Middlemarch

An Aversion to Steady Application

An Aversion to Steady Application Casaubon diagnoses Will’s reluctance toward law, medicine, or any profession as rooted in a general “inaccuracy and indisposition to thoroughness” and a dislike of steady application and instrumental learning. He cites Aristotle’s point that prior exercise of secondary energies is needed for any real achievement, pointing to his own unfinished manuscript as proof. Will, however, dismisses such counsel by styling himself Pegasus and dismissing prescribed work as “harness.”

Dorothea’s Favorable Explanation

Dorothea’s Favorable Explanation Dorothea, unwilling to condemn Will, offers a charitable reading: perhaps he has conscientious scruples grounded in his own unfitness, since professions like law and medicine have people’s lives and fortunes depending on them and are therefore too serious to be undertaken lightly.

The Test of Freedom

The Test of Freedom Asked by Brooke whether Will will be permitted to go abroad, Casaubon consents to supply him moderately for a year or so and announces that he will “let him be tried by the test of freedom.” Dorothea greets this decision with delight, calling it noble, and suggests that people may harbor latent vocations not yet clear to themselves and that others should be patient with apparent idleness.

Celia’s Remarks on Patience

Celia’s Remarks on Patience Once the sisters are alone and removing their wrappings, Celia teases Dorothea by attributing her new appreciation of patience to her engagement, plainly implying that Dorothea is in fact very impatient when others do not act or speak as she wishes. Dorothea owns the charge, and Celia reflects that the engagement has made her less afraid of saying such things to her sister, even as she now regards cleverness as more pitiable than before.

CHAPITRE X.

Chapter X of Middlemarch centers on the days leading up to Dorothea Brooke’s wedding to Mr. Casaubon. The chapter opens with a meditation on Will Ladislaw’s departure for the Continent and a narrative defense of Casaubon against the dismissive judgments of other characters, then turns to Casaubon’s private sense of disappointment and Dorothea’s eager expectations of intellectual union with him. The couple discuss plans to extend their wedding journey to Rome, a dinner-party at the Grange provides an occasion for various observers to comment on the bride, and the chapter closes with Lady Chettam and Mrs. Cadwallader discussing the mysterious ailment of Mrs. Renfrew.

Will Ladislaw’s Departure

Will Ladislaw does not pay the visit that Mr. Brooke had invited him to, and six days later Casaubon mentions that his young relative has departed for the Continent, offering only cold vagueness about the destination. Will has chosen the entire continent of Europe as his range, believing genius demands the freest play. He has experimented with wine, fasting, lobster suppers, and even opium in search of the ecstatic attitude that might summon his vocation, but nothing strikingly original has yet emerged. The narrator cautions against premature prophecy about his future.

A Plea for Mr. Casaubon

The narrator shifts to defend Casaubon against the unfavorable assessments given by Mrs. Cadwallader, Sir James Chettam, Mr. Brooke, and Celia, arguing that even the greatest man would appear diminished in such small mirrors. If Casaubon’s rhetoric is chilling, this does not disprove the presence of genuine work and feeling within him, just as a great hieroglyphist might write detestable verses. The passage invites sympathy for the inward life of a man who is the center of his own world, however unappealing his outward claims may seem to others.

Casaubon’s Disappointment

As the wedding approaches, Casaubon finds that his spirits are not rising, and the prospect of matrimonial happiness fails to enchant him as he had expected. He cannot admit, even to himself, his surprise that winning a noble-hearted girl has not produced the delight he had counted on. The classical passages assuring such joy remain mere motions of the mind and supply no feeling for personal application. He suffers a worst kind of loneliness that shrinks from sympathy, and begins to lean on Dorothea’s trust and veneration as a welcome audience for his scholarly labors.