Pues no podemos haber aquello que queremos, queramos aquello que podremos.
Since we cannot get what we like, let us like what we can get.
--Spanish Proverb.
While Lydgate, safely married and with the Hospital under his command, felt himself struggling for Medical Reform against Middlemarch, Middlemarch was becoming more and more conscious of the national struggle for another kind of Reform.
By the time that Lord John Russell's measure was being debated in the House of Commons, there was a new political animation in Middlemarch, and a new definition of parties which might show a decided change of balance if a new election came. And there were some who already predicted this event, declaring that a Reform Bill would never be carried by the actual Parliament.
This was what Will Ladislaw dwelt on to Mr. Brooke as a reason for congratulation that he had not yet tried his strength at the hustings.
"Things will grow and ripen as if it were a comet year," said Will.
"The public temper will soon get to a cometary heat, now the question of Reform has set in. There is likely to be another election before long, and by that time Middlemarch will have got more ideas into its head.
What we have to work at now is the `Pioneer' and political meetings.""Quite right, Ladislaw; we shall make a new thing of opinion here,"said Mr. Brooke. "Only I want to keep myself independent about Reform, you know; I don't want to go too far. I want to take up. Wilberforce's and Romilly's line, you know, and work at Negro Emancipation, Criminal Law--that kind of thing.
But of course I should support Grey."
"If you go in for the principle of Reform, you must be prepared to take what the situation offers," said Will. "If everybody pulled for his own bit against everybody else, the whole question would go to tatters.""Yes, yes, I agree with you--I quite take that point of view.
I should put it in that light. I should support Grey, you know.
But I don't want to change the balance of the constitution, and I don't think Grey would.""But that is what the country wants,"-said Will. "Else there would be no meaning in political unions or any other movement that knows what it's about. It wants to have a House of Commons which is not weighted with nominees of the landed class, but with representatives of the other interests. And as to contending for a reform short of that, it is like asking for a bit of an avalanche which has already begun to thunder.""That is fine, Ladislaw: that is the way to put it. Write that down, now. We must begin to get documents about the feeling of the country, as well as the machine-breaking and general distress.""As to documents," said Will, "a two-inch card will hold plenty.
A few rows of figures are enough to deduce misery from, and a few more will show the rate at which the political determination of the people is growing.""Good: draw that out a little more at length, Ladislaw. That is an idea, now: write it out in the `Pioneer.' Put the figures and deduce the misery, you know; and put the other figures and deduce--and so on. You have a way of putting things. Burke, now:--when Ithink of Burke, I can't help wishing somebody had a pocket-borough to give you, Ladislaw. You'd never get elected, you know.
And we shall always want talent in the House: reform as we will, we shall always want talent. That avalanche and the thunder, now, was really a little like Burke. I want that sort of thing--not ideas, you know, but a way of putting them.""Pocket-boroughs would be a fine thing," said Ladislaw, "if they were always in the right pocket, and there were always a Burke at hand."Will was not displeased with that complimentary comparison, even from Mr. Brooke; for it is a little too trying to human flesh to be conscious of expressing one's self better than others and never to have it noticed, and in the general dearth of admiration for the right thing, even a chance bray of applause falling exactly in time is rather fortifying. Will felt that his literary refinements were usually beyond the limits of Middlemarch perception;nevertheless, he was beginning thoroughly to like the work of which when he began he had said to himself rather languidly, "Why not?"--and he studied the political situation with as ardent an interest as he had ever given to poetic metres or mediaevalism.
It is undeniable that but for the desire to be where Dorothea was, and perhaps the want of knowing what else to do, Will would not at this time have been meditating on the needs of the English people or criticising English statesmanship: he would probably have been rambling in Italy sketching plans for several dramas, trying prose and finding it too jejune, trying verse and finding it too artificial, beginning to copy "bits" from old pictures, leaving off because they were "no good," and observing that, after all, self-culture was the principal point; while in politics he would have been sympathizing warmly with liberty and progress in general.
Our sense of duty must often wait for some work which shall take the place of dilettanteism and make us feel that the quality of our action is not a matter of indifference.
Ladislaw had now accepted his bit of work, though it was not that indeterminate loftiest thing which he had once dreamed of as alone worthy of continuous effort. His nature warmed easily in the presence of subjects which were visibly mixed with life and action, and the easily stirred rebellion in him helped the glow of public spirit.
In spite of Mr. Casaubon and the banishment from Lowick, he was rather happy; getting a great deal of fresh knowledge in a vivid way and for practical purposes, and making the "Pioneer" celebrated as far as Brassing (never mind the smallness of the area; the writing was not worse than much that reaches the four corners of the earth).
Mr. Brooke was occasionally irritating; but Will's impatience was relieved by the division of his time between visits to the Grange and retreats to his Middlemarch lodgings, which gave variety to his life.
