Mrs. Waule, on the other hand, was an acquiescent mild soul, and accepted domestic frankness as in the order of nature,—[223]
“Indeed, she herself was accustomed to think that entire freedom from the necessity of behaving agreeably was included in the Almighty’s intentions about families.”
From this banter we pass to a bitter sarcasm that covers a burning social sympathy in the account of the Florentine banquet, where none could eat the tough, expensive peacock, but all gloried in the extravagance of having it to play with,—[224]
“And it would have been rashness to speak slightingly of peacock’s flesh, or any other venerable institution at a time when Fra Girolamo was teaching the disturbing doctrine that it was not the duty of the rich to be luxurious for the sake of the poor.”
Irony is applied to two young men, with totally different purposes; in one case it is directed against the youth himself; in the other, against an anticipated criticism of his conduct.
Fred Vincy belongs to the class of which Algernon Blancove is the most brilliant representative, and from which Evan Harrington made an early escape. He is persuaded that he “wouldn’t have been such a bad fellow if he had been rich.” But his destiny induces in him “a streak of misanthropic bitterness.”[225]
“To be born the son of a Middlemarch manufacturer, and the inevitable heir to nothing in particular, while such men as
Mainwaring and Vyan—certainly life was a poor business, when a spirited young fellow, with a good appetite for the best of everything, had so poor an outlook.”
Of contrasting caliber is Adam Bede, whose vision is turned outward and even upward, instead of altogether inward; and whose survey causes a feeling of modesty rather than injured conceit.[226]
“Adam, I confess, was very susceptible to the influence of rank, and quite ready to give an extra amount of respect to every one who had more advantages than himself, not being a philosopher, or a proletaire with democratic ideas, but simply a stout-limbed clever carpenter with a large fund of reverence in his nature, which inclined him to admit all established claims unless he saw very clear grounds for questioning them.”