The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-03-28

us are presented to modern readers Dy the best sellers" George Eliot does not shift scenery for her audiences nor produce the quick and striking stage enccts that are used by the ultra modern writers whose novels are al- most plays in everything except mere form "Middlemarch" is a book. and . big book. It will not amuse the idle or half-asleep reader. It demands ones cooperation. Its importance and high place in literature are not due to literary art. They are due to the fact that 1t is one of the great true bills" for and against humanity.
 It defies 'skfmming." It presents a drowning front to the seek CT for mere amusement. For the seeker after self culture. and broad knowledge, it is one of the books that must be read.
 Tie Misses Brooke-Dorothea and Celia--were of unquestionable family, without yard-measuring or parcel-ty- ing forefathers, or anything lower than an admiral or a clergyman.
 They were orphans, and they lived at Tipton Grange. near the town of Middlemarch. with their uncle. MT. Brooke was nearly 50 He was easy and amiabie. His mind was glutinous- ly indefinite. He had studied every thing because one never knows where one will stop. His conclusions were as difficult to predict as the weather. He was full of benevolent intentions and spent as little money on them as possible.
 Dorothea. who was 20. was his very reverse. She was tremendous in her serious views of life. She weighed her smallest act. her lightest thought. on the awful scales of Judgment Day. She kneeled down on cottage floors by the side of sick laborers, to pray with a fervor that probably oppressed rather than impressed the objects of her piety She loved horseback riding-and as soon as she discovered how much she loved 1t, she gave 1t up.
 In a word. Dorothea Brooke was made for a martyr. Her soul was fine and great enough to embrace that martyrdom in any form 1t might take when 1t came. Meantime. Dorothea was a prfg--a very beautiful and very clever one. "A little too reli- gious for family comfort" thought her sister Celia. who loved her as every one loved her. despite the oppressive ethics that surrounded her.
 Celia was as pretty as Dorothea, but she lacked the spirituality and men, tality that transfigured Dorothea's face. She was not cut out for a mar tyr. and had no intention of being one. Midd1emarch accounted her much more sensible.
 Sir James Chattam wanted to marry Dorothea, or thought that he did. He did not get far beyond thinking of 1t, for he was too much afraid of her to say anything and wooed her modestly and silently by making wonderful i'm provements for his tenants and erec- ting model cottages. Dorothea was deeply interested in model cottages.
 Celia could not understand why her sister did not encourage Sir James instead of his cottages. Celia had very good taste in men, though she knew little of life. She liked the big, strong ciear-eyed fellow, with his simple mo- tions of honor and his simple ideas. Sir James knew that his deeds would never set a river on fire: but even his ignorance had a sound quality. @
 Dorothea. however. did not dream of marrying him. She dreamed of husband with a wonderous mission. She would have married the blind John Milton and toiied for him. She thought of all the great characters whose odd habits had made them un- pleasant to their kin. and wished that she might have been a real helpmate for one of them.
 It is dangerous work for young per- sons of limited experience to search for gods. Dorothea's search ended by her discovery of the Reverend Edward Casauborn, a rich minister with a large estate. who preached a scholary and dreadfully dull sermon every Sun day and left the rest of his work to @ vicar.
 MT. Casaubon was noted as a man of profound learning and he believed 1t as earnestly as everybody else did. But in truth he was a profound hum bug with himself as his saddest vic tim. His learning was crowded mu- scum of facts, stored in an attic of brain that did not know what to do with the collection. He delved in the dust of the past and brought nothing Lut dust out of 1t.
 He reconstructed no vanished life, TO gorgeous sceneries, no stirring story from the catacombs of buried wisdom in which he was so jealous a digger. He emerged triumphantly af- ter months of labor with the mummi- ed trophy of a hair-splitting definition or a new construction of some ancient tfesis that a healthy world had for gotton with a healthy shudder long aso.
 To Dorothea, however, this literary du stman was the heroic character of whom she had dreamed. His solemn. precise explanations of the labyrin- thine extent of his labyrinthine work. IT Q Key 10 All MythOlOBlcS' Cap1ANaN- ed her, She saw in him a new Angus tine, uniting the glories of doctor and saint.
 te had been working on his great key for thirty years, and though he Was now 45 he had not written line but was still making notes. Dorothea thought with an awed catch at her hoart: What glorious thing 1t would be to help in writing the book!'
 It was with revential gratitude that she accepted the gaunt, stiff, sad-col- orcf mans proposal She became Mrs. Ca -aubon to the wild indignation of Cei,a, who thought him the ugliest and most stupid man that ever lived, and to the concentrated disgust of Sir James who considered him sort of mummy.
 Dorothea had her god and was will ing to kiss his unfashionable shoes. If she had only been a true prig he might have remained her god to the end of the chapter and they might ha,s gone through life very comfor- tahly together. two invincible pr!gs Unfortunately, however, Dorothea vas too clever. She discovered very oui Xiv that the Rev. MT. CasaubOn was not a great light, but only d wiu,ling taper casting fitful and de- ceptIve gIeams into useless rubbish heaps. The knowledge filled her loyal, great young soul with a great pity m almost sacred pity for the man who had spent his life in such earnest la hor to accomplish a giants work for reIgion and faith and whose results were even less than those of an ant.
 M~. Casaubon was so withered as to