Page:Sixteen years of an artist's life in Morocco, Spain and the Canary Islands.djvu/44

Rh higher objects of ambition, and all the more honourable means of acquiring distinction, are systematically held back from this deeply injured people. There are not wanting many facts to prove that when a wider sphere of action has been opened up for their admission, they have shown themselves quite as capable of being inspired by an honourable ambition, and of exerting themselves with success to obtain an acknowledged position, as the individuals of any other nation or class of people.

Even in Morocco, where their condition is so melancholy, and their sphere of action so circumscribed, many of the cleverest and most intelligent artizans are Jews. As pretty merchants, goldsmiths, interpreters, and servants, they show themselves capable of acting as intelligent men of business, as ingenious artizans, as useful attendants upon travellers, and as trustworthy subordinates. The Hebrew will readily resort to any kind of occupation, no matter what it is, by which a good living can be made or money amassed; and by the force of application, by the exercise of a quick intelligence, he will soon make himself master of its various details, and even attain to some superiority in their practical application. Many of them in this country are excellent linguists; and it is by no means uncommon to meet with a little, ragged,

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