{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_46701/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_46701","id":"gutenberg_46701","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46701","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Jewish literature"],"text":"DISCOURSES OF KEIDANSKY\n\n_By Bernard G. Richards_\n\nSCOTT-THAW CO.\n_542 Fifth Avenue_\nNEW YORK MCMIII\n\n\n_Copyright 1903\nby Scott-Thaw Co.\n(Incorporated)_\n\n\n_First Edition Published\nMarch 1903_\n\n\n_The Heintzemann Press Boston_\n\n\n\n\nNote\n\n\nThe majority of these papers have appeared in the Boston Evening\nTranscript, and thanks are extended to the editors not only for their\npermission to reprint the same, but also for the many kindnesses they\nhave shown my friend Keidansky and myself.\n\nAll the papers have undergone many changes, and numerous corrections and\nadditions have been made.\n\nB. G. R.\n\n\n\n\nIntroductory\n\n\nHeretical, iconoclastic, revolutionary; yet the flashing eye, the\ntrembling hand, the stirring voice held us spellbound, removed all\ndifferences, and there were no longer any conservatives and extremists;\nonly so many human beings led onward and upward by a string of\nirresistible words.\n\n\"Outrageous heresies,\" some said, yet those who paused to listen for a\nmoment lingered longer, and as they hearkened to the harangues, marked\nthe words and followed the flights of fancy, it came to them that these\ndreamers of dreams and builders of all sorts of social Utopias upon the\nvacant lots of the vague future; these ribald rebels holding forth over\ntheir glasses of steaming Russian tea in the caf\u00e9s, or on the street\ncorners under the floating red flag--that they were but a continuation\nof the prophets of old in Israel.\n\nThose who paused to listen were loath to depart and some prayed for a\nperpetuation of the things that came out of a throbbing heart and\nsoaring mind. Faint reflections here of the outpourings of a soul, but\nmayhap they will shed some little light upon the inner life of that\nstrange cosmos called the Ghetto and point again to the Dream it has\nharbored and cherished through the harsh realities of the centuries.\n\n\"Why perpetuate these things,\" you wrote to me, \"since that life is so\nfast slipping away from under my feet; practicability is urged on every\nhand, and to-morrow I may be led under the canopy, perhaps elected to\nthe presidency of a congregation, given full charge of an orthodox\npaper, or put into a big store on East Broadway, and then, what I said\nwould only stand out to taunt and menace me about the life that could\nnot be. Besides, I may become so radical that I shall not want to say\nanything.\" Yes, we change, and the castles we build in the air become\ntenement houses, and we are either the tenants, or worse, the landlords;\nbut \"life has its own theories,\" and if the fine poetry of youth be\nreduced to plain prose in later years, and wisdom teach us to be stupid,\nwhy, we are still a pace ahead and those who will come after shall put\ntheir shoulders to the Dream and move it up at least one inch nearer to\nlife. \"And if the dreamer dies,\" as you said yourself, \"will not the\nDream live ever on?\"\n\nSurely! And let me send you the glad assurance that death will come\nsooner than the presidency of a synagogue.\n\nYou are safe, Keidansky; the orthodox will never forgive you.\n\nWe change, yet those who fail also come to their own, and even lost\nsouls make great discoveries. Did you not say that \"Life is the\nprofoundest of all platitudes?\"\n\nB. G. R.\n\nNew York, March, 1903.\n\n\n\n\nContents\n\n\nI     Keidansky Decides to Leave the Social\n        Problem Unsolved for the Present            1\n\nII    He Defends the Holy Sabbath                   7\n\nIII   Sometimes He is a Zionist                    13\n\nIV    Art for Tolstoy's Sake                       23\n\nV     \"Three Stages of the Game\"                   33\n\nVI    \"The Badness of a Good Man\"                  41\n\nVII   \"The Goodness of a Bad Man\"                  53\n\nVIII  \"The Feminine Traits of Men\"                 65\n\nIX    The Value of Ignorance                       75\n\nX     Days of Atonement                            85\n\nXI    Why the World is Growing Better              95\n\nXII   Home, the Last Resort                       105\n\nXIII  A Jewish Jester                             117\n\nXIV   What Constitutes the Jew?                   129\n\nXV    The Tragedy of Humor                        139\n\nXVI   The Immorality of Principles                149\n\nXVII  The Exile of the Earnest                    157\n\nXVIII Why Social Reformers Should be Abolished    165\n\nXIX   Buying a Book in Salem Street               173\n\nXX    The Purpose of Immoral Plays                183\n\nXXI   The Poet and the Problem                    193\n\nXXII  \"My Vacation on the East Side\"              199\n\nXXIII Our Rivals in Fiction                       211\n\nXXIV  On Enjoying One's Own Writings              219\n\n\n\n\n_DISCOURSES OF KEIDANSKY_\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nKeidansky Decides to Leave the Social Problem Unsolved for the Present\n\n\nThe lecture at the Revolutionary Club, Canal street, was over, the\naudience rose, one by one, and ere their departure, those who made it\nup, lingered on for awhile and stood in little groups of two, three and\nfour, and earnestly discussed the things that had been, and particularly\nthe things that might have been, said on the subject. The peroration was\ndelivered with fervor and gusto by one of the \"red ones\" of the Ghetto.\nIt was on \"The Emancipation of Society from Government,\" a theme packed\nwith meaning for those present, and as almost everybody was willing to\nbe interviewed on his or her impressions, there was quite a little\nexchange of opinion afterwards. The speaker, besieged by a small circle\nof questioning dissenters and commentators, was holding an informal,\ncompulsory reception. A few hard workers of the sweat-shops, who\nslumbered peacefully during the discourse, came up towards the platform\nto tell the speaker how well they liked it.\n\nIt was during this hobnob medley of varying voices that I introduced\nKeidansky to a lady, a friend of mine, who, having heard of the wicked\nthings he says, and the queer things he does, desired very much to meet\nhim.\n\nAs she greeted him the lady rather perfunctorily remarked:\n\n\"And so you are a dreamer of the Ghetto?\"\n\n\"No, Madam,\" Keidansky answered somewhat brusquely; \"I am a sad\nreality.\"\n\n\"A sad reality? Why so?\" Smilingly, pityingly, she queried.\n\n\"Oh, the reasons are not far to seek, not easy to find, and hard to\nrelate,\" he said demurely. \"Besides, why augment the soporific tendency?\nWe have just listened to a lecture. The monstrous evil of government\nstill exists. The tremendous task of its abolition is still before us.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know; but tell me, please.\"\n\n\"Well, then, if I must speak of myself--and I like nothing better--I\nwill tell you.\" He cast down his eyes and spoke quickly, as quickly as\nhe could think of the right words, which he was trying to find with\nevident effort. \"A dreamer disillusionized, a great might-have-been\nbecome small, a would-be victor vanquished, a social reformer forced by\nsociety to reform, a herald of a new dawn lost in the night, a rebel\nrejected by the rabble, a savior of society without even the ghost of a\nchance to become a martyr, a visionary grown wise, an enthusiast at last\nawakened to things as they are, an idealist knocked out by cold, hard\nfacts--don't you think it's a sad reality? I--we--wanted to do so many\nthings and--\n\n\"I wanted to change the world, and the world has changed me so that I am\nbeyond recognition. That's a little and belittling way the world has\nwith all who wish to save it. We--my comrades and I--wanted to transform\nthis earth into a Heaven, and we came near going to--the other place.\nPardon me, madam, but some of the fellows actually went there, one sent\nme his regards the other day. He is at court now, working for the king\nof the ward--assistant chief wire-puller, or something. Good salary;\nhardly any work to do. Better than Socialism, he says, under which\nsystem he would, at least, have to perform a few hours' work a day. But\nthere was a time when he would walk six miles--he had to walk then--to\nhear a denunciation of the present political parties and the evil powers\nthat be. Now he would talk six miles to win a single vote for them. The\nothers who have gone have not fared so badly as he: they have not grown\nso wise, have remained poor, and, more or less--honest. But as to the\nthings that might have been. There were great books to be written, which\nwere abandoned because--oh, well, it is so much bother to deal with\npublishers. There was a powerful educational movement to be started in\nthe Ghetto, which has also been relinquished for the manifold blessings\nof ignorance.\n\n\"Why, I wanted to solve the social problem, and now I do not even see my\nway clear to do that. You see, we all came here with a smattering of\nSocialistic ideas and Utopian ideals. We brought them over from\nRussia--the land of the knave and the home of the slave--and we wanted\nto see them realized in this country, where the gigantic development of\nindustry and the trusts were illustrating the beautiful possibilities of\nSocialism. That idea appealed to us Jews, at least, above all others.\nAnd we set ourselves with great zeal to the task of its promulgation.\nThe common ownership of all the means of production and distribution of\nwealth, every member of society contributing to the work of the nation;\nthose who do not work, neither shall they eat, etc.--we had everything\ndown fine--too fine. If we were asked, who shall do the dirty work under\nSocialism, we answered, the bosses of the present political machines.\n\n\"And we demonstrated by all the proofs furnished us by our leaders--at\nthe rate of ten cents a pamphlet--how the great change was inevitable\nfrom Marx's material conception of history and our own hysterical\nconception of materialism. The rich had not as yet consented to the\nequal distribution of all wealth; but the poor had; they were fast\ncoming our way, and we were all getting ready for the great change. Oh,\nwhen a fellow gets the social revolution into his head he can see\nmillions of proletarians marching to victory, and then the Co\u00f6perative\nCommonwealth looms up big before him in all its Bellamy glory. But after\nawhile, and a few gentle hints in the form of hard knocks--confound\nit--comes the calm, sober, second or second-hand thought. Socialism?\nWhat an arch bureaucracy, what a preposterous attempt to harness life\nwith a monstrous system of rules, regulations and restrictions! What an\nendless chain of entangling laws, what an appalling monotony of order!\nThe individual gagged, bound hand and foot by an overwhelming mess of\nstatutes; not permitted to tell the truth unless it is officially\nrecognized as truth by the State. Thousands of laws to be broken every\nday and as many heads to be mended. Heaven save us! you cry out, and you\ncome to realize that it isn't because \"a lot of contemptible capitalists\nhave paid him for it\"--as it has been alleged by some of us--that\nHerbert Spencer has declared Socialism to be the coming slavery. Perhaps\nSpencer wasn't wrong, after all; and the best solution of the social\nproblem you had becomes a terrible problem, and you lay it on the table,\nor throw it into the waste-basket.\n\n\"Then comes communism, as preached by my friend John Most and comrade\nPeter Kropotkin; individualist anarchism, as presented by Benjamin R.\nTucker and others. Beautiful theories these are, enchanting studies;\nbut, alas, only theories, so vague, so fantastic, so far off, so dimly\ndistant, so elusive. And the problem is so stubbornly real, so\ndisagreeably near, so puzzlingly capricious, and so spitefully\nindependent of all solutions, that--oh, well--I haven't as yet solved\nthe social problem, and I don't, as yet, know when I will; but perhaps\nthe problem will stay long enough, until I get ready to do it.\"\n\nThe speaker looked touchingly perplexed as he continued: \"I cannot find\nmy way through these things, and don't know the way out. The problem is\nvexing and vast; the solutions various and voluminous. The solutions are\nin themselves highly problematic. Our doubts are endless, our ignorance\nis infinite. Finality is the most fatal folly. Nothing is certain but\nuncertainty; nothing is constant but change. Even the dream of\ntransformation becomes transformed. Life has its own theories and is\nregardless of our patented plans. The logic of events makes our own\nsystems illogical. The wind of Time blows out our little labelled\nlanterns. Time puts all our wisdom to shame. Life is so pitifully brief,\nand the problem that has troubled the ages cannot be solved in a day.\"\n\n\"But what are you going to do about it?\" I interrupted.\n\n\"Why, I have decided to leave the social problem unsolved for the\npresent,\" he answered. \"If I could spell English well I would write a\nbook showing why I refuse to solve it for the present; but as it is,\nthose who wish to know what I write will have to learn Yiddish. However,\nfrom what I know of the English language, I like it immensely. It is so\nrich, so big, has so many words; a splendid means for concealing one's\nthoughts. And the English and Americans, who master it, know it and\nappreciate the fact. But I see they are putting the lights out. We'll\nhave to leave the hall now. Good-night, good-night. Pleased to have met\nyou.\"\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nHe Defends the Holy Sabbath\n\n\n\"We are so happy in this country that we must celebrate even when we\ndon't want to,\" said a Hester street storekeeper, and then he quoted the\nwords of the Psalms in the traditional monotone: \"And they who led us\ncaptive requireth of us a song.\"\n\nHe stood on the sidewalk in front of his dreary and dilapidated grocery\nstore. It was Sunday morning. The chosen people of old who have elected\nto come to the chosen country of to-day moved up and down in large\nnumbers, almost crowding the street. They stood in little groups idly,\nand conversed loudly in a more or less Americanized Yiddish, often\nlapsing into a curious English of their own. Their dress and outward\nappearance denoted the degrees of their Americanization and prosperity.\nThere were those who live in the Jewish street, or in the immediate\nvicinity, which is also within the Ghetto, and others who, after\nspending their first years here, have now travelled by the road of\nsuccess to \"nice, high-toned\" districts, such as Allen street in the\nWest End. On Sunday they all come down there, for then you can meet\neverybody, all the \"Landsleute,\" you can hear all the news, and there\nwas a time when Sunday was the liveliest day on the street. Thus these\npeople walked up and down the thoroughfare, while some stood in small\ngatherings and talked. Women met, chatted for a few minutes, and then\ntook half an hour in parting.\n\nAll the stores were closed, all the places of business deserted, and it\nseemed strange and incongruous to see all these people out on the\nstreet. It seemed as if the people were there for no purpose, as if they\nhad nothing to do. One wondered, at first, if it were a holiday; but the\nabsence of even a suggestion of the spirit of Sabbath soon made it clear\nthat there was no religious meaning in this day, so far as the Hebrew\npeople were concerned. Aside from that, the people would not be out so\nif it were a holiday. They would be at home, observing and celebrating\nthe day. It appeared as if their idleness was forced upon them; they\nsuggested gatherings of workers who are out on a strike, waiting for\nsettlement. Upon investigation the stranger found that this was an\nenforced idleness, a compulsory holiday. The Christian Sabbath was\nforced by law upon the Jews, who had celebrated their Sabbath the day\nbefore, and they could not begin the week's work until their loving\nneighbors were through. And this, too, was the week before Passover, the\nbusiest season in the Ghetto.\n\nMy friend, the storekeeper, stood upon the sidewalk in front of his\nemporium and continued his plaint, not without quaint gestures:\n\n\"They call this the freest country on earth, and yet here we have been\ncompelled to close up our stores two days in the week for the whole\nwinter. A number of us have already gone out of business, and the\nUppermost only knows what will happen with the rest. We cannot make it\npay in five days; rent is very high, profits are small, and around here\ntimes are always hard. The poor people who trade with us only know\nprosperity by sight or hearsay.\n\n\"We have preserved our Sabbath through all the persecutions and\nsufferings which we have endured in the past centuries. Our Sabbath is\nas dear to us as life itself, and now it is endangered by the laws of\nthis free land. We cannot afford to close our stores on both Saturday\nand Sunday. Sunday used to be one of the best days of the week for\nbusiness. It is the first day of the week with us. It is the day after\nour Sabbath, when every household needs a new supply of food. It is also\nthe day on which our people from the country, having a day off, come in\nto buy their goods--that is, they used to come in when we were permitted\nto keep our stores open on Sunday. Now all is changed, and the business\nis going down and down. We will not keep open on Saturday, and the\npolice won't let us keep open on Sunday. It is outrageous, the way they\ntreat us; it is scandalous, I say.\"\n\nKeidansky, the radical of the Ghetto, is quite a unique, native\ncharacter. He is the young man who once told me that he had more good\nideas than were good for him, and I believe now that he was right. I met\nhim one day in one of his resorts, a \"kosher\" lunch room of the Jewish\ndistrict. I asked him for his opinion on the Sunday question, and he\ntold me what follows--among other things--over a few glasses of Russian\ntea:--\n\n\"So far as I'm personally concerned, one day is as good as another for a\nSabbath, and we can't have too many of them. Any day on which we can\nrest and be at our best, is a holiday. I am too religious to be pious. I\ncan sanctify as many days as I can celebrate. The new conception of\n'kosher' is whatever is wholesome, digestible and tasteful. To be really\nhappy is to be holy, and those who have lost this world will not be\nentrusted with another. I hate uniformity, and it's very tiresome to\nrest when everybody else rests; but since it would be most convenient to\nsuspend business and activity when the majority of the people observe\ntheir Sabbath, since the Christians do not want to rest on the same day\nthat the Lord rested, and decided to get ahead of God and repose on the\nfirst instead of the seventh day, why, let it be Sunday, then--as far as\nI am concerned. Convenience is the first step to happiness, and\ntolerance is the beginning of philosophy. There is nothing intrinsically\nsacred in any day; it is only an artificial measure of time, and time is\nonly a blank space, absolutely worthless unless we write upon it with\nour deeds. All days are made holy or unholy by what we do in them. So,\nyou see, so far as I am concerned, Saturday or Sunday, any day, will do.\nPersonally I have never been compelled to close up my store. I have\nnever been so unfortunate as to own a store. This, however, is only my\npoint of view.\n\n\"One of the most immoral things I know of is to force your own petty\nbrand of morality upon the lives of others, and I can hardly conceive of\nanything more irreligious than forcing your particular religion upon\nothers. To respect the religion of your neighbors is a deeply religious\nprinciple, and those who have no religion at all can almost make up for\nit by respecting the religion of others. Religious liberty is one of the\nmost precious principles of our country, is it not? And here this\nfundamental principle is rankly violated by the law, or rather by what I\nthink must be a silly misinterpretation of the law. There are thousands\nof Jews encumbered by and compelled to rest on, if not to observe, a\nChristian Sabbath. I do not like to believe with some of the Zionists\nthat the seed of anti-Semitism has been sown in this country and that a\ngood crop will soon be up to encourage the restoration of Israel to the\nTurk's Palestine. I am rather inclined to think that this idea is\nanti-Semitic. But certainly the stranger in this country would be\nextremely surprised at the way the Jews are treated here just now in\nregard to the observance of Sabbath. Who is to blame? The law or those\nwho enforce it? Oh, the law. But perhaps our people now suffer the\nconsequences of having been among the first to bring laws into the\nworld. When people saw that the world was too good they began to make\nlaws, and ever since they have kept up making and multiplying them\nfaster than even the lawmakers can break them. Why, one can hardly walk\ntwo steps before he finds that he is breaking a useless law which it is\nvery tempting to violate. I am not so radical as some of my friends. I\ndo not believe that all the stupidity of the age has been incarnated\ninto our laws. A great deal of it has been left in our customs,\ntraditions and superstitions; but a law that interferes with religious\nliberty in a free country is bad enough.\n\n\"I tell you it is just exasperating to walk through the Ghetto of a\nSunday now and see all the places of business closed up and all the\npublic resorts abandoned. The poor housewives of the Ghetto whose\ncupboards are all empty and who need so many things on Saturday night,\nafter their Sabbath, and have to wait until Monday--it is a great\nhardship for them. I tell you it's dead wrong to force this blue law\nupon the people. The Hebrew, to whom the traditional Sabbath is as dear\nas life, ought to receive due consideration, or rather the right to do\nas he pleases, in so far as he does not harm others. The law should have\nnothing to do with Sabbath, anyhow. People can never be made religious\nby law. If you are going to write about it, tell the whole story and\nshow how ill-treated we are. Perhaps you can convert the Christians to\nthe spirit of Christianity. Let the voice of the chosen people be\nheard!\"\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nSometimes He is a Zionist\n\n\nWord flashed across the cables that Dr. Theodore Herzl and other leaders\nof the Zionist movement had held a favorable interview with the Sultan\nof Turkey, and the followers of the cause--the restoration of Palestine\nto the Jews--were all in a flutter of gladness. As it was interpreted by\nthe faithful, the vague, meagre cablegram meant that the Sultan was\nwilling, that he was hard up, and that the Holy Land was for sale. And\nwho could doubt when this was announced by the New York Yiddish dailies,\nunder four-column headlines? No one could doubt but the jester. He said\nthat this only proved that the Yiddish papers also had big type in their\ncomposing rooms. He said that the truth about a certain movement could\nnot be found in any party organ. In fact, if one wanted the absolute\ntruth about anything he would advise him to go home and sleep it off.\n\nBut serious and sane folk will ask no jester for advice. The jester can\nonly add to the sadness of the nations; but he cannot impair the faith\nof the believers. So the Zionists were rejoicing while their opponents\nwere debating in the lighter vein, and laughing at the mistakes of the\nso-called new Moses and the errors of his followers.\n\nThe news had also reached Keidansky's circle, and the question was\ntaken up again for consideration. They were all at Zarling's on Leverett\nstreet, where the \"kosher\" eatables are inviting, where tea is Russian,\nthe newspapers Yiddish, and the attendant members of one industrious\nfamily, ranging from several bright pupils of the grammar school up. The\npoet, the young lawyer, the short-sighted medical student who has for\nmany years been writing a scientific work, the Anarchist orator in\nembryo, the flower vendor and undiscovered inventor of an ingenious\nself-lighting lamp and a wonderful fuel-saving stove--they were all\nthere, and, of course, Keidansky was with them. They all sat about a\nlittle round wooden table in a corner of the big dusky store, pouring\nout wisdom and drinking tea. The long row of \"kosher\" Vienna wurst\nhanging over Zarling's brass-railed counter were mocking and menacing\nthe vegetarian of the group as he was munching a cheese sandwich.\n\nThey were all heartily opposed to Zionism. Each one had the solution for\nthe social problem, which would also settle the Jewish question, and\nKeidansky said that it was highly problematic whether there was such a\nthing as a Jewish problem. However, they all had plans for making this a\nbetter world, plans which the Jews were eminently fitted to help to\ncarry out, and the benefits of which they would reap in the form of an\nideal state of society, with universal brotherhood, and without racial\nhatred and anti-Semitism. They took Zionism severely, scathingly to\ntask, and as there was no Zionist present it was an easy victory. The\nJewish State was nipped in the bud, or rather abolished ere its\nestablishment. The poet and the orator sailed heavily into the \"dubious\npersonality of Dr. Max Nordau,\" one of the leaders of the movement, and\nthus again avenged themselves on the man who, in his gentle booklet on\n\"Degeneration,\" so wantonly threw so much mud on their revolutionary\nidols. Reference was made to the demolishing review of the Doctor's book\nby the only and original G. Bernard Shaw, and Whitman and Wagner and the\nothers were saved.\n\nKeidansky listened silently to all that passed, looked into a book and\nsipped his tea. If the conversation was not good he could find something\nin his book, and if the book was not interesting he could at least enjoy\nhis tea. So he once said when told that he was not attentive and not\ntrue to the spirit of \"the order of midnight tea-drinkers.\"\n\nEverybody had spoken, and I turned to Keidansky for a word. \"Sometimes,\"\nhe said, \"I am Zionist, and all longings leave me and I yearn for naught\nbut the realization of the old, long-cherished, holy dream that our\npeople have carried along with them and fondly caressed through their\ncruel exiles of the ages--the restoration of our never-to-be-forgotten\nhome, Palestine. The passion for the race returns, the old feeling of\nnational pride and patriotism comes back and takes its old place, the\nconsciousness of Israel awakens within me, and I am completely swayed by\nthe mastering desire to see Judea 'emancipated, regenerated and\nredeemed.'\n\n\"I feel again the unity I have forgotten. The old Messianic hope looms\nup big before me. The _Heimweh_ of the long-lost wanderer, the\ngrief-stricken, menaced nomad takes possession of me. I feel the\nterrible danger of dissolution: it is so bitter to stare destruction in\nthe face, to contemplate annihilation of so long and so miraculous an\nexistence. I feel that there is no place like his old home. The homeless\nJew must return to Palestine. The big world is too small. It has no room\nfor him. Good or bad, he is always offensive, and he is exalted only to\nbe cast down into an abyss of misery. Civilization is not even civil,\nand it has no hospitality for its earliest light-bearer. The world is a\nwretched ingrate. We have given everything, including the means of\nfuture salvation; we receive nothing but calumny, and are doomed to\neverlasting damnation. 'We have given you your religion,' we say to the\nChristians. 'That's nothing,' they answer; 'it has not affected us in\nthe least.' And they prove it. They keep on baiting and persecuting and\nkilling their neighbours, not as themselves. What must we do? Get back\nour old home, though we have to pay for it. There, at least, will we\nfind 'a crust of bread and a corner to sleep in.'\n\n\"We must have a common cause, an object of unity, a centre of gravity,\nin order to survive as a people, and this is what we can have in the\nproposed Jewish State.\n\n\"And what an inspiring picture it will be of Israel, bruised and\nbleeding from the travail of his long, futile travels, at last\nstraightening up his back and returning home to rebuild his national\nlife and his temple in Palestine. There he will create an ideal\nrepublic, fashioned after the teachings of the prophets and the lessons\nhe has received from the teachers of the nations--a republic that will\nteach the world justice and righteousness. 'And from Zion shall issue\nthe law, and the word of God shall go forth from Jerusalem,' and our\npoets to come shall sing new psalms to God on the banks of the Jordan,\nin the shades of Lebanon and in the beautiful gardens of Sharon and\nCarmel. I have never been there, and though I have gone through life\nwithout a geography, yet I seem to remember all these places. The grand,\nvigorous Hebrew language shall come to life again and we shall have a\nglorious literature of Israel's resurrection. Ah, how beautiful the\nvision that looms up as I contemplate these things! And then--\"\n\nKeidansky ceased speaking, paused, and asked for another glass of tea.\n\n\"And then?\" I asked.\n\n\"Then,\" he continued, \"the mood passes, the feeling alters, the picture\nthat a fleeting fancy has thrown upon the canvas of my view, fades, a\nchange comes over the spirit of my dream. I remember that I am no\nlonger the pious little boy praying in the synagogue of Keidan, 'a year\nhence in Jerusalem.' The greater vision appears before me, the larger\nideal comes back, and Keidansky is himself again. Sometimes I am a\nZionist, but only sometimes. The rest of the time I am as strongly\nopposed to it as any of you, because with all my imputed universalism I\nhave great hopes for my people, and because I have marked out a greater\nrole for Israel to play in the history of the future than being a mere\nlittle bee building a little hive in a tiny obscure corner of the\nglobe.\"\n\nHere the medical student protested that a man cannot be both for and\nagainst an idea at the same time, that those who are not with us are\nwrong and against us, and that Keidansky is a \"long distance off\"--for\nhe said, \"scientifically analyzed\"--\n\n\"Scientifically analyzed, you are a bore,\" Keidansky broke forth\ninfuriated, \"and don't interrupt me when I am solving problems and\nmaking history. Be consistent, boys, and do not ask me to be so. Give\nme, at least, the right that you grant to a character in fiction, the\nright to be irrational, illogical, and, above all, superbly\ninconsistent. I am a character in life and nothing is so fictitious. At\ntimes, I want to be with all, feel with all, believe with all, see the\nbeauties of all ideals, and also point out the great fact about\nthem--that they are all fatal--and yet that to be without ideals is\nbaneful and deadly. I cannot be partial, and that is why they expelled\nme from DeLeon's Socialist Labor party. Partiality is destructive to\nart, and I might have been an artist, if I had had the patience and\nself-abnegation and a lot of other requisites and things.\n\n\"But to return to the larger vision, which eclipses the dreamlet of\nZionism. The Jew must not be relegated to an obscure corner of the\nworld, to a little platform whereupon he will recite a piece in an\nunknown tongue. I want a big stage for him--the world. I want a great\nplay for him--all its multitudinous activities. For he is a wonderful\nactor. He has versatility, illusion, imagination and dramatic power. It\nis an inspiring part he plays in the world-drama. So let the play go on,\nand do not ask him to waste his energies and bargain with the Sultan for\na bit of barren land that has been taken from him so long ago. He has a\nbigger task to perform, a larger mission to fulfil.\n\n\"He must live among the nations and help them in their upward struggle\nfor a higher civilization and a nobler life. If there are evils to be\nabolished he will help abolish them, and if there are dire problems,\nwhy, he has brains, which he loans more often than money. And this is\nthe spectacle that I gloat over and glory in seeing: Israel among the\nnations, the saviour and the outcast, the redeemer and the rejected, the\nrevered teacher and truant student, the honoured guest and persecuted\nresident, helping nations to make their histories, here and there,\nwriting great words in them, ministering to their arts and helping to\nhumanize humanity. To be persecuted and oppressed by the nations is\ninconvenient and annoying, but to make music, paint pictures, write\nbooks, sing songs, mould statues for them--how superb! Ah, what a\ntragedy to be a Jew, and yet, how glorious! The nations need the Jew and\nhe must not desert them in their hour of need, and if he is true to his\nbest self and keeps on growing he will not die and vanish as a people.\nIn any case 'tis nobler to die for a good cause than to live in\nimpotence. So let the Jew remain, with whatever nation he abides, and as\na good citizen help it grow great and good, and show that Ibsen was\nright when he called us the aristocracy of the race. Let not, I say to\nthe Zionists, the Jew be like the little boy who runs away from school\nafter he receives a thrashing and before he has taught his teacher a\nlesson. To sacrifice for Dr. Herzl's scheme our vast opportunities in\nthe world, which owes us so much, and to which we are so indebted, would\nbe selling our birthright for a mess of pottage. So let us remain. We\ncan do so much in so many countries with the teachings and spirit of\nJudaism. We, too, are frail and have many faults, but we can improve\nwhere there's lots of room and plenty of opportunities.\n\n\"Life is a melodrama, and in the latter acts the long-lost brothers, Jew\nand Christian, who have for so long waged war against each other, will\nrecognize, understand each another, and perhaps, things will end\nhappily, after all.\n\n\"Meanwhile we will forgive France for the Dreyfus affair, because of\nher perfect prose and beautiful poetry. I will even forgive Captain\nDreyfus for having been such a bore, if he will stop writing books. Let\nthe Jews remain in Russia instead of going to Palestine, for think of\nthe love of freedom that tyranny engenders! Think how good all our\noppressions have been in that they made us love liberty and truth. Think\nwhat a chance to shed blood for freedom there will yet be in Russia. Our\npeople should remain there. Things are changing. What a fine literature\nit is producing, and how noble Russia is--underground.\n\n\"Away with your petty neutral little State, I say to the Zionist; the\nState to be bought on the instalment plan from the Sultan, to be built\non the soil of superstition, where the Jews will go back to their\ntraditional customs and fall asleep. The land is barren and sterile, and\nI do not believe in starvation, even on holy land. Even the orthodox\nmust have a religion; but they will never acquire it in Palestine. They\nwill cling to the old. They will not progress. The Bible--and I bow my\nhead in reverence for that great work of fiction--will never be edited\nand revised as it ought to be, in Palestine. Judaism will not grow in\nPalestine. The Jews will cling to the letter, and the spirit of it will\nstarve. God save the Jews from Palestine. Judaism there will not grow;\nit will stagnate and die. The Jews must live among the destroying forces\nof civilization. It is only when they outgrow their obnoxious\nsuperstitions and down-dragging traditions that they become great.\"\n\nThe speaker waxed warm; his eyes flashed with enthusiasm, his voice grew\nloud.\n\n\"I want none of the Jewish State,\" he said. \"The whole world is holy\nland. Wherever there are good, honest people is holy land, and from\nevery corner of the earth shall issue the law, and the word of God shall\ngo forth from every place, including my garret. Give us a big stage,\ngive us the world, give us the universe, and let me watch it from its\ncentre--my garret at 3 Birmingham Alley; let me watch the great and\nglorious play with Israel's heroic part in all the activities and growth\nand progress of the world, and I will 'thank whatever gods there be.'\nAnd this is my larger dream; a better, more humane world, created by the\nbrotherhood of men, with Israel as peacemaker and fraternizer. Amen.\"\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nArt for Tolstoy's Sake\n\n\nIt was at one of a series of lectures given under the auspices of the\nSocial Science Circle during the winter season. The audience which\nassembled in the gloomy little hall on the third floor of an East\nBroadway building was rather small in size. In announcing the lecture no\nrewards had been offered to those who would come to listen to it, as\noften seemed necessary; the speaker of the evening was only a member of\nthe club, who worked for his ideas, and not an eminent lecturer who\nlived on his reputation and whose name would \"draw a crowd.\"\n\nThe majority of young men and women of the Ghetto would not think of\nwasting an evening on wisdom; they would commit no such folly, when they\ncould have \"such a lovely time\" at the near-by dancing schools. Still,\nthe few and the faithful were all present, and those who were thirsting\nfor knowledge came to be saturated. Max Lubinsky was the speaker, and\nhis theme, \"Tolstoy's Theory of Art,\" was teeming with vital import.\n\nKeidansky, as a member of the committee in charge of the literary work\nof the circle, acted as chairman of the meeting. In introducing the\nspeaker he made a few remarks, somewhat as follows:\n\n\"Tolstoy has theories of art. Personally I am rather sorry for this,\nbecause if he did not have them he would be a greater artist. Even as\ntheories of life often mar existence, so theories of art impair the\nartist. Admitting that art with a purpose can help the world, it is\ncertain that art for its own sweet sake can create and re-create worlds.\nAfter he had contributed some of the greatest works of art to the\nliterature of Russia, Tolstoy decided to find out just what art was.\nDuring his investigations, which lasted many years, he found that the\nart of the world was in great part lazy, unemployed, corrupt, suffering\nfrom ennui, and ministering to the debauched, poor rich people, whom the\npoor man ever envies; he decided that art should become useful and go to\nwork, and he gave it an employment--the promulgation of his ideas of\nsocial regeneration.