THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 Professor 
 Benjamin A. Bernstein 
 
DISCOURSES OF KEIDANSKT 
 
 
DISCOURSESOF 
 KEIDANSKY 
 
 By Bernard G. Richards 
 
 SCOTT-THAW CO. 
 
 542 Fifth Avenue 
 NEW YORK MCMIII 
 
Copyright 1903 
 by Scott-Thaw Co. 
 
 (Incorporated) 
 
 First Edition Published 
 March 1903 
 
 The Heintzemann Press Boston 
 IOAN STACK 
 
 GIFT 
 
Note : 
 
 THE majority of these papers have appeared 
 in the Boston Evening Transcript, and 
 thanks are extended to the editors not only 
 for their permission to reprint the same, but also 
 for the many kindnesses they have shown my friend 
 Keidansky and myself. 
 
 All the papers have undergone many changes, and 
 numerous corrections and additions have been 
 made. B. G. R. 
 
 910 
 
Introductory 
 
 HERETICAL, inconoclastiCy revolutionary; 
 yet the flashing eye, the trembling hand, the 
 stirring voice held us spellbound, removed all 
 differences, and there were no longer any conservatives 
 and extremsits; only so many human beings led onward 
 and upward by a string of irresistible words. 
 " Outrageous heresies," some said, yet those who paused 
 to list en for a moment lingered longer, and as they heark 
 ened to the harangues, marked the words and followed 
 the flights of fancy, it came to them that these dreamers 
 of dreams and builders of all sorts of social Utopias up 
 on the vacant lots of the vague future; these ribald reb 
 els holding forth over their glasses of steaming Russian 
 tea in the cafes, or on the street corners under the float 
 ing red flag that they were but a continuation of the 
 prophets of old in Israel. 
 
 Those who paused to listen were loath to depart and 
 some prayed for a perpetuation of the things that came 
 out of a throbbing heart and soaring mind. Faint re 
 flections here of the outpourings of a soul, but mayhap 
 they will shed some little light upon the inner life of 
 that strange cosmos called the Ghetto and point again 
 to the Dream it has harbored and cherished through 
 the harsh realities of the centuries. 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 "Why perpetuate these things " you wrote to me "since 
 that life is so fast slipping away from under my feet; 
 practicability is urged on every hand, and to-morrow I 
 may be led under the canopy, perhaps elected to the 
 presidency of a congregation, given full charge of an 
 orthodox paper, or put into a big store on East Broad 
 way, and then, what I said would only stand out to 
 taunt and menace me about the life that could not be. 
 Besides, I may become so radical that I shall not want 
 to say anything" Tes, we change, and the castles we 
 build in the air become tenement houses, and we are 
 either the tenants, or worse, the landlords; but "life 
 has its own theories" and if the fine poetry of youth 
 be reduced to plain prose in later years, and wisdom 
 teach us to be stupid, why, we are still apace ahead and 
 those who will come after shall put their shoulders to 
 the Dream and move it up at least one inch nearer to 
 life. "And if the dreamer dies" as you said yourself , 
 " will not the Dream live ever on?" 
 Surely I And let me send you the glad assurance that 
 death will come sooner than the presidency of a syna 
 gogue. 
 
 Tou are safe, Keidansky ; the orthodox will never for 
 give you. 
 
 We change, yet those who fail also come to their own, 
 and even lost souls make great discoveries. Did you not 
 say that " Life is the profoundest of all platitudes ? " 
 
 7? f~* /? 
 New Tork, March, 1903. 
 
Contents 
 
 I Keidansky Decides to Leave the Social 
 
 Problem Unsolved for the Present i 
 
 // He Defends the Holy Sabbath 7 
 
 /// Sometimes He is a Zionist 13 
 
 IV Art for Tolstoy s Sake 23 
 
 V " Three Stages of the Game " 33 
 
 VI " The Badness of a Good Man " 41 
 
 VII " The Goodness of a Bad Man " 53 
 
 VIII "The Feminine Traits of Men" 65 
 
 IX The Value of Ignorance 75 
 
 X Days of Atonement 85 
 
 XI Why the World is Growing Better 95 
 
 XII Home, the Last Resort 105 
 
 XIII A Jewish Jester 1.17 
 
 XIV What Constitutes the Jew? 129 
 
 XV The Tragedy of Humor 139 
 
 XVI The Immorality of Principles 149 
 
 XVII The Exile of the Earnest 1 57 
 
 XVIII Why Social Reformers Should be 
 Abolished 165 
 
 XIX Buying a Book in Salem Street 173 
 
 XX The Purpose of Immoral Plays 1 83 
 
 XXI The Poet and the Problem 1 93 
 
 XXII "My Vacation on the East Side " 199 
 
 XXIII Our Rivals in Fiftion 2 1 1 
 
 XXIV On Enjoying One s Own Writings 219 
 
DISCOURSES OF KEIDANSKT 
 
Keidansky Decides to Leave the Social Problem 
 Unsolved for the Present 
 
 THE ledhire at the Revolutionary Club, Ca 
 nal street, was over, the audience rose, one 
 by one, and ere their departure, those who 
 made it up, lingered on for awhile and stood in lit 
 tle groups of two, three and four, and earnestly dis 
 cussed the things that had been, and particularly 
 the things that might have been, said on the sub 
 ject. The peroration was delivered with fervor and 
 gusto by one of the " red ones " of the Ghetto. It 
 was on " The Emancipation of Society from Gov 
 ernment/ a theme packed with meaning for those 
 present, and as almost everybody was willing to be 
 interviewed on his or her impressions, there was 
 quite a little exchange of opinion afterwards. The 
 speaker, besieged by a small circle of questioning 
 dissenters and commentators, was holding an infor 
 mal, compulsory reception. A few hard workers of 
 the sweat-shops, who slumbered peacefully during 
 the discourse, came up towards the platform to tell 
 the speaker how well they liked it. 
 It was during this hobnob medley of varying voices 
 that I introduced Keidansky to a lady, a friend of 
 mine, who, having heard of the wicked things he 
 says, and the queer things he does, desired very 
 much to meet him. 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 As she greeted him the lady rather perfunctorily 
 remarked : 
 
 "And so you are a dreamer of the Ghetto ? " 
 "No, Madam," Keidansky answered somewhat 
 brusquely ; " I am a sad reality/ 
 "A sad reality ? Why so ? " Smilingly, pityingly, she 
 queried. 
 
 "Oh, the reasons are not far to seek, not easy to 
 find, and hard to relate," he said demurely. " Be 
 sides, why augment the soporific tendency ? We have 
 just listened to a lecture.The monstrous evil of gov 
 ernment still exists. The tremendous task of its ab 
 olition is still before us." 
 "Yes, I know ; but tell me, please." 
 " Well, then, if I must speak of myself and I like 
 nothing better I will tell you." He cast down his 
 eyes and spoke quickly, as quickly as he could think 
 of the right words, which he was trying to find with 
 evident effort. "A dreamer disillusionized, a great 
 might-have-been become small, a would-be victor 
 vanquished, a social reformer forced by society to 
 reform, a herald of a new dawn lost in the night, a 
 rebel rejected by the rabble, a savior of society with 
 out even the ghost of a chance to become a martyr, a 
 visionary grown wise, an enthusiast at last awakened 
 to things as they are, an idealist knocked out by cold, 
 hard facts don t you think it s a sad reality? I 
 we wanted to do so many things and 
 " I wanted to change the world, and the world has 
 changed me so that I am beyond recognition.That s 
 
Keidansky and the Social Problem 
 
 a little and belittling way the world has with all who 
 wish to save it. We my comrades and I want 
 ed to transform this earth into a Heaven, and we 
 came near going to the other place. Pardon me, 
 madam, but some of the fellows actually went there, 
 one sent me his regards the other day. He is at court 
 now, working for the king of the ward assistant 
 chief wire-puller, or something. Good salary; hard 
 ly any work to do. Better than Socialism, he says, 
 under which system he would, at least, have to per 
 form a few hours work a day. But there was a time 
 when he would walk six miles he had to walk then 
 to hear a denunciation of the present political 
 parties and the evil powers that be. Now he would 
 talk six miles to win a single vote for them. The 
 others who have gone have not fared so badly as 
 he: they have not grown so wise, have remained 
 poor, and, more or less honest. But as to the things 
 that might have been. There were great books to 
 be written, which were abandoned because oh, 
 well, it is so much bother to deal with publishers. 
 There was a powerful educational movement to be 
 started in the Ghetto, which has also been relin 
 quished for the manifold blessings of ignorance. 
 "Why, I wanted to solve the social problem, and 
 now I do not even see my way clear to do that. 
 You see, we all came here with a smattering of 
 Socialistic ideas and Utopian ideals. We brought 
 them over from Russia the land of the knave 
 and the home of the slave and we wanted to see 
 
Discourses of Kcidansky 
 
 them realized in this country, where the gigantic 
 development of industry and the trusts were illus 
 trating the beautiful possibilities of Socialism. That 
 idea appealed to us Jews, at least, above all others. 
 And we set ourselves with great zeal to the task 
 of its promulgation. The common ownership of all 
 the means of production and distribution of wealth, 
 every member of society contributing to the work 
 of the nation; those who do not work, neither shall 
 they eat, etc. we had everything down fine too 
 fine. If we were asked, who shall do the dirty work 
 under Socialism, we answered, the bosses of the 
 present political machines. 
 
 "And we demonstrated by all the proofs furnished 
 us by our leaders at the rate of ten cents a pam 
 phlet how the great change was inevitable from 
 Marx s material conception of history and our own 
 hysterical conception of materialism. The rich had 
 not as yet consented to the equal distribution of all 
 wealth; but the poor had; they were fast coming 
 our way, and we were all getting ready for the great 
 change. Oh, when a fellow gets the social revolu 
 tion into his head he can see millions of proleta 
 rians marching to victory, and then the Cooperative 
 Commonwealth looms up big before him in all its 
 Bellamy glory. But after awhile, and a few gentle 
 hints in the form of hard knocks confound it 
 comes the calm, sober, second or second-hand 
 thought. Socialism? What an arch bureaucracy, 
 what a preposterous attempt to harness life with a 
 
 4 
 
Keidansky and the Social Problem 
 
 monstrous system of rules, regulations and restric 
 tions ! What an endless chain of entangling laws, 
 what an appalling monotony of order! The indi 
 vidual gagged, bound hand and foot by an over 
 whelming mess of statutes ; not permitted to tell 
 the truth unless it is officially recognized as truth 
 by the State. Thousands of laws to be broken every 
 day and as many heads to be mended. Heaven save 
 us! you cry out, and you come to realize that it 
 is n t because "a lot of contemptible capitalists have 
 paid him for it" as it has been alleged by some 
 of us that Herbert Spencer has declared Social 
 ism to be the coming slavery. Perhaps Spencer 
 was n t wrong, after all; and the best solution of the 
 social problem you had becomes a terrible problem, 
 and you lay it on the table, or throw it into the 
 waste-basket. 
 
 "Then comes communism, as preached by my 
 friend John Most and comrade Peter Kropotkin; 
 individualist anarchism, as presented by Benjamin 
 R. Tucker and others. Beautiful theories these are, 
 enchanting studies ; but, alas, only theories, so vague, 
 so fantastic, so far off, so dimly distant, so elusive. 
 And the problem is so stubbornly real, so disagree 
 ably near, so puzzlingly capricious, and so spiteful 
 ly independent of all solutions, that oh, well I 
 have n t as yet solved the social problem, and I don t, 
 as yet, know when I will; but perhaps the problem 
 will stay long enough, until I get ready to do it." 
 The speaker looked touchingly perplexed as he 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 continued: "I cannot find my way through these 
 things, and don t know the way out. The problem 
 is vexing and vast ; the solutions various and volu 
 minous. The solutions are in themselves highly 
 problematic. Our doubts are endless, our igno 
 rance is infinite. Finality is the most fatal folly. 
 Nothing is certain but uncertainty; nothing is con 
 stant but change. Even the dream of transforma 
 tion becomes transformed. Life has its own theories 
 and is regardless of our patented plans. The logic 
 of events makes our own systems illogical. The 
 wind of Time blows out our little labelled lanterns. 
 Time puts all our wisdom to shame. Life is so 
 pitifully brief, and the problem that has troubled 
 the ages cannot be solved in a day." 
 " But what are you going to do about it ? " I in 
 terrupted. 
 
 " Why, I have decided to leave the social problem 
 unsolved for the present," he answered. " If I could 
 spell English well I would write a book showing 
 why I refuse to solve it for the present; but as it 
 is, those who wish to know what I write will have 
 to learn Yiddish. However, from what I know of 
 the English language, I like it immensely. It is so 
 rich, so big, has so many words; a splendid means 
 for concealing one s thoughts. And the English 
 and Americans, who master it, know it and appre 
 ciate the fad. But I see they are putting the lights 
 out. We 11 have to leave the hall now. Good-night, 
 good-night. Pleased to have met you." 
 
 6 
 
II 
 
 He Defends the Holy Sabbath 
 
 WE are so happy in this country that we 
 must celebrate even when we don t want 
 to," said a Hester street storekeeper, 
 and then he quoted the words of the Psalms in the 
 traditional monotone : "And they who led us cap 
 tive requireth of us a song." 
 
 He stood on the sidewalk in front of his dreary and 
 dilapidated grocery store. It was Sunday morning. 
 The chosen people of old who have elected to come 
 to the chosen country of to-day moved up and down 
 in large numbers, almost crowding the street. They 
 stood in little groups idly, and conversed loudly in 
 a more or less Americanized Yiddish, often lapsing 
 into a curious English of their own. Their dress and 
 outward appearance denoted the degrees of their 
 Americanization and prosperity. There were those 
 who live in the Jewish street, or in the immediate 
 vicinity, which is also within the Ghetto, and others 
 who, after spending their first years here, have now 
 travelled by the road of success to " nice, high- 
 toned" districts, such as Allen street in the West 
 End. On Sunday they all come down there, for then 
 you can meet everybody, all the " Landsleute,"you 
 can hear all the news, and there was a time when 
 Sunday was the liveliest day on the street. Thus 
 these people walked up and down the thorough- 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 fare, while some stood in small gatherings and talked. 
 Women met, chatted for a few minutes, and then 
 took half an hour in parting. 
 
 All the stores were closed, all the places of business 
 deserted, and it seemed strange and incongruous to 
 see all these people out on the street. It seemed as 
 if the people were there for no purpose, as if they 
 had nothing to do. One wondered, at first, if it were 
 a holiday; but the absence of even a suggestion of 
 the spirit of Sabbath soon made it clear that there 
 was no religious meaning in this day, so far as the 
 Hebrew people were concerned. Aside from that, 
 the people would not be out so if it were a holiday. 
 They would be at home, observing and celebrating 
 the day. It appeared as if their idleness was forced 
 upon them ; they suggested gatherings of workers 
 whoare out on a strike, waiting for settlement. Upon 
 investigation the stranger found that this was an en 
 forced idleness, a compulsory holiday. The Chris 
 tian Sabbath was forced by law upon the Jews, who 
 had celebrated their Sabbath the day before, and 
 they could not begin the week s work until their 
 loving neighbors were through. And this, too, was 
 the week before Passover, the busiest season in the 
 Ghetto. 
 
 My friend, the storekeeper, stood upon the side 
 walk in front of his emporium and continued his 
 plaint, not without quaint gestures : 
 " They call this the freest country on earth, and yet 
 here we have been compelled to close up our stores 
 
 8 
 
He Defends the Holy Sabbath 
 
 two days in the week for the whole winter. A num 
 ber of us have already gone out of business, and the 
 Uppermost only knows what will happen with the 
 rest. We cannot make it pay in five days; rent is 
 very high, profits are small, and around here times 
 are always hard. The poor people who trade with 
 us only know prosperity by sight or hearsay. 
 " We have preserved our Sabbath through all the 
 persecutions and sufferings which we have endured 
 in the past centuries. Our Sabbath is as dear to us 
 as life itself, and now it is endangered by the laws of 
 this free land. We cannot afford to close our stores 
 on both Saturday and Sunday. Sunday used to be 
 one of the best days of the week for business. It is 
 the first day of the week with us. It is the day after 
 our Sabbath, when every household needs a new 
 supply of food. It is also the day on which our 
 people from the country, having a day off, come in 
 to buy their goods that is, they used to come in 
 when we were permitted to keep our stores open 
 on Sunday. Now all is changed, and the business is 
 going down and down. We will not keep open on 
 Saturday, and the police won t let us keep open on 
 Sunday. It is outrageous, the way they treat us; it 
 is scandalous, I say." 
 
 Keidansky, the radical of the Ghetto, is quite a 
 unique, native character. He is the young man who 
 once told me that he had more good ideas than were 
 good for him, and I believe now that he was right. 
 I met him one day in one of his resorts, a "kosh- 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 er " lunch room of the Jewish district. I asked him 
 for his opinion on the Sunday question, and he told 
 me what follows among other things over a few 
 glasses of Russian tea: 
 
 " So far as I m personally concerned, one day is as 
 good as another for a Sabbath, and we can t have 
 too many of them. Any day on which we can rest 
 and be at our best, is a holiday. I am too religious to 
 be pious. I can sanctify as many days as I can cele 
 brate. The new conception of c kosher is whatever 
 is wholesome, digestible and tasteful. To be really 
 happy is to be holy, and those who have lost this 
 world will not be entrusted with another. I hate 
 uniformity, and it s very tiresome to rest when 
 everybody else rests; but since it would be most 
 convenient to suspend business and activity when 
 the majority of the people observe their Sabbath, 
 since the Christians do not want to rest on the same 
 day that the Lord rested, and decided to get ahead 
 of God and repose on the first instead of the seventh 
 day, why, let it be Sunday, then as far as I am 
 concerned. Convenience is the first step to happi 
 ness, and tolerance is the beginning of philosophy. 
 There is nothing intrinsically sacred in any day; it 
 is only an artificial measure of time, and time is only 
 a blank space, absolutely worthless unless we write 
 upon it with our deeds. All days are made holy or 
 unholy by what we do in them. So, you see, so far 
 as I am concerned, Saturday or Sunday, any day, 
 will do. Personally I have never been compelled to 
 
 10 
 
He Defends the Holy Sabbath 
 
 close up my store. I have never been so unfortunate 
 as to own a store. This, however, is only my point 
 of view. 
 
 " One of the most immoral things I know of is to 
 force your own petty brand of morality upon the 
 lives of others, and I can hardly conceive of any 
 thing more irreligious than forcing your particular 
 religion upon others. To respect the religion of your 
 neighbors is a deeply religious principle, and those 
 who have no religion at all can almost make up for 
 it by respecting the religion of others. Religious 
 liberty is one of the most precious principles of our 
 country, is it not? And here this fundamental prin 
 ciple is rankly violated by the law, or rather by what 
 I think must be a silly misinterpretation of the 
 law. There are thousands of Jews encumbered by 
 and compelled to rest on, if not to observe, a Chris 
 tian Sabbath. I do not like to believe with some of 
 the Zionists that the seed of anti-Semitism has been 
 sown in this country and that a good crop will soon 
 be up to encourage the restoration of Israel to the 
 Turk s Palestine. I am rather inclined to think that 
 this idea is anti-Semitic. But certainly the stranger 
 in this country would be extremely surprised at the 
 way the Jews are treated here just now in regard to 
 the observance of Sabbath. Who is to blame ? The 
 law or those who enforce it? Oh, the law. But per 
 haps our people now suffer the consequences of hav 
 ing been among the first to bring laws into the world. 
 When people saw that the world was too good they 
 
 ii 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 began to make laws, and ever since they have kept 
 up making and multiplying them faster than even 
 the lawmakers can break them. Why, one can hardly 
 walk two steps before he finds that he is breaking a 
 useless law which it is very tempting to violate. I am 
 not so radical as some of my friends. I do not be 
 lieve that all the stupidity of the age has been in 
 carnated into our laws. A great deal of it has been 
 left in our customs, traditions and superstitions; 
 but a law that interferes with religious liberty in a 
 free country is bad enough. 
 
