Middlemarch, Page 46

  CHAPTER XLVI.

  Pues no podemos haber aquello que queremos, queramos aquello que podremos.

  Since we cannot get what we like, let us like what we can get. --Spanish Proverb.

  While Lydgate, safely married and with the Hospital under his command,felt himself struggling for Medical Reform against Middlemarch,Middlemarch was becoming more and more conscious of the nationalstruggle for another kind of Reform.

  By the time that Lord John Russell's measure was being debated in theHouse of Commons, there was a new political animation in Middlemarch,and a new definition of parties which might show a decided change ofbalance if a new election came. And there were some who alreadypredicted this event, declaring that a Reform Bill would never becarried by the actual Parliament. This was what Will Ladislaw dwelt onto Mr. Brooke as a reason for congratulation that he had not yet triedhis strength at the hustings.

  "Things will grow and ripen as if it were a comet year," said Will."The public temper will soon get to a cometary heat, now the questionof Reform has set in. There is likely to be another election beforelong, and by that time Middlemarch will have got more ideas into itshead. What we have to work at now is the 'Pioneer' and politicalmeetings."

  "Quite right, Ladislaw; we shall make a new thing of opinion here,"said Mr. Brooke. "Only I want to keep myself independent about Reform,you know; I don't want to go too far. I want to take upWilberforce's and Romilly's line, you know, and work at NegroEmancipation, Criminal Law--that kind of thing. But of course I shouldsupport Grey."

  "If you go in for the principle of Reform, you must be prepared to takewhat the situation offers," said Will. "If everybody pulled for hisown bit against everybody else, the whole question would go to tatters."

  "Yes, yes, I agree with you--I quite take that point of view. I shouldput it in that light. I should support Grey, you know. But I don'twant to change the balance of the constitution, and I don't think Greywould."

  "But that is what the country wants," said Will. "Else there would beno meaning in political unions or any other movement that knows whatit's about. It wants to have a House of Commons which is not weightedwith nominees of the landed class, but with representatives of theother interests. And as to contending for a reform short of that, itis like asking for a bit of an avalanche which has already begun tothunder."

  "That is fine, Ladislaw: that is the way to put it. Write that down,now. We must begin to get documents about the feeling of the country,as well as the machine-breaking and general distress."

  "As to documents," said Will, "a two-inch card will hold plenty. A fewrows of figures are enough to deduce misery from, and a few more willshow the rate at which the political determination of the people isgrowing."

  "Good: draw that out a little more at length, Ladislaw. That is anidea, now: write it out in the 'Pioneer.' Put the figures and deducethe misery, you know; and put the other figures and deduce--and so on.You have a way of putting things. Burke, now:--when I think of Burke,I can't help wishing somebody had a pocket-borough to give you,Ladislaw. You'd never get elected, you know. And we shall always wanttalent in the House: reform as we will, we shall always want talent.That avalanche and the thunder, now, was really a little like Burke. Iwant that sort of thing--not ideas, you know, but a way of puttingthem."

  "Pocket-boroughs would be a fine thing," said Ladislaw, "if they werealways in the right pocket, and there were always a Burke at hand."

  Will was not displeased with that complimentary comparison, even fromMr. Brooke; for it is a little too trying to human flesh to beconscious of expressing one's self better than others and never to haveit noticed, and in the general dearth of admiration for the rightthing, even a chance bray of applause falling exactly in time is ratherfortifying. Will felt that his literary refinements were usuallybeyond the limits of Middlemarch perception; nevertheless, he wasbeginning thoroughly to like the work of which when he began he hadsaid to himself rather languidly, "Why not?"--and he studied thepolitical situation with as ardent an interest as he had ever given topoetic metres or mediaevalism. It is undeniable that but for thedesire to be where Dorothea was, and perhaps the want of knowing whatelse to do, Will would not at this time have been meditating on theneeds of the English people or criticising English statesmanship: hewould probably have been rambling in Italy sketching plans for severaldramas, trying prose and finding it too jejune, trying verse andfinding it too artificial, beginning to copy "bits" from old pictures,leaving off because they were "no good," and observing that, after all,self-culture was the principal point; while in politics he would havebeen sympathizing warmly with liberty and progress in general. Oursense of duty must often wait for some work which shall take the placeof dilettanteism and make us feel that the quality of our action is nota matter of indifference.

