the many humiliations which were the price paid in return for the right
to live, for without the protection of the lords they would not have
been able to hold out against the wretched orthodox peasants. In
morality and in race, however, they considered themselves the superior
of the "Poriz", the Polish nobleman, with his extravagance and folly.

In the villages, the Jews had the upper hand, either as the actual
owners of the estates, or as the overseers, and in the rude cities with
their wooden buildings, they constituted the bulk of the merchants, the
middlemen, the artisans, even the workmen. They all led a sordid life.
Mere existence required a bitter struggle. Destitute of all pleasures
save the intimate joys of family life, fostering no ambition except such
as was connected with the study of the Law, disciplined by religious
authority, and chastened by austere and rigid principles of morality,
the Jewish masses had a peculiar stamp impressed upon their character by
their life of subjection and misery. The mind was constantly kept alert
by the dialectics of the Talmud and the ingenious efforts needed to
secure one's daily bread. Even the Messianic dreams, inspired by a
belief in Divine justice and in the moral and religious superiority of
Israel, rather than by a mystic conception of life, gave but a faint
touch of beauty and glamour to an existence so mournful, so abjectly
sad.

Such was, and such in part is still, the manner in which they live--a
sober, energetic, melancholy, and subtle people, the mass of the two
millions of Jews who reside in Lithuania and White Russia, and send
forth, to the great capitals of Europe and to the countries beyond seas,
a stream of industrious immigrants, resourceful intellectually and
morally.