"But you would use your own judgment: I ask you to obey mine; you
refuse."
"No, dear, no!" said Dorothea, beseechingly, crushed by opposing fears.
"But may I wait and reflect a little while? I desire with my whole
soul to do what will comfort you; but I cannot give any pledge
suddenly--still less a pledge to do I know not what."
"You cannot then confide in the nature of my wishes?"
"Grant me till to-morrow," said Dorothea, beseechingly.
"Till to-morrow then," said Mr. Casaubon.
Soon she could hear that he was sleeping, but there was no more sleep
for her. While she constrained herself to lie still lest she should
disturb him, her mind was carrying on a conflict in which imagination
ranged its forces first on one side and then on the other. She had no
presentiment that the power which her husband wished to establish over
her future action had relation to anything else than his work. But it
was clear enough to her that he would expect her to devote herself to
sifting those mixed heaps of material, which were to be the doubtful
illustration of principles still more doubtful. The poor child had
become altogether unbelieving as to the trustworthiness of that Key
which had made the ambition and the labor of her husband's life. It
was not wonderful that, in spite of her small instruction, her judgment
in this matter was truer than his: for she looked with unbiassed
comparison and healthy sense at probabilities on which he had risked
all his egoism. And now she pictured to herself the days, and months,
and years which she must spend in sorting what might be called
shattered mummies, and fragments of a tradition which was itself a
mosaic wrought from crushed ruins--sorting them as food for a theory
which was already withered in the birth like an elfin child. Doubtless
a vigorous error vigorously pursued has kept the embryos of truth
a-breathing: the quest of gold being at the same time a questioning of
substances, the body of chemistry is prepared for its soul, and
Lavoisier is born. But Mr. Casaubon's theory of the elements which
made the seed of all tradition was not likely to bruise itself unawares
against discoveries: it floated among flexible conjectures no more
solid than those etymologies which seemed strong because of likeness in
sound until it was shown that likeness in sound made them impossible:
it was a method of interpretation which was not tested by the necessity
of forming anything which had sharper collisions than an elaborate
notion of Gog and Magog: it was as free from interruption as a plan for
threading the stars together. And Dorothea had so often had to check
her weariness and impatience over this questionable riddle-guessing, as
it revealed itself to her instead of the fellowship in high knowledge
which was to make life worthier! She could understand well enough now
why her husband had come to cling to her, as possibly the only hope
left that his labors would ever take a shape in which they could be
given to the world. At first it had seemed that he wished to keep even
her aloof from any close knowledge of what he was doing; but gradually
the terrible stringency of human need--the prospect of a too speedy
death--