hands of high-bred Egyptians. Like so many of his nation, he was by
nature artistic. An instinctive love of what was best in the creations
of man ran in his veins with his blood. He cared for beautiful things,
and he knew what things were beautiful and what were not. The
second-rate never made any appeal to him. The first-rate found in him a
welcoming enthusiast. He never wearied of looking at fine pictures, at
noble statues, at bronzes, at old jewelled glass, at delicate carvings,
at perfect jewels. He was genuinely moved by great architecture. And to
music he was almost fanatically devoted, as are many Jews.

It has been said of the Jew that he is nearly always possessed of a
streak of femininity, not effeminacy. In Doctor Meyer Isaacson this
streak certainly existed. His intuitions were feminine in their
quickness, his sympathies and his antipathies almost feminine in their
ardour. He understood women instinctively, as generally only other women
understand them. Often he knew, without knowing why he knew. Such
knowledge of women is, perhaps fortunately, rare in men. Where most men
stumble in the dark, Doctor Meyer Isaacson walked in the light. He was
unmarried.

Bachelorhood is considered by many to detract from a doctor's value and
to stand in the way of his career. Doctor Meyer Isaacson did not find
this so. Although he was not a nerve specialist, his waiting-room was
always full of patients. If he had been married, it could not have been
fuller. Indeed, he often thought it would have been less full.

Suddenly he became the fashion, and he went on being the fashion.

He had no special peculiarity of manner. He did not attract the world of
women by elaborate brutalities, or charm it by silly suavities. He