Could I command the waters of Lethe, I would see that everything that the delegates saw and heard at Basle was effaced from their recollection, and would leave them only one memory: that of the great and sacred hour when they all—these down-trodden Jews who came from the ends of the earth—stood up together like brothers, their hearts full of sacred emotion and their eyes lifted up in love and pride towards their great brother-Jew,[19] who stood on the platform and spoke wonders of his people, like one of the Prophets of old. The memory of that hour, were it not that many other hours which followed dimmed the purity of the first impression, might have made this Congress one of the most momentous events in our history. The salvation of Israel will be achieved by _Prophets_, not by _diplomats_.... Footnote 14: [This note on the first Zionist Congress evoked a storm of indignation, which led the author to explain his views more fully in the essay on “The Jewish State and the Jewish Problem.” As to the unwonted harshness of some expressions in the Note, see the concluding paragraph of that essay (p. 55).] Footnote 15: [A familiar quotation from the Talmud—_Aboth_, V., 23.] Footnote 16: The capital then suggested was ten million pounds! Footnote 17: [Of the _Chovevé Zion_.] Footnote 18: [The reference is to an article called “The Truth about Palestine,” written after the author’s first visit to that country in 1891.] Footnote 19: [Dr. Max Nordau.] THE JEWISH STATE AND THE JEWISH PROBLEM (1897[20])