Page:George Eliot and Judaism.djvu/82

 tured at the sight of Bar-Cochba, broke into the words, "A star is arisen in Jacob," he mav have felt as Mordecai, when he beheld the realisation of his dreams and the accomplishment of his yearnings advance towards him in the person of Deronda. In deep harmony too with this entire "frail incorporation of the national consciousness, breathing with difficult breath," is the circumstance that Mordecai dies on the eve of setting out for the Holy Land—that the Sower is not permitted to behold the ripened fruit, but passes away, leaving Deronda an actual testament to execute. In the same way the prophets who presaged in the loftiest visions the return from the Babylonian Captivity never set foot on their native soil; and it would seem indeed that all intellectual and spiritual leaders are destined to share the lot of Moses, who could only gaze from afar upon the land which was to crown his