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?




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