Middlemarchfrom the imagined burning; and he judged that it must be
more for the Divine glory that he should escape dishonor.
That recoil had at last urged him to make preparations for
quitting Middlemarch. If evil truth must be reported of him,
he would then be at a less scorching distance from the con-
tempt of his old neighbors; and in a new scene, where his
life would not have gathered the same wide sensibility, the
tormentor, if he pursued him, would be less formidable. To
leave the place finally would, he knew, be extremely painful
to his wife, and on other grounds he would have preferred
to stay where he had struck root. Hence he made his prepa-
rations at first in a conditional way, wishing to leave on all
sides an opening for his return after brief absence, if any
favorable intervention of Providence should dissipate his
fears. He was preparing to transfer his management of the
Bank, and to give up any active control of other commercial
affairs in the neighborhood, on the ground of his failing
health, but without excluding his future resumption of such
work. The measure would cause him some added expense
and some diminution of income beyond what he had al-
ready undergone from the general depression of trade; and
the Hospital presented itself as a principal object of outlay
on which he could fairly economize.
This was the experience which had determined his con-
versation with Lydgate. But at this time his arrangements
had most of them gone no farther than a stage at which he
could recall them if they proved to be unnecessary. He con-
tinually deferred the final steps; in the midst of his fears,
like many a man who is in danger of shipwreck or of being