Middlemarch George Eliot (essential reading txt) 📖

where you might put a monkey for a margrave, and vice versa⁠—whatever has been or is to be narrated by me about low people, may be ennobled by being considered a parable; so that if any bad habits and ugly consequences are brought into view, the reader may have the relief of regarding them as not more than figuratively ungenteel, and may feel himself virtually in company with persons of some style. Thus while I tell the truth about loobies, my reader’s imagination need not be entirely excluded from an occupation with lords; and the petty sums which any bankrupt of high standing would be sorry to retire upon, may be lifted to the level of high commercial transactions by the inexpensive addition of proportional ciphers.

As to any provincial history in which the agents are all of high moral rank, that must be of a date long posterior to the first Reform Bill, and Peter Featherstone, you perceive, was dead and buried some months before Lord Grey came into office.

XXXVI

’Tis strange to see the humors of these men,
These great aspiring spirits, that should be wise:
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For being the nature of great spirits to love
To be where they may be most eminent;
They, rating of themselves so farre above
Us in conceit, with whom they do frequent,
Imagine how we wonder and esteeme
All that they do or say; which makes them strive
To make our admiration more extreme,
Which they suppose they cannot, ‘less they give
Notice of their extreme and highest thoughts.

Daniel: Tragedy of Philotas

Mr. Vincy went home from the reading of the will with his point of view considerably changed in relation to many subjects. He was an open-minded man, but given to indirect modes of expressing himself: when he was disappointed in a market for his silk braids, he swore at the groom; when his brother-in-law Bulstrode had vexed him, he made cutting remarks on Methodism; and it was now apparent that he regarded Fred’s idleness with a sudden increase of severity, by his throwing an embroidered cap out of the smoking-room on to the hall-floor.

“Well, sir,” he observed, when that young gentleman was moving off to bed, “I hope you’ve made up your mind now to go up next term and pass your examination. I’ve taken my resolution, so I advise you to lose no time in taking yours.”

Fred made no answer: he was too utterly depressed. Twenty-four hours ago he had thought that instead of needing to know what he should do, he should by this time know that he needed to do nothing: that he should hunt in pink, have a first-rate hunter, ride to cover on a fine hack, and be generally respected for doing so; moreover, that he should be able at once to pay Mr. Garth, and that Mary could no longer have any reason for not marrying him. And all this was to have come without study or other inconvenience, purely by the favor of providence in the shape of an old gentleman’s caprice. But now, at the end of the twenty-four hours, all those firm expectations were upset. It was “rather hard lines” that while he was smarting under this disappointment he should be treated as if he could have helped it. But he went away silently and his mother pleaded for him.

“Don’t be hard on the poor boy, Vincy. He’ll turn out well yet, though that wicked man has deceived him. I feel as sure as I sit here, Fred will turn out well⁠—else why was he brought back from the brink of the grave? And I call it a robbery: it was like giving him the land, to promise it; and what is promising, if making everybody believe is not promising? And you see he did leave him ten thousand pounds, and then took it away again.”

“Took it away again!” said Mr. Vincy, pettishly. “I tell you the lad’s an unlucky lad, Lucy. And you’ve always spoiled him.”

“Well, Vincy, he was my first, and you made a fine fuss with him when he came. You were as proud as proud,” said Mrs. Vincy, easily recovering her cheerful smile.

“Who knows what babies will turn to? I was fool enough, I dare say,” said the husband⁠—more mildly, however.

“But who has handsomer, better children than ours? Fred is far beyond other people’s sons: you may hear it in his speech, that he has kept college company. And Rosamond⁠—where is there a girl like her? She might stand beside any lady in the land, and only look the better for it. You see⁠—Mr. Lydgate has kept the highest company and been everywhere, and he fell in love with her at once. Not but what I could have wished Rosamond had not engaged herself. She might have met somebody on a visit who would have been a far better match; I mean at her schoolfellow Miss Willoughby’s. There are relations in that family quite as high as Mr. Lydgate’s.”

“Damn relations!” said Mr. Vincy; “I’ve had enough of them. I don’t want a son-in-law who has got nothing but his relations to recommend him.”

“Why, my dear,” said Mrs. Vincy, “you seemed as pleased as could be about it. It’s true, I wasn’t at home; but Rosamond told me you hadn’t a word to say against the engagement. And she has begun to buy in the best linen and cambric for her underclothing.”

“Not by my will,” said Mr. Vincy. “I shall have enough to do this year, with an idle scamp of a son, without paying for wedding-clothes. The times are as tight as can be; everybody is being ruined; and I don’t believe Lydgate has got a farthing. I shan’t give my consent to their marrying. Let ’em wait, as their elders have done before ’em.”

“Rosamond will take it hard, Vincy, and you know you never could bear to cross her.”

“Yes, I could. The sooner the engagement’s off, the better. I don’t believe he’ll ever make an income, the way he goes on. He makes enemies; that’s all I hear of his