Middlemarch Dissatisfaction Quotes

How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #10

It is an uneasy lot at best, to be what we call highly taught and yet not to enjoy: to be present at this great spectacle of life and never to be liberated from a small hungry shivering self – never to be fully possessed by the glory we behold. (3.29.3)

Casaubon's dissatisfaction comes from his inability to see anything greater than himself. He's so hung up on his "small hungry shivering self" that he can't see the "glory" in the world or the "great spectacle of life." But Eliot, once again, switches to the first person plural ("we") in this description. She implies that this is something that "we" all experience. She takes Mr. Casaubon's individual, particular experience, and makes it into a general and universal statement about human nature.

Quote #11

Becoming a dean or even a bishop would make little difference, I fear, to Mr. Casaubon's uneasiness. Doubtless some ancient Greek has observed that behind the big mask and the speaking-trumpet, there must always be our poor little eyes peeping as usual and our timorous lips more or less under anxious control. (3.29.3)

Mr. Casaubon's dissatisfaction wouldn't have been made any better by an exterior change, like becoming "a dean or even a bishop." Those changes might have made his position better in the eyes of the world, but they would have been like a "big mask" that he was hiding behind.