\n\n\"Once, Tolstoy tells us, art was primitive and simple and pious, and it\nwas good art and true; but during the Middle Ages, when the upper class\nand the nobility became sceptical and pessimistic, and could find no\nmore consolation in religion, art became divorced from the church,\nbecause they took it up as an amusement and study. And ever since art\ngot into such bad company--among people of culture and those who\nunderstand it, who cherished all its wonderful enfoldments and caressed\nall its capricious moods--ever since art got into such bad company, it\nbecame as beautiful as sin, and so complex, mystic and ambiguous that\neven the Russian _muzhik_ or peasant cannot understand it. And so--as it\nseems to me--argues Tolstoy, the fact that the _muzhik_ cannot\nappreciate 'Tannh\u00e4user' proves conclusively that Wagner never wrote any\nreal music. Then, the dear old master delves deeply into all\ndefinitions, origins and explanations of art. He finds no designation,\nno description that satisfies him; they all hinge on and culminate in\nbeauty--in the production and reproduction of beauty that is in life, in\nnature, in the worlds within us and without; and Tolstoy is rather shy\nat mere beauty, and thinks it a temptress, a siren and a song; besides,\nbeauty, he says, changes and depends on taste, and taste varies, and as\nall these definitions are too far-fetched and vague, he finds one that\nis still more indefinite. Art is the communication of feeling, the\nexpression of the religious consciousness. Of course it is that, but\nfirst and foremost it must have the sterling qualities of art in form\nand matter.\n\n\"Tolstoy, however, would make this the chief basis and standard of art,\nfor his would be an art that would detract men's minds from mere beauty,\nthat would make them helplessly pious, that would unite mankind, make\nlife as monotonous as possible, and convert humanity to Christian\nAnarchism.\n\n\"Every book, picture, statue and composition of music should be\ndegradingly moral. And the question arises, what does he mean by\nreligious consciousness? Walt Whitman expressed his religious\nconsciousness in a manner that shocked the world, and it is not at all\npleasing to Tolstoy, and yet Whitman was the most religious man that\nlived in centuries. The Abb\u00e9 Prevost wrote \"Manon Lescaut\" to express\nhis religious consciousness, and Robert Ingersoll delivered his lectures\nto do the same; to express their religious consciousness, great\nsculptors mould nude figures of women, out of worship of the divine\nbeauty of the human form; and St. Francis of Assisi expresses the\nspiritual emotion in quite a different manner. But no, Tolstoy has a\ncertain kind of religious consciousness in mind, and this should be\nexpressed by all art and all artists in a uniform mode until we have\ngone back to primitive conditions.\n\n\"I yield to no one in my admiration of the grand old man of Russia. He\nis one of the noblest souls that ever walked this earth, and as an\nartist, when he is at his best and does not preach, he is superb; there\nare few like him. But when he begins to philosophize and moralize, few\ncan rise to the height of absurdity as quickly as he can. As it seems to\nme, Tolstoy's position is something like this:\n\n\"'Christianity is a colossal failure,' he says, 'so let us all become\nChristians. Our civilization is dreadfully slow in its advance; it has\nnot as yet outgrown its barbaric primitiveness, so let us all go back to\nbarbarism. All government is evil, so let us be governed solely by the\nteachings of a man who lived nearly two thousand years ago, a man who\nwas pure and who made no study of the wicked conditions of our time. It\nis only thus that we can become free--by a circumlocutory process of\nself-abnegation, self-sacrifice and self-annihilation. Let us become\nslaves of the theory of minding our neighbors' business and we will be\nfree. The power of will is the greatest thing in the world; he who\nfollows his free will becomes a slave and is doomed to damnation. Let us\nbe ourselves; let us stifle our feelings, become altruists and get away\nfrom ourselves. All government is tyranny; let us abolish all\ngovernment, adopt a rigid, ancient, mystic morality, and let everyone\nbecome his own tyrant. Our morality is a failure; it has produced a\nfalse art; therefore we must have a true art which will promulgate our\nmorality. Art that exists for mere beauty cannot be understood by the\ngreat masses, therefore let us have an art for the masses which will be\nbeautiful. Our Christianity is a failure, therefore we must convert art\nto Christianity and send it forth as a missionary of the Gospels as I\ninterpret them.' This, as I see it, is the queer position of Tolstoy,\nbut his theories are exceedingly well-meant and highly interesting, and\nI am glad that we are to have a lecture this evening on Tolstoy's\ntheories of art by one who is a thorough student of Tolstoy and to whom\nthe master's teachings are near and dear.\n\n\"I must not forget that I am not the speaker of the evening; I merely\nwanted to hint at the importance of the subject so that you may give it\ndue attention, but I must not transgress upon the time of the lecturer,\nfor the way of the transgressor, according to Tolstoy and others, is\nsaid to be hard. Besides, the chairman is not supposed to have any\nopinions; his duty is only to eulogize the speaker--in a merciless\nmanner--and to introduce him with a few appropriate, well-chosen and\nill-fated remarks. The chairman at best is only a relic of barbarism,\nand should be abolished.\"\n\nAnd Keidansky at last introduced the speaker, his friend, Max Lubinsky,\nwho, after treating his audience to a bit of satire at the expense of\n\"the eloquent and loquacious chairman,\" proceeded to give a simple,\nsympathetic and modest interpretation of Tolstoy's \"What is Art?\"\nillustrating his talk with copious reading from the book, and now and\nthen referring to his written notes. It was a comprehensive review of\nTolstoy's book he gave, and as to his own ideas on art he did not\nsufficiently differ from Tolstoy to have a formidable opinion on the\nmatter, and he had too much reverence for the great Russian to voice it\njust then. The presiding officer did not close the meeting without again\nremarking that \"art with a purpose is art with an impediment,\" and that\n\"the only excuse of art is its uselessness.\" From what I overheard after\nthe meeting I observed that there was a strong anti-Keidansky feeling in\nthe gathering. He had evidently gone too far, had voiced his notions too\nfreely, and had no right to take up so much time in speaking. Besides,\nmost of those present were social reformers, tremendously in earnest,\nand they felt, more or less, that Tolstoy was right; that art was only\ngreat as an advocate.\n\nAs we were walking together, homeward bound, a little later, I said:\n\"My dear fellow, you've got yourself into trouble. They are all up in\narms against you and your awful heresies. You have almost delivered the\nlecture of the evening yourself, and the circle won't stand for it. Next\nthing you know you'll be court-martialed.\"\n\n\"I almost expected that this would happen,\" said Keidansky, \"but I had\nto say what I did. It was an imperative duty. I am only sorry that I\nforgot a few more things I had on my mind to say. Audiences confuse me\nand make me forget my best points. I suppose they will call a special\nmeeting and pass resolutions to condemn me and my proceedings. But this\nwill only prove the superiority of individuals over society. Before a\nsociety can pass resolutions, the individual acts. I suppose they'll say\nlots of things now. They will say I was trying to make epigrams.\nEpigrams are always hateful--to those who cannot make a point in a\nvolume. They will say I was uttering platitudes. After you convince\npeople that there are such things as platitudes in the world, they begin\nto find them in everything you say. I once had an uncle (he is still\nliving, only he is very rich, and so I disowned him), and at one time I\nexplained to him the theory of our moving along the lines of least\nresistance. A short while after that we had a very intimate interview\nand my uncle told me that I was a lazy, good-for-nothing visionary; that\nI did not want to do anything, and moved along the lines of least\nresistance.\n\n\"I had to say what I did because I did not want the people to go off\nwith such crude and false conceptions of art. I knew that Lubinsky would\nnot dare to differ from Tolstoy. He adores the old man. So do I, but I\ncannot afford to give up my mind to any one--not until I become a\nrespectable member of the synagogue, and join a number of secret orders.\nThen it does not matter. The worst thing about a charming, noble\npersonality is that our admiration for it gets the better of our\nreasoning power and we become ready to follow it in all its follies.\nThis is the regrettable influence that Tolstoy has exerted upon\nLubinsky. Thus our emancipators enslave us. 'Be yourself,' says Emerson,\nand you become an Emersonian.\n\n\"But there is something else I wanted to say on this question of art. We\nJews anticipated and lived in perfect accord with Tolstoy's theory of\nart--that art must be religious and must be burdened with a message, or\na purpose--and the result is that we have no fine arts of our own,\nexcept poetry, which has more sighs and sobs and tears and piety than\nmusic and beauty. Of course, the reason for the absence of art among us\nis one of the commandments, which forbids the making of images, and oh,\nI cannot tell you how sorry I am that this commandment was ever\nobserved. I do not object so much to the other nine commandments, but\nfor this one I can never forgive my people. And here, by the way, is an\nexample of what the religious consciousness can do for art.\n\n\"There is a religious consciousness which makes people unconscious of\nreligion. 'The piety of art is the quest of the unattainable,' and the\nmore freedom you give it from missions the greater the mission it will\nfulfil. One more answer to the theory of art for Tolstoy's sake: Here is\na fable that occurred to me as I was listening to the lecture. I have no\ntime to elaborate and polish it, but I give you the right to plagiarize\nit.\n\n\"'You must pardon me,' said Art to Beauty, one day, 'if I do not pay so\nmuch attention to you as I used to, but this is a world of evils and\nproblems, and I will have to leave you for awhile and go forth and help\nto make a better, juster system of society.' And Art went forth to fight\nthe battle of the poor and the oppressed, and Beauty waited wistfully\nfor its return, alone and deserted, withered and faded. After many years\nBeauty went in quest of her lost lover, Art, who had not returned, and\nshe came upon a field of battle, and there, transformed into rebel\nwarrior, was her lost lover, Art. And even as she gazed, a shot was\nfired from the enemy, and it pierced the heart of Art, and he lay\nprostrate and dead before her.\"\n\n\n\n\nV\n\n\"Three Stages of the Game\"\n\n\nWe had been speaking of \"the only law that never changes\"--the law of\nchange: of the glorious ascent of the youthful nonconformist, and of the\nsad descent of the older and wiser compromiser--a theme, by the way, as\nold as age and yet as new as youth. We all had friends we once looked up\nto and now looked down upon, and we indulged in a few reminiscences.\nEvery army had its deserters, every cause its traitors, and the\ncrusaders who carried the red flag also changed their minds, lost heart\nand ran home.\n\n\"Oh, the flesh-pots of Egypt. Even the vegetarians cannot forget them,\"\nremarked my companion. \"They who led the strikes among the sweat-shop\nworkers in the course of time became heartless capitalist bosses; and\nthere were Anarchists, who wanted to abolish all laws, who became\nlawyers and went into politics. One by one many of the promising young\nmen of the Ghetto broke their promises and left the uplifting movements\nthey brought into existence. Some died, some married for love of money,\nsome took wives unto themselves, some became lawyers and doctors, some\ndentists, some wire-pullers, some went into politics, and some moved to\nBrooklyn. Compromise? They all hated that word and then--they\ncompromised.\n\n\"Recently I have been thinking of three particular stages of the\ngame--this grim and gruesome little game called life,\" said Keidansky.\n\"The first is when we sternly demand the truth, the second when we ask\nfor justice, and the third--when we beg for mercy--\n\n\"There you are with your eternal questions. It was Zolotkoff who once\ncalled the Jew, bent and bowed by his sorrows and fearful of the\nfuture--it was he who called the Jew a living interrogation point. You\njust reminded me of the simile. But no; I cannot tell you at which of\nthe three stages I have arrived. I am at all and at none. What I really\nwant I never ask for, because I hardly know what it is, and cannot\nformulate the demand. If I knew just what they were, perhaps I wouldn't\nwant these things. Yet sometimes I think if I could play, if I could\nplay the violin, I would express these starved longings and stifled\nyearnings. I could not only tell, but in the expression perhaps find\nwhat I want. In words I cannot do it; they are so formal, definite,\nrough. The other day my friend, the violinist, came and played for me.\n'I'll tell you a story,' he said, and he took his violin and played--a\nbeautiful, thrilling story. The Unknowable was revealed for a moment;\nand it occurred to me then that if I could play, I, too, might perform\nthe miracle of expression, which proves the divinity of music. As it is,\nI cannot tell my desires; and yet I want but little here below and I\ndon't want anything up above--\"\n\n\"You don't mean to renounce your part of the world to come?\" I asked.\n\n\"I don't know that it is coming to me,\" said Keidansky. \"Besides I am a\nlittle bit 'shy' on the world to come. I am afraid it is fashioned too\nmuch on the style of this one, and down here, you know, I am sometimes\ntired of everything. The entire panorama is so farcical, the whole game\nso monotonous, and our heroics are so ludicrous. The valetudinarians\nmake me sick. I am weary of 'The Book of Jade,' and clever people are\nawful bores. Yes, I am somewhat afraid of the second story they call the\nother world, for it may really come, and history might repeat itself,\neven up there.\n\n\"The mortal fear of oblivion makes one crave for immortality; but,\nperhaps, one life is enough. No matter how sinful, or how saintly, a\nhuman being has been, one world is sufficient of a punishment. Virtue is\nits only reward; evil is its own punishment. The life beyond--is beyond.\nLet it stay there.\n\n\"Promises of Heaven and threats of the Midway do not move me so much\nnow, for the chances are that they are one and the same thing, and this\nis the only place we are sure of and ought to make the most of. There is\nsome good down here in spite of the reformers. The good is right beside\nthe evil, and we can seldom tell the difference. The saint and the\nsinner often exchange pulpits and each proves the imperfection of the\nother. Paradise is right next door to Purgatory; in fact, you want to\nbe careful when you are around that way lest you enter the place you\nweren't sent to. We ought to make the most of it, I say, and I know I am\nright, because I have been condemned by a number of orthodox rabbis.\"\n\n\"You contradict yourself,\" I said.\n\n\"I do it to be consistent,\" said Keidansky.\n\n\"But I have digressed and transgressed, and all because of your useless\nquestion. As I was saying, when we are young, ignorant, innocent and\ninexperienced, we sternly demand the truth, the whole truth, and nothing\nbut the truth. We come to enlighten this dominion of darkness, to right\na world gone wrong and to guide a poor and deluded mankind to the\neternal verities. Iconoclasticism becomes our creed, infidelity our\nreligion. We are to repeal the world's laws, to shatter its idols, to\ndemolish its traditions, and we at once reject its standards and ideals\nbecause they are not founded on truth.\n\n\"We question, investigate, analyze, and the imagination of youth works\nwonders. We are all gods in our dreams. The re-creation of the world is\nbut an easy task. With all the modern improvements, it can be done in\nless than seven days, it seems. Glorious quest of truth and the golden\ngoal, enchanting castles in the air, of which youth is the architect!\nHave you ever been young? I was born old, yet I know something about it.\nAnd for the rest, you know what happens. Most of the things in the\nworld end sadly, because in the ending of a thing there is sadness. We\nfind, at last, that what we wanted cannot be had for the asking; that we\nmust pay for it with our lives; that the truth is--there is no\ntruth--that as much of it as we find is often more than we want; that\nillusion is a necessary element in the composition of the world; that\neverything is relative and the quest of truth is a relative virtue. I\nhate the compromiser and deserter and I have nothing to say in their\ndefence, but change is in the very nature of things, and sooner or later\nwe must recognize that absolute truth does not exist, and we must accept\nthe old foundation for building whatever we can in the world, and\nrealize that perfection is a long and laborious process of becoming.\n\n\"Later on we really see that all is for the best, that the pessimists\nare here as an object lesson, and we conclude that it is folly to be too\nwise. We cannot repeal the world's laws all at once, but we can break\nthem gradually. There is much wisdom in folly and some truth in\nfalsehood, too. The stupidity of the world is an absolute necessity: the\nworld's work has to be done. So, at least, we decide, and we abandon the\nimpossible quest after the absolute truth and become satisfied with\njustice, mere justice. We only ask for fair play. At this stage of the\ngame we are already hardened and inured to things, and we manage to get\nalong with justice, such as it is when we get it or buy it in court. At\nthis time, if we are prosperous, we read and relish Omar Khayyam, the\nphilosophy of whom is well expressed by the street urchin when he says,\n'I don't give a hang.' And we also laugh at the poor fools who seek\nafter the truth. Later on still, when we grow weary and weak and cannot\nhave justice--are not crafty or strong enough--we come down a little\nlower and beg for mercy. Thus we reach the third stage of the game.\"\n\nThe speaker paused for a moment, watching a little boy who was trying to\nfloat his little boat on the pond--for we were lucubrating in the Park,\nwhere we met by accident.\n\n\"That's all very well,\" I said, \"but what have you to suggest?\"\n\n\"Why, nothing that would make a sensation in a newspaper,\" he said, \"but\nsomething that by chance or miracle may have some reason in it. It is\nthis: Let the youth continue his noble, heroic, if melodramatic, quest\nof truth, that those who grow wiser and weaker may get justice. Let the\nyoung strive for the impossible and the possible will be attained, and\nthose who ask for justice will really have it. Let them question and\nanalyze and shatter idols and become bombastic and hysterical and build\ncastles, and dream and disturb the order of the world--and let us admire\ntheir _heilige dumheit_--that some day those who have grown feeble may\nfind at least fair play. The more the world will tolerate the\nextravagances of youth, the more it will benefit by its achievements.\nLet the wildest imaginations have free play and things will grow fairer\nand more fair. Let them dream. To be disillusioned is a trifle; but\nnever to have dreamed is terrible. Finally, this earth will be turned\ninto a heaven by all those who have failed to do it.\n\n\"And those who have grown older and sadder and merely ask for justice,\nlet them really demand it with all their might, and so shall their\nefforts not be in vain, and so shall those who beg for mercy receive\nit--or none beg for mercy. If those who ask for justice would only be\njust to those who are in the other stages of the game, and if those who\nbeg for mercy would only be merciful! No matter at what stage, let all\nplay fairly and honestly and be tolerant of others, and all things will\ntend towards ultimate decency. Again, were there more demanding truth,\nthere would be fewer satisfied with mere justice, and none would beg for\nmercy. At any rate, more truth, more justice; more justice, more mercy,\nor no need of it at all. If only every one would want something, mean\nsomething, _do_ something. Personally I cannot do very much, for you see\nI am somewhat of a preacher myself. Going on the 'elevated,' are you?\nSorry for you. Good-bye.\"\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\"The Badness of a Good Man\"\n\n\nI was looking for Keidansky, but he was nowhere to be found. He was not\nat home, and my visits to a few of his favorite resorts were also in\nvain. Then they told me over at Schur's bookshop on Canal street, that\nthere was an entertainment being given by the Alliance on that evening,\nand Keidansky was to contribute an essay to the literary programme, a\npaper on \"The Badness of a Good Man.\" \"It serves them right,\" I said,\nand I forthwith betook myself to the dreary quarters of the Alliance,\nwhich formed the intellectual centre of our Ghetto. The exercises were\nalready in progress. The hall was packed; hardly any standing-room left.\n\nThe pictures of Karl Marx and Michael Bakounin--the respective fathers\nof Socialism and Anarchism--looked down upon a pious and picturesque\ncongregation of people who swore by their names; the same studious,\nserious, troubled, yet occasionally smiling faces of young men and young\nwomen of the Jewish quarter--seekers after light among the people that\nwalk in darkness. The hall was brightly illuminated. The people were in\ntheir best. It was Sunday evening. Even Keidansky had condescended, or\ncompromised, and paid some attention to \"external appearances,\" this\ntime. He brushed his clothes \"for the occasion,\" as he once remarked.\nAt any rate, there was some change in his attire differing from his\nusual negligent appearance. This was an entertainment. There were\nseveral readings and they were all teeming with trouble, and propt with\nproblems. The recitations, well given by several young women, were\ncompositions like Hood's \"Song of the Shirt,\" William Morris's Socialist\nchants; the songs of suffering and joyless toil, sung in Yiddish, were\nby Edelstatt, Rosenfeld and Goldstein. The people over here enjoy their\nsorrows, it seems.\n\nKeidansky was already on the platform when I came in; in fact, he was\nalready reading his paper. His paper was a typical utterance of the\niconoclast that he is, and craving the indulgence of the reader, I quote\nhere as much of it as I copied then and there, ere we come to the\nconversation. I do not know what he said before I entered, but after\nthat he hastily and nervously read somewhat as follows:\n\n\"He is a good man and a worthy, and a useful member of society. All his\nneighbors say so, and he stands well in the entire community. His\nfriends are legion. He is always ready to do them a good turn, and they\nare in turn ever ready to reciprocate. He lives, acts, thinks and speaks\nlike all other good men; and he is exceedingly popular and highly\nrespected. He is tolerant. He agrees with everybody on almost every\nconceivable subject. He is a good man. This is a free country, and every\nman has a right to his honest opinion--provided he is not a crank, or\neccentric, and does not make himself obnoxious by differing with\neverybody. In that case, of course, the man is beyond recovery; he is\nlost to all shame and to the good old political parties and principles.\n\n\"He respects every honest opinion and sentiment, and when he does meet a\nman who differs from him, why, he gently and adroitly changes the\nsubject and smiles irresistibly and talks pleasantly, anyway. Oh, well,\nwe are bound to differ on some things--but what is the difference so\nlong as we both vote the same ticket? Have a cigar? When the man does\nnot vote the same ticket it is really too bad, you know; but there is\nstill a smile and a pleasant word.\n\n\"His generous contributions to the charities of the city are well known.\nThe newspapers frequently have paragraphs in praise of his philanthropic\ndeeds. The press is one of our greatest institutions. It is the\npalladium of our liberties, and a great medium of advertising. There are\nalways good words, cigars and drinks for the newspaper 'boys.' They are\na lot of fine, clever, noble fellows--according to the press, and he\nbelieves it. He is a good man.\n\n\"He travels through life in the good old-fashioned way. He is guided by\nthe morality of our common ancestors, abides by their time-honored\ncustoms and reveres their sacred traditions. He thinks as his fathers\nthought, whose fathers thought as their fathers thought, and whose\nfathers--never thought anything. He is a good man, and he is agreeable.\nHe once almost agreed with a Christian Scientist--he sold him a parcel\nof property. Christian Scientists have faith. It is good to do business\nwith people who have faith. There is always much truth in what other\npeople tell him, only we are bound to differ on some things, as he\nalways says.\n\n\"He is a patriot and his lungs are ever at the service of his country.\nIt is my country, whatever it does or does not do. Let us give three\ncheers for the stars and stripes, and hang the social reformers. The\npeople are always right and they know it. He believes in the people, and\nthey have faith in him. They have already sent him to the Board of\nAldermen, and there are many other places they may send him to. There is\na Congress at Washington, and many good men are sent there. He is\npersistently honest. His honesty has been brought to the notice of many.\n'Honesty is the best policy' is a line ever on his lips. His reputation\nfor veracity is enviable. It pays to tell the truth, he says. He tells\nthe truth as he sees it, and he sees it as everybody else does.\n\n\"He is the most active member of the largest congregation in his\ndistrict, and is considered a strong pillar of the church--even of\nsociety at large. He gives aid and succour to the weak and the failures;\nbut he is always on the side of the strong and the successful. It is the\nlargest movement in his community, social, political, or religious, that\nreceives his staunch support. And it so happens that he is ever in\naccord with the tendencies of the largest movement.\n\n\"He is a good man. He is eminently practical, and he harbors a horror\nfor visionaries and their Utopias. He loathes agitators and rebels,\ndisturbers of peace and order. Peace, order, accuracy, submission,\nobedience, duty--and uniformity is a good word, too. Children, you must\nalways abide by the powers that be, and obey your parents; they know\nbetter what is best for you. They have buried many children. Gentlemen,\nrespect the flag. This is a free country, and the Government can do as\nit pleases with the people.\n\n\"Vague, unexpressed longings of a new time, hungry desires of the age,\nwistful heart-whispers for a freer, higher life, muffled music of\nfar-off seas, stifled and half-drowned voices of the submerged Ego\ncrying 'I'--these do not disturb his dreams. He has no dreams. Far be it\nfrom him to be touched by the shapeless, new-born aspirations which are\nsuspended in the air waiting for some one to give them form. He is a man\nof facts, and lends no credence to far-away fictions. His health is so\ngood that he is not easily affected by theories and books.\n\n\"He is consistent and hardly ever changes his mind; at least not more\noften than do those who draw up the platform of his political party. His\nintrepid loyalty to his party cannot be forgotten as long as he lives;\nhe stands as solidly within its ranks as a mortared-in brick within a\nwall. When he says a thing it is said, and he keeps every promise he\nmakes, good or bad. He prizes highly and is keenly jealous of his\nreputation, and believes in living up to it. He will not differ from you\non matters of art or literature, because, well, because, as he says, he\nis not well up in these things, and besides, it is all a matter of\ntaste, is it not? But he likes a good old-fashioned melodrama; don't\nyou?\n\n\"He is a good man. Fathers point him out to their sons as a paragon of\nvirtue. He never swerves nor deviates from the path of duty and\nrighteousness, as he sees it. He is indissolubly linked in the great\nchain of real, practical, daily events of the world, and he never chases\nany phantoms--not he. He never fights with fate. He takes things as they\ncome, and many things come his way. Providence seems to be on his side.\nHe never complains of the powers that be in heaven or on earth. God made\nthe world, and no man can ever change it. All that is, is well for the\nindustrious and the successful. There is always room on the top for\nthose who can crawl up. He adapts himself to all circumstances, and\nprofits by most of them. He moves along the lines of least resistance;\nis ever drifting into his proper niche. He will 'get there.' Where he\ncannot be aggressive, he is agreeable, and usually gains his end. He\nnever falters, nor fails to fall in line with the rest. It is always\nsafest to be on the safe side. He positively believes in the benefits\nthat accrue to those who are negative.\n\n\"He possesses all the negative virtues of his honored ancestors, who now\nslumber beneath their eulogistically inscribed tombstones. He meekly\nfollows their present example of abstaining from most of the vicious\npleasures of life. He is a good and respectable man, and he never lets\nhis desires run loose; they must abide by certain laws.\n\n\"He is deeply interested in all matters concerning public improvements.\nWhy? The motive of a man's interest in public affairs is often a private\nmatter; but the impeccable reputation of a good man should be a\nsufficient shield against the scrutiny of the inquisitive. The\ninquisitive will never go to heaven, and they will 'get it' here on\nearth.\n\n\"He is modest. He frequently complains of the credit and the honors that\nare given him by the community--lest his hearers should not know that he\nbears the burden of demonstrative public admiration. He is profusely\ngrateful for all he receives, which, he constantly protests, is so much\nmore than he deserves. He only tries to do his duty in his humble way.\nHe is effusively cordial and friendly. He has a pervasive,\nconfidence-inspiring smile for all who pass him, known or unknown. He\nclasps your hand firmly and shakes it long. He is congenial even to the\ncongealing.\n\n\"He is a self-made, self-advertised man. He has affluence; he has\ninfluence. His exemplary character is worthy of emulation, as the\nnewspaper and his political friends say; and his emoluments are not few\nnor far between. He is intensely, surprisingly religious. The creed of\nhis fathers is good enough for him. He questions not, nor doubts--not\nhe. A good, devoted churchman, he is a regular attendant; and he never\nsleeps nor slumbers, no matter how long and how old the sermon be. He\nis a brave man. The good souls of his district are most lavish in praise\nof his piety.\n\n\"Alas, it is not possible to enumerate all his splendid deeds, his\nhigh-classed qualities and his standard virtues. But, then, that is\nhardly necessary. They speak for themselves, or for their owner. He is a\ngood husband and father, and his word is law unto his wife and children.\nHe is an excellent citizen, a loud-mouthed patriot. He is a good man. He\nis going to heaven. And, oh, I do wish he would go there soon!\"\n\nAfter I had listened to this scandalous screed and other sombre and\nshadowy things that were on the programme of the entertainment, I\nfinally overtook the offender, and shook hands with Keidansky. \"I've\nbeen looking for you,\" I explained, \"and they told me you would be here,\nso I came, and caught you in the act.\"\n\n\"Glad you showed up,\" he said; \"but I am rather afraid. Do be lenient. I\ncannot defend nor explain everything.\"\n\n\"Well,\" I began, leniently, \"according to this harangue of yours, we\nwould have to change our conception of goodness and morality, and--\"\n\n\"No, we don't have to,\" he answered impatiently; \"but we can't help it;\nit is always, always changing. The good man of one age is the dead man\nof another. Between vice and virtue there is often no more than a change\nof mind. Goodness is only a point of view, and morality ceases to be\nmoral after awhile. What's a good thing to do to-day will, in all\nprobability, be the best thing to avoid to-morrow. It's all a question\nof time; no standard stands forever. Why, the coat of tar and feathers\nis going out of fashion, and even in New England, it's no longer a crime\nto be happy. Morality is but an arbitrary agreement, subject to change.\nIt is a catalogue of certain accepted virtues, which should be edited,\nrevised, and reprinted, from time to time; for many of the articles in\nthis booklet go out of fashion, and otherwise become stale, obsolete,\nand even obnoxious. At best, the goods are not what they are represented\nto be by the drummers, that is, the preachers, when it comes to their\ndelivery--when it comes down or up to real life. What do you think of\nvirtues that consist either of doing nothing, or of doing things for no\nother reason than that they have bored other people to death. The\ncatalogue is full of them, and just now we have come to a time when our\ncurrent conventional morality is a kind of mortality--dead and\ndeadening. It holds us down to outworn, oppressive systems, customs,\nregulations, and the uniformity of things is stifling.\n\n\"It prevents growth, it impedes progress. We cannot live as free,\nuntrammelled individuals. We must be citizens, members of society; we\nmust be what other people call respectable.\n\n\"Everybody owns everybody else. Everybody follows, no one leads his own\nlife. No one has any initiative. Everybody examines your moral conduct,\nand dictates the term of your existence. How can one have a religion, if\nhe must live up to the faith of everybody else? How can we live if we\nmust follow the dull and noble examples of those who are dead and never\nknew any better? Everybody listens to what the people say, and no one\nhears his own voice. This is an age of machinery. There are no more\nindividuals; there are automatic walking and working machines which have\nbeen wound up by public opinion to run so many hours according to a\nwell-approved system of regulations. 'What's the use of common-sense?'\nsays a character in one of Jacob Gordin's plays. 'What's the use of\ncommon-sense when we have a Constitution?' Thousands of fools are\nkneeling before the fetish of public opinion. 'What will the people\nsay?' they all ask. Nothing, I say, nothing. The people never say\nanything. They only talk. Individuals say it all. Those who depend upon\nothers, who see strength in union are weaklings. United we fall, divided\nwe stand. Those who dare to tread in the path of freedom, who dare to do\nthings and say things, who own their bodies and never raise any\nmortgages on their souls, who make their own morality--they are the\npeople who advance the world's progress and help to civilize our\ncivilization. They have nearly always been called bad by their\ncontemptible contemporaries--yet they represented all the goodness worth\nhaving. God give us the men who have virtue enough to do as they\nplease, and courage enough to shock their neighbors.\n\n\"But it's all system and monotony and imitation with the majorities, and\na lot of slavish, knavish, puny and pious little beings, afraid of their\nown voices and not daring to draw their breath any more often than their\nneighbors do, and with whom morality and sanity is a matter of majority\nrule--beings like these are called the good people.\n\n\"This idea must be reversed. We must come to realize the utter badness\nof the conventional, crawling, yours-truly-for-a-consideration, good\npeople. Also we must come to realize the supreme goodness of so-called\nbad people--people who are too religious to go to church--to whom\ntyranny of any kind is the height of immorality, and slavery the depth\nof it. We must have more bad people to save this wicked world. And\nheaven save us from most of the good people of to-day.\n\n\"It is one of those 'dumb-driven cattle' that I tried to pay my respects\nto in my paper--one of those cattle that here in democratic America\nbecome leaders of men. They do not know that the progress of the world\nhas been built upon discarded customs and broken laws--but let us go\ndown the street. I must have a drink of something before I can solve the\nproblem to your satisfaction--or even convince myself that I am right.\"\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\n\"The Goodness of a Bad Man\"\n\n\nPerhaps it was to the disgrace of the Alliance that Keidansky's\ndisquisition, his merciless tirade against the good man, was received\nwith some show of hand-clapping favor; and it may be to the credit of\nthe membership that there were those in the audience who were surprised,\nshocked and startled, who dissented from and resented his utterances. At\nany rate, the dissenters and commentators stirred up a discussion, and\nfor several days after that it was a topic of conversation and\ndisagreement at the club, at the caf\u00e9s and such places where our circles\nwould congregate. Those who dissented and disagreed with the man who\nquestioned the very bases of our morality said many, varying things and\nnot all things were said in Keidansky's presence. And he? Sometimes he\nwould say a word in explanation, or his defence, and for the rest he\nlistened, looked wise, smiled and relished every attack made against\nhim. His opponents finally agreed that his was a one-sided, partial\nview, and they told him that, after all, it was better to have a good\nman than a bad one.\n\n\"But it yet remains to be proved,\" he argued, \"that the average good man\nis not a whole lot worse than the so-called bad man.