"All that in woman is adored

In thy fair self I find--

For the whole sex can but afford

The handsome and the kind."

--SIR CHARLES SEDLEY.

The question whether Mr. Tyke should be appointed as salaried chaplain

to the hospital was an exciting topic to the Middlemarchers; and

Lydgate heard it discussed in a way that threw much light on the power

exercised in the town by Mr. Bulstrode. The banker was evidently a

ruler, but there was an opposition party, and even among his supporters

there were some who allowed it to be seen that their support was a

compromise, and who frankly stated their impression that the general

scheme of things, and especially the casualties of trade, required you

to hold a candle to the devil.

Mr. Bulstrode's power was not due simply to his being a country banker,

who knew the financial secrets of most traders in the town and could

touch the springs of their credit; it was fortified by a beneficence

that was at once ready and severe--ready to confer obligations, and

severe in watching the result. He had gathered, as an industrious man

always at his post, a chief share in administering the town charities,

and his private charities were both minute and abundant. He would take

a great deal of pains about apprenticing Tegg the shoemaker's son, and

he would watch over Tegg's church-going; he would defend Mrs. Strype

the washerwoman against Stubbs's unjust exaction on the score of her

drying-ground, and he would himself scrutinize a calumny against Mrs.

Strype. His private minor loans were numerous, but he would inquire

strictly into the circumstances both before and after. In this way a

man gathers a domain in his neighbors' hope and fear as well as

gratitude; and power, when once it has got into that subtle region,

propagates itself, spreading out of all proportion to its external

means. It was a principle with Mr. Bulstrode to gain as much power as

possible, that he might use it for the glory of God. He went through a

great deal of spiritual conflict and inward argument in order to adjust

his motives, and make clear to himself what God's glory required. But,

as we have seen, his motives were not always rightly appreciated.

There were many crass minds in Middlemarch whose reflective scales

could only weigh things in the lump; and they had a strong suspicion

that since Mr. Bulstrode could not enjoy life in their fashion, eating

and drinking so little as he did, and worreting himself about

everything, he must have a sort of vampire's feast in the sense of

mastery.




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