CHAPTER XII The ride to Stonecourt, which Fred and Rosamond took the next morning, lay through a pretty bit of Midland landscape, almost all meadows and pastures, with hedgerows still allowed to grow in bushy beauty, and to spread out coral fruit for the birds. Little details gave each field a particular physiognomy, dear to the eyes that have looked on them from childhood. The pool in the corner where the grasses were dank, and trees leaned whisperingly. The great oak shadowing a bare place in Midpasture. The high bank where the ash trees grew. The sudden slope of the old moral pit, making a red background for the burdock. The huddled roofs and ricks of the homestead without a traceable way of approach. The grey gate and fences against the depths of the bordering wood. And the stray hovel, its old, old thatch full of mossy hills and valleys, with wondrous modulations of light and shadow, such as we travel far to see in later life, and see larger, but not more beautiful. These are the things that make the gamut of joy and landscape to midland-bred souls, the things they toddled among, or perhaps learned by heart standing between their father's knees while he drove leisurely. But the road, even the by-road, was excellent, for Loeik, as we have seen, was not a parish of muddy lanes and poor tenants, and it wasn't a Loeik parish that Fred and Rosamond entered after a couple of miles riding. Another mile would bring them to Stone Court, and at the end of the first half the house was already visible, looking as if it had been arrested in its growth toward a stone mansion by an unexpected budding of farm-buildings on its left flank, which had hindered it from becoming anything more than the substantial dwelling of a gentleman-farmer. It was not the less agreeable an object in the distance for the cluster of pinnacled corn-ricks which balanced the fine row of walnuts on the right. Presently it was possible to discern something that might be a gig on the circular drive before the front door. Dear me, said Rosamond, I hope none of my uncle's horrible relations are there. They are, though, that is Mrs. Wall's gig, the last yellow gig left, I should think. When I see Mrs. Wall in it I understand how yellow can have been worn for mourning. That gig seems to be more funereal than a hearse. But then Mrs. Wall always has black crepe on. How does she manage it, Rosie? Her friends can't always be dying. I don't know at all, and she is not in the least evangelical, said Rosamond reflectively, as if that religious point of view would have fully accounted for perpetual crepe. And not poor, she added, after a moment's pause.  And I believe he hates them all. The Mrs. Wall, who was so far from being admirable in the eyes of these distant connections, had happened to say this very morning—not at all with a defiant air, but in a low muffled neutral tone, as of a voice heard through cotton wool—that she did not wish to enjoy their good opinion. She was seated as she observed on her own brother's hearth, and had been Jane Featherstone five and twenty years before she had been Jane Wall, which entitled her to speak when her own brother's name had been made free with by those who had no right to it. "'What are you driving out there?' said Mr. Featherstone, holding his stick between his knees and settling his wig, while he gave her a momentary sharp glance, which seemed to react on him like a draught of cold air, and set him coughing. Mrs. Wall had to defer her answer till he was quiet again, till Mary Garth had supplied him with fresh syrup, and he had begun to rub the gold knob of his stick, looking bitterly at the fire. It was a bright fire, but it made no difference to the chill-looking purplish tint of Mrs. Wall's face, which was as neutral as her voice, having mere chinks for eyes and lips that hardly moved in speaking. "'The doctors can't master that cough, brother. It's just like what I have, for I'm your own sister, Constitution, and everything. But as I was saying, it's a pity Mrs. Vincy's family can't be better conducted.' "'Chah! you said nothing of the sort. You said somebody had made free with my name. And no more than can be proved, if what everybody says is true. My brother Solomon tells me it's the talk up and down in Middlemarch how unsteady young Vincy is, and has been forever gambling at Billiards since he came home. "'Nonsense! What's a game at Billiards? It's a good gentlemanly game, and young Vincy is not a clot-hopper. If your son John took to Billiards now he'd make a fool of himself. Your nephew John never took to Billiards or any other game, brother, and is far from losing hundreds of pounds, which, if what everybody says is true, must be found somewhere else than out of Mr. Vincy the father's pocket. For they say he's been losing money for years, though nobody would think so, to see him go coursing and keeping open house as they do. And I've heard say Mr. Bolstrode condemns Mrs. Vincy beyond anything for her flightiness and spoiling her children so. What's Mr. Bolstrode to me? I don't bank with him. Well, Mrs. Bolstrode is Mr. Vincy's own sister, and they do say that Mr. Vincy mostly trades on the bank money, and you may see yourself, brother, when a woman past forty has pink strings always flying, and that light way of laughing at everything, it's very unbecoming. But indulging your children is one thing, and finding money to pay their debts is another. And it's openly said that young Vincy has raised money on his expectations. I don't say what expectations. Miss Garth hears me, and is welcome to tell again. I know young people hang together. No thank you, Mrs. Wall, said Mary Garth. I dislike hearing scandal too much to wish to repeat it. Mr. Featherstone rubbed the knob of his stick, and made a brief convulsive show of laughter, which had much the same genuineness as an old wist player's chuckle over a bad hand. After looking at the fire, he said, And who pretends to say Fred Vincy hasn't got expectations? Such a fine spirited fellow is like enough to have him. There was a slight pause before Mrs. Wall replied, and when she did so, her voice seemed to be slightly moistened with tears, though her face was still dry. Whether or no, brother, it is naturally painful to me and my brother Solomon to hear your name made free with, and your complaint being such as may carry you off sudden, and people who are no more Featherstone's than the Mary Andrew at the fair, openly reckoning on your property coming to them, and me, your own sister, and Solomon, your own brother, and if that's to be it, what has it pleased the Almighty to make families for? Here Mrs. Wall's tears fell, but with moderation. Come out with it, Jane, said Mr. Featherstone, looking at her. You mean to say Fred Vincy has been getting someone to advance him money on what he says he knows about my will, eh? I never said so, brother. Mrs. Wall's voice had again become dry and unshaken. It was told me by my brother Solomon last night when he called, coming from market, to give me advice about the old wheat, me being a widow, and my son John only three-and-twenty, though steady beyond anything, and he had it for most undeniable authority, and not one, but many. Stuff and nonsense! I don't believe a word of it. It's all a got-up story. Go to the window, Missy, I thought I heard a horse, see if the doctor's coming. Not got-up by me, brother, nor yet by Solomon, who whatever else he may be, and I don't deny he has oddities, has made his will imparted his property equal between such kin as he's friends with, though for my part I think there are times when some should be considered more than others, but Solomon makes it no secret what he means to do. The more fool he, said Mr. Featherstone, with some difficulty, breaking into a severe fit of coughing, that required Mary Garth to stand near him, so that she did not find out whose horses they were, which presently paused stamping on the gravel before the door. Before Mr. Featherstone's cough was quiet, Rosamond entered, burying up her riding habit with much grace. She bowed ceremoniously to Mrs. Wall, who said stiffly, "'How do you do, Miss?' smiled and nodded silently to Mary, and remained standing till the coughing should cease, and allow her uncle to notice her. "'Hey, day, Miss,' he said at last, "'You have a fine colour. Where's Fred?' "'Seeing about the horses. He will be in presently.' "'Sit down, sit down. Mrs. Wall, you'd better go.' Even those neighbours who had called Peter Featherstone an old fox, had never accused him of being insincerely polite, and his sister was quite used to the peculiar absence of ceremony with which he marked his sense of blood relationship. Indeed, she herself was accustomed to think that entire freedom from the necessity of behaving agreeably was included in the Almighty's intentions about families. She rose slowly without any sign of resentment, and said in her usual muffled monotone, "'Brother, I hope the new doctor will be able to do something for you. Solomon says there's great talk of his cleverness. I'm sure it's my wish you should be spared. And there's none more ready to nurse you than your own sister, and your own nieces, if you'd only say the word. There's Rebecca, and Joanna, and Elizabeth, you know.' "'I, I, I remember. You'll see I've remembered them all. All dark and ugly. They'd need have some money, eh? There never was any beauty in the women of our family. But the Featherstones have always had some money, and the walls, too. Wall had money, too. A warm man was wall. I, I, money is a good egg, and if you have got money to leave behind you, lay it in a warm nest. Good-bye, Mrs. Wall." Here Mr. Featherstone pulled at both sides of his wig, as if he wanted to deafen himself, and his sister went away ruminating on the miraculous speech of his. Not withstanding her jealousy of the Vinces and of Mary Garth, they remained as the nethermost sediment at her mental shallows. A persuasion that her brother Peter Featherstone could never leave his chief property away from his blood relations. Else why had the Almighty carried off his two wives, both childless, after he'd gained so much by manganese and things, turning up when nobody expected it? And why was there a Loic parish church, and the walls and powder-rolls all sitting in the same pew for generations, and the Featherstone pew next to them, if, the Sunday after her brother Peter's death, everybody was to know that the property was gone out of the family? The human mind has at no period accepted a moral chaos, and so preposterous a result was not strictly conceivable. But we are frightened at much that is not strictly conceivable. When Fred came in the old man eyed him with a peculiar twinkle, which the younger had often had reason to interpret as pride in the satisfactory details of his appearance. "'You two misses go away,' said Mr. Featherstone. "'I want to speak to Fred.' "'Come into my room, Rosamond. You will not find the cold for a little while,' said Mary. The two girls had not only known each other in childhood, but had been at the same provincial school together—Mary as an articleed pupil—so that they had many memories in common, and liked very well to talk in private. Indeed, this tete-a-tete was one of Rosamond's objects in coming to Stone Court. Old Featherstone would not begin the dialogue till the door had been closed. He continued to look at Fred with the same twinkle, and with one of his habitual grimaces, alternately screwing and widening his mouth, and when he spoke it was in a low tone, which might be taken for that of an informer ready to be bought off, rather than for the tone of an offended senior. He was not a man to feel any strong moral indignation, even on account of trespasses against himself. It was natural that others should want to get an advantage over him, but then he was a little too cunning for them.  