\"\n\nThey all dared him to prove it, to present the other side of the case,\nthe goodness of the bad man. \"I don't care to prove anything,\" said\nKeidansky. \"'Even the truth can be proved,'\" he quoted a favorite\ndecadent; \"but if you want me to, I'll try to show you the other side of\nthe story, as it seems to me. I'll write it to-night or to-morrow, and\nread it to you all, say, on the evening of the day after to-morrow, at\nthe Alliance.\" We all agreed to be there, and accordingly assembled at\nthe appointed time, and waited until Keidansky appeared with a folded\nmanuscript sticking out of his coat pocket. He was all out of breath. He\nhad been walking very fast so as to get here \"just in time to be late.\"\nHe had just finished his composition. \"My lamp went out last night,\" he\nexplained, \"and so I had to do it all this afternoon, and just got\nthrough.\" And so here is his paper as he read it to us on \"The Goodness\nof a Bad Man.\"\n\n\"He is a bad man, a worthless, useless member of society. Most of his\nneighbors say so, and he does not stand well in the community. His\nfriends are few, with long distances between. He would not go far out of\nhis way to do a fellow a good turn; does not believe in favours, he\nsays, and nobody cares much for him. He lives, acts, thinks, speaks like\na bad man, and to say nothing of popularity--very few of us have\nany--but who will have any respect for a man that scorns, jeers, sneers\nand pokes all manner of fun at respectability? Respectability, he says,\nis a mark of public formality behind which to hide private rascality,\nand the prettier the mask the more ugly the face.\n\n\"He disagrees with nearly everybody on almost every conceivable\nsubject. No matter what other people think of his opinions, he actually\nbelieves them to be right. He is a bad man. He is not at all tolerant.\nWhen he disagrees with any one--and he does that most of the time--he\nbluntly and boldly tells him so up and down, and he is ever ready to\nstate his reasons and argue the case. He will not conceal his\nconvictions, even when he is your guest. Of course, this is a free\ncountry, and every man is entitled to his opinion--but one should have\nsome tact, politeness, diplomacy, courtesy. If every one had these there\nwould not be so much difference of opinion and discord in our land, and\nthere would be more peace on earth. Polite people do not try to force\ntheir opinions upon others.\n\n\"Polite people have no opinions that differ from those of others. I\ndoubt whether it is polite to have any opinions at all. The aristocracy\nis setting a good example. It never thinks. Persons who think too much\nare ever behind the times. But even if one has a right to his opinion,\nhe certainly has no right to be cranky, eccentric, and disturb the\nmental peace of the community with his queer, revolutionary notions.\nStubborn, stiff-necked, hard-headed, determined, impulsive, he is ever\npresent with that ubiquitous mind of his, ever ready to give everybody a\npiece of it. Considering the frequency with which he gives everybody a\npiece of his mind, I wonder that it is not all gone by this time.\n\n\"He is a bad man. He is aggressive and arrogant. His faith in himself\nis offensive, his self-reliance, self-satisfaction unbearable. He has\ntoo much respect for himself to follow the dictates of others. His life\nis a life, he says, and not an apology for living; he will have to pay\nfor it with death and wants to make the most of the bargain--live fully\nand freely in his own way, however reprehensible. He does not want his\nneighbors to love and interfere with him--unless he cared for their\naffection. He says it would be a sin to love his neighbors if they did\nnot deserve his love. The welfare of the community, I heard him say,\ndepends upon the absolute freedom, the self-salvation of each\nindividual. No one can ever do anything for another unless he has made\nthe most of his own life--good or bad. Self-preservation in the end\nprompts us to do most for others. Selfishness is a pronounced form of\nsanity. Altruism has enslaved the world. Egoism will save it. And I\ncould quote you such monstrous heresies as will make your hair stand on\nend. He is a bad man.\n\n\"The world belongs to those who take things for granted. He will not\ntake anything for granted and that's why he has to take more hard knocks\nthan anybody else. He impiously questions, doubts, examines,\ninvestigates everything on the face of the earth and--God save us--even\nthe things that be in heaven. He is a living interrogation point, ever\nquestioning the wisdom of this world and the promises of the one to\ncome. Nothing is so sacred as to be above his scrutiny; he has little\nreverence for any of our glorious institutions. He says they are the\nhandiwork of men and often as crude and as useless as men could make\nthem. Whatever has been erected can be corrected, he says. He thinks\nlightly of our laws; thinks they are at best but a necessary evil and\nthat in the course of human events it becomes necessary to abolish all\nevil.\n\n\"He is a bad man. He does not even recognize the sacred authority of\ntradition, and has no decent regard for precedent. Precedent, he argues,\nonly proves that some people lived before us and did things in a certain\nway. He does not even--well, think of a man who doubts the holy right of\nthe majority! He does not believe that the majority is always right; in\nfact, he contends that it is always wrong. By the time the majority\ndiscovers a truth it becomes a falsehood, he avers. The majority only\nthinks it is always right. The majority is but another word for\nmediocrity. He does not heed what the people say. The monster called\nmajority, in spite of his many heads, does very little thinking. What\nthe people say seldom amounts to a meaning. Morality, he argues, is that\nwhich is conducive to one's happiness, without interfering with or\ninjuring his fellow-men. To be moral is to live fully, freely,\ncompletely. Morality has nothing to do with the abnormal stifling,\nstarving, thwarting of instincts and feelings.\n\n\"A truth, he told me, is a truth, and a principle is a principle,\nwhether it is held by many or by one. Numbers no more make right than\nmight does.\n\n\"'The strongest man on earth,' he says, 'is he who stands alone,' and he\nalways quotes a man named Ibsen. He is a bad case. 'Customs and\nconventionalities be hanged,' he says, 'I have my own life to live and\nmean to manage it in my own way. I have laws of my own and must obey\nthem.' I heard him say it myself, and I wonder what he means by these\nthings. There are always those who know better than you what is good for\nyou, but you don't want to mind them, he told me. The most advisable\nthing in the world is never to take any advice. There may be those, he\nonce remarked, who have lived longer than you have, but they have not\nlived your life.\n\n\"He has a mania for principles. I think that is a chronic disease with\nhim. He imagines it is all one needs in life. There is not a material\nadvantage in the world but he would forfeit it for a moral principle, as\nhe calls it. 'Ideals are very well,' I once said, 'but one must live.'\n'Not necessarily,' he answered. 'One must die, if one cannot live\nhonestly.'\n\n\"Always he talks about the so-called social problem of the age. I do not\nknow just what that is; but if there is such a thing as a social problem\nit is how to abolish social reformers. This man is a social reformer,\nand he has some scheme of his own how to reconstruct society on a basis\nof what he terms justice and truth. In the promulgation of this scheme\nof his he foolishly spends much of his spare time and not a little of\nhis money--and Heaven knows he has not any too much. But he says he\ndoes it all for his pleasure; that it is out of sheer selfishness that\nhe would uplift the fallen and elevate the lowly. He is a bad man. It is\nno disgrace to be poor, of course; but it is criminal of the poor not to\nknow their place. I half told him so, but he answered in his usual\ncontradictory way that the poor have no place at all.\n\n\"He travels through life very much by his own crooked road, with his own\nconception of morality, justice and truth. Out of justice to the dead,\nhe argues, we ought to abolish most of the institutions they have left\nbehind. Otherwise they are being disgraced every day by the clumsy\nworkings of the things they have established. If our honored ancestors\ndesired to perpetuate their taboos, fetishes and inquisitions they had\nno business to die; they should have stayed here. By going to either of\nthe places beyond they have forfeited their right to manage things here\nbelow. The dead should give the living absolute home rule.\n\n\"He is a bad man. He hardly ever gives any charity. He does not believe\nin charity; says it creates more misery than it relieves, and\nperpetuates poverty--the crime of mankind. Charity, he claims, curses\nboth the giver and the receiver. It makes the former haughty and proud\nand the latter dependent and servile. What he wants is justice and the\nrights of all to earn the means of subsistence. And there is no use in\nquoting the Bible, when he talks of poverty. The Bible, he says, is a\ngreat book which could be immensely improved by a good editor with a\nlong blue pencil. All the immoral problem-plays pale into pitiful\ninsignificance beside some of the stories told in the Bible--and they\nare not anywhere half so well told. Did you ever hear such blasphemy? He\nis an infidel. He does not even believe the newspapers; has little faith\nin the great power of the press. Most of the newspapers, he told me, are\npublished by the advertisers and edited by the readers. Journalists ever\nfollow public opinion, and they are never sure of what they believe in\nbecause it is hard to find out what the people approve. Weather Bureau\npredictions are often Gospel truths beside editorial convictions. The\nbest papers are yet to be printed. He has such rank disregard of the\npast and the present that he seems to think that all things really great\nare yet to come.\n\n\"He puzzles and vexes me. I don't know just what he is in politics. I\ndoubt whether he is either a Republican or a Democrat. I suspect he\nvotes for the Anarchist party. What an absurdity! They will never elect\na President, and this foolish man has not the ghost of a chance to get\nan office. He is not at all consistent. He changes his mind very often.\nNo matter how zealous or ardent he is about his ideas he is ever ready\nto reject them to-morrow and accept other views. He does not believe in\nthe newspapers, in things visible and present, yet he has the utmost\nfaith in far-away fictions, intangible Utopias and the realization of\niridescent dreams.\n\n\"I dare not repeat all his outrageous blasphemies, and I positively\ncannot mention his awful heresies as to his religion. He cannot accept\nthe religion of his fathers because they were infidels; infidels who\nbuilt little creeds out of fear, who were afraid of their shadows, who\nhad monstrous, libellous conceptions of God. He says that he has too\nmuch faith to belong to any denomination. Religion is so large that no\nchurch can hold it. No one should meddle between man and his Maker.\nChrist, I have heard him say, may never forgive the Christians for what\nthey have made out of him, for robbing him of his humanity. No church\nfor him. He would rather worship beneath the arched dome of the starry\nskies and offer up a prayer to the God that dwells in every human heart\nand thinking brain. He is a bad man.\n\n\"He is always on the ungrateful side of the few, the poor, the weak and\nthe fallen; and he even sympathizes with beggars, criminals, fallen\nwomen and low persons; is not afraid to mingle with them. And what\nadvantage can he ever derive out of that? Absent-minded, forgetful,\nengrossed in his queer ideas and impossible ideals, he gets lost in his\ntheories and books, and loses life. He does not realize that millions\nhave found this world as it is and millions more will leave it so. Poor\nman, he is a dreamer of dreams; and to see the invisible, to hear\ninaudible voices, is the most expensive thing in life. He sacrifices\naffluence, influence, power, political office, honor, _\u00e9clat_, applause,\nthe respect of the community, the regard of his neighbors, the praise\nof the press, the advantages of politics and of the people's\napproval--sacrifices all these for his pitiful brain-begotten fancies.\nHe is a dreamer of dreams. Yet he seems to like this journey along the\nlines of most resistance, says it is least resistance to him, and he\ntells me that he enjoys his poverty and all, immensely. He freely\nindulges in most of the vain and worldly pleasures of life as he sees\nthem, regardless of all others, considers one day as holy as another and\nno day so mean as to wear a long and sanctimonious face on, and he says\nthat the only thing which he prohibits is prohibition in any form. His\nwife does not fear him, does not have to obey him, does as she pleases,\nand his children are as free and wild as little savages. He is a bad\nman.\n\n\"But what can be done? Ministers and other good men have repeatedly\ntried to save him, but he evades all their efforts, avoids all their\nsermons. He would save them the trouble of saving him, he says, because\nhe thinks he can do it so much better himself. What can be done? All\nthings are here to serve him, none to subserve him. He is a law unto\nhimself, and has little or nothing to do with the Government, so he\nsays. He is a bad man. He is not going to heaven--and yet, and yet--if\nthere were more like him this world would be so different, and perhaps\nno one would ever want to go to heaven.\"\n\nThere was a pause and a silence at the close of the reading, but our\nessayist was soon spared \"the agony of suspense,\" as he mockingly\nremarked. Then came comments of varied shades of opinion, approving and\ndisapproving, constructive and destructive, too many to mention, and\nKeidansky enjoyed them all. At length I ventured to ask him what sort of\nadministrator his friend, the bad man, would make if he was ever elected\nto office.\n\n\"He would never run for office,\" said Keidansky, \"and if he ran he would\nnever be elected; and if he ever was elected he would certainly be a\ndire failure because he does not believe in managing other people's\nbusiness. The best of men will not want to, cannot do it, and politics\nis no test. The man who goes in with or for the crowd ceases to be\nhimself; and therefore we ought to invent our public officials and not\nmake them out of men. However, don't press me, I am not at all sure\nabout these things. I only know that the bad man is coming; that he is\nhere; that he is a dire terror--and will save the world. What I gave you\nhere is a mere suggestion, a hint of a possibility, a premonition. Every\nconception is spoiled by the description of it. He will come, and time\nwill not tame him. He will come, and the divine institution of\npolice-court morality is doomed. The virtues of the future will be\nuseful. They will be conducive to growth--real happiness.\n\n\"But, as I say, I don't want to appear dogmatic; nor to be too sure of\nthings. The most useful thing about our theories is that we know them to\nbe useless. The best thing about our ideas is that the world has not\naccepted them yet. If the world had accepted them these ideas would\nprobably now look like last winter's snow. Better to wait until it is\nready for them--then they will not go to waste. Better a bad world than\na good world come too early--before the people are ready for it. But\nwhat's the use! I've done it, my friends, and my apology for life\nis--that I never apologize. Come, it's getting close, up here. Come, let\nus forth into the darkness and pray for eternal night--for night hides\nall the ugly splendors of the world.\"\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\n\"The Feminine Traits of Men\"\n\n\n\"You are as inquisitive as a man,\" said Keidansky.\n\n\"You mean--\" I tried to correct him.\n\n\"I mean as inquisitive as a man,\" he repeated.\n\nThis was at a social gathering, a Purim festival given by the B'nai Zion\nEducational Society at Zion Hall. We sat in the little back room\nadjoining the main hall, which formed the library of the society. There\nwas a good fire in the stove; we were just far enough away from the\nmusic and the dance to enjoy it, and also to relish our chat.\n\nI suppose I had gone beyond the point of discretion in my quest of\ninformation; that I asked some questions of a rather personal nature\nwhich my friend thought best to leave unanswered, and hence the rebuke I\nreceived.\n\n\"Some one,\" said Keidansky, \"ought to write an essay on 'The Feminine\nTraits of Men,' and point out in what a pronounced form men possess the\ntraits, objectionable and acceptable, they constantly attribute to\nwomen. For centuries women have borne the blame and ridicule and\ncriticism for qualities they either have in the mildest, most\ninsignificant forms, or do not possess at all--when you compare them to\nmen. And it's about time they should be vindicated, and the truth should\nmake them free from this popular misconception. It seems to me that in\na certain way men have actually monopolized most of the objectionable\ntraits of women; and to have shifted all the blame on them for all these\nyears was a crying shame--an outrageous wrong.\n\n\"Yes, some one ought to write about it; some one who is young, handsome\nand gallant--so that he may receive the gratitude of the fair sex. For\ninstance, woman is said to be inquisitive. But who, really, is so\nanxious to know, so peevish, petulant and prurient as man is? Who like\nhim will go to so much trouble to find out the minutest detail about\nmen, women and things that surround him? Who is so eager and diligent in\nhis search of information, knowledge and light? Who like unto him--I\nmean, his majesty, man--takes such loving interest in his neighbors and\npries so pitilessly into their private affairs? Who makes such an\nexcellent reporter, detective, biographer? Who are the successful\neditors of our newspapers? Men, of course. They are the ones who\nconstantly load you with questions, who are ever endeavoring to peer\ninto your inmost self and who always want to know about your past,\npresent, future, former and later incarnations. I am told, on good\nauthority, that genealogy--which I understand to be the science of\nproving that your great-grandfather was somebody and that somebody was\nyour great-grandmother--that this science has been nurtured and garnered\nand brought up to its present state of perfection, or imperfection, by\nmen.\n\n\"It's appalling, this curiosity of man,\" he continued fervently. \"He\ncan go sixteen miles out of his way to pick up the smallest scrap of a\nfact, or fancy. He can collect endless stores of useless information. He\nfancies nothing so much as facts. His thirst for knowledge cannot be\nsatiated even by flattery. Men not only make encyclop\u00e6dias, but they\nactually use them. They not only build and endow libraries, but they\nactually utilize them--spoil their eyes over musty, misty, mazy volumes.\nAnd then, how anxious we all are to be posted on the most unimportant\nthings concerning our friends and the people we meet and know; we are\never attempting to read their minds and their hearts, and if there are\nnone, we put meanings into them. Have not the greatest novelists been\nmen?\n\n\"Motke Chabad, the Jewish jester, once came to a strange town near his\nnative city of Wilna, and as he entered the community a patriarchal old\nIsraelite accosted him with the usual _Shalom aleichem. Ma simecho?_\n'Peace be with thee, stranger. What is thy name?'\n\n\"'It's none of your business,' answered Motke.\n\n\"When asked why he thus rudely acted toward the old man, Motke Chabad\nexplained that had he told the stranger his name the other would have\nasked where he came from, what his business was, how many children he\nhad, if he was married, how old his father was, if he was still living,\nif he had any relatives in America, if he ever was blessed by the great\nrabbi of Wilna, etc., etc., and, said Chabad, 'to say nothing of my\nmorning prayers, I had not as yet had my breakfast, when I met him.'\n\n\"Chabad, you see, knew his brother, man. Men curious to know? Rose\nDartle is nothing beside Andrew Lang, and he has this advantage over\nher--that he exists and can find things out. Another instance. You go\ninto your store or factory in the morning. You have a slight toothache.\nYou feel and look rather seedy, and the man who works next to you comes\nover and sympathetically asks you why it was that she rejected you, why\nthe other fellow won her heart, by what magic charms your rival eclipsed\nyou, etc., and he keeps on with his queries until you tell him--\n\n\"Go stand up on the first corner. Take off your hat and cry out:\n'Gentlemen, this is a hat, this is a hat! Look into it!' And in a few\nseconds you will have a big throng of curious men standing about and\nstaring at you. Women who will happen along will pass right on, but men\nwill stand there and stare--like men.\n\n\"There was a time when certain things were considered beyond the\nscrutiny of curious men, when they were held too sacred for\ninvestigations and explanations, when the things that were not\nunderstood were deemed holy and when men stood in reverence before these\nthings and bowed and took off their thinking caps. But now they want to\nknow everything--even the things that are of prime importance. And there\nis no use in telling them that nothing really exists--not even the\nlogic of Christian Scientists. They want to know. They must find the\nfacts or make them. What's the use of living if one doesn't know just on\nwhat date King Pharaoh died? No news may be good news, but you can't run\na newspaper on that principle now-a-days. Whether the things happen or\nnot man wants to know the facts and the details of the cases. They must\nknow. Knowledge is power. To know is to be able to boast of it. And men\never boast of what they know or think they know.\n\n\"But why say more? The collected knowledge, the accumulated data and\nscience of the world sufficiently prove the inquisitiveness of men. It\nis one faculty which works many ways, you know, and these ways are\nshaped by circumstances and conditions. Now a man peeps through a\nkeyhole to get some material for a bit of gossip, and then he looks up\nto the stars to make an astronomical observation. But the Darwins and\nthe Newtons and the Herschels prove how curious to know men really are.\n\n\"And it is their extreme vanity, too, that makes men so presumptuous,\nostentatious and obstreperous. They have so much faith in themselves\nthat no self-respecting person can trust them. They are so confident in\ntheir right to know, so convinced of the value of their knowledge, so\nsure of the absolute necessity of their volubility. They are so\nunbearably overbearing, self-conscious and self-centred that they forget\nthere are others besides them in this world. It is their vanity that\nmakes men speak in volumes.\n\n\"Then they say that women gossip, but you know that they are far\noutdone, almost totally eclipsed in this respect, too, by men. Men are\nthe real, rapid-transit champion gossips and talkers of the world. It\nwas a dark and dismal night, as the story goes, and we all sat around\nthe fire and the captain said, 'Jack, tell us a story,' and Jack told a\nnumber of stories, and so did others, and we all told of divers\ndevilish, wicked things our friends had done, and in our heart of hearts\nwere awfully sorry we did not do these things ourselves, and we made\nmud-cakes out of good, well-preserved reputations. Oh, how well we can\nand how we do talk about our neighbors; but you know, people do like to\ntalk about those whom they love. Marie Corelli recently said--now do not\nscowl because I quote Marie Corelli. She is a very good woman; only she\ncould not resist the temptation to write a few novels, and they may not\nbe so bad, only I could never get myself to read them because I heard\nthat Queen Victoria liked them immensely. Hold on, though; I guess I did\nread one of these novels in a Yiddish translation; but that was because\nthe translator did not say whose work it was. I think he thought it was\noriginal with himself. In fact, he passed it off as his own--which was a\nbrave thing to do, though the book proved to be popular. But I lost my\ntrain of thought. Marie Corelli recently said that she never endured\nsuch a babel of gossiping tongues as she once heard when being\nentertained to luncheon at a men's club, and she added, 'nor have I\nknown many more reputations picked to pieces than on that occasion.' But\na recent writer told us what awful gossips all the historians have been,\nand they were all men. We were told that Herodotus, who is the father of\nhistory, was also one of the most inveterate of gossips. Saint Simon was\nconsidered essentially a gossip, and even therefore a wonderful\nhistorian of the time of Louis XV. Pepys, this writer told us, was the\ngreatest gossip that ever lived, also the greatest historian of his\ntime. Even Mommsen, we were told, shows some of the traits of a gossip\nin his monumental history of Rome. The same was said of Gibbon and many\nothers. Gossip is not only the raw material of history, we were\ninformed, but it is also the raw material of the realistic novel, and as\nI said before, the finest novels have been produced by the sons of Adam.\n\n\"Women are also charged with being loquacious, but that is another\ntrumped-up, false charge. You well know that the loquaciousness of men\nis prodigious, tremendous. Man is the most wonderful talking machine\never invented, and one of his favorite topics is the talkativeness of\nwoman. Men talk you to mental derangement and death wherever you go.\nThere is no escape. Nearly every man you meet is ready to tell you the\nsad story of his life--sad, because he is ready to tell it. Many of them\nwrite their autobiographies, and what with these and their sermons and\norations, novels and essays, histories and philosophies--there will soon\nbe no more room for libraries. And the worst thing about man's garrulity\nis that he taxes the intellect so heavily, that what he says is loaded\nwith so much meaning. Anything a man says, you know, is in danger of\nbecoming literature. It's appalling. He always makes you think, whereas\nwhat little a woman does say is so light and airy, breezy and restive. A\nwoman, too, writes a book, occasionally, but she does not mean anything\nby it.\n\n\"But men are so very bad in this respect, so terribly blatant. They\nnever cease talking. When they don't talk they write, and the pen is\nworse than the sword. Why am I afraid to ask the man, who stands near me\nwaiting for a car, what time it is? Because he might tell me of his\ngrandfather's heroic exploits in the Civil War. To have gone to war was\ncruel; but to have left some one behind to boast of it was criminal. Why\nam I afraid to read the latest short story that I have written to my\nfriend? Because he might show me a poem just done. And I nearly forgot\nto point out what a monumental proof of na\u00efve garrulity the Talmud is.\nThe Talmud, that strange conglomeration of law, love, legend, gossip,\nfable, and occasionally a bit of wisdom, which one can find if one\nsearches diligently.\n\n\"They say also that women are capricious and changeful; but the progress\nof the world shows how easily men change their minds. Yes, someone ought\nto write an essay and point these things out, and vindicate a\nmuch-maligned sex. It's a good chance for a man for some interesting\ngossip on the subject.\"\n\n\"I suppose, then, that you believe in woman's rights,\" I at length\nhaphazarded an interruption.\n\n\"Yes,\" answered Keidansky, \"I believe that women should have all their\nrights, and should not, as the French cynic would have it, be killed at\nforty. It's too late. I mean,\" he added quickly, \"that it's too late to\ntalk any more about it.\"\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nThe Value of Ignorance\n\n\n\"What do I know? I don't know anything,\" said Keidansky, \"and I don't\ncare to.\"\n\n\"I thought you were always in quest of knowledge,\" I remarked.\n\n\"I am,\" he answered: \"I am infatuated with the quest, I love it. It is\nso exhilarating, stirring, full of excitement and fraught with danger.\"\n\n\"Danger? Wherein is that?\" I asked.\n\n\"The danger,\" he emphasized, \"is in finding the knowledge I am in quest\nof; for once your search has been answered with success, and you have\ninformed yourself with the facts of the case, the game is up and the fun\nis over, as the Americans say. The hallucination of the glorious quest\nis shattered, the suspense is spoiled, the ecstatic expectations are\ndestroyed, and we become fit subjects for illustrations in the\n_Fliegende Bl\u00e4tter_. 'A little knowledge is a dangerous thing' and a lot\nof it is fatal. Yes, knowledge is might, but illusion is omnipotence. So\nI like to seek information well enough, but I would rather not know.\"\n\nI became interested, although scandalized, and my companion kept on\nmusing aloud.\n\n\"Not to know is to hope, to fear, to be in delightful uncertainty, to\ndream fair dreams, to imagine the most impossible things, to wonder and\nmarvel at all in childlike innocence, to build the most beautiful\ncastles in the air, to give the imagination full swing, to conjure up\nthe most fantastic mythological melodramas, to stand with deep awe and\ninspired reverence before all the mighty manifestations of nature, to\nform the finest idols, to build splendid religions, to have faith and to\nfoster it, to see the invisible, to draw gorgeous rainbows of promise\nupon the horizon of life, in a word, not to know is to sustain perfect\nillusion, not to go behind the scenes, is to enjoy the entire\nperformance.\n\n\"On the other hand, my dear fellow, to know is to have your wings\nclipped, to see the distance between the earth and the skies and the\ndifference between you and what you thought yourself to be, to feel your\nlittleness and become dreadfully aware of the absurdity of it all, to\nhave the imagination arrested for trespassing, to be rejected from the\ncastles you built for non-payment of taxes, to be punished for the\nidleness of your idols, to see your little demigods crumble at the rate\nof sixteen a minute, to become aware of the futility of the whole\nbusiness, the shortness of terms given you, the unstability of your\ncredit, to find that you are but a feather blown hither and thither by\nthe whirlwind of the world, that your greatest plan may be demolished by\na whim of fate, to learn that the stupid moon really does not look so\npale because of your unrequited love, and that the great sun does not\nshine because you are going to a picnic, to discover that your\ncredulity was the only miracle that ever happened, and that even gods\nsuffer from dyspepsia, to lose faith, become sceptic, abandon religion,\nmove out of the balmy fairyland of tradition and freeze in the realms of\nright reason. To know is to be deprived even of that little confidence\nin your power to alter the course of the universe; to recognize how\ninexorable, inscrutable, indifferent, the powers of life are, and what a\ncommon pedigree all things of beauty have; it is to have the dramatic\neffect of the play spoiled and to vote it all a farce and a failure.\n\n\"We are all becoming so educated now-a-days that we no longer know the\nvalue of ignorance, and we have nearly forgotten things of goodness and\nof beauty that it has brought into the world. Ignorance is the mazy mist\nof morning in which so much is born; it is the mystic dimness wherein\nall things awe and enchant forever. Ignorance is the beginning of the\nworld; knowledge is the end of it. In the unexplored vastnesses of\nignorance the mind soars through all the heavens and works wonders; in\nthe measured spheres of knowledge the mind travels carefully and creates\nlittle as far as mythology, theology, religion and poetry are concerned.\nWere it not for ignorance we would not have had all the wealth of\nlegends and fables and fairy tales and sagas and _m\u00e4rchen_, strange,\nweird, wonderful, to intoxicate the imagination of the world and enable\nus to live for centuries in lands of magic and charm and dreamlike\nrealities. And if you see some works of beauty and nobility in the world\nto delight you, it is because we have just come out of these lands, and\nwe are imitating and re-creating what we saw there. There are some who\nstill dwell in them, and they send us messages and often bless us with\ntheir visits.\n\n\"Thank you for stopping me. I should not have liked to be run over\nbefore you had listened to the rest of my argument; besides, it makes a\nmess of one. This is a dangerous crossing--for a debate. But, to\ncontinue: Were it not for ignorance--had we known everything about\nGod--Europe would not be dotted with all the beautiful cathedrals and\nthe wonderful treasures of art that are an everlasting source of\nenchantment and inspiration. Were it not for the same reason we would\nnot have such a beauty spot in Boston as Copley square, with its two\nimposing churches, Library and Museum of Art. And remembering that all\nobjects to delight the eye, the ear and the mind began at the earliest\nshrines of worship, we can barely calculate how poor and meagre all our\narts would have been were it not for this ignorance. What would\npoetry--in the largest sense--what would it be were it not for this\nignorance concerning Providence? And poetry is the main motive, the\nquintessence of all the other arts. Religion is the great question mark\nof the world, and what you ask for religion I ask for ignorance. Whether\nthe makers of the Bible wrote on space or not, no one can deny its high\nvalue as a work of poetry and fiction; and as much can be said for all\nthe other sacred books of the great faiths.\n\n\"The mood of ignorance is worth everything: it is wonder, amazement,\nna\u00efvet\u00e9, child-like innocence, fairy-like dreaminess.\n\n\"In ignorance we trust, trusting we serve, serving we achieve, achieving\nwe glorify our names. Not to know is to long for, to expect\neverything--and work for it; while to know is to be sure of this or\nthat, and there is something significant in the coupling of the words,\n'dead sure.' 'Tis good to have faith; what we believe in is or comes\ntrue. The illusion is the thing that makes the play. We are all chasing\nafter phantoms, but the chase is a reality, and it's all in all. The\nless we know about the results--perhaps the more we do. And not knowing\nhow incapable we are, some of us do remarkable things.\n\n\"A Jewish legend tells us that before the human soul is doomed to be\nborn it knows everything, is informed of all knowledge--including, I\npresume, a knowledge of the Talmudic laws of marriage and divorce--but\nthat at its birth an angel appears, gives the child a _schnel in noz_,\nor tap on the nose, which causes the infant to forget everything it\nknows so that it may be born absolutely ignorant. That is a good angel,\nI say, who performs a good office, and not like the rest of them, who,\naccording to John Hay, are loafing around the throne. Here is a useful\nangel. For to give the child its ignorance is to confer a great boon; to\nmake it capable of something in life. It is a valuable gift, though\nearthly creatures soon spoil the good work of the angel and stuff the\nchild's head full of all sorts of useless knowledge. Soon the mind is\nclogged, the faculties for thinking, wondering, understanding are turned\ninto a phonographic apparatus for remembering what should never have\nbeen learned, and the imagination is nipped in the bud, told to be\ncorrect and keep still. With all my inability to learn and\ndisinclination to know, there are still a few things I have been trying\nto forget all my life, but I cannot do it. At the point of a cane my\nrabbi drove these things into my head. So if I ever impart any\ninformation to you, forgive me for I cannot forget. Here in America and\nin modernity, where superstition is such that people actually believe in\nthe existence of facts, the schools and colleges form tremendous systems\nof stupefaction. Poor little heads of innocent children are packed,\ncramped and crowded with dates and names and all sorts of insignificant\ndata. They teach them everything--except what interests them, and they\nare made to repeat and to remember all things dry and dull and dreary.\n'Facts, facts, facts,' the teachers cry, not knowing that there are no\nfacts in real life. Minds are measured, ideas must be of a certain size,\nyou must think but one thought at a time and remember all things in\nhistory that never happened. Thus, fancy, whim, suggestion, imagination\nare sadly neglected, and the finest faculties are left behind. Everybody\nknows everything, but no one understands anything.\n\n\"'Tis so with people generally--they are all clamoring for what they\ncall facts, explaining things after fixed formulas, making the most\nastonishing, dead-sure statements; in short, spreading useful knowledge.\nThey all have ideas and theories and philosophies after a fashion; they\nhave sized this universe up, past, present and future, and they can\nexplain everything except themselves. Everybody has found a few 'facts,'\nand after these fashioned a universal panacea, a little patented plan\nfor solving the social problem. There are so many solutions that it is\nhard to find just what the problem is. Reform is so much in style that\neven a corn doctor proclaims himself a social saviour. The social\nreformers with their sure cures, positive facts and all-saving systems\nare the plague of the age. There is no escape from these things they\ncall certain and positive and indisputable. Figures and statistics and\nso-called facts make up the sum of our life. Life is harnessed by\nsystems and we are strangled by statistics. The subtle, the strange, the\nsymbolic, the suggestive, the intuitive, the poetic and imaginative, the\nflash-lights that make you see eternity in a moment--these are\noverlooked and neglected. The things really true are forgotten. What is\nthat Persian legend about the man who devoted his life to planting and\nrearing and raising the tree of knowledge in his garden, and\nafterwards, in his old age, was hanged thereon? What? There is no such\nPersian legend? Well, then, some Englishman ought to write it. At any\nrate this shows the value of knowledge. The fruit of the tree of\nknowledge is now sweet, now bitter--but mostly bitter. We analyze and\nexamine so much these days that we find within ourselves and in our\nsurroundings the symptoms of all diseases and all evil. To quote a\nquaint but true Zangwillism, 'Analysis is paralysis, introspection is\nvivisection, and culture drives us mad.' We measure things so closely\nand leave no room for the surprising, the spontaneous, the freely\nflowing, the lifelike. The age of reason has come and we are no longer\nwise. We have forgotten what we owe to ignorance. 