“I shall rejoice to furnish your zeal with fuller opportunities,” Mr. Bulstrode answered; “I mean, by confiding to you the superintendence of my new hospital, should a maturer knowledge favor that issue, for I am determined that so great an object shall not be shackled by our two physicians.  Indeed, I am encouraged to consider your advent to this town as a gracious indication that a more manifest blessing is now to be awarded to my efforts, which have hitherto been much with stood.  With regard to the old infirmary, we have gained the initial point—­I mean your election.  And now I hope you will not shrink from incurring a certain amount of jealousy and dislike from your professional brethren by presenting yourself as a reformer.”

“I will not profess bravery,” said Lydgate, smiling, “but I acknowledge a good deal of pleasure in fighting, and I should not care for my profession, if I did not believe that better methods were to be found and enforced there as well as everywhere else.”

“The standard of that profession is low in Middlemarch, my dear sir,” said the banker.  “I mean in knowledge and skill; not in social status, for our medical men are most of them connected with respectable townspeople here.  My own imperfect health has induced me to give some attention to those palliative resources which the divine mercy has placed within our reach.  I have consulted eminent men in the metropolis, and I am painfully aware of the backwardness under which medical treatment labors in our provincial districts.”

“Yes;—­with our present medical rules and education, one must be satisfied now and then to meet with a fair practitioner.  As to all the higher questions which determine the starting-point of a diagnosis—­as to the philosophy of medial evidence—­any glimmering of these can only come from a scientific culture of which country practitioners have usually no more notion than the man in the moon.”

Mr. Bulstrode, bending and looking intently, found the form which Lydgate had given to his agreement not quite suited to his comprehension.  Under such circumstances a judicious man changes the topic and enters on ground where his own gifts may be more useful.

“I am aware,” he said, “that the peculiar bias of medical ability is towards material means.  Nevertheless, Mr. Lydgate, I hope we shall not vary in sentiment as to a measure in which you are not likely to be actively concerned, but in which your sympathetic concurrence may be an aid to me.  You recognize, I hope; the existence of spiritual interests in your patients?”

“Certainly I do.  But those words are apt to cover different meanings to different minds.”

“Precisely.  And on such subjects wrong teaching is as fatal as no teaching.  Now a point which I have much at heart to secure is a new regulation as to clerical attendance at the old infirmary.  The building stands in Mr. Farebrother’s parish.  You know Mr. Farebrother?”