Page:Zawis and Kunigunde (1895).djvu/16

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12
THE JOURNEY

races, and secures to the, other that brotherly welcome of which the books themselves furnish the most appropriate example and result. The Hebrew stranger is encompassed in his own home by an atmosphere of culture, and his friends are among the educators of men. I doubt not that his associations are of the learning and the splendor of Cordova, and that he has drunk deep of the widely diffused maxims of Saadia and the sages of Sora. Nowhere have I seen more generous rivalry in the search for the true and the good than in the schools of Andalusia; and nowhere does the human heart blossom out into more devoted search for the divine which they have not yet found. The brightest colors of human aspiration after the good and best are there displayed undimmed by the dark shades of calculating demon-craft in the west, which struggle by every undivine and unhallowed stimulus of the baser passions to crush out the gentle research into the works of the omnipotent which brings the divine in the human soul into such sweet harmony with the equally divine things around it. Let us repose in peace, good heart. It is not from our new friends that my apprehensions arise, but from some probable new troubles that may have suggested their journey.”

“Let us congratulate ourselves,” exclaimed the Hebrew stranger, “on the peaceful shelter we have obtained. Far better is a humble abode like this than the best of the resorts where travelers usually take lodgment. Such places are frequented by footpads, and those who conduct them are usually