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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b45e89d --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #56048 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/56048) diff --git a/old/56048-0.txt b/old/56048-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 03fc285..0000000 --- a/old/56048-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4200 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Jewish Portraits, by Lady Katie Magnus - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Jewish Portraits - -Author: Lady Katie Magnus - -Release Date: November 25, 2017 [EBook #56048] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JEWISH PORTRAITS *** - - - - -Produced by Richard Hulse, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - - JEWISH PORTRAITS - - - - - JEWISH PORTRAITS - - BY - - LADY MAGNUS - - AUTHOR OF - ‘OUTLINES OF JEWISH HISTORY,’ ‘ABOUT THE JEWS - SINCE BIBLE TIMES,’ ETC. - - _Second Revised and Enlarged Edition_ - - LONDON - Published by DAVID NUTT - in the STRAND - 1897 - - - - - ‘THESE, TO HIS MEMORY’ - - FEBRUARY 7: JANUARY 11 - - - - -PREFACE - - -The papers which form this volume have already appeared in the pages of -_Good Words_, _Macmillan’s Magazine_, _The National Review_, and _The -Spectator_, and are reprinted with the very kindly given permission of -the editors. The Frontispiece is reproduced through the kindness of the -proprietors of _Good Words_. - -I fancy that there is enough of family likeness, and I hope there is -enough of friendly interest, in these Jewish portraits to justify their -re-appearance in a little gallery to themselves. - -KATIE MAGNUS. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - -JEHUDAH HALEVI, 1 - -THE STORY OF A STREET, 24 - -HEINRICH HEINE: A PLEA, 32 - -DANIEL DERONDA AND HIS JEWISH CRITICS, 57 - -MANASSEH BEN ISRAEL, 68 - -CHARITY IN TALMUDIC TIMES, 90 - -MOSES MENDELSSOHN, 109 - -THE NATIONAL IDEA IN JUDAISM, 147 - -THE STORY OF A FALSE PROPHET, 158 - -NOW AND THEN: A COMPOSITE SKETCH, 177 - - - - -JEWISH PORTRAITS - - - - -JEHUDAH HALEVI - -PHYSICIAN AND POET - - -In the far-off days, when religion was not a habit, but an emotion, -there lived a little-known poet who solved the pathetic puzzle of how to -sing the Lord’s song in a strange land. Minor poets of the period in -plenty had essayed a like task, leaving a literature the very headings -of which are strange to uninstructed ears. ‘_Piyutim_,’ ‘_Selichoth_’: -what meaning do these words convey to most of us? And yet they stand for -songs of exile, sung by patient generations of men who tell a monotonous -tale of mournful times-- - - ‘When ancient griefs - Are closely veiled - In recent shrouds,’ - -as one of the anonymous host expresses it. For the writers were of the -race of the traditional Sweet Singer, and their lot was cast in those -picturesquely disappointing Middle Ages, too close to the chivalry of -the time to appreciate its charm. One pictures these comparatively -cultured pariahs, these gaberdined, degenerate descendants of seers and -prophets, looking out from their ghettoes on a world which, for all the -stir and bustle of barbaric life, was to them as desolate and as bare of -promise of safe resting-place as when the waters covered it, and only -the tops of the mountains appeared. One sees them now as victims, and -now as spectators, but never as actors in that strange show, yet always, -we fancy, realising the barbarism, and with that undoubting faith of -theirs in the ultimate dawning of a perfect day, seeming to regard the -long reign of brute force, of priestcraft, and of ignorance as phases of -misrule, which, like unto manifold others, should pass whilst they would -endure. - - ‘A race that has been tested - And tried through fire and water, - Is surely prized by Thee,’ - -cries out a typical bard, with, perhaps, a too-conscious tone of -martyrdom, and a decided tendency to clutch at the halo. The attitude is -altogether a trifle arrogant and stolid and defiant to superficial -criticism, but yet one for which a deeper insight will find excuses. -The complacency is not quite self-complacency, the pride is impersonal, -and so, though provoking, is pathetic too. Something of the old longing -which, with a sort of satisfied negation, claimed ‘honour and glory,’ -‘not unto us,’ but unto ‘the Name,’ seems to find expression again in -the unrhymed and often unrhythmical compositions of these patient poets -of the _Selicha_. Their poetry, perhaps, goes some way towards -explaining their patience, for, undoubtedly, there is no doggedness like -that of men who at will, and by virtue of their own thoughts, can soar -above circumstances and surroundings. ‘Vulgar minds,’ says a -last-century poet, truly enough, ‘refuse or crouch beneath their load,’ -and inevitably such will collapse under a pressure which the cultivated -will endure, and ‘bear without repining.’ The ills to which flesh is -heir will generally be best and most bravely borne by those to whom the -flesh is not all in all; as witness Heine, whose voice rose at its -sweetest, year after year, from his mattress grave. That there never was -a time in all their history when the lusts of the flesh were a whole and -satisfying ambition to the Jew, or when the needs of the body bounded -his desires, may account in some degree for that marvellous capacity for -suffering which the race has evinced. - -These rugged _Piyutim_, for over a thousand years, come in from most -parts of the continent of Europe as a running commentary on its laws, -suggesting a new reading for the old significant connection between a -country’s lays and its legislation, and supplying an illustration to -Charles Kingsley’s dictum, that ‘the literature of a nation is its -autobiography.’ _Selicha_ (from the Hebrew, סְלִיחָה) means literally -forgiveness, and to forgive and to be forgiven is the burden and the -refrain of most of the so-called Penitential Poems (_Selichoth_), whose -theme is of sorrows and persecutions past telling, almost past praying -about. _Piyut_ (derived from the Greek ποιητἡς) in early Jewish writings -stood for the poet himself, and later on it was applied as a generic -name for his compositions. From the second to the eighth century there -is decidedly more suggestion of martyrdom than of minstrelsy in these -often unsigned and always unsingable sonnets of the synagogue, and -especially about the contributions from France, and subsequently from -Germany, to the liturgical literature of the Middle Ages, there is a far -too prevailing note of the swan’s song for cheerful reading. Happier in -their circumstances than the rest of their European co-religionists, the -Spanish writers sing, for the most part, in clearer and higher strains, -and it is they who towards the close of the tenth century, first add -something of the grace and charm of metrical versification to the -hitherto crude and rough style of composition which had sufficed. Even -about the prose of these Spanish authors there is many a light and happy -touch, and, not unseldom, in the voluminous and somewhat verbose -literature, we come across a short story (_midrash_) or a pithy saying, -with salt enough of wit or of pathos about it to make its preservation -through the ages quite comprehensible. - -_Hep_, _Hep_, was the dominant note in the European concert, when at the -beginning of the twelfth century our poet was born. France, Italy, -Germany, Bohemia, and Greece had each been, at different times within -the hundred years which had just closed, the scene of terrible -persecutions. In Spain alone, under the mild sway of the Ommeyade -Kaliphs, there had been a tolerably long entr’acte in the ‘fifteen -hundred year tragedy’ that the Jewish race was enacting, and there, in -old Castille, whilst Alfonso VI. was king, Jehudah Halevi passed his -childhood. Although in 1085 Alfonso was already presiding over an -important confederation of Catholic States, yet at the beginning of the -twelfth century the Arab supremacy in Spain was still comparatively -unshaken, and its influence, social and political, over its Jewish -subjects was still paramount. Perhaps the one direction in which that -impressionable race was least perceptibly affected by its Arab -experiences was in its literature. And remembering how very distinctly -in the elder days of art the influence of Greek thought is traceable in -Jewish philosophy, it is strange to note with these authors of the -Middle Ages, who write as readily in Arabic as in Hebrew, that, though -the hand is the hand of Esau, the voice remains unmistakably the voice -of Jacob. Munk dwells on this remarkable distinction in the poetry of -the period, and with some natural preference perhaps, strives to account -for it in the wide divergence of the Hebrew and Arabic sources of -inspiration. The poetry of the Jews he roundly declares to be universal, -and that of the Arabs egotistic in its tendency; the sons of the desert -finding subjects for their Muse in traditions of national glory and in -dreams of material delight, whilst the descendants of prophets turn to -the records of their own ancestry, and find their themes in remorseful -memories, and in unselfish and unsensual hopes. With the Jewish poet, -past and future are alike uncoloured by personal desire, and even the -sins and sufferings of his race he enshrines in song. If it be good, as -a modern writer has declared it to be, that a nation should commemorate -its defeats, certainly no race has ever been richer in such subjects, or -has shown itself more willing, in ritual and rhyme, to take advantage of -them. - -Whilst the leaders of society, the licentious crusader and the celibate -monk, were stumbling so sorely in the shadow of the Cross, and whilst -the rank and file throughout Europe were steeped in deepest gloom of -densest ignorance and superstition, the lamp of learning, handed down -from generation to generation of despised Jews, was still being -carefully trimmed, and was burning at its brightest among the little -knot of philosophers and poets in Spain. Alcharisi, the commentator and -critic of the circle, gives, for his age, a curiously high standard of -the qualifications essential to the sometimes lightly bestowed title of -author. ‘A poet,’ he says, ‘(1) must be perfect in metre; (2) his -language of classic purity; (3) the subject of his poem worthy of the -poet’s best skill, and calculated to instruct and to elevate mankind; -(4) his style must be full of “lucidity” and free from every obscure or -foreign expression; (5) he must never sacrifice sense to sound; (6) he -must add infinite care and patience to his gift of genius, never -submitting crude work to the world; and (7) lastly, he must neither -parade all he knows nor offer the winnowings of his harvest.’ - -These seem sufficiently severe conditions even to nineteenth-century -judgment, but Jehudah Halevi, say his admirers and even his -contemporaries, fulfilled them all. - -That a man should be judged by his peers gives a promise of sound and -honest testimony, and if such judgment be accepted as final, then does -Halevi hold high rank indeed among men and poets. One of the first -things that strike an intruder into this old-world literary circle is -the curious absence of those small rivalries and jealousies which we of -other times and manners look instinctively to find. Such records as -remain to us make certainly less amusing reading than some later -biographies and autobiographies afford, but, on the other hand, it has a -unique interest of its own, to come upon authentic traces of such -susceptible beings as authors, all living in the same set and with a -limited range both of subjects and of readers, who yet live together in -harmony, and interchange sonnets and epigrams curiously free from every -suggestion of envy, hatred, or uncharitableness. There is, in truth, a -wonderful freshness of sentiment about these gentle old scholars. They -say pretty things to and of each other in almost school-girl fashion. -‘I pitch my tent in thy heart,’ exclaims one as he sets out on a -journey. More poetically Halevi expresses a similar sentiment to a -friend of his (Ibn Giat): - - ‘If to the clouds thy boldness wings its flight, - Within our hearts, thou ne’er art out of sight.’ - -Writes another (Moses Aben Ezra), and he was a philosopher and -grammarian to boot, one not to be lightly suspected of sentimentality, -‘Our hearts were as one: now parted from thee, my heart is divided into -two.’ Halevi was the absent friend in this instance, and he begins his -response as warmly:-- - - ‘How can I rest when we are absent one from another? - Were it not for the glad hope of thy return - The day which tore thee from me - Would tear me from all the world.’ - -Or the note changes: some disappointment or disillusion is hinted at, -and under its influence our tender-hearted poet complains to this same -sympathetic correspondent, ‘I was asked, Hast thou sown the seed of -friendship? My answer was, Alas, I did, but the seed did not thrive.’ - -It is altogether the strangest, soberest little picture of sweetness and -light, showing beneath the gaudy, tawdry phantasmagoria of the age. Rub -away the paint and varnish from the hurrying host of crusaders, from the -confused crowd of dreary, deluded rabble, and there they stand like a -‘restored’ group, these tuneful, unworldly sages, ‘toiling, rejoicing, -sorrowing,’ with Jehudah Halevi, poet and physician, as central figure. -For, loyal to the impulse which in times long past had turned Akiba into -a herdsman and had induced Hillel in his youth and poverty to ‘hire -himself out wherever he could find a job,’[1] which, in the time to -come, was to make of Maimonides a diamond-cutter, and of Spinoza an -optician, Halevi compounded simples as conscientiously as he composed -sonnets, and was more of doctor than of poet by profession. He was true -to those traditions and instincts of his race, which, through all the -ages, had recognised the dignity of labour and had inclined to use -literature as a staff rather than as a crutch. His prescriptions were -probably such as the Pharmacoœia of to-day might hardly approve, and the -spirit in which he prescribed, one must own, is perhaps also a little -out of date. Here is a grace just before physic which brings to one’s -mind the advice given by a famous divine of the muscular Christianity -school to his young friend at Oxford, ‘Work hard--as for your degree, -leave it to God.’ - - ‘God grant that I may rise again, - Nor perish by Thine anger slain. - This draught that I myself combine, - What is it? Only Thou dost know - If well or ill, if swift or slow, - Its parts shall work upon my pain. - Ay, of these things, alone is Thine - The knowledge. All my faith I place, - Not in my craft, but in Thy grace.’[2](1) - -Halevi’s character, however, was far enough removed from that which an -old author has defined as ‘pious and painefull.’ He ‘entered the courts -with gladness’: his religion being of a healthy, happy, natural sort, -free from all affectations, and with no taint either of worldliness or -of other-worldliness to be discerned in it. Perhaps our poet was not -entirely without that comfortable consciousness of his own powers and -capabilities which, in weaker natures, turns its seamy side to us as -conceit, nor altogether free from that impatience of ‘fools’ which seems -to be another of the temptations of the gifted. This rather ill-tempered -little extract which we are honest enough to append appears to indicate -as much:-- - - ‘Lo! my light has pierced to the dark abyss, - I have brought forth gems from the gloomy mine; - Now the fools would see them! I ask you this: - Shall I fling my pearls down before the swine? - From the gathered cloud shall the raindrops flow - To the barren land where no fruit can grow?’(1) - -The little grumble is characteristic, but in actual fact no land was -‘barren’ to his hopeful, sunny temperament. In the ‘morning he sowed his -seed, and in the evening he withheld not his hand,’ and from his -‘gathered clouds,’ the raindrops fell rainbow-tinted. The love songs, -which a trustworthy edition tells us were written to his wife, are quite -as beautiful in their very different way as an impassioned elegy he -wrote when death claimed his friend, Aben Ezra, or as the famous ode he -composed on Jerusalem. Halevi wrote prose too, and a bulky volume in -Arabic is in existence, which sets forth the history of a certain Bulan, -king of the Khozars, who reigned, the antiquarians agree, about the -beginning of the eighth century, over a territory situate on the shores -of the Caspian Sea. This Bulan would seem to have been of a hesitating, -if not of a sceptical, turn of mind in religious matters. Honestly -anxious to be correct in his opinions, his anxiety becomes intensified -by means of a vision, and he finally summons representative followers of -Moses, of Jesus, and of Mahomet, to discuss in his presence the tenets -of their masters. These chosen doctors of divinity argue at great -length, and the Jewish Rabbi is said to have best succeeded in -satisfying the anxious scruples of the king. The same authorities tell -us that Bulan became an earnest convert to Judaism, and commenced in his -own person a Jewish dynasty which endured for more than two centuries. -Over these more or less historic facts Halevi casts the glamour of his -genius, and makes, at any rate, a very readable story out of them, which -incidentally throws some valuable side-lights on his own way of -regarding things. Unluckily, side-lights are all we possess, in place of -the electric illuminating fashion of the day. Those copious details, -which our grandchildren seem likely to inherit concerning all and sundry -of this generation, are wholly wanting to us, the earlier heirs of time. -Of Halevi, as of greater poets, who have lived even nearer to our own -age, history speaks neither loudly nor in chorus. Yet, for our -consolation, there is the reflection that the various and varying -records of ‘Thomas’s ideal John: never the real John, nor John’s John, -but often very unlike either,’ may, in truth, help us but little to a -right comprehension of the ‘real John, known only to His Maker.’ Once -get at a man’s ideals, it has been well said, and the rest is easy. And -thus though our facts are but few and fragmentary concerning the man of -whom one admirer quaintly says that, ‘created in the image of God’ -could in his case stand for literal description, yet may we, by means of -his ideals, arrive perhaps at a juster conception of Halevi’s charming -personality than did we possess the very pen with which he wrote and the -desk at which he sat and the minutest and most authentic particulars as -to his wont of using both. - -His ideal of religion was expressed in every practical detail of daily -life. - - ‘When I remove from Thee, O God, - I die whilst I live; but when - I cleave to Thee, I live in death.’[3] - -These three lines indicate the sentiment of Judaism, and might almost -serve as sufficient sample of Halevi’s simple creed, for, truth to tell, -the religion of the Jews does not concern itself greatly with the ideal, -being of a practical rather than of an emotional sort, rigid as to -practice, but tolerant over theories, and inquiring less as to a man’s -belief than as to his conduct. Work--steady, cheerful, untiring -work--was perhaps Halevi’s favourite form of praise. Still, being a -poet, he sings, and, like the birds, in divers strains, with happy, -unconscious effort. Only ‘For Thy songs, O God!’ he cries, ‘my heart is -a harp’; and truly enough, in some of these ancient Hebrew hymns, the -stately intensity of which it is impossible to reproduce, we seem to -hear clearly the human strings vibrate. The truest faith, the most -living hope, the widest charity, is breathed forth in them; and they -have naturally been enshrined by his fellow-believers in the most sacred -parts of their liturgy, quotations from which would here obviously be -out of place. Some dozen lines only shall be given, and these chosen in -illustration of the universality of the Jewish hope. ‘Where can I find -Thee, O God?’ the poet questions; and there is wonderfully little -suggestion of reserved places about the answer:-- - - ‘Lord! where art Thou to be found? - Hidden and high is Thy home. - And where shall we find Thee not? - Thy glory fills the world. - Thou art found in my heart, - And at the uttermost ends of the earth. - A refuge for the near, - For the far, a trust. - - ‘The universe cannot contain Thee; - How then a temple’s shrine? - Though Thou art raised above men - On Thy high and lofty throne, - Yet art Thou near unto them - In their spirit and in their flesh. - Who can say he has not seen Thee? - When lo! the heavens and their host - Tell of Thy fear, in silent testimony. - - ‘I sought to draw near to Thee. - With my whole heart I sought Thee. - And when I went out to meet Thee, - To meet me, Thou wast ready on the road. - In the wonders of Thy might - And in Thy holiness I have beheld Thee. - Who is there that should not fear Thee? - The yoke of Thy kingdom is for ever and for all, - Who is there that should not call upon Thee? - Thou givest unto all their food.’ - -Concerning Halevi’s ideal of love and marriage we may speak at greater -length; and on these subjects one may remark that our poet’s ideal was -less individual than national. Mixing intimately among men who, as a -matter of course, bestowed their fickle favours on several wives, and -whose poetic notion of matrimony--on the prosaic we will not touch--was -a houri-peopled Paradise, it is perhaps to the credit of the Jews that -this was one of the Arabian customs which, with all their -susceptibility, they were very slow to adopt. Halevi, as is the general -faithful fashion of his race, all his life long loved one only, and -clave to her--a ‘dove of rarest worth, and sweet exceedingly,’ as in one -of his poems he declares her to be. The test of poetry, Goethe -somewhere says, is the substance which remains when the poetry is -reduced to prose. When the poetry has been yet further reduced by -successive processes of translation, the test becomes severe. We fancy, -though, that there is still some considerable residuum about Halevi’s -songs to his old-fashioned love--his Ophrah, as he calls her in some of -them. Here is one when they are likely to be parted for a while:-- - - ‘So we must be divided; sweetest, stay, - Once more, mine eyes would seek thy glance’s light. - At night I shall recall thee: Thou, I pray, - Be mindful of the days of our delight. - Come to me in my dreams, I ask of thee, - And even in my dreams be gentle unto me. - - ‘If thou shouldst send me greeting in the grave, - The cold breath of the grave itself were sweet; - Oh, take my life, my life, ’tis all I have, - If it should make thee live, I do entreat. - I think that I shall hear when I am dead, - The rustle of thy gown, thy footsteps overhead.’(1) - -And another, which reads like a marriage hymn:-- - - ‘A dove of rarest worth - And sweet exceedingly; - Alas, why does she turn - And fly so far from me? - In my fond heart a tent, - Should aye preparèd be. - My poor heart she has caught - With magic spells and wiles. - I do not sigh for gold, - But for her mouth that smiles; - Her hue it is so bright, - She half makes blind my sight, - - * * * * * - - The day at last is here - Fill’d full of love’s sweet fire; - The twain shall soon be one, - Shall stay their fond desire. - Ah! would my tribe could chance - On such deliverance.’(1) - -On a first reading, these last two lines strike one as oddly out of -place in a love poem. But as we look again, they seem to suggest, that -in a nature so full and wholesome as Halevi’s, love did not lead to a -selfish forgetfulness, nor marriage mean a joy which could hold by its -side no care for others. Rather to prove that love at its best does not -narrow the sympathies, but makes them widen and broaden out to enfold -the less fortunate under its happy, brooding wings. And though at the -crowning moment of his life Halevi could spare a tender thought for his -‘tribe,’ with very little right could the foolish, favourite epithet of -‘tribalism’ be flung at him, and with even less of justice at his race. -In truth, they were ‘patriots’ in the sorriest, sincerest sense--this -dispossessed people, who owned not an inch of the lands wherein they -wandered, from the east unto the west. It is prejudice or ignorance -maybe, but certainly it is not history, which sees the Jews as any but -the faithfullest of citizens to their adopted States; faithful, indeed, -often to the extent of forgetting, save in set and prayerful phrases, -the lost land of their fathers. Here is a typical national song of the -twelfth century, in which no faintest echo of regret or of longing for -other glories, other shrines, can be discerned:-- - - ‘I found that words could ne’er express - The half of all its loveliness; - From place to place I wander’d wide, - With amorous sight unsatisfied, - Till last I reach’d all cities’ queen, - Tolaitola[4] the fairest seen. - - * * * * * - - Her palaces that show so bright - In splendour, shamed the starry height, - Whilst temples in their glorious sheen - Rivall’d the glories that had been; - With earnest reverent spirit there, - The pious soul breathes forth its prayer.’ - -The ‘earnest reverent spirit’ may be a little out of drawing now, but -that ‘fairest city seen’ of the Spanish poet,[5] might well stand for -the London or Paris of to-day in the well-satisfied, cosmopolitan -affections of an ordinary Englishman or Frenchman of the Jewish faith. -And which of us may blame this adaptability, this comfortable -inconstancy of content? Widows and widowers remarry, and childless -folks, it is said, grow quite foolishly fond of adopted kin. With -practical people the past is past, and to the prosperous nothing comes -more easy than forgetting. After all-- - - ‘What can you do with people when they are dead? - But if you are pious, sing a hymn and go; - Or, if you are tender, heave a sigh and go, - But go by all means, and permit the grass - To keep its green fend ’twixt them and you.’[6] - -In the long centuries since Jerusalem fell there has been time and to -spare for the green grass to wither into dusty weeds above those -desolate dead whose ‘place knows them no more.’ That Halevi with his -‘poetic heart,’ which is a something different from the most metrical of -poetic imaginations, cherished a closer ideal of patriotism than some of -his brethren may not be denied. ‘Israel among the nations,’ he writes, -‘is as the heart among the limbs.’ He was the loyalest of Spanish -subjects, yet Jerusalem was ever to him, in sober fact, ‘the city of the -world.’ - -In these learned latter days, the tiniest crumbs of tradition have been -so eagerly pounced upon by historians to analyse and argue over, that we -are almost left in doubt whether the very A B C of our own history may -still be writ in old English characters. The process which has bereft -the bogy uncle of our youthful belief of his hump, and all but -transformed the Bluebeard of the British throne into a model monarch, -has not spared to set its puzzling impress on the few details which have -come down to us concerning Halevi. Whether the love-poems, some eight -hundred in number, were all written to his wife, is now questioned; -whether 1086 or 1105 is the date of his birth, and if Toledo or Old -Castille be his birthplace, is contested. Whether he came to a peaceful -end, or was murdered by wandering Arabs, is left doubtful, since both -the year of his death[7] and the manner of it are stated in different -ways by different authorities, among whom it is hard to choose. Whether, -indeed, he ever visited the Holy City, whether he beheld it with ‘actual -sight or sight of faith,’ is greatly and gravely debated; but amidst all -this bewildering dust of doubt that the researches of wise commentators -have raised, the central fact of his life is left to us undisputed. The -realities they meddle with, but the ideals, happily, they leave to us -undimmed. All at least agree, that ‘she whom the Rabbi loved was a poor -woe-begone darling, a moving picture of desolation, and her name was -Jerusalem.’ There is a consensus of opinion among the critics that this -often-quoted saying of Heine’s was only a poetical way of putting a -literal and undoubted truth. On this subject, indeed, our poet has only -to speak for himself. - - ‘Oh! city of the world, most chastely fair; - In the far west, behold I sigh for thee. - And in my yearning love I do bethink me, - Of bygone ages; of thy ruined fane, - Thy vanish’d splendour of a vanish’d day. - Oh! had I eagles’ wings I’d fly to thee, - And with my falling tears make moist thine earth. - I long for thee; what though indeed thy kings - Have passed for ever; that where once uprose - Sweet balsam-trees the serpent makes his nest. - O that I might embrace thy dust, the sod - Were sweet as honey to my fond desire!’(1) - -Fifty translations cannot spoil the true ring in such fervid words as -these. And in a world so sadly full of ‘fond desires,’ destined to -remain for ever unfulfilled, it is pleasant to know that Halevi -accomplished his. He unquestionably travelled to Palestine; whether his -steps were stayed short of Jerusalem we know not, but he undoubtedly -reached the shores, and breathed ‘the air of that land which makes men -wise,’ as in loving hyperbole a more primitive patriot[8] expresses it. - -And seeing how that ‘the Lord God doth like a printer who setteth the -letters backward,’[9] there is small cause, perchance, for grieving in -that the breath our poet drew in the land of his dreams was the breath -not of life but of death. - - - - -THE STORY OF A STREET - - -To the ear and eye that can find sermons in stones, streets, one would -fancy, must be brimful of suggestive stories. There might be differences -of course. From a stone of the polished pebble variety, for instance, -one could only predict smooth platitudes, and the romance in a block of -regulation stucco would possibly turn out a trifle prosaic. But the -right stone and the right street will always have an eloquence of their -own for the right listener or lounger, and certain crumbling old -tenements which were carted away as rubbish some few years ago in -Frankfort must have been rarely gifted in this line. ‘Words of fire,’ -and ‘written in blood,’ would, in truth, have no parabolic meaning, if -the stones of that ancient _Judengasse_ suddenly took to story-telling. -A long record of sorrow, and wrong, and squalid romance, would be -unfolded, and, inasmuch as the sorrows have been healed and the wrongs -have been righted, it may not be uninteresting to look for a moment at -the picturesque truths that lie hidden under that squalid romance, -which, like a mist, hung for centuries over the Jews’ quarter. - -The very first authentic record of the presence of Jews in Frankfort -comes to us in the account of a massacre of some hundred and eighty of -them in 1241. This persecution was probably epidemic rather than -indigenous in its nature, its germ distinctly traceable to those -conscientious and comprehensive attempts of Louis the Saint, in the -preceding year, to stamp out Judaism in his dominions. At any rate, for -German Jews, an era of protection began under Frederick Barbarossa, and -the Frankfort Jews among the rest, during the next hundred years, -enjoyed the ‘no history’ which to the Jewish nation, pre-eminently -amongst all others, must have been synonymous with happiness. But the -story begins again about the middle of the fourteenth century when the -Black Plague raged, and sanitary inspection, old style, took the form of -declaring the wells to be poisoned, and of advising the burning and -plunder of Jews by way of antidote. Jews were prolific, their hoards -portable, their houses slightly built, so the burnings and the massacres -and the liftings become intermittent and a little difficult to localise, -till about the year 1430, when Frederick III., egged on by his clergy, -made an order for all Jews in Frankfort to reside out of sight and sound -of the holy Cathedral. A site just without the ancient walls of the -town, and belonging to the council, was allotted to them, and here, at -their own expense, the Jews built their _Judengasse_. - -The street contained originally some hundred and ninety-six houses, and -iron-sheeted gates, kept fast closed on Sundays and saint days, grew -gradually to be barred from inside as well as outside on the Ghetto. The -pleasures and the hopes which Jews might not share they came by slow -degrees to hate and to despise, and the men with the yellow badges on -their garments learnt to cringe and stoop under their load, and the -dark-eyed women with the blue stripes to their veils lifted them only to -look upon their children. Undeniably, by every outward test, the poor -pariahs of the Ghetto were degenerate, and their sad and sordid lives -must have looked both repellent and unpicturesque to the passer-by. But -it may be doubted whether the degeneracy went much deeper than the -costume. If the passer-by had passed in to one of these gabled -dwellings, when the degrading gaberdine and the disfiguring veil were -thrown aside, he would have come upon an interior of home life which -would have struck him as strangely incongruous with the surroundings. -Amid all the wretched physical squalor of the street he would have found -little mental and less spiritual destitution. If the law of the land bid -Jews shrink before men, the law of the Book bid them rejoice before God. -Both laws they obeyed to the letter. Beating vainly at closed doors, -they learnt to speak to the world with bated breath and whispered -humbleness, but ‘His courts’ they entered, as it was commanded them, -‘with thanksgiving,’ and ‘joyfully’ sang hymns to Him. And the ‘courts’ -came to be comprehensive of application, and the ‘hymns’ to include much -literature. There was always a vivid domestic side to the religion of -the Jews, and the alchemy of home life went far to turn the dross of the -Ghetto into gold. Their Sabbath, in the picturesque phrase of their -prayer-book, was ‘a bride,’ and her welcome, week by week, was of a -right bridal sort. White cloths were spread and lamps lit in her honour. -The shabbiest dwellings put on something of a festive air, and for -‘_Shobbus_’ the poorest _haus-frau_ would manage to have ready at least -one extra dish and several best and bright-coloured garments for her -family. On the seventh day and on holy days the slouching pedlar and -hawker fathers, with their packs cast off, were priests and teachers -too, and every day the Ghetto children, for all their starved and -stunted growth, had unlimited diet from the _Judengasse_ stores of -family affection and free schooling. They were probably, however, at no -time very numerous, these Ghetto babies, for up to a quite comparatively -recent date (1832) Jewish love-affairs were strictly under State -control, and only fifteen couples a year were allowed to marry. - -Ludwig Börne, or Löb Baruch as he is registered in the Frankfort -synagogue (1786), was a result of one of these eagerly sought -privileges, and it is easy to see how he came to write, ‘Because I was -born a slave I understand liberty; my birthplace was no longer than the -_Judengasse_, and beyond its locked gates a foreign country began for -me. Now, no town, no district, no province can content me. I can rest -only with all Germany for my fatherland.’ An eloquent expression enough -of the repressed patriotism which was, perforce, inarticulate for -centuries in the _Judengasse_ of Frankfort. - -Prison as the street must have seemed to its tenants, there was at least -one occasion when its gates had the charms rather than the defects -appertaining to bolts and bars. In 1498, a harassed, ragged little crowd -from Nuremberg fled from their persecutors to find in our Frankfort -_Judengasse_ a safe city of refuge, and for a century or more the -Imperial coat-of-arms was gratefully emblazoned on the Ghetto gates as a -sign to the outer world that the Frankfort Jews, though imprisoned, were -protected. Yet we may fairly doubt if the feeling of security could have -been much more than skin-deep, since in 1711, when nearly the whole of -the street was burnt down, we find that some of the poor souls were so -afraid of insult and plunder, that many refused to open their doors to -would-be rescuers, and so, to prevent being pillaged, perished in the -flames. An oddly pathetic prose version of the famous Ingoldsby martyr, -who ‘could stand dying, but who couldn’t stand pinching.’ - -When, in 1808, Napoleon made Frankfort the capital of his new grand -duchy, the Ghetto gates were demolished, and many vexatious restrictions -were repealed. Such new hopes, however, as the Frankfort Jews may have -begun to indulge, fell with Napoleon’s downfall in 1815. Civil and -political disabilities were revived, and it was not till 1854 that the -last of these were erased from the statute-book. - -The one house in that sad old street, the stirring sermons in whose -stones might be ‘good in everything,’ would be No. 148, the little -low-browed dwelling with the sign of the Rose and Star--a veritable -Rose of Dawn it has proved--which was purchased more than a hundred -years ago [in 1780] by Meyer Amschel Rothschild, the founder of the -great Rothschild house. Every one knows the fairy-like story of that old -house; how Meyer Amschel, intended by his parents to be a rabbi, as many -of his ancestors had been before him, chose for himself a different way -of helping his fellow-men; how he went into commerce, and made commerce, -even in the Ghetto, dignified and honourable, as he would have made -chimney-sweeping if he had adopted it; how he became agent to the -Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, how faithfully he discharged his stewardship, -and how his money took to itself snowball properties, and changed the -tiny _Judengasse_ tenement into gorgeous mansions. And the old stones -would tell, too, of how faithful were the old merchant prince and the -wife of his youth to early associations; how sons and daughters grew up -and married, and moved to more aristocratic neighbourhoods, but how -Meyer Amschel and his old wife clung to the shabby old home in the -Ghetto, and lived there all their lives, and till she died, nearly fifty -years ago.[10] The very iron bars of those windows would speak if they -could, saying never a word of their old bad uses, but telling only how -kind and wrinkled hands were stretched out through them day by day, and -year after year, dealing out bread to the hungry. No. 148 could -certainly tell the prettiest story in all the street, and preach the -most suggestive line in all the sermons carted away with those stones of -the Frankfort _Judengasse_. And it would be a story with a sequel. For -when all the other sad old houses were demolished, the walls and rafters -of No. 148 were carefully collected and numbered, and for a while -reverently laid aside. And now, re-erected, the house stands close by -its old site, serving as the centre or depôt for the dispensing of the -Rothschild charities in Frankfort. Fanciful folks might almost be -tempted to believe that stones with such experiences would be -sufficiently sentient to rejoice at the pretty sentiment which refused -to let them perish, and which, regarding them as relics, built them up -afresh, and consecrated them to new and noble uses. - - - - -HEINRICH HEINE: A PLEA - - - ‘That blackguard Heine.’--CARLYLE. - ’“Who was Heine?” A wicked man.’ - CHARLES KINGSLEY. - -There are some persons, some places, some things, which fall all too -easily into ready-made definitions. Labels lie temptingly to hand, and -specimens get duly docketed--‘rich as a Jew,’ perhaps, or ‘happy as a -king’--with a promptitude and a precision which is not a trifle -provoking to people of a nicely discriminative turn of mind. The amiable -optimism which insists on an inseparable union between a Jew and his -money, and discerns an alliterative link between kings and contentment, -or makes now and again a monopoly of the virtues by labelling them -‘Christian,’ has, we suspect, a good deal to do with the manufacture of -debatable definitions, and the ready fitting of slop-made judgments. -Scores of such shallow platitudes occur to one’s memory, some -mischievous, some monotonous, some simply meaningless, and many of the -most complacent have been tacked on to the telling of a life-story, -brimful of contradictions, and running counter to most of the -conventionalities. The story of one who was a Jew, and poor; a convert, -without the zeal; a model of resignation, and yet no Christian; a poet, -born under sternest conditions of prose, and with sad claims, by right -of race, to the scorn of scorn and hate of hate, which we have been told -is exclusively a poet’s appanage--surely a story hardly susceptible of -being summed up in an epithet. It is a life which has been told often, -in many languages, and in much detail; this small sketch will glance -only at such portions of it as seem to suggest the clue to a juster -reading and a kindlier conclusion. - -It was in the last month of the last year of the eighteenth century, in -the little town of Düsseldorf in South Germany, that their eldest son -Heinrich, or Harry as he seems to have been called in the family circle, -was born unto Samson Heine, dealer in cloth, and Betty his wife. That -eighteenth century had been but a dreary one for the Jews of Europe. It -set in darkness on Heine’s cradle, and on his ‘mattress grave,’ some -fifty years later, the dawn of nineteenth century civilisation, for -them, had scarcely broken. ‘The heaviest burden that men can lay upon -us,’ wrote Spinoza, ‘is not that they persecute us with their hatred -and scorn, but it is by the planting of hatred and scorn in our souls. -That is what does not let us breathe freely or see clearly.’ This -subtlest effect of the poison of persecution seemed to have entered the -Jewish system. Warned off from the highroads of life, and shunned for -shambling along its bye-paths, the banned and persecuted race, looking -out on the world from their ghettoes, had grown to see most things in -false perspective. Self loomed large on their blank horizon, and gold -shone more golden in the gloom. God the Father, whose service demanded -such daily sacrifice, had lost something of that divinest attribute; -men, our brothers, could the words have borne any but a ‘tribal’ sound? -Still, in those dim, dream-peopled ghettoes, where visions of the -absent, the distant, and the past must have come to further perplex and -confuse the present, one actuality seems to have been grasped among the -shadows, one ideal attained amid all the grim realities of that most -miserable time. Home life and family affection had a sacredness for the -worst of these poor sordid Jews in a sense which, to the best of those -sottish little German potentates who so conscientiously despised them, -would have been unmeaning. Maidens were honourably wed, and wives -honoured and children cherished in those wretched Judenstrassen, where -‘the houses look as if they could tell sorrowful stories,’ after a -fashion quite unknown at any, save the most exceptional, of the numerous -coarse, corrupt, and ludicrously consequential little courts which were, -at that period, representative of German culture. - -The marriage of Heine’s parents had been one of those faithful unions, -under superficially unequal conditions, for which Jews seem to have a -genius. It had been something of the old story, ‘she was beautiful, and -he fell in love’; she, pretty, piquant, cultivated, and the daughter of -a physician of some local standing; he, just a respectable member of a -respectable trading family, and ordinary all round, save for the -distinction of one rich relative, a banker brother at Hamburg. - -Betty’s attractions, however, were all dangerous and undesirable -possessions in the eyes of a prudent Jewish parent of the period, and -Dr. von Geldern appears to have gladly given this charming daughter of -his into the safe ownership of her somewhat commonplace wooer, whose -chiefest faculty would seem to have been that of appreciation. It -proved, nevertheless, a sufficiently happy marriage, and Betty herself, -although possibly rather an acquiescent daughter than a responsive bride -in the preliminaries, developed into a faithful wife and a most devoted -mother, utilising her artistic tastes and her bright energy in the -education of her children, and finding full satisfaction for her warm -heart in their affection. Her eldest born was always passionately -attached to her, and in the days of his youth, as in the years that so -speedily ‘drew nigh with no pleasure in them,’ unto those latest of the -‘evil days’ when he lay so unconscionably long a-dying, and wrote long -playful letters to her full of tender deceit, telling of health and -wealth and friends, in place of pain and poverty and disease, through -all that bitter, brilliant life of his, Heinrich Heine’s relations with -his mother were altogether beautiful, and go far to refute the criticism -attributed, with I know not how much of truth, to Goethe, that ‘the poet -had every capacity save that for love!’ ‘In real love, as in perfect -music,’ says Bulwer Lytton in one of his novels, ‘there must be a -certain duration of time.’ Heine’s attachment to his mother was just -lifelong; his first love he never forgot, nor, indeed, wholly forgave, -and his devotion to his grisette wife not only preceded marriage, but -survived it. Poor Heine! was it his genius or his race, or something of -both, which conferred on him that fatal _pierre de touche_ as regards -reputation, ‘_il déplait invariablement à tous les imbeciles_’? - -In the very early boyhood of Heine some light had broken in on the -thick darkness, social and political, which enveloped Jewish fortunes. -It was only a fitful gleam from the meteor-like course of the first -Napoleon, but during those few years when, as Heine puts it, ‘all -boundaries were dislocated,’ the Duchy of Berg, and its capital -Düsseldorf, in common with more important states, were created French, -and the Code Napoléon took the place for a while of that other, -unwritten, code in which Jews were pariahs, to be condemned without -evidence, and sentenced without appeal. Although the French occupation -of Berg lasted unluckily but a few years (1806 till 1813), it did -wonders in the way of individual civilisation, and Joachim Murat, during -his governorship, seems really to have succeeded in introducing -something of the ‘sweet pineapple odour of politeness,’ which Heine -later notes as a characteristic of French manners, into the boorish, -beerish little German principality. Although the time was all too short, -and the conscription too universal for much national improvement to -become evident, German burghers as well as German Jews had cause to -rejoice in the change of rule. We hear of no ‘noble’ privileges, no -licensed immunities nor immoralities during the term of the French -occupation, and some healthier amusements than Jew-baiting were provided -for the populace. With the departure of the French troops the clouds, -which needed the storm of the ’48 revolution to be effectually -dispersed, gathered again. Still the foreign government, short as it -was, had lasted long enough to make an impression for life on Heinrich -Heine, and its most immediate effect was in the school influences it -brought to bear upon him. Throughout all the States brought under French -control, public education, by the Imperial edict of 1808, was settled on -one broad system, and put under the general direction of the French -Minister of Instruction. In accordance with this decree some suitable -building in each selected district had to be utilised for class-rooms, -the students had to be put into uniform, the teachers to be Frenchmen, -and all subjects had to be taught through the medium of that language. -The lycée at Düsseldorf was set up in an ancient Franciscan convent, and -hither, at the age of ten, was Heine daily despatched. A bright little -auburn-haired lad, full of fun and mischief, and mother-taught up to -this date save for some small amount of Hebrew drilling which he seems -to have received at the hands of a neighbouring Jewish instructor of -youth, Harry had everything to learn, and discipline and the Latin -declensions were among the first and greatest of his difficulties. Poet -nature and boy nature were both strong in him, and it was so hard to -sit droning out long dull lists of words, which he was quite sure the -originators of them had never had to do, for ‘if the Romans had had -first to learn Latin,’ he ruminated, ‘they never would have had time to -conquer the world’--so impossible he found it to keep his eyes on the -page, whilst the very motes were dancing in the sunshine as it poured in -through the old convent window, which was set just too high in the wall -for a safe jump into freedom. One day the need of sympathy, and possibly -some unconscious association from the dim old cloister, proved -momentarily too strong for the impressionable little lad’s Jewish -instincts; he came across a crucifix in some forgotten niche of the -transformed convent; he looked up, he tells us, at the roughly carved -figure, and dropping on his knees, prayed an earnest heterodox prayer, -‘Oh, Thou poor once persecuted God, do help me, if possible, to keep the -irregular verbs in my head!’ - -‘Jewish instincts,’ we said, and they could have been scarcely more, for -neither at home, at school, nor in the streets was the atmosphere the -boy breathed favourable to the development of religious principles. The -Judaism of that age was, superficially, very much what the age had made -of it; and its followers and its persecutors alike combined to render -it mightily unattractive to susceptible natures. Samson Heine, stolid -and respectable, we may imagine doing his religious, as he did all his -other duties and avocations, in solemn routine fashion, laying heavy -honest hands on each prose detail, and letting every bit of poetry slip -through his fat fingers, whilst his bright eager wife, with her large -ideas and her small vanities, ruled her household, and read her -Rousseau, and, feeling the outer world shut from her by religion, and -the higher world barred from her by ritual, found the whole thing -cramping and unsatisfying to the last degree. ‘Happy is he whom his -mother teacheth’ runs an old Talmudic proverb; but among the -mother-taught lessons of his childhood, the best was missing to Heinrich -Heine--the real difference between ‘holy and profane’ he never rightly -learnt, and thus it came to pass that Jewish instincts--an ineradicable -and an inalienable, but alas! an incomplete inheritance of the sons of -Israel--were all that Judaism gave to this poet of Jewish race. - -One lingers over these early influences, the right understanding of -which goes far to supply the key to some of the later puzzles. Oddly -enough, the clouds which by and by hid the blue are discernible from the -very first, and these early years give the silver lining to those -gathering clouds. In view of the dark days coming one at least rejoices -that Heine’s childhood was a happy one; at home the merry mischievous -boy was quite a hero to his two younger brothers, and a hero and a -companion both to his only sister, the Löttchen who was the occasion of -his earliest recorded composition. It is a favourite recollection of -this lady, who is living still,[11] how she, a blushing little maid of -ten, won a good deal of unmerited praise for a school theme, till a -trembling confession was extorted from her that the real author was her -brother Harry. His mother, too, was exceedingly proud of her handsome -eldest son, whose resemblance in many ways to her was the sweetest -flattery. And besides the adoring home circle Harry found a great ally -for playhours in an old French ex-drummer, who had marched to victory -with Napoleon’s legions, and who had plenty of tales to tell the -boy of the wonderful invincible Kaiser, whom one day--blest -never-to-be-forgotten vision--the boy actually saw ride through -Düsseldorf on his famous white steed (1810). Heine never quite lost the -glamour cast over him in his youth; France, Germany, Judea, each in a -sense his _patria_, was each, in the time to come, ‘loved both ways,’ -each in turn mocked at bitterly enough when the mood was on him, but -always with France, the ‘poet of the nations’ as our own English poetess -calls her, the sympathies of this cosmopolitan poet were keenest--a -perhaps not unnatural state of feeling when we reflect how fact and -fiction both combined to produce it. The French occupation of the -principality had been a veritable deliverance to its inhabitants, -Christian and Jewish alike, and what boy, in his own person, led out of -bondage, would not have thrilled to such stories as the old drummer had -to tell of the real living hero of it all? And the boy in question, we -must bear in mind, was a poet _in posse_. - -In school, in spite of the difficulties of irregular verbs, Harry seems -to have held his own, and to have soon attracted the especial attention -of the director. The chief selected for the lycée at Düsseldorf had -happened to be a Roman Catholic abbé of decidedly Voltairian views on -most subjects, and attracted by the boy and becoming acquainted with his -family, many a talk did Abbé Schallmayer have with Frau Heine over the -undoubted gifts and the delightful imperfections of her son. It may -possibly have been altogether simple interest in his bright young pupil, -or perhaps Frau Heine, pretty still, and charming always, was herself an -attraction to the schoolmaster, but certain it is, whether a private -taste for pretty women or a genuine pedagogic enthusiasm prompted his -frequent calls, our abbé was a constant visitor at Samson Heine’s, and -Harry and Harry’s future a never-failing theme for conversation. What -was the boy to be? There was no room for much speculation if he were to -remain a Jew--that path was narrow, if not straight, and admitted of -small range of choice along its level line of commerce. - -Betty, we know, was no staunch Jewess, and had her small personal -ambitions to boot, so such opposition as there was to the abbé’s plainly -given counsel to make a Catholic of the boy, and give him his chance, -came probably from the stolid, steady-going father, to whom custom spoke -in echoes resonant enough to deaden the muffled tones of religion. No -question, however, of sentiment or sacrifice was permitted to -complicate, or elevate, the question; no sense of voluntary renunciation -was suggested to the boy; no choice between the life and good, and the -death and evil, between conscience and compromise, was presented to him. -On the broadly comprehensive grounds that Judaism and trade had been -good enough for the father, trade and Judaism must be good enough for -the son--the matter was decided. - -But still before the lad’s prospects could be definitely settled, one -important personage remained to be consulted, the banker at Hamburg, -whose wealth had gained him somewhat of the position of a family fetich. -What Uncle Solomon would say to a scheme had no fictitious value about -it; for even were the oracle occasionally dumb, not seldom would its -speech be silver and its silence gold. A rich uncle is a very solemn -possession in an impecunious family, so Harry, and Harry’s poetry, and -Harry’s powers generally, had to be weighed in the Hamburg scales before -any standard value could be assigned to either one of them. For three -years the balance was held doubtful; the counting-house scales, accurate -as they usually were, could hardly adjust themselves to the conditions -of an unknown quantity, which ‘young Heine’ on an office stool must -certainly have proved to his bewildered relatives. One imagines him in -that correct and cramping atmosphere, fretting as he had done in the old -convent school-days against its weary routine, longing with all the -half-understood strength of his poet nature for the green hills and the -mountain lakes, and feeling absolutely stifled with all the solemn -interest shown over sordid matters. He tells us himself of some of his -‘calculations’ which would wander far afield, and leave the figures on -the paper, to concern themselves with the far more perplexing units -which passed the mirky office windows, as he complains, ‘at the same -hour, with the same mien, making the same motions, like the puppets in a -town house clock--reckoning, reckoning always on the basis, twice two -are four. Frightful should it ever suddenly occur to one of these people -that twice two are properly five, and that he therefore had -miscalculated his whole life and squandered it all away in a ghastly -error!’ Many a poem too, sorrowful or fantastic, as the mood took him, -was scribbled in office hours, and very probably on office paper, thence -to find a temporary home in the Hamburg _Watchman_. What could be done -with such a lad? By every office standard he must inevitably have been -found wanting, and one even feels a sort of sympathy with the prosaic -head of the house who had made his money by the exercise of such very -different talents, and whose notion of poetry corresponded very nearly -with Corporal Bunting’s notion of love, that it’s by no means ‘the great -thing in life boys and girls want to make it out to be--that one does -not eat it, nor drink it, and as for the rest, why, it’s bother.’ It -always was ‘bother’ to the banker: all through his prosperous life this -poet nephew of his, who had the prophetic impertinence to tell the old -man once that he owed him some gratitude for being born his uncle, and -for bearing his name, was an unsatisfactory riddle. Original genius of -the sort which could create a bank-book _ex nihilo_, the millionaire -could have appreciated, but originality which ran into such unproductive -channels as poetry-book making was quite beyond him, and that he never -read the young man’s verses it is needless to say. Even in his own -immediate family and for his first book poor Harry found no audience, -save his mother; and to the very end of his days Solomon Heine for the -life of him could see nothing in his nephew but a _dumme Junge_, who -never ‘got on,’ and who made a jest of most things, even of his wealthy -and respectable relatives. - -It was scarcely the old man’s fault; one can only see to the limits of -one’s vision, and a poet’s soul was not well within Solomon Heine’s -range. According to his lights he was not ungenerous. That Harry had not -the making of a clerk in him, those three probationary years had proved -to demonstration, and in the determination at which the banker presently -arrived, of giving those indefinite talents which he only understood -enough to doubt, a chance of development by paying for a three years’ -university course at Bonn, he seems to have come fully up to any -reasonable ideal of a rich uncle. It is just possible that a secondary -motive influenced his generosity, for Harry, besides scribbling, had -found a relief from office work by falling in love with one of the -banker’s daughters, who would seem not to have shared the family -distaste for poetry. The little idyl was of course out of the question -in so realistic a circle, and the young lady, to do her justice, seems -herself to have been speedily reconverted to the proper principles in -which she had been trained. No unfit pendant to the ‘Amy, -shallow-hearted’ with whom a more recent generation is more familiar, -this Cousin Amy of poor Heine’s married and ‘kept her carriage’ with all -due despatch, whilst he, at college, was essaying to mend his ‘heart -broken in two’ with all the styptics which are as old and, alas, as -hurtful as such fractures. Poetical exaggeration notwithstanding--and -besides her own especial love-elegy, Amalie Heine, under thin disguises, -is the heroine of very many of the love-poems--there is little room for -doubt, that if not so seriously injured as he thought, Heine’s heart did -nevertheless receive a wound, which ached for many and many a long day, -from this girl’s weak or wilful inconstancy. Heartache is, however, -nearly as much a matter-of-course episode in most young people’s lives -as measles, and the consequences of either malady are only very -exceptionally serious. - -Heine’s youthful disappointment is of chief interest as having -indirectly led to what was really the determining event of his life. -When Amalie’s parents shrewdly determined on separation as the best -course to be pursued with the cousins, and the university plan had been -accepted by Harry, his future, which was to date from degree-taking, -came on for discussion. Except in an ‘other-worldly’ sense there was, in -truth, but a very limited ‘future’ possible to Jews of talent. The only -open profession was that of medicine, and for that, like the son of -Moses Mendelssohn, young Heine had a positive distaste. Commerce, that -first and final resource of the race, which had had to satisfy Joseph -Mendelssohn, like a good many others equally ill-fitted for it, was not -possible to Heine, for he had sufficiently shown, not only dislike, but -positive incapacity for business routine. The law suggested itself, as -affording an excellent arena for those ready powers of argument and -repartee which in the family circle were occasionally embarrassing, and -the profession of an advocate, with the vague ‘opportunities’ it -included, when pressed upon young Heine, was not unalluring to him. The -immediate future was probably what most occupied his thoughts; the -freedom of a university life, the flowing river in place of those -bustling streets, shelves full of books exchanged for those dreary -office ledgers, youthful comrades in the stead of solemnly irritated -old clerks. Whether the fact that conversion was a condition of most of -the delights, an inevitable preliminary of all the benefits of that -visionary future; whether the grim truth that ‘a certificate of baptism -was a necessary card of admission to European culture,’ was openly -debated and defended, or silently and shamefacedly slurred over in these -family councils, does not appear. No record remains to us but the fact -that the young student successfully passed his examination in May, 1825; -that he was admitted to his degree on July 20, and that between these -two dates--to be precise, on the 28th of June--he was baptized as a -Protestant with two clergymen for his sponsors. ‘Lest I be poor and deny -thee’ was Agur’s prayer, and a wise one; for shivering Poverty, -clutching at the drapery of Desire, makes unto herself many a fine, -mean, flimsy garment. With no gleam of conviction to cast a flickering -halo of enthusiasm over the act, and with no shadow of overwhelming -circumstance to somewhat veil it, Heine made his deliberate surrender of -conscience to expediency. It was full-grown apostasy, neither -conscientious conversion, nor childish drifting into another faith. ‘No -man’s soul is alone,’ Ruskin tells us in his uncompromising way, -‘Laocoon or Tobit, the serpent has it by the heart or the angel by the -hand.’ For the rest of his life Heine was in the grip of the serpent, -and that, it seems to us, was the secret of his perpetual unrest. Maimed -lives are common enough; blind or deaf, or minus a leg or an arm, or -plus innumerable bruises, one yet goes on living, and with the help of -time and philosophy sorrow of most sorts grows bearable. Hearts are -tough; but the soul is more sensitive to injuries, is, to many of us, -the veritable, vulnerable _tendo Achillis_ on which our mothers lay -their tender, detaining, unavailing hands. Heine sold his soul, and that -he never received the price must have perpetually renewed the memory of -the bargain. He, one of the ‘bodyguards of Jehovah,’ had suffered -himself to be bribed from his post. He never lost his sickening sense of -that humiliation; it may be read between the lines, alike of the most -brilliant of his prose, of the most tender of his poems, of the most -mocking of his often quoted jests. - - ‘They have told thee a-many stories, - And much complaint have made; - And yet my heart’s true anguish - That never have they said. - - ‘They shook their heads protesting, - They made a great to-do; - They called me a wicked fellow, - And thou believedst it true. - - ‘And yet the worst of all things, - Of that they were not aware, - The darkest and the saddest, - That in my heart I bear.’[12] - -And it was a burden he never laid down; it embittered his relationships -and jeopardised his friendships, and set him at variance with himself. -‘I get up in the night and look in the glass and curse myself,’ we find -him writing to one of his old Jewish fellow-workers in the New Jerusalem -movement (Moser), or checking himself in the course of a violent tirade -against converts, in which Börne had joined, to bitterly exclaim, ‘It is -ill talking of ropes in the house of one who has been hanged.’ Wherever -he treats of Jewish subjects, and the theme seems always to have had for -him the fascination which is said to tempt sinners to revisit the scene -of their sins, we seem to read remorse between the melodious, mocking -lines. Now it is Moses Lump who is laughed at in half tones of envy for -his ignorant, unbarterable belief in the virtue of unsnuffed candles; -now it is Jehudah Halevi, whose love for the mistress, the -_Herzensdame_, ‘whose name was Jerusalem,’ is sung with a sympathy and -an intensity impossible to one who had not felt a like passion, and was -not bitterly conscious of having forfeited the right to avow it. The -sense of his moral mercenary suicide, in truth, rarely left him. His -nature was too conscientious for the strain thus set upon it; his -‘wickedness’ and ‘blackguardism,’ such as they were, were often but -passionate efforts to throw his old man of the sea, his heavy burden of -self-reproach; and his jests sound not unseldom as so many -untranslatable cries. He had bargained away his birthright for the hope -of a mess of pottage, and the evil taste of the base contract clung to -the poor paralysed lips when ‘even kissing had no effect upon them.’ And -but a thin, unsatisfying, and terribly intermittent ‘mess,’ too, it -proved, and the share in it which his uncle, and his uncle’s heirs, -provided was very bitter in the eating. The story of his struggles, are -they not written in the chronicles of the immortals? and his ‘monument,’ -is it not standing yet ‘in the new stone premises of his -publishers?’[13] - -His biographers--his niece, the Princessa della Rocca, among the -latest--have made every incident of Heine’s life as familiar as his own -books have made his genius to English readers, and Mr. Stigand, -following Herr Strodtman, has given us an exhaustive record of the -poet’s life at home and in exile; in the Germany which was so harsh and -in the France which was so tender with him; with the respectable German -relatives, who read his books at last and were none the wiser, and with -the unlettered French wife, who could not read a single word of them -all, and who yet understood her poet by virtue of the love which passeth -understanding, and was in this case entirely independent of it. This -sketch trenches on no such well-filled ground; it presumes to touch only -on the fault which gave to life and genius both that odd pathetic twist, -and to glance at the suffering, which, if there be any saving power in -anguish, might surely be held by the most self-righteous as some -atonement for the ‘blackguardism.’ - - ‘Oh! not little when pain - Is most quelling, and man - Easily quelled, and the fine - Temper of genius so soon - Thrills at each smart, is the praise - Not to have yielded to pain.’[14] - -Seven years on the rack is no small test of the heroic temperament; to -lie sick and solitary, stretched on a ‘mattress grave,’ the back bent -and twisted, the legs paralysed, the hands powerless, and with the -senses of sight and taste fast failing. At any time within that seven -years Heine might well have gained the gold medal in capability of -suffering for which, in his whimsical way, he talked of competing, -should such a prize be offered at the Paris Exhibition.[15] And the long -days, with ‘no pleasure in them,’ were so drearily many; the silver cord -was so slowly loosed, the golden bowl seemed broken on the wheel. His -very friends grew tired. ‘One must love one’s friends with all their -failings, but it is a great failing to be ill,’ says Madame Sevigné, -and, as the years went by, more and more deserted grew the sick-chamber. -He never complained; his sweet, ungrudging nature found excuses for -desertion and content in loneliness, in the reflection that he was in -truth ‘unconscionably long a-dying.’ ‘Never have I seen,’ says Lady -Duff-Gordon, in her _Recollections of Heine_, and she herself was no -mean exemplar of bravely-borne pain, ‘never have I seen a man bear such -horrible pain and misery in so perfectly unaffected a manner. He neither -paraded his anguish, nor tried to conceal it, or to put on any stoical -airs. He was pleased to see tears in my eyes, and then at once set to -work to make me laugh heartily, which pleased him just as much.’ - -‘Don’t tell my wife,’ he exclaims one day, when a paroxysm that should -have been fatal was not, and the doctor expressed what he meant for a -reassuring belief, that it would not hasten the end. ‘Don’t tell my -wife’--we seem to hear that sad little jest, so infinitely sadder than a -moan, and our own eyes moisten. Perfectly upright geniuses, when -suffering from dyspepsia, have not always shown as much consideration -for their perfectly proper wives as does this ‘blackguard’ Heine, under -torture, for his. It is conceivable that under exceptional circumstances -a man may contrive to be a hero to his valet, but, unless he be truly -heroic, he will not be able to keep up the character to his wife. Heine -managed both. Madame Heine is still living,[16] and one may not say much -of a love that was truly strong as death, and that the many waters of -affliction could not quench. But the valet test, we may hint, was -fulfilled; for the old servant who helped to tend him in that terrible -illness lives still with Madame Heine, and cries ‘for company’ when the -widow’s talk falls, as it falls often, on the days of her youth and her -‘_pauvre Henri_.’ There are traditional records in plenty of his -cheerful courage, his patient unselfishness, his unfailing endurance of -well-nigh unendurable pain. ‘_Dieu me pardonnera_, _c’est son métier_,’ -the dying lips part to say, still with that sweet, inseparable smile -playing about them. Shall man be more just than God? Shall we leave to -Him for ever the monopoly of His _métier_? - - - - -DANIEL DERONDA AND HIS JEWISH CRITICS - - _George Eliot and Judaism._ An attempt to appreciate _Daniel - Deronda_. By Professor David KAUFMANN, of the Jewish Theological - Seminary, Buda-Pesth. Translated from the German by J. W. FERRIER, - 1877. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons. - - -The latest echo from the critical chorus which has greeted _Daniel -Deronda_ comes to us from Germany, in the form of a small book by Dr. -Kaufmann, professor in the recently instituted Jewish Theological -Seminary at Buda-Pesth. A certain prominence, which its very excellent -translation into English confers upon this work, seems to be due less to -any special or novel feature in its criticism than to the larger purpose -shadowed forth in the title, ‘George Eliot and Judaism.’ It is advowedly -‘an attempt to appreciate _Daniel Deronda_,’ and is valuable and -interesting to English society not as a critique on the plot or the -characters of the book--on which points it strikes us, in more than one -instance, as somewhat weak and one-sided--but as indicating from a -Jewish standpoint in how far and how truly modern Judaism is therein -represented. Unappreciative as the great mass of the reading public have -shown themselves to the latest of George Eliot’s novels, the work has -excited a considerable amount of curiosity and admiration on the ground -of the intimate knowledge its author has evinced of the inner lives and -of the little-read literature of the ‘Great Unknown of humanity.’ We -think Dr. Kaufmann goes too far when he says, ‘The majority of readers -view the world to which they are introduced in _Daniel Deronda_ as one -foreign, strange, and repulsive.... It is not only the Jew of flesh and -blood whom men encounter every day upon the streets that they hate, but -the Jew under whatever shape he may appear, and even the airy -productions of the poet’s fancy are denounced when they venture to take -that people as their subject’ (p. 92). We think this view concedes very -much too much to prejudice; but it is undoubtedly a fact that the first -serious attempt by a great writer to make Jews and Judaism the central -interest of a great work, has produced a certain sense of discord on the -public ear, and that criticism has for the most part run in the minor -key. Mr. Swinburne, perhaps, strikes the most distinctly jarring chord, -when, in his lately published ‘Note on Charlotte Brontë,’ he owns to -possessing ‘no ear for the melodies of a Jew’s harp,’ and, disclaiming -‘a taste for the dissection of dolls,’ ‘leaves Daniel Deronda to his -natural place over the rag-shop door’ (pp. 21, 22). Even an ear so -politely and elegantly owned defective might be able, it could be -imagined, to catch an echo from the ‘choir invisible’; and poetic -insight, one might almost venture to think, should be able to discern in -poetic aspirations, however unfamiliar and even alien to itself, -something different from bran. This arrow is too heavily tipped to fly -straight to the goal. There are numbers, however, of the like school -who, with more excuse than Mr. Algernon Swinburne, fail to ‘see -anything’ in _Daniel Deronda_, and a criticism we once overheard in the -Louvre occurs to us as pertinent to this point. The picture was -Correggio’s ‘Marriage of St. Katharine,’ and to an Englishman standing -near us it evidently did not fulfil preconceived conceptions of a -marriage ceremony. He looked at it long, and at last turned disappointed -away, audibly muttering, ‘Well, I can’t see anything in it.’ That was -evident, but the failure was not in the picture. Preconceived -conceptions count for much, whether the artist be a Correggio or a -George Eliot, and ignorance and prejudice are ill-fitting spectacles -wherewith to assist vision. - -If it be an axiom that a man should be judged by his peers, we should -think that George Eliot would herself prefer that her work should be -weighed in the balance by those qualified to hold the scales, and should -by them, if at all, be pronounced ‘wanting.’ A book of which Judaism is -the acknowledged theme should appeal to Jews for judgment, and thus the -question becomes an interesting one to the outer world,--What do the -Jews themselves think of _Daniel Deronda_? Are the aspirations of -Mordecai regarded by them as the expression of a poet’s dream, or a -nation’s hope? What, in short, is the aspect of modern Judaism to the -book? - -‘Modern’ Judaism is itself, perhaps, a convenient rather than a correct -figure of speech. There are modern manners to which modern Jews -necessarily conform, and which have a tendency to tone down the outward -and special characteristics of Judaism, as of everything else, to a -general socially-undistinguishable level. But men are not necessarily -dumb because they do not speak much or loudly of such very personal -matters as their religious hopes and beliefs, more especially if in -these days they are so little in the fashion as to hold strong -convictions on such subjects. Our author distinctly formulates the -opinion that ‘men may give all due allegiance to a foreign State without -ceasing to belong to their own people’ (p. 21); and in the same sense as -we may conceive a man honestly fulfilling all dues as good husband and -good father to his living and lawful wife and children, and yet holding -tenderly in the unguessed-at depths of memory some long-ago-lost love, -so is it conceivable of many an unromantic-looking nineteenth century -Jew, who soberly performs all good citizen duties, that the unspoken -name of Jerusalem is still enshrined in like unguessed-at depths, as the -‘perfection of beauty,’ ‘the joy of the whole earth.’ Conventionalities -conduce to silence on such topics, and therefore it is to published -rather than to spoken Jewish criticisms we must turn in our inquiry, and -the little book under review certainly helps us to a definite answer. - -And we may notice, as a significant fact, that while on the part of -general critics there has been some differing even in their adverse -judgments, and a more than partial failure to grasp the idea of the -book, there seems both here and abroad a grateful consensus of Jewish -opinion that not only has George Eliot truly depicted the externals of -Jewish _life_, which was a comparatively easy task, but has also -correctly represented Jewish thought and the ideas underlying Judaism. -Our author emphatically says, ‘_Daniel Deronda_ is a Jewish book, not -only in the sense that it treats of Jews, but also in the sense that it -is pre-eminently fitted for being understood and appreciated by Jews’ -(p. 90); and again, ‘it will always be gratefully declared,’ he -concludes, ‘_that George Eliot has deserved right well of Judaism_’ (p. -95). Does this, then, mean that the ‘national’ idea is a rooted, -practical hope? Do English Jews, undistinguishable in the mass from -other Englishmen, really and truly hold the desire, like Mordecai, of -‘founding a new Jewish polity, grand, simple, just, like the old’? -(_Daniel Deronda_, Book IV.) Do they indeed design to devote their -‘wealth to redeem the soil from debauched and paupered conquerors,’ to -cleanse their fair land from ‘the hideous obloquy of Christian strife, -which the Turk gazes at as at the fighting of wild beasts to which he -has lent an arena’ (_ibidem_)? Was Daniel’s honeymoon-mission to the -East to have this practical result? The general Jewish verdict, as we -read it, scarcely concedes so much; it sees rather in the closing scene -of _Daniel Deronda_ the only weak spot in the book. Vague and visionary -as are all honeymoon anticipations, those of Daniel, their beauty and -unselfishness notwithstanding, strike Jewish readers as even more -unsubstantial, even less likely of realisation, than such imaginings in -general. Possibly, as in the old days of the Babylonian exile, ‘there be -some that dream’ of an actual restoration, of a Palestine which should -be the Switzerland of Asia Minor, which, crowned with ancient laurels, -might sit enthroned in peace and plenty,-- - - ‘Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-Be.’ - -But save with such few and faithful dreamers, memory scarcely blossoms -into hope, and hope most certainly has not yet ripened into strong -desire. It may come; but at present we apprehend the majority of Jews -see the ‘future of Judaism’ not in the form of a centralised and -localised nationality, but rather in the destiny foreshadowed by our -author, in which ‘Israel will be greatest when she labours under every -zone,’ when ‘her children shall have spread themselves abroad, bearing -the ineradicable seeds of eternal truth’ (pp. 86, 87). This conception -of ‘nationality’ would point rather to a spiritual than to a temporal -sovereignty, to a supremacy of mind rather than of matter, and appears -to be in accord with the tone pervading both ancient and modern Jewish -literature, which exhibits Judaism as a perpetual living force, -maintained from within rather than from without, and destined -continually to influence religious thought, and to survive all -dispensations. - -In his undefined mission to the East Deronda is, therefore, to that -extent perhaps, out of harmony with the general tone of modern Jewish -thought. We at least are constrained to think that more Jews of the -present day would be ready to follow Mordecai in imagination than -Deronda in person to Judæa. It is, nevertheless, in strict artistic -unity that, shut out for five-and-twenty years from actual practical -knowledge of his people, Deronda should represent the _ideal_ rather -than the _idea_ of Judaism. Mordecai, sketched as he is supposed to be -from the life, with his deep poetic yearnings, which are stayed on the -threshold of action, strikes us as a truer and more typical figure than -Deronda hastening to their fulfilment. And on the subject of these same -vague yearnings another point suggests itself. We have heard it said -that the religious belief of Mordecai centres rather in the destiny of -his race than in the Being who has appointed that destiny, and we have -heard it questioned whether the theism of Mordecai is sufficiently -defined to be fairly representative of Jewish thought, or if Judaism -indeed is also passing under that wave of Pantheism which, like the -waters of old, is threatening to submerge all ancient landmarks, and to -leave visible only ‘the tops of the mountains’ of revealed religion. -This seems a criticism based rather on negative than on positive -evidence, and derived possibly from the obvious leanings of George -Eliot’s other writings, and it is, perhaps, somewhat unfair to assume -that, even if, on this point, she does not sympathise with the Jews, she -has any intention of colouring her picture of modern Judaism with -intellectual prepossessions of her own. In the silence of Mordecai with -respect to his beliefs, he represents the great body of Jews, whose -religion finds expression rather in action than in formula, and who are -slow to indulge in theological speculations. Mordecai was true to Jewish -characteristics in the fact that his belief was concealed beneath his -hopes and aspirations, but had he in any degree shared the views of the -new school of sceptics, he could not have been the typical Jew, who sees -in the unity of his people a symbol of the unity of his God. - -The pure theism of Judaism may be said to have its poles in the -anthropomorphic utterances of some of the Rabbinical writers, and in -the present pantheism of the extreme German school; but we should say -that the ordinary, the representative Jewish thought of the day lies -between these two extremes, and, in so far as it gives expression to any -belief on the subject, distinctly recognises a personal God presiding -over human destiny and natural laws. There may be here and there an -inquiring spirit that wanders so far afield that his attraction towards -his people is lost, and with it the influence his genius should exert; -but Jewish thought, if owning a somewhat nebulous conception of the -Deity, slowly progressing towards one fuller and grander, cannot be said -to be drifting towards Pantheism. Judaism, unlike many other faiths, has -not a history and a religious belief apart,--the one not only includes -and supplements, but is actually non-existent, ‘unthinkable,’ without -the other. Thus to have made an earnest Jew, with the strong racial -instinct of Mordecai, a weak theist, would have been an inartistic -conception, and Jewish criticism has not discovered this flaw in George -Eliot’s exceptional but faithful Jewish portraiture. Judging, then, from -such sources as are open to us, we are led to infer that the feeling of -nationality is still deeply rooted in the Jewish race, and that the -religious feeling from which it is inseparable perhaps gives it the -strength and depth to exist and to continue to exist without the -external props of ‘a local habitation and a name.’ Dr. Kaufmann, -therefore, very well expresses what appears to be the general conviction -of his co-religionists, when he suggests that ‘in the very circumstance -of dispersion may lie fulfilment’ (p. 87). - - - - -MANASSEH BEN ISRAEL - -PRINTER AND PATRIOT - - -When the prophet of the Hebrews, some six-and-twenty hundred years ago, -thundered forth his stirring ‘Go through! go through the gates! prepare -a way, lift up a standard for the people!’ it may, without irreverence, -be doubted if he foresaw how literally his charge would be fulfilled by -one of his own race in the seventeenth century of the Christian era. The -story of how it was done may perhaps be worth retelling, since many -subjects of lesser moment have found more chroniclers. - -It was in 1290 that gates, which in England had long been ominously -creaking on their hinges, were deliberately swung-to, and bolted and -barred by Church and State on the unhappy Jews, who on that bleak -November day stood shivering along the coast. ‘Thy waves and thy billows -have passed over me’ must have lost in tender allegory and gained some -added force of literalness that wintry afternoon. Scarce any of the -descendants of that exodus can have had share in the return. Of such of -the refugees as reached the opposite ports few found foothold, and fewer -still asylum. The most, and perhaps they were the most fortunate of the -fifteen thousand, were quick in gaining foreign graves. Those who made -for the nearest neighbouring shores of France, forgetful, or perhaps -ignorant, of the recent experiences of their French brethren under -Philip Augustus, lived on to earn a like knowledge for themselves, and -to undergo, a few years later, another expulsion under Philip the Fair. -Those who went farther fared worse, for over the German States the -Imperial eagle of Rome no longer brooded, now to protect and now to prey -on its victims; the struggle between the free cities and the -multitudinous petty princelings was working to its climax, and whether -at bitter strife, or whether pausing for a brief while to recruit their -powers, landgrave and burgher, on one subject, were always of one mind. -To plunder at need or to persecute at leisure, Jews were held to be -handy and fair game for either side. - -Far northward or far southward that ragged English mob were hardly fit -to travel. Some remnant, perhaps, made effort to reach the -semi-barbarous settlements in Russia and Poland, but few can have been -sanguine enough to set out for distant Spain in hope of a welcome but -rarely accorded to such very poor relations. And even in the Peninsula -the security which Jews had hitherto experienced had by this date -received several severe shocks. Two centuries later and the tide of -civilisation had rolled definitely and drearily back on the soil which -Jews had largely helped to cultivate, and left it bare, and yet a little -longer, Portugal, become a province of Spain, had followed the cruel -fashions of its suzerain. - -By the close of the sixteenth century a settlement of the dispossessed -Spanish and Portuguese Jews had been formed in Holland, and Amsterdam -was growing into a strange Dutch likeness of a new Jerusalem, for -Holland alone among the nations at this period gave a welcome to all -citizens in the spirit of Virgil’s famous line, ‘_Tros Rutulusve fuat, -nullo discrimine habebo_.’ And the refugees, who at this date claimed -the hospitality of the States, were of a sort to make the Dutch in love -with their own unfashionable virtue of religious tolerance. Under -Moorish sway, for centuries, commerce had been but one of the pursuits -open to the Jews and followed by the Jews of the Peninsula, and thus it -was a crowd, not of financiers and traders only or chiefly, but of -cultivated scholars, physicians, statesmen, and land-owners, whom -Catholic bigotry had exiled. The thin disguise of new Christians was -soon thrown off by these Jews, and they became to real Christians, to -such men as Vossius and Caspar Barlæus, who welcomed them and made -friends of them, a revelation of Judaism. - -It was after the great _auto-da-fé_ of January 1605, that Joseph ben -Israel, with a host of other Jews, broken in health and broken in -fortune, left the land which bigotry and persecution had made hideous to -them, and joined the peaceful and prosperous settlement in Amsterdam. -The youngest of Ben Israel’s transplanted family was the year-old -Manasseh, who had been born in Lisbon a few months before their flight. -He seems to have been from the first a promising and intelligent lad, -and his tutor, one Isaac Uziel, who was a minister of the congregation, -and a somewhat famous mathematician and physician to boot, formed a high -opinion of the boy’s abilities. He did not, however, live to see them -verified; when Manasseh was but eighteen the Rabbi died, and his clever -pupil was thought worthy to be appointed to the vacated office. It was -an honoured and an honourable, but scarcely a lucrative, post to which -Manasseh thus succeeded, and the problem of living soon became further -complicated by an early marriage and a young family. Manasseh had to -cast about him for supplementary means of support, and he presently -found it in the establishment of a printing press. Whether the type gave -impetus to the pen, or whether the pen had inspired the idea of the -press, is hard to decide; but it is, at least, certain that before he -was twenty-five, Manasseh had found congenial work and plenty of it. He -taught and he preached, and both in the school-room and in the pulpit he -was useful and effective, but it was in his library that he felt really -happy and at home. Manasseh was a born scholar and an omnivorous reader, -bound to develop into a prolific, if not a profound, writer. The work -which first established his fame bears traces of this, and is, in point -of fact, less of a composition than a compilation. The first part of -this book, _The Conciliator_, was published in 1632, after five years’ -labour had been expended on it, and it is computed to contain quotations -from, or references to, over 200 Hebrew, and 50 Latin and Greek authors. -Its object was to harmonise (_conciliador_) conflicting passages in the -Pentateuch, and it was written in Spanish, although it could have been -composed with equal facility in any one of half-a-dozen other languages, -for Manasseh was a most accomplished linguist. - -Although not the first book which was issued from his press, for a -completely edited prayer-book and a Hebrew grammar had been published -in 1627, _The Conciliator_ was the first work that attracted the -attention of the learned world to the Amsterdam Rabbi. Manasseh had the -advantage of literary connections of his own, through his wife, who was -a great-granddaughter of Abarbanel--that same Isaac Abarbanel, the -scholar and patriot, who in 1490 headed the deputation to Ferdinand and -Isabella, which was so dramatically cut short by Torquemada. - -Like _The Conciliator_, all Manasseh’s subsequent literary ventures met -with ready appreciation, but with more appreciation, it would seem, than -solid result, for his means appear to have been always insufficient for -his modest wants, and in 1640 we find him seriously contemplating -emigration to Brazil on a trading venture. Two members of his -congregation, which, as a body, does not seem to have acted liberally -towards him, came forward, however, at this crisis in his affairs, and -conferred a benefit all round by establishing a college and appointing -Manasseh the principal, with an adequate salary. This ready use of some -portion of their wealth has made the brothers Pereira more distinguished -than for its possession. Still, it must not be inferred that Manasseh -had been, up to this date, a friendless, if a somewhat impecunious, -student, only that, as is rather perhaps the wont of poor prophets in -their own country, his admirers had had to come from the outer before -they reached the inner circle. He had certainly achieved a European -celebrity in the Republic of letters before his friends at Amsterdam had -discovered much more than the fact that he printed very superior -prayer-books. He had won over, amongst others, the prejudiced author of -the _Law of Nations_, to own him, a Jew, for a familiar friend, before -some of the wealthier heads of his own congregation had claimed a like -privilege; and Grotius, then Swedish ambassador at Paris, was actually -writing to him, and proffering friendly services, at the very time that -the Amsterdam congregation were calmly receiving his enforced farewells. -There was something, perhaps, of irony in the situation, but Manasseh, -like Maimonides, had no littleness of disposition, no inflammable -self-love quick to take fire; he loved his people truly enough to -understand them and to make allowances, had even, perhaps, some humorous -perception of the national obtuseness to native talent when unarrayed in -purple and fine linen, or until duly recognised by the wearers of such. - -Set free, by the liberality of Abraham and Isaac Pereira, from the -pressure of everyday cares, Manasseh again devoted himself to his books, -and turned out a succession of treatises. History, Philosophy, -Theology, he attacked them all in turn, and there is, perhaps, something -besides rapidity of execution which suggests an idea of manufacture in -most of these works. A treatise which he published about 1650, and which -attracted very wide notice, significantly illustrated his rather fatal -facility for ready writing. The treatise was entitled _The Hope of -Israel_, and sought to prove no less than that some aborigines in -America, whose very existence was doubtful, were lineal descendants of -the lost ten tribes. The Hope itself seems to have rested on no more -solid foundation than a traveller’s tale of savages met with in the -wilds, who included something that sounded like the עמש (Shemang[17]) in -their vernacular. The story was quickly translated into several -languages, but it was almost as quickly disproved, and Manasseh’s -deductions from it were subsequently rather roughly criticised. Truth to -say, the accumulated stores of his mind were ground down and sifted and -sown broadcast in somewhat careless and indigestible masses, and their -general character gives an uncomfortable impression of machine-work -rather than of hand-work. And the proportion of what he wrote was as -nothing compared to what he contemplated writing. Perhaps those -never-written books of his would have proved the most readable; he -might have shown us himself, his wise, tolerant, enthusiastic self, in -them. But instead, we possess, in his shelves on shelves of published -compilations of dead men’s minds, only duly labelled and catalogued -selections from learned mummies. - -The dream of Manasseh was to compose a ‘Heroic History,’ a significant -title which shadows forth the worthy record he would have delighted in -compiling from Jewish annals. It is as well, perhaps, that the title is -all we have of the work, for he was too good an idealist to prove a good -historian. He cared too much, and he knew too much, to write a reliable -or a readable history of his people. To him, as to many of us, Robert -Browning’s words might be applied-- - - ‘So you saw yourself as you wished you were-- - As you might have been, as you cannot be-- - Earth here rebuked by Olympus there, - And grew content in your poor degree.’[18] - -He, at any rate, had good reason to grow content in his degree, for he -was destined to make an epoch in the ‘Heroic History,’ instead of being, -as he ‘wished he were,’ the reciter, and probably the prosy reciter, of -several. Certain it is that, great scholar, successful preacher, and -voluminous writer as was Manasseh ben Israel, it was not till he was -fifty years old that he found his real vocation. He had felt at it for -years, his books were more or less blind gropings after it, his -friendships with the eminent and highly placed personages of his time -were all unconscious means to a conscious end, and his very character -was a factor in his gradually formed purpose. His whole life had been an -upholding of the ‘standard’; publicists who sneered at the ostentatious -rich Jew, priests who railed at the degraded poor Jew, were each bound -to recognise in Manasseh ben Israel a Jew of another type: one poor yet -self-respecting, sought after yet unostentatious, conservative yet -cosmopolitan, learned yet undogmatic. They might question if this -Amsterdam Rabbi were _sui generis_, but they were at least willing to -find out if he were in essentials what he claimed to be, fairly -representative of the fairly treated members of his race. So the ‘way -was prepared’ by the ‘standard’ being raised. Which, of the many -long-closed ‘gates,’ was to open for the people to pass through? - -Manasseh looked around on Europe. He sought a safe and secure -resting-place for the tribe of wandering foot and weary heart, where, no -longer weary and wandering, they might cease to be ‘tribal.’ He sought -a place where ‘protection’ should not be given as a sordid bribe, nor -conferred as a fickle favour, but claimed as an inalienable right, and -shared in common with all law-abiding citizens. His thoughts turned for -a while on Sweden, and there was some correspondence to that end with -the young Queen Christina, but this failing, or falling through, his -hopes were almost at once definitely directed towards England. It was a -wise selection and a happy one, and the course of events, and the time -and the temper of the people, seemed all upon his side. The faithless -Stuart king had but lately expiated his hateful, harmful weakness on the -scaffold, and sentiment was far as yet from setting the nimbus of saint -and martyr on that handsome, treacherous head. The echoes of John -Hampden’s brave voice seemed still vibrating in the air, and Englishmen, -but freshly reminded of their rights, were growing keen and eager in the -scenting out of wrongs; quick to discover, and fierce to redress evils -which had long lain rooted and rotting, and unheeded. The pompous -_insouciance_ of the first Stuart king, the frivolous _insouciance_ of -the second, were now being resented in inevitable reaction. The court no -longer led the fashion; the people had come to the front and were -growing grimly, even grotesquely, in earnest. The very fashion of -speaking seems to have changed with the new need for strong, terse -expression. Men greeted each other with old-fashioned Bible greetings; -they named their children after those ‘great ones gone,’ or with even -quainter effect in some simple selected Bible phrase; the very tones of -the Prophets seemed to resound in Whitehall, and Englishmen to have -become, in a wide, unsensational sense, not men only of the sword, or of -the plough, but men of the Book, and that Book the Bible. Liberty of -conscience, equality before the law for all religious denominations, had -been the unconditional demand of that wonderful army of Independents, -and although the Catholics were the immediate cause and object of this -appeal, yet Manasseh, watching events from the calm standpoint of a -keenly interested onlooker, thought he discerned in the listening -attitude of the English Parliament, a favourable omen of the attention -he desired to claim for his clients, since it was not alone for -political, but for religious, rights that he meant to plead. - -He did not, however, actually come to England till 1655, when the way -for personal intercession had been already prepared by correspondence -and petition. His _Hope of Israel_ had been forwarded to Cromwell so -early as 1650; petitions praying for the readmission of Jews to England -with full rights of worship, of burial, and of commerce secured to them, -had been laid before the Long and the Rump Parliament, and Manasseh had -now in hand, and approaching completion, a less elaborate and more -impassioned composition than usual, entitled, _Vindiciæ Judæorum_. A -powerful and unexpected advocate of Jewish claims presently came forward -in the person of Edward Nicholas, the clerk to the Council. This -large-minded and enlightened gentleman had the courage to publish an -elaborate appeal for, and defence of, the Jews, ‘the most honourable -people in the world,’ as he styled them, ‘a people chosen by God and -protected by God.’ The pamphlet was headed, _Apology for the Honourable -Nation of the Jews and all the Sons of Israel_, and Nicholas’s arguments -aroused no small amount of attention and discussion. It was even -whispered that Cromwell had had a share in the authorship; but if this -had been so, undoubtedly he who ‘stood bare, not cased in euphemistic -coat of mail,’ but who ‘grappled like a giant, face to face, heart to -heart, with the naked truth of things,’[19] would have unhesitatingly -avowed it. His was not the sort of nature to shirk responsibilities nor -to lack the courage of his opinions. There can be no doubt that, from -first to last, Cromwell was strongly in favour of Jewish claims being -allowed, but just as little doubt is there that there was never any -tinge or taint of ‘secret favouring’ about his sayings or his doings on -the subject. The part, and all things considered the very unpopular -part, he took in the subsequent debates, had, of course, to be accounted -for by minds not quick to understand such simple motive power as -justice, generosity, or sympathy, and both now and later the wildest -accusations were levelled against the Protector. That he was, -unsuspected, himself of Jewish descent, and had designs on the long -vacant Messiahship of his interesting kinsfolk, was not the most -malignant, though it was perhaps among the most absurd, of these tales. -‘The man is without a soul,’ writes Carlyle, ‘that can look into the -great soul of a man, radiant with the splendours of very heaven, and see -nothing there but the shadow of his own mean darkness.’[20] There must -have been, if this view be correct, a good many particularly -materialistic bodies going about at that epoch in English history when -the Protector of England took upon himself the unpopular burden of being -also the Protector of the Jews. - -There had been some opposition on the part of the family to overcome, -some tender timid forebodings, which events subsequently justified, to -dispel, before Manasseh was free to set out for England; but in the late -autumn of 1655[21] we find him with two or three companions safely -settled in lodgings in the Strand. An address to the Protector was -personally presented by Manasseh, whilst a more detailed declaration to -the Commonwealth was simultaneously published. Very remarkable are both -these documents. Neither in the personal petition to Cromwell, nor in -the more elaborate argument addressed to the Parliament, is there the -slightest approach to the _ad misericordiam_ style. The whole case for -the Jews is stated with dignity, and pleaded without passion, and -throughout justice rather than favour forms the staple of the demand. -The ‘clemency’ and ‘high-mindedness’ of Cromwell are certainly taken for -granted, but equally is assumed the worthiness of the clients who appeal -to these qualities. Manasseh makes also a strong point of the ‘Profit,’ -which the Jews are likely to prove to their hosts, naïvely recognising -the fact that ‘Profit is a most powerful motive which all the world -prefers above all other things’; and ‘therefore dealing with that point -first.’ He dwells on the ‘ability,’ and ‘industry,’ and ‘natural -instinct’ of the Jews for ‘merchandising,’ and for ‘contributing new -inventions,’ which extra aptitude, in a somewhat optimistic spirit, he -moralises, may have been given to them for their ‘protection in their -wanderings,’ since ‘wheresoever they go to dwell, there presently the -traficq begins to flourish.’ - -Read in the light of some recent literature, one or two of Manasseh’s -arguments might almost be termed prophetic. Far-sighted, however, and -wide-seeing as was our Amsterdam Rabbi, he could certainly not have -foretold that more than two hundred years later his race would be -taunted in the same breath for being a ‘wandering’ and ‘homeless tribe,’ -and for remaining a ‘settled’ and ‘parasitic’ people in their adopted -countries; yet are not such ingenious, and ungenerous, and inconsistent -taunts answered by anticipation in the following paragraph?-- - - ‘The love that men ordinarily bear to their own country, and the - desire they have to end their lives where they had their beginning, - is the cause that most strangers, having gotten riches where they - are in a foreign land, are commonly taken in a desire to return to - their native soil, and there peaceably to enjoy their estate; so - that as they were a help to the places where they lived and - negotiated while they remained there, so when they depart from - thence, they carry all away and spoile them of their wealth; - transporting all into their own native country: but with the Jews, - the case is farre different, for where the Jews are once kindly - receaved, they make a firm resolution never to depart from thence, - seeing they have no proper place of their own; and so they are - always with their goods in the cities where they live, a perpetual - benefitt to all payments.’[22] - -Manasseh goes on to quote Holy Writ, to show that to ‘seek for the -peace,’ and to ‘pray for the peace of the city whither ye are led -captive,’[23] was from remote times a loyal duty enjoined on Jews; and -so he makes perhaps another point against that thorough-going historian -of our day, who would have disposed of the People and the Book, the Jews -and the Old Testament together, in the course of a magazine article. To -prove that uncompromising loyalty has among the Jews the added force of -a religious obligation, Manasseh mentions the fact that the ruling -dynasty is always prayed for by upstanding congregations in every -Jewish place of worship, and he makes history give its evidence to show -that this is no mere lip loyalty, but that the obligation enjoined has -been over and over again faithfully fulfilled. He quotes numerous -instances in proof of this; beginning from the time, 900 years B.C., -when the Jerusalem Jews, High Priest at their head, went forth to defy -Alexander, and to own staunch allegiance to discrowned Darius, till -those recent civil wars in Spain, when the Jews of Burgos manfully held -that city against the conqueror, Henry of Trastamare, in defence of -their conquered, but liege lord, Pedro.[24] - -Of all the simply silly slanders from which his people had suffered, -such, for instance, as the kneading Passover biscuits with the blood of -Christian children, Manasseh disposes shortly, with brief and distinct -denial; pertinently reminding Englishmen, however, that like absurd -accusations crop up in the early history of the Church, when the ‘very -same ancient scandalls was cast of old upon the innocent Christians.’ - -With the more serious, because less absolutely untruthful, charge of -‘usury,’ Manasseh deals as boldly, urging even no extenuating plea, but -frankly admitting the practice to be ‘infamous.’ But characteristically, -he proceeds to express an opinion, that ‘inasmuch as no man is bound to -give his goods to another, so is he not bound to let it out but for his -own occasions and profit,’ ‘only,’ and this he adds emphatically-- - - ‘It must be done with moderation, that the usury be not biting or - exorbitant.... The sacred Scripture, which allows usury with him - that is not of the same religion, forbids absolutely the robbing of - all men, whatsoever religion they be of. In our law it is a greater - sinne to rob or defraud a stranger, than if I did it to one of my - owne profession; a Jew is bound to show his charity to all men; he - hath a precept, not to abhorre an Idumean or an Egyptian; and yet - another, that he shall love and protect a stranger that comes to - live in his land. If, notwithstanding, there be some that do - contrary to this, they do it not as Jewes simply, but as wicked - Jewes.’ - -The Appeal made, as it could scarcely fail to do, a profound -impression--an impression which was helped not a little by the presence -and character of the pleader. And presently the whole question of the -return of the Jews to England was submitted to the nation for its -decision. - -The clergy were dead against the measure, and, it is said, ‘raged like -fanatics against the Jews as an accursed nation.’ And then it was that -Cromwell, true to his highest convictions, stood up to speak in their -defence. On the ground of policy, he temperately urged the desirability -of adding thrifty, law-respecting, and enterprising citizens to the -national stock; and on the higher ground of duty, he passionately -pleaded the unpopular cause of religious and social toleration. He -deprecated the principle that, the claims of morality being satisfied, -any men or any body of men, on the score of race, of origin, or of -religion (‘tribal mark’ had not at that date been suggested), should be -excluded from full fellowship with other men. ‘I have never heard a man -speak so splendidly in my life,’ is the recorded opinion of one of the -audience, and it is a matter of intense regret that this famous speech -of Cromwell’s has not been preserved. Its eloquence, however, failed of -effect, so far as its whole and immediate object was concerned. The -gates were no more than shaken on their rusting hinges--not quite yet -were the people free to ‘go through.’ - -The decision of the Council of State was deferred, and some authorities -even allege that it was presently pronounced against the readmission of -the Jews to England. The known and avowed favour of the Protector -sufficed, nevertheless, to induce the few Jews who had come with, or in -the train of, Manasseh to remain, and others gradually, and by degrees, -and without any especial notice being taken of them, ventured to follow. -The creaking old gates were certainly ajar, and wider and wider they -opened, and fainter and fainter, from friction of unrestrained -intercourse, grew each dull rust and stain of prejudice, till that good -day, within living memories, when the barriers were definitely and -altogether flung down. And on their ruins a new and healthy human growth -sprang quickly up, ‘taking root downwards, and fruit upwards,’ spreading -wide enough in its vigorous luxuriance to cover up all the old bad past. -And by this time it has happily grown impervious to any wanton -unfriendly touch which would thrust its kindly shade aside and once -again lay those ugly ruins bare. - -Manasseh, however, like so many of us, had to be content to sow seed -which he was destined never to see ripen. His petitions to the -Commonwealth were presented in 1655, his _Vindiciæ Judæorum_ was -completed and handed in some time in 1656, and in the early winter of -1657, on his journey homewards, he died. His mission had not fulfilled -itself in the complete triumphant way he had hoped, but ‘life fulfils -itself in many ways,’ and one part at any rate, perhaps the most -important part, of the Hebrew prophet’s charge, had been both poetically -and prosaically carried out by this seventeenth century Dutch Jew. He -had ‘lifted up a standard for his people.’ - - - - -CHARITY IN TALMUDIC TIMES - -SOME ANCIENT SOLVINGS OF A MODERN PROBLEM - - -‘What have we reaped from all the wisdom sown of ages?’ asks Lord Lytton -in one of his earlier poems. A large query, even for so questioning an -age as this, an age which, discarding catechisms, and rejecting the -omniscient Mangnall’s Questions as a classic for its children, yet seems -to be more interrogative than of old, even if a thought less ready in -its responses. Possibly, we are all in too great a hurry nowadays, too -eager in search to be patient to find, for certain it is that the -world’s already large stock of hows and whys seems to get bigger every -day. We catch the echoes in poetry and in prose, in all sorts of tones -and from all sorts of people, and Lord Lytton’s question sounds only -like another of the hopeless Pilate series. His is such a large -interrogation too--all the wisdom sown of all the ages suggests such an -enormous crop! And then as to what ‘we,’ who have neither planted nor -watered, have ‘reaped’ from it! An answer, if it were attempted, might -certainly be found to hinge on the ‘we’ as well as on the ‘wisdom,’ for -whereas untaught instinct may ‘reap’ honey from a rose, trained reason -in gathering the flower may only succeed in running a thorn into the -finger. What has been the general effect of inherited wisdom on the -general world may, however, very well be left for a possible solution to -prize competitors to puzzle over. But to a tiny corner of the tremendous -subject it is just possible that we may find some sort of suggestive -reply; and from seed sown ages since, and garnered as harvest by men -whose place knows them no more, we may likely light on some shadowy -aftermath worth, perhaps, our reaping. - -The gospel of duty to one’s neighbour, which, long languishing as a -creed, seems now reviving as a fashion, has always been, amongst that -race which taught ‘love thy neighbour as thyself,’ not only of the very -essence of religion, but an ordinary social form of it. It is ‘law’ in -the ‘family chronicle’ of the race, as Heine calls the Bible; it is -‘law’ and legend both in those curious national archives known as -Talmud. Foremost in the ranks of _livres incompris_ stand those -portentous volumes, the one work of the world which has suffered about -equally at the hands of the commentator and the executioner. Many years -ago Emmanuel Deutsch gave to the uninitiated a glimpse into that -wondrous agglomeration of fantastically followed facts, where -long-winded legend, or close-argued ‘law,’ starts some phrase or word -from Holy Writ as quarry, and pursues it by paths the most devious, the -most digressive imaginable to man. The work of many generations and of -many ‘masters’ in each generation, such a book is singularly susceptible -to an open style of reading and a liberal aptitude of quotation, and it -is no marvel that searchers in its pages, even reasonably honest ones, -should be able to find detached individual utterances to fit into almost -any one of their own preconceived dogmas concerning Talmud. On many -subjects, qualifications, contradictions, differences abound, and -instances of illegal law, of pseudo-science, of doubtful physics, may -each, with a little trouble, be disinterred from the depths of these -twelve huge volumes. But the ethics of the Talmud are, as a whole, of a -high order, and on one point there is such remarkable and entire -agreement, that it is here permissible to speak of what ‘the Talmud -says,’ meaning thereby a general tone and consensus of opinion, and not -the views of this or of that individual master. The subject on which -this unusual harmony prevails is the, in these days, much discussed one -of charity; and to discover something concerning so very ancient a mode -of dealing with it may not prove uninteresting. - -The word which in these venerable folios is made to express the thing -is, in itself, significant. In the Hebrew Scriptures, though the -injunctions to charitable acts are many, an exact equivalent to our word -‘charity’ can hardly be said to exist. In only eight instances, and not -even then in its modern sense, does the Septuagint translate צדקה -(_tzedakah_) into its Greek equivalent, ἑλεημοσὑνη, which would become -in English ‘alms,’ or ‘charity.’ The nearest synonyms for ‘charity’ in -the Hebrew Scriptures are צדקה (_tzedakah_), well translated as -‘righteousness’ in the Authorised Version, and חסד (_chesed_), which is -adequately rendered as ‘mercy, kindness, love.’ The Talmud, in its -exhaustive fashion, seems to accentuate the essential difference between -these two words. _Tzedakah_ is, to some extent, a class distinction; the -rights of the poor make occasion for the righteousness of the rich, and -the duties of _tzedakah_ find liberal and elaborate expression in a -strict and minute system of tithes and almsgiving.[25] The injunctions -of the Pentateuch concerning the poor are worked out by the Talmud into -the fullest detail of direction. The Levitical law, ‘When ye reap the -harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy -field’ (Levit. xiv. 9), gives occasion of itself to a considerable -quantity of literature. At length, it is enacted how, if brothers divide -a field between them, each has to give a ‘corner,’ and how, if a man -sell his field in several lots, each purchaser of each separate lot has -to leave unreaped his own proportionate ‘corner’ of the harvesting. And -not only to leave unreaped, but how, in cases where the ‘corner’ was of -a sort hard for the poor to gather, hanging high, as dates, or needing -light handling, as grapes, it became the duty of the owner to undertake -the ‘reaping’ thereof, and, himself, to make the rightful division; thus -guarding against injury to quickly perishable fruits from too eager -hands, or danger of a more serious sort to life or limbs, where ladders -had to be used by hungry and impatient folks. The exactest rules, too, -are formulated as to what constitutes a ‘field’ and what a ‘corner,’ as -to what produce is liable to the tax and in what measure. Very curious -it is to read long and gravely reasoned arguments as to why mushrooms -should be held exempt from the law of the corner, whilst onions must be -subject to it, or the weighty _pros_ and _cons_ over what may be fairly -considered a ‘fallen grape,’ or a ‘sheaf left through forgetfulness.’ -Yet the principle underlying the whole is too clear for prolixity to -raise a smile, and the evident anxiety that no smallest loophole shall -be left for evading the obligations of property compels respect. - -Little room for doubt on any disputed point of partition do these -exhaustive, and, occasionally, it must be owned, exhausting, masters -leave us, yet, when all is said, they are careful to add, ‘Whatever is -doubtful concerning the gifts of the poor belongeth to the poor.’ The -actual money value of this system of alms, the actual weight of ancient -ephah or omer, in modern lbs. and ozs. would convey little meaning. -Values fluctuate and measures vary, but ‘a tithe of thy increase,’ ‘a -corner of thy field,’ gives a tolerably safe index to the scale on which -_tzedakah_ was to be practised. Three times a day the poor might glean, -and to the question which some lover of system, old style or new, might -propound, ‘Why three times? Why not once, and get it over?’ an answer is -vouchsafed. ‘_Because there may be poor who are suckling children, and -thus stand in need of food in the early morning; there may be young -children who cannot be got ready early in the morning, nor come to the -field till it be mid-day; there may be aged folk who cannot come till -the time of evening prayer._’ Still, though plenty of sentiment in this -code, there is no trace of sentimentality; rather a tendency for each -back to bear its own burden, whether it be in the matter of give or -take. Rights are respected all round, and significant in this sense is -the rule that if a vineyard be sold by Gentile to Jew it must give up -its ‘small bunches’ of grapes to the poor; while if the transaction be -the other way, the Gentile purchaser is altogether exempt, and if Jew -and Gentile be partners, that part of the crop belonging to the Jew -alone is taxed. And equally clear is it that the poor, though cared for -and protected, are not to be petted. At this very three-times-a-day -gleaning, if one should keep a corner of his ‘corner’ to himself, hiding -his harvesting and defrauding his neighbour, justice is prompt: ‘_Let -him be forced to depart_,’ it is written, ‘_and what he may have -received let it be taken out of his hands._’ Neither is any preference -permitted to poverty of the plausible or of the picturesque sort: ‘_He -who refuseth to one and giveth to another, that man is a defrauder of -the poor_,’ it is gravely said. - -In general charity, there are, it is true, certain rules of precedence -to be observed; kindred, for example, have, in all cases, the first -claim, and a child supporting his parents, or even a parent supporting -adult children, to the end that these may be ‘versed in the law, and -have good manners,’ is set high among followers of _tzedakah_. Then, -‘_The poor who are neighbours are to be regarded before all others; the -poor of one’s own family before the poor of one’s own city, and the poor -of one’s own city before the poor of another’s city._’ And this version -of ‘charity begins at home’ is worked out in another place into quite a -detailed table, so to speak, of professional precedence in the ranks of -recognised recipients. And, curiously enough, first among all the -distinctions to be observed comes this: ‘_If a man and woman solicit -relief, the woman shall be first attended to and then the man._’ An -explanation, perhaps a justification, of this mild forestalment of -women’s rights, is given in the further dictum that ‘Man is accustomed -to wander, and that woman is not,’ and ‘Her feelings of modesty being -more acute,’ it is fit that she should be ‘always fed and clothed before -the man.’ And if, in this ancient system, there be a recognised scale of -rights for receiving, so, equally, is there a graduated order of merit -in giving. Eight in number are these so-called ‘Degrees in Alms Deeds,’ -the curious list gravely setting forth as ‘highest,’ and this, it would -seem, rather on the lines of ‘considering the poor’ than of mere giving, -that _tzedakah_ which ‘helpeth ... who is cast down,’ by means of gift -or loan, or timely procuring of employment, and ranging through ‘next’ -and ‘next,’ till it announces, as eighth and least, the ‘any one who -giveth after much molestation.’ High in the list, too, are placed those -‘silent givers’ who ‘let not poor children of upright parents know from -whom they receive support,’ and even the man who ‘giveth less than his -means allow’ is lifted one degree above the lowest if he ‘give with a -kind countenance.’ - -The mode of relief grew, with circumstances, to change. The time came -when, to ‘the Hagars and Ishmaels of mankind,’ rules for gleaning and -for ‘fallen grapes’ would, perforce, be meaningless, and new means for -the carrying out of _tzedakah_ had to be devised. In Alms of the Chest, -קופה (_kupah_), and Alms of the Basket, תמחוי (_tamchui_), another -exhaustive system of relief was formulated. The _kupah_ would seem to -have been a poor-rate, levied on all ‘residents in towns of over thirty -days’ standing,’ and ‘Never,’ says Maimonides, ‘have we seen or heard of -any congregation of Israelites in which there has not been the Chest for -Alms, though, with regard to the Basket, it is the custom in some places -to have it, and not in others.’ These chests were placed in the Silent -Court of the Sanctuary, to the end that a class of givers who went by -the name of Fearers of Sin,[26] might deposit their alms in silence and -be relieved of responsibility. The contents of the Chest were collected -weekly and used for all ordinary objects of relief, the overplus being -devoted to special cases and special purposes. It is somewhat strange to -our modern notions to find that one among such purposes was that of -providing poor folks with the wherewith to marry. For not only is it -commanded concerning the ‘brother waxen poor,’ ‘_If he standeth in need -of garments, let him be clothed; or if of household things, let him be -supplied with them,’ but ‘if of a wife, let a wife be betrothed unto -him, and in case of a woman, let a husband be betrothed unto her._’ Does -this quaint provision recall Voltaire’s taunt that ‘Les juifs ont -toujours regardé comme leurs deux grands devoirs des enfants et de -l’argent’? Perhaps, and yet, Voltaire and even Malthus notwithstanding, -it is just possible that the last word has not been said on this -subject, and that in ‘improvident’ marriages and large families the new -creed of survival of the fittest may, after all, be best fulfilled. - -Philosophers, we know, are not always consistent with themselves, and -if there be truth in another saying of Voltaire’s--‘Voyez les registres -affreux de vos greffes crimines, vous y trouvez cent garçons de pendus -ou de roués contre un père de famille’--then is there something -certainly to be said in favour of the Jewish system. But this by the -way, since statistics, it must be owned, are the most sensitive and -susceptible of the sciences. This ancient betrothing, moreover, was no -empty form, no bare affiancing of two paupers; but a serious and -substantial practice of raising a marriage portion for a couple unable -to marry without it. By Talmudic code, ‘marriages were not legitimately -complete till a settlement of some sort was made on the wife,’ who, it -may be here parenthetically remarked, was so far in advance of -comparatively modern legislation as to be entitled to have and to hold -in as complete and comprehensive a sense as her husband. - -But whilst Alms of the Chest, though pretty various in its -application,[27] was intended only for the poor of the place in which -it was collected, Alms of the Basket was, to the extent of its -capabilities, for ‘the poor of the whole world.’ It consisted of a daily -house-to-house collection of food of all sorts, and occasionally of -money, which was again, day by day, distributed. This custom of -_tamchui_, suited to those primitive times, would seem to be very -similar to the practice of ‘common Boxes, and common gatherynges in -every City,’ which prevailed in England in the sixteenth century, and -which received legal sanction in Act of the 23rd of Henry VIII.--‘Item, -that 2 or 3 tymes in every weke 2 or 3 of every parysh shal appoynt -certaine of ye said pore people to collecte and gather broken meates and -fragments, and the refuse drynke of every householder, which shal be -distributed evenly amonge the pore people as they by theyre discrecyons -shal thynke good.’ Only the collectors and distributors of _kupah_ and -_tamchui_ were not ‘certaine of ye said pore people,’ but unpaid men of -high character, holding something of the position of magistrates in the -community. The duty of contributing in kind to _tamchui_ was -supplemented among the richer folks by a habit of entertaining the poor -as guests;[28] seats at their own tables, and beds in their houses being -frequently reserved for wayfarers, at least over Sabbath and -festivals.[29] - -The curious union of sense and sentiment in the Talmudic code is shown -again in the regulations as to who may, and who may not, receive of -these gifts of the poor: ‘_He who has sufficient for two meals_,’ so -runs the law, ‘_may not take from tamchui; he who has sufficient for -fourteen may not take from kupah_.’ Yet might holders of property, -fallen on slack seasons, be saved from selling at a loss and helped to -hold on till better times, by being ‘meanwhile supported out of the -tithes of the poor.’ And if the house and goods of him in this temporary -need were grand, money help might be given to the applicant, and he -might keep all his smart personal belongings, yet superfluities, an odd -item or two of which are vouchsafed, must be sold, and replaced, if at -all, by a simpler sort. Still, with all this excessive care for those -who have come down in the world, and despite the dictum that ‘he who -withholdeth alms is “impious” and like unto an idolater,’ there is yet -no encouragement to dependence discernible in these precise and prolix -rules. ‘Let thy Sabbath be as an ordinary day, rather than become -dependent on thy fellow-men,’ it is clearly written, and told, too, in -detail, how ‘wise men,’ the most honoured, by the way, in the community, -to avoid ‘dependence on others,’ might become, without loss of caste or -respectability, ‘carriers of timber, workers in metal, and makers of -charcoal.’ Neither is there any contempt for wealth or any love of -poverty for its own sake to be seen in this people, who were taught to -‘rejoice before the Lord.’ In one place it is, in truth, gravely set -forth that ‘he who increaseth the number of his servants’ increaseth the -amount of sin in the world, but this somewhat ascetic-sounding statement -is clearly susceptible of a good deal of common-sense interpretation, -and when another Master tells us that ‘charity is the salt which keeps -wealth from corruption,’ a thought, perhaps, for the due preservation of -the wealth may be read between the lines. - -On the whole, it looks as if these old-world Rabbis set to work at -laying down the law in much the spirit of Robert Browning’s Rabbi-- - - ‘Let us not always say, - Spite of this flesh to-day, - I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole. - As the bird wings and sings - Let us cry, ‘All good things - Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more now than flesh helps soul.’ - -After this manner, at any rate, are set forth, and in this sense are -interpreted in the Talmud, the Biblical injunctions to _tzedakah_, to -that charity of alms-deeds which, as society is constituted, must, as we -said, be considered somewhat of a class distinction. - -But for the charity which should be obligatory all round, and as easy of -fulfilment by the poor as by the rich, the Talmud chooses the other -synonym חסד (_chesed_), and coining from it the word _Gemiluth-chesed_, -which may be rendered ‘the doing of kindness,’ it works out a -supplementary and social system of charity--a system founded not on -‘rights,’ but on sympathy--dealing not in doles, but in deeds of -friendship and of fellowship, and demanding a giving of oneself rather -than of one’s stores. And greater than _tzedakah_, write the Rabbis, is -_Gemiluth-chesed_, justifying their dictum, as is their wont, by a -reference to Holy Writ. ‘Sow to yourselves in righteousness -(_tzedakah_),’ says the prophet Hosea (Hos. x. 12); ‘reap in mercy -(_chesed_)’; and, inasmuch as reaping is better than sowing, mercy must -be better than righteousness. To ‘visit the sick,’ to promote peace in -families apt to fall out, to ‘relieve all persons, Jews or non-Jews, in -affliction’ (a comprehensive phrase), to ‘bury the dead,’ to ‘accompany -the bride,’ are among those ‘kindnesses’ which take rank as religious -duties, and one or two specimens may indicate the amount of careful -detail which make these injunctions practical, and the fine motive which -goes far towards spiritualising them. - -Of the visiting of the sick, the Talmud speaks with a sort of awe. God’s -spirit, it says, dwells in the chamber of suffering and death, and -tendance therein is worship. Nursing was to be voluntary, and no charge -to be made for drugs; and so deeply did the habit of helping the -helpless in this true missionary spirit obtain among the Jews, that to -this day, and more especially in provincial places, the last offices for -the dead are rarely performed by hired hands. The ‘accompanying of the -bride’ is _Gemiluth-chesed_ in another form. To rejoice with one’s -neighbour’s joys is no less a duty in this un-Rochefoucauld-like code -than to grieve with his grief. A bride is to be greeted with songs and -flowers, and pleasant speeches, and, if poor, to be provided with pretty -ornaments and substantial gifts, but the pleasant speeches are in all -cases, and before all things, obligatory. In the discursive detail, -which is so strong a feature of these Talmudic rulings, it is asked: -‘But if the bride be old, or awkward, or positively plain, is she to be -greeted in the usual formula as “fair bride--graceful bride”?’ ‘Yes,’ is -the answer, for one is not bound to insist on uncomfortable facts, nor -to be obtrusively truthful; to be agreeable is one of the minor virtues. -Were there anything in the doctrine of metempsychosis, one would be -almost tempted to believe that this ancient unnamed Rabbi was speaking -over again in the person of one of our modern minor poets: - - ‘A truth that’s told with bad intent - Beats all the lies you can invent.’[30] - -The charity of courtesy is everywhere insisted upon, and so strongly, -that, on behalf of those sometimes ragged and unkempt Rabbis it might -perhaps be urged that politeness, the _politesse du cœur_, was their -Judaism _en papillote_. ‘Receive every one with pleasant looks,’ says -one sage,[31] whose practice was, perhaps, not always quite up to his -precepts; ‘where there is no reverence there is no wisdom,’ says -another; and as the distinguishing mark of a ‘clown,’ a third instances -that man--have we not all met him?--who rudely breaks in on another’s -speech, and is more glib than accurate or respectful in his own. - -And as postscript to the ‘law’ obtaining on these cheery social forms of -‘charity’ a tombstone may perhaps be permitted to add its curious -crumbling bit of evidence. In the House of Life, as Jews name their -burial-grounds, at Prague, there stood--perhaps stands still--a stone, -erected to the memory, and recording the virtues, of a certain rich lady -who died in 1628. Her benefactions, many and minute, are set forth at -length, and amongst the rest, and before ‘she clothed the naked,’ comes -the item, ‘she ran like a bird to weddings.’ Through the mists of those -terrible stories, which make of Prague so miserable a memory to Jews, -the record of this long-ago dead woman gleams like a rainbow. One seems -to see the bright little figure, a trifle out of breath may be, the gay -plumage perhaps just a shade ruffled--somehow one does not fancy her a -very prim or tidy personage--running ‘like a bird to weddings.’ She -seems, the dear sympathetic soul, in an odd, suggestive sort of way, to -illustrate the charitable system of her race, and to show us that, -despite all differences of time and place and circumstances, the one -essential condition to any ‘charity’ that shall prove effectual remains -unchanged; that the solution of the hard problem, which may be worked -out in a hundred ways, is just sympathy, and is to be learnt, not in the -‘speaking from afar’ of rich to poor, but in the ‘laying of hands’ upon -them. The close fellowship of this ancient primitive system is perhaps -impossible in our more complex civilisation, but an approximation to it -is an ideal worth striving after. More intimate, more everyday communion -between West and East, more ‘Valentines’ at Hoxton are sorely needed. -Concert-giving, class-teaching, ‘visiting,’ are all helps of a sort, but -there are so many days in a poor man’s week, so many hours in his dull -day. Sweetness and light, like other and more prosaic products of -civilisation, need, it may be, to be ‘laid on’ in those miles of -monotonous streets, long breaks in continuity being fatal to results. - - - - -MOSES MENDELSSOHN - - -‘I wish, it is true, to shame the opprobrious sentiments commonly -entertained of a Jew, but it is by character and not by controversy that -I would do it.’[32] So wrote the subject of this memoir more than a -hundred years ago, and the sentence may well stand for the motto of his -life; for much as Moses Mendelssohn achieved by his ability, much more -did he by his conduct, and great as he was as a philosopher, far greater -was he as a man. Starting with every possible disadvantage--prejudice, -poverty, and deformity--he yet reached the goal of ‘honour, fame, and -troops of friends’ by simple force of character; and thus he remains for -all time an illustration of the happy optimistic theory that, even in -this world, success, in the best sense of the word, does come to those -who, also in the best sense of the word, deserve it. - -The state of the Jews in Germany at the time of Mendelssohn’s birth was -deplorable. No longer actively hunted, they had arrived, at the early -part of the eighteenth century, at the comparatively desirable position -of being passively shunned or contemptuously ignored, and, under these -new conditions, they were narrowing fast to the narrow limits set them. -The love of religion and of race was as strong as ever, but the love had -grown sullen, and of that jealous, exclusive sort to which curse and -anathema are akin. What then loomed largest on their narrow horizon was -fear; and under that paralysing influence, progress or prominence of any -kind became a distinct evil, to be repressed at almost any personal -sacrifice. Safety for themselves and tolerance for their faith, lay, if -anywhere, in the neglect of the outside world. And so the poor pariahs -huddled in their close quarters, carrying on mean trades, or hawking -petty wares, and speaking, with bated breath, a dialect of their own, -half Jewish, half German, and as wholly degenerate from the grand old -Hebrew as were they themselves from those to whom it had been a living -tongue. Intellectual occupation was found in the study of the Law; -interest and entertainment in the endless discussion of its more -intricate passages; and excitement in the not infrequent excommunication -of the weaker or bolder brethren who ventured to differ from the -orthodox expounders. The culture of the Christian they hated, with a -hate born half of fear for its possible effects, half of repulsion at -its palpable evidences. The tree of knowledge seemed to them indeed, in -pathetic perversion of the early legend, a veritable tree of evil, which -should lose a second Eden to the wilful eaters thereof. Their Eden was -degenerate too; but the ‘voice heard in the evening’ still sounded in -their dulled and passionate ears, and, vibrating in the Ghetto instead -of the grove, it seemed to bid them shun the forbidden fruit of Gentile -growth. - -In September 1729, under a very humble roof, in a very poor little -street in Dessau, was born the weakly boy who was destined to work such -wonderful changes in that weary state of things. Not much fit to hold -the magician’s wand seemed those frail baby hands, and less and less -likely altogether for the part, as the poor little body grew stunted and -deformed through the stress of over-much study and of something less -than enough of wholesome diet. There was no lack of affection in the -mean little Jewish home, but the parents could only give their children -of what they had, and of these scant possessions, mother-love and -Talmudical lore were the staple. And so we read of the small -five-year-old Moses being wrapped up by his mother in a large old shabby -cloak, on early, bleak winter mornings, and then so carried by the -father to the neighbouring ‘Talmud Torah’ school, where he was -nourished with dry Hebrew roots by way of breakfast. Often, indeed, was -the child fed on an even less satisfying diet, for long passages from -Scripture, long lists of precepts, to be learnt by heart, on all sorts -of subjects, was the approved method of instruction in these seminaries. -An extensive, if somewhat parrot-like, acquaintance at an astonishingly -early age with the Law and the Prophets, and the commentators on both, -was the ordinary result of this form of education; and, naturally -co-existent with it, was an equally astonishing and extensive ignorance -of all more everyday subjects. Contentedly enough, however, the learned, -illiterate peddling and hawking fathers left their little lads to this -puzzling, sharpening, deadening sort of schooling. Frau Mendel and her -husband may possibly have thought out the matter a little more fully, -for she seems to have been a wise and prudent as well as a loving -mother; and the father, we find, was quick to discern unusual talent in -the sickly little son whom he carried so carefully to the daily lesson. -He was himself a teacher, in a humble sort of way, and eked out his -small fees by transcribing on parchment from the Pentateuch. Thus, the -tone of the little household, if not refined, was at least not -altogether sordid; and when, presently, the little Moses was promoted -from the ordinary school to the higher class taught by the great -scholar, Rabbi Frankel, the question even presented itself whether it -might not be well, in this especial case, to abandon the patent, -practical advantages pertaining to the favoured pursuit of peddling, and -to let the boy give himself up to his beloved books, and, following in -his master’s footsteps, become perhaps, in his turn, a poorly paid, much -reverenced Rabbi. - -It was a serious matter to decide. There was much to be said in favour -of the higher path; but the market for Rabbis, as for hawkers, was -somewhat overstocked, and the returns in the one instance were far -quicker and surer, and needed no long unearning apprenticeship. The -balance, on the whole, seemed scarcely to incline to the more dignified -profession; but the boy was so terribly in earnest in his desire to -learn, so desperately averse from the only other career, that his -wishes, by degrees, turned the scale; and it did not take very long to -convince the poor patient father that he must toil a little longer and a -little later, in order that his son might be free from the hated -necessity of hawking, and at liberty to pursue his unremunerative -studies. - -From the very first, Moses made the most of his opportunities; and at -home and at school high hopes began soon to be formed of the diligent, -sweet-tempered, frail little lad. Frailer than ever, though, he seemed -to grow, and the body appeared literally to dwindle as the mind -expanded. Long years after, when the burden of increasing deformity had -come, by dint of use and wont and cheerful courage, to be to him a -burden lightly borne, he would set strangers at their ease by alluding -to it himself, and by playfully declaring his hump to be a legacy from -Maimonides. ‘Maimonides spoilt my figure,’ he would say, ‘and ruined my -digestion; but still,’ he would add more seriously, ‘I dote on him, for -although those long vigils with him weakened my body, they, at the same -time, strengthened my soul: they stunted my stature, but they developed -my mind.’ Early at morning and late at night would the boy be found -bending in happy abstraction over his shabby treasure, charmed into -unconsciousness of aches or hunger. The book, which had been lent to -him, was Maimonides’ _Guide to the Perplexed_; and this work, which -grown men find sufficiently deep study, was patiently puzzled out, and -enthusiastically read and re-read by the persevering little student who -was barely in his teens. It opened up whole vistas of new glories, which -his long steady climb up Talmudic stairs had prepared him to -appreciate. Here and there, in the course of those long, tedious -dissertations in the Talmud Torah class-room, the boy had caught -glimpses of something underlying, something beyond the quibbles of the -schools; but this, his first insight into the large and liberal mind of -Maimonides, was a revelation to him of the powers and of the -possibilities of Judaism. It revealed to him too, perchance, some latent -possibilities in himself, and suggested other problems of life which -asked solution. The pale cheeks glowed as he read, and the vague dreams -kindled into conscious aims: he too would live to become a Guide to the -Perplexed among his people! - -Poor little lad! his brave resolves were soon to be put to a severe -test. In the early part of 1742, Rabbi Frankel accepted the Chief -Rabbinate of Berlin, and thus a summary stop was put to his pupil’s -further study. There is a pathetic story told of Moses Mendelssohn -standing, with streaming eyes, on a little hillock on the road by which -his beloved master passed out of Dessau, and of the kind-hearted Frankel -catching up the forlorn little figure, and soothing it with hopes of a -‘some day,’ when fortune should be kind, and he should follow ‘nach -Berlin.’ The ‘some day’ looked sadly problematical; that hard question -of bread and butter came to the fore whenever it was discussed. How was -the boy to live in Berlin? Even if the mind should be nourished for -naught, who was to feed the body? The hard-working father and mother had -found it no easy task hitherto to provide for that extra mouth; and now, -with Frankel gone, the occasion for their long self-denial seemed to -them to cease. In the sad straits of the family, the business of a -hawker began again to show in an attractive light to the poor parents, -and the pedlar’s pack was once more suggested with many a prudent, -loving, half-hearted argument on its behalf. But the boy was by this -time clear as to his vocation, so after a brief while of entreaty, the -tearful permission was gained, the parting blessing given, and with a -very slender wallet slung on his crooked shoulders, Moses Mendelssohn -set out for Berlin. - -It was a long tramp of over thirty miles, and, towards the close of the -fifth day, it was a very footsore, tired little lad who presented -himself for admission at the Jews’ gate of the city. Rabbi Frankel was -touched, and puzzled too, when this penniless little student, whom he -had inspired with such difficult devotion, at last stood before him; but -quickly he made up his mind that, so far as in him lay, the uphill path -should be made smooth to those determined little feet. The pressing -question of bed and board was solved. Frankel gave him his Sabbath and -festival dinners, and another kind-hearted Jew, Bamberger by name, who -heard the boy’s story, supplied two everyday meals, and let him sleep in -an attic in his house. For the remaining four days? Well, he managed; a -groschen or two was often earned by little jobs of copying, and a loaf -so purchased, by dint of economy and imagination, was made into quite a -series of satisfying meals, and, in after-days, it was told how he -notched his loaves into accurate time measurements, lest appetite should -outrun purse. Fortunately poverty was no new experience for him; still, -poverty confronted alone, in a great city, must have seemed something -grimmer to the home-bred lad than that mother-interpreted poverty, which -he had hitherto known. But he met it full-face, bravely, -uncomplainingly, and, best of all, with unfailing good humour. And the -little alleviations which friends made in his hard lot were all received -in a spirit of the sincerest, charmingest gratitude. He never took a -kindness as ‘his due’; never thought, like so many embryo geniuses, that -his talents gave him right of toll on his richer brethren. ‘Because I -would drink at the well,’ he would say in his picturesque fashion, ‘am I -to expect every one to haste and fill my cup from their pitchers? No, I -must draw the water for myself, or I must go thirsty. I have no claim -save my desire to learn, and what is that to others?’ Thus he preserved -his self-respect and his independence. - -He worked hard, and, first of all, he wisely sought to free himself from -all voluntary disabilities; there were enough and to spare of legally -imposed ones to keep him mindful of his Judaism. He felt strong enough -in faith to need no artificial shackles. He would be Jew, and yet -German--patriot, but no pariah. He would eschew vague dreams of -universalism, false ideas of tribalism. If Palestine had not been, he, -its product, could not be; but Palestine and its glories were of the -past and of the future; the present only was his, and he must shape his -life according to its conditions, which placed him, in the eighteenth -century, born of Jewish parents, in a German city. He was German by -birth, Jew by descent and by conviction; he would fulfil all the -obligations which country, race, and religion impose. But a German Jew, -who did not speak the language of his country? That, surely, was an -anomaly and must be set right. So he set himself strenuously to learn -German, and to make it his native language. Such secular study was by no -means an altogether safe proceeding. Ignorance, as we have seen, was -‘protected’ in those days by Jewish ecclesiastical authority. Free trade -in literature was sternly prohibited, and a German grammar, or a Latin -or a Greek one, had, in sober truth, to run a strict blockade. One -Jewish lad, it is recorded on very tolerable authority, was actually in -the year 1746 expelled the city of Berlin for no other offence than that -of being caught in the act of studying--one chronicle, indeed, says, -carrying--some such proscribed volume. Moses, however, was more -fortunate; he saved money enough to buy his books, or made friends -enough to borrow them; and, we may conclude, found nooks in which to -hide them, and hours in which to read them. He set himself, too, to gain -some knowledge of the Classics, and here he found a willing teacher in -one Kish, a medical student from Prague. Later on, another helper was -gained in a certain Israel Moses, a Polish schoolmaster, afterwards -known as Israel Samosc. This man was a fine mathematician, and a -first-rate Hebrew scholar; but as his attainments did not include the -German language, he made Euclid known to Moses through the medium of a -Hebrew translation. Moses, in return, imparted to Samosc his newly -acquired German, and learnt it, of course, more thoroughly through -teaching it. He must have possessed the art of making friends who were -able to take on themselves the office of teachers; for presently we find -him, in odd half-hours, studying French and English under a Dr. Aaron -Emrich.[33] He very early began to make translations of parts of the -Scripture into German, and these attempts indicate that, from the first, -his overpowering desire for self-culture sprang from no selfishness. He -wanted to open up the closed roads to place and honour, but not to tread -them alone, not to leave his burdened brethren on the bye-paths, whilst -he sped on rejoicing. He knew truly enough that ‘the light was sweet,’ -and that ‘a pleasant thing it is to behold the sun.’ But he heeded, too, -the other part of the charge: he ‘remembered the days of darkness, which -were many.’ He remembered them always, heedfully, pitifully, patiently; -and to the weary eyes which would not look up or could not, he ever -strove to adjust the beautiful blessed light which he knew, and they, -poor souls, doubted, was good. He never thrust it, unshaded, into their -gloom: he never carried it off to illumine his own path. - -Thus, the translations at which Moses Mendelssohn worked were no -transcripts from learned treatises which might have found a ready market -among the scholars of the day; but unpaid and unpaying work from the -liturgy and the Scriptures, done with the object that his people might -by degrees share his knowledge of the vernacular, and become gradually -and unconsciously familiar with the language of their country through -the only medium in which there was any likelihood of their studying it. -With that one set purpose always before him, of drawing his people with -him into the light, he presently formed the idea of issuing a serial in -Hebrew, which, under the title of _The Moral Preacher_, should introduce -short essays and transcripts on other than strictly Judaic or religious -subjects. One Bock was his coadjutor in this project, and two numbers of -the little work were published. The contents do not seem to have been -very alarming. To our modern notions of periodical literature, they -would probably be a trifle dull; but their mild philosophy and yet -milder science proved more than enough to arouse the orthodox fears of -the poor souls, who, ‘bound in affliction and iron,’ distrusted even the -gentle hand which was so eager to loose the fetters. There was a murmur -of doubt, of muttered dislike of ‘strange customs’; perhaps here and -there too, a threat concerning the pains and penalties which attached -to the introduction of such. At any rate, but two numbers of the poor -little reforming periodical appeared; and Moses, not angry at his -failure, not more than momentarily discouraged by it, accepted the -position and wasted no time nor temper in cavilling at it. He had learnt -to labour, he could learn to wait. And thus, in hard yet happy work, -passed away the seven years, from fourteen till twenty-one, which are -the seed-time of a man’s life. In 1750, when Moses was nearly of age, he -came into possession of what really proved an inheritance. A rich silk -manufacturer, named Bernhardt, who was a prominent member of the Berlin -synagogue, made a proposal to the learned young man, whose perseverance -had given reputation to his scholarship, to become resident tutor to his -children. The offer was gladly accepted, and it may be considered -Mendelssohn’s first step on the road to success. The first step to fame -had been taken when the boy had set out on his long tramp to Berlin. - -Bernhardt was a kind and cultured man, and in his house Mendelssohn -found both congenial occupation and welcome leisure. He was teacher by -day, student by night, and author at odd half-hours. He turned to his -books with the greatest ardour; and we read of him studying Locke and -Plato in the original, for by this time English and Greek were both -added to his store of languages. His pupils, meanwhile, were never -neglected, nor in the pursuit of great ends were trifles ignored. In -more than one biography special emphasis is laid on his beautifully neat -handwriting, which, we are told, much excited his employer’s admiration. -This humble, but very useful, talent may possibly have been inherited, -with some other small-sounding virtues, from the poor father in Dessau, -to whom many a nice present was now frequently sent. At the end of three -or four years of tutorship, Bernhardt’s appreciation of the young man -took a very practical expression. He offered Moses Mendelssohn the -position of book-keeper in his factory, with some especial -responsibilities and emoluments attached to the office. It was a -splendid opening, although Moses Mendelssohn, the philosopher, eagerly -and gratefully accepting such a post somehow jars on one’s -susceptibilities, and seems almost an instance of the round man pushed -into the square hole. It was, however, an assured position; it gave him -leisure, it gave him independence, and in due time wealth, for as years -went on he grew to be a manager, and finally a partner in the house. His -tastes had already drawn him into the outer literary circle of Berlin, -which at this time had its headquarters in a sort of club, which met to -play chess and to discuss politics and philosophy, and which numbered -Dr. Gompertz, the promising young scholar Abbt, and Nicolai, the -bookseller,[34] among its members. With these and other kindred spirits, -Mendelssohn soon found pleasant welcome; his talents and geniality -quickly overcoming any social prejudices, which, indeed, seldom flourish -in the republic of letters. And, early disadvantages notwithstanding, we -may conclude without much positive evidence on the subject, that -Mendelssohn possessed that valuable, indefinable gift, which culture, -wealth, and birth united occasionally fail to bestow--the gift of good -manners. He was free alike from conceit and dogmatism, the Scylla and -Charybdis to most young men of exceptional talent. He had the loyal -nature and the noble mind, which we are told on high authority is the -necessary root of the rare flower; and he had, too, the sympathetic, -unselfish feeling which we are wont to summarise shortly as a good -heart, and which is the first essential to good manners. - -When Lessing came to Berlin, about 1745, his play of _Die Juden_ was -already published, and his reputation sufficiently established to make -him an honoured guest at these little literary gatherings. Something of -affinity in the wide, unconventional, independent natures of the two -men; something, it may be, of likeness in unlikeness in their early -struggles with fate, speedily attracted Lessing and Mendelssohn to each -other. The casual acquaintance soon ripened into an intimate and -lifelong friendship, which gave to Mendelssohn, the Jew, wider knowledge -and illimitable hopes of the outer, inhospitable world--which gave to -Lessing, the Christian, new belief in long-denied virtues; and which, -best of all, gave to humanity those ‘divine lessons of Nathan der -Weise,’ as Goethe calls them--for which character Mendelssohn sat, all -unconsciously, as model, and scarcely idealised model, to his friend. It -was, most certainly, a rarely happy friendship for both, and for the -world. Lessing was the godfather of Mendelssohn’s first book. The -subject was suggested in the course of conversation between them, and a -few days after Mendelssohn brought his manuscript to Lessing. He saw no -more of it till his friend handed him the proofs and a small sum for the -copyright; and it was in this way that the _Philosophische Gespräche_ -was anonymously published in 1754. Later, the friends brought out -together a little book, entitled _Pope as a Metaphysician_, and this was -followed up with some philosophical essays (‘Briefe über die -Empfindungen’) which quickly ran through three editions, and Mendelssohn -became known as an author. A year or two later, he gained the prize -which the Royal Academy of Berlin offered for the best essay on the -problem ‘Are metaphysics susceptible of mathematical demonstration?’ for -which prize Kant was one of the competitors. - -Lessing’s migration to Leipzig, and his temporary absences from the -capital in the capacity of tutor, made breaks, but no diminution, in the -friendship with Mendelssohn; and the _Literatur-Briefe_, a journal cast -in the form of correspondence on art, science, and literature, to which -Nicolai, Abbt, and other writers were occasional contributors, continued -its successful publication till the year 1765. A review in this journal -of one of the literary efforts of Frederick the Second gave rise to a -characteristic ebullition of what an old writer quaintly calls ‘the -German endemical distemper of Judæophobia.’ In this essay, Mendelssohn -had presumed to question some of the conclusions of the royal author; -and although the contents of the _Literatur-Briefe_ were generally -unsigned, the anonymity was in most cases but a superficial disguise. -The paper drew down upon Mendelssohn the denunciation of a too loyal -subject of Frederick’s, and he was summoned to Sans Souci to answer for -it. Frederick appears to have been more sensible than his thin-skinned -defender, and the interview passed off amicably enough. Indeed, a short -while after, we hear of a petition being prepared to secure to -Mendelssohn certain rights and privileges of dwelling unmolested in -whichever quarter of the city he might choose--a right which at that -time was granted to but few Jews, and at a goodly expenditure of both -capital and interest. Mendelssohn, loyal to his brethren, long and -stoutly refused to have any concession granted on the score of his -talents which he might not claim on the score of his manhood in common -with the meanest and most ignorant of his co-religionists. And there is -some little doubt whether the partial exemptions which Mendelssohn -subsequently obtained, were due to the petition, which suffered many -delays and vicissitudes in the course of presentation, or to the subtle -and silent force of public opinion. - -Meanwhile Mendelssohn married, and the story of his wooing, as first -told by Berthold Auerbach, makes a pretty variation on the old theme. It -was, in this case, no short idyll of ‘she was beautiful and he fell in -love.’ To begin with, it was all prosaic enough. A certain Abraham -Gugenheim, a trader at Hamburg, caused it to be hinted to Mendelssohn -that he had a virtuous and blue-eyed but portionless daughter, named -Fromet, who had heard of the philosopher’s fame, and had read portions -of his books; and who, mutual friends considered, would make him a -careful and loving helpmate. So Mendelssohn, who was now thirty-two -years old, and desirous to ‘settle,’ went to the merchant’s house and -saw the prim German maiden, and talked with her; and was pleased enough -with her talk, or perhaps with the silent eloquence of the blue eyes, to -go next day to the father and to say he thought Fromet would suit him -for a wife. But to his surprise Gugenheim hesitated, and stiffness and -embarrassment seemed to have taken the place of the yesterday’s cordial -greeting; still, it was no objection on his part, he managed at last to -stammer out. For a minute Mendelssohn was hopelessly puzzled, but only -for a minute; then it flashed upon him, ‘It is she who objects!’ he -exclaimed; ‘then it must be my hump’; and the poor father of course -could only uncomfortably respond with apologetic platitudes about the -unaccountability of girls’ fancies. The humour as well as the pathos of -the situation touched Mendelssohn, for he had no vanity to be piqued, -and he instantly resolved to do his best to win this Senta-like maiden, -who, less fortunate than the Dutch heroine, had had her pretty dreams of -a hero dispelled, instead of accentuated by actual vision. Might he see -her once again, he asked. ‘To say farewell? Certainly!’ answered the -father, glad that his awkward mission was ending so amicably. So -Mendelssohn went again, and found Fromet with the blue eyes bent -steadily over her work; perhaps to hide a tear as much as to prevent a -glance, for Fromet, as the sequel shows, was a tender-hearted maiden, -and although she did not like to look at her deformed suitor, she did -not want to wound him. Then Mendelssohn began to talk, beautiful glowing -talk, and the spell which his writings had exercised began again to work -on the girl. From philosophy to love, in its impersonal form, is an easy -transition. She grew interested and self-forgetful. ‘And do _you_ think -that marriages are made in heaven?’ she eagerly questioned, as some -early quaint superstition on this most attractive of themes was vividly -touched upon by her visitor. ‘Surely,’ he replied; ‘and some old beliefs -on this head assert that all such contracts are settled in childhood. -Strange to say, a special legend attaches itself to my fortune in this -matter; and as our talk has led to this subject perhaps I may venture -to tell it to you. The twin spirit which fate allotted to me, I am told, -was fair, blue-eyed, and richly endowed with all spiritual charms; but, -alas! ill-luck had added to her physical gifts a hump. A chorus of -lamentation arose from the angels who minister in these matters. The -“pity of it” was so evident. The burden of such a deformity might well -outweigh all the other gifts of her beautiful youth, might render her -morose, self-conscious, unhappy. If the load now had been but laid on a -man! And the angels pondered, wondering, waiting to see if any would -volunteer to take the maiden’s burden from her. And I sprang up, and -prayed that it might be laid upon my shoulders. And it was settled so.’ -There was a minute’s pause, and then, so the story goes, the work was -passionately thrown down, and the tender blue eyes were streaming, and -the rest we may imagine. The simple, loving heart was won, and Fromet -became his wife. - -They had a modest little house with a pretty garden on the outskirts of -Berlin, where a good deal of hospitality went on in a quiet, friendly -way. The ornaments of their dwelling were, perhaps, a little -disproportionate in size and quantity to the rest of the surroundings; -but this was no matter of choice on the part of the newly married -couple, since one of the minor vexations imposed on Jews at this date -was the obligation laid on every bridegroom to treat himself to a large -quantity of china for the good of the manufactory. The tastes or the -wants of the purchaser were not consulted; and in this especial instance -twenty life-sized china apes were allotted to the bridegroom. We may -imagine poor Mendelssohn and his wife eyeing these apes often, somewhat -as Cinderella looked at her pumpkin when longing for the fairy’s -transforming wand. Possibilities of those big baboons changed into big -books may have tantalised Mendelssohn; whilst Fromet’s more prosaic mind -may have confined itself to china and yet have found an unlimited range -for wishing. However, the unchanged and unchanging apes notwithstanding, -Mendelssohn and his wife enjoyed very many years of quiet and contented -happiness, and by and by came children, four of them, and then those old -ungainly grievances were, it is likely, transformed into playfellows. - -Parenthood, perhaps, is never quite easy, but it was a very difficult -duty, and a terribly divided one, for a cultivated man who a century ago -desired to bring up his children as good Jews and good citizens. Many a -time, it stands on record, when this patient, self-respecting, -unoffending scholar took his children for a walk coarse epithets and -insulting cries followed them through the streets. No resentment was -politic, no redress was possible. ‘Father, is it _wicked_ to be a Jew?’ -his children would ask, as time after time the crowd hooted at them. -‘Father, is it _good_ to be a Jew?’ they grew to ask later on, when in -more serious walks of life they found all gates but the Jews’ gate -closed against them. Mendelssohn must have found such questions -increasingly difficult to answer or to parry. Their very talents, which -enlarged the boundaries, must have made his clever children rebel -against the limitations which were so cruelly imposed. His eldest son -Joseph early developed a strong scientific bias; how could this be -utilised? The only profession which he, as a Jew, might enter, was that -of medicine, and for that he had a decided distaste: perforce he was -sent to commercial pursuits, and his especial talent had to run to -waste, or, at best, to dilettantism. When this Joseph had sons of his -own, can we wonder very much that he cut the knot and saved his children -from a like experience, by bringing them up as Christians? - -Mendelssohn himself, all his life through, was unswervingly loyal to his -faith. He took every disability accruing from it, as he took his own -especial one, as being, so far as he was concerned, inevitable, and thus -to be borne as patiently as might be. To him, most certainly, it would -never have occurred to slip from under a burden which had been laid upon -him to bear. Concerning Fromet’s influence on her children records are -silent, and we are driven to conjecture that the pretty significance of -her name was somewhat meaningless.[35] The story of her wooing suggests -susceptibility, perhaps, rather than strength of heart; and it may be -that as years went on the ‘blue eyes’ got into a habit of weeping only -over sorrows and wrongs which needed a less eloquent and a more helpful -mode of treatment. - -If Mendelssohn’s wife had been able to show her children the home side -of Jewish life, its suggestive ceremonialism, its domestic -compensations--possibly her sons, almost certainly her daughters, would -have learnt the brave, sweet patience that was common to Jewish mothers. -But this takes us to the region of ‘might have been.’ Gentle, -tender-hearted Fromet, it is to be feared, failed in true piety, and, -the mother anchor missing, the children drifted from their moorings. - -The leisure of the years succeeding his marriage was fully occupied by -Mendelssohn in literary pursuits. The whole of the Pentateuch was, by -degrees, translated into pure German, and simultaneous editions were -published in German and in Hebrew characters. This great gift to his -people was followed by a metrical translation of the Psalms; a work -which took him ten years, during which time he always carried about with -him a Hebrew Psalter, interleaved with blank pages. In 1783 he published -his _Jerusalem_,[36] a sort of Church and State survey of the Jewish -religion. The first and larger part of it dwells on the distinction -between Judaism, as a State religion, and Judaism as the ‘inheritance’ -of a dispersed nationality. He essays to prove the essential differences -between civil and religious government, and to demonstrate that penal -enactments, which in the one case were just and defensible, were, in the -changed circumstances of the other, harmful, and, in point of fact, -unjudicial. The work was, in effect, a masterly effort on Mendelssohn’s -part to exorcise the ‘cursing spirit’ which, engendered partly by -long-suffered persecution, and partly by long association with the -strict discipline of the Catholic Church, had taken a firm grip on -Jewish ecclesiastical authority, and was constantly expressing itself in -bitter anathema and morose excommunication. The second part of the book -is mainly concerned with a vindication of the Jewish character and a -plea for toleration. Scholarly and temperate as is the tone of this -work throughout, it yet evoked a good deal of rough criticism from the -so-called orthodox in both religious camps--from those well-meaning, -purblind persons of the sort who, Lessing declares, see only one road, -and strenuously deny the possible existence of any other. - -In 1777, Frederic the Second desired to judge for himself whether Jewish -ecclesiastical authority clashed at any point with the State or -municipal law of the land. A digest of the Jewish Code on the general -questions, and more especially on the subject of property and -inheritance, was decreed to be prepared in German, and to Mendelssohn -was intrusted the task. He had the assistance of the Chief Rabbi of -Berlin, and the result of these labours was published in 1778, under the -title of _Ritual Laws of the Jews_. Another Jewish philosophical work -(published in 1785) was _Morning Hours_.[37] This was a volume of essays -on the evidences of the existence of the Deity and of conclusions -concerning His attributes deduced from the contemplation of His works. -Originally these essays had been given in the form of familiar lectures -on natural philosophy by Mendelssohn to his children and to one or two -of their friends (including the two Humboldts) in his own house, every -morning. In the same category of more distinctively Jewish books we may -place a translation of Manasseh Ben Israel’s famous _Vindiciæ Judæorum_, -which he published, with a very eloquent preface, so early as 1781, just -at the time when Dohm’s generous work on the condition of the Jews as -citizens of the State had made its auspicious appearance. Although this -is one of Mendelssohn’s minor efforts, the preface contains many a -beautiful passage. His gratitude to Dohm is so deep and yet so -dignified; his defence of his people is so wide, and his belief in -humanity so sincere; and the whole is withal so short, that it makes -most pleasant reading. One small quotation may perhaps be permitted, as -pertinent to some recent discussions on Jewish subjects. ‘It is,’ says -he, ‘objected by some that the Jews are both too indolent for -agriculture and too proud for mechanical trades; that if the -restrictions were removed they would uniformly select the arts and -sciences, as less laborious and more profitable, and soon engross all -light, genteel, and learned professions. But those who thus argue -conclude from the _present_ state of things how they will be in the -_future_, which is not a fair mode of reasoning. What should induce a -Jew to waste his time in learning to manage the plough, the trowel, the -plane, etc., while he knows he can make no practical use of them? But -put them in his hand and suffer him to follow the bent of his -inclinations as freely as other subjects of the State, and the result -will not long be doubtful. Men of genius and talent will, of course, -embrace the learned professions; those of inferior capacity will turn -their minds to mechanical pursuits; the rustic will cultivate the land; -each will contribute, according to his station in life, his quota to the -aggregate of productive labour.’ - -As he says in some other place of himself, nature never intended him, -either physically or morally, for a wrestler; and this little essay, -where there is no strain of argument or scope for deep erudition, is yet -no unworthy specimen of the great philosopher’s powers. Poetic attempts -too, and mostly on religious subjects, occasionally varied his -counting-house duties and his more serious labours; but although he -truly possessed, if ever man did, what Landor calls ‘the poetic heart,’ -yet it is in his prose, rather than in his poetry, that we mostly see -its evidences. The book which is justly claimed as his greatest, and -which first gave him his title to be considered a wide and deep-thinking -philosopher, is his _Phædon_.[38] The idea of such a work had long been -germinating in him, and the death of his dear friend Abbt, with whom he -had had many a fruitful discussion on the subject, turned his thoughts -more fixedly on the hopes which make sorrows bearable, and the work was -published in the year following Abbt’s death. - -The first part is a very pure and classical German rendering of the -original Greek form of Plato, and the remainder an eloquent summary of -all that religion, reason, and experience urge in support of a belief in -immortality. It is cast in the form of conversation between Socrates and -his friends--a choice in composition which caused a Jewish critic (M. -David Friedländer) to liken Moses Mendelssohn to Moses the lawgiver. -‘For Moses spake, and _Socrates_ was to him as a mouth’ (Ex. iv. 15). In -less than two years _Phædon_ ran through three German editions, and it -was speedily translated into English, French, Dutch, Italian, Danish, -and Hebrew. Then, at one stride, came fame; and great scholars, great -potentates, and even the heads of his own community, sought his society. -But fame was ever of incomparably less value to Mendelssohn than -friendship, and any sort of notoriety he honestly hated. Thus, when his -celebrity brought upon him a polemical discussion, the publicity which -ensued, notwithstanding that the personal honour in which he was held -was thereby enhanced, so thoroughly upset his nerves that the result was -a severe and protracted illness. It came about in this wise: Lavater, -the French pastor, in 1769, had translated Bonnet’s _Evidences of -Christianity_ into German; he published it with the following dedication -to Moses Mendelssohn:-- - - ‘DEAR SIR,--I think I cannot give you a stronger proof of my - admiration of your excellent writings, and of your still more - excellent character, that of an Israelite in whom there is no - guile; nor offer you a better requital for the great gratification - which I, some years ago, enjoyed in your interesting society, than - by dedicating to you the ablest philosophical inquiry into the - evidences of Christianity that I am acquainted with. - - ‘I am fully conscious of your profound judgment, steadfast love of - truth, literary independence, enthusiasm for philosophy in general, - and esteem for Bonnet’s works in particular. The amiable discretion - with which, notwithstanding your contrariety to the Christian - religion, you delivered your opinion on it, is still fresh in my - memory. And so indelible and important is the impression which your - truly philosophical respect for the moral character of its Founder - made on me, in one of the happiest moments of my existence, that I - venture to beseech you--nay, before the God of Truth, your and my - Creator and Father, I beseech and conjure you--to read this work, I - will not say with philosophical impartiality, which I am confident - will be the case, but for the purpose of publicly refuting it, in - case you should find the main arguments, in support of the facts of - Christianity, untenable; or should you find them conclusive, with - the determination of doing what policy, love of truth, and probity - demand--what Socrates would doubtless have done had he read the - work and found it unanswerable. - - ‘May God still cause much truth and virtue to be disseminated by - your means, and make you experience the happiness my whole heart - wishes you. - - JOHANN CASPAR LAVATER. - - ‘ZURICH, _25th of August 1769_.’ - -It was a most unpleasant position for Mendelssohn. Plain speaking was -not so much the fashion then as now, and defence might more easily be -read as defiance. At that time the position of the Jews in all the -European States was most precarious, and outspoken utterances might not -only alienate the timid followers whom Mendelssohn hoped to enlighten, -but probably offend the powerful outsiders whom he was beginning to -influence. No man has any possible right to demand of another a public -confession of faith; the conversation to which Lavater alluded as some -justification for his request had been a private one, and the reference -to it, moreover, was not altogether accurate. And Mendelssohn hated -controversy, and held a very earnest conviction that no good cause, -certainly no religious one, is ever much forwarded by it. Should he be -silent, refuse to reply, and let judgment go by default? Comfort and -expediency both pleaded in favour of this course, but truth was mightier -and prevailed. Like unto the three who would not be ‘careful’ of their -answer even under the ordeal of fire, he soon decided to testify plainly -and without undue thought of consequences. Mendelssohn was not the sort -to serve God with special reservations as to Rimmon. Definitely he -answered his too zealous questioner in a document which is so entirely -full of dignity and of reason that it is difficult to make quotations -from it.[39] ‘Certain inquiries,’ he writes, ‘we finish once for all in -our lives.’ ... ‘And I herewith declare in the presence of the God of -truth, your and my Creator, by whom you have conjured me in your -dedication, that I will adhere to my principles so long as my entire -soul does not assume another nature.’ And then, emphasising the position -that it is by character and not by controversy that _he_ would have Jews -shame their traducers, he goes fully and boldly into the whole question. -He shows with a delicate touch of humour that Judaism, in being no -proselytising faith, has a claim to be let alone. ‘I am so fortunate as -to count amongst my friends many a worthy man who is not of my faith. -Never yet has my heart whispered, Alas! for this good man’s soul. He who -believes that no salvation is to be found out of the pale of his own -church, must often feel such sighs arise in his bosom.’ ‘Suppose there -were among my contemporaries a Confucius or a Solon, I could -consistently with my religious principles love and admire the great man, -but I should never hit on the idea of converting a Confucius or a Solon. -What should I convert him for? As he does not belong to the congregation -of Jacob, my religious laws were not made for him, and on doctrines we -should soon come to an understanding. Do I think there is a chance of -his being saved? I certainly believe that he who leads mankind on to -virtue in this world cannot be damned in the next.’ ‘We believe ... that -those who regulate their lives according to the religion of nature and -of reason are called virtuous men of other nations, and are, equally -with our patriarchs, the children of eternal salvation.’ ‘Whoever is not -born conformable to our laws has no occasion to live according to them. -We alone consider ourselves bound to acknowledge their authority, and -this can give no offence to our neighbours.’ He refuses to criticise -Bonnet’s work in detail on the ground that in his opinion ‘Jews should -be scrupulous in abstaining from reflections on the predominant -religion’; but nevertheless, whilst repeating his ‘so earnest wish to -have no more to do with religious controversy,’ the honesty of the man -asserts itself in boldly adding, ‘I give you at the same time to -understand that I could, very easily, bring forward something in -refutation of M. Bonnet’s work.’ - -Mendelssohn’s reply brought speedily, as it could scarcely fail to do, -an ample and sincere apology from Lavater, a ‘retracting’ of the -challenge, an earnest entreaty to forgive what had been ‘importunate and -improper’ in the dedicator, and an expression of ‘sincerest respect’ and -‘tenderest affection’ for his correspondent. Mendelssohn’s was a nature -to have more sympathy with the errors incidental to too much, than to -too little zeal, and the apology was accepted as generously as it was -offered. And here ended, so far as the principals were concerned, this -somewhat unique specimen of a literary squabble. A crowd of lesser -writers, unfortunately, hastened to make capital out of it; and a -bewildering mist of nondescript and pedantic compositions soon darkened -the literary firmament, obscuring and vulgarising the whole subject. -They took ‘sides’ and gave ‘views’ of the controversy; but Mendelssohn -answered none and read as few as possible of these publications. Still -the strain and worry told on his sensitive and peace-loving nature, and -he did not readily recover his old elasticity of temperament. - -In 1778 Lessing’s wife died, and his friend’s trouble touched deep -chords both of sympathy and of memory in Mendelssohn. Yet more cruelly -were they jarred when, two years later, Lessing himself followed, and an -uninterrupted friendship of over thirty years was thus dissolved. -Lessing and Mendelssohn had been to each other the sober realisation of -the beautiful ideal embodied in the drama of _Nathan der Weise_. ‘What -to you makes me seem Christian makes of you the Jew to me,’ each could -most truly say to the other. They helped the world to see it too, and to -recognise the Divine truth that ‘to be to the best thou knowest ever -true is all the creed.’ - -The death of his friend was a terrible blow to Mendelssohn. ‘After -wrinkles come,’ says Mr. Lowell, in likening ancient friendships to -slow-growing trees, ‘few plant, but water dead ones with vain tears.’ In -this case, the actual pain of loss was greatly aggravated by some -publications which appeared shortly after Lessing’s death, impugning his -sincerity and religious feeling. Germany, as Goethe once bitterly -remarked, ‘needs time to be thankful.’ In the first year or two -following Lessing’s death it was, perhaps, too early to expect gratitude -from his country for the lustre his talents had shed on it. Some of the -pamphlets would make it seem that it was too early even for decency. -Mendelssohn vigorously took up the cudgels for his dead friend; too -vigorously, perhaps, since Kant remarked that ‘it is Mendelssohn’s -fault, if Jacobi (the most notorious of the assailants) should now -consider himself a philosopher.’ To Mendelssohn’s warmhearted, generous -nature it would, however, have been impossible to remain silent when one -whom he knew to be tolerant, earnest, and sincere in the fullest sense -of those words of highest praise, was accused of ‘covert Spinozism’; a -charge which again was broadly rendered, by these wretched, ignorant -interpreters of a language they failed to understand, as atheism and -hypocrisy. - -But this was his last literary work. It shows no sign of decaying -powers; it is full of pathos, of wit, of clear close reasoning, and of -brilliant satire; yet nevertheless it was his monument as well as his -friend’s. He took the manuscript to his publisher in the last day of the -year 1785; and in the first week of the New Year 1786, still only -fifty-six years old, he quietly and painlessly died. That last work -seems to make a beautiful and fitting end to his life; a life which -truly adds a worthy stanza to what Herder calls ‘the greatest poem of -all time--the history of the Jews.’ - - - - -THE NATIONAL IDEA IN JUDAISM - - -Once find a man’s ideals, it has been well said, and the rest is easy; -and undoubtedly to get at any true notion of character, one must -discover these. They may be covered close with conventionalities, or -jealously hidden, like buried treasures, from unsympathetic eyes; but -the patient search is well worth while, since it is his ideals--and not -his words nor his deeds, which a thousand circumstances influence and -decide--which show us the real man as known to his Maker. And true as -this is of the individual, it is true in a deeper and larger sense of -the nations, and most true of all of that people with whom for centuries -speech was impolitic and action impossible. With articulate expression -so long denied to them, the national ideals must be always to the -student of history the truest revelation of Judaism; and it is curious -and interesting to trace their development, and to recognise the crown -and apex of them all in battlefield and in ‘Vineyard,’ in Ghetto and in -mart, unchanged among the changes, and practically the same as in the -days of the desert. The germ was set in the wilderness, when, amid the -thunders and lightnings of Sinai, a crowd of frightened, freshly rescued -slaves were made ‘witnesses’ to a living God, and guardians of a ‘Law’ -which demonstrated His existence. Very new and strange, and but dimly -understanded of the people it must all have been. ‘The lights of sunset -and of sunrise mixed.’ The fierce vivid glow under which they had bent -and basked in Egypt had scarcely faded, when they were bid look up in -the grey dawn of the desert to receive their trust. There was worthy -stuff in the descendants of the man who had left father and friends and -easy, sensuous idolatry to follow after an ideal of righteousness; and -they who had but just escaped from the bondage of centuries, rose to the -occasion. They accepted their mission; ‘All that the Lord has spoken -will we do,’ came up a responsive cry from ‘all the people answering -together,’ and in that supreme moment the ill-fed and so recently -ill-treated groups were transformed into a nation. ‘I will make of thee -a great people’; ‘Through thee shall all families of the earth be -blessed’; the meaning of such predictions was borne in upon them in one -bewildering flash, and in that flash the national idea of Judaism found -its dawn; they, the despised and the downtrodden, were to become -trustees of civilisation. - -As the glow died down, however, a very rudimentary sort of civilisation -the wilderness must have presented to these builders of the temples and -the treasure cities by the Nile, and to the vigorous, resourceful Hebrew -women. As day after day, and year after year, the cloud moved onward, -darkening the road which it directed, as they gathered the manna and -longed for the fleshpots, it could have been only the few and finer -spirits among those listless groups who were able to discern that a -civilisation based upon the Decalogue, shorn though it was of all -present pleasantness and ease, had a promise about it that was lacking -to a culture, ‘learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.’ It was life -reduced to its elements; Sinai and Pisgah stood so far apart, and such -long level stretches of dull sand lay between the heights. One imagines -the women, skilled like their men-folk in all manner of cunning -workmanship, eagerly, generously ransacking their stores of purple and -fine linen to decorate the Tabernacle, and spinning and embroidering -with a desperately delighted sense of recovered refinements, which, as -much perhaps as their fervour of religious enthusiasm, led them to bring -their gifts till restrained ‘from bringing.’ The trust was accepted -though in the wilderness, but grudgingly, with many a faint-hearted -protest, and to some minds, in some moods, slavery must have seemed less -insistent in its demands than trusteeship. - -The conquest of Canaan was the next experience, and as sinfulness and -idolatry were relentlessly washed away in rivers of blood, one doubts if -the impressionable descendants of Jacob, to whom it was given to -overcome, might not perchance have preferred to endure. But such choice -was not given to them; the trust had to be realised before it could be -transmitted, and its value tested by its cost. With Palestine at last in -possession of the chosen people, this civilisation of which they were -the guardians by slow degrees became manifest. Samuel lived it, and -David sang it, and Isaiah preached it, and the nation clung to it, -individual men and women, stumbling and failing often, but dying each, -when need came, a hundred deaths in its defence; perhaps finding it on -occasion less difficult to die for an idea than to live up to it. - -The securities were shifted, the terms of the trusteeship changed when -the people of the Land became the people of the Book. The civilisation -which they guarded grew narrower in its issues and more limited in its -outlook, till, as the years rolled into the centuries, it was hard to -recognise the ‘witnesses’ of God in the hunted outcasts of man. Yet to -the student of history, who reads the hieroglyph of the Egyptian into -the postcard of to-day, it is not difficult to see the civilisation of -Sinai shining under the folds of the gaberdine or of the _san benito_. -It was taught in the schools and it was lived in the homes, and the -Ghetto could not altogether degrade it, nor the Holy Office effectually -disguise it. Jews sank sometimes to the lower level of the sad lives -they led, but Judaism remained unconquerably buoyant. Judaism, as they -believed in it, was a Personal Force making for righteousness, a Law -which knew no change, the Promise of a period when the earth should be -filled with the knowledge of the Lord; and the ‘witnesses’ stuck to this -their trust, through good repute and through evil repute, with a simple -doggedness which disarms all superficial criticism. The glamour of the -cause, through which a Barcochba could loom heroic to an Akiba, the -utter absence of self-consciousness or of self-seeking, which made Judas -in his fight for freedom pin the Lord’s name on his flag, and which, -with the kingdom lost, made the scrolls of the Law the spoil with which -Ben Zaccai retreated--this was at the root of the national idea, and its -impersonality gives the secret of its strength, ‘Not unto us, O Lord, -not unto us, but unto Thy name!’ This vivid sense of being the trustees -of civilisation was wholly dissociated from any feeling of conceit -either in the leaders or in the rank and file of the Jewish nation. It -is curious indeed to realise how so intense a conviction of the survival -of the fittest could be held in so intensely unmodernised a spirit. - -The idea of their trusteeship was a sheet anchor to the Jews as the -waves and the billows passed over them. In the fifteen hundred years’ -tragedy of their history there have been no _entr’actes_ of frenzied -stampede or of revolutionary, revengeful conspiracy. A resolute -endurance, which, characteristically enough, rarely approaches -asceticism, marks the depth and strength and buoyancy of the national -idea. Trustees of civilisation might not sigh nor sing in solitudes; nor -with the feeling so keen that ‘a thousand years in Thy sight are but as -a day,’ was it worth while to plot or plan against the oppressors of the -moment. Time was on their side, and ‘that which shapes it to some -perfect end.’ And this attitude explains, possibly, some unattractive -phases of it, since however honestly the individual consciousness may be -absorbed in a national conscience, yet the individual will generally, in -some way, manage to express himself, and the self is not always quite -up to the ideal, nor indeed is it always in harmony with those who would -interpret it. When a David dances before the Ark it needs other than a -daughter of Saul to understand him. There have been Jews in David’s -case, their enthusiasm mocked at; and there have been Jews indifferent -to their trust, and Jews who have betrayed it, and Jews too, and these -not a few, who have pushed it into prominence with undue display. The -infinite changes of circumstance and surrounding in Jewish fortunes no -less than differences in individual character have induced a -considerable divergence in the practical politics of the national idea. -The persecuted have been exclusive over it, and the prosperous careless; -it has been vulgarised by superstition, and ignored by indifferentism, -till modern ‘rational’ thinkers now and again question whether Palestine -be indeed the goal of Jewish separateness, and make it a matter for -academic discussion whether ‘Jews’ mean a sect of cosmopolitan citizens -with religious customs more or less in common, or a people whose -religion has a national origin and a national purpose in its -observances. With questioners such as these, Revelation, possibly, would -not be admitted as sound evidence in reply, else the promise, ‘Ye shall -be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation,’ would, one might -think, show a design that ritual by itself does not fulfil. It was no -sect with ‘tribal’ customs, but a ‘nation’ and a ‘kingdom’ who were to -be ‘holy to the Lord.’ But though texts may be inadmissible with those -who prefer their sermons in stones, yet the records of the ages are -little less impartial and unimpassioned than the records of the rocks, -and doubters might find an answer in the insistent tones of history when -she tells of the results of occasional unnatural divorce between -religion and nationality among Jews. - -There were times not a few, whilst their own judges ruled, and whilst -their own kings reigned in Palestine, when, with a firm grip on the -land, but a loose hold on the law, Israel was well-nigh lost and -absorbed in the idolatrous peoples by whom it was surrounded; when the -race, which was ceasing to worship at the national altars, was in danger -of ceasing to exist as a nation. Exile taught them to value by loss what -was possession. ‘How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?’ -was the passionate cry in Babylon. Was it perchance the feeling that the -land was ‘strange,’ which gave that new fervour to the songs, choking -off utterance and finding adequate expression only in the Return? Did -Judas, the Maccabee, understand something of this as he led his -patriotic, ‘zealous’ troops to victory? Did Mendelssohn forget it when, -nineteen hundred years later, he emancipated his people from the results -of worse than Syrian oppression, at the cost of so many, his own -children among the rest, shaking off memories and duties as lightly as -they shook off restraints? Over and over again, in the wonderful history -of the Jews, does religion without nationality prove itself as -impossible as nationality without religion to serve for a sustaining -force in Judaism. The people who, while ‘the city of palm-trees’ was yet -their own, could set up strange gods in the groves, were not one whit -more false to their faith, nor more harmful to their people, than those -later representatives of the opposite type, Hellenists, as history calls -them, who built a temple, and read the law and observed the precepts, -whilst their very priests changed their good Jewish names for -Greek-sounding ones in contemptuous and contemptible depreciation of -their Jewish nationality. One inclines, perhaps, to accentuate the facts -of history and to moralise over the might-have-beens where these fit -into a theory; but so much as this at least seems indisputable--that -those who would dissociate the national from the religious, or the -religious from the national element in Judaism attempt the impossible. -The ideal of the Jews must always be ‘from Zion shall come forth -instruction, and the Word of God from Jerusalem’; and to this -end--‘that all people of the earth may know Thy name, as do thy people -Israel.’ This is the goal of Jewish separateness. The separateness may -have been part of the Divine plan, as distinctive practices and customs -are due in the first place to the Divine command; but they are also and -none the less a means of strengthening the national character of the -Jews. Jewish religion neither ‘happens’ to have a national origin, nor -does Jewish nationality ‘happen’ to have religious customs. The Jewish -nation has become a nation and has been preserved as a nation for the -distinct purpose of religion. This, as we read it, is the lesson of -history. And this too is its consolation. The faithful few who see the -fulfilment of history and of prophecy in a restored and localised -nationality--a Jerusalem reinstated as the joy of the whole earth; the -careless many who, in comfortable complacency, are well content to await -it indefinitely, in dispersion; the loyal many, who believe that a -political restoration would be a retrogressive step, narrowing and -embarrassing the wider issues; the children of light and the children of -the world, the spiritual and the _spirituel_ element in Israel, alike, -if unequally, have each their share in spreading the civilisation of -Sinai, as surely as ‘fire and hail and snow and mist and stormy wind’ -all ‘fulfil His word.’ The seed that was sown in the sands of the desert -has germinated through the ages, and its fruition is foretold. The -promise to the Patriarch, ‘I will make of thee a great nation,’ -foreshadowed that his descendants were to be trustees, ‘through them -shall all families of the earth be blessed.’ There are those who would -read into this national idea a taint of arrogance or of exclusiveness, -as there are some scientifically-minded folks, a trifle slow perhaps, to -apply their own favoured dogma of evolution, who can see in the Exodus -only a capriciously selected band of slaves, led forth to serve a tribal -deity. But the history of the Jews, which is inseparable from the -religion of the Jews, rebukes those who would thus halt mid-way and -stumble over the evidences. It lifts the veil, it flashes the light on -dark places, it unriddles the weary puzzle of the travailing ages, -leaving only indifferentism unsolvable, as it shows clear how the Lord, -the Spirit of all flesh, the universal Father, brought Israel out of -Egypt and gave them name and place to be His witnesses, and the means He -chose whereby ‘all families of the earth should be blessed.’ - - - - -THE STORY OF A FALSE PROPHET - - -Each age has its illusions--illusions which succeeding ages with a -recovered sense of sanity are often apt to record as the most -incomprehensible of crazes. ‘That poor will-o’-the-wisp mistaken for a -shining light! Oh, purblind race of miserable men!’ is the quick, -contemptuous comment of a later, clearer-sighted generation. But one may -question if such comment be always just. May not the narrow vision, too -unseeing to be deceived, betoken a yet more hopeless sort of blindness -than the wide-eyed gaze which, fixed on stars, blunders into quagmires? -‘Where there is no vision,’ it is written, ‘the people perish’; and -though stars may prove mirage and quagmires clinging mud, yet a long -rank of shabby, shadowy heroes, who, more or less wittingly, have had -the hard fate to lead a multitude to destruction, seems to suggest that -such deluded multitudes are no dumb, driven cattle, but, capable of -being led astray, have also the faculty of being led into the light. And -if this, to our consolation, be the teaching of history anent those -whom it impartially dubs impostors, then wasted loves and wasted beliefs -lose something of their hopeless sadness, and in the transfiguration -even failures and false prophets are seen to have a place and use. - -No more typical instance could be found of the heights and depths of a -people’s power of illusion--and that people one which in its modern -development might be lightly held proof against most illusions--than the -suggestive career of a Messiah of the seventeenth century supplies to -us. Undying hope, it has been said, is the secret of vision. When hope -is dead the vision perchance takes unto itself the awful condition of -death, corruption, for thus only could it have come to pass that that -same people, which had given an Isaiah to the world, under the stress of -inexorable and inevitable circumstance brought forth a Sabbathai Zevi. - -‘Of all mortal woes,’ so declared the weeping Persian to Thersander at -the banquet, ‘the greatest is this: with many thoughts and wise, to have -no power.’ Under the crushing burden of that mortal woe the Jewish race -had rested restlessly for over sixteen weary centuries. Power had passed -from the dispossessed people with the fall of their garrisoned Temple, -and under dispersion and persecution their ‘many thoughts and wise’ had -grown dumb, or shrill, or cruelly inarticulate. The kingdom of priests -and the kinsmen of the Maccabees had dwindled to a community of pedants -and pedlars. Into the schools of the prophets had crept the casuistries -and subtleties of the Kabbalists; and descendants of those who had been -skilful in all manner of workmanship now haggled over wares which they -lacked skill or energy to produce. East and west the doom of Herodotus -was drearily apparent, and to an onlooker it must have seemed incredible -that these poor pariahs, content to be contemned, were of the same race -which had sung the Lord’s songs and had fought the Lord’s battles. In -the seventeenth century the fires of the Inquisition were still -smouldering, and Jewish victims of the Holy Office, naked and charred, -or swathed and unrecognisable, were fleeing hither and thither from its -flames, across the inhospitable continent of Europe. Nearer to the old -scenes was no nearer to happiness; the farthest removed indeed from any -present realisation of ancient prosperity seemed those wanderers who had -turned their tired, sad faces to the East. The land on which Moses had -looked from Pisgah; for which, remembering Zion, the exiles in Babylon -had wept; for which a later generation, as unaided as undaunted, had -fought and died--this land, their heritage, had passed utterly from the -possession of the Jews. ‘Thou waterest its ridges: Thou settlest the -furrows thereof.’ Seemingly out of that ownership too the land had -passed, for His ridges had run red with blood, and in His furrows the -Romans had sown salt. From the very first century after Christ, Jews had -been grudged a foothold in Judæa, and from the date of the Crusades any -dwelling-place in their own land was definitely denied to the outcast -race. A new meaning had been read into that ancient phrase, ‘the joy of -the whole earth.’ The Holy City had come, in cruel, narrow limitation, -to mean to its conquerors the Holy Sepulchre, all other of its memories -‘but a dream and a forgetting.’ And now, although the fervour of the -Crusades had died away, and the stone stood at the mouth of the -Sepulchre as undisturbed and almost as unheeded of the outside world as -when the two Marys kept their lonely vigil, yet enough still of all that -terribly wasted wealth of enthusiasm survived to make the Holy Land -difficult even of approach to its former rulers. Through all those -centuries, for over sixteen hundred slow, sad, stormy years, this -powerless people had borne their weary burden, ‘the greatest of all -mortal woes.’ Occasionally, for a moment as it were, the passions of -repulsed patriotism and of pent-up humanity would break bounds, and -seek expression in a form which scholars could scarce interpret or -priests control. With their law grudged to them and their land denied, -‘their many thoughts and wise,’ under cruel restraint, were dwindling -into impotent dreams or flashing out in wild unlikeness of wisdom. - -It was in the summer of the year 1666 that some such incomprehensible -craze seemed to possess the ancient city of Smyrna. The sleepy stillness -of the narrow streets was jarred by a thousand confused and unaccustomed -sounds. The slow, smooth current of Eastern life seemed of a sudden -stirred into a whirl of excited eddies. Men and women in swift-changing -groups were sobbing, praying, laughing in a breath, their quick -gesticulations in curious contrast with their sober, shabby garments, -and their patient, pathetic eyes. And strangest thing of all, it was on -a prophet in his own country, in the very city of his birth, that this -extraordinary enthusiasm of greeting was being expended, and the name of -the prophet was Sabbathai, son of Mordecai. Mordecai Zevi, the father, -had dwelt among these townsfolk of Smyrna, dealing in money and dying of -gout, and Sabbathai Zevi, the son, had been brought up among them, and -not so many years since had been banished by them. In that passionately -absorbed crowd there must have been many a middle-aged man old enough to -remember how this turbulent son of the commonplace old broker had been -sent forth from the city, and the gates shut on him in anger and -contempt; and some there surely must have been who knew of his -subsequent career. But if it were so, there were none sane enough to -deduce a moral. It was in the character of Messiah and Deliverer that -Sabbathai had come back to Smyrna, and long-dead hope, quickened into -life at the very words, was strong enough to strangle a whole host of -resistant memories, though, in truth, there was a great deal to forget. -It had been at the instance of the religious authorities of the place, -whose susceptibilities were shocked by the utterance of opinions -advanced enough to provoke a tumult in the synagogue, that the young man -had been expelled from the city. To young and ardent spirits in that -crowd it is possible that this early experience of Sabbathai bore a very -colourable imitation of martyrdom, and the life in exile that followed -it may have appealed to their imaginations as the most fitting of -preparations for a prophet. But then unfortunately Sabbathai’s life in -exile had not been that of a hermit, nor altogether of a sort to fit -into any exalted theories. Authentic news had certainly come of him as -a traveller in the Morea and in Syria, and rumours had been rife -concerning travelling companions. Three successive marriages, it was -said, had taken place, followed in each instance by unedifying quarrels -and divorce. Of the ladies little was known; but it came to be generally -affirmed, on what, if sifted, perhaps amounted to insufficient evidence, -that each wife was more marvellously handsome than her predecessor. And -then, for a while, these lingering distorted sounds from the outside -world had died out in the sordid stillness of their lives, to rise again -suddenly, after long interval, in startling echoes. The wildest of -rumours was all at once in the air, heralding this much-married, -banished disputant of the synagogue, this turbulent, troublesome -Sabbathai, as Messiah of the Jews. What he had done, what he would do, -what he could do, was repeated from mouth to mouth with an ever-growing -exactness of exaggeration which modern methods of transmitting news -could hardly surpass. One soberly circumstantial tale was of a ship -cruising off the north coast of Scotland (of all places in the world!), -with sail and cordage of purest silk, her ensign the Twelve Tribes, and -her crew, consistently enough, speaking Hebrew. A larger and certainly -more geographically minded contingent of converts was said to be -marching across the deserts of Arabia to proclaim the millennium. This -host was identified as the lost Ten Tribes, and Sabbathai, mounted on a -celestial lion with a bridle of serpents, was, or was shortly to be--for -the reports were sometimes a little conflicting--at the head of this -imposing multitude, and about to inaugurate a new and glorious Temple, -which, all ready built and beautified, would straightway descend from -heaven, and in which the services were likely to become popular, since -all fasts were forthwith to be changed into festivals. - -The rumours, it must be confessed, were all of a terribly materialistic -sort, and one wonders somewhat sadly over Sabbathai’s proclamation, -questioning if the promise of ‘dominion over the nations,’ or the -permission ‘to do every day what is usual for you to do only on new -moons,’ roused most of the long-repressed human nature in those weary -pariahs, the ‘nation of the Jews,’ to whom it was roundly addressed. All -the cities of Turkey, an old chronicler tells us, ‘were full of -expectation.’ Business in many places was altogether suspended. The -belief in a reign of miracle was extended to daily needs, and trust in -such needs being somehow supplied was esteemed as an essential test of -general faith in the new order of things. So none laboured, but all -prayed, and purified themselves, and performed strange penances. The -rich people grew profuse and penitent, and poverty, always honourable -among Jews, came in those strange days to be fashionable. - -And now, so heralded, and in truth so advertised, for what a -bill-posting agency would do for similar worthies in this generation a -certain Nathan Benjamin of Jerusalem seems to have done in clumsier -fashion for Sabbathai, their hero was among them. Nathan, it is to be -feared, was less of a convert than a colleague of our prophet, but to -tear-dimmed eyes which saw visions, to starved hearts which by reason of -sorrow judged in hunger and in weakness, prophet and partner both loomed -heroic. It is curious, when one thinks of it, that the same race which -had been critical over a Moses should have been credulous over a -Sabbathai Zevi. Is it a possible explanation that the art of making -bricks without straw, however difficult of acquirement, being at any -rate of the nature of healthy, outdoor employment, was less depressing -in its results on character than the cumulative effect of centuries of -Ghetto-bounded toil? Something, too, may be allowed for the fact that -the Promised Land lay then in prospect and now in retrospect. -Altogether, perhaps, it may be urged in this instance that the idol -does not quite give an accurate measure of the worshipper. A Deliverer -was at their doors, a Deliverer from worse than Egyptian bondage; that -was all that this poor deluded people could stop to think, and out they -rushed in ludicrous, reverent welcome of a light that was not dawn. With -a fine appreciation of effect, Sabbathai gently put aside the rich -embroidered cloths that were spread beneath his feet; and this subtle -indication of humility, and of a desire to tread the dusty paths with -his brethren, gained him many a wavering adherent. For there were -waverers. Even amidst all the enthusiasm, there was now and then an -awkward question asked, for these shabby traders of Smyrna were all of -them more or less learned in the Law and the Prophets, and though their -tired hearts could accept this blustering, unideal presentment of the -Prince of Peace, yet their minds and memories made occasional protest -concerning dates and circumstances. And presently one Samuel Pennia, a -man of some local reputation, took heart of grace, and preached and -proclaimed with a hundred most obvious arguments that Sabbathai had no -smallest claim to the titles he was arrogantly assuming. Law and logic -too were on Pennia’s side; and yet, strange and incomprehensible as it -seems to sober retrospect, he failed to convince even himself. After -discussions innumerable and of the stormiest sort, Pennia began to doubt -and to hesitate, and finally he and all his family became strenuous and, -there is no reason to doubt, honest supporters of Sabbathai. Still the -tumults which had been provoked, though they could not rouse the -multitude to a doubt of their Deliverer, did awake in them a desire that -he should deign to demonstrate his power to unbelievers, and a cry, -comic or pathetic as we take it, broke forth for a miracle--a -simultaneous prayer for something, anything, supernatural. It was -embarrassing; and Sabbathai, one old chronicler gravely remarks, was -‘horribly puzzled for a miracle.’ But in a moment the cynical humour of -the man came to his help, and where the true prophet, in honest -humility, might have hesitated, with ‘Lord, I cannot speak; I am a -child,’ on his lips, our charlatan was ready and self-possessed and -equal to the occasion. With solemn gait and rapt gaze, which, as a -contemporary record expresses it, he had ‘starcht on,’ Sabbathai stood -for some seconds silent; then, suddenly throwing up his hands to heaven, -‘Behold!’ he exclaimed in thrilling accents, ‘see you not yon pillar of -fire?’ And the expectant crowd turned, and in their eager, almost -hysterical, excitement many believed they saw, and many, who did not -see, doubted their sight and not the vision. Those who looked and looked -in vain were silent, hardly daring to own that to their unworthy eyes -the blessed assurance had been denied. So Sabbathai returned to his home -in triumph. No further miracles were asked or needed, and doubters in -his Messiahship were henceforth accounted by the synagogue as heretics -and infidels and fit subjects for excommunication. In his character of -prophet no religious ceremonial was henceforth considered complete -without the presence of Sabbathai, and in his character of prince and -leader unlimited wealth was at his command. Here, however, came in the -one redeeming point. Sabbathai’s ambition had no taint of avarice about -it. He took of no man’s gold and of no woman’s jewels, though both were -laid unstintingly at his feet. And then, suddenly, at this period of his -greatest success, subtly appreciating, it may be, the wisdom of taking -fortune at the flood, Sabbathai announced his intention of leaving -Smyrna, and the month of January, 1667, saw him embark in a small -coasting-vessel bound for Constantinople. Here a reception altogether -unexpected and unprophesied was awaiting him. There had been great -weeping and lamentation among the disciples he left, and there was -proportionately great rejoicing among the larger community his -presence was to favour, for, by virtue of the curious system of -intercommunication which has always prevailed among the dispersed race, -the news of Sabbathai’s movements and intentions spread quickly and in -ever-widening circles. It reached at length some ears which had not been -reckoned upon, and penetrated to a brain which had preserved its -balance. The Sultan of Turkey, Mahomet IV., heard of this expected -visitor to his capital, and when, after nine-and-thirty days of stormy -passage, the sea-sick prophet was entering the port, the first thing he -saw was two State barges, fully manned, putting out to meet him. It may -be hoped that he was too sea-sick to indulge in any audible predictions, -or to put in sonorous words any bright dream born of that brief glimpse -of a brother potentate hastening to greet his spiritual sovereign. For -any such prophecy would have been all too rudely and too quickly -falsified. It was as prisoner, not as prophet, that Sabbathai was to -enter Constantinople, and a dungeon, not a palace, was his destination. -The Sultan had indeed heard of the worse than mid-summer madness that -had seized on his Jewish subjects throughout the Turkish Empire, and he -proceeded to stay the plague with a prompt high-handedness which a -Grand Vizier out of _The Arabian Nights_ could hardly have excelled. For -two long months Sabbathai was kept a close prisoner in uncomfortable -quarters in Constantinople, and was from thence transferred to a cell in -the Castle of Abydos. Of the effects of this imperial reception on the -prophet himself we shall judge in the sequel, but its effects on his -followers were, strange to say, not at all depressing. To these faithful -deluded folks their hero behind prison bars gained only a halo of -martyrdom. Was it not fitting that the Servant of Israel should be -‘acquainted with grief’? The dangerous sentiment of pity added itself to -the passion of love and faith, and pilgrims from all parts--Poland, -Venice, Amsterdam--hurried to the city as if it were a shrine. Sabbathai -took up the _rôle_, and by gentle proclamation bestowed the blessings -and the promises which had been hitherto showered down in set speeches. -And so the madness grew, till a sordid element crept into it, and at -first, curiously enough, this also increased it. In the crowd, thus -attracted to the neighbourhood, the Turks saw an opportunity for making -money. The price of lodging and provision for the pilgrims was -constantly raised, and by degrees a sight of Sabbathai or a word from -him came to be quite a source of income to his guards. The necessary -element of secrecy about such transactions acted, both directly and -indirectly, as fuel to the flames. The Jews in the spread of the faith -and in their immunity from persecution saw Divine interposition, while -the Turks naturally favoured Sabbathai’s pretensions, and continued to -raise their prices to each new batch of believers. But complaints were -bound in time to reach headquarters. The overcrowding and excitement was -a danger to the Turkish inhabitants of Constantinople, and among the -Jews themselves Sabbathai’s success begat at length a more disturbing -element than doubt. A rival Messiah came forward in a certain Nehemiah -Cohen, a learned rabbi from Poland. A sort of twin Messiahship seems -first to have suggested itself to these worthies. Nehemiah, under the -title of Ben Ephraim, was to fulfil the probationary part of the -prophecies on the subject, and Sabbathai, as Ben David, to take the -triumphant close and climax. So much was agreed upon, when Sabbathai, -who was still a prisoner, became a little apprehensive of a possible -change of parts by Nehemiah, who was at large. Disputes ensued, and -ended in an appeal by Sabbathai to the community. A renewed vote of -confidence in their native hero was recorded, and Nehemiah’s claims to -a partnership were altogether and summarily rejected. His own -pretensions thus disallowed, Nehemiah at once turned round and hastened -to denounce the insincerity of the whole affair to such of the Turkish -officials as would listen to him. He was backed up by a very few of the -wise men of his own community who had managed to keep their honest -doubts in spite of the general madness; and presently by much effort a -messenger was despatched to Adrianople, where Mahomet IV. was holding -his Court, with full particulars of Sabbathai’s latest doings. The -Sultan listened to the story, and was literally and ludicrously true to -the strictest traditional ideal of what one may call the sack and -bowstring system, and there is no doubt that, in this instance, -substantial justice was secured by it. - -Without excuse or ceremonial of any sort, without farewell from the -friends he left or greetings from the curious throng which awaited him, -Sabbathai was hurried into Adrianople, and within an hour of his -arrival, deposited, limp and apprehensive, in the presence-chamber. The -giant’s robe seemed to be slipping visibly from his shaking shoulders -as, sternly desired to give an account of himself, he, the glib -cosmopolitan prophet, begged for an interpreter. Without comment on -this sudden and surprising failure in the gift of tongues the request -was granted; and patiently, silently, Court and Sultan stroked their -beards and listened to the marvellous tale which was unfolded. Were they -doubtful, or convinced? Was he after all to triumph? It almost seemed so -as the story ended, and the expectant hush was broken by the Sultan -quietly requesting a miracle. Wild thoughts of a lucky stroke of -legerdemain, which should recover all, must have instantly occurred to -this other-world adventurer. But no audaciously summoned pillar of fire -would here have served his turn; the astute Sultan meant to choose his -own miracle. - -‘Thou shalt not be afraid ... of the arrow that flieth by day. A -thousand shall fall at thy side and ten thousand at thy right hand, but -it shall not come nigh unto thee.’ In the most literal and most liberal -meaning the pseudo-prophet was requested to interpret these words of his -national poet. He was to strip, said the Sultan, and to let the archers -shoot at him, and thus make manifest in his own flesh his confidence in -his own assumptions. - -Not for one moment did Sabbathai hesitate. A man’s behaviour at a -supreme crisis in his life is not determined by the sudden need. It is -not to a single, sudden trumpet-call that character responds, but to -the tone set by daily uncounted matin and evensong. Sabbathai was as -incapable of the heroic death as of the heroic life. It had been all a -game to him; the people’s passionate enthusiasm, that pitiful power of -theirs for seeing visions, were just points in the game--points in his -favour. And now the game was lost; he was cool enough to realise this at -a glance, and to seize upon the one move which he might yet make to his -own advantage. With a startling burst of calculated candour he owned to -it all, that he was no prophet, no Saviour, no willing ‘witness’ even; -only a historical Jew, and very much at the Sultan’s service. - -Mahomet smiled. The tragedy of the situation was for the Jews; the -comedy, and it must have been irresistible, was his. Then after due -pause he gravely proceeded, that insomuch as Sabbathai’s pretensions to -Palestine were an infringement on Turkish vested rights in that -province, the repentant prophet must give an earnest of his recovered -loyalty as a Turkish subject by turning Turk and abjuring Judaism -altogether. And cheerfully enough Sabbathai assented, audaciously adding -that such a change had been long desired by him, and that he eagerly and -respectfully welcomed this opportunity of making his first profession -of faith as a Mahometan in the presence of Mahomet’s namesake and -temporal representative. - -And thus the scene, at which one knows not whether to laugh or cry, was -over; and when the curtain rises again it is on the merest and most -exasperating commonplace--on Sabbathai, fat and turbaned, living and -dying as a respectable Turk. For the actors behind the scenes, there was -never any call, neither to hail a Saviour nor to mourn a martyr. For -them, this puzzling bit of passion-play was just a mirage in the -wilderness of their lives; and for many and many a weary year foolish -and faithful folk debated whether it was mirage or reality. For his -dupes survived him, this sorry impostor of the seventeenth century; and -their illusion, hoping all things, believing all things, withered into -delusion and died hard. Such faculty perhaps, for all its drawbacks, -gives staying-power to man or nation. It is where there is no vision -that the people perish. - - - - -NOW AND THEN - -A COMPOSITE SKETCH - - -‘The old order changeth, giving place to new,’ and many and bewildering -have been such changes since the daughters of Zelophehad trooped down -before the elders of Israel to plead for women’s rights. The claim of -those five fatherless, husbandless sisters to ‘have a possession among -the brethren of our father’ has been brought, and has been answered -since in a thousand different ways, but the chivalrous spirit in which -it was met then seems, in a subtle sort of way, to symbolise the -attitude of Israel to unprotected womanhood, and to suggest the type of -character which ensured such ready and respectful consideration. It is -curious and interesting in these modern days to take up what Heine -called the ‘family chronicle of the Jews,’ and to find, as in a long -gallery of family portraits, the type repeating itself through every -variety of ‘treatment’ and costume. Clear and distinct they stand out, -the long line of our Jewish maids and matrons, not ‘faultily faultless’ -by any means, yet presenting in their vigorous lovableness a delightful -continuity of wholesome womanhood, an unbroken line of fit claimants for -fitting woman’s rights. - -Foremost among all heroines of all love tales comes, of course, she -whose long wooing seemed ‘but as a few days’ to her young lover, so -strong and so steadfast was the worship she won. To the young, that -maiden ‘by the well’s mouth’ will stand always for favourite text and -familiar illustration, but to older folks the sad-eyed _mater dolorosa_ -of the Old Testament is to the full as interesting and as suggestive an -ideal. One pictures her with sackcloth for sole couch and covering -spread upon the bare rocks, selfless and tireless, through the heat of -early harvest days till chill autumn rains ‘dropped upon them,’ scaring -‘the birds of the air and the beasts of the field’ from her unburied -dead. And then, as corrective to the pathos of Rizpah and the romance of -Rachel, the sweet, homely figure of Ruth is at hand to suggest a whole -volume of virtues of the comfortable, everyday sort; the one character, -perhaps, in all story who ever addressed an impassioned outburst of -affection to her mother-in-law, and then lived up to it. But the -solitariness of the circumstance notwithstanding, and for all the fact -that she was a Moabitess born, Ruth, in the practical nature of her good -qualities, is a typical Jewish heroine. For what strikes one most in the -record of these long ago dead women is that there is so much sense in -their sentiment, so much backbone to their gentleness and -simple-mindedness. They do little things in a great way instead of -attacking great things feebly. Their womanhood in its entire naturalness -belongs to no especial school, fits in to no especial groove of thought. -The same peg serves for a Solomon or a Wordsworth, for an aphorism or a -sonnet. The woman whose ‘price was above rubies,’ and she who was - - ‘Not too great or good - For human nature’s daily food,’ - -might either have stood for the other’s likeness; and if the test of -poetry be, as Goethe says, the substance which remains when the poetry -is reduced to prose, the test of an ideal woman may be perhaps how she -would translate into reality. The ‘family chronicle’ stands the test, -and a dozen instances of it at once occur to memory. Michal, with her -husband in danger, does not wait to weep nor to exclaim, but, strong of -heart as of hand, helps him to escape, and, ready of resource, by her -quick, deft arrangement of the bedchamber, gains time to baffle his -pursuers. Hannah, for all her holy enthusiasm, is mindful of the bodily -needs of her embryo prophet, and as she comes with her husband to offer -the ‘yearly sacrifice’ at Shiloh, brings with her the ‘little coat’ -which she has made for the boy, and which, we may be quite sure, she has -remembered to make a little bigger each time. Nor less, in her -far-sighted scheming for her favourite son, is Rebekah heedless of -‘human nature’s daily food.’ For all her concentration of thought on -great issues she remembers to make ready ‘the savoury meat such as his -father loved’ before she sends Jacob to the critical interview. It is -altogether with something of a shock that we ponder on that curious -development. The scheming, unscrupulous wife seems quite other than the -simple country maiden with her quick assent to the grave young husband -whom she was able to ‘comfort after his mother’s death.’ Was that -pretty, frank ‘I will go’ of hers only unconventional, one wonders, or -perhaps just a trifle unfeeling, foreshadowing in the young girl, so -ready to leave her home, a rather rootless state of affections, an -Undine-like indifference to old ties? That touch of the carefully -prepared dinner at any rate makes us smile as we sigh, putting us _fin -de siècle_ folks, as it does, in touch with tent life, and keeping the -traditions of home influence unaltered through the ages. - -In Lord Burleigh’s _Precepts to his Son for the Well-Ordering of a Mans -Life_, occurs the direction, ‘Thou wilt find to thy great grief there is -nothing more fulsome than a she-fool.’ It is an axiom almost as pregnant -of meaning as its author’s famous nod, and seems to suggest as possible -that the proverbial harmony of the Jewish domestic circle may be in a -measure due to its comparative immunity from she-fools. The women of -Israel, _pur sang_, it is certain, are rarely noisy or assertive, and -have at all times been more ready to realise their responsibilities than -their ‘rights.’ In their woman’s kingdom, comprehending its limits and -not wasting its opportunities, they have been content to reign and not -to govern, and neither exceptional power nor exceptional intellect have -affected this position. The pretty young Queen of Persia, we read, for -all her new dignities, ‘did the commandment of Mordecai as when she was -brought up with him,’ and Miriam with her timbrel and Deborah under her -palm-tree might have been unconscious illustrative anachronisms of a -very profound saying, so well content were they to ‘make their country’s -songs’ and to leave it to Moses to ‘make the laws.’ The one-man rule has -been always fully and freely acknowledged in Israel, and in the ideal -sketch as in the real portraits of its womankind, her ‘husband,’ her -‘children,’ her ‘clothing,’ and the ‘ways of her household’ are supreme -features. ‘To do a man,’ one man, ‘good and not evil all the days of his -life,’ may seem to modern maidens a somewhat limited ambition, but it is -just to remember that to this typical woman comes full permission to -indulge in her ‘own works’ and encouragement ‘to speak with merchants -from afar,’ a habit this, one ventures to think, which would open up -even to Girton and Newnham graduates extended powers of conversation and -correspondence in their own and foreign languages. And, withal, that -pretty saying of an elderly and prosaic Rabbi, ‘I do not call my wife, -wife, but home,’ has poetry and practicality too, to recommend it. For -in so far as there is truth in the dictum, that ‘men will be always what -women please, that if we want men to be great and good, we must teach -women what greatness and goodness are,’ there really seems a good deal -to be said for the old-fashioned type we have been considering, and -certainly some comfort to be found in the fact that against the _ewig -weibliche_ time itself is powerless. Realities may shift and vary, but -ideals for the most part stand fast, and thus, despite all superficial -differences, in essentials the situation is unchanged between those -daughters of the desert and our daughters of to-day. Now, as then, the -claim is allowed to a rightful ‘possession among their brethren.’ - - -Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty at the Edinburgh -University Press - - -FOOTNOTES: - - [1] Talmud, Yoma 356. - - [2] The extracts marked thus (1) were done into verse from the German - of Geiger, by the late Amy Levy. - - [3] From Atonement Service. - - [4] Hebrew for Toledo. - - [5] Alcharisi. - - [6] E. B. Browning. - - [7] No authority gives it later than 1140. - - [8] Rabbi Seira. - - [9] ‘The Lord God doth like a printer who setteth the letters - backward; we see and feel well His setting, but the print we shall see - yonder in the life to come.’--Luther’s _Table Talk_. - - [10] Gütle Rothschild, née Schnapper, died May 7, 1849. Her eldest - son, Amschel Meyer Rothschild, was born June 12, 1773, died December - 6, 1855. - - [11] Written in 1882. - - [12] The translation is by the late Amy Levy. - - [13] Messrs. Campe and Hoffmann erected their new offices during the - publication (not too well paid) of the poet’s works. - - [14] Matthew Arnold, _Heinrich Heine_. - - [15] The Exhibition of 1855. - - [16] Written in 1882. - - [17] Short declaration of belief in Unity (Deut. vi. 4). - - [18] ‘Old Pictures from Florence.’ - - [19] _On Heroes_: Lect. vi., ‘The Hero as King,’ p. 342. - - [20] _Cromwell_, vol. ii. p. 359. - - [21] Some chroniclers fix it so early as 1653. - - [22] From ‘Declaration to the Commonwealth of England.’ - - [23] Jeremiah xxix. 7. - - [24] In 1369. - - [25] Maimonides, in his well-known digest of Talmudic laws relating to - the poor, uniformly employs _tzedakah_ in the sense of ‘alms.’ - - [26] חטא יךאי (_yeree chet_). These ultra-sensitive folks seem to - have feared that in direct relief they might be imposed on and so - indirectly become encouragers of wrong-doing, or unnecessarily hurt - the feelings of the poor by too rigid inquiries. - - [27] We read, in mediæval times, of the existence of wide ‘extensions’ - of this system of relief. In a curious old book, published in the - seventeenth century, by a certain Rabbi Elijah ha Cohen ben Abraham, - of Smyrna, we find a list drawn up of Jewish charities to which, as - he says, ‘all pious Jews contribute.’ These modes of satisfying ‘the - hungry soul’ are over seventy in number, and of the most various - kinds. They include the lending of money and the lending of books, - the payment of dowries and the payment of burial charges, doctors’ - fees for the sick, legal fees for the unjustly accused, ransom for - captives, ornaments for bribes, and wet nurses for orphans. - - [28] Spanish Jews often had their coffins made from the wood of the - tables at which they had sat with their unfashionable guests. - - [29] This custom had survived into quite modern times--to cite only - the well-known case of Mendelssohn, who, coming as a penniless - student to Berlin, received his Sabbath meals in the house of one - co-religionist, and the privilege of an attic chamber under the roof - of another. - - [30] William Blake. - - [31] Shimei. - - [32] In the correspondence with Lavater. - - [33] Better known to scholars as Dr. Aaron Solomon Gompertz. - - [34] Later, the noted publisher of that name. - - [35] Fromet was the affectionate diminutive of _Fromm_--pious. Pet - names of this sort were common at that time; we often come across a - Gütle or Schönste or the like. - - [36] _Jerusalem, oder über religiöse Macht und Judenthum._ - - [37] _Morgenstunden, oder Vorlesungen über das Daseyn Gottes._ - - [38] _Phædon, oder über die Unsterblichkeit der Seele._ - - [39] The whole correspondence can be read in _Memoirs of Moses - Mendelssohn_, by M. Samuels, published in 1827. - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Jewish Portraits, by Lady Katie Magnus - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JEWISH PORTRAITS *** - -***** This file should be named 56048-0.txt or 56048-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/6/0/4/56048/ - -Produced by Richard Hulse, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Jewish Portraits - -Author: Lady Katie Magnus - -Release Date: November 25, 2017 [EBook #56048] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JEWISH PORTRAITS *** - - - - -Produced by Richard Hulse, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p class="c"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="326" height="500" alt="" title="" /> -</p> - -<p class="cb">JEWISH PORTRAITS</p> - -<h1> -JEWISH PORTRAITS</h1> - -<p class="c"> -BY<br /> -<br /> -<big><b>L A D Y M A G N U S</b></big><br /> -<br /> -<small>AUTHOR OF<br /> -‘OUTLINES OF JEWISH HISTORY,’ ‘ABOUT THE JEWS<br /> -SINCE BIBLE TIMES,’ ETC.</small><br /> -<br /><br /> -<i>Second Revised and Enlarged Edition</i><br /> -<br /><br /> -L O N D O N<br /> -Published by DAVID NUTT<br /> -in the <span class="smcap">Strand</span><br /> -1897<br /> -<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> -<b>‘THESE, TO HIS MEMORY’<br /> -<br /> -<span class="smcap">February 7 : January 11</span></b></p> - -<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">The</span> papers which form this volume have already appeared in the pages of -<i>Good Words</i>, <i>Macmillan’s Magazine</i>, <i>The National Review</i>, and <i>The -Spectator</i>, and are reprinted with the very kindly given permission of -the editors. The Frontispiece is reproduced through the kindness of the -proprietors of <i>Good Words</i>.</p> - -<p>I fancy that there is enough of family likeness, and I hope there is -enough of friendly interest, in these Jewish portraits to justify their -re-appearance in a little gallery to themselves.</p> - -<p class="r"> -KATIE MAGNUS.<br /> -</p> - -<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0" summary=""> - -<tr><td> </td><td class="rt"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#JEHUDAH_HALEVI">JEHUDAH HALEVI,</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_001">1</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#THE_STORY_OF_A_STREET">THE STORY OF A STREET,</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_024">24</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#HEINRICH_HEINE_A_PLEA">HEINRICH HEINE: A PLEA,</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_032">32</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#DANIEL_DERONDA_AND_HIS_JEWISH_CRITICS">DANIEL DERONDA AND HIS JEWISH CRITICS,</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_057">57</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#MANASSEH_BEN_ISRAEL">MANASSEH BEN ISRAEL,</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_068">68</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#CHARITY_IN_TALMUDIC_TIMES">CHARITY IN TALMUDIC TIMES,</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_090">90</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#MOSES_MENDELSSOHN">MOSES MENDELSSOHN,</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_109">109</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#THE_NATIONAL_IDEA_IN_JUDAISM">THE NATIONAL IDEA IN JUDAISM,</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_147">147</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#THE_STORY_OF_A_FALSE_PROPHET">THE STORY OF A FALSE PROPHET,</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_158">158</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#NOW_AND_THEN">NOW AND THEN: A COMPOSITE SKETCH,</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_177">177</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_001" id="page_001"></a>{1}</span></p> - -<h1>JEWISH PORTRAITS</h1> - -<h2><a name="JEHUDAH_HALEVI" id="JEHUDAH_HALEVI"></a>JEHUDAH HALEVI<br /><br /> -<small>PHYSICIAN AND POET</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">In</span> the far-off days, when religion was not a habit, but an emotion, -there lived a little-known poet who solved the pathetic puzzle of how to -sing the Lord’s song in a strange land. Minor poets of the period in -plenty had essayed a like task, leaving a literature the very headings -of which are strange to uninstructed ears. ‘<i>Piyutim</i>,’ ‘<i>Selichoth</i>’: -what meaning do these words convey to most of us? And yet they stand for -songs of exile, sung by patient generations of men who tell a monotonous -tale of mournful times—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘When ancient griefs<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Are closely veiled<br /></span> -<span class="i1">In recent shrouds,’<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">as one of the anonymous host expresses it. For the writers were of the -race of the traditional Sweet Singer, and their lot was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_002" id="page_002"></a>{2}</span> cast in those -picturesquely disappointing Middle Ages, too close to the chivalry of -the time to appreciate its charm. One pictures these comparatively -cultured pariahs, these gaberdined, degenerate descendants of seers and -prophets, looking out from their ghettoes on a world which, for all the -stir and bustle of barbaric life, was to them as desolate and as bare of -promise of safe resting-place as when the waters covered it, and only -the tops of the mountains appeared. One sees them now as victims, and -now as spectators, but never as actors in that strange show, yet always, -we fancy, realising the barbarism, and with that undoubting faith of -theirs in the ultimate dawning of a perfect day, seeming to regard the -long reign of brute force, of priestcraft, and of ignorance as phases of -misrule, which, like unto manifold others, should pass whilst they would -endure.</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘A race that has been tested<br /></span> -<span class="i1">And tried through fire and water,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Is surely prized by Thee,’<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">cries out a typical bard, with, perhaps, a too-conscious tone of -martyrdom, and a decided tendency to clutch at the halo. The attitude is -altogether a trifle arrogant and stolid and defiant to superficial -criticism, but yet one for which a deeper insight will find excuses. -The<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_003" id="page_003"></a>{3}</span> complacency is not quite self-complacency, the pride is impersonal, -and so, though provoking, is pathetic too. Something of the old longing -which, with a sort of satisfied negation, claimed ‘honour and glory,’ -‘not unto us,’ but unto ‘the Name,’ seems to find expression again in -the unrhymed and often unrhythmical compositions of these patient poets -of the <i>Selicha</i>. Their poetry, perhaps, goes some way towards -explaining their patience, for, undoubtedly, there is no doggedness like -that of men who at will, and by virtue of their own thoughts, can soar -above circumstances and surroundings. ‘Vulgar minds,’ says a -last-century poet, truly enough, ‘refuse or crouch beneath their load,’ -and inevitably such will collapse under a pressure which the cultivated -will endure, and ‘bear without repining.’ The ills to which flesh is -heir will generally be best and most bravely borne by those to whom the -flesh is not all in all; as witness Heine, whose voice rose at its -sweetest, year after year, from his mattress grave. That there never was -a time in all their history when the lusts of the flesh were a whole and -satisfying ambition to the Jew, or when the needs of the body bounded -his desires, may account in some degree for that marvellous capacity for -suffering which the race has evinced.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_004" id="page_004"></a>{4}</span></p> - -<p>These rugged <i>Piyutim</i>, for over a thousand years, come in from most -parts of the continent of Europe as a running commentary on its laws, -suggesting a new reading for the old significant connection between a -country’s lays and its legislation, and supplying an illustration to -Charles Kingsley’s dictum, that ‘the literature of a nation is its -autobiography.’ <i>Selicha</i> (from the Hebrew, סְלִיחָה) means literally -forgiveness, and to forgive and to be forgiven is the burden and the -refrain of most of the so-called Penitential Poems (<i>Selichoth</i>), whose -theme is of sorrows and persecutions past telling, almost past praying -about. <i>Piyut</i> (derived from the Greek ποιητἡς) in early Jewish writings -stood for the poet himself, and later on it was applied as a generic -name for his compositions. From the second to the eighth century there -is decidedly more suggestion of martyrdom than of minstrelsy in these -often unsigned and always unsingable sonnets of the synagogue, and -especially about the contributions from France, and subsequently from -Germany, to the liturgical literature of the Middle Ages, there is a far -too prevailing note of the swan’s song for cheerful reading. Happier in -their circumstances than the rest of their European co-religionists, the -Spanish writers sing, for the most part, in clearer and higher strains, -and it is they who<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_005" id="page_005"></a>{5}</span> towards the close of the tenth century, first add -something of the grace and charm of metrical versification to the -hitherto crude and rough style of composition which had sufficed. Even -about the prose of these Spanish authors there is many a light and happy -touch, and, not unseldom, in the voluminous and somewhat verbose -literature, we come across a short story (<i>midrash</i>) or a pithy saying, -with salt enough of wit or of pathos about it to make its preservation -through the ages quite comprehensible.</p> - -<p><i>Hep</i>, <i>Hep</i>, was the dominant note in the European concert, when at the -beginning of the twelfth century our poet was born. France, Italy, -Germany, Bohemia, and Greece had each been, at different times within -the hundred years which had just closed, the scene of terrible -persecutions. In Spain alone, under the mild sway of the Ommeyade -Kaliphs, there had been a tolerably long entr’acte in the ‘fifteen -hundred year tragedy’ that the Jewish race was enacting, and there, in -old Castille, whilst Alfonso VI. was king, Jehudah Halevi passed his -childhood. Although in 1085 Alfonso was already presiding over an -important confederation of Catholic States, yet at the beginning of the -twelfth century the Arab supremacy in Spain was still comparatively -unshaken, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_006" id="page_006"></a>{6}</span> its influence, social and political, over its Jewish -subjects was still paramount. Perhaps the one direction in which that -impressionable race was least perceptibly affected by its Arab -experiences was in its literature. And remembering how very distinctly -in the elder days of art the influence of Greek thought is traceable in -Jewish philosophy, it is strange to note with these authors of the -Middle Ages, who write as readily in Arabic as in Hebrew, that, though -the hand is the hand of Esau, the voice remains unmistakably the voice -of Jacob. Munk dwells on this remarkable distinction in the poetry of -the period, and with some natural preference perhaps, strives to account -for it in the wide divergence of the Hebrew and Arabic sources of -inspiration. The poetry of the Jews he roundly declares to be universal, -and that of the Arabs egotistic in its tendency; the sons of the desert -finding subjects for their Muse in traditions of national glory and in -dreams of material delight, whilst the descendants of prophets turn to -the records of their own ancestry, and find their themes in remorseful -memories, and in unselfish and unsensual hopes. With the Jewish poet, -past and future are alike uncoloured by personal desire, and even the -sins and sufferings of his race he enshrines in song. If it be good, as -a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_007" id="page_007"></a>{7}</span> modern writer has declared it to be, that a nation should commemorate -its defeats, certainly no race has ever been richer in such subjects, or -has shown itself more willing, in ritual and rhyme, to take advantage of -them.</p> - -<p>Whilst the leaders of society, the licentious crusader and the celibate -monk, were stumbling so sorely in the shadow of the Cross, and whilst -the rank and file throughout Europe were steeped in deepest gloom of -densest ignorance and superstition, the lamp of learning, handed down -from generation to generation of despised Jews, was still being -carefully trimmed, and was burning at its brightest among the little -knot of philosophers and poets in Spain. Alcharisi, the commentator and -critic of the circle, gives, for his age, a curiously high standard of -the qualifications essential to the sometimes lightly bestowed title of -author. ‘A poet,’ he says, ‘(1) must be perfect in metre; (2) his -language of classic purity; (3) the subject of his poem worthy of the -poet’s best skill, and calculated to instruct and to elevate mankind; -(4) his style must be full of “lucidity” and free from every obscure or -foreign expression; (5) he must never sacrifice sense to sound; (6) he -must add infinite care and patience to his gift of genius, never -submitting crude work to the world;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_008" id="page_008"></a>{8}</span> and (7) lastly, he must neither -parade all he knows nor offer the winnowings of his harvest.’</p> - -<p>These seem sufficiently severe conditions even to nineteenth-century -judgment, but Jehudah Halevi, say his admirers and even his -contemporaries, fulfilled them all.</p> - -<p>That a man should be judged by his peers gives a promise of sound and -honest testimony, and if such judgment be accepted as final, then does -Halevi hold high rank indeed among men and poets. One of the first -things that strike an intruder into this old-world literary circle is -the curious absence of those small rivalries and jealousies which we of -other times and manners look instinctively to find. Such records as -remain to us make certainly less amusing reading than some later -biographies and autobiographies afford, but, on the other hand, it has a -unique interest of its own, to come upon authentic traces of such -susceptible beings as authors, all living in the same set and with a -limited range both of subjects and of readers, who yet live together in -harmony, and interchange sonnets and epigrams curiously free from every -suggestion of envy, hatred, or uncharitableness. There is, in truth, a -wonderful freshness of sentiment about these gentle old scholars. They -say pretty things<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_009" id="page_009"></a>{9}</span> to and of each other in almost school-girl fashion. -‘I pitch my tent in thy heart,’ exclaims one as he sets out on a -journey. More poetically Halevi expresses a similar sentiment to a -friend of his (Ibn Giat):</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘If to the clouds thy boldness wings its flight,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Within our hearts, thou ne’er art out of sight.’<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>Writes another (Moses Aben Ezra), and he was a philosopher and -grammarian to boot, one not to be lightly suspected of sentimentality, -‘Our hearts were as one: now parted from thee, my heart is divided into -two.’ Halevi was the absent friend in this instance, and he begins his -response as warmly:—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘How can I rest when we are absent one from another?<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Were it not for the glad hope of thy return<br /></span> -<span class="i1">The day which tore thee from me<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Would tear me from all the world.’<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">Or the note changes: some disappointment or disillusion is hinted at, -and under its influence our tender-hearted poet complains to this same -sympathetic correspondent, ‘I was asked, Hast thou sown the seed of -friendship? My answer was, Alas, I did, but the seed did not thrive.’