As in droughty regions baptism by immersion could only be
performed symbolically, so Mr. Casaubon found that sprinkling was the utmost
approach to a plunge which his stream would afford him; and he concluded that
the poets had much exaggerated the force of masculine passion. Nevertheless, he
observed with pleasure that Miss Brooke showed an ardent submissive affection
which promised to fulfil his most agreeable previsions of marriage. It had once
or twice crossed his mind that possibly there was some deficiency in Dorothea to
account for the moderation of his abandonment; but he was unable to discern the
deficiency, or to figure to himself a woman who would have pleased him better;
so that there was clearly no reason to fall back upon but the exaggerations of
human tradition.
    »Could I not be preparing myself now to be more useful?« said Dorothea to
him, one morning, early in the time of courtship; »could I not learn to read
Latin and Greek aloud to you, as Milton's daughters did to their father, without
understanding what they read?«
    »I fear that would be wearisome to you,« said Mr. Casaubon, smiling; »and,
indeed, if I remember rightly, the young women you have mentioned regarded that
exercise in unknown tongues as a ground for rebellion against the poet.«
    »Yes; but in the first place they were very naughty girls, else they would
have been proud to minister to such a father; and in the second place they might
have studied privately and taught themselves to understand what they read, and
then it would have been interesting. I hope you don't expect me to be naughty
and stupid?«
    »I expect you to be all that an exquisite young lady can be in every
possible relation of life. Certainly it might be a great advantage if you were
able to copy the Greek character, and to that end it were well to begin with a
little reading.«
    Dorothea seized this as a precious permission. She would not have asked Mr.
Casaubon at once to teach her the languages, dreading of all things to be
tiresome instead of helpful; but it was not entirely out of devotion to her
future husband that she wished to know Latin and Greek. Those provinces of
masculine knowledge seemed to her a standing-ground from which all truth could
be seen more truly. As it was, she constantly doubted her own conclusions,
because she felt her own ignorance: how could she be confident that one-roomed
cottages were not for the glory of God, when men who knew the classics appeared
to conciliate indifference to the cottages with