Middlemarch George Eliot (essential reading txt) đ
- Author: George Eliot
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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?
Dorotheaâs faith supplied all that Mr. Casaubonâs 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.
âI am very ignorantâ âyou will quite wonder at my ignorance,â said Dorothea. âI 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,â she added, with rapid imagination of Mr. Casaubonâs probable feeling, âI 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.â
âHow should I be able now to persevere in any path without your companionship?â 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. Casaubonâs 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. Casaubonâs 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.
VIMy ladyâs 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. Casaubonâs 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 âHow do you do?â 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.
âWell, Mrs. Fitchett, how are your fowls laying now?â said the high-colored, dark-eyed lady, with the clearest chiselled utterance.
âPretty well for laying, madam, but theyâve taâen to eating their eggs: Iâve no peace oâ mind with âem at all.â
âOh, the cannibals! Better sell them cheap at once. What will you sell them a couple? One canât eat fowls of a bad character at a high price.â
âWell, madam, half-a-crown: I couldnât let âem go, not under.â
âHalf-a-crown, these times! Come nowâ âfor the Rectorâs 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 themâ âlittle beauties. You must come and see them. You have no tumblers among your pigeons.â
âWell, madam, Master Fitchett shall go and see âem after work. Heâs very hot on new sorts; to oblige you.â
âOblige 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! Donât you and Fitchett boast too much, that is all!â
The phaeton was driven onwards with the last words, leaving Mrs. Fitchett laughing and shaking her head slowly, with an interjectional âSurely, surely!ââ âfrom which it might be inferred that she would have found the countryside somewhat duller if the Rectorâs 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 shadesâ âwho 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. Cadwalladerâs merits from a different point of view, winced a little when her name was announced in the library, where he was sitting alone.
âI see you have had our Lowick Cicero here,â she said, seating herself comfortably, throwing back her wraps, and showing a thin but well-built figure. âI 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 Peelâs 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
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