</p> - -<p>It is altogether the strangest, soberest little picture of sweetness and -light, showing beneath the gaudy, tawdry phantasmagoria of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_010" id="page_010"></a>{10}</span> the age. Rub -away the paint and varnish from the hurrying host of crusaders, from the -confused crowd of dreary, deluded rabble, and there they stand like a -‘restored’ group, these tuneful, unworldly sages, ‘toiling, rejoicing, -sorrowing,’ with Jehudah Halevi, poet and physician, as central figure. -For, loyal to the impulse which in times long past had turned Akiba into -a herdsman and had induced Hillel in his youth and poverty to ‘hire -himself out wherever he could find a job,’<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> which, in the time to -come, was to make of Maimonides a diamond-cutter, and of Spinoza an -optician, Halevi compounded simples as conscientiously as he composed -sonnets, and was more of doctor than of poet by profession. He was true -to those traditions and instincts of his race, which, through all the -ages, had recognised the dignity of labour and had inclined to use -literature as a staff rather than as a crutch. His prescriptions were -probably such as the Pharmacoœia of to-day might hardly approve, and the -spirit in which he prescribed, one must own, is perhaps also a little -out of date. Here is a grace just before physic which brings to one’s -mind the advice given by a famous divine of the muscular Christianity -school to his young friend at Oxford, ‘Work hard—as for your degree, -leave it to God.’<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_011" id="page_011"></a>{11}</span></p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘God grant that I may rise again,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Nor perish by Thine anger slain.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">This draught that I myself combine,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">What is it? Only Thou dost know<br /></span> -<span class="i1">If well or ill, if swift or slow,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Its parts shall work upon my pain.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Ay, of these things, alone is Thine<br /></span> -<span class="i1">The knowledge. All my faith I place,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Not in my craft, but in Thy grace.’<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>(1)<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>Halevi’s character, however, was far enough removed from that which an -old author has defined as ‘pious and painefull.’ He ‘entered the courts -with gladness’: his religion being of a healthy, happy, natural sort, -free from all affectations, and with no taint either of worldliness or -of other-worldliness to be discerned in it. Perhaps our poet was not -entirely without that comfortable consciousness of his own powers and -capabilities which, in weaker natures, turns its seamy side to us as -conceit, nor altogether free from that impatience of ‘fools’ which seems -to be another of the temptations of the gifted. This rather ill-tempered -little extract which we are honest enough to append appears to indicate -as much:—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘Lo! my light has pierced to the dark abyss,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">I have brought forth gems from the gloomy mine;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_012" id="page_012"></a>{12}</span><br /></span> -<span class="i1">Now the fools would see them! I ask you this:<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Shall I fling my pearls down before the swine?<br /></span> -<span class="i1">From the gathered cloud shall the raindrops flow<br /></span> -<span class="i1">To the barren land where no fruit can grow?’(1)<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">The little grumble is characteristic, but in actual fact no land was -‘barren’ to his hopeful, sunny temperament. In the ‘morning he sowed his -seed, and in the evening he withheld not his hand,’ and from his -‘gathered clouds,’ the raindrops fell rainbow-tinted. The love songs, -which a trustworthy edition tells us were written to his wife, are quite -as beautiful in their very different way as an impassioned elegy he -wrote when death claimed his friend, Aben Ezra, or as the famous ode he -composed on Jerusalem. Halevi wrote prose too, and a bulky volume in -Arabic is in existence, which sets forth the history of a certain Bulan, -king of the Khozars, who reigned, the antiquarians agree, about the -beginning of the eighth century, over a territory situate on the shores -of the Caspian Sea. This Bulan would seem to have been of a hesitating, -if not of a sceptical, turn of mind in religious matters. Honestly -anxious to be correct in his opinions, his anxiety becomes intensified -by means of a vision, and he finally summons representative followers of -Moses, of Jesus, and of Mahomet, to discuss in his presence the tenets -of their masters. These chosen doctors of divinity<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_013" id="page_013"></a>{13}</span> argue at great -length, and the Jewish Rabbi is said to have best succeeded in -satisfying the anxious scruples of the king. The same authorities tell -us that Bulan became an earnest convert to Judaism, and commenced in his -own person a Jewish dynasty which endured for more than two centuries. -Over these more or less historic facts Halevi casts the glamour of his -genius, and makes, at any rate, a very readable story out of them, which -incidentally throws some valuable side-lights on his own way of -regarding things. Unluckily, side-lights are all we possess, in place of -the electric illuminating fashion of the day. Those copious details, -which our grandchildren seem likely to inherit concerning all and sundry -of this generation, are wholly wanting to us, the earlier heirs of time. -Of Halevi, as of greater poets, who have lived even nearer to our own -age, history speaks neither loudly nor in chorus. Yet, for our -consolation, there is the reflection that the various and varying -records of ‘Thomas’s ideal John: never the real John, nor John’s John, -but often very unlike either,’ may, in truth, help us but little to a -right comprehension of the ‘real John, known only to His Maker.’ Once -get at a man’s ideals, it has been well said, and the rest is easy. And -thus though our facts are but few and fragmentary concerning the man of -whom<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_014" id="page_014"></a>{14}</span> one admirer quaintly says that, ‘created in the image of God’ -could in his case stand for literal description, yet may we, by means of -his ideals, arrive perhaps at a juster conception of Halevi’s charming -personality than did we possess the very pen with which he wrote and the -desk at which he sat and the minutest and most authentic particulars as -to his wont of using both.</p> - -<p>His ideal of religion was expressed in every practical detail of daily -life.</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘When I remove from Thee, O God,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">I die whilst I live; but when<br /></span> -<span class="i1">I cleave to Thee, I live in death.’<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>These three lines indicate the sentiment of Judaism, and might almost -serve as sufficient sample of Halevi’s simple creed, for, truth to tell, -the religion of the Jews does not concern itself greatly with the ideal, -being of a practical rather than of an emotional sort, rigid as to -practice, but tolerant over theories, and inquiring less as to a man’s -belief than as to his conduct. Work—steady, cheerful, untiring -work—was perhaps Halevi’s favourite form of praise. Still, being a -poet, he sings, and, like the birds, in divers strains, with happy, -unconscious effort. Only ‘For Thy songs, O God!’ he cries, ‘my heart is -a harp’; and truly<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_015" id="page_015"></a>{15}</span> enough, in some of these ancient Hebrew hymns, the -stately intensity of which it is impossible to reproduce, we seem to -hear clearly the human strings vibrate. The truest faith, the most -living hope, the widest charity, is breathed forth in them; and they -have naturally been enshrined by his fellow-believers in the most sacred -parts of their liturgy, quotations from which would here obviously be -out of place. Some dozen lines only shall be given, and these chosen in -illustration of the universality of the Jewish hope. ‘Where can I find -Thee, O God?’ the poet questions; and there is wonderfully little -suggestion of reserved places about the answer:—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘Lord! where art Thou to be found?<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Hidden and high is Thy home.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">And where shall we find Thee not?<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Thy glory fills the world.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Thou art found in my heart,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">And at the uttermost ends of the earth.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">A refuge for the near,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">For the far, a trust.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘The universe cannot contain Thee;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">How then a temple’s shrine?<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Though Thou art raised above men<br /></span> -<span class="i1">On Thy high and lofty throne,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Yet art Thou near unto them<br /></span> -<span class="i1">In their spirit and in their flesh.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_016" id="page_016"></a>{16}</span><br /></span> -<span class="i1">Who can say he has not seen Thee?<br /></span> -<span class="i1">When lo! the heavens and their host<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Tell of Thy fear, in silent testimony.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘I sought to draw near to Thee.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">With my whole heart I sought Thee.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">And when I went out to meet Thee,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">To meet me, Thou wast ready on the road.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">In the wonders of Thy might<br /></span> -<span class="i1">And in Thy holiness I have beheld Thee.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Who is there that should not fear Thee?<br /></span> -<span class="i1">The yoke of Thy kingdom is for ever and for all,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Who is there that should not call upon Thee?<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Thou givest unto all their food.’<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>Concerning Halevi’s ideal of love and marriage we may speak at greater -length; and on these subjects one may remark that our poet’s ideal was -less individual than national. Mixing intimately among men who, as a -matter of course, bestowed their fickle favours on several wives, and -whose poetic notion of matrimony—on the prosaic we will not touch—was -a houri-peopled Paradise, it is perhaps to the credit of the Jews that -this was one of the Arabian customs which, with all their -susceptibility, they were very slow to adopt. Halevi, as is the general -faithful fashion of his race, all his life long loved one only, and -clave to her—a ‘dove of rarest worth, and sweet exceedingly,’ as in one -of his poems he declares her to be. The test of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_017" id="page_017"></a>{17}</span> poetry, Goethe -somewhere says, is the substance which remains when the poetry is -reduced to prose. When the poetry has been yet further reduced by -successive processes of translation, the test becomes severe. We fancy, -though, that there is still some considerable residuum about Halevi’s -songs to his old-fashioned love—his Ophrah, as he calls her in some of -them. Here is one when they are likely to be parted for a while:—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘So we must be divided; sweetest, stay,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Once more, mine eyes would seek thy glance’s light.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">At night I shall recall thee: Thou, I pray,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Be mindful of the days of our delight.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Come to me in my dreams, I ask of thee,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">And even in my dreams be gentle unto me.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘If thou shouldst send me greeting in the grave,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">The cold breath of the grave itself were sweet;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Oh, take my life, my life, ’tis all I have,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">If it should make thee live, I do entreat.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">I think that I shall hear when I am dead,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">The rustle of thy gown, thy footsteps overhead.’(1)<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>And another, which reads like a marriage hymn:—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘A dove of rarest worth<br /></span> -<span class="i1">And sweet exceedingly;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Alas, why does she turn<br /></span> -<span class="i1">And fly so far from me?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_018" id="page_018"></a>{18}</span><br /></span> -<span class="i1">In my fond heart a tent,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Should aye preparèd be.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">My poor heart she has caught<br /></span> -<span class="i1">With magic spells and wiles.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">I do not sigh for gold,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">But for her mouth that smiles;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Her hue it is so bright,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">She half makes blind my sight,<br /></span> -<span class="ispc">. . . .<br /></span> -<span class="i1">The day at last is here<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Fill’d full of love’s sweet fire;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">The twain shall soon be one,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Shall stay their fond desire.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Ah! would my tribe could chance<br /></span> -<span class="i1">On such deliverance.’(1)<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>On a first reading, these last two lines strike one as oddly out of -place in a love poem. But as we look again, they seem to suggest, that -in a nature so full and wholesome as Halevi’s, love did not lead to a -selfish forgetfulness, nor marriage mean a joy which could hold by its -side no care for others. Rather to prove that love at its best does not -narrow the sympathies, but makes them widen and broaden out to enfold -the less fortunate under its happy, brooding wings. And though at the -crowning moment of his life Halevi could spare a tender thought for his -‘tribe,’ with very little right could the foolish, favourite epithet of -‘tribalism’ be flung at him, and with even less of justice at his race. -In truth,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_019" id="page_019"></a>{19}</span> they were ‘patriots’ in the sorriest, sincerest sense—this -dispossessed people, who owned not an inch of the lands wherein they -wandered, from the east unto the west. It is prejudice or ignorance -maybe, but certainly it is not history, which sees the Jews as any but -the faithfullest of citizens to their adopted States; faithful, indeed, -often to the extent of forgetting, save in set and prayerful phrases, -the lost land of their fathers. Here is a typical national song of the -twelfth century, in which no faintest echo of regret or of longing for -other glories, other shrines, can be discerned:—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘I found that words could ne’er express<br /></span> -<span class="i1">The half of all its loveliness;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">From place to place I wander’d wide,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">With amorous sight unsatisfied,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Till last I reach’d all cities’ queen,<br /></span> -<span class="i5">Tolaitola<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> the fairest seen.<br /></span> -<span class="ispc">. . . .<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Her palaces that show so bright<br /></span> -<span class="i1">In splendour, shamed the starry height,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Whilst temples in their glorious sheen<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Rivall’d the glories that had been;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">With earnest reverent spirit there,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">The pious soul breathes forth its prayer.’<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>The ‘earnest reverent spirit’ may be a little out of drawing now, but -that ‘fairest<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_020" id="page_020"></a>{20}</span> city seen’ of the Spanish poet,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> might well stand for -the London or Paris of to-day in the well-satisfied, cosmopolitan -affections of an ordinary Englishman or Frenchman of the Jewish faith. -And which of us may blame this adaptability, this comfortable -inconstancy of content? Widows and widowers remarry, and childless -folks, it is said, grow quite foolishly fond of adopted kin. With -practical people the past is past, and to the prosperous nothing comes -more easy than forgetting. After all—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘What can you do with people when they are dead?<br /></span> -<span class="i1">But if you are pious, sing a hymn and go;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Or, if you are tender, heave a sigh and go,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">But go by all means, and permit the grass<br /></span> -<span class="i1">To keep its green fend ’twixt them and you.’<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>In the long centuries since Jerusalem fell there has been time and to -spare for the green grass to wither into dusty weeds above those -desolate dead whose ‘place knows them no more.’ That Halevi with his -‘poetic heart,’ which is a something different from the most metrical of -poetic imaginations, cherished a closer ideal of patriotism than some of -his brethren may not be denied. ‘Israel among the nations,’ he writes, -‘is as the heart among the limbs.’ He was the loyalest of Spanish<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_021" id="page_021"></a>{21}</span> -subjects, yet Jerusalem was ever to him, in sober fact, ‘the city of the -world.’</p> - -<p>In these learned latter days, the tiniest crumbs of tradition have been -so eagerly pounced upon by historians to analyse and argue over, that we -are almost left in doubt whether the very A B C of our own history may -still be writ in old English characters. The process which has bereft -the bogy uncle of our youthful belief of his hump, and all but -transformed the Bluebeard of the British throne into a model monarch, -has not spared to set its puzzling impress on the few details which have -come down to us concerning Halevi. Whether the love-poems, some eight -hundred in number, were all written to his wife, is now questioned; -whether 1086 or 1105 is the date of his birth, and if Toledo or Old -Castille be his birthplace, is contested. Whether he came to a peaceful -end, or was murdered by wandering Arabs, is left doubtful, since both -the year of his death<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> and the manner of it are stated in different -ways by different authorities, among whom it is hard to choose. Whether, -indeed, he ever visited the Holy City, whether he beheld it with ‘actual -sight or sight of faith,’ is greatly and gravely debated; but amidst all -this bewildering dust of doubt that the researches of wise<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_022" id="page_022"></a>{22}</span> commentators -have raised, the central fact of his life is left to us undisputed. The -realities they meddle with, but the ideals, happily, they leave to us -undimmed. All at least agree, that ‘she whom the Rabbi loved was a poor -woe-begone darling, a moving picture of desolation, and her name was -Jerusalem.’ There is a consensus of opinion among the critics that this -often-quoted saying of Heine’s was only a poetical way of putting a -literal and undoubted truth. On this subject, indeed, our poet has only -to speak for himself.</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘Oh! city of the world, most chastely fair;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">In the far west, behold I sigh for thee.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">And in my yearning love I do bethink me,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Of bygone ages; of thy ruined fane,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Thy vanish’d splendour of a vanish’d day.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Oh! had I eagles’ wings I’d fly to thee,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">And with my falling tears make moist thine earth.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">I long for thee; what though indeed thy kings<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Have passed for ever; that where once uprose<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Sweet balsam-trees the serpent makes his nest.<br /></span> -<span class="i1">O that I might embrace thy dust, the sod<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Were sweet as honey to my fond desire!’(1)<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>Fifty translations cannot spoil the true ring in such fervid words as -these. And in a world so sadly full of ‘fond desires,’ destined to -remain for ever unfulfilled, it is pleasant to know that Halevi -accomplished his. He unquestionably travelled to Palestine; whether<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_023" id="page_023"></a>{23}</span> his -steps were stayed short of Jerusalem we know not, but he undoubtedly -reached the shores, and breathed ‘the air of that land which makes men -wise,’ as in loving hyperbole a more primitive patriot<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> expresses it.</p> - -<p>And seeing how that ‘the Lord God doth like a printer who setteth the -letters backward,’<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> there is small cause, perchance, for grieving in -that the breath our poet drew in the land of his dreams was the breath -not of life but of death.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_024" id="page_024"></a>{24}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="THE_STORY_OF_A_STREET" id="THE_STORY_OF_A_STREET"></a>THE STORY OF A STREET</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">To</span> the ear and eye that can find sermons in stones, streets, one would -fancy, must be brimful of suggestive stories. There might be differences -of course. From a stone of the polished pebble variety, for instance, -one could only predict smooth platitudes, and the romance in a block of -regulation stucco would possibly turn out a trifle prosaic. But the -right stone and the right street will always have an eloquence of their -own for the right listener or lounger, and certain crumbling old -tenements which were carted away as rubbish some few years ago in -Frankfort must have been rarely gifted in this line. ‘Words of fire,’ -and ‘written in blood,’ would, in truth, have no parabolic meaning, if -the stones of that ancient <i>Judengasse</i> suddenly took to story-telling. -A long record of sorrow, and wrong, and squalid romance, would be -unfolded, and, inasmuch as the sorrows have been healed and the wrongs -have been righted, it may not be uninteresting to look for a moment at -the picturesque truths that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_025" id="page_025"></a>{25}</span> lie hidden under that squalid romance, -which, like a mist, hung for centuries over the Jews’ quarter.</p> - -<p>The very first authentic record of the presence of Jews in Frankfort -comes to us in the account of a massacre of some hundred and eighty of -them in 1241. This persecution was probably epidemic rather than -indigenous in its nature, its germ distinctly traceable to those -conscientious and comprehensive attempts of Louis the Saint, in the -preceding year, to stamp out Judaism in his dominions. At any rate, for -German Jews, an era of protection began under Frederick Barbarossa, and -the Frankfort Jews among the rest, during the next hundred years, -enjoyed the ‘no history’ which to the Jewish nation, pre-eminently -amongst all others, must have been synonymous with happiness. But the -story begins again about the middle of the fourteenth century when the -Black Plague raged, and sanitary inspection, old style, took the form of -declaring the wells to be poisoned, and of advising the burning and -plunder of Jews by way of antidote. Jews were prolific, their hoards -portable, their houses slightly built, so the burnings and the massacres -and the liftings become intermittent and a little difficult to localise, -till about the year 1430, when Frederick III.,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_026" id="page_026"></a>{26}</span> egged on by his clergy, -made an order for all Jews in Frankfort to reside out of sight and sound -of the holy Cathedral. A site just without the ancient walls of the -town, and belonging to the council, was allotted to them, and here, at -their own expense, the Jews built their <i>Judengasse</i>.</p> - -<p>The street contained originally some hundred and ninety-six houses, and -iron-sheeted gates, kept fast closed on Sundays and saint days, grew -gradually to be barred from inside as well as outside on the Ghetto. The -pleasures and the hopes which Jews might not share they came by slow -degrees to hate and to despise, and the men with the yellow badges on -their garments learnt to cringe and stoop under their load, and the -dark-eyed women with the blue stripes to their veils lifted them only to -look upon their children. Undeniably, by every outward test, the poor -pariahs of the Ghetto were degenerate, and their sad and sordid lives -must have looked both repellent and unpicturesque to the passer-by. But -it may be doubted whether the degeneracy went much deeper than the -costume. If the passer-by had passed in to one of these gabled -dwellings, when the degrading gaberdine and the disfiguring veil were -thrown aside, he would have come upon an interior of home life which -would have<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_027" id="page_027"></a>{27}</span> struck him as strangely incongruous with the surroundings. -Amid all the wretched physical squalor of the street he would have found -little mental and less spiritual destitution. If the law of the land bid -Jews shrink before men, the law of the Book bid them rejoice before God. -Both laws they obeyed to the letter. Beating vainly at closed doors, -they learnt to speak to the world with bated breath and whispered -humbleness, but ‘His courts’ they entered, as it was commanded them, -‘with thanksgiving,’ and ‘joyfully’ sang hymns to Him. And the ‘courts’ -came to be comprehensive of application, and the ‘hymns’ to include much -literature. There was always a vivid domestic side to the religion of -the Jews, and the alchemy of home life went far to turn the dross of the -Ghetto into gold. Their Sabbath, in the picturesque phrase of their -prayer-book, was ‘a bride,’ and her welcome, week by week, was of a -right bridal sort. White cloths were spread and lamps lit in her honour. -The shabbiest dwellings put on something of a festive air, and for -‘<i>Shobbus</i>’ the poorest <i>haus-frau</i> would manage to have ready at least -one extra dish and several best and bright-coloured garments for her -family. On the seventh day and on holy days the slouching pedlar and -hawker fathers, with their packs<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_028" id="page_028"></a>{28}</span> cast off, were priests and teachers -too, and every day the Ghetto children, for all their starved and -stunted growth, had unlimited diet from the <i>Judengasse</i> stores of -family affection and free schooling. They were probably, however, at no -time very numerous, these Ghetto babies, for up to a quite comparatively -recent date (1832) Jewish love-affairs were strictly under State -control, and only fifteen couples a year were allowed to marry.</p> - -<p>Ludwig Börne, or Löb Baruch as he is registered in the Frankfort -synagogue (1786), was a result of one of these eagerly sought -privileges, and it is easy to see how he came to write, ‘Because I was -born a slave I understand liberty; my birthplace was no longer than the -<i>Judengasse</i>, and beyond its locked gates a foreign country began for -me. Now, no town, no district, no province can content me. I can rest -only with all Germany for my fatherland.’ An eloquent expression enough -of the repressed patriotism which was, perforce, inarticulate for -centuries in the <i>Judengasse</i> of Frankfort.</p> - -<p>Prison as the street must have seemed to its tenants, there was at least -one occasion when its gates had the charms rather than the defects -appertaining to bolts and bars. In 1498, a harassed, ragged little crowd -from Nuremberg fled from their persecutors to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_029" id="page_029"></a>{29}</span> find in our Frankfort -<i>Judengasse</i> a safe city of refuge, and for a century or more the -Imperial coat-of-arms was gratefully emblazoned on the Ghetto gates as a -sign to the outer world that the Frankfort Jews, though imprisoned, were -protected. Yet we may fairly doubt if the feeling of security could have -been much more than skin-deep, since in 1711, when nearly the whole of -the street was burnt down, we find that some of the poor souls were so -afraid of insult and plunder, that many refused to open their doors to -would-be rescuers, and so, to prevent being pillaged, perished in the -flames. An oddly pathetic prose version of the famous Ingoldsby martyr, -who ‘could stand dying, but who couldn’t stand pinching.’</p> - -<p>When, in 1808, Napoleon made Frankfort the capital of his new grand -duchy, the Ghetto gates were demolished, and many vexatious restrictions -were repealed. Such new hopes, however, as the Frankfort Jews may have -begun to indulge, fell with Napoleon’s downfall in 1815. Civil and -political disabilities were revived, and it was not till 1854 that the -last of these were erased from the statute-book.</p> - -<p>The one house in that sad old street, the stirring sermons in whose -stones might be ‘good in everything,’ would be No. 148, the little -low-browed dwelling with the sign of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_030" id="page_030"></a>{30}</span> the Rose and Star—a veritable -Rose of Dawn it has proved—which was purchased more than a hundred -years ago [in 1780] by Meyer Amschel Rothschild, the founder of the -great Rothschild house. Every one knows the fairy-like story of that old -house; how Meyer Amschel, intended by his parents to be a rabbi, as many -of his ancestors had been before him, chose for himself a different way -of helping his fellow-men; how he went into commerce, and made commerce, -even in the Ghetto, dignified and honourable, as he would have made -chimney-sweeping if he had adopted it; how he became agent to the -Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, how faithfully he discharged his stewardship, -and how his money took to itself snowball properties, and changed the -tiny <i>Judengasse</i> tenement into gorgeous mansions. And the old stones -would tell, too, of how faithful were the old merchant prince and the -wife of his youth to early associations; how sons and daughters grew up -and married, and moved to more aristocratic neighbourhoods, but how -Meyer Amschel and his old wife clung to the shabby old home in the -Ghetto, and lived there all their lives, and till she died, nearly fifty -years ago.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> The very<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_031" id="page_031"></a>{31}</span> iron bars of those windows would speak if they -could, saying never a word of their old bad uses, but telling only how -kind and wrinkled hands were stretched out through them day by day, and -year after year, dealing out bread to the hungry. No. 148 could -certainly tell the prettiest story in all the street, and preach the -most suggestive line in all the sermons carted away with those stones of -the Frankfort <i>Judengasse</i>. And it would be a story with a sequel. For -when all the other sad old houses were demolished, the walls and rafters -of No. 148 were carefully collected and numbered, and for a while -reverently laid aside. And now, re-erected, the house stands close by -its old site, serving as the centre or depôt for the dispensing of the -Rothschild charities in Frankfort. Fanciful folks might almost be -tempted to believe that stones with such experiences would be -sufficiently sentient to rejoice at the pretty sentiment which refused -to let them perish, and which, regarding them as relics, built them up -afresh, and consecrated them to new and noble uses.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_032" id="page_032"></a>{32}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="HEINRICH_HEINE_A_PLEA" id="HEINRICH_HEINE_A_PLEA"></a>HEINRICH HEINE: A PLEA</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘That blackguard Heine.’—<span class="smcap">Carlyle.</span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">‘<span class="lftspc">“</span>Who was Heine?” A wicked man.’<br /></span> -<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Charles Kingsley.</span><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">There</span> are some persons, some places, some things, which fall all too -easily into ready-made definitions. Labels lie temptingly to hand, and -specimens get duly docketed—‘rich as a Jew,’ perhaps, or ‘happy as a -king’—with a promptitude and a precision which is not a trifle -provoking to people of a nicely discriminative turn of mind. The amiable -optimism which insists on an inseparable union between a Jew and his -money, and discerns an alliterative link between kings and contentment, -or makes now and again a monopoly of the virtues by labelling them -‘Christian,’ has, we suspect, a good deal to do with the manufacture of -debatable definitions, and the ready fitting of slop-made judgments. -Scores of such shallow platitudes occur to one’s memory, some -mischievous, some monotonous, some simply meaningless, and many of the -most complacent have been tacked on to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_033" id="page_033"></a>{33}</span> telling of a life-story, -brimful of contradictions, and running counter to most of the -conventionalities. The story of one who was a Jew, and poor; a convert, -without the zeal; a model of resignation, and yet no Christian; a poet, -born under sternest conditions of prose, and with sad claims, by right -of race, to the scorn of scorn and hate of hate, which we have been told -is exclusively a poet’s appanage—surely a story hardly susceptible of -being summed up in an epithet. It is a life which has been told often, -in many languages, and in much detail; this small sketch will glance -only at such portions of it as seem to suggest the clue to a juster -reading and a kindlier conclusion.</p> - -<p>It was in the last month of the last year of the eighteenth century, in -the little town of Düsseldorf in South Germany, that their eldest son -Heinrich, or Harry as he seems to have been called in the family circle, -was born unto Samson Heine, dealer in cloth, and Betty his wife. That -eighteenth century had been but a dreary one for the Jews of Europe. It -set in darkness on Heine’s cradle, and on his ‘mattress grave,’ some -fifty years later, the dawn of nineteenth century civilisation, for -them, had scarcely broken. ‘The heaviest burden that men can lay upon -us,’ wrote Spinoza, ‘is not that they persecute us with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_034" id="page_034"></a>{34}</span> their hatred -and scorn, but it is by the planting of hatred and scorn in our souls. -That is what does not let us breathe freely or see clearly.’ This -subtlest effect of the poison of persecution seemed to have entered the -Jewish system. Warned off from the highroads of life, and shunned for -shambling along its bye-paths, the banned and persecuted race, looking -out on the world from their ghettoes, had grown to see most things in -false perspective. Self loomed large on their blank horizon, and gold -shone more golden in the gloom. God the Father, whose service demanded -such daily sacrifice, had lost something of that divinest attribute; -men, our brothers, could the words have borne any but a ‘tribal’ sound? -Still, in those dim, dream-peopled ghettoes, where visions of the -absent, the distant, and the past must have come to further perplex and -confuse the present, one actuality seems to have been grasped among the -shadows, one ideal attained amid all the grim realities of that most -miserable time. Home life and family affection had a sacredness for the -worst of these poor sordid Jews in a sense which, to the best of those -sottish little German potentates who so conscientiously despised them, -would have been unmeaning. Maidens were honourably wed, and wives -honoured and children cherished in those wretched Judenstrassen,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_035" id="page_035"></a>{35}</span> where -‘the houses look as if they could tell sorrowful stories,’ after a -fashion quite unknown at any, save the most exceptional, of the numerous -coarse, corrupt, and ludicrously consequential little courts which were, -at that period, representative of German culture.</p> - -<p>The marriage of Heine’s parents had been one of those faithful unions, -under superficially unequal conditions, for which Jews seem to have a -genius. It had been something of the old story, ‘she was beautiful, and -he fell in love’; she, pretty, piquant, cultivated, and the daughter of -a physician of some local standing; he, just a respectable member of a -respectable trading family, and ordinary all round, save for the -distinction of one rich relative, a banker brother at Hamburg.</p> - -<p>Betty’s attractions, however, were all dangerous and undesirable -possessions in the eyes of a prudent Jewish parent of the period, and -Dr. von Geldern appears to have gladly given this charming daughter of -his into the safe ownership of her somewhat commonplace wooer, whose -chiefest faculty would seem to have been that of appreciation. It -proved, nevertheless, a sufficiently happy marriage, and Betty herself, -although possibly rather an acquiescent daughter than a responsive bride -in the preliminaries, developed into a faithful<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_036" id="page_036"></a>{36}</span> wife and a most devoted -mother, utilising her artistic tastes and her bright energy in the -education of her children, and finding full satisfaction for her warm -heart in their affection. Her eldest born was always passionately -attached to her, and in the days of his youth, as in the years that so -speedily ‘drew nigh with no pleasure in them,’ unto those latest of the -‘evil days’ when he lay so unconscionably long a-dying, and wrote long -playful letters to her full of tender deceit, telling of health and -wealth and friends, in place of pain and poverty and disease, through -all that bitter, brilliant life of his, Heinrich Heine’s relations with -his mother were altogether beautiful, and go far to refute the criticism -attributed, with I know not how much of truth, to Goethe, that ‘the poet -had every capacity save that for love!’ ‘In real love, as in perfect -music,’ says Bulwer Lytton in one of his novels, ‘there must be a -certain duration of time.’ Heine’s attachment to his mother was just -lifelong; his first love he never forgot, nor, indeed, wholly forgave, -and his devotion to his grisette wife not only preceded marriage, but -survived it. Poor Heine! was it his genius or his race, or something of -both, which conferred on him that fatal <i>pierre de touche</i> as regards -reputation, ‘<i>il déplait invariablement à tous les imbeciles</i>’?</p> - -<p>In the very early boyhood of Heine some<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_037" id="page_037"></a>{37}</span> light had broken in on the -thick darkness, social and political, which enveloped Jewish fortunes. -It was only a fitful gleam from the meteor-like course of the first -Napoleon, but during those few years when, as Heine puts it, ‘all -boundaries were dislocated,’ the Duchy of Berg, and its capital -Düsseldorf, in common with more important states, were created French, -and the Code Napoléon took the place for a while of that other, -unwritten, code in which Jews were pariahs, to be condemned without -evidence, and sentenced without appeal. Although the French occupation -of Berg lasted unluckily but a few years (1806 till 1813), it did -wonders in the way of individual civilisation, and Joachim Murat, during -his governorship, seems really to have succeeded in introducing -something of the ‘sweet pineapple odour of politeness,’ which Heine -later notes as a characteristic of French manners, into the boorish, -beerish little German principality. Although the time was all too short, -and the conscription too universal for much national improvement to -become evident, German burghers as well as German Jews had cause to -rejoice in the change of rule. We hear of no ‘noble’ privileges, no -licensed immunities nor immoralities during the term of the French -occupation, and some healthier amusements than Jew-baiting were provided -for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_038" id="page_038"></a>{38}</span> populace. With the departure of the French troops the clouds, -which needed the storm of the ’48 revolution to be effectually -dispersed, gathered again. Still the foreign government, short as it -was, had lasted long enough to make an impression for life on Heinrich -Heine, and its most immediate effect was in the school influences it -brought to bear upon him. Throughout all the States brought under French -control, public education, by the Imperial edict of 1808, was settled on -one broad system, and put under the general direction of the French -Minister of Instruction. In accordance with this decree some suitable -building in each selected district had to be utilised for class-rooms, -the students had to be put into uniform, the teachers to be Frenchmen, -and all subjects had to be taught through the medium of that language. -The lycée at Düsseldorf was set up in an ancient Franciscan convent, and -hither, at the age of ten, was Heine daily despatched. A bright little -auburn-haired lad, full of fun and mischief, and mother-taught up to -this date save for some small amount of Hebrew drilling which he seems -to have received at the hands of a neighbouring Jewish instructor of -youth, Harry had everything to learn, and discipline and the Latin -declensions were among the first and greatest of his difficulties. Poet -nature<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_039" id="page_039"></a>{39}</span> and boy nature were both strong in him, and it was so hard to -sit droning out long dull lists of words, which he was quite sure the -originators of them had never had to do, for ‘if the Romans had had -first to learn Latin,’ he ruminated, ‘they never would have had time to -conquer the world’—so impossible he found it to keep his eyes on the -page, whilst the very motes were dancing in the sunshine as it poured in -through the old convent window, which was set just too high in the wall -for a safe jump into freedom. One day the need of sympathy, and possibly -some unconscious association from the dim old cloister, proved -momentarily too strong for the impressionable little lad’s Jewish -instincts; he came across a crucifix in some forgotten niche of the -transformed convent; he looked up, he tells us, at the roughly carved -figure, and dropping on his knees, prayed an earnest heterodox prayer, -‘Oh, Thou poor once persecuted God, do help me, if possible, to keep the -irregular verbs in my head!’</p> - -<p>‘Jewish instincts,’ we said, and they could have been scarcely more, for -neither at home, at school, nor in the streets was the atmosphere the -boy breathed favourable to the development of religious principles. The -Judaism of that age was, superficially, very much what the age had made -of it; and its<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_040" id="page_040"></a>{40}</span> followers and its persecutors alike combined to render -it mightily unattractive to susceptible natures. Samson Heine, stolid -and respectable, we may imagine doing his religious, as he did all his -other duties and avocations, in solemn routine fashion, laying heavy -honest hands on each prose detail, and letting every bit of poetry slip -through his fat fingers, whilst his bright eager wife, with her large -ideas and her small vanities, ruled her household, and read her -Rousseau, and, feeling the outer world shut from her by religion, and -the higher world barred from her by ritual, found the whole thing -cramping and unsatisfying to the last degree. ‘Happy is he whom his -mother teacheth’ runs an old Talmudic proverb; but among the -mother-taught lessons of his childhood, the best was missing to Heinrich -Heine—the real difference between ‘holy and profane’ he never rightly -learnt, and thus it came to pass that Jewish instincts—an ineradicable -and an inalienable, but alas! an incomplete inheritance of the sons of -Israel—were all that Judaism gave to this poet of Jewish race.</p> - -<p>One lingers over these early influences, the right understanding of -which goes far to supply the key to some of the later puzzles. Oddly -enough, the clouds which by and by hid the blue are discernible from the -very first,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_041" id="page_041"></a>{41}</span> and these early years give the silver lining to those -gathering clouds. In view of the dark days coming one at least rejoices -that Heine’s childhood was a happy one; at home the merry mischievous -boy was quite a hero to his two younger brothers, and a hero and a -companion both to his only sister, the Löttchen who was the occasion of -his earliest recorded composition. It is a favourite recollection of -this lady, who is living still,<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> how she, a blushing little maid of -ten, won a good deal of unmerited praise for a school theme, till a -trembling confession was extorted from her that the real author was her -brother Harry. His mother, too, was exceedingly proud of her handsome -eldest son, whose resemblance in many ways to her was the sweetest -flattery. And besides the adoring home circle Harry found a great ally -for playhours in an old French ex-drummer, who had marched to victory -with Napoleon’s legions, and who had plenty of tales to tell the boy of -the wonderful invincible Kaiser, whom one day—blest -never-to-be-forgotten vision—the boy actually saw ride through -Düsseldorf on his famous white steed (1810). Heine never quite lost the -glamour cast over him in his youth; France, Germany, Judea, each in a -sense his <i>patria</i>, was each, in the time to come, ‘loved both ways,’ -each in turn<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_042" id="page_042"></a>{42}</span> mocked at bitterly enough when the mood was on him, but -always with France, the ‘poet of the nations’ as our own English poetess -calls her, the sympathies of this cosmopolitan poet were keenest—a -perhaps not unnatural state of feeling when we reflect how fact and -fiction both combined to produce it. The French occupation of the -principality had been a veritable deliverance to its inhabitants, -Christian and Jewish alike, and what boy, in his own person, led out of -bondage, would not have thrilled to such stories as the old drummer had -to tell of the real living hero of it all? And the boy in question, we -must bear in mind, was a poet <i>in posse</i>.</p> - -<p>In school, in spite of the difficulties of irregular verbs, Harry seems -to have held his own, and to have soon attracted the especial attention -of the director. The chief selected for the lycée at Düsseldorf had -happened to be a Roman Catholic abbé of decidedly Voltairian views on -most subjects, and attracted by the boy and becoming acquainted with his -family, many a talk did Abbé Schallmayer have with Frau Heine over the -undoubted gifts and the delightful imperfections of her son. It may -possibly have been altogether simple interest in his bright young pupil, -or perhaps Frau Heine, pretty still, and charming always, was herself an -attraction to the schoolmaster, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_043" id="page_043"></a>{43}</span> certain it is, whether a private -taste for pretty women or a genuine pedagogic enthusiasm prompted his -frequent calls, our abbé was a constant visitor at Samson Heine’s, and -Harry and Harry’s future a never-failing theme for conversation. What -was the boy to be? There was no room for much speculation if he were to -remain a Jew—that path was narrow, if not straight, and admitted of -small range of choice along its level line of commerce.</p> - -<p>Betty, we know, was no staunch Jewess, and had her small personal -ambitions to boot, so such opposition as there was to the abbé’s plainly -given counsel to make a Catholic of the boy, and give him his chance, -came probably from the stolid, steady-going father, to whom custom spoke -in echoes resonant enough to deaden the muffled tones of religion. No -question, however, of sentiment or sacrifice was permitted to -complicate, or elevate, the question; no sense of voluntary renunciation -was suggested to the boy; no choice between the life and good, and the -death and evil, between conscience and compromise, was presented to him. -On the broadly comprehensive grounds that Judaism and trade had been -good enough for the father, trade and Judaism must be good enough for -the son—the matter was decided.</p> - -<p>But still before the lad’s prospects could be definitely settled, one -important personage<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_044" id="page_044"></a>{44}</span> remained to be consulted, the banker at Hamburg, -whose wealth had gained him somewhat of the position of a family fetich. -What Uncle Solomon would say to a scheme had no fictitious value about -it; for even were the oracle occasionally dumb, not seldom would its -speech be silver and its silence gold. A rich uncle is a very solemn -possession in an impecunious family, so Harry, and Harry’s poetry, and -Harry’s powers generally, had to be weighed in the Hamburg scales before -any standard value could be assigned to either one of them. For three -years the balance was held doubtful; the counting-house scales, accurate -as they usually were, could hardly adjust themselves to the conditions -of an unknown quantity, which ‘young Heine’ on an office stool must -certainly have proved to his bewildered relatives. One imagines him in -that correct and cramping atmosphere, fretting as he had done in the old -convent school-days against its weary routine, longing with all the -half-understood strength of his poet nature for the green hills and the -mountain lakes, and feeling absolutely stifled with all the solemn -interest shown over sordid matters. He tells us himself of some of his -‘calculations’ which would wander far afield, and leave the figures on -the paper, to concern themselves with the far more perplexing units -which passed the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_045" id="page_045"></a>{45}</span> mirky office windows, as he complains, ‘at the same -hour, with the same mien, making the same motions, like the puppets in a -town house clock—reckoning, reckoning always on the basis, twice two -are four. Frightful should it ever suddenly occur to one of these people -that twice two are properly five, and that he therefore had -miscalculated his whole life and squandered it all away in a ghastly -error!’ Many a poem too, sorrowful or fantastic, as the mood took him, -was scribbled in office hours, and very probably on office paper, thence -to find a temporary home in the Hamburg <i>Watchman</i>. What could be done -with such a lad? By every office standard he must inevitably have been -found wanting, and one even feels a sort of sympathy with the prosaic -head of the house who had made his money by the exercise of such very -different talents, and whose notion of poetry corresponded very nearly -with Corporal Bunting’s notion of love, that it’s by no means ‘the great -thing in life boys and girls want to make it out to be—that one does -not eat it, nor drink it, and as for the rest, why, it’s bother.’ It -always was ‘bother’ to the banker: all through his prosperous life this -poet nephew of his, who had the prophetic impertinence to tell the old -man once that he owed him some gratitude for being born his uncle, and -for bearing his name, was an<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_046" id="page_046"></a>{46}</span> unsatisfactory riddle. Original genius of -the sort which could create a bank-book <i>ex nihilo</i>, the millionaire -could have appreciated, but originality which ran into such unproductive -channels as poetry-book making was quite beyond him, and that he never -read the young man’s verses it is needless to say. Even in his own -immediate family and for his first book poor Harry found no audience, -save his mother; and to the very end of his days Solomon Heine for the -life of him could see nothing in his nephew but a <i>dumme Junge</i>, who -never ‘got on,’ and who made a jest of most things, even of his wealthy -and respectable relatives.</p> - -<p>It was scarcely the old man’s fault; one can only see to the limits of -one’s vision, and a poet’s soul was not well within Solomon Heine’s -range. According to his lights he was not ungenerous. That Harry had not -the making of a clerk in him, those three probationary years had proved -to demonstration, and in the determination at which the banker presently -arrived, of giving those indefinite talents which he only understood -enough to doubt, a chance of development by paying for a three years’ -university course at Bonn, he seems to have come fully up to any -reasonable ideal of a rich uncle. It is just possible that a secondary -motive influenced his generosity, for Harry, besides scribbling, had -found a relief from<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_047" id="page_047"></a>{47}</span> office work by falling in love with one of the -banker’s daughters, who would seem not to have shared the family -distaste for poetry. The little idyl was of course out of the question -in so realistic a circle, and the young lady, to do her justice, seems -herself to have been speedily reconverted to the proper principles in -which she had been trained. No unfit pendant to the ‘Amy, -shallow-hearted’ with whom a more recent generation is more familiar, -this Cousin Amy of poor Heine’s married and ‘kept her carriage’ with all -due despatch, whilst he, at college, was essaying to mend his ‘heart -broken in two’ with all the styptics which are as old and, alas, as -hurtful as such fractures. Poetical exaggeration notwithstanding—and -besides her own especial love-elegy, Amalie Heine, under thin disguises, -is the heroine of very many of the love-poems—there is little room for -doubt, that if not so seriously injured as he thought, Heine’s heart did -nevertheless receive a wound, which ached for many and many a long day, -from this girl’s weak or wilful inconstancy. Heartache is, however, -nearly as much a matter-of-course episode in most young people’s lives -as measles, and the consequences of either malady are only very -exceptionally serious.</p> - -<p>Heine’s youthful disappointment is of chief interest as having -indirectly led to what was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_048" id="page_048"></a>{48}</span> really the determining event of his life. -When Amalie’s parents shrewdly determined on separation as the best -course to be pursued with the cousins, and the university plan had been -accepted by Harry, his future, which was to date from degree-taking, -came on for discussion. Except in an ‘other-worldly’ sense there was, in -truth, but a very limited ‘future’ possible to Jews of talent. The only -open profession was that of medicine, and for that, like the son of -Moses Mendelssohn, young Heine had a positive distaste. Commerce, that -first and final resource of the race, which had had to satisfy Joseph -Mendelssohn, like a good many others equally ill-fitted for it, was not -possible to Heine, for he had sufficiently shown, not only dislike, but -positive incapacity for business routine. The law suggested itself, as -affording an excellent arena for those ready powers of argument and -repartee which in the family circle were occasionally embarrassing, and -the profession of an advocate, with the vague ‘opportunities’ it -included, when pressed upon young Heine, was not unalluring to him. The -immediate future was probably what most occupied his thoughts; the -freedom of a university life, the flowing river in place of those -bustling streets, shelves full of books exchanged for those dreary -office ledgers, youthful comrades in the stead of solemnly irritated -old<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_049" id="page_049"></a>{49}</span> clerks. Whether the fact that conversion was a condition of most of -the delights, an inevitable preliminary of all the benefits of that -visionary future; whether the grim truth that ‘a certificate of baptism -was a necessary card of admission to European culture,’ was openly -debated and defended, or silently and shamefacedly slurred over in these -family councils, does not appear. No record remains to us but the fact -that the young student successfully passed his examination in May, 1825; -that he was admitted to his degree on July 20, and that between these -two dates—to be precise, on the 28th of June—he was baptized as a -Protestant with two clergymen for his sponsors. ‘Lest I be poor and deny -thee’ was Agur’s prayer, and a wise one; for shivering Poverty, -clutching at the drapery of Desire, makes unto herself many a fine, -mean, flimsy garment. With no gleam of conviction to cast a flickering -halo of enthusiasm over the act, and with no shadow of overwhelming -circumstance to somewhat veil it, Heine made his deliberate surrender of -conscience to expediency. It was full-grown apostasy, neither -conscientious conversion, nor childish drifting into another faith. ‘No -man’s soul is alone,’ Ruskin tells us in his uncompromising way, -‘Laocoon or Tobit, the serpent has it by the heart or the angel by the -hand.’ For the rest of his life<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_050" id="page_050"></a>{50}</span> Heine was in the grip of the serpent, -and that, it seems to us, was the secret of his perpetual unrest. Maimed -lives are common enough; blind or deaf, or minus a leg or an arm, or -plus innumerable bruises, one yet goes on living, and with the help of -time and philosophy sorrow of most sorts grows bearable. Hearts are -tough; but the soul is more sensitive to injuries, is, to many of us, -the veritable, vulnerable <i>tendo Achillis</i> on which our mothers lay -their tender, detaining, unavailing hands. Heine sold his soul, and that -he never received the price must have perpetually renewed the memory of -the bargain. He, one of the ‘bodyguards of Jehovah,’ had suffered -himself to be bribed from his post. He never lost his sickening sense of -that humiliation; it may be read between the lines, alike of the most -brilliant of his prose, of the most tender of his poems, of the most -mocking of his often quoted jests.</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘They have told thee a-many stories,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">And much complaint have made;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">And yet my heart’s true anguish<br /></span> -<span class="i3">That never have they said.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘They shook their heads protesting,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">They made a great to-do;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">They called me a wicked fellow,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">And thou believedst it true.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_051" id="page_051"></a>{51}</span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘And yet the worst of all things,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">Of that they were not aware,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">The darkest and the saddest,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">That in my heart I bear.’