SPOIIIIILEEEERS!!!!
Look elsewhere unless you are too lazy to read 900 pages of George Eliot’s inimitable novel and only want to turn in one of those quickie papers that tells you the end of a novel you’ve only read 100 pages of . . .
Dorothea makes Lydgate an offer it would be craaazy to refuse. A way to salvage his honor, remain in Middlemarch, continue his work in the hospital . . .
Lydgate tells Dorothea that his wife Rosamond cannot bear to remain in Middlemarch any longer, “the troubles she has had here have wearied her.”
Dorothea pleads to be allowed to speak to Rosamond. Lydgate tells her “No. I prefer that there should be no interval left for wavering. I am no longer sure enough of myself — I mean of what it would be possible for me to do under the changed circumstances of my life. It would be dishonourable to let others engage themselves to anything serious in dependence on me . . . The whole thing is too problematic; I cannot consent to be the cause of your goodness being wasted.”
(Damn you, Lydgate, to have discovered your pride at this late date! Anyhoo)
“It hurts me very much to hear you speak so hopelessly,” said Dorothea. “It would be a happiness to your friends, who believe in your future, in your power to do great things, if you would let them save you from that.”
“God bless you, Mrs. Casaubon!” said Lydgate, rising. “It is good that you should have such feelings. But I am not the man who ought to allow himself to benefit by them.”
“Now that is not brave,” said Dorothea. “To give up the fight.”
(You GO, Dorothea! And you, Lydgate, quit’cher honourable whining!)
“No, it is not brave,” said Lydgate, “but if a man is afraid of creeping paralysis?”
And all self can say, over and over, is: DAMN YOU, LYDGATE! She’s gotten herself as worked up over the angst in Middlemarch as she gets over the angst in her Everlark fan fiction! George Eliot, you are genius!
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
