Chapter: My lady's tongue is like the meadow blades,
    That cut you stroking them with idle hand.
    Nice cutting is her function: she divides
    With spiritual edge the millet-seed,
    And makes intangible savings.


As Mr. Casaubon's carriage was passing out of the gateway, it arrested
the entrance of a pony phaeton driven by a lady with a servant seated
behind.  It was doubtful whether the recognition had been mutual, for
Mr. Casaubon was looking absently before him; but the lady was
quick-eyed, and threw a nod and a "How do you do?" in the nick of time.
In spite of her shabby bonnet and very old Indian shawl, it was plain
that the lodge-keeper regarded her as an important personage, from the
low curtsy which was dropped on the entrance of the small phaeton.

"Well, Mrs. Fitchett, how are your fowls laying now?" said the
high-colored, dark-eyed lady, with the clearest chiselled utterance.

"Pretty well for laying, madam, but they've ta'en to eating their eggs:
I've no peace o' mind with 'em at all."

"Oh, the cannibals!  Better sell them cheap at once.  What will you
sell them a couple?  One can't eat fowls of a bad character at a high
price."

"Well, madam, half-a-crown: I couldn't let 'em go, not under."

"Half-a-crown, these times!  Come now--for the Rector's chicken-broth
on a Sunday.  He has consumed all ours that I can spare.  You are half
paid with the sermon, Mrs. Fitchett, remember that.  Take a pair of
tumbler-pigeons for them--little beauties.  You must come and see them.
You have no tumblers among your pigeons."

"Well, madam, Master Fitchett shall go and see 'em after work.  He's
very hot on new sorts; to oblige you."

"Oblige me!  It will be the best bargain he ever made.  A pair of
church pigeons for a couple of wicked Spanish fowls that eat their own
eggs!  Don't you and Fitchett boast too much, that is all!"

The phaeton was driven onwards with the last words, leaving Mrs.
Fitchett laughing and shaking her head slowly, with an interjectional
"Sure_ly_, sure_ly_!"--from which it might be inferred that she would
have found the country-side somewhat duller if the Rector's lady had
been less free-spoken and less of a skinflint.  Indeed, both the
farmers and laborers in the parishes of Freshitt and Tipton would have
felt a sad lack of conversation but for the stories about what Mrs.
Cadwallader said and did: a lady of immeasurably high birth, descended,
as it were, from unknown earls, dim as the crowd of heroic shades--who
pleaded poverty, pared down prices, and cut jokes in the most
companionable manner, though with a turn of tongue that let you know
who she was.  Such a lady gave a neighborliness to both rank and
religion, and mitigated the bitterness of uncommuted tithe.  A much
more exemplary character with an infusion of sour dignity would not
have furthered their comprehension of the Thirty-nine Articles, and
would have been less socially uniting.

Mr. Brooke, seeing Mrs. Cadwallader's merits from a different point of
view, winced a little when her name was announced in the library, where
he was sitting alone.

"I see you have had our Lowick Cicero here," she said, seating herself
comfortably, throwing back her wraps, and showing a thin but well-built
figure.  "I suspect you and he are brewing some bad polities, else you
would not be seeing so much of the lively man.  I shall inform against
you: remember you are both suspicious characters since you took Peel's
side about the Catholic Bill.  I shall tell everybody that you are
going to put up for Middlemarch on the Whig side when old Pinkerton
resigns, and that Casaubon is going to help you in an underhand manner:
going to bribe the voters with pamphlets, and throw open the
public-houses to distribute them.  Come, confess!"

"Nothing of the sort," said Mr. Brooke, smiling and rubbing his
eye-glasses, but really blushing a little at the impeachment.
"Casaubon and I don't talk politics much.  He doesn't care much about
the philanthropic side of things; punishments, and that kind of thing.
He only cares about Church questions.  That is not my line of action,
you know."

"Ra-a-ther too much, my friend.  I have heard of your doings.  Who was
it that sold his bit of land to the Papists at Middlemarch?  I believe
you bought it on purpose.  You are a perfect Guy Faux.  See if you are
not burnt in effigy this 5th of November coming.  Humphrey would not
come to quarrel with you about it, so I am come."

"Very good.  I was prepared to be persecuted for not persecuting--not
persecuting, you know."

"There you go!  That is a piece of clap-trap you have got ready for the
hustings.  Now, _do not_ let them lure you to the hustings, my dear Mr.
Brooke.  A man always makes a fool of himself, speechifying: there's no
excuse but being on the right side, so that you can ask a blessing on
your humming and hawing.  You will lose yourself, I forewarn you.  You
will make a Saturday pie of all parties' opinions, and be pelted by
everybody."

"That is what I expect, you know," said Mr. Brooke, not wishing to
betray how little he enjoyed this prophetic sketch--"what I expect as
an independent man.  As to the Whigs, a man who goes with the thinkers
is not likely to be hooked on by any party.  He may go with them up to
a certain point--up to a certain point, you know.  But that is what you
ladies never understand."

