The Jew in English fiction

Front matter

It:

'It t I > i ii

Author of

Preface To The Last Impbession

son Smith, and ''JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT," by Thomas Nelson Page, may be instanced. In as far as this indicates a growing recognition of the fact that, other things being equal, the Jew is to be judged by the same standards as his neighbors of other faiths, it is a welcome sign indeed. The Jew asks for justice, nothing more nor less, whether it be in fiction or in fact.

DAVID PHILIPSON.

CiNCiiq-NATi, March, 1911.

Contents

I. Introductoey 5

II. Marlowe's "Jew of Malta" 19

IV. Cumberland's "The Jew" 54

I

The deepest thinker among English women, and one of the greatest of fictionists, toward the close of her author-career, wrote a novel which, for uniqueness of theme and treatment is interesting, for thought and reasoning is remarkable, for learning is striking. Other novels had been written with Jews as characters, but they were mostly superficial in conception ; this was the first by a non-Jewish writer that made Judaism a study. " Daniel Deronda " met with a varying reception at diflerent hands. The critics pronounced it a failure ; some ridiculed, others called it weak ; the world read and did not understand. The subject was too unknown, too peculiar, too much out of the range of the common, to be perfectly, or even partially grasped. The novelist had taken a bold step. She had written an " epic in prose." The subject was grand enough for any epic ; it dealt with large forces, with the questions of race and religion. " Daniel Deronda " is not George Eliot's most popular book, but it is her greatest and most matured. It was the last child of her genius, and it was worthy of, it overtopped its predecessors.

The Jewish race, its restoration to Palestine, its taking its stand in the great commonwealth of nations, form the harden of the work. The suhject of race seemed to he a congenial one to her mind. Years hefore she had written a dramatic poem, " The Spanish Glypsy," and there the same ideal appears, the gathering of the* wandering Zingali trihes into one nation with their own land. Zarca is the Mordecai, Fedalma the Deronda. But the earlier work has not the power of the later. It appears only as the seed that oped and ripened into the full fruit of the novel. All her novels have a religious element, but in grandeur, power, and might, there is but one of her characters that can approach the ideal conception of Mordecai, and that is the magnificent figure of Savanarola in Romola.

A cursory reading of the novel will at once disclose the fact that it consists of two distinct portions; of the one, Gwendolen Harleth is the central figure, of the other Mordecai. Daniel Deronda is the binding link between the two parts. The former portion it lies not within my province to discuss ; I will turn at once to the other, the Jewish parts.

The author did not approach her task without preparation. As before writing her novel, Romola, she is said to have spent many a day in Florence studying and observing, frequenting the repositories of medieval art and learning, gaining a knowledge of time and place so that her novel stands as a monument to her industry and learning, and is authoritative for the period treated, so too, in preparation for the writing of Daniel Deronda, did she store her great mind with a knowledge of the Jewish past, and a keen observance of earlier Jewish customs. We are astonished at the exactitude of her statements ; there are but few errors, which can be readily condoned. She describes the observance of the Friday eve in the home. She takes us into a synagogue of Frankfort, and remarks upon the service there conducted ; she describes for us a marriage scene as it was, and tells us of the last words of the Jew before death — the confession of the Divine unity. We learn from her pages of that wonderful bit of autobiography of the Polish Jew, Solomon Maimon. She has delved into Jewish history, and we are carried along by the passionate recountal of the wrongs inflicted on the Jews, the sufferings and persecutions. Here and there a legend is told from the Jewish writings, the Talmud, or Midrash ; again we have a sentence that fell from the lips of a sage of old. That strange product of Jewish mysticism, the Kabbala, is referred to, and the division of Jews into Eabbanites and Karaites is cited. Jehudah Halevi's word, with which we have already met in her '' Spanish Gypsy," is again quoted, " the Jewish nation is the heart of the nations;" Ibn Ezra, too, is noticed. The great Jewisli thought is given expression to, that the unity of God presupposes the unity of mankind. There is, too, all the weight of thought necessary for so great a subject ; the same close reasoning, the same psychological analysis that characterized her earlier works, reappear. She came to the task well equipped. How did she fulfill the task ? Does her presentation do justice to the thoughts and ideals of the Jews ? Did she correctly grasp the tendency of the Judaism of to-day ? Are the characters she presents as Jewish drawn from life, and do they evince a true knowledge of the development of the character ?