<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>And it was a burden he never laid down; it embittered his relationships -and jeopardised his friendships, and set him at variance with himself. -‘I get up in the night and look in the glass and curse myself,’ we find -him writing to one of his old Jewish fellow-workers in the New Jerusalem -movement (Moser), or checking himself in the course of a violent tirade -against converts, in which Börne had joined, to bitterly exclaim, ‘It is -ill talking of ropes in the house of one who has been hanged.’ Wherever -he treats of Jewish subjects, and the theme seems always to have had for -him the fascination which is said to tempt sinners to revisit the scene -of their sins, we seem to read remorse between the melodious, mocking -lines. Now it is Moses Lump who is laughed at in half tones of envy for -his ignorant, unbarterable belief in the virtue of unsnuffed candles; -now it is Jehudah Halevi, whose love for the mistress, the -<i>Herzensdame</i>, ‘whose name was Jerusalem,’ is sung with a sympathy and -an intensity impossible to one who had not felt a like passion, and was -not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_052" id="page_052"></a>{52}</span> bitterly conscious of having forfeited the right to avow it. The -sense of his moral mercenary suicide, in truth, rarely left him. His -nature was too conscientious for the strain thus set upon it; his -‘wickedness’ and ‘blackguardism,’ such as they were, were often but -passionate efforts to throw his old man of the sea, his heavy burden of -self-reproach; and his jests sound not unseldom as so many -untranslatable cries. He had bargained away his birthright for the hope -of a mess of pottage, and the evil taste of the base contract clung to -the poor paralysed lips when ‘even kissing had no effect upon them.’ And -but a thin, unsatisfying, and terribly intermittent ‘mess,’ too, it -proved, and the share in it which his uncle, and his uncle’s heirs, -provided was very bitter in the eating. The story of his struggles, are -they not written in the chronicles of the immortals? and his ‘monument,’ -is it not standing yet ‘in the new stone premises of his -publishers?’<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p> - -<p>His biographers—his niece, the Princessa della Rocca, among the -latest—have made every incident of Heine’s life as familiar as his own -books have made his genius to English readers, and Mr. Stigand, -following Herr<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_053" id="page_053"></a>{53}</span> Strodtman, has given us an exhaustive record of the -poet’s life at home and in exile; in the Germany which was so harsh and -in the France which was so tender with him; with the respectable German -relatives, who read his books at last and were none the wiser, and with -the unlettered French wife, who could not read a single word of them -all, and who yet understood her poet by virtue of the love which passeth -understanding, and was in this case entirely independent of it. This -sketch trenches on no such well-filled ground; it presumes to touch only -on the fault which gave to life and genius both that odd pathetic twist, -and to glance at the suffering, which, if there be any saving power in -anguish, might surely be held by the most self-righteous as some -atonement for the ‘blackguardism.’</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘Oh! not little when pain<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Is most quelling, and man<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Easily quelled, and the fine<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Temper of genius so soon<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Thrills at each smart, is the praise<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Not to have yielded to pain.’<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>Seven years on the rack is no small test of the heroic temperament; to -lie sick and solitary, stretched on a ‘mattress grave,’ the back bent -and twisted, the legs paralysed, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_054" id="page_054"></a>{54}</span> hands powerless, and with the -senses of sight and taste fast failing. At any time within that seven -years Heine might well have gained the gold medal in capability of -suffering for which, in his whimsical way, he talked of competing, -should such a prize be offered at the Paris Exhibition.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> And the long -days, with ‘no pleasure in them,’ were so drearily many; the silver cord -was so slowly loosed, the golden bowl seemed broken on the wheel. His -very friends grew tired. ‘One must love one’s friends with all their -failings, but it is a great failing to be ill,’ says Madame Sevigné, -and, as the years went by, more and more deserted grew the sick-chamber. -He never complained; his sweet, ungrudging nature found excuses for -desertion and content in loneliness, in the reflection that he was in -truth ‘unconscionably long a-dying.’ ‘Never have I seen,’ says Lady -Duff-Gordon, in her <i>Recollections of Heine</i>, and she herself was no -mean exemplar of bravely-borne pain, ‘never have I seen a man bear such -horrible pain and misery in so perfectly unaffected a manner. He neither -paraded his anguish, nor tried to conceal it, or to put on any stoical -airs. He was pleased to see tears in my eyes, and then at once set to -work to make me laugh heartily, which pleased him just as much.’<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_055" id="page_055"></a>{55}</span></p> - -<p>‘Don’t tell my wife,’ he exclaims one day, when a paroxysm that should -have been fatal was not, and the doctor expressed what he meant for a -reassuring belief, that it would not hasten the end. ‘Don’t tell my -wife’—we seem to hear that sad little jest, so infinitely sadder than a -moan, and our own eyes moisten. Perfectly upright geniuses, when -suffering from dyspepsia, have not always shown as much consideration -for their perfectly proper wives as does this ‘blackguard’ Heine, under -torture, for his. It is conceivable that under exceptional circumstances -a man may contrive to be a hero to his valet, but, unless he be truly -heroic, he will not be able to keep up the character to his wife. Heine -managed both. Madame Heine is still living,<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> and one may not say much -of a love that was truly strong as death, and that the many waters of -affliction could not quench. But the valet test, we may hint, was -fulfilled; for the old servant who helped to tend him in that terrible -illness lives still with Madame Heine, and cries ‘for company’ when the -widow’s talk falls, as it falls often, on the days of her youth and her -‘<i>pauvre Henri</i>.’ There are traditional records in plenty of his -cheerful courage, his patient unselfishness, his unfailing endurance of -well-nigh unendurable pain. ‘<i>Dieu me pardonnera</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_056" id="page_056"></a>{56}</span> <i>c’est son métier</i>,’ -the dying lips part to say, still with that sweet, inseparable smile -playing about them. Shall man be more just than God? Shall we leave to -Him for ever the monopoly of His <i>métier</i>?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_057" id="page_057"></a>{57}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="DANIEL_DERONDA_AND_HIS_JEWISH_CRITICS" id="DANIEL_DERONDA_AND_HIS_JEWISH_CRITICS"></a>DANIEL DERONDA AND HIS<br /> -JEWISH CRITICS</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p class="hang"><i>George Eliot and Judaism.</i> An attempt to appreciate <i>Daniel -Deronda</i>. By Professor David <span class="smcap">Kaufmann</span>, of the Jewish Theological -Seminary, Buda-Pesth. Translated from the German by <span class="smcap">J. W. Ferrier</span>, -1877. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons.</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">The</span> latest echo from the critical chorus which has greeted <i>Daniel -Deronda</i> comes to us from Germany, in the form of a small book by Dr. -Kaufmann, professor in the recently instituted Jewish Theological -Seminary at Buda-Pesth. A certain prominence, which its very excellent -translation into English confers upon this work, seems to be due less to -any special or novel feature in its criticism than to the larger purpose -shadowed forth in the title, ‘George Eliot and Judaism.’ It is advowedly -‘an attempt to appreciate <i>Daniel Deronda</i>,’ and is valuable and -interesting to English society not as a critique on the plot or the -characters of the book—<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_058" id="page_058"></a>{58}</span>on which points it strikes us, in more than one -instance, as somewhat weak and one-sided—but as indicating from a -Jewish standpoint in how far and how truly modern Judaism is therein -represented. Unappreciative as the great mass of the reading public have -shown themselves to the latest of George Eliot’s novels, the work has -excited a considerable amount of curiosity and admiration on the ground -of the intimate knowledge its author has evinced of the inner lives and -of the little-read literature of the ‘Great Unknown of humanity.’ We -think Dr. Kaufmann goes too far when he says, ‘The majority of readers -view the world to which they are introduced in <i>Daniel Deronda</i> as one -foreign, strange, and repulsive.... It is not only the Jew of flesh and -blood whom men encounter every day upon the streets that they hate, but -the Jew under whatever shape he may appear, and even the airy -productions of the poet’s fancy are denounced when they venture to take -that people as their subject’ (p. 92). We think this view concedes very -much too much to prejudice; but it is undoubtedly a fact that the first -serious attempt by a great writer to make Jews and Judaism the central -interest of a great work, has produced a certain sense of discord on the -public ear, and that criticism has for the most part<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_059" id="page_059"></a>{59}</span> run in the minor -key. Mr. Swinburne, perhaps, strikes the most distinctly jarring chord, -when, in his lately published ‘Note on Charlotte Brontë,’ he owns to -possessing ‘no ear for the melodies of a Jew’s harp,’ and, disclaiming -‘a taste for the dissection of dolls,’ ‘leaves Daniel Deronda to his -natural place over the rag-shop door’ (pp. 21, 22). Even an ear so -politely and elegantly owned defective might be able, it could be -imagined, to catch an echo from the ‘choir invisible’; and poetic -insight, one might almost venture to think, should be able to discern in -poetic aspirations, however unfamiliar and even alien to itself, -something different from bran. This arrow is too heavily tipped to fly -straight to the goal. There are numbers, however, of the like school -who, with more excuse than Mr. Algernon Swinburne, fail to ‘see -anything’ in <i>Daniel Deronda</i>, and a criticism we once overheard in the -Louvre occurs to us as pertinent to this point. The picture was -Correggio’s ‘Marriage of St. Katharine,’ and to an Englishman standing -near us it evidently did not fulfil preconceived conceptions of a -marriage ceremony. He looked at it long, and at last turned disappointed -away, audibly muttering, ‘Well, I can’t see anything in it.’ That was -evident, but the failure was not in the picture. Preconceived<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_060" id="page_060"></a>{60}</span> -conceptions count for much, whether the artist be a Correggio or a -George Eliot, and ignorance and prejudice are ill-fitting spectacles -wherewith to assist vision.</p> - -<p>If it be an axiom that a man should be judged by his peers, we should -think that George Eliot would herself prefer that her work should be -weighed in the balance by those qualified to hold the scales, and should -by them, if at all, be pronounced ‘wanting.’ A book of which Judaism is -the acknowledged theme should appeal to Jews for judgment, and thus the -question becomes an interesting one to the outer world,—What do the -Jews themselves think of <i>Daniel Deronda</i>? Are the aspirations of -Mordecai regarded by them as the expression of a poet’s dream, or a -nation’s hope? What, in short, is the aspect of modern Judaism to the -book?</p> - -<p>‘Modern’ Judaism is itself, perhaps, a convenient rather than a correct -figure of speech. There are modern manners to which modern Jews -necessarily conform, and which have a tendency to tone down the outward -and special characteristics of Judaism, as of everything else, to a -general socially-undistinguishable level. But men are not necessarily -dumb because they do not speak much or loudly of such very personal -matters as their religious hopes and beliefs, more especially<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_061" id="page_061"></a>{61}</span> if in -these days they are so little in the fashion as to hold strong -convictions on such subjects. Our author distinctly formulates the -opinion that ‘men may give all due allegiance to a foreign State without -ceasing to belong to their own people’ (p. 21); and in the same sense as -we may conceive a man honestly fulfilling all dues as good husband and -good father to his living and lawful wife and children, and yet holding -tenderly in the unguessed-at depths of memory some long-ago-lost love, -so is it conceivable of many an unromantic-looking nineteenth century -Jew, who soberly performs all good citizen duties, that the unspoken -name of Jerusalem is still enshrined in like unguessed-at depths, as the -‘perfection of beauty,’ ‘the joy of the whole earth.’ Conventionalities -conduce to silence on such topics, and therefore it is to published -rather than to spoken Jewish criticisms we must turn in our inquiry, and -the little book under review certainly helps us to a definite answer.</p> - -<p>And we may notice, as a significant fact, that while on the part of -general critics there has been some differing even in their adverse -judgments, and a more than partial failure to grasp the idea of the -book, there seems both here and abroad a grateful consensus of Jewish -opinion that not only has George Eliot truly depicted the externals of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_062" id="page_062"></a>{62}</span> -Jewish <i>life</i>, which was a comparatively easy task, but has also -correctly represented Jewish thought and the ideas underlying Judaism. -Our author emphatically says, ‘<i>Daniel Deronda</i> is a Jewish book, not -only in the sense that it treats of Jews, but also in the sense that it -is pre-eminently fitted for being understood and appreciated by Jews’ -(p. 90); and again, ‘it will always be gratefully declared,’ he -concludes, ‘<i>that George Eliot has deserved right well of Judaism</i>’ (p. -95). Does this, then, mean that the ‘national’ idea is a rooted, -practical hope? Do English Jews, undistinguishable in the mass from -other Englishmen, really and truly hold the desire, like Mordecai, of -‘founding a new Jewish polity, grand, simple, just, like the old’? -(<i>Daniel Deronda</i>, Book <span class="smcap">IV</span>.) Do they indeed design to devote their -‘wealth to redeem the soil from debauched and paupered conquerors,’ to -cleanse their fair land from ‘the hideous obloquy of Christian strife, -which the Turk gazes at as at the fighting of wild beasts to which he -has lent an arena’ (<i>ibidem</i>)? Was Daniel’s honeymoon-mission to the -East to have this practical result? The general Jewish verdict, as we -read it, scarcely concedes so much; it sees rather in the closing scene -of <i>Daniel Deronda</i> the only weak spot in the book. Vague and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_063" id="page_063"></a>{63}</span> visionary -as are all honeymoon anticipations, those of Daniel, their beauty and -unselfishness notwithstanding, strike Jewish readers as even more -unsubstantial, even less likely of realisation, than such imaginings in -general. Possibly, as in the old days of the Babylonian exile, ‘there be -some that dream’ of an actual restoration, of a Palestine which should -be the Switzerland of Asia Minor, which, crowned with ancient laurels, -might sit enthroned in peace and plenty,—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-Be.’<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">But save with such few and faithful dreamers, memory scarcely blossoms -into hope, and hope most certainly has not yet ripened into strong -desire. It may come; but at present we apprehend the majority of Jews -see the ‘future of Judaism’ not in the form of a centralised and -localised nationality, but rather in the destiny foreshadowed by our -author, in which ‘Israel will be greatest when she labours under every -zone,’ when ‘her children shall have spread themselves abroad, bearing -the ineradicable seeds of eternal truth’ (pp. 86, 87). This conception -of ‘nationality’ would point rather to a spiritual than to a temporal -sovereignty, to a supremacy of mind rather than of matter, and appears -to be in accord with the tone pervading<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_064" id="page_064"></a>{64}</span> both ancient and modern Jewish -literature, which exhibits Judaism as a perpetual living force, -maintained from within rather than from without, and destined -continually to influence religious thought, and to survive all -dispensations.</p> - -<p>In his undefined mission to the East Deronda is, therefore, to that -extent perhaps, out of harmony with the general tone of modern Jewish -thought. We at least are constrained to think that more Jews of the -present day would be ready to follow Mordecai in imagination than -Deronda in person to Judæa. It is, nevertheless, in strict artistic -unity that, shut out for five-and-twenty years from actual practical -knowledge of his people, Deronda should represent the <i>ideal</i> rather -than the <i>idea</i> of Judaism. Mordecai, sketched as he is supposed to be -from the life, with his deep poetic yearnings, which are stayed on the -threshold of action, strikes us as a truer and more typical figure than -Deronda hastening to their fulfilment. And on the subject of these same -vague yearnings another point suggests itself. We have heard it said -that the religious belief of Mordecai centres rather in the destiny of -his race than in the Being who has appointed that destiny, and we have -heard it questioned whether the theism of Mordecai is sufficiently -defined to be fairly<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_065" id="page_065"></a>{65}</span> representative of Jewish thought, or if Judaism -indeed is also passing under that wave of Pantheism which, like the -waters of old, is threatening to submerge all ancient landmarks, and to -leave visible only ‘the tops of the mountains’ of revealed religion. -This seems a criticism based rather on negative than on positive -evidence, and derived possibly from the obvious leanings of George -Eliot’s other writings, and it is, perhaps, somewhat unfair to assume -that, even if, on this point, she does not sympathise with the Jews, she -has any intention of colouring her picture of modern Judaism with -intellectual prepossessions of her own. In the silence of Mordecai with -respect to his beliefs, he represents the great body of Jews, whose -religion finds expression rather in action than in formula, and who are -slow to indulge in theological speculations. Mordecai was true to Jewish -characteristics in the fact that his belief was concealed beneath his -hopes and aspirations, but had he in any degree shared the views of the -new school of sceptics, he could not have been the typical Jew, who sees -in the unity of his people a symbol of the unity of his God.</p> - -<p>The pure theism of Judaism may be said to have its poles in the -anthropomorphic utterances of some of the Rabbinical writers,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_066" id="page_066"></a>{66}</span> and in -the present pantheism of the extreme German school; but we should say -that the ordinary, the representative Jewish thought of the day lies -between these two extremes, and, in so far as it gives expression to any -belief on the subject, distinctly recognises a personal God presiding -over human destiny and natural laws. There may be here and there an -inquiring spirit that wanders so far afield that his attraction towards -his people is lost, and with it the influence his genius should exert; -but Jewish thought, if owning a somewhat nebulous conception of the -Deity, slowly progressing towards one fuller and grander, cannot be said -to be drifting towards Pantheism. Judaism, unlike many other faiths, has -not a history and a religious belief apart,—the one not only includes -and supplements, but is actually non-existent, ‘unthinkable,’ without -the other. Thus to have made an earnest Jew, with the strong racial -instinct of Mordecai, a weak theist, would have been an inartistic -conception, and Jewish criticism has not discovered this flaw in George -Eliot’s exceptional but faithful Jewish portraiture. Judging, then, from -such sources as are open to us, we are led to infer that the feeling of -nationality is still deeply rooted in the Jewish race, and that the -religious feeling from which it is inseparable perhaps gives it<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_067" id="page_067"></a>{67}</span> the -strength and depth to exist and to continue to exist without the -external props of ‘a local habitation and a name.’ Dr. Kaufmann, -therefore, very well expresses what appears to be the general conviction -of his co-religionists, when he suggests that ‘in the very circumstance -of dispersion may lie fulfilment’ (p. 87).<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_068" id="page_068"></a>{68}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="MANASSEH_BEN_ISRAEL" id="MANASSEH_BEN_ISRAEL"></a>MANASSEH BEN ISRAEL<br /><br /> -<small>PRINTER AND PATRIOT</small></h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">When</span> the prophet of the Hebrews, some six-and-twenty hundred years ago, -thundered forth his stirring ‘Go through! go through the gates! prepare -a way, lift up a standard for the people!’ it may, without irreverence, -be doubted if he foresaw how literally his charge would be fulfilled by -one of his own race in the seventeenth century of the Christian era. The -story of how it was done may perhaps be worth retelling, since many -subjects of lesser moment have found more chroniclers.</p> - -<p>It was in 1290 that gates, which in England had long been ominously -creaking on their hinges, were deliberately swung-to, and bolted and -barred by Church and State on the unhappy Jews, who on that bleak -November day stood shivering along the coast. ‘Thy waves and thy billows -have passed over me’ must have lost in tender allegory and gained some -added force of literalness that wintry afternoon. Scarce any of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_069" id="page_069"></a>{69}</span> -descendants of that exodus can have had share in the return. Of such of -the refugees as reached the opposite ports few found foothold, and fewer -still asylum. The most, and perhaps they were the most fortunate of the -fifteen thousand, were quick in gaining foreign graves. Those who made -for the nearest neighbouring shores of France, forgetful, or perhaps -ignorant, of the recent experiences of their French brethren under -Philip Augustus, lived on to earn a like knowledge for themselves, and -to undergo, a few years later, another expulsion under Philip the Fair. -Those who went farther fared worse, for over the German States the -Imperial eagle of Rome no longer brooded, now to protect and now to prey -on its victims; the struggle between the free cities and the -multitudinous petty princelings was working to its climax, and whether -at bitter strife, or whether pausing for a brief while to recruit their -powers, landgrave and burgher, on one subject, were always of one mind. -To plunder at need or to persecute at leisure, Jews were held to be -handy and fair game for either side.</p> - -<p>Far northward or far southward that ragged English mob were hardly fit -to travel. Some remnant, perhaps, made effort to reach the -semi-barbarous settlements in Russia and Poland, but few can have been -sanguine<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_070" id="page_070"></a>{70}</span> enough to set out for distant Spain in hope of a welcome but -rarely accorded to such very poor relations. And even in the Peninsula -the security which Jews had hitherto experienced had by this date -received several severe shocks. Two centuries later and the tide of -civilisation had rolled definitely and drearily back on the soil which -Jews had largely helped to cultivate, and left it bare, and yet a little -longer, Portugal, become a province of Spain, had followed the cruel -fashions of its suzerain.</p> - -<p>By the close of the sixteenth century a settlement of the dispossessed -Spanish and Portuguese Jews had been formed in Holland, and Amsterdam -was growing into a strange Dutch likeness of a new Jerusalem, for -Holland alone among the nations at this period gave a welcome to all -citizens in the spirit of Virgil’s famous line, ‘<i>Tros Rutulusve fuat, -nullo discrimine habebo</i>.’ And the refugees, who at this date claimed -the hospitality of the States, were of a sort to make the Dutch in love -with their own unfashionable virtue of religious tolerance. Under -Moorish sway, for centuries, commerce had been but one of the pursuits -open to the Jews and followed by the Jews of the Peninsula, and thus it -was a crowd, not of financiers and traders only or chiefly, but of -cultivated scholars, physicians, statesmen, and land-owners, whom -Catholic bigotry had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_071" id="page_071"></a>{71}</span> exiled. The thin disguise of new Christians was -soon thrown off by these Jews, and they became to real Christians, to -such men as Vossius and Caspar Barlæus, who welcomed them and made -friends of them, a revelation of Judaism.</p> - -<p>It was after the great <i>auto-da-fé</i> of January 1605, that Joseph ben -Israel, with a host of other Jews, broken in health and broken in -fortune, left the land which bigotry and persecution had made hideous to -them, and joined the peaceful and prosperous settlement in Amsterdam. -The youngest of Ben Israel’s transplanted family was the year-old -Manasseh, who had been born in Lisbon a few months before their flight. -He seems to have been from the first a promising and intelligent lad, -and his tutor, one Isaac Uziel, who was a minister of the congregation, -and a somewhat famous mathematician and physician to boot, formed a high -opinion of the boy’s abilities. He did not, however, live to see them -verified; when Manasseh was but eighteen the Rabbi died, and his clever -pupil was thought worthy to be appointed to the vacated office. It was -an honoured and an honourable, but scarcely a lucrative, post to which -Manasseh thus succeeded, and the problem of living soon became further -complicated by an early marriage and a young family. Manasseh had to -cast about him for supplementary means of support, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_072" id="page_072"></a>{72}</span> he presently -found it in the establishment of a printing press. Whether the type gave -impetus to the pen, or whether the pen had inspired the idea of the -press, is hard to decide; but it is, at least, certain that before he -was twenty-five, Manasseh had found congenial work and plenty of it. He -taught and he preached, and both in the school-room and in the pulpit he -was useful and effective, but it was in his library that he felt really -happy and at home. Manasseh was a born scholar and an omnivorous reader, -bound to develop into a prolific, if not a profound, writer. The work -which first established his fame bears traces of this, and is, in point -of fact, less of a composition than a compilation. The first part of -this book, <i>The Conciliator</i>, was published in 1632, after five years’ -labour had been expended on it, and it is computed to contain quotations -from, or references to, over 200 Hebrew, and 50 Latin and Greek authors. -Its object was to harmonise (<i>conciliador</i>) conflicting passages in the -Pentateuch, and it was written in Spanish, although it could have been -composed with equal facility in any one of half-a-dozen other languages, -for Manasseh was a most accomplished linguist.</p> - -<p>Although not the first book which was issued from his press, for a -completely edited prayer-book and a Hebrew grammar had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_073" id="page_073"></a>{73}</span> published -in 1627, <i>The Conciliator</i> was the first work that attracted the -attention of the learned world to the Amsterdam Rabbi. Manasseh had the -advantage of literary connections of his own, through his wife, who was -a great-granddaughter of Abarbanel—that same Isaac Abarbanel, the -scholar and patriot, who in 1490 headed the deputation to Ferdinand and -Isabella, which was so dramatically cut short by Torquemada.</p> - -<p>Like <i>The Conciliator</i>, all Manasseh’s subsequent literary ventures met -with ready appreciation, but with more appreciation, it would seem, than -solid result, for his means appear to have been always insufficient for -his modest wants, and in 1640 we find him seriously contemplating -emigration to Brazil on a trading venture. Two members of his -congregation, which, as a body, does not seem to have acted liberally -towards him, came forward, however, at this crisis in his affairs, and -conferred a benefit all round by establishing a college and appointing -Manasseh the principal, with an adequate salary. This ready use of some -portion of their wealth has made the brothers Pereira more distinguished -than for its possession. Still, it must not be inferred that Manasseh -had been, up to this date, a friendless, if a somewhat impecunious, -student, only that, as is rather perhaps the wont of poor prophets<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_074" id="page_074"></a>{74}</span> in -their own country, his admirers had had to come from the outer before -they reached the inner circle. He had certainly achieved a European -celebrity in the Republic of letters before his friends at Amsterdam had -discovered much more than the fact that he printed very superior -prayer-books. He had won over, amongst others, the prejudiced author of -the <i>Law of Nations</i>, to own him, a Jew, for a familiar friend, before -some of the wealthier heads of his own congregation had claimed a like -privilege; and Grotius, then Swedish ambassador at Paris, was actually -writing to him, and proffering friendly services, at the very time that -the Amsterdam congregation were calmly receiving his enforced farewells. -There was something, perhaps, of irony in the situation, but Manasseh, -like Maimonides, had no littleness of disposition, no inflammable -self-love quick to take fire; he loved his people truly enough to -understand them and to make allowances, had even, perhaps, some humorous -perception of the national obtuseness to native talent when unarrayed in -purple and fine linen, or until duly recognised by the wearers of such.</p> - -<p>Set free, by the liberality of Abraham and Isaac Pereira, from the -pressure of everyday cares, Manasseh again devoted himself to his books, -and turned out a succession of treatises.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_075" id="page_075"></a>{75}</span> History, Philosophy, -Theology, he attacked them all in turn, and there is, perhaps, something -besides rapidity of execution which suggests an idea of manufacture in -most of these works. A treatise which he published about 1650, and which -attracted very wide notice, significantly illustrated his rather fatal -facility for ready writing. The treatise was entitled <i>The Hope of -Israel</i>, and sought to prove no less than that some aborigines in -America, whose very existence was doubtful, were lineal descendants of -the lost ten tribes. The Hope itself seems to have rested on no more -solid foundation than a traveller’s tale of savages met with in the -wilds, who included something that sounded like the עמש (Shemang<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a>) in -their vernacular. The story was quickly translated into several -languages, but it was almost as quickly disproved, and Manasseh’s -deductions from it were subsequently rather roughly criticised. Truth to -say, the accumulated stores of his mind were ground down and sifted and -sown broadcast in somewhat careless and indigestible masses, and their -general character gives an uncomfortable impression of machine-work -rather than of hand-work. And the proportion of what he wrote was as -nothing compared to what he contemplated writing. Perhaps those -never-written books of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_076" id="page_076"></a>{76}</span> his would have proved the most readable; he -might have shown us himself, his wise, tolerant, enthusiastic self, in -them. But instead, we possess, in his shelves on shelves of published -compilations of dead men’s minds, only duly labelled and catalogued -selections from learned mummies.</p> - -<p>The dream of Manasseh was to compose a ‘Heroic History,’ a significant -title which shadows forth the worthy record he would have delighted in -compiling from Jewish annals. It is as well, perhaps, that the title is -all we have of the work, for he was too good an idealist to prove a good -historian. He cared too much, and he knew too much, to write a reliable -or a readable history of his people. To him, as to many of us, Robert -Browning’s words might be applied—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘So you saw yourself as you wished you were—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">As you might have been, as you cannot be—<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Earth here rebuked by Olympus there,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And grew content in your poor degree.’<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>He, at any rate, had good reason to grow content in his degree, for he -was destined to make an epoch in the ‘Heroic History,’ instead of being, -as he ‘wished he were,’ the reciter, and probably the prosy reciter, of -several. Certain it is that, great scholar,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_077" id="page_077"></a>{77}</span> successful preacher, and -voluminous writer as was Manasseh ben Israel, it was not till he was -fifty years old that he found his real vocation. He had felt at it for -years, his books were more or less blind gropings after it, his -friendships with the eminent and highly placed personages of his time -were all unconscious means to a conscious end, and his very character -was a factor in his gradually formed purpose. His whole life had been an -upholding of the ‘standard’; publicists who sneered at the ostentatious -rich Jew, priests who railed at the degraded poor Jew, were each bound -to recognise in Manasseh ben Israel a Jew of another type: one poor yet -self-respecting, sought after yet unostentatious, conservative yet -cosmopolitan, learned yet undogmatic. They might question if this -Amsterdam Rabbi were <i>sui generis</i>, but they were at least willing to -find out if he were in essentials what he claimed to be, fairly -representative of the fairly treated members of his race. So the ‘way -was prepared’ by the ‘standard’ being raised. Which, of the many -long-closed ‘gates,’ was to open for the people to pass through?</p> - -<p>Manasseh looked around on Europe. He sought a safe and secure -resting-place for the tribe of wandering foot and weary heart, where, no -longer weary and wandering, they might<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_078" id="page_078"></a>{78}</span> cease to be ‘tribal.’ He sought -a place where ‘protection’ should not be given as a sordid bribe, nor -conferred as a fickle favour, but claimed as an inalienable right, and -shared in common with all law-abiding citizens. His thoughts turned for -a while on Sweden, and there was some correspondence to that end with -the young Queen Christina, but this failing, or falling through, his -hopes were almost at once definitely directed towards England. It was a -wise selection and a happy one, and the course of events, and the time -and the temper of the people, seemed all upon his side. The faithless -Stuart king had but lately expiated his hateful, harmful weakness on the -scaffold, and sentiment was far as yet from setting the nimbus of saint -and martyr on that handsome, treacherous head. The echoes of John -Hampden’s brave voice seemed still vibrating in the air, and Englishmen, -but freshly reminded of their rights, were growing keen and eager in the -scenting out of wrongs; quick to discover, and fierce to redress evils -which had long lain rooted and rotting, and unheeded. The pompous -<i>insouciance</i> of the first Stuart king, the frivolous <i>insouciance</i> of -the second, were now being resented in inevitable reaction. The court no -longer led the fashion; the people had come to the front and were -growing grimly, even grotesquely, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_079" id="page_079"></a>{79}</span> earnest. The very fashion of -speaking seems to have changed with the new need for strong, terse -expression. Men greeted each other with old-fashioned Bible greetings; -they named their children after those ‘great ones gone,’ or with even -quainter effect in some simple selected Bible phrase; the very tones of -the Prophets seemed to resound in Whitehall, and Englishmen to have -become, in a wide, unsensational sense, not men only of the sword, or of -the plough, but men of the Book, and that Book the Bible. Liberty of -conscience, equality before the law for all religious denominations, had -been the unconditional demand of that wonderful army of Independents, -and although the Catholics were the immediate cause and object of this -appeal, yet Manasseh, watching events from the calm standpoint of a -keenly interested onlooker, thought he discerned in the listening -attitude of the English Parliament, a favourable omen of the attention -he desired to claim for his clients, since it was not alone for -political, but for religious, rights that he meant to plead.</p> - -<p>He did not, however, actually come to England till 1655, when the way -for personal intercession had been already prepared by correspondence -and petition. His <i>Hope of Israel</i> had been forwarded to Cromwell so<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_080" id="page_080"></a>{80}</span> -early as 1650; petitions praying for the readmission of Jews to England -with full rights of worship, of burial, and of commerce secured to them, -had been laid before the Long and the Rump Parliament, and Manasseh had -now in hand, and approaching completion, a less elaborate and more -impassioned composition than usual, entitled, <i>Vindiciæ Judæorum</i>. A -powerful and unexpected advocate of Jewish claims presently came forward -in the person of Edward Nicholas, the clerk to the Council. This -large-minded and enlightened gentleman had the courage to publish an -elaborate appeal for, and defence of, the Jews, ‘the most honourable -people in the world,’ as he styled them, ‘a people chosen by God and -protected by God.’ The pamphlet was headed, <i>Apology for the Honourable -Nation of the Jews and all the Sons of Israel</i>, and Nicholas’s arguments -aroused no small amount of attention and discussion. It was even -whispered that Cromwell had had a share in the authorship; but if this -had been so, undoubtedly he who ‘stood bare, not cased in euphemistic -coat of mail,’ but who ‘grappled like a giant, face to face, heart to -heart, with the naked truth of things,’<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> would have unhesitatingly -avowed it. His was not the sort of nature to shirk responsibilities nor -to lack the courage<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_081" id="page_081"></a>{81}</span> of his opinions. There can be no doubt that, from -first to last, Cromwell was strongly in favour of Jewish claims being -allowed, but just as little doubt is there that there was never any -tinge or taint of ‘secret favouring’ about his sayings or his doings on -the subject. The part, and all things considered the very unpopular -part, he took in the subsequent debates, had, of course, to be accounted -for by minds not quick to understand such simple motive power as -justice, generosity, or sympathy, and both now and later the wildest -accusations were levelled against the Protector. That he was, -unsuspected, himself of Jewish descent, and had designs on the long -vacant Messiahship of his interesting kinsfolk, was not the most -malignant, though it was perhaps among the most absurd, of these tales. -‘The man is without a soul,’ writes Carlyle, ‘that can look into the -great soul of a man, radiant with the splendours of very heaven, and see -nothing there but the shadow of his own mean darkness.’<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> There must -have been, if this view be correct, a good many particularly -materialistic bodies going about at that epoch in English history when -the Protector of England took upon himself the unpopular burden of being -also the Protector of the Jews.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_082" id="page_082"></a>{82}</span></p> - -<p>There had been some opposition on the part of the family to overcome, -some tender timid forebodings, which events subsequently justified, to -dispel, before Manasseh was free to set out for England; but in the late -autumn of 1655<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> we find him with two or three companions safely -settled in lodgings in the Strand. An address to the Protector was -personally presented by Manasseh, whilst a more detailed declaration to -the Commonwealth was simultaneously published. Very remarkable are both -these documents. Neither in the personal petition to Cromwell, nor in -the more elaborate argument addressed to the Parliament, is there the -slightest approach to the <i>ad misericordiam</i> style. The whole case for -the Jews is stated with dignity, and pleaded without passion, and -throughout justice rather than favour forms the staple of the demand. -The ‘clemency’ and ‘high-mindedness’ of Cromwell are certainly taken for -granted, but equally is assumed the worthiness of the clients who appeal -to these qualities. Manasseh makes also a strong point of the ‘Profit,’ -which the Jews are likely to prove to their hosts, naïvely recognising -the fact that ‘Profit is a most powerful motive which all the world -prefers above all other things’; and ‘therefore dealing with that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_083" id="page_083"></a>{83}</span> point -first.’ He dwells on the ‘ability,’ and ‘industry,’ and ‘natural -instinct’ of the Jews for ‘merchandising,’ and for ‘contributing new -inventions,’ which extra aptitude, in a somewhat optimistic spirit, he -moralises, may have been given to them for their ‘protection in their -wanderings,’ since ‘wheresoever they go to dwell, there presently the -traficq begins to flourish.’</p> - -<p>Read in the light of some recent literature, one or two of Manasseh’s -arguments might almost be termed prophetic. Far-sighted, however, and -wide-seeing as was our Amsterdam Rabbi, he could certainly not have -foretold that more than two hundred years later his race would be -taunted in the same breath for being a ‘wandering’ and ‘homeless tribe,’ -and for remaining a ‘settled’ and ‘parasitic’ people in their adopted -countries; yet are not such ingenious, and ungenerous, and inconsistent -taunts answered by anticipation in the following paragraph?—</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>‘The love that men ordinarily bear to their own country, and the -desire they have to end their lives where they had their beginning, -is the cause that most strangers, having gotten riches where they -are in a foreign land, are commonly taken in a desire to return to -their native soil, and there peaceably to enjoy their<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_084" id="page_084"></a>{84}</span> estate; so -that as they were a help to the places where they lived and -negotiated while they remained there, so when they depart from -thence, they carry all away and spoile them of their wealth; -transporting all into their own native country: but with the Jews, -the case is farre different, for where the Jews are once kindly -receaved, they make a firm resolution never to depart from thence, -seeing they have no proper place of their own; and so they are -always with their goods in the cities where they live, a perpetual -benefitt to all payments.’<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p></div> - -<p>Manasseh goes on to quote Holy Writ, to show that to ‘seek for the -peace,’ and to ‘pray for the peace of the city whither ye are led -captive,’<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> was from remote times a loyal duty enjoined on Jews; and -so he makes perhaps another point against that thorough-going historian -of our day, who would have disposed of the People and the Book, the Jews -and the Old Testament together, in the course of a magazine article. To -prove that uncompromising loyalty has among the Jews the added force of -a religious obligation, Manasseh mentions the fact that the ruling -dynasty is always prayed for by upstanding congregations<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_085" id="page_085"></a>{85}</span> in every -Jewish place of worship, and he makes history give its evidence to show -that this is no mere lip loyalty, but that the obligation enjoined has -been over and over again faithfully fulfilled. He quotes numerous -instances in proof of this; beginning from the time, 900 years <small>B.C.</small>, -when the Jerusalem Jews, High Priest at their head, went forth to defy -Alexander, and to own staunch allegiance to discrowned Darius, till -those recent civil wars in Spain, when the Jews of Burgos manfully held -that city against the conqueror, Henry of Trastamare, in defence of -their conquered, but liege lord, Pedro.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p> - -<p>Of all the simply silly slanders from which his people had suffered, -such, for instance, as the kneading Passover biscuits with the blood of -Christian children, Manasseh disposes shortly, with brief and distinct -denial; pertinently reminding Englishmen, however, that like absurd -accusations crop up in the early history of the Church, when the ‘very -same ancient scandalls was cast of old upon the innocent Christians.’</p> - -<p>With the more serious, because less absolutely untruthful, charge of -‘usury,’ Manasseh deals as boldly, urging even no extenuating plea, but -frankly admitting the practice to be ‘infamous.’ But characteristically, -he proceeds<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_086" id="page_086"></a>{86}</span> to express an opinion, that ‘inasmuch as no man is bound to -give his goods to another, so is he not bound to let it out but for his -own occasions and profit,’ ‘only,’ and this he adds emphatically—</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>‘It must be done with moderation, that the usury be not biting or -exorbitant.... The sacred Scripture, which allows usury with him -that is not of the same religion, forbids absolutely the robbing of -all men, whatsoever religion they be of. In our law it is a greater -sinne to rob or defraud a stranger, than if I did it to one of my -owne profession; a Jew is bound to show his charity to all men; he -hath a precept, not to abhorre an Idumean or an Egyptian; and yet -another, that he shall love and protect a stranger that comes to -live in his land. If, notwithstanding, there be some that do -contrary to this, they do it not as Jewes simply, but as wicked -Jewes.’</p></div> - -<p>The Appeal made, as it could scarcely fail to do, a profound -impression—an impression which was helped not a little by the presence -and character of the pleader. And presently the whole question of the -return of the Jews to England was submitted to the nation for its -decision.</p> - -<p>The clergy were dead against the measure,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_087" id="page_087"></a>{87}</span> and, it is said, ‘raged like -fanatics against the Jews as an accursed nation.’ And then it was that -Cromwell, true to his highest convictions, stood up to speak in their -defence. On the ground of policy, he temperately urged the desirability -of adding thrifty, law-respecting, and enterprising citizens to the -national stock; and on the higher ground of duty, he passionately -pleaded the unpopular cause of religious and social toleration. He -deprecated the principle that, the claims of morality being satisfied, -any men or any body of men, on the score of race, of origin, or of -religion (‘tribal mark’ had not at that date been suggested), should be -excluded from full fellowship with other men. ‘I have never heard a man -speak so splendidly in my life,’ is the recorded opinion of one of the -audience, and it is a matter of intense regret that this famous speech -of Cromwell’s has not been preserved. Its eloquence, however, failed of -effect, so far as its whole and immediate object was concerned. The -gates were no more than shaken on their rusting hinges—not quite yet -were the people free to ‘go through.’</p> - -<p>The decision of the Council of State was deferred, and some authorities -even allege that it was presently pronounced against the readmission of -the Jews to England. The known and avowed favour of the Protector<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_088" id="page_088"></a>{88}</span> -sufficed, nevertheless, to induce the few Jews who had come with, or in -the train of, Manasseh to remain, and others gradually, and by degrees, -and without any especial notice being taken of them, ventured to follow. -The creaking old gates were certainly ajar, and wider and wider they -opened, and fainter and fainter, from friction of unrestrained -intercourse, grew each dull rust and stain of prejudice, till that good -day, within living memories, when the barriers were definitely and -altogether flung down. And on their ruins a new and healthy human growth -sprang quickly up, ‘taking root downwards, and fruit upwards,’ spreading -wide enough in its vigorous luxuriance to cover up all the old bad past. -And by this time it has happily grown impervious to any wanton -unfriendly touch which would thrust its kindly shade aside and once -again lay those ugly ruins bare.</p> - -<p>Manasseh, however, like so many of us, had to be content to sow seed -which he was destined never to see ripen. His petitions to the -Commonwealth were presented in 1655, his <i>Vindiciæ Judæorum</i> was -completed and handed in some time in 1656, and in the early winter of -1657, on his journey homewards, he died. His mission had not fulfilled -itself in the complete triumphant way he had hoped, but ‘life fulfils -itself in many ways,’ and one part at<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_089" id="page_089"></a>{89}</span> any rate, perhaps the most -important part, of the Hebrew prophet’s charge, had been both poetically -and prosaically carried out by this seventeenth century Dutch Jew. He -had ‘lifted up a standard for his people.’<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_090" id="page_090"></a>{90}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHARITY_IN_TALMUDIC_TIMES" id="CHARITY_IN_TALMUDIC_TIMES"></a>CHARITY IN TALMUDIC TIMES<br /><br /> -<small>SOME ANCIENT SOLVINGS OF A MODERN PROBLEM</small></h2> - -<p class="nind">‘W<span class="smcap">hat</span> have we reaped from all the wisdom sown of ages?’ asks Lord Lytton -in one of his earlier poems. A large query, even for so questioning an -age as this, an age which, discarding catechisms, and rejecting the -omniscient Mangnall’s Questions as a classic for its children, yet seems -to be more interrogative than of old, even if a thought less ready in -its responses. Possibly, we are all in too great a hurry nowadays, too -eager in search to be patient to find, for certain it is that the -world’s already large stock of hows and whys seems to get bigger every -day. We catch the echoes in poetry and in prose, in all sorts of tones -and from all sorts of people, and Lord Lytton’s question sounds only -like another of the hopeless Pilate series. His is such a large -interrogation too—all the wisdom sown of all the ages suggests such an -enormous crop! And then as to what ‘we,’ who have neither<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_091" id="page_091"></a>{91}</span> planted nor -watered, have ‘reaped’ from it! An answer, if it were attempted, might -certainly be found to hinge on the ‘we’ as well as on the ‘wisdom,’ for -whereas untaught instinct may ‘reap’ honey from a rose, trained reason -in gathering the flower may only succeed in running a thorn into the -finger. What has been the general effect of inherited wisdom on the -general world may, however, very well be left for a possible solution to -prize competitors to puzzle over. But to a tiny corner of the tremendous -subject it is just possible that we may find some sort of suggestive -reply; and from seed sown ages since, and garnered as harvest by men -whose place knows them no more, we may likely light on some shadowy -aftermath worth, perhaps, our reaping.</p> - -<p>The gospel of duty to one’s neighbour, which, long languishing as a -creed, seems now reviving as a fashion, has always been, amongst that -race which taught ‘love thy neighbour as thyself,’ not only of the very -essence of religion, but an ordinary social form of it. It is ‘law’ in -the ‘family chronicle’ of the race, as Heine calls the Bible; it is -‘law’ and legend both in those curious national archives known as -Talmud. Foremost in the ranks of <i>livres incompris</i> stand those -portentous volumes, the one work of the world which has suffered about -equally at the hands of the commentator<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_092" id="page_092"></a>{92}</span> and the executioner. Many years -ago Emmanuel Deutsch gave to the uninitiated a glimpse into that -wondrous agglomeration of fantastically followed facts, where -long-winded legend, or close-argued ‘law,’ starts some phrase or word -from Holy Writ as quarry, and pursues it by paths the most devious, the -most digressive imaginable to man. The work of many generations and of -many ‘masters’ in each generation, such a book is singularly susceptible -to an open style of reading and a liberal aptitude of quotation, and it -is no marvel that searchers in its pages, even reasonably honest ones, -should be able to find detached individual utterances to fit into almost -any one of their own preconceived dogmas concerning Talmud. On many -subjects, qualifications, contradictions, differences abound, and -instances of illegal law, of pseudo-science, of doubtful physics, may -each, with a little trouble, be disinterred from the depths of these -twelve huge volumes. But the ethics of the Talmud are, as a whole, of a -high order, and on one point there is such remarkable and entire -agreement, that it is here permissible to speak of what ‘the Talmud -says,’ meaning thereby a general tone and consensus of opinion, and not -the views of this or of that individual master. The subject on which -this unusual harmony prevails is the, in these days,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_093" id="page_093"></a>{93}</span> much discussed one -of charity; and to discover something concerning so very ancient a mode -of dealing with it may not prove uninteresting.</p> - -<p>The word which in these venerable folios is made to express the thing -is, in itself, significant. In the Hebrew Scriptures, though the -injunctions to charitable acts are many, an exact equivalent to our word -‘charity’ can hardly be said to exist. In only eight instances, and not -even then in its modern sense, does the Septuagint translate צדקה -(<i>tzedakah</i>) into its Greek equivalent, ἑλεημοσὑνη, which would become -in English ‘alms,’ or ‘charity.’ The nearest synonyms for ‘charity’ in -the Hebrew Scriptures are צדקה (<i>tzedakah</i>), well translated as -‘righteousness’ in the Authorised Version, and חסד (<i>chesed</i>), which is -adequately rendered as ‘mercy, kindness, love.’ The Talmud, in its -exhaustive fashion, seems to accentuate the essential difference between -these two words. <i>Tzedakah</i> is, to some extent, a class distinction; the -rights of the poor make occasion for the righteousness of the rich, and -the duties of <i>tzedakah</i> find liberal and elaborate expression in a -strict and minute system of tithes and almsgiving.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> The injunctions -of the Pentateuch<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_094" id="page_094"></a>{94}</span> concerning the poor are worked out by the Talmud into -the fullest detail of direction. The Levitical law, ‘When ye reap the -harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy -field’ (Levit. xiv. 9), gives occasion of itself to a considerable -quantity of literature. At length, it is enacted how, if brothers divide -a field between them, each has to give a ‘corner,’ and how, if a man -sell his field in several lots, each purchaser of each separate lot has -to leave unreaped his own proportionate ‘corner’ of the harvesting. And -not only to leave unreaped, but how, in cases where the ‘corner’ was of -a sort hard for the poor to gather, hanging high, as dates, or needing -light handling, as grapes, it became the duty of the owner to undertake -the ‘reaping’ thereof, and, himself, to make the rightful division; thus -guarding against injury to quickly perishable fruits from too eager -hands, or danger of a more serious sort to life or limbs, where ladders -had to be used by hungry and impatient folks. The exactest rules, too, -are formulated as to what constitutes a ‘field’ and what a ‘corner,’ as -to what produce is liable to the tax and in what measure. Very curious -it is to read long and gravely reasoned arguments as to why mushrooms -should be held exempt from the law of the corner, whilst onions must be -subject to it, or the weighty <i>pros</i> and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_095" id="page_095"></a>{95}</span> <i>cons</i> over what may be fairly -considered a ‘fallen grape,’ or a ‘sheaf left through forgetfulness.’ -Yet the principle underlying the whole is too clear for prolixity to -raise a smile, and the evident anxiety that no smallest loophole shall -be left for evading the obligations of property compels respect.</p> - -<p>Little room for doubt on any disputed point of partition do these -exhaustive, and, occasionally, it must be owned, exhausting, masters -leave us, yet, when all is said, they are careful to add, ‘Whatever is -doubtful concerning the gifts of the poor belongeth to the poor.’ The -actual money value of this system of alms, the actual weight of ancient -ephah or omer, in modern lbs. and ozs. would convey little meaning. -Values fluctuate and measures vary, but ‘a tithe of thy increase,’ ‘a -corner of thy field,’ gives a tolerably safe index to the scale on which -<i>tzedakah</i> was to be practised. Three times a day the poor might glean, -and to the question which some lover of system, old style or new, might -propound, ‘Why three times? Why not once, and get it over?’ an answer is -vouchsafed. ‘<i>Because there may be poor who are suckling children, and -thus stand in need of food in the early morning; there may be young -children who cannot be got ready early in the morning, nor come to the -field till it be mid-day; there may be aged folk who cannot come till -the time of evening<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_096" id="page_096"></a>{96}</span> prayer.</i>’ Still, though plenty of sentiment in this -code, there is no trace of sentimentality; rather a tendency for each -back to bear its own burden, whether it be in the matter of give or -take. Rights are respected all round, and significant in this sense is -the rule that if a vineyard be sold by Gentile to Jew it must give up -its ‘small bunches’ of grapes to the poor; while if the transaction be -the other way, the Gentile purchaser is altogether exempt, and if Jew -and Gentile be partners, that part of the crop belonging to the Jew -alone is taxed. And equally clear is it that the poor, though cared for -and protected, are not to be petted. At this very three-times-a-day -gleaning, if one should keep a corner of his ‘corner’ to himself, hiding -his harvesting and defrauding his neighbour, justice is prompt: ‘<i>Let -him be forced to depart</i>,’ it is written, ‘<i>and what he may have -received let it be taken out of his hands.</i>’ Neither is any preference -permitted to poverty of the plausible or of the picturesque sort: ‘<i>He -who refuseth to one and giveth to another, that man is a defrauder of -the poor</i>,’ it is gravely said.</p> - -<p>In general charity, there are, it is true, certain rules of precedence -to be observed; kindred, for example, have, in all cases, the first -claim, and a child supporting his parents, or even a parent supporting -adult children, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_097" id="page_097"></a>{97}</span> the end that these may be ‘versed in the law, and -have good manners,’ is set high among followers of <i>tzedakah</i>. Then, -‘<i>The poor who are neighbours are to be regarded before all others; the -poor of one’s own family before the poor of one’s own city, and the poor -of one’s own city before the poor of another’s city.