If there be anything likely to weaken or shake one's patriotism, it is the narrow-mindedness and ridiculous prejudice of the Christian West against its fellow-countrymen of a different creed. I will take my own case as example. I was all ablaze with enthusiasm when in my childhood I became acquainted with the life of the national heroes of Hungary. The heroic epoch of 1848 filled my youthful heart with genuine pride, and even later in 1861, when I returned from Constantinople by the Danube boat, on landing at Mohacs I fell on my knees and kissed the ground with tears of true patriotic devotion in my eyes. I was intensely happy and in a rapture of delight, but had soon to realise that many, nay most people questioned the genuineness of my Hungarianism. They criticised and made fun of me, because, they said, people of Jewish origin cannot be Hungarians, they can only be Jews and nothing else. I pointed to the circumstance that in matters of faith, like most cultured people, I was really an agnostic and had long since left the precincts of Judaism. I spoke of the dangers I had faced in order to investigate the early history of Hungary, surely a test of patriotism such as but few would be able to show. Many other arguments I brought forward, but all in vain; everywhere and on all occasions an ominous sneer, an insidious shrug of the shoulders, an icy indifference, or a silence which has a more deadly effect than any amount of talk. Add to this the deep and painful wound inflicted by the adverse criticism at home upon me and my travels, and I would ask the reader, Could I under these conditions persist in my national enthusiasm, could I stand up to defend Hungarian patriotism with the same ardent love of youth when as yet I had no anticipation of what was to happen to me? Even the most furious nationalist could not easily answer this question in the affirmative. Not his Jewish descent, but the prejudiced, unreasonable, and illiberal Christian world is to blame when the man of Jewish origin becomes cosmopolitan; and I am not sure whether those Jews who, in spite of the blunt refusals they receive, persist in pushing themselves within the national framework must be admired as martyrs or despised as intruders. The law, at all events, makes no difference, but usage and social convenience do not trouble themselves much about the law; and in this all European countries are alike, with the exception of England, where liberalism is not an empty term, where the Jew feels thoroughly English and is looked upon as such by the true Briton. I frankly admit that the weakening and ultimate loss of this warm national feeling deprives us of one of the most noble sentiments of humanity; for, with all its weakness and prejudices, the bond of national unity possesses always a certain charm and attraction; and through all the painful experiences of my life, the thought that the short-sightedness of society could not deprive me of my