Part 11

God hearkened unto her prayer, for her efforts were crowned with success. Her first work was the translation of a book from the Hebrew, "Israel Defended." Next came "The Magic Wreath," a collection of poems, and then her well-known works, "Home Influence," "The Spirit of Judaism," her best production, "The Women of Israel," "The Jewish Faith," and "History of the Jews in England"--a rich harvest for one whose span of life was short. Her pen was dipped into the blood of her veins and the sap of her nerves; the sacred fire of the prophets burnt in her soul, and she was inspired by olden Jewish enthusiasm and devotion to a trust.

So ardent a spirit could not long be imprisoned within so frail a body. In the very prime of life, just thirty-one years old, Grace Aguilar passed away, as though her beautiful soul were hastening to shake off the mortal coil. She rests in German earth, in the Frankfort Jewish cemetery. Her grave is marked with a simple stone, bearing an equally simple epitaph:

"Give her of the fruit of her hands, And let her own works praise her in the gates."

Her death was deeply lamented far and wide. She was a golden link in the chain of humanity--a bold, courageous, withal thoroughly womanly woman, a God-inspired daughter of her race and faith. "We are persuaded," says a non-Jewish friend of hers, "that had this young woman lived in the times of frightful persecution, she would willingly have mounted the stake for her faith, praying for her murderers with her last breath." That the nobility of a solitary woman, leaping like a flame from heart to heart, may inspire high-minded thoughts, and that Grace Aguilar's life became a blessing for her people and for humanity, is illustrated by the following testimonial signed by several hundred Jewish women, presented to her when she was about to leave England:

"Dearest Sister--Our admiration of your talents, our veneration for your character, our gratitude for the eminent services your writings render our sex, our people, our faith, in which the sacred cause of true religion is embodied: all these motives combine to induce us to intrude on your presence, in order to give utterance to sentiments which we are happy to feel and delighted to express. Until you arose, it has, in modern times, never been the case that a Woman in Israel should stand forth the public advocate of the faith of Israel; that with the depth and purity of feelings which is the treasure of woman, and with the strength of mind and extensive knowledge that form the pride of man, she should call on her own to cherish, on others to respect, the truth as it is in Israel.

"You, dearest Sister, have done this, and more. You have taught us to know and appreciate our dignity; to feel and to prove that no female character can be ... more pure than that of the Jewish maiden, none more pious than that of the woman in Israel. You have vindicated our social and spiritual equality with our brethren in the faith: you have, by your own excellent example, triumphantly refuted the aspersion, that the Jewish religion leaves unmoved the heart of the Jewish woman. Your writings place within our reach those higher motives, those holier consolations, which flow from the spirituality of our religion, which urge the soul to commune with its Maker and direct it to His grace and His mercy as the best guide and protector here and hereafter...."

Her example fell like seed upon fertile soil, for Abigail Lindo, Marian Hartog, Annette Salomon, and especially Anna Maria Goldsmid, a writer of merit, daughter of the well-known Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid, may be considered her disciples, the fruit of her sowing.

The Italian poetess, Rachel Morpurgo, a worthy successor of Deborah Ascarelli and Sara Copia Sullam, was contemporaneous with Grace Aguilar, though her senior by twenty-six years. Our interest in her is heightened by her use of the Hebrew language, which she handled with such consummate skill that her writings easily take rank with the best of neo-Hebraic literature. A niece of the famous scholar S. D. Luzzatto, she was born at Triest, April 8, 1790. Until the age of twelve she studied the Bible, then she read Bechaï's "Duties of the Heart" and Rashi's commentary, and from her fourteenth to her sixteenth year she devoted herself to the Talmud and the Zohar--a remarkable course of study, pursued, too, in despite of adverse circumstances. At the same time she was taught the turner's art by Luzzatto's father, and later she learned tailoring. One of her poems having been published without her knowledge, she gives vent to her regret in a sonnet:

"My soul surcharged with grief now loud complains, And fears upon my spirit heavily weigh. 'Thy poem we have heard,' the people say, 'Who like to thee can sing melodious strains?' 'They're naught but sparks,' outspeaks my soul in chains, 'Struck from my life by torture every day. But now all perfume's fled--no more my lay Shall rise; for, fear of shame my song restrains.' A woman's fancies lightly roam, and weave Themselves into a fairy web. Should I Refrain? Ah! soon enough this pleasure, too, Will flee! Verily I cannot conceive Why I'm extolled. For woman 'tis to ply The spinning wheel--then to herself she's true."

This painful self-consciousness, coupled with the oppression of material cares, forms the sad refrain of Rachel Morpurgo's writings. She is a true poetess: the woes of humanity are reflected in her own sorrows, to which she gave utterance in soulful tones. She, too, became an exemplar for a number of young women. A Pole, Yenta Wohllerner, like Rachel Morpurgo, had to propitiate churlish circumstances before she could publish the gifts of her muse, and Miriam Mosessohn, Bertha Rabbinowicz, and others, emulated her masterly handling of the Hebrew language.

