An odd little book. Vivid, as Stevenson almost always is, but the engine of plot, character, and circumstance does not achieve the same high level of function as in his best works. ( )

A subtle and tragic reference to Jewish assimilation appears in Bernard Huddleston, in the story "Pavilion on the Links" by Robert Louis Stevenson. Jewish themes previously, in the Victorian era, were often more directly and sympathetically portrayed, like by Disraeli or in George Eliot's "Daniel Deronda." In contrast, Huddleston is a tragic figure and screened by oblique reference. The matter may invite a more comprehensive view, however I hazard to mention Huddleston as the beginning of the end, marking the fifty years leading up to the holocaust. If literary foreshadowing is sought one might begin there, for a thumbnail painting of The Jew in Europe, with Scotland considered the last hinterland, and hence,
last refuge.

Of course, The Jew Reaches the End of Europe, towit the Celtic extreme, officially became Modern Classic Literature when taken up by Joyce--but I dare say Stevenson quietly preceeded. Though no-one would hold Stevenson's informal short adventure story next to "Ulysses," aspiring to a 1,000 page reich, still Joyce is more voluminous than luminous when seen in hindsight. A convulsive end to the Jewish european odyssey was cast in tragic foreshadow in Stevenson's "Pavilion", while Zangwill and Joyce presented lingering assimilation, quiet tragedy with a painted face.

Here is an excerpted profile of Huddleston from RL Stevenson's story, Pavilion on the Links:

In the bed, which was drawn back against the wall, instead of standing, as I had last seen it, boldly across the window,
sat Bernard Huddlestone, the defaulting banker.
Little as I had seen of him by the shifting light
of the lantern on the links, I had no difficulty in
recognising him for the same. He had a long
and sallow countenance, surrounded by a long
red beard and side- whiskers. His broken nose
and high cheekbones gave him somewhat the air
of a Kalmuck, and his light eyes shone with the
excitement of a high fever. He wore a skull-cap
of black silk ; a huge Bible lay open before him
on the bed, with a pair of gold spectacles in the
place, and a pile of other books lay on the stand f
by his side. The green curtains lent a cadaverous
shade to his cheek; and, as he sat propped on
pillows, his great stature was painfully hunched,
and his head protruded till it overhung his knees.
I believe, if he had not died otherwise, he must
have fallen a victim to consumption in the course
of but a very few weeks.

He held out to me a hand, long, thin, and
disagreeably hairy.

"Come in, come in, Mr. Cassilis," said he.
" Another protector ahem ! another protector.
Always welcome as a friend of my daughter's,
Mr. Cassilis. How they have rallied about me,
my daughter's friends ! May God in heaven
bless and reward them for it ! "

I gave him my hand, of course, because I could
not help it ; but the sympathy I had been prepared
to feel for Clara's father was immediately soured
by his appearance, and the wheedling, unreal
tones in which he spoke.

" Cassilis is a good man," said Northmour ;
" worth ten."

" So I hear," cried Mr. Huddlestone eagerly,
" so my girl tells me. Ah, Mr. Cassilis, my sin
has found me out, you see ! I am very low, very
low ; but I hope equally penitent. We must all
come to the throne of grace at last, Mr. Cassilis.
For my part, I come late indeed ; but with un-
feigned humility, I trust."
... ... ... ....
I was astonished at the wit and information
he displayed. Mr. Huddlestone's was certainly
no ordinary character ; he had read and observed
for himself ; his gifts were sound ; and, though
I could never have learned to love the man, I
began to understand his success in business, and
the great respect in which he had been held
before his failure. He had, above all, the talent
of society ; and though I never heard him speak
but on this one and most unfavourable occasion,
I set him down among the most brilliant conver-
sationalists I ever met.

... ... .... .... ... ....
He was relating with great gusto, and seem-
ingly no feeling of shame, the manoeuvres of a
scoundrelly commission-merchant whom he had
known and studied in his youth, and we were all
listening with an odd mixture of mirth and em-
barrassment, when our little party was brought
abruptly to an end in the most startling manner.

A noise like that of a wet finger on the
window-pane interrupted Mr. Huddlestone's
tale ; and in an instant we were all four as white
as paper, and sat tongue-tied and motionless
round the table.

" A snail," I said at last ; for I had heard that
these animals make a noise somewhat similar in
character.

" Snail be d d ! " said Northmour. "Hush ! "

The same sound was repeated twice at re-
gular intervals ; and then a formidable voice
shouted through the shutters the Italian word
" Traditore!"

Mr. Huddlestone threw his head in the air ;
his eyelids quivered ; next moment he fell insen-
sible below the table. Northmour and I had
each run to the armoury and seized a gun.
Clara was on her feet with her hand at her
throat.

So we stood waiting, for we thought the hour
of attack was certainly come ; but second passed
after second, and all but the surf remained silent
in the neighbourhood of the pavilion.

" Quick," said Northmour ; " upstairs with
him before they come."

