His eyes were gray blue—­very clear in colour.  Their whites were really white—­not bloodshot nor yellow.  His skin was the clear, beautiful colour which you sometimes see in a young and handsome Jew.  There was the same clear red and white.  This distinguishing quality of clearness was noticeable too in his lips, for his short white moustache shows them to be full, very red, and with the line where the red joins the white extremely clear cut.  His teeth were large, full, even, and white, like those of a primitive man, who tore his rare meat with those same white teeth, and who never heard of a dentist.  His hair was short, white, and bristling.  He seemed to have some Jewish blood in him, but he seemed more than all to be perfectly well, perfectly normal, filled to the brim with abounding life.  It was like a draught from the Elixir of Life to be in his presence.  What a man!

All at once the whole of “Degeneration” was made clear to me.  How could any man as sane, as normal, as superbly health-loving and health-bestowing keep from writing such a book!  I never met any one who so impressed me with his knowledge.  Not pedantry, but with the deep-lying fundamental truth that humanity ought to know.  His sympathies are so broad, his intuitions so keen, his understanding so subtle.

He asked us at once into his study—­a small room, lined with books bound in calf.  Both the chair and his couch had burst out beneath, showing broken springs and general dilapidation.  He speaks many languages, and his English is very pure and beautiful.

Like all great men, his manner was extremely simple.  He did not pose.  He was interested in me, in my work, in my ambitions, hopes, and aims.  He seemed to have no overpoweringly high idea of himself, nor of what he had achieved.  He was thoroughly at home in French, German, English, Scandinavian, and Russian literature.  He read them in the originals, and his knowledge of the classics seemed to be equally complete.  The well-worn books upon his shelves testified to this.

I asked him if he intended to come to America in the near future.  To which he replied: 

“Unhappily I cannot tell.  I should like to go.  I consider America the country of the world at present.  Whether we admit it or not, all nations are watching you.  The rest of the world cannot live without you.  Russia is the only country in the world which could go to war without your assistance.  You must feed Europe.  Your men are the financiers of the world and your women rule and educate and are the saviours of the men.  Therefore to my mind the greatest factor in the world’s civilisation to-day is the great body of the American women.  You little know your power. You seem to have got the ear of the American woman, and the only advice I have to give you is to be more bold.  Don’t be afraid of being too pedantic.  You are too subtle.  You bury your truths sometimes too deeply.  The busy are too busy to dig for it, and the stupid do not know it is there.”