I shall let him be tried by the test
of freedom."
"That is very kind of you," said Dorothea, looking up at Mr. Casaubon
with delight. "It is noble. After all, people may really have
in them some vocation which is not quite plain to themselves,
may they not? They may seem idle and weak because they are growing.
We should be very patient with each other, I think."
"I suppose it is being engaged to be married that has made you
think patience good," said Celia, as soon as she and Dorothea
were alone together, taking off their wrappings.
"You mean that I am very impatient, Celia."
"Yes; when people don't do and say just what you like." Celia had
become less afraid of "saying things" to Dorothea since this
engagement: cleverness seemed to her more pitiable than ever.
CHAPTER X.
"He had catched a great cold, had he had no other clothes
to wear than the skin of a bear not yet killed."--FULLER.
Young Ladislaw did not pay that visit to which Mr. Brooke had
invited him, and only six days afterwards Mr. Casaubon mentioned
that his young relative had started for the Continent, seeming by this
cold vagueness to waive inquiry. Indeed, Will had declined to fix
on any more precise destination than the entire area of Europe.
Genius, he held, is necessarily intolerant of fetters: on the one
hand it must have the utmost play for its spontaneity; on the other,
it may confidently await those messages from the universe which
summon it to its peculiar work, only placing itself in an attitude
of receptivity towards all sublime chances.
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