CHAPTER VIII

TELLS THE LAST OF THE TALL MAN

SOMEHOW or other, by hook and crook, and
between the three of us, we got Bernard Huddle-
stone bundled upstairs and laid upon the bed in
My Uncle's Room. During the whole process,
which was rough enough, he gave no sign of con-
sciousness, and he remained as we had thrown
him, without changing the position of a finger.
His daughter opened his shirt and began to wet
his head and bosom ; while Northmour and I ran
to the window. The weather continued clear;
the moon, which was now about full, had risen and
shed a very clear light upon the links ; yet,
strain our eyes as we might, we could distinguish
nothing moving. A few dark spots, more or
less, on the uneven expanse were not to be
identified ; they might be crouching men, they
might be shadows ; it was impossible to be sure.

"Thank God," said Northmour, " Aggie is
not coming to-night."

Aggie was the name of the old nurse ; he had
not thought of her till now ; but that he should think of her at all, was a trait that surprised me
in the man.

We were again reduced to waiting. North-
mour went to the fireplace and spread his hands
before the red embers, as if he were cold. I
followed him mechanically with my eyes, and in
so doing turned my back upon the window. At
that moment a very faint report was audible
from without, and a ball shivered a pane of
glass, and buried itself in the shutter two inches
from my head. I heard Clara scream ; and
though I whipped instantly out of range and
into a corner, she was there, so to speak, before
me, beseeching to know if I were hurt. I felt
that I could stand to be shot at every day and
all day long, with such marks of solicitude for a
reward ; and I continued to reassure her, with
the tenderest caresses and in complete forgetful-
ness of our situation, till the voice of North -
mour recalled me to myself.

" An air-gun," he said. " They wish to make
no noise."

I put Clara aside, and looked at him. He
was standing with his back to the fire and his
hands clasped behind him ; and I knew by the
black look on his face, that passion was boiling
within. I had seen just such a look before he
attacked me, that March night, in the adjoin-
ing chamber ; and, though I could make every
allowance for his anger, I confess I trembled for
the consequences. He gazed straight before
him; but he could see us with the tail of his
eye, and his temper kept rising like a gale of
wind. With regular battle awaiting us outside,
this prospect of an internecine strife within the
walls began to daunt me.

Suddenly, as I was thus closely watching his
expression and prepared against the worst, I saw
a change, a flash, a look of relief, upon his face.
He took up the lamp which stood beside him on
the table, and turned to us with an air of some
excitement.

" There is one point that we must know," said
he. " Are they going to butcher the lot of us,
or only Huddlestone? Did they take you for
him, or fire at you for your own beaux yeux ? "

" They took me for him, for certain," I replied.
" I am near as tall, and my head is fair."

" I am going to make sure," returned North-
mour ; and he stepped up to the window, hold-
ing the lamp above his head, and stood there,
quietly affronting death, for half a minute.

Clara sought to rush forward and pull him
from the place of danger ; but I had the pardon-
able selfishness to hold her back by force.

"Yes," said Northmour, turning coolly from
the window ; "it's only Huddlestone they want."

... ... ... ...
we had in truth almost forgotten the danger that
so imminently overhung our days. But just
then Mr. Huddlestone uttered a cry, and leaped
from the bed.

I asked him what was wrong.

" Fire ! " he cried. " They have set the house
on fire ! "

Northmour was on his feet in an instant, and
he and I ran through the door of communication
with the study. The room was illuminated by
a red and angry light. Almost at the moment
of our entrance, a tower of flame arose in front
of the window, and, with a tingling report, a
pane fell inwards on the carpet. They had set
fire to the lean-to outhouse, where Northmour
used to nurse his negatives.

" Hot work," said Northmour. " Let us try
in your old room."

We ran thither in a breath, threw up the
casement, and looked forth. Along the whole
back wall of the pavilion piles of fuel had been
arranged and kindled ; and it is probable they had been drenched with mineral oil, for, in spite
of the morning's rain, they all burned bravely.
The fire had taken a firm hold already on the
outhouse, which blazed higher and higher every
moment ; the back door was in the centre of a
red-hot bonfire ; the eaves we could see, as we
looked upward, were already smouldering, for
the roof overhung, and was supported by con-
siderable beams of wood. At the same time,
hot, pungent, and choking volumes of smoke
began to fill the house. There was not a human
being to be seen to right or left.

" Ah, well ! " said Northmour, " here's the end,
thank God."

And we returned to My Uncle '.v Room. Mr.
Huddlestone was putting on his boots, still
violently trembling, but with an air of deter-
mination such as I had not hitherto observed.
Clara stood close by him, with her cloak in both
hands ready to throw about her shoulders, and
a strange look in her eyes, as if she were half
hopeful, half doubtful of her father.

" Well, boys and girls," said Northmour,
" how about a sally ? The oven is heating ; it
is not good to stay here and be baked ; and, for
my part, I want to come to my hands with
them, and be done."

