They gave us, or set out to give us, education, which was less common than gold earrings in Polotzk.

For the ideal of a modern education was the priceless ware that my father brought back with him from his travels in distant parts.

His travels, indeed, had been the making of my father.

He had gone away from Polotzk, in the first place, as a man unfit for the life he led, out of harmony with his surroundings, at odds with his neighbors.

Never heartily devoted to the religious ideals of the Hebrew scholar, he was more and more a dissenter as he matured, but he hardly knew what he wanted to embrace in place of the ideals he rejected.