'He knows everything,'\nsaid the doctor; 'there is no hope for him.'\n\n\"In their ignorance of human nature and natural law idealists have\ndreamed and created the most unattainable Utopias, and their impossible\nvisions shaped our destiny and made us great. The stirring speech that\nLametkin delivered this evening is partly due to his ignorance of things\nand his blind faith in his panacea, but it enthused his audience\nimmensely, and it will have a wonderful effect upon their lives. The\nother day I read some beautiful lines by Owen Meredith about the child\nwho cries 'to clutch the star that shines in splendor over his little\ncot.' The matter-of-fact father says that it is folly, that it is\nmillions of miles away, and that 'the star descends not to twinkle on\nthe little one's bed.' But the mother tenderly tells the child to sleep\nand promises to pluck the star for it and by-and-by\n\n\n     '_Lay it upon the pillow bright with dew_,'\n\n\nand then the child sleeps and dreams of stars whose light\n\n\n     '_Beams in his own bright eyes when he awakes_.'\n\n\n\"Now in these lines one may find justification for all the idealizations\nof art, but they are also suggestive of the value of ignorance. So it\nis. We must learn to see the invisible. We must be oblivious to the\nobvious, to see anything. We ought not to try to clear up everything. If\nlife were not a problem play it would not interest us so. Let the\nmystery remain. Intimations of immortality are good enough; proofs would\nkill our longing for it. Whence? Whither? I rather hope these questions\nwill never be answered. The halo, the maze, the mystery, the shadowy\nstrangeness of it all makes it worth while and gives the fancy freedom\nto fly. Statistics sterilize the imagination and figures dry up our\nsouls. Do you remember Whitman's 'When I Heard the Learned Astronomers?'\nThe lecturer with his charts and diagrams soon made him unaccountably\nsick, till rising and gliding out of the lecture room he wandered off by\nhimself 'in the mystical, moist night-air, and from time to time looked\nup in perfect silence at the stars,' and thus became himself again.\n\n\"Let others seek what they call facts: for me the lights and the shades,\nthe dimness and the flash, the chiaroscuro of life. Let others pierce\nthrough phenomena and impregnate realities; my favorite amusement is to\nwalk upon the clouds and play ball with the stars. I cannot grasp such\ndetails as the size of the earth, the distance between sun and moon.\nLogic? Lockjaw. Go study your astronomy and let me lie on my back in\nsome verdant field and gaze upon the stars, and I shall be content. Let\nothers study botany, give me but the fragrance of the blooms and flowers\nand let me gaze upon their gorgeous riots of color. For others the study\nof anatomy, for me the beauty of the human form to behold. Let others\nstudy ornithology, and let me listen to the thrilling music of the\nwinged songsters. Take all the sciences that explain everything away,\nand give me the things beautiful to behold, sweet to hear and pleasing\nto touch. And before you run away let me also tell you that there is a\nmood of contemplation which, for comprehension, passeth all science and\nanalysis.\n\n\"But, after all,\" he added, as we were about to part, \"I could only hint\nat these things, for it takes a very learned man to prove the value of\nignorance.\"\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nDays of Atonement\n\n\nAll day the Ghetto was astir. There was a babel of excitement at the\nmarkets, an unusual rush and bustle on Allen street. The stores were\nwell filled with bargaining, buying men and women, and the push-cart\nvendors were centres of attracted crowds. Everywhere housewives were\nbusy washing, clearing, cleaning their homes. The spirit of awe,\nreverence, expectancy, was in the air. The great day of Rosh Hashona was\napproaching; New Year's day was drawing nigh.\n\nWe stood on the sidewalk in front of Berosowsky's book and periodical\nemporium, the strange place where you can procure anything from Bernard\nFeigenbaum's pamphlets against religion, to a pair of phylacteries, from\nTolstoy's works in Yiddish to a holy scroll. We stood and gazed on the\nfamiliar yet fascinating scene. We had just left the store, wherein we\nglanced through the current newspapers and other publications. \"It is so\nstupid to read. Let's go out and look at the people,\" Keidansky\nexclaimed abruptly as he threw down a eulogy of a Yiddish poet written\nby himself, in the paper of which he is now editor.\n\nNot far off was heard the short, shrill sound of the ram's horn. It was\nthe \"bal tkio,\" the official synagogue trumpeter practising for the\nnearing ominous days. Hard by, a cantor and his choir of sweet voices\nwere rehearsing the quaint hymns and prayers of the great fast, singing\nthe strange, tearful, traditional melodies that have never been written,\nand yet have come down from generation to generation for hundreds of\nyears; the weird musical wailings, the tunes of the cheerless chants,\ncharged with the sighs, groans and laments of centuries of sufferings,\nflooded the noisy street, mingled with the harsh cries of the hucksters,\nand were lost in the general buzz and roar of the crowded district.\n\n\"The days of awe and of atonement are upon us,\" said Keidansky, \"and\nthese evocative, awakening voices are drawing, drawing me back to the\nsynagogue, back to the days of childhood, faith, hope, ignorance,\ninnocence, peace, and plenty of sleep. A broken note of old music, then\na flood of memories, a sway of feeling, and no matter what I have, or\nhave not been, I am again as pious and penitent, and as passionately\nreligious, as I was when a child in the most God-fearing Ghetto in the\nworld.\n\n\"Did you say something about free thought, the higher criticism,\nuniversal religion, about the law of evolution applied to religion,\nabout all creeds being equally true and equally false? Did you talk to\nme about these things?\n\n\"Well, a scrap of Yom Kippur melody and the faith of my fathers is my\nfaith. Our instincts destroy our philosophies. 'Our feelings and\naffections are wiser than we are!' The old is preserved for our\nself-preservation. The new is destructive, bewildering. The old is\noften worth deserting, yet it is bred in the bone; it is comforting and\nconsoling and easy to live up to. The new is bewitching, but baneful; it\nbreeds discontent, ennui, we can hardly ever live up to it. Blessed are\nthose who live in the world they were born into. They are also damned,\nbut that's not in their time.\n\n\"Tradition,\" Keidansky continued musing aloud, \"is far more beautiful\nthan history, and even nature with all her charms has to be improved\nupon by art, by illusion. In the course of time science may build up\nsome interesting superstitions, but meanwhile it is our poor debtor. It\nhas filled the world with cold facts. It has emptied the heart of its\nfond fancies. And what do we really know, after all? The greatest\nphilosopher of the age pauses and stands nonplussed before the\nUnknowable. The densest ignoramus in the world knows it all; knows all\nabout the worlds beneath and beyond--their climates, inhabitants,\npopulations, moral status, tortures and pleasures. What do we know,\nanyway? Next to nothing, and we feel lonely and desolate and powerless\nafter we have had everything explained to us. Orthodoxy, at least, gives\nus the consciousness of having some control in the universe; it gives us\na sense of shelter and of safety. We know we have a kind of vote in the\ngeneral management of things. We can accomplish something by our\nprayers, by fasting. And when the fearful days come, the days in which\nthe destiny of every mortal for the coming year is determined on high,\nwe ask for atonement, and fast and pour out our griefs in mournful\nprayers and burn candles for the dead. Our voices are heard on high,\nbecause we believe they are, and our names are entered in the Book of\nLife for another year. Do not smile now, nor look so wise. All that is,\nis well, and whatever we believe in is true. The greatest sacrifice we\nmade to science was our ignorance.\n\n\"But whether it is this or that, there is something rooted so firmly and\nso unfathomably deep within us that calls and pulls us back to all that\nwe have deserted and tried to forget; and when these hallowed days come,\nwe can no longer drown our feelings. No matter how far I went in my\nradical conceptions--and I often went far enough to be excommunicated by\nmy worthy brethren--no matter how iconoclastic we became, how absorbed\nwe were in our abstractions, and how fearlessly we theorized, the season\nof awe, beautiful, terrible awe, the judgment days drew near and hearts\nbecame heavy and the melody of the song of 'Kol Nidro' invaded our minds\nand shut out all the other music we ever heard in our lives. It is all a\nstrain of music that, once heard, keeps singing in our memories\nforever--this faith of our fathers. Go where we will, do what we may,\nthe beauties of the old religion are with us yet and we cannot, we\ncannot forget.\n\n\"Among the radicals of the New York Ghetto there is no more advanced nor\nbrilliant man than is my friend Bahan. He has edited some of the best\nJewish publications; he has written much of what was best in them, and\nhe was always on the side of free-thought and new ideas. Like myself, he\nbelonged to the circles that had reformed Judaism altogether. He had not\nentered a synagogue for purposes of prayer since he left Russia as a\nyouth, and that was many years ago. He is now on one of the best New\nYork papers, and when Rosh Hashona and Yom Kippur arrive, he writes\nabout these holidays so fervidly, feelingly, enthusiastically, with such\ntears in his eyes that one would think that these unsigned articles are\nthe work of the most pious and orthodox Hebrew in New York. And,\nperhaps, they are too,\" Keidansky added, aside, \"only if Bahan were\naccused of orthodoxy he would protest his innocence.\"\n\n\"That was years ago,\" my friend continued after a pause. \"I was young,\nseeking new worlds to conquer, and so I fell into bad company--among\npeople who think. They are mostly free-thinkers and free-talkers, and in\nthe course of time my religion dwindled and I became as erratic as any\nof them. The worst thing about one who begins to think is that he also\nbegins to talk. I began to talk, to voice my doubts and heresies, and\nsoon the world, or at least my relatives, were against me. I kept on\nsaying the most unsayable things, and when New Year's came I refused to\ngo to the synagogue, because I had discovered the existence of the\nUnknowable. We quarrelled, and things came to such a pass that I left\nmy cousin's home, where I had been living, during the Days of\nAtonement. I knew what I knew and I was ready to make all sacrifices for\nthe right of ranting and raving over the shameful superstitions in which\nhumanity was steeped. The world was before me and so were all my\ntroubles. But even when I refused to go to the synagogue, I was at heart\nof hearts exceedingly lonely without it, without the beautiful service\nof Rosh Hoshona. When the eve of Yom Kippur came I did not know what to\ndo with myself. Our circle of friends was to meet at the home of one of\nits members and spend the evening gayly and happily, though it was the\nsad and solemn Fast of Atonement. I had promised to come, and so, when\nall the inhabitants of the Ghetto were wending their way to their\nrespective houses of worship I started with a heavy heart to join my\nfriends, glad that I had made the promise and sorry that I was keeping\nit. I arrived at my destination, a street in the West End Jewish\nquarter. When I neared the house I heard a loud, rather boisterous\nconversation going on. I rang the bell. Even as I did so I heard a\nnumber of shouts and loud peals of laughter. I did not wait for the door\nto open. I turned and walked away. I walked right on, not in the least\nknowing whither. Before I was barely aware of it, I was in Baldwin\nplace, in front of the Beth Israel Synagogue. The cantor and his choir\nwere just chanting the awe-inspiring, soul-stirring prayer of 'Kol\nNidro,' that wonderful product of the Spanish inquisition, written by a\nMorano during the darkest days of Israel and freighted with the sighs\nand cries and moans of a suffering people. Those strains of music\nbrought me to my own life again. I entered the synagogue. I had come\ninto my own. I felt such peace and consolation as I had not known for\never so long.\n\n\"Do not ask me to explain it, I cannot. If the incurability of religion\ncould be explained it could also be cured. This is what happened, and\nthis is what still happens to me from time to time. It may be strange,\nbut mine is a government of, for, and by moods, and as they come and go\nI become everything that I have been and that I may be.\n\n\"I've been greatly moved by many preachers and teachers and I have\nfollowed some of the most advanced advocates of our time, the most\nuniversal universalists; but let me hear one of the beautiful old\nchants, such as 'Kol Nidro,' or 'Unsana Taukeff' and I become a most\nzealous orthodox. Did I ever tell you about it?\n\n\"'Unsana Taukeff' is the most important prayer on the two days of Rosh\nHoshona and the Day of Atonement. It is known as the 'Song of a Martyr\nin Israel!' The story of the prayer is one of the prettiest in Jewish\nfolk tales. It is the song of Rabbi Amnon, who was the rabbi of Metz, in\nthe days of Bishop Ercembud (1011-1017). Rabbi Amnon was of an\nillustrious family, of great personal merit, rich and respected by Jew\nand Gentile alike. The bishop frequently pressed him to abjure Judaism\nand embrace Christianity, but without avail. It happened, however, on a\ncertain day, being more closely pressed than usual and somewhat anxious\nto be rid of the bishop's importunities, he said hastily: 'I will\nconsider the matter and give thee an answer in three days.'\n\n\"As soon as he had left the bishop's presence, however, his heart smote\nhim and an uneasy conscience blamed him for having, even in the remotest\nmanner, doubted his faith. He reached home overwhelmed with grief. Meat\nwas set before him, but he refused to eat, and when his friends visited\nhim he declined their proffered consolation, saying: 'I shall go down\nmourning to the grave.'\n\n\"On the third day, while he was still lamenting his rash concession, the\nbishop sent for him, but he failed to answer the call. Finally the\nbishop's messengers seized him and brought him before the prelate by\nforce. 'Let me pronounce my own doom for this neglect,' answered Amnon.\n'Let my tongue, which uttered these doubting words, be cut out. It was a\nlie I uttered, for I never intended to consider that proposition.'\n\n\"'Nay,' said the bishop, 'I will not cut out thy tongue, but thy feet,\nwhich refused to come to me, shall be cut off, and other parts of thine\nobstinate body shall also be tormented and punished.'\n\n\"Under the bishop's eyes the toes and thumbs of Rabbi Amnon were then\ncut off, and after having been severely tortured he was sent home in a\ncarriage, his mangled members beside him. Rabbi Amnon bore all this\nwith greatest resignation, firmly hoping and trusting that his earthly\ntorment would plead his pardon with God. The days of awe came round\nwhile he was on his death bed, and he desired to be carried to the\nsynagogue. He was conveyed to the house of God, and during the services\nhe asked that he be permitted to utter a prayer. His words, which proved\nto be the last, given in English, are somewhat as follows:\n\n\"'I will declare the mighty holiness of this day, for it is awful and\ntremendous. Thy kingdom is exalted thereon; Thy throne is established in\nmercy, and upon it Thou dost rest in truth. Thou art the judge who\nchastiseth, and from Thee naught may be concealed. Thou bearest witness,\nwritest, sealest, recordest and rememberest all things, aye those which\nwe imagine buried in the past. The Book of Records Thou openest; the\ngreat sophor is sounded; even the angels are terrified and they cry\naloud: \"The day of judgment dawns upon us,\" for in judgment they, the\nangels, are not faultless.\n\n\"'All who have entered the world pass before Thee. Even as the shepherd\ncauses the flock he numbers to pass under his crook, so Thou, O Lord,\ncausest every living soul to pass before Thee. Thou numberest, thou\nvisitest, appointing the limitations of every creature according to Thy\njudgment and Thy sentence.\n\n\"'On the New Year it is written, on the Day of Atonement it is sealed.\nAye, all Thy decrees are recorded; who is to live and who is to die. The\nnames of those who are to meet death by fire, by water, or by sword;\nthrough hunger, through thirst, and with the pestilence. All is\nrecorded; those who are to have tranquillity; those who are to be\ndisturbed; those who are to be troubled; those who are to be blessed\nwith repose; those who are to be prosperous; those for whom affliction\nis in store; those who are to become rich, those who are to be poor; who\nexalted, who cast down. But penitence, prayer and charity, O Lord, may\navert all evil decrees.'\n\n\"When he had finished this declaration, Rabbi Amnon expired, dying in\nGod's house, among the assembled sons of Israel.\n\n\"I can never forget these prayers, nor these days, go where I will, do\nwhat I may,\" Keidansky continued. \"Did you say something about free\nthought, the higher criticism, universal religion, the law of evolution,\nthe study of comparative religion, the absurdity of superstition? Come,\nlet us go over to yonder house; the cantor and his choir are now singing\n'Unsana Taukeff.'\"\n\nAnd I followed him.\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\nWhy the World Is Growing Better\n\n\n\"The world is growing better than it ever was before,\" said Keidansky;\n\"we no longer practise what we preach.\" And before I had time to recover\nfrom my surprise and utter any protest, he hastily continued in his\nexasperating manner: \"We still believe in certain doctrines, hold\ncertain theories, advocate certain ideas, preach certain gospels; but we\nfeel different and act much better when it comes to real life. We are\nfar wiser in adjusting our acts to our ends, or rather our deeds are\nmore wisely adjusted to our aims than we know. We do not desecrate these\nprinciples we entertain by putting them into practice. We don't feel\nlike doing so. We let the abstractions float above us as vapor in the\nair. We have human instincts, good motives, noble longings, and our\nconduct is fairly decent in spite of our conflicting codes.\n\n\"From a thousand pulpits we are told to do this, that, and the other; a\nthousand theories would divide our paths in life; a thousand methods of\nsalvation are presented to us by the only and original authorized agents\nfrom on high; but our humanity makes us all akin, our instincts guide us\nand our yearnings lure us all the same way to perdition and to\nhappiness; and we follow after and pave the way for the ideal world. How\nwidely, vastly different our religious and moral beliefs and our\nabstractions are. And yet, how nearly alike, how similarly we all act\nand perform our parts in the world's work. We still differ, dispute and\ndebate over the future, the trend and ultimate aim of things; but we no\nlonger allow these differences to prevent us from acting in unison and\nharmony in all things that are conducive to our better development and\nchief good. A dozen men cannot agree upon a Church, so they form another\ntrust; and, aiding the industrial growth of the country, they work out\ntheir own salvation, and in the course of time endow colleges and build\nmansions and pay fabulous sums for great paintings, and even feed the\nbeggars that live on theology. These men agree on one thing, and that is\nmost important of all.\n\n\"As I said, we still listen to and believe in many of the crude,\nincongruous and misty creeds that are preached to us, but we walk upon\nmore solid ground when it comes to life, and all that we want to make of\nit--which is the most possible. We build wiser than we know, and we\ndisobey the preachers because we can rise above them, do better, and put\ntheir advice to shame. Have we discarded the book? Well, we have\nfollowed life; and see, this world is quite inhabitable now. That we\ndiffer in theology, on legends, myths, is a trifle, but that we agree on\nthe education of the young, hygiene, athletic exercise, morning walks,\ncold baths, pure diet, music, pictures: that we agree on the value of\nall these things makes the game worth the candle.\n\n\"For instance, we are perpetually urged to, and we half believe it best\nto, renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil, forfeit all the joys\nof life, and join the Society for the Prevention of Anything; but in\nactuality, we are all strenuously engaged in capturing the world, in\ngratifying the flesh and in getting as much devil into us as is possible\nin the pitifully brief span of this short life. This is absolutely\nnecessary. The more devil within us the better. A man with no devil in\nhim will not go to heaven, or any other pleasurable resort. By doing and\ndaring and deviling we become strong, and if the world is better to-day\nthan it ever was before, which it certainly is, it is because we no\nlonger practise what we preach--have nearly always practised better. If\nman did not do things, and do them so much better, sermons would never\nbecome obsolete; but as it is, loads of them have to be dumped in some\nswamp every little while.\n\n\"We have also been advised as to the beautiful virtues of humility,\nmeekness, timidity, obedience, submission, self-effacement,\nself-suppression, wiping yourself off the face of the earth with benzine\nand a rag, and we have believed in the advice, but fortunately only\nbelieved; for a voice from within prompted us to feel and be different\nand do more wisely. So we cultivated haughtiness, pride, aggressiveness,\nhave given free play to our physical and spiritual forces, have become\nconscious of our powers, and more powerful still, and the phantom of\nfreedom is becoming a fact and the world is growing fair. We walk with\nour heads erect nowadays, no matter what conception we have in our\nminds. We have become so arrogant that we even question the divine right\nof bishops and policemen. We take off our hats for nothing, known or\nunknown. No matter what we believe, we feel that obsequiousness is the\nmost disgraceful word in the dictionary. Then we are becoming so\nself-appreciative and selfish that we refuse to let others save us. The\nsalvation of a soul is a rather delicate matter, and it cannot be done\nat short order while you wait, by all those whose advertisements we have\nread. It is not quite so easy a matter as it is to find a watchmaker to\nput your timepiece into good repair. In fact, we are growing so egoistic\nthat we want to do it ourselves. We no longer want any mark-down\nbargains, such as salvation for a prayer, a fish dinner or ninety-eight\ncents in charity. We feel the fraud of bribing our way into heaven.\nThose are cheated most who get their things cheaply. It is the height of\nimpudence and imbecility to think that putting on a long face, or some\nother act of piety or penance, will change your destiny, and\nincidentally, the course of the universe. At least, we feel that these\nthings are wrong, no matter what we think. Life or death or immortality,\na man must pay his rent. Everything has its price. What you get for\nnothing is worth the same. The theological bargains will not wear well\nat all. You must pay honestly and fairly for everything you receive,\nand for all you become. What we procure for nothing is not worth while.\nWe are only cheating ourselves miserably when we attempt to get what is\nbest through bribes and pass through the gates on false pretences.\nWhatever we have been told, we feel that we cannot follow the newspaper\nadvertisements in these things and buy redemption at closing-out bargain\nsales. No one can grow for another, no one can acquire, no one can\nbecome for another, no one can be saved by proxy or buy salvation. Each\nmust work and suffer and struggle his way up.\n\n\"I see that you are a little incredulous about these things,\" he said,\nafter a short silence. \"Do you find it hard to follow me? I know exactly\nwhat I mean, only the difficulty lies in making you see it as I do. No;\ndon't be in haste. Let's walk a little more. I am afraid your education\nis being sadly neglected; I haven't talked at you for some time. No; I\nnever hasten. Whenever I am in a great hurry to get to a place of the\nmost urgent necessity I walk into a second-hand book store, like those\non Fourth avenue, and look at the titles and read the prefaces of old\nand odd volumes. Never mind the swarming, surging, scurrying crowds.\nThey are attending to the world's business, and make it possible for me\nto be idle and look on.\n\n\"But what I was driving at is this: That there is one life and many\ntheories of it, that most of these theories are a disgrace even to\nSunday schools, that it's all hitting the nail on the finger. While\nthese theories would have us go by various little walks and byways and\nlanes and alleys, life prompts us to take to the open road that leads to\nstrength and happiness. While these theories would have us thwart and\nstifle and starve our desires, life forces us to give them full play in\nspite of all conventions and creeds, and the result is civilization and\nall its blessings. Way down into the recesses of our souls we are so\ndeeply religious that we all do better than we believe.\n\n\"Take three children of different birth; send them to three different\nschools, instruct them in three different religions, and then, will they\nnot, when they grow up, work and aim and struggle and trade and worry\nand aspire and get dyspepsia--in short, live and die in very much the\nsame way, and more or less fairly and squarely? Inasmuch as their morals\nwill be useful, will they not be of the same brand? Will they not do\nbetter than they respectively believe? There are other illustrations.\nThe leading orthodox rabbi of this city naturally believes in the\nrestoration of Palestine, the regeneration of Judaism, the resurrection\nof the Hebrew language, and the resuscitation of many things long dead\nand passed away. In his speeches he is a most ardent advocate of the\nrevival of Hebrew lore, the essence of all wisdom according to him, and\nthe greatest of all tongues, the Hebrew language, which revival, he\navers, is the most radiant promise of Zionism. The neglect of the\nancient lore in this country is his most woful regret. But his own son\nhe sends to Harvard for a modern education, and the son will become a\nman of the world and a useful, valuable member of society because his\nfather did better than he believed.\n\n\"'A year hence in Jerusalem,' cries the pious Hebrew at the close of his\nholiday prayer, and then, as soon as the festival is over he buys\nhimself a little house, pays $800 down, raises two mortgages and,\ntrusting in God, he hopes to pay up the entire sum in about ten years,\nand he and his family are happier and this country is richer and better\nfor their being here. 'A year hence in Jerusalem,' and here we are doing\nwhat we can for our own good and for the good of whatever country we\nabide in, and all of us are well because we act better than we preach\nand believe. Most of us believed in the colonization of Palestine when\nwe were way back in Russia, yet we came over here feeling that this is\nthe new promised land. Palestine may be a good place for the old to die\nin, if the superstition is true that the worms will not touch your\ncorpse there, but I don't think it is a promising country for the young\nto live in. The land that was once flowing with milk and honey now lacks\nwater. No, I don't know in what part of New York they make the Passover\nwine that they bring from Palestine.\n\n\"I am somewhat of a Zionist myself, as you know, but as soon as I can\nafford it, as soon as my Yiddish play is produced and the New York\ncritics condemn it to a financial success, I will send for my little\nbrother to come from Russia to this country, and as there is no genius\nin our family, I am sure he will do very well here. Yet I believe in the\nrestoration of Palestine, and so long as the Zionists permit me to live\nin this country I am willing to support their movement.\n\n\"And, let's see, there 's something else. I want to fix you up so that\nyou will never again come to me with that hackneyed plaint that the\nworld is going to the dogs because we do not practise what we preach. We\nhave laws and we all preach against intermarriage, do we not? We all\ncondemn the intermarriage of Jew and Christian, of Protestant and\nCatholic, of chorus girl and rich college student, of an actress and a\nminister; we prohibit these things and perhaps rightly, and yet--\"\n\n\"And yet?\" I asked anxiously.\n\n\"Do not be alarmed,\" he answered quickly; \"I am not going to advocate\nintermarriage or assimilation. By this time you will, perhaps, have\ngathered from what I said that I do not much believe in measures that\nhave to be advocated; rather do I favor the things that heart and soul\nprompt us to do, whatever our beliefs and theories and in spite of them.\nThe advocacy of a thing, or the supposed necessity of advocating a\ncertain measure, proves the uselessness, untimeliness and futility of\nit. It is hardly wise to advocate anything. Things must be brought about\nby conditions to be of vital import. Least of all should any one ever\nadvocate intermarriage, and yet, and yet--do you remember these lines?\n\n\n     \"'_Two shall be born the whole wide world apart,_\n     _And speak in different tongues and have no thought_\n     _Each of the other's being, and no heed._\n     _And these over unknown seas to unknown lands_\n     _Shall cross, escaping wreck, defying death,_\n     _And all unconsciously shape every act_\n     _And bend each wandering step to this one end,_\n     _That one day, out of darkness they shall meet_\n     _And read life's meaning in each other's eyes._'\n\n\n\"Yes,\" he concluded, as we were about to part, \"the world is growing\nbetter than it ever was before--and it isn't because we have a more\nefficient police force either.\"\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\nHome, the Last Resort\n\n\n\"There is no place like home,\" said Keidansky, \"and there's nothing like\nrunning away from it.\"\n\n\"What is the matter with the home?\" I asked.\n\n\"Nothing,\" he answered, \"except that very often everything is. You are\nsurprised?\" he continued. \"That's promising. Somehow when I see you\nshocked it makes me feel as if I am saying something, and I am\nencouraged to go on. What do I mean? Just this:\n\n\"There is no place that is so small, petty and narrow as the home is;\nthere is no place so close, cramped and crowded; so limited, restricted\nand tape-measured. There's no place where there is such agreement, unity\nand uniformity; where there is so much subordination, subjection and\nco\u00f6ppression--if you will pardon the coining of a word--as in the home;\nno place where there is such conformity of opinion, speech and action;\nwhere there is so much dependence, inter-dependence and\ninter-domination; where so much good advice is given you, so many high\nexamples set up and so many paragons of perfection presented to you; no\nplace where there's so much upholding of old standards and so little\nscope for building new ones; where respectability is regarded with such\nreverence and the neighbors' say held so sacred; no place so lacking\ninitiative, so barren of originality, so devoid of daring--no place\nwhere you are so tenderly cared for, so kindly comforted, so closely\nwatched, and so grossly misunderstood as the home. It is the most\ndangerous place in the world.\n\n\"No, do not interrupt me--I know just what you are going to say. Let me\nstate it for you--while I am at it. What I said is blasphemy, of course,\nand what you want to say is that the home is the garden where all our\nvirtues flower and bloom; that it is the foundation of our morals, the\nbirthplace of our highest ideals, the great character-builder, the\nschool of patriotism, the source of true religion, the protector of our\nnational life, the benign soul-uplifter, the place where goodness and\npurity flourish, and the place where the best principles are\nmanufactured. I know just what you are going to say because I, too, have\nheard some sermons and have read some after-dinner speeches in my life.\nAnd I do not say that these utterances are altogether misleading. There\nis some good, I doubt not, in a sermon and some shadow of truth even in\nan after-dinner speech. But because the home has ever been the subject\nof indiscriminate encomiums and puffy panegyrics, no one has ever dared\nto say anything against it. It has not been treated as a human\ninstitution, and so many crimes have been committed in its good name. It\nis because these beautiful things about it are, or are supposed to be,\nthat so many of us have been sentenced to stay home without a proper\ntrial.\n\n\"Granting even that the halo is not hollow and that home is the ideal\nplace it is pictured to be, the admission is perhaps the strongest\nargument against it and for running away from it; for, in that case, the\nhome is almost too good a place to stay in, too tame and agreeable, a\nnest of the neutral, a triumph of the negative, maybe, and hardly a\nplace where you can grow, learn, enlarge and expand distinctly and in\nyour own way. I fear me that in any case home is about the last resort\nwhere one can express his individuality and become fully equipped to\ngrapple with the world and those who own it. Do not misunderstand me. No\none intends to wage wanton war against that which is held in reverence.\n\n\"The radical is only ahead of time because all the others are behind it.\nNo one wishes to abolish merely for the sake of abolition. There is no\nsatisfaction in mere annihilation. No one wishes it. Wisdom and folly\nhave the same intention. To say that the most destructive radical and\nthe most orthodox conservative are in perfect agreement as far as their\naim is concerned will be dangerously near uttering a commonplace. Both\nseek well-being and happiness. There was a time when there was a little\ndifference between the two; when one of the two parties wanted to\npostpone that welfare unto another life; but now, in this hasty age,\nboth demand all that it is possible to procure here and now. There may\nbe difference of opinion, but there is no difference of intention. The\nobject of all is to preserve the virility of our being, the veracity of\nsoul, the strength to do and to be. There may be a question as to my\nbeing a conservative, but there is no doubt that I am a conservator. I\nwould conserve everything that is conducive to growth and happiness.\nWhat I believe, what I say, has this object in view. And having this in\nview, I realize that in the course of human events it ever and anon\nbecomes necessary to demolish the divinities that be.\n\n\"If I seem to attack this sacred institution it is because it has a very\nseamy, sore and searing side to it. In the first place there are usually\nparents at home. What a pity that parents and children cannot be of the\nsame age; that there cannot be some understanding between them. What a\nsorrow that those who brought us into the world should have no sympathy\nwith us--that those whom we love most should understand us least; that\nthere should be such conflicting contrasts in feeling, in thought, in\ntemperaments and tendencies. But regrets do not alter circumstances.\nThey exist and they are obdurate. The old look backward: the young look\nforward. The old have become hardened, inured to things and indifferent:\nto the young this is the greatest danger. The old are relics of the\npast; the young are the hopeful heirs of the future. To the former life\nis a lost game, to the latter it is a beautiful dream. The old stand\nwith their backs to the rising sun, with their faces towards their\ngraves; they belong to a dying world and--the pity of it!--they would\nshape the destinies of those who belong to the glorious future; they\nwould make the children prematurely wise and deprive them of most of the\nfun in life and all the benefits that come from folly, error and\nindiscretion. Age would convince youth that life is real and earnest and\na practical business--which is not true in the case of youth--and should\nnot be. There is constant disagreement, or agreement--which is often\nworse, for it implies submission of the weaker party. The freedom of the\nyoung is ever curtailed. The home is often their prison. Youth and age\nis a bad match, and that's the disadvantage of home. See this moonlight:\nit is beautiful, is it not? But a flower must have sunshine in which to\nbloom. All respect for age: but youth must have freedom.\n\n\"I hope this is not true of many phases of life; but I am thinking now\nof a condition in the Ghetto that creates appalling misery, a condition\nthat makes the home a most desirable place--to run away from. Between\nthe Jewish children, who have acquired their uplifting education here in\nAmerican schools and their parents, who have brought their ignorance and\nfanaticism over from Russia--where the despotism of the throne and the\ntyranny of the Torah have united in making the densest, darkest\nGhettos--between these children and parents there is a difference in\ntime and progress of several hundred years. I would like to pause here\nand tell you about the Jewish religion--how it has enlightened the world\nand darkened the life of the Jews, victims of fatal fanaticism; how the\nworld has accepted the spirit of Judaism in various forms and to its\nbenefit, and the Jews have remained bound by a thousand rigid rituals,\niron precepts, meaningless stuff about 'pots and pans,' to their awful\ndetriment--how they persecuted themselves when they could get no\nChristian nation to do it for them--but there's no time to talk about\nthese things now; besides, I want to get back to the home. So many\nthings occur to me and I do not know what to say first. Write about it?