could silence the beliefs which are the
mother-tongue of my soul and speak with the rote-learned language of a
system, that gives you the spelling of all things, sure of its alphabet
covering them all. I could silence them: may not a man silence his awe
or his love, and take to finding reasons, which others demand? But if
his love lies deeper than any reasons to be found? Man finds his
pathways: at first they were foot tracks, as those of the beast in the
wilderness: now they are swift and invisible: his thought dives through
the ocean, and his wishes thread the air: has he found all the pathways
yet? What reaches him, stays with him, rules him: he must accept it,
not knowing its pathway. Say, my expectation of you has grown but as
false hopes grow. That doubt is in your mind? Well, my expectation was
there, and you are come. Men have died of thirst. But I was thirsty,
and the water is on my lips? What are doubts to me? In the hour when
you come to me and say, 'I reject your soul: I know that I am not a
Jew: we have no lot in common'--I shall not doubt. I shall be
certain--certain that I have been deluded. That hour will never come!"

Deronda felt a new chord sounding in his speech: it was rather
imperious than appealing--had more of conscious power than of the
yearning need which had acted as a beseeching grasp on him before. And
usually, though he was the reverse of pugnacious, such a change of
attitude toward him would have weakened his inclination to admit a
claim. But here there was something that balanced his resistance and
kept it aloof. This strong man whose gaze was sustainedly calm and his
finger-nails pink with health, who was exercised in all questioning,
and accused of excessive mental independence, still felt a subduing
influence over him in the tenacious certitude of the fragile creature
before him, whose pallid yellow nostril was tense with effort as his
breath labored under the burthen of eager speech. The influence seemed
to strengthen the bond of sympathetic obligation. In Deronda at this
moment the desire to escape what might turn into a trying embarrassment
was no more likely to determine action than the solicitations of
indolence are likely to determine it in one with whom industry is a
daily law. He answered simply--

"It is my wish to meet and satisfy your wishes wherever that is
possible to me. It is certain to me at least that I desire not to
undervalue your toil and your suffering. Let me kno