ot the less an effective power, for the future of which it
is good assurance that it possesses in the body of its adherents a noble,
susceptible and pliant material which only awaits its final casting to
appear in a glorious form." He also says of the author's learning, that it
is loving and exact, that her descriptions of Jewish life are always
faithful and her characters true to nature.

"Leader of the present so-called realistic school, our author keeps up in
this work the reputation she has won of possessing the most minute
knowledge of the subjects she handles, by the manner in which she has
described the Jews--the great unknown of humanity. She has penetrated into
their history and literature affectionately and thoroughly; and her
knowledge in a field where ignorance is still venial if not expressly
authorized, has astonished even experts. In her selection of almost always
unfamiliar quotations, she shows a taste and a facility of reference really
amazing. When shall we see a German writer exhibiting the courteous
kindliness of George Eliot, who makes Deronda study Zunz's _Synagogale
Poesie_, and places the monumental words which open his chapter entitled
'Leiden,' at the head of the passage in which she introduces us to Ezra
Cohen's family, and at the club-meeting at which Mordecai gives utterance
to his ideas concerning the future of Israel? She is familiar with the
views of Jehuda-ha-Levi as with the dreams and longings of the cabalists,
and as conversant with the splendid names of our Hispano--Arabian epoch as
with the moral aphorisms of the Talmud and the subtle meaning contained in
Jewish legends.... It is by the piety and tenderness with which she treats
Jewish customs that the author shows how supreme her cultivation and
refinement are; and the small number of mistakes which can be detected in
her descriptions of Jewish life and ritual may put to blush even writers
who belong to that race." Again this critic says of the visionary Mordecai,
who has been pronounced a mere dreamer and untrue to nature, that he is an
altogether probable character and portrayed with a true realistic touch."
Mordecai is carved of the wood from which prophets are made, and so far as
the supersensuous can be rendered intelligible, it may even be said that in
studying him we are introduced into a studio or workshop of the prophetic
mind. He is one of the most difficult as well as one of the most successful
essays in psychological ana