You put my life at a twelve-month say, but I can alter my will yet." Fred blushed. He had not borrowed money in that way, for excellent reasons, but he was conscious of having spoken with some confidence—perhaps with more than he exactly remembered—about his prospect of getting Featherstone's land as a future means of paying present debts. I don't know what you refer to, sir. I have certainly never borrowed any money on such an insecurity. Pleased to explain. No, sir. It's you must explain. I can alter my will yet, let me tell you. I'm of sound mind, can reckon compound interest in my head, and remember every fool's name as well as I could twenty years ago. What the deuce? I'm under eighty. I say you must contradict this story. I have contradicted it, sir," Fred answered, with a touch of impatience, not remembering that his uncle did not verbally discriminate contradicting from disproving, though no one was further from confounding the two ideas than old Featherstone, who often wondered that so many fools took his own assertions for proofs. But I contradict it again.  Nonsense! You must bring documents. It comes from authority. Name the authority, and make him name the man of whom I borrowed the money, and then I can disprove the story. It's pretty good authority, I think. A man who knows most of what goes on in Middlemarch—it's that fine religious charitable uncle of yours. Come now! Here Mr. Featherstone had his peculiar inward shake which signified merriment. Mr. Bolstrode. Who else, eh? Then the story has grown into this lie out of some sermonizing words he may have let fall about me. Do they pretend that he named the man who lent me the money? If there is such a man, depend upon it Bolstrode knows him. But supposing you only tried to get the money lent, and didn't get it, Bolstrode didn't know about that, too. You bring me a writing from Bolstrode to say he doesn't believe you'd ever promised to pay your debts out of my land. Come now! Mr. Featherstone's face required its whole scale of grimaces as a muscular outlet to his silent triumph in the soundness of his faculties.  You must be joking, sir. Mr. Bolstrode, like other men, believes scores of things that are not true, and he has a prejudice against me. I could easily get him to write that he knew no fact and proof of the report you speak of, though it might lead to unpleasantness. But I could hardly ask him to write down what he believes or does not believe about me. Fred paused an instant, and then added, in politic appeal, to his uncle's vanity. That is hardly a thing for a gentleman to ask. But he was disappointed in the result. Aye, I know what you mean. You'd soon offend me, then Bolstrode. And what's he? He's got no land here about that ever I heard tell of. A speculating fellow. He may come down any day when the devil leaves off backing him. And that's what his religion means.  That's nonsense. There's one thing I made out pretty clear when I used to go to church. And it's this. God a mighty sticks to the land. He promises land, and he gives land, and he makes chaps rich with corn and cattle. But you take the other side. You like Bolstrode and speculation better than Featherstone and land.  I like neither Bolstrode nor speculation. He spoke rather sulkily, feeling himself stalemated. Well, well, you can do without me, that's pretty clear, said old Featherstone, secretly disliking the possibility that Fred would show himself at all independent. You neither want a bit of land to make a squire of you instead of a starving person, nor a lift of a hundred pound, by the way. It's all one to me. I can make five codicils, if I like, and I shall keep my banknotes for an egg. It's all one to me." Fred colored again. Featherstone had rarely given him presence of money, and at this moment it seemed almost harder to part with the immediate prospect of banknotes than with the more distant prospect of the land. I am not ungrateful, sir. I never meant to show disregard for any kind intentions you might have towards me, on the contrary. Very good. Then prove it. You bring me a letter from Bolstrode saying he doesn't believe you've been cracking and promising to pay your debts out of my land, and then, if there's any scrape you've got into, we'll see if I can't back you a bit. Come now. That's a bargain. Here. Give me your arm. I'll try and walk round the room." Fred, in spite of his irritation, had kindness enough in him to be a little sorry for the unloved, unvenerated old man, who with his drop-sickle legs looked more than usually pitiable in walking. While giving his arm, he thought that he should not himself like to be an old fellow with his constitution breaking up, and he waited good-temperately, first before the window to hear the won'ted remarks about the guinea fowls and the weather-cock, and then before the scanty book-shelves, of which the chief glories in dark calf were Josephus, Culpeper, Klopstock's Messiah, and several volumes of the Gentleman's Magazine. Read me the name of the books.  Fred gave him the titles. What did Missy want with more books? What must you be bringing her more books for? They amuse her, sir. She is very fond of reading. A little too fond, said Mr. Featherstone, captiously. She was for reading when she sat with me. But I put a stop to that. She's got the newspaper to read out loud. That's enough for one day, I should think. I can't abide to see her reading to herself. You mind and not bring her any more books, do you hear? Yes, sir. I hear. Fred had received this order before, and had secretly disobeyed it. He intended to disobey it again. Ring the bell, said Mr. Featherstone. I want Missy to come down. Rosamond and Mary had been talking faster than their male friends. They did not think of sitting down, but stood at the toilet table near the window while Rosamond took off her hat, adjusted her veil, and applied little touches of her fingertips to her hair. Hair of infantine fairness, neither flaxen nor yellow. Mary Garth seemed all the planers standing at an angle between the two nymphs, the one in the glass and the one out of it, who looked at each other with eyes of heavenly blue. Deep enough to hold the most exquisite meanings an ingenious beholder could put into them, and deep enough to hide the meanings of the owner if these should happen to be less exquisite. Only a few children in Middlemarch looked blonde by the side of Rosamond, and the slim figure displayed by her riding habit had delicate undulations. In fact, most men in Middlemarch, except her brothers, held that Miss Vincey was the best girl in the world, and some called her an angel. Mary Garth, on the contrary, had the aspect of an ordinary sinner. She was brown, her curly dark hair was rough and stubborn, her stature was low, and it would not be true to declare unsatisfactory antithesis that she had all the virtues. Plainness has its peculiar temptations and vices quite as much as beauty. It is apt either to feign amiability, or, not feigning it, to show all the repulsiveness of discontent. At any rate, to be called an ugly thing in contrast with that lovely creature your companion, is apt to produce some effect beyond a sense of fine veracity and fitness in the phrase. At the age of two and twenty, Mary had certainly not attained that perfect good sense and good principle which are usually recommended to the less fortunate girl, as if they were to be obtained in quantities ready mixed, with a flavor of resignation as required. Her shrewdness had a streak of satiric bitterness continually renewed and never carried utterly out of sight, except by a strong current of gratitude toward those who, instead of telling her that she ought to be contented, did something to make her so. Advancing womanhood had tempered her plainness, which was of a good human sort, such as the mothers of our race have very commonly worn in all latitudes, under a more or less becoming headgear. Rembrandt would have pated her with pleasure, and would have made her broad features look out of the canvas with intelligent honesty. For honesty, truth-telling fairness, was Mary's reigning virtue. She neither tried to create illusions, nor indulged in them for her own behoof, and when she was in a good mood she had humor enough in her to laugh at herself. When she and Rosamond happened both to be reflected in the glass, she said laughingly, What a brown patch I am by the side of you, Rosie!  Oh, no! No one thinks of your appearance. You are so sensible and useful, Mary. Beauty is a very little consequence in reality," said Rosamond, turning her head towards Mary, but with eyes swerving towards the new view of her neck and the glass. You mean my beauty," said Mary rather sardonically. Rosamond thought, Poor Mary, she takes the kindest things ill. Allowed, she said, What have you been doing lately? I—oh, minding the house, pouring out syrup, pretending to be amiable and contented, learning to have a bad opinion of everybody. It is a wretched life for you. No," said Mary curtly, with a little toss of her head, I think my life is pleasanter than your Miss Morgan's. Yes, but Miss Morgan is so uninteresting, and not young. She is interesting to herself, I suppose, and I am not at all sure that everything gets easier as one gets older. No," said Rosamond reflectively, one wonders what such people do without any prospect. To be sure there is religion as a support. But," she added, dimpling, it is very different with you, Mary. You may have an offer. Has anyone told you he means to make me one? Of course not. I mean there is a gentleman who may fall in love with you, seeing you almost every day. A certain change in Mary's face was chiefly determined by the resolve not to show any change. Does that always make people fall in love? she answered carelessly. It seems to me quite as often a reason for detesting each other. Not when they are interesting and agreeable. I hear that Mr. Lidgate is both. Oh! Mr. Lidgate! said Mary with an unmistakable lapse into indifference. You want to know something about him? she added, not choosing to indulge Rosamond's directness. Merely how you like him? There is no question of liking it present. My liking always wants some little kindness to kindle it. I am not magnanimous enough to like people who speak to me without seeming to see me. Is he so hot, he? said Rosamond, with heightened satisfaction. You know that he is of good family. No. He did not give that as a reason. Mary you are the oddest girl. But what sort of looking man is he? Grab him to me. How can one describe a man? I can give you an inventory, heavy eyebrows, dark eyes, a straight nose, thick dark hair, large solid white hands, and—let me see—oh!