into account—­has it no significance in the future equal to what it has had in the past?  There seems an impression that the Jew is being absorbed by other races.  We hear much of relaxing Judaisms; of rituals and beliefs assimilating to those around them; of peculiarities being laid aside, that have withstood the wear and tear of centuries.  The inference is sought to be drawn that the Jew is beginning to feel his isolation, and to sink his own national life amid that among which he dwells.  We accept all the facts; but can only see in them that, under the influence of the profound thought and research of its great leaders, Judaism is shaking off the dust of ages, and is more vividly awaking to its mission upon earth.  We believe it is coming forth from all this superficial change, more intensely and powerfully Judaical, more penetrated and vivified by that thought which for untold centuries has been the life of its life.  What is to be its specific future as a leader in the advancement and redemption of humanity, none can foresee.  But it seems the reverse of strange that a genius like George Eliot’s should have been powerfully attracted by this problem; and that, in one of her noblest works, she should have very prominently addressed herself to at least a partial solution of it.  That the solution she suggests is a noble one, few who carefully consider the subject will, we think, deny.  The establishment of a Jewish polity, in the true sense of the word a theocracy, where the Infinite Holiness is supreme, and in its supremacy is included a reign of justice, purity, and love;—­the establishment of such a polity locally between the materialistic proclivities of the West and the psychological subtleties of the East, mediative between them, communicating from each to each of those essentials to human life in which the other is deficient, is a conception worthy of her genius.

Another minor and very trivial objection to the presence of this Jewish element need be no more than adverted to.  It is the presence of such different types as the mean-souled scoundrel Lapidoth; the shrewd self-approving trader Cohen, with the inimitable picture of a home-life so pleasant and kindly; the vague intense enthusiasm, the ardent aspirations and fervent hopes of Mordecai; the absorbing Judaism of the Physician; the fierce revulsion of his daughter against her race and name; the meek, delicate, ethereal purity of Mirah; the innate Jewish yearnings and aspirations of Deronda, expanded by all the breadth that could be given by the highest Anglo-Saxon culture and training.  To those who take exception to this, it is answer more than sufficient that, as an artist, it was necessary to present every typical phase of Jewish character and life; and we confess there are other passages in the work we could better spare than these delicious pictures of a London-Jewish pawnbroker at home.