The answers to these questions we must gather from a close study of the pages of the work. Most of these Jewish characters we can dismiss with a few words; two only, besides Mordecai, offer opportunity for larger treatment — Deronda and Mirah. The Cohen family, with whom Mordecai lodges, give to the tale the only humorous element, with the exception of the oddities of Hans Meyrick. It is a family such as you can meet any where in the large cities, a family of Jews made mach what they are by circumstances. The father, Ezra Cohen, is a brisk, prosperous merchant, embodying much of the old trading spirit, boastful of his success, proud of his business ; his son Jacob, with his trading propensities bids fair to become what his father is. The old mother carries, " beneath a rough exterior, the affection that abides in Jewish hearts, as a sweet odor in things long crushed and hidden from the outer air." Ignorant as the family is, commonplace as is their life, material as are their pursuits, they yet have something left of a traditional ideality.

They give a home to Mordecai, the poor scholar, and with them he is welcome until the end. The sentiment, that learning shows superiority, and the involuntary regard for the learned man, however mean and lowly his exterior, so well brought out here, well attest the attitude of the Jews in the most troubled times in this matter. After country and temple were lost, the nobility that was recognized as occupying the first rank, was that of learning. The wise man was the most honored of the community. While for centuries, during the Dark Ages, the surrounding world was sunk in ignorance and the magic wand of superstition held all beneath its enslaving sway, the bright light of learning diffused its rays among the Jews, and ever after, even among the lowly and untaught of their number, there was kept alive this thought of the greatness of knowledge. There unconsciously reappears in this ignorant family this respect for learning and the feeling that there is blessing in having the scholar beneath the roof and at the board. There is expressed too in their language and dealings, though not so re-

Vin. GEORGE ELIOT S " DANIEL DEBONDA." 131

fined and cultured, something of the kindness of heart, a Jewish trait in all times.

Deronda's mother, feeling what it was to have " a man's, force of genius, and yet to suffer the slavery of being a girl," not daring disobey her father, a man of iron will, repressed by all the legalism of the old Jewish life, to gain freedom broke loose from it, and determined that her son should be raised as an English Christian, not as a Jew; he should never know the restrictions and miseries she had experienced. She is but one of that great number who, in the earlier decades of this century, having no love for Judaism — seeing not its ideal side, feeling only that it prevented them at that time from pursuing a desired career, readily threw it off for material advantages. Among those who can be named are Heine, Borne, Gans, the daughters of Mendelssohn, Fanny Lewald, and others less noted. The very circumstance of having been born a Jew was then sufficient to close every career to the ambitious, and this, coupled with the fact that Judaism had become, in a great measure, a mass of forms and ceremonies no longer consistent with life, brought about this sad result, that many, no longer seeing any thing in the religion but a formalism and a legalism, turned from it and adopted Christianity — not from conviction, but for no other reason than that this was the " open sesame " which unbarred the gates of the world to them. This state of affairs, too, opened the eyes of others, to whom Judaism was still something more than a name ; and they, appreciating the needs of the time and and of the people, instituted the reform movement, which since then has accomplished so much. As one of those who felt only the restrictions of Jewish legalism, but were unmoved by any of its great thoughts and conceptions, Deronda's mother is presented. As intense a Jew as her father had been, so intense was her feeling the other way.