—an exquisite cambrick pocket handkerchief. But you will see him. You know this is about the time of his visits. Rosamond blushed a little, but said meditatively—I rather like a haughty manner. I cannot endure a rattling young man. I did not tell you that Mr. Lidgate was haughty, but il y en n'a pour tous les gus, as little mam Zell used to say, and if any girl can choose the particular sort of conceit she would like, I should think it is you, Rosie. Hottiness is not conceit. I call Fred conceited. I wish no one said any worse of him. He should be more careful. Mrs. Wall has been telling Uncle that Fred is very unsteady. Mary spoke from a girlish impulse which got the better of her judgment. There was a vague uneasiness associated with the word unsteady, which she hoped Rosamond might say something to dissipate, but she purposely abstained from mentioning Mrs. Wall's more special insinuation. Oh! Fred is horrid! said Rosamond. She would not have allowed herself so unsuitable a word to any one with Mary. What do you mean by horrid? He is so idle, and makes Papa so angry, and says he will not take orders. I think Fred is quite right. How can you say he is quite right, Mary? I thought you had more sense of religion. He is not fit to be a clergyman. But he ought to be fit. Well, then he is not what he ought to be. I know some other people who are in the same case. But no one approves of them. I should not like to marry a clergyman, but there must be clergymen. It does not follow that Fred must be one. But when Papa has been at the expense of educating him for it, and only suppose if he should have no fortune left him—I could suppose that very well, said Mary dryly. Then I wonder you can defend Fred, said Rosamond, inclined to push this point. I don't defend him, said Mary, laughing. I would defend any parish from having him for a clergyman. But of course if he were a clergyman he must be different. Yes, he would be a great hypocrite, and he is not that yet. Oh! it is of no use saying anything to you, Mary. You always take Fred's part. Why should I not take his part? said Mary, lighting up. He would take mine. He is the only person who takes the least trouble to oblige me. You make me feel very uncomfortable, Mary, said Rosamond, with her gravest mildness. I would not tell Mama for the world. What would you not tell her? said Mary angrily. Pray do not go into a rage, Mary, said Rosamond mildly as ever. If your Mama is afraid that Fred will make me an offer, tell her that I would not marry him if he asked me. But he is not going to do so that I am aware. He certainly never has asked me. Mary, you are always so violent. And you are always so exasperating. I? What can you blame me for? Oh! blameless people are always the most exasperating. Oh! there is the bell. I think we must go down. I did not mean to quarrel, said Rosamond, putting on her hat. Choral! nonsense! we have not quarrelled. If one is not to get into a rage sometimes, what is the good of being friends? Am I to repeat what you have said? Just as you please, I never say what I am afraid of having repeated. But let us go down. Mr. Lidgate was rather late this morning, but the visitors stayed long enough to see him, for Mr. Featherstone asked Rosamond to sing to him, and she herself was so kind as to propose a second favourite song of his, Flow on Thou Shining River, after she had sung Home Sweet Home, which he detested. This hard-headed old overreach approved of the sentimental song has a suitable garnish for girls, and also as fundamentally fine, sentiment being the right thing for a song. Mr. Featherstone was still applauding the last performance, and assuring Missy that her voice was as clear as a blackbird's, when Mr. Lidgate's horse passed the window. His dull expectation of the usual disagreeable routine with an aged patient, who can hardly believe that medicine would not set him up if the doctor were only clever enough, added to his general disbelief in middle-march charms, made a doubly effective background to this vision of Rosamond, whom old Featherstone made haste ostentatiously, to introduce as his niece, though he had never thought it worthwhile to speak of Mary Garth in that light. Nothing escaped Lidgate and Rosamond's graceful behaviour. How delicately she waved the notice which the old man's want of taste had thrust upon her by a quiet gravity, not showing her dimples on the wrong occasion, but showing them afterwards in speaking to Mary, to whom she dressed herself with so much good-natured interest, that Lidgate, after quickly examining Mary more fully than he had done before, saw an adorable kindness in Rosamond's eyes. But Mary from some cause looked rather out of temper. "'Miss Rosie has been singing me a song. You've nothing to say against that, eh, doctor?' said Mr. Featherstone. "'I like it better than your physic.' "'That has made me forget how the time was going,' said Rosamond, rising to reach her hat, which she had laid aside before singing, so that her flower-like head on its white stem was seen in perfection above her riding-habit. "'Fred, we really must go.' "'Very good,' said Fred, who had his own reasons for not being in the best spirits, and wanted to get away.  Every nerve and muscle in Rosamond was adjusted to the consciousness that she was being looked at. She was by nature an actress of parts that entered into her physique. She even acted her own character, and so well that she did not know it to be precisely her own. "'The best in Middlemarch I'll be bound,' said Mr. Featherstone. "'Let the next be who she will. Eh, Fred, speak up for your sister.' "'I'm afraid I'm out of court, sir. My evidence would be good for nothing.' "'Middlemarch has not a very high standard, uncle,' said Rosamond, with a pretty likeness, going towards her whip which lay at a distance. Lidgate was quick in anticipating her. He reached the whip before she did, and turned to present it to her. She bowed and looked at him. He of course was looking at her, and their eyes met with that peculiar meeting which is never arrived at by effort, but seems like a sudden divine clearance of haze. I think Lidgate turned a little paler than usual, but Rosamond blushed deeply, and felt a certain astonishment. After that she was really anxious to go, and did not know what sort of stupidity her uncle was talking of when she went to shake hands with him. But this result, which she took to be a mutual impression, called falling in love, was just what Rosamond had contemplated beforehand. Ever since that important new arrival in Middlemarch she had woven a little future, of which something like this scene was the necessary beginning. Strangers, whether wrecked and clinging to a raft, or duly escorted and accompanied by portmanteaus, have always had a circumstantial fascination for the virgin mind, against which native merit has urged itself in vain. And a stranger was absolutely necessary to Rosamond's social romance, which had always turned on a lover and bridegroom who was not a Middlemarcher, and who had no connections at all like her own. Of late, indeed, the construction seemed to demand that he should somehow be related to a baronet. Now that she and the stranger had met, reality proved much more moving than anticipation. And Rosamond could not doubt that this was the great epoch of her life. She judged to her own symptoms as those of awakening love, and she held it still more natural that Mr. Lidgate should have fallen in love at first sight of her. These things happened so often at Balls, and why not by the morning light, when the complexion showed all the better for it? Rosamond, though no older than Mary, was rather used to being fallen in love with. But she, for her part, had remained indifferent and fastidiously critical towards both fresh sprig and faded bachelor. And here was Mr. Lidgate suddenly corresponding to her ideal, being altogether foreign to Middlemarch, carrying a certain air of distinction congruous with good family, and possessing connections which offered vistas of that middle-class heaven rank, a man of talent also, whom it would be especially delightful to enslave. In fact, a man who had touched her nature quite newly, and brought a vivid interest into her life which was better than any fancied might be, such as she was in the habit of opposing to the actual. Thus, in riding home, both the brother and the sister were preoccupied and inclined to be silent. Rosamond, whose basis for her structure had the usual airy slightness, was a remarkably detailed and realistic imagination when the foundation had once been presupposed. And before they had ridden a mile, she was far on in the costume and introductions of her wedded life, having determined on her house in Middlemarch, and foreseen the visit she would pay to her husband's high-bred relatives at a distance, whose finished manners she could appropriate as thoroughly as she had done her school accomplishments, preparing herself thus for vaguer elevations which might ultimately come. There was nothing financial, still less sordid in her provisions. She cared about what were considered refinements, and not about the money that was to pay for them. Fred's mind, on the other hand, was busy with an anxiety which even his ready hopefulness could not immediately quell.  His father was already out of humour with him, and would be still more so if he were the occasion of any additional coolness between his own family and the Bolstrode's. Then he himself hated having to go and speak to his uncle Bolstrode, and perhaps after drinking wine he had said many foolish things about Featherstone's property, and these had been magnified by report. Fred felt that he made a wretched figure as a fellow who bragged about expectations from a queer old miser like Featherstone, and went to beg for certificates at his bidding. But those expectations! He really had them, and he saw no agreeable alternative if he gave them up. Besides he had lately made a debt which galled him extremely, and old Featherstone had almost bargained to pay it off. The whole affair was miserably small. His debts were small, even his expectations were not anything so very magnificent. Fred had known men to whom he would have been ashamed of confessing the smallness of his grapes. Such ruminations naturally produced a streak of misanthropic bitterness, to be born the son of a middle-march manufacturer, and inevitable heir to nothing in particular, while such men as main-wearing and vying, certainly life was a poor business when a spirited young fellow, with a good appetite for the best of everything, had so poor an outlook. It had not occurred to Fred that the introduction of Bolstrode's name in the matter was a fiction of old Featherstones, nor could this have made any difference to his position. He saw plainly enough that the old man wanted to exercise his power by tormenting him a little, and also probably to get some satisfaction out of seeing him on unpleasant terms with Bolstrode. Fred fancied that he saw to the bottom of his uncle Featherstone's soul, though in reality half what he saw there was no more than the reflex of his own inclinations. The difficult task of knowing another soul is not for young gentlemen, whose consciousness is chiefly made up of their own wishes. Fred's main point of debate with himself was, whether he should tell his father, or try to get through the affair without his father's knowledge. It was probably Mrs. Wall who had been talking about him, and if Mary Garth had repeated Mrs. Wall's report to Rosamond it would be sure to reach his father, who would as surely question him about it. He said to Rosamond as they slackened their pace. Rosy, did Mary tell you that Mrs. Wall had said anything about me? Yes, indeed, she did. What? That you were very unsteady. Was that all? I should think that was enough, Fred. You are sure she said no more? Mary mentioned nothing else, but really, Fred, I think you ought to be ashamed. Oh, fudge! Don't lecture me. What did Mary say about it? I am not obliged to tell you.   