The Book of Delight and Other Papers Part 11

Several marginal and other notes in the copy of the Autobiography that belonged to George Eliot are, I am convinced, in her own handwriting, and I propose to print here some of her jottings, all of which are in pencil, but carefully written. Above the Introduction, she writes: "This book might mislead many readers not acquainted with other parts of Jewish history. But for a worthy account (in brief) of Judaism and Rabbinism, see p. 150." This reference takes one to the fifteenth chapter of the Autobiography. Indeed, George Eliot was right as to the misleading tendency of a good deal in Maimon's "wonderful piece of autobiography," as she terms the work in "Daniel Deronda." She returns to the attack on p. 36 of her copy, where she has jotted, "See infra, p. 150 _et seq._ for a better-informed view of Talmudic study."

How carefully George Eliot read! The pagination of 207 is printed wrongly as 160; she corrects it! She corrects _Kimesi_ into "Kimchi" on p. 48, _Raba.s.se_ into "R. Ashe" on p. 163. On p. 59 she writes, "According to the Talmud no one is eternally d.a.m.ned." Perhaps her statement needs some slight qualification. Again (p. 62), "Ras.h.i.+, i.e. Rabbi Shelomoh ben Isaak, whom Buxtorf mistakenly called Jarchi." It was really to Raymund Martini that this error goes back. But George Eliot could not know it. On p. 140, Maimon begins, "Accordingly, I sought to explain all this in the following way,"

to which George Eliot appends the note, "But this is simply what the Cabbala teaches--not his own ingenious explanation."

It is interesting to find George Eliot occasionally defending Judaism against Maimon. On p. 165 he talks of the "abuse of Rabbinism," in that the Rabbis tacked on new laws to old texts. "Its origin," says George Eliot's pencilled jotting, "was the need for freedom to modify laws"--a fine remark. On p. 173, where Maimon again talks of the Rabbinical method of evolving all sorts of moral truths by the oddest exegesis, she writes, "The method has been constantly pursued in various forms by Christian Teachers."

On p. 186 Maimon makes merry at the annulment of vows previous to the Day of Atonement. George Eliot writes, "These are religious vows--not engagements between man and man."

Furthermore, she makes some translations of the t.i.tles of Hebrew books cited, and enters a correction of an apparently erroneous statement of fact on p. 215. There Maimon writes as though the Zohar had been promulgated after Sabbatai Zebi. George Eliot notes: "Sabbatai Zebi lived long after the production of the Zohar. He was a contemporary of Spinoza. Moses de Leon belonged to the fourteenth century." This remark shows that George Eliot knew Graetz's History, for it is he who brought the names of Spinoza and Sabbatai Zebi together in two chapter headings in his work. Besides, Graetz's History was certainly in George Eliot's library; it was among the Lewes books now at Dr. Williams's. Again, on p. 265, Maimon speaks of the Jewish fast that falls in August. George Eliot jots on the margin, "July?

Fast of Ninth Ab."

Throughout pa.s.sages are pencilled, and at the end she gives an index to the parts that seem to have interested her particularly. This is her list:

Talmudic quotations, 36.

Polish Doctor, 49.

The Talmudist, 60.

Prince R. and the Barber, 110.

Talmudic Method, 174.

Polish Jews chiefly Gelehrte, 211.

Zohar, 215.

Rabbinical Morality, 176.

New Chasidim, 207.

Elias aus Wilna, 242.

Angels (?), 82.

Tamuz, II., 135.

It is a pleasure, indeed, to find a fresh confirmation, that George Eliot's favorable impression of Judaism was based on a very adequate acquaintance with its history. Sir Walter Scott's knowledge of it was, one cannot but feel, far less intimate than George Eliot's, but his poetic insight kept him marvellously straight in his appreciation of Jewish life and character.

II

HOW MILTON p.r.o.nOUNCED HEBREW

English politics in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries maintained a closer a.s.sociation with literature than is conceivable in the present age.

England has just witnessed a contest on fundamental issues between the two Houses of Parliament. This recalls, by contrast rather than by similarity, another conflict that divided the Lords from the Commons in and about the year 1645. The question at issue then was the respective literary merits of two metrical translations of the Psalms.

Francis Rous was a Provost of Eton, a member of the Westminster a.s.sembly of Divines, and representative of Truro in the Long Parliament. This "old illiterate Jew," as Wood abusively termed him, had made a verse translation of the Psalms, which the House of Commons cordially recommended. The House of Lords, on the other hand, preferred Barton's translation, and many other contemporaneous attempts were made to meet the growing demand for a good metrical rendering--a demand which, by the way, has remained but imperfectly filled to the present time. Would that some Jewish poet might arise to give us the long-desired version for use, at all events, in our private devotions! In April, 1648, Milton tried his hand at a rendering of nine Psalms (lx.x.x.-lx.x.xviii.), and it is from this work that we can see how Milton p.r.o.nounced Hebrew. Strange to say, Milton's attempt, except in the case of the eighty-fourth Psalm, has scanty poetical merit, and, as a literal translation, it is not altogether successful. He prides himself on the fact that his verses are such that "all, but what is in a different character, are the very words of the Text, translated from the original."

