Ivanhoe

Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions,

senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with

the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the

same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as

a Christian is?

--Merchant of Venice

Oswald, returning, whispered into the ear of his master, "It is a Jew,

who calls himself Isaac of York; is it fit I should marshall him into

the hall?"

"Let Gurth do thine office, Oswald," said Wamba with his usual

effrontery; "the swineherd will be a fit usher to the Jew."

"St Mary," said the Abbot, crossing himself, "an unbelieving Jew, and

admitted into this presence!"

"A dog Jew," echoed the Templar, "to approach a defender of the Holy

Sepulchre?"

"By my faith," said Wamba, "it would seem the Templars love the Jews'

inheritance better than they do their company."

"Peace, my worthy guests," said Cedric; "my hospitality must not be

bounded by your dislikes. If Heaven bore with the whole nation of

stiff-necked unbelievers for more years than a layman can number, we may

endure the presence of one Jew for a few hours. But I constrain no man

to converse or to feed with him.--Let him have a board and a morsel

apart,--unless," he said smiling, "these turban'd strangers will admit

his society."

"Sir Franklin," answered the Templar, "my Saracen slaves are true

Moslems, and scorn as much as any Christian to hold intercourse with a

Jew."

"Now, in faith," said Wamba, "I cannot see that the worshippers of

Mahound and Termagaunt have so greatly the advantage over the people

once chosen of Heaven."

"He shall sit with thee, Wamba," said Cedric; "the fool and the knave

will be well met."

"The fool," answered Wamba, raising the relics of a gammon of bacon,

"will take care to erect a bulwark against the knave."

"Hush," said Cedric, "for here he comes."

Introduced with little ceremony, and advancing with fear and hesitation,

and many a bow of deep humility, a tall thin old man, who, however, had

lost by the habit of stooping much of his actual height, approached the

lower end of the board. His features, keen and regular, with an aquiline

nose, and piercing black eyes; his high and wrinkled forehead, and long

grey hair and beard, would have been considered as handsome, had they

not been the marks of a physiognomy peculiar to a race, which, during

those dark ages, was alike detested by the credulous and prejudiced

vulgar, and persecuted by the greedy and rapacious nobility, and who,

perhaps, owing to that very hatred and persecution, had adopted a

national character, in which there was much, to say the least, mean and

unamiable.