Still Middlemarch
Chapters 49-57 (fewer chapters than I mean to read once again)
Good Morning Readers,
I hope you are as happy to be in March as I am. I thought I was just having a long February, but apparently February being long and hard is a thing (so the internet and my friends tell me). February felt like it would never end and now all of the sudden it is only the second day of March and I feel like Easter is right around the corner and then summer is basically right after that and then school starts again next year.
But before I start jumping ahead I need to acknowledge that we’re actually not even halfway through Lent. There is still time to pray and fast and give before the celebrating commences. There is still quiet and peace to be enjoyed during this slower season. And maybe, just maybe, I don’t need to have next school year (and our whole life) planned by the beginning of March. I don’t know if anyone else has the tendency (or should I say problem) of jumping into planning the future when the present is at all stressful. So in case anyone else needs to hear is, there is still time to live in Lent and then enjoy Easter, all before summer even starts!
I am currently sitting here typing this holding a snuggly toddler and that also reminds me that the present is pretty good and it is worth it to take a pause and enjoy it.
And speaking of dwelling in the present, we are still reading Middlemarch. I am loving it, but it does feel like we have been in this story for a long time and we still have 2 weeks left! I hope you are all still enjoying it as well. I find Eliot so insightful about the human condition and human relationships, especially marital ones. And honestly, I find her hilarious. I realize the book doesn’t read like a comedy, but if you pay attention to her character descriptions and asides I think you will also find her very funny (if not laugh out loud funny, at least a good quiet chortle).
Chapter Musings
49
Mr. Brooke and Chettam are discussing how to keep Dorothea from knowing about the codicil Cassubon put in his will that she cannot marry Will (without losing her inheritance). Chettam wants to send Will away so people don’t gossip. Brooke thinks it is unnecessary, which is coincidentally convenient for him. Is Mr. Brooke the wise fool here?
“‘People say what they like to say, not what they have chapter and verse for,’ said Mr. Brooke, becoming acute about the truths that lay on the side of his own wishes.”
“‘Well I can only say that I think Dorothea was sacrificed once because her friends were too careless. I shall do what I can, as her brother, to protect her now.’” -Sir James
50
Celia tells Dorothea about the codicil. Dorothea wants to fill the living at Lowick. Brooke recommends Tyke, but Lydgate recommends Farebrother to make up for not voting for him for hospital chaplain. He mentions Will in his recommendation and Dorothea is left thinking about Will. I cannot help but laugh a lot at the descriptions of Celia and her baby. Also Brooke trying to tell Dorothea that there is nothing in the will is great! Dorothea is now capable of thinking her own views might be wrong. She has changed. Was it her marriage or widowhood or the whole process? I also love the conversation comparing the pastors and the idea of apostolic preaching, very funny! Farebrother’s ordinariness changes the heart’s of his parishioners…this seems to be a theme running through the book. The other interesting thing about this conversation is that at the beginning of the book we would have expected Dorothea to take to Tyke, but she has changed and now she chooses the more ordinary, more forgiving Farebrother.
“I don’t present to say that Farebrother is apostolic…His position is not quite like that of the Apostles; he is only a parson among parishioners whose lives he has to try and make better.”
“Mr Tyke…a good deal of his doctrine is a sort of pinching hard to make people uncomfortably aware of him.”
51
Let’s just summarize this chapter as “a lot of politics” and move on. Will is thinking about Dorothea. Mr. Brooke makes a fool of himself. Will decides he is going to leave Middlemarch to make something of himself and come back to Dorothea once it can’t look like he is marrying her for her money. He wants to see her before she leaves. We also see Will be very stubborn when Brooke tells him to leave.
“Until now Will had never fully seen the chasm between himself and Dorothea- until now that he was come to the brink of it and saw her on the other side.”
“But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.”
52
Farebrother is going to get the Lowick living from Dorothea. Fred finished college and is thinking about going into the church, but he needs to know if Mary approves. He gets Farebrother to talk to her, but he also is in love with Mary. Mary will not marry Fred if he makes himself ridiculous by going into the church. But, she also says that she will have no one else either. Farebrother talking about how to live in the “wrong” vocation is interesting in this book that seems to be dwelling on that theme.
“‘I used often to wish I had been something else than a clergyman,’ (Farebrother) said to Lydgate, ‘but perhaps it will be better to try and make as good a clergyman out of myself as I can. That is the well-benificed point of view, you perceive, from which difficulties are much simplified.’”
“I shouldn’t mind anything if she would have me. And I know I could be a good fellow then.”-Fred
“I should like better than anything to see him worth of everyone’s respect.”-Mary about Fred
53
Mr. Raffles finds Bulstrode to extort him. He knows how he got his money. It appears that Bulstrode married an old widow and she wanted him to find her daughter and grandson to give them money and he found them and never told her, seemingly so that he could have the whole inheritance when she died. Raffles can’t remember the name (Sarah something), but he finally remembers at the end…it is Ladislaw! Looks like Will maybe should already have the money and status that he is seeking. But maybe, like Fred, it will do him good to have to work for it first?
