Page:George Eliot and Judaism.djvu/66

 empty prosperity of Sir Hugo Mallinger, who regards his presumptive heir Grandcourt as a veritable thorn in the flesh, and vainly seeks to quiet his own inward discontent by a thousand idle distractions? The characters seem sometimes to take voices to themselves, and cry, Compare your superficial splendour, your frivolous pleasures, your poor, futile amusements, your gnawing passions, and your absorbing vices, with the deep contentedness, the all-satisfying delights, and the moral purity of the higher Jewish life, and see if these Jews are, after all, so much more contemptible than yourselves! What is Gascoigne's son? A victim of unrequited love, at variance with himself. In Hans Meyrick, even, there is nothing but the light temperament of the artist, for he turns round bitter and hostile upon Deronda, his best friend and well-wisher, when the latter's interests come into col-