From Chapter X of Middlemarch by George Eliot

meika loofs samorzewski 8 Apr 2026

Thus in these brief weeks Dorothea’s joyous grateful expectation was unbroken, and however her lover might occasionally be conscious of flatness, he could never refer it to any slackening of her affectionate interest.
The season was mild enough to encourage the project of extending the wedding journey as far as Rome, and Mr. Casaubon was anxious for this because he wished to inspect some manuscripts in the Vatican.
“I still regret that your sister is not to accompany us,” he said one morning, some time after it had been ascertained that Celia objected to go, and that Dorothea did not wish for her companionship. “You will have many lonely hours, Dorothea, for I shall be constrained to make the utmost use of my time during our stay in Rome, and I should feel more at liberty if you had a companion.”
The words “I should feel more at liberty” grated on Dorothea. For the first time in speaking to Mr. Casaubon she colored from annoyance.
“You must have misunderstood me very much,” she said, “if you think I should not enter into the value of your time—if you think that I should not willingly give up whatever interfered with your using it to the best purpose.”
“That is very amiable in you, my dear Dorothea,” said Mr. Casaubon, not in the least noticing that she was hurt; “but if you had a lady as your companion, I could put you both under the care of a cicerone, and we could thus achieve two purposes in the same space of time.”
“I beg you will not refer to this again,” said Dorothea, rather haughtily. But immediately she feared that she was wrong, and turning towards him she laid her hand on his, adding in a different tone, “Pray do not be anxious about me. I shall have so much to think of when I am alone. And Tantripp will be a sufficient companion, just to take care of me. I could not bear to have Celia: she would be miserable.”

Middlemarch by George Eliot on ProjectGutenberg.

This is basically the entirety of the novel.

The ‘classic’ “English Lit.” exegesis of which will make an object lesson of its exemplary parables of the mistaken understandings we each and any may have of another human, and upon which we make each our lives.

It’s not called anything other than Middlemarch because much of this novel was played out (and not badly) when serialized for newspapers, as such the novel follows the many possible variations possible of Dorothea & Mr. Casubon’s mis-understandingship, including in contrapoint (e.g. Rosamond & Lydgate).

Where we each make our lives, our beds, our marriages, our devotions, we must each lie in them.

However, if by way of empathy, as the reading of literature is said to support, we might focus not so much of the selfing of the self, but it’s worlding, i.e. (worlding the self/selfing the world) as an equal effort. Then we come, by way of that word romance, in all its senses, to perhaps a better wisdom than lies in merely recognizing the chagrin at a bad match. No matter how important a lesson that might be for people when making life-changing decisions in desperate or highly constrained circumstance: limited, parochial, war-torn.

Where we each world a self, a house. Where we each self a world, a cosmos. Each we includes us all.

In mid-twentieth century parlance Dorothea’s view of the marriage is as an unpaid research assistance, Dorothea seeks to world herself in partnership with her newly wed husband’s life project, the Key to All Mythologies. This is not her husband’s view of the matter, Mr. Casubon’s feels no need of an assistant, despite his poor eyes. Their marriage is at a misstep, for want of a conversation on the matter before nuptials. The marriage as an act of worlding by Dorothea has misfired, the pots have cracked in the kiln. A practical Uncle so worries.

However, this personal mistep for her person, can also be regarded as an act of worlding the self, to the extent Dorothea regards the Key to All Mythologies as an effort worthy of support, as a ritual of increase for the entire world. So much more than a row of newly-built cottages for the village that Dorothea’s erstwhile suitor deemed an interest in putting some effort towards.

Both acts are efforts of worldly, however misguided, but the Key to All Mythologies, is an effort cosmological, and so much more than simply becoming Mr. Casubon’s bride in order to an unpaid research assistant.

Seen in this light, the error is more forgiveable, but, of course, not undone, in the light of the self hoping to world the world by the efforts of the self (as an unpaid research assistant).

Whereas the conversation begins with Mr. Casubon's concern for her as a lone wife left along in Rome without someone to talk to or share Rome with. My, what different worlds they live in.

In the foreign country known as the past, I have, as a 60-year-old now, been in three relationships with the daughters of three professors. I hasten to add this was discovered after each relationship started, and I have had more than three relationships in total, serious and less so, thus they do not comprise a super-majority in number, but in years they are most of my life. In hindsight perhaps I should have gone out with the housemate who went out with three different Malcolms in a row, and saved us both some kind of thirdly embarassment. Indeed my three-ly was only noticed by me in the last year or so.

It is this experience with professor's daughters which prefigures my comment about unpaid research assistants above. I can confirm, talking to the separated mothers of these daughters, that mid-Twentieth-Century wives, equally educated, were disbarred from scholarships generally, and married and so soon parental-ly burdened with pre-pill young children, while the husband goes on to study at a postgraduate level, but still they manage to keep house and raise toddlers while typing up their husband’s theses and research notes. The bitterness is a hindsight, and not much of a chagrin.

So it is that the mothers of these daughters form a cohort from the mid-Twentieth-Century doing exactly that which Dorothea assumes is her role in life by marrying Mr. Casubon. And seeks to do so for the good of the world, or at least its edification.

Not sure they signed up in the exact same way. The world moves on, just as each of us moves through the seven stages of life.

Dorothea did not see her worlding as self-sacrifice. Worlding never is a sacrifice, that’s what others feel, from a distance, in time or circumstance.

But take care out there, empathy can be misguided where it overreaches and lead to misunderstandings of another person’s life projects.

I hope you notice the worlding frame, that I am attempting to introduce, does not undo the selfing frame. Its not that the psychology of Dorothea is made non-existent (as perhaps a structuralist explanation might do by focusing on her historical or materialistic or economic circumstance). So the story does not disappear in this anti-analysis (re-framing) but is contextualised by the world (in which perhaps these structuralist explanations do have a role to play). The psychology is added to, the analysis is added to by the anti-analysis of worlding the self. It is added to by recognising the agency in worlding the self, it is worlded in her agency.

Worlding is an agency we each live, sometimes we romance it, sometimes the effort is more devotional. Romance is a fool’s game, to begin the world anew, in a new relationship. Some never grow through it, and cannot get past it, ever romancing this time… —for sure.

Worlding is never a zero-sum game, and that’s what empathy, what prosocial efforts and learning (solving and teaching) are all about. Literature is a type of worlding, a ritual of increase.

More is more even when it is less.

Structuralist explanations act much like narcissists in reducing things to zero-sum games they can control and exploit. Until they can’t and then all they have to offer is an orange-arsed tantrum of a death-cult alpha baboon who has run out of kool-aid. Again.

This post has a follow-up: the Key to all Middleworlds. (substack.com).