of Paris correspondent is the springboard to great things,
and I shall achieve them, to your great joy, my dear beloved parents."

Herzl sustained successfully the comparison with his great models and
predecessors. In style as well as in substance his reports and
articles were masterpieces of their kind. He came to his task with the
equipment of a perfect feuilletonist; his style was polished and
musical; he possessed in an exceptional degree the capacity to
describe natural scenery in a few fine clear strokes and of hinting
at, rather than of reproducing, a mood with a minimum of language.
Everything was there, background, mood and development of action in
plastic balance. It was only now, when a great opportunity provoked
him to the highest effort, that all the lessons of the years of his
apprenticeship built up a many-sided perfection.

He threw himself seriously and diligently into the journalistic craft.
He observed with close attention all that went on about him, and
listened with sharpened ears. But the moment had not yet come for the
unveiling of a mission within him. He was on the way; the process of
preparation had begun.

How, in this mood of his, could he possibly have avoided clashing with
the Jewish question? As far back as the time of his Spanish journey,
when he had sought healing from his domestic and spiritual torments,
the question had presented itself to him and had cried for artistic
expression. His call to Paris had been a welcome pretext, perhaps,
putting off the writing of his Jewish novel--the more so as he
probably was not ripe enough for such an undertaking. Now that he was
in Paris, where his eyes were opened to the full range of the social
process, he began to draw nearer in spirit to his fellow-Jews, and to
look upon them more warmly and with less inhibition. He found them as
difficult aesthetically as before, but he tried hard to grasp the
essence of their character and substance, and to judge them without
prejudice.

When Herzl arrived in Paris anti-Semitism, had not--in spite of
Drumont's exertions, and in spite of his paper, _la Libre Parole_,
founded in 1892--achieved the dimensions of a genuine movement, nor
was it destined to become one in the German sense. But it served as
the focus for all kinds of discontents and resentments; it attracted
certain serious critical spirits, too; its influence grew from day to
day, and the position of the Jews became increasingly uncomfortable.