In introducing her as a great singer, and Klesmer as a remarkable pianist, and Mirah with her perfect voice, the author seems to point to the fact of the greatness of the Jews in music and in song, the only manner in which a people, so greatly gifted in many ways and directions, could give expression to the aesthetic sense. It is evident why there could be no sculptors or painters among the Jews in ancient or medieval times, for well-nigh all the works of art treated subjects of a religious character, and the Jews, with their strict monotheism and the literal interpretation of the second commandment, could naturally pursue none of the plastic arts. Hence, music and poetry were the only channels in which the assthetic nature among them could develop itself. In our later day, however, when all subjects are brought within the scope of these arts, and when it is felt that the fashioning of figures does not indicate idolatry.

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as was the conception of an earlier time, many a Jew has gained distinction in these branches. Jewish this woman is not at all. She has no affection ; she loved nothing but her voice — now that it is gone, she has nothing to live for. Deronda is to her a beautiful creature, nothing more ; not a pulse of maternal affection throbs when she sees him the first time after a lapse of many years ; she, with her coldness, her antipathy to every thing Jewish, is an admirable foil to the other Jewish woman of the book, Mirah, all warmth, all affection, all love.

With Mirah, the Jewish character is first introduced, and in her person a beautiful character it is — beautiful in every way, in her actions, in the affection for her mother's memory, in the pity and sympathy for her scapegrace father. An artistic soul, seeming to have gathered within her nature all the beauty, without a blemish, one perfect whole, finely strung, a sympathetic heart, for her it is " much easier to share in love than in hatred. Her religion is of one fiber with her affections." It is deep-seated in her. 'Mid evil and temptation, she had kept herself pure. The hallowing influence of her life had come from the spirit of her whose every accent she remembered as fraught with a mother's love. Her Mirah always had in her mind. They could never be really parted. She wished to be a good Jewess, because her mother had been. She reasoned no more about it. The fact was there. She says, when spoken to about becoming a Christian : " I will never separate myself from my mother's people. I was forced to fly from my father, but if he came back in age, and in weakness, and in want, and needed me, should I say, ' This is not my father ? ' If he had shame, I must share it. It was he who was given to me for my father, and not another. And so it is with my people. I will always be a Jewess. I will love Christians when they are good, like you, but I will always cling to my people. I will always worship with them." So it is throughout, that fervid Jewish feeling which is hers.

It is inborn. She has drunk it in with her mother's milk in her mother's home. Oh ! that Jewish home, the remembrance of which passed before her mind like a beautiful vision. Early had she been stolen from that mother's side, but she thinks her '' life began with waking up and loving my mother's face ; it was so near to me, and her arms were round me and she sung to me. One hymn she sang so often, so often ; and then she taught me to sing it with her — it was the first I ever sung. They were always Hebrew hymns she sung ; and because I never knew the meaning of the words they seemed full of nothing but our love and happiness. When I lay in my little bed, and it was all white above me, she used to bend over me between me and the white and sing in a sweet, low voice." Thus is Mirah, all

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memory, all affection, the spirit of conservatism ; she represents all that was beautiful in the old Jewish customs without any of the narrowness — the love and affection of the Jewish home, untainted and untouched by the miseries of the outer world. She appears like some vision of all that was fair and tender in the past, with none of the hardness and harshness. She reminds us of some pure Jewish maiden of old, a Sulamith perhaps, in modern guise, moving among modern figures, but her soul is in the past. The doubting, inquiring spirit of the present has not touched her — she is the picture of childlike faith. She is a woman of women, with only womanly qualities; in all the vicissitudes of a changing life she retains her innocence and sweetness. From her, however, we learn naught of Jewish conceptions. She is well pictured as the Jewish woman of the past, who took no interest in religious speculations or discussions. The Jewish woman was the central figure of all home scenes, one of the vital elements of the life of Judaism, in truth, of all religion. She stood for the sentiment as the man represented the intellect. Honored and beloved was she as wife and mother, as the guardian spirit of the home, but outside of this she took but little part in religious discussions and doings. This belonged to the men, and for this we must look to the men in our novel. Daniel Deronda and Mordecai embody the ideas of the book, which with startling novelty to the greater public were so vividly expressed.

