ence included sensibilities beyond the common,
enlarged by his early habit of thinking himself imaginatively into the
experience of others.

What was the claim this eager soul made upon him?--"You must believe my
beliefs--be moved by my reasons--hope my hopes--see the vision I point
to--behold a glory where I behold it!" To take such a demand in the
light of an obligation in any direct sense would have been
preposterous--to have seemed to admit it would have been dishonesty;
and Deronda, looking on the agitation of those moments, felt thankful
that in the midst of his compassion he had preserved himself from the
bondage of false concessions. The claim hung, too, on a supposition
which might be--nay, probably was--in discordance with the full fact:
the supposition that he, Deronda, was of Jewish blood. Was there ever a
more hypothetic appeal?

But since the age of thirteen Deronda had associated the deepest
experience of his affections with what was a pure supposition, namely,
that Sir Hugo was his father: that was a hypothesis which had been the
source of passionate struggle within him; by its light he had been
accustomed to subdue feelings and to cherish them. He had been well
used to find a motive in a conception which might be disproved; and he
had been also used to think of some revelation that might influence his
view of the particular duties belonging to him. To be in a state of
suspense, which was also one of emotive activity and scruple, was a
familiar attitude of his conscience.

And now, suppose that wish-begotten belief in his Jewish birth, and
that extravagant demand of discipleship, to be the foreshadowing of an
actual discovery and a genuine spiritual result: suppose that
Mordecai's ideas made a real conquest over Deronda's conviction? Nay,
it was conceivable that as Mordecai needed and believed that, he had
found an active replenishment of himself, so Deronda might receive from
Mordecai's mind the complete ideal shape of that personal duty and
citizenship which lay in his own thought like sculptured fragments
certifying some beauty yearned after but not traceable by divination.

As that possibility presented itself in his meditations, he was aware
that it would be called dreamy, and began to defend it. If the
influence he imagined himself submitting to had been that of some
honored professor, some authority in a seat of learning, some
philosopher who had been accepted as a voice of the age, would a
t