Middlemarch

New Fever Hospital and Medical Reform Discussion

Once alone with Lydgate, Bulstrode invites the new doctor to consult him privately on hospital management and announces that, while Lord Medlicote has provided land and timber for the new fever hospital, the final decision on its use rests with him. Lydgate expands the topic into a broader argument for provincial medical reform, urging that a fine fever hospital joined to the old infirmary could become the nucleus of a medical school and counter the rush of talent toward London. Bulstrode welcomes this zeal, hints at entrusting Lydgate with the superintendence of his new hospital, frames his arrival as providential encouragement, and commends him for braving professional jealousy as a reformer. The two exchange views on the low standard of medical knowledge in Middlemarch, and Bulstrode—aware that his imperfect health has made him consult eminent metropolitan physicians—uses the occasion to draw Lydgate into discussing the spiritual as well as material welfare of patients.

Old Infirmary Clerical Appointment Dispute

Bulstrode shifts the ground to the old infirmary, where the building stands in Mr. Farebrother’s parish, and explains his wish to replace Farebrother’s clerical attendance with that of Mr. Tyke. He laments Farebrother’s wasted talents and the “painful” spectacle of a clergyman so gifted yet, in his view, so misdirected. Lydgate, professing no special opinion until he knows the cases involved, declines to commit himself, and Bulstrode—who is plainly looking for sympathetic concurrence against his opponents on the medical board—frames the matter in earnest, chiseled tones as one on which he cannot yield an inch.

Lydgate Avoids Clerical Disputes

Lydgate makes it clear that he has no wish to be drawn into clerical disputes and intends simply to work well in his own profession, declaring himself untroubled by any excessive display of talent in Middlemarch and gently mocking Bulstrode’s gravity. Bulstrode answers that for him the question is one of sacred accountableness, not worldly opposition, and confesses with quivering intensity that he would have no interest in hospitals at all if he believed they concerned nothing beyond the cure of mortal disease. Lydgate quietly notes their difference of view and is relieved when the door opens and Mr. Vincy is announced.

Vincy Asks Bulstrode to Exonerate Fred

Vincy explains that his visit concerns Fred, his scapegrace eldest son, who is in danger of being poisoned in old Featherstone’s ears by spiteful gossip. Featherstone is fond of Fred and has virtually promised to leave him his land, which has made others jealous; someone has cooked up a story that Fred has been borrowing or trying to borrow money on the strength of that prospect, citing Bulstrode as the authority. All Featherstone now requires is a note in Bulstrode’s handwriting denying that he ever said any such thing and disbelieving the rumor, and Vincy, who declares that he has blown Fred up well enough and that the lad is not a liar, presses Bulstrode to write it.

Argument Over Worldliness and Religious Duty

Bulstrode refuses. He tells Vincy that pursuing the Featherstone bequest is worldly vanity, that devoting money to an expensive education for a son who has produced only extravagant idle habits was unwarranted, and that he has no wish to smooth Fred’s path to a fortune he regards as spiritually ruinous. Vincy grows blunt, defends his brotherly precedent, his British feeling for family, and his trust in a fatherly generosity, and counters that Bulstrode’s own worldly dealings—his partnerships, his dyes, his profits—are not so very different from his own. The argument deepens into a quarrel about whether religion is consistent with trade, whether Bulstrode’s professed unworldliness is any more honest than Vincy’s open worldliness, and whether Vincy’s position in business has really been his own doing. Bulstrode ends by reminding Vincy that he stretches his tolerance only because they are brothers-in-law, and that it ill becomes Vincy to complain of being denied a favor whose grounds he cannot understand.

CHAPITRE XIII.

Mr. Vincy confronts Mr. Bulstrode with growing irritation, pressing his brother-in-law to write a letter that would clear Fred’s name from a circulating slander, and accusing Bulstrode of an unhandsome, “dog-in-the-manger” tyrannical spirit that “makes a man’s name stink.” Though Bulstrode opens by admonishing Vincy, the exchange leaves him confronting an unsatisfying mirror of himself in the manufacturer’s coarse plainness, and after needing to reshape his motives, he reluctantly agrees to reflect on the request, mention it to Harriet, and likely send the letter before the next day.