"But you would use your own judgment: I ask you to obey mine; you

refuse."

"No, dear, no!" said Dorothea, beseechingly, crushed by opposing fears.

"But may I wait and reflect a little while? I desire with my whole

soul to do what will comfort you; but I cannot give any pledge

suddenly--still less a pledge to do I know not what."

"You cannot then confide in the nature of my wishes?"

"Grant me till to-morrow," said Dorothea, beseechingly.

"Till to-morrow then," said Mr. Casaubon.

Soon she could hear that he was sleeping, but there was no more sleep

for her. While she constrained herself to lie still lest she should

disturb him, her mind was carrying on a conflict in which imagination

ranged its forces first on one side and then on the other. She had no

presentiment that the power which her husband wished to establish over

her future action had relation to anything else than his work. But it

was clear enough to her that he would expect her to devote herself to

sifting those mixed heaps of material, which were to be the doubtful

illustration of principles still more doubtful. The poor child had

become altogether unbelieving as to the trustworthiness of that Key

which had made the ambition and the labor of her husband's life. It

was not wonderful that, in spite of her small instruction, her judgment

in this matter was truer than his: for she looked with unbiassed

comparison and healthy sense at probabilities on which he had risked

all his egoism. And now she pictured to herself the days, and months,

and years which she must spend in sorting what might be called

shattered mummies, and fragments of a tradition which was itself a

mosaic wrought from crushed ruins--sorting them as food for a theory

which was already withered in the birth like an elfin child. Doubtless

a vigorous error vigorously pursued has kept the embryos of truth

a-breathing: the quest of gold being at the same time a questioning of

substances, the body of chemistry is prepared for its soul, and

Lavoisier is born. But Mr. Casaubon's theory of the elements which

made the seed of all tradition was not likely to bruise itself unawares

against discoveries: it floated among flexible conjectures no more

solid than those etymologies which seemed strong because of likeness in

sound until it was shown that likeness in sound made them impossible:

it was a method of interpretation which was not tested by the necessity

of forming anything which had sharper collisions than an elaborate

notion of Gog and Magog: it was as free from interruption as a plan for

threading the stars together. And Dorothea had so often had to check

her weariness and impatience over this questionable riddle-guessing, as

it revealed itself to her instead of the fellowship in high knowledge

which was to make life worthier! She could understand well enough now

why her husband had come to cling to her, as possibly the only hope

left that his labors would ever take a shape in which they could be

given to the world. At first it had seemed that he wished to keep even

her aloof from any close knowledge of what he was doing; but gradually

the terrible stringency of human need--the prospect of a too speedy

death--




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