Page:George Eliot and Judaism.djvu/53

 to use an expression of George Eliot's own, like the hundred-gated Thebes, manifold openings to his soul by which events and phenomena of life, unseen and unheard by his dull fellow-creatures, gain access to him. That this book presents Judaism as the seed of fire and as a motive power, be it among a mere handful on the earth, constitutes not only its poetical truth and beauty, but also its poetical justice; and herein, too, lies the peculiarity which distinguishes George Eliot's treatment of the Jews from the traditional misusage to which other authors have been wont to subject them. It is not the custom of great imaginative writers to fling out the traits of their dramatis personæ like worthless counters, but to present so many only as are absolutely necessary for the explanation of the Inward by the Outward, and exactly sufficient to bring before us the image of