, whether in its sum total or
in the separate minds that have made the sum. Columbus had some impressions
about himself which we call superstitions, and used some arguments which we
disapprove; but he had also some true physical conceptions, and he had the
passionate patience of genius to make them tell on mankind. The world has made
up its mind rather contemptuously about those who were deaf to Columbus.
    »My contempt for them binds me to see that I don't adopt their mistake on a
small scale,« said Deronda, »and make myself deaf with the assumption that there
cannot be any momentous relation between this Jew and me, simply because he has
clad it in illusory notions. What I can be to him, or he to me, may not at all
depend on his persuasion about the way we came together. To me the way seems
made up of plainly discernible links. If I had not found Mirah, it is probable
that I should not have begun to be specially interested in the Jews, and
certainly I should not have gone on that loitering search after an Ezra Cohen
which made me pause at Ram's book-shop and ask the price of Maimon. Mordecai, on
his side, had his visions of a disciple, and he saw me by their light; I
corresponded well enough with the image his longing had created. He took me for
one of his race. Suppose that his impression - the elderly Jew at Frankfort
seemed to have something like it - suppose, in spite of all presumptions to the
contrary, that his impression should somehow be proved true, and that I should
come actually to share any of the ideas he is devoted to? This is the only
question which really concerns the effect of our meeting on my life.
    But if the issue should be quite different? - well, there will be something
painful to go through. I shall almost inevitably have to be an active cause of
that poor fellow's crushing disappointment. Perhaps this issue is the one I had
need prepare myself for. I fear that no tenderness of mine can make his
suffering lighter. Would the alternative - that I should not disappoint him - be
less painful to me?«
    Here Deronda wavered. Feelings had lately been at work within him which had
very much modified the reluctance he would formerly have had to think of himself
as probably a Jew. And, if you like, he was romantic. That young energy and
spirit of adventure which have helped to create the worldwide legends of
youthful heroes going to seek the hidden tokens of their birth and its
inheritance
