be antiquarian trifles, dead as the wall-paintings of a conjectured
race. Yet let his child learn by rote the speech of the Greek, where he adjures
his fellow-citizens by the bravery of those who fought foremost at Marathon -
let him learn to say, that was noble in the Greek, that is the spirit of an
immortal nation! But the Jew has no memories that bind him to action; let him
laugh that his nation is degraded from a nation; let him hold the monuments of
his law which carried within its frame the breath of social justice, of charity,
and of household sanctities - let him hold the energy of the prophets, the
patient care of the Masters, the fortitude of martyred generations, as mere
stuff for a professorship. The business of the Jew in all things is to be even
as the rich Gentile.«
    Mordecai threw himself back in his chair, and there was a moment's silence.
Not one member of the club shared his point of view or his emotion; but his
whole personality and speech had on them the effect of a dramatic representation
which had some pathos in it, though no practical consequences; and usually he
was at once indulged and contradicted. Deronda's mind went back on what must
have been the tragic pressure of outward conditions hindering this man, whose
force he felt to be telling on himself, from making any world for his thought in
the minds of others - like a poet among people of a strange speech, who may have
a poetry of their own, but have no ear for his cadence, no answering thrill to
his discovery of latent virtues in his mother tongue.
    The cool Buchan was the first to speak, and hint the loss of time. »I
submit,« said he, »that ye're travelling away from the questions I put
concerning progress.«
    »Say they're levanting, Buchan,« said Miller, who liked his joke, and would
not have objected to be called Voltairian. »Never mind. Let us have a Jewish
night; we've not had one for a long while. Let us take the discussion on Jewish
ground. I suppose we've no prejudice here; we're all philosophers; and we like
our friends Mordecai, Pash, and Gideon, as well as if they were no more kin to
Abraham than the rest of us. We're all related through Adam, until further
showing to the contrary, and if you look into history we've all got some
discreditable forefathers. So I mean no offence when I