GEORGE ELIOT AND SOLOMON MAIMON
That George Eliot was well acquainted with certain aspects of Jewish history, is fairly clear from her writings. But there is collateral evidence of an interesting kind that proves the same fact quite conclusively, I think.
It will be remembered that Daniel Deronda went into a second-hand book-shop and bought a small volume for half a crown, thereby making the acquaintance of Ezra Cohen. Some time back I had in my hands the identical book that George Eliot purchased which formed the basis of the incident. The book may now be seen in Dr. Williams's Library, Gordon Square, London. The few words in which George Eliot dismisses the book in her novel would hardly lead one to gather how carefully and conscientiously she had read the volume, which has since been translated into English by Dr. J. Clark Murray. She, of course, bought and read the original German.
The book is Solomon Maimon's Autobiography, a fascinating piece of self-revelation and of history. (An admirable account of it may be found in chapter x of the fifth volume of the English translation of Graetz's "History of the Jews.") Maimon, cynic and skeptic, was a man all head and no heart, but he was not without "character," in one sense of the word. He forms a necessary link in the progress of modern Jews towards their newer culture. Schiller and Goethe admired him considerably, and, as we shall soon see, George Eliot was a careful student of his celebrated pages. Any reader who takes the book up, will hardly lay it down until he has finished the first part, at least.
Several marginal and other notes in the copy of the Autobiography that belonged to George Eliot are, I am convinced, in her own handwriting, and I propose to print here some of her jottings, all of which are in pencil, but carefully written. Above the Introduction, she writes: "This book might mislead many readers not acquainted with other parts of Jewish history. But for a worthy account (in brief) of Judaism and Rabbinism, see p. 150." This reference takes one to the fifteenth chapter of the Autobiography. Indeed, George Eliot was right as to the misleading tendency of a good deal in Maimon's "wonderful piece of autobiography," as she terms the work in "Daniel Deronda." She returns to the attack on p. 36 of her copy, where she has jotted, "See infra, p. 150 et seq. for a better-informed view of Talmudic study."
How carefully George Eliot read! The pagination of 207 is printed wrongly as 160; she corrects it! She corrects Kimesi into "Kimchi" on p. 48, Rabasse into "R. Ashe" on p. 163. On p. 59 she writes, "According to the Talmud no one is eternally damned." Perhaps her statement needs some slight qualification. Again (p. 62), "Rashi, i.e. Rabbi Shelomoh ben Isaak, whom Buxtorf mistakenly called Jarchi." It was really to Raymund Martini that this error goes back. But George Eliot could not know it. On p. 140, Maimon begins, "Accordingly, I sought to explain all this in the following way," to which George Eliot appends the note, "But this is simply what the Cabbala teaches—not his own ingenious explanation."
It is interesting to find George Eliot occasionally defending Judaism against Maimon. On p. 165 he talks of the "abuse of Rabbinism," in that the Rabbis tacked on new laws to old texts. "Its origin," says George Eliot's pencilled jotting, "was the need for freedom to modify laws"—a fine remark. On p. 173, where Maimon again talks of the Rabbinical method of evolving all sorts of moral truths by the oddest exegesis, she writes, "The method has been constantly pursued in various forms by Christian Teachers." On p. 186 Maimon makes merry at the annulment of vows previous to the Day of Atonement. George Eliot writes, "These are religious vows—not engagements between man and man."
Furthermore, she makes some translations of the titles of Hebrew books cited, and enters a correction of an apparently erroneous statement of fact on p. 215. There Maimon writes as though the Zohar had been promulgated after Sabbatai Zebi. George Eliot notes: "Sabbatai Zebi lived long after the production of the Zohar. He was a contemporary of Spinoza. Moses de Leon belonged to the fourteenth century." This remark shows that George Eliot knew Graetz's History, for it is he who brought the names of Spinoza and Sabbatai Zebi together in two chapter headings in his work. Besides, Graetz's History was certainly in George Eliot's library; it was among the Lewes books now at Dr. Williams's. Again, on p. 265, Maimon speaks of the Jewish fast that falls in August. George Eliot jots on the margin, "July? Fast of Ninth Ab."
Throughout passages are pencilled, and at the end she gives an index to the parts that seem to have interested her particularly. This is her list:
Talmudic quotations, 36.
Polish Doctor, 49.
The Talmudist, 60.
Prince R. and the Barber, 110.
Talmudic Method, 174.
Polish Jews chiefly Gelehrte, 211.
Zohar, 215.
Rabbinical Morality, 176.
New Chasidim, 207.
Elias aus Wilna, 242.
Angels (?), 82.
Tamuz, II., 135.
It is a pleasure, indeed, to find a fresh confirmation, that George Eliot's favorable impression of Judaism was based on a very adequate acquaintance with its history. Sir Walter Scott's knowledge of it was, one cannot but feel, far less intimate than George Eliot's, but his poetic insight kept him marvellously straight in his appreciation of Jewish life and character.