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again, he had languages. He studied in London, but to such purpose that when he travelled the difficulties that beset the ordinary student never disturbed him. To any discussion he could contribute something vital; there was no movement planned for human betterment that lacked his sympathy, or his active interest. In assisting others he placed no limit upon his time or his resources. Many years ago he lived in the Temple and I had chambers near. It was no uncommon occurrence for Zangwill to arrive hurriedly in the evening to borrow the fare to his mother's home in St John's Wood. Importunate beggars had emptied his pockets.

In spite of the troubles he encountered in public work he remained an optimist, even in agitated moments he could jest. Much of his humour is to be found in his books, but still more was reserved for his friends. However bitterly he might be attacked, he never bore ill will; he said once, speaking of certain critics, 'When they like what I say, I shall know I am growing old.' Criticism never failed; he kept a cushion stuffed with newspapercuttings and remarked that he found a certain pleasure in sitting upon his critics. 'My purpose is to stimulate thought not to save people the trouble of thinking,' he said once when I asked him to explain an utterance. 'Sting people; first they splutter, then they think.'

Of his lightest vein a paper called 'Walking in War Time,' and published in 'The War for the World,' affords a good example.

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'In the military areas it is terrifying—and illuminatingto mark how everything can be transformed under espionitis. Walking slowly, you are spying; briskly, you are fleeing. To tie your shoe-string near a bridge, viaduct or culvert is absolutely prohibited by the Defence of the Realm Act. Asking the way is suspicious, knowing it still more so. sulting your road-map is flagrantly hostile, taking a Naturenote treasonable. A book is a code, a manuscript a report, a sketch a chart, accounts statistics, a scrawl a cypher, an electric torch a wireless installation, a Kodak death and damnation. Your haversack holds bombs, your card-case somebody else's cards. . . . Gossiping with the cottagers is extracting information; giving pennies to their children is bribery and corruption. To smoke is to reek of the Fatherland; to eschew tobacco the last sacrifice of the Prussian Vol. 247.-No. 490.

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patriot; to light your pipe at night to escort a Zeppelin. Is your name as Saxon as Alfred or Athelstan-it is clearly assumed. Does it begin with a Z? You are obviously the cousin of a notorious count. You may not whistle-that is a call; nor sing-for that is a password. Who knows that the bun that bulges in your pocket is not a bomb? Particularly parlous is it to telephone; to telegraph requires an arduous avoidance of dangerous ambiguities. Back tonight. Don't wait up' is clearly a warning to submarines. 'Tell Willy all is arranged' may be a message to one's Imperial Master. 'Please return to London and let the matter drop' is an unmistakable instruction to Zeppelins. To refer to Burns or Shelley would be fatal.'

Sometimes I think he would not have been happy without having some grievance to redress. In the days when suffragists had few friends he was among their ardent supporters, and a powerful speaker on their platforms. Just before the War he published a Lament of which the first and last verses may be quoted; the Government attitude towards women helped to inspire it, and the close association of progressive England with reactionary Russia.

'They blind the linnet and it sings
More rippingly its inner glee,
Giving the soul a sense of wings-

I cannot sing because I see.

'Give back my days of faith and flame,

The magic mists of life at spring,

Blind me to Earth's and England's shame,
Put out my eyes and let me sing.'

The instinct to espouse an unpopular cause, to challenge an established opinion, to fly in the face of prejudice came to him naturally. It was this quality that attracted the affection of noble minds, that won for him the respect of those whose esteem has a real value. He was essentially a vehicle through which great qualities flowed to the service of noble causes; those of us who believe in reincarnation may well find in his life support for our contentions. He neither affirmed nor denied; for him life and the day's work were enough; he would have said with Browning, 'And with God be the rest.' Yet he knew he was impelled by

forces from without, for he wrote once, 'My nature is such that I will always follow justice regardless of consequences.' He might have added with Marcus Aurelius, 'The lot assigned to each man is carried along with him and carries him along with it.' He knew too that the visible does not contain all; in that delightful poem, 'Blind Children,' which gives its name to his volume of verse, after wondering how the children would feel if sight were given back to them, he concludes:

'What a dark world-who knows?—

Ours to inhabit is!

One touch, and what a strange

Glory might burst on us,

What a hid universe!

'Do we sport carelessly,
Blindly upon the verge
Of an Apocalypse?'

I alluded to his kindness. We came one night after a long day's journey to a certain town in France, and after dinner he said, 'Let us go to the Foire. You see strange creatures there.' Ten minutes later he whispered, 'Didn't I say we should meet strange creatures? There isand he named a brilliant decadent whose career was ended. We joined him, and Zangwill gave of his best. We sat in a café and drank harmless sirops,' kept him gay and amused, and left him tired but sober in his garret at about 2 a.m. By that time Zangwill could scarcely walk to our hotel, he was exhausted. 'It was worth while,' he mused, it has given him one clean night and will make the next one easier.'

