Middlemarch

Isn’t this the human condition?
Dorothea opens the notebooks expecting genius,
the project to which she’s subjugated her life
and not insignificant intellect. George Eliot,
ungainly and plain, knowing her own mind,
creates the condition for crushing disappointment,
the house of cards collapsing, banality,
Casaubon less than a mere mortal, now dead,
chaining Dodo to his desk and dusty scribbles.
Worse than the loss of fortunes, we all sit
watching as the furniture is carried out,
piece by beautiful piece, packed in the wagon
and driven away, leaving us only to our selves.