Chapter: 1st Gent. How class your man?--as better than the most,
                 Or, seeming better, worse beneath that cloak?
                 As saint or knave, pilgrim or hypocrite?
    2d Gent.  Nay, tell me how you class your wealth of books
                 The drifted relics of all time.
                 As well sort them at once by size and livery:
                 Vellum, tall copies, and the common calf
                 Will hardly cover more diversity
                 Than all your labels cunningly devised
                 To class your unread authors.


In consequence of what he had heard from Fred, Mr. Vincy determined to
speak with Mr. Bulstrode in his private room at the Bank at half-past
one, when he was usually free from other callers.  But a visitor had
come in at one o'clock, and Mr. Bulstrode had so much to say to him,
that there was little chance of the interview being over in half an
hour.  The banker's speech was fluent, but it was also copious, and he
used up an appreciable amount of time in brief meditative pauses.  Do
not imagine his sickly aspect to have been of the yellow, black-haired
sort: he had a pale blond skin, thin gray-besprinkled brown hair,
light-gray eyes, and a large forehead.  Loud men called his subdued
tone an undertone, and sometimes implied that it was inconsistent with
openness; though there seems to be no reason why a loud man should not
be given to concealment of anything except his own voice, unless it can
be shown that Holy Writ has placed the seat of candor in the lungs.
Mr. Bulstrode had also a deferential bending attitude in listening, and
an apparently fixed attentiveness in his eyes which made those persons
who thought themselves worth hearing infer that he was seeking the
utmost improvement from their discourse.  Others, who expected to make
no great figure, disliked this kind of moral lantern turned on them.
If you are not proud of your cellar, there is no thrill of satisfaction
in seeing your guest hold up his wine-glass to the light and look
judicial.  Such joys are reserved for conscious merit.  Hence Mr.
Bulstrode's close attention was not agreeable to the publicans and
sinners in Middlemarch; it was attributed by some to his being a
Pharisee, and by others to his being Evangelical.  Less superficial
reasoners among them wished to know who his father and grandfather
were, observing that five-and-twenty years ago nobody had ever heard of
a Bulstrode in Middlemarch.  To his present visitor, Lydgate, the
scrutinizing look was a matter of indifference: he simply formed an
unfavorable opinion of the banker's constitution, and concluded that he
had an eager inward life with little enjoyment of tangible things.

"I shall be exceedingly obliged if you will look in on me here
occasionally, Mr. Lydgate," the banker observed, after a brief pause.
"If, as I dare to hope, I have the privilege of finding you a valuable
coadjutor in the interesting matter of hospital management, there will
be many questions which we shall need to discuss in private.  As to the
new hospital, which is nearly finished, I shall consider what you have
said about the advantages of the special destination for fevers.  The
decision will rest with me, for though Lord Medlicote has given the
land and timber for the building, he is not disposed to give his
personal attention to the object."

"There are few things better worth the pains in a provincial town like
this," said Lydgate.  "A fine fever hospital in addition to the old
infirmary might be the nucleus of a medical school here, when once we
get our medical reforms; and what would do more for medical education
than the spread of such schools over the country?  A born provincial
man who has a grain of public spirit as well as a few ideas, should do
what he can to resist the rush of everything that is a little better
than common towards London.  Any valid professional aims may often find
a freer, if not a richer field, in the provinces."

One of Lydgate's gifts was a voice habitually deep and sonorous, yet
capable of becoming very low and gentle at the right moment.  About his
ordinary bearing there was a certain fling, a fearless expectation of
success, a confidence in his own powers and integrity much fortified by
contempt for petty obstacles or seductions of which he had had no
experience.  But this proud openness was made lovable by an expression
of unaffected good-will. Mr. Bulstrode perhaps liked him the better for
the difference between them in pitch and manners; he certainly liked
him the better, as Rosamond did, for being a stranger in Middlemarch.
One can begin so many things with a new person!--even begin to be a
better man.

"I shall rejoice to furnish your zeal with fuller opportunities," Mr.
Bulstrode answered; "I mean, by confiding to you the superintendence of
my new hospital, should a maturer knowledge favor that issue, for I am
determined that so great an object shall not be shackled by our two
physicians.  Indeed, I am encouraged to consider your advent to this
town as a gracious indication that a more manifest blessing is now to
be awarded to my efforts, which have hitherto been much with stood.
With regard to the old infirmary, we have gained the initial point--I
mean your election.  And now I hope you will not shrink from incurring
a certain amount of jealousy and dislike from your professional
brethren by presenting yourself as a reformer."

"I will not profess bravery," said Lydgate, smiling, "but I acknowledge
a good deal of pleasure in fighting, and I should not care for my
profession, if I did not believe that better methods were to be found
and enforced there as well as everywhere else."

