Chapter: "Hard students are commonly troubled with gowts, catarrhs,
    rheums, cachexia, bradypepsia, bad eyes, stone, and collick,
    crudities, oppilations, vertigo, winds, consumptions, and
    all such diseases as come by over-much sitting: they are
    most part lean, dry, ill-colored . . . and all through
    immoderate pains and extraordinary studies. If you will not
    believe the truth of this, look upon great Tostatus and
    Thomas Aquainas' works; and tell me whether those men took
    pains."--BURTON'S Anatomy of Melancholy, P. I, s. 2.


This was Mr. Casaubon's letter.


MY DEAR MISS BROOKE,--I have your guardian's permission to address you
on a subject than which I have none more at heart.  I am not, I trust,
mistaken in the recognition of some deeper correspondence than that of
date in the fact that a consciousness of need in my own life had arisen
contemporaneously with the possibility of my becoming acquainted with
you.  For in the first hour of meeting you, I had an impression of your
eminent and perhaps exclusive fitness to supply that need (connected, I
may say, with such activity of the affections as even the
preoccupations of a work too special to be abdicated could not
uninterruptedly dissimulate); and each succeeding opportunity for
observation has given the impression an added depth by convincing me
more emphatically of that fitness which I had preconceived, and thus
evoking more decisively those affections to which I have but now
referred.  Our conversations have, I think, made sufficiently clear to
you the tenor of my life and purposes: a tenor unsuited, I am aware, to
the commoner order of minds.  But I have discerned in you an elevation
of thought and a capability of devotedness, which I had hitherto not
conceived to be compatible either with the early bloom of youth or with
those graces of sex that may be said at once to win and to confer
distinction when combined, as they notably are in you, with the mental
qualities above indicated.  It was, I confess, beyond my hope to meet
with this rare combination of elements both solid and attractive,
adapted to supply aid in graver labors and to cast a charm over vacant
hours; and but for the event of my introduction to you (which, let me
again say, I trust not to be superficially coincident with
foreshadowing needs, but providentially related thereto as stages
towards the completion of a life's plan), I should presumably have gone
on to the last without any attempt to lighten my solitariness by a
matrimonial union.

Such, my dear Miss Brooke, is the accurate statement of my feelings;
and I rely on your kind indulgence in venturing now to ask you how far
your own are of a nature to confirm my happy presentiment.  To be
accepted by you as your husband and the earthly guardian of your
welfare, I should regard as the highest of providential gifts.  In
return I can at least offer you an affection hitherto unwasted, and the
faithful consecration of a life which, however short in the sequel, has
no backward pages whereon, if you choose to turn them, you will find
records such as might justly cause you either bitterness or shame.  I
await the expression of your sentiments with an anxiety which it would
be the part of wisdom (were it possible) to divert by a more arduous
labor than usual.  But in this order of experience I am still young,
and in looking forward to an unfavorable possibility I cannot but feel
that resignation to solitude will be more difficult after the temporary
illumination of hope.

        In any case, I shall remain,
                Yours with sincere devotion,
                        EDWARD CASAUBON.


Dorothea trembled while she read this letter; then she fell on her
knees, buried her face, and sobbed.  She could not pray: under the rush
of solemn emotion in which thoughts became vague and images floated
uncertainly, she could but cast herself, with a childlike sense of
reclining, in the lap of a divine consciousness which sustained her
own.  She remained in that attitude till it was time to dress for
dinner.

How could it occur to her to examine the letter, to look at it
critically as a profession of love?  Her whole soul was possessed by
the fact that a fuller life was opening before her: she was a neophyte
about to enter on a higher grade of initiation.  She was going to have
room for the energies which stirred uneasily under the dimness and
pressure of her own ignorance and the petty peremptoriness of the
world's habits.

Now she would be able to devote herself to large yet definite duties;
now she would be allowed to live continually in the light of a mind
that she could reverence.  This hope was not unmixed with the glow of
proud delight--the joyous maiden surprise that she was chosen by the
man whom her admiration had chosen.  All Dorothea's passion was
transfused through a mind struggling towards an ideal life; the
radiance of her transfigured girlhood fell on the first object that
came within its level.  The impetus with which inclination became
resolution was heightened by those little events of the day which had
roused her discontent with the actual conditions of her life.

