QUOTE

But he was now a prey to that worst irritation which arises not simply from annoyances, but from the second consciousness underlying those annoyances, of wasted energy and a degrading preoccupation, which was the reverse of all his former purposes. 

[…]

Doubtless they were sordid; and for the majority, who are not lofty, there is no escape from sordidness but by being free from money-craving, with all its base hopes and temptations, its watching for death, its hinted requests, its horse-dealer’s desire to make bad work pass for good, its seeking for function which ought to be another’s, its compulsion often to long for Luck in the shape of a wide calamity.

—Chapter LXIV

In this excerpt, we see Lydgate calling the pursuit of material wealth a degrading activity. In modern capitalist society such as the one we are living in now, the pursuit of money is essential. Prosperity guarantees better living standards and is considered by many the basis for happiness. Interestingly, the two protagonists of Middlemarch, on top of their ambitions and passions that make them different from their fellow countrymen, they hold a very different set of values with regard to money and wealth. 

Q: Attaching degradation with the endeavor to make ends meet— a common concern of ordinary folks— is not self-evidently necessary. How do we understand this “lofty” take towards financial matters upheld by Lydgate? 

Just like Dorothea, the St. Theresa of Middlemarch, Lydgate seeks to busy himself with more meaningful, nobler causes in his life. He thinks that all his time should be dedicated to medical discoveries, experiments and etc. that would further the common good of his society and contribute to medicine. On one hand, it can be said that Lydgate is of an extraordinary character. He cares about greater causes than the mundane everyday activities or what he deem sordid aspirations or his peers. But on the other, his view on money reflects his naive take on life. Like Dorothea, his ideals and ambitions are often too grand and unrealistic to be realized. They obscure his vision, making him blind to other things in life that are also pertinent to success. He cannot achieve his goals without financial backups, yet he marries a woman who is raised up in luxury and upholds a distaste towards the pursuit of money, a value that is noble but doesn’t seem to help his professional career. 

Nonetheless, he is also right in some of the damages money has done to souls. “Its base hopes and temptations, its watching for death, its hinted requests, its horse-dealer’s desire to make bad work pass for good, its seeking for function which ought to be another’s, its compulsion often to long for Luck in the shape of a wide calamity”—these are not just conjectures but actual events that take place in Middlemarch. His contempt for those who primarily concern themselves with financial matters is not entirely ill-grounded, seeing the ugliness of humanity exposed in previous incidents of quarrel over inheritance and etc. 

It is clear that Lydgate’s suffering not only comes from the simple question of financial difficulty, but also the moral burden he brings onto himself as a result of having to deal with these difficulties. The use of a range of derogatory adjectives here shows his self-critique. He feels degraded, and he feels that he has not lived up to his expectations of himself, and he is further tortured by this conceived failure. Without himself knowing it, Lydgate secretly holds himself aloof, perhaps considering himself different; or rather, he visions are just too narrow and his ambitions too unrealistic that he could not see that life contains all sorts of mundaneness and “base hopes”, and that one can’t just dedicate oneself to intellectual activity without making sure of the basic supplies of life are guaranteed first. The concept of money is not only a plot-driver in Middlemarch but also a means of characterization. By outlining different characters’ views on money, their values and personalities are given shape as well.