MIDDLEMARCH (Completed)

Chapter 16

"All that in woman is adored

In thy fair self I find--

For the whole sex can but afford

The handsome and the kind."

--SIR CHARLES SEDLEY.

The question whether Mr. Tyke should be appointed as salaried

chaplain to the hospital was an exciting topic to the Middlemarchers;

and Lydgate heard it discussed in a way that threw much light

on the power exercised in the town by Mr. Bulstrode. The banker

was evidently a ruler, but there was an opposition party,

and even among his supporters there were some who allowed it to be

seen that their support was a compromise, and who frankly stated

their impression that the general scheme of things, and especially

the casualties of trade, required you to hold a candle to the devil.

Mr. Bulstrode's power was not due simply to his being a country banker,

who knew the financial secrets of most traders in the town and could

touch the springs of their credit; it was fortified by a beneficence

that was at once ready and severe--ready to confer obligations,

and severe in watching the result. He had gathered, as an industrious

man always at his post, a chief share in administering the town

charities, and his private charities were both minute and abundant.

He would take a great deal of pains about apprenticing Tegg the

shoemaker's son, and he would watch over Tegg's church-going; he would

defend Mrs. Strype the washerwoman against Stubbs's unjust exaction

on the score of her drying-ground, and he would himself-scrutinize

a calumny against Mrs. Strype. His private minor loans were numerous,

but he would inquire strictly into the circumstances both before

and after. In this way a man gathers a domain in his neighbors'

hope and fear as well as gratitude; and power, when once it has

got into that subtle region, propagates itself, spreading out

of all proportion to its external means. It was a principle with

Mr. Bulstrode to gain as much power as possible, that he might use

it for the glory of God. He went through a great deal of spiritual

conflict and inward argument in order to adjust his motives, and make

clear to himself what God's glory required. But, as we have seen,

his motives were not always rightly appreciated. There were many

crass minds in Middlemarch whose reflective scales could only weigh

things in the lump; and they had a strong suspicion that since

Mr. Bulstrode could not enjoy life in their fashion, eating and