of furniture, and treating them as such. How the hints which are thrown out concerning the wretchedness of the married life of Mirah's mother throw into dark relief the conduct of Gwendolen, who actually deliberates whether or not to throw a rope to her drowning husband, and does not, as a matter of fact, throw it till too late! Then compare Henleigh Grandcourt and Daniel Deronda. In the one we see emptiness and blunted perception, the disgust which is born of satiety, polish and fascinating adroitness combined with absolute want of feeling, and perfect worldly wisdom hiding heartless barbarity; in the other, a full and rich mental life, an open sense for all that is great and beautiful, a moral fibre of the utmost toughness and yet of the utmost delicacy, and the readiest and most willing disinterestedness and self-sacrifice. The one, in a word, is selfishness incarnate—the other, the
