Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/315

Rh religion, as the pre-eminently pure and purifying, for Dr. Steinheim is a Jew, who accepts Christianity as a development of Judaism, and Christ as a great prophet and teacher. Would that there were many Jews like him! There was also another little book which he always carried about with him, in Greek, containing the songs of Anacreon, Pindar, and Sappho; and this too he read and translated exquisitely. There is a fire and a grace in these lyrics which is inimitable of its kind, but not to be compared for loftiness and rich natural poetry, with that of the Hebrew poet-king. The acquaintance of the learned Rabbi is also interesting to me in another respect, because the goal of my journey is no longer Italy, nor yet Greece, but silently in the depths of my soul is sung, “Jerusalem! Jerusalem!”

We descended from the wild Abruzzi mountains down into the beautiful province called Terra di Cavona, on Campagna Felice, and there we found ourselves in the lovely summer-warm south. Every thing here is cultivated and beautiful as in a grand natural park. The vine clambers into the highest trees, and throws itself from tree to tree; poetically beautiful! The flax was in bud in the meadows, and the corn seemed white for the harvest. All around us was a scene as fertile and flourishing as paradise, but beyond this rose Vesuvius, lofty and threatening. The broad high-road became ever more and more alive with carriages and pedestrians, but principally with the former. How unlike the neighborhood of Rome. The horses are decorated with tall brass ornaments and red tassels, sometimes with flowers; men