"The standard of that profession is low in Middlemarch, my dear sir,"
said the banker.  "I mean in knowledge and skill; not in social status,
for our medical men are most of them connected with respectable
townspeople here.  My own imperfect health has induced me to give some
attention to those palliative resources which the divine mercy has
placed within our reach.  I have consulted eminent men in the
metropolis, and I am painfully aware of the backwardness under which
medical treatment labors in our provincial districts."

"Yes;--with our present medical rules and education, one must be
satisfied now and then to meet with a fair practitioner.  As to all the
higher questions which determine the starting-point of a diagnosis--as
to the philosophy of medical evidence--any glimmering of these can only
come from a scientific culture of which country practitioners have
usually no more notion than the man in the moon."

Mr. Bulstrode, bending and looking intently, found the form which
Lydgate had given to his agreement not quite suited to his
comprehension.  Under such circumstances a judicious man changes the
topic and enters on ground where his own gifts may be more useful.

"I am aware," he said, "that the peculiar bias of medical ability is
towards material means.  Nevertheless, Mr. Lydgate, I hope we shall not
vary in sentiment as to a measure in which you are not likely to be
actively concerned, but in which your sympathetic concurrence may be an
aid to me.  You recognize, I hope; the existence of spiritual interests
in your patients?"

"Certainly I do.  But those words are apt to cover different meanings
to different minds."

"Precisely.  And on such subjects wrong teaching is as fatal as no
teaching.  Now a point which I have much at heart to secure is a new
regulation as to clerical attendance at the old infirmary.  The
building stands in Mr. Farebrother's parish.  You know Mr. Farebrother?"

"I have seen him.  He gave me his vote.  I must call to thank him.  He
seems a very bright pleasant little fellow.  And I understand he is a
naturalist."

"Mr. Farebrother, my dear sir, is a man deeply painful to contemplate.
I suppose there is not a clergyman in this country who has greater
talents."  Mr. Bulstrode paused and looked meditative.

"I have not yet been pained by finding any excessive talent in
Middlemarch," said Lydgate, bluntly.

"What I desire," Mr. Bulstrode continued, looking still more serious,
"is that Mr. Farebrother's attendance at the hospital should be
superseded by the appointment of a chaplain--of Mr. Tyke, in fact--and
that no other spiritual aid should be called in."

"As a medical man I could have no opinion on such a point unless I knew
Mr. Tyke, and even then I should require to know the cases in which he
was applied."  Lydgate smiled, but he was bent on being circumspect.

"Of course you cannot enter fully into the merits of this measure at
present.  But"--here Mr. Bulstrode began to speak with a more chiselled
emphasis--"the subject is likely to be referred to the medical board of
the infirmary, and what I trust I may ask of you is, that in virtue of
the cooperation between us which I now look forward to, you will not,
so far as you are concerned, be influenced by my opponents in this
matter."

"I hope I shall have nothing to do with clerical disputes," said
Lydgate.  "The path I have chosen is to work well in my own profession."

"My responsibility, Mr. Lydgate, is of a broader kind.  With me,
indeed, this question is one of sacred accountableness; whereas with my
opponents, I have good reason to say that it is an occasion for
gratifying a spirit of worldly opposition.  But I shall not therefore
drop one iota of my convictions, or cease to identify myself with that
truth which an evil generation hates.  I have devoted myself to this
object of hospital-improvement, but I will boldly confess to you, Mr.
Lydgate, that I should have no interest in hospitals if I believed that
nothing more was concerned therein than the cure of mortal diseases.  I
have another ground of action, and in the face of persecution I will
not conceal it."

Mr. Bulstrode's voice had become a loud and agitated whisper as he said
the last words.

"There we certainly differ," said Lydgate.  But he was not sorry that
the door was now opened, and Mr. Vincy was announced.  That florid
sociable personage was become more interesting to him since he had seen
Rosamond.  Not that, like her, he had been weaving any future in which
their lots were united; but a man naturally remembers a charming girl
with pleasure, and is willing to dine where he may see her again.
Before he took leave, Mr. Vincy had given that invitation which he had
been "in no hurry about," for Rosamond at breakfast had mentioned that
she thought her uncle Featherstone had taken the new doctor into great
favor.

Mr. Bulstrode, alone with his brother-in-law, poured himself out a
glass of water, and opened a sandwich-box.

"I cannot persuade you to adopt my regimen, Vincy?"

"No, no; I've no opinion of that system.  Life wants padding," said Mr.
Vincy, unable to omit his portable theory.  "However," he went on,
accenting the word, as if to dismiss all irrelevance, "what I came here
to talk about was a little affair of my young scapegrace, Fred's."

"That is a subject on which you and I are likely to take quite as
different views as on diet, Vincy."

