d by
Willard for production in America, but has not yet been played. "This
was a great disappointment," says Caine, "and I had little heart for
much work in 1890. I did nothing in that year beyond a hasty 'Life of
Christ,' which has never been printed. I had read Renan's 'Life of
Christ,' and had been deeply impressed by it, and I had said that
there was a splendid chance for a 'Life of Christ' as vivid and as
personal from the point of belief as Renan's was from the point of
unbelief." This book he wrote, but was not satisfied with it, and has
refused to publish it, although only last year a firm of publishers
offered him three thousand pounds (fifteen thousand dollars) for the
manuscript. "No, I was not satisfied, though I had brought to bear on
it faculties which I had never used in my novels. It was human, it was
most dramatic, but it fell far short of what I had hoped to do, and I
put it away in my cupboard. I hope to rewrite it some day."

In 1891 Hall Caine began to work on "The Scapegoat," and in the spring
of that year went to Morocco to fit the scenes to his idea. He
suffered there from very bad health, from severe neurosthenia. "I was
a 'degenerate,' he says, "a la Nordau." No sooner had "The
Scapegoat" been published, than the chief rabbi wrote to him to ask
him to go to Russia, to write about the persecutions of the Jews in
that country, and in 1892 he started on this mission, which he
fulfilled entirely at his own expense, declining all the offers of
subsidies made to him by the Jewish Committee. He carried with him for
protection against the Russian authorities, a letter from Lord
Salisbury to H. M.'s Minister at St. Petersburg, to be delivered only
in case of need; and as an introduction to the possibly hostile Jewish
Communities, a letter in Hebrew to be presented to the rabbis in the
various towns. Lord's Salisbury's letter was never used, but the chief
rabbi's introduction secured him everywhere a most hospitable
reception.

[Illustration: "BLACK TOM" BEFORE "THE COTTAGE BY THE WATER-TROUGH."]

"I went through the pale of settlement," he relates, "and saw as much
of frontier life amongst the Jews as possible and found them like
hunted dogs. I, however, got no further than the frontier towns, for
cholera had broken out, numerous deaths took place every day, my own
health was getting queer, and, to speak plainly, I was frightened. So
we turned our faces back and returned home. On my return to London