Page:George Eliot and Judaism.djvu/57

 tellectual and spiritual force, still misapprehended and readily overlooked, but not the less an effective power, for the future of which it is a good assurance that it possesses in the body of its adherents a noble, susceptible, and pliant material which only awaits its final casting to appear in a glorious form.

An examination of that part of 'Daniel Deronda' which relates specially to the Jews and Judaism is inseparable from an æsthetic estimate of it as a whole. At a first superficial glance it falls apart into two entirely unconnected narratives. Gwendolen Harleth, a brilliant, vivacious, and haughty girl, gives her hand to Mr Henleigh Grandcourt, humbled by the impoverishment of her family, and dazzled by the appearance of that perfect man of the world. But there arises between husband and wife the spectre of a woman, Lydia Glasher, Grandcourt's cast-off mis-