He drifted to Paris before the Franco-German War, and, there, was an
active Parisian, familiar with the life of the Boulevards and full of
energy in every patriotic and characteristically French pursuit; notably
he helped to recruit men during the national catastrophe of 1870-71.
Everybody who met him in this phase of his life thought of him and
talked of him as a Frenchman.
Deciding that the future of France was doubtful after such a defeat, he
migrated to the United States, and there died. Though a man of some
years when he landed, he soon appeared in the eyes of the Americans with
whom he associated to be an American just like themselves. He acquired
the American accent, the American manner, the freedom and the restraints
of that manner. In every way he was a characteristic American.
In Hamburg his German name had been pronounced after the German fashion.
In France, where German names are common, he retained it, but had it
pronounced in French fashion. On reaching the United States it was
changed to a Scotch name which it distantly resembled, and no doubt if
he had gone to Japan the Japanese would be telling us that they had
known him as a worthy Japanese gentleman of great activity in national
affairs and bearing the honoured name of an ancient Samurai family.
The nineteenth century attitude almost entirely depended upon this
marvellous characteristic in the Jews which differentiates them from all
the rest of mankind. Had that characteristic power of superficial
mutation been absent, the nineteenth century policy would have broken
down as completely as the corresponding Northern policy towards the
negro broke down in the United States. Had the Jew been as conspicuous
among us, as, say, a white man is among Kaffirs, the fiction would have
broken down at once. As it was, all who adopted that policy, honestly or
dishonestly, were supported by this power of the Jew to conform
externally to his temporary surroundings.
The man who consciously adopted the nineteenth century Liberal policy
towards the Jews as a mere political scheme, knowing full well the
dangers it might develop; the man only half conscious of the existence
of those dangers; and the man who had never heard of them but took it
for granted that the Jew was a citizen just like himself, with an
exceptional religion--each of those three men had in common, aiding the
schemes of the one, supporting the illusion of the other, the amazing
fact that a Jew takes on with inexplicable rapidity the colour of his
environment. That unique characteristic was the support of the Liberal
attitude and was at the same time its necessary condition.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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