colour of amber, out of
the midst of the fire"--with the further visions of living creatures
"like burning coals of fire," and the "wheels within wheels," with the
rings of them full of eyes. To this there is not and could not be any
parallel in the Greek. When the Persian queen in AEschylus dreams the
most startling dream of her life, it is obviously a vision constructed
by the poet's intellect alone. When Plato sees visions, they, too, are
intellectual constructions with the meaning as clear as the words. There
is nothing rapt, nothing fantastic. Greek imagery in this region is to
Hebrew imagery what the sculpture of Greece is to those weird creations
of symbolism at Nineveh and Babylon, the colossal human-faced bulls and
the genii with the eagle-head. And if you remind me that I am comparing
prophet with poet, and not prophet with prophet, I answer that the poets
are the only analogue of the prophets that Greece possessed; and that
very fact illustrates what is meant when we say that the Hellenic spirit
had no capacity for, the Hellenic view of life no impulse to, that
intensity of feeling which could produce imagery so stupendous in such
awe-inspiring phrase.

The Hebraic character, therefore, is one of strength and depth. Even now
no Jew in fiction is ever a weakling or a trifler. In whatever light he
is presented, a Shylock of Shakespeare, an Isaac of Scott, a Nathan of
Lessing, a Sidonia of Disraeli--revengeful, avaricious, bigoted,
benevolent, magnificent, talented--he is always a character of striking
power and intensity. The ancient type of Greek does not appear in modern
fiction. If he did, it would be as a subtle reasoner, perfect critic,
polished man of the world, full of the intellectual and social graces,
ever adaptable to circumstance, choosing his idea and never letting the
idea govern him. And, in the matter of loves and hates, it was rather
his maxim that one should neither hate nor love over-much, since he
might some day come to hate the person he loved and love the person he
hated. The Hellenic watchwords "nothing too much"; and "measure in
everything"; the Hellenic hatred of "unseasonableness" and dread of
"infatuation"--these things show how the ideal of the Greek was ever to
be master of himself by aid of reason. The Hebraic spirit, on the
contrary, would strive and cry without scruple of measure or season in
any matter on which its conscience or desire was fixed.

The Hebraic spirit is uncompro