Peter Featherstone

Peter Solomon Featherstone is a wealthy landowner of advanced age and considerable property in Middlemarch, accustomed to wielding his fortune as an instrument of authority over his extensive circle of relatives and dependents. Living at Stone Court, his country house, he occupies a dominant position in local society by virtue of his financial standing, though his increasing infirmities have begun to confine him more frequently to his chair. His interactions with his numerous relations—nephews, nieces, and their spouses—are characterized by a sardonic pleasure in manipulating their hopes and anxieties regarding his inheritance; he is moved by neither affection nor principle, but rather by a cold appreciation for the entertainment value of watching people scramble for his favor. He is shrewd in financial matters and takes a keen interest in the proceedings of others' lives insofar as they might affect his own comfort or amusement. Though his health visibly declines as the novel progresses, his mind remains sharp and his capacity for acid comment undiminished, making him a figure both feared and grudgingly respected within his family circle and in local society at large.