</i>’ And this version -of ‘charity begins at home’ is worked out in another place into quite a -detailed table, so to speak, of professional precedence in the ranks of -recognised recipients. And, curiously enough, first among all the -distinctions to be observed comes this: ‘<i>If a man and woman solicit -relief, the woman shall be first attended to and then the man.</i>’ An -explanation, perhaps a justification, of this mild forestalment of -women’s rights, is given in the further dictum that ‘Man is accustomed -to wander, and that woman is not,’ and ‘Her feelings of modesty being -more acute,’ it is fit that she should be ‘always fed and clothed before -the man.’ And if, in this ancient system, there be a recognised scale of -rights for receiving, so, equally, is there a graduated order of merit -in giving. Eight in number are these so-called ‘Degrees in Alms Deeds,’ -the curious list gravely setting forth as ‘highest,’ and this, it would -seem, rather on the lines of ‘considering the poor’ than of mere giving, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_098" id="page_098"></a>{98}</span>that <i>tzedakah</i> which ‘helpeth ... who is cast down,’ by means of gift -or loan, or timely procuring of employment, and ranging through ‘next’ -and ‘next,’ till it announces, as eighth and least, the ‘any one who -giveth after much molestation.’ High in the list, too, are placed those -‘silent givers’ who ‘let not poor children of upright parents know from -whom they receive support,’ and even the man who ‘giveth less than his -means allow’ is lifted one degree above the lowest if he ‘give with a -kind countenance.’</p> - -<p>The mode of relief grew, with circumstances, to change. The time came -when, to ‘the Hagars and Ishmaels of mankind,’ rules for gleaning and -for ‘fallen grapes’ would, perforce, be meaningless, and new means for -the carrying out of <i>tzedakah</i> had to be devised. In Alms of the Chest, -קופה (<i>kupah</i>), and Alms of the Basket, תמחוי (<i>tamchui</i>), another -exhaustive system of relief was formulated. The <i>kupah</i> would seem to -have been a poor-rate, levied on all ‘residents in towns of over thirty -days’ standing,’ and ‘Never,’ says Maimonides, ‘have we seen or heard of -any congregation of Israelites in which there has not been the Chest for -Alms, though, with regard to the Basket, it is the custom in some places -to have it, and not in others.’ These chests were placed in the Silent -Court of the Sanctuary, to the end that a class of givers who went<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_099" id="page_099"></a>{99}</span> by -the name of Fearers of Sin,<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> might deposit their alms in silence and -be relieved of responsibility. The contents of the Chest were collected -weekly and used for all ordinary objects of relief, the overplus being -devoted to special cases and special purposes. It is somewhat strange to -our modern notions to find that one among such purposes was that of -providing poor folks with the wherewith to marry. For not only is it -commanded concerning the ‘brother waxen poor,’ ‘<i>If he standeth in need -of garments, let him be clothed; or if of household things, let him be -supplied with them,’ but ‘if of a wife, let a wife be betrothed unto -him, and in case of a woman, let a husband be betrothed unto her.</i>’ Does -this quaint provision recall Voltaire’s taunt that ‘Les juifs ont -toujours regardé comme leurs deux grands devoirs des enfants et de -l’argent’? Perhaps, and yet, Voltaire and even Malthus notwithstanding, -it is just possible that the last word has not been said on this -subject, and that in ‘improvident’ marriages and large families the new -creed of survival of the fittest may, after all, be best fulfilled.</p> - -<p>Philosophers, we know, are not always consistent<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a>{100}</span> with themselves, and -if there be truth in another saying of Voltaire’s—‘Voyez les registres -affreux de vos greffes crimines, vous y trouvez cent garçons de pendus -ou de roués contre un père de famille’—then is there something -certainly to be said in favour of the Jewish system. But this by the -way, since statistics, it must be owned, are the most sensitive and -susceptible of the sciences. This ancient betrothing, moreover, was no -empty form, no bare affiancing of two paupers; but a serious and -substantial practice of raising a marriage portion for a couple unable -to marry without it. By Talmudic code, ‘marriages were not legitimately -complete till a settlement of some sort was made on the wife,’ who, it -may be here parenthetically remarked, was so far in advance of -comparatively modern legislation as to be entitled to have and to hold -in as complete and comprehensive a sense as her husband.</p> - -<p>But whilst Alms of the Chest, though pretty various in its -application,<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> was intended only<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a>{101}</span> for the poor of the place in which -it was collected, Alms of the Basket was, to the extent of its -capabilities, for ‘the poor of the whole world.’ It consisted of a daily -house-to-house collection of food of all sorts, and occasionally of -money, which was again, day by day, distributed. This custom of -<i>tamchui</i>, suited to those primitive times, would seem to be very -similar to the practice of ‘common Boxes, and common gatherynges in -every City,’ which prevailed in England in the sixteenth century, and -which received legal sanction in Act of the 23rd of Henry VIII.—‘Item, -that 2 or 3 tymes in every weke 2 or 3 of every parysh shal appoynt -certaine of ye said pore people to collecte and gather broken meates and -fragments, and the refuse drynke of every householder, which shal be -distributed evenly amonge the pore people as they by theyre discrecyons -shal thynke good.’ Only the collectors and distributors of <i>kupah</i> and -<i>tamchui</i> were not ‘certaine of ye said pore people,’ but unpaid men of -high character, holding something of the position of magistrates in the -community. The duty of contributing in kind to <i>tamchui</i> was -supplemented among the richer folks<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a>{102}</span> by a habit of entertaining the poor -as guests;<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> seats at their own tables, and beds in their houses being -frequently reserved for wayfarers, at least over Sabbath and -festivals.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p> - -<p>The curious union of sense and sentiment in the Talmudic code is shown -again in the regulations as to who may, and who may not, receive of -these gifts of the poor: ‘<i>He who has sufficient for two meals</i>,’ so -runs the law, ‘<i>may not take from tamchui; he who has sufficient for -fourteen may not take from kupah</i>.’ Yet might holders of property, -fallen on slack seasons, be saved from selling at a loss and helped to -hold on till better times, by being ‘meanwhile supported out of the -tithes of the poor.’ And if the house and goods of him in this temporary -need were grand, money help might be given to the applicant, and he -might keep all his smart personal belongings, yet superfluities, an odd -item or two of which are vouchsafed, must be sold, and replaced, if at -all, by a simpler sort. Still, with all this excessive care for<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a>{103}</span> those -who have come down in the world, and despite the dictum that ‘he who -withholdeth alms is “impious” and like unto an idolater,’ there is yet -no encouragement to dependence discernible in these precise and prolix -rules. ‘Let thy Sabbath be as an ordinary day, rather than become -dependent on thy fellow-men,’ it is clearly written, and told, too, in -detail, how ‘wise men,’ the most honoured, by the way, in the community, -to avoid ‘dependence on others,’ might become, without loss of caste or -respectability, ‘carriers of timber, workers in metal, and makers of -charcoal.’ Neither is there any contempt for wealth or any love of -poverty for its own sake to be seen in this people, who were taught to -‘rejoice before the Lord.’ In one place it is, in truth, gravely set -forth that ‘he who increaseth the number of his servants’ increaseth the -amount of sin in the world, but this somewhat ascetic-sounding statement -is clearly susceptible of a good deal of common-sense interpretation, -and when another Master tells us that ‘charity is the salt which keeps -wealth from corruption,’ a thought, perhaps, for the due preservation of -the wealth may be read between the lines.</p> - -<p>On the whole, it looks as if these old-world Rabbis set to work at -laying down the law in much the spirit of Robert Browning’s Rabbi—<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a>{104}</span></p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">‘Let us not always say,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Spite of this flesh to-day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole.<br /></span> -<span class="i8">As the bird wings and sings<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Let us cry, ‘All good things<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more now than flesh helps soul.’<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">After this manner, at any rate, are set forth, and in this sense are -interpreted in the Talmud, the Biblical injunctions to <i>tzedakah</i>, to -that charity of alms-deeds which, as society is constituted, must, as we -said, be considered somewhat of a class distinction.</p> - -<p>But for the charity which should be obligatory all round, and as easy of -fulfilment by the poor as by the rich, the Talmud chooses the other -synonym חסד (<i>chesed</i>), and coining from it the word <i>Gemiluth-chesed</i>, -which may be rendered ‘the doing of kindness,’ it works out a -supplementary and social system of charity—a system founded not on -‘rights,’ but on sympathy—dealing not in doles, but in deeds of -friendship and of fellowship, and demanding a giving of oneself rather -than of one’s stores. And greater than <i>tzedakah</i>, write the Rabbis, is -<i>Gemiluth-chesed</i>, justifying their dictum, as is their wont, by a -reference to Holy Writ. ‘Sow to yourselves in righteousness -(<i>tzedakah</i>),’ says the prophet Hosea (Hos. x. 12); ‘reap in mercy -(<i>chesed</i>)’; and, inasmuch<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a>{105}</span> as reaping is better than sowing, mercy must -be better than righteousness. To ‘visit the sick,’ to promote peace in -families apt to fall out, to ‘relieve all persons, Jews or non-Jews, in -affliction’ (a comprehensive phrase), to ‘bury the dead,’ to ‘accompany -the bride,’ are among those ‘kindnesses’ which take rank as religious -duties, and one or two specimens may indicate the amount of careful -detail which make these injunctions practical, and the fine motive which -goes far towards spiritualising them.</p> - -<p>Of the visiting of the sick, the Talmud speaks with a sort of awe. God’s -spirit, it says, dwells in the chamber of suffering and death, and -tendance therein is worship. Nursing was to be voluntary, and no charge -to be made for drugs; and so deeply did the habit of helping the -helpless in this true missionary spirit obtain among the Jews, that to -this day, and more especially in provincial places, the last offices for -the dead are rarely performed by hired hands. The ‘accompanying of the -bride’ is <i>Gemiluth-chesed</i> in another form. To rejoice with one’s -neighbour’s joys is no less a duty in this un-Rochefoucauld-like code -than to grieve with his grief. A bride is to be greeted with songs and -flowers, and pleasant speeches, and, if poor, to be provided with pretty -ornaments and substantial gifts, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a>{106}</span> the pleasant speeches are in all -cases, and before all things, obligatory. In the discursive detail, -which is so strong a feature of these Talmudic rulings, it is asked: -‘But if the bride be old, or awkward, or positively plain, is she to be -greeted in the usual formula as “fair bride—graceful bride”?’ ‘Yes,’ is -the answer, for one is not bound to insist on uncomfortable facts, nor -to be obtrusively truthful; to be agreeable is one of the minor virtues. -Were there anything in the doctrine of metempsychosis, one would be -almost tempted to believe that this ancient unnamed Rabbi was speaking -over again in the person of one of our modern minor poets:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘A truth that’s told with bad intent<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Beats all the lies you can invent.’<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p>The charity of courtesy is everywhere insisted upon, and so strongly, -that, on behalf of those sometimes ragged and unkempt Rabbis it might -perhaps be urged that politeness, the <i>politesse du cœur</i>, was their -Judaism <i>en papillote</i>. ‘Receive every one with pleasant looks,’ says -one sage,<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> whose practice was, perhaps, not always quite up to his -precepts; ‘where there is no reverence there is no wisdom,’ says -another; and as the distinguishing mark of a ‘clown,’ a third instances -that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a>{107}</span> man—have we not all met him?—who rudely breaks in on another’s -speech, and is more glib than accurate or respectful in his own.</p> - -<p>And as postscript to the ‘law’ obtaining on these cheery social forms of -‘charity’ a tombstone may perhaps be permitted to add its curious -crumbling bit of evidence. In the House of Life, as Jews name their -burial-grounds, at Prague, there stood—perhaps stands still—a stone, -erected to the memory, and recording the virtues, of a certain rich lady -who died in 1628. Her benefactions, many and minute, are set forth at -length, and amongst the rest, and before ‘she clothed the naked,’ comes -the item, ‘she ran like a bird to weddings.’ Through the mists of those -terrible stories, which make of Prague so miserable a memory to Jews, -the record of this long-ago dead woman gleams like a rainbow. One seems -to see the bright little figure, a trifle out of breath may be, the gay -plumage perhaps just a shade ruffled—somehow one does not fancy her a -very prim or tidy personage—running ‘like a bird to weddings.’ She -seems, the dear sympathetic soul, in an odd, suggestive sort of way, to -illustrate the charitable system of her race, and to show us that, -despite all differences of time and place and circumstances, the one -essential condition to any ‘charity’ that shall prove effectual<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a>{108}</span> remains -unchanged; that the solution of the hard problem, which may be worked -out in a hundred ways, is just sympathy, and is to be learnt, not in the -‘speaking from afar’ of rich to poor, but in the ‘laying of hands’ upon -them. The close fellowship of this ancient primitive system is perhaps -impossible in our more complex civilisation, but an approximation to it -is an ideal worth striving after. More intimate, more everyday communion -between West and East, more ‘Valentines’ at Hoxton are sorely needed. -Concert-giving, class-teaching, ‘visiting,’ are all helps of a sort, but -there are so many days in a poor man’s week, so many hours in his dull -day. Sweetness and light, like other and more prosaic products of -civilisation, need, it may be, to be ‘laid on’ in those miles of -monotonous streets, long breaks in continuity being fatal to results.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a>{109}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="MOSES_MENDELSSOHN" id="MOSES_MENDELSSOHN"></a>MOSES MENDELSSOHN</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">‘I wish</span>, it is true, to shame the opprobrious sentiments commonly -entertained of a Jew, but it is by character and not by controversy that -I would do it.’<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> So wrote the subject of this memoir more than a -hundred years ago, and the sentence may well stand for the motto of his -life; for much as Moses Mendelssohn achieved by his ability, much more -did he by his conduct, and great as he was as a philosopher, far greater -was he as a man. Starting with every possible disadvantage—prejudice, -poverty, and deformity—he yet reached the goal of ‘honour, fame, and -troops of friends’ by simple force of character; and thus he remains for -all time an illustration of the happy optimistic theory that, even in -this world, success, in the best sense of the word, does come to those -who, also in the best sense of the word, deserve it.</p> - -<p>The state of the Jews in Germany at the time of Mendelssohn’s birth was -deplorable. No longer actively hunted, they had arrived, at the early -part of the eighteenth century, at<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a>{110}</span> the comparatively desirable position -of being passively shunned or contemptuously ignored, and, under these -new conditions, they were narrowing fast to the narrow limits set them. -The love of religion and of race was as strong as ever, but the love had -grown sullen, and of that jealous, exclusive sort to which curse and -anathema are akin. What then loomed largest on their narrow horizon was -fear; and under that paralysing influence, progress or prominence of any -kind became a distinct evil, to be repressed at almost any personal -sacrifice. Safety for themselves and tolerance for their faith, lay, if -anywhere, in the neglect of the outside world. And so the poor pariahs -huddled in their close quarters, carrying on mean trades, or hawking -petty wares, and speaking, with bated breath, a dialect of their own, -half Jewish, half German, and as wholly degenerate from the grand old -Hebrew as were they themselves from those to whom it had been a living -tongue. Intellectual occupation was found in the study of the Law; -interest and entertainment in the endless discussion of its more -intricate passages; and excitement in the not infrequent excommunication -of the weaker or bolder brethren who ventured to differ from the -orthodox expounders. The culture of the Christian they hated, with a -hate born half of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a>{111}</span> fear for its possible effects, half of repulsion at -its palpable evidences. The tree of knowledge seemed to them indeed, in -pathetic perversion of the early legend, a veritable tree of evil, which -should lose a second Eden to the wilful eaters thereof. Their Eden was -degenerate too; but the ‘voice heard in the evening’ still sounded in -their dulled and passionate ears, and, vibrating in the Ghetto instead -of the grove, it seemed to bid them shun the forbidden fruit of Gentile -growth.</p> - -<p>In September 1729, under a very humble roof, in a very poor little -street in Dessau, was born the weakly boy who was destined to work such -wonderful changes in that weary state of things. Not much fit to hold -the magician’s wand seemed those frail baby hands, and less and less -likely altogether for the part, as the poor little body grew stunted and -deformed through the stress of over-much study and of something less -than enough of wholesome diet. There was no lack of affection in the -mean little Jewish home, but the parents could only give their children -of what they had, and of these scant possessions, mother-love and -Talmudical lore were the staple. And so we read of the small -five-year-old Moses being wrapped up by his mother in a large old shabby -cloak, on early, bleak winter mornings, and then so carried by the -father to the neighbouring<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a>{112}</span> ‘Talmud Torah’ school, where he was -nourished with dry Hebrew roots by way of breakfast. Often, indeed, was -the child fed on an even less satisfying diet, for long passages from -Scripture, long lists of precepts, to be learnt by heart, on all sorts -of subjects, was the approved method of instruction in these seminaries. -An extensive, if somewhat parrot-like, acquaintance at an astonishingly -early age with the Law and the Prophets, and the commentators on both, -was the ordinary result of this form of education; and, naturally -co-existent with it, was an equally astonishing and extensive ignorance -of all more everyday subjects. Contentedly enough, however, the learned, -illiterate peddling and hawking fathers left their little lads to this -puzzling, sharpening, deadening sort of schooling. Frau Mendel and her -husband may possibly have thought out the matter a little more fully, -for she seems to have been a wise and prudent as well as a loving -mother; and the father, we find, was quick to discern unusual talent in -the sickly little son whom he carried so carefully to the daily lesson. -He was himself a teacher, in a humble sort of way, and eked out his -small fees by transcribing on parchment from the Pentateuch. Thus, the -tone of the little household, if not refined, was at least not -altogether sordid; and when, presently, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a>{113}</span> little Moses was promoted -from the ordinary school to the higher class taught by the great -scholar, Rabbi Frankel, the question even presented itself whether it -might not be well, in this especial case, to abandon the patent, -practical advantages pertaining to the favoured pursuit of peddling, and -to let the boy give himself up to his beloved books, and, following in -his master’s footsteps, become perhaps, in his turn, a poorly paid, much -reverenced Rabbi.</p> - -<p>It was a serious matter to decide. There was much to be said in favour -of the higher path; but the market for Rabbis, as for hawkers, was -somewhat overstocked, and the returns in the one instance were far -quicker and surer, and needed no long unearning apprenticeship. The -balance, on the whole, seemed scarcely to incline to the more dignified -profession; but the boy was so terribly in earnest in his desire to -learn, so desperately averse from the only other career, that his -wishes, by degrees, turned the scale; and it did not take very long to -convince the poor patient father that he must toil a little longer and a -little later, in order that his son might be free from the hated -necessity of hawking, and at liberty to pursue his unremunerative -studies.</p> - -<p>From the very first, Moses made the most of his opportunities; and at -home and at<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a>{114}</span> school high hopes began soon to be formed of the diligent, -sweet-tempered, frail little lad. Frailer than ever, though, he seemed -to grow, and the body appeared literally to dwindle as the mind -expanded. Long years after, when the burden of increasing deformity had -come, by dint of use and wont and cheerful courage, to be to him a -burden lightly borne, he would set strangers at their ease by alluding -to it himself, and by playfully declaring his hump to be a legacy from -Maimonides. ‘Maimonides spoilt my figure,’ he would say, ‘and ruined my -digestion; but still,’ he would add more seriously, ‘I dote on him, for -although those long vigils with him weakened my body, they, at the same -time, strengthened my soul: they stunted my stature, but they developed -my mind.’ Early at morning and late at night would the boy be found -bending in happy abstraction over his shabby treasure, charmed into -unconsciousness of aches or hunger. The book, which had been lent to -him, was Maimonides’ <i>Guide to the Perplexed</i>; and this work, which -grown men find sufficiently deep study, was patiently puzzled out, and -enthusiastically read and re-read by the persevering little student who -was barely in his teens. It opened up whole vistas of new glories, which -his long steady climb up Talmudic stairs had prepared him to -appreciate.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_115" id="page_115"></a>{115}</span> Here and there, in the course of those long, tedious -dissertations in the Talmud Torah class-room, the boy had caught -glimpses of something underlying, something beyond the quibbles of the -schools; but this, his first insight into the large and liberal mind of -Maimonides, was a revelation to him of the powers and of the -possibilities of Judaism. It revealed to him too, perchance, some latent -possibilities in himself, and suggested other problems of life which -asked solution. The pale cheeks glowed as he read, and the vague dreams -kindled into conscious aims: he too would live to become a Guide to the -Perplexed among his people!</p> - -<p>Poor little lad! his brave resolves were soon to be put to a severe -test. In the early part of 1742, Rabbi Frankel accepted the Chief -Rabbinate of Berlin, and thus a summary stop was put to his pupil’s -further study. There is a pathetic story told of Moses Mendelssohn -standing, with streaming eyes, on a little hillock on the road by which -his beloved master passed out of Dessau, and of the kind-hearted Frankel -catching up the forlorn little figure, and soothing it with hopes of a -‘some day,’ when fortune should be kind, and he should follow ‘nach -Berlin.’ The ‘some day’ looked sadly problematical; that hard question -of bread and butter came to the fore whenever<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a>{116}</span> it was discussed. How was -the boy to live in Berlin? Even if the mind should be nourished for -naught, who was to feed the body? The hard-working father and mother had -found it no easy task hitherto to provide for that extra mouth; and now, -with Frankel gone, the occasion for their long self-denial seemed to -them to cease. In the sad straits of the family, the business of a -hawker began again to show in an attractive light to the poor parents, -and the pedlar’s pack was once more suggested with many a prudent, -loving, half-hearted argument on its behalf. But the boy was by this -time clear as to his vocation, so after a brief while of entreaty, the -tearful permission was gained, the parting blessing given, and with a -very slender wallet slung on his crooked shoulders, Moses Mendelssohn -set out for Berlin.</p> - -<p>It was a long tramp of over thirty miles, and, towards the close of the -fifth day, it was a very footsore, tired little lad who presented -himself for admission at the Jews’ gate of the city. Rabbi Frankel was -touched, and puzzled too, when this penniless little student, whom he -had inspired with such difficult devotion, at last stood before him; but -quickly he made up his mind that, so far as in him lay, the uphill path -should be made smooth to those determined little feet. The pressing -question<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_117" id="page_117"></a>{117}</span> of bed and board was solved. Frankel gave him his Sabbath and -festival dinners, and another kind-hearted Jew, Bamberger by name, who -heard the boy’s story, supplied two everyday meals, and let him sleep in -an attic in his house. For the remaining four days? Well, he managed; a -groschen or two was often earned by little jobs of copying, and a loaf -so purchased, by dint of economy and imagination, was made into quite a -series of satisfying meals, and, in after-days, it was told how he -notched his loaves into accurate time measurements, lest appetite should -outrun purse. Fortunately poverty was no new experience for him; still, -poverty confronted alone, in a great city, must have seemed something -grimmer to the home-bred lad than that mother-interpreted poverty, which -he had hitherto known. But he met it full-face, bravely, -uncomplainingly, and, best of all, with unfailing good humour. And the -little alleviations which friends made in his hard lot were all received -in a spirit of the sincerest, charmingest gratitude. He never took a -kindness as ‘his due’; never thought, like so many embryo geniuses, that -his talents gave him right of toll on his richer brethren. ‘Because I -would drink at the well,’ he would say in his picturesque fashion, ‘am I -to expect every one to haste and fill my cup<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_118" id="page_118"></a>{118}</span> from their pitchers? No, I -must draw the water for myself, or I must go thirsty. I have no claim -save my desire to learn, and what is that to others?’ Thus he preserved -his self-respect and his independence.</p> - -<p>He worked hard, and, first of all, he wisely sought to free himself from -all voluntary disabilities; there were enough and to spare of legally -imposed ones to keep him mindful of his Judaism. He felt strong enough -in faith to need no artificial shackles. He would be Jew, and yet -German—patriot, but no pariah. He would eschew vague dreams of -universalism, false ideas of tribalism. If Palestine had not been, he, -its product, could not be; but Palestine and its glories were of the -past and of the future; the present only was his, and he must shape his -life according to its conditions, which placed him, in the eighteenth -century, born of Jewish parents, in a German city. He was German by -birth, Jew by descent and by conviction; he would fulfil all the -obligations which country, race, and religion impose. But a German Jew, -who did not speak the language of his country? That, surely, was an -anomaly and must be set right. So he set himself strenuously to learn -German, and to make it his native language. Such secular study was by no -means an altogether safe proceeding.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_119" id="page_119"></a>{119}</span> Ignorance, as we have seen, was -‘protected’ in those days by Jewish ecclesiastical authority. Free trade -in literature was sternly prohibited, and a German grammar, or a Latin -or a Greek one, had, in sober truth, to run a strict blockade. One -Jewish lad, it is recorded on very tolerable authority, was actually in -the year 1746 expelled the city of Berlin for no other offence than that -of being caught in the act of studying—one chronicle, indeed, says, -carrying—some such proscribed volume. Moses, however, was more -fortunate; he saved money enough to buy his books, or made friends -enough to borrow them; and, we may conclude, found nooks in which to -hide them, and hours in which to read them. He set himself, too, to gain -some knowledge of the Classics, and here he found a willing teacher in -one Kish, a medical student from Prague. Later on, another helper was -gained in a certain Israel Moses, a Polish schoolmaster, afterwards -known as Israel Samosc. This man was a fine mathematician, and a -first-rate Hebrew scholar; but as his attainments did not include the -German language, he made Euclid known to Moses through the medium of a -Hebrew translation. Moses, in return, imparted to Samosc his newly -acquired German, and learnt it, of course, more thoroughly through -teaching<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_120" id="page_120"></a>{120}</span> it. He must have possessed the art of making friends who were -able to take on themselves the office of teachers; for presently we find -him, in odd half-hours, studying French and English under a Dr. Aaron -Emrich.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> He very early began to make translations of parts of the -Scripture into German, and these attempts indicate that, from the first, -his overpowering desire for self-culture sprang from no selfishness. He -wanted to open up the closed roads to place and honour, but not to tread -them alone, not to leave his burdened brethren on the bye-paths, whilst -he sped on rejoicing. He knew truly enough that ‘the light was sweet,’ -and that ‘a pleasant thing it is to behold the sun.’ But he heeded, too, -the other part of the charge: he ‘remembered the days of darkness, which -were many.’ He remembered them always, heedfully, pitifully, patiently; -and to the weary eyes which would not look up or could not, he ever -strove to adjust the beautiful blessed light which he knew, and they, -poor souls, doubted, was good. He never thrust it, unshaded, into their -gloom: he never carried it off to illumine his own path.</p> - -<p>Thus, the translations at which Moses<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_121" id="page_121"></a>{121}</span> Mendelssohn worked were no -transcripts from learned treatises which might have found a ready market -among the scholars of the day; but unpaid and unpaying work from the -liturgy and the Scriptures, done with the object that his people might -by degrees share his knowledge of the vernacular, and become gradually -and unconsciously familiar with the language of their country through -the only medium in which there was any likelihood of their studying it. -With that one set purpose always before him, of drawing his people with -him into the light, he presently formed the idea of issuing a serial in -Hebrew, which, under the title of <i>The Moral Preacher</i>, should introduce -short essays and transcripts on other than strictly Judaic or religious -subjects. One Bock was his coadjutor in this project, and two numbers of -the little work were published. The contents do not seem to have been -very alarming. To our modern notions of periodical literature, they -would probably be a trifle dull; but their mild philosophy and yet -milder science proved more than enough to arouse the orthodox fears of -the poor souls, who, ‘bound in affliction and iron,’ distrusted even the -gentle hand which was so eager to loose the fetters. There was a murmur -of doubt, of muttered dislike of ‘strange customs’; perhaps here and -there<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_122" id="page_122"></a>{122}</span> too, a threat concerning the pains and penalties which attached -to the introduction of such. At any rate, but two numbers of the poor -little reforming periodical appeared; and Moses, not angry at his -failure, not more than momentarily discouraged by it, accepted the -position and wasted no time nor temper in cavilling at it. He had learnt -to labour, he could learn to wait. And thus, in hard yet happy work, -passed away the seven years, from fourteen till twenty-one, which are -the seed-time of a man’s life. In 1750, when Moses was nearly of age, he -came into possession of what really proved an inheritance. A rich silk -manufacturer, named Bernhardt, who was a prominent member of the Berlin -synagogue, made a proposal to the learned young man, whose perseverance -had given reputation to his scholarship, to become resident tutor to his -children. The offer was gladly accepted, and it may be considered -Mendelssohn’s first step on the road to success. The first step to fame -had been taken when the boy had set out on his long tramp to Berlin.</p> - -<p>Bernhardt was a kind and cultured man, and in his house Mendelssohn -found both congenial occupation and welcome leisure. He was teacher by -day, student by night, and author at odd half-hours. He turned to his -books with the greatest ardour; and we<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_123" id="page_123"></a>{123}</span> read of him studying Locke and -Plato in the original, for by this time English and Greek were both -added to his store of languages. His pupils, meanwhile, were never -neglected, nor in the pursuit of great ends were trifles ignored. In -more than one biography special emphasis is laid on his beautifully neat -handwriting, which, we are told, much excited his employer’s admiration. -This humble, but very useful, talent may possibly have been inherited, -with some other small-sounding virtues, from the poor father in Dessau, -to whom many a nice present was now frequently sent. At the end of three -or four years of tutorship, Bernhardt’s appreciation of the young man -took a very practical expression. He offered Moses Mendelssohn the -position of book-keeper in his factory, with some especial -responsibilities and emoluments attached to the office. It was a -splendid opening, although Moses Mendelssohn, the philosopher, eagerly -and gratefully accepting such a post somehow jars on one’s -susceptibilities, and seems almost an instance of the round man pushed -into the square hole. It was, however, an assured position; it gave him -leisure, it gave him independence, and in due time wealth, for as years -went on he grew to be a manager, and finally a partner in the house. His -tastes had already drawn him into the outer literary<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_124" id="page_124"></a>{124}</span> circle of Berlin, -which at this time had its headquarters in a sort of club, which met to -play chess and to discuss politics and philosophy, and which numbered -Dr. Gompertz, the promising young scholar Abbt, and Nicolai, the -bookseller,<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> among its members. With these and other kindred spirits, -Mendelssohn soon found pleasant welcome; his talents and geniality -quickly overcoming any social prejudices, which, indeed, seldom flourish -in the republic of letters. And, early disadvantages notwithstanding, we -may conclude without much positive evidence on the subject, that -Mendelssohn possessed that valuable, indefinable gift, which culture, -wealth, and birth united occasionally fail to bestow—the gift of good -manners. He was free alike from conceit and dogmatism, the Scylla and -Charybdis to most young men of exceptional talent. He had the loyal -nature and the noble mind, which we are told on high authority is the -necessary root of the rare flower; and he had, too, the sympathetic, -unselfish feeling which we are wont to summarise shortly as a good -heart, and which is the first essential to good manners.</p> - -<p>When Lessing came to Berlin, about 1745, his play of <i>Die Juden</i> was -already published, and his reputation sufficiently established to make -him an honoured guest at these little<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_125" id="page_125"></a>{125}</span> literary gatherings. Something of -affinity in the wide, unconventional, independent natures of the two -men; something, it may be, of likeness in unlikeness in their early -struggles with fate, speedily attracted Lessing and Mendelssohn to each -other. The casual acquaintance soon ripened into an intimate and -lifelong friendship, which gave to Mendelssohn, the Jew, wider knowledge -and illimitable hopes of the outer, inhospitable world—which gave to -Lessing, the Christian, new belief in long-denied virtues; and which, -best of all, gave to humanity those ‘divine lessons of Nathan der -Weise,’ as Goethe calls them—for which character Mendelssohn sat, all -unconsciously, as model, and scarcely idealised model, to his friend. It -was, most certainly, a rarely happy friendship for both, and for the -world. Lessing was the godfather of Mendelssohn’s first book. The -subject was suggested in the course of conversation between them, and a -few days after Mendelssohn brought his manuscript to Lessing. He saw no -more of it till his friend handed him the proofs and a small sum for the -copyright; and it was in this way that the <i>Philosophische Gespräche</i> -was anonymously published in 1754. Later, the friends brought out -together a little book, entitled <i>Pope as a Metaphysician</i>, and this was -followed up<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_126" id="page_126"></a>{126}</span> with some philosophical essays (‘Briefe über die -Empfindungen’) which quickly ran through three editions, and Mendelssohn -became known as an author. A year or two later, he gained the prize -which the Royal Academy of Berlin offered for the best essay on the -problem ‘Are metaphysics susceptible of mathematical demonstration?’ for -which prize Kant was one of the competitors.</p> - -<p>Lessing’s migration to Leipzig, and his temporary absences from the -capital in the capacity of tutor, made breaks, but no diminution, in the -friendship with Mendelssohn; and the <i>Literatur-Briefe</i>, a journal cast -in the form of correspondence on art, science, and literature, to which -Nicolai, Abbt, and other writers were occasional contributors, continued -its successful publication till the year 1765. A review in this journal -of one of the literary efforts of Frederick the Second gave rise to a -characteristic ebullition of what an old writer quaintly calls ‘the -German endemical distemper of Judæophobia.’ In this essay, Mendelssohn -had presumed to question some of the conclusions of the royal author; -and although the contents of the <i>Literatur-Briefe</i> were generally -unsigned, the anonymity was in most cases but a superficial disguise. -The paper drew down upon Mendelssohn the denunciation of a too loyal<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_127" id="page_127"></a>{127}</span> -subject of Frederick’s, and he was summoned to Sans Souci to answer for -it. Frederick appears to have been more sensible than his thin-skinned -defender, and the interview passed off amicably enough. Indeed, a short -while after, we hear of a petition being prepared to secure to -Mendelssohn certain rights and privileges of dwelling unmolested in -whichever quarter of the city he might choose—a right which at that -time was granted to but few Jews, and at a goodly expenditure of both -capital and interest. Mendelssohn, loyal to his brethren, long and -stoutly refused to have any concession granted on the score of his -talents which he might not claim on the score of his manhood in common -with the meanest and most ignorant of his co-religionists. And there is -some little doubt whether the partial exemptions which Mendelssohn -subsequently obtained, were due to the petition, which suffered many -delays and vicissitudes in the course of presentation, or to the subtle -and silent force of public opinion.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile Mendelssohn married, and the story of his wooing, as first -told by Berthold Auerbach, makes a pretty variation on the old theme. It -was, in this case, no short idyll of ‘she was beautiful and he fell in -love.’ To begin with, it was all prosaic enough. A certain Abraham -Gugenheim, a trader at<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_128" id="page_128"></a>{128}</span> Hamburg, caused it to be hinted to Mendelssohn -that he had a virtuous and blue-eyed but portionless daughter, named -Fromet, who had heard of the philosopher’s fame, and had read portions -of his books; and who, mutual friends considered, would make him a -careful and loving helpmate. So Mendelssohn, who was now thirty-two -years old, and desirous to ‘settle,’ went to the merchant’s house and -saw the prim German maiden, and talked with her; and was pleased enough -with her talk, or perhaps with the silent eloquence of the blue eyes, to -go next day to the father and to say he thought Fromet would suit him -for a wife. But to his surprise Gugenheim hesitated, and stiffness and -embarrassment seemed to have taken the place of the yesterday’s cordial -greeting; still, it was no objection on his part, he managed at last to -stammer out. For a minute Mendelssohn was hopelessly puzzled, but only -for a minute; then it flashed upon him, ‘It is she who objects!’ he -exclaimed; ‘then it must be my hump’; and the poor father of course -could only uncomfortably respond with apologetic platitudes about the -unaccountability of girls’ fancies. The humour as well as the pathos of -the situation touched Mendelssohn, for he had no vanity to be piqued, -and he instantly resolved<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_129" id="page_129"></a>{129}</span> to do his best to win this Senta-like maiden, -who, less fortunate than the Dutch heroine, had had her pretty dreams of -a hero dispelled, instead of accentuated by actual vision. Might he see -her once again, he asked. ‘To say farewell? Certainly!’ answered the -father, glad that his awkward mission was ending so amicably. So -Mendelssohn went again, and found Fromet with the blue eyes bent -steadily over her work; perhaps to hide a tear as much as to prevent a -glance, for Fromet, as the sequel shows, was a tender-hearted maiden, -and although she did not like to look at her deformed suitor, she did -not want to wound him. Then Mendelssohn began to talk, beautiful glowing -talk, and the spell which his writings had exercised began again to work -on the girl. From philosophy to love, in its impersonal form, is an easy -transition. She grew interested and self-forgetful. ‘And do <i>you</i> think -that marriages are made in heaven?’ she eagerly questioned, as some -early quaint superstition on this most attractive of themes was vividly -touched upon by her visitor. ‘Surely,’ he replied; ‘and some old beliefs -on this head assert that all such contracts are settled in childhood. -Strange to say, a special legend attaches itself to my fortune in this -matter; and as our talk has led to this subject perhaps I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_130" id="page_130"></a>{130}</span> may venture -to tell it to you. The twin spirit which fate allotted to me, I am told, -was fair, blue-eyed, and richly endowed with all spiritual charms; but, -alas! ill-luck had added to her physical gifts a hump. A chorus of -lamentation arose from the angels who minister in these matters. The -“pity of it” was so evident. The burden of such a deformity might well -outweigh all the other gifts of her beautiful youth, might render her -morose, self-conscious, unhappy. If the load now had been but laid on a -man! And the angels pondered, wondering, waiting to see if any would -volunteer to take the maiden’s burden from her. And I sprang up, and -prayed that it might be laid upon my shoulders. And it was settled so.’ -There was a minute’s pause, and then, so the story goes, the work was -passionately thrown down, and the tender blue eyes were streaming, and -the rest we may imagine. The simple, loving heart was won, and Fromet -became his wife.</p> - -<p>They had a modest little house with a pretty garden on the outskirts of -Berlin, where a good deal of hospitality went on in a quiet, friendly -way. The ornaments of their dwelling were, perhaps, a little -disproportionate in size and quantity to the rest of the surroundings; -but this was no matter of choice on the part of the newly married -couple, since one of the minor<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_131" id="page_131"></a>{131}</span> vexations imposed on Jews at this date -was the obligation laid on every bridegroom to treat himself to a large -quantity of china for the good of the manufactory. The tastes or the -wants of the purchaser were not consulted; and in this especial instance -twenty life-sized china apes were allotted to the bridegroom. We may -imagine poor Mendelssohn and his wife eyeing these apes often, somewhat -as Cinderella looked at her pumpkin when longing for the fairy’s -transforming wand. Possibilities of those big baboons changed into big -books may have tantalised Mendelssohn; whilst Fromet’s more prosaic mind -may have confined itself to china and yet have found an unlimited range -for wishing. However, the unchanged and unchanging apes notwithstanding, -Mendelssohn and his wife enjoyed very many years of quiet and contented -happiness, and by and by came children, four of them, and then those old -ungainly grievances were, it is likely, transformed into playfellows.</p> - -<p>Parenthood, perhaps, is never quite easy, but it was a very difficult -duty, and a terribly divided one, for a cultivated man who a century ago -desired to bring up his children as good Jews and good citizens. Many a -time, it stands on record, when this patient, self-respecting, -unoffending scholar took his children for a walk coarse epithets and -insulting cries followed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_132" id="page_132"></a>{132}</span> them through the streets. No resentment was -politic, no redress was possible. ‘Father, is it <i>wicked</i> to be a Jew?’ -his children would ask, as time after time the crowd hooted at them. -‘Father, is it <i>good</i> to be a Jew?’ they grew to ask later on, when in -more serious walks of life they found all gates but the Jews’ gate -closed against them. Mendelssohn must have found such questions -increasingly difficult to answer or to parry. Their very talents, which -enlarged the boundaries, must have made his clever children rebel -against the limitations which were so cruelly imposed. His eldest son -Joseph early developed a strong scientific bias; how could this be -utilised? The only profession which he, as a Jew, might enter, was that -of medicine, and for that he had a decided distaste: perforce he was -sent to commercial pursuits, and his especial talent had to run to -waste, or, at best, to dilettantism. When this Joseph had sons of his -own, can we wonder very much that he cut the knot and saved his children -from a like experience, by bringing them up as Christians?</p> - -<p>Mendelssohn himself, all his life through, was unswervingly loyal to his -faith. He took every disability accruing from it, as he took his own -especial one, as being, so far as he was concerned, inevitable, and thus -to be borne as patiently as might be. To him, most certainly,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_133" id="page_133"></a>{133}</span> it would -never have occurred to slip from under a burden which had been laid upon -him to bear. Concerning Fromet’s influence on her children records are -silent, and we are driven to conjecture that the pretty significance of -her name was somewhat meaningless.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> The story of her wooing suggests -susceptibility, perhaps, rather than strength of heart; and it may be -that as years went on the ‘blue eyes’ got into a habit of weeping only -over sorrows and wrongs which needed a less eloquent and a more helpful -mode of treatment.</p> - -<p>If Mendelssohn’s wife had been able to show her children the home side -of Jewish life, its suggestive ceremonialism, its domestic -compensations—possibly her sons, almost certainly her daughters, would -have learnt the brave, sweet patience that was common to Jewish mothers. -But this takes us to the region of ‘might have been.’ Gentle, -tender-hearted Fromet, it is to be feared, failed in true piety, and, -the mother anchor missing, the children drifted from their moorings.</p> - -<p>The leisure of the years succeeding his marriage was fully occupied by -Mendelssohn in literary pursuits. The whole of the Pentateuch was, by -degrees, translated into pure<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_134" id="page_134"></a>{134}</span> German, and simultaneous editions were -published in German and in Hebrew characters. This great gift to his -people was followed by a metrical translation of the Psalms; a work -which took him ten years, during which time he always carried about with -him a Hebrew Psalter, interleaved with blank pages. In 1783 he published -his <i>Jerusalem</i>,<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> a sort of Church and State survey of the Jewish -religion. The first and larger part of it dwells on the distinction -between Judaism, as a State religion, and Judaism as the ‘inheritance’ -of a dispersed nationality. He essays to prove the essential differences -between civil and religious government, and to demonstrate that penal -enactments, which in the one case were just and defensible, were, in the -changed circumstances of the other, harmful, and, in point of fact, -unjudicial. The work was, in effect, a masterly effort on Mendelssohn’s -part to exorcise the ‘cursing spirit’ which, engendered partly by -long-suffered persecution, and partly by long association with the -strict discipline of the Catholic Church, had taken a firm grip on -Jewish ecclesiastical authority, and was constantly expressing itself in -bitter anathema and morose excommunication. The second part of the book -is mainly concerned with a vindication of the Jewish character and a -plea<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_135" id="page_135"></a>{135}</span> for toleration. Scholarly and temperate as is the tone of this -work throughout, it yet evoked a good deal of rough criticism from the -so-called orthodox in both religious camps—from those well-meaning, -purblind persons of the sort who, Lessing declares, see only one road, -and strenuously deny the possible existence of any other.</p> - -<p>In 1777, Frederic the Second desired to judge for himself whether Jewish -ecclesiastical authority clashed at any point with the State or -municipal law of the land. A digest of the Jewish Code on the general -questions, and more especially on the subject of property and -inheritance, was decreed to be prepared in German, and to Mendelssohn -was intrusted the task. He had the assistance of the Chief Rabbi of -Berlin, and the result of these labours was published in 1778, under the -title of <i>Ritual Laws of the Jews</i>. Another Jewish philosophical work -(published in 1785) was <i>Morning Hours</i>.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> This was a volume of essays -on the evidences of the existence of the Deity and of conclusions -concerning His attributes deduced from the contemplation of His works. -Originally these essays had been given in the form of familiar lectures -on natural philosophy by Mendelssohn to his children and to one or<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_136" id="page_136"></a>{136}</span> two -of their friends (including the two Humboldts) in his own house, every -morning. In the same category of more distinctively Jewish books we may -place a translation of Manasseh Ben Israel’s famous <i>Vindiciæ Judæorum</i>, -which he published, with a very eloquent preface, so early as 1781, just -at the time when Dohm’s generous work on the condition of the Jews as -citizens of the State had made its auspicious appearance. Although this -is one of Mendelssohn’s minor efforts, the preface contains many a -beautiful passage. His gratitude to Dohm is so deep and yet so -dignified; his defence of his people is so wide, and his belief in -humanity so sincere; and the whole is withal so short, that it makes -most pleasant reading. One small quotation may perhaps be permitted, as -pertinent to some recent discussions on Jewish subjects. ‘It is,’ says -he, ‘objected by some that the Jews are both too indolent for -agriculture and too proud for mechanical trades; that if the -restrictions were removed they would uniformly select the arts and -sciences, as less laborious and more profitable, and soon engross all -light, genteel, and learned professions. But those who thus argue -conclude from the <i>present</i> state of things how they will be in the -<i>future</i>, which is not a fair mode of reasoning. What should induce a -Jew to waste his time in learning to manage the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_137" id="page_137"></a>{137}</span> plough, the trowel, the -plane, etc., while he knows he can make no practical use of them? But -put them in his hand and suffer him to follow the bent of his -inclinations as freely as other subjects of the State, and the result -will not long be doubtful. Men of genius and talent will, of course, -embrace the learned professions; those of inferior capacity will turn -their minds to mechanical pursuits; the rustic will cultivate the land; -each will contribute, according to his station in life, his quota to the -aggregate of productive labour.’</p> - -<p>As he says in some other place of himself, nature never intended him, -either physically or morally, for a wrestler; and this little essay, -where there is no strain of argument or scope for deep erudition, is yet -no unworthy specimen of the great philosopher’s powers. Poetic attempts -too, and mostly on religious subjects, occasionally varied his -counting-house duties and his more serious labours; but although he -truly possessed, if ever man did, what Landor calls ‘the poetic heart,’ -yet it is in his prose, rather than in his poetry, that we mostly see -its evidences. The book which is justly claimed as his greatest, and -which first gave him his title to be considered a wide and deep-thinking -philosopher, is his <i>Phædon</i>.<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> The idea of such a work had long been<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_138" id="page_138"></a>{138}</span> -germinating in him, and the death of his dear friend Abbt, with whom he -had had many a fruitful discussion on the subject, turned his thoughts -more fixedly on the hopes which make sorrows bearable, and the work was -published in the year following Abbt’s death.</p> - -<p>The first part is a very pure and classical German rendering of the -original Greek form of Plato, and the remainder an eloquent summary of -all that religion, reason, and experience urge in support of a belief in -immortality. It is cast in the form of conversation between Socrates and -his friends—a choice in composition which caused a Jewish critic (M. -David Friedländer) to liken Moses Mendelssohn to Moses the lawgiver. -‘For Moses spake, and <i>Socrates</i> was to him as a mouth’ (Ex. iv. 15). In -less than two years <i>Phædon</i> ran through three German editions, and it -was speedily translated into English, French, Dutch, Italian, Danish, -and Hebrew. Then, at one stride, came fame; and great scholars, great -potentates, and even the heads of his own community, sought his society. -But fame was ever of incomparably less value to Mendelssohn than -friendship, and any sort of notoriety he honestly hated. Thus, when his -celebrity brought upon him a polemical discussion, the publicity which -ensued, notwithstanding that the personal honour in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_139" id="page_139"></a>{139}</span> which he was held -was thereby enhanced, so thoroughly upset his nerves that the result was -a severe and protracted illness. It came about in this wise: Lavater, -the French pastor, in 1769, had translated Bonnet’s <i>Evidences of -Christianity</i> into German; he published it with the following dedication -to Moses Mendelssohn:—</p> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>‘<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—I think I cannot give you a stronger proof of my -admiration of your excellent writings, and of your still more -excellent character, that of an Israelite in whom there is no -guile; nor offer you a better requital for the great gratification -which I, some years ago, enjoyed in your interesting society, than -by dedicating to you the ablest philosophical inquiry into the -evidences of Christianity that I am acquainted with.</p> - -<p>‘I am fully conscious of your profound judgment, steadfast love of -truth, literary independence, enthusiasm for philosophy in general, -and esteem for Bonnet’s works in particular. The amiable discretion -with which, notwithstanding your contrariety to the Christian -religion, you delivered your opinion on it, is still fresh in my -memory. And so indelible and important is the impression which your -truly philosophical respect for the moral character of its Founder -made<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_140" id="page_140"></a>{140}</span> on me, in one of the happiest moments of my existence, that I -venture to beseech you—nay, before the God of Truth, your and my -Creator and Father, I beseech and conjure you—to read this work, I -will not say with philosophical impartiality, which I am confident -will be the case, but for the purpose of publicly refuting it, in -case you should find the main arguments, in support of the facts of -Christianity, untenable; or should you find them conclusive, with -the determination of doing what policy, love of truth, and probity -demand—what Socrates would doubtless have done had he read the -work and found it unanswerable.</p> - -<p>‘May God still cause much truth and virtue to be disseminated by -your means, and make you experience the happiness my whole heart -wishes you.</p> - -<p class="r"> -<span class="smcap">Johann Caspar Lavater.</span></p> -<p>‘<span class="smcap">Zurich</span>, <i>25th of August 1769</i>.’<br /> -</p></div> - -<p>It was a most unpleasant position for Mendelssohn. Plain speaking was -not so much the fashion then as now, and defence might more easily be -read as defiance. At that time the position of the Jews in all the -European States was most precarious, and outspoken utterances might not -only alienate the timid followers whom Mendelssohn hoped to enlighten, -but probably offend the powerful<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_141" id="page_141"></a>{141}</span> outsiders whom he was beginning to -influence. No man has any possible right to demand of another a public -confession of faith; the conversation to which Lavater alluded as some -justification for his request had been a private one, and the reference -to it, moreover, was not altogether accurate. And Mendelssohn hated -controversy, and held a very earnest conviction that no good cause, -certainly no religious one, is ever much forwarded by it. Should he be -silent, refuse to reply, and let judgment go by default? Comfort and -expediency both pleaded in favour of this course, but truth was mightier -and prevailed. Like unto the three who would not be ‘careful’ of their -answer even under the ordeal of fire, he soon decided to testify plainly -and without undue thought of consequences. Mendelssohn was not the sort -to serve God with special reservations as to Rimmon. Definitely he -answered his too zealous questioner in a document which is so entirely -full of dignity and of reason that it is difficult to make quotations -from it.<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> ‘Certain inquiries,’ he writes, ‘we finish once for all in -our lives.’ ... ‘And I herewith declare in the presence of the God of -truth, your and my Creator, by whom you have conjured me in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_142" id="page_142"></a>{142}</span> your -dedication, that I will adhere to my principles so long as my entire -soul does not assume another nature.’ And then, emphasising the position -that it is by character and not by controversy that <i>he</i> would have Jews -shame their traducers, he goes fully and boldly into the whole question. -He shows with a delicate touch of humour that Judaism, in being no -proselytising faith, has a claim to be let alone. ‘I am so fortunate as -to count amongst my friends many a worthy man who is not of my faith. -Never yet has my heart whispered, Alas! for this good man’s soul. He who -believes that no salvation is to be found out of the pale of his own -church, must often feel such sighs arise in his bosom.’ ‘Suppose there -were among my contemporaries a Confucius or a Solon, I could -consistently with my religious principles love and admire the great man, -but I should never hit on the idea of converting a Confucius or a Solon. -What should I convert him for? As he does not belong to the congregation -of Jacob, my religious laws were not made for him, and on doctrines we -should soon come to an understanding. Do I think there is a chance of -his being saved? I certainly believe that he who leads mankind on to -virtue in this world cannot be damned in the next.’ ‘We believe ... that -those who regulate their lives according to the religion of nature and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_143" id="page_143"></a>{143}</span> -of reason are called virtuous men of other nations, and are, equally -with our patriarchs, the children of eternal salvation.’ ‘Whoever is not -born conformable to our laws has no occasion to live according to them. -We alone consider ourselves bound to acknowledge their authority, and -this can give no offence to our neighbours.’ He refuses to criticise -Bonnet’s work in detail on the ground that in his opinion ‘Jews should -be scrupulous in abstaining from reflections on the predominant -religion’; but nevertheless, whilst repeating his ‘so earnest wish to -have no more to do with religious controversy,’ the honesty of the man -asserts itself in boldly adding, ‘I give you at the same time to -understand that I could, very easily, bring forward something in -refutation of M. Bonnet’s work.’</p> - -<p>Mendelssohn’s reply brought speedily, as it could scarcely fail to do, -an ample and sincere apology from Lavater, a ‘retracting’ of the -challenge, an earnest entreaty to forgive what had been ‘importunate and -improper’ in the dedicator, and an expression of ‘sincerest respect’ and -‘tenderest affection’ for his correspondent. Mendelssohn’s was a nature -to have more sympathy with the errors incidental to too much, than to -too little zeal, and the apology was accepted as generously as it was -offered. And here ended, so far as the principals were concerned, this -somewhat<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_144" id="page_144"></a>{144}</span> unique specimen of a literary squabble. A crowd of lesser -writers, unfortunately, hastened to make capital out of it; and a -bewildering mist of nondescript and pedantic compositions soon darkened -the literary firmament, obscuring and vulgarising the whole subject. -They took ‘sides’ and gave ‘views’ of the controversy; but Mendelssohn -answered none and read as few as possible of these publications. Still -the strain and worry told on his sensitive and peace-loving nature, and -he did not readily recover his old elasticity of temperament.</p> - -<p>In 1778 Lessing’s wife died, and his friend’s trouble touched deep -chords both of sympathy and of memory in Mendelssohn. Yet more cruelly -were they jarred when, two years later, Lessing himself followed, and an -uninterrupted friendship of over thirty years was thus dissolved. -Lessing and Mendelssohn had been to each other the sober realisation of -the beautiful ideal embodied in the drama of <i>Nathan der Weise</i>. ‘What -to you makes me seem Christian makes of you the Jew to me,’ each could -most truly say to the other. They helped the world to see it too, and to -recognise the Divine truth that ‘to be to the best thou knowest ever -true is all the creed.’</p> - -<p>The death of his friend was a terrible blow to Mendelssohn. ‘After -wrinkles come,’ says Mr. Lowell, in likening ancient friendships to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_145" id="page_145"></a>{145}</span> -slow-growing trees, ‘few plant, but water dead ones with vain tears.’ In -this case, the actual pain of loss was greatly aggravated by some -publications which appeared shortly after Lessing’s death, impugning his -sincerity and religious feeling. Germany, as Goethe once bitterly -remarked, ‘needs time to be thankful.’ In the first year or two -following Lessing’s death it was, perhaps, too early to expect gratitude -from his country for the lustre his talents had shed on it. Some of the -pamphlets would make it seem that it was too early even for decency. -Mendelssohn vigorously took up the cudgels for his dead friend; too -vigorously, perhaps, since Kant remarked that ‘it is Mendelssohn’s -fault, if Jacobi (the most notorious of the assailants) should now -consider himself a philosopher.’ To Mendelssohn’s warmhearted, generous -nature it would, however, have been impossible to remain silent when one -whom he knew to be tolerant, earnest, and sincere in the fullest sense -of those words of highest praise, was accused of ‘covert Spinozism’; a -charge which again was broadly rendered, by these wretched, ignorant -interpreters of a language they failed to understand, as atheism and -hypocrisy.</p> - -<p>But this was his last literary work. It shows no sign of decaying -powers; it is full of pathos, of wit, of clear close reasoning, and of -brilliant<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_146" id="page_146"></a>{146}</span> satire; yet nevertheless it was his monument as well as his -friend’s. He took the manuscript to his publisher in the last day of the -year 1785; and in the first week of the New Year 1786, still only -fifty-six years old, he quietly and painlessly died. That last work -seems to make a beautiful and fitting end to his life; a life which -truly adds a worthy stanza to what Herder calls ‘the greatest poem of -all time—the history of the Jews.’<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_147" id="page_147"></a>{147}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="THE_NATIONAL_IDEA_IN_JUDAISM" id="THE_NATIONAL_IDEA_IN_JUDAISM"></a>THE NATIONAL IDEA IN JUDAISM</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Once</span> find a man’s ideals, it has been well said, and the rest is easy; -and undoubtedly to get at any true notion of character, one must -discover these. They may be covered close with conventionalities, or -jealously hidden, like buried treasures, from unsympathetic eyes; but -the patient search is well worth while, since it is his ideals—and not -his words nor his deeds, which a thousand circumstances influence and -decide—which show us the real man as known to his Maker. And true as -this is of the individual, it is true in a deeper and larger sense of -the nations, and most true of all of that people with whom for centuries -speech was impolitic and action impossible. With articulate expression -so long denied to them, the national ideals must be always to the -student of history the truest revelation of Judaism; and it is curious -and interesting to trace their development, and to recognise the crown -and apex of them all in battlefield and in ‘Vineyard,’ in Ghetto and in -mart, unchanged among the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_148" id="page_148"></a>{148}</span> changes, and practically the same as in the -days of the desert. The germ was set in the wilderness, when, amid the -thunders and lightnings of Sinai, a crowd of frightened, freshly rescued -slaves were made ‘witnesses’ to a living God, and guardians of a ‘Law’ -which demonstrated His existence. Very new and strange, and but dimly -understanded of the people it must all have been. ‘The lights of sunset -and of sunrise mixed.’ The fierce vivid glow under which they had bent -and basked in Egypt had scarcely faded, when they were bid look up in -the grey dawn of the desert to receive their trust. There was worthy -stuff in the descendants of the man who had left father and friends and -easy, sensuous idolatry to follow after an ideal of righteousness; and -they who had but just escaped from the bondage of centuries, rose to the -occasion. They accepted their mission; ‘All that the Lord has spoken -will we do,’ came up a responsive cry from ‘all the people answering -together,’ and in that supreme moment the ill-fed and so recently -ill-treated groups were transformed into a nation. ‘I will make of thee -a great people’; ‘Through thee shall all families of the earth be -blessed’; the meaning of such predictions was borne in upon them in one -bewildering flash, and in that flash the national idea of Judaism<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_149" id="page_149"></a>{149}</span> found -its dawn; they, the despised and the downtrodden, were to become -trustees of civilisation.</p> - -<p>As the glow died down, however, a very rudimentary sort of civilisation -the wilderness must have presented to these builders of the temples and -the treasure cities by the Nile, and to the vigorous, resourceful Hebrew -women. As day after day, and year after year, the cloud moved onward, -darkening the road which it directed, as they gathered the manna and -longed for the fleshpots, it could have been only the few and finer -spirits among those listless groups who were able to discern that a -civilisation based upon the Decalogue, shorn though it was of all -present pleasantness and ease, had a promise about it that was lacking -to a culture, ‘learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.’ It was life -reduced to its elements; Sinai and Pisgah stood so far apart, and such -long level stretches of dull sand lay between the heights. One imagines -the women, skilled like their men-folk in all manner of cunning -workmanship, eagerly, generously ransacking their stores of purple and -fine linen to decorate the Tabernacle, and spinning and embroidering -with a desperately delighted sense of recovered refinements, which, as -much perhaps as their fervour of religious enthusiasm, led them to bring -their<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_150" id="page_150"></a>{150}</span> gifts till restrained ‘from bringing.’ The trust was accepted -though in the wilderness, but grudgingly, with many a faint-hearted -protest, and to some minds, in some moods, slavery must have seemed less -insistent in its demands than trusteeship.</p> - -<p>The conquest of Canaan was the next experience, and as sinfulness and -idolatry were relentlessly washed away in rivers of blood, one doubts if -the impressionable descendants of Jacob, to whom it was given to -overcome, might not perchance have preferred to endure. But such choice -was not given to them; the trust had to be realised before it could be -transmitted, and its value tested by its cost. With Palestine at last in -possession of the chosen people, this civilisation of which they were -the guardians by slow degrees became manifest. Samuel lived it, and -David sang it, and Isaiah preached it, and the nation clung to it, -individual men and women, stumbling and failing often, but dying each, -when need came, a hundred deaths in its defence; perhaps finding it on -occasion less difficult to die for an idea than to live up to it.</p> - -<p>The securities were shifted, the terms of the trusteeship changed when -the people of the Land became the people of the Book. The civilisation -which they guarded grew narrower in its issues and more limited in its -outlook, till, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_151" id="page_151"></a>{151}</span> the years rolled into the centuries, it was hard to -recognise the ‘witnesses’ of God in the hunted outcasts of man. Yet to -the student of history, who reads the hieroglyph of the Egyptian into -the postcard of to-day, it is not difficult to see the civilisation of -Sinai shining under the folds of the gaberdine or of the <i>san benito</i>. -It was taught in the schools and it was lived in the homes, and the -Ghetto could not altogether degrade it, nor the Holy Office effectually -disguise it. Jews sank sometimes to the lower level of the sad lives -they led, but Judaism remained unconquerably buoyant. Judaism, as they -believed in it, was a Personal Force making for righteousness, a Law -which knew no change, the Promise of a period when the earth should be -filled with the knowledge of the Lord; and the ‘witnesses’ stuck to this -their trust, through good repute and through evil repute, with a simple -doggedness which disarms all superficial criticism. The glamour of the -cause, through which a Barcochba could loom heroic to an Akiba, the -utter absence of self-consciousness or of self-seeking, which made Judas -in his fight for freedom pin the Lord’s name on his flag, and which, -with the kingdom lost, made the scrolls of the Law the spoil with which -Ben Zaccai retreated—this was at the root of the national idea, and its -impersonality gives the secret of its strength,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_152" id="page_152"></a>{152}</span> ‘Not unto us, O Lord, -not unto us, but unto Thy name!’ This vivid sense of being the trustees -of civilisation was wholly dissociated from any feeling of conceit -either in the leaders or in the rank and file of the Jewish nation. It -is curious indeed to realise how so intense a conviction of the survival -of the fittest could be held in so intensely unmodernised a spirit.</p> - -<p>The idea of their trusteeship was a sheet anchor to the Jews as the -waves and the billows passed over them. In the fifteen hundred years’ -tragedy of their history there have been no <i>entr’actes</i> of frenzied -stampede or of revolutionary, revengeful conspiracy. A resolute -endurance, which, characteristically enough, rarely approaches -asceticism, marks the depth and strength and buoyancy of the national -idea. Trustees of civilisation might not sigh nor sing in solitudes; nor -with the feeling so keen that ‘a thousand years in Thy sight are but as -a day,’ was it worth while to plot or plan against the oppressors of the -moment. Time was on their side, and ‘that which shapes it to some -perfect end.’ And this attitude explains, possibly, some unattractive -phases of it, since however honestly the individual consciousness may be -absorbed in a national conscience, yet the individual will generally, in -some way, manage to express himself, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_153" id="page_153"></a>{153}</span> the self is not always quite -up to the ideal, nor indeed is it always in harmony with those who would -interpret it. When a David dances before the Ark it needs other than a -daughter of Saul to understand him. There have been Jews in David’s -case, their enthusiasm mocked at; and there have been Jews indifferent -to their trust, and Jews who have betrayed it, and Jews too, and these -not a few, who have pushed it into prominence with undue display. The -infinite changes of circumstance and surrounding in Jewish fortunes no -less than differences in individual character have induced a -considerable divergence in the practical politics of the national idea. -The persecuted have been exclusive over it, and the prosperous careless; -it has been vulgarised by superstition, and ignored by indifferentism, -till modern ‘rational’ thinkers now and again question whether Palestine -be indeed the goal of Jewish separateness, and make it a matter for -academic discussion whether ‘Jews’ mean a sect of cosmopolitan citizens -with religious customs more or less in common, or a people whose -religion has a national origin and a national purpose in its -observances. With questioners such as these, Revelation, possibly, would -not be admitted as sound evidence in reply, else the promise, ‘Ye shall -be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation,’ would,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_154" id="page_154"></a>{154}</span> one might -think, show a design that ritual by itself does not fulfil. It was no -sect with ‘tribal’ customs, but a ‘nation’ and a ‘kingdom’ who were to -be ‘holy to the Lord.’ But though texts may be inadmissible with those -who prefer their sermons in stones, yet the records of the ages are -little less impartial and unimpassioned than the records of the rocks, -and doubters might find an answer in the insistent tones of history when -she tells of the results of occasional unnatural divorce between -religion and nationality among Jews.</p> - -<p>There were times not a few, whilst their own judges ruled, and whilst -their own kings reigned in Palestine, when, with a firm grip on the -land, but a loose hold on the law, Israel was well-nigh lost and -absorbed in the idolatrous peoples by whom it was surrounded; when the -race, which was ceasing to worship at the national altars, was in danger -of ceasing to exist as a nation. Exile taught them to value by loss what -was possession. ‘How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?’ -was the passionate cry in Babylon. Was it perchance the feeling that the -land was ‘strange,’ which gave that new fervour to the songs, choking -off utterance and finding adequate expression only in the Return? Did -Judas, the Maccabee, understand something of this as he led his -patriotic, ‘zealous’ troops to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_155" id="page_155"></a>{155}</span> victory? Did Mendelssohn forget it when, -nineteen hundred years later, he emancipated his people from the results -of worse than Syrian oppression, at the cost of so many, his own -children among the rest, shaking off memories and duties as lightly as -they shook off restraints? Over and over again, in the wonderful history -of the Jews, does religion without nationality prove itself as -impossible as nationality without religion to serve for a sustaining -force in Judaism. The people who, while ‘the city of palm-trees’ was yet -their own, could set up strange gods in the groves, were not one whit -more false to their faith, nor more harmful to their people, than those -later representatives of the opposite type, Hellenists, as history calls -them, who built a temple, and read the law and observed the precepts, -whilst their very priests changed their good Jewish names for -Greek-sounding ones in contemptuous and contemptible depreciation of -their Jewish nationality. One inclines, perhaps, to accentuate the facts -of history and to moralise over the might-have-beens where these fit -into a theory; but so much as this at least seems indisputable—that -those who would dissociate the national from the religious, or the -religious from the national element in Judaism attempt the impossible. -The ideal of the Jews must always be ‘from Zion shall come forth -instruction, and the Word<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_156" id="page_156"></a>{156}</span> of God from Jerusalem’; and to this -end—‘that all people of the earth may know Thy name, as do thy people -Israel.’ This is the goal of Jewish separateness. The separateness may -have been part of the Divine plan, as distinctive practices and customs -are due in the first place to the Divine command; but they are also and -none the less a means of strengthening the national character of the -Jews. Jewish religion neither ‘happens’ to have a national origin, nor -does Jewish nationality ‘happen’ to have religious customs. The Jewish -nation has become a nation and has been preserved as a nation for the -distinct purpose of religion. This, as we read it, is the lesson of -history. And this too is its consolation. The faithful few who see the -fulfilment of history and of prophecy in a restored and localised -nationality—a Jerusalem reinstated as the joy of the whole earth; the -careless many who, in comfortable complacency, are well content to await -it indefinitely, in dispersion; the loyal many, who believe that a -political restoration would be a retrogressive step, narrowing and -embarrassing the wider issues; the children of light and the children of -the world, the spiritual and the <i>spirituel</i> element in Israel, alike, -if unequally, have each their share in spreading the civilisation of -Sinai, as surely as ‘fire and hail and snow and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_157" id="page_157"></a>{157}</span> mist and stormy wind’ -all ‘fulfil His word.’ The seed that was sown in the sands of the desert -has germinated through the ages, and its fruition is foretold. The -promise to the Patriarch, ‘I will make of thee a great nation,’ -foreshadowed that his descendants were to be trustees, ‘through them -shall all families of the earth be blessed.’ There are those who would -read into this national idea a taint of arrogance or of exclusiveness, -as there are some scientifically-minded folks, a trifle slow perhaps, to -apply their own favoured dogma of evolution, who can see in the Exodus -only a capriciously selected band of slaves, led forth to serve a tribal -deity. But the history of the Jews, which is inseparable from the -religion of the Jews, rebukes those who would thus halt mid-way and -stumble over the evidences. It lifts the veil, it flashes the light on -dark places, it unriddles the weary puzzle of the travailing ages, -leaving only indifferentism unsolvable, as it shows clear how the Lord, -the Spirit of all flesh, the universal Father, brought Israel out of -Egypt and gave them name and place to be His witnesses, and the means He -chose whereby ‘all families of the earth should be blessed.’<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_158" id="page_158"></a>{158}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="THE_STORY_OF_A_FALSE_PROPHET" id="THE_STORY_OF_A_FALSE_PROPHET"></a>THE STORY OF A FALSE PROPHET</h2> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Each</span> age has its illusions—illusions which succeeding ages with a -recovered sense of sanity are often apt to record as the most -incomprehensible of crazes. ‘That poor will-o’-the-wisp mistaken for a -shining light! Oh, purblind race of miserable men!’ is the quick, -contemptuous comment of a later, clearer-sighted generation. But one may -question if such comment be always just. May not the narrow vision, too -unseeing to be deceived, betoken a yet more hopeless sort of blindness -than the wide-eyed gaze which, fixed on stars, blunders into quagmires? -‘Where there is no vision,’ it is written, ‘the people perish’; and -though stars may prove mirage and quagmires clinging mud, yet a long -rank of shabby, shadowy heroes, who, more or less wittingly, have had -the hard fate to lead a multitude to destruction, seems to suggest that -such deluded multitudes are no dumb, driven cattle, but, capable of -being led astray, have also the faculty of being led into the light. And -if this, to our consolation, be the teaching of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_159" id="page_159"></a>{159}</span> history anent those -whom it impartially dubs impostors, then wasted loves and wasted beliefs -lose something of their hopeless sadness, and in the transfiguration -even failures and false prophets are seen to have a place and use.</p> - -<p>No more typical instance could be found of the heights and depths of a -people’s power of illusion—and that people one which in its modern -development might be lightly held proof against most illusions—than the -suggestive career of a Messiah of the seventeenth century supplies to -us. Undying hope, it has been said, is the secret of vision. When hope -is dead the vision perchance takes unto itself the awful condition of -death, corruption, for thus only could it have come to pass that that -same people, which had given an Isaiah to the world, under the stress of -inexorable and inevitable circumstance brought forth a Sabbathai Zevi.</p> - -<p>‘Of all mortal woes,’ so declared the weeping Persian to Thersander at -the banquet, ‘the greatest is this: with many thoughts and wise, to have -no power.’ Under the crushing burden of that mortal woe the Jewish race -had rested restlessly for over sixteen weary centuries. Power had passed -from the dispossessed people with the fall of their garrisoned Temple, -and under dispersion and persecution their ‘many thoughts and wise’<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_160" id="page_160"></a>{160}</span> had -grown dumb, or shrill, or cruelly inarticulate. The kingdom of priests -and the kinsmen of the Maccabees had dwindled to a community of pedants -and pedlars. Into the schools of the prophets had crept the casuistries -and subtleties of the Kabbalists; and descendants of those who had been -skilful in all manner of workmanship now haggled over wares which they -lacked skill or energy to produce. East and west the doom of Herodotus -was drearily apparent, and to an onlooker it must have seemed incredible -that these poor pariahs, content to be contemned, were of the same race -which had sung the Lord’s songs and had fought the Lord’s battles. In -the seventeenth century the fires of the Inquisition were still -smouldering, and Jewish victims of the Holy Office, naked and charred, -or swathed and unrecognisable, were fleeing hither and thither from its -flames, across the inhospitable continent of Europe. Nearer to the old -scenes was no nearer to happiness; the farthest removed indeed from any -present realisation of ancient prosperity seemed those wanderers who had -turned their tired, sad faces to the East. The land on which Moses had -looked from Pisgah; for which, remembering Zion, the exiles in Babylon -had wept; for which a later generation, as unaided as undaunted, had -fought and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_161" id="page_161"></a>{161}</span> died—this land, their heritage, had passed utterly from the -possession of the Jews. ‘Thou waterest its ridges: Thou settlest the -furrows thereof.’ Seemingly out of that ownership too the land had -passed, for His ridges had run red with blood, and in His furrows the -Romans had sown salt. From the very first century after Christ, Jews had -been grudged a foothold in Judæa, and from the date of the Crusades any -dwelling-place in their own land was definitely denied to the outcast -race. A new meaning had been read into that ancient phrase, ‘the joy of -the whole earth.’ The Holy City had come, in cruel, narrow limitation, -to mean to its conquerors the Holy Sepulchre, all other of its memories -‘but a dream and a forgetting.’ And now, although the fervour of the -Crusades had died away, and the stone stood at the mouth of the -Sepulchre as undisturbed and almost as unheeded of the outside world as -when the two Marys kept their lonely vigil, yet enough still of all that -terribly wasted wealth of enthusiasm survived to make the Holy Land -difficult even of approach to its former rulers. Through all those -centuries, for over sixteen hundred slow, sad, stormy years, this -powerless people had borne their weary burden, ‘the greatest of all -mortal woes.’ Occasionally, for a moment as it were, the passions of -repulsed patriotism<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_162" id="page_162"></a>{162}</span> and of pent-up humanity would break bounds, and -seek expression in a form which scholars could scarce interpret or -priests control. With their law grudged to them and their land denied, -‘their many thoughts and wise,’ under cruel restraint, were dwindling -into impotent dreams or flashing out in wild unlikeness of wisdom.</p> - -<p>It was in the summer of the year 1666 that some such incomprehensible -craze seemed to possess the ancient city of Smyrna. The sleepy stillness -of the narrow streets was jarred by a thousand confused and unaccustomed -sounds. The slow, smooth current of Eastern life seemed of a sudden -stirred into a whirl of excited eddies. Men and women in swift-changing -groups were sobbing, praying, laughing in a breath, their quick -gesticulations in curious contrast with their sober, shabby garments, -and their patient, pathetic eyes. And strangest thing of all, it was on -a prophet in his own country, in the very city of his birth, that this -extraordinary enthusiasm of greeting was being expended, and the name of -the prophet was Sabbathai, son of Mordecai. Mordecai Zevi, the father, -had dwelt among these townsfolk of Smyrna, dealing in money and dying of -gout, and Sabbathai Zevi, the son, had been brought up among them, and -not so many years since had been banished by<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_163" id="page_163"></a>{163}</span> them. In that passionately -absorbed crowd there must have been many a middle-aged man old enough to -remember how this turbulent son of the commonplace old broker had been -sent forth from the city, and the gates shut on him in anger and -contempt; and some there surely must have been who knew of his -subsequent career. But if it were so, there were none sane enough to -deduce a moral. It was in the character of Messiah and Deliverer that -Sabbathai had come back to Smyrna, and long-dead hope, quickened into -life at the very words, was strong enough to strangle a whole host of -resistant memories, though, in truth, there was a great deal to forget. -It had been at the instance of the religious authorities of the place, -whose susceptibilities were shocked by the utterance of opinions -advanced enough to provoke a tumult in the synagogue, that the young man -had been expelled from the city. To young and ardent spirits in that -crowd it is possible that this early experience of Sabbathai bore a very -colourable imitation of martyrdom, and the life in exile that followed -it may have appealed to their imaginations as the most fitting of -preparations for a prophet. But then unfortunately Sabbathai’s life in -exile had not been that of a hermit, nor altogether of a sort to fit -into any exalted theories. Authentic<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_164" id="page_164"></a>{164}</span> news had certainly come of him as -a traveller in the Morea and in Syria, and rumours had been rife -concerning travelling companions. Three successive marriages, it was -said, had taken place, followed in each instance by unedifying quarrels -and divorce. Of the ladies little was known; but it came to be generally -affirmed, on what, if sifted, perhaps amounted to insufficient evidence, -that each wife was more marvellously handsome than her predecessor. And -then, for a while, these lingering distorted sounds from the outside -world had died out in the sordid stillness of their lives, to rise again -suddenly, after long interval, in startling echoes. The wildest of -rumours was all at once in the air, heralding this much-married, -banished disputant of the synagogue, this turbulent, troublesome -Sabbathai, as Messiah of the Jews. What he had done, what he would do, -what he could do, was repeated from mouth to mouth with an ever-growing -exactness of exaggeration which modern methods of transmitting news -could hardly surpass. One soberly circumstantial tale was of a ship -cruising off the north coast of Scotland (of all places in the world!), -with sail and cordage of purest silk, her ensign the Twelve Tribes, and -her crew, consistently enough, speaking Hebrew. A larger and certainly -more geographically<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_165" id="page_165"></a>{165}</span> minded contingent of converts was said to be -marching across the deserts of Arabia to proclaim the millennium. This -host was identified as the lost Ten Tribes, and Sabbathai, mounted on a -celestial lion with a bridle of serpents, was, or was shortly to be—for -the reports were sometimes a little conflicting—at the head of this -imposing multitude, and about to inaugurate a new and glorious Temple, -which, all ready built and beautified, would straightway descend from -heaven, and in which the services were likely to become popular, since -all fasts were forthwith to be changed into festivals.</p> - -<p>The rumours, it must be confessed, were all of a terribly materialistic -sort, and one wonders somewhat sadly over Sabbathai’s proclamation, -questioning if the promise of ‘dominion over the nations,’ or the -permission ‘to do every day what is usual for you to do only on new -moons,’ roused most of the long-repressed human nature in those weary -pariahs, the ‘nation of the Jews,’ to whom it was roundly addressed. All -the cities of Turkey, an old chronicler tells us, ‘were full of -expectation.’ Business in many places was altogether suspended. The -belief in a reign of miracle was extended to daily needs, and trust in -such needs being somehow supplied was esteemed as an essential test of -general faith in the new<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_166" id="page_166"></a>{166}</span> order of things. So none laboured, but all -prayed, and purified themselves, and performed strange penances. The -rich people grew profuse and penitent, and poverty, always honourable -among Jews, came in those strange days to be fashionable.</p> - -<p>And now, so heralded, and in truth so advertised, for what a -bill-posting agency would do for similar worthies in this generation a -certain Nathan Benjamin of Jerusalem seems to have done in clumsier -fashion for Sabbathai, their hero was among them. Nathan, it is to be -feared, was less of a convert than a colleague of our prophet, but to -tear-dimmed eyes which saw visions, to starved hearts which by reason of -sorrow judged in hunger and in weakness, prophet and partner both loomed -heroic. It is curious, when one thinks of it, that the same race which -had been critical over a Moses should have been credulous over a -Sabbathai Zevi. Is it a possible explanation that the art of making -bricks without straw, however difficult of acquirement, being at any -rate of the nature of healthy, outdoor employment, was less depressing -in its results on character than the cumulative effect of centuries of -Ghetto-bounded toil? Something, too, may be allowed for the fact that -the Promised Land lay then in prospect and now in retrospect. -Altogether, perhaps, it may be<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_167" id="page_167"></a>{167}</span> urged in this instance that the idol -does not quite give an accurate measure of the worshipper. A Deliverer -was at their doors, a Deliverer from worse than Egyptian bondage; that -was all that this poor deluded people could stop to think, and out they -rushed in ludicrous, reverent welcome of a light that was not dawn. With -a fine appreciation of effect, Sabbathai gently put aside the rich -embroidered cloths that were spread beneath his feet; and this subtle -indication of humility, and of a desire to tread the dusty paths with -his brethren, gained him many a wavering adherent. For there were -waverers. Even amidst all the enthusiasm, there was now and then an -awkward question asked, for these shabby traders of Smyrna were all of -them more or less learned in the Law and the Prophets, and though their -tired hearts could accept this blustering, unideal presentment of the -Prince of Peace, yet their minds and memories made occasional protest -concerning dates and circumstances. And presently one Samuel Pennia, a -man of some local reputation, took heart of grace, and preached and -proclaimed with a hundred most obvious arguments that Sabbathai had no -smallest claim to the titles he was arrogantly assuming. Law and logic -too were on Pennia’s side; and yet, strange and incomprehensible as it -seems to sober retrospect,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_168" id="page_168"></a>{168}</span> he failed to convince even himself. After -discussions innumerable and of the stormiest sort, Pennia began to doubt -and to hesitate, and finally he and all his family became strenuous and, -there is no reason to doubt, honest supporters of Sabbathai. Still the -tumults which had been provoked, though they could not rouse the -multitude to a doubt of their Deliverer, did awake in them a desire that -he should deign to demonstrate his power to unbelievers, and a cry, -comic or pathetic as we take it, broke forth for a miracle—a -simultaneous prayer for something, anything, supernatural. It was -embarrassing; and Sabbathai, one old chronicler gravely remarks, was -‘horribly puzzled for a miracle.’ But in a moment the cynical humour of -the man came to his help, and where the true prophet, in honest -humility, might have hesitated, with ‘Lord, I cannot speak; I am a -child,’ on his lips, our charlatan was ready and self-possessed and -equal to the occasion. With solemn gait and rapt gaze, which, as a -contemporary record expresses it, he had ‘starcht on,’ Sabbathai stood -for some seconds silent; then, suddenly throwing up his hands to heaven, -‘Behold!’ he exclaimed in thrilling accents, ‘see you not yon pillar of -fire?’ And the expectant crowd turned, and in their eager, almost -hysterical, excitement many believed they<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_169" id="page_169"></a>{169}</span> saw, and many, who did not -see, doubted their sight and not the vision. Those who looked and looked -in vain were silent, hardly daring to own that to their unworthy eyes -the blessed assurance had been denied. So Sabbathai returned to his home -in triumph. No further miracles were asked or needed, and doubters in -his Messiahship were henceforth accounted by the synagogue as heretics -and infidels and fit subjects for excommunication. In his character of -prophet no religious ceremonial was henceforth considered complete -without the presence of Sabbathai, and in his character of prince and -leader unlimited wealth was at his command. Here, however, came in the -one redeeming point. Sabbathai’s ambition had no taint of avarice about -it. He took of no man’s gold and of no woman’s jewels, though both were -laid unstintingly at his feet. And then, suddenly, at this period of his -greatest success, subtly appreciating, it may be, the wisdom of taking -fortune at the flood, Sabbathai announced his intention of leaving -Smyrna, and the month of January, 1667, saw him embark in a small -coasting-vessel bound for Constantinople. Here a reception altogether -unexpected and unprophesied was awaiting him. There had been great -weeping and lamentation among the disciples he left, and there was -proportionately great rejoicing<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_170" id="page_170"></a>{170}</span> among the larger community his presence -was to favour, for, by virtue of the curious system of -intercommunication which has always prevailed among the dispersed race, -the news of Sabbathai’s movements and intentions spread quickly and in -ever-widening circles. It reached at length some ears which had not been -reckoned upon, and penetrated to a brain which had preserved its -balance. The Sultan of Turkey, Mahomet IV., heard of this expected -visitor to his capital, and when, after nine-and-thirty days of stormy -passage, the sea-sick prophet was entering the port, the first thing he -saw was two State barges, fully manned, putting out to meet him. It may -be hoped that he was too sea-sick to indulge in any audible predictions, -or to put in sonorous words any bright dream born of that brief glimpse -of a brother potentate hastening to greet his spiritual sovereign. For -any such prophecy would have been all too rudely and too quickly -falsified. It was as prisoner, not as prophet, that Sabbathai was to -enter Constantinople, and a dungeon, not a palace, was his destination. -The Sultan had indeed heard of the worse than mid-summer madness that -had seized on his Jewish subjects throughout the Turkish Empire, and he -proceeded to stay the plague with a prompt high-handedness which<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_171" id="page_171"></a>{171}</span> a -Grand Vizier out of <i>The Arabian Nights</i> could hardly have excelled. For -two long months Sabbathai was kept a close prisoner in uncomfortable -quarters in Constantinople, and was from thence transferred to a cell in -the Castle of Abydos. Of the effects of this imperial reception on the -prophet himself we shall judge in the sequel, but its effects on his -followers were, strange to say, not at all depressing. To these faithful -deluded folks their hero behind prison bars gained only a halo of -martyrdom. Was it not fitting that the Servant of Israel should be -‘acquainted with grief’? The dangerous sentiment of pity added itself to -the passion of love and faith, and pilgrims from all parts—Poland, -Venice, Amsterdam—hurried to the city as if it were a shrine. Sabbathai -took up the <i>rôle</i>, and by gentle proclamation bestowed the blessings -and the promises which had been hitherto showered down in set speeches. -And so the madness grew, till a sordid element crept into it, and at -first, curiously enough, this also increased it. In the crowd, thus -attracted to the neighbourhood, the Turks saw an opportunity for making -money. The price of lodging and provision for the pilgrims was -constantly raised, and by degrees a sight of Sabbathai or a word from -him came to be quite a source of income to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_172" id="page_172"></a>{172}</span> his guards. The necessary -element of secrecy about such transactions acted, both directly and -indirectly, as fuel to the flames. The Jews in the spread of the faith -and in their immunity from persecution saw Divine interposition, while -the Turks naturally favoured Sabbathai’s pretensions, and continued to -raise their prices to each new batch of believers. But complaints were -bound in time to reach headquarters. The overcrowding and excitement was -a danger to the Turkish inhabitants of Constantinople, and among the -Jews themselves Sabbathai’s success begat at length a more disturbing -element than doubt. A rival Messiah came forward in a certain Nehemiah -Cohen, a learned rabbi from Poland. A sort of twin Messiahship seems -first to have suggested itself to these worthies. Nehemiah, under the -title of Ben Ephraim, was to fulfil the probationary part of the -prophecies on the subject, and Sabbathai, as Ben David, to take the -triumphant close and climax. So much was agreed upon, when Sabbathai, -who was still a prisoner, became a little apprehensive of a possible -change of parts by Nehemiah, who was at large. Disputes ensued, and -ended in an appeal by Sabbathai to the community. A renewed vote of -confidence in their native hero was recorded, and Nehemiah<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_173" id="page_173"></a>{173}</span>’s claims to -a partnership were altogether and summarily rejected. His own -pretensions thus disallowed, Nehemiah at once turned round and hastened -to denounce the insincerity of the whole affair to such of the Turkish -officials as would listen to him. He was backed up by a very few of the -wise men of his own community who had managed to keep their honest -doubts in spite of the general madness; and presently by much effort a -messenger was despatched to Adrianople, where Mahomet IV. was holding -his Court, with full particulars of Sabbathai’s latest doings. The -Sultan listened to the story, and was literally and ludicrously true to -the strictest traditional ideal of what one may call the sack and -bowstring system, and there is no doubt that, in this instance, -substantial justice was secured by it.</p> - -<p>Without excuse or ceremonial of any sort, without farewell from the -friends he left or greetings from the curious throng which awaited him, -Sabbathai was hurried into Adrianople, and within an hour of his -arrival, deposited, limp and apprehensive, in the presence-chamber. The -giant’s robe seemed to be slipping visibly from his shaking shoulders -as, sternly desired to give an account of himself, he, the glib -cosmopolitan prophet, begged for an interpreter. Without comment<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_174" id="page_174"></a>{174}</span> on -this sudden and surprising failure in the gift of tongues the request -was granted; and patiently, silently, Court and Sultan stroked their -beards and listened to the marvellous tale which was unfolded. Were they -doubtful, or convinced? Was he after all to triumph? It almost seemed so -as the story ended, and the expectant hush was broken by the Sultan -quietly requesting a miracle. Wild thoughts of a lucky stroke of -legerdemain, which should recover all, must have instantly occurred to -this other-world adventurer. But no audaciously summoned pillar of fire -would here have served his turn; the astute Sultan meant to choose his -own miracle.</p> - -<p>‘Thou shalt not be afraid ... of the arrow that flieth by day. A -thousand shall fall at thy side and ten thousand at thy right hand, but -it shall not come nigh unto thee.’ In the most literal and most liberal -meaning the pseudo-prophet was requested to interpret these words of his -national poet. He was to strip, said the Sultan, and to let the archers -shoot at him, and thus make manifest in his own flesh his confidence in -his own assumptions.</p> - -<p>Not for one moment did Sabbathai hesitate. A man’s behaviour at a -supreme crisis in his life is not determined by the sudden need. It is -not to a single, sudden trumpet-call<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_175" id="page_175"></a>{175}</span> that character responds, but to -the tone set by daily uncounted matin and evensong. Sabbathai was as -incapable of the heroic death as of the heroic life. It had been all a -game to him; the people’s passionate enthusiasm, that pitiful power of -theirs for seeing visions, were just points in the game—points in his -favour. And now the game was lost; he was cool enough to realise this at -a glance, and to seize upon the one move which he might yet make to his -own advantage. With a startling burst of calculated candour he owned to -it all, that he was no prophet, no Saviour, no willing ‘witness’ even; -only a historical Jew, and very much at the Sultan’s service.</p> - -<p>Mahomet smiled. The tragedy of the situation was for the Jews; the -comedy, and it must have been irresistible, was his. Then after due -pause he gravely proceeded, that insomuch as Sabbathai’s pretensions to -Palestine were an infringement on Turkish vested rights in that -province, the repentant prophet must give an earnest of his recovered -loyalty as a Turkish subject by turning Turk and abjuring Judaism -altogether. And cheerfully enough Sabbathai assented, audaciously adding -that such a change had been long desired by him, and that he eagerly and -respectfully welcomed this opportunity of making<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_176" id="page_176"></a>{176}</span> his first profession -of faith as a Mahometan in the presence of Mahomet’s namesake and -temporal representative.</p> - -<p>And thus the scene, at which one knows not whether to laugh or cry, was -over; and when the curtain rises again it is on the merest and most -exasperating commonplace—on Sabbathai, fat and turbaned, living and -dying as a respectable Turk. For the actors behind the scenes, there was -never any call, neither to hail a Saviour nor to mourn a martyr. For -them, this puzzling bit of passion-play was just a mirage in the -wilderness of their lives; and for many and many a weary year foolish -and faithful folk debated whether it was mirage or reality. For his -dupes survived him, this sorry impostor of the seventeenth century; and -their illusion, hoping all things, believing all things, withered into -delusion and died hard. Such faculty perhaps, for all its drawbacks, -gives staying-power to man or nation. It is where there is no vision -that the people perish.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_177" id="page_177"></a>{177}</span></p> - -<h2><a name="NOW_AND_THEN" id="NOW_AND_THEN"></a>NOW AND THEN<br /><br /> -<small>A COMPOSITE SKETCH</small></h2> - -<p class="nind">‘<span class="smcap">The</span> old order changeth, giving place to new,’ and many and bewildering -have been such changes since the daughters of Zelophehad trooped down -before the elders of Israel to plead for women’s rights. The claim of -those five fatherless, husbandless sisters to ‘have a possession among -the brethren of our father’ has been brought, and has been answered -since in a thousand different ways, but the chivalrous spirit in which -it was met then seems, in a subtle sort of way, to symbolise the -attitude of Israel to unprotected womanhood, and to suggest the type of -character which ensured such ready and respectful consideration. It is -curious and interesting in these modern days to take up what Heine -called the ‘family chronicle of the Jews,’ and to find, as in a long -gallery of family portraits, the type repeating itself through every -variety of ‘treatment’ and costume. Clear and distinct they stand out, -the long line of our<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_178" id="page_178"></a>{178}</span> Jewish maids and matrons, not ‘faultily faultless’ -by any means, yet presenting in their vigorous lovableness a delightful -continuity of wholesome womanhood, an unbroken line of fit claimants for -fitting woman’s rights.</p> - -<p>Foremost among all heroines of all love tales comes, of course, she -whose long wooing seemed ‘but as a few days’ to her young lover, so -strong and so steadfast was the worship she won. To the young, that -maiden ‘by the well’s mouth’ will stand always for favourite text and -familiar illustration, but to older folks the sad-eyed <i>mater dolorosa</i> -of the Old Testament is to the full as interesting and as suggestive an -ideal. One pictures her with sackcloth for sole couch and covering -spread upon the bare rocks, selfless and tireless, through the heat of -early harvest days till chill autumn rains ‘dropped upon them,’ scaring -‘the birds of the air and the beasts of the field’ from her unburied -dead. And then, as corrective to the pathos of Rizpah and the romance of -Rachel, the sweet, homely figure of Ruth is at hand to suggest a whole -volume of virtues of the comfortable, everyday sort; the one character, -perhaps, in all story who ever addressed an impassioned outburst of -affection to her mother-in-law, and then lived up to it. But the -solitariness of the circumstance notwithstanding, and for all the fact<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_179" id="page_179"></a>{179}</span> -that she was a Moabitess born, Ruth, in the practical nature of her good -qualities, is a typical Jewish heroine. For what strikes one most in the -record of these long ago dead women is that there is so much sense in -their sentiment, so much backbone to their gentleness and -simple-mindedness. They do little things in a great way instead of -attacking great things feebly. Their womanhood in its entire naturalness -belongs to no especial school, fits in to no especial groove of thought. -The same peg serves for a Solomon or a Wordsworth, for an aphorism or a -sonnet. The woman whose ‘price was above rubies,’ and she who was</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i5">‘Not too great or good<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For human nature’s daily food,’<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">might either have stood for the other’s likeness; and if the test of -poetry be, as Goethe says, the substance which remains when the poetry -is reduced to prose, the test of an ideal woman may be perhaps how she -would translate into reality. The ‘family chronicle’ stands the test, -and a dozen instances of it at once occur to memory. Michal, with her -husband in danger, does not wait to weep nor to exclaim, but, strong of -heart as of hand, helps him to escape, and, ready of resource, by her -quick, deft arrangement of the bedchamber,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_180" id="page_180"></a>{180}</span> gains time to baffle his -pursuers. Hannah, for all her holy enthusiasm, is mindful of the bodily -needs of her embryo prophet, and as she comes with her husband to offer -the ‘yearly sacrifice’ at Shiloh, brings with her the ‘little coat’ -which she has made for the boy, and which, we may be quite sure, she has -remembered to make a little bigger each time. Nor less, in her -far-sighted scheming for her favourite son, is Rebekah heedless of -‘human nature’s daily food.’ For all her concentration of thought on -great issues she remembers to make ready ‘the savoury meat such as his -father loved’ before she sends Jacob to the critical interview. It is -altogether with something of a shock that we ponder on that curious -development. The scheming, unscrupulous wife seems quite other than the -simple country maiden with her quick assent to the grave young husband -whom she was able to ‘comfort after his mother’s death.’ Was that -pretty, frank ‘I will go’ of hers only unconventional, one wonders, or -perhaps just a trifle unfeeling, foreshadowing in the young girl, so -ready to leave her home, a rather rootless state of affections, an -Undine-like indifference to old ties? That touch of the carefully -prepared dinner at any rate makes us smile as we sigh, putting us <i>fin -de siècle</i> folks, as it does, in touch with tent life, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_181" id="page_181"></a>{181}</span> keeping the -traditions of home influence unaltered through the ages.</p> - -<p>In Lord Burleigh’s <i>Precepts to his Son for the Well-Ordering of a Mans -Life</i>, occurs the direction, ‘Thou wilt find to thy great grief there is -nothing more fulsome than a she-fool.’ It is an axiom almost as pregnant -of meaning as its author’s famous nod, and seems to suggest as possible -that the proverbial harmony of the Jewish domestic circle may be in a -measure due to its comparative immunity from she-fools. The women of -Israel, <i>pur sang</i>, it is certain, are rarely noisy or assertive, and -have at all times been more ready to realise their responsibilities than -their ‘rights.’ In their woman’s kingdom, comprehending its limits and -not wasting its opportunities, they have been content to reign and not -to govern, and neither exceptional power nor exceptional intellect have -affected this position. The pretty young Queen of Persia, we read, for -all her new dignities, ‘did the commandment of Mordecai as when she was -brought up with him,’ and Miriam with her timbrel and Deborah under her -palm-tree might have been unconscious illustrative anachronisms of a -very profound saying, so well content were they to ‘make their country’s -songs’ and to leave it to Moses to ‘make the laws.’ The one-man rule has -been always fully and freely<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_182" id="page_182"></a>{182}</span> acknowledged in Israel, and in the ideal -sketch as in the real portraits of its womankind, her ‘husband,’ her -‘children,’ her ‘clothing,’ and the ‘ways of her household’ are supreme -features. ‘To do a man,’ one man, ‘good and not evil all the days of his -life,’ may seem to modern maidens a somewhat limited ambition, but it is -just to remember that to this typical woman comes full permission to -indulge in her ‘own works’ and encouragement ‘to speak with merchants -from afar,’ a habit this, one ventures to think, which would open up -even to Girton and Newnham graduates extended powers of conversation and -correspondence in their own and foreign languages. And, withal, that -pretty saying of an elderly and prosaic Rabbi, ‘I do not call my wife, -wife, but home,’ has poetry and practicality too, to recommend it. For -in so far as there is truth in the dictum, that ‘men will be always what -women please, that if we want men to be great and good, we must teach -women what greatness and goodness are,’ there really seems a good deal -to be said for the old-fashioned type we have been considering, and -certainly some comfort to be found in the fact that against the <i>ewig -weibliche</i> time itself is powerless. Realities may shift and vary, but -ideals for the most part stand fast, and thus, despite all<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_183" id="page_183"></a>{183}</span> superficial -differences, in essentials the situation is unchanged between those -daughters of the desert and our daughters of to-day. Now, as then, the -claim is allowed to a rightful ‘possession among their brethren.’</p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="c">Printed by T. and A. <span class="smcap">Constable</span>, Printers to Her Majesty<br /> -at the Edinburgh -University Press</p> - -<div class="footnotes"><p class="cb">FOOTNOTES:</p> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Talmud, Yoma 356.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> The extracts marked thus (1) were done into verse from the -German of Geiger, by the late Amy Levy.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> From Atonement Service.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Hebrew for Toledo.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Alcharisi.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> E. B. Browning.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> No authority gives it later than 1140.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Rabbi Seira.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> ‘The Lord God doth like a printer who setteth the letters -backward; we see and feel well His setting, but the print we shall see -yonder in the life to come.’—Luther’s <i>Table Talk</i>.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Gütle Rothschild, née Schnapper, died May 7, 1849. Her -eldest son, Amschel Meyer Rothschild, was born June 12, 1773, died -December 6, 1855.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Written in 1882.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> The translation is by the late Amy Levy.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Messrs. Campe and Hoffmann erected their new offices -during the publication (not too well paid) of the poet’s works.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Matthew Arnold, <i>Heinrich Heine</i>.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> The Exhibition of 1855.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Written in 1882.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Short declaration of belief in Unity (Deut. vi. 4).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> ‘Old Pictures from Florence.’</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> <i>On Heroes</i>: Lect. vi., ‘The Hero as King,’ p. 342.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> <i>Cromwell</i>, vol. ii. p. 359.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Some chroniclers fix it so early as 1653.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> From ‘Declaration to the Commonwealth of England.’</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> Jeremiah xxix. 7.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> In 1369.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Maimonides, in his well-known digest of Talmudic laws -relating to the poor, uniformly employs <i>tzedakah</i> in the sense of -‘alms.’</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> חטא יךאי (<i>yeree chet</i>). These ultra-sensitive folks seem -to have feared that in direct relief they might be imposed on and so -indirectly become encouragers of wrong-doing, or unnecessarily hurt the -feelings of the poor by too rigid inquiries.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> We read, in mediæval times, of the existence of wide -‘extensions’ of this system of relief. In a curious old book, published -in the seventeenth century, by a certain Rabbi Elijah ha Cohen ben -Abraham, of Smyrna, we find a list drawn up of Jewish charities to -which, as he says, ‘all pious Jews contribute.’ These modes of -satisfying ‘the hungry soul’ are over seventy in number, and of the most -various kinds. They include the lending of money and the lending of -books, the payment of dowries and the payment of burial charges, -doctors’ fees for the sick, legal fees for the unjustly accused, ransom -for captives, ornaments for bribes, and wet nurses for orphans.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Spanish Jews often had their coffins made from the wood of -the tables at which they had sat with their unfashionable guests.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> This custom had survived into quite modern times—to cite -only the well-known case of Mendelssohn, who, coming as a penniless -student to Berlin, received his Sabbath meals in the house of one -co-religionist, and the privilege of an attic chamber under the roof of -another.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> William Blake.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Shimei.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> In the correspondence with Lavater.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Better known to scholars as Dr. Aaron Solomon Gompertz.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> Later, the noted publisher of that name.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> Fromet was the affectionate diminutive of <i>Fromm</i>—pious. -Pet names of this sort were common at that time; we often come across a -Gütle or Schönste or the like.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> <i>Jerusalem, oder über religiöse Macht und Judenthum.</i></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> <i>Morgenstunden, oder Vorlesungen über das Daseyn Gottes.</i></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> <i>Phædon, oder über die Unsterblichkeit der Seele.</i></p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> The whole correspondence can be read in <i>Memoirs of Moses -Mendelssohn</i>, by M. Samuels, published in 1827.</p></div> -</div> - -<hr class="full" /> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Jewish Portraits, by Lady Katie Magnus - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JEWISH PORTRAITS *** - -***** This file should be named 56048-h.htm or 56048-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/6/0/4/56048/ - -Produced by Richard Hulse, Chuck Greif and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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