After Fedalma comes Zarca, and here our imagination flags. Not so George Eliot's: for as simple imagination, I think that in the conception of this impressive and unreal figure it appears decidedly at its strongest. With Zarca, we stand at the very heart of the realm of romance. There is a truly grand simplicity, to my mind, in the outline of his character, and a remarkable air of majesty in his poise and attitude. He is a _père noble_ in perfection. His speeches have an exquisite eloquence. In strictness, he is to the last degree unreal, illogical, and rhetorical; but a certain dramatic unity is diffused through his character by the depth and energy of the colours in which he is painted. With a little less simplicity, his figure would be decidedly modern. As it stands, it is neither modern nor mediæval; it belongs to the world of intellectual dreams and visions. The reader will admit that it is a vision of no small beauty, the conception of a stalwart chieftain who distils the cold exaltation of his purpose from the utter loneliness and obloquy of his race:-- "Wanderers whom no God took knowledge of, To give them laws, to fight for them, or blight Another race to make them ampler room; A people with no home even in memory, No dimmest lore of giant ancestors To make a common hearth for piety"; a people all ignorant of "The rich heritage, the milder life, Of nations fathered by a mighty Past." Like Don Silva, like Juan, like Sephardo, Zarca is decidedly a man of intellect.