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CHAPTER XXXIX . “ If , as I have , you also doe , Vertue attired in woman see , And dare love that , and say so too , And forget the He and She ; And if this love , though placed so , From prophane men you hide , Which will no faith on this bestow , Or , if they doe , deride : Then you have done a braver thing Than all the Worthies did , And a braver thence will spring , Which is , to keep that hid . ” — DR . DONNE . Sir James Chettam’s mind was not fruitful in devices , but his growing anxiety to “ act on Brooke , ” once brought close to his constant belief in Dorothea’s capacity for influence , became formative , and issued in a little plan ; namely , to plead Celia’s indisposition as a reason for fetching Dorothea by herself to the Hall , and to leave her at the Grange with the carriage on the way , after making her fully aware of the situation concerning the management of the estate . In this way it happened that one day near four o’clock , when Mr . Brooke and Ladislaw were seated in the library , the door opened and Mrs . Casaubon was announced . Will , the moment before , had been low in the depths of boredom , and , obliged to help Mr . Brooke in arranging “ documents ” about hanging sheep - stealers , was exemplifying the power our minds have of riding several horses at once by inwardly arranging measures towards getting a lodging for himself in Middlemarch and cutting short his constant residence at the Grange ; while there flitted through all these steadier images a tickling vision of a sheep - stealing epic written with Homeric particularity . When Mrs . Casaubon was announced he started up as from an electric shock , and felt a tingling at his finger - ends . Any one observing him would have seen a change in his complexion , in the adjustment of his facial muscles , in the vividness of his glance , which might have made them imagine that every molecule in his body had passed the message of a magic touch . And so it had . For effective magic is transcendent nature ; and who shall measure the subtlety of those touches which convey the quality of soul as well as body , and make a man’s passion for one woman differ from his passion for another as joy in the morning light over valley and river and white mountain - top differs from joy among Chinese lanterns and glass panels ? Will , too , was made of very impressible stuff . The bow of a violin drawn near him cleverly , would at one stroke change the aspect of the world for him , and his point of view shifted as easily as his mood . Dorothea’s entrance was the freshness of morning . “ Well , my dear , this is pleasant , now , ” said Mr . Brooke , meeting and kissing her . “ You have left Casaubon with his books , I suppose . That’s right . We must not have you getting too learned for a woman , you know . ”
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