She is the best girl I know. I should never have thought she was a girl to fall in love with. How do you know what men would fall in love with? Girls never know. At least, Fred, let me advise you not to fall in love with her, for she says she would not marry you if you asked her. She might have waited till I did ask her. I knew it would nettle you, Fred. Not at all. She would not have said so if you had not provoked her. Before reaching home, Fred concluded that he would tell the whole affair as simply as possible to his father, who might perhaps take on himself the unpleasant business of speaking to Bolsteroad. End of chapter 12, and of book 1. How class your man as better than the most, or seeming better, worse beneath that cloak, as saint or naïve, pilgrim or hypocrite? Second yent. 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. Velum, 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. Bolsteroad 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. Bolsteroad 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 grey sprinkle brown hair, light grey 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. Bolsteroad had also a differential 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 seller, there is no thrill of satisfaction in seeing your guest hold up his wine glass to the light and look judicial. Such joys reserved for conscious merit, hence Mr. Bolsteroad's close attention was not agreeable to the publicans and sinners in Middle March.  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 Bolsteroad in Middle March. To his present visitor, Lidgate, 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. Lidgate, the banker observed, after a brief pause. If, as I dare to hope, I have the privilege of finding you a valuable co-adjutant 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 Medicot has given the land and timber for the building, he is not disposed to give his personal attention to the object. There are a few things better worth the pains in a provincial town like this, said Lidgate. 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 Lidgate's gift was of 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 pretty obstacles or seductions, of which he had no experience. But this proud openness was made lovable by an expression of unaffected goodwill. Mr. Balstud 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 middle-march. One can begin so many things with a new person, even begin to be a better man. I shall treat joys to furnish your seal with fuller opportunities, Mr. Balstud answered. I mean, by confining to you the superintendence of my new hospital should a mature 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 in this town as a gracious indication that a more manifest blessing is now to be awarded to my efforts, which have hitherto been much withstood. 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 Lidgett 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 middle-march, 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 labours 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 the higher questions which determine the starting point of a diagnosis. As to the philosophy of medial evidence, any glimmering of these can only come from a scientific culture, or which country practitioners have usually no more notion than the man in the moon. Mr. Balstruud, bending and looking intently, found the form which Lidgett 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. Lidgett, 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 recognise, I hope, the existence of spiritual interests in your patients? Certainly I do. But those wires are apt to cover different meanings to different minds. Precisely. And on such subject's 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. Fairbrothers' parish. You know Mr. Fairbrother? 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's a naturalist. Mr. Fairbrother, 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. Balford paused and looked meditative. I have not yet been pained by finding any excessive talent in middle-march, said Lidgett Bluntley. What I desire, Mr. Balford continued, looking still more serious, is that Mr. Fairbrothers' 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 medial man, I could have no opinion on such point unless I knew Mr. Tyke, and even then I should require to know the cases in which he was applied. Lidgett 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. Balford began to speak with a more chiseled 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 dispute, said Lidgett. The path I have chosen is to work well in my own profession. My responsibility, Mr. Lidgett, 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 yota on my convictions, or cease to identify myself with the truth which an evil generation hates. I have devoted myself to this object of hospital improvement, but I will boldly confess to you, Mr. Lidgett, 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. Balstraud's voice had become a loud and agitated whisper, as he said the last words. There we certainly differ, said Lidgett, but he was not sorry that the door was now opened, and Mr. Vinshey 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. Vinshey 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. Balstraud 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, Vinshey. No, no, I have no opinion of that system. Life wants padding, said Mr. Vinshey, 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 scape-grace Freds. That is a subject on which you and I are likely to take quite as different views as on diet, Vinshey. I hope not this time. Mr. Vinshey was resolved to boo good humor. The fact is, it's about a whim of old Featherstones. Somebody has been cooking up a story out of spy 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. Vinshey, 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. Balstow rarely shrank from, but Mr. Vinshey 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 Balstow's joke and though he usually enjoyed kicking, he was anxious to refrain from that relief. As to that, Balstow, it's no use going back.  I couldn't foresee everything in the trade. There wasn't a finer business in Middle March 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 profess to be anything but worldly, and what's more, I don't see anybody else who's 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. Balstruud, who, finishing his sandwich, had thrown himself back in his chair and shaded his eyes as if wearing. You had some more particular business? Yes, yes. The long and short of it is somebody has told old Featherstone, giving US the authority that Fred has been borrowing or trying to borrow money on 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 note saying you don't believe a word of such stuff, either of his having borrowed or tried to borrow in such a false way. I suppose you can have no objection to 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 severe word, has not tried to raise money by holding out his future prospects, or even that someone 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 honour that he has never borrowed money on the pretense of any understanding about his uncle's land.  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.  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, Vinci, 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. Vinci burst out very bluntly. It may be for the glory of God, but it is not for the glory of the Middle-March trade, that Plimdale's house uses those blue and green dyes it gets from the brassing manufacturing. 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. Balsdood paused a little before he answered. You pain me very much by speaking in this way, Vinci? 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, stillest to make the thread clear for the careless and the scoffing.  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 looser by my trade yet, said Mr. Vinci, thoroughly netled 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 content 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. Of this letter to 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 quarreling with me, it will be exceedingly painful to Harriet as well as myself, said Mr. Balstod, 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-staffs himself and goes to 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 shop 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. Buldstrud had begun by admonishing Mr. Vincy and had ended by seeing a very unsatisfactory reflection of himself in the coarse, 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. Buldstrud'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 tomorrow. End of chapter 13 of Middle March by George Eliot. Read by Lars Rolander. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Middle March by George Eliot. Chapter 14. Follows here the strict receipt for the sauce to dainty meat, named idleness which many eat by preference and call it sweet. First watch for morsels like a hound. Mix well with buffets, stir them round with good thick oil of flatteries and froth with me self-loading lice. Sir Warm, the vessels you must choose to keep it in our dead men's shoes. Mr. Balstruz's consultation of Harriet seemed to have had the effect decided by Mr. Vincy. For early the next morning, a letter came which Fred could carry to Mr. Featherstone as the required testimony. The old gentleman was staying in bed on account of the cold weather and as Mary Gath was not to be seen in the sitting room, Fred went upstairs immediately and resented the letter to his uncle, who propped up comfortably on the bed-rest, was not less able than usual to enjoy his consciousness of wisdom in distrusting and frustrating mankind. He put on the spectacles to read the letter, pursuing up his lips and drawing down their corners. Under the circumstances, I will not decline to state my conviction. Cha, what fine words the fellow puts. He is as fine as an auctioner that your son Frederick has not obtained any advance of money on the quests promised by Mr. Featherstone, promised, who said I had ever promised. I promised nothing. I shall make odysseals as long as I like and that considering the nature of such proceeding, it is unreasonable to presume that a young man of sense and character would attempt it. Ah, but the gentleman doesn't say you are a young man of sense and character. Mark you that, sir. As to my own concern with any report of such nature, I distinctly affirm that I never made any statement to the effect that your son had borrowed money on any property that might accrue to him on Mr. Featherstone's demise. Bless my heart, property accrue demise. Lawyer's standish is nothing to him. He couldn't speak finer if he wanted to borrow. Well, Mr. Featherstone here looked over his spectacles at Fred while he handed back the letter to him with a contemptous gesture. You don't suppose I believe a thing because Balster writes it out fine, eh? Fred collared, you wish to have the letter, sir. I should think it very lightly that Mr. Balster's denial is as good as the authority which told you what he denies. Every bit, I never said I believed either one or the other. Now, what do you expect, said Mr. Featherstone, curtly, keeping on his spectacles but withdrawing his hands under his wraps. I expect nothing, sir. Fred, with difficulty, restrained himself from venting his irritation. I came to bring you the letter. If you like, I would bid you good morning. Not yet, not yet. Bring the bell. I want Missy to come. It was a servant who came in answer to the bell. Tell Missy to come, said Mr. Featherstone impatiently. What business had she to go away? He spoke in the same tone when Mary came.  