"Where your certain point is?  No. I should like to be told how a man
can have any certain point when he belongs to no party--leading a
roving life, and never letting his friends know his address.  'Nobody
knows where Brooke will be--there's no counting on Brooke'--that is
what people say of you, to be quite frank.  Now, do turn respectable.
How will you like going to Sessions with everybody looking shy on you,
and you with a bad conscience and an empty pocket?"

"I don't pretend to argue with a lady on politics," said Mr. Brooke,
with an air of smiling indifference, but feeling rather unpleasantly
conscious that this attack of Mrs. Cadwallader's had opened the
defensive campaign to which certain rash steps had exposed him.  "Your
sex are not thinkers, you know--varium et mutabile semper--that kind of
thing.  You don't know Virgil.  I knew"--Mr. Brooke reflected in time
that he had not had the personal acquaintance of the Augustan poet--"I
was going to say, poor Stoddart, you know.  That was what _he_ said.
You ladies are always against an independent attitude--a man's caring
for nothing but truth, and that sort of thing.  And there is no part of
the county where opinion is narrower than it is here--I don't mean to
throw stones, you know, but somebody is wanted to take the independent
line; and if I don't take it, who will?"

"Who?  Why, any upstart who has got neither blood nor position.  People
of standing should consume their independent nonsense at home, not hawk
it about.  And you! who are going to marry your niece, as good as your
daughter, to one of our best men.  Sir James would be cruelly annoyed:
it will be too hard on him if you turn round now and make yourself a
Whig sign-board."

Mr. Brooke again winced inwardly, for Dorothea's engagement had no
sooner been decided, than he had thought of Mrs. Cadwallader's
prospective taunts.  It might have been easy for ignorant observers to
say, "Quarrel with Mrs. Cadwallader;" but where is a country gentleman
to go who quarrels with his oldest neighbors?  Who could taste the fine
flavor in the name of Brooke if it were delivered casually, like wine
without a seal?  Certainly a man can only be cosmopolitan up to a
certain point.

"I hope Chettam and I shall always be good friends; but I am sorry to
say there is no prospect of his marrying my niece," said Mr. Brooke,
much relieved to see through the window that Celia was coming in.

"Why not?" said Mrs. Cadwallader, with a sharp note of surprise.  "It
is hardly a fortnight since you and I were talking about it."

"My niece has chosen another suitor--has chosen him, you know.  I have
had nothing to do with it.  I should have preferred Chettam; and I
should have said Chettam was the man any girl would have chosen.  But
there is no accounting for these things.  Your sex is capricious, you
know."

"Why, whom do you mean to say that you are going to let her marry?"
Mrs. Cadwallader's mind was rapidly surveying the possibilities of
choice for Dorothea.

But here Celia entered, blooming from a walk in the garden, and the
greeting with her delivered Mr. Brooke from the necessity of answering
immediately.  He got up hastily, and saying, "By the way, I must speak
to Wright about the horses," shuffled quickly out of the room.

"My dear child, what is this?--this about your sister's engagement?"
said Mrs. Cadwallader.

"She is engaged to marry Mr. Casaubon," said Celia, resorting, as
usual, to the simplest statement of fact, and enjoying this opportunity
of speaking to the Rector's wife alone.

"This is frightful.  How long has it been going on?"

"I only knew of it yesterday.  They are to be married in six weeks."

"Well, my dear, I wish you joy of your brother-in-law."

"I am so sorry for Dorothea."

"Sorry!  It is her doing, I suppose."

"Yes; she says Mr. Casaubon has a great soul."

"With all my heart."

"Oh, Mrs. Cadwallader, I don't think it can be nice to marry a man with
a great soul."

"Well, my dear, take warning.  You know the look of one now; when the
next comes and wants to marry you, don't you accept him."

"I'm sure I never should."

"No; one such in a family is enough.  So your sister never cared about
Sir James Chettam?  What would you have said to _him_ for a
brother-in-law?"

"I should have liked that very much.  I am sure he would have been a
good husband.  Only," Celia added, with a slight blush (she sometimes
seemed to blush as she breathed), "I don't think he would have suited
Dorothea."

"Not high-flown enough?"

"Dodo is very strict.  She thinks so much about everything, and is so
particular about what one says.  Sir James never seemed to please her."

"She must have encouraged him, I am sure.  That is not very creditable."

"Please don't be angry with Dodo; she does not see things.  She thought
so much about the cottages, and she was rude to Sir James sometimes;
but he is so kind, he never noticed it."

"Well," said Mrs. Cadwallader, putting on her shawl, and rising, as if
in haste, "I must go straight to Sir James and break this to him.  He
will have brought his mother back by this time, and I must call.  Your
uncle will never tell him.  We are all disappointed, my dear.  Young
people should think of their families in marrying.  I set a bad
example--married a poor clergyman, and made myself a pitiable object
among the De Bracys--obliged to get my coals by stratagem, and pray to
heaven for my salad oil.  However, Casaubon has money enough; I must do
him that justice.  As to his blood, I suppose the family quarterings
are three cuttle-fish sable, and a commentator rampant.  By the bye,
before I go, my dear, I must speak to your Mrs. Carter about pastry.  I
want to send my young cook to learn of her.  Poor people with four
children, like us, you know, can't afford to keep a good cook.  I have
no doubt Mrs. Carter will oblige me.  Sir James's cook is a perfect
dragon."