 " I tell you it is just exasperating to walk through 
 the Ghetto of a Sunday now and see all the places 
 of business closed up and all the public resorts 
 abandoned. The poor housewives of the Ghetto 
 whose cupboards are all empty and who need so 
 many things on Saturday night, after their Sabbath, 
 and have to wait until Monday it is a great hard 
 ship for them. I tell you it s dead wrong to force 
 this blue law upon the people. The Hebrew, to 
 whom the traditional Sabbath is as dear as life, ought 
 to receive due consideration, or rather the right to 
 do as he pleases, in so far as he does not harm others. 
 The law should have nothing to do with Sabbath, 
 anyhow. People can never be made religious by law. 
 If you are going to write about it, tell the whole 
 story and show how ill-treated we are. Perhaps you 
 can convert the Christians to the spirit of Chris 
 tianity. Let the voice of the chosen people be 
 heard!" 
 
 12 
 
Ill 
 
 Sometimes He is a Zionist 
 
 WORD flashed across the cables that Dr. 
 Theodore Herzl and other leaders of the 
 Zionist movement had held a favorable 
 interview with the Sultan of Turkey, and the fol 
 lowers of the cause the restoration of Palestine 
 to the Jews were all in a flutter of gladness. As 
 it was interpreted by the faithful, the vague, mea 
 gre cablegram meant that the Sultan was willing, 
 that he was hard up, and that the Holy Land was 
 for sale. And who could doubt when this was an 
 nounced by the New York Yiddish dailies, under 
 four-column headlines? No one could doubt but 
 the jester. He said that this only proved that the 
 Yiddish papers also had big type in their compos 
 ing rooms. He said that the truth about a certain 
 movement could not be found in any party organ. 
 In fact, if one wanted the absolute truth about any 
 thing he would advise him to go home and sleep 
 it off. 
 
 But serious and sane folk will ask no jester for ad 
 vice. The jester can only add to the sadness of the 
 nations ; but he cannot impair the faith of the be 
 lievers. So the Zionists were rejoicing while their 
 opponents were debating in the lighter vein, and 
 laughing at the mistakes of the so-called new Moses 
 and the errors of his followers. 
 
 13 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 The news had also reached Keidansky s circle, and 
 the question was taken up again for consideration. 
 They were all at Zarling s on Leverett street, where 
 the "kosher" eatables are inviting, where tea is Rus 
 sian, the newspapers Yiddish, and the attendants 
 members of one industrious family, ranging from 
 several bright pupils of the grammar school up. 
 The poet, the young lawyer, the short-sighted med 
 ical student who has for many years been writing a 
 scientific work, the Anarchist orator in embryo, the 
 flower vendor and undiscovered inventor of an in 
 genious self-lighting lamp and a wonderful fuel- 
 saving stove they were all there, and, of course, 
 Keidansky was with them. They all sat about a lit 
 tle round wooden table in a corner of the big dusky 
 store, pouring out wisdom and drinking tea. The 
 long row of "kosher" Vienna wurst hanging over 
 Zarling s brass-railed counter were mocking and 
 menacing the vegetarian of the group as he was 
 munching a cheese sandwich. 
 They were all heartily opposed to Zionism. Each 
 one had the solution for the social problem, which 
 would also settle the Jewish question, and Keidan 
 sky said that it was highly problematic whether 
 there was such a thing as a Jewish problem. How 
 ever, they all had plans for making this a better 
 world, plans which the Jews were eminently fitted 
 to help to carry out, and the benefits of which they 
 would reap in the form of an ideal state of society, 
 with universal brotherhood, and without racial ha- 
 
Sometimes He is a Zionist 
 
 tred and anti-Semitism. They took Zionism se 
 verely, scathingly to task, and as there was no Zion 
 ist present it was an easy victory. The Jewish State 
 was nipped in the bud, or rather abolished ere its 
 establishment. The poet and the orator sailed 
 heavily into the " dubious personality of Dr. Max 
 Nordau," one of the leaders of the movement, and 
 thus again avenged themselves on the man who, in 
 his gentle booklet on "Degeneration," so wantonly 
 threw so much mud on their revolutionary idols. 
 Reference was made to the demolishing review of 
 the Doctor s book by the only and original G. Ber 
 nard Shaw, and Whitman and Wagner and the oth 
 ers were saved. 
 
 Keidansky listened silently to all that passed, looked 
 into a book and sipped his tea. If the conversation 
 was not good he could find something in his book, 
 and if the book was not interesting he could at least 
 enjoy his tea. So he once said when told that he was 
 not attentive and not true to the spirit of" the order 
 of midnight tea-drinkers." 
 
 Everybody had spoken, and I turned to Keidansky 
 for a word. " Sometimes," he said, " I am Zionist, 
 and all longings leave me and I yearn for naught 
 but the realization of the old, long-cherished, holy 
 dream that our people have carried along with them 
 and fondly caressed through their cruel exiles of the 
 ages the restoration of our never-to-be-forgotten 
 home, Palestine. The passion for the race returns, 
 the old feeling of national pride and patriotism 
 
 5 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 comes back and takes its old place, the conscious 
 ness of Israel awakens within me, and I am com 
 pletely swayed by the mastering desire to see Judea 
 emancipated, regenerated and redeemed/ 
 " I feel again the unity I have forgotten. The old 
 Messianic hope looms up big before me. The 
 Heimweb of the long-lost wanderer, the grief- 
 stricken, menaced nomad takes possession of me. 
 I feel the terrible danger of dissolution: it is so bit 
 ter to stare destruction in the face, to contemplate 
 annihilation of so long and so miraculous an exist 
 ence. I feel that there is no place like his old home. 
 The homeless Jew must return to Palestine. The 
 big world is too small. It has no room for him. 
 Good or bad, he is always offensive, and he is ex 
 alted only to be cast down into an abyss of misery. 
 Civilization is not even civil, and it has no hospi 
 tality for its earliest light-bearer. The world is a 
 wretched ingrate. We have given everything, includ 
 ing the means of future salvation; we receive noth 
 ing but calumny, and are doomed to everlasting 
 damnation. ( We have given you your religion/ we 
 say to the Christians. That s nothing/ they answer ; 
 c it has not affected us in the least/ And they prove 
 it. They keep on baiting and persecuting and kill 
 ing their neighbours, not as themselves. What must 
 we do? Get back our old home, though we have to 
 pay for it. There, at least, will we find c a crust of 
 bread and a corner to sleep in/ 
 " We must have a common cause, an object of unity, 
 
 16 
 
Sometimes He is a Zionist 
 
 a centre of gravity, in order to survive as a people, 
 and this is what we can have in the proposed Jewish 
 State. 
 
 "And what an inspiring picture it will be of Israel, 
 bruised and bleeding from the travail of his long, 
 futile travels, at last straightening up his back and 
 returning home to rebuild his national life and his 
 temple in Palestine. There he will create an ideal re 
 public, fashioned after the teachings of the prophets 
 and the lessons he has received from the teachers of 
 the nations a republic that will teach the world 
 justice and righteousness. c And from Zion shall 
 issue the law, and the word of God shall go forth 
 from Jerusalem, and our poets to come shall sing 
 new psalms to God on the banks of the Jordan, in 
 the shades of Lebanon and in the beautiful gardens 
 of Sharon and Carmel. I have never been there, and 
 though I have gone through life without a geogra 
 phy, yet I seem to remember all these places. The 
 grand, vigorous Hebrew language shall come to life 
 again and we shall have a glorious literature of Is 
 rael s resurrection. Ah, how beautiful the vision 
 that looms up as I contemplate these things! And 
 then" 
 
 Keidansky ceased speaking, paused, and asked for 
 another glass of tea. 
 "And then?" I asked. 
 
 "Then," he continued, "the mood passes, the feel 
 ing alters, the picture that a fleeting fancy has thrown 
 upon the canvas of my view, fades, a change comes 
 
 17 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 over the spirit of my dream. I remember that I am no 
 longer the pious little boy praying in the synagogue 
 of Keidan, c a year hence in Jerusalem/ The greater 
 vision appears before me, the larger ideal comes 
 back, and Keidansky is himself again. Sometimes I 
 am a Zionist, but only sometimes. The rest of the 
 time I am as strongly opposed to it as any of you, be 
 cause with all my imputed universalism I have great 
 hopes for my people, and because I have marked out 
 a greater role for Israel to play in the history of the 
 future than being a mere little bee building a little 
 hive in a tiny obscure corner of the globe." 
 Here the medical student protested that a man can 
 not be both for and against an idea at the same time, 
 that those who are not with us are wrong and against 
 us, and that Keidansky is a "long distance off" 
 for he said," scientifically analyzed" 
 " Scientifically analyzed, you are a bore/ Keidan 
 sky broke forth infuriated, "and don t interrupt me 
 when I am solving problems and making history. 
 Be consistent, boys, and do not ask me to be so. 
 Give me, at least, the right that you grant to a char 
 acter in ficlion, the right to be irrational, illogical, 
 and, above all, superbly inconsistent. I am a char 
 acter in life and nothing is so fictitious. At times, I 
 want to be with all, feel with all, believe with all, see 
 the beauties of all ideals, and also point out the great 
 fad about them that they are all fatal and yet 
 that to be without ideals is baneful and deadly. I 
 cannot be partial, and that is why they expelled me 
 
 18 
 
Sometimes He is a Zionist 
 
 from DeLeon s Socialist Labor party. Partiality is 
 destructive to art, and I might have been an artist, 
 if I had had the patience and self-abnegation and a 
 lot of other requisites and things. 
 " Bu.t to return to the larger vision, which eclipses 
 the dreamlet of Zionism. The Jew must not be rele 
 gated to an obscure corner of the world, to a little 
 platform whereupon he will recite a piece in an un 
 known tongue. I want a big stage for him the 
 world. I want a great play for him all its multi 
 tudinous activities. For he is a wonderful actor. He 
 has versatility, illusion, imagination and dramatic 
 power. It is an inspiring part he plays in the world- 
 drama. So let the play go on, and do not ask him to 
 waste his energies and bargain with the Sultan for a 
 bit of barren land that has been taken from him so 
 long ago. He has a bigger task to perform, a larger 
 mission to fulfil. 
 
 " He must live among the nations and help them 
 in their upward struggle for a higher civilization and 
 a nobler life. If there are evils to be abolished he will 
 help abolish them, and if there are dire problems, 
 why, he has brains, which he loans more often than 
 money. And this is the spectacle that I gloat over 
 and glory in seeing : Israel among the nations, the 
 saviour and the outcast, the redeemer and the re 
 jected, the revered teacher and truant student, the 
 honoured guest and persecuted resident, helping na 
 tions to make their histories, here and there, writ 
 ing great words in them, ministering to their arts 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 and helping to humanize humanity. To be perse 
 cuted and oppressed by the nations is inconvenient 
 and annoying, but to make music, paint pictures, 
 write books, sing songs, mould statues for them 
 how superb ! Ah, what a tragedy to be a Jew, and 
 yet, how glorious ! The nations need the Jew and 
 he must not desert them in their hour of need, and 
 if he is true to his best self and keeps on growing he 
 will not die and vanish as a people. In any case t is 
 nobler to die for a good cause than to live in impo 
 tence. So let the Jew remain, with whatever nation 
 he abides, and as a good citizen help it grow great 
 and good, and show that Ibsen was right when he 
 called us the aristocracy of the race. Let not, I say 
 to the Zionists, the Jew be like the little boy who 
 runs away from school after he receives a thrashing 
 and before he has taught his teacher a lesson, To 
 sacrifice for Dr. Herzl s scheme our vast opportu 
 nities in the world, which owes us so much, and to 
 which we are so indebted, would be selling our birth 
 right for a mess of pottage. So let us remain. We can 
 do so much in so many countries with the teachings 
 and spirit of Judaism. We, too, are frail and have 
 many faults, but we can improve where there s lots 
 of room and plenty of opportunities. 
 cc Life is a melodrama, and in the latter acts the long- 
 lost brothers, Jew and Christian, who have for so 
 long waged war against each other, will recognize, 
 understand each another, and perhaps, things will 
 end happily, after all. 
 
 20 
 
Sometimes He is a Zionist 
 
 <f Meanwhile we will forgive France for the Drey 
 fus affair, because of her perfect prose and beautiful 
 poetry. I will even forgive Captain Dreyfus for 
 having been such a bore, if he will stop writing 
 books. Let the Jews remain in Russia instead of 
 going to Palestine, for think of the love of freedom 
 that tyranny engenders ! Think how good all our 
 oppressions have been in that they made us love 
 liberty and truth. Think what a chance to shed 
 blood for freedom there will yet be in Russia. Our 
 people should remain there. Things are changing. 
 What a fine literature it is producing, and how no 
 ble Russia is underground. 
 " Away with your petty neutral little State, I say 
 to the Zionist; the State to be bought on the in 
 stalment plan from the Sultan, to be built on the 
 soil of superstition, where the Jews will go back to 
 their traditional customs and fall asleep. The land is 
 barren and sterile, and I do not believe in starvation, 
 even on holy land. Even the orthodox must have a 
 religion ; but they will never acquire it in Palestine. 
 They will cling to the old. They will not progress. 
 The Bible and I bow my head in reverence for 
 that great work of fiction will never be edited and 
 revised as it ought to be, in Palestine. Judaism will 
 not grow in Palestine. The Jews will cling to the 
 letter, and the spirit of it will starve. God save the 
 Jews from Palestine. Judaism there will not grow ; 
 it will stagnate and die. The Jews must live among 
 the destroying forces of civilization. It is only when 
 
 21 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 they outgrow their obnoxious superstitions and 
 down-dragging traditions that they become great." 
 The speaker waxed warm ; his eyes flashed with en 
 thusiasm, his voice grew loud. 
 " I want none of the Jewish State," he said. " The 
 whole world is holy land. Wherever there are good, 
 honest people is holy land, and from every corner 
 of the earth shall issue the law, and the word of God 
 shall go forth from every place, including my garret. 
 Give us a big stage, give us the world, give us the 
 universe, and let me watch it from its centre my 
 garret at 3 Birmingham Alley; let me watch the 
 great and glorious play with Israel s heroic part in 
 all the activities and growth and progress of the 
 world, and I will c thank whatever gods there be/ 
 And this is my larger dream ; a better, more humane 
 world, created by the brotherhood of men, with Is 
 rael as peacemaker and fraternizer. Amen/ 
 
IV 
 
 Art for Tolstoy s Sake 
 
 IT was at one of a series of lectures given under 
 the auspices of the Social Science Circle during 
 the winter season. The audience which assem 
 bled in the gloomy little hall on the third floor of 
 an East Broadway building was rather small in size. 
 In announcing the lecture no rewards had been of 
 fered to those who would come to listen to it, as 
 often seemed necessary ; the speaker of the evening 
 was only a member of the club, who worked for his 
 ideas, and not an eminent lecturer who lived on his 
 reputation and whose name would " draw a crowd." 
 The majority of young men and women of the 
 Ghetto would not think of wasting an evening on 
 wisdom; they would commit no such folly, when 
 they could have " such a lovely time " at the near-by 
 dancing schools. Still, the few and the faithful were 
 all present, and those who were thirsting for knowl 
 edge came to be saturated. Max Lubinsky was the 
 speaker, and his theme," Tolstoy s Theory of Art," 
 was teeming with vital import. 
 Keidansky, as a member of the committee in charge 
 of the literary work of the circle, acted as chairman 
 of the meeting. In introducing the speaker he made 
 a few remarks, somewhat as follows : 
 " Tolstoy has theories of art. Personally I am rather 
 sorry for this, because if he did not have them he 
 
 23 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 would be a greater artist. Even as theories of life 
 often mar existence, so theories of art impair the 
 artist. Admitting that art with a purpose can help 
 the world, it is certain that art for its own sweet sake 
 can create and re-create worlds. After he had con 
 tributed some of the greatest works of art to the liter 
 ature of Russia, Tolstoy decided to find out just what 
 art was. During his investigations, which lasted many 
 years, he found that the art of the world was in great 
 part lazy, unemployed, corrupt, suffering from en 
 nui, and ministering to the debauched, poor rich 
 people, whom the poor man ever envies; he decided 
 that art should become useful and go to work, and 
 he gave it an employment the promulgation of 
 his ideas of social regeneration. 
 "Once, Tolstoy tells us, art was primitive and simple 
 and pious, and it was good art and true ; but during 
 the Middle Ages, when the upper class and the no 
 bility became sceptical and pessimistic, and could 
 find no more consolation in religion, art became di 
 vorced from the church, because they took it up as 
 an amusement and study. And ever since art got into 
 such bad company among people of culture and 
 those who understand it, who cherished all its won 
 derful enfoldments and caressed all its capricious 
 moods ever since art got into such bad company, 
 it became as beautiful as sin, and so complex, mystic 
 and ambiguous that even the Russian muzbik or peas 
 ant cannot understand it. And so as it seems to 
 me argues Tolstoy, the facl that the muzbik cannot 
 
 24 
 
Art for Tolstoy s Sake 
 
 appreciate c Tannha user proves conclusively that 
 Wagner never wrote any real music. Then, the dear 
 old master delves deeply into all definitions, origins 
 and explanations of art. He finds no designation, 
 no description that satisfies him; they all hinge on 
 and culminate in beauty in the production and re 
 production of beauty that is in life, in nature, in the 
 worlds within us and without ; and Tolstoy is rather 
 shy at mere beauty, and thinks it a temptress, a siren 
 and a song ; besides, beauty, he says, changes and 
 depends on taste, and taste varies, and as all these 
 definitions are too far-fetched and vague, he finds 
 one that is still more indefinite. Art is the communi 
 cation of feeling, the expression of the religious 
 consciousness. Of course it is that, but first and 
 foremost it must have the sterling qualities of art 
 in form and matter. 
 
