The Yoke of the Thorah

“My own life--what was it like? Well, outwardly it was a life of silence and inaction. My real life was an inward life--lived in my own heart. My heart was like a furnace. Shut...

Elias locked his door behind the clerk. Then, suddenly, he flung himself full length upon the floor, and gave vent to a great sigh of relief. At last he was alone, all alone, an...

“Things that were before invisible or insignificant, now force themselves upon my attention, and have a meaning and a solemnity. It is as though you had touched me with a vivify...

On both sides the dialogue had been perfunctory. Now there befell a silence. The rabbi returned to his reading. Elias sank upon a chair, thrust his hands deep into his trowsers...

“All right. Then I'll meet you at the door when it's over--my shop, you know, is just around the corner--I'll meet you at the door and save you the trouble of bringing her home....

Elias dwelt in East Fifteenth Street. The house faced Stuyvesant Park. In this house, March 22, 1856, Elias had been born. In this house, May 13, 1856, Elias's father had died....

Holding it in his hand, and examining it a little, before putting it into his pocket, and going on with his work, Elias felt himself suddenly carried backward, for an instant, t...

“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Koch--when Mr. Koch spoke, he raised his voice, and assumed a declamatory style, as though in fancy he were addressing a public meeting--“Yes, sir, when I s...

“Well and good. Then what I want you to consider is this. In the first place, here is a young lady, whom you like very much, ready and willing to become your wife. You've got to...

“Oh, my daughter,” Mrs. Morgenthau returned, “she works like a horse. You never saw such a worker. It's simply fearful. And such a _good_ girl, Mr. Bacharach. Only nineteen year...

In the back room a bright fire crackled in the grate. Old Redwood sat before it, feet on fender, reading his newspaper. He greeted Elias, without rising; “Oh, it's you, is it, M...

“You must forgive me,” said Elias, recovering a little his self-possession. “I ought not to have threatened you. I didn't mean to. But you don't know how you make me suffer. You...

“No, no, my child,” answered the doctor, kindly. “He'll be as well as ever in an hour or two--only a bit head-achey and shaken up. There's no occasion for any alarm at all.” Tur...

IT was the last day of November, 1882. The sun had not shone at all that day. The wind, sharp-edged, had blown steadily from the northeast. The clouds, leaden of hue and woolly...

“Well, I guess I will--yes,” the old man assented, and did so. “Well,” he continued, “this has been the devil's own business all around, hasn't it? Poor Chris, poor little Chris...

Before long Mr. Koch came in. He wore alligator-skin slippers, and a jacket of pongee silk. Between the fingers of his left hand, he carried a half-smoked cigar. He was a short,...

“Well, now, I tell you that in that one minute--in the time that elapsed from the instant I first caught sight of you, down to the instant when you disappeared in the street bel...

“I, meanwhile, lived my own life, such as it was, in silence. But it was not much of a life. It was not especially enjoyable, and it was altogether valueless. I produced nothing...

“You have! You don't say so! Oh, you sly, secretive rascal! Well, I congratulate you. You ought to have stuck to the good, old-fashioned custom, and had me make the first advanc...

At one instant, doubt getting the upper hand, he would cry: “Will she come? No, God help me, it is most unlikely. I may as well make up my mind to it. She will not come.”