, great
recognitions are not encumbered with these details; and certainly Deronda had as
reverential an interest in Mordecai and Mirah as he could have had in the
offspring of Agamemnon; but he was caring for destinies still moving in the dim
streets of our earthly life, not yet lifted among the constellations, and his
task presented itself to him as difficult and delicate, especially in persuading
Mordecai to change his abode and habits. Concerning Mirah's feeling and resolve
he had no doubt: there would be a complete union of sentiment towards the
departed mother, and Mirah would understand her brother's greatness. Yes,
greatness: that was the word which Deronda now deliberately chose to signify the
impression that Mordecai made on him. He said to himself, perhaps rather
defiantly towards the more negative spirit within him, that this man, however
erratic some of his interpretations might be - this consumptive Jewish workman
in threadbare clothing, lodged by charity, delivering himself to hearers who
took his thoughts without attaching more consequences to them than the Flemings
to the ethereal chimes ringing above their market-places - had the chief
elements of greatness: a mind consciously, energetically moving with the larger
march of human destinies, but not the less full of conscience and tender heart
for the footsteps that tread near and need a leaning-place; capable of
conceiving and choosing a life's task with far-off issues, yet capable of the
unapplauded heroism which turns off the road of achievement at the call of the
nearer duty whose effect lies within the beatings of the hearts that are close
to us, as the hunger of the unfledged bird to the breast of its parent.
    Deronda to-night was stirred with the feeling that the brief remnant of this
fervid life had become his charge. He had been peculiarly wrought on by what he
had seen at the club of the friendly indifference which Mordecai must have gone
on encountering. His own experience of the small room that ardour can make for
itself in ordinary minds had had the effect of increasing his reserve; and while
tolerance was the easiest attitude to him, there was another bent in him also
capable of becoming a weakness - the dislike to appear exceptional or to risk an
ineffective insistance on his own opinion. But such caution appeared
contemptible to him just now, when he for the first time saw in a complete
picture and felt as a reality the lives that burn themselves out in solitary
enthusiasm: martyrs of obscure circumstance, exiled in the rarity of their own
minds, whose deliverances in other ears are no more than a long passionate
soliloquy - unless perhaps at last, when they are