 "Tolstoy, however, would make this the chief basis 
 and standard of art, for his would be an art that 
 would detract men s minds from mere beauty, that 
 would make them helplessly pious, that would unite 
 mankind, make life as monotonous as possible, and 
 convert humanity to Christian Anarchism. 
 " Every book, picture, statue and composition of 
 music should be degradingly moral. And the ques 
 tion arises, what does he mean by religious con 
 sciousness? Walt Whitman expressed his religious 
 consciousness in a manner that shocked the world, 
 and it is notat all pleasing toTolstoy,and yet Whit 
 man was the most reliious man that lived in cen- 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 turies. The Abbe Prevost wrote " Manon Lescaut " 
 to express his religious consciousness, and Robert 
 Ingersoll delivered his leclures to do the same; to 
 express their religious consciousness, great sculptors 
 mould nude figures of women, out of worship of the 
 divine beauty of the human form; and St. Francis of 
 Assisi expresses the spiritual emotion in quite a dif 
 ferent manner. But no, Tolstoy has a certain kind of 
 religious consciousness in mind, and this should be 
 expressed by all art and all artists in a uniform mode 
 until we have gone back to primitive conditions. 
 " I yield to no one in my admiration of the grand 
 old man of Russia. He is one of the noblest souls 
 that ever walked this earth, and as an artist, when he 
 is at his best and does not preach, he is superb; there 
 are few like him. But when he begins to philoso 
 phize and moralize, few can rise to the height of ab 
 surdity as quickly as he can. As it seems to me, 
 Tolstoy s position is something like this: 
 " Christianity is a colossal failure/ he says, c so let 
 us all become Christians. Our civilization is dread 
 fully slow in its advance ; it has not as yet outgrown 
 its barbaric primitiveness, so let us all go back to 
 barbarism. All government is evil, so let us be gov 
 erned solely by the teachings of a man who lived 
 nearly two thousand years ago, a man who was pure 
 and who made no study of the wicked conditions of 
 our time. It is only thus that we can become free 
 by a circumlocutory process of self-abnegation, self- 
 sacrifice and self-annihilation. Let us become slaves 
 
 26 
 
Art for Tolstoy s Sake 
 
 of the theory of minding our neighbors business and 
 we will be free. The power of will is the greatest 
 thing in the world ; he who follows his free will be 
 comes a slave and is doomed to damnation. Let us 
 be ourselves ; let us stifle our feelings, become al 
 truists and get away from ourselves. All govern 
 ment is tyranny; let us abolish all government, 
 adopt a rigid, ancient, mystic morality, and let every 
 one become his own tyrant. Our morality is a failure ; 
 it has produced a false art ; therefore we must have 
 a true art which will promulgate our morality. Art 
 that exists for mere beauty cannot be understood by 
 the great masses, therefore let us have an art for the 
 masses which will be beautiful. Our Christianity is 
 a failure, therefore we must convert art to Christi 
 anity and send it forth as a missionary of the Gos 
 pels as I interpret them/ This, as I see it, is the 
 queer position of Tolstoy, but his theories are ex 
 ceedingly well-meant and highly interesting, and I 
 am glad that we are to have a lecture this evening 
 onTolstoy s theories of art by one who is a thorough 
 student of Tolstoy and to whom the master s teach 
 ings are near and dear. 
 
 " I must not forget that I am not the speaker of the 
 evening ; I merely wanted to hint at the importance 
 of the subject so that you may give it due attention, 
 but I must not transgress upon the time of the lec 
 turer, for the way of the transgressor, according to 
 Tolstoy and others, is said to be hard. Besides, the 
 chairman is not supposed to have any opinions; his 
 
 27 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 duty is only to eulogize the speaker in a merci 
 less manner and to introduce him with a few ap 
 propriate, well-chosen and ill-fated remarks. The 
 chairman at best is only a relic of barbarism, and 
 should be abolished." 
 
 And Keidansky at last introduced the speaker, his 
 friend, Max Lubinsky, who, after treating his audi 
 ence to a bit of satire at the expense of "the elo 
 quent and loquacious chairman," proceeded to give 
 a simple, sympathetic and modest interpretation of 
 Tolstoy s "What is Art?" illustrating his talk with 
 copious reading from the book, and now and then 
 referring to his written notes. It was a comprehen 
 sive review of Tolstoy s book he gave, and as to his 
 own ideas on art he did not sufficiently differ from 
 Tolstoy to have a formidable opinion on the matter, 
 and he had too much reverence for the great Russian 
 to voice it just then. The presiding officer did not 
 close the meeting without again remarking that " art 
 with a purpose is art with an impediment," and that 
 " the only excuse of art is its uselessness." From 
 what I overheard after the meeting I observed that 
 there was a strong anti-Keidansky feeling in the 
 gathering. He had evidently gone too far, had voiced 
 his notions too freely, and had no right to take up 
 so much time in speaking. Besides, most of those 
 present were social reformers, tremendously in 
 earnest, and they felt, more or less, that Tolstoy 
 was right; that art was only great as an advocate. 
 As we were walking together, homeward bound, a 
 
 28 
 
v 
 
 Art for Tolstoy s Sake 
 
 little later, I said : " My dear fellow, you Ve got 
 yourself into trouble. They are all up in arms 
 against you and your awful heresies. You have al 
 most delivered the ledure of the evening yourself, 
 and the circle won t stand for it. Next thing you 
 know you ll be court-martialed." 
 " I almost expected that this would happen," said 
 Keidansky, " but I had to say what I did. It was an 
 imperative duty. I am only sorry that I forgot a few 
 more things I had on my mind to say. Audiences 
 confuse me and make me forget my best points. I 
 suppose they will call a special meeting and pass 
 resolutions to condemn me and my proceedings. 
 But this will only prove the superiority of individ 
 uals over society. Before a society can pass resolu 
 tions, the individual acts. I suppose they ll say lots 
 of things now. They will say I was trying to make 
 epigrams. Epigrams are always hateful to those 
 who cannot make a point in a volume. They will say 
 I was uttering platitudes. After you convince people 
 that there are such things as platitudes in the world, 
 they begin to find them in everything you say. I 
 once had an uncle (he is still living, only he is very 
 rich, and so I disowned him), and at one time I ex 
 plained to him the theory of our moving along the 
 lines of least resistance. A short while after that we 
 had a very intimate interview and my uncle told me 
 that I was a lazy, good-for-nothing visionary; that 
 I did not want to do anything, and moved along the 
 lines of least resistance. 
 
 29 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 " I had to say what I did because I did not want the 
 people to go off with such crude and false concep 
 tions of art. I knew that Lubinsky would not dare 
 to differ from Tolstoy. He adores the old man. So 
 do I, but I cannot afford to give up my mind to any 
 one not until I become a respectable member of 
 the synagogue, and join a number of secret orders. 
 Then it does not matter. The worst thing about a 
 charming, noble personality is that our admiration 
 for it gets the better of our reasoning power and we 
 become ready to follow it in all its follies. This is the 
 regrettable influence that Tolstoy has exerted upon 
 Lubinsky. Thus our emancipators enslave us. Be 
 yourself/ says Emerson, and you become an Emer 
 sonian. 
 
 " But there is something else I wanted to say on this 
 question of art. We Jews anticipated and lived in 
 perfect accord with Tolstoy s theory of art that 
 art must be religious and must be burdened with a 
 message, or a purpose and the result is that we 
 have no fine arts of our own, except poetry, which 
 has more sighs and sobs and tears and piety than 
 music and beauty. Of course, the reason for the ab 
 sence of art among us is one of the commandments, 
 which forbids the making of images, and oh, I cannot 
 tell you how sorry I am that this commandment was 
 ever observed. I do not object so much to the other 
 nine commandments, but for this one I can never for 
 give my people. And here, by the way, is an example 
 of what the religious consciousness can do for art. 
 
 30 
 
Art for Tolstoy s Sake 
 
 "There is a religious consciousness which makes 
 people unconscious of religion. c The piety of art is 
 the quest of the unattainable/ and the more freedom 
 you give it from missions the greater the mission it 
 will fulfil. One more answer to the theory of art for 
 Tolstoy s sake: Here is a fable that occurred to me 
 as I was listening to the lecture. I have no time to 
 elaborate and polish it, but I give you the right to 
 plagiarize it. 
 
 " { You must pardon me/ said Art to Beauty, one 
 day, if I do not pay so much attention to you as I 
 used to, but this is a world of evils and problems, 
 and I will have to leave you for awhile and go forth 
 and help to make a better, juster system of so 
 ciety/ And Art went forth to fight the battle of the 
 poor and the oppressed, and Beauty waited wistfully 
 for its return, alone and deserted,withered and faded. 
 After many years Beauty went in quest of her lost 
 lover,Art,who had not returned, and she came upon 
 a field of battle, and there, transformed into rebel 
 warrior, was her lost lover, Art. And even as she 
 gazed, a shot was fired from the enemy, and it pierced 
 the heart of Art, and he lay prostrate and dead be 
 fore her." 
 
"Three Stages of the Game" 
 
 WE had been speaking of " the only law that 
 never changes " the law of change: of 
 the glorious ascent of the youthful non 
 conformist, and of the sad descent of the older and 
 wiser compromiser a theme, by the way, as old as 
 age and yet as new as youth. We all had friends we 
 once looked up to and now looked down upon, and 
 we indulged in a few reminiscences. Every army had 
 its deserters, every cause its traitors, and the cru 
 saders who carried the red flag also changed their 
 minds, lost heart and ran home. 
 "Oh, the flesh-pots of Egypt. Even the vegeta 
 rians cannot forget them," remarked my compan 
 ion. " They who led the strikes among the sweat 
 shop workers in the course of time became heartless 
 capitalist bosses; and there were Anarchists, who 
 wanted to abolish all laws, who became lawyers and 
 went into politics. One by one many of the promis 
 ing young men of the Ghetto broke their promises 
 and left the uplifting movements they brought into 
 existence. Some died, some married for love of 
 money, some took wives unto themselves, some be 
 came lawyers and doctors, some dentists, some wire 
 pullers, some went into politics, and some moved 
 to Brooklyn. Compromise? They all hated that 
 word and then they compromised. 
 
 33 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 " Recently I have been thinking of three particular 
 stages of the game this grim and gruesome little 
 game called life," said Keidansky. "The first is 
 when we sternly demand the truth, the second 
 when we ask for justice, and the third when we 
 beg for mercy 
 
 " There you are with your eternal questions. It was 
 Zolotkoffwho once called the Jew, bent and bowed 
 by his sorrows and fearful of the future it was he 
 who called the Jew a living interrogation point. You 
 just reminded me of the simile. But no ; I cannot 
 tell you at which of the three stages I have arrived. 
 I am at all and at none. What I really want I never 
 ask for, because I hardly know what it is, and can 
 not formulate the demand. If I knew just what they 
 were, perhaps I would n t want these things. Yet 
 sometimes I think if I could play, if I could play 
 the violin, I would express these starved longings 
 and stifled yearnings. I could not only tell, but in 
 the expression perhaps find what I want. In words 
 I cannot do it; they are so formal, definite, rough. 
 The other day my friend, the violinist, came and 
 played for me. c I 11 tell you a story/ he said, and he 
 took his violin and played a beautiful, thrilling 
 story. The Unknowable was revealed for a moment ; 
 and it occurred to me then that if I could play, I, 
 too, might perform the miracle of expression, which 
 proves the divinity of music. As it is, I cannot tell 
 my desires; and yet I want but little here below 
 and I don t want anything up above " 
 
 34 
 
"Three Stages of the Game" 
 
 " You don t mean to renounce your part of the 
 world to come?" I asked. 
 
 " I don t know that it is coming to me," said Kei- 
 dansky. " Besides I am a little bit shy on the world 
 to come. I am afraid it is fashioned too much on the 
 style of this one, and down here, you know, I am 
 sometimes tired of everything. The entire pano 
 rama is so farcical, the whole game so monotonous, 
 and our heroics are so ludicrous. The valetudina 
 rians make me sick. I am weary of The Book of 
 Jade, and clever people are awful bores. Yes, I 
 am somewhat afraid of the second story they call 
 the other world, for it may really come, and history 
 might repeat itself, even up there. 
 "The mortal fear of oblivion makes one crave for 
 immortality; but, perhaps, one life is enough. No 
 matter how sinful, or how saintly, a human being 
 has been, one world is sufficient of a punishment. 
 Virtue is its only reward; evil is its own punish 
 ment. The life beyond is beyond. Let it stay 
 there. 
 
 "Promises of Heaven and threats of the Midway 
 do not move me so much now, for the chances are 
 that they are one and the same thing, and this is the 
 only place we are sure of and ought to make the 
 most of. There is some good down here in spite of 
 the reformers. The good is right beside the evil, and 
 we can seldom tell the difference. The saint and the 
 sinner often exchange pulpits and each proves the 
 imperfection of the other. Paradise is right next 
 
 35 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 door to Purgatory ; in fad:, you want to be careful 
 when you are around that way lest you enter the 
 place you weren t sent to. We ought to make the 
 most of it, I say, and I know I am right, because 
 I have been condemned by a number of orthodox 
 rabbis." 
 
 "You contradict yourself," I said. 
 "I do it to be consistent," said Keidansky. 
 cc But I have digressed and transgressed, and all 
 because of your useless question. As I was saying, 
 when we are young, ignorant, innocent and inex 
 perienced, we sternly demand the truth, the whole 
 truth, and nothing but the truth. We come to en 
 lighten this dominion of darkness, to right a world 
 gone wrong and to guide a poor and deluded man 
 kind to the eternal verities. Iconoclasticism becomes 
 our creed, infidelity our religion. We are to repeal 
 the world s laws, to shatter its idols, to demolish its 
 traditions, and we at once reject its standards and 
 ideals because they are not founded on truth. 
 " We question, investigate, analyze, and the imag 
 ination of youth works wonders. We are all gods 
 in our dreams. The re-creation of the world is but 
 an easy task. With all the modern improvements, 
 it can be done in less than seven days, it seems. 
 Glorious quest of truth and the golden goal, en 
 chanting castles in the air, of which youth is the 
 architect! Have you ever been young? I was born 
 old, yet I know something about it. And for the 
 rest, you know what happens. Most of the things in 
 
 36 
 
"Three Stages of the Game" 
 
 the world end sadly, because in the ending of a 
 thing there is sadness. We find, at last, that what we 
 wanted cannot be had for the asking ; that we must 
 pay for it with our lives ; that the truth is there is 
 no truth that as much of it as we find is often 
 more than we want; that illusion is a necessary ele 
 ment in the composition of the world; that every 
 thing is relative and the quest of truth is a relative 
 virtue. I hate the compromiser and deserter and I 
 have nothing to say in their defence, but change is 
 in the very nature of things, and sooner or later we 
 must recognize that absolute truth does not exist, 
 and we must accept the old foundation for building 
 whatever we can in the world, and realize that per 
 fection is a long and laborious process of becoming. 
 " Later on we really see that all is for the best, that 
 the pessimists are here as an object lesson, and we 
 conclude that it is folly to be too wise. We cannot 
 repeal the world s laws all at once, but we can break 
 them gradually. There is much wisdom in folly and 
 some truth in falsehood, too. The stupidity of the 
 world is an absolute necessity : the world s work has 
 to be done. So, at least, we decide, and we abandon 
 the impossible quest after the absolute truth and 
 become satisfied with justice, mere justice. We only 
 ask for fair play. At this stage of the game we are 
 already hardened and inured to things, and we man 
 age to get along with justice, such as it is when we 
 get it or buy it in court. At this time, if we are pros 
 perous, we read and relish Omar Khayyam, the 
 
 37 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 philosophy of whom is well expressed by the street 
 urchin when he says, c I don t give a hang/ And we 
 also laugh at the poor fools who seek after the truth. 
 Later on still, when we grow weary and weak and 
 cannot have justice are not crafty or strong 
 enough we come down a little lower and beg for 
 mercy. Thus we reach the third stage of the game." 
 The speaker paused for a moment, watching a little 
 boy who was trying to float his little boat on the 
 pond for we were lucubrating in the Park, where 
 we met by accident. 
 
 " That s all very well," I said, " but what have you 
 to suggest?" 
 
 " Why, nothing that would make a sensation in a 
 newspaper," he said, " but something that by chance 
 or miracle may have some reason in it. It is this : Let 
 the youth continue his noble, heroic, if melodra 
 matic, quest of truth, that those who grow wiser and 
 weaker may get justice. Let the young strive for the 
 impossible and the possible will be attained, and 
 those who ask for justice will really have it. Let 
 them question and analyze and shatter idols and 
 become bombastic and hysterical and build castles, 
 and dream and disturb the order of the world and 
 let us admire their heilige dumheit that some day 
 those who have grown feeble may find at least fair 
 play. The more the world will tolerate the extrava 
 gances of youth,the more it will benefit by its achieve 
 ments. Let the wildest imaginations have free play 
 and things will grow fairer and more fair. Let them 
 
 38 
 
"Three Stages of the Game" 
 
 dream. To be disillusioned is a trifle; but never to 
 have dreamed is terrible. Finally, this earth will be 
 turned into a heaven by all those who have failed to 
 do it. 
 
 "And those who have grown older and sadder and 
 merely ask for justice, let them really demand it 
 with all their might, and so shall their efforts not be 
 in vain, and so shall those who beg for mercy receive 
 it or none beg for mercy. If those who ask for 
 justice would only be just to those who are in the 
 other stages of the game, and if those who beg for 
 mercy would only be merciful ! No matter at what 
 stage, let all play fairly and honestly and be tolerant 
 of others, and all things will tend towards ultimate 
 decency. Again, were there more demanding truth, 
 there would be fewer satisfied with mere justice, and 
 none would beg for mercy. At any rate, more truth, 
 more justice; more justice, more mercy, or no need 
 of it at all. If only every one would want something, 
 mean something,/^? something. Personally I cannot 
 do very much, for you see I am somewhat of a 
 preacher myself. Going on the elevated/ are you? 
 Sorry for you. Good-bye." 
 
 39 
 
VI 
 
 " The Badness of a Good Man " 
 
 I WAS looking for Keidansky, but he was no 
 where to be found. He was not at home, and my 
 visits to a few of his favorite resorts were also in 
 vain. Then they told me over at Schur s bookshop 
 on Canal street, that there was an entertainment be 
 ing given by the Alliance on that evening, and Kei 
 dansky was to contribute an essay to the literary 
 programme, a paper on " The Badness of a Good 
 Man." "It serves them right," I said, and I forth 
 with betook myself to the dreary quarters of the Al 
 liance, which formed the intellectual centre of our 
 Ghetto. The exercises were already in progress. The 
 hall was packed ; hardly any standing-room left. 
 The pictures of Karl Marx and Michael Bakounin 
 
 the respective fathers of Socialism and Anarchism 
 
 looked down upon a pious and picturesque con 
 gregation of people who swore by their names; the 
 same studious, serious, troubled, yet occasionally 
 smiling faces of young men and young women of the 
 Jewish quarter seekers after light among the peo 
 ple that walk in darkness. The hall was brightly il 
 luminated. The people were in their best. It was 
 Sunday evening. Even Keidansky had condescend 
 ed, or compromised, and paid some attention to 
 "external appearances," this time. He brushed his 
 clothes "for the occasion," as he once remarked. At 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 any rate, there was some change in his attire differ 
 ing from his usual negligent appearance. This was 
 an entertainment. There were several readings and 
 they were all teeming with trouble, and propt with 
 problems. The recitations, well given by several 
 young women, were compositions like Hood s 
 "Song of the Shirt," William Morris s Socialist 
 chants; the songs of suffering and joyless toil, sung 
 in Yiddish, were by Edelstatt, Rosenfeld and Gold 
 stein. The people over here enjoy their sorrows, it 
 seems. 
 
