Elective Affinity Brought Us At Once
To Friendly Intercourse.
He was of the Hebrew race, as the
larger half of the Warsaw population still are.
He was a
typical Jew (all Jews are typical), though all are not so
thin as was Beninsky. His eyes were sunk in sockets deepened
by the sharpness of his bird-of-prey beak; a single corkscrew
ringlet dropped tearfully down each cheek; and his one front
tooth seemed sometimes in his upper, sometimes in his lower
jaw. His skull-cap and his gabardine might have been
heirlooms from the Patriarch Jacob; and his poor hands seemed
made for clawing. But there was a humble and contrite spirit
in his sad eyes. The history of his race was written in
them; but it was modern history that one read in their
hopeless and appealing look.
His cringing manner and his soft voice (we conversed in
German) touched my heart. I have always had a liking for the
Jews. Who shall reckon how much some of us owe them! They
have always interested me as a peculiar people - admitting
sometimes, as in poor Beninsky's case, of purifying, no
doubt; yet, if occasionally zealous (and who is not?) of
interested works - cent. per cent. works, often - yes, more
often than we Christians - zealous of good works, of open-
handed, large-hearted munificence, of charity in its
democratic and noblest sense. Shame upon the nations which
despise and persecute them for faults which they, the
persecutors, have begotten!
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