ay it should go; and those who have not read
the book cannot possibly guess that this mock marriage, instantly
and ceremoniously dissolved, can have any ulterior effect upon the
fortunes of any one concerned. Thus, the whole scene, however
curious in itself, seems motiveless and resultless. How the
requisite finger-post was to be provided I cannot tell. That is not
my business; but a skilful dramatist would have made it his. Then,
in the second act, amid illustrations of social life in the Ghetto,
we have the meeting of Hannah with David Brandon, a prettily-written
scene of love-at-first-sight. But, so far as any one can see, there
is every prospect that the course of true love will run absolutely
smooth. Again we lack a finger-post to direct our interest forward;
nor do we see anything that seems to bring this act into vital
relation with its predecessor. Those who have read the book know
that David Brandon is a 'Cohen,' a priest, a descendant of Aaron,
and that a priest may not marry a divorced woman. Knowing this, we
have a sense of irony, of impending disaster, which renders the
love-scene of the second act dramatic. But to those, and they must
always be a majority in any given audience, who do not know this,
the scene has no more dramatic quality than lies in its actual
substance, which, although pretty enough, is entirely commonplace.
Not till the middle of the third act (out of four) is the obstacle
revealed, and we see that the mighty maze was not without a plan.
Here, then, the drama begins, after two acts and a half of
preparation, during which we were vouchsafed no inkling of what was
preparing. It is capital drama when we come to it, really human,
really tragic. The arbitrary prohibitions of the Mosaic law have no
religious or moral force either for David or for Hannah. They feel
it to be their right, almost their duty, to cast off their shackles.
In any community, save that of strict Judaism, they are perfectly
free to marry. But in thus flouting the letter of the law, Hannah
well knows that she will break her father's heart. Even as she
struggles to shake them off, the traditions of her race take firmer
hold on her; and in the highly dramatic last act (a not unskilful
adaptation to the stage of the crucial scene of the book) she bows
her neck beneath the yoke, and renounces love that the Law may be
fulfilled."

To state the matter in