GHETTO TYPES
IV.—THE SAVANT.
N THE small and surging world of ' the Ghetto, agitated by a thousand bubbling passions and palpitating with the ceaseless pulse of life, there moves a man in cool philosophic calm. The waves of human struggle rush and war about his path; the storms of economic unrest, and the simoons of synagogic politics rage and bluster about his ears ;butwith a serene,contemplativebrow he passes on, untouched, unruffled. His neat, black-coated, slightly-stooping form cleaves a way through the reigning turbulence; his tall, glossy hat wards off the violent winds from his proud, capacious head; and, umbrella in one hand and the other in his overcoat pocket, he pursues his apparently aimless progress along the mud-smeared pavements of his quarter. A pair of pince-nez rests daintily on his ample nose, secured against a fall by a thick thread which passes over his ear and becomes lost in the folds of a muffler; and behind this glassy ornament glimmer a pair of penetrating eyes. An untrimmed black beard, somewhat be- slobbered, and a heavy moustache somewhat more beslobbered (betraying the nature of their owner’s last repast), contribute with the other features of his person to mark him out as a being distinct from the common, as a superior and sage, if not sacred, individual. For, in truth, he is endowed with much learning and commands the respect of his fellow-men; he muses on the mutability of human affairs and the immutability of his own importance; he gives advice on any question of the day, like some high en-
nobled judge ; and the stream of life flows on beneath his meditative gaze.
The Savant is unique among the scholars of his community, for he combines an intimate knowledge of Talmudical lore and its vast array of attendant subjects with a fair and practical acquaintance with secular wisdom. In matters rabbinical he holds his own with the Rav himself, whose capacity is of an unfathomable nature, and is even said to possess the letters patent of a law. But in the other section of his intellectual equipment there is none to be compared unto him, for it is of a truly singular description. He lays claim to a mastery of four modern languages. "Four!" exclaimed the Beadle once, when this qualification was urged to procure him a front seat near the ark, on the occasion of a famous preacher's discourse; "four!— then he can tell four times as many lies as any ordinary man." Granting the Bea- dle's conclusion, uttered in the interest of humor rather than that of truth, it cannot be drawn from the linguistic pretensions of the Savant, for these have at least an audible if not an intelligible foundation.
The tongues which are privileged to convey to mankind the thoughts of this incomparable personage are Russian, German, French, and English. The order here given simply denotes the chronological sequence of their promotion, not the relative degree of ease and liking with which the Savant handles them. The first did not come to him naturally, although it was the vernacular, for the