The development was much furthered by a delight in his guest which
proved greater even than he had anticipated. For it seemed that Will
was not only at home in all those artistic and literary subjects which
Mr. Brooke had gone into at one time, but that he was strikingly ready
at seizing the points of the political situation, and dealing with them
in that large spirit which, aided by adequate memory, lends itself to
quotation and general effectiveness of treatment.
"He seems to me a kind of Shelley, you know," Mr. Brooke took an
opportunity of saying, for the gratification of Mr. Casaubon. "I don't
mean as to anything objectionable--laxities or atheism, or anything of
that kind, you know--Ladislaw's sentiments in every way I am sure are
good--indeed, we were talking a great deal together last night. But he
has the same sort of enthusiasm for liberty, freedom, emancipation--a
fine thing under guidance--under guidance, you know. I think I shall
be able to put him on the right tack; and I am the more pleased because
he is a relation of yours, Casaubon."
If the right tack implied anything more precise than the rest of Mr.
Brooke's speech, Mr. Casaubon silently hoped that it referred to some
occupation at a great distance from Lowick. He had disliked Will while
he helped him, but he had begun to dislike him still more now that Will
had declined his help. That is the way with us when we have any uneasy
jealousy in our disposition: if our talents are chiefly of the
burrowing kind, our honey-sipping cousin (whom we have grave reasons
for objecting to) is likely to have a secret contempt for us, and any
one who admires him passes an oblique criticism on ourselves. Having
the scruples of rectitude in our souls, we are above the meanness of
injuring him--rather we meet all his claims on us by active benefits;
and the drawing of cheques for him, being a superiority which he must
recognize, gives our bitterness a milder infusion. Now Mr. Casaubon
had been deprived of that superiority (as anything more than a
remembrance) in a sudden, capricious manner. His antipathy to Will did
not spring from the common jealousy of a winter-worn husband: it was
something deeper, bred by his lifelong claims and discontents; but
Dorothea, now that she was present--Dorothea, as a young wife who
herself had shown an offensive capability of criticism, necessarily
gave concentration to the uneasiness which had before been vague.
Will Ladislaw on his side felt that his dislike was flourishing at the
expense of his gratitude, and spent much inward discourse in justifying
the dislike. Casaubon hated him--he knew that very well; on his first
entrance he could discern a bitterness in the mouth and a venom in the
glance which would almost justify declaring war in spite of past
benefits. He was much obliged to Casaubon in the past, but really the
act of marrying this wife was a set-off against the obligation. It was
a question whether gratitude which refers to what is done for one's
self ought not to give way to indignation at what is done against
another. And Casaubon had done a wrong to Dorothea in marrying her. A
man was bound to know himself better than that, and if he chose to grow
gray crunching bones in a cavern, he had no business to be luring a
girl into his companionship. "It is the most horrible of
virgin-sacrifices," said Will; and he painted to himself what were
Dorothea's inward sorrows as if he had been writing a choric wail. But
he would never lose sight of her: he would watch over her--if he gave
up everything else in life he would watch over her, and she should know
that she had one slave in the world, Will had--to use Sir Thomas
Browne's phrase--a "passionate prodigality" of statement both to
himself and others. The simple truth was that nothing then invited him
so strongly as the presence of Dorothea.