Jewish race. However complex and they lived, and either submitted to various may be its origins, it is certain their yoke or exploited them, has not that for a thousand years it has re-entirely vanished, and its manifestaceived no fresh influx, and that its tions have helped to provoke the unpurity and identity have remained un- lovely outbursts of anti-Semitism. But touched. A Jewish family that had by the side of these Jews, some of long been settled in Germany and came whom have not yet acquired the idea to settle in France, was neither Ger- of country, whilst others have put it man nor French; it was simply Jew- aside as an unnecessary burden, there ish, whatever might be its language. are to be found in every laud Jews For such a family Germans and French- who are very decidedly — nay, passionmen were Goim (Gentiles) alike, and to ately — patriotic. them the national passious, wars, sucWhen the hearts which once beat so cesses, and disasters were equally mat- ardently for Jerusalem become strongly ters of indifference, except in so far as attached to their new country, they they were likely to react on their own give to it the accumulated affection of fate. Things began to alter with the centuries. It was thus that France Aufklärung movement which sprang inspired James with an adoration into up within and around Judaism in the which gratitude and filial love, reason eighteenth century, the movement pre- and mysticism, entered. He saw in eminently represented in Germany by her not only all her past, but all the the names of Moses Mendelssohn and possibilities for the future that he Lessing. In France the state of affairs thought should be hers. Her mistakes was transformed by the law passed in and her faults made him suffer the 1791, which made the Jews French more keenly because he longed to see citizens like the rest. It is thus a new her become purer and greater. But spirit, unstamped with any nationality he felt with an unconquerable faith in the modern sense of the word, and that she would overcome at last, and not yet attached to any real fatherland, one day approach the ideal he dreamed that the Jews have brought to the for her, the ideal of justice, of freedom, different nations of Europe who, fol- of beauty, and of love. By adopting lowing more or less completely the as her children those whom she had example set by France, have adopted so long rejected, our dear France has them into their midst. From the adap-gained many sons who have served tation of the Jewish genius to the and loved her faithfully; she has genius of the various nations, new and found none attached to her with a often marvellous combinations have arisen, such as that offered by the poetry of Heine, which could only have blossomed on a Jewish plant grown on German soil. And as the mind and character of the modern Jew have been formed by a diversity of traditions and aptitudes, old and new, in the various countries of civilization, so his heart has been divided between different affections. The spirit of the old, unchanged Jews, who never felt truly at home in the countries where they sojourned, who were indifferent to the struggles of the peoples among whom Darmesteter on the famous lecture by Renan on more tender devotion than the boy who was born at Château-Salins (now French, alas! no longer) on the 28th of March, 1849, in the house of a small Jewish bookbinder. II. JAMES did not remain long in his birth place. As early as the year 1852, his father came to Paris to seek for a prosperity which he did not find. He went to live in a dark and narrow street of the Marais quarter, in which on a Friday evening the Sabbath-light may be seen to burn in nearly every window. And then, owing perhaps to the sudden deprivation of light and 1 See the very interesting commentary of James this subject, in the article "Race et Tradition" air, perhaps to the narrow way of (Les Prophètes d'Israel, pp. 247-278). living to which the family was con But his life, already so frail, was destined to be shaken by a series of sudden and tragic blows. In 1868 his father died suddenly while lighting the candles for a religious festival; twelve years later, his mother, who watched over him with a jealous love, fell from the high window of their little apartment and was killed on the spot. Eight years afterwards, on the 16th November, 1888, his elder brother, who had always been his guide and his support, and who had opened up the way for him in life, died of the malady that was later to strike him down. was only by a miracle that James withstood the terrible shock caused by the It he could not have withstood had it not been for the firm and gentle hand that had been placed in his a few mouths previously, and for the tender help it gave him. demned, the child, up till the age of | country (which in themselves imply three, robust and rosy, began to be the spirit of optimism), by his scientific undermined by a mysterious malady, work, and by the love with