he is no strait-laced Jew, spitting after the
        word Christian, and enjoying the prospect that the Gentile mouth will
        water in vain for a slice of the roasted Leviathan, while Israel will be
        sending up plates for more, ad libitum. (You perceive that my studies
        had taught me what to expect from the orthodox Jew.) I confess that I
        have always held lightly by your account of Mordecai, as apologetic, and
        merely part of your disposition to take an antediluvian point of view
        lest you should do injustice to the megatherium. But now I have given
        ear to him in his proper person, I find him really a sort of
        philosophical- allegorical-mystical believer, and yet with a sharp
        dialectic point, so that any argumentative rattler of peas in a bladder
        might soon be pricked into silence by him. The mixture may be one of the
        Jewish prerogatives, for what I know. In fact, his mind seems so broad
        that I find my own correct opinions lying in it quite commodiously, and
        how they are to be brought into agreement with the vast remainder is his
        affair, not mine. I leave it to him to settle our basis, never yet
        having seen a basis which is not a world- supporting elephant, more or
        less powerful and expensive to keep. My means will not allow me to keep
        a private elephant. I go into mystery instead, as cheaper and more
        lasting - a sort of gas which is likely to be continually supplied by
        the decomposition of the elephants. And if I like the look of an
        opinion, I treat it civilly, without suspicious inquiries. I have quite
        a friendly feeling towards Mordecai's notion that a whole Christian is
        three-fourths a Jew, and that from the Alexandrian time downward, the
        most comprehensive minds have been Jewish; for I think of pointing out
        to Mirah that, Arabic and other accidents of life apart, there is really
        little difference between me and - Maimonides. But I have lately been
        finding out that it is your shallow lover who can't help making a
        declaration. If Mirah's ways were less distracting, and it were less of
        a heaven to be in her presence and watch her, I must long ago have flung
        myself at her feet, and requested her to tell me, with less
        indirectness, whether she wished me to blow my brains out. I have a
        knack of hoping, which is as good as an estate in reversion, if one can
        keep from the temptation of turning it into certainty, which may spoil
        all. My Hope wanders among the orchard-blossoms, feels