The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1879-06-26
GEORGE ELIOT on THE JEWS.
Their characteristics and Their Destiny
Some Interesting Extracts from the Great
Novelist's New Book.

1utlT 1ucIE
Some Interesting Extracts from the Great
Novelist's New Book.
George Eliot's new book, "Impressions
OF TheophrastusS Such" contains strong
paper called "The Modern Hep! Hepl
Hepw which is vigorous plea for the
modern Jew. 1t says:
The eminence, the nobleness, of peo-
pie, depends on its capability of being
stirred by memories and of striving for
what we call spiritual ends-ends which
consist not in immediate material pos
session, but in the satisfaction of q great
feeling that animates the collective body
with one soul. A people having the
seed of worthiness in it must feel all an
swering thrill when it is adjured by the
deaths of its heroes who died to preserve
its national existence; when it is remin.
ded of its small beginnings and gradual
growth through past labors and strug-
giles, such as are still demanded of it in or
der that the freedom and well-being thus
inherited may be transmitted unimpaired
to children and children's children, when
an appeal against the permission of in
Justice is made to great precedents in its
history and to the breathing in its insti-
tutions. 1t is this living force Of senti-
ment in common which makes nation.
al consciousness. Nations so mbved will
resist conquests with the very breasts of
their women, will pay their millions and
their blood to abolish slavery, will share
privations in famine and all calamity,
will produce poets to sing some great
story of o man." and thinkers whose
theories will bear the test of action. An
individual man, to be harmoniously
great, must belong to a nation of this
order, if not in actual existence, yet e1-
listing in the past, in memory, as depar-
ted, invisible, beloved ideal, once real
ity and perhaps to be restored. A com.
mon humanity is not yet enoug h to feed
the rich blood of various activity which
make q complete man.
As to the future of the Jews as na-
tion, George Eliot holds certain positive
views which are worthy of being set
forth fully and in which there is much
food for meditation:
And this is the usual level OF thinking
in polite society concerning the Jews.
Apart from theological purposes, it
seems to be held surprising that anybody
should take an interest in the history of
people whose literature has furnished
all our devotional language; and if any
reference is made to their past or future
destinies some hearer is sure to state as
q relevant fact which may assist our
judgment that she, for her part, is not
fond of them, having known aMr. Jacob
son who was very unpleasant; or that
he, for his part, thinks meanly of them
as race, though on inquiry you find
that he is so little acquainted with their
characteristics that he is astonished to
learn how many persons whom he has
blindly admired and applauded are Jews
to the backbone. Again, men who con-
slider themselves in the very van of fmodern
advancement, knowing history and the
latest PHILOSOPHERS of history, indicate
their contemptuous surprise that any
one should entartain the destiny of the
Jews as worthy subject, by referring to
Moloch and their own agreement with
the theory that the religion of Jehovah
was merely transformed Moloch wor-
ship, while in the same breath they are
clarifying Civilization" as transformed
tribal existence of which some linea-
ments are traceable in grim marriage
customs of the native Australians. Are
these erudite persons prepared to insist
the name "Father" should no longer
have any sanctity for us, because in their
view of likelihood our Aryan ancestors
were mere improvers on state of things
in which nobody knew his own father?
For less theoretic men, ambitious to
be regarded as practical politicians, the
value of the Hebrew race has been meas
ured by their unfavorable opinion of q
prime minister who is Jew by lineage.
But it is so possible to form very ugly
opinion as to the scrupulousness of Wal
pole or of Chatham, and in every case
I think Englishmen would refuse to ac-
cept the character and doings of those
eighteen-century statesmen as the stan.
dard value for the English people and
the part they have to play in the for
tunes of mankind.
FIVE are to consider the future of the
Jews at all, it seems reasonable to
take as preliminary question: Are
they destined to complete fusion with the
peoples among whom they are dispersed,
losing every remnant of distinctive con-
sciousness as Jews, or are there in the
breadth and intensity with which the
feeling of separatedness, or what we may
call the organized memory of national
consciousness, actually exists in the
worldwide Jewish communicable
seven millions scattered from east to
west-and again, are there in the politi-
cal relations of the world, the conditions
present or approaching for the restora-
ton Of Jewish State planted on the old
ground as centre of national feeling, q
source of dignifying protection, special
channel for special energies which may
contribute some added form of national
genius and an added voice in the council
Of the world.
They are among US everywhere; it is
useless to say we are not fond of them.
Perhaps we are not fond of proletaries
and their tendency to form unions, but
the world is not therefore to be rid of
them. If we wish to free ourselves from
the inconveniences that we have 10 COM
plain of, whether in proletaries or in
Jews, our best course is TO encourage all
means of improving these neighbors who
elbow us in q thickening crowd; and of
sending their incommodious energies
into benefcent channels. Why are we
so eager for the dignity of populations
of whom perhaps we have never seen
single specimen, and of whose history
legend or literature we have been con-
tentedly ignorant for ages, while we
sneer at the notion of a renovated ma
tional dignity for the Jews, whose ways
of thinking and whose very verbal forms
are on our lips in every prayer which we
end with an Amen? Some of US consider
this question dismissed when they have
said that the wealthiest Jews have no de-
sire to forsake their European palaces
and 90 to live in Jerusalem. But in q
rnturn from exile in the restoration of q