Chapter XXX
Qui veut delasser hors de propos, lasse. — PASCAL.
Mr. Casaubon had no second attack of equal severity with the
first, and in a few days began to recover his usual
condition. Rut Lydgate seemed to think the ease worth a
great
deal of attention. He not only used his
stethoscope (which had not become a matter of course in
practice at that time), but sat quietly by his patient and
watched him. To Mr. Casaubon's questions about himself, he
replied that the source of the illness was the common error
of intellectual men — a too eager and monotonous application:
the remedy was, to be satisfied with moderate work, and to
seek variety of relaxation. Mr. Brooke, who sat by on one
occasion, suggested that Mr. Casaubon should go fishing, as
Cadwallader did, and have a turning-room, make toys,
table-legs, and that kind of thing.
"In short, you recommend me to anticipate the arrival of
my second childhood," said poor Mr. Casaubon, with some
bitterness. "These things," he added, looking at Lydgate, "
would be to me such relaxation as tow-picking is to
prisoners in a house of correction."
"I confess," said Lydgate, smiling, "amusement is rather
an unsatisfactory prescription. It is something like
telling people to keep up their spirits. Perhaps I had
better say, that you must submit to be mildly bored rather
than to go on working."
"Yes, yes," said Mr. Brooke. " Get Dorothea to play
back. gammon with you in the evenings. And shuttlecock,
now — I don't know a finer game than shuttlecock for the
daytime. I remember it all the fashion. To be sure, your
eyes might not stand that, Casaubon. But you must unbend,
you know. Why, you might take to some light study:
conchology, now: it always think that must be a light study.
Or get Dorothea to read you light things,
Smollett — `Roderick Random,' `Humphrey Clinker:' they are a
little broad, but she may read anything now she's married,
you know. I remember they made me laugh uncommonly — there's
a droll bit about a postilion's breeches. We have no such
humor now. I have gone through all these things, but they
might be rather new to you."
"As new as eating thistles," would have been an answer
to represent Mr. Casaubon's feelings. But he only bowed
resignedly, With due respect to his wife's uncle, and
observed
that doubtless the works he mentioned had
"served as a resource to a certain order of minds."
"You see," said the able magistrate to Lydgate, when
they were outside the door, "Casaubon has been a little
narrow: it leaves him rather at a loss when you forbid him
his particular work, which I believe is something very deep
indeed — in the line of research, you know. I would never
give way to that; I was always versatile. But a clergyman
is tied a little tight. If they would make him a bishop,
now ! — he did a very good pamphlet for Peel. He would have
more movement then, more show; he might get a little flesh.
But I recommend you to talk to Mrs. Casaubon. She is clever
enough for anything, is my niece. Tell her, her husband
wants liveliness, diversion: put her on amusing tactics."
Without Mr. Brooke's advice, Lydgate had determined on
speaking to Dorothea. She had not been present while her
uncle was throwing out his pleasant suggestions as to the
mode in which life at Lowick might be enlivened, but she was
usually by her husband's side, and the unaffected signs of
intense anxiety in her face and voice about whatever touched
his mind or health, made a drama which Lydgate was inclined
to watch. He said to himself that he was only doing right m
telling her the truth about her husband's probable future,
but he certainly thought also that it would be interesting
to talk confidentially with her. A medical man likes to
make psychological observations, and sometimes in the
pursuit of such studies is too easily tempted into momentous
prophecy which life and death easily set at nought. Lydgate
had often been satirical on this gratuitous prediction, and
he meant now to be guarded.
He asked for Mrs. Casaubon, but being told that she was
out walking, he was going away, when Dorothea and Celia
appeared, both glowing from their struggle with the March
wind. When Lydgate begged to speak with her alone, Dorothea
opened the library door which happened to be the nearest,
thinking of nothing at the moment but what he might have to
say about Mr. Casaubon. It was the first time she had
entered this room since her husband had been taken ill, and
the servant had chosen not to open the shutters. But
there was light enough to read by from the narrow upper
panes of the windows.
"You will not mind this sombre light," said Dorothea,
standing in the middle of the room. " Since you forbade
books, the library has been out of the question. But Mr.
