Book Three – Waiting for Death. The discussions of Book One and Two are still posted. I also wanted to mention there is no obligation to answer all of the questions, skipping is allowed!


1)  In Chapter 24, we read about Mrs. Garth: Certainly, the exemplary Mrs. Garth had her droll aspects, but her character sustained her oddities, as a very fine wine sustains a flavour of skin. Towards Fred Vincy she had a motherly feeling, and had always been disposed to excuse his errors, though she would probably not have excused Mary for engaging herself to him, her daughter being included in that more rigorous judgment which she applied to her own sex. But this very fact of her exceptional indulgence towards him made it the harder to Fred that he must now inevitably sink in her opinion.
Discuss her feelings towards Fred, the predicament Fred has gotten himself into, and how it affect his relationship with Mary and her parents.

2) In Chapter 27, Rosamond and Lydgate find a deepening relationship: Talk about the weather and other well-bred topics is apt to seem a hollow device, and behaviour can hardly become easy unless it frankly recognizes a mutual fascination -- which of course need not mean anything deep or serious. This was the way in which Rosamond and Lydgate slid gracefully into ease, and made their intercourse lively again. Visitors came and went as usual, there was once more music in the drawing-room, and all the extra hospitality of Mr. Vincy's mayoralty returned. Lydgate, whenever he could, took his seat by Rosamond's side, and lingered to hear her music, calling himself her captive -- meaning, all the while, not to be her captive.
What are your thoughts on their relationship, and on Eliot’s descriptions?


3)  Dorothea is pondering in her room in Chapter 28  …here at last she saw something which had gathered new breath and meaning: it was the miniature of Mr. Casaubon's aunt Julia, who had made the unfortunate marriage -- of Will Ladislaw's grandmother. Dorothea could fancy that it was alive now -- the delicate woman's face which yet had a head-strong look, a peculiarity difficult to interpret. Was it only her friends who thought her marriage unfortunate? or did she herself find it out to be a mistake, and taste the salt bitterness of her tears in the merciful silence of the night? What breadths of experience Dorothea seemd to have passed over since she first looked at this miniature! She felt a new companionship with it, as if it had an ear for her and could see how she was looking at it. Here was a woman who had known some difficulty about marriage...
At the end of the chapter, Celia has announced her engagement to James. Contrast the two relationships, as well as Dorothea’s identification with Ladislaw’s grandmother.

4) Eliot breaks the fourth wall (is that still the term in a book?) in Chapter 29 For my part I am very sorry for him. It is an uneasy lot at best, to be what we call highly taught and yet not to enjoy: to be present at this great spectacle of life and never to be liberated from a small hungry shivering self -- never to be fully possessed by the glory we behold, never to have our consciousness rapturously transformed into the vividness of a thought, the ardour of a passion, the energy of an action, but always to be scholarly and uninspired, ambitious and timid, scrupulous and dim-sighted. Becoming a dean or even a bishop would make little difference, I fear, to Mr Casaubon's uneasiness
What are your thoughts about this literary device Eliot uses? Does it change your opinion of Casaubon’s character? What do you think of the crisis he is finding himself in, do you relate

5) During Featherstone’s illness, Lydgate and Rosamond become engaged, and Mr. Vincy gives his consent to the marriage (at the end of Chapter 31)
What do you think about the contrast between the end of a life and the beginning of a life together, and do you think it was a good decision to marry? As they approach marriage, are they more or less realistic than the Casaubons? Do you think it will be a happy marriage?

6) Featherstone dies at the end of Chapter 33 "with his right hand clasping the keys, and his left hand lying on the heap of notes and gold."
What do you think about his death scene, and what is going to be revealed in his will?

7) My standard last question goes here: Is there any quote, chapter, or scene that I missed?