Pulcheria. I really think the two writers are very much alike. They are both very voluble, both addicted to moralising and philosophising à tout bout de champ, both inartistic.
Constantius. I see what you mean. But George Eliot is solid, and George Sand is liquid. When occasionally George Eliot liquefies—as in the history of Deronda’s birth, and in that of Mirah—it is not to so crystalline a clearness as the author of Consuelo and André. Take Mirah’s long narrative of her adventures, when she unfolds them to Mrs. Meyrick. It is arranged, it is artificial, ancien jeu, quite in the George Sand manner. But George Sand would have done it better. The false tone would have remained, but it would have been more persuasive. It would have been a fib, but the fib would have been neater.
Theodora. I don’t think fibbing neatly a merit, and I don’t see what is to be gained by such comparisons. George Eliot is pure and George Sand is impure; how can you compare them? As for the Jewish element in Deronda, I think it a very fine idea; it’s a noble subject. Wilkie Collins and Miss Braddon would not have thought of it, but that does not condemn it. It shows a large conception of what one may do in a novel. I heard you say, the other day, that most novels were so trivial—that they had no general ideas. Here is a general idea, the idea interpreted by Deronda. I have never disliked the Jews as some people do; I am not like Pulcheria, who sees a Jew in every bush. I wish there were one; I would cultivate shrubbery. I have known too many clever and charming Jews; I have known none that were not clever.
Pulcheria. Clever, but not charming.
Constantius. I quite agree with you as to Deronda’s going in for the Jews and turning out a Jew himself being a fine subject, and this quite apart from the fact of whether such a thing as a Jewish revival be at all a possibility. If it be a possibility, so much the better—so much the better for the subject, I mean.
Pulcheria. A la bonne heure!
Constantius. I rather suspect it is not a possibility; that the Jews in general take themselves much less seriously than that. They have other fish to fry. George Eliot takes them as a person outside of Judaism—æsthetically. I don’t believe that is the way they take themselves.
Pulcheria. They have the less excuse then for keeping themselves so dirty.
Theodora. George Eliot must have known some delightful Jews.
Constantius. Very likely; but I shouldn’t wonder if the most delightful of them had smiled a trifle, here and there, over her book. But that makes nothing, as Herr Klesmer would say. The subject is a noble one. The idea of depicting a nature able to feel and worthy to feel the sort of inspiration that takes possession of Deronda, of depicting it sympathetically, minutely and intimately—such an idea has great elevation. There is something very fascinating in the mission that Deronda takes upon himself. I don’t quite know what it means, I don’t understand more than half of Mordecai’s rhapsodies, and I don’t perceive exactly what practical steps could be taken. Deronda could go about and talk with clever Jews—not an unpleasant life.