\nPerhaps, some day. It may be that I, too, have been cursed to live by\nthe sweat of my pen, but oh--I hate to write. Besides, what's the use?\nIt is too late to convert my people to Judaism, now.\n\n\"But what I mentioned before shows a pronounced phase of\nmisunderstanding, estrangement and division between children and\nparents, also a good illustration of the bad, narrow, uncongenial home.\n\n\"Under any circumstances the old and the young are out of joint; but\nhere the clashing of interests is so accentuated that the condition is\nheart-tearing. There are parents, crude, careless, callous, often\nessentially material, mercenary, miserly, whose only mental occupation\nis their blind, outlived fatalistic faith; they are Russian products,\nand they cannot follow, cannot comprehend their Americanized,\nintelligent, idealistic and aspiring boys and girls; they follow them,\nbut blindly, praise or blame indiscriminately; they cannot appreciate\nthe many and noble longings of these youths. No sympathy and the home\nstiflingly small. Yes, they love each other, if there can be any love\nwithout respect and understanding. These bright boys and girls that you\nmeet in the Ghetto, and who do so much towards the education of slum\nstudents and settlement workers--they are what they are, not because,\nbut rather in spite of, their parents. They struggle and strive upward\nalone and unaided, and also act as missionaries of civilization in their\nhomes. They beautify their little rooms with pictures and books and\ntrifles of art, and they play sweet music--but what is the use, I ask\nyou, of a thought, a work of art, a poem, a piece of music, if you\ncannot share it with those who are near and, somehow, are dear to you.\nWhat is the use of these things if you cannot share them with some one?\nAnd what is to be done when there is no response at home? These children\nare so lonely in their sorrows and in their joys, and the home is so\ncompressed, so 'kleinlich,' so 'eng' (only these German words can give\nmy meaning). How terrible to see the grandeur of the universe and have\nno one to tell it to! How awful this yawning gulf in the Ghetto! If I\nsay harsh and bitter things it is because I have looked into it and seen\nan appalling spectacle of crushed hearts, broken spirits, blighted\nhopes, ruined lives, thwarted beings and stifled souls. I have looked\ninto the gulf, and this is why I want to jest about the holiest things\nin the world.\n\n\"But speaking generally, home is a dangerous place, and he was a wise\nsea captain who bribed his son--clandestinely gave him $50--to run away\nfrom home. While away the youth will come in contact with realities,\nlearn what the world is, what it demands, and finally become big enough\nto build his own home. Or, he will come back to be, at last, understood\nand respected. But let him go forth. He will find everywhere pie that\nwill give him dyspepsia as badly as that which mother used to make.\n\n\"As it is, the home covers a multitude of sins. It is very faulty, and,\nabove all, it lacks perspective. The persons within it are not seen in\nthe proper light. They are either underestimated or overjudged. Home is\neither a mutual admiration, or a mutual mutilation, society. Close as\nthe home is there is ever plenty of room for prejudice and illusion. The\nlights in which things are seen are artificial--and so are the subjects.\nIf the child is a mediocrity, has graduated at the head of his class and\nis a veritable phonograph for remembering facts, he is at once regarded\nas a genius and not a little time and effort is wasted on him, and he is\nsent forth to bore and prey upon an innocent world; but if he have real\ntalent and show it before any one has had time to decide that he has it,\nhis wings are clipped immediately and he is forthwith cast down and\ndiscouraged. But there is always enough appreciation of talent to\ndiscover a mediocrity. Home is the nest of nefarious nepotism, and\nbetween that and disparaging prejudice, countless youths go to the\ndevil. The home judgments as to capacities, aptitudes and abilities are\ntremendous. If a boy is color-blind, he is born to be a painter; if he\nhas no sense of proportion, why architecture is his sphere; if he\nstammers, he is placed upon a chair, made to recite pieces, and hailed\nas the coming orator; if he is a little bit hard of hearing, they\ndedicate his life to music; if he has absolutely no imagination, they\nsay history is his field; they try to make a lawyer of him when he has a\nwonderful proclivity for telling the truth, a merchant when he has a\nfine sense of honesty--and, by heaven, they want to make a minister of a\nfellow who has a sense of humor! One must leave home to find what he can\ndo; and then do it; and then come back and do what one can for the\neducation and welfare of his parents. Leave your home that you may\nsuffer hardships and learn, and then come back to cheer the old folks\nup. Forgive them for what they have done to you with their sincerity and\ndevotion--and build your own home. But run away for awhile if you would\ngrow. It is too narrow and the atmosphere is not healthy. There is ever\ndisparagement, disagreement and fatal favoritism. No son ever walked in\nthe ways of his father; no father ever wanted him to do otherwise. There\nis always someone at home who knows what is best for you, only you don't\nwant to mind. But, oh, the tyranny of tears, the despotism of tender\nwords, and the fearful sincerity of the intentions to do you good! All\ninquisitors have been sincere. There is no need of arguing that there is\nsomething radically wrong with the average home. Conditions prove it.\nWe are, most of us, running away from home to get acquainted with things\nas they are--running away to the tune of 'Home, Sweet Home.' Even as we\nhum the sweet melody, we go forth into life to get some education, make\nour fortunes, and build our own homes. Do you remember 'Die Heimath,'\nand how Magda is tortured by home and loving parents? It's the same\nargument that Sudermann presented in this play, and again, in 'Die\nEhre,' he showed us phases of the home.\"\n\nThere was silence for a space, and then Keidansky continued: \"Homes of a\nthousand tender memories clustering from the cradle up through all the\npaths of life; homes of kind deeds and unforgotten words; homes wherein\nlove and freedom are wedded, wherein the most beautiful dreams are born;\nhomes wherein folks look into each other's eyes and understand, wherein\nthere are no clouds of suspicion and misunderstanding, and each one is\ntaken at his worth; homes unblighted by cold wisdom, wherein the old are\nyoung and the young are old--I have heard--I have read--of such homes.\"\n\nThe pale moonlight streamed into the open window of the attic. The\ndisorderly piles of books, heaps of old papers and magazines, the queer\nlittle pictures about the walls, the small table with a confusion of all\nthings mentionable upon it--all these presented a strange picture in\nthis dimness. Keidansky sat on his bed, his head leaning against the\ninclined ceiling.\n\nIt was this sense of home and comfort that prompted his remarks on the\nsubject. In the dusk the faces in the little pictures seemed to listen\nattentively and change expression as he talked so fervidly. I sat in the\nonly chair in the room--thinking, wondering. I felt pensive.\n\n\"An extreme view, eh?\" my friend asked after awhile, and he answered:\n\"Perhaps it is.\n\n\"And that reminds me,\" he added, \"that you once said that my apparent\nmission in life is to throw stones. Well, granting that it is, who shall\nsay that my task is not as important as any?\"\n\nAnd I, drowsily, absently, also asked, \"Who shall say?\"\n\n\n\n\nXIII\n\nA Jewish Jester\n\n\nThey were telling stories of Motke Chabad, the jester, who many years\nago lived, moved and had his joke on everybody in the city of Wilna,\nwhere he was well known (but not so well liked) as the troublesome town\nclown. After nearly everybody in one group at Zarling's had contributed\na Chabad yarn to the general entertainment, the question arose as to\nwhether there ever really existed such a personage as the redoubtable\nMotke. He had said and done so many impossible things that it became a\nmatter of wonder whether he had said and done them at all. So daring\nwere his utterances, so strange his adventures, his queer pranks so\npreposterous, that he was considered by some to be an imaginary\ncharacter. He possessed those vices of individuality which art raises to\nthe dignity of virtues. He had become a tradition, and so a matter of\ndoubt and speculation. This last was clear at our discussion. The poet\nsuggested that, whether Motke ever existed or not, he was certainly a\ngreat humorist. But even this did not satisfy us. We were bent upon\ninvestigation. The medical student made a motion that we ask Zarling,\nwho is a native of Wilna and at least has known some one who knew\nChabad; but here Keidansky protested. \"Do not ask any one,\" he said,\n\"who has known, or known of, him closely; his description would be too\nfamiliar, intimate, personal, and it would mar and discolor the halo\nthat tradition had cast about him. No, do not ask the Czar, for he knows\ntoo much about him and those who were near our hero never understood his\nsignificance. You must have perspective to see the picturesque, even as\nyou must be a poet to see that which does not exist. It is only for the\nblind that an eye-witness can write history. Artistically speaking, the\ncloser you get to life the less you know about it. Realism fails because\nit takes the existence of reality for granted. Because it becomes\nsystematic and too sure of its subject. Those who have known, those who\nhave touched elbows with Chabad or his brother's grandchildren, will be\naccurate, but not truthful. To describe a person truly, one must include\nall its infinite possibilities of failure or success--what he might have\nbeen, what he longed to be, what he could not be with his given\nconditions, what he was not, what he was believed to be, etc., and he\nwho has decided all about the exact measure of a person cannot fathom\nhis possibilities. We are all so sure of the conditions of contemporary\nlife that it will take a succeeding generation to know all about it.\n\n\"And I am not trying to hinder the work of this investigation, because\nit may prove the non-existence of Chabad. That would not matter in the\nleast, for the anecdotes and tales that are being circulated in his\nname, and his storied misadventures and gloried misdeeds create him in\nfancy and he exists in imagination--which is all that is necessary for\none desiring to point out the benign and malignant work of the scoffer.\nBut he did exist, so we are told by those who have known some one who\nknew him intimately. He did exist, because, while we have superfluous\nvirtues to attribute to all sorts of saints who did live, we have not a\nsuperfluity of humor to ascribe to one who has never been. Some one must\nhave given birth to these things which we can all admire but could not\ncreate. Some one must have been witty enough to think these things, and\nreckless enough to say them. We all have the convictions, but he had the\ncourage, and that was long ago.\n\n\"He did exist, this beggar, braggart, buffoon, town-gossip, dealer in\nwind and old clothes, match-maker, man of all occupations and no means\nof existence, practical joker and general jester of the Ghetto of Wilna;\nfor such he was and as such he did his good work. He was an outcast, and\nas such he ministered to the sanity of society that hath cast him out,\nand kept it from going to the extremes of stupidity. For so it is; the\noutcast reduces respectability to the ridiculous; the criminal points to\nthe futility of the law; the rascal shows the relativity of right; the\ninfidel reforms and enlarges our religion; the enemy of order advances\nour progress; the earthly materialist proves the baselessness of all our\nidealisms; the ascetic demonstrates the stupidity of excess; the\nprohibitionist drives us to drink; the strongest accusation convicts the\naccuser; the plaint of the pessimist makes life interesting; the tyrant\ngives the greatest lesson in freedom; men write books to prove what\nfools they are, and the jester suggests what a tragic farce it all is.\nSo many efforts in life, life itself defeats its own purpose. It is the\nundesired that happens. Help comes not from heaven because we expect it\nfrom that source. They who break laws to suit their own convenience make\nlarger laws for the welfare of society. I told you before that the\noutcasts of society are often its saviors.\n\n\"Now be in order, gentlemen. I have the floor this time. This is my\nchance to get killed. Not to the point? But there are many points to\nthis, and if I have deviated from one I was only getting so much nearer\nthe other. I was trying to show what good this scoffer and sycophant has\ndone, and to point out the value of the jest. God created the world and\nhe saw what he was 'up against,' so he smiled, and thus humor was born.\nAfter awhile the divine flashlights from on high began to play\nhide-and-seek in the unlit chambers of the human brain; men became\npossessed of the sense of humor, and this was the awakening and dawn of\ncivilization. The lightnings of the mind which suddenly reveal the\nmultitudinous contradictions of life, the mental illuminations which\ncause the immediate recognition of the incongruous, the flash which\nmakes you see all in a moment, the wide view which makes the universe as\nsmall as the lantern in your hand, the whimsicality of thought forever\ncreating unsuspected analogies and unexpected comparisons, the sense of\nproportion which reduces all things to what they are, or should be,\ntruth seen through the falsehoods, the sureties discovered through the\nabsurdities, the exactness of things measured through their\nexaggerations, miracles of instantaneous reasoning and feats of\ningenious deductions, the intellectual rapid transit between the sublime\nand the ridiculous, which keeps you from going to either extreme, the\nmagic charm which keeps you above the abysses of the stupid, small and\ngreat, the bright footlights to the tragedy of life--such, in brief, is\nhumor. And what else is there that is so powerful to prevent\nextravagances, to check excesses, to arrest all sorts of frenzies, to\ncurtail abnormal credulity, to sober all kinds of intoxications? In the\nGhetto, as everywhere else, humor is the saving presence; it makes\nexistence tolerable, and preserves the sanity of the little journey to\nthe grave. It was dark and dismal and dreary and dingy in the Russian\nGhettos, and life had the color of last year's snow, and it all seemed\nlike a funeral procession in a sultry, rainy weather; from without we\nwere harassed by our enemies; from within we were harried by our\nfriends, our guardians of sacred law and traditional superstition; it\nwas sad and sorrowful, and so we jested. God sent us some sunshine in\nthe form of such scoffers and outcasts as Motke Chabad, and we laughed.\nWe laughed and forgot to weep. Humor is essentially pathetic, but the\nabsence of it is tragic. Did we not laugh a little we could not have\nlived. Humor, my friends, is the redeeming grace. If you have ever been\nvery serious in life, why, you can laugh it down. What shall we do to be\nsaved? Cultivate a sense of humor.\n\n\"How could we have lived it through without a Chabad? With a smug,\nsmooth, sullen, soulless respectability that moves along the lines of\nleast daring and most obedience, that cannot do any good because it must\nfulfil the _Taryag Mitzves_--the 313 precepts--that commit all sorts of\nprescribed follies on earth to be admitted into heaven, that divides its\ntime between praying in the synagogue three times a day and preying upon\nits less fortunate neighbors the rest of the time, with a mob of\nskull-capped numskulls that did not think because its mind was made\nup--has been made up for it centuries ago--a crowd that would not move\nan inch because, as is insisted, 'the hell that was good enough for our\nfathers, is good enough for us'--with a class of good people like that,\nhow should we have fared if we had not had a Motke to chastise it with\nhis jests and jeers and sneers and arrows of scorn? He laughed with the\nlowly and for them; he was on the side of reason as against precept; he\nstood for natural needs as against supernatural suppositions; he was one\nof the under-dogs, but he barked loudly for their cause, and his service\nshall not be forgotten as long as we have a sense of humour left--as\nlong as we are human! Crude were his jests, and clownish most of his\njokes; did he have the talent of a Heine or B\u00fcrne, he could not be what\nthey were without their possibilities; he was a rough-hewn,\nGhetto-enclosed child of darkness, but he did his work in his own way,\nand the work told the story.\n\n\"God has spoiled his chosen people by choosing them. Many of them are\nstiff-necked, stubborn, reactionary; and they do countless things in the\nname that would not countenance it. As often as not the powers that be\nin Jewish communities are haughty, proud, unjustly aggressive, and they\nprey upon and oppress the humbler children of Israel. It is well that\nthere should ever be some one constantly to criticise, castigate, scold,\nand Carlyle these powers that be and guard and interpret the law. So, in\na sense, every good Jew should be an anti-Semite. He should beware of\nthe abuses of organized bureaucracy by leaders of the community. He\nshould be opposed to the inimical doings of the united many. United\naction is seldom good action. The individual should look out for the\ncrowd. In organization, every one gives up part of his soul, and so even\norganized religions are soulless. So let the good Jew keep an eye on\nwhat the leaders in Judaism are doing, and to make sure that he is\nright, let him put his ear to the ground and listen to the voice of the\nrejected prophet and blasphemous jester.\n\n\"Many stories of Chabad have been told, but a few things may be\nmentioned to help me out of my poor plight, to illustrate my meaning.\nThus, once upon a stormy day, when the rain and thunder and lightning\nbecame fearful and awesome, Motke was seen running through a street of\nWilna, at his greatest possible speed, frantically waving his hands. A\nfew Jews witnessing this, and overtaking him, stopped him, demanding\nwhat the trouble was. 'Such terrible thunder and lightning,' said he,\nall out of breath; 'I fear me that the Almighty is about to give us a\nnew Law!' Here is a blessed bit of blasphemy which strikingly voices the\nprotest of a law-entangled, ritual-ridden, tradition-tied people against\nthe grinding yoke of the Torah. There is a story by another Ghetto\njester, driving at the same evil. There came a time once--so the story\nruns--when the children of Israel became weary of this heavy yoke, when\nthey could no longer live up to the laws forced upon them amid the\ndramatic effects of Sinai, when they could no longer bear all the\nsufferings and persecutions that living up to these laws entailed, and\nthey prayed to God that they might be delivered from the Law, that they\nmight be permitted to return to him the Tables of Stone; and the\nUppermost consented to take it all back; and so, upon a day, the Jews\nfrom all corners of the earth started on a journey toward Mount Sinai,\nwith heavy-laden trains and ships and caravans of scrolls and Biblical\nCommentaries. They came from all parts of the world--from East and West,\nNorth and South, from the Occident and the Orient; there were all\nmanner of Jews, and they came by all means of transportation, but they\nall labored painfully under their tremendous loads, which they brought\nto be returned. At Sinai, they were to give up their burdens. Arrived\nthere, they piled up their great packs of 'precept upon precept' around\nthe holy elevation, until their luggage formed a mountain larger than\nSinai. When the Uppermost appeared in his invisible, yet blinding glory,\nhe asked for the meaning of this huge mountain of books, and the Jews,\nwith their faces to the ground, cried, 'It is the Law. Take it, O Lord.'\nThe Lord--so runs the story--was astonished at this, and he told the\nchosen people that only ten simple rules of living had been given to\nthem at Sinai. He knew nothing of all these volumes. These multitudes of\nlaws and endless commentaries were of men's making, not of his giving.\nThey were empty vaporings of idle brains. He refused to take the Law\nback in its present form. So the Jews journeyed to their respective\nhomes in all parts of the world, wiser, if not relieved of their\nburdens. I was irresistibly reminded of this story, and could not help\ntelling it. It is the product of a far more subtle brain than Chabad's\nwas. I do not remember the name of the author now, but he and Chabad\nunwittingly worked for the same cause.\"\n\nA boisterous group of \"dancing-school fellows,\" as \"the intellectuals\"\ncalled them, entered the place, demanding, at the point of their pay,\nsomething to eat. Keidansky's audience became restless. But he\npersistently kept on, despite all kinds of interruptions.\n\n\"Religion, as you all know, is the absence of the sense of humor,\" he\nsaid. \"It goes to all sorts of absurd extremes. Its tower commands but\none view of life, and that view is marred by emotion. When faith is not\nblind, it is, at least, short-sighted. The loyal member of the sect is\nnot a seer. Enthusiasts are painfully one-sided. They see, or rather\nthey feel, but one side. All their glances are on one thing. So we need\nthe man with humor, who can see all things in one glance. The jester is\nthe wide-eyed, all-observing fellow. He is the many-sided, much-seeing\nman. The sense of humor is the true sense of proportion, and it has been\nrightly urged that only the humorists have perceived and painted life as\nit is. Only they have presented life in all its largeness. Of course,\nthe humorists, who merely chose to jest and not write great tragedies,\ndid not do such things, but they were ever great reformers. The man who\nlaughs can be deeply religious without being a pietist: he can be deeply\nreligious, yet behave decently; his existence is a sure cure for\nhysteria. He infuses a little reason into things which prevents the\nsublime from becoming ridiculous.\n\n\"A maggid, or preacher, once announced that he had written a new\ncommentary upon the 'Hagadah.' 'What!' everybody asked, 'are there not\nenough commentaries already in existence?' 'Yes,' said Chabad, 'but he\ncannot make a living out of those.' At a wedding of the Jewish\naristocracy of Wilna, where wealth was flaunted pompously, Motke was\nasked to say something funny. 'All the rich men of Wilna ought to be\nhanged,' he said. The wealthy guests were scandalized. 'Wherein is the\njoke?' they asked. 'It is no joke,' said Motke.\n\n\"In the synagogue students of the Talmud were disputing a point\nconcerning the use or rejection of an egg 'with a blood-drop' in it--a\npoint to which so many pages of the holy books are devoted. 'Why don't\nyou throw the rotten egg out?' said Motke, who stood near. 'What's the\nuse of wasting so much time?'\n\n\"Once, it is told, when all his resources were at an end, Chabad went to\nthe burial committee of the town, told the members that his wife had\ndied and asked for the means of performing the last rites and\nceremonies. He accordingly secured a few roubles, and when the\ncommittee-men and their officials came to take charge of the body, they\nfound Motke, his wife and children, at their table enjoying a bountiful\nfeast of roasted goose and things.\n\n\"'Gentlemen,' exclaimed the master of the household, 'you will have her;\nI swear to you, you will have her. She is yours; it is only a question\nof time.'\n\n\"'Fare thee well,' said Motke one day to a rich merchant. 'I am going\naway, and all I want of you is a few roubles for expenses.' His request\nwas refused. 'Then I am not going,' he announced, 'and you need not\nfare well.' Chabad was also a match-maker, and his humor made him the\nbest caricature of the institution. Thus once he came to a young man to\nspeak of a match with a certain young woman. 'Oh, but she is lame,'\nprotested the young man. 'Yes,' Chabad admitted, 'but that will keep her\nhome, and prevent her from going out too much.' 'But she is blind,' the\nyoung man argued. 'So much the better,' said the _shadchen_; 'she will\nnot see you flirting with other women.' 'She is also deaf,' insisted the\nyouth. 'That is certainly fortunate,' was the reply; 'you will be able\nto say what you please in the house.' 'But she is also dumb,' pleaded\nthe victim. 'Still better,' Motke assured him. 'There will always be\nquiet and peace in your home.' 'But she is also humpbacked!' the young\nman cried out in anger. 'Well, well,' said Chabad, 'do you expect her to\nbe without a single fault?' Now I am almost ready for the maledictions,\"\nsaid Keidansky, as he was nearing the close of his argument, but I was\nsuddenly called away.\n\n\n\n\nXIV\n\nWhat Constitutes the Jew?\n\n\nOne day when I made a perilous ascent to Keidansky's garret, barely\nescaping harm through boxes and barrels and darkness and things in the\nway, I found him hard at work on an article--this time in the English\nlanguage--on \"What Constitutes the Jew?\" A kind and interested editor to\nwhom I had the honor of introducing him, asked my discovery to write on\nthe subject, and pleased with the suggestion he took it up. He motioned\nto an up-turned coal scuttle for a seat as I entered, and bade me take a\nJewish paper and be quiet. While I waited he finished his essay. \"I\nhaven't any time to talk to you,\" he said, looking disconsolate and\nrunning his long fingers through his curly black hair: \"I want to read\nyou this thing I've just scribbled. There he goes again--\" he broke off\nin despair, as the old man in the next attic began to chant the Psalms.\n\"But I shall read louder than he does,\" said Keidansky, \"I pay rent\nhere--sometimes--and King David, the fruit vendor, in there, sha'n't put\nme down.\" I listened, and he read as follows:\n\n\"And after we have read about him in the comic weeklies, have seen him\ndelineated in popular works of fiction, have observed him caricatured in\nvarious publications, have beheld him portrayed on the vaudeville stage\nand have heard from the slum student of the Ghetto; after we have\nvisited a few money lenders--on important business--have heard our\nminister talk patronizingly of him, telling pityingly of how he hath a\ngreat past and possessed more than a few commendable qualities, and of\nhow he was, alas! doomed to damnation because he would not accept the\nreligion that he hath given to the world; after we have bought clothing\nin one of his stores, taken a personal peep at the Ghetto, met a\nreformed rabbi, conversed with a distant descendant of his people, read\nthe polite charges of his friend, the anti-Semite, and gone down and\nmade beautiful speeches before him prior to the election; I say even\nafter we have done these things, or some of these things have happened\nto us, we must still ask the question: What constitutes the Jew?\n\n\"For, of a verity, he is so complex in his character, so heterogeneous\nin his general composition, so diverse in his activities, so many sided\nin his worldly and heavenly pursuits, so widely varying in his\nappearance, so wonderfully ubiquitous, and withal such a living\ncontradiction, that even after we have made the above painful efforts to\nunderstand him, we are still at a loss to know--what we know about him.\n\n\"He represents one of the ancient races and yet is as up to date as any;\nhe reaches deepest into the past and looks furthest into the future; he\nis the narrowest conservative and the most advanced radical; in religion\nhe is the most dogmatic, sectarian, stationary, orthodox, and also the\nmost liberal and universal reformer; he is a member of the feeblest and\nstrongest people on earth; he has no land of his own and he owns many\nlands; his wealth is the talk and the envy of the world, and none is so\npoor as he; his riches have ever been magnified and exaggerated, his\ndire poverty ever overlooked. 'As poor as a Jew' would be a truer simile\nthan the one now in use. He is the infamous Shylock, the money-lender,\nyet he borrows as much and more money than he lends to others, only he\npays his debts and so there is no talk about it; Christians and others\nwho borrow from him go to court, denounce him, call him Shylock, and\ngive him several pounds of 'tongue,' though he asks not for flesh,\nbecause it is not 'kosher,' and because whatever he is he is never\ncruel. Come to think of it, what a fine thing the Shylock story has ever\nbeen for those who did not want to pay their debts!\n\n\"He loans money to kings, and the kings oppress the Jews; he is the\ngreat concentrator of wealth, and he is the Socialist and Anarchist\nworking ardently for the abolition of the private ownership of wealth;\nhe is eminently practical, and is ever among the world-forgetting\ndreamers, 'the great host of impracticables'; he has no fine arts of his\nown, and he carries off the highest prizes for his glorious contribution\nto the arts of the nations. Now he is exclusively confined to his own\nHebrew, religious lore, believing that beyond it there are no heights to\nscale, no depths to fathom, and then he becomes a Georg Brandes, a\ngreat interpreter of the literatures of the world; his own literature is\nso Puritanical, so religious and chaste that there is hardly a single\nlove song to be found therein, and then comes a Heinrich Heine. He is\nthe slave of traditions and the first to break them; persecute him and\nhe will die for the religion of his fathers; give him freedom and he\nwill pity them for their crude conceptions and applaud Ingersoll; he is\nintensely religious and the rankest infidel; he condemns the theatre as\nbeing immoral, and he is the first to hail Ibsen and applaud him, even\non the Yiddish stage; there is no one so clannish and so cosmopolitan as\nhe is, and these contrasts can be multiplied to the abuse of time and\nspace.\n\n\"If, then, he is everything and to be found anywhere, to be seen in all\nsorts of circumstances, in all walks of life and walking in so many\ndiverse ways, making his way in such strongly contrasting conditions,\nhow shall we know him? How shall we know what constitutes the Jew? He\ndoes not always abide in the Ghetto, and, things are coming to such a\npass, that he rarely has the old Ghetto appearance. I suppose if our\ndear Mr. Zangwill had his own way he would fill the world with Ghettos.\nHe could use them in his business. But perhaps the time is drawing nigh\nwhen we must have the books of Mr. Zangwill and other works of such\nexcellence to preserve the most picturesque life of a unique people and\nsave it from oblivion. The Ghetto walls are falling, falling.\n\n\"Old-fashioned folk, like other things, go out of fashion. The\nold-style long garb, the 'capota,' will take itself away after the toga,\nand such is the awful power of civilization that even the time-honored\nskull-caps of the men and the wigs of the women are vanishing before it.\nTime, with its scythe, cuts down even the curling sidelocks and the long\nbeards dear to tradition. Up-to-date fashion is a democratic tyrant, an\nexpansionist invading and permeating all places and peoples. So we\ncannot count on these externals. Physiognomy is another thing by which\nto be misguided. Other outer details may help us as much as medicine can\nhelp the dead--or the living, for that matter. Then there are names.\nWhat's in a name? An opportunity for misunderstanding. One cannot even\nknow himself by his name. All these artificial designations do not\ndesignate.\n\n\"What, then, are the telling traits, the conspicuous characteristics by\nwhich the typical, representative Jew may be known? Now I am blissfully\nignorant of anthropology, and could not analyze scientifically, even at\nthe risk of being destroyed critically. But through a certain\naccident--an accident of birth--I may be enabled to make a few\nsuggestions, which I will offer with all due and undue apologies, of\ncourse.\n\n\"First and foremost I should mention his wonderful versatility; he is\nthe most versatile actor in this play called life. He has acquired this\nversatility throughout his wanderings, sufferings, trials and\ntribulations, and, together with his prodigious adaptability, it\nconstitutes the secret of his survival. Originally a being of the\nhighest talent with the radiant glow of the Orient upon his brow, he had\nwalked through the histories of many nations, and being persecuted by\nall peoples who recognized his talent, he received a most liberal\neducation in the school of sorrow. Thus his abilities were cultivated\nand he learned to adapt himself easily to all circumstances and to\ncreate his own little world wherever he pitched his tent.\n\n\"Mentally alert, keen of comprehension, quick to grasp any situation,\nalmost too shrewd to be wise, practical to the detriment of his high\nideals, calm, careful, cautious, calculating, hopeful in the face of\ndespair, optimistic to a discouraging degree, often too regular and\nrespectable to become great; intensely individualistic, proud of his\npast, anxious about the future, ever devoted to his cause,\nself-appreciatory, at times too sure of his capabilities, confident in\nthe ultimate decency of things, deeply in love with life--these are\namong the qualities that may be attributed to the Jew.\n\n\"His isolated, peculiar and purely religious life, 'the spiritual\nPalestine' which he has carried along with him in his wanderings through\nthe darkness and cold of the Ghettos, has under all circumstances and in\nall hazards preserved those fine domestic and social qualities for which\nhe is noted. What can now be said about his domesticity, his love of\nhome and care of family; his sobriety, thrift, peacefulness and good\ndeportment, the readiness with which he cares for his poor, his public\nspirit in the interests of his community--wherever that may be--his\nunequalled kindness; what can now be said about these things would be\nmere repetition; but these are nevertheless some of the undisputed\nqualities which constitute the Jew. Believing himself chosen of God, he\nhas strong faith in the part he plays, the work he does, and the mission\nhe is to perform with his being. And like others who have much faith in\nthemselves, he has abundance of conceit. But let us not call it that.\n'Sublime egotism' sounds so much better, and besides, the line of\ndemarcation between the two is so fine that it does not exist. The Jew\nis strongly individualistic in his social tendencies, and for that\nreason often so progressive. He dares to deviate from the trodden path.\nHe is not always in harmony with the rest of his community in which\nthere is from time to time much discord--discord that sometimes amounts\nto war. Thus the persecution of the Jews often begins at home. His\nreceptive mental attitude often brings him into the ranks of the most\nradical, despite his traditions, which would hold him back.\n\n\"He has talent to waste, and much of it is really wasted because he\nlacks opportunity for cultivation and frequently has not the required\nconcentration and application. Perhaps it is better so; for if all\nJewish talent was brought out in the various forms of greatness, what\nwould--what would the anti-Semites not say? They would say that the Jews\nhave stolen their talents. For anti-Semitism is the cry of despair of\ndefeated mediocrity, or it is the plaint of the blinded Christian\nmaddened by jealousy because he has been beaten by the wandering Jew in\nhis own game of trade, commerce, politics, or art. But the Jew is kind,\nhis kindness is unsurpassed, and the Hebrew line in which his people are\ncalled 'merciful sons of the merciful' is literally true. He pities the\nanti-Semite as he pities all who suffer and who are in want of the good\nthings and the good qualities of life.\n\n\"The Jew is a great possibility. Sensitive of and susceptible to all\nthings, to the very color of the atmosphere around him, with a soul\nsharpened by sorrow and a mind of keenest understanding, he can become\nanything and everything, assimilate himself with any and all conditions,\nand illustrate life with a new meaning or adorn it with a worthy work.\nHe is like unto an \u00c6olian harp on which various breezes play various\ntunes.\n\n\"His beautiful, consecrated, peaceful, religious, home life, the life\nwherein the home is a synagogue and the synagogue is a home, this on the\none hand and the strange world with its hard realities, with its\nstumbling-blocks and stunning blockheads, on the other, have created in\nthe Jew a striking two-sidedness, a kind of duality and, if I may so\ncall it, a sort of conciliation between the ideal and the real. This\nforms another trait by which you may tell him. Thus he is very\npractical, and still dreams, hopes for the restoration of Palestine, and\nloves his home and his country wherever he abides. He is an ardent\nZionist and a good citizen at the same time.\n\n\"Murder, or any other kind of talent, will out. Say rather that talent\nwill out even if it must come in the shape of murder, so to speak.\nPeople capable of the highest good and noblest greatness are often cast\ndown into the abyss of degradation by their loving neighbors, or other\ncircumstances. People must live, you know, and therefore they often live\na living death. Not permitted to live rightly and happily, they still\nmust live somehow. The instinct of self-preservation preserves much\nevil, but life is life. Those who have talent and are not permitted to\nuse it for the good of all, use it for their own temporal good,\nregardless of the consequences. The thought that I wish to leave here as\nwe part with the Jew is: That they who walk in darkness find the ways\nthat are dark. Over-praise is damning, and I want to be careful. The Jew\nhas on the whole been far, far better than he has been permitted to\nbe--and this, too, is one of the charges against him. He is a graduate\nof the school of sorrow, with the highest honors.