BOOK II.
OLD AND YOUNG.
CHAPTER XIII.
1st Gent. How class your man?--as better than the most,
Or, seeming better, worse beneath that cloak?
As saint or knave, pilgrim or hypocrite?
2d Gent. Nay, tell me how you class your wealth of books
The drifted relics of all time.
As well sort them at once by size and livery:
Vellum, tall copies, and the common calf
Will hardly cover more diversity
Than all your labels cunningly devised
To class your unread authors.
In consequence of what he had heard from Fred, Mr. Vincy determined
to speak with Mr. Bulstrode in his private room at the Bank
at half-past one, when he was usually free from other callers.
But a visitor had come in at one o'clock, and Mr. Bulstrode had so
much to say to him, that there was little chance of the interview
being over in half an hour. The banker's speech was fluent,
but it was also copious, and he used up an appreciable amount
of time in brief meditative pauses. Do not imagine his sickly
aspect to have been of the yellow, black-haired sort: he had a pale
blond skin, thin gray-besprinkled brown hair, light-gray eyes,
and a large forehead. Loud men called his subdued tone an undertone,
and sometimes implied that it was inconsistent with openness;
though there seems to be no reason why a loud man should not be given
to concealment of anything except his own voice, unless it can be
shown that Holy Writ has placed the seat of candor in the lungs.
Mr. Bulstrode had also a deferential bending attitude in listening,
and an apparently fixed attentiveness in his eyes which made those
persons who thought themselves worth hearing infer that he was seeking
the utmost improvement from their discourse. Others, who expected
to make no great figure, disliked this kind of moral lantern turned
on them. If you are not proud of your cellar, there is no thrill of
satisfaction in seeing your guest hold up his wine-glass to the light
and look judicial. Such joys are reserved for conscious merit.
Hence Mr. Bulstrode's close attention was not agreeable to the
publicans and sinners in Middlemarch; it was attributed by some
to his being a Pharisee, and by others to his being Evangelical.
Less superficial reasoners among them wished to know who his father
and grandfather were, observing that five-and-twenty years ago nobody
had ever heard of a Bulstrode in Middlemarch. To his present visitor,
Lydgate, the scrutinizing look was a matter of indifference:
he simply formed an unfavorable opinion of the banker's constitution,
and concluded that he had an eager inward life with little enjoyment
of tangible things.
"I shall be exceedingly obliged if you will look in on me here
occasionally, Mr. Lydgate," the banker observed, after a brief pause.
"If, as I dare to hope, I have the privilege of finding you a
valuable coadjutor in the interesting matter of hospital management,
there will be many questions which we shall need to discuss
in private. As to the new hospital, which is nearly finished,
I shall consider what you have said about the advantages of the special
destination for fevers. The decision will rest with me, for though
Lord Medlicote has given the land and timber for the building,
he is not disposed to give his personal attention to the object."
"There are few things better worth the pains in a provincial town
like this," said Lydgate. "A fine fever hospital in addition
to the old infirmary might be the nucleus of a medical school here,
when once we get our medical reforms; and what would do more for
medical education than the spread of such schools over the country?
A born provincial man who has a grain of public spirit as well as a
few ideas, should do what he can to resist the rush of everything
that is a little better than common towards London. Any valid
professional aims may often find a freer, if not a richer field,
in the provinces."
One of Lydgate's gifts was a voice habitually deep and sonorous,
yet capable of becoming very low and gentle at the right moment.
About his ordinary bearing there was a certain fling, a fearless
expectation of success, a confidence in his own powers and integrity
much fortified by contempt for petty obstacles or seductions of which
he had had no experience. But this proud openness was made lovable
by an expression of unaffected good-will. Mr. Bulstrode perhaps liked
him the better for the difference between them in pitch and manners;
he certainly liked him the better, as Rosamond did, for being a stranger
in Middlemarch. One can begin so many things with a new person!--
even begin to be a better man.
"I shall rejoice to furnish your zeal with fuller opportunities,"
Mr. Bulstrode answered; "I mean, by confiding to you the superintendence
of my new hospital, should a maturer knowledge favor that issue,
for I am determined that so great an object shall not be shackled
by our two physicians. Indeed, I am encouraged to consider your
advent to this town as a gracious indication that a more manifest
blessing is now to be awarded to my efforts, which have hitherto
been much with stood. With regard to the old infirmary, we have
gained the initial point--I mean your election. And now I hope
you will not shrink from incurring a certain amount of jealousy
and dislike from your professional brethren by presenting yourself
as a reformer."
