“Leader of the present so-called realistic school, our author keeps up in this work the reputation she has won of possessing the most minute knowledge of the subjects she handles, by the manner in which she has described the Jews—­the great unknown of humanity.  She has penetrated into their history and literature affectionately and thoroughly; and her knowledge in a field where ignorance is still venial if not expressly authorized, has astonished even experts.  In her selection of almost always unfamiliar quotations, she shows a taste and a facility of reference really amazing.  When shall we see a German writer exhibiting the courteous kindliness of George Eliot, who makes Deronda study Zunz’s Synagogale Poesie, and places the monumental words which open his chapter entitled ‘Leiden,’ at the head of the passage in which she introduces us to Ezra Cohen’s family, and at the club-meeting at which Mordecai gives utterance to his ideas concerning the future of Israel?  She is familiar with the views of Jehuda-ha-Levi as with the dreams and longings of the cabalists, and as conversant with the splendid names of our Hispano—­Arabian epoch as with the moral aphorisms of the Talmud and the subtle meaning contained in Jewish legends....  It is by the piety and tenderness with which she treats Jewish customs that the author shows how supreme her cultivation and refinement are; and the small number of mistakes which can be detected in her descriptions of Jewish life and ritual may put to blush even writers who belong to that race.”  Again this critic says of the visionary Mordecai, who has been pronounced a mere dreamer and untrue to nature, that he is an altogether probable character and portrayed with a true realistic touch.”  Mordecai is carved of the wood from which prophets are made, and so far as the supersensuous can be rendered intelligible, it may even be said that in studying him we are introduced into a studio or workshop of the prophetic mind.  He is one of the most difficult as well as one of the most successful essays in psychological analysis ever attempted by an author; and in his wonderful portrait, which must be closely studied, and not epitomized or reproduced in extracts, we see glowing enthusiasm united to cabalistic profundity, and the most morbid tension of the intellectual powers united to clear and well-defined hopes.  How has the author succeeded in making Mordecai so human and so true to nature?  By mixing the gold with an alloy of commoner metal, and by giving the angelic likeness features which are familiar to us all.”

Another Jew has borne equally hearty testimony to the faithfulness with which George Eliot has described Jewish life and the spirit of the Jewish religion.  “She has acquired,” this writer says, “an extended and profound knowledge of the rites, aspirations, hopes, fears and desires of the Israelites of the day.  She has read their books, inquired into their modes of thought, searched their traditions, accompanied