fine I respect that feeling said Dorothea with returning kindness but Mr. Cassabon I am sure has never thought of anything in the matter except what was most for your welfare she has obstinacy and pride enough to serve instead of love now she has married him said will to himself allowed he said rising I shall not see you again oh stay till Mr. Cassabon comes said Dorothea earnestly I am so glad we met in Rome I wanted to know you and I have made you angry said will I have made you think ill of me oh no my sister tells me I am always angry with people who do not say just what I like but I hope I am not given to think ill of them in the end I am usually obliged to think ill of myself for being so impatient still you don't like me I have made myself an unpleasant thought to you not at all said Dorothea with the most open kindness I like you very much will was not quite contented thinking that he would apparently have been more importance if he had been disliked he said nothing but looked dull not to say sulky and I am quite interested to see what you will do Dorothea went on cheerfully I believe devoutly in a natural difference of vocation if it were not for that belief I suppose I should be very narrow there are so many things besides painting that I am quite ignorant of you would hardly believe how little I have taken in a music and literature which you know so much of I wonder what your vocation will turn out to be perhaps you will be a poet that depends to be a poet is to have a soul so quick to discern that no shade of quality escapes it and so quick to feel that discernment is but a hand playing with finely ordered variety on the chords of emotion a soul in which knowledge passes instantaneously into feeling and feeling flashes back as a new organ of knowledge one may have that condition by fits only but you leave out the poems said Dorothea I think they are wanted to complete the poet I understand what you mean about knowledge passing into feeling for that seems to be just what I experienced but I am sure I could never produce a poem you are a poem and that is to be the best part of the poet what makes up the poet's consciousness in his best moods said will showing such originality as we all share with the morning and the springtime and other endless renewals I am very glad to hear it said Dorothea barking out her words in a birdlike modulation and looking at will with playful gratitude in her eyes what very kind things you say to me I wish I could ever do anything that would be what you call kind that I could ever be at the slightest service to you I fear I shall never have the opportunity will spoke with further oh yes said Dorothea cordially it will come and I shall remember how well you wish me I quite hope that we should be friends when I first saw you because of your relationship to Mr. Casavon there was a certain liquid brightness in her eyes and will was conscious that his own were obeying a law of nature and feeling too the illusion to Mr. Casavon would have spoiled all if anything at that moment could have spoiled the subduing power the sweet dignity of her noble unsuspicious inexperience and there is one thing even now that you can do said Dorothea rising and walking a little way under the strength of a recurring impulse promise me that you will not again to anyone speak of that subject I mean about Mr. Casavon's writings I mean in that kind of way it was I who led to it it was my fault but promised me she had returned from a brief pacing and stood opposite will looking gravely at him certainly I will promise you said will reddening however if he never said a cutting word about Mr. Casavon again and left off receiving favours from him it would clearly be permissible to hate him the more the poet must know how to hate says goat and will was at least ready with the accomplishment he said that he must go now without waiting for Mr. Casavon whom he would come to take leave of at the last moment Dorothea gave him her hand and they exchanged a simple goodbye the going out of the port co-shore he met Mr. Casavon and that gentleman expressing the best wishes for his cousin politely waived the pleasure of any further leave taking on the morrow which would be sufficiently crowded with the preparations for departure I have something to tell you about our cousin Mr. Ladislaw which I think will heighten your opinion of him said Dorothea to her husband in the course of the evening she had mentioned immediately on his entering that will had just gone away and would come back again but Mr. Casavon had said I met him outside and we made it our final adieu I believe saying this with the air and tone by which we imply that any subject whether private or public does not interest us enough to wish for a further remark upon it so Dorothea had waited what is that my love said Mr. Casavon he always said my love when his manner was the coldest he has made up his mind to leave off wandering at once and to give up his dependence on your generosity he means soon to go back to England and work his own way I thought you would consider that a good sign said Dorothea with an appealing look into our husband's neutral face did he mention the precise order of occupation to which he would addict himself no but he said that he felt the danger which lay for him in your generosity of course he will write to you about it do you not think better of him for his resolve I shall await his communication on the subject said Mr. Casavon I told him I was sure that the thing you considered in all who did for him was his own welfare I remembered your goodness in what you said about him when I first saw him at Loic said Dorothea putting her hand on her husband's I had a duty towards him said Mr. Casavon laying his other hand on Dorothea's in conscientious acceptance of her caress but with a glance which he could not hinder from being uneasy the young man I confess is not otherwise an object of interest to me nor need we I think discuss his future course which it is not ours to determine beyond the limits which I have sufficiently indicated Dorothea did not mention will again