Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him
Eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with slaves.
It is the same story. Great power reduced to impotence, great glory to misery, by the hand of Fate—Necessity, as the Greeks called her; the goddess that will not be shunned! At the mill with slaves! People, when they read it, do not appreciate the horror of the picture. Go on, my dear. It may be a question whether Polyphemus had mind enough to suffer; but, from the description of his power, I should think that he had. ‘At the mill with slaves!’ Can any picture be more dreadful than that? Go on, my dear. Of course you remember Milton’s Samson Agonistes. Agonistes indeed!” His wife was sitting stitching at the other side of the room; but she heard his words—heard and understood them; and before Jane could again get herself into the swing of the Greek verse, she was over at her husband’s side, with her arms round his neck. “My love!” she said. “My love!”
He turned to her, and smiled as he spoke to her. “These are old thoughts with me. Polyphemus and Belisarius, and Samson and Milton, have always been pets of mine. The mind of the strong blind creature must be so sensible of the injury that has been done to him! The impotency, combined with his strength, or rather the impotency with the memory of former strength and former aspirations, is so essentially tragic!”
She looked into his eyes as he spoke, and there was something of the flash of old days, when the world was young to them, and when he would tell her of his hopes, and repeat to her long passages of poetry, and would criticize for her advantage the works of old writers. “Thank God,” she said, “that you are not blind. It may yet be all right with you.”
“Yes—it may be,” he said.
“And you shall not be at the mill with slaves.”
“Or, at any rate, not eyeless in Gaza, if the Lord is good to me. Come, Jane, we will go on.” Then he took up the passage himself, and read it on with clear, sonorous voice, every now and then explaining some passage or expressing his own ideas upon it, as though he were really happy with his poetry.
It was late in the evening before he got out his small stock of best letter-paper, and sat down to work at his letter. He first addressed himself to the bishop; and what he wrote to the bishop was as follows:—
Hogglestock Parsonage, April 11th, 186‒.
My Lord Bishop,
I have been in communication with Dr. Tempest, of Silverbridge, from whom I have learned that your lordship has been pleased to appoint a commission of inquiry—of which commission he is the chairman—with reference to the proceedings which it may be necessary that you should take, as bishop of this diocese, after my forthcoming trial at the approaching Barchester assizes. My lord, I think it right to inform you, partly with a view to the comfort of the gentlemen named on that commission, and partly with the purport of giving you that information which I think that a bishop should possess in regard to the clerical affairs of his own diocese, that I have by this post resigned my preferment at Hogglestock into the hands of the Dean of Barchester, by whom it was given to me. In these circumstances, it will, I suppose, be unnecessary for you to continue the commission which you have set in force; but as to that, your lordship will, of course, be the only judge.
But the letter which was of real importance—which was intended to say something—was that to the dean, and that also shall be given to the reader. Mr. Crawley had been for a while in doubt how he should address his old friend in commencing this letter, understanding that its tone throughout must, in a great degree, be made conformable with its first words. He would fain, in his pride, have begun “Sir.” The question was between that and “My dear Arabin.” It had once between them always been “Dear Frank” and “Dear Joe;” but the occasions for “Dear Frank” and “Dear Joe” between them had long been past. Crawley would have been very angry had he now been called Joe by the dean, and would have bitten his tongue out before he would have called the dean Frank. His better nature, however, now prevailed, and he began his letter, and completed it as follows:—
My dear Arabin,
Circumstances, of which you have probably heard something, compel me to write to you, as I fear, at some length. I am sorry that the trouble of such a letter should be forced upon you during your holidays;—
Mr. Crawley, as he wrote this, did not forget to remind himself that he never had any holidays;
—but I think you will admit, if you will bear with me to the end, that I have no alternative.
I have been accused of stealing a cheque for twenty pounds, which cheque was drawn by my Lord Lufton on his London bankers, and was lost out of his pocket by Mr. Soames, his lordship’s agent, and
