Greetings Middlemarchers! This is my first time reading and I am very excited to discuss this book with you all! Rather than reinvent the wheel, I hope this group will support that I am recycling the excellent summaries and prompts from prior years and adding personal flair. Let’s dive in this week as we explore some potential gentleman suitors.

Summary:

Chapter 2

"‘Seest thou not yon cavalier who cometh toward us on a dapple-gray steed, and weareth a golden helmet?’ ‘What I see,’ answered Sancho, ‘is nothing but a man on a gray ass like my own, who carries something shiny on his head.’ ‘Just so,’ answered Don Quixote: ‘and that resplendent object is the helmet of Mambrino.’”

-Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Chapter two opens with Dorothea, Celia, Mr. Brooke (Dorothea and Celia’s Uncle), Sir James Chettam, and Mr. Casaubon sitting down to dinner together. They discuss farming and economic policy. Mr. Brooke goes on and on about the books he's reading and how he's connected to some well-known poets. Sir James picks up a book and shares that he wants to help his tenants learn how to farm better. Sir James repeatedly tries to impress Dorothea and doesn’t succeed. Dorothea isn’t interested in Sir James and thinks he’s into Celia instead. Dorothea is impressed by Casaubon. After dinner, Dorothea and Celia talk about Casaubon and Sir James. Dorothea prefers Mr. Casaubon much more, while Celia is repulsed by him. Dorothea and Casaubon discuss religion, and in the following days, they bond over this topic.

Chapter 3

“Say, goddess, what ensued, when Raphael, The affable archangel . . . Eve The story heard attentive, and was filled With admiration, and deep muse, to hear Of things so high and strange.”

-Paradise Lost, B. vii. by John Milton

In chapter three, Casaubon visits the Brookes again. He hints to Dorothea that he would be interested in taking a wife or companion. This would be an honor to Dorothea because Casaubon has scholarly interests. Dorothea is convinced Casaubon is the man for her. While Dorothea fantasizes about Casaubon, she runs into Sir James. Dorothea thinks he’s still interested in her and is quite vexed when he interrupts her thoughts. Dorothea’s attitude changes toward Sir James when he asks her about her plans to build cottages for the tenants in the village. Celia knows that Sir James is interested in Dorothea and that Dorothea will say no if he asks to marry her. Casaubon comes to visit again, and Dorothea finds more reasons to like him - including that he doesn’t engage in small talk. Interestingly, unlike Sir James, Casaubon does not care about Dorothea’s project. Dorothea does begin to like Sir James, but only as a brother-in-law.

Context & Notes:

Sir Humphry Davy was a British chemist and inventor. He authored the work Elements of Agricultural Chemistry.

Adam Smith was a Scottish economist and moral philosopher.

"He would be the very Mawworm of bachelors who pretended not to expect it." Mawworm is a parasitic worm and is used to mean a hypocrite in this line.

Mr. Brooke is a custos rotulorum. That is a principal Justice of the Peace of a County.

Feejean is an obsolete spelling of Fijian, which is a person from Fiji.

Chloe and Strephon were characters from a Jonathan Swift poem. Strephon won Chloe's hand with a promise of material resources.