with the daughters—and there were three before the son and heir—there was less of religious friction, since women have not the pious privileges and burdens of the sterner sex. when the eldest, deborah, was married, her husband received, by way of compensation, the goodwill of the sudminster business, while s. cohn migrated to the metropolis, in the ambition of making 's. cohn's trouserings' a household word. he did, indeed, achieve considerable fame in the holloway road.
[53]gradually he came to live away from his business, and in the most fashionable street of highbury. but he was never to recover his exalted posts. the london parish had older inhabitants, the local synagogue richer members. the cry for anglicization was common property. from pioneer, s. cohn found himself outmoded. the minister, indeed, was only too english—and especially his wife. one would almost have thought from their deportment that they considered themselves the superiors instead of the slaves of the congregation. s. cohn had been accustomed to a series of clergymen, who must needs be taught painfully to parrot 'our sovereign lady queen victoria, the prince of wales, the princess of wales, and all the royal family'—the indispensable atom of english in the service—so that he, the expert, had held his breath while they groped and stumbled along the precipitous pass. now the whilom gabbai and town councillor found himself almost patronized—as a poor provincial—by this mincing, genteel clerical couple. he retorted by animadverting upon the preacher's heterodoxy.
an urban unconcern met the profound views so often impressed on simon with a strap. 'we are not in poland now,' said the preacher, shrugging his shoulders.
'in poland!' s. cohn's blood boiled. to be twitted with poland, after decades of anglicization! he, who employed a host of anglo-saxon clerks, counter-jumpers, and packers! 'and where did your father come from?' he retorted hotly.
he had almost a mind to change his synagogue, but there was no other within such easy walking [54]distance—an important sabbatic consideration—and besides, the others were reported to be even worse. dread rumours came of a younger generation that craved almost openly for organs in the synagogue and women's voices in the choir, nay, of even more flagitious spirits—devotional dynamitards—whose dream was a service all english, that could be understood instead of chanted! dark mutterings against the ancient rabbis were in the very air of these wealthier quarters of london.
'oh, shameless ignorance of the new age,' s. cohn was wont to complain, 'that does not know the limits of anglicization!'