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He did not take count of his impromptus; I think he forgot them as he forgot the countless little acts of kindness and of love. I was with him on the deck of a liner outside Canea one Saturday morning many years ago; the British Mediterranean Fleet was in the Bay. There was to be a service in the saloon for Jewish passengers, he was approached to take part in it. I am going to visit that ship,' he said, pointing to a near cruiser. 'Not on Saturday morning,' persisted the importunate intruder; 'come and worship the Lord.' Zangwill replied with three Hebrew words taken from

the Sabbath service and rendered in the English version, The Lord is a Man of War.'

He never associated himself with any coterie, never joined any mutual admiration society. You shall look in vain through his books for any really bad characters, though you may find vulgar and self-seeking folk. Throughout all his work noble figures predominate and, a point worth noting, his life was as pure as his pen. A master of pathos, his effects are secured legitimately. He does not play to the gallery, he does not invite tears. If they come they spring from situations that are in themselves unforced, even inevitable. That they are an expression of the overwhelming sense of pity that dominated his outlook does nothing to vitiate their artistic relevance. He loved work and travel, he possessed an infinite capacity for taking pains. I can remember being with him on a liner in the Mediterranean one early morning when the sunrise was just gilding a group of steerage passengers, Levantines, who had recovered from the initial bouts of sea-sickness, and were sunning themselves. They made a picturesque group, and Zangwill's notebook-the back of some envelopes-was speedily at work. A few sentences painted the picture, and when many years afterwards I recognised it in print, the scene came back vividly.

He did not surrender often to high spirits and the joy of life; but there were occasions when he was supremely happy, and his pen shared his ecstasy. A record is to be found on the opening page of 'Italian Fantasies,' that luminously baffling volume of essays.

'I too have crossed the Alps, and Hannibal himself had no such baggage of dreams and memories, such fife-and-drum lyrics, such horns of ivory, such emblazoned standards and streamered gonfalons, flying and fluttering, such phalanxes of heroes, such visions of cities to spoil and riches to rifle, palace and temple, bust and picture, tapestry and mosaic. My elephants too matched his; my herds of medieval histories grotesque as his gargoyled beasts. Nor without fire and vinegar have I pierced my passage to these green pastures. "Ave Italia regina terrarum!" I cried, as I kissed the hem of thy blue robe, starred with white cities

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'I too have crossed the Rubicon, and Cæsar gathered no such booty. Gold and marble and sardonyx, lapis-lazuli,

agate and alabaster, porphyry, jasper and bronze, these were the least of my spoils. I plucked at the mystery of the storied land and fulfilled my eyes of its loveliness and colour. I have seen the radiant raggedness of Naples as I squeezed in the squirming wriggling ant-heap; at Pæstum I have companied the lizard in the forsaken Temple of Poseidon. (O the soaring Pagan pillars, divinely Doric!) I have stood by the Leaning Tower of Bologna that gave a simile to Dante; and by the long low wall of Padua's university, whence Portia borrowed her learned plumes; I have stayed to scan a placarded sonnet to a Doctor of Philology; I have walked along that delectable Riviera di Levante and left a footprint on those wind-swept sands where Shelley's mortal elements found their fit resolution in flame. I have lain under Boccaccio's olives, and caressed with my eye the curve of the distant Duomo and the winding silver of the Arno. Florence has shown me supreme earth-beauty, Venice supreme waterbeauty, and I have worshipped Capri and Amalfi, offspring of the love-marriage of earth and water.'

Through nearly 400 pages he deals with life in an Italian setting, gives free rein to thought, emotion and knowledge, and wakens us as though on a sudden to the infinite possibilities of the written word when a Master sets it down. Published a few years earlier, when his name was common in men's mouths, the book must have assumed speedily a place on the shelves of every reader who has a library and strives to make it representative of what is best in literature. Unfortunately Zangwill had been long silent, many who had been among his warmest admirers had transferred their allegiance to writers who are more persistent in their appeal; but if there is a book of which the future should be assured, it is 'Italian Fantasies.' He has recovered something of the very Springtide of enthusiasm. He has swept away a 'personally conducted' Italy. We have here no tourist's description, and yet what is perhaps the most beautiful country in Europe serves as a background for ripe, penetrating discourse, 'de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis.' He admits you to be his travelling companion and you ramble through the spacious galleries of a richly stored mind. Indeed, there is a moment when he says, conscious of straying beyond his title, But this, I remember, is an Italian Fantasy.' We forget Ludgate Circus and the Place de l'Opera, and the Piazza di

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