"I don't know," he replied. "Only I fancy you could. Why not?" he said encouragingly. "You don't know what you can do till you try. Besides you write poetry."
"The Jewish public doesn't like the looking-glass," she answered him, shaking her head.
"Oh, you can't say that. They've only objected as yet to the distorting mirror. You're thinking of the row over that man Armitage's book. Now, why not write an antidote to that book? There now, there's an idea for you."
"It is an idea!" said Esther with overt sarcasm. "You think art can be degraded into an antidote."
"Art is not a fetish," he urged. "What degradation is there in art teaching a noble lesson?"
"Ah, that is what you religious people will never understand," she said scathingly. "You want everything to preach."
"Everything does preach something," he retorted. "Why not have the sermon good?"
"I consider the original sermon was good," she said defiantly. "It doesn't need an antidote."
"How can you say that? Surely, merely as one who was born a Jewess, you wouldn't care for the sombre picture drawn by this Armitage to stand as a portrait of your people."
She shrugged her shoulders—the ungraceful shrug of the Ghetto. "Why not? It is one-sided, but it is true."