Want my waistcoat now? I told you always to put it on the bed. Mary's eyes looked rather red as if she had been crying. It was clear that Mr. Featherstone was in one of his most snappish humours this morning. And though Fred had now the prospect of receiving the much-needed present of money, he would have preferred being free to turn round on the old tyrant and tell him that Mary Gath was too good to be at his back. Though Fred had risen as she entered the room, she had barely noticed him and looked as if her nerves were quivering with the expectation that something would be thrown at her. But she never had anything worse than words to dreed. When she went to reach the waistcoat from a peg, Fred went up to her side and said, Allow me. Let it alone. You bring it, Missy, and lay it down here, said Mr. Featherstone. Now you go away again till I call you, he added, when the waistcoat was laid down by him. It was usual with him to cease in his pleasure in showing favour to one person by being especially disagreeable to another, and Mary was always at hand to furnish the condiment. When his own relatives came, she was treated better.   He said, looking about his spectacles and pausing in the act of opening the lid. Not at all, sir. You were good enough to speak of making me present the other day. Else, of course, I should not have thought of the matter. But Fred was of a hopeful disposition and a vision had presented itself of a sum just large enough to deliver him from a certain anxiety. When Fred got into debt, it always seemed to him highly probable that something or other he did not necessarily concede what would come to pass, enabling him to pay in due time. And now that the providential occurrence was apparently close at hand, it would have been sheer absurdity to think that the supply would be short of the need, as absurd as a faith that believed in half a miracle for want of strength to believe in a whole one. The deep-veined hands fingered many banknotes, one after the other, laying them down flat again, while Fred leaned back in his chair, scorning to look eager. He held himself to be a gentleman at heart and did not like courting an old fellow for his money.  Fred could see distinctly that there were but five, as the less significant edges gaped towards him, but then each might mean fifty pounds. He took them, saying, I am very much obliged to you, sir, and was going to roll them up without seeming to think of their value. But this did not suit Mr. Featherstone, who was eyeing him intently. Come, don't you think it worth your while to count them? You take money like a lord. I suppose you loathe it like one. I thought I was not to look a gift horse in the mouth, sir, but I shall be very happy to count them. Fred was not so happy, however, after he had counted them, for they actually presented the absurdity of being less than his hopefulness had decided that they must be. What can the fitness of things mean if not their fitness to a man's expectations? Failing this absurdity and atheism gaped behind him. The collapse for Fred was severe when he found that he held no more than five twenties and his share in the higher education of his country did not seem to help him. Nevertheless, he said with rapid changes in his fair complexion. It is very handsome of you, sir. I should think it is, said Mr. Featherstone, locking his box and replacing it. Then taking off his spectacles deliberately and at length, as if his inward meditation had more deeply convinced him, repeating, I should think it handsome. I assure you, sir, I am very grateful, said Fred, who had had time to recover his cheerful air.  You want to cut a figure in the world and I reckon Peter Featherstone is the only one you've got to trust to. Here the old man's eyes clean with a curiously mingled satisfaction in the consciousness that this smart young fellow relied upon him and that the smart young fellow was rather a fool for doing so. Yes, indeed. I was not born to very splendid chances. Few men have been more cramped than I have been, said Fred, with some sense of surprise at his own virtue, considering how hardly he was dealt with. It really seems a little too bad to have to ride a broken, winded hunter and see men who are not half such good judges as yourself, able to throw away any amount of money on buying bad bargains. Well, you can buy yourself a fine hunter now. Eighty pound is enough for that, I reckon, and you'll have twenty pound over to get yourself out of any little scrape, said Mr. Featherstone, chuckling slightly. You are very good, sir, said Fred, with a fine sense of contrast between the words and his feeling. Aye, rather a better uncle than your fine uncle, Balstrud. You won't get much out of his speculations, I think. He's got a pretty strong string round your father's leg by what I hear, eh? My father never tells me anything about his affair, sir. Well, he shows some sense there, but other people find him out without his telling. He'll never have much to leave you. He'll most like die without will. He's the sort of man to do it. Let them make him mere a middle-march, as much as they like, but you won't get much by his dying without a will, though you are the eldest son. Fred thought that Mr. Featherstone had never been so disagreeable before. True, he had never before given him quite so much money at once. Shall I destroy this letter of Mr. Balstrud's, sir? Said Fred Rising with a letter as if he would put it in the fire. Aye, aye, I don't want it. It's worth no money to me. Fred carried the letter to the fire and thrust the poker through it with much zest. He longed to get out of the room, but he was a little ashamed before his inner self, as well as before his uncle, to run away immediately after pocketing the money. Presently the farm bailiff came up to give his master a report, and Fred, to his unspeakable relief, was dismissed with the injunction to come again soon. He had longed not only to be set free from his uncle, but also to find Mary Garth. She was now in her usual place by the fire, with sewing in her hands and a book open on the little table by her side. Her eyelids had lost some of their redness now, and she had her usual air of self-command. Am I wanted upstairs? She said half-rising as Fred entered. No, I'm only dismissed because Simmons has gone up. Mary sat down again and resumed her work. She was certainly treating him with more indifference than usual. She did not know how affectionately indignant he had felt on her behalf upstairs. May I stay here a little, Mary, or shall I bore you? Pray, sit down, said Mary. You will not be so heavy a bore as Mr. John Wall, who was here yesterday. And he sat down without asking my leave. Poor fellow, I think he's in love with you. I'm not aware of it. And to me it is one of the most odious things in a girl's life, that there must always be some supposition of falling in love coming between her and any man who is kind to her, and to whom she is grateful. I should have thought that I, at least, might have been saved from all that. I have no ground for the nonsensical vanity of fancying everybody who comes near me is in love with me. Mary did not mean to betray any feeling, but, in spite of herself, she ended in a tremulous tone of vexation. Confound, John Wall. I did not mean to make you angry. I didn't know you had any reason for being grateful to me. I forgot what a great service to think it if anyone snuffs a candle for you. Fred also had his pride and was not going to show that he knew what had called forth this outburst of Marys. Oh, I'm not angry, except with the ways of the world. I do like to be spoken to as if I had common sense. I really often feel that if I could understand a little more than I ever hear even from young gentlemen who have been to college, Mary had recovered, and she spoke with a suppressed stripling undercurrent of laughter. Pleasant to hear. I don't care how merry you are at my expense this morning, said Fred. I thought you looked so sad when you came upstairs. It's a shame you should stay here to be bullied in that way. Oh, I have an easy life by comparison. I have tried being a teacher, and I'm not fit for that. My mind is too fond of wandering on its own way. I think any hardship is better than pretending to do what one is paid for and never really doing it. Everything here I can do as well as anyone else could. Perhaps better than some. Rosie, for example. Though she's just the sort of beautiful creature that is imprisoned with augers in fairy tales. Rosie? cried Fred in a tone of profound brotherly skepticism. Come, Fred, said Mary emphatically. You have no right to be so critical. Do you mean anything particular just now? No, I mean something general, always. Oh, that I'm idle and extravagant. Well, I'm not fit to be a poor man. I should not have made a bad fellow if I had been rich. You would have done your duty in that state of life to which it has not pleased God to call you, said Mary, laughing. Well, I couldn't do my duty as a clergyman any more than you could do yours as a governess. You ought to have a little fellow feeling in there, Mary. I'd never said you ought to be a clergyman. There are other sorts of work. It seems to me very miserable not to resolve on some course and act accordingly. So I could, if Fred broke off and stood up, leaning against the mantelpiece. If you were sure you should not have a fortune, I did not say that. If you want to quarrel with me, it's too bad of you to be guided by what other people say about me. How can I want to quarrel with you? I should be quarreling with all my new books, said Mary, lifting the volume on the table.  