not miraculous? Perhaps there was,
indeed, "a mission of Israel," perhaps they were indeed God's "chosen
people." The Venetians had built and painted marvellous things and
died out and left them for tourists to gaze at. The Jews had created
nothing for ages, save a few poems and a few yearning synagogue
melodies; yet here they were, strong and solid, a creation in flesh
and blood more miraculous and enduring than anything in stone and
bronze. And what was the secret of this persistence and strength? What
but a spiritual? What but their inner certainty of God, their
unquestioning trust in Him, that He would send His Messiah to rebuild
the Temple, to raise them to the sovereignty of the peoples? How
typical his own father--thus serenely singing Chaldaic--a modern of
moderns without, a student and saint at home! Ah, would that he, too,
could lay hold on this solid faith! Yes, his soul was in sympathy with
the brooding immovable East; even with the mysticisms of the
Cabalists, with the trance of the ascetic, nay, with the fantastic
frenzy-begotten ecstasy of the Dervishes he had seen dancing in
Turkish mosques,--that intoxicating sense of a satisfying meaning in
things, of a unity with the essence of existence, which men had
doubtless sought in the ancient Eleusinian mysteries, which the
Mahatmas of India had perhaps found, the tradition of which ran down
through the ages, misconceived by the Western races, and for lack of
which he could often have battered his head against a wall, as in
literal beating against the baffling mystery of existence. Ah! there
was the hell of it! His soul was of the Orient, but his brain was of
the Occident. His intellect had been nourished at the breast of
Science, that classified everything and explained nothing. But
explanation! The very word was futile! Things were. To explain things
was to state A in terms of B, and B in terms of A. Who should explain
the explanation? Perhaps only by ecstasy could one understand what lay
behind the phenomena. But even so the essence had to be judged by its
manifestations, and the manifestations were often absurd, unrighteous,
and meaningless. No, he could not believe. His intellect was
remorseless. What if Israel was preserved? Why should the empire of
Venice be destroyed?

_And a fire came and burnt the staff, which had smitten the dog, which
had bitten the cat, which had devoured the kid, which my father bought
for two zuzim. Chad Gadya! Chad Gadya!_