Page 513 - middlemarch

‘He seems to me a kind of Shelley, you know,’ Mr. Brooke
took an opportunity of saying, for the gratification of
Mr. Casaubon. ‘I don’t mean as to anything objection-
able—laxities or atheism, or anything of that kind, you
know—Ladislaw’s sentiments in every way I am sure are
good—indeed, we were talking a great deal together last
night. But he has the same sort of enthusiasm for liberty,
freedom, emancipation—a fine thing under guidance— un-
der guidance, you know. I think I shall be able to put him
on the right tack; and I am the more pleased because he is a
relation of yours, Casaubon.’
If the right tack implied anything more precise than the
rest of Mr. Brooke’s speech, Mr. Casaubon silently hoped
that it referred to some occupation at a great distance from
Lowick. He had disliked Will while he helped him, but he
had begun to dislike him still more now that Will had de-
clined his help. That is the way with us when we have any
uneasy jealousy in our disposition: if our talents are chief-
ly of the burrowing kind, our honey-sipping cousin (whom
we have grave reasons for objecting to) is likely to have a
secret contempt for us, and any one who admires him pass-
es an oblique criticism on ourselves. Having the scruples
of rectitude in our souls, we are above the meanness of in-
juring him— rather we meet all his claims on us by active
benefits; and the drawing of cheeks for him, being a su-
periority 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

1 Middlemarch