After dinner, when Celia was playing an "air, with variations," a small
kind of tinkling which symbolized the aesthetic part of the young
ladies' education, Dorothea went up to her room to answer Mr.
Casaubon's letter.  Why should she defer the answer?  She wrote it over
three times, not because she wished to change the wording, but because
her hand was unusually uncertain, and she could not bear that Mr.
Casaubon should think her handwriting bad and illegible.  She piqued
herself on writing a hand in which each letter was distinguishable
without any large range of conjecture, and she meant to make much use
of this accomplishment, to save Mr. Casaubon's eyes.  Three times she
wrote.

MY DEAR MR. CASAUBON,--I am very grateful to you for loving me, and
thinking me worthy to be your wife.  I can look forward to no better
happiness than that which would be one with yours.  If I said more, it
would only be the same thing written out at greater length, for I
cannot now dwell on any other thought than that I may be through life

                Yours devotedly,
                        DOROTHEA BROOKE.


Later in the evening she followed her uncle into the library to give
him the letter, that he might send it in the morning.  He was
surprised, but his surprise only issued in a few moments' silence,
during which he pushed about various objects on his writing-table, and
finally stood with his back to the fire, his glasses on his nose,
looking at the address of Dorothea's letter.

"Have you thought enough about this, my dear?" he said at last.

"There was no need to think long, uncle.  I know of nothing to make me
vacillate.  If I changed my mind, it must be because of something
important and entirely new to me."

"Ah!--then you have accepted him?  Then Chettam has no chance?  Has
Chettam offended you--offended you, you know?  What is it you don't
like in Chettam?"

"There is nothing that I like in him," said Dorothea, rather
impetuously.

Mr. Brooke threw his head and shoulders backward as if some one had
thrown a light missile at him.  Dorothea immediately felt some
self-rebuke, and said--

"I mean in the light of a husband.  He is very kind, I think--really
very good about the cottages.  A well-meaning man."

"But you must have a scholar, and that sort of thing?  Well, it lies a
little in our family.  I had it myself--that love of knowledge, and
going into everything--a little too much--it took me too far; though
that sort of thing doesn't often run in the female-line; or it runs
underground like the rivers in Greece, you know--it comes out in the
sons.  Clever sons, clever mothers.  I went a good deal into that, at
one time.  However, my dear, I have always said that people should do
as they like in these things, up to a certain point.  I couldn't, as
your guardian, have consented to a bad match.  But Casaubon stands
well: his position is good.  I am afraid Chettam will be hurt, though,
and Mrs. Cadwallader will blame me."

That evening, of course, Celia knew nothing of what had happened.  She
attributed Dorothea's abstracted manner, and the evidence of further
crying since they had got home, to the temper she had been in about Sir
James Chettam and the buildings, and was careful not to give further
offence: having once said what she wanted to say, Celia had no
disposition to recur to disagreeable subjects.  It had been her nature
when a child never to quarrel with any one--only to observe with wonder
that they quarrelled with her, and looked like turkey-cocks; whereupon
she was ready to play at cat's cradle with them whenever they recovered
themselves.  And as to Dorothea, it had always been her way to find
something wrong in her sister's words, though Celia inwardly protested
that she always said just how things were, and nothing else: she never
did and never could put words together out of her own head.  But the
best of Dodo was, that she did not keep angry for long together.  Now,
though they had hardly spoken to each other all the evening, yet when
Celia put by her work, intending to go to bed, a proceeding in which
she was always much the earlier, Dorothea, who was seated on a low
stool, unable to occupy herself except in meditation, said, with the
musical intonation which in moments of deep but quiet feeling made her
speech like a fine bit of recitative--

"Celia, dear, come and kiss me," holding her arms open as she spoke.

Celia knelt down to get the right level and gave her little butterfly
kiss, while Dorothea encircled her with gentle arms and pressed her
lips gravely on each cheek in turn.

"Don't sit up, Dodo, you are so pale to-night: go to bed soon," said
Celia, in a comfortable way, without any touch of pathos.

"No, dear, I am very, very happy," said Dorothea, fervently.

"So much the better," thought Celia.  "But how strangely Dodo goes from
one extreme to the other."

The next day, at luncheon, the butler, handing something to Mr. Brooke,
said, "Jonas is come back, sir, and has brought this letter."

Mr. Brooke read the letter, and then, nodding toward Dorothea, said,
"Casaubon, my dear: he will be here to dinner; he didn't wait to write
more--didn't wait, you know."