  Ladislaw had now accepted his bit of work, though it was not thatindeterminate loftiest thing which he had once dreamed of as aloneworthy of continuous effort. His nature warmed easily in the presenceof subjects which were visibly mixed with life and action, and theeasily stirred rebellion in him helped the glow of public spirit. Inspite of Mr. Casaubon and the banishment from Lowick, he was ratherhappy; getting a great deal of fresh knowledge in a vivid way and forpractical purposes, and making the "Pioneer" celebrated as far asBrassing (never mind the smallness of the area; the writing was notworse than much that reaches the four corners of the earth).

  Mr. Brooke was occasionally irritating; but Will's impatience wasrelieved by the division of his time between visits to the Grange andretreats to his Middlemarch lodgings, which gave variety to his life.

  "Shift the pegs a little," he said to himself, "and Mr. Brooke might bein the Cabinet, while I was Under-Secretary. That is the common orderof things: the little waves make the large ones and are of the samepattern. I am better here than in the sort of life Mr. Casaubon wouldhave trained me for, where the doing would be all laid down by aprecedent too rigid for me to react upon. I don't care for prestige orhigh pay."

  As Lydgate had said of him, he was a sort of gypsy, rather enjoying thesense of belonging to no class; he had a feeling of romance in hisposition, and a pleasant consciousness of creating a little surprisewherever he went. That sort of enjoyment had been disturbed when hehad felt some new distance between himself and Dorothea in theiraccidental meeting at Lydgate's, and his irritation had gone outtowards Mr. Casaubon, who had declared beforehand that Will would losecaste. "I never had any caste," he would have said, if that prophecyhad been uttered to him, and the quick blood would have come and gonelike breath in his transparent skin. But it is one thing to likedefiance, and another thing to like its consequences.

  Meanwhile, the town opinion about the new editor of the "Pioneer" wastending to confirm Mr. Casaubon's view. Will's relationship in thatdistinguished quarter did not, like Lydgate's high connections, serveas an advantageous introduction: if it was rumored that young Ladislawwas Mr. Casaubon's nephew or cousin, it was also rumored that "Mr.Casaubon would have nothing to do with him."

  "Brooke has taken him up," said Mr. Hawley, "because that is what noman in his senses could have expected. Casaubon has devilish goodreasons, you may be sure, for turning the cold shoulder on a youngfellow whose bringing-up he paid for. Just like Brooke--one of thosefellows who would praise a cat to sell a horse."

  And some oddities of Will's, more or less poetical, appeared to supportMr. Keck, the editor of the "Trumpet," in asserting that Ladislaw, ifthe truth were known, was not only a Polish emissary but crack-brained,which accounted for the preternatural quickness and glibness of hisspeech when he got on to a platform--as he did whenever he had anopportunity, speaking with a facility which cast reflections on solidEnglishmen generally. It was disgusting to Keck to see a strip of afellow, with light curls round his head, get up and speechify by thehour against institutions "which had existed when he was in hiscradle." And in a leading article of the "Trumpet," Keck cha
racterizedLadislaw's speech at a Reform meeting as "the violence of anenergumen--a miserable effort to shroud in the brilliancy of fireworksthe daring of irresponsible statements and the poverty of a knowledgewhich was of the cheapest and most recent description."

  "That was a rattling article yesterday, Keck," said Dr. Sprague, withsarcastic intentions. "But what is an energumen?"

  "Oh, a term that came up in the French Revolution," said Keck.

  This dangerous aspect of Ladislaw was strangely contrasted with otherhabits which became matter of remark. He had a fondness, halfartistic, half affectionate, for little children--the smaller they wereon tolerably active legs, and the funnier their clothing, the betterWill liked to surprise and please them. We know that in Rome he wasgiven to ramble about among the poor people, and the taste did not quithim in Middlemarch.

  He had somehow picked up a troop of droll children, little hatless boyswith their galligaskins much worn and scant shirting to hang out,little girls who tossed their hair out of their eyes to look at him,and guardian brothers at the mature age of seven. This troop he hadled out on gypsy excursions to Halsell Wood at nutting-time, and sincethe cold weather had set in he had taken them on a clear day to gathersticks for a bonfire in the hollow of a hillside, where he drew out asmall feast of gingerbread for them, and improvised a Punch-and-Judydrama with some private home-made puppets. Here was one oddity.Another was, that in houses where he got friendly, he was given tostretch himself at full length on the rug while he talked, and was aptto be discovered in this attitude by occasional callers for whom suchan irregularity was likely to confirm the notions of his dangerouslymixed blood and general laxity.