In less than an hour, Mrs. Cadwallader had circumvented Mrs. Carter and
driven to Freshitt Hall, which was not far from her own parsonage, her
husband being resident in Freshitt and keeping a curate in Tipton.

Sir James Chettam had returned from the short journey which had kept
him absent for a couple of days, and had changed his dress, intending
to ride over to Tipton Grange.  His horse was standing at the door when
Mrs. Cadwallader drove up, and he immediately appeared there himself,
whip in hand.  Lady Chettam had not yet returned, but Mrs.
Cadwallader's errand could not be despatched in the presence of grooms,
so she asked to be taken into the conservatory close by, to look at the
new plants; and on coming to a contemplative stand, she said--

"I have a great shock for you; I hope you are not so far gone in love
as you pretended to be."

It was of no use protesting, against Mrs. Cadwallader's way of putting
things.  But Sir James's countenance changed a little.  He felt a vague
alarm.

"I do believe Brooke is going to expose himself after all.  I accused
him of meaning to stand for Middlemarch on the Liberal side, and he
looked silly and never denied it--talked about the independent line,
and the usual nonsense."

"Is that all?" said Sir James, much relieved.

"Why," rejoined Mrs. Cadwallader, with a sharper note, "you don't mean
to say that you would like him to turn public man in that way--making a
sort of political Cheap Jack of himself?"

"He might be dissuaded, I should think.  He would not like the expense."

"That is what I told him.  He is vulnerable to reason there--always a
few grains of common-sense in an ounce of miserliness.  Miserliness is
a capital quality to run in families; it's the safe side for madness to
dip on.  And there must be a little crack in the Brooke family, else we
should not see what we are to see."

"What?  Brooke standing for Middlemarch?"

"Worse than that.  I really feel a little responsible.  I always told
you Miss Brooke would be such a fine match.  I knew there was a great
deal of nonsense in her--a flighty sort of Methodistical stuff.  But
these things wear out of girls.  However, I am taken by surprise for
once."

"What do you mean, Mrs. Cadwallader?" said Sir James.  His fear lest
Miss Brooke should have run away to join the Moravian Brethren, or some
preposterous sect unknown to good society, was a little allayed by the
knowledge that Mrs. Cadwallader always made the worst of things.  "What
has happened to Miss Brooke?  Pray speak out."

"Very well.  She is engaged to be married." Mrs. Cadwallader paused a
few moments, observing the deeply hurt expression in her friend's face,
which he was trying to conceal by a nervous smile, while he whipped his
boot; but she soon added, "Engaged to Casaubon."

Sir James let his whip fall and stooped to pick it up.  Perhaps his
face had never before gathered so much concentrated disgust as when he
turned to Mrs. Cadwallader and repeated, "Casaubon?"

"Even so.  You know my errand now."

"Good God!  It is horrible!  He is no better than a mummy!" (The point
of view has to be allowed for, as that of a blooming and disappointed
rival.)

"She says, he is a great soul.--A great bladder for dried peas to
rattle in!" said Mrs. Cadwallader.

"What business has an old bachelor like that to marry?" said Sir James.
"He has one foot in the grave."

"He means to draw it out again, I suppose."

"Brooke ought not to allow it: he should insist on its being put off
till she is of age.  She would think better of it then.  What is a
guardian for?"

"As if you could ever squeeze a resolution out of Brooke!"

"Cadwallader might talk to him."

"Not he!  Humphrey finds everybody charming. I never can get him to
abuse Casaubon.  He will even speak well of the bishop, though I tell
him it is unnatural in a beneficed clergyman; what can one do with a
husband who attends so little to the decencies?  I hide it as well as I
can by abusing everybody myself.  Come, come, cheer up!  you are well
rid of Miss Brooke, a girl who would have been requiring you to see the
stars by daylight.  Between ourselves, little Celia is worth two of
her, and likely after all to be the better match.  For this marriage to
Casaubon is as good as going to a nunnery."

"Oh, on my own account--it is for Miss Brooke's sake I think her
friends should try to use their influence."

"Well, Humphrey doesn't know yet.  But when I tell him, you may depend
on it he will say, 'Why not?  Casaubon is a good fellow--and
young--young enough.' These charitable people never know vinegar from
wine till they have swallowed it and got the colic.  However, if I were
a man I should prefer Celia, especially when Dorothea was gone.  The
truth is, you have been courting one and have won the other.  I can see
that she admires you almost as much as a man expects to be admired.  If
it were any one but me who said so, you might think it exaggeration.
Good-by!"

Sir James handed Mrs. Cadwallader to the phaeton, and then jumped on
his horse.  He was not going to renounce his ride because of his
friend's unpleasant news--only to ride the faster in some other
direction than that of Tipton Grange.