\n\n\"What is that story about the man who in his long quest after the ideal,\nat last found her in the woman who has suffered?\n\n\"Well, here is the Jew, a being who has suffered.\"\n\n\n\n\nXV\n\nThe Tragedy of Humor\n\n\n\"Sometimes,\" said Keidansky, \"it is grossly immoral to live up to your\nhighest principle.\" And in reply to my half-uttered protest, he quickly\ncontinued: \"No, no; I am not jesting. It's a sad business, this jesting\nabout the human tragedy. For what is it but mocking each other's wounds,\nlaughing at one another's infirmities in this great lazaretto, where we\nare all pitiful patients? What is it but scoffing at our sores, grinning\nat our gashes, deriding our diseases, laughing at our own weaknesses?\nNo, I am not jesting,\" and the speaker eyed me strangely as he looked up\nfrom his manuscript on the little table in Machtell's caf\u00e9.\n\n\"Beneath the levity is lead,\" he said slowly. \"Behind all the fun is\ncrushing failure. Behind all the satire is sorrowful shortcoming. Behind\nthe smile is a searing smart. Grief lurks in the grin. Through all the\ndrollery despair peers forth, and there is nothing more lugubrious than\nlaughter. Comedy is made up of error, failure, confusion,\nmisunderstanding, misfortune, misdirected efforts and wasted energy.\nWhenever error ends fatally it is called tragic, but that is not the\nworst. The real tragedy is not the play that ends with the death of the\nleading characters, but the one in which they are condemned to struggle\nand live on and laugh and be laughed at. Each one of us is his own\ncaricature. There is so little to do, yet we all overdo it. We all\nreduce our lives to absurdities. Our efforts exaggerate their importance\nand betray our barbarities.\n\n\"We overdraw our characters and all our lifetime suffer in our own\nestimation. The more serious we are the more extravagant is the farce.\nAs we creep along the roads, the shadows we cast mock and menace us.\n\n\"We are poor debtors, all. With infinite intentions in a world of\ninfinitesimal possibilities, our efforts constantly caricature and\ncartoon our aims. All our works are filled with comic illustrations\ngalore. We make them ourselves, and they overshadow our works. Did you\never see any one fall on the street and a lot of lookers-on laugh? Well,\nthat is in a measure the history and interpretation of humor.\n\n\"We seek and do not find; we fight and do not conquer; we play and do\nnot win; we attempt, but do not achieve; we aspire and do not attain; we\ndesire and are not gratified; we long for light yet grope on in\ndarkness; we struggle and are defeated; we strive for salvation and\ndiscover it to be a mere sham; our labor is lost, our love is not\nreturned, our devotion is not understood, our wings are broken at the\npoint of flying, all our yearnings are in vain; and then, the newspaper\nhumorist writes half a column of pointed jottings out of these things;\nor else the literary comedian will prepare a series of funny papers. Do\nyou understand now what an appalling, grim and gruesome spectacle there\nis behind all these little jests? And how tragic it is for the humorist\nwho sees it all? They say that a Scotchman laughs on the third day after\nhe hears a joke. It does not take so long to find that there is nothing\nto laugh at. It is all so sad. Think what a tremendous tragedy the funny\nparagrapher sums up in a few lines and sells to 'Puck' for $2.98. Come,\ntake up a column of comicalities in any publication and see what is at\nthe bottom of every jest. What is it about? Is it about a man and a\nwoman linked together by law, with a Chinese wall of misunderstanding\nbetween them, 'so strangely unlike and so strongly attached to each\nother' that it is hell for both of them? Or, is it about a woman who\nwears her life away in the farce of 'Vanitas Vanitatum?' Is it about the\ngreedy mercenary who loses his soul to gain the world? Or is it about\none who gives up the world to gain nothing?\n\n\"Is it about an enthusiastic youth who, to escape the materialism of his\nsurroundings, jumps from the frying-pan into Bohemia; or is it about a\nphilosopher who, gazing at the stars, falls into a mud puddle? Is it\nabout the poet starving in a garret, or is it about the artist lost in\nthe quest of the unattainable? Is it about the moral principle trampled\nunder foot because of the material advantage, or is it about the low\nlife of him who longs for the highest? What is it about? Is it about a\nman who bleeds and a woman who laughs, or is it about beings who sell\nthemselves for life with promises to love, honor, cherish and protect?\nIs it about some one groping in darkness, grappling with the impossible,\nor is it about a great republic gone mad over the visit of an effete\nrepresentative of monarchy? Perhaps it is about a bright American girl\nin quest of a titled idiot, or else about a being so degraded that he is\nin mortal fear of work and has a horror for soap! It may be about\nmediocrity dreaming of talent, of failures chasing the phantoms of\nsuccess, of fading beauty, waning love, of the stumbling of the blind,\nor of any and all the confusions of error and the thousands of\nmisunderstandings of the home and of people who are near and fail to be\ndear to each other. The list is too long. It can never be exhausted. But\nat the bottom of any one of the jests, old or new, you will find an\nexcruciating little tragedy. It is all so sad, sorrowful and depressing.\nThe humor of the situation? Say rather the tragedy of the case.\n\n\"And to look behind, to peer through the panorama, to see all this, to\nhave a sense of humor and to have it bad, is not such a cheerful thing\nas it is thought to be, for it is also a sense of our hopelessness. It\nis a sad business, this jesting about the human tragedy--or the human\nfarce. In other words, it is to see the futility of all our efforts, the\nfailure of all our fighting, the uselessness of our aspirations, the\nemptiness of our aims, the vanity of our strivings, the nothingness of\nit all. Life, with all its faults and foibles and failures, with all its\nincongruities, irreconcilables, clashes and unfitnesses, stretches out\nbefore you as just so much material for sardonic satire. Scrambling,\nsquabbling, scurrying, seething, squally squads and crowds of humanity,\nhow gruesomely grotesque it all is and how ludicrous! With all its\nheroics, brave deeds and still greater bravadoes, with all its gloried\nwonders and wonderful achievements, with all its glorious boasts, lofty\nhopes and superb masteries, with all our arts and philosophies, humanity\nand the whole world seems to me like a swarming mole-hill, and at times\nmoves me to nothing but to laughter. It is so ridiculous, all the\nmimicry of the whole microcosm. Tell me, have you ever been seized by a\nsense of the utter absurdity of it all, so that you laughed and laughed\nuntil there were tears of blood, almost, in your eyes?\n\n\"I wonder if you know what it is to have a mocking demon within you to\nlaugh and leer at everything you do, at every step you take, at your\nbest deeds, finest words, greatest strides, noblest endeavors. Imagine a\nvoice that at every turn of the road--especially when you act your\ngrandest, talk your loudest, achieve your highest--that at every turn of\nthe road exclaims: 'How absurd, how silly of you!' Imagine a state of\nmind when all is farce around you and your own caricature is your\nconstant companion. Such things happen to some people, and to them\neverything is so unreal, so absurd, so stupid; the greatest events, the\nsublimest utterances, are ever so laughable. The more seriously the\npeople play their parts the more ridiculous the performance seems. The\ngreater the tragedy the more laughter. What is so funny as Hamlet's\nsoliloquy? What are so laughable as the ravings of Job? And so it\nsometimes feels with the other sublimely sad things that have been\nwritten. The moving finger writes, and the mocking voice within\nlaughs--laughs at everything and you can take nothing seriously. You\ntake up the best, the most pathetic things you have written yourself,\nand even these make you smile. Such things have been said before and\nthey were absurd and out of place--in the first place. Whatever you do\nyou hear the mocking voice from within say: 'Silly creature, those\nthings have been done before, and they have only led fools to their\ndusty death.' You whisper the sweetest things, prompted by love to your\nlady fair, and the voice from within: 'Silly fool, these things have\nbeen said before and the course of true love never did run long.' You\nhave a feeling that it is all histrionic, all acting, all farce, and\nthat we are all overdoing our parts tremendously. Strutting, swaggering,\nblustering, bombastic swashbucklers all. It is not life. It is an\nhistorical novel. It will sink into nothingness. '_O, Thor, du Thor, du\nprahlender Thor!_' Do you remember Bret Harte's parody on Hugo's 'Les\nMis\u00e9rables'? So easily is the sublime tipped over and made ridiculous.\n'Tis but a slight step from pathos to bathos. But wait until I address\nthis letter to the New York 'Abend Blatt.' Abe Cahan came over here and\nspoke for the Socialists this afternoon, so I wrote the thing up. He is\nin the other room with that blatant crowd of Jewish actors. They are\ntaking him to task for one of his reviews in the 'Arbeiter Zeitung' of a\nrecent performance of theirs. They never know exactly what a critic\nmeans except when he does not criticise. They are to give here Gordin's\n'Jewish King Lear' to-morrow night. You don't know Cahan? He is one of\nthe brightest, biggest men in our movement. I come in here,\" Keidansky\nexplained, \"because these actors are so ignorant of the conventions,\nsimple and natural, and I like them for it.\n\n\"There is a story by J. L. Peretz,\" Keidansky continued, after he had\nfolded up and addressed his communication, \"that I want to tell you\napropos of what I have been saying. Peretz is one of the literary\nmasters of to-day, but he writes in Yiddish, so the world misses his\ngreatness. The story is about a reformer, a revolutionary, an idealist.\nHe addresses a meeting in behalf of his cause, speaks fervently,\npassionately, 'spits fire,' waves a sharp sword at his audience and\nmakes a ringing appeal for the truth. In the room where he speaks there\nis a mirror. Accidentally he looks into it. He sees himself. His\nenthusiasm leaves him at once, his fervor vanishes, he loses his power\nof speech, becomes calm, indifferent, and finishes his oration in\ndisgust. He no longer feels the saint and hero he felt. While speaking\nso excitedly he looked like a murderer in the mirror. After this he has\nan unearthly dream about the part of hell that is allotted to reformers.\nWhen he wakes up he receives a postal card asking him to come to\nanother meeting of the revolutionists. He immediately burns the card.\nThis is giving but the faintest outlines of the story, but you see\nPeretz, like Heine, also has the sense of humor developed to a tragic\nextent--to the extent of seeing the absurdity, futility and irony of it\nall--even our grandest efforts.\n\n\"Yes, so it seems to some eyes, and so it is at least to those who see\nit so. After all, what is it? A cry and a struggle and a sigh, a flash\nof light and a streak of dawn and darkness, and then we stand by the\ngrave and weep for the dead that the living may see our tears. Ah, the\nhelplessness and hopelessness of it all; the desolation and despondency,\nthe thoughts that paralyze the mind and stifle the soul; all things out\nof joint, out of proportion, and Fate cries out to you in the slang\nphrase 'you don't fit!' Ah, the humor of the entire procession and the\ndeep tragic background behind it. Seek and you will find, and when you\nfind you shall not want it. Wealth makes us weary of it. Fame brings her\nwreath and finds her poet dead. Faith consoles, but we have the\nconsciousness all along that we are sick and are taking medicine. 'Love\ngrows hate for love's sake and life takes death for guide.' Love? Have\never two souls come near each other? Those whom we love most understand\nus least. Happiness? The art of finding happiness is one of the lost\narts. No one is ever consciously happy. Knowledge is almost positive\nproof that we cannot know. With it we are more puzzled than we were\nwithout it. The last word of science is 'wait.' What do we know? Moses\nwent up to heaven, but God refused to be interviewed. The people, like\nthe modern editor, insisted upon a story and so we have the Bible. But\nscience and the higher criticism has interrupted our reading and spoiled\nthe pleasure of it. What do we know? Even Professor Daniel De Leon does\nnot know everything. Man asks questions, investigates, '_und ein Narr\nwartet auf Antwort_.' Life contains more emptiness than anything else.\nLife is a long wait for that which does not come. Is life worth living?\n'Tis not worthwhile asking the question.\"\n\n\"If that is so, or seems so,\" I hazarded the question, \"then why be\nhere?\"\n\n\"Why, to see it all, to enjoy the tragedy,\" Keidansky answered with\nswift enthusiasm. \"I would not advise my best friend to commit suicide.\nSuch an exciting farce. What would life be, what would art be without\nthe tragic elements in it? It's great! But I began to tell you why it is\nsometimes grossly immoral to live up to your highest principles, when my\ntrain of thought was wrecked. Some other time. Come, let's go into the\nother room and I'll introduce you to the players and to Comrade\nCahan--if he is still alive.\"\n\n\n\n\nXVI\n\nThe Immorality of Principles\n\n\n\"Yes, I have promised to tell you why it is sometimes grossly immoral to\nlive up to your highest principles. It was a rash promise, yet I shall\ntry to make it good. And though it was several weeks ago, I am more than\never inclined to think the same way.\"\n\nThus spake Keidansky when I reproachfully reminded him of a former\nutterance.\n\n\"There are the missionaries,\" he said, \"who go forth among peaceful,\nlaw-avoiding savages to force upon them a religion that has outlived its\nusefulness, a religion that has not prevented them from doing such an\nimmoral, impolite thing. They go forth to promulgate the truth of which\nthey are not sure. They invidiously invade the premises of goodly\nprimitive people, and ruthlessly trample upon their traditions, beliefs,\nsuperstitions and feelings. We shut people out of our country, and we\nsend missionaries to offer them free admission or standing-room in our\nheaven. Heedless that their bodies are starving, we come and ask to let\nus save their souls. We forget that they have a right to their religion,\nto their way of non-thinking, to take the medicine they like; that their\nmethod of salvation is best for them,\n\n\n     'That human hopes and human creeds\n     Have their roots in human needs.'\n\n\nWe forget that they have just as much a right to wear their mental\ncorsets as we have to wear ours, or, if you wish, that their beliefs are\nas true to them as ours are to us. We forget that they speak to God in\ntheir own language. We go forth among them and mock at all that is holy\nand dear to their hearts.\n\n\"Of course, missionaries, like all agitators, are devoted people, living\nup to their very highest principles, and we all mean well; but this sort\nof business, this invasion and utter disregard for others, is to me\ngrossly immoral. And to court and minister to the needs of cannibals and\nbrigands is too much altruism on our part, and that excessive phase of\nit is wicked and hurtful.\"\n\n\"But,\" I protested, \"is not the legitimate advocacy of ideas\njustifiable?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Keidansky, \"the legitimate advocacy of ideas. There are\nthose who on one day of the week would turn our cities into cemeteries,\nwho would stifle our spirits and starve our souls, who on that day deny\nus music and mirth and song--think it a sin to smile, wicked to be\nhappy, and a crime to make merry. If they could reach the sun, they\nwould stop it from working overtime and shining on the Lord's day; yet\nif the sun should ever reach them, their piety would not cast such a\npall over the community. Yes, I know; but listen. Have patience.\nPatience is a Christian virtue, which Christians have forced upon Jewish\nmoney-lenders. I know that there are many people to-day who have quite\na high opinion of the Almighty, believing that He loves light and\nsunshine, laughter and joy, and glories in the happiness of every living\nthing, down to the humblest worm. But I am speaking of the others--those\nwho deny the pleasure of everything except self-denial; for whom the\nonly laws of life are the blue laws.\n\n\"Just now our city is being held up by the police, and at the point of a\nclub told to be good and pious and religious. We are told not to\nbreathe, or sigh, or sneeze, or smile, or show any signs of life on\nSunday. Orders to stop the circulation of our blood on that day have not\nyet been issued, but everything comes to those who wait--every evil\ncomes to those who have over-zealous pietists among them. To heaven, or\nbe damned. It is a case of your adherence, or your life. You must be\nkilled, or cured. Now in this disregard of disbelievers, the narrowness\nof vision and hurtful overzeal, I discern something immoral.\n\n\"Yet it is a matter of principle to spread whatever gospel one has been\ncaptured by. Personally, I have never been so tortured by any as by\nthose people who wished to save me, and out of justice to them, I must\nsay that they tortured me according to their highest principles. It must\nbe admitted that there is an amount of good and pleasure for the\nagitator, involved in agitation, yet his work cannot, generally, be\ncalled moral on the ground that it conduces to happiness, because he is\nonly one, and those whom he is molesting to save are many.\n\n\"And so many of those who sacrifice and abnegate and deny themselves,\nwho neglect nature, ignore the laws of their being, emaciate their\nbodies and starve their souls, is it not immoral of them to weaken their\nconstitutions, minds and spirits, and diminish their power for positive\ngood in the world? In the end, are not many of them miserably misled by\ntheir highest principles?\n\n\"If he loseth the world, what shall it profit a man that he gaineth his\nsoul? Of what earthly use is a soul, without a wicked world to use it\nin? To what good is a soul without all the opportunities of losing it?\n\n\"Alone in the mountains, far from the madding crowd, it is easy to be\nsane and soulful and saintly; but to me, every effort to separate the\nsoul from the world is immoral, though it is in accord with some lofty\nprinciples. The soul outside of the world is a tramp who shirks work. To\nremain in the world, to do, to work, to wage war against weakness, to\nlive strongly and have no fear--that is the soul doing its duty, and\nsowing happiness for all.\n\n\"And speaking of happiness for others, in the first place, it is not\nright to force it upon others against their consent, and in the second\nplace, it is wrong to do it at the expense of your own welfare. Do all\nthat you can for yourself first, or you are not justified in trying to\nmanage other lives on a better basis. I believe in perfection, but I\nbelieve that as much of it as is possible should begin with the\nperfectionists. I believe that nothing is worth doing, unless there is a\nsound reason for it. I believe in egoism. Altruism may have done much\ngood, but I pity the Altruists, who have enervated, weakened and\nimpoverished themselves by their mostly futile attempts to help others.\n\n\"Largely, altruism is an attempt to do for others what you cannot do for\nyourself.\n\n\"There are principles which have led people to lose all that was good in\nthem. The roads to unattainable ideals and impossible perfections are\nstrewn with countless corpses of lost victims. People lose their health,\npeace, welfare and all, trying to do for others what, in so many cases,\ncannot be done at all. All this is wrong. It is wrong to add to the\nstore of the world's misery, though you are attempting to alleviate it.\nNo, no one should work for philanthropy unless he gets a good salary for\nit. As to asceticism, it has never been a profitable business. Contrary\nto other religions, Judaism rather stood for the joy of life than the\narrest of it.\n\n\"I have seen much of the problem of immoral principles among our\nradicals of the Ghetto, many of whom have ruined and wrecked their lives\nbecause of the ideas they advocated. If the dream of social justice\nwould be realized to-morrow, many of them would not have the strength to\nenjoy it. Others are so weak that they would not be able to stand the\nshock. There were those who had others dependent upon them, and who\nneglected everything and everybody, particularly themselves, for the\nsake of 'the cause,' and who finally became utterly useless. They added\nto the poverty of the East Side in their efforts to abolish it, while if\nthey had taken good care of themselves they would, in the long run, have\ndone vastly more for their ideals. Among my plots for stories that I\nhave never written, is the case of a man who became a tramp, because he\nwas too anxious to abolish the system that produces tramps. One of the\nfinest poets of the East Side is now a mental and physical wreck,\nbecause he lived up to his highest principles--and neglected himself.\n\n\"Enthusiasts very often lose the sense of justice, become oblivious to\neverything--except the invisible. I know too well the nobility of the\nmotives; I know that there are more of them on the East Side than any\nother place in America; I know, also, that a cause requires such\nsacrifices, yet, what are the results? Very often, failure. It has been\nobserved that a man, who in the midst of a savage or barbarous\ncommunity, in defiance of current social or religious customs, should\nattempt to live the ideal life of a perfect civilization, would\ndoubtless be quickly eliminated from such a society by violent and\ntragical means, and thus effectively be stopped from influencing those\naround him to better ways of living. A great deal of our enforced\ncivilization of savage races has been fatal in its effects upon the\nhealth and happiness of the vast majority, while it has failed to\nelevate the average morals of the survivors. Authorities say that this\nis likely to be the result, whenever conventional education is forced\nupon a people in advance of their functional development. The Hawaiian\nIslanders are pointed out as an impressive example, and the\nmissionaries, as well as the radicals of the Ghetto, trying to convert\ntheir orthodox brethren, ought to remember these things.\n\n\"The way out of it? Some one says: 'That course of conduct must be\nadopted which will promote the greatest possible development of\nlife-giving energies, both in the individuals immediately affected, and\nin society at large, including the life of posterity.' That's science,\nif I have the quotation right. Principles should be founded on fact, and\nbe conducive to the largest happiness, including even the happiness of\nthe one who holds the principles. In size, they should be more than 8 by\n12 inches. They should be a yard wide--wide enough and true enough for\nall. Yet they should be such principles as to allow others to hold other\nprinciples. The right principles, in accord with the best laws of life,\nand not theology, will come up to all requirements, and they will be\nmoral.\n\n\"Yes, individualism by all means,\" he added; \"be yourself, but don't be\na savage.\"\n\n\n\n\nXVII\n\nThe Exile of the Earnest\n\n\nI met Keidansky at the performance of a Yiddish play, and our talk\nturned to matters dramatic.\n\n\"I notice by the papers,\" I remarked, \"that Sarah Bernhardt has just\nproduced a play written for her by F. Marion Crawford, the American\nnovelist. So we are going to supply the theatres of other countries with\nplays. Are you interested?\"\n\n\"Very much,\" said Keidansky; \"this is not the only case of an American\nwriting for the foreign stage, and it suggests to me a fine possibility.\nAbout Crawford I know but little; but he is one of our popular men. He\nhas, according to his own confession, written to please; he has never\noffended any living beings by putting them into his works; he has never\nattempted to picture life, uninteresting as it is, and he is, on the\nwhole, not one of those that we should want to send away to write plays\nfor the people of other lands. And I am rather glad his 'Francesca da\nRimini' has failed in London.\n\n\"But if there are any among us who are terribly in earnest, with\ntremendous intentions to elevate the stage, to write plays that will\ninstruct, stimulate, uplift, to take all the struggles of humanity and\nput them into dramas--why let them learn some one of the foreign\nlanguages and go abroad and write plays for the serious people of\nEurope. Yes, if they persist in these things, and want to make us think,\nand all that sort of thing, which is short of pleasure, if they cannot\namuse us with something funny or entertain us with something nice and\nromantic, why let them go abroad. It's the only way we can get rid of\nthem, and we shall not mourn the loss of those who would have us do\nnothing else but mourn.\n\n\"We Americans do not want any plays that require intellect, for we need\nall that we have in our business enterprises; we do not want to think in\nthe theatre, because it takes all our thoughts to advertise and sell our\ngoods, nor do we want our emotions stirred, for that is a nervous\nstrain, clouds the mind, and makes people unfit for speculation,\nscheming or anything on the next day. Then, these plays that arrest the\nbrain and touch our very soul, they make us sentimental, soft-hearted,\nkind-natured, and draw us out on long conversations with our wives,\nchildren and friends. Meanwhile the wheels of trade are turning, and in\nthe race for success we are left behind.\n\n\"We are a healthy people, and we don't want any morbid, lurid, ghastly\nproductions over here, and in a large sense all very serious works are\nmorbid, lugubrious and gloomy. At bottom of them there is always a\nproblem, an evil, a crying wrong, a morbid state of something. A happy\nhome is not dramatic; people at peace with themselves and the world are\nnot good subjects for tragedy. According to the conception of these\nearnest writers there is no plot for a play without a peck of trouble.\nWe don't want any such dramatic dishes served. We don't want people to\nplay upon our feelings, and yet pay them for it. Occasionally, we are\nwilling to have something a little bit sad, but we want it to end\nhappily. But the earnest ones tell us that in real life few sad stories\nend happily, that their pictures are true to life. Hang it, we ourselves\nknow they are true to life. There's plenty of trouble at home,--that's\nwhy we go to the theatre--to forget it. Gorky pictures a man--fat and\nforty, successful and comfortable as a government official--a man, who\nafter reading 'a book of one of these modern much-praised writers,'\ncomes to the conclusion that he is 'an insignificant nonentity, a\nsuperfluous being, of no use to any one.'\n\n\"This is just what one of the modern plays does for you. See, it seems\nto say, see, you crown of creation, what a crawling creature you are.\nYour past is what it ought not to have been. Your present is what it\nought not to be. 'The future is but the past again, entered through\nanother gate.' Yesterday you were a fool--to-morrow you will be a still\ngreater one. Your best resolutions shall become bitter regrets. You are\nweak, and you make laws and build governments and create creeds, and\nthey make you weaker yet. All the adornments of your civilization are\nrelics of barbarism. Evolution is too slow for anything, and you cannot\nget ahead of yourself. You have talked all your life and not uttered an\noriginal thought. There have been a few original beings, but most of\nyou are poor imitations--you must follow others. You must have a master,\neither in heaven, or on earth; you are a slave of society. You strike\nfor freedom and anti-conventionality only when it becomes a fad. You\ndon't understand. Your children cannot teach you anything. You are too\nold to learn. When you were young you had only your parents to instruct\nyou. Your home rests upon false assumptions. It is a field of battle--or\nthere are no strong individuals in it and all is peace. The theory of\nheredity is not true--your children are stupid; your wife is a doll,\nwhich you have chosen for her pretty cheeks, and, though she is fading,\nclaims the rights of a free-born human being, and does not\nunderstand--but what's the use? Of what earthly good can such plays be?\nWhy should we in this free, independent and prosperous country listen to\nsuch things? Besides, family quarrels, filial relations, disagreements\nbetween relatives are not fit materials for the dramatist. It is none of\nhis business to meddle in such private matters. If there is trouble in\nthe home, if a man and a woman find that one and one is two, if the\ninterests of certain persons, or classes, are against those of others,\nif people find their religion too small for them and their laws not big\nenough, why there are courts that they can go to, and legislatures and\nclergymen and lawyers and Christian Scientists and so many other sources\nof help and salvation. For a writer it is extremely bad taste to deal\nwith such matters. His mission is to amuse us, and he has no right to\nabdicate the sovereignty of his exalted office.\n\n\"At least that is what we Americans--the majority of our people--think,\nand if there are writers among us so abnormally serious as to see things\notherwise, there is but one thing to do with them--we should send them\naway to other countries where people like that kind of dreary drama.\n\n\"Let them, like Marion Crawford, write for the French stage. The French\nare not even shocked when they see a real resemblance between life and\nthe drama. In fact they put everything into their plays, all their\nfaults, and I wonder how they can look at these plays. So many things\nhappen in France, and it is all in their books and plays, besides a lot\nof things that never happen. You cannot in their country escape life and\nall its troubles by going to the theatre or reading one of their novels.\nAll life's tribulations, turmoil and travail are in them. Not that the\npeople are over-earnest, but that they like something strong, love to be\nstirred and moved, and are recklessly unafraid of the vertigoes of\nthought. They have great artists and wonderfully fine writers, but their\ndramatic works are terribly upsetting. A good performance of 'Camille'\nbreaks a person up for several days. They are a dangerous lot, all the\nFrench writers.\n\n\"No, we over here do not want such productions. There are plenty of\npretty incidents and fables out of our romantic history that we can use\non our stage.\n\nEvery veteran of our wars tells enough of his own heroic deeds to make\na dozen of plays. Then there are so many historical novels, guaranteed\nto have nothing to do with life, that have not as yet been dramatized.\nSuch plays would help us to understand our grand history.\n\n\"But there is lots of room in Europe for our would-be realists, and our\ngovernment would do well by making an appropriation for their\ninstruction in foreign languages and their deportation to the lands of\nburdensome intentions, revolutionary movements and problem plays. This\nwould mean peace in our own country.\n\n\"There are the Germans, who love Schopenhauer and beer and usually drink\nthe two together. They feel intensely, revel in realism and have the\nkeenest enjoyment of tragedy. Nothing is too sad, sombre, or too\nstirring for their stage. All the unanswered questions that have vainly\ntroubled the ages are raised in their dramatic and literary works. What\nan uncomfortable prospect that is! They always have men who writes plays\nthat will never die. They have no shame, these Germans. They feel\nstrongly and openly show it. Altogether they have a passion for the\nthoughtful, and give the modern playwright with tendencies a splendid\nopportunity. But what is to be said of a country that can produce such\nplay as Hauptmann's 'Die Weber'--a country that can send fifty Socialist\nmembers to the Reichstag? Yes, we can safely send them to Germany, or\nelse to Russia. It would be hard for an American to learn that\nlanguage, but Russia is the land where they say the most daring, the\nboldest things in the most candid manner, or without any manner at all.\nI don't know why it is unless it is because free speech is forbidden in\nthat country. There the play, or the novel, palpitates with life and\nvibrates with heart-throbs. All the evil and oppression and ruin of the\ncountry cries out through its literature and drama, and the people\nworship such art. Life itself is seen on the Russian stage. This is\nwhere we should send our earnest writers. True, there is a censorship in\nRussia, but the radical utterances of an American author will easily\npass the Russian censor.\n\n\"There is Norway, where a man like Ibsen, who has made that country the\nscene of action of all the tragedies of the world, is allowed at large\nafter an exile of many years. Ibsen has held up the Land of the Midnight\nSun as a dominion of darkness, yet they like him and are also proud of\nhim in his country. Belgium is another good market for the serious and\nrevolutionary drama. In Spain, Echegaray is doing nearly what Ibsen is\ndoing in Norway, and he has a number of literary companions with similar\nsombre intentions. Even in England they are beginning to write such\nplays, and an American can easily learn the English language. It's a\ngood thing that Henry James prefers to live in England, only we ought to\nput a tariff on his psychological stories. We need not fear. Any and all\nthese countries will serve us as places of exile for our earnest\nauthors.\n\n\"But hold on, I've nearly forgotten. Perhaps the expenses of sending\nthese people to Europe can be saved. Let them learn to write in Yiddish,\nfor in the Jewish theatres of the New York Ghetto all sorts of serious,\nsombre, life-like, problematic and powerful plays are produced.\"\n\n\n\n\nXVIII\n\nWhy Social Reformers Should Be Abolished\n\n\n\"It's quite a problem,\" said Keidansky, suddenly, after a pensive pause,\nas he watched the glimmering lights of the Cambridge bridge across the\ngloomy Charles.\n\n\"What is?\" I asked.\n\n\"How to abolish the social reformers,\" he answered in a tone of\ndetermination.\n\nIt was nearly two o'clock in the morning when we left the little caf\u00e9\nwhere we spent part of the evening, and he said it was too early to go\nhome, which in any case was the last resort. It was so roasting hot up\nin his attic, that no matter what time he climbed up there, he would be\n\"well done\" by the time he rose in the morning. But the place he told me\nof had this advantage: it was delightfully cool in the winter. Keidansky\nwas physically exhausted and mentally lazy, and would say but little at\nfirst. He had spent the day in preparing an article for one of the\nJewish papers, and during the evening gave two lessons in English,\nvisiting his pupils at their homes; for it was thus, he once informed\nme, that he learned what English he knew--by teaching it to others.\nIncidentally these lessons he gave and his journalistic efforts helped\nto pay for the necessities of life, such as rent, laundry, lunches,\nsymphony concerts (\"on the rush\"), admissions to picture exhibitions,\nbooks, gallery tickets to the best plays that came to town, etc. He had\nworked very hard that day, he said, which was a direct violation of his\nprinciple. He did what he could to keep his ideas out of his article,\nand he hoped it would be published. He felt tired, did not want to go\nhome, and proposed that we walk over to the Charlesbank Park where, on a\nnight like this, we could at least in imagination conjure up a breeze.\n\n\"Your whim is law,\" I said, and we set off for the park. I had been\nspeaking of a Yiddish melodrama which had been produced in Boston a few\ndays before. Keidansky had not seen the play, but he intended to write a\nreview of it for one of the New York papers. He knew all about it and\nthe species to which it belonged. When capital punishment was abolished,\nsitting through one of these plays would be an all-sufficient penalty\nfor murder, he said. Then this subject gave out and there was a pause,\nafter which Keidansky made the startling remark concerning social\nreformers.\n\n\"Abolish them? Do you really mean it?\" I asked.\n\n\"Yes, though I do say it,\" he replied.\n\n\"What for?\" I, being puzzled, queried again, and he answered:\n\n\"For the welfare of society, and perhaps also the sure approach of the\nmillennium.\" He continued: \"The social reformers, as a rule, are a most\nunsocial job lot of people. As I have known them, their business has\nbeen to frighten, to scowl, to scare, and to make a mountain of evil out\nof a mole-hill that did not exist. They are often the most blinded\nzealots, the narrowest-minded, one-sided partisans, with tremendous,\nalmost Dante-like propensities to conjure up hair-raising horribles, but\nwith the genius and the poetry of a Dante left out. Their method is to\ncut life up piecemeal, pepper it good and heavy, and send you to bed\nwith a few bitter morsels. After a night of the most excruciating\nnightmares, you wake up with a nauseous taste in your mouth, and a\npronounced case of reformania. It is not so much what they say, as how\nthey emphasize it; the very dictionary groans beneath the weight of\ntheir abuse of adjectives, and after a time they convince you that you\ndon't know your own address, that you have not, as you imagined, been\nliving on the planet earth, but in the most devilish, hellish purgatory.\n\n\"In order to convert this earth into a heaven, they must needs make it\nappear to be the blackest hell. In order to abolish evil, they must\nprove that nothing else exists. To convince you of the infinite\npossibilities in the development of men, they must prove to you that\nthey have ever been divided between parasitic capitalists and starving\nslaves. Evolution, as they concoct it for you, has been a process of\ngoing from bad to worse, from a mild form of slavery to a more abject\none.