The opening of the new era was marked by the appearance of a triad of Jewesses--Grace Aguilar in England, Rachel Morpurgo in Italy, and Henriette Ottenheimer in Germany. A native of the blessed land of Suabia, Henriette Ottenheimer was consecrated to poetry by intercourse with two masters of song--Uhland and Rückert. Her poems, fragrant blossoms plucked on Suabian fields, for the most part are no more than sweet womanly lyrics, growing strong with the force of enthusiasm only when she dwells upon her people's sacred mission and the heroes of Bible days.

Women like these renew the olden fame of the Jewess, and add achievements to her brilliant record. As for their successors and imitators, our contemporaries, whose literary productions are before us, on them we may not yet pass judgment; their work is still on probation.

One striking circumstance in connection with their activity should be pointed out, because it goes to prove the soundness of judgment, the penetration, and expansiveness characteristic of Jews. While the movement for woman's complete emancipation has counted not a single Jewess among its promoters, its more legitimate successor, the movement to establish woman's right and ability to earn a livelihood in any branch of human endeavor--a right and ability denied only by prejudice, or stupidity--was headed and zealously supported by Jewesses, an assertion which can readily be proved by such names as Lina Morgenstern, known to the public also as an advocate of moderate religious reforms, Jenny Hirsch, Henriette Goldschmidt, and a number of writers on subjects of general and Jewish interest, such as Rachel Meyer, Elise Levi (Henle), Ulla Frank-Wolff, Johanna Goldschmidt, Caroline Deutsch, in Germany; Rebekah Eugenie Foa, Julianna and Pauline Bloch, in France; Estelle and Maria Hertzveld, in Holland, and Emma Lazarus, in America.

One other name should be recorded. Fanny Neuda, the writer of "Hours of Devotion," and a number of juvenile stories, has a double claim upon our recognition, inasmuch as she is an authoress of the Jewish race who has addressed her writings exclusively to Jewish women.

We have followed Jewish women from the days of their first flight into the realm of song through a period of two thousand years up to modern times, when our record would seem to come to a natural conclusion. But I deem it proper to bring to your attention a set of circumstances which would be called phenomenal, were it not, as we all know, that the greatest of all wonders is that true wonders are so common.

It is a well-known fact, spread by literary journals, that the Rothschild family, conspicuous for financial ability, has produced a goodly number of authoresses. But it is less well known, and much more noteworthy, that many of the excellent women of this family have devoted their literary gifts and attainments to the service of Judaism. The palaces of the Rothschilds, the richest family in the world, harbor many a warm heart, whose pulsations are quickened by the thought of Israel's history and poetic heritage. Wealth has not abated a jot of their enthusiasm and loyal love for the faith. The first of the house of Rothschild to make a name for herself as an authoress was Lady Charlotte Rothschild, in London, one of the noblest women of our time, who, standing in the glare of prosperity, did not disdain to take up the cudgels in defense of her people, to go Sabbath after Sabbath to her poor, unfortunate sisters in faith, and expound to them, in the school established by her generosity, the nature and duties of a moral, religious life, in lectures pervaded by the spirit of truth and faith. Two volumes of these addresses have been published in German and English (1864 and 1869), and every page gives evidence of rare piety, considerable scholarship, thorough knowledge of the Bible, and a high degree of culture. Equal enthusiasm for Judaism pervades the two volumes of "Thoughts Suggested by Bible Texts" (1859), by Baroness Louise, another of the English Rothschilds.

Three young women of this house, in which wealth is not hostile to idealism, have distinguished themselves as writers, foremost among them Clementine Rothschild, a gentle, sweet maiden, claimed by death before life with its storms could rob her of the pure ideals of youth. She died in her twentieth year, and her legacy to her family and her faith is contained in "Letters to a Christian Friend on the Fundamental Truths of Judaism," abundantly worthy of the perusal of all women, regardless of creed. This young woman displayed more courage, more enthusiasm, more wit, to be sure also more precise knowledge of Judaism, than thousands of men of our time, young and old, who fancy grandiloquent periods sufficient to solve the great religious problems perplexing mankind.

Finally, mention must be made of Constance and Anna de Rothschild, whose two volume "History and Literature of the Israelites" (1872) created a veritable sensation, and awakened the literary world to the fact that the Rothschild family is distinguished not only for wealth, but also for the talent and religious zeal of its authoresses.

