Middlemarch

Sir James Chettam continues to call at the Grange and finds it less painful than he expected. His mortification is eased by something he cannot quite acknowledge: he does not feel eclipsed by Casaubon. He feels only that Dorothea is under a melancholy illusion. Even so, he cannot be passive. He turns his horse toward the Rectory and asks for Mr. Cadwallader. The Rector is in his turning-room, working on fishing tackle — a large, easy, warm-blooded man whose imperturbable good-humor quiets even an irritated egoism. Sir James argues that Brooke should have delayed the marriage until Dorothea was of age. Cadwallader is not joking when he says he sees no harm in Casaubon: "I don't care about his Xisuthrus and Fee-fo-fum and the rest; but then he doesn't care about my fishing-tackle." Sir James presses him — "has he got any heart?" The Rector answers with precision: Casaubon pensions several poor female relations and is educating a young fellow at considerable expense. His mother's sister made a bad match — a Pole — and was disowned by the family; Casaubon went himself to find the cousins and see what he could do for them. "Every man would not ring so well as that, if you tried his metal." Mrs. Cadwallader arrives and confirms she has washed her hands of the affair. The Rector will not budge: "She is not my daughter, and I don't feel called upon to interfere. Casaubon is as good as most of us." Mrs. Cadwallader's best contribution is delivered in an undertone: "Somebody put a drop under a magnifying-glass and it was all semicolons and parentheses." The chapter ends with Sir James continuing to call at the Grange and executing Dorothea's cottage plans anyway — with full practical energy. Now that there is no passion to hide or confess, he finds he talks to Dorothea with increasing pleasure, and she is perfectly unconstrained toward him. Meanwhile he has begun to pay quiet attentions to Celia.