 Keidansky was already on the platform when I came 
 in; in fact, he was already reading his paper. His 
 paper was a typical utterance of the iconoclast that 
 he is, and craving the indulgence of the reader, I 
 quote here as much of it as I copied then and there, 
 ere we come to the conversation. I do not know what 
 he said before I entered, but after that he hastily and 
 nervously read somewhat as follows : 
 " He is a good man and a worthy, and a useful mem 
 ber of society. All his neighbors say so, and he stands 
 well in the entire community. His friends are legion. 
 He is always ready to do them a good turn, and they 
 are in turn ever ready to reciprocate. He lives, acts, 
 thinks and speaks like all other good men ; and he is 
 exceedingly popular and highly respected. He is tol 
 erant. He agrees with everybody on almost every 
 conceivable subject. He is a good man. This is a free 
 country, and every man has a right to his honest 
 opinion provided he is not a crank, or eccentric, 
 
 4 2 
 
"The Badness of a Good Man" 
 
 and does not make himself obnoxious by differing 
 with everybody. In that case, of course, the man is 
 beyond recovery; he is lost to all shame and to the 
 good old political parties and principles. 
 "He respects every honest opinion and sentiment, 
 and when he does meet a man who differs from him, 
 why, he gently and adroitly changes the subject and 
 smiles irresistibly and talks pleasantly, anyway. Oh, 
 well, we are bound to differ on some things but 
 what is the difference so long as we both vote the 
 same ticket? Have a cigar? When the man does not 
 vote the same ticket it is really too bad, you know; 
 but there is still a smile and a pleasant word. 
 "His generous contributions to the charities of the 
 city are well known. The newspapers frequently 
 have paragraphs in praise of his philanthropic deeds. 
 The press is one of our greatest institutions. It is 
 the palladium of our liberties, and a great medium 
 of advertising. There are always good words, cigars 
 and drinks for the newspaper c boys/ They are a lot 
 of fine, clever, noble fellows according to the 
 press, and he believes it. He is a good man. 
 " He travels through life in the good old-fashioned 
 way. He is guided by the morality of our common 
 ancestors, abides by their time-honored customs and 
 reveres their sacred traditions. He thinks as his 
 fathers thought, whose fathers thought as their 
 fathers thought, and whose fathers never thought 
 anything. He is a good man, and he is agreeable. 
 He once almost agreed with a Christian Scientist 
 
 43 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 he sold him a parcel of property. Christian Scientists 
 have faith. It is good to do business with people who 
 have faith. There is always much truth in what other 
 people tell him, only we are bound to differ on some 
 things, as he always says. 
 
 " He is a patriot and his lungs are ever at the service 
 of his country. It is my country, whatever it does or 
 does not do. Let us give three cheers for the stars and 
 stripes, and hang the social reformers. The people 
 are always right and they know it. He believes in the 
 people, and they have faith in him. They have al 
 ready sent him to the Board of Aldermen, and there 
 are many other places they may send him to. There 
 is a Congress at Washington, and many good men 
 are sent there. He is persistently honest. His honesty 
 has been brought to the notice of many. Honesty is 
 the best policy is a line ever on his lips. His reputa 
 tion for veracity is enviable. It pays to tell the truth, 
 he says. He tells the truth as he sees it, and he sees 
 it as everybody else does. 
 
 " He is the most active member of the largest con 
 gregation in his district, and is considered a strong 
 pillar of the church even of society at large. He 
 gives aid and succour to the weak and the failures ; but 
 he is always on the side of the strong and the success 
 ful. It is the largest movement in his community, so 
 cial, political, or religious, that receives his staunch 
 support. And it so happens that he is ever in accord 
 with the tendencies of the largest movement. 
 "He is a good man. He is eminently practical, and 
 
 44 
 
"The Badness of a Good Man" 
 
 he harbors a horror for visionaries and their Utopias. 
 He loathes agitators and rebels, disturbers of peace 
 and order. Peace, order, accuracy, submission, obe 
 dience, duty and uniformity is a good word, too. 
 Children, you must always abide by the powers that 
 be, and obey your parents ; they know better what is 
 best for you. They have buried many children. Gen 
 tlemen, respect the flag. This is a free country, and 
 the Government can do as it pleases with the people. 
 "Vague, unexpressed longings of a new time, hun 
 gry desires of the age, wistful heart-whispers for a 
 freer, higher life, muffled music of far-off seas, stifled 
 and half-drowned voices of the submerged Ego cry 
 ing C I these do not disturb his dreams. He has 
 no dreams. Far be it from him to be touched by the 
 shapeless, new-born aspirations which are suspended 
 in the air waiting for some one to give them form. 
 He is a man of facts, and lends no credence to far 
 away fictions. His health is so good that he is not 
 easily affected by theories and books. 
 " He is consistent and hardly ever changes his mind ; 
 at least not more often than do those who draw up the 
 platform of his political party. His intrepid loyalty 
 to his party cannot be forgotten as long as he lives; 
 he stands as solidly within its ranks as a mortared- 
 in brick within a wall. When he says a thing it is said, 
 and he keeps every promise he makes, good or bad. 
 He prizes highly and is keenly jealous of his repu 
 tation, and believes in living up to it. He will not dif 
 fer from you on matters of art or literature, because, 
 
 45 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 well, because, as he says, he is not well up in these 
 things, and besides, it is all a matter of taste, is it not? 
 But he likes agood old-fashioned melodrama ; don t 
 you? 
 
 " He is a good man. Fathers point him out to their 
 sons as a paragon of virtue. He never swerves nor 
 deviates from the path of duty and righteousness, as 
 he sees it. He is indissolubly linked in the great chain 
 of real, practical, daily events of the world, and he 
 never chases any phantoms not he. He never 
 fights with fate. He takes things as they come, and 
 many things come his way. Providence seems to be 
 on his side. He never complains of the powers that 
 be in heaven or on earth. God made the world, and 
 no man can ever change it. All that is, is well for the 
 industrious and the successful.There is always room 
 on the top for those who can crawl up. He adapts 
 himself to all circumstances, and profits by most of 
 them. He moves along the lines of least resistance; 
 is ever drifting into his proper niche. He will c get 
 there/ Where he cannot be aggressive, he is agree 
 able, and usually gains his end. He never falters, nor 
 fails to fall in line with the rest. It is always safest to 
 be on the safe side. H e positively believes in the bene 
 fits that accrue to those who are negative. 
 " He possesses all the negative virtues of his honored 
 ancestors, who now slumber beneath their eulogisti- 
 cally inscribed tombstones. He meekly follows their 
 present example of abstaining from most of the vi 
 cious pleasures of life. He is a good and respectable 
 
"T&e Badness of a Good Man" 
 
 man, and he never lets his desires run loose; they 
 must abide by certain laws. 
 
 " He is deeply interested in all matters concerning 
 public improvements. Why ? The motive of a man s 
 interest in public affairs is often a private matter ; but 
 the impeccable reputation of a good man should be 
 a sufficient shield against the scrutiny of the inquisi 
 tive. The inquisitive will never go to heaven, and 
 they will c get it here on earth. 
 "He is modest. He frequently complains of the 
 credit and the honors that are given him by the 
 community lest his hearers should not know that 
 he bears the burden of demonstrative public ad 
 miration. He is profusely grateful for all he receives, 
 which, he constantly protests, is so much more than 
 he deserves. He only tries to do his duty in his 
 humble way. He is effusively cordial and friendly. 
 He has a pervasive, confidence-inspiring smile for 
 all who pass him, known or unknown. He clasps 
 your hand firmly and shakes it long. He is con 
 genial even to the congealing. 
 
 " He is a self-made, self-advertised man. He has af 
 fluence ; he has influence. His exemplary character is 
 worthy of emulation, as the newspaper and his politi 
 cal friends say ; and his emoluments are not few nor 
 far between. He is intensely, surprisingly religious. 
 The creed of his fathers is good enough for him. He 
 questions not, nor doubts not he. A good, devoted 
 churchman, he is a regular attendant; and he never 
 sleeps nor slumbers, no matter how long and how 
 
 47 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 old the sermon be. He is a brave man. The good 
 souls of his district are most lavish in praise of his 
 piety. 
 
 "Alas, it is not possible to enumerate all his splen 
 did deeds, his high-classed qualities and his standard 
 virtues. But, then, that is hardly necessary. They 
 speak for themselves, or for their owner. He is a 
 good husband and father, and his word is law unto 
 his wife and children. He is an excellent citizen, a 
 loud-mouthed patriot. He is a good man. He is go 
 ing to heaven. And, oh, I do wish he would go there 
 soon!" 
 
 After I had listened to this scandalous screed and 
 other sombre and shadowy things that were on the 
 programme of the entertainment, I finally overtook 
 the offender,and shook hands with Keidansky."! Ve 
 been looking for you, * I explained, "and they told 
 me you would be here, so I came, and caught you in 
 the aft." 
 
 "Glad you showed up," he said; "but I am rather 
 afraid. Do be lenient. I cannot defend nor explain 
 everything." 
 
 "Well," I began, leniently, "according to this ha 
 rangue of yours, we would have to change our con 
 ception of goodness and morality, and " 
 "No, we don t have to," he answered impatiently; 
 "but we can t help it; it is always, always changing. 
 The good man of one age is the dead man of an 
 other. Between vice and virtue there is often no more 
 than a change of mind. Goodness is only a point of 
 
"The Badness of a Good Man" 
 
 view, and morality ceases to be moral after awhile. 
 What s a good thing to do to-day will, in all prob 
 ability, be the best thing to avoid to-morrow. It s all 
 a question of time ; no standard stands forever. Why, 
 the coat of tar and feathers is going out of fashion, 
 and even in New England, it s no longer a crime to 
 be happy. Morality is but an arbitrary agreement, 
 subject to change. It is a catalogue of certain accept 
 ed virtues, which should be edited, revised, and re 
 printed, from time to time; for many of the articles 
 in this booklet go out of fashion, and otherwise be 
 come stale, obsolete, and even obnoxious. At best, 
 the goods are not what they are represented to be by 
 the drummers, that is, the preachers, when it comes 
 to their delivery when it comes down or up to real 
 life. What do you think of virtues that consist either 
 of doing nothing, or of doing things for no other rea 
 son than that they have bored other people to death. 
 The catalogue is full of them, and just now we have 
 come to a time when our current conventional mo 
 rality is a kind of mortality dead and deadening. It 
 holds us down to outworn, oppressive systems, cus 
 toms, regulations, and the uniformity of things is 
 stifling. 
 
 " It prevents growth, it impedes progress. We can 
 not live as free, untrammelled individuals. We must 
 be citizens, members of society; we must be what 
 other people call respectable. 
 
 " Everybody owns everybody else. Everybody fol 
 lows, no one leads his own life. No one has any in- 
 
 49 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 itiative. Everybody examines your moral conduct, 
 and dictates the term of your existence. How can one 
 have a religion, if he must live up to the faith of 
 everybody else? How can we live if we must follow 
 the dull and noble examples of those who are dead 
 and never knew any better? Everybody listens to 
 what the people say, and no one hears his own voice. 
 This is an age of machinery. There are no more in 
 dividuals ; there are automatic walking and work 
 ing machines which have been wound up by public 
 opinion to run so many hours according to a well-ap 
 proved system of regulations. What s the use of 
 common-sense? says a character in one of Jacob 
 Gordin s plays. What s the use of common-sense 
 when we have a Constitution? Thousands of fools 
 are kneeling before the fetish of public opinion. 
 c What will the people say ? they all ask. Nothing, 
 I say, nothing.The people never say anything.They 
 only talk. Individuals say it all. Those who depend 
 upon others, who see strength in union are weak 
 lings. United we fall, divided we stand. Those who 
 dare to tread in the path of freedom, who dare to do 
 things and say things, who own their bodies and 
 never raise any mortgages on their souls, who make 
 their own morality they are the people who ad 
 vance the world s progress and help to civilize our 
 civilization. They have nearly always been called bad 
 by their contemptible contemporaries yet they 
 represented all the goodness worth having. God 
 give us the men who have virtue enough to do as 
 
"The Badness of a Good Man" 
 
 they please, and courage enough to shock their 
 neighbors. 
 
 "But it s all system and monotony and imitation 
 with the majorities, and a lot of slavish, knavish, 
 puny and pious little beings, afraid of their own 
 voices and not daring to draw their breath any more 
 often than their neighbors do, and with whom mo 
 rality and sanity is a matter of majority rule beings 
 like these are called the good people. 
 "This idea must be reversed. We must come to real 
 ize the utter badness of the conventional, crawling, 
 yours-truly-for-a-consideration, good people. Also 
 we must come to realize the supreme goodness of 
 so-called bad people people who are too religious 
 to go to church to whom tyranny of any kind is 
 the height of immorality, and slavery the depth of it. 
 We must have more bad people to save this wicked 
 world. And heaven save us from most of the good 
 people of to-day. 
 
 "It is one of those c dumb-driven cattle* that I tried 
 to pay my respects to in my paper one of those 
 cattle that here in democratic America become lead 
 ers of men. They do not know that the progress of 
 the world has been built upon discarded customs 
 and broken laws but let us go down the street. I 
 must have a drink of something before I can solve 
 the problem to your satisfaction or even convince 
 myself that I am right." 
 
VII 
 
 " The Goodness of a Bad Man " 
 
 PERHAPS it was to the disgrace of the Alli 
 ance that Keidansky s disquisition, his merci 
 less tirade against the good man, was received 
 with some show of hand-clapping favor; and it may 
 be to the credit of the membership that there were 
 those in the audience who were surprised, shocked 
 and startled, who dissented from and resented his 
 utterances. At any rate, the dissenters and commen 
 tators stirred up a discussion, and for several days 
 after that it was a topic of conversation and disagree 
 ment at the club, at the cafes and such places where 
 our circles would congregate. Those who dissented 
 and disagreed with the man who questioned the very 
 bases of our morality said many, varying things and 
 not all things were said in Keidansky s presence. And 
 he? Sometimes he would say a word in explanation, 
 or his defence, and for the rest he listened, looked 
 wise, smiled and relished every attack made against 
 him. His opponents finally agreed that his was a 
 one-sided, partial view, and they told him that, after 
 all, it was better to have a good man than a bad one. 
 " But it yet remains to be proved," he argued, " that 
 the average good man is not a whole lot worse than 
 the so-called bad man." 
 
 They all dared him to prove it, to present the other 
 side of the case, the goodness of the bad man. " I 
 
 53 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 don t care to prove anything," said Keidansky. 
 " ( Even the truth can be proved/ " he quoted a fa 
 vorite decadent; " but if you want me to, I 11 try to 
 show you the other side of the story, as it seems to 
 me." I 11 write it to-night or to-morrow, and read it to 
 you all, say, on the evening of the day after to-mor 
 row, at the Alliance." We all agreed to be there, and 
 accordingly assembled at the appointed time, and 
 waited until Keidansky appeared with a folded man 
 uscript sticking out of his coat pocket. H e was all out 
 of breath. He had been walking very fast so as to get 
 here "just in time to be late." He had just finished 
 his composition. " My lamp went out last night," he 
 explained, "and so I had to do it all this afternoon, 
 and just got through." And so here is his paper as he 
 read it to us on "The Goodness of a Bad Man." 
 " He is a bad man, a worthless, useless member of 
 society. Most of his neighbors say so, and he does 
 not stand well in the community. His friends are 
 few, with long distances between. He would not go 
 far out of his way to do a fellow a good turn ; does 
 not believe in favours, he says, and nobody cares 
 much for him. He lives, acts, thinks, speaks like a 
 bad man, and to say nothing of popularity very 
 few of us have any but who will have any respect 
 for a man that scorns, jeers, sneers and pokes all 
 manner of fun at respectability ? Respectability, he 
 says, is a mark of public formality behind which to 
 hide private rascality, and the prettier the mask the 
 more ugly the face. 
 
 54 
 
"The Goodness of a Bad Man" 
 
 "He disagrees with nearly everybody on almost 
 every conceivable subject. No matter what other 
 people think of his opinions, he actually believes 
 them to be right. He is a bad man. He is not at all 
 tolerant. When he disagrees with any one and he 
 does that most of the time he bluntly and boldly 
 tells him so up and down, and he is ever ready to 
 state his reasons and argue the case. He will not con 
 ceal his convictions, even when he is your guest. Of 
 course, this is a free country, and every man is en 
 titled to his opinion but one should have some 
 tact, politeness, diplomacy, courtesy. If every one 
 had these there would not be so much difference of 
 opinion and discord in our land, and there would 
 be more peace on earth. Polite people do not try to 
 force their opinions upon others. 
 " Polite people have no opinions that differ from 
 those of others. I doubt whether it is polite to have 
 any opinions at all. The aristocracy is setting a good 
 example. It never thinks. Persons who think too 
 much are ever behind the times. But even if one has 
 a right to his opinion, he certainly has no right to 
 be cranky, eccentric, and disturb the mental peace 
 of the community with his queer, revolutionary no 
 tions. Stubborn, stiff-necked, hard-headed, deter 
 mined, impulsive, he is ever present with that ubiq 
 uitous mind of his, ever ready to give everybody 
 a piece of it. Considering the frequency with which 
 he gives everybody a piece of his mind, I wonder 
 that it is not all gone by this time. 
 
 55 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 "He is a bad man. He is aggressive and arrogant. 
 His faith in himself is offensive, his self-reliance, 
 self-satisfaction unbearable. He has too much re 
 spect for himself to follow the dictates of others. His 
 life is a life, he says, and not an apology for living ; 
 he will have to pay for it with death and wants to 
 make the most of the bargain live fully and freely 
 in his own way, however reprehensible. He does not 
 want his neighbors to love and interfere with him 
 unless he cared for their affection. He says it would 
 be a sin to love his neighbors if they did not deserve 
 his love. The welfare of the community, I heard him 
 say, depends upon the absolute freedom, the self- 
 salvation of each individual. No one can ever do 
 anything for another unless he has made the most 
 of his own life good or bad. Self-preservation in 
 the end prompts us to do most for others. Selfish 
 ness is a pronounced form of sanity. Altruism has 
 enslaved the world. Egoism will save it. And I could 
 quote you such monstrous heresies as will make your 
 hair stand on end. He is a bad man. 
 "The world belongs to those who take things for 
 granted. He will not take anything for granted and 
 that s why he has to take more hard knocks than 
 anybody else. He impiously questions, doubts, ex 
 amines, investigates everything on the face of the 
 earth and God save us even the things that be 
 in heaven. He is a living interrogation point, ever 
 questioning the wisdom of this world and the prom 
 ises of the one to come. Nothing is so sacred as to 
 
 56 
 
"The Goodness of a Bad Man" 
 
 be above his scrutiny; he has little reverence for any 
 of our glorious institutions. He says they are the 
 handiwork of men and often as crude and as useless 
 as men could make them. Whatever has been erect 
 ed can be corrected, he says. He thinks lightly of 
 our laws; thinks they are at best but a necessary evil 
 and that in the course of human events it becomes 
 necessary to abolish all evil. 
 
 "He is a bad man. He does not even recognize the 
 sacred authority of tradition, and has no decent re 
 gard for precedent. Precedent, he argues, only proves 
 that some people lived before us and did things in 
 a certain way. He does not even well, think of a 
 man who doubts the holy right of the majority ! He 
 does not believe that the majority is always right ; 
 in fact, he contends that it is always wrong. By the 
 time the majority discovers a truth it becomes a 
 falsehood, he avers. The majority only thinks it is 
 always right. The majority is but another word for 
 mediocrity. He does not heed what the people say. 
 The monster called majority, in spite of his many 
 heads, does very little thinking. What the people say 
 seldom amounts to a meaning. Morality, he argues, 
 is that which is conducive to one s happiness, with 
 out interfering with or injuring his fellow-men. To 
 be moral is to live fully, freely, completely. Moral 
 ity has nothing to do with the abnormal stifling, 
 starving, thwarting of instincts and feelings. 
 " A truth, he told me, is a truth, and a principle is 
 a principle, whether it is held by many or by one. 
 