\n\n\"You see, they are in for effect, and with the aid of the most bombastic\nlanguage and turgid phraseology they are bound to make it, no matter how\nmany people they dishearten, discourage and dismay. To damn humanity,\nthey think, is but a trifle when their supreme end is to save the world.\nHope is not in heaven, earth sees no gentler star; earth is hell and\nhell bows down before the social reformer. The reformer that I mean is a\nman ever wandering about with a pail of black paint in one hand, a brush\nin the other, and with an expression of heartrending sorrow in his face\nbecause he cannot find a ladder high enough to enable him to put a few\ncoats of his paint on the skies. The world must be saved at any cost,\nsay these reformers, and if the world is the cost, why it is dead cheap\nat that, when they can become saviors of society and possibly sainted\nmartyrs. And so they proceed to exaggerate the evils that exist in the\nmost brazen-faced manner and to magnify the evils they imagine to the\nutmost extent. They generously enlarge every iniquity that is and fully\ndescribe those that have never been; they complicate every simple\nproblem in order to puzzle mankind and to be misunderstood and to appear\ngreat. The world has become so civilized, the reformers reason, or\nrather think, that it is hard to find its monstrous wrongs and social\nreform are being forgotten, and so out with our telescopes, magnifying\nglasses and alarm clocks. The capitalists must be dethroned, the\ndown-trodden wage-slave must be enthroned, and then our saviors riot and\nrevel in their never-ending disquisitions. Yes, when there are many\nreformers in the world, the world is in sore need of reform.\n\n\"These people are pitifully short-sighted and can barely see one side\nof life at a time; they dissect life and remove it from reality. Their\nsolutions are so fine that they have nothing to do with the real\nproblems. They detach humanity from the world. They abolish the concrete\n(for convenience) and get lost in their abstractions like the detective\nwho disguised himself so much that he could not discover his own\nidentity. They conceive more evil than exists because they rarely know\nthe difference between right and wrong. They are visionaries without\nbreadth of visions; theorists, not knowing the uselessness of all\ntheories; people who would save the world because they do not know it;\nbuilders without a foundation; saviors without the saving graces of\ntruth and beauty. They embitter humanity, they darken the world,\npainting it blacker than it ever was in the barbaric past and--they make\nme weary, the more so because they constantly remind me how foolish I\nonce was myself.\n\n\"I tell you, the world is better to-day than it ever was before, and it\nwould become still better if we could abolish these disparaging,\ndiscouraging, slanderous social reformers. The true reformers are those\nwho make us see how good and great the old world is. As you said the\nother day, the greatest explorers were those who discovered heaven on\nearth. And after we have abolished the reformers we could gradually also\nabolish the other evils which afflict our civilization and mar\nexistence. They would no longer impede our progress and we could little\nby little wipe out the wrongs that oppress us and institute more just\nconditions for all members of society. These things could be done\ngradually, reasonably, with good cheer, and with the best results. For\nanother trouble with the vaudeville social reformers that I did not\nmention is their overweening, overwhelming conceit, which makes them so\nludicrously unreasonable and prevents them from seeing that the world is\njust a trifle bigger than one of their numbers.\"\n\nIt was nearing dawn, and I asked him how he was going to do away with\nthe reformers.\n\n\"Well, there's the rub,\" he said. \"I do not know exactly, but I've been\nthinking that perhaps the only and best way of abolishing the social\nreformers would be by finding the true solution of the social problem\nand abolishing all the wrongs and iniquities of our civilization. Let us\ndestroy, annihilate the evils of unjust laws, governments and\nmonopolies, and institute a just system of society and the social\nreformers will disappear.\n\n\"Let us have a society wherein all will share equally in all the joys\nand sorrows of life, wherein none shall be starved and none shall be\npampered to death, wherein none shall have too much of the goods of the\nworld and all shall have enough, wherein no hungry babes will wallow in\nthe gutters to become candidates for the prisons and insane asylums, and\nno children shall be ruined by riches; a world wherein there will be no\ntemperance movements to drive men to drink, no trust to destroy men's\nsouls, and no churches to harbor infidels; a world without the constant\nclouds of harrowing, sad thoughts, without the rains of tears, and with\nmore and more of sunshine. Let us do that and we will abolish the\nobnoxious reformers. Let us abolish the monstrous crime of poverty,\nwhich has not the shadow of a reason for existence in a world that is\noverwhelmed with wealth, and the occupation of the reformers will be\ngone, and they will vanish. Really, we ought to be willing and ready to\ndo anything for their abolition.\"\n\n\n\n\nXIX\n\nBuying a Book in Salem Street\n\n\n\"I am going to buy a book on Salem street,\" said my friend, when we\nsuddenly encountered on Tremont Row. \"Do you wish to come along?\"\n\nI was bent on any adventure, and so we started for the quarter, down\nthrough Hanover street. It was but a short distance, and before we had\ndone much chatting in the way of exchanging ideas, we were at the head\nof the street, facing the pawnshop of No. 1, with the welcome legend of\n\"Money to Loan.\"\n\nWe passed safely the bedecked and bedraggled second-hand clothing\nstores, though the pullers-in were out in full force. As my companion\nexplained, it is only the seeming strangers who are approached and asked\nto buy, or sell, but familiar figures and persons in their company are\nnever molested. One of these attendants, a dark, sad-eyed, kind-faced\nyoung man, was leaning against the door-post of a store and intently\nreading a Jewish magazine. We were across the street and we stopped to\nlook. This fellow, who was engaged in the most sordid business, was\nreading the \"Zukunft,\" the magazine of dreams, ideals and Utopias,\npublished by the New York radicals. An elderly, bearded and stout man\ncame down the street. Without looking up from his booklet the youth\nmechanically asked: \"Any clothing to-day?\"\n\n\"No,\" the man shouted, \"no clothing to-day, and you'll never sell\nanything if this is the way you'll attend to your business.\" It was the\nproprietor of the store. For a moment the puller-in seemed dazed. Then\nhe shoved his \"Zukunft\" into his coat pocket. He began to cast his eyes\nabout for customers. He looked a model of sorrow. I was told that it was\nhis idealism, his striving for the impossible, beautiful, that reduced\nhim to the ugly position he was in. We moved on. There were other men\nreading, if only in snatches, but they apparently owned their stores and\nhad their assistants. One of the pullers pointed out to me is one of the\nmost enthusiastic Zionists in this city. Children were playing on\nsidewalks and doorsteps, sedately but happily. A school-teacher from one\nof the neighboring institutions passed through the street. Several\nlittle girls recognized and flocked about her. One took the teacher's\numbrella, the other asked for the privilege of carrying the young lady's\nBoston bag. They took hold of her arms and went along dancing and\nsmiling as she talked to them. Above the rumbling of wagons were heard\nthe pleasing notes of a piano and the singing of a sweet-voiced daughter\nof the tenements.\n\nFarther up the street was more crowded. It was Thursday afternoon. The\nstores were all activity and bustle, and the pedlers with their wagons\nand pushcarts were crying their foods and wares for \"the Holy Sabbath\"\nin quaint and singing Yiddish phrases. I was reminded by my friend that\nAbraham Goldfoden, the father of the Jewish stage, in one of his\noperettas uses a swarming, eve-of-Sabbath market-scene like this very\neffectively, and makes his hucksters sing beautifully of the things they\nhave to sell. Said my guide: \"Of course, in the operetta of 'The Witch'\nthe pedlers are not so ragged and besmeared, and you cannot hear the\nsmell of the meat and the fish, but neither can you buy and eat these\nthings. After all, if art is beautiful, real life is quite useful.\n\n\"To our people,\" said Keidansky, casting his eyes about, \"everything\nhere is a matter of course, and there is nothing unusual about it all.\nThe strangest things are the strangers, who come to stare, study and\nwonder. In fact, the self-concentration of the Jew, probably the secret\nof his survival, makes this the only place in the world, the temporary\nPalestine, the centre of the universe. There are other places in this\ncity, but they are only the outskirts, the suburbs of the Ghetto. There\nare other peoples and religions, but we are the people and ours is the\nfaith. The flattery that children receive from their parents afterwards\nhelps them to bear the brunt of the battle. The consciousness of his\nbeing chosen helped Israel to find his way through the dark labyrinth of\nthe centuries. Everything here is as it should be, only a little more on\nthe exclusive and pious European plan. This is more of the old fashioned\nview, but it is still extant, inasmuch as the Ghetto remains.\"\n\nNow we were near Bersowsky's book-store which was on the other side of\nthe street and we stopped, facing it. A street-organ was playing in\nfront of the strange emporium and a band of children were dancing gayly\nto its music. We could see the books and periodicals, phylacteries and\nnewspapers, holy fringe-garments and sheets of Jewish music in the\nwindows from the other side of the street. And as we came nearer we\ncould see the very aged woman, bewigged and kerchiefed, wan, wrinkled\nand wry--the most familiar figure in the Ghetto--we could see her\nsitting on her high stool, drinking a glass of tea and selling\nnewspapers. There were several simple prints and chromos in the window,\nreproductions from pictures of Jewish life. Parents blessing their\nchildren on the Day of Atonement, the Feast of Passover, high priests\nlighting the candles in the temple--these were their subjects. In the\nwindows were also brass candlesticks, such as are being lighted and\nblessed on the eve of each Sabbath. We stood outside and mused.\n\n\"This,\" Keidansky explained, \"is the leading Jewish book-store in\nBoston, and it is in a sense also the spiritual centre of this Ghetto.\nIf any one were to ask me what is to-day the moral condition of the\nJews, their spiritual state, what are their intellectual status and\nreligious aspirations, if any one should ask me--I would take them into\nthis store and let them see what it contains. Religion, history,\nliterature--it is all in here--at least in all its physical\nmanifestations. Pentateuchs, Bibles, prayer-books, all books of\nreligious instruction, books of piety and penance, volumes of the\nTalmud and of Mishna, phylacteries and holy scrolls, covers for the\nscrolls and curtains for the Holy Ark, ram's horns to sound on New\nYear's, knives wherewith to kill cattle according to a merciful ritual,\ncandle-sticks and show-threads which the Jews were commanded to wear at\nthe bottom of their garments (and some of them now wear under their\ngarments)--in a word, all that stands to preserve the old faith is here.\nAll the symbolism of our old faith is here incarnated. And yet side by\nside with these are the things which tend towards the transformation or\ndissolution of the ancient religion--the publications of the radicals,\nthe destroying utterances of the revolutionists. Here come the orthodox\nfor prayer-books and the anti-religious for free-thought pamphlets. Here\nyou find the organs of the patriots and Zionists, who wish to preserve\nand regenerate the Jewish people, and also the organs of the Socialists\nand Anarchists who are fighting against all national ideas and for an\nassimilated humanity. Come in and I'll show you. There is the 'Zukunft'\n(Future), the best literary and scientific monthly we ever had, which is\npublished by the Socialists. It was formerly edited by Abe Cahan, now\nDr. Caspe has charge of it. And look! 'Die Freie Arbeiter Stimme,' the\nAnarchist weekly, ably edited by S. Yanofsky, one of the cleverest\nYiddish writers.\n\n\"And,\" my friend whispered, \"this old lady, who stands for all that is\npious and ancient, handing out the 'Freie Arbeiter Stimme' and the\nSocialist 'Vorw\u00e4rts,' is to me as strongly dramatic and as profoundly\nsymbolic a picture as any thing in life and literature. Mr. Bersowsky,\nwho started this store, now sells books, it is hoped, in a better world.\nLook at this young old woman--his widow--and see if hearts ever break\naround here. The aged lady is his mother, and she would not be in any\nother place in the world, except where her husband, and afterwards her\nson spent their last days. So she stays here all the time the store is\nopen, and sells papers and books in spite of protests.\n\n\"The Jew is so practical that he always looks ahead; he is chronically\noptimistic, and his imagination creates everything that the world denies\nhim. Dreamer he has been ever since the prophets, and even before their\ntime. It must have been superb idealism and beautiful faith which\nenabled him to loan money to his neighbors during the Middle Ages. It\nstill requires fine imagination to do it to-day.\n\n\"Between the sordid and the sublime stands the Jew, who is either one or\nthe other, or both, as circumstances shape his destiny. You can see this\nin all his literature, from the stories of Motke Chabad to the plays of\nJacob Gordin.\n\n\"Is it not strange how quickly we adapt ourselves, and how soon we come\nup to date and ahead of date? But yesterday we had no literature except\nour religious guides, our only beacon lights in the old-world Ghettos;\nand now we have splendid modern works, both in Hebrew and Yiddish, all\nbreathing the modern spirit. Many standard works from all European\ntongues have been translated for us; but we have a number of great\nmasters of our own. It is such a short time ago that we had no fiction\nto speak of us (except the sermons of our preachers); and now there is\nAbromowitz and Peretz, Spector and Rubenowitz, and so many others. There\nis a whole group of modern poets, who have also grown up in no time. And\nthe struggle between the old and the new, which this literature\nrepresents, the striving for the modern, and the longing for the\nancient--that is what makes it so painful and pleasant--so stirring, and\ntherefore such good art. All grades of feeling and believing, thinking\nand non-thinking, are in the books and periodicals that you find in this\nstore. And the men and women who come here, living in the same Ghetto,\nare often millions of miles apart in their ideas.\"\n\nMy guide asked for his book, a Hebrew story, by L. M. Lillenblum. The\nelderly man, who is a relative of the family and a partner in the\nbusiness, knew all about it, found it after a long search, and made my\nfriend happy. The story, I was told, was written about twenty years ago\nby a native of Keidan. At that time there was a general literary\nawakening, and many talented men wrote profane and useful books in the\nholy language, and shocked the orthodox Jews of Russia. In Keidan, they\nwanted to excommunicate the author of \"The Follies of My Youth\"; but\nthe rabbi of Kovno telegraphed, saying that the infidel was a great man,\nand should be left alone--with his book. An old man came in, and after\nmuch bargaining, bought a silk praying-shawl. Several persons came in\nfor papers. A young man bought the \"Zukunft\" and \"The Merchant of\nVenice\" translated in blank verse, by Joseph Bovshover.\n\nHe wore glasses, long hair, carried an umbrella and a green bag; in\nfact, one might have met him in a vegetarian restaurant. He was pointed\nout to me as a noted radical, a dreamer, who writes for the \"Vorw\u00e4rts,\"\nworks as a tailor in a sweat-shop, and is said to be writing a book. A\ncomely young maiden, with a madonna-like face, came near the store. She\nhad a few mayflowers in her hand--and gave them to a ragged little child\nstanding there. She came in and bought a paper. She did not read\nYiddish; but it was for her father. She was a college student, I was\ntold, of advanced ideas, but deeply in love with the people of the\nGhetto and their beliefs--was planning to devote her life to settlements\nand social reform work--one of the many dreamers who came into this\nstore.\n\n\"Once,\" said my guide, \"I told her that I would put her into a book.\n'Thank you,' she answered. 'I don't want to sink into oblivion so soon.'\nBut she is an idyl of the Ghetto just the same. Look; here are the poems\nof David Edelstaat. He sleeps now in a lonely grave in the Jewish\ncemetery at Denver, Colorado, by the side of the fence, for he was a\ndelinquent in Israel. He went there by way of the corroding sweat-shop\nand a damp cellar in New York, where he edited a little communist\nweekly. Many of our idealists go to Denver this way. It is the only time\nthey travel and take a vacation. The hospitals there are crowded. But\nEdelstaat's poems, they are a sacred treasure among the Jewish working\npeople.\"\n\n\n\n\nXX\n\nThe Purpose of Immoral Plays\n\n\nThe smoke was so thick and the din so heavy, that I did not see him when\nI came in and barely heard his shouted greeting. Such was the crowded\ncondition of the regular resort on Saturday night; yet I found Keidansky\ntucked up in a corner of the caf\u00e9, \"oblivious to the obvious,\" around\nhim, with a pile of newspapers in his hands. \"The group\" had not as yet\nassembled, so my friend was reading.\n\n\"This has been a great week,\" he said with gladsome emphasis, after we\nhad exchanged courtesies. I at once suspected what he meant.\n\n\"A great week,\" I said, \"because you have been able to see humanity\npiteously dissected, human beings mercilessly analyzed, souls stript of\ntheir raiment, wounded and bleeding, our fellow-men on exhibition,\ncrippled by custom and walking on the crutches of convention, our best\narrangements of life held up to ridicule and scorn. A great week,\" I\nsaid, \"because you have fed on tragedy like a fiend?\"\n\n\"Yes, there is something sad about tragedy,\" answered Keidansky,\nignoring my bitterness, \"but the man who sees things clearly, who looks\na long distance behind the scenes, the man who sees the worst and does\nnot die, but lives to cast his observations into a perfect work, and to\nlift you up to the mountain-top with him, is not this man great and\ngladdening? Is there not cause for exultation in a really big tragedy?\nAnd this is saying but little about the \u00e6sthetic pleasure of a story\ntold in heart-breaking and soul-stirring manner,\" he added. \"Some one\nmust do this work, and it makes one feel real good when the right man\ncomes along.\n\n\"The saddest stories are yet to be told, before there can be much more\nhappiness in the world. We can never reach the heights until we realize\nthe depths. As for myself, I give all the world to the man who can make\nit better than it is. And such works are making the longed-for\nimprovement, by performing the miracle of making men and women think,\ndoing this, not by any pedantic preachments, but by the power of\nsuggestiveness and the large vision of the newer and truer art. Art with\na purpose? But all art has this purpose. And the less the purpose is\nconsciously inculcated into art, the better is that purpose carried out.\nThey call them problem plays, but was there ever a great play without\nsome sort of problem in it? Without some burning question of life, and\nlove, and death? What's that? Immoral? Was there ever a masterly and\nmastering work that was not immoral, according to the popular judgments?\nWas there ever a work with a big purpose that conformed to the critics\nand to current lack of opinions? Could there be much of a purpose to\nanything that did not shock the world's conspiracy of cowardice they\ncall morality? _Gott ist mit dir!_ You must go abroad and take some\ncure. You have been reading the American dramatic critics. It was a\ngreat week, I say, with Ibsen and Bj\u00f6rnson, Sudermann and Pinero, and\ntwo wonderful artists to interpret them, but the pleasure was very much\nspoiled for me by some of these critics. Ah, these poor critics. Here\nare the papers, and I can still hear them choking and croaking and\ncackling, and my heart goes out to them and turns sick. What a wonderful\nlot of fellows they are. What endless platitudes and empty phrases--full\nof nonsense--they have delivered themselves of this week, yet I don't\nthink they are any the wiser for it. I know one of the fraternity (there\nis sufficient disagreement between themselves to be called a fraternity)\nwho is a perfect genius. With one stroke of his mighty pen he once\nannihilated Ibsen, Echegaray, Astrowsky, Paul Hervieue and Edward\nMartyn. It was all 'morbid trash,' he said of a series of their plays,\nand it is strange that these men are still heard of occasionally. That\nwas after the John Blair experiment, and I walked into this critic's\noffice and made a few extemporaneous remarks. He said I ought to have\nmore respect for a man who can get as much advertising for his paper as\nhe can. Of course, this was indisputable. It would take so little\ncourage to do it, yet they dare not think their own thoughts, the dear,\ndear critics. No, there is not any use in trying to reason with them,\nbut I sometimes would like to get them all together in one room and\ngive them all a sound horsewhipping.\n\n\"One of the critics, who writes in silk gloves, swears in the most\nperfect, correct English, and compares every play he sees to something\nof Shakespeare, objects to 'The Second Mrs. Tanqueray' as an immoral\nplay. The dissection of this woman's heart and mind, he protests, is not\nthe proper business of the dramatist, nor is the inspection of his\ndissecting table after the job has been done a proper amusement for\ntheatrical spectators. 'A process of repentance and purification' and\nthat sort of thing, on the part of this unfortunate, must be indicated,\nif art is to approach this kind of life. The entire scheme of ethics is\nbad. Yet the critic admits that the performance was terrible and\ntouching, and that Mrs. Campbell--Heaven bless her for coming to see\nus--won a remarkable and complete victory in the part; altogether he\npraises her very generously.\n\n\"Now, what I say is this. If we can be moved and stirred by an immoral\nplay, there is either something the matter with our morality, or there\nis something radically wrong with our hearts. I must recall to you the\nlines of Stephen Crane. 'Behold the grave of a wicked man, and near is a\nstern spirit. There came a drooping maid with violets, but the spirit\ngrasped her arm. \"No flowers for him,\" he said. The maid wept: \"Oh, I\nloved him.\" But the spirit grim and frowning: \"No flowers for him.\"\n\n\"Now, this is it. 'If the spirit was just, why did the maid weep?' If\nour standard of morality is right, why do our hearts go out for Paula\nTanqueray, for Nora Helmer, for Mad Agnes? Is it because we have become\nso humane as to be far ahead of our morality? What does it mean, anyway?\nWe are told that the contents of the plays seen here last week, are not\nfit subjects for the drama. Well, art might as well go out of business,\nif it is not going to look life squarely in the face, if it is not going\nto sound the very depths of things, and mirror conditions as they are\nto-day, for modern humanity. The play in particular, it is clear, must\ndeal with the intense efforts, the dramatic essences of life; the play\nin particular will have nothing to do unless it takes up the crucial\nconditions, the large realities, the stirring struggles, the sterling\naspirations of the clashing life of to-day under the new and as yet\nunadjusted surroundings. The drama must take up shame and crime, error\nand suffering, or there is no plot for a great play anywhere. The few\npretty, romantic, silly stories have been told over and over again. Now\nwe have grown. There is a larger life before us, and we want something\nstronger. We must have plays to educate our critics,--if that is\npossible.\n\n\"'He who is without sin among ye, let him cast the first stone.' If\nChrist had said nothing else, would not this have made him a great man?\nYet after eighteen hundred years it is necessary for another Jew, a\nPortuguese Jew named Pinero, to say the same thing through the medium of\na play, because the Christians say that Christ's teachings are immoral.\nAnd then the stones of the critics are thrown at Pinero.\"\n\nHere I said something about the relation between art and morality, but\nKeidansky protested.\n\n\"Art has nothing to do with morality,\" he said, \"and therefore it\nteaches such great moral lessons. It re-creates and reproduces Nature\nand life in forms of beauty and power. And because it approaches\nelementary conditions without bias and preconceived notions, and\nillumines its material with the touch of human genius, it shows us life\nin its largeness, right in its relativeness, and raises us above our\nestablished moralities. Because art is the spontaneous expression of the\nhumane, the true, the good and the beautiful in our souls, it helps us\nto see the larger rights, the greater justice, and helps us to make,\nchange and advance our morality. Art touches the commonplace and makes\nit divine. It makes a saint out of a sinner by showing causes, and\ncasting a kindly light over human weakness.\n\n\"In real life 'The Second Mrs. Tanqueray' is a shameful scandal, to be\nexploited by sensational newspapers, and we avoid the parties concerned\nand run away from them; but art raises the story to the height of the\ntragic and the epic, and we suffer and grieve with Paula, and even the\ncold critic, who tries so hard not to be humane, is moved. In life we\nare even afraid to mention the names of such people; but art makes us\nweep for Camille, sympathize with Sapho, be sad, or gay, with the\nvagabond Fran\u00e7ois Villon, sigh for Denise, grieve with Don Jos\u00e9, and\nfollow Manon Lescaut through the desert of North America. Art helps us\nto realize that there is no sin but error, no degradation but dulness of\nthe mind, no vice but lack of vision.\n\n\"I don't want to speak to you because you did not go to see Bj\u00f6rnson's\n'Beyond Human Power' and Mrs. Campbell's acting in that piece. Yet since\nyou did not go you ought to be enlightened. You have read the story? Did\nyou see how the critics dodged the issues of the play, beating about the\nbush and puzzling each other? A case of faith and reason, you know, and\nyou mustn't talk about these things. A blind leader of the blind, a man\nwho 'lacks the sense of reality' and sees only what he wishes to see; a\nwoman of intellect who wastes her love on him; unbelieving children of a\nmiracle worker; the clash between the new and the old; the decrepitude\nof orthodoxy; the contrast between the master and his disciples and who\ncan never realize the impossible, unnatural ideals; the faith that\nkills. The play has all the tragedy of a dying religion, and the last\nact is as powerful as anything I have ever seen anywhere. What does it\nmean? To me it indicates the dying of the old Christianity, and I\nbelieve that Bj\u00f6rnson, unlike Ibsen, is a Christian. The quiet, subdued,\nsubtle work of Mrs. Campbell was worthy of the play.\n\n\"And there was Henrik Ibsen's 'A Doll's House.' I shall never forget\nthe performance of it. What a simple story, how concise and terse, not a\nsuperfluous word in the whole of it, yet how strong and stirring! It is\nprimarily a picture, a powerful dramatic picture without a shadow of\npreachiness in it. You say there is a problem in it? Yes, but it's in\nthe picture, the picture is the problem. Here is a perfect work of a\ngreat master, if there ever was one. There are whole cities made up of\nsuch dolls' houses, with women as playthings, toys, means of amusement,\nslaves of conventionality and of slavish men, yet the critics are\ncroaking and raising the cry of 'immorality.' Save on the New York East\nSide Ghetto, Ibsen is comparatively unknown in America, but it is not\ntrue that the American people are not interested in his plays whenever\nthey are given and that they would not go to see them if more of them\nwere performed. In saying so the critics say what is not true, as was\nmanifest from the enthusiastic audiences at the last week's\nperformances. There is a Yiddish translation of the play by the poet\nMorris Winchewsky, and it was performed by Mr. and Mrs. Jacob P. Adler,\nbut I have never seen it. Mrs. Fiske's 'Nora' is positively great. Her\ndelicacy, her mastery of light and shade, her manner of speech and\npoise, and on the whole her perfect conception of the character is a\nstroke of genius. Why did you not see it? Do you want to go? You can pay\nfor my lunch. Ibsen and Bj\u00f6rnson have impoverished me this week.\"\n\n\"So you don't think much of the American critics?\" I asked at this\npoint.\n\n\"On the contrary,\" he said, \"with the exception of some, I think they\nare all good advertising agents.\"\n\n\n\n\nXXI\n\nThe Poet and the Problem\n\n\nThis time I met Keidansky in front of the Jewish theatre. He had just\nleft the rehearsal of a play which he had translated from the German\ninto Yiddish. As I approached he pointed to a huge sign on top of the\nbuilding across the street advertising, in a pretty jingle of rhymes, a\nnew biscuit of undreamed of deliciousness.\n\n\"I have solved the problem,\" he said proudly. This was not such a\nsurprise to me. To solve problems was my friend's business.\n\n\"What problem is that?\" I asked.\n\n\"The problem of the poet,\" he answered. \"After the ages of oppression,\npersecution and poverty, after the exiles, insults and negligence of\ncenturies, the poet will at last come into his own, into bread and\nbutter and a respected position in society. Immunity from starvation,\npeace, prosperity will at last be his. His worth will be recognized and\nhe will be put to work and made a useful member of society.\"\n\n\"What will he do?\" I asked.\n\n\"He will write the advertisements for manufacturers and storekeepers,\"\nsaid Keidansky; \"he will sing the song of the products of modern\nindustry, chant of the wonderful performances of the age and glorify the\nfruits of our civilization, extol the things of use and of beauty that\nserve the needs of to-day's humanity. This will be an ample theme for\nhis Muse and the guerdon of his song will be tangible. His talents will\nserve a great practical need. He will prove at last that there is some\nadvantage in genius. The world, the world of reality, of facts, figures\nand statistics will no longer ask, 'What's the use of poetry?' The world\nwill recognize its usefulness, and commerce and trade and capital shall\nbecome its friends. In graceful rhymes, in silvery stanzas, in beautiful\nverses will the poet voice the marvels of all the results of the\ninventiveness, ingenuity and skill with which our era is so richly\nblessed. And whatever article on the market will be the burden of his\nsong, it will bring good prices and make easy the life of the singer.\nAnd people will no longer have to strain their eyes to find the poet's\nlines in an obscure corner of a magazine, or in a little volume of tiny\ntype; the bards will no longer have to depend upon such poor methods of\nattracting attention.\n\n\"In great, glaring, garish and golden letters their poems will look down\nupon people from the rooftops, from the high walls of factories and\nbarns, from fences and huge signs by all the roadsides, railroad sides,\nmountain sides, seasides, and all sides, and people will be compelled to\nlook up to them, because there will be nowhere else to look. There will\nbe no escape. The large letters painted in glowing colors and with their\nartistic arrangement will arrest the attention of all. And when a\nforeigner will come here to study this country and write it up, he will\nnot be able to see anything on account of these signs which will cover\nthe land, and after reading the inscriptions upon them, he will go forth\nsaying that it is the most poetic country in the whole world. So\ninspired will the stranger become that he will go forth and tell the\nworld of the wonderful things we make and advertise here. Thus poetry,\nat last, become useful, will help us conquer the foreign market. After\nall, the bards will come down from the clouds and the garrets of\nstarvation, and in their song embrace the whole world; celebrate the\nthings concrete, material and real. Poetry and the world will at last\nbecome reconciled; spirit and substance will be united to the practical\nadvantage of the spirit.\n\n\"For too long a time has the poet wandered about in distress, begging\nfor a pittance, persecuted everywhere, singing his song for nothing,\nwith starvation and inspiration as his only rewards. For too long a time\nhas the poet, 'the unacknowledged legislator of the world,' been\nsubjected to all manner of scorn, persecution, calumny, and been\ncompelled to seek in vain some one who will pay well for a dedication of\nhis work. His own lot was ever hard, and, besides, he suffered all the\nsorrows of humanity. He lived with all and grieved with all. He put his\nlife into his songs, yet few paid any heed to them. Poets have ever been\nthe victims of the prosiness of things. The world was ever ugly to them\nbecause they made it so beautiful. No matter how great their\nimmortality, they never could pay their rent. 'A genius is an accused\nman,' said Victor Hugo in his book on Shakespeare, and then he goes on\nto enumerate all the banishments, persecutions, imprisonments and\noutrages that were heaped upon the poets of all lands and all ages,\nincluding Victor Hugo himself. Yes, a poet has ever been an accused man,\nand nearly every one has found him guilty. But as I say, these cruelties\nhad for too long been practised upon the singers and the time has come\nfor a change. With the advance of civilization he will be given useful\nemployment, a decent wage, and thus enabled to make a living without\nworking overtime. Richard Le Gallienne shall weep no more for a\ngovernment endowment for the poet. The poet shall become\nself-supporting. He will sing of things whereof the owners can afford to\npay for the song. Whether he will create immortal works or not he will\nwork, and work is immortal. It will continue unto the end of time.\"\n\nHere I wished to remonstrate, but Keidansky would not permit me. He\ncontinued, as we walked along through the Ghetto.\n\n\"The human and other machines of the age are bringing such wonderful\nthings into existence, and the poet will lift his voice in praise of\nthem. It really takes the imagination of a poet to picture and glorify\nthe countless commodities that are manufactured and put upon the markets\nof our time. It takes a poet to point out their usefulness. What will he\nnot sing of on those huge street signs and in the double-page\nadvertisements in the newspapers? Of pre-digested foods, of squeezeless\ncorsets, of baking powder that bakes the cakes without any form of heat,\nof ink that endows the pen with brains, of cigars that are conducive to\nhealth, of watches that make people up to date, of a hair restorer that\nkeeps the hair you have, of shoes with which you can walk in the air, of\nclothes that make man and woman out of nothing, pianos that make\nPaderewskys, of bicycles and typewriters, and razors and house-lots and\nfurniture, and peerless, rare, surpassing, extraordinary everything\nmentionable. What will he not sing of? These things will be. God will\nsend us a Bobby Burns and he will sing the song of the best steamship\ncompany, and he will not only be able to go abroad often, but he may in\nthe course of time even become the general passenger agent. It takes a\ncompetent fortune to escape the materialism of the age, and to acquire\nthis the poet will associate himself with the material interests of the\ntime and become as free as a bird in the woods.\n\n\"The process has begun, and already one finds pretty little poems and\nfine sentiments in all advertisements, particularly those that meet\none's eyes in the street cars. I usually have a book with me on the\ncars, but of late I find the advertisements more amusing. Pretty soon\nthe best literature will appear in the advertisements of all\npublications. One firm advertises in choice epigrams, which show the\npossibilities for some future wits. I do not know whether they are\nwritten by Elbert Hubbard or not, but they sound like it and show which\nway things are going.\n\n\"This is the solution of the problem of the poet. I pondered over it\nlong, but found it at last. Our hope comes from Parnassus. The poets\nwill help us conquer the foreign market.\"\n\n\n\n\nXXII\n\n\"My Vacation on the East Side\"\n\n\n\"Green fields, fair forests, singing streams, pine-clad mountains,\nverdant vistas--from the monotony of the city to the monotony of nature.\nI wanted a complete change, and so I went to the East Side of New York\nfor my vacation. That is where I have been.\"\n\nThus did our friend explain his strange disappearance and unusual\nabsence from Boston for a whole week. For the first time since he came\nhere from New York he had been missing from his home, his regular\nhaunts, such as the caf\u00e9s, Jewish book-stores and the debating club, and\nnone of those whom I asked knew whither he had betaken himself. The\ndirect cause of his disappearance, explained Keidansky, was a railroad\npass, which he had secured from a friendly editor for whom he had done\nsome work. He went on explaining. \"I wanted to break away for awhile\nfrom the sameness and solemnness, the routine and respectability of this\ntown, from my weary idleness, empty labors, and uniformity of our ideas\nhere, so when the opportunity was available I took a little journey to\nthe big metropolis. One becomes rusty and falls into a rut in this\nsuburb. I was becoming so sedate, stale and quiet that I was beginning\nto be afraid of myself. The revolutionary spirit has somewhat subsided.