m we have grave reasons
for objecting to) is likely to have a secret contempt for us, and any
one who admires him passes an oblique criticism on ourselves. Having
the scruples of rectitude in our souls, we are above the meanness of
injuring him--rather we meet all his claims on us by active benefits;
and the drawing of cheques for him, being a superiority which he must
recognize, gives our bitterness a milder infusion. Now Mr. Casaubon
had been deprived of that superiority (as anything more than a
remembrance) in a sudden, capricious manner. His antipathy to Will did
not spring from the common jealousy of a winter-worn husband: it was
something deeper, bred by his lifelong claims and discontents; but
Dorothea, now that she was present--Dorothea, as a young wife who
herself had shown an offensive capability of criticism, necessarily
gave concentration to the uneasiness which had before been vague.

Will Ladislaw on his side felt that his dislike was flourishing at the
expense of his gratitude, and spent much inward discourse in justifying
the dislike. Casaubon hated him--he knew that very well; on his first
entrance he could discern a bitterness in the mouth and a venom in the
glance which would almost justify declaring war in spite of past
benefits. He was much obliged to Casaubon in the past, but really the
act of marrying this wife was a set-off against the obligation. It was
a question whether gratitude which refers to what is done for one's
self ought not to give way to indignation at what is done against
another. And Casaubon had done a wrong to Dorothea in marrying her. A
man was bound to know himself better than that, and if he chose to grow
gray crunching bones in a cavern, he had no business to be luring a
girl into his companionship. "It is the most horrible of
virgin-sacrifices," said Will; and he painted to himself what were
Dorothea's inward sorrows as if he had been writing a choric wail. But
he would never lose sight of her: he would watch over her--if he gave
up everything else in life he would watch over her, and she should know
that she had one slave in the world, Will had--to use Sir Thomas
Browne's phrase--a "passionate prodigality" of statement both to
himself and others. The simple truth was that nothing then invited him
so strongly as the presence of Dorothea.

Invitations of the formal kind had been wanting, however, for Will had
never been asked to go to Lowick. Mr. Brooke, indeed,