I have ventured to group these women of the Rothschild family together as a conclusion to the history of Jewish women in literature, because I take their work to be an earnest of future accomplishment. Such examples cannot fail to kindle the spark of enthusiasm slumbering in the hearts of Jewish women, and the sacred flame of religious zeal, tended once more by women, will leap from rank to rank in the Jewish army. As it is, a half-century has brought about a remarkable change in feeling towards Judaism. Fifty years ago the following lines by Caroline Deutsch, one of the above-mentioned modern German writers, could not have awakened the same responsive chord as now:

"Little cruet in the Temple That didst feed the sacrificial flame, What a true expressive symbol Art thou of my race, of Israel's fame! Thou for days the oil didst furnish To illume the Temple won from foe-- So for centuries in my people Spirit of resistance ne'er burnt low. It was cast from home and country, Gloom and sorrow were its daily lot; Yet the torch of faith gleamed steady, Courage, like thy oil, forsook it not. Mocks and jeers were all its portion, Death assailed it in ten thousand forms-- Yet this people never faltered, Hope, its beacon, led it through all storms. Poorer than dumb, driven cattle, It went forth enslaved from its estate, All its footsore wand'rings lighted By its consciousness of worth innate. Luckless fortunes could not bend it; Unjust laws increased its wondrous faith; From its heart exhaustless streaming, Freedom's light shone on its thorny path. Oil that burnt in olden Temple, Eight days only didst thou give forth light! Oil of faith sustained this people Through the centuries of darkest night!"

We can afford to look forward to the future of Judaism serenely. The signs of the times seem propitious to him whose eye is clear to read them, whose heart not too embittered to understand their message aright.

Our rough and tumble time, delighting in negation and destruction, crushing underfoot the tender blossoms of poetry and faith, living up to its quasi motto, "What will not die of itself, must be put to death," will suddenly come to a stop in its mad career of annihilation. That will mark the dawn of a new era, the first stirrings of a new spring-tide for storm-driven Israel. On the ruins will rise the Jewish home, based on Israel's world-saving conception of family life, which, having enlightened the nations of the earth, will return to the source whence it first issued. Built on this foundation, and resting on the pillars of modern culture, Jewish spirit, and true morality, the Jewish home will once more invite the nations to exclaim: "How beautiful are thy tents, O Jacob, thy dwellings, O Israel!"

May the soft starlight of woman's high ideals continue to gleam on the thorny path of the thinker Israel; may they never depart from Israel, those God-kissed women that draw inspiration at the sacred fount of poesy, and are consecrated by its limpid waters to give praise and thanksgiving to Him that reigns on high; may the poet's words ever remain applicable to the matrons and maidens of Israel:

"Pure woman stands in life's turmoil A rose in leafy bower; Her aspirations and her toil Are tinted like a flower.

Her thoughts are pious, kind, and true, In evil have no part; A glimpse of empyrean blue Is seen within her heart."

MOSES MAIMONIDES

"Who is Maimonides? For my part, I confess that I have merely heard the name." This naïve admission was not long since made by a well-known French writer in discussing the subject of a prize-essay, "Upon the Philosophy of Maimonides," announced by the académie universitaire of Paris. What short memories the French have for the names of foreign scholars! When the proposed subject was submitted to the French minister of instruction, he probably asked himself the same question; but he was not at a loss for an answer; he simply substituted Spinoza for Maimonides. To be sure, Spinoza's philosophy is somewhat better known than that of Maimonides. But why should a minister of instruction take that into consideration? The minister and the author--both presumably over twenty-five years of age--might have heard this very question propounded and answered some years before. They might have known that their colleague Victor Cousin, to save Descartes from the disgrace of having stood sponsor to Spinozism, had established a far-fetched connection between the Dutch philosopher and the Spanish, pronouncing Spinoza the devoted disciple of Maimonides. Perhaps they might have been expected to know, too, that Solomon Munk, through his French translation of Maimonides' last work, had made it possible for modern thinkers to approach the Jewish philosopher, and that soon after this translation was published, E. Saisset had written an article upon Jewish philosophy in the Revue des Deux Mondes, in which he gave a popular and detailed exposition of Maimonides' religious views. All this they did not know, and, had they known it, they surely would not have been so candid as the German thinker, Heinrich Ritter, who, in his "History of Christian Philosophy," frankly admits: "My impression was that mediæval philosophy was not indebted to Jewish metaphysicians for any original line of thought, but M. Munk's discovery convinced me of my mistake."

Who was Maimonides? The question is certainly more justifiable upon German than upon French soil. In France, attention has been invited to his works, while in Germany, save in the circle of the learned, he is almost unknown. Even among Jews, who call him "Rambam," he is celebrated rather than known. It seems, then, that it may not be unprofitable to present an outline of the life and works of this philosopher of the middle ages, whom scholars have sought to connect with Spinoza, with Leibnitz, and even with Kant.