CHAPTER XLIV.

    I would not creep along the coast but steer
    Out in mid-sea, by guidance of the stars.

When Dorothea, walking round the laurel-planted plots of the New Hospital with Lydgate, had learned from him that there were no signs of change in Mr. Casaubon’s bodily condition beyond the mental sign of anxiety to know the truth about his illness, she was silent for a few moments, wondering whether she had said or done anything to rouse this new anxiety.  Lydgate, not willing to let slip an opportunity of furthering a favorite purpose, ventured to say—­

“I don’t know whether your or Mr.—­Casaubon’s attention has been drawn to the needs of our New Hospital.  Circumstances have made it seem rather egotistic in me to urge the subject; but that is not my fault:  it is because there is a fight being made against it by the other medical men.  I think you are generally interested in such things, for I remember that when I first had the pleasure of seeing you at Tipton Grange before your marriage, you were asking me some questions about the way in which the health of the poor was affected by their miserable housing.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Dorothea, brightening.  “I shall be quite grateful to you if you will tell me how I can help to make things a little better.  Everything of that sort has slipped away from me since I have been married.  I mean,” she said, after a moment’s hesitation, “that the people in our village are tolerably comfortable, and my mind has been too much taken up for me to inquire further.  But here—­in such a place as Middlemarch—­there must be a great deal to be done.”

“There is everything to be done,” said Lydgate, with abrupt energy.  “And this Hospital is a capital piece of work, due entirely to Mr. Bulstrode’s exertions, and in a great degree to his money.  But one man can’t do everything in a scheme of this sort.  Of course he looked forward to help.  And now there’s a mean, petty feud set up against the thing in the town, by certain persons who want to make it a failure.”

“What can be their reasons?” said Dorothea, with naive surprise.

“Chiefly Mr. Bulstrode’s unpopularity, to begin with.  Half the town would almost take trouble for the sake of thwarting him.  In this stupid world most people never consider that a thing is good to be done unless it is done by their own set.  I had no connection with Bulstrode before I came here.  I look at him quite impartially, and I see that he has some notions—­that he has set things on foot—­ which I can turn to good public purpose.  If a fair number of the better educated men went to work with the belief that their observations might contribute to the reform of medical doctrine and practice, we should soon see a change for the better.  That’s my point of view.  I hold that by refusing to work with Mr. Bulstrode I should be turning my back on an opportunity of making my profession more generally serviceable.”