"I hope not this time."  (Mr. Vincy was resolved to be good-humored.)
"The fact is, it's about a whim of old Featherstone's. Somebody has
been cooking up a story out of spite, and telling it to the old man, to
try to set him against Fred.  He's very fond of Fred, and is likely to
do something handsome for him; indeed he has as good as told Fred that
he means to leave him his land, and that makes other people jealous."

"Vincy, I must repeat, that you will not get any concurrence from me as
to the course you have pursued with your eldest son.  It was entirely
from worldly vanity that you destined him for the Church: with a family
of three sons and four daughters, you were not warranted in devoting
money to an expensive education which has succeeded in nothing but in
giving him extravagant idle habits.  You are now reaping the
consequences."

To point out other people's errors was a duty that Mr. Bulstrode rarely
shrank from, but Mr. Vincy was not equally prepared to be patient.
When a man has the immediate prospect of being mayor, and is ready, in
the interests of commerce, to take up a firm attitude on politics
generally, he has naturally a sense of his importance to the framework
of things which seems to throw questions of private conduct into the
background.  And this particular reproof irritated him more than any
other.  It was eminently superfluous to him to be told that he was
reaping the consequences.  But he felt his neck under Bulstrode's yoke;
and though he usually enjoyed kicking, he was anxious to refrain from
that relief.

"As to that, Bulstrode, it's no use going back.  I'm not one of your
pattern men, and I don't pretend to be.  I couldn't foresee everything
in the trade; there wasn't a finer business in Middlemarch than ours,
and the lad was clever.  My poor brother was in the Church, and would
have done well--had got preferment already, but that stomach fever took
him off: else he might have been a dean by this time.  I think I was
justified in what I tried to do for Fred.  If you come to religion, it
seems to me a man shouldn't want to carve out his meat to an ounce
beforehand:--one must trust a little to Providence and be generous.
It's a good British feeling to try and raise your family a little: in
my opinion, it's a father's duty to give his sons a fine chance."

"I don't wish to act otherwise than as your best friend, Vincy, when I
say that what you have been uttering just now is one mass of
worldliness and inconsistent folly."

"Very well," said Mr. Vincy, kicking in spite of resolutions, "I never
professed to be anything but worldly; and, what's more, I don't see
anybody else who is not worldly.  I suppose you don't conduct business
on what you call unworldly principles.  The only difference I see is
that one worldliness is a little bit honester than another."

"This kind of discussion is unfruitful, Vincy," said Mr. Bulstrode,
who, finishing his sandwich, had thrown himself back in his chair, and
shaded his eyes as if weary.  "You had some more particular business."

"Yes, yes.  The long and short of it is, somebody has told old
Featherstone, giving you as the authority, that Fred has been borrowing
or trying to borrow money on the prospect of his land.  Of course you
never said any such nonsense.  But the old fellow will insist on it
that Fred should bring him a denial in your handwriting; that is, just
a bit of a note saying you don't believe a word of such stuff, either
of his having borrowed or tried to borrow in such a fool's way.  I
suppose you can have no objection to do that."

"Pardon me.  I have an objection.  I am by no means sure that your son,
in his recklessness and ignorance--I will use no severer word--has not
tried to raise money by holding out his future prospects, or even that
some one may not have been foolish enough to supply him on so vague a
presumption: there is plenty of such lax money-lending as of other
folly in the world."

"But Fred gives me his honor that he has never borrowed money on the
pretence of any understanding about his uncle's land.  He is not a
liar.  I don't want to make him better than he is.  I have blown him up
well--nobody can say I wink at what he does.  But he is not a liar.
And I should have thought--but I may be wrong--that there was no
religion to hinder a man from believing the best of a young fellow,
when you don't know worse.  It seems to me it would be a poor sort of
religion to put a spoke in his wheel by refusing to say you don't
believe such harm of him as you've got no good reason to believe."

"I am not at all sure that I should be befriending your son by
smoothing his way to the future possession of Featherstone's property.
I cannot regard wealth as a blessing to those who use it simply as a
harvest for this world.  You do not like to hear these things, Vincy,
but on this occasion I feel called upon to tell you that I have no
motive for furthering such a disposition of property as that which you
refer to.  I do not shrink from saying that it will not tend to your
son's eternal welfare or to the glory of God.  Why then should you
expect me to pen this kind of affidavit, which has no object but to
keep up a foolish partiality and secure a foolish bequest?"

"If you mean to hinder everybody from having money but saints and
evangelists, you must give up some profitable partnerships, that's all
I can say," Mr. Vincy burst out very bluntly.  "It may be for the glory
of God, but it is not for the glory of the Middlemarch trade, that
Plymdale's house uses those blue and green dyes it gets from the
Brassing manufactory; they rot the silk, that's all I know about it.
Perhaps if other people knew so much of the profit went to the glory of
God, they might like it better.  But I don't mind so much about that--I
could get up a pretty row, if I chose."