\nMany of the comrades have gone back on their ideas, have begun to\npractise what they preach, to improve their conditions by going into\nbusiness and into work, and I often feel lonely. Anti-imperialism,\nChristian Science and the New Thought are amusing; but there is not\nenough excitement here. Boston is not progressive; there are not enough\nforeigners in this city. People from many lands with all sorts of ideas\nand the friction that arises between them--that causes progress. New\nYork is the place, and it is also the refuge of all radicals,\nrevolutionaries and good people whom the wicked old world has cast out.\nAmerica, to retain its original character, must constantly be\nreplenished by hounded refugees and victims of persecution in despotic\nlands. To remain lovers of freedom we must have sufferers from\noppression with us. Sad commentary, this, upon our human nature; but so\nare nearly all commentaries upon human nature. Commentaries upon the\nsuperhuman are tragic. New York with its Germans and Russians and Jews\nis a characteristic American city. Boston and other places are too much\nlike Europe--cold, narrow and provincial. I came to Boston some time ago\nbecause I had relatives here--the last reason in the world why any one\nshould go anywhere; but I was ignorant and superstitious in those days.\nI have since managed to emancipate myself, more or less, from the\nbaneful influences of those near; but meanwhile I have established\nmyself, have become interested in the movements and institutions of the\ncommunity, and here I am. The symphony concerts, the radical movement,\nthe library, lectures on art, the sunsets over the Charles River, the\nFaneuil Hall protest meetings against everything that continues to be,\nthe literary paper published, the Atlantic Monthly, Gamelial Bradford,\nPhilip Hale and so many other fixtures of Boston have since endeared it\nto me and I stayed. Besides, it would cost me too much to ship all my\nbooks to New York.\n\n\"But wishing a change, I wanted to go to the big metropolis. No, not to\nthe country; not for me those parasitic, pestering and polished summer\nhotels, where a pile of people get together to gossip and giggle and\ngormandize and bore each other for several weeks. An accident once\nbrought me to one of these places. I went out to see some friends, and I\nknow what they are. They spend most of their time dressing; these\nvacationists dress three times a day; the green waist, and yellow waist,\nthe brown skirt and the blue suit, the red jacket, the white hat, and\nthe gray coat, and then the same turn over again; they fill themselves\nwith all sorts of heavy and unwholesome foods brought from the cities;\nthey sit around the verandas and talk all day, never daring to venture\ninto the woods; they do no good to themselves, coming home tired and\nsick, and they do unspeakable wrong by turning good, honest farmers into\nparasitic, sophisticated boarder-breeders, and by turning them away from\nthe tilling of the soil. No more of these places for me. Of course, if\none could go into the woods and live as simply as a savage for awhile\nit would be fine; but one needs a tent, and I never did own any real\nestate.\n\n\"But this time I wanted a complete change; I wanted something to move\nand stir me out of the given groove, the beaten path I was falling into,\nsome excitement that would shake the cobwebs out of my brain, so I\nturned towards the East Side.\n\n\"They are all there, the comrades, the radicals, the red ones, and\ndreamers; people who are free because they own nothing. Poets,\nphilosophers, novelists, dramatists, artists, editors, agitators and\nother idle and useless beings, they form a great galaxy in the New York\nGhetto. For several years, ever since I left New York, I had been\nreceiving instruction and inspiration from them through the medium of\nthe Yiddish and the Socialist press, where my own things often appeared\nbeside their spirited outpourings, and now I was overcome by an\noverpowering desire to meet them again, talk matters over and fight it\nall out. There is no sham about the East Side branch of the ancient and\nmost honorable order of Bohemians--the little changing, moving world\nthat is flowing with the milk of human kindness and the honey of\nfraternal affections, where those who live may die and those who die may\nlive. Here among the East Side Bohemians people feel freely, act\nindependently, speak as they think and are not at all ashamed of their\nfeelings. They have courage. They wear their convictions in public. They\ndo as they please, whether that pleases everybody else or not. They\ntalk with the purpose of saying something. They write with the object of\nexpressing their ideas. They tell the truth and shame those who do not.\nHearts are warm because they own their souls. Those who really own their\nsouls will never lose them. As Joseph Bovshover, the fine poet of the\nEast Side has sung:\n\n\n     '_Beauty hideth,_\n     _Nature chideth,_\n     _When the heart is cold;_\n     _Fame is galling,_\n     _Gold's enthralling,_\n     _When the mind is sold._'\n\n\n\"They all assemble in the caf\u00e9s, those universities of the East Side,\nand in these places of judgment all things are determined. Is there a\ngreat world problem that puzzles and vexes all mankind? The debaters at\none of these tea-houses take it up at their earliest discussion and soon\nthe problem is solved and the way of human progress is clear again. Is\nthere a question that has troubled the ages? Come and spend fifteen\nminutes on the East Side, and the salvation of humanity will be assured\nto you. There is so much squalor and suffering and sorrow here that\nnothing can overcome the optimism of these chosen people. Their\nincurable faith cannot be shaken even by their religious leaders, and\nwhen they become atheists they are the most pious atheists in all the\nworld. But in the caf\u00e9s the great issues given up in despair by famous\nstatesmen are met and decided upon. The trusts? Are they not paving the\nway for the realization of Socialism? Not until all the industries have\nbeen concentrated by the trusts will the people through the government\nbe able to take possession of them. Otherwise, how in the world will the\nnew r\u00e9gime, for instance, ever organize and take hold of all the peanut\nstands of the land? You do not understand the question thoroughly if you\nhave not read the articles of I. A. Hurwitz in the 'Vorwarts.' The\nfuture of war? There will be no war in the future. The workingmen of all\ncountries are uniting and so are the capitalists. The international\nmovement is not laboring in vain. Socialism is spreading in the European\narmies. Every government will have enough trouble in its own land.\nOthers come here and say that every government will have to fight for\nits own life and will not be able to do anything else. People will take\nTolstoy's advice and cease to pay taxes and withdraw their support from\nthe powers that rule. Tolstoy, say some, is a masterful artist, but\npuerile as a philosopher, a curious mixture of genius and\nnarrow-mindedness, a man, who once having erred, now sins against\nmankind by denying it the right of erring. The red-haired ragged orator\nwith blue eye-glasses and the face of a Hebrew Beethoven quotes\nIngersoll. 'Tolstoy,' said the agnostic, 'stands with his back to the\nrising sun.' And did not Edward Carpenter say of Tolstoy's book, 'that\nstrange jumble of real acumen and bad logic, large-heartedness and\nfanaticism--What is art?'\n\n\"Ibsen is somber because he is almost alone in seeing the most tragic\nphases of life, because he feels compelled to treat what all other\nartists have neglected. Many of his plays are too much like life to be\nacted, and we go to the theatre only to see plays. One of the listeners\nspeaks of the appreciation of Ibsen in 'The New Spirit,' by Havellock\nEllis, and of the analogy that he finds between Ibsen and Whitman.\nZangwill places Ibsen above Shakespeare, and more recently he has\nbestowed great praise upon Hauptmann. Rather strange of Zangwill, who is\nhimself not a realist and has gone in for Zionism, to like Ibsen so\nmuch. And who is greater than Ibsen? some one asks. 'Perhaps it is I.\nZangwill,' says the cynical, frowzy and frowning little journalist. G.\nBernard Shaw is mentioned as a candidate, and his great little book on\nIbsenism comes in for a heated discussion. Brandes is quoted, and\nseveral of his admirers present go into ecstasies over his works and\nalmost forget the writers whom he has treated. The pale-faced,\nwistful-eyed poet with the Christlike face rises high on the wings of\nhis eloquence in praise of the Danish critic's appreciation of Heine,\nand Brandes is declared to be one of the greatest Jews in the world.\nWhat was it Brandes said about Zionism? Zionism, Socialism and Anarchism\ncome up in turn, and so many trenchant and vital things are said on\nthese subjects. Will the novel pass away? The dramatist--bulky and\nbearded, impressive and strong-looking, with wonderful piercing\neyes--the dramatist is inclined to think that it will. The short story\nis the story of the future. Long novels give one a glimpse of eternity.\nBy the time you come to the last chapter, conditions have so changed in\nthe world that you do not know whether the story is true to life or not.\nIt is the necessarily historical, the long novel is. Old Jules Verne has\nwon the East Side over with the fine words he has said on Guy De\nMaupassant. Some admirers of Z. Libin say that the Frenchman is too\nromantic, but on the whole he is the favorite story-writer. 'Yes,' says\nthe Jewish actor, 'De Maupassant writes for all the Yiddish papers'; and\nin fact all the East Side dailies have for years been treating their\nreaders to his charming tales. He may be imagined to be a constant\ncontributor. Did not an old Israelite walk into the office of the\n'Jewish Cry' and ask to see Friedrich Nietzsche? And then the problem of\nNietzsche comes up; whether he was, or was not a reaction against, or\nthe opposite extreme from, the meekness of Christianity, the weakness of\nhis time. Wagner's music, Stephen Phillips's poetry, Zola's essay on\nrealism, Maeterlinck's transcendentalism, Gorky's rise in letters, the\nAnglo-Saxon isolation in literature, Ludwig Fuldas's latest play, all\nthese things are decided upon by people who understand them, more or\nless.\n\n\"I cannot tell you more, but these meetings and these talks at various\ntimes and in various places made my vacation on the East Side\ndelightful. Then there were lectures and meetings and social gatherings\nof the comrades. The sun of new ideas rises on the East Side. Everywhere\nyou meet people who are ready to fight for what they believe in and who\ndo not believe in fighting. For a complete change and for pure air you\nmust go among the people who think about something, have faith in\nsomething. Katz, Cahan, Gordin, Yanofsky, Zolotaroff, Harkavy, Frumkin,\nKrantz, Zametkin, Zeifert, Lessin, Elisovitz, Winchevsky, Jeff,\nLeontief, Lipsky, Freidus, Frominson, Selikowitch, Palay, Barondess, and\nmany other intellectual leaders, come into the caf\u00e9s to pour out wisdom\nand drink tea, and here comes also Hutchins Hapgood to get his\neducation. Each man bears his own particular lantern, it is true, but\neach one carries a light and every one brings a man with him.\n\n\"There was that memorial mass-meeting in honor of Hirsh Leckert, the\nJewish shoemaker, who shot at the governor of Wilna, who took his life\nin hand to avenge a hideous outrage perpetrated upon his fellow-workers\nby a despicable despot. The Jewish working-people of Wilna organized a\npeaceful procession, and at the behest of the governor hundreds of them\nwere mercilessly flogged--flogged until they fainted, and when revived,\nflogged again. Then came this lowly hero, Leckert, and made a glorious\nascent on the scaffold. In the afternoon news reached the East Side\nthat Leckert was hanged. The same evening the working-people, just out\nof their factories and sweat-shops, in overwhelming numbers assembled in\nNew Irving Hall, and the fervor and enthusiasm, the sobbing and the\nsighing, the tear-stained faces and love-lit eyes--the soul-stirring\neulogies delivered--I shall never forget it. I tell you no man ever saw\nanything greater or more inspiring on his vacation.\n\n\"Mr. Jacob Gordin gave me a memorable treat, took me to see his latest\nand one of his best plays, 'Gott, Mensch, und der Teufel.' I have seen\nmany of his works and it is hard to decide which is the best because\nthey are nearly all so good. But this strange story of a Jewish Faust,\nthe pious, saintly Jew who, tempted by Satan's gold, step by step loses\nhis soul and cannot live without it; this wonderful blending of modern\nrealism and supernatural symbolism, this superb summary of man and the\nnew problem of life, the beauty and the strength of the work, is\nremarkable, to say the least. 'As in times of yore,' says Satan, 'the\nsons of Adam are divided into Abels and Cains. The former are constantly\nmurdered and the latter are the constant murderers. Gracious Lord, in\nthe new man there dwells the old savage Adam.' Sorry I cannot tell you\nmore about it now, but the last words of the play have been ringing\nthrough my mind ever since I saw it.\n\n\n     '_All must die, all that is and lives;_\n     _Life alone is immortal._\n\n     _That only is mortal that desires and strives,_\n     _The striving and the desire immortal._'\n\n\n\"Why,\" added Keidansky, as a final thunderbolt, \"I have gained enough\nideas on the East Side to last me here in Boston for ten years.\"\n\n\n\n\nXXIII\n\nOur Rivals in Fiction\n\n\n\"After all, what is man when compared to the hero of romance?\" asked\nKeidansky. \"Beside the dashing, dauntless, duelling cavalier that now\nmoves through the popular novel and struts our stage,\" he said, \"the\nordinary, mortal man of mere flesh and blood pales into insignificance.\nBeside the extraordinary exploits of the storied hero, the doings of the\nevery-day man are like the foolish games of little children, only not\nhalf so graceful. Beside the strange adventures of the leading\ncharacter, the simple efforts of earthly man are accounted as naught. It\nwould not be so bad if no one ever made comparisons, but women do, and\nso men are always found wanting, and have a harrowing time of it.\n\n\"In the epic, the drama, the novel, the hero has nothing else to do but\nto make love, to deliver pretty speeches, perform remarkable feats and\nlook graceful, and so he is ever so attractive. He plays upon the\nhearts, takes hold of the minds, fastens himself upon the imaginations\nof the gentle fair and fanciful. He knows just what to say, just what to\ndo, and just where to go, just when to return, and is always so\npunctual--appears just in the nick of time to save as many lives as are\nin danger. He becomes a model, a type, that the lady fair goes in quest\nof, when the play is over, or the novel is ended. She turns to life for\nthe realization.\n\n\"In real life the young man has other things to do than making love,\nposing prettily, whispering sweet somethings, framing compliments and\nacting the gallant and defender of the fair and perfectly safe. He has\nother things to do than wearing fine clothes and winning smiles. In real\nlife he has a real battle to fight. In real life he cannot always look\nneat, act aptly, prate loudly, and say the improper thing at the proper\ntime. The improper thing at the proper time--that is the secret of\ngenius. Things are not so smooth in life. The guidance of Providence is\nnot so clear as are the directions of the playwright and novelist. Hard\nto tell just what to do, just what to say, just where to go, and just\nwhen to swear with impunity. Human beings are clumsy, awkward, uncouth.\nLife is an embarrassing affair. To observe all the niceties is madness,\nnot to observe them is to be sent to a madhouse. What can a man do\nagainst his all-powerful rival in fiction and the drama. His course is\nclear, but we walk in darkness. The ways of God are mysterious, the ways\nof men are crooked, and then--we are told to find the way. No matter how\nmuch you stand on ceremony you are likely to slip and fall anyway. Life\nis a labyrinth for which there is no specific geography.\n\n\"To state the matter more definitely, the problem is this: A young man\nspends a half of his week's wages, takes the lady of his heart's desire\nto the theatre--and she falls in love with the hero of the play--the\nomnipresent, omnipotent hero. His every look, every word, every gesture,\nevery step, every venture--it is just too lovely for anything. Oh, it is\nadorable, entrancing! And the young man who took her to the theatre, the\nyoung man who really exists, what does he amount to? What a puny dwarf\nhe becomes beside the great giant of the drama. Who can say things so\nsweetly, so smoothly, so sonorously, as the leading character or\ncharacters in a play? Who can do things so neatly, so masterfully, and\nsurmount such overwhelming difficulties in the twinkling of an eye? Such\nmagnetic, magnanimous, majestic figures! It was after a pretty love\nscene on the stage that I once heard a lady sitting near me say to her\ncompanion, 'Oh, if some one would say \"my dear\" to me in that manner!'\nAnd perhaps the young lady will go all through life without finding the\nman, who will know enough to imitate that actor.\n\n\"A young man buys the latest and most loudly advertised historical novel\nand sends it to the lady of his dreams. On the next evening when he\ncalls she is so absorbed, so immersed in the book that she hardly has\nanytime to speak to him. When she does look up from the tome she tells\nhim all about the hair-raising hero, Count de Mar. 'He is a man,' she\nsays, and so goes on to relate about his mighty exploits. There is\nnothing worth while in all the world except a man like Count de Mar.\nImagine, if you can, how the young man feels. And the lady chases the\nphantom of Count de Mar in real life until she becomes a shadow of her\nformer self, and the young man goes through existence cursing the\nhistorical novel in general and Count de Mar in particular. What else\nbut misery should there be for mere man of mere reality? What is he\nbeside such lords of creation as Count de Mar, Richard Carvel, Ralph\nPercy, Ralph Marlow, Stephen Brice, Clayton Halowell, Charley Steele,\nJean Hugon, Marmaduke Howard, Count Karobke, Boris Godofsky, Louis De\nLamoy, General Kapzen, Prince Meturof--what is he beside these?\nEverything is so small in life, in books things are so big. The world is\nalready created, but fiction is still being written. If Adam were\ncreated by a novelist he would have fared much better. The story would\nnever have ended happily. These wonderful heroes, what fine means they\nhave, what splendid opportunities, what glorious achievements, what\ngreat accomplishments are theirs. They can do just as they please, have\nfortunes to squander, and riot in luxuries. They are all born rich, or\ntheir rich relatives die early, and in good will.\n\n\"In reality it is so different. We have to work for a living and poverty\nis our reward. In real life we have to write historical novels for a\nliving. We have to write popular plays and pretty poems and sugarcoated\nstories. Yes, such is life, and there is poverty and the misery of the\nmasses, and there are social problems and political evils--things\nunknown in the average novel, and in popular art generally. We must do\nso much that is irksome in order to have a pleasurable moment.\n\n\"When Richard Mansfield was delivering those sumptuous stump speeches in\nShakespeare's spectacular melodrama of 'Henry V.' and the soldiers were\nstirred up to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, the fair fraulein in\nfront of me constantly kept saying, 'Who wouldn't fight for Harry?' Who\nwouldn't fight for Harry? A tremendous artist with superb words put into\nhis mouth by Shakespeare, with a beautiful scenic background behind him,\nwith gorgeous costumes and gleaming armor, with glowing electric lights,\nwith an army of well-drilled, well-paid supers, with all the pomp and\npower of a king on the stage--who wouldn't fight for Harry? But the\npoor, obscure, unknown Harry of real life, who faithfully fights against\npoverty, disease, despair, who battles for the right, for his honor and\nsalvation, without scenic effects, without any art, or author's\ndirections, without any light or armor, without any aid or guides,\nwithout any one to show the way--this Harry, who will fight for him? Who\ndoes not fight against him? What fair damosel will deign to smile on him\nand shed some sunshine into his life?\n\n\"This was on a street car, and I overheard a young woman say to her\nescort, 'Ah, if you would only put your gloves on as Mansfield does in\n\"Beaucaire\"!' So this was the great thing in the play--the manner in\nwhich 'Beaucaire' donned his gloves. And yet--fool that I was--I had\nwondered why an actor of Mansfield's surpassing talent should put on\nthe stage such a trivial, trashy affair. And I had gone without gloves\nall winter in order that I might be able to see Mansfield. Heavens! But\nsee, how the little niceties, the small delicacies and the petty graces\non the stage and in books eclipse all our drudging and trudging, moiling\nand toiling in real life. We are expected to observe them whatever else\nwe do. Failing in these we fail to win affections and are voted dead\nfailures. Beside these we are expected to do things that can only be\ndone in books and on the stage, under the auspices of Alexandre Dumas\nthe elder and Victor Sardou, for instance. We are expected to equal\nthose magic creatures of the imagination, the heroes with their opulent\nsupplies of good looks, words and wealth, and their strange power to do\naught on earth.\n\n\"James--we will call him that--is red-headed, freckled, plain, and\ngenerally not at all dudish. He is, however, true, loyal, devoted and\ndetermined to do some good in the world. He tries to meet her every day\nafter work. He often brings a flower with him, tucked up in his sleeve.\nOnce we saw him press it to his lips, for soon the bloom will be hers.\nBut she is reading an historical novel, and even the flower fails to\ndeliver his message and fades without fulfilling its mission. Of course,\nJames has this advantage over the ideal hero in the novel: that he\nreally exists; but what is reality to the glowing fancy of a youthful\nmaiden? And in spite of his existence, where does James come in?\n\n\"These are local and popular incidents I have mentioned, but in a\nmeasure all literature, all art has created impossible dreams,\nunattainable ideals. This is probably the reason why so many aspirations\nhave failed. They were not founded on reality. There are in life\nconsiderations 'without which the noblest dreams are a form of opium\neating.' Who knows how many have gone grieving through life because they\nhave followed the phantoms conjured up by the false standards of art?\nWith all that is great and grand, heroic and epic in real life there is\nstill such a thing as\n\n\n     '_The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard,_\n     _The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky._'\n\n\n\"Anyway, it is about time to protest against the false heroes of paper\nand ink, who cut us out of our earthly paradise, to give our rivals in\nfiction the death stab; about time to remember that that which is not\ncannot be great, and that all the beauty of this universe is in real\nlife. It is about time to deny the existence of that which does not\nexist.\n\n\"This demand for the superhuman is inhuman. We are not what we are not.\nWe cannot do what we cannot do, and these platitudes are as profound as\nthey are obvious. The weakness of the world is pointed out by its\nheromania. That we look for our heroes not in life but in artificial\ncreations shows how blind we are. The most striking sign of our\nimperfection is our longing for impossible perfection. Life has a great\ngrudge against art. It has been slighted, disregarded, abused. With its\nmisleading models it has set up an unjust competition against life. The\nhope is that the artists to come will give life a hearing and adjust\nmatters. As for the novelists, every time the good Mr. Howells\nhorsewhips the swashbucklers I heartily applaud him. But I am not going\nto lay down any principles. I don't feel like it to-day. Perhaps things\nas they were were for the best. Perhaps it is for the dreams of women\nthat there are real men in the world to-day. Perhaps it is their longing\nfor the impossible that made the best that is possible to-day. I\nsometimes think that a woman's reason is the very acme of all wisdom.\nBut I am going to treat this thing more fully in my volume of essays--if\nI ever get around to writing them.\"\n\n\n\n\nXXIV\n\nOn Enjoying One's Own Writings\n\n\nI was alone, ensconced in a corner of the noisy, smoky caf\u00e9, perusing\nthe pages of a valued volume. Keidansky walked in hastily, took up my\nbook and looked at it.\n\n\"How can you read anything that you have not written yourself?\" he\nasked, with surprising solemnity. \"Why, I don't mind it any longer; I am\nused to it now,\" I mumbled in astonishment. But conversations with\nKeidansky are one-sided. Before I had formed half a thought he was all\nready with speech.\n\n\"You are coming down, dear fellow,\" he said; \"you are compromising and\nbecoming reconciled to everything. You cannot supply your own demand, so\nyou are going elsewhere for your literature--spending on others your\ndays and your nights that you may devote to the excavations of the\nthings that lie deep and dormant within thyself. I wager that before\nlong you will even be reading the classics. You will abdicate from the\nsovereignty of your own genius, and measure life by the enjoyment that\nyou derive from the things that other people do.\n\n\"Aliens, foreigners, strangers as far away from you as different\nindividuals are, millions of miles of impassable icebergs impeding any\npossible approach. They were not born as you were born, they have not\nlived as you have lived, they have not loved as you have loved, they\nhave not hated as you have hated, they have not grappled with the\nagonies as you have, they have not died as you have over and over again,\nand yet--you read their books and pretend to enjoy them.\"\n\nI asked my friend to be seated, but he preferred to stand up, and with a\ncharacteristic wave of the hand, showed his annoyance at being\ninterrupted. \"If you have not felt what I have felt,\" he said, \"it is\nuseless for me to speak to you, and for you to enjoy what I write is\nhard and tedious labor. You cannot get behind the things others say, and\nall that remains for you to do is to read the meaning in so many words;\nand no meaning is ever absolutely uttered in so many words. There is\nalmost always something unsaid behind the thing that is said. There is\nas much in as there is out. Thought is an endless chain of which we only\nsee separate rings. We are fortunate to see that in the case of other\npersons. Most often you only hear and read their talk. But when you read\nyour own thought, you read so vastly more than you have written, and you\nread the history of your thoughts, their far-away causes, their\nprehistoric origins, and their subterranean sources--and you enjoy it.\nYou enjoy it, if you are intimately concerned in one near and dear\npersonality, in the greatest study in all mankind--yourself. Also, if\nyou are interested in the evolution of human thought, and can see it\nthrough the operations of your own mind.\n\n\"We say in Yiddish about this or that person: '_Er kumt mit sich fun\nein stedtel_.' Well, I, too, come from the same town with myself. I have\ngone through the dark labyrinth of life with myself in my hand. I have\nfelt, experienced and known the same things that Keidansky has gone\nthrough, and--frankly--I enjoy my own writings. Sometimes my favorite\nworks are my own. They move me, they stir me and they stimulate me to\nhigher things. There is a quality about them, more human, more intimate,\nmore personal, that brings them nearer to me than any other writings.\nThe pathos is so touching, the humor so rollicking, the satire so\npungent. It is all so effective, significant and strong. Words, lines,\nsentences, pages that fall flat on the ears of another, they are\npregnant with meaning, choked full of suggestion, and often so\nthrilling. That one has felt, thought, said, given birth to these\nthings, is so fine; so splendid to watch a grand procession of the\nchildren of your brain--particularly when you are intuitively convinced\nthat they are, well, a goodly and well-formed brood, and worthy of you.\nThey have to be quite robust to withstand that uncomfortable critical\nsense.\n\n\"You see, I want a personality, a man, a certain mental attitude, a\nsense of reserve force, deep-rooted sincerity and determined intentions\nbehind what I read, and I am sure of all that, in the case of my own\nwritings. This gives one a feeling of gladness and joy. In the\nproductions of others one must grope in darkness, painfully explore,\nand so often search in vain for these qualities through their mental\nmanoeuvres and spiritual contortions.\n\n\"In our own work we can easily forgive the flaws, faults and\nshortcomings. We know why they exist, and to what to attribute them; we\nrealize that they are not due to lack of talent or any cause like that.\nOur characteristic carelessness, our hasty manner, impatience at the\nslow accommodations of mere mechanical words, a desire to say too many\nthings at the same time--if it is not the one, it is the other. But we\nknow that we could do better if we wanted to; if we cared less about the\nmatter than about the form. We know that the quality is there. There is\nnothing the matter with that. But somehow we cannot account so well for\nthe crudities, defects and deformities in the performances of others,\nwhich jar upon us terribly and mar so much of our pleasure. Their\nfailings are so flagrant, their meanings so nebulous, their ideas so\nhazy. It is all so far off and so unsatisfying. Why do people write\nthings we do not like? Oh, the rogues, we answer ourselves, as the\nthought comes to us, they must be doing it for their own enjoyment. They\ncan fill in the gaps, read in everything that is lacking; they can make\nmasterpieces while they read their commonplace utterances--but we? We\nought to read our own immortal works. We ought to, if we have any\nappreciation of great literature.\n\n\"One great source of the enjoyment of our own writings is that as we\nread we remember when each thought came to us, whence each idea sprang\ninto birth, how each flying fancy originated, and every vaporous whimsy\ntook shape. We go over the old ground, tread the paths of the past\nagain, the paths overgrown with grass, or covered with the moss of the\nyears, and we live our life over again. Words, lines, paragraphs, pages;\neach turn of a phrase brings one back to some turning-point of life;\neach flash of thought is the reflection of some vital incident. Behind\nevery revolution of mind was a distinct period of evolution. Every old\ncry conjures up a crisis. That epigram sums up an entire epoch. This\npage is a condensed history of your heart. Yonder little etching, who\nknows of what stuff you have woven it? It all comes back to you so\nvividly, so graphically, so impressively. You read the things that you\nhave written, no matter how long ago, and you live your life over again.\nThe past reaches out its arms and hugs you to its tender breast again.\n\n\"One night, far away from the city, nigh by the sea, a painful silence\nwas broken by agonizing speech. One word, and the world that God had\ncreated in seven days was annihilated for you in a second. When you came\nback in the silence of a sleepless night you wrote in your note-book.\n'Our dreams are crimes for which we are punished by the harsh realities\nof the world.' See how ideas evolve! One day you were chided on the\nshortness of your stature. You said that you have not had any time to\ngrow. Later you said to some one else that the shape of one's destiny\ndepends on the management of his time.\n\n\"The origin of a thought is greater than the thought. It is often an\nentire drama; and you see it performed as you read. The crowding\nmultitudes of memories that your literary productions bring up! This was\nsuggested at a social gathering, where you felt distressingly lonely,\nand it was such a soothing consolation. It was while witnessing a play\nthat that idea came into your mind. The play was a popular success, so\nyou were thinking your own thoughts. One night at a symphony concert you\nwrote on the edge of a programme: 'Music makes mute poets of us all.'\nYou read it years after, and oh, the cherished recollections that it\nbrings up! But no one else can ever know how great that line is. Here is\nan idea that illumined your mind while in conversation with ----. There\nwere so many delightful conversations, stirring discussions, endearing\nepisodes; there were scenes that you witnessed, events transpired of\nwhich you were part; there were little dramas of which you were both the\nvillain and the hero. They have all passed away, and yet you have saved\nthem from oblivion because you have written, and they cannot die. All\nthings are immortal so long as you live. You read, and the old talks and\nthe old walks, the things that you have seen and done, the joys you have\nfelt and the sorrows you have endured come back and you enjoy them over\nagain. You find this in your writings and so much more. The net results\nof your own ruminations are so large that there is no wonder all other\nwriters suffer from the comparison. Your writings are the plants, the\nweeds and the flowers that have grown out of your life, and their aroma\nand fragrance of earliest bloom follow you to the end of your days.\nThere is that in your inner consciousness which you cannot find anywhere\nelse.\n\n\"The whole universe is within yourself; in others there is only a queer\nnotion of it. Your crudest expression has more feeling and thought\nbehind it than the most beautiful expression of others. We all cherish\nand relish our own screeds. Are we not all convinced of their merits and\nsuperior qualities? Are we not all anxious to secure editors and\npublishers? And who rejects them? These editors and the publishers, the\npeople who had nothing to do with the production of these undoubted\nworks of genius. I have piles of scraps of old bits of paper and\nnote-books up in my place, extending over a number of years. They\ncontain stray fragments of thought that I have jotted down at all places\nand seasons and under all sorts of circumstances. As I come across them\nnow and then, I not only re-experience what has long vanished, but I am\nagain exalted unto all heights of human aspiration and inspiration. The\nfoolishness and the follies, the faith and the fervor, and the blind\nhopes of my youth are mine again.\n\n\"Once I was with some Jewish actors, friends of mine, when a\nlong-bearded, old-fashioned Israelite came in to offer them a play that\nhe had written for production. It was such a touching, thrilling story,\nthe old man said, that it made him weep every time he read it--weep like\na child over the sad complications of the characters in his play. Oh, if\nhe could only see it performed, it would melt, it would break his heart.\nOh, if the actors would only take it! And as he began to read parts of\nthe first act we actually saw tears in his eyes. There you have it. What\nDickens, what Tolstoy, what Perez, what Gordin could probably not do for\nthis man, he had done for himself. His own writings made him weep.\nHonestly, now,\" Keidansky broke out violently, \"don't you enjoy your own\neffusions?\"\n\nI admitted that they often gave me pleasure, and that at other times I\nfelt strongly disappointed over them. \"Sometimes,\" I said, \"I am puzzled\nand cannot account how I have done certain things. I say to myself that\nI must have been drunk to have been so witty; or I imagine that I must\nhave been in the company of bright people to have been so dull. Often as\nI read I think that my stomach was out of order to make me so\nthoughtful. And again I am sure that I was awfully hungry to have been\nso ingenious.\" I confessed that I found it quite possible to overlook\nand forgive the faults of my own compositions, and that on the whole\nthey were not infrequently a source of pleasure to me. I ventured to say\nthat I also enjoyed a few things that other people have written.\n\n\"Well,\" said Keidansky, and then he became silent for awhile.\n\n\"Immortal works are good enough to kill time,\" he said after a pause;\n\"but my own writings for real, downright enjoyment, every time. At the\noccasion of a big convention or political gathering in a certain city\nthe newspaper correspondents, I am told, present a striking scene as\nthey assemble in the lobby of their hotel when the newspapers arrive.\nEach man rushes to the news-stand and buys 'his paper,' and loses not a\nminute before reading his own report. There they sit all together,\noblivious even of a good piece of news, should it happen to be near\nthem, each one buried in his newspaper, intently reading his complete\naccount of the stormy proceedings, and many of them cursing and swearing\nat the stupid editors, 'who left out the best things.' Editors are\nalways stupid and always leave out the best things; but if they didn't\nthey would be idiots. My point, however, is that this scene shows how\nmuch people enjoy their own writings. Each author has at least one great\nadmirer.\n\n\"And this is saying nothing of the gratification of writing, of the\nthrills of pleasure one feels, when a burst of inspiration breaks upon\nhim, of the great, unutterable moments of exultation when a new heaven\nof thoughts opens before one's mind, of the joys of perpetuating the\nevanescent and the fleeting.\"\n\nMy friend was about to enumerate some more examples, but it was growing\nlate into the night, so I said:\n\n\"But you do read some things that eminent authors have written, do you\nnot?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Keidansky, \"but merely for purposes of comparison. I want to\nsee how total is their eclipse!\"","title":"Discourses of Keidansky","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":54353}