Sublime

One of the signal advantages of the form is that it banishes the narrator’s voice and moral stance; the letters represent only the point of view of the characters. It also allows for a useful compression.

You will see only that your own people are troubled. You will not see that a few must suffer for the millions to be saved. You will be a Jew first and wail for your people. This I understand. It is the Semitic character. You lament but you are never brave enough to fight back. That is why there are pogroms.

But there is another realm where we can always find something true, the fireside of a friend, where we shed our little conceits and find warmth and understanding, where small selfishnesses are impossible and where wine and books and talk give a different meaning to existence. There we have made something that no falseness can touch. We are at home.

The Jew is the universal scapegoat. This does not happen without reason, and it is not the old superstition about ‘Christ-killers’ that makes them distrusted. But this Jew trouble is only an incident. Something bigger is happening.

The quicksand of despair held them, it was at their chins. Then just before they died a man came and pulled them out. All they now know is, they will not die. They are in hysteria of deliverance, almost they worship him. But whoever the savior was, they would have done the same. God grant it is a true leader and no black angel they follow so joyous

Throughout the civilized world, from Battery Park to Fulton Street, he was known as a dependable man for a fast tax write-off.