I love the description at the beginning of Caleb Garth being considered strange for his virtue. We get similar descriptions or Mrs. Garth and Dorothea.
“(Bulstrode) was doctrinally convinced that there was a total absence of merit in himself; but that doctinal conviction may be held without pain when the sense of demerit does not take a distinct shape in memory and revive the tingling of shame of the pang of remorse.”
54
Dorothea goes back to Lowick in hopes of seeing Will. He comes to say goodbye and it is terribly awkward and ends with an interruption by Sir James. It is a shame that he couldn’t save her from the first marriage (which was awful) and he seems bent on ruining any chance for a second (which seems like it could be good). The best of intentions and what not. Is Mrs. Cadwallader the wise fool in this chapter? Dorothea again is compared to a princess locked in a castle for the fairy tale imagery. She is also told by Mrs. Cadwallader that she will “see visions” which sounds like more saint/mystic imagery. Another question I am asking is if Eliot has a deeper meaning when she calls people “Poor ___”?
55
Dorothea is sad and misunderstands Will’s awkwardness. She doesn’t even realize that she is in love (so some of her blindness still needs to be shed). She goes to Freshitt and assures Celia that she won’t marry again. Eliot’s understanding and expression of misunderstandings is phenomenal.
“If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that our elders are hopeful about us; for no age is so apt as youth to think its emotions, partings, and resolves are the last of their kind. Each crisis is final, simply because it is new. We are told that the oldest inhabitants in Peru do not cease to be agitated by the earthquakes, but they probably see beyond each shock and reflect that there are plenty more to come.”
“Of course if a woman accepts the wrong man, she must take the consequences, and one who does it twice over deserves her fate. But if she can marry blood, beauty, and bravery- the sooner the better.”- Mrs. Cadwallader
56
There is a dispute between the railroad workers and Mr. Garth defends them. Fred comes along to help and Mr. Garth says he will hire him if Susan approves. Fred disappoints Caleb right away by his awful handwriting. He tells his parents his plans and they are disappointed in him in very hilariously gender stereotypical ways. We find out that Rosy lost a baby.
“Which would turn out to have the more foresight in in- her rationality or Caleb’s ardent generosity?”
“At that time the opinion existed that it was beneath a gentleman to write legibly…Fred wrote the lines demanded in a hand as gentlemanly as that of any…it was the manuscript of that venerable kind easy to interpret when you know beforehand what the writer means.”
57
Fred goes to tell Mary about his resolve to work for her Father. He stops and gets chastised by Susan on his way. He is jealous of Farebrother and speaks foolishly to Mary. She is still resolved to only love him.
The comparison of Fred to Christy (Mary’s brother) is wonderful. I also love seeing the unintended consequences of Mrs. Garth speaking too much and the objective correlative of the literal chaos that ensues as a result. Do we think Mary has a better sense for what people’s vocations should be than others or is this a trait of the Garths in general? I would also love to talk about the different styles of education each character has received and what we think Eliot is implying.
I will pick up with chapter 58 next week and I would love to hear any thoughts people are having in the comments. I am very excited to chat about the second half of the book with a lot of you in a few weeks.
Other Things I’m Enjoying
I am not usually a “pray with my phone anywhere within my reach” type of person because I have a tendency to get distracted. But, my husband has been really intentional about praying Evening Prayer and we love the Divine Office App (or website). I still like going to grab my physical copy of the Liturgy of the Hours, but sometimes this is really helpful!
I am starting to get my school books in for next year (because February homeschooling is hard and apparently I channel my stress by planning for next year REALLY early)…this Bible Timeline book for kids is the best resource I’ve gotten so far and I am very excited about it!
The
subscriber only Detective Mystery series. They are reading one classic detective book each month and chatting about it. It is very fun and I am hoping to gain a few more favorites!
Lastly, I am still enjoying the Hawthorne & Horowitz mysteries. They are modern so I do not claim that they are high literary fiction, but they are fun and fast. Middlemarch is lovely, but if I’m tired I miss a lot of the jokes and nuance so I’ve been reading this as my weekend and other tired time reading.
In case anyone is reading this and picturing me sitting here and typing this whole newsletter with a sweet snuggly toddler nicely sitting in my lap not banging my computer, he left shortly after I typed that sentence (after a few good bangs on the keyboard). And after multiple visits from toddlers I have actually moved to a desk and am hiding behind a closed door. The present can be sweet, but rarely is it idyllic for more than a few moments at a time. I am working on enjoying my chaos and I hope you can do (whatever form your chaos may take).
I hope you all find time to snuggle up with Middlemarch or another book this weekend. We have a fire going and I am excited to keep plodding through Middlemarch and reading some murder mysteries in front of the fire. That is, after breakfast is made and all the children are attended to (so maybe by nap time). I wish you all a leisurely weekend!
Enjoy your reading until we meet again!
“Letters are an imperative and daily requirement to satisfy that universal mind hunger, the neglect of which gives rise to emotional disturbances, and, as a consequence, to evils that dismay us.”
-Charlotte Mason (A Philosophy of Education)
A Few Reminders
Next up for Literature Book Club is The Innocence of Father Brown for April and then Crossing to Safety for May.
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