"One result of it is a fine discrimination," he replied, "a fine discrimination in art, in conduct, and in manner." "Are you not the most intellectual people in the world?" I said reproachfully. He seemed to think that had nothing to do with it. "Are you still worrying your head about _Kultur_?" said the artist next time I saw him. "Then I will explain a little more to you. I, as you know, am extremely _anti-Semite_." "I am sure that is not a proof of _Kultur_," I said hurriedly. "It is not a proof of anything. It is a result. Nevertheless I perceive that if it were not for the Jews there would be neither art nor literature in Germany. They create, they appreciate, they support, and although we affect to despise them we invariably follow them like sheep. What they admire we admire; what they discover we see to be good. But ... I told you I was _anti-Semite_, ... though they have most of the brains in the country, they have little _Kultur_. One of us who is as stupid as an ox, ... most of us are as stupid as oxen, ... may have more, ... but because he is stupid he cannot impose his opinion on the multitude." "Do you mean that the Jews set the fashion in art and literature, and that they sometimes set a bad one?" I asked "That is exactly what I mean." It was a curious theory, and I will not be responsible for its truth. But there is no doubt that in every German town artistic and literary society has its centre amongst the educated Jews. They are most generous hosts, and it is their pleasure to gather round them an aristocracy of genius. The aristocracy that is perfectly happy without genius would as a rule not enter a Jew's house; though the poorer members of the aristocracy often marry a Jew's daughter. Where there is inter-marriage some social intercourse is presumably inevitable. But the social crusade against Jews is carried on in Germany to an extent we do not dream of here. The Christian clubs and hostels exclude them, Christian families avoid them, and Christian insults are offered to them from the day of their birth. "What do you use those long lances for?" said the wife of a Jewish professor to a young man in a cavalry regiment. "_Damit hetzen wir die Juden_," said he, with the snarl of his kind; and he knew very well that the lady's husband was a Jew. I have been told a story of a Jewish girl being asked to a Court ball by the Emperor Frederick, and finding that none of the men present would consent to dance with her. I have heard of girls who wished to ask a Jewish schoolmate to a dance, and discovered that their Christian friends flatly refused to meet anyone of her race. How any Christians contrive to avoid it I do not understand, for wherever you go in Germany some of the great scholars, doctors, men of science, art, and literature, are men of Jewish blood. The press is almost entirely in their hands, and when there is a scurrilous artist or a coarse picture your friends explain it by saying that the tone of