which he which made him suffer as it were in- was ever surrounded. termittently and at long intervals, until his twenty-fifth year; and at the moment of adolescence prevented him from attaining the ordinary stature and proportions of manhood. His physical constitution could not but have great influence on his moral development. From childhood upwards he had to suffer the innumerable small wounds that in such a case are inflicted, often unconsciously, never with a full knowledge of their cruelty. His natural sensitiveness thus became heightened, and at the same time he took pains to hide it. "It was at school," he writes (in some private notes to which I have had access)" that I began to assume the mask of irony in self-defence." | death of his mother; the second loss To those who read the look in his eyes, luminous and tender, direct and full of depth, who saw the bright smile that lit up his face when a friend appeared in the room, the mask seemed neither thick nor hard to penetrate. And beneath the silence, scarcely interrupted by an occasional half-expressed epigram, it was not difficult, from a word here and there, or some involuntary outburst, to divine the ardent and tender spirit, capable of great enthusiasms, and subject to moments of profound depression, with the impulsive and ingenuous character of a child, the sensitiveness of a woman, the zeal of an apostle. The sufferings of such a soul imprisoned in so frail a body, all poets will understand; and a poet who felt this anguish in his own person has told it in undying laments. When James went to Florence, some years ago, the fellow-countrymen of What might not have been yielded by Leopardi were struck by the resem- such a plant caressed at last by the blance of his fate to that of the singer west wind and warmed to the core by of Sappho; he was familiarly called the a sun as kindly as it was tardy? Harsh little Leopardi. But the pessimism nature has allowed us to see no further. which more than once passed over his But she to whom this miracle is due spirit did not strike root so deep in will find her one consolation in the him as in the soul of the great poet of thought of having wrought this reRecanati, nor produce such bitter fruit.newal; of having given to him she He was saved from it by his own loved years of happiness beyond his affections, by his love of mankind and own dream, and brought to maturity More fortunate than Leopardi, he learnt the meaning of happiness in its purest and most ideal form, and could at last satisfy the immense need for loving that was in him. It was in these last few years that the powers of his mind and his heart attained their full strength and development. The cold wind of despair, which had at times dried up and contracted his soul, yielded before a warm breeze of spring; the old year's snows melted away, and the sap of life sprang up within him: La joie a pour symbole une plante brisée, the fine faculties of his mind and fine Latin sentences on the dying lips heart; of having so helped in the achievement of labors that long must bear beneficent and abundant fruit. III. of Demosthenes. To these academic exercises he had given himself up heart and soul. In after-life he referred with disdain to "the pleasing and sterile teaching, the elegant routine of the lycée ; " he almost regretted not having continued to attend the quaint and modest classes at the Tal too purely formal kind of instruction that cares less for substance than for form, and teaches boys rather to speak than to think; but to the lycée James none the less owed much. The art of composition and the gift of expression may be purely frivolous when they do not serve to give relief to an original thought. But when the thought is there they are of the greatest value, not only in communicating to others, but because they develop it and give it precision in the mind of the thinker himself. Nor was it only the easy command over form that James learnt ON leaving the elementary school James went to the Talmud Torah, "a kind of little lycée and seminary combined," at which his brother had al-mud Torah. I am no partisan of that ready spent three years. He has left a charming description of this singular school; but he does not say that the dry scholastic methods which were there applied to the study of the Bible and the Talmud gave him a distaste, amounting almost to hostility, for the narrow yoke of the law interpreted by commentators and casuists. Nor did be bear this yoke for long. One of the generous foundations, of which there were so many among the Jews, enabled him to enter the boarding-school which was at that time under the direction of Mr. Joseph Derenbourg (now member of the French Institute) and to attend at school the daily classes at the Lycée Bouaparte. Thus his cherished dream was realized. He wanted a freer and wider teaching, and perhaps as much from antipathy to the Talmudic scholasticism as from his innate tastes, he longed to develop by