assionate delight or even independent interest?"

Deronda paused, but Gwendolen, looking startled and thrilled as by an
electric shock, said nothing, and he went on more insistently--

"I take what you said of music for a small example--it answers for all
larger things--you will not cultivate it for the sake of a private joy
in it. What sort of earth or heaven would hold any spiritual wealth in
it for souls pauperized by inaction? If one firmament has no stimulus
for our attention and awe, I don't see how four would have it. We
should stamp every possible world with the flatness of our own
inanity--which is necessarily impious, without faith or fellowship. The
refuge you are needing from personal trouble is the higher, the
religious life, which holds an enthusiasm for something more than our
own appetites and vanities. The few may find themselves in it simply by
an elevation of feeling; but for us who have to struggle for our
wisdom, the higher life must be a region in which the affections are
clad with knowledge."

The half-indignant remonstrance that vibrated in Deronda's voice came,
as often happens, from the habit of inward argument with himself rather
than from severity toward Gwendolen: but it had a more beneficial
effect on her than any soothings. Nothing is feebler than the indolent
rebellion of complaint; and to be roused into self-judgment is
comparative activity. For the moment she felt like a shaken
child--shaken out of its wailing into awe, and she said humbly--

"I will try. I will think."

They both stood silent for a minute, as if some third presence had
arrested them,--for Deronda, too, was under that sense of pressure
which is apt to come when our own winged words seem to be hovering
around us,--till Gwendolen began again--

"You said affection was the best thing, and I have hardly any--none
about me. If I could, I would have mamma; but that is impossible.
Things have changed to me so--in such a short time. What I used not to
like I long for now. I think I am almost getting fond of the old things
now they are gone." Her lip trembled.

"Take the present suffering as a painful letting in of light," said
Deronda, more gently. "You are conscious of more beyond the round of
your own inclinations--you know more of the way in which your life
presses on others, and their life on yours. I don't think you could
have escaped the painful process in some form or other."

"But it is a very cruel form," said