Garth, Mrs. Susan

Caleb's wife; a good, unworldly woman with much force and some oddities of character. "Mrs. Garth never committed herself by over-hasty speech; having, as she said, borne the yoke in her youth, and learned self-control. She had that rare sense which discerns what is unalterable, and submits to it without murmuring. Adoring her husband's virtues, she had very early made up her mind to his incapacity of minding his own interests, and had met the consequences cheerfully. She had been magnanimous enough to renounce all pride in tea-pots or children's frilling. . . . She had sometimes taken pupils in a peripatetic fashion, making them follow her about in the kitchen with their book or slate." Devoted entirely to her family, she is anxious to have her husband's good qualities and solid work appreciated at their full value and to give the children as good an education as possible, training them herself while they are small, and scheming and planning for their further education. Although she has always regarded Fred Vincy with a motherly feeling, she is disappointed when her daughter Mary accepts him as a husband when she might have married Mr. Farebrother.

<em>Middlemarch</em>

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