“I know that I must expect trials, uncle.
Marriage is a state of higher duties. I never
thought of it as mere personal ease,” said poor
Dorothea.
“Well, you are not fond of show, a great establishment,
balls, dinners, that kind of thing. I can see
that Casaubon’s ways might suit you better than
Chettam’s. And you shall do as you like,
my dear. I would not hinder Casaubon; I said
so at once; for there is no knowing how anything may
turn out. You have not the same tastes as every
young lady; and a clergyman and scholar—who
may be a bishop—that kind of thing—may
suit you better than Chettam. Chettam is a good
fellow, a good sound-hearted fellow, you know; but
he doesn’t go much into ideas. I did, when
I was his age. But Casaubon’s eyes, now.
I think he has hurt them a little with too much reading.”
“I should be all the happier, uncle, the more
room there was for me to help him,” said Dorothea,
ardently.
“You have quite made up your mind, I see.
Well, my dear, the fact is, I have a letter for you
in my pocket.” Mr. Brooke handed the letter
to Dorothea, but as she rose to go away, he added,
“There is not too much hurry, my dear.
Think about it, you know.”
When Dorothea had left him, he reflected that he had
certainly spoken strongly: he had put the risks
of marriage before her in a striking manner.
It was his duty to do so. But as to pretending
to be wise for young people,—no uncle, however
much he had travelled in his youth, absorbed the new
ideas, and dined with celebrities now deceased, could
pretend to judge what sort of marriage would turn
out well for a young girl who preferred Casaubon to
Chettam. In short, woman was a problem which,
since Mr. Brooke’s mind felt blank before it,
could be hardly less complicated than the revolutions
of an irregular solid.
“Hard students are commonly troubled
with gowts, catarrhs, rheums, cachexia, bradypepsia,
bad eyes, stone, and collick, crudities, oppilations,
vertigo, winds, consumptions, and all such diseases
as come by over-much sitting: they are most
part lean, dry, ill-colored . . . and all through
immoderate pains and extraordinary studies.
If you will not believe the truth of this, look
upon great Tostatus and Thomas Aquainas’
works; and tell me whether those men took pains.”—BURTON’S
Anatomy of Melancholy, P. I, s. 2.
This was Mr. Casaubon’s letter.
My dear miss Brooke,—I
have your guardian’s permission to address you
on a subject than which I have none more at heart.
I am not, I trust, mistaken in the recognition of
some deeper correspondence than that of date in the
fact that a consciousness of need in my own life had
arisen contemporaneously with the possibility of my
becoming acquainted with you. For in the first
hour of meeting you, I had an impression of your eminent
