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need this exposition of the motive of its central incident, but for those who do not go to theatres, and for those who might stay away from fear of an unchristian illustration of Christian character, I have, with extreme reluctance and deep personal regret, taken this unusual means of defeating the purposes of what I am sorry to call a most hurtful and intentional falsehood.

"HALL CAINE."

"REPLY."-1.

The "one" literary sinner specifically indicated in the above statement is the hideous miscreant who writes this paragraph. In his deplorable condition of age, decrepitude, penury, cynicism, stupidity, and universal disgust it is, of course, hard for him to be generous and well-nigh impossible for him to be just or honest. But if this miserable being, feebly tottering on the confines of irretrievable ignominy, might be allowed to summon the lingering relics of his ancient candor, he would like to say that never for one instant did the thought which Mr. Caine has ascribed to him come into his mind; that never for one moment did he even dream of imputing a low, bad, or in any way unworthy motive either to Mr. Caine, or to Mr. John Storm, the hero of Mr. Caine's novel and play. Malign, and venomous, and abandoned as this senile creature knows himself to be, he would have been horrified at such a thought, and he is frankly astonished at such an imputation. When he wrote that "a religious enthusiast who has not got beyond carnal temptation has not travelled very far," all in the world that he meant to say was that, speaking generally, and with reference to a class of persons and a representative mental and physical condition,-an ascetic devotee who is still capable of being in love with a woman has not made much progress on the road to asceticism. The remark had no intentional reference whatever to Mr. Caine's modern paraphrase of the sacrificial scene in "Othello," but was a mere philosophic comment on the ingredients of fanatical char

acter. A finer phrase than "carnal temptation" might, perhaps, have been selected with which to designate man's love,-although such phraseology would, probably, have been indorsed by both Saint Anthony and Saint Augustine, the principal historic ecclesiastical sufferers from that complaint; but it is not every writer who possesses Mr. Hall Caine's exquisite felicity in the choice of language-a felicity which seems to be associated with great sweetness of temper, lovely refinement of style, and a most urbane and benevolent tolerance, even for an old and worn wretch who, as he dodders into the evening twilight of a misspent life, is actually able to gaze upon the play of "The Christian" without being paralyzed with admiration.

WILLIAM WINTER.

2.-"OUR CHRISTIAN FRIEND HALL CAINE."

"To the Editor:

"Sir: It lately pleased Mr. Hall Caine, writing in your paper, to defend his play of "The Christian' from an aspersion that had never been cast upon it, and, incidentally, to accuse me of dishonesty, calumny, and intentional falsehood. It also pleased Mr. Caine, while designating me as old, poor, impecunious, fossilized, and stupid, to recommend my discharge from my present employ'He ought to be disvoiced,' said Mr. Caine; 'he is not an honest man, and he knows it.'

ment.

"This remark was rather more than the 'Reproof Valiant'; in fact, it was the 'Countercheck Quarrelsome.' But persons who consider themselves celestially commissioned to reform their neighbors usually take a wide latitude as to their parts of speech, and, in immediate response to Mr. Caine's accusation, I was content to make it clear that he had written in excessive wrath, and without any ground whatever, aside from his mistaken fancy, on which to base his grievance or justify his insolent language.

"Some time has passed since the publication of Mr. Caine's statement and of my reply to it, but I do not hear that Mr. Caine has said a word of regret for his uncouth ebullition of folly and abuse. Having assumed the attitude of an impudent vilifier, he is, apparently, willing to remain on exhibition in that character. Each to his choice. Mr. Caine registers himself as a blathering rhapsodist, flatulent with the wind of doctrine and giddy with self-conceit. It was long ago observed by Launcelot Gobbo that 'this making of Christians will raise the price of hogs': Mr. Caine's conduct shows that it can also raise the animal himself.

"WILLIAM WINTER.

"Fort Hill, New Brighton, Staten Island, Oct. 21, 1898."

"THE CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO."

In Israel Zangwill's novel called "The Children of the Ghetto," an elaborate, discursive elaborate, discursive portrayal of the domestic life of the Jews in the London Ghetto, much instruction is provided as to the manners and customs of his exiled, wandering race. The author has assembled a series of episodes of the experience of various Jewish families and of individual Jews,-these episodes being thinly connected, or not connected at all, by a strain of narrative which is sometimes sprightly, oftener prolix and ponderous, and invariably and consistently fitful and erratic. A book more difficult to read has seldom been written, and yet it is a book which contains much truth and one that is worthy of study. The description of "the Hyamses' Honeymoon" and the description of the death of little Benjamin Ansell, if they had been written

by Charles Dickens, would have been hailed as exceptional achievements of characterization and pathos. Such conversations as the bellicose colloquies between Mrs. Isaacs and Mrs. Jacobs, quarrelling over their offspring, or the domestic dialogues at the Phillips banquet, or the interchange of belligerent epithets at Sugarman's feast, and such distinctive and well-drawn characters as the old gypsy, Malka Birnbaum, with her symbolical clothesbrush; the lone, fanatical scholar, Joseph Strelitski, and the irrepressible and intolerable poet, Melchitzedek Pinchas, are true to actual life,-revealing at once a faculty of keen observation and a rare talent for literal statement. The reader is as much wearied by Mr. Zangwill's faithful account of those Jewish family parties and persons as he would be if he were constrained to associate with them, in their congenial atmosphere of fried fish. The prosy fidelity of the book is dreadful. Epigrammatic vivacity, Mr. Zangwill's predominant characteristic when he speaks, seems almost entirely to desert him when he writes. Traces of it, indeed, do occasionally appear, as when he says, of a versatile character, "There was nothing he could not do badly"; or, of a formalist in ritualism, that "a man is not half bad who does threefourths of his duty"; or, of a dreary female scribbler, that "she wrote domestic novels to prove that she had no sense of humor"; or, of the "modern schools," that "they get rid of the old beliefs, but cannot give up the

old names"; or, of certain disciples, that "They squeeze the teaching of the Master in their own mental moulds, and are ready to die for the distortion"; or, of the perversity of human malice, that "while the Old Testament has no reference to a future existence, the poor Jew has no more been able to live without the hope of Hell than the poor Christian." But those flashes are sporadic and infrequent. For the most part, the chronicle is one of exceedingly small beer, and in the matter of form it follows Disraeli's abrupt and whimsical method of fugacious memoranda, with but little of Disraeli's pungency and with nothing of his wisdom, his sad irony, or his emotional depth. That form is unsymmetrical, and Mr. Zangwill's style in this work, whether from immaturity or lack of clarity and polish, is sluggish. It is about as far removed from drama as any work of fiction could be, yet it was selected as the basis of a play, and that play, after representations in Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, was brought out in New York, on October 16, 1899, at the Herald Square Theatre.

In the play that the novelist has founded on his book, although it is redundant with needless incidents, prolix in language, and unmercifully tedious in the exposition of the commonplace of actual and very stupid life, Mr. Zangwill has been more direct and explicit. The story that he had to tell is mainly that of a girl's temptation to elope with her lover, and to marry, against her

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