Now, why on earth should Mrs. Cadwallader have been at all busy about
Miss Brooke's marriage; and why, when one match that she liked to think
she had a hand in was frustrated, should she have straightway contrived
the preliminaries of another?  Was there any ingenious plot, any
hide-and-seek course of action, which might be detected by a careful
telescopic watch?  Not at all: a telescope might have swept the
parishes of Tipton and Freshitt, the whole area visited by Mrs.
Cadwallader in her phaeton, without witnessing any interview that could
excite suspicion, or any scene from which she did not return with the
same unperturbed keenness of eye and the same high natural color.  In
fact, if that convenient vehicle had existed in the days of the Seven
Sages, one of them would doubtless have remarked, that you can know
little of women by following them about in their pony-phaetons. Even
with a microscope directed on a water-drop we find ourselves making
interpretations which turn out to be rather coarse; for whereas under a
weak lens you may seem to see a creature exhibiting an active voracity
into which other smaller creatures actively play as if they were so
many animated tax-pennies, a stronger lens reveals to you certain
tiniest hairlets which make vortices for these victims while the
swallower waits passively at his receipt of custom.  In this way,
metaphorically speaking, a strong lens applied to Mrs. Cadwallader's
match-making will show a play of minute causes producing what may be
called thought and speech vortices to bring her the sort of food she
needed.  Her life was rurally simple, quite free from secrets either
foul, dangerous, or otherwise important, and not consciously affected
by the great affairs of the world.  All the more did the affairs of the
great world interest her, when communicated in the letters of high-born
relations: the way in which fascinating younger sons had gone to the
dogs by marrying their mistresses; the fine old-blooded idiocy of young
Lord Tapir, and the furious gouty humors of old Lord Megatherium; the
exact crossing of genealogies which had brought a coronet into a new
branch and widened the relations of scandal,--these were topics of
which she retained details with the utmost accuracy, and reproduced
them in an excellent pickle of epigrams, which she herself enjoyed the
more because she believed as unquestionably in birth and no-birth as
she did in game and vermin.  She would never have disowned any one on
the ground of poverty: a De Bracy reduced to take his dinner in a basin
would have seemed to her an example of pathos worth exaggerating, and I
fear his aristocratic vices would not have horrified her.  But her
feeling towards the vulgar rich was a sort of religious hatred: they
had probably made all their money out of high retail prices, and Mrs.
Cadwallader detested high prices for everything that was not paid in
kind at the Rectory: such people were no part of God's design in making
the world; and their accent was an affliction to the ears.  A town
where such monsters abounded was hardly more than a sort of low comedy,
which could not be taken account of in a well-bred scheme of the
universe.  Let any lady who is inclined to be hard on Mrs. Cadwallader
inquire into the comprehensiveness of her own beautiful views, and be
quite sure that they afford accommodation for all the lives which have
the honor to coexist with hers.

With such a mind, active as phosphorus, biting everything that came
near into the form that suited it, how could Mrs. Cadwallader feel that
the Miss Brookes and their matrimonial prospects were alien to her?
especially as it had been the habit of years for her to scold Mr.
Brooke with the friendliest frankness, and let him know in confidence
that she thought him a poor creature.  From the first arrival of the
young ladies in Tipton she had prearranged Dorothea's marriage with Sir
James, and if it had taken place would have been quite sure that it was
her doing: that it should not take place after she had preconceived it,
caused her an irritation which every thinker will sympathize with.  She
was the diplomatist of Tipton and Freshitt, and for anything to happen
in spite of her was an offensive irregularity.  As to freaks like this
of Miss Brooke's, Mrs. Cadwallader had no patience with them, and now
saw that her opinion of this girl had been infected with some of her
husband's weak charitableness: those Methodistical whims, that air of
being more religious than the rector and curate together, came from a
deeper and more constitutional disease than she had been willing to
believe.

"However," said Mrs. Cadwallader, first to herself and afterwards to
her husband, "I throw her over: there was a chance, if she had married
Sir James, of her becoming a sane, sensible woman.  He would never have
contradicted her, and when a woman is not contradicted, she has no
motive for obstinacy in her absurdities.  But now I wish her joy of her
hair shirt."

It followed that Mrs. Cadwallader must decide on another match for Sir
James, and having made up her mind that it was to be the younger Miss
Brooke, there could not have been a more skilful move towards the
success of her plan than her hint to the baronet that he had made an
impression on Celia's heart.  For he was not one of those gentlemen who
languish after the unattainable Sappho's apple that laughs from the
topmost bough--the charms which

        "Smile like the knot of cowslips on the cliff,
         Not to be come at by the willing hand."

He had no sonnets to write, and it could not strike him agreeably that
he was not an object of preference to the woman whom he had preferred.
Already the knowledge that Dorothea had chosen Mr. Casaubon had bruised
his attachment and relaxed its hold.  Although Sir James was a
sportsman, he had some other feelings towards women than towards grouse
and foxes, and did not regard his future wife in the light of prey,
valuable chiefly for the excitements of the chase.  Neither was he so
well acquainted with the habits of primitive races as to feel that an
ideal combat for her, tomahawk in hand, so to speak, was necessary to
the historical continuity of the marriage-tie. On the contrary, having
the amiable vanity which knits us to those who are fond of us, and
disinclines us to those who are indifferent, and also a good grateful
nature, the mere idea that a woman had a kindness towards him spun
little threads of tenderness from out his heart towards hers.

