BOOK II. OLD AND YOUNG.
20. CHAPTER XX.
(continued)
For the first time since Dorothea had known him, Mr. Casaubon's
face had a quick angry flush upon it.
"My love," he said, with irritation reined in by propriety,
"you may rely upon me for knowing the times and the seasons,
adapted to the different stages of a work which is not to be measured
by the facile conjectures of ignorant onlookers. It had been easy
for me to gain a temporary effect by a mirage of baseless opinion;
but it is ever the trial of the scrupulous explorer to be saluted
with the impatient scorn of chatterers who attempt only the
smallest achievements, being indeed equipped for no other.
And it were well if all such could be admonished to discriminate
judgments of which the true subject-matter lies entirely beyond
their reach, from those of which the elements may be compassed
by a narrow and superficial survey."
This speech was delivered with an energy and readiness quite unusual
with Mr. Casaubon. It was not indeed entirely an improvisation,
but had taken shape in inward colloquy, and rushed out like the round
grains from a fruit when sudden heat cracks it. Dorothea was not
only his wife: she was a personification of that shallow world
which surrounds the appreciated or desponding author.
Dorothea was indignant in her turn. Had she not been repressing
everything in herself except the desire to enter into some fellowship
with her husband's chief interests?
"My judgment WAS a very superficial one--such as I am capable
of forming," she answered, with a prompt resentment, that needed
no rehearsal. "You showed me the rows of notebooks--you have often
spoken of them--you have often said that they wanted digesting.
But I never heard you speak of the writing that is to be published.
Those were very simple facts, and my judgment went no farther.
I only begged you to let me be of some good to you."
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