Middlemarch

Casaubon's letter arrives, reproduced in full. It is written in the style of a man who has spent his life among documents — careful, formal, elaborately subordinated. He says he had an impression, from the first hour of meeting her, of her "eminent and perhaps exclusive fitness to supply" a need that had arisen in his life. Each conversation has deepened that impression. He can offer an affection hitherto unwasted and the faithful consecration of a life that, however short in the sequel, has no backward pages that could cause bitterness or shame. Eliot does not mock the letter: "No speech could have been more thoroughly honest in its intention." Dorothea trembles reading it, then falls to her knees, buries her face, and sobs. She cannot pray. She stays in that attitude until it is time to dress for dinner. It never occurs to her to examine the letter critically as a profession of love. Her whole soul is possessed by the fact that a fuller life is opening before her. After dinner she writes her acceptance three times — not because the words change, but because her hand is unusually uncertain and she is determined that Mr. Casaubon should not think her handwriting bad. She gives the letter to her uncle. He is surprised, but accepts it. The next day, at lunch, a message arrives: Casaubon will come to dinner. Celia notices something in Dorothea's face when the announcement is made — "something like the reflection of a white sunlit wing" — and for the first time suspects that this is more than intellectual admiration. She turns pale when Dorothea tells her directly: "It is right to tell you, Celia, that I am engaged to marry Mr. Casaubon." Celia's first words, through a tear, are "Oh, Dodo, I hope you will be happy" — sisterly tenderness surmounting everything else, though to her the whole affair has "something funereal" about it. That evening, in an hour's tête-à-tête with Casaubon, Dorothea pours out her joy at the thought of devoting herself to him and learning to share his great ends. Casaubon responds with his own kind of feeling: "How should I be able now to persevere in any path without your companionship?" He kisses her brow and feels that heaven has vouchsafed him a blessing suited to his peculiar wants. Before he leaves the next day, the wedding is set for six weeks hence.