Mr. Bulstrode paused a little before he answered.  "You pain me very
much by speaking in this way, Vincy.  I do not expect you to understand
my grounds of action--it is not an easy thing even to thread a path for
principles in the intricacies of the world--still less to make the
thread clear for the careless and the scoffing.  You must remember, if
you please, that I stretch my tolerance towards you as my wife's
brother, and that it little becomes you to complain of me as
withholding material help towards the worldly position of your family.
I must remind you that it is not your own prudence or judgment that has
enabled you to keep your place in the trade."

"Very likely not; but you have been no loser by my trade yet," said Mr.
Vincy, thoroughly nettled (a result which was seldom much retarded by
previous resolutions). "And when you married Harriet, I don't see how
you could expect that our families should not hang by the same nail.
If you've changed your mind, and want my family to come down in the
world, you'd better say so.  I've never changed; I'm a plain Churchman
now, just as I used to be before doctrines came up.  I take the world
as I find it, in trade and everything else.  I'm contented to be no
worse than my neighbors.  But if you want us to come down in the world,
say so.  I shall know better what to do then."

"You talk unreasonably.  Shall you come down in the world for want of
this letter about your son?"

"Well, whether or not, I consider it very unhandsome of you to refuse
it.  Such doings may be lined with religion, but outside they have a
nasty, dog-in-the-manger look.  You might as well slander Fred: it
comes pretty near to it when you refuse to say you didn't set a slander
going.  It's this sort of thing--this tyrannical spirit, wanting to
play bishop and banker everywhere--it's this sort of thing makes a
man's name stink."

"Vincy, if you insist on quarrelling with me, it will be exceedingly
painful to Harriet as well as myself," said Mr. Bulstrode, with a
trifle more eagerness and paleness than usual.

"I don't want to quarrel.  It's for my interest--and perhaps for yours
too--that we should be friends.  I bear you no grudge; I think no worse
of you than I do of other people.  A man who half starves himself, and
goes the length in family prayers, and so on, that you do, believes in
his religion whatever it may be: you could turn over your capital just
as fast with cursing and swearing:--plenty of fellows do.  You like to
be master, there's no denying that; you must be first chop in heaven,
else you won't like it much.  But you're my sister's husband, and we
ought to stick together; and if I know Harriet, she'll consider it your
fault if we quarrel because you strain at a gnat in this way, and
refuse to do Fred a good turn.  And I don't mean to say I shall bear it
well.  I consider it unhandsome."

Mr. Vincy rose, began to button his great-coat, and looked steadily at
his brother-in-law, meaning to imply a demand for a decisive answer.

This was not the first time that Mr. Bulstrode had begun by admonishing
Mr. Vincy, and had ended by seeing a very unsatisfactory reflection of
himself in the course unflattering mirror which that manufacturer's
mind presented to the subtler lights and shadows of his fellow-men; and
perhaps his experience ought to have warned him how the scene would
end.  But a full-fed fountain will be generous with its waters even in
the rain, when they are worse than useless; and a fine fount of
admonition is apt to be equally irrepressible.

It was not in Mr. Bulstrode's nature to comply directly in consequence
of uncomfortable suggestions.  Before changing his course, he always
needed to shape his motives and bring them into accordance with his
habitual standard.  He said, at last--

"I will reflect a little, Vincy.  I will mention the subject to
Harriet.  I shall probably send you a letter."

"Very well.  As soon as you can, please.  I hope it will all be settled
before I see you to-morrow."

 The chapter opens with Mr. Vincy going to see Mr. Bulstrode to ask him to write that letter for Fred. The narrator describes Mr. Bulstrode as a sickly, pale man, whose soft voice had something untrustworthy in it, somehow. Mr. Bulstrode is just finishing up with another visitor when Mr. Vincy arrives. It's Mr. Lydgate, and they're discussing plans to open a new fever hospital in the area. Mr. Bulstrode would fund it, and Mr. Lydgate would be the head doctor. During their chat, Mr. Bulstrode admits to Mr. Lydgate that the medical profession in Middlemarch is rather behind the times. Lydgate plans to change that and get Middlemarch up to date. Bulstrode says that their hospital will need a chaplain, and he wants to appoint Mr. Tyke, even though everyone will expect it to go to Mr. Farebrother. Lydgate knows and likes Mr. Farebrother, and has never met Mr. Tyke, but, as a doctor, he doesn't really see how the appointment of the chaplain is any of his business. As he's leaving Mr. Bulstrode's house, Lydgate passes Mr. Vincy, and receives a dinner invitation. That should make Rosamond happy. Mr. Vincy starts to explain the situation to Mr. Bulstrode, and has to keep himself from being snippy when Bulstrode starts to lecture him about the mistakes he's made in raising his children. Bulstrode at first refuses to write the letter, and finally agrees to think it over.

