itation of possible arguments
to be brought against Mr. Casaubon's entirely new view of the
Philistine god Dagon and other fish-deities, thinking that hereafter
she should see this subject which touched him so nearly from the same
high ground whence doubtless it had become so important to him. Again,
the matter-of-course statement and tone of dismissal with which he
treated what to her were the most stirring thoughts, was easily
accounted for as belonging to the sense of haste and preoccupation in
which she herself shared during their engagement. But now, since they
had been in Rome, with all the depths of her emotion roused to
tumultuous activity, and with life made a new problem by new elements,
she had been becoming more and more aware, with a certain terror, that
her mind was continually sliding into inward fits of anger and
repulsion, or else into forlorn weariness. How far the judicious
Hooker or any other hero of erudition would have been the same at Mr.
Casaubon's time of life, she had no means of knowing, so that he could
not have the advantage of comparison; but her husband's way of
commenting on the strangely impressive objects around them had begun to
affect her with a sort of mental shiver: he had perhaps the best
intention of acquitting himself worthily, but only of acquitting
himself. What was fresh to her mind was worn out to his; and such
capacity of thought and feeling as had ever been stimulated in him by
the general life of mankind had long shrunk to a sort of dried
preparation, a lifeless embalmment of knowledge.

When he said, "Does this interest you, Dorothea? Shall we stay a
little longer? I am ready to stay if you wish it,"--it seemed to her
as if going or staying were alike dreary. Or, "Should you like to go
to the Farnesina, Dorothea? It contains celebrated frescos designed or
painted by Raphael, which most persons think it worth while to visit."

"But do you care about them?" was always Dorothea's question.

"They are, I believe, highly esteemed. Some of them represent the
fable of Cupid and Psyche, which is probably the romantic invention of
a literary period, and cannot, I think, be reckoned as a genuine
mythical product. But if you like these wall-paintings we can easily
drive thither; and you will then, I think, have seen the chief works of
Raphael, any of which it were a pity to omit in a visit to Rome. He is
the painter who has been held to combine the most complete grace o