scarcely, we think, have occurred to any one whose moral aim was other
than that which it is the endeavour of these remarks to trace out in
George Eliot's works. The working out of that conception, as it is here
worked out, would, we believe, have been impossible to any one who had
less strongly realised wherein all the true nobleness and all the true
debasement of humanity lie.

Outwardly, on his first appearance, there is not merely nothing repellent
about Tito; in person and manner, in genial kindly temper, in those very
forms of intelligence and accomplishment that specially suit the city and
the time, there is superficially everything to conciliate and attract. It
is almost impossible to define the subtle threads of indication through
which, from the first, we are forced to distrust him. Superficially, it
might seem at this time as if with Tito the probabilities were equal as
regards good and evil; and that with Romola's love thrown into the scale,
their preponderance on the side of good were all but irresistible. Yet
from the first we feel that it is otherwise--that this light, genial,
ease-loving nature has already, by its innate habitude of self-pleasing,
foreordained itself to sink down into ever deeper and more utter
debasement. With the "slight, almost imperceptible start," at the
accidental words which connect the value of his jewels with "a man's
ransom," we feel that some baseness is already within himself
contemplated. With the transference of their price to the goldsmith's
hands, we know that the baseness is in his heart resolved on. When the
message through the monk tells him that the ransom may still be
available, we never doubt what the decision will be. Present ease and
enjoyment, the maintaining and improving the position he has won--in
short, the "something that is due to himself," rather than a distant,
dangerous, possibly fruitless duty, howsoever clear.