How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
The news was that Diplow Hall, Sir Hugo Mallinger's place […] was being prepared for a tenant, and was for the rest of the summer and through the hunting season to be inhabited in a fitting style both as to house and stable. But not by Sir Hugo himself: by his nephew Mr. Mallinger Grandcourt, who was presumptive heir to the baronetcy, his uncle's marriage having produced nothing but girls. Nor was this the only contingency with which fortune flattered young Grandcourt, as he was pleasantly called; for while the chance of the baronetcy came through his father, his mother had given a baronial streak to his blood, so that if certain intervening persons slightly painted in the middle distance died, he would become a baron and peer of this realm. (9.2)
This passage gives us a pretty telling glimpse into the way society works in Daniel Deronda. Grandcourt, who is sort of a total stranger to everyone so far, can just swoop in and wait for Sir Hugo to die because he's technically next in line for his estate. It doesn't matter how many kids Sir Hugo has if they're all daughters; they can't inherit his wealth.
Quote #5
"Mr. Fraser, how was it that the popes and cardinals always had so many nephews?"
The tutor, an able young Scotchman who acted as Sir Hugo Mallinger's secretary, roused rather unwillingly from his political economy, answered with the clear-cut, emphatic chant which makes a truth doubly telling in Scotch utterance—
"Their own children were called nephews."
"Why?" said Deronda.
"It was just for the propriety of the thing; because, as you know very well, priests don't marry, and the children were illegitimate." (16.2-6)
When society (or the church) frowns on something, just call it something else! Problem solved.
Quote #6
He had often stayed in London with Sir Hugo, who to indulge the boy's ear had carried him to the opera to hear the great tenors, so that the image of a singer taking the house by storm was very vivid to him; but now, spite of his musical gift, he set himself bitterly against the notion of being dressed up to sing before all those fine people who would not care about him except as a wonderful toy. That Sir Hugo should have thought of him in that position for a moment, seemed to Daniel an unmistakable proof that there was something about his birth which threw him out from the class of gentlemen to which the baronet belonged. (16.19)
Social class comes into play as a concern when Daniel wonders whether or not Sir Hugo might be his dad. When Sir Hugo suggests that Daniel might like to be a singer, he's horrified – singers belong to an entirely different social class than Sir Hugo does!