know, I have always longed for some ideal task in which I might feel myself the heart and brain of a multitude—­some social captainship which would come to me as a duty, and not be striven for as a personal prize.  You have raised the image of such a task for me—­to bind our race together in spite of heresy.”

This inherited sense of a larger life made Deronda what he was, and developed in him qualities absent in Gwendolen.  This inherited power made him a new Mazzini, a born leader of men, a new saviour of society, a personal magnet to attract and inspire other souls.  A magnetic power of influence drew Gwendolen to him from the first time they met, he shamed her narrow life by his silent presence, and he quickened to life in her a desire for a purer and nobler existence.  George Eliot probably meant to indicate in his character her conception of the true social reformation which is needed to-day, and how it is to be brought about.  The basis on which it is to be built is the traditional and inherited life of the past, inspired with new energies and meanings by the gifted souls who have inherited a large and pure personality, and who are inspired by a quickened sense of what life ought to be.  On the one side a life of altruism, on the other a life of egotism, teach that the liner social and moral qualities come out of an inheritance in the national ideals and conquests of a worthy people, while the coarser qualities come of the neglect of this source of spiritual power and sustenance.  Two letters written to Professor David Kaufmann indicate that this was the purpose of the hook.  At the same time, they show George Eliot’s mind on other sides, and give added insights into her character.  As an indication of her attitude towards Judaism, and her faith in the work she had done in Daniel Deronda, they are of great value.

THE PRIORY, 21 NORTH BANK,
May 31, ’77.

MY DEAR SIR,—­Hardly, since I became an author, have I had a deeper satisfaction, I may say a more heartfelt joy, than you have given me in your estimate of Daniel Deronda. [Footnote:  George Eliot and Judaism:  an Attempt to Appreciate Daniel Deronda.  By Prof.  David Kaufmann, of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Buda-Pesth.]

I must tell you that it is my rule, very strictly observed, not to read the criticisms on my writings.  For years I have found this abstinence necessary to preserve me from that discouragement as an artist which ill-judged praise, no less than ill-judged blame, tends to produce in me.  For far worse than any verdict as to the proportion of good and evil in our work, is the painful impression that we write for a public which has no discernment of good and evil.

My husband reads any notices of me that come before him, and reports to me (or else refrains from reporting) the general character of the notice, or something in particular which strikes him as showing either an exceptional insight or an obtuseness that is gross enough to be amusing.  Very rarely, when he has read a critique of me, he has handed it to me, saying, “You must read this.”  And your estimate of Daniel Deronda made one of these rare instances.