But I know you despise me. Yes, I do a little, said Mary nodding with a smile. You would admire a stupendous fellow who would have wise opinions about everything. Yes, I should, Mary was suing swiftly and seemed provokingly mistress of the situation. When a conversation had taken a wrong turn for us, we only get farther and farther into the swamp of awkwardness. This was what Fred Vinci felt. I suppose a woman is never in love with anyone she has always known. Ever since she can remember, as a man often is, it is always some new fellow who strikes a girl. Let me see, said Mary, the corners of her mouth curling archly. I must go back on my experience. There is Juliet. She seems an example of what you say. But then Ophelia had probably known Hamlet a long while and Brenda Troyle. She had known Mordent Merton ever since they were children. But then he seems to have been an estimable young man and Mina was still more deeply in love with Cleveland, who was a stranger. Waverly was new to Flora McElvore, but then she did not fall in love with him. And there are Olivia and Sophia Primrose and Corinne. They may be said to have fallen in love with new men. All together, my experience is rather mixed. Mary looked up with some rugishness at Fred, and that look of hers was dear to him, though the eyes were nothing more than clear windows where observations sat laughingly. He was certainly an affectionate fellow and as he had grown from boy to man, he had grown in love with this old playmate, notwithstanding that share in the higher education of the country, which had exalted his views of rank and income. When a man is not loved, it is no use for him to say that he could be a better fellow, could do anything, I mean, if he were sure of being loved in return. Not of the least use in the world for him to say he could be better. Might, could, would, they are contemptible auxiliaries. I don't see how a man is to be good for much, unless he has some one woman to love him dearly. I think the goodness should come before he expects that. You know better, Mary. Women don't love men for their goodness. Perhaps not, but if they love them, they never think them bad. It is hardly fair to say I am bad. I said nothing at all about you. I never shall be good for anything, Mary, if you will not say that you love me, if you will not promise to marry me, I mean, when I am able to marry. If I did love you, I would not marry you. I would certainly not promise ever to marry you. I think that is quite wicked, Mary. If you love me, you ought to promise to marry me. On the contrary, I think it would be wicked in me to marry you even if I did love you. You mean, just as I am, without any means of maintaining a wife, of course, I am but three and twenty. In that last point you will alter, but I am not sure of any other alteration. My father says an idle man ought not exist, much less be married. Then I am to blow my brains out? No, on the whole I should think you would do better to pass your examination. I've heard Mr. Fairbrother say it's disgracefully easy. That is all very fine. Anything is easy to him. Not that cleverness has anything to do with it. I am ten times clever than many men who pass. Dear me, said Mary, unable to repress her sarcasm, that accounts for the curies like Mr. Kraus. Divide your cleverness by ten, and the quotient, dear me, is able to take agree. But that only shows you are ten times more idle than the others. Well, if I did pass, you would not want me to go into the church? That is not the question. What I want you to do. You have a conscience of your own, I suppose. There, there is Mr. Lidgate. I must go and tell my uncle. Mary, said Fred, seizing her hand as she rose, if you will not give me some encouragement, I shall get worse instead of better. I will not give you any encouragement, said Mary Redding. Your friends would dislike it, and so would mine. My father would think it a disgrace to me if I accepted a man who got into debt and would not work. Fred was stung and released her hand. She walked to the door, but there she turned and said, Fred, you have always been so good, so generous to me. I am not ungrateful, but never speak to me in that way again. Very well, said Fred Salkley, taking up his hat and whip, his complexion showed patches of pale pink and dead white. Like many a plucked idle young gentleman, he was thoroughly in love, and with a plain girl who had no money. But having Mr. Featherstone's land in the background, and a persuasion that, let Mary say what she would, she really did care for him, Fred was not utterly in despair. When he got home, he gave four of the 20s to his mother, asking her to keep them for him. I don't want to spend that money, Mother. I want it to pay a debt with. So keep it safe from my fingers. Bless you, my dear, said Mrs. Vincy.  The mother's eyes are not always deceived in their partiality. She at least can best judge who is the tender, feely-hearted child, and Fred was certainly very fond of his mother. Perhaps it was his fondness for another person also that made him particularly anxious to take some security against his own liability to spend the hundred pounds, for the creditor to whom he owed 160 held a firm security in the shape of a bill signed by Mary's father. End of chapter 14 of Middlemarch by George Eliot, read by Lars Rolander. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. George Eliot, Middlemarch, chapter 15.   Yet you see more wrapped today than of old we saw you. Oh, I track the fairest fare through new horns of pleasure. Footprints here and echoes there guide me to my treasure. Lou, she turns immortal youth, wrought to mortal stature, fresh as starlight's aged truth, many named nature. A great historian, as he insisted on calling himself, who had the happiness to be dead 120 years ago, and so to take his place among the Colossi whose huge legs are living, pettiness is observed to walk under, glorious in his copious remarks and aggressions as the least imitable part of his work, and especially in those initial chapters to the successive books of his history where he seems to bring his armchair to the proscenium and chat with us in all the lusty ease of his fine English. But fielding lived when the days were longer, for time like money is measured by our needs. When summer afternoons were spacious and the clock ticks slowly in the winter evenings, we belated historians must not linger after his example, and if we did so, it is probable that our chat would be thin and eager as if delivered from a campstool in a parrot house. I at least have so much to do in unraveling certain human lots and seeing how they were woven and interwoven that all the light I can command must be concentrated on this particular web and not dispersed over that tempting range for relevances called the universe. At present I have to make the new settler Lidgate better known to anyone interested in him than he could possibly be even to those who had seen the most of him since his arrival in middle-march. For surely all must admit that a man may be puffed and be lauded, envied, ridiculed, counted upon as a tool and fallen in love with, or at least selected as a future husband and yet remain virtually unknown, known merely as a cluster of signs for his neighbor's false oppositions. There was a general impression, however, that Lidgate was not altogether a common country doctor and in middle-march at that time such an impression was significant of great things being expected from him. For everybody's family doctor was remarkably clever and was understood to have immeasurable skill in the management and training of the most skittish of vicious diseases. The evidence of his cleverness was of the higher intuitive order lying in his lady-patience immovable conviction and was unassailable by any objection except that their intuitions were opposed by others equally strong. Each lady was of medical truth in wrench and the strengthening treatment regarding toller and the lowering system as medical petition for the heroic times of copious bleeding and blistering had not yet departed. Still, less the times of thoroughgoing theory when disease in general was called by some bad name and treated accordingly without chili-shally as if, for example, it were to be called insurrection which must not be fired on with blank cartridge but have its blood drawn at once. The strengtheners and the lowering were all clever men in some body's opinion which is really as much as can be said for any living talents. Nobody's imagination had gone so far as to conjecture that Mr. Lidgate could know as much as Dr. Sprog or Dr. Minchin, the two physicians who alone could offer any hope when danger was extreme and when the smallest hope was worth a guinea. Still, I repeat, there was a general impression that Lidgate was something rather more uncommon than any general practitioner in middle-march and this was true. He was about seven and 20, an age at which many men are not quite common, at which they are hopeful of achievement, resolute in avoidance, thinking that mammon shall never put a bit in their mouths and get astride their backs but rather that mammon, if they have anything to do with him, shall draw their chariot. He had been left an orphan when he was fresh from public school. His father, a military man, had made but little provision for three children and when the boy, Tertius, asked to have a medical education, it seemed easier to his guardians to grant his request by apprenticing him to a country practitioner than to make any objections on the score of family dignity. He was one of the rarer lads who early get a decided bent and make up their minds that there is something particular in life which they would like to do for its own sake and not because their fathers did it. Most of us who turn to any subject with love remember some morning or evening hour when we got on a high stool to reach down an untried volume or sat with party lips listening to a new talker or for very lack of books began to listen to the voices within as the first traceable beginning of our love. Something of that sort happened to Lidgate. He was a quick fellow and when hot from play would toss himself in a corner and in five minutes be deep in any sort of book that he could lay his hands on. If it were Rasallah or Gulliver, so much the better but Baile's dictionary would do or the Bible with the apocrypha in it. Something he must read when he was not writing the pony or running and hunting or listening to the talk of men and this was true of him. At ten years of age he had then read through Chrysal or the Adventures of a Guinea which was neither milk for babes nor any chalky mixture meant to pass for milk and it had already occurred to him that books were stuff and that life was stupid. His school studies had not much modified that opinion for though he did his classics and mathematics he was not preeminent in them. It was said of him that Lidgate could do anything he liked but he had certainly not yet liked to do anything remarkable. He was a vigorous animal with a ready understanding but no spark had yet kindled in him an intellectual passion. Knowledge seemed to him a very superficial affair easily mastered judging from the conversation of his elders. He had apparently got already more than was necessary for mature life. Probably this was not an exceptional result of expensive teaching at that period of short wasted coats and other fashions which have not yet recurred. But one vacation a wet day sent him to the small home library to hunt one small for a book which might have some freshness for him in vain. Unless indeed he took down a dusty row of volumes with grey paperbacks and dingy labels the volumes of an old Cyclopedia which he had never disturbed. It would at least be a novelty to disturb them. They were on the highest shelf and he stood on a chair to get them down but he opened the volume which he first took from the shelf. Somehow one is apt to read in a makeshift attitude just where it might seem inconvenient to do so. The page he opened on was under the head of Anna Tommy and the first passage that drew his eyes was on the valves of the heart. He was not much acquainted with valves or any sort but he knew that the valve were folding doors and through this crevice came a sudden light startling him with his first vivid notion of finely adjusted mechanism in the human frame. A liberal education had of course left him free to read the indecent passages in the school classics but beyond a general sense of secrecy and obscenity in connection with his internal structure had left his imagination quite unbiased so that for anything he knew his brains lay in small bags at his temples and he had no more thought of representing to himself how his blood circulated than how paper served instead of gold. But the moment of vocation had come and before he got down from his chair