"I will not profess bravery," said Lydgate, smiling, "but I
acknowledge a good deal of pleasure in fighting, and I should not
care for my profession, if I did not believe that better methods
were to be found and enforced there as well as everywhere else."
"The standard of that profession is low in Middlemarch, my dear sir,"
said the banker. "I mean in knowledge and skill; not in social status,
for our medical men are most of them connected with respectable
townspeople here. My own imperfect health has induced me to give
some attention to those palliative resources which the divine
mercy has placed within our reach. I have consulted eminent men
in the metropolis, and I am painfully aware of the backwardness
under which medical treatment labors in our provincial districts."
"Yes;--with our present medical rules and education, one must
be satisfied now and then to meet with a fair practitioner.
As to all the higher questions which determine the starting-point
of a diagnosis--as to the philosophy of medial evidence--any glimmering
of these can only come from a scientific culture of which country
practitioners have usually no more notion than the man in the moon."
Mr. Bulstrode, bending and looking intently, found the form
which Lydgate had given to his agreement not quite suited to
his comprehension. Under such circumstances a judicious man changes
the topic and enters on ground where his own gifts may be more useful.
"I am aware," he said, "that the peculiar bias of medical
ability is towards material means. Nevertheless, Mr. Lydgate,
I hope we shall not vary in sentiment as to a measure in which
you are not likely to be actively concerned, but in which your
sympathetic concurrence may be an aid to me. You recognize,
I hope; the existence of spiritual interests in your patients?"
"Certainly I do. But those words are apt to cover different
meanings to different minds."
"Precisely. And on such subjects wrong teaching is as fatal as
no teaching. Now a point which I have much at heart to secure is
a new regulation as to clerical attendance at the old infirmary.
The building stands in Mr. Farebrother's parish. You know
Mr. Farebrother?"
"I have seen him. He gave me his vote. I must call to thank him.
He seems a very bright pleasant little fellow. And I understand he
is a naturalist."
"Mr. Farebrother, my dear sir, is a man deeply painful to contemplate.
I suppose there is not a clergyman in this country who has
greater talents." Mr. Bulstrode paused and looked meditative.
"I have not yet been pained by finding any excessive talent
in Middlemarch," said Lydgate, bluntly.
"What I desire," Mr. Bulstrode continued, looking still more serious,
"is that Mr. Farebrother's attendance at the hospital should be
superseded by the appointment of a chaplain--of Mr. Tyke, in fact--
and that no other spiritual aid should be called in."
"As a medial man I could have no opinion on such a point unless I knew
Mr. Tyke, and even then I should require to know the cases in which
he was applied." Lydgate smiled, but he was bent on being circumspect.
"Of course you cannot enter fully into the merits of this measure
at present. But"--here Mr. Bulstrode began to speak with a more
chiselled emphasis--"the subject is likely to be referred to
the medical board of the infirmary, and what I trust I may ask
of you is, that in virtue of the cooperation between us which I
now look forward to, you will not, so far as you are concerned,
be influenced by my opponents in this matter."
"I hope I shall have nothing to do with clerical disputes," said Lydgate.
"The path I have chosen is to work well in my own profession."
"My responsibility, Mr. Lydgate, is of a broader kind.
With me, indeed, this question is one of sacred accountableness;
whereas with my opponents, I have good reason to say that it
is an occasion for gratifying a spirit of worldly opposition.
But I shall not therefore drop one iota of my convictions, or cease
to identify myself with that truth which an evil generation hates.
I have devoted myself to this object of hospital-improvement, but I
will boldly confess to you, Mr. Lydgate, that I should have no interest
in hospitals if I believed that nothing more was concerned therein
than the cure of mortal diseases. I have another ground of action,
and in the face of persecution I will not conceal it."
Mr. Bulstrode's voice had become a loud and agitated whisper as he
said the last words.
"There we certainly differ," said Lydgate. But he was not sorry
that the door was now opened, and Mr. Vincy was announced.
That florid sociable personage was become more interesting to him
since he had seen Rosamond. Not that, like her, he had been weaving
any future in which their lots were united; but a man naturally
remembers a charming girl with pleasure, and is willing to dine
where he may see her again. Before he took leave, Mr. Vincy
had given that invitation which he had been "in no hurry about,"
for Rosamond at breakfast had mentioned that she thought her uncle
Featherstone had taken the new doctor into great favor.