 57 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 Numbers no more make right than might does. 
 " c The strongest man on earth/ he says, c is he who 
 stands alone/ and he always quotes a man named 
 Ibsen. He is a bad case. ( Customs and convention 
 alities be hanged/ he says, c I have my own life to 
 live and mean to manage it in my own way. I have 
 laws of my own and must obey them/ I heard him 
 say it myself, and I wonder what he means by these 
 things. There are always those who know better than 
 you what is good for you, but you don t want to 
 mind them, he told me. The most advisable thing 
 in the world is never to take any advice. There may 
 be those, he once remarked, who have lived longer 
 than you have, but they have not lived your life. 
 "He has a mania for principles. I think that is a 
 chronic disease with him. He imagines it is all one 
 needs in life. There is not a material advantage in 
 the world but he would forfeit it for a moral prin 
 ciple, as he calls it. ( Ideals are very well/ 1 once said, 
 c but one must live/ c Not necessarily/ he answered. 
 c One must die, if one cannot live honestly/ 
 "Always he talks about the so-called social problem 
 of the age. I do not know just what that is ; but if 
 there is such a thing as a social problem it is how to 
 abolish social reformers. This man is a social re 
 former, and he has some scheme of his own how to 
 reconstruct society on a basis of what he terms jus 
 tice and truth. In the promulgation of this scheme 
 of his he foolishly spends much of his spare time and 
 not a little of his money and Heaven knows he 
 
 58 
 
"The Goodness of a Bad Man" 
 
 has not any too much. But he says he does it all for 
 his pleasure ; that it is out of sheer selfishness that 
 he would uplift the fallen and elevate the lowly. He 
 is a bad man. It is no disgrace to be poor, of course ; 
 but it is criminal of the poor not to know their place. 
 I half told him so, but he answered in his usual con 
 tradictory way that the poor have no place at all. 
 "He travels through life very much by his own 
 crooked road, with his own conception of morality, 
 justice and truth. Out of justice to the dead, he 
 argues, we ought to abolish most of the institutions 
 they have left behind. Otherwise they are being dis 
 graced every day by the clumsy workings of the 
 things they have established. If our honored ances 
 tors desired to perpetuate their taboos, fetishes and 
 inquisitions they had no business to die ; they should 
 have stayed here. By going to either of the places 
 beyond they have forfeited their right to manage 
 things here below. The dead should give the living 
 absolute home rule. 
 
 " He is a bad man. He hardly ever gives any charity. 
 He does not believe in charity; says it creates more 
 misery than it relieves, and perpetuates poverty 
 the crime of mankind. Charity, he claims, curses 
 both the giver and the receiver. It makes the former 
 haughty and proud and the latter dependent and 
 servile. What he wants is justice and the rights of 
 all to earn the means of subsistence. And there is no 
 use in quoting the Bible, when he talks of poverty. 
 The Bible, he says, is a great book which could be 
 
 59 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 immensely improved by a good editor with a long 
 blue pencil. All the immoral problem-plays pale in 
 to pitiful insignificance beside some of the stories 
 told in the Bible and they are not anywhere half 
 so well told. Did you ever hear such blasphemy ? He 
 is an infidel. He does not even believe the news 
 papers; has little faith in the great power of the press. 
 Most of the newspapers, he told me, are published 
 by the advertisers and edited by the readers. Jour 
 nalists ever follow public opinion, and they are never 
 sure of what they believe in because it is hard to find 
 out what the people approve. Weather Bureau pre 
 dictions are often Gospel truths beside editorial con 
 victions. The best papers are yet to be printed. He 
 has such rank disregard of the past and the present 
 that he seems to think that all things really great are 
 yet to come. 
 
 " He puzzles and vexes me. I don t know just what 
 he is in politics. I doubt whether he is either a Repub 
 lican or a Democrat. I suspect he votes for the Anar 
 chist party. What an absurdity ! They will never elect 
 a President, and this foolish man has not the ghost of 
 a chance to get an office. He is not at all consistent. 
 He changes his mind very often. No matter how 
 zealous or ardent he is about his ideas he is ever 
 ready to reject them to-morrow and accept other 
 views. He does not believe in the newspapers, in 
 things visible and present, yet he has the utmost 
 faith in far-away fictions, intangible Utopias and the 
 realization of iridescent dreams. 
 
 60 
 
"The Goodness of a Bad Man" 
 
 " I dare not repeat all his outrageous blasphemies, 
 and I positively cannot mention his awful heresies 
 as to his religion. He cannot accept the religion of 
 his fathers because they were infidels; infidels who 
 built little creeds out of fear, who were afraid of their 
 shadows, who had monstrous, libellous conceptions 
 of God. He says that he has too much faith to be 
 long to any denomination. Religion is so large that 
 no church can hold it. No one should meddle be 
 tween man and his Maker. Christ, I have heard him 
 say, may never forgive the Christians for what they 
 have made out of him, for robbing him of his hu 
 manity. No church for him. He would rather wor 
 ship beneath the arched dome of the starry skies and 
 offer up a prayer to the God that dwells in every 
 human heart and thinking brain. He is a bad man. 
 " He is always on the ungrateful side of the few, the 
 poor, the weak and the fallen ; and he even sympa 
 thizes with beggars, criminals, fallen women and low 
 persons ; is not afraid to mingle with them. And what 
 advantage can he ever derive out of that? Absent- 
 minded, forgetful, engrossed in his queer ideas and 
 impossible ideals, he gets lost in his theories and 
 books, and loses life. He does not realize that mil 
 lions have found this world as it is and millions 
 more will leave it so. Poor man, he is a dreamer of 
 dreams; and to see the invisible, to hear inaudible 
 voices, is the most expensive thing in life. He sac 
 rifices affluence, influence, power, political office, 
 honor, eclat., applause, the respecl: of the community, 
 
 61 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 the regard of his neighbors, the praise of the press, 
 the advantages of politics and of the people s ap 
 proval sacrifices all these for his pitiful brain-be 
 gotten fancies. He is a dreamer of dreams. Yet he 
 seems to like this journey along the lines of most 
 resistance, says it is least resistance to him, and he 
 tells me that he enjoys his poverty and all, im 
 mensely. He freely indulges in most of the vain and 
 worldly pleasures of life as he sees them, regardless 
 of all others, considers one day as holy as another and 
 no day so mean as to wear a long and sanctimonious 
 face on, and he says that the only thing which he 
 prohibits is prohibition in any form. His wife does 
 not fear him, does not have to obey him, does as she 
 pleases, and his children are as free and wild as little 
 savages. He is a bad man. 
 
 " But what can be doneP Ministers and other good 
 men have repeatedly tried to save him, but he evades 
 all their efforts, avoids all their sermons. He would 
 save them the trouble of saving him, he says, because 
 he thinks he can do it so much better himself. What 
 can be done? All things are here to serve him, none 
 to subserve him. He is a law unto himself, and has 
 little or nothing to do with the Government, so he 
 says. He is a bad man. He is not going to heaven 
 and yet, and yet if there were more like him 
 this world would be so different, and perhaps no one 
 would ever want to go to heaven." 
 There was a pause and a silence at the close of the 
 reading, but our essayist was soon spared " the agony 
 
 62 
 
"The Goodness of a Bad Man" 
 
 of suspense," as he mockingly remarked. Then came 
 comments of varied shades of opinion, approving 
 and disapproving, constructive and destructive, too 
 many to mention, and Keidansky enjoyed them all. 
 At length I ventured to ask him what sort of ad 
 ministrator his friend, the bad man, would make if 
 he was ever elected to office. 
 
 " He would never run for office," said Keidansky, 
 " and if he ran he would never be elected ; and if he 
 ever was elected he would certainly be a dire failure 
 because he does not believe in managing other 
 people s business. The best of men will not want to, 
 cannot do it, and politics is no test. The man who 
 goes in with or for the crowd ceases to be himself; 
 and therefore we ought to invent our public officials 
 and not make them out of men. However, don t 
 press me, I am not at all sure about these things. I 
 only know that the bad man is coming; that he is 
 here; that he is a dire terror and will save the 
 world. What I gave you here is a mere suggestion, 
 a hint of a possibility, a premonition. Every concep 
 tion is spoiled by the description of it. He will come, 
 and time will not tame him. He will come, and the 
 divine institution of police-court morality is doomed. 
 The virtues of the future will be useful. They will 
 be conducive to growth real happiness. 
 "But, as I say, I don t want to appear dogmatic; 
 nor to be too sure of things. The most useful thing 
 about our theories is that we know them to be use 
 less. The best thing about our ideas is that the 
 
 63 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 world has not accepted them yet. If the world had 
 accepted them these ideas would probably now look 
 like last winter s snow. Better to wait until it is ready 
 for them then they will not go to waste. Better a 
 bad world than a good world come too early be 
 fore the people are ready for it. But what s the use ! 
 I Ve done it, my friends, and my apology for life is 
 that I never apologize. Come, it s getting close, 
 up here. Come, let us forth into the darkness and 
 pray for eternal night for night hides all the ugly 
 splendors of the world." 
 
VIII 
 
 " The Feminine Traits of Men" 
 
 c ^C T OU are as inquisitive as a man," said Kei- 
 j dansky. 
 
 JL " You mean " I tried to correct him. 
 " I mean as inquisitive as a man," he repeated. 
 This was at a social gathering, a Purim festival given 
 by the B nai Zion Educational Society at Zion Hall. 
 We sat in the little back room adjoining the main 
 hall, which formed the library of the society. There 
 was a good fire in the stove ; we were just far enough 
 away from the music and the dance to enjoy it, and 
 also to relish our chat. 
 
 I suppose I had gone beyond the point of discre 
 tion in my quest of information; that I asked some 
 questions of a rather personal nature which my friend 
 thought best to leave unanswered, and hence the re 
 buke I received. 
 
 " Some one," said Keidansky, cc ought to write an es 
 say on c The Feminine Traits of Men/ and point 
 out in what a pronounced form men possess the 
 traits, objectionable and acceptable, they constantly 
 attribute to women. For centuries women have borne 
 the blame and ridicule and criticism for qualities they 
 either have in the mildest, most insignificant forms, 
 or do not possess at all when you compare them 
 to men. And it s about time they should be vindi 
 cated, and the truth should make them free from this 
 
 65 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 popular misconception. It seems to me that in a cer 
 tain way men have actually monopolized most of the 
 objectionable traits of women ; and to have shifted 
 all the blame on them for all these years was a cry 
 ing shame an outrageous wrong. 
 " Yes, some one ought to write about it ; some one 
 who is young, handsome and gallant - so that he 
 may receive the gratitude of the fair sex. For in 
 stance, woman is said to be inquisitive. But who, 
 really, is so anxious to know, so peevish, petulant 
 and prurient as man is ? Who like him will go to so 
 much trouble to find out the minutest detail about 
 men, women and things that surround him? Who is 
 so eager and diligent in his search of information, 
 knowledge and light? Who like unto him I mean, 
 his majesty, man takes such loving interest in his 
 neighbors and pries so pitilessly into their private 
 affairs ? Who makes such an excellent reporter, de 
 tective, biographer? Who are the successful editors 
 of our newspapers ? Men, of course. They are the 
 ones who constantly load you with questions, who 
 are ever endeavoring to peer into your inmost self 
 and who always want to know about your past, pres 
 ent, future, former and later incarnations. I am told, 
 on good authority, that genealogy which I un 
 derstand to be the science of proving that your great 
 grandfather was somebody and that somebody was 
 your great-grandmother that this science has been 
 nurtured and garnered and brought up to its present 
 state of perfection, or imperfection, by men. 
 
 66 
 
"The Feminine Traits of Men" 
 
 "It s appalling, this curiosity of man/ he con 
 tinued fervently. "He can go sixteen miles out of 
 his way to pick up the smallest scrap of a fad, or 
 fancy. He can colled endless stores of useless infor 
 mation. He fancies nothing so much as fads. His 
 thirst for knowledge cannot be satiated even by flat 
 tery. Men not only make encyclopaedias, but they 
 adually use them. They not only build and endow 
 libraries, but they adually utilize them spoil their 
 eyes over musty, misty, mazy volumes. And then, 
 how anxious we all are to be posted on the most un 
 important thingsconcerning our friends and the peo 
 ple we meet and know ; we are ever attempting to 
 read their minds and their hearts, and if there are 
 none, we put meanings into them. Have not the 
 greatest novelists been men? 
 
 " Motke Chabad, the Jewish jester, once came to a 
 strange town near his native city of Wilna, and as he 
 entered the community a patriarchal old Israelite 
 accosted him with the usual Shalom aleichem. Ma 
 simecho ? ( Peace be with thee, stranger. What is thy 
 name ? 
 
 " c It s none of your business/ answered Motke. 
 " When asked why he thus rudely aded toward the 
 old man, Motke Chabad explained that had he told 
 the stranger his name the other would have asked 
 where he came from, what his business was, how 
 many children he had, if he was married, how old 
 his father was, if he was still living, if he had any rel 
 atives in America, if he ever was blessed by the great 
 
 67 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 rabbi of Wilna, etc., etc., and, said Chabad, * to say 
 nothing of my morning prayers, I had not as yet had 
 my breakfast, when I met him/ 
 " Chabad, you see, knew his brother, man. Men curi 
 ous to know? Rose Dartle is nothing beside Andrew 
 Lang, and he has this advantage over her that he 
 exists and can find things out. Another instance. You 
 go into your store or faclory in the morning. You 
 have a slight toothache. You feel and look rather 
 seedy, and the man who works next to you comes 
 over and sympathetically asks you why it was that 
 she rejected you, why the other fellow won her heart, 
 by what magic charms your rival eclipsed you, etc., 
 and he keeps on with his queries until you tell him 
 " Go stand up on the first corner. Take off your hat 
 and cry out : Gentlemen, this is a hat, this is a hat ! 
 Look into it ! And in a few seconds you will have a 
 big throng of curious men standing about and star 
 ing at you. Women who will happen along will pass 
 right on, but men will stand there and stare like 
 men. 
 
 " There was a time when certain things were consid 
 ered beyond the scrutiny of curious men, when they 
 were held too sacred for investigations and explana 
 tions, when the things that were not understood were 
 deemed holy and when men stood in reverence be 
 fore these things and bowed and took off their think 
 ing caps. But now they want to know everything 
 even the things that are of prime importance. And 
 there is no use in telling them that nothing really 
 
 68 
 
"Tfo Feminine Traits of Men" 
 
 exists not even the logic of Christian Scientists. 
 They want to know. They must find the facts or 
 make them. What s the use of living if one does n t 
 know just on what date King Pharaoh died ? No 
 news may be good news, but you can t run a news 
 paper on that principle now-a-days. Whether the 
 things happen or not man wants to know the 
 facts and the details of the cases. They must know. 
 Knowledge is power. To know is to be able to boast 
 of it. And men ever boast of what they know or think 
 they know. 
 
 " But why say more? The collected knowledge, the 
 accumulated data and science of the world suffi 
 ciently prove the inquisitiveness of men. It is one 
 faculty which works many ways, you know, and 
 these ways are shaped by circumstances and condi 
 tions. Now a man peeps through a keyhole to get 
 some material for a bit of gossip, and then he looks 
 up to the stars to make an astronomical observation. 
 But the Darwins and the Newtons and the Her- 
 schels prove how curious to know men really are. 
 " And it is their extreme vanity, too, that makes 
 men so presumptuous, ostentatious and obstreper 
 ous. They have so much faith in themselves that no 
 self-respecting person can trust them. They are so 
 confident in their right to know, so convinced of the 
 value of their knowledge, so sure of the absolute 
 necessity of their volubility. They are so unbearably 
 overbearing, self-conscious and self-centred that 
 they forget there are others besides them in this 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 world. It is their vanity that makes men speak in 
 volumes. 
 
 cc Then they say that women gossip, but you know 
 that they are far outdone, almost totally eclipsed in 
 this respect, too, by men. Men are the real, rapid- 
 transit champion gossips and talkers of the world. 
 It was a dark and dismal night, as the story goes, 
 and we all sat around the fire and the captain said, 
 c jack, tell us a story/ and Jack told a number of 
 stories, and so did others, and we all told of divers 
 devilish, wicked things our friends had done, and in 
 our heart of hearts were awfully sorry we did not do 
 these things ourselves, and we made mud-cakes out 
 of good, well-preserved reputations. Oh, how well 
 we can and how we do talk about our neighbors; but 
 you know, people do like to talk about those whom 
 they loveo Marie Corelli recently said now do not 
 scowl because I quote Marie Corelli. She is a very 
 good woman ; only she could not resist the tempta 
 tion to write a few novels, and they may not be so 
 bad, only I could never get myself to read them be 
 cause I heard that Queen Victoria liked them im 
 mensely. Hold on, though; I guess I did read one 
 of these novels in a Yiddish translation ; but that was 
 because the translator did not say whose work it was. 
 I think he thought it was original with himself. In 
 fact, he passed it off as his own which was a brave 
 thing to do, though the book proved to be popular. 
 But I lost my train of thought. Marie Corelli re 
 cently said that she never endured such a babel of 
 
 70 
 
"The Feminine Traits of Men" 
 
 gossiping tongues as she once heard when being en 
 tertained to luncheon at a men s club, and she added, 
 c nor have I known many more reputations picked 
 to pieces than on that occasion. But a recent writer 
 told us what awful gossips all the historians have 
 been, and they were all men. We were told that 
 Herodotus, who is the father of history, was also one 
 of the most inveterate of gossips. Saint Simon was 
 considered essentially a gossip, and even therefore a 
 wonderful historian of the time of Louis XV. Pepys, 
 this writer told us, was the greatest gossip that ever 
 lived, also the greatest historian of his time. Even 
 Mommsen, we were told, shows some of the traits 
 of a gossip in his monumental history of Rome. The 
 same was said of Gibbon and many others. Gossip 
 is not only the raw material of history, we were in 
 formed, but it is also the raw material of the realistic 
 novel, and as I said before, the finest novels have 
 been produced by the sons of Adam. 
 "Women are also charged with being loquacious, 
 but that is another trumped-up, false charge. You 
 well know that the loquaciousness of men is prodi 
 gious, tremendous. Man is the most wonderful talk 
 ing machine ever invented, and one of his favorite 
 topics is the talkativeness of woman. Men talk you 
 to mental derangement and death wherever you go. 
 There is no escape. Nearly every man you meet is 
 ready to tell you the sad story of his life sad, be 
 cause he is ready to tell it. Many of them write their 
 autobiographies, and what with these and their ser- 
 
 7 1 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 mons and orations, novels and essays, histories and 
 philosophies there will soon be no more room for 
 libraries. And the worst thing about man s garrulity 
 is that he taxes the intellect so heavily, that what he 
 says is loaded with so much meaning. Anything a 
 man says, you know, is in danger of becoming litera 
 ture. It s appalling. He always makes you think, 
 whereas what little a woman does say is so light and 
 airy, breezy and restive. A woman, too, writes a book, 
 occasionally, but she does not mean anything by it. 
 " But men are so very bad in this respect, so terribly 
 blatant. They never cease talking. When they don t 
 talk they write, and the pen is worse than the sword. 
 Why am I afraid to ask the man, who stands near 
 me waiting for a car, what time it is ? Because he 
 might tell me of his grandfather s heroic exploits in 
 the Civil War. To have gone to war was cruel ; but 
 to have left some one behind to boast of it was crim 
 inal. Why am I afraid to read the latest short story 
 that I have written to my friend? Because he might 
 show me a poem just done. And I nearly forgot to 
 point out what a monumental proof of na ive garrul 
 ity the Talmud is. The Talmud, that strange con 
 glomeration of law, love, legend, gossip, fable, and 
 occasionally a bit of wisdom, which one can find if 
 one searches diligently. 
 