the world was made new to him by the presentiment of endless processes filling the vast spaces blanked out of his sight by that wordy ignorance which he had supposed to be knowledge. From that hour Lidgate felt the growth of an intellectual passion. We are not afraid of telling over and over again how a man comes to fall in love with a woman and be wedded to her or else be fatally parted from her. It is due to excessive poetry or of stupidity that we are never wary of describing what King James called a woman's macdom and her fairness never wary of listening for the twanging of the old troubadour strings and are comparatively uninterested in that other kind of macdom and fairness which must be wooed with industrious thought and patient renunciation of small desires. In the story of this passion too the development varies. Sometimes it is the glorious marriage sometimes frustration and final parting and not seldom the catastrophe is bound up with the other passion sung by the troubadours. For in the multitude of middle-aged men who go about their vocations in a daily course determined for them much in the same way as the tie of the cramats there is always a good number who once meant to shape their own deeds and alter the world a little. The story of their coming to be shapen after the average and fit to be packed by the cross is hardly ever told even in their consciousness for perhaps their ardour in generous unpaid toil cooled as imperceptibly as the ardour of other youthful loves till one day their earlier self walked like a ghost in its old home and made the new furniture ghastly. Nothing in the world more subtle than the procefs of their gradual change. In the beginning they inhaled it unknowingly you and I may have sent some of our breaths towards infecting them when we uttered our conforming falsities or drew our silly conclusions or perhaps it came with the vibrations from a woman's glance. Ludgate did not mean to be one of those failures and there was the better hope of him because his scientific interest soon took the form of a professional enthusiast. He had youthful belief in a spread-winning work not to be stapled by that initiation in makeshift called his Prentice Days and he carried to his studies in London, Edinburgh and Paris the conviction that the medical profession as it might be was the finest in the world presenting the most perfect interchange between science and art offering the most direct alliance between intellectual conquest and the social good. Ludgate's nature demanded this combination. He was an emotional creature with a flesh-and-blood sense of fellowship which withstood all the abstractions of special study. He cared not only for cases but for John and Elizabeth, especially Elizabeth. There was another attraction in his profession. It wanted reform and gave a man an opportunity for some indignant result to reject its venal decorations and other humbug and to be the possessor of genuine though undemanded qualifications. He went to study in Paris with a determination that when he provincial home again he would be settled in some provincial town as a general practitioner and resist the irrational severance between medical and surgical knowledge in the interest of his own scientific pursuits as well as of all the general advance. He would keep away from the range of London intrigues, dialysis and social truggling and win celebrity, however slowly, as January had done by the independent value of his work. For it must be remembered that this was a dark period and in spite of venerable colleges which used great efforts to secure purity of knowledge by making it scarce and to exclude error by a rigid exclusiveness in relation to fees and appointments, it happened that very ignorant young gentlemen were promoted in town and many more got a legal right to practice of a large areas in the country. Also, the highest standard held up to the public mind by the college of which gave its peculiar sanction to the expensive and highly verified medical instruction obtained by graduates of Oxford and Cambridge did not hinder quackery from having an excellent time of it. For since professional practice chiefly consisted in giving a great many drugs the public inferred that it might be better off with more drugs still if they could only be got cheaply and hence swallowed large cubic measures of physics prescribed by unscrupulous ignorance which had taken no degrees. Considering the statistics had not yet embraced a calculation as to the number of ignorant or counting doctors which absolutely must exist in the teeth of all changes. It seemed to litigate that a change in the units was the most direct mode of changing the numbers. He meant to be unit who would make a certain amount of difference towards that spreading change which would one day tell appreciably upon the averages and in the meantime have the pleasure of making an advantageous difference to the viscera of his own patients but he did not simply aim at a more genuine kind of practice than was common. He was ambitious of a wider effect. He was fired with the possibility that he might work out the proof of an anatomical conception and make a link in the chain of discovery. Does it seem incongruous to you that a middle-march surgeon should dream of himself as a discoverer? Most of us indeed know little of the great originators until they have been lifted up among the constellations and already rule our fates. That Herschel, for example, who broke the barriers of the heavens did he not once play a provincial church organ and give musical lessons to stumbling pianists? Each of those shining ones had to walk on the earth among neighbors who perhaps thought much more of his gate and his garments than of anything which was to give him a title of everlasting fame. Each of them had his little local personal history sprinkled with small temptations and sordid cares which made the retarding friction of his course towards final companionship with the immortals. Lidgate was not blind to the dangers of such friction, but he had plenty of confidence in his resolution to avoid it as far as possible. Being seven and 20, he felt himself experienced and he was not going to have his vanities provoked by contact with the showy, worldly successes of the capital, but to live among people who could hold no rivalry with that pursuit of a great idea which was to be a twin object with the assiduous practice of his profession. There was fascination in the hope that the two purposes would illuminate each other, the careful observation and inference which was his daily work, the use of the lens to further his judgment in special cases would further his thought as an instrument of larger inquiry. Was not this the typical preeminence of his profession? He would be a good middle-march doctor and by that very means keep himself in the track of far-reaching investigation. On one point, he may fairly claim approval at this particular stage of his career. He did not mean to imitate those philanthropic models who made a profit out of poisonous pickles to support themselves while they are exposing adulteration or hold shares in a gambling hell that they may have leisure to represent the cause of public morality. He intended to begin, in his own case, some particular reforms which were quite certainly within his reach and much less of a problem than the demonstrating of an anatomical conception. One of these reforms was to act stoutly on the strength of a recent legal decision and simply prescribe without dispensing drugs or taking percentage from drugists. This was an innovation for one who had chosen to adopt the style of general practitioner in a country town and would be felt as offensive criticism by his professional brethren. But Lidgate meant to innovate in this treatment also and he was wise enough to see that the best security for his practicing, honestly, according to his belief was to get rid of systematic temptations to the contrary. Perhaps that was a more cheerful time for observers and theorizers than the present. We are apt to think it the finest era of the world when America was beginning to be discovered, when a bold sailor, even if he were wrecked might alight on a new kingdom and about 1829, the dark territories of pathology were a fine America for a spirited young adventurer. Lidgate was ambitious about all to contribute towards enlarging the scientific rational basis of his profession. The more he became interested in special questions of disease such as the nature of fever or fevers, the more keenly he felt the need for that fundamental knowledge of structure which just at the beginning of the century had been illuminated by the brief and glorious career of Beechat, who died when he was only 130, but like another Alexander left the realm large enough for many heirs. That great Frenchman first carried out the conception that living bodies, fundamentally considered, are no associations of organs which can be understood by studying them first apart and then as it were federally, but must be regarded as consisting of certain primary webs or tissues out of which the various organs, brain, heart, lungs and so on, are compacted as the various accommodations of a house are built up in various proportions of wood, iron, stone, brick, sink and the rest, each material having its peculiar composition and proportions. No man, one sees, can understand and estimate the entire structure or its parts, what are its frailties and what its repairs without knowing the nature of the materials and the conception brought out by Beechat with his detailed study of the different tissues acted necessarily on medical questions as the turning of gaslight would act on a dim-oiled street showing new connections and hitherto hidden facts of structure which must be taken into account in considering the symptoms of maladies and the action of medicaments. But results which depended on human conscience and intelligence work slowly and now at the end of 1829, most medical practice was still strutting or shambling along the old paths and there was still scientific work to be done which might have seemed to be a direct sequence of Beechat. This great seer did not go beyond the consideration of the tissues as ultimate facts in the living organism, marking the limit of anatomical analysis but it was open to another mind to say, have not these structures some common basis from which they have all started as your sarsnet, gauze, net, satin and velvet from the raw cocoon? Here would be another light as of oxyhydrogen showing the very grain of things and revising all former explanations. Of this sequence to Beechat's work already vibrating along many currents of the European mind, Lidget was enamored. He longed to demonstrate the more intimate relations of living structure and helped to define men's thought more accurately after the true order. The work had not yet been done but only prepared for those who knew how to use the preparation. What was the primitive tissue? In that way Lidget put the question, not quite in the way required by the awaiting answer but such missing of the right word befalls many seekers and he counted on quiet intervals to be watchful and ceased for taking up threads of investigation on many hints to be won from diligent application not only of the scalpel but of the microscope which research had begun to use again with new enthusiasm of reliance. Such was Lidget's plan of his future to do good small work for middle-march