Nor were his melodies the only things he confided to me. When I
was still a mere boy, fourteen or fifteen years old, he would lay
bare to me some of the most intimate secrets of his heart

"You see, my wife thinks me a fool," he once complained to me.
"She thinks I don't see it. Do you understand, David? She looks up
to me for my learning, but otherwise she thinks I have no sense. It
hurts, you know." He was absolutely incapable of keeping a secret
or of saying or acting anything that did not come from the depths
of his heart. He often talked to me of God and His throne, of the
world to come, and of the eternal bliss of the righteous, quoting
from a certain book of exhortations and adding much from his
own exalted imagination. And I would listen, thrilling, and make a
silent vow to be good and to dedicate my life to the service of God

"Study the Word of God, Davie dear," he would say, taking my
hand into his.

"There is no happiness like it. What is wealth? A dream of fools.
What is this world? A mere curl of smoke for the wind to scatter.
Only the other world has substance and reality; only good deeds
and holy learning have tangible worth. Beware of Satan, Davie.
When he assails you, just say no; turn your heart to steel and say
no. Do you hear, my son?"

The anecdotes and sayings of the Talmud, its absurdities no less
than its gems of epigrammatic wisdom, were mines of poetry,
philosophy, and science to him. He was a dreamer with a noble
imagination, with a soul full of beauty