Here I took lodgings at the house of a poor Jewish woman, but before I had time to rest from my journey, a man of tall, spare figure, in untidy clothing, and with a pipe in his mouth, came in, and, without observing me, commenced to speak with my landlady. At last she said to him, "Herr H----, here is a stranger from Berlin; pray, speak to him." The man thereupon turned to me, and asked me who I was. With my usual instinctive frankness and love of truth, I told him that I was born in Poland, that my love of the sciences had induced me to spend some years in Berlin, and that now I had come to Holland with the intention of entering some situation, if an opportunity offered itself. When he heard that I was a man of learning, he began to speak with me on various subjects in philosophy, and especially in mathematics, in which he had done a good deal. He found in me a man after his own heart, and we formed at once a bond of friendship with one another. I now went to seek the tutor from Berlin, to whom I referred before. He introduced me to his employer as a man of high talent, who had made a great figure in Berlin, and had brought letters of introduction from that city. This gentleman, who made much of his tutor, as well as of everything that came from Berlin, invited me to dinner. As my external appearance did not appear to promise much, and I was besides thoroughly exhausted and depressed by my sea-voyage, I made a comical figure at table, and our host evidently did not know what to think of me. But as he put great confidence in the written recommendation of Mendelssohn and the oral recommendation of his tutor, he suppressed his astonishment, and invited me to his table as long as I chose to remain here. In the evening he invited his brothers-in-law to meet me. They were children of B----, celebrated for his wealth as well as his beneficence; and as they were men of learning themselves, they were expected to sound me. They conversed with me on various subjects in the Talmud, and even in the Cabbalah. As I showed myself thoroughly initiated into the mysteries of this sort of learning, even explained to them passages which they regarded as inexplicable, and untied the most complicated knots of argument, their admiration was excited, and they believed they had come upon a great man.