"I am now thrown into frequent intercourse with the Jews. The Jewish teacher is a man remarkably free from prejudice, and possessed of a degree of culture such as I have not often met with. He is more conversant with theology than with the natural sciences. Is that the case with Jews in general? His method of instruction is highly intellectual, but a little wanting in system and regularity,--a disadvantage for children not extraordinarily gifted. A strange sensation overcame me on my first visit to the synagogue. The Hebrew words have wandered from the slopes of Lebanon to these German pine-forests. And yet, is not our religion derived from the same spot? Again, while ancient Rome could not vanquish the Germans, nor make them speak the language of the Capitol, modern Rome perfected the achievement. Every Sunday the Roman language is heard upon these distant hills.
"Over against the school-house is the so-called Burned Spot, the site of the house in which a whole Hebrew family--the grandmother, daughter-in-law, and five grandchildren--fell a victim to the flames. It is now the favorite resort of children when they wish to play at hide-and-seek. The old ruins abound in choice hiding-places. The rosy-cheeked boys clamber up and down the blackened walls, and shout and yell; just where the flames crawled! Such things occur in the history of great things also.
"The bel-wether dance has just been held. "These things are no longer suited to our times: they are a feature of the Middle Ages. Then the lord of the manor may have looked with complacency from the turret of his castle upon the follies of his villeins: he had given them the wether and the ribbon, and probably gave the winning pair pittance of a marriage-portion. All these things are at an end; and why continue the form of that which no longer has a substance?
"Sometimes a chord of the music steals out into the fields and strikes upon my ear; but it is only the braying of the grand trumpet that becomes thus distinguishable. Like me, the peasants here are beyond the reach of the harmonies produced by the intellectual efforts of humanity: not until the great trumpet brays or the bass-drum rattles does a solitary link attach them to the mighty chain, and, for a space, they keep step with the pace of time. Of the gentle adagio and the more intricate harmonies they know nothing.
"It is well that spots of ground are always to be found in which, strictly speaking, no man has a property, and where the poor may pluck their bundles of grass without molestation. Such are the steep banks, cliffs, gulches, and so on. And where even the poor can no longer find a footing, the goat--the companion of the needy--makes her way and picks a scented herb or an aromatic twig.