A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

30.
"It would really have been a matter of total indifference to him--that
is to say, he would have taken the more convenient side, and given his
vote for the appointment of Tyke without any hesitation--if he had not
cared personally for Mr Farebrother. 1I
93 We see that he clearly recognises
here no degree of social responsibility, unlike Dorothea, who, in
a later episode of the book, when she has the living of Lowick to bestow,
takes her responsibility very seriously. However the "hampering threadlike
pressure" 94 disturbs him, but only to the point of his hoping that
some other factor will intervene which will prevent him from having to
compromise himself. Accordingly,
when he set out for the hospital, his hope was really in the
chance that discussion might somehow give a new aspect to the
question, and make the scale dip so as to exclude the neoessity
for voting. I think he trusted a little also to the energy which
is begotten by circumstances--some feeling rushing warmly and
making resolve easy, while debate in cold blood had only made it
more difficult. However it was, he did not distinctly say to
himself on which side he would vote; and all the while he was
invmrdly resenting the subjection which had been forced upon
him. It would have seemed beforehand like a ridiculous piece of
bad logic that he, with his unmixed resolutions of independence
and his seleot purposes, would find himself at the very outset
in the grasp of petty alternatives, eaoh of which was repugnant
to him. In his student's ch~mbers, he had prearranged his sooial
action quite differently." ~5
This long passage is worth quoting in full beoause it reveals so olearly
those aspeots of Lydgate's nature which oontribute to his dovmfall: his
fastidious recoil from politioal realities and a certain assumption of
superiority, of arroganoe towards his neighbours and their oonoerns; a
deferring of deoisions and a reliance on impulse or spontaneous action.
All these add up to a laok of knowledge, both of himself and of the
faotors ranged against him. It is not enough to dismiss Middlemaroh as
a "petty medium" 96 and hope by so doing to neutralise any impaot it
Il.l.ay
have on him. And his wish that something will come up at the last
minute that will. save him from compromising himself appears derisory in
the face of what actually happens. He not only arrives too late to hear