It was not many days before Mr. Casaubon paid a morning visit, on which
he was invited again for the following week to dine and stay the night.
Thus Dorothea had three more conversations with him, and was convinced
that her first impressions had been just. He was all she had at first
imagined him to be: almost everything he had said seemed like a
specimen from a mine, or the inscription on the door of a museum which
might open on the treasures of past ages; and this trust in his mental
wealth was all the deeper and more effective on her inclination because
it was now obvious that his visits were made for her sake. This
accomplished man condescended to think of a young girl, and take the
pains to talk to her, not with absurd compliment, but with an appeal to
her understanding, and sometimes with instructive correction. What
delightful companionship! Mr. Casaubon seemed even unconscious that
trivialities existed, and never handed round that small-talk of heavy
men which is as acceptable as stale bride-cake brought forth with an
odor of cupboard. He talked of what he was interested in, or else he
was silent and bowed with sad civility. To Dorothea this was adorable
genuineness, and religious abstinence from that artificiality which
uses up the soul in the efforts of pretence. For she looked as
reverently at Mr. Casaubon's religious elevation above herself as she
did at his intellect and learning. He assented to her expressions of
devout feeling, and usually with an appropriate quotation; he allowed
himself to say that he had gone through some spiritual conflicts in his
youth; in short, Dorothea saw that here she might reckon on
understanding, sympathy, and guidance. On one--only one--of her
favorite themes she was disappointed. Mr. Casaubon apparently did not
care about building cottages, and diverted the talk to the extremely
narrow accommodation which was to be had in the dwellings of the
ancient Egyptians, as if to check a too high standard. After he was
gone, Dorothea dwelt with some agitation on this indifference of his;
and her mind was much exercised with arguments drawn from the varying
conditions of climate which modify human needs, and from the admitted
wickedness of pagan despots. Should she not urge these arguments on
Mr. Casaubon when he came again? But further reflection told her that
she was presumptuous in demanding his attention to such a subject; he
would not disapprove of her occupying herself with it in leisure
moments, as other women expected to occupy themselves with their dress
and embroidery--would not forbid it when--Dorothea felt rather ashamed
as she detected herself in these speculations. But her uncle had been
invited to go to Lowick to stay a couple of days: was it reasonable to
suppose that Mr. Casaubon delighted in Mr. Brooke's society for its own
sake, either with or without documents?