Page:Eliot - Daniel Deronda, vol. III, 1876.djvu/301

 pulsion from Gwendolen, as if she and her beauty and her failings were to blame for the under-valuing of Mirah as a woman—a feeling something like class animosity, which affection for what is not fully recognised by others, whether in persons or in poetry, rarely allows us to escape. To Hans admiring Gwendolen with his habitual hyperbole, he answered, with a sarcasm that was not quite good-humoured—

"I thought you could admire no style of woman but your Berenice."

"That is the style I worship—not admire," said Hans. "Other styles of woman I might make myself wicked for, but for Berenice I could make myself—well, pretty good, which is something much more difficult."

"Hush!" said Deronda, under the pretext that the singing was going to begin. He was not so delighted with the answer as might have been expected, and was relieved by Hans's movement to a more advanced spot.

Deronda had never before heard Mirah sing "O patria mia." He knew well Leopardi's fine Ode to Italy (when Italy sat like a disconsolate mother in chains, hiding her face on her knees and weeping), and the few selected words were filled for him with the grandeur of the whole,