" There is nothing else left," I replied.

And both Clara and Mr. Huddlestone, though
with a very different intonation, added, "No-
thing."

As we went downstairs the heat was excessive,
and the roaring of the fire filled our ears ; and
we had scarce reached the passage before the
stairs window fell in, a branch of flame shot
brandishing through the aperture, and the interior
of the pavilion became lit up with that dreadful
and fluctuating glare. At the same moment
we heard the fall of something heavy and in-
elastic in the upper story. The whole pavilion, it
was plain, had gone alight like a box of matches,
and now not only flamed sky-high to land and
sea, but threatened with every moment to
crumble and fall in about our ears.

Northmour and I cocked our revolvers. Mr.
Huddlestone, who had already refused a firearm,
put us behind him with a manner of command.

" Let Clara open the door," said he. " So, if
they fire a volley, she will be protected. And
in the mean time, stand behind me. I am the
scapegoat ; my sins have found me out."

I heard him, as I stood breathless by his
shoulder, with my pistol ready, pattering off
prayers in a tremulous, rapid whisper; and I
confess, horrid as the thought may seem, I
despised him for thinking of supplications in
a moment so critical and thrilling. In the
mean time, Clara, who was dead white but still possessed her faculties, had displaced the barri-
cade from the front door; Another moment,
and she had pulled it open. Firelight and
moonlight illuminated the links with confused
and changeful lustre, and far away against the
sky we could see a long trail of glowing smoke.

Mr. Huddlestone, filled for the moment with
a strength greater than his own, struck North-
mour and myself a backhander in the chest ; and
while we were thus for the moment incapacitated
from action, lifting his arms above his head
like one about to dive, he ran straight forward
out of the pavilion.

" Here am I ! " he cried" Huddlestone !
Kill me, and spare the others ! "

His sudden appearance daunted, I suppose,
our hidden enemies ; for Northmour and I had
time to recover, to seize Clara between us, one
by each arm, and to rush forth to his assistance,
ere anything further had taken place. But
scarce had we passed the threshold when there
came near a dozen reports and flashes from every
direction among the hollows of the links. Mr.
Huddlestone staggered, uttered a weird and
freezing cry, threw up his arms over his head,
and fell backward on the turf.

"Traditore! Traditore!" cried the invisible
avengers.

And just then, a part of the roof of the pavilion fell in, so rapid was the progress of the fire. A
loud, vague, and horrible noise accompanied the
collapse, and a vast volume of flame went soaring
up to heaven. It must have been visible at that
moment from twenty miles out at sea, from the
shore at Graden Wester, and far inland from
the peak of Graystiel, the most eastern summit
of the Caulder Hills. Bernard Huddlestone,
although God knows what were his obsequies,
had a fine pyre at the moment of his death.
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My Comments:

The tragic fate of Huddleston and the flaming pyre of the quirky Paviloin must be compared to the flaming end of the peculiar status of european Jewry fifty years after the story was spun. Jewish identity was dealt with subtley in the story by a mention of the skullcap Huddleston wore while studying those large Biblical tomes in his repentance. A subtle hint of jewish identity was or became a norm for some fictional treatments, like in H.Hesse and F.Scott Fitzgerald, and unlike in Joyce, who was blatant about his study of the Jewish Irish encounter. Hollywood was also blatant about the matter at the time, producing no less than ten major Jewish-Irish romance films following WWI. Maybe the most blatant was Zangwill, whose theme was "anything goes"and, following in his trail, the shocking Joyce was actually in comparison slightly modest, but only in comparison. Those "modern" studies of the Meeting of Peoples beg comparison with the Biblical accounts of Queen Esther, but anyone who would read the megilah should be ashamed to waste time on English Literature, Modern Classic or any other sub-specie of peccary, that quizical beast, purported to split the hoof, ruminate cud and bristle the boar's quill.

However, l'havdil kodesh m'tumay, a certain legitimate millenium import can be ascribed to the arrival of the Jews to the Celtic islands at the extreme end of Europe. Not only meeting the measure of prophetic timing, the arrival of Jewish public life to Ireland produced a universally aknowledged genius. And even more, of millenial proportion beyond all expectation, three years before WWI, the Jewish gaon of Ireland actually performed the archetypal feat of re-discovering the Biblical royal blue dye that had been lost for two thousand years, of immense practical and deep spiritual import, the prescribed omen of the millenial Jewish return. Providentially, the actual return to Zion followed and the chief rabbi of Ireland returned to the ancient Holy Land to become cheif rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Isaac Yitzhok Hertzog, the man who set aside the diaspora's confusiion and identified the true royal blue prescribed in the Bible. A scholar of utmost modesty and caution, Rav Hertzog left the formula to be completed by the scholars andd men of action that followed in his legacy. Today Rav Hertzog's royal blue string on the four corner shawl signifies the return of Biblical life to the Land of Israel and brings that commandment to practical daily observance to see in the dawn of redemption.