painted in a picture where he wanted to show the combination of
refinement with force. And there is something of a likeness, too, between the
faces belonging to the hands - in both the uniform pale-brown skin, the
perpendicular brow, the calmly penetrating eyes. Not seraphic any longer:
thoroughly terrestrial and manly; but still of a kind to raise belief in a human
dignity which can afford to acknowledge poor relations.
    Such types meet us here and there among average conditions; in a workman,
for example, whistling over a bit of measurement and lifting his eyes to answer
our question about the road. And often the grand meanings of faces as well as of
written words may lie chiefly in the impressions of those who look on them. But
it is precisely such impressions that happen just now to be of importance in
relation to Deronda, rowing on the Thames in a very ordinary equipment for a
young Englishman at leisure, and passing under Kew Bridge with no thought of an
adventure in which his appearance was likely to play any part. In fact, he
objected very strongly to the notion, which others had not allowed him to
escape, that his appearance was of a kind to draw attention; and hints of this,
intended to be complimentary, found an angry resonance in him, coming from
mingled experiences, to which a clue has already been given. His own face in the
glass had during many years been associated for him with thoughts of some one
whom he must be like - one about whose character and lot he continually
wondered, and never dared to ask.
    In the neighbourhood of Kew Bridge, between six and seven o'clock, the river
was no solitude. Several persons were sauntering on the towing-path, and here
and there a boat was plying. Deronda had been rowing fast to get over this spot,
when, becoming aware of a great barge advancing towards him, he guided his boat
aside, and rested on his oar within a couple of yards of the river-brink. He was
all the while unconsciously continuing the low-toned chant which had haunted his
throat all the way up the river - the gondolier's song in the Otello, where
Rossini has worthily set to music the immortal words of Dante -
 
»Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria:«1
 
and, as he rested on his oar, the pianissimo fall of the melodic wail »nella
miseria« was distinctly audible on the brink of the water. Three or four persons
had paused at various spots to watch the barge passing the bridge, and doubtless
included in