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Wessely, in a description of the primitive wood of Neuwald in Lower Austria, says that the windfalls required from 150 to 200 years for entire decay. Die Oesterreichischen Alpenlander und ihre Forste, p. 312.
Mendelssohn's translation of the Pentateuch was at first hailed with joy, and was recommended by the most zealous rabbis. Doctor Hurwitz of Vilna did not hesitate to dedicate his 'Ammude Bet Yehudah to Wessely, who was more popular in Russo-Poland than in Germany.
Besides, Wessely contributed to the German translation of the Bible, and to the commentary on the Bible, both, as mentioned before, works presided over by Mendelssohn, to whom he was attached by the tie of admiring friendship. Wessely's chief distinction, however, was his firm character and his love of truth.
"Look at our brethren in Poland," exclaims Wessely many years later in his address to his countrymen. "They converse with their neighbors in good Polish.... What excuse have we for our brogue and jargon?"
"Look," says Wessely, "look at our Russian and Polish brethren who immigrate hither, men great in Torah, yet admirers of the sciences, which, without the guiding help of teachers, they all master to such perfection as to surpass even a Gentile sage!" Such self-education was, of course, not without unfavorable results.
I arranged to join his train that same day when he passed through Wessely on his way to Konopischt. I only had the short time between the two stations for my conversation. I therefore at once took the bull by the horns and told him of the rumours current about him in Vienna and of the danger of promoting a conflict with Russia by too strong action in the Balkans.
The enterprise was under the auspices of Mendelssohn and Wessely. A double aim was to be served. The periodical was to promote the spread of knowledge and modern ideas in the Hebrew language, the only language available for the Jews of the ghetto; and at the same time it was to promote the purification of Hebrew, which had degenerated in the Rabbinical schools.
A disciple of Isaac Bar Levinsohn, and visibly affected by the influence of Wessely and Abraham Bar Lebensohn, he devoted himself to poetry. The first volume of his poems appeared at Wilna in 1851. His earliest productions go back to the middle of the last century. He is a remarkable stylist, and, in some of his works, his language is both simple and polished.
Abraham Geiger sided with the extreme reformers, while Frankel and Zunz insisted upon the necessity of retaining Hebrew as the language of worship. Moses Mendelsohn, of Hamburg, a German Harizi both in the character of his work and by reason of his position as a straggler of the Meassefim, was a disciple and imitator of Wessely.
Would you not like to know M. de Mirabeau? Or let me introduce you to Wessely he will talk to you in Hebrew. It is Wessely who does all the work for which I am praised it is he who is elevating our Jewish brethren, with whom I have not the heart nor the courage to strive.
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