The Weight of Small Compromises — Middlemarch

Weeks pass before Lydgate must vote on the Infirmary chaplaincy at the old hospital. He keeps deferring, though his liking for Farebrother deepens after their beetle trades: the Vicar warned him off rather than court his favor, preaches without a book, and supports his mother, aunt, and sister with filial bluntness. Yet Farebrother plays billiards for money at the Green Dragon, and Lydgate, who has never felt poor, finds that repulsive, though he enjoys Farebrother's shrewd talk and specimen trades. Voting for Farebrother would anger Bulstrode and risk the new hospital; voting for Tyke would look like crawling. Three mornings of shaving bring only Confound their petty politics!

At the directors' meeting Middlemarch performs itself before the Medical Board and town notables. Sprague backs Farebrother bluntly. Minchin wrings his hands and lands there too. Powderell pleads for Tyke and the souls of the sick; Hackbutt orates about servile crawlers until Hawley bursts in with Oh, damn the divisions! and demands justice for Farebrother, who has done the unpaid parish work. Brooke arrives late, has been crammed by Bulstrode's side, and votes Tyke while insisting he is open to every view. The first ballots tie.

Bulstrode sees Lydgate enter and names the casting vote before the room: It is yours, Mr. Lydgate. Wrench says everyone knows how he will vote with Bulstrode. Stung by the assumption of servility, Lydgate replies he shall not desist from voting with Bulstrode on that account, and writes Tyke's name with ostentatious calm. Tyke wins; Lydgate's conscience says that without indirect bias he chosen Farebrother for the forty pounds and the unpaid work he already does.

The affair remains a sore proof that this petty medium of Middlemarch was too strong for him, though he tells himself Bulstrode's hospital money and arsenic matter more than Tyke's doctrine. The forty-pound living would have kept Farebrother's mother, aunt, and sister from want. Farebrother meets him as before over beetles and says quietly that the world has been too strong for him. Lydgate mistakes that humility for weak will and clings to his hospital ambitions instead of revisiting the vote.