It could not seem remarkable to Celia that a dinner guest should be
announced to her sister beforehand, but, her eyes following the same
direction as her uncle's, she was struck with the peculiar effect of
the announcement on Dorothea.  It seemed as if something like the
reflection of a white sunlit wing had passed across her features,
ending in one of her rare blushes.  For the first time it entered into
Celia's mind that there might be something more between Mr. Casaubon
and her sister than his delight in bookish talk and her delight in
listening.  Hitherto she had classed the admiration for this "ugly" and
learned acquaintance with the admiration for Monsieur Liret at
Lausanne, also ugly and learned.  Dorothea had never been tired of
listening to old Monsieur Liret when Celia's feet were as cold as
possible, and when it had really become dreadful to see the skin of his
bald head moving about.  Why then should her enthusiasm not extend to
Mr. Casaubon simply in the same way as to Monsieur Liret?  And it
seemed probable that all learned men had a sort of schoolmaster's view
of young people.

But now Celia was really startled at the suspicion which had darted
into her mind.  She was seldom taken by surprise in this way, her
marvellous quickness in observing a certain order of signs generally
preparing her to expect such outward events as she had an interest in.
Not that she now imagined Mr. Casaubon to be already an accepted lover:
she had only begun to feel disgust at the possibility that anything in
Dorothea's mind could tend towards such an issue.  Here was something
really to vex her about Dodo: it was all very well not to accept Sir
James Chettam, but the idea of marrying Mr. Casaubon!  Celia felt a
sort of shame mingled with a sense of the ludicrous.  But perhaps Dodo,
if she were really bordering on such an extravagance, might be turned
away from it: experience had often shown that her impressibility might
be calculated on.  The day was damp, and they were not going to walk
out, so they both went up to their sitting-room; and there Celia
observed that Dorothea, instead of settling down with her usual
diligent interest to some occupation, simply leaned her elbow on an
open book and looked out of the window at the great cedar silvered with
the damp.  She herself had taken up the making of a toy for the
curate's children, and was not going to enter on any subject too
precipitately.

Dorothea was in fact thinking that it was desirable for Celia to know
of the momentous change in Mr. Casaubon's position since he had last
been in the house: it did not seem fair to leave her in ignorance of
what would necessarily affect her attitude towards him; but it was
impossible not to shrink from telling her.  Dorothea accused herself of
some meanness in this timidity: it was always odious to her to have any
small fears or contrivances about her actions, but at this moment she
was seeking the highest aid possible that she might not dread the
corrosiveness of Celia's pretty carnally minded prose.  Her reverie was
broken, and the difficulty of decision banished, by Celia's small and
rather guttural voice speaking in its usual tone, of a remark aside or
a "by the bye."

"Is any one else coming to dine besides Mr. Casaubon?"

"Not that I know of."

"I hope there is some one else.  Then I shall not hear him eat his soup
so."

"What is there remarkable about his soup-eating?"

"Really, Dodo, can't you hear how he scrapes his spoon?  And he always
blinks before he speaks.  I don't know whether Locke blinked, but I'm
sure I am sorry for those who sat opposite to him if he did."

"Celia," said Dorothea, with emphatic gravity, "pray don't make any
more observations of that kind."

"Why not?  They are quite true," returned Celia, who had her reasons
for persevering, though she was beginning to be a little afraid.

"Many things are true which only the commonest minds observe."

"Then I think the commonest minds must be rather useful.  I think it is
a pity Mr. Casaubon's mother had not a commoner mind: she might have
taught him better." Celia was inwardly frightened, and ready to run
away, now she had hurled this light javelin.

Dorothea's feelings had gathered to an avalanche, and there could be no
further preparation.

"It is right to tell you, Celia, that I am engaged to marry Mr.
Casaubon."

Perhaps Celia had never turned so pale before.  The paper man she was
making would have had his leg injured, but for her habitual care of
whatever she held in her hands.  She laid the fragile figure down at
once, and sat perfectly still for a few moments.  When she spoke there
was a tear gathering.

"Oh, Dodo, I hope you will be happy." Her sisterly tenderness could not
but surmount other feelings at this moment, and her fears were the
fears of affection.

Dorothea was still hurt and agitated.

"It is quite decided, then?" said Celia, in an awed under tone.  "And
uncle knows?"

"I have accepted Mr. Casaubon's offer.  My uncle brought me the letter
that contained it; he knew about it beforehand."

