Happy Saturday here in Middlemarch. We are in the middle of an economic crisis at the Lydgate house and Ladislaw just learned the codicil for poor Dorothea. Drama lama.

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Summary:

"For there can live no hatred in thine eye,

Therefore in that I cannot know thy change:

In many's looks the false heart's history

Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange;

But Heaven in thy creation did decree

That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell;

Whate'er thy thoughts or thy heart's workings be,

Thy looks should nothing thence but sweetness tell" -Shakespeare, Sonnets (93)

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Chapter 58 opens with Rosamond's miscarriage after a horse ride with the visiting Captain Lydgate, when her husband asked her not to go horseback riding due to the danger of falling while pregnant. In fact, Tertius detests his cousin while Rosie is having the time of her life entertaining the baronet's son and is cross her husband won't make more of an effort to entertain him. The husband and wife now find themselves baffled by each other and talking at cross-purposes. Lydgate realizes he neither understands not can control her actions. He is also feeling pressured from his creditors. And being too proud to reach out to anyone to help him, he wants to return some household items to cover the debt. Not wanting to disturb Rosie while she was with child, the momentum gathers when he has to tell her what is going on. He is perturbed to find her singing with Ladislaw and boots him out. Rosamond, of course, has always been pampered and has never worried about money and is mystified when her husband explains the situation and requests she not ask her father for money. She tries to give him her jewelry, but Tertius won't take it. There are tears and hurt feelings on both sides.

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"They said of old the Soul had human shape,

But smaller, subtler than the fleshly self,

So wandered forth for airing when it pleased.

And see! beside her cherub-face there floats

A pale-lipped form ariel whispering

Its prompting in that little shell her ear"

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Chapter 59 opens with the Middlemarch gossip mills, which travels from the Lowick Parsonage via Fred to his sister, Rosie. The siblings are further apart then ever. Lydgate, of course, was aware of the details already and had no intent to tell his wife anything, knowing she would bring it up with Will and knowing Will would be hurt. He tells her not to bring it up with Ladislaw when she informs him of what she knows. But Rosie, of course, drops it in Will's lap as soon as she sees him alone, teasing him about the romantic nature of the codicil. Will is flabbergasted to learn what Casaubon had done and shoots the messenger. Rosie feels upset and is melancholy that her father, whom she asked already for financial help, was unwilling to do so.

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Context and Notes:

More about Shakespeare's Sonnet 93.

Ladislaw leaves the quarreling Lydgates for the Mechanics' Institute.

Rosie resembles Byron's unrepentant Manfred.

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