 "They say also that women are capricious and 
 changeful; but the progress of the world shows how 
 easily men change their minds. Yes, some one ought 
 to write an essay and point these things out,andvin- 
 
 72 
 
"The Feminine Traits of Men" 
 
 dicate a much-maligned sex. It s a good chance for 
 a man for some interesting gossip on the subject." 
 cc I suppose, hen, that you believe in woman s 
 rights, * I at length haphazarded an interruption. 
 " Yes," answered Keidansky, " I believe that women 
 should have all their rights, and should not, as the 
 French cynic would have it, be killed at forty. It s 
 too late. I mean," he added quickly, "that it s too 
 late to talk any more about it." 
 
 73 
 
IX 
 
 The Value of Ignorance 
 
 WHAT do I know? I don t know any 
 thing/ said Keidansky, " and I don t 
 care to." 
 
 " I thought you were always in quest of knowledge," 
 I remarked. 
 
 "I am," he answered: "I am infatuated with the 
 quest, I love it. It is so exhilarating, stirring, full of 
 excitement and fraught with danger." 
 "Danger? Wherein is that?" I asked. 
 "The danger," he emphasized, "is in finding the 
 knowledge I am in quest of; for once your search 
 has been answered with success, and you have in 
 formed yourself with the facts of the case, the game 
 is up and the fun is over, as the Americans say. The 
 hallucination of the glorious quest is shattered, the 
 suspense is spoiled, the ecstatic expectations are de 
 stroyed, and we become fit subjects for illustrations 
 in the Fliegende Blatter. C A little knowledge is a 
 dangerous thing* and a lot of it is fatal. Yes, knowl 
 edge is might, but illusion is omnipotence. So I like 
 to seek information well enough, but I would rather 
 not know." 
 
 I became interested, although scandalized, and my 
 companion kept on musing aloud. 
 " Not to know is to hope, to fear, to be in delight 
 ful uncertainty, to dream fair dreams, to imagine the 
 
 75 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 most impossible things, to wonder and marvel at all 
 in childlike innocence, to build the most beautiful 
 castles in the air, to give the imagination full swing, 
 to conjure up the most fantastic mythological melo 
 dramas, to stand with deep awe and inspired rever 
 ence before all the mighty manifestations of nature, 
 to form the finest idols, to build splendid religions, 
 to have faith and to foster it, to see the invisible, to 
 draw gorgeous rainbows of promise upon the hori 
 zon of life, in a word, not to know is to sustain per 
 fect illusion, not to go behind the scenes, is to enjoy 
 the entire performance. 
 
 " On the other hand, my dear fellow, to know is to 
 have your wings clipped, to see the distance between 
 the earth and the skies and the difference between 
 you and what you thought yourself to be, to feel 
 your littleness and become dreadfully aware of the 
 absurdity of it all, to have the imagination arrested 
 for trespassing, to be rejected from the castles you 
 built for non-payment of taxes, to be punished for 
 the idleness of your idols, to see your little demi 
 gods crumble at the rate of sixteen a minute, to 
 become aware of the futility of the whole business, 
 the shortness of terms given you, the unstability of 
 your credit, to find that you are but a feather blown 
 hither and thither by the whirlwind of the world, 
 that your greatest plan may be demolished by a 
 whim of fate, to learn that the stupid moon really 
 does not look so pale because of your unrequited 
 love, and that the great sun does not shine because 
 
The Value of Ignorance 
 
 you are going to a picnic, to discover that your 
 credulity was the only miracle that ever happened, 
 and that even gods suffer from dyspepsia, to lose 
 faith, become sceptic, abandon religion, move out of 
 the balmy fairyland of tradition and freeze in the 
 realms of right reason. To know is to be deprived 
 even of that little confidence in your power to al 
 ter the course of the universe; to recognize how 
 inexorable, inscrutable, indifferent, the powers of 
 life are, and what a common pedigree all things of 
 beauty have ; it is to have the dramatic effecl of 
 the play spoiled and to vote it all a farce and a fail 
 ure. 
 
 " We are all becoming so educated now-a-days that 
 we no longer know the value of ignorance, and we 
 have nearly forgotten things of goodness and of 
 beauty that it has brought into the world. Ignorance 
 is the mazy mist of morning in which so much is 
 born; it is the mystic dimness wherein all things 
 awe and enchant forever. Ignorance is the begin 
 ning of the world; knowledge is the end of it. In the 
 unexplored vastnesses of ignorance the mind soars 
 through all the heavens and works wonders ; in the 
 measured spheres of knowledge the mind travels 
 carefully and creates little as far as mythology, theol 
 ogy, religion and poetry are concerned. Were it not 
 for ignorance we would not have had all the wealth 
 of legends and fables and fairy tales and sagas and 
 marcbcHy strange, weird, wonderful, to intoxicate the 
 imagination of the world and enable us to live for 
 
 77 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 centuries in lands of magic and charm and dream 
 like realities. And if you see some works of beauty 
 and nobility in the world to delight you, it is because 
 we have just come out of these lands, and we are imi 
 tating and re-creating what we saw there. There are 
 some who still dwell in them, and they send us 
 messages and often bless us with their visits. 
 "Thank you for stopping me. I should not have 
 liked to be run over before you had listened to the 
 rest of my argument; besides, it makes a mess of 
 one. This is a dangerous crossing for a debate. 
 But, to continue: Were it not for ignorance had 
 we known everything about God Europe would 
 not be dotted with all the beautiful cathedrals and 
 the wonderful treasures of art that are an everlast 
 ing source of enchantment and inspiration. Were it 
 not for the same reason we would not have such a 
 beauty spot in Boston as Copley square, with its two 
 imposing churches, Library and Museum of Art. 
 And remembering that all objects to delight the eye, 
 the ear* and the mind began at the earliest shrines 
 of worship, we can barely calculate how poor and 
 meagre all our arts would have been were it not for 
 this ignorance. What would poetry in the largest 
 sense what would it be were it not for this igno 
 rance concerning Providence P And poetry is the 
 main motive, the quintessence of all the other arts. 
 Religion is the great question mark of the world, 
 and what you ask for religion I ask for ignorance. 
 Whether the makers of the Bible wrote on space or 
 
 78 
 
The Value of Ignorance 
 
 not, no one can deny its high value as a work of 
 poetry and fiction ; and as much can be said for all 
 the other sacred books of the great faiths. 
 "The mood of ignorance is worth everything: it is 
 wonder, amazement, naivete, child-like innocence, 
 fairy-like dreaminess. 
 
 "In ignorance we trust, trusting we serve, serving 
 we achieve, achieving we glorify our names. Not 
 to know is to long for, to expecl: everything and 
 work for it; while to know is to be sure of this or 
 that, and there is something significant in the coup 
 ling of the words, dead sure/ Tis good to have 
 faith ; what we believe in is or comes true. The illu 
 sion is the thing that makes the play. We are all 
 chasing after phantoms, but the chase is a reality, 
 and it s all in all. The less we know about the re 
 sults perhaps the more we do. And not knowing 
 how incapable we are, some of us do remarkable 
 things. 
 
 "A Jewish legend tells us that before the human 
 soul is doomed to be born it knows everything, is 
 informed of all knowledge including, I presume, 
 a knowledge of the Talmudic laws of marriage and 
 divorce but that at its birth an angel appears, gives 
 the child a schnel in noz, or tap on the nose, which 
 causes the infant to forget everything it knows so 
 that it may be born absolutely ignorant. That is a 
 good angel, I say, who performs a good office, and 
 not like the rest of them, who, according to John 
 Hay, are loafing around the throne. Here is a use- 
 
 79 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 ful angel. For to give the child its ignorance is to 
 confer a great boon ; to make it capable of some 
 thing in life. It is a valuable gift, though earthly 
 creatures soon spoil the good work of the angel 
 and stuff the child s head full of all sorts of useless 
 knowledge. Soon the mind is clogged, the faculties 
 for thinking, wondering, understanding are turned 
 into a phonographic apparatus for remembering 
 what should never have been learned, and the 
 imagination is nipped in the bud, told to be correcl: 
 and keep still. With all my inability to learn and dis 
 inclination to know, there are still a few things I 
 have been trying to forget all my life, but I cannot 
 do it. At the point of a cane my rabbi drove these 
 things into my head. So if I ever impart any infor 
 mation to you, forgive me for I cannot forget. Here 
 in America and in modernity, where superstition is 
 such that people actually believe in the existence of 
 facls, the schools and colleges form tremendous sys 
 tems of stupefaction. Poor little heads of innocent 
 children are packed, cramped and crowded with dates 
 and names and all sorts of insignificant data. They 
 teach them everything except what interests them, 
 and they are made to repeat and to remember all 
 things dry and dull and dreary. ( Facls, facts, facts, 
 the teachers cry, not knowing that there are no facts 
 in real life. Minds are measured, ideas must be of a 
 certain size, you must think but one thought at a 
 time and remember all things in history that never 
 happened. Thus, fancy, whim, suggestion, imagina- 
 
 80 
 
"The Value of Ignorance 
 
 tion are sadly neglected, and the finest faculties are 
 left behind. Everybody knows everything, but no 
 one understands anything. 
 
 " Tis so with people generally they are all clam 
 oring for what they call facts, explaining things after 
 fixed formulas, making the most astonishing, dead- 
 sure statements; in short, spreading useful knowl 
 edge. They all have ideas and theories and philoso 
 phies after a fashion; they have sized this universe 
 up, past, present and future, and they can explain 
 every thingexcept themselves. Everybody has found 
 a few facts, and after these fashioned a universal 
 panacea, a little patented plan for solving the social 
 problem. There are so many solutions that it is hard 
 to find just what the problem is. Reform is so much 
 in style that even a corn doctor proclaims himself 
 a social saviour. The social reformers with their sure 
 cures, positive facts and all-saving systems are the 
 plague of the age. There is no escape from these 
 things they call certain and positive and indisput 
 able. Figures and statistics and so-called facts make 
 up the sum of our life. Life is harnessed by systems 
 and we are strangled by statistics. The subtle, the 
 strange, the symbolic, the suggestive, the intuitive, 
 the poetic and imaginative, theft ash-lights that make 
 you see eternity in a moment these are over 
 looked and neglected. The things really true are for 
 gotten. What is that Persian legend about the man 
 who devoted his life to planting and rearing and rais 
 ing the tree of knowledge in his garden, and after- 
 
 81 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 wards, in his old age, was hanged thereon? What? 
 There is no such Persian legend? Well, then, some 
 Englishman ought to write it. At any rate this shows 
 the value of knowledge. The fruit of the tree of 
 knowledge is now sweet, now bitter but mostly 
 bitter. We analyze and examine so much these days 
 that we find within ourselves and in our surround 
 ings the symptoms of all diseases and all evil. To 
 quote a quaint but true Zangwillism, Analysis is 
 paralysis, introspection is vivisection, and culture 
 drives us mad/ We measure things so closely and 
 leave no room for the surprising, the spontaneous, 
 the freely flowing, the lifelike. The age of reason has 
 come and we are no longer wise. We have forgotten 
 what we owe to ignorance. He knows everything/ 
 said the doctor; there is no hope for him/ 
 "In their ignorance of human nature and natural law 
 idealists have dreamed and created the most unat 
 tainable Utopias, and their impossible visions shaped 
 our destiny and made us great. The stirring speech 
 that Lametkin delivered this evening is partly due 
 to his ignorance of things and his blind faith in his 
 panacea, but it enthused his audience immensely, 
 and it will have a wonderful effect upon their lives. 
 The other day I read some beautiful lines by Owen 
 Meredith about the child who cries to clutch the 
 star that shines in splendor over his little cot/ The 
 matter-of-fact father says that it is folly, that it is 
 millions of miles away, and that c the star descends 
 not to twinkle on the little one s bed/ But the 
 
 82 
 
The Value of Ignorance 
 
 mother tenderly tells the child to sleep and promises 
 to pluck the star for it and by-and-by 
 
 c Lay it upon the pillow bright with dew y y 
 
 and then the child sleeps and dreams of stars whose 
 light 
 Beams in bis own bright eyes when he awakes. 
 
 " Now in these lines one may find justification for all 
 the idealizations of art, but they are also suggestive 
 of the value of ignorance. So it is. We must learn 
 to see the invisible. We must be oblivious to the 
 obvious, to see anything. We ought not to try to 
 clear up everything. If life were not a problem play it 
 would not interest us so. Let the mystery remain. 
 Intimations of immortality are good enough; proofs 
 would kill our longing for it. Whence? Whither? I 
 rather hope these questions will never be answered. 
 The halo, the maze, the mystery, the shadowy 
 strangeness of it all makes it worth while and gives 
 the fancy freedom to fly. Statistics sterilize the imagi 
 nation and figures dry up our souls. Do you re 
 member Whitman s c When I Heard the Learned 
 Astronomers? The lecturer with his charts and dia 
 grams soon made him unaccountably sick, till rising 
 and gliding out of the lecture room he wandered off 
 by himself c in the mystical, moist night-air, and 
 from time to time looked up in perfect silence at the 
 stars, and thus became himself again. 
 " Let others seek what they call facts : for me the 
 lights and the shades, the dimness and the flash, 
 
 83 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 the chiaroscuro of life. Let others pierce through 
 phenomena and impregnate realities ; my favorite 
 amusement is to walk upon the clouds and play ball 
 with the stars. I cannot grasp such details as the size 
 of the earth, the distance between sun and moon. 
 Logic? Lockjaw. Go study your astronomy and let 
 me lie on my back in some verdant field and gaze 
 upon the stars, and I shall be content. Let others 
 study botany, give me but the fragrance of the 
 blooms and flowers and let me gaze upon their gor 
 geous riots of color. For others the study of anatomy, 
 for me the beauty of the human form to behold. Let 
 others study ornithology, and let me listen to the 
 thrilling music of the winged songsters. Take all the 
 sciences that explain everything away, and give me 
 the things beautiful to behold, sweet to hear and 
 pleasing to touch. And before you run away let me 
 also tell you that there is a mood of contemplation 
 which, for comprehension, passeth all science and 
 analysis. 
 
 " But, after all," he added, as we were about to part, 
 " I could only hint at these things, for it takes a very 
 learned man to prove the value of ignorance." 
 
Days of Atonement 
 
 AL day the Ghetto was astir.There was a babel 
 of excitementat the markets,an unusual rush 
 and bustle on Allen street. The stores were 
 well filled with bargaining, buying men and women, 
 and the push-cart vendors were centres of attracted 
 crowds. Everywhere housewives were busy washing, 
 clearing, cleaning their homes. The spirit of awe, rev 
 erence, expectancy, was in the air. The great day of 
 Rosh Hashona was approaching; New Year s day 
 was drawing nigh. 
 
 We stood on the sidewalk in front of Berosowsky s 
 book and periodical emporium, the strange place 
 where you can procure anything from Bernard Fei- 
 genbaum s pamphlets against religion, to a pair of 
 phylacteries, from Tolstoy s works in Yiddish to a 
 holy scroll. We stood and gazed on the familiar yet 
 fascinating scene.We had just left the store, wherein 
 we glanced through the current newspapers and 
 other publications. " It is so stupid to read. Let s go 
 out and look at the people," Keidansky exclaimed 
 abruptly as he threw down a eulogy of a Yiddish 
 poet written by himself, in the paper of which he is 
 now editor. 
 
 Not far off was heard the short, shrill sound of the 
 ram s horn. It was the "bal tkio," the official syna 
 gogue trumpeter practising for the nearing ominous 
 
 8s 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 days. Hard by, a cantor and his choir of sweet voices 
 were rehearsing the quaint hymns and prayers of the 
 great fast, singing the strange, tearful, traditional 
 melodies that have never been written, and yet have 
 come down from generation to generation for hun 
 dreds of years ; the weird musical wailings, the tunes 
 of the cheerless chants, charged with the sighs, groans 
 and laments of centuries of sufferings, flooded the 
 noisy street, mingled with the harsh cries of the 
 hucksters, and were lost in the general buzz and roar 
 of the crowded district. 
 
 " The days of awe and of atonement are upon us/ said 
 Keidansky, "and these evocative, awakening voices 
 are drawing, drawing me back to the synagogue, 
 back to the days of childhood, faith, hope, igno 
 rance, innocence, peace, and plenty of sleep. A 
 broken note of old music, then a flood of memories, 
 a sway of feeling, and no matter what I have, or have 
 not been, I am again as pious and penitent, and as 
 passionately religious, as I was when a child in the 
 most God-fearing Ghetto in the world. 
 "Did you say something about free thought, the 
 higher criticism, universal religion, about the law of 
 evolution applied to religion, about all creeds being 
 equally true and equally false? Did you talk to me 
 about these things ? 
 
 "Well, a scrap of Yom Kippur melody and the faith 
 of my fathers is my faith. Our instincts destroy our 
 philosophies. f Our feelings and affections are wiser 
 than we are ! The old is preserved for our self-pres- 
 
 86 
 
Days of Atonement 
 
 ervation. The new is destructive, bewildering. The 
 old is often worth deserting, yet it is bred in the bone ; 
 it is comforting and consoling and easy to live up to. 
 The new is bewitching, but baneful; it breeds dis 
 content, ennui, we can hardly ever live up to it. 
 Blessed are those who live in the world they were 
 born into. They are also damned, but that s not in 
 their time. 
 
 "Tradition," Keidansky continued musing aloud, 
 "is far more beautiful than history, and even nature 
 with all her charms has to be improved upon by art, 
 by illusion. In the course of time science may build 
 up some interesting superstitions, but meanwhile it 
 is our poor debtor. It has rilled the world with cold 
 facts. It has emptied the heart of its fond fancies. 
 And what do we really know, after all? The greatest 
 philosopher of the age pauses and stands nonplussed 
 before the Unknowable. The densest ignoramus in 
 the world knows it all; knows all about the worlds 
 beneath and beyond their climates, inhabitants, 
 populations, moral status, tortures and pleasures. 
 What do we know, anyway ? Next to nothing, and we 
 feel lonely and desolate and powerless after we have 
 had everything explained to us. Orthodoxy, at least, 
 gives us the consciousness of having some control in 
 the universe ; it gives us a sense of shelter and of safe- 
 ty.We know we have a kind of vote in the general 
 management of things. We can accomplish some 
 thing by our prayers, by fasting. And when the fear 
 ful days come, the days in which the destiny of every 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 mortal for the coming year is determined on high, 
 we ask for atonement, and fast and pour out our 
 griefs in mournful prayers and burn candles for the 
 dead. Our voices are heard on high, because we be 
 lieve they are, and our names are entered in the Book 
 of Life for another year. Do not smile now, nor look 
 so wise. All that is, is well, and whatever we believe 
 in is true. The greatest sacrifice we made to science 
 was our ignorance. 
 