means of purely literary exercises, the gift for style which he felt was latent within him. "And then, too," he writes in his notes, I was ambitious. I had heard that every year there was a competition, among the rhétorique forms of all the schools (of Paris and Versailles) in Latin composition, that the prize given was called the prix d'honneur, and that it was the highest of all school distinctions. I said to myself that I would go to the lycée and win the prix d'hon-back the great cosmogonies of India neur." At the lycée he soon became the head boy, and in 1867 left the rhétorique form with the famous prix d'honneur, which he had won for putting 1 The French text runs, "La plus haute distinction de l'Université." French secondary schools are under the same general direction as the Faculties, and together form the "Université de France."-TRANS. he gained freedom of thought; the ancient and modern, worlds became apparent to him in all their complexity; his taste was. formed; it was there that he learnt to know Tacitus and Pascal, the two favorite authors whose works remained on his table until the day of his death, and also the poets of the time, and especially Hugo, for whom he long kept a passionate admiration.2 On his promotion from the rhétorique form to that of philosophie he was enchanted. With scarcely a word of guidance from his masters he studied one system after another, and retained an amazing grasp of them all. Among his most profound and original articles are the essay in which he seeks to trace and of Greece to anterior mythological conceptions, and that on the Supreme God of the Aryans. In this essay he appears as an Hellenist, as well as an Orientalist; the result of the thorough studies of the lycée is evident. 2 "Hugo, the most Biblical of modern geniuses," he wrote somewhere. For him the praise was supreme. 3 "Essais Orientaux," pp. 106-208; and Contemporary Review, October, 1879. Nor was the time really lost. Fortu Our French youths, so But the years spent there, happy for consciousness, he dreamed of a general his mind, were yet sad for him, for his history of religions. But in the midst new life had separated him from his of all these dreams he made but little brother Arsène, and save for a few advance; those who had expected most hours in each week he was without his from him began to shake their heads; only confidant, his protector and ten- but James himself did not lose confider friend. At last, in 1868, he left dence, nor was he conscious of wasting the lycée, and crowned with the paper his time. laurels of the school comedy, he had to face life. What was he to do? He nate indeed are those who, between was, of course, advised to enter the the studies of youth and their first Ecole Normale, which continued the original work, are able to spend a few studies of the lycée; he refused to years in the state of fruitful vacillation submit his mind to this new schooling. during which the great decision that He took the baccalauréat and the must finally be taken is secretly prelicence ès-lettres, and the baccalauréat pared. Meanwhile the eyes and ears ès-sciences, and passed his law examina- are awake to every sight and every tious; he wrote a novel, a play, and sound, the hesitating hand essays each much verse, which he judged later to task it meets but only to quit it, and be mediocre, but which was good prac- the mind traverses the world freely, tice for his pen. "I knew not what to seeking for the place of which it must do," he writes; "Arsène had found his soon take possession, and not knowcareer at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes. ing that this has been marked out He tried to instil into me the spirit of beforehand. philology, but failed. I am very slow early enrolled and "specialized," know to take up new ideas, although quick to little of these delicious and profitable develop them when once I have under- wanderings; Darmesteter, owing to the stood. I spent my time in studying ignorance in which he still was of his at random. I worked at the natu- true vocation, could give himself up ral sciences, for which I thought I had to their full and unbounded delight. a gift, but I cared only for vague gen- These four years were as profitable to eralizations without that interest in him as the months are to the pure-bred detail which is the beginning of wis- colt before he is taken to the racedom. I wanted to write a synthet- course, when he is left to skip freely ical description of the world. I on the plain, to charge against the decided to give ten years to it; that I wind and to follow his shadow in the would devote the first nine years to the sun. study of the nine sciences successively, But daily life was hard for the poor in the order of Comte, and that I free-lance. He was obliged to give would write my book in the tenth." lessons for several hours a day, This wonderful plan was soon aban- climb stairs that made him painfully doned; the counter-attractions of