The inserted words in italics are, nevertheless, almost as numerous as the roman type that represents the original Hebrew. Such conventional mistakes as Rous's _cherubims_ are, however, conspicuously absent from Milton's more scholarly work. Milton writes _cherubs_.

Now, in the margin of Psalms lx.x.x., lx.x.xi., lx.x.xii., and lx.x.xiii., Milton inserts a transliteration of some of the words of the original Hebrew text.

The first point that strikes one is the extraordinary accuracy of the transliteration. One word appears as _Jimmotu_, thus showing that Milton appreciated the force of the dagesh. Again, _s.h.i.+phtu-dal_, _bag-nadath-el_ show that Milton observed the presence of the Makkef. Actual mistakes are very rare, and, as Dr. Davidson has suggested, they may be due to misprints. This certainly accounts for _Tishphetu_ instead of _Tishpetu_ (lx.x.xii. 2), but when we find _Be Sether_ appearing as two words instead of one, the capital _S_ is rather against this explanation, while _s.h.i.+fta_ (in the last verse of Psalm lx.x.xii.) looks like a misreading.

It is curious to see that Milton adopted the nasal intonation of the _Ayin_. And he adopted it in the least defensible form. He invariably writes _gn_ for the Hebrew _Ayin_. Now _ng_ is bad enough, but _gn_ seems a worse barbarism. Milton read the vowels, as might have been expected from one living after Reuchlin, who introduced the Italian p.r.o.nunciation to Christian students in Europe, in the "Portuguese" manner, even to the point of making little, if any, distinction between the _Zere_ and the _Sheva_.

As to the consonants, he read _Tav_ as _th_, _Teth_ as _t_, _Qof_ as _k_, and _Vav_ and _Beth_ equally as _v_. In this latter point he followed the "German" usage. The letter _Cheth_ Milton read as _ch_, but _Kaf_ he read as _c_, sounded hard probably, as so many English readers of Hebrew do at the present day. I have even noted among Jewish boys an amusing affectation of inability to p.r.o.nounce the _Kaf_ in any other way. The somewhat inaccurate but unavoidable _ts_ for _Zadde_ was already established in Milton's time, while the letter _Yod_ appears regularly as _j_, which Milton must have sounded as _y_. On the whole, it is quite clear that Milton read his Hebrew with minute precision. To see how just this verdict is, let anyone compare Milton's exactness with the erratic and slovenly transliterations in Edmund Chidmead's English edition of Leon Modena's _Riti Ebraici_, which was published only two years later than Milton's paraphrase of the Psalms.

The result, then, of an examination of the twenty-six words thus transliterated, is to deepen the conviction that the great Puritan poet, who derived so much inspiration from the Old Testament, drew at least some of it from the pure well of Hebrew undefiled.

III

THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS

As a "Concluding Part" to "The Myths of Plato," Professor J.A. Stewart wrote a chapter on the Cambridge Platonists of the seventeenth century, his object being to show that the thought of Plato "has been, and still is, an important influence in modern philosophy."

It was a not unnatural reaction that diverted the scholars of the Renaissance from Aristotle to Plato. The medieval Church had been Aristotelian, and "antagonism to the Roman Church had, doubtless, much to do with the Platonic revival, which spread from Italy to Cambridge." But, curiously enough, the Plato whom Cambridge served was not Plato the Athenian dialectician, but Plato the poet and allegorist. It was, in fact, Philo, the Jew, rather than Plato, the Greek, that inspired them.

"Philo never thought of doubting that Platonism and the Jewish Scriptures had real affinity to each other, and hardly perhaps asked himself how the affinity was to be accounted for." Philo, however, would have had no difficulty in accounting for it; already in his day the quaint theory was prevalent that Athens had borrowed its wisdom from Jerusalem. The Cambridge Platonists went with Philo in declaring Plato to be "the Attic Moses." Henry More (1662) maintained strongly Plato's indebtedness to Moses; even Pythagoras was so indebted, or, rather, "it was a common fame [report] that Pythagoras was a disciple of the Prophet Ezekiel." The Cambridge Platonists were anxious, not only to show this dependence of Greek upon Hebraic thought, but they went on to argue that Moses taught, in allegory, the natural philosophy of Descartes. More calls Platonism the soul, and Cartesianism the body, of his own philosophy, which he applies to the explanation of the Law of Moses. "This philosophy is the old Jewish-Pythagorean Cabbala, which teaches the motion of the Earth and Pre-existence of the Soul." But it is awkward that Moses does not teach the motion of the earth. More is at no loss; he boldly argues that, though "the motion of the earth has been lost and appears not in the remains of the Jewish Cabbala, this can be no argument against its once having been a part thereof." He holds it as "exceedingly probable" that the Roman Emperor "Numa was both descended from the Jews and imbued with the Jewish religion and learning."

