Middlemarch

Sketch Sittings and Painting Purchase

Dorothea, viewing Naumann’s paintings, gains new understanding of apparently monstrous religious imagery, while Mr. Casaubon, uninterested in art, remains outside this awakening. Naumann, after drawing Will aside, asks Mr. Casaubon for permission to sketch his head as a model for Saint Thomas Aquinas; Casaubon is flattered and agrees, and Dorothea feels happier than she has in a long while. When Naumann then asks to sketch Dorothea as Santa Clara, Casaubon readily consents, and she submits with unaffected simplicity. Multiple sittings are arranged across two days, and Casaubon ultimately agrees to purchase the finished painting of Saint Thomas Aquinas, while the arrangement for the Santa Clara remains conditional because Naumann professes dissatisfaction with his work on it.

Will’s Irritation at Naumann’s Remarks

That evening Naumann jokes at Mr. Casaubon’s expense and rhapsodizes about Dorothea’s beauty, with Will joining in but with a marked difference in feeling. Whenever Naumann mentions any detail of Dorothea’s loveliness, Will becomes exasperated at what he perceives as presumption and grossness, insisting that she is not a woman to be spoken of like other women. Naumann observes shrewdly that Will cares far more about Dorothea’s portrait than his own, remarks that Will is “spoiling his fine temper” by his entanglement with the Casaubons, and Will gnashes his teeth at being obliged to a man he privately calls “a cursed white-blooded pedantic coxcomb.”

Will’s Longing for Dorothea’s Notice

All of Will’s hope becomes concentrated on seeing Dorothea alone and receiving from her some emphatic, queenly sign of recognition beyond her usual open and ardent good-will. He is tormented by the sight of her wifely anxiety turned toward Casaubon, finding the husband’s complacent reception of her devotion intolerable even as he acknowledges that her duteous preoccupation is part of what makes her admirable. Will wrestles with internal contradictions, longing both to worship her from afar and to say damaging things about her husband, though he feels strong reasons to restrain himself.

Will’s Uninvited Visit to Dorothea

Not having been invited to dine the next day, Will persuades himself he is bound to call at the most eligible time, when Mr. Casaubon will be absent from home. Dorothea, unaware that her earlier reception of Will displeased her husband, greets him without hesitation as if his visit were a matter of course and immediately asks his opinion on cameos she has been buying for her sister Celia, since Casaubon had objected to including Will in that errand. They converse pleasantly about the cameos, Celia, and Dorothea’s surprising indifference to cameos as objects in life, and Will gently probes her apparent lack of sensitivity to visual beauty.

CHAPITRE XXII.

In Rome, Dorothea and Will Ladislaw discuss art, learning, vocation, and Dorothea’s future at Lowick, culminating in Will’s resolve to renounce Mr. Casaubon’s patronage and Dorothea’s report of this resolve to her husband.

The Fanaticism of Sympathy

Will labels Dorothea’s distress that great art lies outside ordinary life as “the fanaticism of sympathy,” arguing that the same logic could condemn landscape, poetry, and all refinement.

Dorothea’s Anxieties About Art

Dorothea confesses her desire to make life beautiful for everyone and laments the “immense expense of art” that seems to leave the world no better, declaring that some paintings consecrate ugliness rather than beauty.

The Virtues of Misery

Will accuses Dorothea of harboring “false belief in the virtues of misery,” warning that carrying her pity to its logical end would make her “miserable in your own goodness, and turn evil that you might have no advantage over others.”

The Burial Alive of Lowick

Will protests against Dorothea’s return to Lowick as being “buried alive” in a “stone prison,” but Dorothea gently insists that “Lowick is my chosen home,” spoken with an “almost solemn cadence.”

Will’s Defense of Enjoyment

Will argues that “the best piety is to enjoy—when you can,” maintaining that delight radiates outward and that enjoyment does the most to preserve “the earth’s character as an agreeable planet.”