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Poor Mr Casaubon! This suffering was the harder to bear because it

see creature who had worshipped him with

perfect trust had quickly turned into the critical wife; and early

instances of criticism and resentment had made an impression which no

tenderness and submission afterwards could remove To his suspicious

interpretation Dorothea's silence noas a suppressed rebellion; a

remark from her which he had not in any way anticipated was an

assertion of conscious superiority; her gentle answers had an

irritating cautiousness in them; and when she acquiesced it was a

self-approved effort of forbearance The tenacity hich he strove

to hide this inward drama made it the more vivid for him; as we hear

with the more keenness ish others not to hear

Instead of wondering at this result of misery in Mr Casaubon, I think

it quite ordinary Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot

out the glory of the world, and leave only a in by which we see the

blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self And who, if Mr

Casaubon had chosen to expound his discontents--his suspicions that he

was not any longer adored without criticisood reasons? On the contrary, there was a strong

reason to be added, which he had not himself taken explicitly into

account--namely, that he was not unmixedly adorable He suspected

this, however, as he suspected other things, without confessing it, and

like the rest of us, felt how soothing it would have been to have a

companion ould never find it out

This sore susceptibility in relation to Dorothea was thoroughly

prepared before Will Ladislaw had returned to Lowick, and what had

occurred since then had brought Mr Casaubon's power of suspicious