It is
wonderful!"
He half whispered the words, and his eyes had the introspective look of
a man who is thinking deeply.
He came to see me at our cottage on Post street one morning before
breakfast. In grading a street, a house in which I had lived and had the
ill luck to own, on Pine street, had been undermined, and toppled over
into the street below, falling on the slate-roof and breaking all to
pieces. He came to tell me of it, and to extend his sympathy.
"I thought I would come first, so you might get the bad news from a
friend rather than a stranger. You have lost a house; but it is a small
matter. Your little boy there might have put out his eye with a pair of
scissors, or he might have swallowed a pin and lost his life. There are
many things constantly taking place that are harder to bear than the
loss of a house."
Many other wise words did the Rabbi speak, and before he left I felt
that a house was indeed a small thing to grieve over.
He spoke with charming freedom and candor of all sorts of people.
"Of Christians, the Unitarians have the best heads, and the Methodists
the best hearts. The Roman Catholics hold the masses, because they give
their people plenty of form.
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