 " But whether it is this or that, there is something 
 rooted so firmly and so unfathomably deep within 
 us that calls and pulls us back to all that we have de 
 serted and tried to forget ; and when these hallowed 
 days come, we can no longer drown our feelings. No 
 matter how far I went in my radical conceptions 
 and I often went far enough to be excommunicated 
 by my worthy brethren no matter how iconoclas 
 tic we became, how absorbed we were in our abstrac 
 tions, and how fearlessly we theorized, the season of 
 awe, beautiful, terrible awe, the judgment days drew 
 near and hearts became heavy and the melody of the 
 song of c Kol Nidro invaded our minds and shut 
 out all the other music we ever heard in our lives. It 
 is all a strain of music that, once heard, keeps sing 
 ing in our memories forever this faith of our fa 
 thers. Go where we will, do what we may, the beauties 
 of the old religion are with us yet and we cannot, we 
 cannot forget. 
 
 "Among the radicals of the New York Ghetto there 
 is no more advanced nor brilliant man than is my 
 
 88 
 
Days of Atonement 
 
 friend Bahan. He has edited some of the best Jew 
 ish publications ; he has written much of what was 
 best in them, and he was always on the side of free- 
 thought and new ideas. Like myself, he belonged to 
 the circles that had reformed Judaism altogether. He 
 had not entered a synagogue for purposes of prayer 
 since he left Russia as a youth, and that was many 
 years ago. He is now on one of the best New York 
 papers, and when Rosh Hashona and Yom Kippur 
 arrive, he writes about these holidays so fervidly, 
 feelingly, enthusiastically, with such tears in his eyes 
 that one would think that these unsigned articles are 
 the work of the most pious and orthodox Hebrew in 
 New York. And, perhaps, they are too," Keidansky 
 added, aside, "only if Bahan were accused of ortho 
 doxy he would protest his innocence." 
 " That was years ago," my friend continued after a 
 pause. " I was young, seeking new worlds to conquer, 
 and so I fell into bad company among people who 
 think. They are mostly free-thinkers and free-talk 
 ers, and in the course of time my religion dwindled 
 and I became as erratic as any of them. The worst 
 thing about one who begins to think is that he also 
 begins to talk. I began to talk, to voice my doubts 
 and heresies, and soon the world, or at least my rela 
 tives, were against me. I kept on saying the most 
 unsayable things, and when New Year s came I re 
 fused to go to the synagogue, because I had discov 
 ered the existence of the Unknowable. We quar 
 relled, and things came to such a pass that I left my 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 cousin s home, where I had been living, during the 
 Days of Atonement. I knew what I knew and I was 
 ready to make all sacrifices for the right of ranting 
 and raving over the shameful superstitions in which 
 humanity was steeped. The world was before me and 
 so were all my troubles. But even when I refused to 
 go to the synagogue, I was at heart of hearts exceed 
 ingly lonely without it, without the beautiful service 
 of Rosh Hoshona. When the eve of Yom Kippur 
 came I did not know what to do with myself. Our 
 circle of friends was to meet at the home of one of its 
 members and spend the evening gayly and happily, 
 though it was the sad and solemn Fast of Atone 
 ment. I had promised to come, and so, when all the 
 inhabitants of the Ghetto were wending their way to 
 their respective houses of worship I started with a 
 heavy heart to join my friends, glad that I had made 
 the promise and sorry that I was keeping it. I ar 
 rived at my destination, a street in the West End 
 Jewish quarter. When I neared the house I heard a 
 loud, rather boisterous conversation going on. I rang 
 the bell. Even as I did so I heard a number of shouts 
 and loud peals of laughter. I did not wait for the door 
 to open. I turned and walked away. I walked right on, 
 not in the least knowing whither. Before I was barely 
 aware of it, I was in Baldwin place, in front of the 
 Beth Israel Synagogue. The cantor and his choir 
 were just chanting the awe-inspiring, soul-stirring 
 prayer of c Kol Nidro/ that wonderful product of 
 the Spanish inquisition, written by a Morano dur- 
 
 90 
 
Days of Atonement 
 
 ing the darkest days of Israel and freighted with the 
 sighs and cries and moans of a suffering people. 
 Those strains of music brought me to my own life 
 again. I entered the synagogue. I had come into my 
 own. I felt such peace and consolation as I had not 
 known for ever so long. 
 
 " Do not ask me to explain it, I cannot. If the in 
 curability of religion could be explained it could also 
 be cured. This is what happened, and this is what 
 still happens to me from time to time. It may be 
 strange, but mine is a government of, for, and by 
 moods, and as they come and go I become every 
 thing that I have been and that I may be. 
 " I Ve been greatly moved by many preachers and 
 teachers and I have followed some of the most ad 
 vanced advocates of our time, the most universal 
 universalists ; but let me hear one of the beautiful 
 old chants, such as c Kol Nidro, or c Unsana Tau- 
 keff, and I become a most zealous orthodox. Did 
 I ever tell you about it ? 
 
 " c Unsana Taukeff is the most important prayer 
 on the two days of Rosh Hoshona and the Day of 
 Atonement. It is known as the Song of a Martyr 
 in Israel ! The story of the prayer is one of the 
 prettiest in Jewish folk tales. It is the song of Rabbi 
 Amnon, who was the rabbi of Metz, in the days of 
 Bishop Ercembud (101 1-1017). Rabbi Amnon was 
 of an illustrious family, of great personal merit, rich 
 and respected by Jewand Gentile alike. The bishop 
 frequently pressed him to abjure Judaism and em- 
 
 9 1 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 brace Christianity, but without avail. It happened, 
 however, on a certain day, being more closely pressed 
 than usual and somewhat anxious to be rid of the 
 bishop s importunities, he said hastily : c I will con 
 sider the matter and give thee an answer in three 
 days/ 
 
 " As soon as he had left the bishop s presence, how 
 ever, his heart smote him and an uneasy conscience 
 blamed him for having, even in the remotest man 
 ner, doubted his faith. He reached home over 
 whelmed with grief. Meat was set before him, but 
 he refused to eat, and when his friends visited him 
 he declined their proffered consolation, saying : c I 
 shall go down mourning to the grave/ 
 " On the third day, while he was still lamenting his 
 rash concession, the bishop sent for him, but he failed 
 to answer the call. Finally the bishop s messengers 
 seized him and brought him before the prelate by 
 force. c Let me pronounce my own doom for this 
 neglect, answered Amnon. c Let my tongue, which 
 uttered these doubting words, be cut out. It was a 
 lie I uttered, for I never intended to consider that 
 proposition/ 
 
 " c Nay, said the bishop, c I will not cut out thy 
 tongue, but thy feet, which refused to come to me, 
 shall be cut off, and other parts of thine obstinate 
 body shall also be tormented and punished/ 
 " Under the bishop s eyes the toes and thumbs of 
 Rabbi Amnon were then cut off, and after having 
 been severely tortured he was sent home in a car- 
 
 92 
 
Days of Atonement 
 
 riage, his mangled members beside him. Rabbi Am- 
 non bore all this with greatest resignation, firmly 
 hoping and trusting that his earthly torment would 
 plead his pardon with God. The days of awe came 
 round while he was on his death bed, and he desired 
 to be carried to the synagogue. He was conveyed to 
 the house of God, and during the services he asked 
 that he be permitted to utter a prayer. His words, 
 which proved to be the last, given in English, are 
 somewhat as follows : 
 
 " c I will declare the mighty holiness of this day, for 
 it is awful and tremendous. Thy kingdom is exalted 
 thereon ; Thy throne is established in mercy, and 
 upon it Thou dost rest in truth. Thou art the judge 
 who chastiseth, and from Thee naught may be con 
 cealed. Thou bearest witness, writest, sealest, re- 
 cordest and rememberest all things, aye those which 
 we imagine buried in the past. The Book of Records 
 Thou openest ; the great sophor is sounded; even 
 the angels are terrified and they cry aloud : " The 
 day of judgment dawns upon us," for in judgment 
 they, the angels, are not faultless. 
 " c All who have entered the world pass before Thee. 
 Even as the shepherd causes the flock he numbers 
 to pass under his crook, so Thou, O Lord, causest 
 every living soul to pass before Thee. Thou number- 
 est, thou visitest, appointing the limitations of every 
 creature according to Thy judgment and Thy sen 
 tence. 
 " c On the New Year it is written, on the Day of 
 
 93 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 Atonement it is sealed. Aye, all Thy decrees are re 
 corded ; who is to live and who is to die. The names 
 of those who are to meet death by fire, by water, or 
 by sword; through hunger, through thirst, and with 
 the pestilence. All is recorded ; those who are to have 
 tranquillity ; those who are to be disturbed ; those 
 who are to be troubled ; those who are to be blessed 
 with repose ; those who are to be prosperous; those 
 for whom affliction is in store ; those who are to be 
 come rich, those who are to be poor ; who exalted, 
 who cast down. But penitence, prayer and charity, 
 O Lord, may avert all evil decrees/ 
 "When he had finished this declaration, Rabbi Am- 
 non expired, dying in God s house, among the as 
 sembled sons of Israel. 
 
 " I can never forget these prayers, nor these days, 
 go where I will, do what I may," Keidansky con 
 tinued. " Did you say something about free thought, 
 the higher criticism, universal religion, the law of 
 evolution, the study of comparative religion, the ab 
 surdity of superstition? Come, let us go over to yon 
 der house ; the cantor and his choir are now singing 
 < Unsana Taukeff. 
 And I followed him. 
 
 94 
 
XI 
 
 Why the World Is Growing Better 
 
 THE world is growing better than it ever 
 was before/ said Keidansky; "we no 
 longer practise what we preach." And be 
 fore I had time to recover from my surprise and utter 
 any protest, he hastily continued in his exasperating 
 manner: "We still believe in certain doctrines, hold 
 certain theories, advocate certain ideas, preach cer 
 tain gospels; but we feel different and act much 
 better when it comes to real life. We are far wiser in 
 adjusting our acts to our ends, or rather our deeds 
 are more wisely adjusted to our aims than we know. 
 We do not desecrate these principles we entertain by 
 putting them into practice. We don t feel like doing 
 so. We let the abstractions float above us as vapor in 
 the air. We have human instincts, good motives, 
 noble longings, and our conduct is fairly decent in 
 spite of our conflicting codes. 
 
 "From a thousand pulpits we are told to do this, 
 that, and the other ; a thousand theories would divide 
 our paths in life; a thousand methods of salvation 
 are presented to us by the only and original author 
 ized agents from on high; but our humanity makes 
 us all akin, our instincts guide us and our yearnings 
 lure us all the same way to perdition and to happi 
 ness ; and we follow after and pave the way for the 
 ideal world. How widely, vastly different our relig- 
 
 95 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 ious and moral beliefs and our abstractions are. And 
 yet, how nearly alike, how similarly we all ad: and 
 perform our parts in the world s work. We still dif 
 fer, dispute and debate over the future, the trend and 
 ultimate aim of things; but we no longer allow these 
 differences to prevent us from acting in unison and 
 harmony in all things that are conducive to our bet 
 ter development and chief good. A dozen men can 
 not agree upon a Church, so they form another trust ; 
 and, aiding the industrial growth of the country, they 
 work out their own salvation, and in the course of 
 time endow colleges and build mansions and pay 
 fabulous sums for great paintings, and even feed the 
 beggars that live on theology. These men agree on 
 one thing, and that is most important of all. 
 "As I said, we still listen to and believe in many of 
 the crude, incongruous and misty creeds that are 
 preached to us, but we walk upon more solid ground 
 when it comes to life, and all that we want to make 
 of it which is the most possible. We build wiser 
 than we know, and we disobey the preachers because 
 we can rise above them, do better, and put their ad 
 vice to shame. Have we discarded the book? Well, 
 we have followed life ; and see, this world is quite in 
 habitable now. That we differ in theology, on le 
 gends, myths, is a trifle, but that we agree on the 
 education of the young, hygiene, athletic exercise, 
 morning walks, cold baths, pure diet, music, pic 
 tures: that we agree on the value of all these things 
 makes the game worth the candle. 
 
Why the World Is Growing Better 
 
 "For instance, we are perpetually urged to, and we 
 half believe it best to, renounce the world, the flesh, 
 and the devil, forfeit all the joys of life, and join the 
 Society for the Prevention of Anything; but inaclu- 
 ality, we are all strenuously engaged in capturing 
 the world, in gratifying the flesh and in getting as 
 much devil into us as is possible in the pitifully brief 
 span of this short life. This is absolutely necessary. 
 The more devil within us the better. A man with rio 
 devil in him will not go to heaven, or any other 
 pleasurable resort. By doing and daring and devil 
 ing we become strong, and if the world is better to 
 day than it ever was before, which it certainly is, it is 
 because we no longer practise what we preach have 
 nearly always practised better. If man did not do 
 things, and do them so much better, sermons would 
 never become obsolete; but as it is, loads of them 
 have to be dumped in some swamp every little 
 while. 
 
 "We have also been advised as to the beautiful vir 
 tues of humility, meekness, timidity, obedience, sub 
 mission, self-effacement, self-suppression, wiping 
 yourself off the face of the earth with benzine and a 
 rag, and we have believed in the advice, but fortu 
 nately only believed ; for a voice from within prompt 
 ed us to feel and be different and do more wisely. So 
 we cultivated haughtiness, pride, aggressiveness, 
 have given free play to our physical and spiritual 
 forces, have become conscious of our powers, and 
 more powerful still, and the phantom of freedom 
 
 97 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 is becoming a fact and the world is growing fair. 
 We walk with our heads erect nowadays, no matter 
 what conception we have in our minds. We have be 
 come so arrogant that we even question the divine 
 right of bishops and policemen.We take off our hats 
 for nothing, known or unknown. No matter what 
 we believe, we feel that obsequiousness is the most 
 disgraceful word in the dictionary. Then we are be 
 coming so self-appreciative and selfish that we re 
 fuse to let others save us. The salvation of a soul is 
 a rather delicate matter, and it cannot be done at 
 short order while you wait, by all those whose adver 
 tisements we have read. It is not quite so easy a 
 matter as it is to find a watchmaker to put your time 
 piece into good repair. In fact, we are growing so 
 egoistic that we want to do it ourselves. We no long 
 er want any mark-down bargains, such as salvation 
 for a prayer, a fish dinner or ninety-eight cents in 
 charity. We feel the fraud of bribing our way into 
 heaven. Those are cheated most who get their things 
 cheaply. It is the height of impudence and imbecil 
 ity to think that putting on a long face, or some 
 other act of piety or penance, will change your des 
 tiny, and incidentally, the course of the universe. At 
 least, we feel that these things are wrong, no matter 
 what we think. Life or death or immortality, a man 
 must pay his rent. Everything has its price. What 
 you get for nothing is worth the same.The theologi 
 cal bargains will not wear well at all. You must pay 
 honestly and fairly for everything you receive, and 
 
 
 
the W^orld Is Growing Better 
 
 for all you become. What we procure for nothing 
 is not worth while. We are only cheating ourselves 
 miserably when we attempt to get what is best 
 through bribes and pass through the gates on false 
 pretences. Whatever we have been told, we feel that 
 we cannot follow the newspaper advertisements in 
 these things and buy redemption at closing-out bar 
 gain sales. No one can grow for another, no one can 
 acquire, no one can become for another, no one can 
 be saved by proxy or buy salvation. Each must 
 work and suffer and struggle his way up. 
 " I see that you are a little incredulous about these 
 things," he said, after a short silence. "Do you find 
 it hard to follow me? I know exactly what I mean, 
 only the difficulty lies in making you see it as I do. 
 No; don t be in haste. Let s walk a little more. I 
 am afraid your education is being sadly neglected; I 
 have n t talked at you for some time. No ; I never 
 hasten. Whenever I am in a great hurry to get to a 
 place of the most urgent necessity I walk into a sec 
 ond-hand book store, like those on Fourth avenue, 
 and look at the titles and read the prefaces of old and 
 odd volumes. Never mind the swarming, surging, 
 scurrying crowds. They are attending to the world s 
 business, and make it possible for me to be idle and 
 look on. 
 
 " Butwhat I was driving at is this : That there is one 
 life and many theories of it, that most of these theo 
 ries are a disgrace even to Sunday schools, that it *s 
 all hitting the nail on the finger. While these theo- 
 
 99 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 ries would have us go by various little walks and by 
 ways and lanes and alleys, life prompts us to take to 
 the open road that leads to strength and happiness. 
 While these theories would have us thwart and stifle 
 and starve our desires, life forces us to give them full 
 play in spite of all conventions and creeds, and the 
 result is civilization and all its blessings. Way down 
 into the recesses of our souls we are so deeply relig 
 ious that we all do better than we believe. 
 " Take three children of different birth ; send them 
 to three different schools, instruct them in three dif 
 ferent religions, and then, will they not, when they 
 grow up, work and aim and struggle and trade and 
 worry and aspire and get dyspepsia in short, live 
 and die in very much the same way, and more or less 
 fairly and squarely ? Inasmuch as their morals will 
 be useful, will they not be of the same brand? Will 
 they not do better than they respectively believe ? 
 There are other illustrations. The leading orthodox 
 rabbi of this city naturally believes in the restoration 
 of Palestine, the regeneration of Judaism, the resur 
 rection of the Hebrew language, and the resuscita 
 tion of many things long dead and passed away. In 
 his speeches he is a most ardent advocate of the re 
 vival of Hebrew lore, the essence of all wisdom ac 
 cording to him, and the greatest of all tongues, the 
 Hebrew language, which revival, he avers, is the 
 most radiant promise of Zionism. The neglect of 
 the ancient lore in this country is his most woful re 
 gret. But his own son he sends to Harvard for a 
 
 100 
 
Why the World Is Growing Better 
 
 modern education, and the son will become a man 
 of the world and a useful, valuable member of soci 
 ety because his father did better than he believed. 
 " c A year hence in Jerusalem/ cries the pious He 
 brew at the close of his holiday prayer, and then, as 
 soon as the festival is over he buys himself a little 
 house, pays $800 down, raises two mortgages and, 
 trusting in God, he hopes to pay up the entire sum 
 in about ten years, and he and his family are happier 
 and this country is richer and better for their being 
 here. c A year hence in Jerusalem/ and here we are 
 doing what we can for our own good and for the 
 good of whatever country we abide in, and all of us 
 are well because we act better than we preach and 
 believe. Most of us believed in the colonization of 
 Palestine when we were way back in Russia, yet we 
 came over here feeling that this is the new promised 
 land. Palestine may be a good place for the old to 
 die in, if the superstition is true that the worms will 
 not touch your corpse there, but I don t think it is 
 a promising country for the young to live in. The 
 land that was once flowing with milk and honey now 
 lacks water. No, I don t know in what part of New 
 York they make the Passover wine that they bring 
 from Palestine. 
 
 cc I am somewhat of a Zionist myself, as you know, 
 but as soon as I can afford it, as soon as my Yiddish 
 play is produced and the New York critics condemn 
 it to a financial success, I will send for my little 
 brother to come from Russia to this country, and as 
 
 101 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 there is no genius in our family, I am sure he will 
 do very well here. Yet I believe in the restoration 
 of Palestine, and so long as the Zionists permit me 
 to live in this country I am willing to support their 
 movement. 
 