Mr. Bulstrode, alone with his brother-in-law, poured himself out
a glass of water, and opened a sandwich-box.
"I cannot persuade you to adopt my regimen, Vincy?"
"No, no; I've no opinion of that system. Life wants padding,"
said Mr. Vincy, unable to omit his portable theory. "However," he
went on, accenting the word, as if to dismiss all irrelevance,
"what I came here to talk about was a little affair of my
young scapegrace, Fred's."
"That is a subject on which you and I are likely to take quite
as different views as on diet, Vincy."
"I hope not this time." (Mr. Vincy was resolved to be good-humored.)
"The fact is, it's about a whim of old Featherstone's. Somebody has
been cooking up a story out of spite, and telling it to the old man,
to try to set him against Fred. He's very fond of Fred, and is
likely to do something handsome for him; indeed he has as good
as told Fred that he means to leave him his land, and that makes
other people jealous."
"Vincy, I must repeat, that you will not get any concurrence from
me as to the course you have pursued with your eldest son. It was
entirely from worldly vanity that you destined him for the Church:
with a family of three sons and four daughters, you were not
warranted in devoting money to an expensive education which has
succeeded in nothing but in giving him extravagant idle habits.
You are now reaping the consequences."
To point out other people's errors was a duty that Mr. Bulstrode rarely
shrank from, but Mr. Vincy was not equally prepared to be patient.
When a man has the immediate prospect of being mayor, and is ready,
in the interests of commerce, to take up a firm attitude on
politics generally, he has naturally a sense of his importance
to the framework of things which seems to throw questions of private
conduct into the background. And this particular reproof irritated
him more than any other. It was eminently superfluous to him to be
told that he was reaping the consequences. But he felt his neck
under Bulstrode's yoke; and though he usually enjoyed kicking,
he was anxious to refrain from that relief.
"As to that, Bulstrode, it's no use going back. I'm not one of your
pattern men, and I don't pretend to be. I couldn't foresee everything
in the trade; there wasn't a finer business in Middlemarch than ours,
and the lad was clever. My poor brother was in the Church, and would
have done well--had got preferment already, but that stomach fever
took him off: else he might have been a dean by this time. I think I
was justified in what I tried to do for Fred. If you come to religion,
it seems to me a man shouldn't want to carve out his meat to an ounce
beforehand:--one must trust a little to Providence and be generous.
It's a good British feeling to try and raise your family a little:
in my opinion, it's a father's duty to give his sons a fine chance."
"I don't wish to act otherwise than as your best friend, Vincy,
when I say that what you have been uttering just now is one mass
of worldliness and inconsistent folly."
"Very well," said Mr. Vincy, kicking in spite of resolutions,
"I never professed to be anything but worldly; and, what's more,
I don't see anybody else who is not worldly. I suppose you don't
conduct business on what you call unworldly principles.
The only difference I see is that one worldliness is a little bit
honester than another."
"This kind of discussion is unfruitful, Vincy," said Mr. Bulstrode,
who, finishing his sandwich, had thrown himself back in his chair,
and shaded his eyes as if weary. "You had some more particular business."
"Yes, yes. The long and short of it is, somebody has told
old Featherstone, giving you as the authority, that Fred has been
borrowing or trying to borrow money on the prospect of his land.
Of course you never said any such nonsense. But the old fellow will
insist on it that Fred should bring him a denial in your handwriting;
that is, just a bit of a note saying you don't believe a word
of such stuff, either of his having borrowed or tried to borrow
in such a fool's way. I suppose you can have no objection to do that."
"Pardon me. I have an objection. I am by no means sure that your son,
in his recklessness and ignorance--I will use no severer word--
has not tried to raise money by holding out his future prospects,
or even that some one may not have been foolish enough to supply him
on so vague a presumption: there is plenty of such lax money-lending
as of other folly in the world."
"But Fred gives me his honor that he has never borrowed money
on the pretence of any understanding about his uncle's land.
He is not a liar. I don't want to make him better than he is.
I have blown him up well--nobody can say I wink at what he does.
But he is not a liar. And I should have thought--but I may be wrong--
that there was no religion to hinder a man from believing the best
of a young fellow, when you don't know worse. It seems to me it would
be a poor sort of religion to put a spoke in his wheel by refusing
to say you don't believe such harm of him as you've got no good reason
to believe."
