ibs, who
know little of theology, regard thieving as a practice peculiarly
connected with Christian tenets, and probably they could allege
experimental grounds for this opinion. Deronda could not escape (who
can?) knowing ugly stories of Jewish characteristics and occupations;
and though one of his favorite protests was against the severance of
past and present history, he was like others who shared his protest, in
never having cared to reach any more special conclusions about actual
Jews than that they retained the virtues and vices of a long-oppressed
race. But now that Mirah's longing roused his mind to a closer survey
of details, very disagreeable images urged themselves of what it might
be to find out this middle-aged Jewess and her son. To be sure, there
was the exquisite refinement and charm of the creature herself to make
a presumption in favor of her immediate kindred, but--he must wait to
know more: perhaps through Mrs. Meyrick he might gather some guiding
hints from Mirah's own lips. Her voice, her accent, her looks--all the
sweet purity that clothed her as with a consecrating garment made him
shrink the more from giving her, either ideally or practically, an
association with what was hateful or contaminating. But these fine
words with which we fumigate and becloud unpleasant facts are not the
language in which we think. Deronda's thinking went on in rapid images
of what might be: he saw himself guided by some official scout into a
dingy street; he entered through a dim doorway, and saw a hawk-eyed
woman, rough-headed, and unwashed, cheapening a hungry girl's last bit
of finery; or in some quarter only the more hideous for being smarter,
he found himself under the breath of a young Jew talkative and
familiar, willing to show his acquaintance with gentlemen's tastes, and
not fastidious in any transactions with which they would favor him--and
so on through the brief chapter of his experience in this kind. Excuse
him: his mind was not apt to run spontaneously into insulting ideas, or
to practice a form of wit which identifies Moses with the advertisement
sheet; but he was just now governed by dread, and if Mirah's parents
had been Christian, the chief difference would have been that his
forebodings would have been fed with wider knowledge. It was the habit
of his mind to connect dread with unknown parentage, and in this case
as well as his own there was enough to make the connection reasonable.

But what was to