It is absolutely incredible, but it is all the same a simple fact, that he knew every book and its location, having a sense of the feel as well as the shape of his favourites.
This was not because he had the faintest approach to orderliness--for he would take down twenty volumes and never restore them to the same place by any chance.

It was a sort of motherly instinct by which he watched over them all, even loved prodigals that wandered over all the study and then set off on adventurous journeys into distant rooms.

The restoration of an emigrant to his lawful home was celebrated by a feast in which, by a confusion of circumstances, the book played the part of the fatted calf, being read afresh from beginning to end.

During his earlier and more agile years the Rabbi used to reach the higher levels of his study by wonderful gymnastic feats, but after two falls--one with three Ante-Nicene fathers in close pursuit--he determined to call in assistance.

This he did after an impressive fashion.