Casaubon will soon be here again, I hope. Is he not making
progress?"
"Yes, much more rapid progress than I at first expected.
Indeed, he is already nearly in his usual state of health."
"You do not fear that the illness will return?" said
Dorothea, whose quick ear had detected some significance in
Lydgate's tone.
"Such eases are peculiarly difficult to pronounce upon,"
said Lydgate. " The only point on which I can be confident
is that it will be desirable to be very watchful on Mr.
Casaubon's account, lest he should in any way strain his
nervous power."
"I beseech you to speak quite plainly," said Dorothea,
in an imploring tone. " I cannot bear to think that there
might be something which I did not know, and which, if I had
known it, would have made me act differently." The words
came out like a cry: it was evident that they were the voice
of some mental experience which lay not very far off.
"Sit down," she added, placing herself on the nearest
chair, and throwing off her bonnet and gloves, with an
instinctive discarding of formality where a great question
of destiny was concerned.
"What you say now justifies my own view," said Lydgate.
" I think it is one's function as a medical man to hinder
regrets of that sort as far as possible. But I beg you to
observe that Mr. Casaubon's ease is precisely of the kind in
which the issue is most difficult to pronounce upon. He may
possibly live for fifteen years or more, without much worse
health than he has had hitherto."
Dorothea had turned very pale, and when Lydgate paused
she said in a low voice, "You mean if we are very careful."
"Yes — careful against mental agitation of all kinds, and
against excessive application."
"He would be miserable, if he had to give up his work,"
said Dorothea, with a quick prevision of that wretchedness.
"I am aware of that. The only course is to try by all
means, direct and indirect, to moderate and vary his
occupations. With a -happy concurrence of circumstances,
there is, as I said, no immediate danger from that affection
of the heart, which I believe to have been the cause of his
late attack. On the other hand, it is possible that the
disease may develop itself more rapidly: it is one of those
eases in which death is sometimes sudden. Nothing should be
neglected which might be affected by such an issue."
There was silence for a few moments, while Dorothea sat
as if she had been turned to marble, though the life within
her was so intense that her mind had never before swept in
brief time over an equal range of scenes and motives.
"Help me, pray," she said, at last, in the same low
voice as before. " Tell me what I can do."
"What do you think of foreign travel? You have been
lately in Rome, I think."
The memories which made this resource utterly hopeless
were a new current that shook Dorothea out of her pallid
immobility.
"Oh, that would not do — that would be worse than
anything," she said with a more childlike despondency, while
the tears rolled down. "Nothing will be of any use that he
does not enjoy."
"I wish that I could have spared you this pain," said
Lydgate, deeply touched, yet wondering about her marriage.
Women just like Dorothea had not entered into his
traditions.
"It was right of you to tell me. I thank you for
telling me the truth."
"I wish you to understand that I shall not say anything
to enlighten Mr. Casaubon himself. I think it desirable for
him to know nothing more than that he must not overwork him
self, and must observe certain rules. Anxiety of any kind
would be precisely the most unfavorable condition for him."
Lydgate rose, and Dorothea mechanically rose at the same
time? unclasping her cloak and throwing it off as if it
stifled
her. He was bowing and quitting her, when an
impulse which if she had been alone would have turned into a
prayer, made her say with a sob in her voice —
"Oh, you are a wise man, are you not? You know all about
life and death. Advise me. Think what I can do. He has
been laboring all his life and looking forward. He minds
about nothing else. — And I mind about nothing else — "
For years after Lydgate remembered the impression
produced in him by this involuntary appeal — this cry from
soul to soul, without other consciousness than their moving
with kindred natures in the same embroiled medium, the same
troublous fitfully illuminated life. But what could he say
now except that he should see Mr. Casaubon again to-morrow?
When he was gone, Dorothea's tears gushed forth, and
relieved her stifling oppression. Then she dried her eyes,
reminded that her distress must not be betrayed to her
husband; and looked round the room thinking that she must
order the servant to attend to it as usual, since Mr.
