Page:Points of friction.djvu/76

 resembling the language of the King James version of the Bible in form and style, but with the unmistakable verbal peculiarities of Patience Worth." "What bringeth thee asearch?" and "Who hath the trod of the antelope?" are doubtless verbal peculiarities; but for any resemblance to the noble and vigorous lucidity of the English Bible we may search in vain through the six hundred and forty closely printed pages of this confused, wandering, sensuous, and wholly unreadable narrative, which purports to tell the life-history of the penitent thief. I quote a single paragraph, snatched at random from the text, which may serve as a sample of the whole:

"And within, upon the skins'-pack, sat Samuel, who listed him, and lo, the jaws of him hung ope. And Jacob wailed, and the Jew's tongue of him sounded as the chatter of fowls, and he spake of the fool that plucked of his ass that he 64