This is his cast of characters:—­

Judith Blanche Sweet
Holofernes Henry Walthall
His servant J.J.  Lance
Captain of the Guards H. Hyde
Judith’s maid Miss Bruce
General of the Jews C.H.  Mailes
Priests Messrs. Oppleman and Lestina
Nathan Robert Harron
Naomi Mae Marsh
Keeper of the slaves for Holofernes Alfred Paget
The Jewish mother Lillian Gish

The Biograph Company advertises the production with the following Barnum and Bailey enumeration:  “In four parts.  Produced in California.  Most expensive Biograph ever produced.  More than one thousand people and about three hundred horsemen.  The following were built expressly for the production:  a replica of the ancient city of Bethulia; the mammoth wall that protected Bethulia; a faithful reproduction of the ancient army camps, embodying all their barbaric splendor and dances; chariots, battering rams, scaling ladders, archer towers, and other special war paraphernalia of the period.

“The following spectacular effects:  the storming of the walls of the city of Bethulia; the hand-to-hand conflicts; the death-defying chariot charges at break-neck speed; the rearing and plunging horses infuriated by the din of battle; the wonderful camp of the terrible Holofernes, equipped with rugs brought from the far East; the dancing girls in their exhibition of the exquisite and peculiar dances of the period; the routing of the command of the terrible Holofernes, and the destruction of the camp by fire.  And overshadowing all, the heroism of the beautiful Judith.”

This advertisement should be compared with the notice of Your Girl and Mine transcribed in the seventeenth chapter.

But there is another point of view by which this Judith of Bethulia production may be approached, however striking the advertising notice.

There are four sorts of scenes alternated:  (1) the particular history of Judith; (2) the gentle courtship of Nathan and Naomi, types of the inhabitants of Bethulia; (3) pictures of the streets, with the population flowing like a sluggish river; (4) scenes of raid, camp, and battle, interpolated between these, tying the whole together.  The real plot is the balanced alternation of all the elements.  So many minutes of one, then so many minutes of another.  As was proper, very little of the tale was thrown on the screen in reading matter, and no climax was ever a printed word, but always an enthralling tableau.