"Negli occhi porta la mia donna Amore;
Per che si fa gentil eio ch'ella mira:
Ov'ella passa, ogni uom ver lei si gira, E cui saluta fa tremar lo core.
Sicche, bassando il viso, tutto smore, E d'ogni suo difetto allor sospira:
Fuggon dinanzi a lei Superbia ed Ira:
Aiutatemi, donne, a farle onore.
Ogni dolcezza, ogni pensiero umile Nasee nel core a chi parlar la sente;Ond' e beato chi prima la vide.
Quel ch'ella par quand' un poco sorride, Non si pub dicer, ne tener a mente, Si e nuovo miracolo gentile."--DANTE: la Vita Nuova.
By that delightful morning when the hay-ricks at Stone Court were scenting the air quite impartially, as if Mr. Raffles had been a guest worthy of finest incense, Dorothea had again taken up her abode at Lowick Manor. After three months Freshitt had become rather oppressive: to sit like a model for Saint Catherine looking rapturously at Celia's baby would not do for many hours in the day, and to remain in that momentous babe's presence with persistent disregard was a course that could not have been tolerated in a childless sister. Dorothea would have been capable of carrying baby joyfully for a mile if there had been need, and of loving it the more tenderly for that labor; but to an aunt who does not recognize her infant nephew as Bouddha, and has nothing to do for him but to admire, his behavior is apt to appear monotonous, and the interest of watching him exhaustible. This possibility was quite hidden from Celia, who felt that Dorothea's childless widowhood fell in quite prettily with the birth of little Arthur (baby was named after Mr. Brooke).
"Dodo is just the creature not to mind about having anything of her own--children or anything!" said Celia to her husband. "And if she had had a baby, it never could have been such a dear as Arthur.
Could it, James?
"Not if it had been like Casaubon," said Sir James, conscious of some indirectness in his answer, and of holding a strictly private opinion as to the perfections of his first-born.
"No! just imagine! Really it was a mercy," said Celia; "and I think it is very nice for Dodo to be a widow. She can be just as fond of our baby as if it were her own, and she can have as many notions of her own as she likes.""It is a pity she was not a queen," said the devout Sir James.
"But what should we have been then? We must have been something else,"said Celia, objecting to so laborious a flight of imagination.
"I like her better as she is."
Hence, when she found that Dorothea was making arrangements for her final departure to Lowick, Celia raised her eyebrows with disappointment, and in her quiet unemphatic way shot a needle-arrow of sarcasm.
"What will you do at Lowick, Dodo? You say yourself there is nothing to be done there: everybody is so clean and well off, it makes you quite melancholy. And here you have been so happy going all about Tipton with Mr. Garth into the worst backyards.
And now uncle is abroad, you and Mr. Garth can have it all your own way;and I am sure James does everything you tell him.""I shall often come here, and I shall see how baby grows all the better," said Dorothea.
"But you will never see him washed," said Celia; "and that is quite the best part of the day." She was almost pouting: it did seem to her very hard in Dodo to go away from the baby when she might stay.
"Dear Kitty, I will come and stay all night on purpose,"said Dorothea; "but I want to be alone now, and in my own home.
I wish to know the Farebrothers better, and to talk to Mr. Farebrother about what there is to be done in Middlemarch."Dorothea's native strength of will was no longer all converted into resolute submission. She had a great yearning to be at Lowick, and was simply determined to go, not feeling bound to tell all her reasons. But every one around her disapproved. Sir James was much pained, and offered that they should all migrate to Cheltenham for a few months with the sacred ark, otherwise called a cradle:
at that period a man could hardly know what to propose if Cheltenham were rejected.
The Dowager Lady Chettam, just returned from a visit to her daughter in town, wished, at least, that Mrs. Vigo should be written to, and invited to accept the office of companion to Mrs. Casaubon:
it was not credible that Dorothea as a young widow would think of living alone in the house at Lowick. Mrs. Vigo had been reader and secretary to royal personages, and in point of knowledge and sentiments even Dorothea could have nothing to object to her.
Mrs. Cadwallader said, privately, "You will certainly go mad in that house alone, my dear. You will see visions. We have all got to exert ourselves a little to keep sane, and call things by the same names as other people call them by. To be sure, for younger sons and women who have no money, it is a sort of provision to go mad:
they are taken care of then. But you must not run into that.
I dare say you are a little bored here with our good dowager;but think what a bore you might become yourself to your fellow-creatures if you were always playing tragedy queen and taking things sublimely.
Sitting alone in that library at Lowick you may fancy yourself ruling the weather; you must get a few people round you who wouldn't believe you if you told them. That is a good lowering medicine.""I never called everything by the same name that all the people about me did," said Dorothea, stoutly.
"But I suppose you have found out your mistake, my dear,"said Mrs. Cadwallader, "and that is a proof of sanity."Dorothea was aware of the sting, but it did not hurt her.
"No," she said, "I still think that the greater part of the world is mistaken about many things. Surely one may be sane and yet think so, since the greater part of the world has often had to come round from its opinion."Mrs. Cadwallader said no more on that point to Dorothea, but to her husband she remarked, "It will be well for her to marry again as soon as it is proper, if one could get her among the right people.
