Middlemarch

After the argument with Lydgate, Will sits up half the night reviewing his position in Middlemarch under a new irritation. He asks himself whether he is making a fool of himself — "and at a time when he was more than ever conscious of being something better than a fool? And for what end?" For no definite end. Eliot makes a striking declaration: the "ordinary vulgar vision" which Mr. Casaubon suspected Will of — that Dorothea might become a widow and he might marry her — "had no tempting, arresting power over him; he did not live in the scenery of such an event." He was unwilling to entertain thoughts that could be accused of baseness. But more than that: he could not long for any change in Dorothea that must somehow change her. "He was at once exasperated and delighted by the calm freedom with which Dorothea looked at him and spoke to him, and there was something so exquisite in thinking of her just as she was, that he could not long for a change which must somehow change her." His feeling for Dorothea was "like the inheritance of a fortune." He thinks, after Drayton, that queens hereafter might be glad to live upon the alms of her superfluous praise — "Dorothea was forever enthroned in his soul: no other woman could sit higher than her footstool." He concludes as he always does: he will not go out of her reach. She had once said she would like him to stay; and stay he would, whatever fire-breathing dragons might hiss around her. But this resolve is complicated by the fact that he can hardly ever see her. He decides to go to Lowick Church on Sunday. An internal debate follows: "Objection: That will be a virtual defiance of Mr. Casaubon's prohibition to visit Lowick, and Dorothea will be displeased. Inclination: It would be too monstrous for him to hinder me from going out to a pretty country church on a spring morning. And Dorothea will be glad. Objection: It will be clear to Mr. Casaubon that you have come either to annoy him or to see Dorothea. Inclination: I have always liked the quaintness of the church and congregation; besides, I know the Tuckers." Having silenced Objection by force of unreason, Will walks to Lowick on a spring morning — crossing Halsell Common, skirting the wood where sunlight falls under budding boughs bringing out the beauties of moss and lichen. He goes along chanting a little poem of his own making, trying it to various melodies: "O me, O me, what frugal cheer / My love doth feed upon! / A touch, a ray, that is not here, / A shadow that is gone." At the church he goes into the curate's pew — and discovers that the Tuckers have departed from Lowick altogether, leaving him in it alone and exposed. Dorothea appears at last in her white beaver bonnet and gray cloak — the same she wore in the Vatican. She bows at him with a slight paleness and a grave bow. Two minutes later, Casaubon enters the pew from the vestry and seats himself in face of Dorothea — and Will feels his paralysis complete. He can look nowhere except at the choir. Casaubon does not preach (he is not well), and the service lasts immeasurably long. When the blessing is pronounced and "the betters" go out first, Will looks straight at Casaubon — but that gentleman's eyes are on the button of the pew-door. Dorothea's glance catches Will's as she turns out, and she bows again — this time with a look of agitation, as if repressing tears. Will walks out after them, but they go towards the churchyard gate into the shrubbery, never looking round. He can only walk back sadly at midday along the same road he had trodden hopefully in the morning. "The lights were all changed for him both without and within."