ead besides?"

"Greek, and Dante."

"Indeed; then thou hast the advantage over myself; I can only read the
former. Well, I am rejoiced to find that thou hast other pursuits beside
thy fishing. Dost thou know Hebrew?"

"No."

"Thou shouldest study it. Why dost thou not undertake the study?"

"I have no books."

"I will lend thee books, if thou wish to undertake the study. I live
yonder at the hall, as perhaps thou knowest. I have a library there, in
which are many curious books, both in Greek and Hebrew, which I will show
to thee, whenever thou mayest find it convenient to come and see me.
Farewell! I am glad to find that thou hast pursuits more satisfactory
than thy cruel fishing."

And the man of peace departed, and left me on the bank of the stream.
Whether from the effect of his words, or from want of inclination to the
sport, I know not, but from that day I became less and less a
practitioner of that "cruel fishing." I rarely flung line and angle into
the water, but I not unfrequently wandered by the banks of the pleasant
rivulet. It seems singular to me, on reflection, that I never availed
myself of his kind invitation. I say singular, for the extraordinary,
under whatever form, had long had no slight interest for me: and I had
discernment enough to perceive that yon was no common man. Yet I went
not near him, certainly not from bashfulness, or timidity, feelings to
which I had long been an entire stranger. Am I to regret this? perhaps,
for I might have learned both wisdom and righteousness from those calm,
quiet lips, and my after-course might have been widely different. As it
was, I fell in with other guess companions, from whom I received widely
different impressions than those I might have derived from him. When
many years had rolled on, long after I had attained manhood, and had seen
and suffered much, and when our first interview had long since been
effaced from the mind of the man of peace, I visited him in his venerable
hall, and partook of the hospitality of his hearth. And there I saw his
gentle partner and his fair children, and on the morrow he showed me the
books of which he had spoken years before, by the side of the stream. In
the low, quiet chamber, whose one window, shaded by a gigantic elm, looks
down the slope towards the pleasant stream, he took from the shelf his
learned books, Zohar and Mishna, Toldoth Jesu and Abarbenel.

"I am fond of these studies," said he, "which,