"He has gone on with the cottages, Dodo. He will tell you about them
when he comes. Shall you be glad to see him?"

"Of course I shall. How can you ask me?"

"Only I was afraid you would be getting so learned," said Celia,
regarding Mr. Casaubon's learning as a kind of damp which might in due
time saturate a neighboring body.

CHAPTER XXIX.

"I found that no genius in another could please me. My
unfortunate paradoxes had entirely dried up that source of
comfort."--GOLDSMITH.

One morning, some weeks after her arrival at Lowick, Dorothea--but why
always Dorothea? Was her point of view the only possible one with
regard to this marriage? I protest against all our interest, all our
effort at understanding being given to the young skins that look
blooming in spite of trouble; for these too will get faded, and will
know the older and more eating griefs which we are helping to neglect.
In spite of the blinking eyes and white moles objectionable to Celia,
and the want of muscular curve which was morally painful to Sir James,
Mr. Casaubon had an intense consciousness within him, and was
spiritually a-hungered like the rest of us. He had done nothing
exceptional in marrying--nothing but what society sanctions, and
considers an occasion for wreaths and bouquets. It had occurred to him
that he must not any longer defer his intention of matrimony, and he
had reflected that in taking a wife, a man of good position should
expect and carefully choose a blooming young lady--the younger the
better, because more educable and submissive--of a rank equal to his
own, of religious principles, virtuous disposition, and good
understanding. On such a young lady he would make handsome
settlements, and he would neglect no arrangement for her happiness: in
return, he should receive family pleasures and leave behind him that
copy of himself which seemed so urgently required of a man--to the
sonneteers of the sixteenth century. Times had altered since then, and
no sonneteer had insisted on Mr. Casaubon's leaving a copy of himself;
moreover, he had not yet succeeded in issuing copies of his
mythological key; but he had always intended to acquit himself by
marriage, and the sense that he was fast leaving the years behind him,
that the world was getting dimmer and that he felt lonely, was a reason
to him for losing no more time in overtaking domestic delights before
they too were left behind by the years.

And when he