Thus the Cambridge Platonists of the seventeenth century are a very remarkable example of the recurrent influence exercised on non-Jews by certain forms of Judaism that had but slight direct effect on the Jews themselves. Indirectly, the h.e.l.lenic side of Jewish culture left its mark, especially in the Cabbala. It would be well worth the while of a Jewish theologian to make a close study of the seventeenth century alumni of Cambridge, who were among the most fascinating devotees of ancient Jewish wisdom. Henry More was particularly attractive, "the most interesting and the most unreadable of the whole band." When he was a young boy, his uncle had to threaten a flogging to cure him of precocious "forwardness in philosophizing concerning the mysteries of necessity and freewill." In 1631 he entered Christ's College, Cambridge, "about the time when John Milton was leaving it," and he may almost be said to have spent the rest of his life within the walls of the college, "except when he went to stay with his 'heroine pupil,' Anne, Viscountess Conway, at her country seat of Ragley in Warwicks.h.i.+re, where his pleasure was to wander among the woods and glades."

He absolutely refused all preferment, and when "he was once persuaded to make a journey to Whitehall, to kiss His Majesty's hands, but heard by the way that this would be the prelude to a bishopric, he at once turned back."

Yet More was no recluse. "He had many pupils at Christ's; he loved music, and used to play on the theorbo; he enjoyed a game at bowls, and still more a conversation with intimate friends, who listened to him as to an oracle; and he was so kind to the poor that it was said his very chamber-door was a hospital for the needy." But enough has been quoted from Overton's biography to whet curiosity about this Cambridge sage and saint. More well ill.u.s.trates what was said above (pp. 114-116)--the man of letters is truest to his calling when he has at the same time an open ear to the call of humanity.

IV

THE ANGLO-JEWISH YIDDISH LITERARY SOCIETY

The founder and moving spirit of this unique little Society is Miss Helena Frank, whose sympathy with Yiddish literature has been shown in several ways. Her article in the _Nineteenth Century_ ("The Land of Jargon,"

October, 1904) was as forcible as it was dainty. Her rendering of the stories of Perez, too, is more than a literary feat. Her knowledge of Yiddish is not merely intellectual; though not herself a Jewess, she evidently enters into the heart of the people who express their lives and aspirations in Yiddish terms. Young as she is, Miss Frank is, indeed, a remarkable linguist; Hebrew and Russian are among her accomplishments. But it is a wonderful fact that she has set herself to acquire these other languages only to help her to understand Yiddish, which latter she knows through and through.

Miss Frank not long ago founded a Society called by the t.i.tle that heads this note. The Society did not interest itself directly in the preservation of Yiddish as a spoken language. It was rather the somewhat grotesque fear that the role of Yiddish as a living language may cease that appealed to Miss Frank. The idea was to collect a Yiddish library, encourage the translation of Yiddish books into English, and provide a sufficient supply of Yiddish books and papers for the patients in the London and other Hospitals who are unable to read any other language. The weekly _Yiddishe Gazetten_ (New York) was sent regularly to the London Hospital, where it has been very welcome.

In the Society's first report, which I was permitted to see, Miss Frank explained why an American Yiddish paper was the first choice. In the first place, it was a good paper, with an established reputation, and at once conservative and free from prejudice. America is, moreover, "intensely interesting to the Polish _Yid_. For him it is the free country _par excellence_. Besides, he is sure to have a son, uncle, or brother there--or to be going there himself. 'Vin shterben in vin Amerika kan sich keener nisht araus drehn!' ('From dying and from going to America, there is no escape!')" Miss Frank has a keen sense of humor. How could she love Yiddish were it not so? She cites some of the _Yiddishe Gazetten's_ answers to correspondents. This is funny: "The woman has the right to take her clothes and ornaments away with her when she leaves her husband. But it is a question if she ought to leave him." Then we have the following from an article by Dr. Goidorof. He compares the Yiddish language to persons whose pa.s.sports are not in order--the one has no grammar, the others have no land.

And both the Jewish language and the Jewish nation hide their faulty pa.s.sports in their wallets, and disappear from the register of nations and languages--no land, no grammar!

"A pretty conclusion the savants have come to!" (began the Jewish nation). "You are nothing but a collection of words, and I am nothing but a collection of people, and there's an end to both of us!"

"And Jargon, besides, they said--to which of us did they refer? To me or to you?" (asks the Jewish language, the word _jargon_ being unknown to it).

"To you!" (answers the Jewish nation).

"No, to you!" (protests the Jewish language).

"Well, then, to both of us!" (allows the Jewish nation). "It seems we are both a kind of Jargon. Mercy on us, what shall we do without a grammar and without a land?"

"Unless the Zionists purchase a grammar of the Sultan!" (romances the Jewish language).

"Or at all events a land!" (sighs the Jewish nation).

"You think that the easier of the two?" (asks the Jewish language, wittily).

And at the same moment they look at one another and laugh loudly and merrily.

This is genuine Heinesque humor.

V