No speech could have been more thoroughly honest in its intention:
the frigid rhetoric at the end was as sincere as the bark of a dog,
or the cawing of an amorous rook. Would it not be rash to conclude
that there was no passion behind those sonnets to Delia which strike
us as the thin music of a mandolin?

Dorothea's faith supplied all that Mr. Casaubon's words seemed
to leave unsaid: what believer sees a disturbing omission or
infelicity? The text, whether of prophet or of poet, expands for
whatever we can put into it, and even his bad grammar is sublime.

"I am very ignorant--you will quite wonder at my ignorance,"
said Dorothea. "I have so many thoughts that may be quite mistaken;
and now I shall be able to tell them all to you, and ask you about them.
But," she added, with rapid imagination of Mr. Casaubon's probable feeling,
"I will not trouble you too much; only when you are inclined to
listen to me. You must often be weary with the pursuit of subjects
in your own track. I shall gain enough if you will take me with you there."

"How should I be able now to persevere in any path without
your companionship?" said Mr. Casaubon, kissing her candid brow,
and feeling that heaven had vouchsafed him a blessing in every way
suited to his peculiar wants. He was being unconsciously wrought
upon by the charms of a nature which was entirely without hidden
calculations either for immediate effects or for remoter ends.
It was this which made Dorothea so childlike, and, according to some
judges, so stupid, with all her reputed cleverness; as, for example,
in the present case of throwing herself, metaphorically speaking,
at Mr. Casaubon's feet, and kissing his unfashionable shoe-ties