"How happy is he born and taught

That serveth not another's will;

Whose armor is his honest thought,

And simple truth his only skill!

. . . . . . .

This man is freed from servile bands

Of hope to rise or fear to fall;

Lord of himself though not of lands;

And having nothing yet hath all."

--SIR HENRY WOTTON.

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Dorothea's confidence in Caleb Garth's knowledge, which had begun on

her hearing that he approved of her cottages, had grown fast during her

stay at Freshitt, Sir James having induced her to take rides over the

two estates in company with himself and Caleb, who quite returned her

admiration, and told his wife that Mrs. Casaubon had a head for

business most uncommon in a woman. It must be remembered that by

"business" Caleb never meant money transactions, but the skilful

application of labor.

"Most uncommon!" repeated Caleb. "She said a thing I often used to

think myself when I was a lad:--'Mr. Garth, I should like to feel, if I

lived to be old, that I had improved a great piece of land and built a

great many good cottages, because the work is of a healthy kind while

it is being done, and after it is done, men are the better for it.'

Those were the very words: she sees into things in that way."

"But womanly, I hope," said Mrs. Garth, half suspecting that Mrs.

Casaubon might not hold the true principle of subordination.

"Oh, you can't think!" said Caleb, shaking his head. "You would like

to hear her speak, Susan. She speaks in such plain words, and a voice

like music. Bless me! it reminds me of bits in the 'Messiah'--'and

straightway there appeared a multitude of the heavenly host, praising

God and saying;' it has a tone with it that satisfies your ear."

Caleb was very fond of music, and when he could afford it went to hear

an oratorio that came within his reach, returning from it with a

profound reverence for this mighty structure of tones, which made him

sit meditatively, looking on the floor and throwing much unutterable

language into his outstretched hands.

With this good understanding between them, it was natural that Dorothea

asked Mr. Garth to undertake any business connected with the three

farms and the numerous tenements attached to Lowick Manor; indeed, his

expectation of getting work for two was being fast fulfilled. As he

said, "Business breeds." And one form of business which was beginning

to breed just then was the construction of railways. A projected line

was to run through Lowick parish where the cattle had hitherto grazed

in a peace unbroken by astonishment; and thus it happened that the

infant struggles of the railway system entered into the affairs of

Caleb Garth, and determined the course of this history with regard to

two persons who were dear to him. The submarine railway may have its

difficulties; but the bed of the sea is not divided among various

landed proprietors with claims for damages not only measurable but

sentimental. In the hundred to which Middlemarch belonged railways

were as exciting a topic as the Reform Bill or the imminent horrors of

Cholera, and those who held the most decided views on the subject were

women and landholders. Women both old and young regarded travelling by

steam as presumptuous and dangerous, and argued against it by saying

that nothing should induce them to get into a railway carriage; while

proprietors, differing from each other in their arguments as much as

Mr. Solomon Featherstone differed from Lord Medlicote, were yet

unanimous in the opinion that in selling land, whether to the Enemy of

mankind or to a company obliged to purchase, these pernicious agencies

must be made to pay a very high price to landowners for permission to

injure mankind.




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