"I am not at all sure that I should be befriending your son by smoothing
his way to the future possession of Featherstone's property.
I cannot regard wealth as a blessing to those who use it simply
as a harvest for this world. You do not like to hear these things,
Vincy, but on this occasion I feel called upon to tell you that I
have no motive for furthering such a disposition of property
as that which you refer to. I do not shrink from saying that it
will not tend to your son's eternal welfare or to the glory of God.
Why then should you expect me to pen this kind of affidavit,
which has no object but to keep up a foolish partiality and secure
a foolish bequest?"
"If you mean to hinder everybody from having money but saints
and evangelists, you must give up some profitable partnerships,
that's all I can say," Mr. Vincy burst out very bluntly.
"It may be for the glory of God, but it is not for the glory of the
Middlemarch trade, that Plymdale's house uses those blue and green
dyes it gets from the Brassing manufactory; they rot the silk,
that's all I know about it. Perhaps if other people knew so much
of the profit went to the glory of God, they might like it better.
But I don't mind so much about that--I could get up a pretty row,
if I chose."
Mr. Bulstrode paused a little before he answered. "You pain me
very much by speaking in this way, Vincy. I do not expect you
to understand my grounds of action--it is not an easy thing even
to thread a path for principles in the intricacies of the world--
still less to make the thread clear for the careless and the scoffing.
You must remember, if you please, that I stretch my tolerance
towards you as my wife's brother, and that it little becomes you
to complain of me as withholding material help towards the worldly
position of your family. I must remind you that it is not your
own prudence or judgment that has enabled you to keep your place
in the trade."
"Very likely not; but you have been no loser by my trade yet,"
said Mr. Vincy, thoroughly nettled (a result which was seldom much
retarded by previous resolutions). "And when you married Harriet,
I don't see how you could expect that our families should not hang
by the same nail. If you've changed your mind, and want my family
to come down in the world, you'd better say so. I've never changed;
I'm a plain Churchman now, just as I used to be before doctrines
came up. I take the world as I find it, in trade and everything else.
I'm contented to be no worse than my neighbors. But if you want
us to come down in the world, say so. I shall know better what to
do then."
"You talk unreasonably. Shall you come down in the world for want
of this letter about your son?"
"Well, whether or not, I consider it very unhandsome of you to refuse it.
Such doings may be lined with religion, but outside they have
a nasty, dog-in-the-manger look. You might as well slander Fred:
it comes pretty near to it when you refuse to say you didn't set
a slander going. It's this sort of thing---this tyrannical spirit,
wanting to play bishop and banker everywhere--it's this sort of thing
makes a man's name stink."
"Vincy, if you insist on quarrelling with me, it will be exceedingly
painful to Harriet as well as myself," said Mr. Bulstrode,
with a trifle more eagerness and paleness than usual.
"I don't want to quarrel. It's for my interest--and perhaps
for yours too--that we should be friends. I bear you no grudge;
I think no worse of you than I do of other people. A man who half
starves himself, and goes the length in family prayers, and so on,
that you do, believes in his religion whatever it may be: you could
turn over your capital just as fast with cursing and swearing:--
plenty of fellows do. You like to be master, there's no denying that;
you must be first chop in heaven, else you won't like it much.
But you're my sister's husband, and we ought to stick together;
and if I know Harriet, she'll consider it your fault if we quarrel
because you strain at a gnat in this way, and refuse to do Fred a
good turn. And I don't mean to say I shall bear it well. I consider
it unhandsome."
Mr. Vincy rose, began to button his great-coat, and looked steadily
at his brother-in-law, meaning to imply a demand for a decisive answer.
This was not the first time that Mr. Bulstrode had begun by admonishing
Mr. Vincy, and had ended by seeing a very unsatisfactory reflection
of himself in the coarse unflattering mirror which that manufacturer's
mind presented to the subtler lights and shadows of his fellow-men;
and perhaps his experience ought to have warned him how the scene
would end. But a full-fed fountain will be generous with its
waters even in the rain, when they are worse than useless;
and a fine fount of admonition is apt to be equally irrepressible.
It was not in Mr. Bulstrode's nature to comply directly in consequence
of uncomfortable suggestions. Before changing his course,
he always needed to shape his motives and bring them into accordance
with his habitual standard. He said, at last--
"I will reflect a little, Vincy. I will mention the subject
to Harriet. I shall probably send you a letter."
"Very well. As soon as you can, please. I hope it will all be
settled before I see you to-morrow."