Thus it happened, that after Sir James had ridden rather fast for half
an hour in a direction away from Tipton Grange, he slackened his pace,
and at last turned into a road which would lead him back by a shorter
cut.  Various feelings wrought in him the determination after all to go
to the Grange to-day as if nothing new had happened.  He could not help
rejoicing that he had never made the offer and been rejected; mere
friendly politeness required that he should call to see Dorothea about
the cottages, and now happily Mrs. Cadwallader had prepared him to
offer his congratulations, if necessary, without showing too much
awkwardness.  He really did not like it: giving up Dorothea was very
painful to him; but there was something in the resolve to make this
visit forthwith and conquer all show of feeling, which was a sort of
file-biting and counter-irritant. And without his distinctly
recognizing the impulse, there certainly was present in him the sense
that Celia would be there, and that he should pay her more attention
than he had done before.

We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between
breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale
about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, "Oh, nothing!" Pride
helps us; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide
our own hurts--not to hurt others.



    "Piacer e popone
     Vuol la sua stagione."
            --Italian Proverb.


Mr. Casaubon, as might be expected, spent a great deal of his time at
the Grange in these weeks, and the hindrance which courtship occasioned
to the progress of his great work--the Key to all
Mythologies--naturally made him look forward the more eagerly to the
happy termination of courtship.  But he had deliberately incurred the
hindrance, having made up his mind that it was now time for him to
adorn his life with the graces of female companionship, to irradiate
the gloom which fatigue was apt to hang over the intervals of studious
labor with the play of female fancy, and to secure in this, his
culminating age, the solace of female tendance for his declining years.
Hence he determined to abandon himself to the stream of feeling, and
perhaps was surprised to find what an exceedingly shallow rill it was.
As in droughty regions baptism by immersion could only be performed
symbolically, Mr. Casaubon found that sprinkling was the utmost
approach to a plunge which his stream would afford him; and he
concluded that the poets had much exaggerated the force of masculine
passion.  Nevertheless, he observed with pleasure that Miss Brooke
showed an ardent submissive affection which promised to fulfil his most
agreeable previsions of marriage.  It had once or twice crossed his
mind that possibly there was some deficiency in Dorothea to account for
the moderation of his abandonment; but he was unable to discern the
deficiency, or to figure to himself a woman who would have pleased him
better; so that there was clearly no reason to fall back upon but the
exaggerations of human tradition.

"Could I not be preparing myself now to be more useful?" said Dorothea
to him, one morning, early in the time of courtship; "could I not learn
to read Latin and Greek aloud to you, as Milton's daughters did to
their father, without understanding what they read?"

"I fear that would be wearisome to you," said Mr. Casaubon, smiling;
"and, indeed, if I remember rightly, the young women you have mentioned
regarded that exercise in unknown tongues as a ground for rebellion
against the poet."

"Yes; but in the first place they were very naughty girls, else they
would have been proud to minister to such a father; and in the second
place they might have studied privately and taught themselves to
understand what they read, and then it would have been interesting.  I
hope you don't expect me to be naughty and stupid?"

"I expect you to be all that an exquisite young lady can be in every
possible relation of life.  Certainly it might be a great advantage if
you were able to copy the Greek character, and to that end it were well
to begin with a little reading."

Dorothea seized this as a precious permission.  She would not have
asked Mr. Casaubon at once to teach her the languages, dreading of all
things to be tiresome instead of helpful; but it was not entirely out
of devotion to her future husband that she wished to know Latin and
Greek.  Those provinces of masculine knowledge seemed to her a
standing-ground from which all truth could be seen more truly.  As it
was, she constantly doubted her own conclusions, because she felt her
own ignorance: how could she be confident that one-roomed cottages were
not for the glory of God, when men who knew the classics appeared to
conciliate indifference to the cottages with zeal for the glory?
Perhaps even Hebrew might be necessary--at least the alphabet and a few
roots--in order to arrive at the core of things, and judge soundly on
the social duties of the Christian.  And she had not reached that point
of renunciation at which she would have been satisfied with having a
wise husband: she wished, poor child, to be wise herself.  Miss Brooke
was certainly very naive with all her alleged cleverness.  Celia, whose
mind had never been thought too powerful, saw the emptiness of other
people's pretensions much more readily.  To have in general but little
feeling, seems to be the only security against feeling too much on any
particular occasion.

However, Mr. Casaubon consented to listen and teach for an hour
together, like a schoolmaster of little boys, or rather like a lover,
to whom a mistress's elementary ignorance and difficulties have a
touching fitness.  Few scholars would have disliked teaching the
alphabet under such circumstances.  But Dorothea herself was a little
shocked and discouraged at her own stupidity, and the answers she got
to some timid questions about the value of the Greek accents gave her a
painful suspicion that here indeed there might be secrets not capable
of explanation to a woman's reason.