"I beg your pardon, if I have said anything to hurt you, Dodo," said
Celia, with a slight sob.  She never could have thought that she should
feel as she did.  There was something funereal in the whole affair, and
Mr. Casaubon seemed to be the officiating clergyman, about whom it
would be indecent to make remarks.

"Never mind, Kitty, do not grieve.  We should never admire the same
people.  I often offend in something of the same way; I am apt to speak
too strongly of those who don't please me."

In spite of this magnanimity Dorothea was still smarting: perhaps as
much from Celia's subdued astonishment as from her small criticisms.
Of course all the world round Tipton would be out of sympathy with this
marriage.  Dorothea knew of no one who thought as she did about life
and its best objects.

Nevertheless before the evening was at an end she was very happy.  In
an hour's tete-a-tete with Mr. Casaubon she talked to him with more
freedom than she had ever felt before, even pouring out her joy at the
thought of devoting herself to him, and of learning how she might best
share and further all his great ends.  Mr. Casaubon was touched with an
unknown delight (what man would not have been?) at this childlike
unrestrained ardor: he was not surprised (what lover would have been?)
that he should be the object of it.

"My dear young lady--Miss Brooke--Dorothea!" he said, pressing her hand
between his hands, "this is a happiness greater than I had ever
imagined to be in reserve for me.  That I should ever meet with a mind
and person so rich in the mingled graces which could render marriage
desirable, was far indeed from my conception.  You have all--nay, more
than all--those qualities which I have ever regarded as the
characteristic excellences of womanhood.  The great charm of your sex
is its capability of an ardent self-sacrificing affection, and herein
we see its fitness to round and complete the existence of our own.
Hitherto I have known few pleasures save of the severer kind: my
satisfactions have been those of the solitary student.  I have been
little disposed to gather flowers that would wither in my hand, but now
I shall pluck them with eagerness, to place them in your bosom."

No speech could have been more thoroughly honest in its intention: the
frigid rhetoric at the end was as sincere as the bark of a dog, or the
cawing of an amorous rook.  Would it not be rash to conclude that there
was no passion behind those sonnets to Delia which strike us as the
thin music of a mandolin?

Dorothea's faith supplied all that Mr. Casaubon's words seemed to leave
unsaid: what believer sees a disturbing omission or infelicity?  The
text, whether of prophet or of poet, expands for whatever we can put
into it, and even his bad grammar is sublime.

"I am very ignorant--you will quite wonder at my ignorance," said
Dorothea.  "I have so many thoughts that may be quite mistaken; and now
I shall be able to tell them all to you, and ask you about them.  But,"
she added, with rapid imagination of Mr. Casaubon's probable feeling,
"I will not trouble you too much; only when you are inclined to listen
to me.  You must often be weary with the pursuit of subjects in your
own track.  I shall gain enough if you will take me with you there."

"How should I be able now to persevere in any path without your
companionship?" said Mr. Casaubon, kissing her candid brow, and feeling
that heaven had vouchsafed him a blessing in every way suited to his
peculiar wants.  He was being unconsciously wrought upon by the charms
of a nature which was entirely without hidden calculations either for
immediate effects or for remoter ends.  It was this which made Dorothea
so childlike, and, according to some judges, so stupid, with all her
reputed cleverness; as, for example, in the present case of throwing
herself, metaphorically speaking, at Mr. Casaubon's feet, and kissing
his unfashionable shoe-ties as if he were a Protestant Pope.  She was
not in the least teaching Mr. Casaubon to ask if he were good enough
for her, but merely asking herself anxiously how she could be good
enough for Mr. Casaubon.  Before he left the next day it had been
decided that the marriage should take place within six weeks.  Why not?
Mr. Casaubon's house was ready.  It was not a parsonage, but a
considerable mansion, with much land attached to it.  The parsonage was
inhabited by the curate, who did all the duty except preaching the
morning sermon.

 Dorothea reads Casaubon's letter, and is touched by it; she immediately writes out an acceptance, taking the letter to mean that he feels the same about her as she does about him. Celia has no idea what has happened until Casaubon joins them all for dinner, and she, at least, knows that her sister has made a serious mistake, and perhaps can be swayed from it. Dorothea, however, is convinced that she has made the right choice; Casaubon expresses happiness at their engagement, and Dorothea completely overlooks his lack of passion.

