Welcome to Book V Middlemarch fans. The Dead Hand has a much more ominous ring to it than the Three Love Problems of Book IV. I wonder what Eliot has in store for us, lets head to Lowick and find out....

Summary

Dorothea goes to visit Mr. Lydgate to learn more about Mr. Casaubon's condition. Mr. Lydgate isn't home but Rosamund receives Dorothea gladly. Will Ladislow is also there, and he has been singing with Rosamund. Dorothea becomes distressed and decides to leave immediately to find Mr. Lydgate at the hospital. Dorothea is shocked Will and Rosamund are hanging out alone only to realise to that this is what Mr. Casaubon must feel when she is alone with Will. After Dorothea leaves Will is upset and confesses his feelings for her to Rosamund who tells Mr. Lydgate on his return from the hospital. Rosamund realises she can still be admired by men even though she is married. They already disagree on how to live as Rosamund believes Mr. Lydgate works too much. Dorothea has pledged £200 a year to the new hospital.

This scene goes back to Dorothea and Mr. Lydgate at the hospital discussing Mr. Casaubon's health. Mr. Lydgate changes the topic telling Dorothea how Mr. Bulstrode is not well liked and how it is impacting the New Hospital. He also details that the other doctors in town do not approve of Mr. Lydgate and his modern techniques. As we know Dorothea pledges £200 annually. She tells Mr. Casaubon who barely reacts. He suspects Dorothea knows that he knows about the condition of his health and he feels betrayed and distrusful, and therefore lonely.

REFERENCES

• "Yet if she[Dorothea] had entered before a still audience as Imogene or Cato’s daughter, the dress might have seemed right enough: the grace and dignity were in her limbs and neck;...." Can anyone shed light on this reference I looked online but couldn't come up with anything sufficient.
• "Here was the whole history of the situation in which Diana had descended too unexpectedly on her worshipper." Will's comparison of his embarasment when Dorothea finds him at the Lydgate's. Presumably referencing Diana and Actaeon where the young hunter happens upon the goddess (bathing) and she transforms him into a deer (or kills him depending on which version you read).
• Mr. Lydgate talking to Rosamund of Will Ladislow's possible vexation at Dorothea finding him at the Lydgates says “No, no; it must be something else if he were really vexed. Ladislaw is a sort of gypsy; he thinks nothing of leather and prunella.” Leather or Prunella is something to which one is completely indifferent, the type of something that is of no importance. The term derives from a misinterpretation of Alexander Pope's lines in his Essay on Man.