Chapter XXXIV
"1st. Gent. Such men as this are feathers, chips, and straws.
Carry no weight, no force.
2d Gent. But levity
Is causal too, and makes the sum of weight.
For power finds its place in lack of power;
Advance is cession, and the driven ship
May run aground because the helmsman's thought
Lacked force to balance opposites."
It was on a morning of May that Peter Featherstone was
buried. In the prosaic neighborhood of Middlemarch, May was
not always warm and sunny, and on this particular morning a
chill wind was blowing the blossoms from the surrounding
gardens on to the green mounds of Lowick churchyard.
Swiftly moving clouds only now and then allowed a gleam to
light up any object, whether ugly or beautiful, that
happened to stand within its golden shower. In the
churchyard the objects were remarkably various, for there
was a little country crowd waiting to see the funeral. The
news had spread that it was to be a "big burying; " the old
gentleman had left written directions about everything and
meant to have a funeral " beyond his betters." This was
true; for old Featherstone had not been a Harpagon whose
passions had all been devoured by the ever-lean and
ever-hungry passion of saving, and who would drive a bargain
with his undertaker beforehand. He loved money, but. he
also loved to spend it in gratifying his peculiar tastes,
and perhaps he loved it best of all as a means of making
others feel his power more or less
uncomfortably. If
any one will here contend that there must have been traits
of goodness in old Featherstone, I will not presume to deny
this; but I must observe that goodness is of a modest
nature, easily discouraged, and when much privacy, elbowed
in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into
extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by
those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically,
than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his
personal acquaintance. In any case, he had been bent on
having a handsome funeral, and on having persons "bid" to it
who would rather have stayed at home. He had even desired
that female relatives should follow him to the grave, and
poor sister Martha had taken a difficult journey for this
purpose from the Chalky Flats. She and Jane would have been
altogether cheered (in a tearful manner) by this sign that a
brother who disliked seeing them while he was living had
been prospectively fond of their presence when he should
have become a testator, if the sign had not been made
equivocal by being extended to Mrs. Vincy, whose expense in
handsome crape seemed to imply the most presumptuous hopes,
aggravated by a bloom of complexion which told pretty
plainly that she was not a blood-relation, but of that
generally objectionable class called wife's kin.
We are all of us imaginative in some form or other, for
images are the brood of desire; and poor old Featherstone,
who laughed much at the way in which others cajoled
themselves, did not escape the fellowship of illusion. In
writing the programme for his burial he certainly did not
make clear to himself that his pleasure in the little drama
of which it formed a part was confined to anticipation. In
chuckling over the vexations he could inflict by the rigid
clutch of his dead hand, he inevitably mingled his
consciousness with that livid stagnant presence, and so far
as he was preoccupied with a future life, it was with one of
gratification inside his coffin. Thus old Featherstone was
imaginative, after his fashion.
However, the three mourning-coaches were filled
according to the written orders of the deceased. There were
pall-bearers on horseback, with the richest scarfs and
hatbands, and even
the under-bearers had trappings of
woe which were of a good well-priced quality. The black
procession, when dismounted, looked the larger for the
smallness of the churchyard; the heavy human faces and the
black draperies shivering in the wind seemed to tell of a
world strangely incongruous with the lightly dropping
blossoms and the gleams of sunshine on the daisies. The
clergyman who met the procession was Mr. Cadwallader — also
according to the request of Peter Featherstone, prompted as
usual by peculiar reasons. Having a contempt for curates,
whom he always called understrappers, he was resolved to be
buried by a beneficed clergyman. Mr. Casaubon was out of
the question, not merely because he declined duty of this
sort, but because Featherstone had an especial dislike to
him as the rector of his own parish, who had a lien on the
land in the shape of tithe, also as the deliverer of morning
sermons, which the old man, being in his pew and not at all
sleepy, had been obliged to sit through with an inward
snarl. He had an objection to a parson stuck up above his
head preaching to him. But his relations with Mr.
Cadwallader had been of a different kind: the trout-stream
which ran through Mr. Casaubon's land took its course
through Featherstone's also, so that Mr. Cadwallader was a
parson who had had to ask a favor instead of preaching.
Moreover, he was one of the high gentry living four miles
away from Lowick, and was thus exalted to an equal sky with
the sheriff of the county and other dignities vaguely
regarded as necessary to the system of things. There would
be a satisfaction in being buried by Mr. Cadwallader, whose
very name offered a fine opportunity for pronouncing wrongly
if you liked.
This distinction conferred on the Rector of Tipton and
Freshitt was the reason why Mrs. Cadwallader made one of the
group that watched old Featherstone's funeral from an upper
window of the manor. She was not fond of visiting that
house, but she liked, as she said, to see collections of
strange animals such as there would be at this funeral; and
she had persuaded Sir James and the young Lady Chettam to
drive the Rector and herself to Lowick in order that the
visit might be altogether pleasant.
"I will go anywhere with you, Mrs. Cadwallader," Celia
had said; " but I don't like funerals."