  But Will's articles and speeches naturally recommended him in familieswhich the new strictness of party division had marked off on the sideof Reform. He was invited to Mr. Bulstrode's; but here he could notlie down on the rug, and Mrs. Bulstrode felt that his mode of talkingabout Catholic countries, as if there were any truce with Antichrist,illustrated the usual tendency to unsoundness in intellectual men.

  At Mr. Farebrother's, however, whom the irony of events had brought onthe same side with Bulstrode in the national movement, Will became afavorite with the ladies; especially with little Miss Noble, whom itwas one of his oddities to escort when he met her in the street withher little basket, giving her his arm in the eyes of the town, andinsisting on going with her to pay some call where she distributed hersmall filchings from her own share of sweet things.

  But the house where he visited oftenest and lay most on the rug wasLydgate's. The two men were not at all alike, but they agreed none theworse. Lydgate was abrupt but not irritable, taking little notice ofmegrims in healthy people; and Ladislaw did not usually throw away hissusceptibilities on those who took no notice of them. With Rosamond,on the other hand, he pouted and was wayward--nay, oftenuncomplimentary, much to her inward surprise; nevertheless he wasgradually becoming necessary to her entertainment by his companionshipin her music, his varied talk, and his freedom from the gravepreoccupation which, with all her husband's tenderness and indulgence,often made his manners unsatisfactory to her, and confirmed her dislikeof the medical profession.

  Lydgate, inclined to be sarcastic on the superstitious faith of thepeople in the efficacy of "the bill," while nobody cared about the lowstate of pathology, sometimes assailed Will with troublesome questions.One evening in March, Rosamond in her cherry-colored dress withswansdown trimming about the throat sat at the tea-table; Lydgate,lately come in tired from his outdoor work, was seated sideways on aneasy-chair by the fire with one leg over the elbow, his brow looking alittle troubled as his eyes rambled over the columns of the "Pioneer,"while Rosamond, having noticed that he was perturbed, avoided lookingat him, and inwardly thanked heaven that she herself had not a moodydisposition. Will Ladislaw was stretched on the rug contemplating thecurtain-pole abstractedly, and humming very low the notes of "Whenfirst I saw thy face;" while the house spaniel, also stretched out withsmall choice of room, looked from between his paws at the usurper ofthe rug with silent but strong objection.

  Rosamond bringing Lydgate his cup of tea, he threw down the paper, andsaid to Will, who had started up and gone to the table--

  "It's no use your puffing Brooke as a reforming landlord, Ladislaw:they only pick the more holes in his coat in the 'Trumpet.'"

  "No matter; those who read the 'Pioneer' don't read the 'Trumpet,'"said Will, swallowing his tea and walking about. "Do you suppose thepublic reads with a view to its own conversion? We should have awitches' brewing with a vengeance then--'Mingle, mingle, mingle,mingle, You that mingle may'--and nobody would know which side he wasgoing to take."

  "Farebrother says, he doesn't believe Brooke would get elected if theopportunity came: the very men who profess to be for him would bringanother member out of the bag at the right moment."

  "There's no harm in trying. It's good to have resident members."

  "Why?" said Lydgate, who was much given to use that inconvenient wordin a curt tone.

  "They represent the local stupidity better," said Will, laughing, andshaking his curls; "and they are kept on their best behavior in theneighborhood. Brooke is not a bad fellow, but he has done some goodthings on his estate that he never would have done but for thisParliamentary bite."

  "He's not fitted to be a public man," said Lydgate, with contemptuousdecision. "He would disappoint everybody who counted on him: I can seethat at the Hospital. Only, there Bulstrode holds the reins and driveshim."

  "That depends on how you fix your standard of public men," said Will."He's good enough for the occasion: when the people have made up theirmind as they are making it up now, they don't want a man--they onlywant a vote."

  "That is the way with you political writers, Ladislaw--crying up ameasure as if it were a universal cure, and crying up men who are apart of the very disease that wants curing."

  "Why not? Men may help to cure themselves off the face of the landwithout knowing it," said Will, who could find reasons impromptu, whenhe had not thought of a question beforehand.

