Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/150

130 defects which he wanted to reprove, with hints, allusions, classic passages, and Scripture-texts. His delivery, moreover,—he always read his discourses,—was unpleasant, unintelligible, and, above all, was often interrupted by a cough, but more frequently by a hollow, paunch-convulsing laugh, with which he was wont to announce and accompany the biting passages. This singular man I found to be mild and obliging when I began to take lessons of him. I now went to his house daily at six o'clock in the evening, and always experienced a secret pleasure when the outer door closed behind me, and I had to thread the long, dark cloister passage. We sat in his library, at a table covered with oilcloth, a much-read Lucian never quitting his side.

In spite of all my willingness, I did not get at the matter without difficulty; for my teacher could not suppress certain sarcastic remarks as to the real truth about Hebrew. I concealed from him my designs upon Jew-German, and spoke of a better understanding of the original text. He smiled at this, and said I should be satisfied if I only learned to read. This vexed me in secret, and I concentrated all my attention when we came to the letters. I found an alphabet something like the Greek, of which the forms were easy, and the names, for the most part, not strange to me. All this I had soon comprehended and retained, and supposed we should now take up reading. That this was done from right to left I was well aware. But now all at once appeared a new army of little characters and signs, of points and strokes of all sorts, which were in fact to represent vowels. At this I wondered the more, as there were manifestly vowels in the larger alphabet; and the others only appeared to be hidden under strange appellations. I was also taught that the Jewish nation, as long as it flourished, actually were satisfied with the former signs, and knew