 heightened its confusion. In this way, the
early months of marriage often are times of critical tumult - whether that of a
shrimp-pool or of deeper waters - which afterwards subsides into cheerful peace.
    But was not Mr. Casaubon just as learned as before? Had his forms of
expression changed, or his sentiments become less laudable? O waywardness of
womanhood! did his chronology fail him, or his ability to state not only a
theory but the names of those who held it; or his provision for giving the heads
of any subject on demand? And was not Rome the place in all the world to give
free play to such accomplishments? Besides, had not Dorothea's enthusiasm
especially dwelt on the prospect of relieving the weight and perhaps the sadness
with which great tasks lie on him who has to achieve them? - And that such
weight pressed on Mr. Casaubon was only plainer than before.
    All these are crushing questions; but whatever else remained the same, the
light had changed, and you cannot find the pearly dawn at noonday. The fact is
unalterable, that a fellow-mortal with whose nature you are acquainted solely
through the brief entrances and exits of a few imaginative weeks called
courtship, may, when seen in the continuity of married companionship, be
disclosed as something better or worse than what you have preconceived, but will
certainly not appear altogether the same. And it would be astonishing to find
how soon the change is felt if we had no kindred changes to compare with it. To
share lodgings with a brilliant dinner-companion, or to see your favourite
politician in the Ministry, may bring about changes quite as rapid: in these
cases too we begin by knowing little and believing much, and we sometimes end by
inverting the quantities.
    Still, such comparisons might mislead, for no man was more incapable of
flashy make-believe than Mr. Casaubon: he was as genuine a character as any
ruminant animal, and he had not actively assisted in creating any illusions
about himself. How was it that in the weeks since her marriage, Dorothea had not
distinctly observed but felt with a stifling depression, that the large vistas
and wide fresh air which she had dreamed of finding in her husband's mind were
replaced by anterooms and winding passages which seemed to lead nowhither? I
suppose it was that in courtship everything is regarded as provisional and
preliminary, and the smallest sample of virtue or accomplishment is taken to
guarantee delightful stores which the broad leisure of marriage will reveal. But
the door-sill of marriage once crossed, expectation is concentrated on the
present. Having
