not
be given to concealment of anything except his own voice, unless it can
be shown that Holy Writ has placed the seat of candor in the lungs.
Mr. Bulstrode had also a deferential bending attitude in listening, and
an apparently fixed attentiveness in his eyes which made those persons
who thought themselves worth hearing infer that he was seeking the
utmost improvement from their discourse. Others, who expected to make
no great figure, disliked this kind of moral lantern turned on them.
If you are not proud of your cellar, there is no thrill of satisfaction
in seeing your guest hold up his wine-glass to the light and look
judicial. Such joys are reserved for conscious merit. Hence Mr.
Bulstrode's close attention was not agreeable to the publicans and
sinners in Middlemarch; it was attributed by some to his being a
Pharisee, and by others to his being Evangelical. Less superficial
reasoners among them wished to know who his father and grandfather
were, observing that five-and-twenty years ago nobody had ever heard of
a Bulstrode in Middlemarch. To his present visitor, Lydgate, the
scrutinizing look was a matter of indifference: he simply formed an
unfavorable opinion of the banker's constitution, and concluded that he
had an eager inward life with little enjoyment of tangible things.

"I shall be exceedingly obliged if you will look in on me here
occasionally, Mr. Lydgate," the banker observed, after a brief pause.
"If, as I dare to hope, I have the privilege of finding you a valuable
coadjutor in the interesting matter of hospital management, there will
be many questions which we shall need to discuss in private. As to the
new hospital, which is nearly finished, I shall consider what you have
said about the advantages of the special destination for fevers. The
decision will rest with me, for though Lord Medlicote has given the
land and timber for the building, he is not disposed to give his
personal attention to the object."

"There are few things better worth the pains in a provincial town like
this," said Lydgate. "A fine fever hospital in addition to the old
infirmary might be the nucleus of a medical school here, when once we
get our medical reforms; and what would do more for medical education
than the spread of such schools over the country? A born provincial
man who has a grain of public spirit as well as a few ideas, should do
what he can to resist the rush of everything that is a little better
than