There are these confounded differences of colour, of
eye and brow, of nose or hair, small differences in themselves
except that they give a foothold and foundation for tremendous
fortifications of prejudice and tradition, in which hostilities and
hatreds may gather. When I think of a Jew's nose, a Chinaman's eyes
or a negro's colour I am reminded of that fatal little pit which
nature has left in the vermiform appendix, a thing no use in itself
and of no significance, but a gathering-place for mischief. The
extremest case of race-feeling is the Jewish case, and even here, I
am convinced, it is the Bible and the Talmud and the exertions of
those inevitable professional champions who live upon racial
feeling, far more than their common distinction of blood, which
holds this people together banded against mankind."
Between the lines of such general propositions as this White read
little scraps of intimation that linked with the things Benham let
fall in Johannesburg to reconstruct the Kieff adventure.
Benham had been visiting a friend in the country on the further side
of the Dnieper.
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