The inconsiderate treatment accorded him by the Berlin coterie or other circles did not cause Graetz much heart-ache, and whatever soreness it may have produced was completely healed by London, whence he received the flattering invitation to open the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition with a lecture. The honorable reception accorded him in the English capital, the persons whose acquaintance he made, and the impressions he carried home with him, all this refreshed him, and put him into a buoyant frame of mind. The visit to England he accounted one of the happiest and most enjoyable events of his life. The experiences gathered there strengthened the hope, to which he had often given expression, that salvation would arise for Judaism out of England and America.
On October 31, 1887, he celebrated the seventieth anniversary of his birth. His disciples and friends made it the occasion for an extraordinary ovation, and from all countries and climes homage was laid at his feet. An overwhelming number of addresses, gifts, congratulatory letters, and poems proved that his achievements were in the mind and his honor in the keeping of the whole body of intelligent Jews. A particularly gratifying surprise came in the shape of a diploma announcing that on October 27, 1888, he, the Jew, who had not dealt leniently with the Spanish nation in his historical writings, had been elected an honorary member of its section in history by the Spanish Academy at Madrid.
Until the very last his body and mind retained remarkable elasticity and vigor; time seemed to pass him by unnoticed. His indestructible working powers and his literary fertility continued to be astonishing.[83] Even after concentrating his efforts on exegetical research, he was a vigilant reader of the monographs in whatever civilized language, bearing, however remotely, on problems of the science of Judaism. He gave the conclusions reached in them a critical examination, and either noted them for the enrichment and correction of a new edition of his “History,” or refuted them in special articles, if they seemed sufficiently important. For, besides his historical and exegetical works, in number and bulk an imposing array, he published numberless essays and _Programmschriften_ on the most various subjects, many of them real gems, models of clear writing and deep scholarship. In some of them daring theories are advanced, as, for instance, the one which he would never abandon, that the Massora originated with the Karaites, from whose literary works the Rabbanites derived it. The conjecture was received with a great display of indignation, but its refutation was not equally emphatic, and it cannot be denied that certain evidences may be interpreted in its favor.