Small, hungry and shivering.

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Continuing with my mini-miniseries on the men of Middlemarch, I give you an exemplary passage in which the author explains Casaubon to us. The metaphors she uses to convey the intricacies of his stunted self are many but not too many for me. Even with their being descriptive of a truly pitiable man, my own soul can’t help but “thrill into passionate delight” over George Eliot’s imagination and skill.

He had not had much foretaste of happiness in his previous life. To know intense joy without a strong bodily frame, one must have an enthusiastic soul. Mr. Casaubon had never had a strong bodily frame, and his soul was sensitive without being enthusiastic; it was too languid to thrill out of self-consciousness into passionate delight; it went on fluttering in the swampy ground where it was hatched, thinking of its wings and never flying. His experience was of that pitiable kind which shrinks from pity, and fears most of all that it should be known: it was that proud narrow sensitiveness which has not mass enough to spare for transformation into sympathy, and quivers thread-like in small currents of self-preoccupation or at best of an egoistic scrupulosity.

…even his religious faith wavered with his wavering trust in his own authorship, and the consolations of the Christian hope in immortality seemed to lean on the immortality of the still unwritten Key to Mythologies. For my part I am very sorry for him. It is an uneasy lot at best, to be what we call highly taught and yet not to enjoy: to be present at this great spectacle of life and never to be liberated from a small hungry shivering self – never to be fully possessed by the glory we behold, never to have our consciousness rapturously transformed into the vividness of a thought, the ardour of passion, the energy of an action, but always to be scholarly and uninspired, ambitious and timid, scrupulous and dim-sighted.

From the movie I’ve not seen.

If Dorothea could only have seen into Casusbon’s mind and heart the way his creator does, then she would have realized that he is not a man prepared to be a husband — maybe. But more on Dorothea later.

My tendency to be flippant or dismissive of Casaubon flows from his being fictional. (In the earlier version of this post I wrote fictitious, but then I realized that fictitious connotes false to me, which is reason enough not to use that word for a book character who is drawn so clearly in the shape of reality.) We can examine him closely and analyze each of his parts and guess at his destiny without being gossips. He is an archetype of one form of Lost Soul, and thinking about him and his engagement with other characters can enrich our understanding of humanity, and perhaps even instruct us in love.

Celia hasn’t the ability to debate the “notions” and idealism that are leading her sister toward marriage to Casaubon, but her instincts tell her that something is not right about this “death’s head warmed over.” That her beloved sister is planning to join her life with his disturbs her greatly.

“O Mrs. Cadwallader, I don’t think it can be nice to marry a man with a great soul.”

“Well, my dear, take warning. You know the look of one now: when the next comes and wants to marry you, don’t you accept him.”

Recipe with bees and thyme.

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One recipe for a Satisfying Day just fell together starting as soon as I woke up yesterday.
It included:

*Waking up early enough to take a walk before church.

*Picking pineapple guava petals from a hedge down the block
and sharing them with a neighbor who was also out walking.
My cousin Anne told me that you can eat them,
and they truly are as sweet as candy.

*Not putting off drudgery such as stretches and floor exercises.

*Managing to stand through most of church (this was easier after having walked, etc.)
and receiving Holy Communion, on the Sunday of All Saints of America.

*Wowing over the catalpa tree at church. Each flower is like an orchid…

*Shopping for garden twine at the nursery across the road from church
and finding seeds as well 🙂


*Talking to my dear cousin Renée  on the phone
while sitting in the garden with the sun on my back.

*Taking pictures of bees on the thyme while talking.

*Sorting through pictures of bees I took before and finding some good ones.

bee on echium
bee on privet

*Eating vegetables.

*Taking more pictures of bees on the echium.

*Sorting through more pictures.

“Friendliest Weed” in my garden is blooming prettily.

*Taking an evening walk beside the creek and studying the mystery grass again.

*Identifying a plant in the creek: It’s buckeye! I know buckeye, but only as a tree; I wasn’t used to seeing leggier growth in the creek. This picture shows some of the lighter green leaves of buckeye in the creek, a mature tree above, and even some mystery grass in the middle. I don’t think it’s Timothy grass, which one of my commenters suggested, but it looks more like Timothy than anything else so far:


*Going to bed too soon to finish this post last night,
but early enough to contribute to a new recipe for yet another Good Day!

 

Men of Middlemarch

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Before buying an audio recording of Middlemarch I listened to many samples from different readers, most of them women. I chose the one I did because I didn’t mind the voice and diction of the reader, and it was less than half the price of some of the newer ones. It happens to be read by the English actor Gabriel Woolf, and I had not listened for a half-hour before I was very glad to have accidentally chosen this recording. The voices and Middlemarch audiobook cover artaccents and even chuckles he gives to the various characters are wonderful — and with so many interesting men as main characters, it now seems quite the best thing to have a male voice to bring them alive.

The reviews point out that this is a “vintage” recording, and that the production quality may not be up to snuff. There are actually some background noises occasionally that don’t fit the time period, but they didn’t bother me. Woolf trips over a word now and then, too, but his overall dramatic gifts more than compensate for his lack of constancy.

And speaking of flaws, our Middlemarch characters certainly have them. Eliot delves deep into their personalities and motivations, and knows what primitive weaknesses are the reasons for their peculiar behaviors as though she were God Himself. And like God, she urges us to be kind and to forgive.

I already shared one excerpt that gives a glimpse into Will Ladislaw’s character. (On a side note, why do you think that he is always called “Will” or ” Will Ladislaw,” while most of the men, including Lydgate, are referred to by only their last name? Is it age, or social standing? Fred Vincy is also in this category of naming, and he is like Will in that he isn’t established in a profession or even a direction yet.)

Some of the people in the town are more disagreeable than others, but then they might be ridiculous in their pride, and make me laugh; it’s easier to be patient with them, especially when I don’t have them in my own real life. (Mrs. Cadwallader is best left in someone else’s neighborhood!) Lydgate the young doctor takes himself too seriously to be lovable in that way, though, and I tend to not like him. In talking about this man Eliot writes:

…character too is a process and an unfolding. The man was still in the making, as much as the Middlemarch doctor and immortal discoverer, and there were both virtues and faults capable of shrinking or expanding. The faults will not, I hope, be a reason for the withdrawl of your interest in him. Among our valued friends is there not some one or other who is a little too self-confident and disdainful; whose distinguished mind is a little spotted with commonness; who is a little pinched here and protuberant there with native prejudices; or whose better energies are liable to lapse down the wrong channel under the influence of transient solicitations? …. Our vanities differ as our noses do: all conceit is not the same conceit, but varies in correspondence with the minutiae of mental make in which one of us differs from another. Lydgate’s conceit was the arrogant sort, never simpering, never impertinent, but massive in its claims and benevolently contemptuous. He would do a great deal for noodles, being sorry for them, and feeling quite sure that they could have no power over him.

Noodle was 19th-century slang for “dummy.” I’m afraid my own attitude toward Lydgate might fall into the category of “benevolently contemptuous,” and I hate that, so here’s hoping I can develop more real sympathy for him soon. He didn’t know how fast he would get into deep water when he stepped into the pond of Middlemarch life!

photo credit: Pippin