Daniel Deronda is presented to us as a wonderful character, well-nigh as perfect as man can be drawn. " There was scarcely a delicacy of feeling of which he was not capable." '^His inborn lovingness was strong enough to keep itself on a level with resentment." "In him the sense of injury bred — not the will to inflict injuries, but a hatred of all injury." "From boyhood up he was actuated by sympathy for all, a sympathy that shaped his nature, and was the chief and great characteristic in his intercourse with others." " This sympathy always impelled him toward the unfortunate, and caused him to withdraw almost coldly from the fortunate. He had a passion for pelted people." " He had a stamp of rarity in a subdued fervor of sympathy, an activity of imagination in behalf of others which did not show itself offensively, but was continually seen in acts of consideration which struck his companions as moral eccentricity." " His conscience included sensibilities far beyond the common, and persons were attracted to him in proportion to the possibility of defending them." Here then was this exceptional character placed in humdrum English society. His soul " striving for an ideal — for he was early impassioned by ideas, and burned his fire on these heights — could not be satisfied with the common objects of life which content most men." " He had no desire to pass through life as did his neighbor." As he had a " yearning for wide knowledge, so too was he possessed of dreams of a wide activity."

In the material age of unfaith he looked in vain for such a lofty object of life. " There was danger that, owing to irresoluteness, there would be paralyzed in him the indignation against wrong ; there was danger that in mere thought and inaction his energies would be dissipated, that in looking and searching for an ideal he would waste his life." He was not one of those who found his work in the common walks of life, among men, in the market, in the street ; what he longed for was " some external event or some inward light that would urge him into a definite line of action and compress his wandering energy." We must confess that with all the elaborateness and detail with which the character is drawn, with all the minute analysis of motive and action, which was expended in fashioning this figure of manhood, Deronda is not, as portrayed, equal to the task which he is made to consider his life's aim and mission. He is not made of the stuff out of which heroes or leaders are fashioned. He is afraid to appear exceptional, a grievous fault in one that would accomplish a great work. He has all the sympathy necessary, but not the power. He always requires a guiding hand. He is awakened to his mission in life by Mordecai. He is fashioned by the powers of this master mind. Here, then, is a mission upon which he can concentrate his energies. Before he knows that he is a Jew he is interested hy Mirah and by Mordecai. His feelings of sympathy had drawn him to the girl whom he had rescued when in distress, and through his sympathy for her he had come into contact with Mordecai. From the first he had felt interested in the consumptive Hebrew scholar and enthusiast. George Eliot certainly believed in a spiritual kinship, in a speaking of soul unto soul, for in the first meeting of Deronda and Mordecai in the bookshop the latter felt unconsciously drawn to the former ; and in their later meeting, on the bridge, there is intimated an ideal relationship, a soul longing, that convinced Mordecai that this was his spiritual brother, who would carry out his desire, that their souls would join in the grand work, as Mordecai expressed it, before Deronda has learned the story of his family and his birth, "And you would have me consider it doubtful whether you were born a Jew. Have we not from the first touched each other with invisible fibers ? Have we not quivered together like the leaves from a common stem, with strivings from a common root?" This intense conviction of Mordecai began to influence Deronda so that the thought of the possibility of his having been born a Jew became more and more familiar to him and more and more agreeable. It is interesting to trace the development of the Jewish consciousness in him, which he had not at the start.

