Brooke together.
Why should he stay? If the impassable gulf between himself and
Dorothea were ever to be filled up, it must rather be by his going
away and getting into a thoroughly different position than by staying
here and slipping into deserved contempt as an understrapper of
Brooke's. Then came the young dream of wonders that he might do--
in five years, for example: political writing, political speaking,
would get a higher value now public life was going to be wider and
more national, and they might give him such distinction that he would
not seem to be asking Dorothea to step down to him. Five years:--
if he could only be sure that she cared for him more than for others;
if he could only make her aware that he stood aloof until he could
tell his love without lowering himself--then he could go away easily,
and begin a career which at five-and-twenty seemed probable enough
in the inward order of things, where talent brings fame, and fame
everything else which is delightful. He could speak and he could write;
he could master any subject if he chose, and he meant always to take
the side of reason and justice, on which he would carry all his ardor.
Why should he not one day be lifted above the shoulders of the crowd,
and feel that he had won that eminence well? Without doubt he would
leave Middlemarch, go to town, and make himself fit for celebrity
by "eating his dinners.
Pages:
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773