Greetings Middlemarchers! This week Dorothea ends up engaged to Mr. Casaubon with the marriage set to take place in six weeks. (Summary and prompts liberally recycled from prior years.)

Summary:

Chapter 4

1st Gent. Our deeds are fetters that we forge ourselves.

2nd Gent. Ay, truly: but I think it is the world

That brings the iron.

-George Elliot

Chapter four finds Celia finally broaching the topic of Sir James interest in Dorothea, pointing out he is doing everything she wishes, and she's heard gossip from the maid network. Dorothea finds Celia loveable until she understands what she is trying to hint at-Sir James is interested in marrying her. Dodo is mortified and upset at finding herself a love interest to him. She is upset with Celia for bringing it up and Celia points out that she misses obvious things and is quite curt with her. They return home upset and find their uncle, Mr. Brooke waiting to talk to them and says he has been in Lowick, and has some pamphlets for Dodo in the library. This soothes her and she reads with interest. Celia goes upstairs and Mr. Brooke joins Dodo in the library and awkwardly wants to talk about something. Her favorite topic-Mr. Casaubon-who has asked for her hand in marriage of her uncle and written her a letter. Mr. Brooke and Dorothea discuss the matter.

Chapter 5

“Hard students are commonly troubled with gowts, catarrhs, rheums, cachexia, bradypepsia, bad eyes, stone, and collick, crudities, oppilations, vertigo, winds, consumptions, and all such diseases as come by over-much sitting: they are most part lean, dry, ill-colored …and all through immoderate pains and extraordinary studies. If you will not believe the truth of this, look upon great Tostatus and Thomas Aquainas’ works; and tell me whether those men took pains.”

-Anatomy of Melancholy, P. I, s. 2. by Robert Burton

Chapter five opens with Edward Casaubon's letter to his prospective wife. He states Dorothea impressed him within the first hour of their meeting and apparently, he has no skeletons in his love closet. Dorothea weeps with delight and writes him back, handing the letter to her uncle. Celia is in the dark until the next day, when Mr. Casaubon is invited to lunch, and she sees Dodo's face and begins to suspect there might be more there than books. She is disgusted with her sister's choice and makes a snide remark on Edward's soup eating, which leads Dorothea to blurting out they are engaged. Kitty tries to soften her reaction of horror, but Dodo is hurt and thinks that the rest of the town is likely to agree with her sister. She and Edward confess their love to one another or something like that and then Eliot has the last words on how this union will fare.

Context & Notes:

Celia is a *nullifidian (*or non-believer) to Dorothea's Christian. And Dorothea is in the Slough of Despond when she finds out about Sir James's intentions.

Sheep stealing is a capital offense until 1832, when PM Sir Robert Peel's government reduced a number of capital offenses. He would also go on to create the modern police force and repealed the Corn Laws to prevent further famine in Ireland. And was a school chum of Lord Byron. Mr. Brooke looks like a man of the world, at least trying to prevent Bunch's death where Mr. Casaubon doesn't even know who Romilly is.

The Anatomy of Melancholy is less a medical guide than a unique literary effort that takes melancholy as a mirror to the human condition.

Samuel Daniel is an Elizabethan/Jacobean poet, playwright and historian. He was a contemporary of Shakespeare's and wrote a cycle of sonnets titled To Delia. Here is sonnet number 6