{15} The translators of our English Bible, possibly perplexed by the seeming paradox involved in these remarkable words, have taken an unwarrantable freedom with the original, in rendering the Greek [Greek text], invariably the synonym of the soul, the spiritual and undying element in man, by “life”—­the [Greek text] of all Greek literature so-called, sacred and profane alike; the synonym of that life which is his in common with the beast of the field and the tree of the forest.

{29} Perhaps no finer and more subtle illustration of this “instinct of the gentleman” can be found in literature than when, at the moment of Harold Transome’s deepest humiliation, where Jermyn claims him as his son, good old Sir Marmaduke, not only his political opponent but personally disliking him, for the first and only time in all their intercourse addresses him by his Christian name, “Come, Harold.”

{97} In connection with Bulstrode occurs one of those delicate indications of character, condensed into a few words, which others would expand into pages, peculiar to George Eliot.  It occurs in the depth of his humiliation, when his wife, hitherto comparatively characterless, in full token of her acceptance of their fallen lot, “takes off all her ornaments, and puts on a plain gown, and instead of wearing her much adorned-cap and large bows of hair, brushes down her hair, and puts on a plain bonnet-cap, which makes her look like an early Methodist.”

{103} Does all poetry ancient or modern, so-called sacred or profane, contain an image more impressive and majestic than that in the “doom of Babylon,” as the great incarnation of pride and luxury descends to its place:  “Hades from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming:  it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.”