After the first interest in the Jews had been awakened in him by Mirah, he devoted much time to a subject which had never occupied him before. He had thought that '' all cultured Jews had dropped their religion, and had associated them with loud wealth, or with dingy streets and back alleys." But he had never felt harshly toward them. His sympathetic nature would not permit that. He began to study their history. He grew more and more familiar with their ideal life. Mordecai's dreams seemed to have a substantial background. So imbued, so full was he of Mordecai's thought, that when he went forth to at last learn the particulars of his birth and parentage, he almost hoped that it be true that he was born a Jew, for then he felt that he would have somewhat to work for. A stronger mind had gained absolute control over him, and led him as it would. When, therefore, in answer to his mother, who explained her course, and tried to impress upon him that it was for his good that she had him raised ignorant of his Jewish parentage, he replied that he was glad he was born a Jew, it is to this influence of Mordecai, as one of the causes that we must trace this joy. The author would have it appear due to the principle of heredity, that the Jewish race instinct was so strong in Deronda that it overcame everything else ; that there was in him an inherited longing, the effect of brooding, passionate thoughts in many ancestors. The question now arises whether any hereditary instinct — granting now for argument's sake, that there is a race instinct — is strong enough to survive all the years, the circumstances, the education, as it is represented to have done in this case. Here is Deronda, reared from his babyhood in the Christian religion, never hearing a word of Jews or Judaism until he had reached his twenty-fifth year. His surroundings, his education, his training, his companions, all were not suggestive of the slightest tinge of Jewish thought or life. He learns comparatively late, at least after the lapse of many years, that he is a Jew, and his whole being exults with joy at the fact, he bursts forth with a passionate " I am glad of it." This is scarcely natural. A point has been strained. It was not the race instinct that caused him to receive the news with pleasure. Had he never met Mordecai and Mirah, the information would not have aroused in him any such sensation, he would have agreed with his mother, that her action had been for the best. It was circumstance, and not heredity, that inspired him with his attitude toward the Jews. During his whole life he had met with commonplace people. For the first time he had seen and heard in Mordecai a genuine enthusiast. The influence grew on him; thought on the subject but increased the influ-

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ence. Of this his mother knew naught, but she divined another circumstance which caused him to welcome the assurance of his Jewish birth, when she exclaimed during their last conversation, " You are in love with a Jewess." These two facts, then the wondrous influence of Mordecai's superior mind, and the sympathy of Deronda's nature, which had ripened into love for Mirah, explain and justify his satisfaction, but not the principle of heredity or race instinct, which, even if strong, would have been overcome by the power of circumstance and education, especially in a nature so readily molded, and so little self-asserting as Deronda's, even as he says, " The Christian sympathies in which my mind "v: .4,8 reared, can never die out of me."

He has now found an ideal and an object; he is a Jew; he will assimilate Mordecai's ideas. He will be the instrument of Mordecai's will. He will identify himself as far as possible with his people, and if any work can be done for them that he can give his soul and hand to, he will do it. But we feel he will not do it. He is no enthusiast ; he will do nothing. After Mordecai's guidance shall have left him, he will be as aimless as before. He will dream of the possibilities of Mordecai's visions, but he will never move definitely in any thing requiring action. He has not that strength and undaunted vigor that must actuate leaders of movements. He is a Jew because his sympathies have been aroused ;

because to one conservative in sentiment and feeling as he is, the history of the people is rich with traditions and glorious achievement; because to one sympathetic as he is, the persecutions and oppressions to which they had been subjected, appealed strongly. He lives not in the present. His thoughts are in the past, or else dreamily vague in same distant future, which shall be like the past. He is no progressist. He represents neither the thought nor the work of the Jew of the present. At the end of the book, as has been well said, " when Deronda wanders off to the East, we feel sure that he will travel about year after year, doing deeds of kindness, and cherishing noble aspirations, but further removed than even a passionate dreamer like Mordecai from working out any deliverance either for his people or for mankind." He understands not the mission of Israel, but he will contribute nothing toward a realization of even his narrow conception of it.

All these figures are drawn, as they should be in works of fiction by a strong, unprejudiced, powerful mind. The gallery of portraits upon which we have gazed — the gentle Mirah, the passionate princess, Deronda's mother, the thrifty Cohen family, the sympathetic, dreaming Deronda, show us that the correct idea has been grasped that there is no one special passion, sympathy, sentiment, feeling, desire, which is Jewish, but that all the qualities of man are in

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the Jews inherent, as they are in all men. The Jew, as the Jew of the novel, '' The Kew Prophet," Mordecai and his theories, shall now give us occasion to set forth in how far the conception of Judaism, as presented in this work, agrees with the aim and ideal of the religion.