Ladislaw, Will

Mr. Casaubon's second cousin; a generous, gay, and rather irresponsible young man with Bohemian tendencies. "Will Ladislaw's smile was delightful, unless you were angry with him beforehand; it was a gush of inward light illuminating the transparent skin as well as the eyes, and playing about every curve and line as if some Ariel were touching them with a new charm, and banishing forever the traces of moodiness . . . The first impression on seeing Will was one of sunny brightness, which added to the uncertainty of his changing expression. Surely, his very features changed their form; his jaw looked sometimes large and sometimes small; and the little ripple in his nose was a preparation for metamorphosis. When he turned his head quickly his hair seemed to shake out light, and some persons thought they saw decided genius in this coruscation." His grandmother, Mr. Casaubon's aunt, had been disinherited because she made a mesalliance, by marrying a poor Pole, and Mr. Casaubon, who feels an inherited responsibility for this, had educated Will. With artistic tastes, some ability as a writer, and a disregard for worldly considerations he has some difficulty in choosing a profession. When he meets Dorothea as Mr. Casaubon's wife he first becomes interested in her, and then grows to love her with constancy and devotion, and for the sake of being near her settles in Middlemarch as editor of Mr. Brooke's paper. His sense of honour causes him to refuse Mr. Bulstrode's offer of money, dishonestly gained, which should have been his mother's. When Dorothea, after a short widowhood, gives up position and fortune to marry him, he enters public life, without promise of marked success. It has been suggested that some traits in the character of Will Ladislaw were drawn, perhaps unconsciously, from George Henry Lewes, who, also, was a man of versatile talent and lively manner. Some critics, however, do not recognize Lewes as the original. Those who consider Lewes as the prototype find one of their arguments in the author's very evident fondness for the character of Ladislaw. (See Bonnell, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, Jane Austen, p. 240 ; Deakin, Early Life of George Eliot, p. 89: Parkinson, Scenes from the George Eliot Country, p. 140.)

<em>Middlemarch</em>

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