Letter from Abraham de Sola to Isaac Leeser;June 22, 1856
- Title
- Letter from Abraham de Sola to Isaac Leeser;June 22, 1856
- Author
- Abraham de Sola
- Contributor
- Isaac Leeser
- Date Created
- 22 June 1856
- Format
- Letter. 3 page(s) on 2 sheet(s).
- Letter
- Type
- Letter
- Has Format
- https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/items/ark:/81431/p31g0jf31/manifest.json
- Link to Colenda
- https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/catalog/81431-p31g0jf31
- Physical Characteristics
- Unlined Paper
- Manuscript
- content
-
Montreal 22 June 5616.
Rev. I. Leeser
Philadelphia
Dear sir
You will think I have quite forgotten your favor of 5th inst. which I received the day after Hebrew, but however improbable it may appear to you, I have not had a minute for letter writing since the holy days. You know I teach the children Hebrew, and the number has greatly increased--but you do not wish to know how I have been employed
You need not thank me for the almost nothing I have done, & would do for any one under the same circumstances. The two Daily Prayers sent will I presume soon go, but not the Catechisms. If I am to collect the amounts due you for Bibles &c you had better enclose me a slip which you can send with the next Occidents, something in this form. I hereby request & authorise NDS to collect ? It is useless to refer in this again to what has so long passed, but I am not the only one who thinks I had cause to be disappointed in your course towards me. You stated in the Occident I had done you wrong. I deny this as emphatically now as ever My conduct towards you was honest fair and above board, although I know you conveyed a different
impression to mutual friends, upon whom however it had no effect. I yet think were you to review all you would find I had some good grounds for my opinion. Had matters so turned out with any other than yourself I should long since have ceased to think of that with derision and contempt; but it was a hard thing to be branded as something mean and vile by one whose good opinion had ever been so prized by me, and which had ever been so flattering. I always am prepared to admit that misrepresentation, antagonism & jealousy of you were rife, but I deny before my maker that these feelings ever actuated me; that I did or said anything that after the best reflection I thought calculated to injure you or your chances of re-election on your own terms, or that I ever had any feelings towards you but of respect & esteem. You will never know how, even since the appointment of your succession to office, I have been invited from other quarters than Philadelphia (let me add this, for I would not wish you even to suppose for a minute that your successor was one) to engage, humble as my position is, in various things which could only be injurious to you. I do not desire to embitter your intercourse with those men in office with whom you must even if occasionally only come in contact, but I have convincing proof of
my having been charged deemed guilty of insincerity by you without cause. I at one moment was on the point of showing you this, but second & better thoughts came. You had already publicly pronounced your opinion, though as a sincere friend you had no right to condemn me so quickly & unheard, Hebrew, and Hebrew you had forgotten. When a line from New Orleans would have settled all, your dignity would not permit you to realize that if there is Hebrew there is also Hebrew. I had never thought to have written, at least not to day on this subject, one so fruitless of result, as it necessarily must be, but as it is written it must go. Perhaps were we living in the same city, some good result might be arrived at. At present I think of Hebrew
Had I had time I would have written you before to tell you of my fathers having informed me a few weeks since of your ? to him about the Prayer Books. He writes me he would address you by the same packet so you will learn from himself the reasons for declining I would have told you myself of his going on as far as his third vol. The first has been for some time in Montreal, & last August I saw it in New York.
Apropos des bottes, what else but an obstructive policy did you expect there, unless a little or small policy I hope the Hebrew may find not duly find a field of usefulness sans obstructions but also a bed of roses-not Hebrew-though I feel disposed sagely to shake my head & say I have my doubts.
I remain yours truly
Abraham de Sola - Identifier
- LSDCBx2FF3_20
- Date
- 1856-06-22
Part of Letter from Abraham de Sola to Isaac Leeser;June 22, 1856
Abraham de Sola, “Letter from Abraham de Sola to Isaac Leeser;June 22, 1856”, 1856-06-22, Isaac Leeser Digital Repository, accessed September 7, 2024, https://judaicadhpenn.org/legacyprojects/s/leeser/item/65046