Page:George Eliot and Judaism.djvu/54

 the characters represented; and, therefore, when we find Judaism beneath these traits, we are justified in assuming that it has been introduced for the purpose of explaining the peculiarities inherent in those who bear them. If these peculiarities are hateful and mean, the reader will form an idea that it is the writers aim to bring out the vices and moral defects of Judaism; and, in this way, every caricature which is drawn of a Jew serves to increase the slumbering and lurking animosity with which the race is regarded. But if, as is generally the case, these sins and shortcomings have no real connection with Judaism, in spite of their being notched on her tally, then the writer has degraded himself, and has become a pander to profligacy, an instigator of low passion, a calumniator, and a liar; and he who has no more to say about the Jews than that they have hooked noses and