That more complete
teaching would come--Mr. Casaubon would tell her all that: she was
looking forward to higher initiation in ideas, as she was looking
forward to marriage, and blending her dim conceptions of both.
It would be a great mistake to suppose that Dorothea would have cared
about any share in Mr. Casaubon's learning as mere accomplishment;
for though opinion in the neighborhood of Freshitt and Tipton
had pronounced her clever, that epithet would not have described
her to circles in whose more precise vocabulary cleverness implies
mere aptitude for knowing and doing, apart from character.
All her eagerness for acquirement lay within that full current of
sympathetic motive in which her ideas and impulses were habitually
swept along. She did not want to deck herself with knowledge--to
wear it loose from the nerves and blood that fed her action; and if
she had written a book she must have done it as Saint Theresa did,
under the command of an authority that constrained her conscience.
But something she yearned for by which her life might be filled
with action at once rational and ardent; and since the time was gone
by for guiding visions and spiritual directors, since prayer heightened
yearning but not instruction, what lamp was there but knowledge?
Surely learned men kept the only oil; and who more learned than
Mr.
Pages:
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137