Mr. Brooke had no doubt on that point, and expressed himself with his
usual strength upon it one day that he came into the library while the
reading was going forward.

"Well, but now, Casaubon, such deep studies, classics, mathematics,
that kind of thing, are too taxing for a woman--too taxing, you know."

"Dorothea is learning to read the characters simply," said Mr.
Casaubon, evading the question.  "She had the very considerate thought
of saving my eyes."

"Ah, well, without understanding, you know--that may not be so bad.
But there is a lightness about the feminine mind--a touch and
go--music, the fine arts, that kind of thing--they should study those
up to a certain point, women should; but in a light way, you know.  A
woman should be able to sit down and play you or sing you a good old
English tune.  That is what I like; though I have heard most
things--been at the opera in Vienna: Gluck, Mozart, everything of that
sort.  But I'm a conservative in music--it's not like ideas, you know.
I stick to the good old tunes."

"Mr. Casaubon is not fond of the piano, and I am very glad he is not,"
said Dorothea, whose slight regard for domestic music and feminine fine
art must be forgiven her, considering the small tinkling and smearing
in which they chiefly consisted at that dark period.  She smiled and
looked up at her betrothed with grateful eyes.  If he had always been
asking her to play the "Last Rose of Summer," she would have required
much resignation.  "He says there is only an old harpsichord at Lowick,
and it is covered with books."

"Ah, there you are behind Celia, my dear.  Celia, now, plays very
prettily, and is always ready to play.  However, since Casaubon does
not like it, you are all right.  But it's a pity you should not have
little recreations of that sort, Casaubon: the bow always strung--that
kind of thing, you know--will not do."

"I never could look on it in the light of a recreation to have my ears
teased with measured noises," said Mr. Casaubon.  "A tune much iterated
has the ridiculous effect of making the words in my mind perform a sort
of minuet to keep time--an effect hardly tolerable, I imagine, after
boyhood.  As to the grander forms of music, worthy to accompany solemn
celebrations, and even to serve as an educating influence according to
the ancient conception, I say nothing, for with these we are not
immediately concerned."

"No; but music of that sort I should enjoy," said Dorothea.  "When we
were coming home from Lausanne my uncle took us to hear the great organ
at Freiberg, and it made me sob."

"That kind of thing is not healthy, my dear," said Mr. Brooke.
"Casaubon, she will be in your hands now: you must teach my niece to
take things more quietly, eh, Dorothea?"

He ended with a smile, not wishing to hurt his niece, but really
thinking that it was perhaps better for her to be early married to so
sober a fellow as Casaubon, since she would not hear of Chettam.

"It is wonderful, though," he said to himself as he shuffled out of the
room--"it is wonderful that she should have liked him.  However, the
match is good.  I should have been travelling out of my brief to have
hindered it, let Mrs. Cadwallader say what she will.  He is pretty
certain to be a bishop, is Casaubon.  That was a very seasonable
pamphlet of his on the Catholic Question:--a deanery at least.  They
owe him a deanery."

And here I must vindicate a claim to philosophical reflectiveness, by
remarking that Mr. Brooke on this occasion little thought of the
Radical speech which, at a later period, he was led to make on the
incomes of the bishops.  What elegant historian would neglect a
striking opportunity for pointing out that his heroes did not foresee
the history of the world, or even their own actions?--For example, that
Henry of Navarre, when a Protestant baby, little thought of being a
Catholic monarch; or that Alfred the Great, when he measured his
laborious nights with burning candles, had no idea of future gentlemen
measuring their idle days with watches.  Here is a mine of truth,
which, however vigorously it may be worked, is likely to outlast our
coal.

But of Mr. Brooke I make a further remark perhaps less warranted by
precedent--namely, that if he had foreknown his speech, it might not
have made any great difference.  To think with pleasure of his niece's
husband having a large ecclesiastical income was one thing--to make a
Liberal speech was another thing; and it is a narrow mind which cannot
look at a subject from various points of view.



    "Oh, rescue her!  I am her brother now,
     And you her father.  Every gentle maid
     Should have a guardian in each gentleman."


It was wonderful to Sir James Chettam how well he continued to like
going to the Grange after he had once encountered the difficulty of
seeing Dorothea for the first time in the light of a woman who was
engaged to another man.  Of course the forked lightning seemed to pass
through him when he first approached her, and he remained conscious
throughout the interview of hiding uneasiness; but, good as he was, it
must be owned that his uneasiness was less than it would have been if
he had thought his rival a brilliant and desirable match.  He had no
sense of being eclipsed by Mr. Casaubon; he was only shocked that
Dorothea was under a melancholy illusion, and his mortification lost
some of its bitterness by being mingled with compassion.