liter- breathless, and to meet faces whose ature, philosophy, and history proved indifference froze him. And then too powerful. James had learnt, in came the suffering of the war and the pastime, English, German, and Italian; Commune which made his heart bleed, enchanted by Byron, Heine, and Car- and shook his faith in his country and ducci, he planned a history of the in justice. In 1871, a young man of "Satanic" literature. Then again he wished to write a "Poetic History of the French Revolution," in which he would have brought together its echoes in the poets of all nations; or, haunted by the religious problem which his separation from Judaism had raised in his to twenty-two, he found himself without guidance, without light from within or without, feeling that he was capable of accomplishing great things, but knowing not where the harvest which he was to reap lay ripening. â ་ ་ IV. it needed more than exceptional courAN effort of will put an end to a state age and endurance; it needed an exof indecision which might finally have ceptional equipment. The domain of become dangerous. He saw the futil- Iran touches both on the Semitic doity of his many and fruitless attempts, main and on that of India; he who and recognized the necessity of under- would study it must be acquainted not taking some well-defined task and only with the successive languages of following it up resolutely. He had ancient and modern Persia (of which been attracted towards the East by some, like Pehlvi, offer almost inextrithe lovely reveries just collected by cable difficulties) but with Sanskrit, Michelet in his "Bible de l'humanité," "Hebrew, and Arabic, and with the and his knowledge of Hebrew already ideas which have found expression in opened one of the gates of this great these tongues during the last thirty cenworld to him. He decided to follow turies. Darmesteter advanced boldly, the advice of his brother, and in 1872 and his first steps were marked by he entered the Ecole des Hautes new conquests. For twenty years he Etudes (at which Arsène had just been explored, without wearying of his task, appointed lecturer), and to devote him- the most arid and the most attractive self to Oriental studies, without decid-regions alike of this mysterious terriing for the moment to which branch tory, and its map after his passage is he should attach himself specially. It incomparably fuller and more precise was at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes than it was before. 1 that he became sure of his real voca- His first work was a study of two of tion, and that he submitted to healthy the Zoroastrian Amchaspands, Haurdiscipline a mind which, left to itself, vatât and Ameretât, which from the might have made too bold an attempt outset revealed the surprising extent on the world, and advanced to the con- of a knowledge so rapidly acquired, his quest of truth rather by adventurous elegance in composition, his subtlety of leaps than by sure and methodical thought, and the soundness and brilprogress. liancy of his style. Two years later, in After two years' study his professors his book on “Ormazd and Ahriman ” 2 declared that they had nothing more to (his thesis for the doctor of letters), teach him, and that it was now for him he attacked the central problem of Zoto add to our knowledge. The master, roastrianism. Professor Max Müller at once cautious and bold, ingenious at once entrusted the young man with and circumspect, who had succeeded in the arduous task of translating the both rousing and controlling his youth-" Avesta " into English, for the great ful enthusiasm, undertook to point out the way he should take. He directed James towards a particular region of Oriental science, the study of the Iranian religion; a province which the heroism of Anquetil-Duperron and the masterly sagacity of Burnouf had in former times made almost French ground, and on which M. Bréal himself had brilliantly maintained the rights of the first occupants. It was, in spite of the work of these men and of English and German scholars, still an ill-known country, of which the approaches were studded with obstacles, the roads hardly opened up, and in which a few cultivated spots stood out as oases in the midst of vast deserts. To venture into collection of "Sacred Books of the East" published by the University of Oxford. While giving himself up chiefly to this difficult piece of work, Darmesteter wrote on various subjects, and collected later in two volumes the "Etudes Iraniennes," each of which marks a scientific advance. Soon, however, he became convinced that a real comprehension of the "Avesta," which is in great part a ritual, was only possible in the midst of the people who still practise the rites on which it com 1 Twenty-ninth fascicule of the "Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes," Paris, Bouillon. 2 Twenty-ninth fascicule of the "Bibliothèque des Hautes Etudes." 3 Etudes Iraniennes, 2 vols. 8vo, Paris, Bouillon, 1883. |