our of his whole
nature; but it is beside the fair head drooping under its burden of
hereditary sorrow that Deronda passes from our sight, the fitting type of
him who shall yet, sooner or later, re-establish that great Jewish
theocracy so long dreamt of, and reaffirm that Judaism yet holds a great
place in human life and civilisation.

We have throughout had no intention of dealing with George Eliot merely
as the artist; but if we have succeeded in showing this unity of moral
purpose and aim as pervading all her works, as giving rise to their
variety by reason of the varieties and modifications it necessitates in
order to its full illustration, and as ministered to, directly or
indirectly, by all the accessory characters and incidents of these
creations,--the question naturally arises, whether this does not
constitute her an artist of the highest possible order.

But the true worth of George Eliot's works rests, we think, on higher
grounds than any mere perfection of artistic finish; on this ground,
specially, that among all our fictionists she stands out as the deepest,
broadest, and most catholic illustrator of the true ethics of
Christianity; the most earnest and persistent expositor of the true
doctrine of the Cross, that we are born and should live to something
higher than the love of happiness; the most subtle and profound
commentator on the solemn words, "He that loveth his soul shall lose it:
he that hateth his soul shall keep it unto life eternal."

Footnotes:

{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