f our people are
ignorant, narrow, superstitious? What wonder?"

Here Mordecai, whose seat was next the fireplace, rose and leaned his
arm on the little shelf; his excitement had risen, though his voice,
which had begun with unusual strength, was getting hoarser.

"What wonder? The night is unto them, that they have no vision; in
their darkness they are unable to divine; the sun is gone down over the
prophets, and the day is dark above them; their observances are as
nameless relics. But which among the chief of the Gentile nations has
not an ignorant multitude? They scorn our people's ignorant observance;
but the most accursed ignorance is that which has no observance--sunk
to the cunning greed of the fox, to which all law is no more than a
trap or the cry of the worrying hound. There is a degradation deep down
below the memory that has withered into superstition. In the multitudes
of the ignorant on three continents who observe our rites and make the
confession of the divine Unity, the soul of Judaism is not dead. Revive
the organic centre: let the unity of Israel which has made the growth
and form of its religion be an outward reality. Looking toward a land
and a polity, our dispersed people in all the ends of the earth may
share the dignity of a national life which has a voice among the
peoples of the East and the West--which will plant the wisdom and skill
of our race so that it may be, as of old, a medium of transmission and
understanding. Let that come to pass, and the living warmth will spread
to the weak extremities of Israel, and superstition will vanish, not in
the lawlessness of the renegade, but in the illumination of great facts
which widen feeling, and make all knowledge alive as the young
offspring of beloved memories."

Mordecai's voice had sunk, but with the hectic brilliancy of his gaze
it was not the less impressive. His extraordinary excitement was
certainly due to Deronda's presence: it was to Deronda that he was
speaking, and the moment had a testamentary solemnity for him which
rallied all his powers. Yet the presence of those other familiar men
promoted expression, for they embodied the indifference which gave a
resistant energy to his speech. Not that he looked at Deronda: he
seemed to see nothing immediately around him, and if any one had
grasped him he would probably not have known it. Again the former words
came back to Deronda's mind,--"You must hope my hopes--see the vision I
point to--b