  "That is no excuse for encouraging the superstitious exaggeration ofhopes about this particular measure, helping the cry to swallow itwhole and to send up voting popinjays who are good for nothing but tocarry it. You go against rottenness, and there is nothing morethoroughly rotten than making people believe that society can be curedby a political hocus-pocus."

  "That's very fine, my dear fellow. But your cure must begin somewhere,and put it that a thousand things which debase a population can neverbe reformed without this particular reform to begin with. Look whatStanley said the other day--that the House had been tinkering longenough at small questions of bribery, inquiring whether this or thatvoter has had a guinea when everybody knows that the seats have beensold wholesale. Wait for wisdom and conscience in publicagents--fiddlestick! The only conscience we can trust to is themassive sense of wrong in a class, and the best wisdom that will workis the wisdom of balancing claims. That's my text--which side isinjured? I support the man who supports their claims; not the virtuousupholder of the wrong."

  "That general talk about a particular case is mere question begging,Ladislaw. When I say, I go in for the dose that cures, it doesn'tfollow that I go in for opium in a given case of gout."

  "I am not begging the question we are upon--whether we are to try fornothing till we find immaculate men to work with. Should you go onthat plan? If there were one man who would carry you a medical reformand another who would oppose it, should you inquire which had thebetter motives or even the better brains?"

  "Oh, of course," said Lydgate, seeing himself checkmated by a movewhich he had often used himself, "if one did not work with such men asare at hand, things must come to a dead-lock. Suppose the worst opinionin the town about Bulstrode were a true one, that would not make itless true that he has the sense and the resolution to do what I thinkought to be done in the matters I know and care most about; but that isthe only ground on which I go with hi
m," Lydgate added rather proudly,bearing in mind Mr. Farebrother's remarks. "He is nothing to meotherwise; I would not cry him up on any personal ground--I would keepclear of that."

  "Do you mean that I cry up Brooke on any personal ground?" said WillLadislaw, nettled, and turning sharp round. For the first time he feltoffended with Lydgate; not the less so, perhaps, because he would havedeclined any close inquiry into the growth of his relation to Mr.Brooke.

  "Not at all," said Lydgate, "I was simply explaining my own action. Imeant that a man may work for a special end with others whose motivesand general course are equivocal, if he is quite sure of his personalindependence, and that he is not working for his privateinterest--either place or money."

  "Then, why don't you extend your liberality to others?" said Will,still nettled. "My personal independence is as important to me asyours is to you. You have no more reason to imagine that I havepersonal expectations from Brooke, than I have to imagine that you havepersonal expectations from Bulstrode. Motives are points of honor, Isuppose--nobody can prove them. But as to money and place in theworld." Will ended, tossing back his head, "I think it is pretty clearthat I am not determined by considerations of that sort."

  "You quite mistake me, Ladislaw," said Lydgate, surprised. He had beenpreoccupied with his own vindication, and had been blind to whatLadislaw might infer on his own account. "I beg your pardon forunintentionally annoying you. In fact, I should rather attribute toyou a romantic disregard of your own worldly interests. On thepolitical question, I referred simply to intellectual bias."

  "How very unpleasant you both are this evening!" said Rosamond. "Icannot conceive why money should have been referred to. Polities andMedicine are sufficiently disagreeable to quarrel upon. You can bothof you go on quarrelling with all the world and with each other onthose two topics."

  Rosamond looked mildly neutral as she said this, rising to ring thebell, and then crossing to her work-table.

  "Poor Rosy!" said Lydgate, putting out his hand to her as she waspassing him. "Disputation is not amusing to cherubs. Have some music.Ask Ladislaw to sing with you."

  When Will was gone Rosamond said to her husband, "What put you out oftemper this evening, Tertius?"

  "Me? It was Ladislaw who was out of temper. He is like a bit oftinder."

  "But I mean, before that. Something had vexed you before you came in,you looked cross. And that made you begin to dispute with Mr.Ladislaw. You hurt me very much when you look so, Tertius."

  "Do I? Then I am a brute," said Lydgate, caressing her penitently.

  "What vexed you?"

  "Oh, outdoor things--business." It was really a letter insisting onthe payment of a bill for furniture. But Rosamond was expecting tohave a baby, and Lydgate wished to save her from any perturbation.