Note 15 — Chapter IV · DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS.
George Eliot translation
When Hase, § 143, writes: “The earth trembled, mourning for her greatest Son,” we see how the historian in speaking of this feature, which he maintains to be historical, involuntarily becomes a poet; and when in the second edition the author qualifies the phrase by the addition of an “as it were:” it is further evident that his historical conscience had not failed to reproach him for the license. ↑