Middlemarch

CHAPITRE LI.

Chapter LI of Middlemarch, covering the political “dry election” context and the tangled threads of Will Ladislaw’s electioneering work for Mr. Brooke, his anguish over Dorothea, and Brooke’s nomination speech.

Opening Philosophical Verse on Party and Nature

An epigraph verse argues by “force of Logic” that Party is Nature: the Many are in the One, genus and species are both great or small, each species has its differentia, and “this” is not “that”—though both may be AYES, like one-to-one or three-to-three.

Dry Election Political Context

The dissolution of Parliament and the coming election dominate local air like rival itinerant shows at wakes and fairs, drowning private gossip such as rumors about Mr. Casaubon’s will. The famous “dry election” approaches, in which public feeling will be measured by the low flood-mark of drink. Will Ladislaw is one of the busiest, though Dorothea’s widowhood is continually in his thought.

Will’s Refusal to Discuss Dorothea

When Lydgate seeks Will to tell him what passed about the Lowick living, Will answers waspishly that he never sees Mrs. Casaubon, never goes to Freshitt, and has no wish to be drawn into the matter—Freshitt being Tory ground where he and the Pioneer are no more welcome than a poacher and his gun.

Will’s Suspicion of Being Kept From Dorothea

Will has noticed that Mr. Brooke, who once wished him to come to the Grange more often than was convenient, now contrives to keep him away—a concession to Sir James Chettam’s indignant remonstrance. Concluding he is to be kept from Dorothea on her account, Will resents being treated as a needy adventurer courting a rich woman.

Will’s Conflict Over Leaving Middlemarch

For the first time Will fully sees the chasm between himself and Dorothea, and with inward rage considers leaving: any further interest in her would draw “disagreeable imputations.” He feels “forever divided,” yet his despair is partly the “painful eagerness of unfed hope.” Public reasons keep him—he cannot abandon Mr. Brooke or his own chessmen at this crisis.

Election Strategy and Brooke’s Reform Wavering

The contest lies between Pinkerton (Tory), Bagster (Whig), and Brooke (independent reformer pledging himself to the Reform Bill for this occasion). Brooke’s success depends on plumpers or “the new minting of Tory votes into reforming votes.” Brooke’s wavering statements and habit of taking in opposing arguments as they arise give Will much trouble; Brooke proposes meeting voters “half-way,” but Will insists this is no time for trimming.

Canvassing of Voter Mr. Mawmsey

Mr. Mawmsey, the Middlemarch grocer and doubtful voter, receives Brooke in his back parlor. He frames the question “in a family light”—will Reform support Mrs. Mawmsey and six children?—and presses the weight of grocery customers who hint at withdrawing custom. Brooke soothes him, but Mawmsey delivers a decisive check: reform threatens the debtor-and-creditor family structure that undergirds his respectability, and he cannot afford such change.

Brooke’s Pre-Speech Preparation

Ladislaw reassures himself that his canvassing is purely argumentative, while plenty of dirty-handed men handle the dirtier business. Brooke’s mind, however, will not hold a train of thought—his ideas “stand rather in his way” when he speaks. On nomination morning at the White Hart, Brooke drives in cheered, but unwisely takes a second glass of sherry that scatters rather than collects his energies.

Brooke’s Stumbling Nomination Address

On the balcony, with cheers and moderate groans, Brooke loses his pat opening and falls back on his qualifications: he is a neighbor who has gone into machinery, trade, manufactures, and the interchange of staples since Adam Smith. He quotes “Observation with extensive view” and rambles from China to Peru—though, as narrator notes, he has not personally been as far as Peru.

CHAPITRE LI.

In this chapter, Mr. Brooke endures a humiliating public appearance as a ventriloquist (Bowyer) and a painted effigy mock him during his electioneering speech, culminating in his being pelted with eggs. He retreats to the committee room where his prospects look grim. Meanwhile, Will Ladislaw, torn between his unrequited love for Dorothea and his frustration with Brooke, contemplates leaving Middlemarch. However, when Brooke unexpectedly decides to withdraw his candidacy and hand over the Pioneer to political allies, Will is insulted by the implication that he is a dispensable “ordinary” man and resolves to stay in Middlemarch on his own terms, defying the Casaubon family.