"Oh, my dear, when you have a clergyman in your family
you must accommodate your tastes: I did that very early.
When I married Humphrey I made up my mind to like sermons,
and I set out by liking the end very much. That soon spread
to the middle and the beginning, because I couldn't have the
end without them."
"No, to be sure not," said the Dowager Lady Chettam,
with stately emphasis.
The upper window from which the funeral could be well
seen was in the room occupied by Mr. Casaubon when he had
been forbidden to work; but he had resumed nearly his
habitual style of life now in spite of warnings and
prescriptions, and after politely welcoming Mrs. Cadwallader
had slipped again into the library to chew a cud of erudite
mistake about Cush and Mizraim.
But for her visitors Dorothea too might have been shut
up in the library, and would not have witnessed this scene
of old Featherstone's funeral, which, aloof as it seemed to
be from the tenor of her life, always afterwards came back
to her at the touch of certain sensitive points in memory,
just as the vision of St. Peter's at Rome was inwoven with
moods of despondency. Scenes which make vital changes in
our neighbors' lot are but the background of our own, yet,
like a particular aspect of the fields and trees, they
become associated for us with the epochs of our own history,
and make a part of that unity which lies in the selection of
our keenest consciousness.
The dream-like association of something alien and
ill-understood with the deepest secrets of her experience
seemed to mirror that sense of loneliness which was due to
the very ardor of Dorothea's nature. The country gentry of
old time lived in a rarefied social air: dotted apart on
their stations up the mountain they looked down with
imperfect discrimination on the belts of thicker life below.
And Dorothea was not at ease in the perspective and
chilliness of that height.
"I shall not look any more," said Celia, after the train
had entered the church, placing herself a little behind her
hus
band's elbow so that she could slyly touch his coat
with her cheek. " I dare say Dodo likes it: she is fond of
melancholy things and ugly people."
"I am fond of knowing something about the people I live
among," said Dorothea, who had been watching everything with
the interest of a monk on his holiday tour. "It seems to me
we know nothing of our neighbors, unless they are cottagers.
One is constantly wondering what sort of lives other people
lead, and how they take things. I am quite obliged to Mrs.
Cadwallader for coming and calling me out of the library."
"Quite right to feel obliged to me," said Mrs.
Cadwallader. " Your rich Lowick farmers are as curious as
any buffaloes or bisons, and-I dare say you don't half see
them at church. They are quite different from your uncle's
tenants or Sir James's — monsters — farmers without
landlords — one can't tell how to class them."
"Most of these followers are not Lowick people," said
Sir James; " I suppose they are legatees from a distance, or
from Middlemarch. Lovegood tells me the old fellow has left
a good deal of money as well as land."
"Think of that now! when so many younger sons can't dine
at their own expense," said Mrs. Cadwallader. "Ah," turning
round at the sound of the opening door, "here is Mr. Brooke.
I felt that we were incomplete before, and here is the
explanation. You are come to see this odd funeral, of
course?"
"No, I came to look after Casaubon — to see how he goes
on, you know. And to bring a little news — a little news, my
dear," said Mr. Brooke, nodding at Dorothea as she came
towards him. " I looked into the library, and I saw
Casaubon over his books. I told him it wouldn't do: I said,
`This will never do, you know: think of your wife,
Casaubon.' And he promised me to come up. I didn't tell
him my news: I said, he must come up."
"Ah, now they are coming out of church," Mrs.
Cadwallader exclaimed. " Dear me, what a wonderfully mixed
set! Mr. Lydgate as doctor, I suppose. But that is really
a good
looking woman, and the fair young man must be
her son. Who are they, Sir James, do you know?"
"I see Vincy, the Mayor of Middlemarch; they are
probably his wife and son," said Sir James, looking
interrogatively at Mr. Brooke, who nodded and said —
"Yes, a very decent family — a very good fellow is Vincy;
a credit to the manufacturing interest. You have seen him
at my house, you know."
"Ah, yes: one of your secret committee," said Mrs.
Cadwallader, provokingly.
"A coursing fellow, though," said Sir James, with a
fox-hunter's disgust.
"And one of those who suck the life out of the wretched
handloom weavers in Tipton and Freshitt. That is how his
family look so fair and sleek," said Mrs. Cadwallader. "
Those dark, purple-faced people are an excellent foil. Dear
me, they are like a set of jugs! Do look at Humphrey: one
might fancy him an ugly archangel towering above them in his
white surplice."
"It's a solemn thing, though, a funeral," said Mr.
Brooke, " if you take it in that light, you know."
"But I am not taking it in that light. I can't wear my
solemnity too often, else it will go to rags. It was time
the old man died, and none of these people are sorry."
"How piteous!" said Dorothea. "This funeral seems to me
the most dismal thing I ever saw. It is a blot on the
morning I cannot bear to think that any one should die and
leave no love behind."
She was going to say more, but she saw her husband enter
and seat himself a little in the background. The difference
his presence made to her was not always a happy one: she
felt that he often inwardly objected to her speech.
