Having made his clerical toilette with due care in the morning, he was prepared only for those amenities of life which were suited to the well-adjusted stiff cravat of the period and to a mind weighted with unpublished matter.
At approximately the 200-page mark, I think I can safely say that Mr. Casaubon seems like a dick.
@JohnBrady Thx btw for your posts about the book—they prompted me to pick it back up again after starting it many years ago and I am really enjoying it.
@petebrown I love it. I'm now reading Bleak House (suggested in conversations here). Dickens is great too, but can often take half a page to say what Eliot can get across in a fine-tuned phrase.