15 Middlemarch - Read By Stephanie Poppins

Welcome to sleep stories with Steph Your go-to podcast That offers you a calm and relaxing transition Into a great night's sleep It is time to relax and fully let go There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go Close your eyes and feel yourself sink into the support beneath you And let all the worries of the day Drift away This is your time and your space Take a deep breath in through your nose And let it out with a long sigh There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go Happy listening Chapter nine continued The cousin was so close now That when he lifted his hat Dorothea could see a pair of gray eyes rather near together A delicate irregular nose with a little ripple in it and hair falling backward But there was a mouth and chin of a more prominent threatening aspect Than belonged to the type of the grandmother's miniature Young Ladislau did not feel it necessary to smile As if he were charmed with this introduction to his future second cousin and her relatives But he wore rather a pouting air of discontent And You are an artist I see said Mr.

Brook taking up the sketchbook and turning it over No,

I only sketch a little there's nothing fit to be seen there Said the young Ladislau coloring perhaps with temper rather than modesty Oh come this is a nice bit now I did a little in this way myself one time,

You know Look here.

This is what I call a nice thing done with what we used to call brio Mr.

Brook held out to the two girls a large sketch of stony ground and trees with a pool I'm no judge of these things said Dorothea with an eager deprecation of the appeal to her You know uncle I never see the beauty of those pictures which you say are so much praised They're a language I don't understand I suppose there's some relation between pictures and nature,

Which i'm too ignorant to feel Just as you see what a greek sentence stands for which means nothing to me She looked up at Mr.

Cassabon who bowed his head toward her while Mr.

Brook said smiling nonchalantly Bless me now how different people are But you had a bad style of teaching,

You know else.

This is just the thing for girls Sketching fine art and so on But you talk to drawing plans You'll come to my house.

I hope and i'll show you what I did this way Continued turning to Ladislau who had to be recalled from his preoccupation in observing Dorothea Ladislau had made up his mind.

She must be an unpleasant girl since she was going to marry Cassabon And what she said of her stupidity about pictures would have confirmed that opinion Even if he had believed her As it was he took her words for a covert judgment and was certain she thought his sketch detestable There was too much cleverness in her apology She was laughing both at her uncle and himself But what a voice It was like the harp the voice of a soul that had once lived This must be one of nature's inconsistencies there could be no sort of passion in a girl who would marry Cassabon He turned from her and bowed his thanks for Mr.

Brook's invitation We will turn over my italian gravings together Continued Mr.

Brook.

I have no end of those things that I have laid by for years One gets rusty in this part of the country,

You know Not you Cassabon you stick to your studies,

But my best ideas get under most Out of use,

You know You clever young men must guard against indolence I was too indolent,

You know else I might have been anywhere at one time That is a seasonable admonition said Mr.

Cassabon And now we will pass to the house lest the young lady should be tired of standing When their backs were turned young Ladislao sat down to go back with his sketching And as he did so his face broke into an expression of amusement which increased as he went on drawing Till at last he threw back his head and laughed out loud Partly it was the reception of his own artistic production that tickled him Partly the notion of his grave cousin as the lover of that girl And partly Mr.

Brook's definition of the place He might have held but for the impediment of indolence Mr.

Will Ladislao's sense of the ludicrous lit up his features very agreeably It was the pure enjoyment of comicality And had no mixture of sneering and self-exaltation What is your nephew going to do with himself Cassabon said Mr.

Brook as they went on My cousin you mean not my nephew Yes,

Yes cousin,

But in the way of a career,

You know The answer to that question is painfully doubtful On leaving rugby he declined to go to an English university where I would gladly have placed him And chose what I must consider the anomalous course of studying at Heidelberg Now he wants to go abroad again without any special object save the vague purpose of what he calls culture Preparation for he knows not what He declines to choose a profession He has no means by what you furnish I suppose I have always given him and his friends reason to understand I would furnish in moderation what was necessary for providing him with a scholarly education And launching him respectably I'm therefore bound to fulfill the expectations so raised said Mr.

Cassabon Putting his conduct in the light of mere rectitude A trait of delicacy which Dorothea noticed with admiration He has a thirst for traveling Maybe he may turn out a Bruce or a Mungo Park said Mr.

Brook.

I had a notion of that myself one time So far is he from having any desire for a more accurate knowledge of the earth's surface said Cassabon He said he should prefer not to know the sources of the Nile and there should be some unknown regions preserved as hunting grounds for the poetic imagination Well,

There is something in that you know said Mr.

Brook who has certainly an impartial mind Perhaps he has conscientious scruples founded on his own unfitness Said Dorothea who was interesting herself in finding a favorable explanation Because the law of medicine should be very serious professions to undertake should they not people's lives and fortunes depend on them Doubtless,

But I fear my young relative Will Laddy's law Is chiefly determined in his aversion to these callings by a dislike to steady application To that kind of acquirement,

Which is needful instrumentally But is not charming or immediately inviting to self-indulgent taste And I have insisted to him on what Aristotle stated with admirable brevity That for the achievement of any work regarded as an end There must be a prior exercise of many energies or acquired facilities of a secondary order demanding patience I've pointed to my own manuscript volumes which represent the toil of years preparatory to a work not yet accomplished But in vain To careful reasoning of this kind Laddus law replies by calling himself Pegasus and every form of prescribed work harness Celia laughed at this.

She was surprised to find mr.

Casabon could say something quite amusing Well,

You know said mr.

Brook.

He may turn out a Byron Chatterton Churchill that sort of thing.

There's no telling shall you let him go to Italy or wherever else?

Yes,

I've agreed to furnish him with moderate supplies for a year or so He asked no more.

I shall let him be tried by the test of freedom That is very kind of you said Dorothea looking up at mr.

Casabon with delight it is noble After all people may really have in themselves some vocation which is not quite plain to themselves May they not they may seem idle and weak because they're growing We should be very patient with each other.

I think I Suppose it's being engaged to be married.

That's made you think patience good said Celia as soon as she and Dorothea were alone You mean that I'm very impatient Celia Yes,

When people don't do and say just what you like Celia had become less afraid of saying things to Dorothea since this engagement Cleverness seemed to her more pitiable than ever