and great work for the world. He was certainly a happy fellow at this time to be seven and 20 without any fixed vices with a generous resolution that his action should be beneficial and with ideas in his brain that made life interesting quite apart from the cultus of horse flesh and other mystic rites of costly observance which the 800 pounds left him after buying his practice would certainly not have gone far in paying for. He was at a starting point which makes many a man's career a fine subject for betting. If there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose with all the possible thoughtings and furtherings of circumstance all the nice cities of inward balance by which a man swims and makes his point or else is carried headlong. The risk would remain even with close knowledge of Lingej's character for character too is a process and an unfolding. The man was still in the making as much as the middle-march doctor and immortal discoverer and they were both virtues and faults capable of shrinking or expanding. The faults will not, I hope, be a reason for the withdrawal of your interest in him. Among our valued friends is there not someone or other who is a little too self-confident or anti-stainful whose distinguished mind is a little spotted with commoness who is a little pinched here and protuberant there with native prejudices or whose better energies are liable to lapse down the wrong channel under the influence of transient solicitations. All these things might be alleged against Lidgate but then they are the periphrasis of a polite preacher who talks of Adam and would not like to mention anything painful to the pure renters. The particular faults from which these delicate generalities are distilled have distinguishable physiognomies, diction, accent and grimaces filling up parts in very various dramas. Our vanity stiffer as our noses do. All conceit is not the same conceit but varies in correspondence with the minutiae of mental make in which one of us differs from another. Lidgate's conceit was of the arrogant sort never simpering, never impertinent but massive in its claims and benevolently contemptuous. He would do a great deal for noodles being sorry for them and feeling quite sure that they could have no power over him. He had thought of joining the Saint Simonians when he was in Paris in order to turn them against some of their own doctrines. All his faults were marked by kindred traits and were those of a man who had a fine baritone whose clothes hung well upon him and who even in his ordinary gestures had an air of inbred distinction. Where then lay the spots of commoness, says a young lady enarmored of that careless grace. How could there be any commoness in a man so well-bred, so ambitious of social distinction, so generous and unusual in his views of social duty? As easily as there may be stupidity in a man of genius if you take him unawares on the wrong subject or as many a man who has the best will to advance the social millennium might be ill-inspired in imagining its lighter pleasures unable to go beyond Ofenbach's music or the brilliant punning in the last burlesque. Lidgate's spots of commoness lay in the complexion of his prejudices which, in spite of noble intention and sympathy, were half of them such as are found in ordinary men of the world. That distinction of mind which belonged to his intellectual order did not penetrate his feelings and judgment about furniture or women or the desirability of its being known without his telling that he was better born than other country surgeons. He did not mean to think of furniture at present, but whenever he did so it was to be feared that neither biology or schemes of reform would lift him above the vulgarity of feeling that there would be an incompatibility in his furniture not being of the best. As to women, he had once already been drawn headlong by Impetius Folly which he meant to be final since marriage at some distant period would of course not be Impetius. For those who want to be acquainted with Lidgate it will be good to know what was that case of Impetius Folly for it may stand as an example of the fitful swerving of passion to which he was prone together with the shrivelerous kindness which helped to make him morally lovable. The story can be told without many words. It happened when he was studying in Paris and just at the time when over and above his other work he was occupied with some galvanic experiments. One evening, tied with his experimenting and not being able to elict the facts he needed, he left his frogs and rabbits to some repose under their trying and mysterious dispensation of unexplained shocks and went to finish his evening at the theatre of the Porte Saint-Martin where there was a melodrama which he had already seen several times attracted not by the ingenious work of the collaborating authors but by an actress whose part it was to stab her lover mistaking him for the evil-designing duke of the piece. Lidgate was in love with this actress as a man is in love with a woman whom he never expects to speak to. She was a Provençal with dark eyes, a Greek profile and rounded, majestic form, having that sort of beauty which carries a sweet materialiness even in youth and her voice was a soft cooing. She had but lately come to Paris and bore a virtuous reputation. Her husband acting with her as the unfortunate lover. It was her acting which was no better than it should be but the public was satisfied. Lidgate's only relaxation now was to go and look at this woman just as he might have thrown himself under the breath of sweet south on a bank of violets for a while without prejudice to his galvanist to which he would presently return. But this evening the old drama had a new catastrophe.  A wild shriek pierced the house and the Provençal fell swooning. A shriek and a swoon were demanded by the play but the swooning too was real this time. Lidgate leaped and climbed. He hardly knew how onto the stage and was active in help making the acquaintance of his heroine by finding a contusion on her head and lifting her gently in his arms. Paris rang with the story of this death. Was it murder? Some of the actress's warmest admires were inclined to believe in her guilt and liked her the better for it. Such was the taste of those times but Lidgate was not one of these. He vehemently contended for her innocence and the remote impersonal passion for her beauty which he had felt before had passed now into personal devotion and tender thoughts of her lot. The notion of murder was absurd. No motive was discoverable. The young couple being understood to doad on each other and it was not unprecedented that an accidental slip of the foot should have brought these grave consequences. The legal investigation ended in Madame Lorre's release. Lidgate by this time had had many interviews with her and found her more and more adorable. She talked little but that was an additional charm. She was melancholy and seemed grateful. Her presence was enough like that of the evening light. Lidgate was madly anxious about her affection and jealous lest any other man than himself should win it and ask her to marry him. But instead of reopening her engagement at the Port Saint-Martin where she would have been all the more popular for the fatal episode, she left Paris without warning forsaking her little court of her admirers. Perhaps no one carried inquiry far except Lidgate who felt that all science had come to stand still while he imagined the unhappy Lorre stricken by ever-wandering sorrow, herself wondering and finding no faithful comforter. Hidden actresses, however, are not so difficult to find as some other hidden facts and it was not long before Lidgate gathered indications that Lorre had taken a route to Lyon. He found her at last acting with great success at Avignon under the same name, looking more majestic than ever as forsaken wife carrying her child in her arms. He spoke to her after the play, was recede with the usual quietude which seemed to him beautiful as clear depth of water and obtained leave to visit her the next day when he was bent on telling her that he adored her and on asking her to marry him. He knew that this was like the sudden impulse of a madman in Congress even with his habitual foibles. No matter, it was the one thing which he was resolved to do. He had two selves within him apparently and they must learn to accommodate each other and to bear reciprocal impediments. Strange that some of us with quick alternate vision see beyond our infatuations and even while we rave on the heights behold the wide plain where our persistent self pauses and awaits us. To have approached Lore with any suit that was not reverentially tender would have been simply a contradiction of his whole feeling towards her. You have come all the way from Paris to find me? She said to him the next day sitting before him with folded arms and looking at him with eyes that seemed to wonder as an untamed ruminating animal wonders. Are all Englishmen like that? I came because I could not live without trying to see you. You are lonely. I love you. I want you to consent to be my wife. I will wait but I want you to promise that you will marry me, no one else. Lore looked at him in silence with the melancholy radiance from under her grand eyelids until he was full of raptures certainty. He knelt close to her knees. I will tell you something, she said in her cooing way, keeping her arms folded. My foot really slipped. I know, I know, said Lidgate depreciating. It was a fatal accident, a dreadful stroke of calamity that bound me to you the more. Again Lore paused a little and then said slowly, I meant to do it. Lidgate, strong man as he was, turned pale and trembled. Moments seemed to pass before he rose and stood at a distance from her. There was a secret then, he said at last vehemently.  No, he worried me. He was too fond. He would live in Paris and not in my country. That was not agreeable to me. Great God, said Lidgate, in a groan of horror. And you planned to murder him? I did not plan. It came to me in the play. I meant to do it. Lidgate stood mute and unconsciously pressed his hat on while he looked at her.  You are a good young man, she said. But I do not like husbands. I will never have another. Three days afterwards, Lidgate was at his galvanism again in his Paris chambers, believing that illusions were at an end for him. He was saved from hardening effects by the abundant kindness of his heart and his belief that human life might be made better. But he had more reason than ever for trusting his judgment, now that it was so experienced, and henceforth he would take a strictly scientific view of woman, meaning no expectations but such as were justified beforehand. No one in middle-march was likely to have such a notion of Lidgate's past as has here been faintly shadowed, and indeed the respectable townsfolk there were not more given than mortals generally to any eager attempt at exactness in the representation of themselves, who what did not come under their own senses. Not only young virgins of that town, but grey-bedded men also were often in haste to conjecture how a new acquaintance might be wrought into their purposes, contended with every vague knowledge as to the way in which life had been shaping him for that instrumentality. Middle-march, in fact, counted on swallowing Lidgate, and is simulating him very comfortably. End of Chapter 15 Middle-march by George Eliot Read by Los Rulander