George Eliot: Middlemarch

BOOK V. THE DEAD HAND. 43. CHAPTER XLIII. (continued)

    `Why should our pride make such a stir to be
     And be forgot?  What good is like to this,
     To do worthy the writing, and to write
     Worthy the reading and the worlds delight?'

What I want, Rosy, is to do worthy the writing,--and to write out myself what I have done. A man must work, to do that, my pet."

"Of course, I wish you to make discoveries: no one could more wish you to attain a high position in some better place than Middlemarch. You cannot say that I have ever tried to hinder you from working. But we cannot live like hermits. You are not discontented with me, Tertius?"

"No, dear, no. I am too entirely contented."

"But what did Mrs. Casaubon want to say to you?"

"Merely to ask about her husband's health. But I think she is going to be splendid to our New Hospital: I think she will give us two hundred a-year."