Nevertheless, while Sir James said to himself that he had completely
resigned her, since with the perversity of a Desdemona she had not
affected a proposed match that was clearly suitable and according to
nature; he could not yet be quite passive under the idea of her
engagement to Mr. Casaubon.  On the day when he first saw them together
in the light of his present knowledge, it seemed to him that he had not
taken the affair seriously enough.  Brooke was really culpable; he
ought to have hindered it.  Who could speak to him?  Something might be
done perhaps even now, at least to defer the marriage.  On his way home
he turned into the Rectory and asked for Mr. Cadwallader.  Happily, the
Rector was at home, and his visitor was shown into the study, where all
the fishing tackle hung.  But he himself was in a little room
adjoining, at work with his turning apparatus, and he called to the
baronet to join him there.  The two were better friends than any other
landholder and clergyman in the county--a significant fact which was in
agreement with the amiable expression of their faces.

Mr. Cadwallader was a large man, with full lips and a sweet smile; very
plain and rough in his exterior, but with that solid imperturbable ease
and good-humor which is infectious, and like great grassy hills in the
sunshine, quiets even an irritated egoism, and makes it rather ashamed
of itself.  "Well, how are you?" he said, showing a hand not quite fit
to be grasped.  "Sorry I missed you before.  Is there anything
particular?  You look vexed."

Sir James's brow had a little crease in it, a little depression of the
eyebrow, which he seemed purposely to exaggerate as he answered.

"It is only this conduct of Brooke's. I really think somebody should
speak to him."

"What? meaning to stand?" said Mr. Cadwallader, going on with the
arrangement of the reels which he had just been turning.  "I hardly
think he means it.  But where's the harm, if he likes it?  Any one who
objects to Whiggery should be glad when the Whigs don't put up the
strongest fellow.  They won't overturn the Constitution with our friend
Brooke's head for a battering ram."

"Oh, I don't mean that," said Sir James, who, after putting down his
hat and throwing himself into a chair, had begun to nurse his leg and
examine the sole of his boot with much bitterness.  "I mean this
marriage.  I mean his letting that blooming young girl marry Casaubon."

"What is the matter with Casaubon?  I see no harm in him--if the girl
likes him."

"She is too young to know what she likes.  Her guardian ought to
interfere.  He ought not to allow the thing to be done in this headlong
manner.  I wonder a man like you, Cadwallader--a man with daughters,
can look at the affair with indifference: and with such a heart as
yours!  Do think seriously about it."

"I am not joking; I am as serious as possible," said the Rector, with a
provoking little inward laugh.  "You are as bad as Elinor.  She has
been wanting me to go and lecture Brooke; and I have reminded her that
her friends had a very poor opinion of the match she made when she
married me."

"But look at Casaubon," said Sir James, indignantly.  "He must be
fifty, and I don't believe he could ever have been much more than the
shadow of a man.  Look at his legs!"

"Confound you handsome young fellows! you think of having it all your
own way in the world.  You don't under stand women.  They don't admire
you half so much as you admire yourselves.  Elinor used to tell her
sisters that she married me for my ugliness--it was so various and
amusing that it had quite conquered her prudence."

"You! it was easy enough for a woman to love you.  But this is no
question of beauty.  I don't _like_ Casaubon." This was Sir James's
strongest way of implying that he thought ill of a man's character.

"Why? what do you know against him?" said the Rector laying down his
reels, and putting his thumbs into his armholes with an air of
attention.

Sir James paused.  He did not usually find it easy to give his reasons:
it seemed to him strange that people should not know them without being
told, since he only felt what was reasonable.  At last he said--

"Now, Cadwallader, has he got any heart?"

"Well, yes.  I don't mean of the melting sort, but a sound kernel,
_that_ you may be sure of.  He is very good to his poor relations:
pensions several of the women, and is educating a young fellow at a
good deal of expense.  Casaubon acts up to his sense of justice.  His
mother's sister made a bad match--a Pole, I think--lost herself--at any
rate was disowned by her family.  If it had not been for that, Casaubon
would not have had so much money by half.  I believe he went himself to
find out his cousins, and see what he could do for them.  Every man
would not ring so well as that, if you tried his metal.  _You_ would,
Chettam; but not every man."

"I don't know," said Sir James, coloring.  "I am not so sure of
myself." He paused a moment, and then added, "That was a right thing
for Casaubon to do.  But a man may wish to do what is right, and yet be
a sort of parchment code.  A woman may not be happy with him.  And I
think when a girl is so young as Miss Brooke is, her friends ought to
interfere a little to hinder her from doing anything foolish.  You
laugh, because you fancy I have some feeling on my own account.  But
upon my honor, it is not that.  I should feel just the same if I were
Miss Brooke's brother or uncle."

"Well, but what should you do?"

"I should say that the marriage must not be decided on until she was of
age.  And depend upon it, in that case, it would never come off.  I
wish you saw it as I do--I wish you would talk to Brooke about it."

Sir James rose as he was finishing his sentence, for he saw Mrs.
Cadwallader entering from the study.  She held by the hand her youngest
girl, about five years old, who immediately ran to papa, and was made
comfortable on his knee.

"I hear what you are talking about," said the wife.  "But you will make
no impression on Humphrey.  As long as the fish rise to his bait,
everybody is what he ought to be.  Bless you, Casaubon has got a
trout-stream, and does not care about fishing in it himself: could
there be a better fellow?"