"Positively," exclaimed Mrs. Cadwallader, " there is a
new face come out from behind that broad man queerer than
any of them: a little round head with bulging eyes — a sort
of frog-face — do look. He must be of another blood, I
think."
"Let me see!" said Celia, with awakened curiosity,
standing behind Mrs. Cadwallader and leaning forward over
her
head. "Oh, what an odd face!" Then with a quick
change to another sort of surprised expression, she added,
"Why, Dodo, you never told me that Mr. Ladislaw was come
again!"
Dorothea felt a shock of alarm: every one noticed her
sudden paleness as she looked up immediately at her uncle,
while Mr. Casaubon looked at her.
"He came with me, you know; he is my guest — puts up with
me at the Grange," said Mr. Brooke, in his easiest tone,
nodding at Dorothea, as if the announcement were just what
she might have expected. " And we have brought the picture
at the top of the carriage. I knew you would be pleased
with the surprise, Casaubon. There you are to the very
life — as Aquinas, you know. Quite the right sort of thing.
And you will hear young Ladislaw talk about it. He talks
uncommonly well — points out this, that, and the other — knows
art and everything of that kind — companionable, you know — is
up with you in any track — what I've been wanting a long
while."
Mr. Casaubon bowed with cold politeness, mastering his
irritation, but only so far as to be silent. He remembered
Will's letter quite as well as Dorothea did; he had noticed
that it was not among the letters which had been reserved
for him on his recovery, and secretly concluding that
Dorothea had sent word to Will not to come to Lowick, he had
shrunk with proud sensitiveness from ever recurring to the
subject. He now inferred that she had asked her uncle to
invite Will to the Grange; and she felt it impossible at
that moment to enter into any explanation.
Mrs. Cadwallader's eyes, diverted from the churchyard,
saw a good deal of dumb show which was not so intelligible
to her as she could have desired, and could not repress the
question, " Who is Mr. Ladislaw?"
"A young relative of Mr. Casaubon's," said Sir James,
promptly. His good-nature often made him quick and
clear-seeing in personal matters, and he had divined from
Dorothea's glance at her husband that there was some alarm
in her mind.
"A very nice young fellow — Casaubon has done everything
for him," explained Mr. Brooke. " He repays your
expense in him, Casaubon," he went on, nodding
encouragingly. " I hope he will stay with me a long while
and we shall make something of my documents. I have plenty
of ideas and facts, you know, and I can see he is just the
man to put them into shape — remembers what the right
quotations are,
omne tulit punctum, and that sort of
thing — gives subjects a kind of turn. I invited him some
time ago when you were ill, Casaubon; Dorothea said you
couldn't have anybody in the house, you know, and she asked
me to write."
Poor Dorothea felt that every word of her uncle's was
about as pleasant as a grain of sand in the eye to Mr.
Casaubon. It would be altogether unfitting now to explain
that she had not wished her uncle to invite Will Ladislaw.
She could not in the least make clear to herself the reasons
for her husband's dislike to his presence — a dislike
painfully impressed on her by the scene in the library; but
she felt the unbecomingness of saying anything that might
convey a notion of it to others. Mr. Casaubon, indeed, had
not thoroughly represented those mixed reasons to himself;
irritated feeling with him, as with all of us, seeking
rather for justification than for self-knowledge. But he
wished to repress outward signs, and only Dorothea could
discern the changes in her husband's face before he observed
with more of dignified bending and sing-song than usual —
"You are exceedingly hospitable, my dear sir; and I owe
you acknowledgments for exercising your hospitality towards
a relative of mine."
The funeral was ended now, and the churchyard was being
cleared.
"Now you can see him, Mrs. Cadwallader," said Celia.
"He is just like a miniature of Mr. Casaubon's aunt that
hangs in Dorothea's boudoir — quite nice-looking."
"A very pretty sprig," said Mrs. Cadwallader, dryly. "
What is your nephew to be, Mr. Casaubon?"
"Pardon me, he is not my nephew. He is my cousin."
"Well, you know," interposed Mr. Brooke, " he is trying
his wings. He is just the sort of young fellow to rise. I
should
be glad to give him an opportunity. He would
make a good secretary, now, like Hobbes, Milton, Swift — that
sort of man."
"I understand," said Mrs. Cadwallader. " One who can
write speeches."
"I'll fetch him in now, eh, Casaubon?" said Mr. Brooke.
" He wouldn't come in till I had announced him, you know.
And we'll go down and look at the picture. There you are to
the life: a deep subtle sort of thinker with his fore-finger
on the page, while Saint Bonaventure or somebody else,
rather fat and florid, is looking up at the Trinity.
Everything is symbolical, you know — the higher style of art:
I like that up to a certain point, but not too far — it's
rather straining to keep up with, you know. But you are at
home in that, Casaubon. And your painter's flesh is
good — solidity, transparency, everything of that sort. I
went into that a great deal at one time. However, I'll go
and fetch Ladislaw."