Casaubon might now at any moment wish to enter. On his
writing-table there were letters which had lain untouched
since the morning when he was taken ill, and among them, as
Dorothea . well remembered, there were young Ladislaw's
letters, the one addressed to her still unopened. The
associations of these letters had been made the more painful
by that sudden attack of illness which she felt that the
agitation caused by her anger might have helped to bring on:
it would be time enough to read them when they were again
thrust upon her, and she had had no inclination to fetch
them from the library. But now it occurred to her that they
should be put out of her husband's sight: whatever might
have been the sources of his annoyance about them, he must,
if possible, not be annoyed again; and she ran her eyes
first over the letter addressed to him to assure herself
whether or not it would be necessary to write in order to
hinder the offensive visit.
Will wrote from Rome, and began by saying that his
obligations to Mr. Casaubon were too deep for all thanks not
to seem impertinent. It was plain that if he were not
grateful, he must be the poorest-spirited rascal who had
ever found a
generous friend. To expand in wordy
thanks would be like saying, " I am honest." But Will had
come to perceive that his defects — defects which Mr.
Casaubon had himself often pointed to — needed for their
correction that more strenuous position which his relative's
generosity had hitherto prevented from being inevitable. He
trusted that he should make the best return, if return were
possible, by showing the effectiveness of the education for
which he was indebted, and by ceasing in future to need any
diversion towards himself of funds on which others might
have a better claim. He was coming to England, to try his
fortune, as many other young men were obliged to do whose
only capital was in their brains. His friend Naumann had
desired him to take charge of the " Dispute " — the picture
painted for Mr. Casaubon, with whose permission, and Mrs.
Casaubon's, Will would convey it to Lowick in person. A
letter addressed to the Poste Restante in Paris within the
fortnight would hinder him, if necessary, from arriving at
an inconvenient moment. He enclosed a letter to Mrs.
Casaubon in which he continued a discussion about art, begun
with her in Rome.
Opening her own letter Dorothea saw that it was a lively
continuation of his remonstrance with her fanatical sympathy
and her want of sturdy neutral delight in things as they
were — an outpouring of his young vivacity which it was
impossible to read just now. She had immediately to
consider what was to be done about the other letter: there
was still time perhaps to prevent Will from coming to
Lowick. Dorothea ended by giving the letter to her uncle,
who was still in the house, and begging him to let Will know
that Mr. Casaubon had been ill, and that his health would
not allow the reception of any visitors.
No one more ready than Mr. Brooke to write a letter: his
only difficulty was to write a short one, and his ideas in
this case expanded over the three large pages and the inward
foldings. He had simply said to Dorothea —
"To be sure, I will write, my dear. He's a very clever
young fellow — this young Ladislaw — I dare say will be a
rising young man. It's a good letter — marks his sense of
things, you know. However, I will tell him about Casaubon."
But the end of Mr. Brooke's pen was a thinking organ,
evolving sentences, especially of a benevolent kind, before
the rest of his mind could well overtake them. It expressed
regrets and proposed remedies, which, when Mr. Brooke read
them, seemed felicitously worded — surprisingly the right
thing, and determined a sequel which he had never before
thought of. In this ease, his pen found it such 30 a pity
young Ladislaw should not have come into the neighborhood.
just at that time, in order that Mr. Brooke might make his
acquaintance more fully, and that they might go over the
long-neglected Italian drawings together — it also felt such
an interest in a young man who was starting in life with a
stock of ideas — that by the end of the second page it had
persuaded Mr. Brooke to invite young Ladislaw, since he
could not be received at Lowick, to come to Tipton Grange.
Why not? They could find a great many things to do
together, and this was a period of peculiar growth — the
political horizon was expanding, and — in short, Mr. Brooke's
pen went off into a little speech which it had lately
reported for that imperfectly edited organ the " Middlemarch
Pioneer." While Mr. Brooke was sealing this letter, he felt
elated with an influx of dim projects: — a young man capable
of putting ideas into form, the " Pioneer " purchased to
clear the pathway for a new candidate, documents
utilized — who knew what might come of it all? Since Celia
was going to marry immediately, it would be very pleasant to
have a young fellow at table with him, at least for a time.
But he went away without telling Dorothea what he had
put into the letter, for she was engaged with her husband,
and — in fact, these things were of no importance to her.