"Well, there is something in that," said the Rector, with his quiet,
inward laugh.  "It is a very good quality in a man to have a
trout-stream."

"But seriously," said Sir James, whose vexation had not yet spent
itself, "don't you think the Rector might do some good by speaking?"

"Oh, I told you beforehand what he would say," answered Mrs.
Cadwallader, lifting up her eyebrows.  "I have done what I could: I
wash my hands of the marriage."

"In the first place," said the Rector, looking rather grave, "it would
be nonsensical to expect that I could convince Brooke, and make him act
accordingly.  Brooke is a very good fellow, but pulpy; he will run into
any mould, but he won't keep shape."

"He might keep shape long enough to defer the marriage," said Sir James.

"But, my dear Chettam, why should I use my influence to Casaubon's
disadvantage, unless I were much surer than I am that I should be
acting for the advantage of Miss Brooke?  I know no harm of Casaubon.
I don't care about his Xisuthrus and Fee-fo-fum and the rest; but then
he doesn't care about my fishing-tackle. As to the line he took on the
Catholic Question, that was unexpected; but he has always been civil to
me, and I don't see why I should spoil his sport.  For anything I can
tell, Miss Brooke may be happier with him than she would be with any
other man."

"Humphrey!  I have no patience with you.  You know you would rather
dine under the hedge than with Casaubon alone.  You have nothing to say
to each other."

"What has that to do with Miss Brooke's marrying him?  She does not do
it for my amusement."

"He has got no good red blood in his body," said Sir James.

"No. Somebody put a drop under a magnifying-glass and it was all
semicolons and parentheses," said Mrs. Cadwallader.

"Why does he not bring out his book, instead of marrying," said Sir
James, with a disgust which he held warranted by the sound feeling of
an English layman.

"Oh, he dreams footnotes, and they run away with all his brains.  They
say, when he was a little boy, he made an abstract of 'Hop o' my
Thumb,' and he has been making abstracts ever since.  Ugh!  And that is
the man Humphrey goes on saying that a woman may be happy with."

"Well, he is what Miss Brooke likes," said the Rector.  "I don't
profess to understand every young lady's taste."

"But if she were your own daughter?" said Sir James.

"That would be a different affair.  She is _not_ my daughter, and I
don't feel called upon to interfere.  Casaubon is as good as most of
us.  He is a scholarly clergyman, and creditable to the cloth.  Some
Radical fellow speechifying at Middlemarch said Casaubon was the
learned straw-chopping incumbent, and Freke was the brick-and-mortar
incumbent, and I was the angling incumbent.  And upon my word, I don't
see that one is worse or better than the other." The Rector ended with
his silent laugh.  He always saw the joke of any satire against
himself.  His conscience was large and easy, like the rest of him: it
did only what it could do without any trouble.

Clearly, there would be no interference with Miss Brooke's marriage
through Mr. Cadwallader; and Sir James felt with some sadness that she
was to have perfect liberty of misjudgment.  It was a sign of his good
disposition that he did not slacken at all in his intention of carrying
out Dorothea's design of the cottages.  Doubtless this persistence was
the best course for his own dignity: but pride only helps us to be
generous; it never makes us so, any more than vanity makes us witty.
She was now enough aware of Sir James's position with regard to her, to
appreciate the rectitude of his perseverance in a landlord's duty, to
which he had at first been urged by a lover's complaisance, and her
pleasure in it was great enough to count for something even in her
present happiness.  Perhaps she gave to Sir James Chettam's cottages
all the interest she could spare from Mr. Casaubon, or rather from the
symphony of hopeful dreams, admiring trust, and passionate self
devotion which that learned gentleman had set playing in her soul.
Hence it happened that in the good baronet's succeeding visits, while
he was beginning to pay small attentions to Celia, he found himself
talking with more and more pleasure to Dorothea.  She was perfectly
unconstrained and without irritation towards him now, and he was
gradually discovering the delight there is in frank kindness and
companionship between a man and a woman who have no passion to hide or
confess.

 Mrs. Cadwallader, the curate's wife and local busybody, learns of Dorothea's engagement from Celia. She is indignant, for she had already planned for Dorothea to marry Sir James. She goes to Sir James and tells him what has happened. He is disappointed. Being conventional, he cannot understand how a young, beautiful woman like Dorothea could prefer the old scholar, Casaubon. His pride is hurt. Mrs. Cadwallader suggests that he marry the younger sister, Celia, who is more his type. He convinces himself this is the best plan. During the period before Dorothea's marriage, Casaubon spends a lot of time at the Grange. Dorothea decides to study Latin, Greek, and Hebrew in order to help Casaubon with The Key to All Mythologies. He accepts her offer for its usefulness rather than as a token of her love. Dorothea's motives are mixed. She wants to help her husband, but she also wants to develop herself. Mr. Brooke says that such studies are unbecoming to a young lady, who should be learning how to run a household. Mr. Brooke consoles himself with Dorothea's choice, thinking Casaubon may become a dean or bishop someday.