 " And, let s see, there s something else. I want to 
 fix you up so that you will never again come to me 
 with that hackneyed plaint that the world is going 
 to the dogs because we do not practise what we 
 preach. We have laws and we all preach against in 
 termarriage, do we not? We all condemn the inter 
 marriage of Jew and Christian, of Protestant and 
 Catholic, of chorus girl and rich college student, of 
 an actress and a minister; we prohibit these things 
 and perhaps rightly, and yet " 
 " And yet ? " I asked anxiously. 
 " Do not be alarmed," he answered quickly; "I am 
 not going to advocate intermarriage or assimilation. 
 By this time you will, perhaps, have gathered from 
 what I said that I do not much believe in measures 
 that have to be advocated; rather do I favor the 
 things that heart and soul prompt us to do, what 
 ever our beliefs and theories and in spite of them. 
 The advocacy of a thing, or the supposed necessity 
 of advocating a certain measure, proves the useless- 
 ness, untimeliness and futility of it. It is hardly wise 
 to advocate anything. Things must be brought 
 about by conditions to be of vital import. Least of 
 all should any one ever advocate intermarriage, and 
 yet, and yet do you remember these lines? 
 
 IO2 
 
Why the World Is Growing Better 
 
 cc c Two shall be born the whole wide world apart > 
 And speak in different tongues and have no thought 
 Each of the other s being, and no heed. 
 And these over unknown seas to unknown lands 
 Shall cross , escaping wreck, defying death , 
 And all unconsciously shape every al 
 And bend each wandering step to this one end, 
 That one day, out of darkness they shall meet 
 And read life* s meaning in each other s eyes. 
 
 " Yes/* he concluded, as we were about to part, " the 
 world is growing better than it ever was before and 
 it is n t because we have a more efficient police force 
 either/ 
 
 103 
 
XII 
 
 Home, the Last Resort 
 
 "f | ^HERE is no place like home," said Kei- 
 2 dansky, " and there s nothing like run- 
 I ning away from it." 
 
 "What is the matter with the home?" I asked. 
 "Nothing," he answered, "except that very often 
 everything is. You are surprised ? " he continued. 
 "That s promising. Somehow when I see you 
 shocked it makes me feel as if I am saying some 
 thing, and I am encouraged to go on. What do I 
 mean? Just this: 
 
 " There is no place that is so small, petty and narrow 
 as the home is; there is no place so close, cramped 
 and crowded ; so limited, restricted and tape-meas 
 ured. There s no place where there is such agree 
 ment, unity and uniformity ; where there is so much 
 subordination, subjection and cooppression if you 
 will pardon the coining of a word as in the home; 
 no place where there is such conformity of opinion, 
 speech and action; where there is so much depend 
 ence, inter-dependence and inter-domination; where 
 so much good advice is given you, so many high ex 
 amples set up and so many paragons of perfection 
 presented to you ; no place where there s so much up 
 holding of old standards and so little scope for build 
 ing new ones ; where respectability is regarded with 
 such reverence and the neighbors say held so sa- 
 
 105 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 cred; no place so lacking initiative, so barren of 
 originality, so devoid of daring no place where you 
 are so tenderly cared for, so kindly comforted, so 
 closely watched, and so grossly misunderstood as the 
 home. It is the most dangerous place in the world. 
 " No, do not interrupt me I know just what you 
 are going to say. Let me state it for you while I 
 am at it. What I said is. blasphemy, of course, and 
 what you want to say is that the home is the garden 
 where all our virtues flower and bloom ; that it is the 
 foundation of our morals, the birthplace of our high 
 est ideals, the great character-builder, the school of 
 patriotism, the source of true religion, the protector 
 of our national life, the benign soul-uplifter, the place 
 where goodness and purity flourish, and the place 
 where the best principles are manufactured. I know 
 just what you are going to say because I, too, have 
 heard some sermons and have read some after-din 
 ner speeches in my life. And I do not say that these 
 utterances are altogether misleading. There is some 
 good, I doubt not, in a sermon and some shadow of 
 truth even in an after-dinner speech. But because the 
 home has ever been the subject of indiscriminate en 
 comiums and puffy panegyrics, no one has ever dared 
 to say anything against it. It has not been treated as 
 a human institution, and so many crimes have been 
 committed in its good name. It is because these beau 
 tiful things about it are, or are supposed to be, that 
 so many of us have been sentenced to stay home 
 without a proper trial. 
 
 1 06 
 
Home, the Last Resort 
 
 " Granting even that the halo is not hollow and that 
 home is the ideal place it is pictured to be, the admis 
 sion is perhaps the strongest argument against it and 
 for running away from it; for, in that case, the home 
 is almost too good a place to stay in, too tame and 
 agreeable, a nest of the neutral, a triumph of the 
 negative, maybe, and hardly a place where you can 
 grow, learn, enlarge and expand distinctly and in 
 your own way. I fear me that in any case home is 
 about the last resort where one can express his indi 
 viduality and become fully equipped to grapple with 
 the world and those who own it. Do not misunder 
 stand me. No one intends to wage wanton war 
 against that which is held in reverence. 
 " The radical is only ahead of time because all the 
 others are behind it. No one wishes to abolish 
 merely for the sake of abolition. There is no satis 
 faction in mere annihilation. No one wishes it. Wis 
 dom and folly have the same intention. To say that 
 the most destructive radical and the most orthodox 
 conservative are in perfect agreement as far as their 
 aim is concerned will be dangerously near uttering a 
 commonplace. Both seek well-being and happiness. 
 There was a time when there was a little difference 
 between the two; when one of the two parties wanted 
 to postpone that welfare unto another life ; but now, 
 in this hasty age, both demand all that it is possible 
 to procure here and now. There may be difference 
 of opinion, but there is no difference of intention. 
 The object of all is to preserve the virility of our be- 
 
 107 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 ing, the veracity of soul, the strength to do and to 
 be. There may be a question as to my being a con 
 servative, but there is no doubt that I am a conser 
 vator. I would conserve everything that is conducive 
 to growth and happiness. What I believe, what I 
 say, has this object in view. And having this in view, 
 I realize that in the course of human events it ever 
 and anon becomes necessary to demolish the divini 
 ties that be. 
 
 " If I seem to attack this sacred institution it is be 
 cause it has a very seamy, sore and searing side to it. 
 In the first place there are usually parents at home. 
 What a pity that parents and children cannot be of 
 the same age ; that there cannot be some under 
 standing between them. What a sorrow that those 
 who brought us into the world should have no sym 
 pathy with us that those whom we love most 
 should understand us least ; that there should be 
 such conflicting contrasts in feeling, in thought, in 
 temperaments and tendencies. But regrets do not 
 alter circumstances. They exist and they are obdu 
 rate. The old look backward : the young look for 
 ward. The old have become hardened, inured to 
 things and indifferent : to the young this is the great 
 est danger. The old are relics of the past; the young 
 are the hopeful heirs of the future. To the former 
 life is a lost game, to the latter it is a beautiful dream. 
 The old stand with their backs to the rising sun, 
 with their faces towards their graves ; they belong to 
 a dying world and the pity of it! they would 
 
 108 
 
Home, the Last Resort 
 
 shape the destinies of those who belong to the glo 
 rious future ; they would make the children prema 
 turely wise and deprive them of most of the fun in 
 life and all the benefits that come from folly, error 
 and indiscretion. Age would convince youth that life 
 is real and earnest and a practical business which 
 is not true in the case of youth and should not be. 
 There is constant disagreement, or agreement 
 which is often worse, for it implies submission of the 
 weaker party. The freedom of the young is ever cur 
 tailed. The home is often their prison. Youth and 
 age is a bad match, and that s the disadvantage of 
 home. See this moonlight: it is beautiful, is it not? 
 But a flower must have sunshine in which to bloom. 
 All respecl: for age: but youth must have freedom. 
 "I hope this is not true of many phases of life ; but 
 I am thinking now of a condition in the Ghetto that 
 creates appalling misery, a condition that makes the 
 homeamost desirable place to run away from. Be 
 tween the Jewish children, who have acquired their 
 uplifting education here in American schools and 
 their parents, who have brought their ignorance and 
 fanaticism over from Russia where the despotism 
 of the throne and the tyranny of the Torah have 
 united in making the densest, darkest Ghettos 
 between these children and parents there is a differ 
 ence in time and progress of several hundred years. 
 I would like to pause here and tell you about the 
 Jewish religion how it has enlightened the world 
 and darkened the life of the Jews, victims of fatal fa- 
 
 109 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 naticism ; how the world has accepted the spirit of 
 Judaism in various forms and to its benefit, and the 
 Jews have remained bound by a thousand rigid rit 
 uals, iron precepts, meaningless stuff about c pots 
 and pans, to their awful detriment how they per 
 secuted themselves when they could get no Chris 
 tian nation to do it for them but there s no time 
 to talk about these things now ; besides, I want to get 
 back to the home. So many things occur to me and 
 I do not know what to say first. Write about it? Per 
 haps, some day. It may be that I, too, have been 
 cursed to live by the sweat of my pen, but oh I 
 hate to write. Besides, what s the use ? It is too late 
 to convert my people to Judaism, now. 
 " But what I mentioned before shows a pronounced 
 phase of misunderstanding, estrangement and di 
 vision between children and parents, also a good il 
 lustration of the bad, narrow, uncongenial home. 
 " Under any circumstances the old and the young 
 are out of joint ; but here the clashing of interests is 
 so accentuated that the condition is heart-tearing. 
 There are parents, crude, careless, callous, often es 
 sentially material, mercenary, miserly, whose only 
 mental occupation is their blind, outlived fatalistic 
 faith ; they are Russian produces, and they cannot 
 follow, cannot comprehend their Americanized, in 
 telligent, idealistic and aspiring boys and girls ; they 
 follow them, but blindly, praise or blame indiscrim 
 inately ; they cannot appreciate the many and noble 
 longings of these youths. No sympathy and the 
 
 no 
 
Home, the Last Resort 
 
 home stiflingly small. Yes, they love each other, if 
 there can be any love without respecl: and under 
 standing. These bright boys and girls that you meet 
 in the Ghetto, and who do so much towards the edu 
 cation of slum students and settlement workers 
 they are what they are, not because, but rather in 
 spite of, their parents. They struggle and strive up 
 ward alone and unaided, and also ad: as missionaries 
 of civilization in their homes. They beautify their 
 little rooms with pictures and books and trifles of 
 art, and they play sweet music but what is the use, 
 I ask you, of a thought, a work of art, a poem, a 
 piece, of music, if you cannot share it with those who 
 are near and, somehow, are dear to you. What is the 
 use of these things if you cannot share them with 
 some one? And what is to be done when there is no 
 response at home ? These children are so lonely in 
 their sorrows and in their joys, and the home is so 
 compressed, so kleinlich, so c eng (only these 
 German words can give my meaning). How terrible 
 to see the grandeur of the universe and have no one 
 to tell it to! How awful this yawning gulf in the 
 Ghetto ! If I say harsh and bitter things it is be 
 cause I have looked into it and seen an appalling 
 spectacle of crushed hearts, broken spirits, blighted 
 hopes, ruined lives, thwarted beings and stifled 
 souls. I have looked into the gulf, and this is why I 
 want to jest about the holiest things in the world. 
 "But speaking generally, home is a dangerous place, 
 and he was a wise sea captain who bribed his son 
 
 in 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 clandestinely gave him $50 to run away from 
 home. While away the youth will come in contact 
 with realities, learn what the world is, what it de 
 mands, and finally become big enough to build his 
 own home. Or, he will come back to be, at last, 
 understood and respected. But let him go forth. 
 He will find everywhere pie that will give him 
 dyspepsia as badly as that which mother used to 
 make. 
 
 "As it is, the home covers a multitude of sins. It is 
 very faulty, and, above all, it lacks perspective. The 
 persons within it are not seen in the proper light. 
 They are either underestimated or overjudged. 
 Home is either a mutual admiration, or a mutual 
 mutilation, society. Close as the home is there is ever 
 plenty of room for prejudice and illusion. The lights 
 in which things are seen are artificial and so are 
 the subjects. If the child is a mediocrity, has gradu 
 ated atthe head of his class and is a veritable phono 
 graph for remembering fads, he is at once regarded 
 as a genius and not a little time and effort is wasted 
 on him, and he is sent forth to bore and prey upon 
 an innocent world ; but if he have real talent and show 
 it before any one has had time to decide that he has 
 it, his wings are clipped immediately and he is forth 
 with cast down and discouraged. But there is always 
 enough appreciation of talent to discover a medi 
 ocrity. Home is the nest of nefarious nepotism, and 
 between that and disparaging prejudice, countless 
 youths go to the devil. The home judgments as to 
 
 112 
 
Home, the Last Resort 
 
 capacities, aptitudes and abilities are tremendous. 
 If a boy is color-blind, he is born to be a painter ; if 
 he has no sense of proportion, why architecture is 
 his sphere ; if he stammers, he is placed upon a chair, 
 made to recite pieces, and hailed as the coming ora 
 tor ; if he is a little bit hard of hearing, they dedi 
 cate his life to music; if he has absolutely no imagi 
 nation, they say history is his field ; they try to make 
 a lawyer of him when he has a wonderful proclivity 
 for telling the truth, a merchant when he has a fine 
 sense of honesty and, by heaven, they want to 
 make a minister of a fellow who has a sense of humor ! 
 One must leave home to find what he can do; and 
 then do it ; and then come back and do what one can 
 for the education and welfare of his parents. Leave 
 your home that you may suffer hardships and learn, 
 and then come back to cheer the old folks up. For 
 give them for what they have done to you with their 
 sincerity and devotion and build your own home. 
 But run away for awhile if you would grow. It is too 
 narrow and the atmosphere is not healthy. There is 
 ever disparagement, disagreement and fatal favorit 
 ism. No son ever walked in the ways of his father ; 
 no father ever wanted him to do otherwise. There is 
 always some one at home who knows what is best for 
 you, only you don t want to mind. But, oh, the tyr 
 anny of tears, the despotism of tender words, and 
 the fearful sincerity of the intentions to do you good ! 
 All inquisitors have been sincere. There is no need 
 of arguing that there is something radically wrong 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 with the average home. Conditions prove it. We are, 
 most of us, running away from home to get ac 
 quainted with things as they are running away to 
 the tune of c Home, Sweet Home/ Even as we 
 hum the sweet melody, we go forth into life to get 
 some education, make our fortunes, and build our 
 own homes. Do you remember c Die Heimath/ and 
 how Magdais tortured by home and loving parents? 
 It s the same argument that Sudermann presented 
 in this play, and again, in c Die Ehre/ he showed us 
 phases of the home." 
 
 There was silence for a space, and then Keidansky 
 continued:" Homes of a thousand tender memories 
 clustering from the cradle up through all the paths 
 of life ; homes of kind deeds and unforgotten words; 
 homes wherein love and freedom are wedded, where 
 in the most beautiful dreams are born ; homes 
 wherein folks look into each other s eyes and un 
 derstand, wherein there are no clouds of suspicion 
 and misunderstanding, and each one is taken at his 
 worth; homes unblighted by cold wisdom, wherein 
 the old are young and the young are old I have 
 heard I have read of such homes." 
 The pale moonlight streamed into the open window 
 of the attic. The disorderly piles of books, heaps of 
 old papers and magazines, the queer little pictures 
 about the walls, the small table with a confusion of 
 all things mentionable upon it all these presented 
 a strange picture in this dimness. Keidansky sat on 
 his bed, his head leaning against the inclined ceiling. 
 
 114 
 
Home, the Last Resort 
 
 Itwas this sense of home and comfort that prompted 
 
 his remarks on the subject. In the dusk the faces in 
 
 the little pictures seemed to listen attentively and 
 
 change expression as he talked so fervidly. I sat in 
 
 the only chair in the room thinking, wondering. 
 
 I felt pensive. 
 
 " An extreme view, eh ? " my friend asked after a- 
 
 while, and he answered : " Perhaps it is. 
 
 " And that reminds me/ he added, " that you once 
 
 said that my apparent mission in life is to throw 
 
 stones. Well, granting that it is, who shall say that 
 
 my task is not as important as any ? " 
 
 And I, drowsily, absently, also asked, " Who shall 
 
 say ? " 
 
 ".5 
 
XIII 
 
 A Jewish Jester 
 
 THEY were telling stones of Motke Cha 
 bad, the jester, who many years ago lived, 
 moved and had his joke on everybody in 
 the city of Wilna, where he was well known (but not 
 so well liked) as the troublesome town clown. After 
 nearly everybody in one group at Zarling s had 
 contributed a Chabad yarn to the general entertain 
 ment, the question arose as to whether there ever 
 really existed such a personage as the redoubtable 
 Motke. He had said and done so many impossible 
 things that it became a matter of wonder whether he 
 had said and done them at all. So daring were his 
 utterances, so strange his adventures, his queer 
 pranks so preposterous, that he was considered by 
 some to be an imaginary character. He possessed 
 those vices of individuality which art raises to the 
 dignity of virtues. He had become a tradition, and 
 so a matter of doubt and speculation. This last was 
 clear at our discussion. The poet suggested that, 
 whether Motke ever existed or not, he was certainly 
 a great humorist. But even this did not satisfy us. 
 We were bent upon investigation. The medical stu 
 dent made a motion that we ask Zarling, who is a 
 native of Wilna and at least has known some one 
 who knew Chabad; but here Keidansky protested. 
 " Do not ask any one," he said, "who has known, or 
 
 "7 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 known of, him closely ; his description would be too 
 familiar, intimate, personal, and it would mar and 
 discolor the halo that tradition had cast about him. 
 No, do not ask the Czar, for he knows too much 
 about him and those who were near our hero never 
 understood his significance. You must have perspec 
 tive to see the picluresque, even as you must be a 
 poet to see that which does not exist. It is only for 
 the blind that an eye-witness can write history. Ar 
 tistically speaking, the closer you get to life the less 
 you know about it. Realism fails because it takes 
 the existence of reality for granted. Because it be 
 comes systematic and too sure of its subject. Those 
 who have known, those who have touched elbows 
 with Chabad or his brother s grandchildren, will be 
 accurate, but not truthful. To describe a person truly, 
 one must include all its infinite possibilities of failure 
 or success what he might have been, what he 
 longed to be, what he could not be with his given 
 conditions, what he was not, what he was believed to 
 be, etc., and he who has decided all about the exacl: 
 measure of a person cannot fathom his possibilities. 
 We are all so sure of the conditions of contempo 
 rary life that it will take a succeeding generation to 
 know all about it. 
 
 " And I am not trying to hinder the work of this 
 investigation, because it may prove the non-exist 
 ence of Chabad. That would not matter in the least, 
 for the anecdotes and tales that are being circulated 
 in his name, and his storied misadventures and 
 
 118 
 
A Jewish Jester 
 
 gloried misdeeds create him in fancy and he exists 
 in imagination which is all that is necessary for 
 one desiring to point out the benign and malignant 
 work of the scoffer. But he did exist, so we are told 
 by those who have known some one who knew him 
 intimately. He did exist, because, while we have su 
 perfluous virtues to attribute to all sorts of saints 
 who did live, we have not a superfluity of humor 
 to ascribe to one who has never been. Some one 
 must have given birth to these things which we can 
 all admire but could not create. Some one must 
 have been witty enough to think these things, and 
 reckless enough to say them. We all have the con 
 victions, but he had the courage, and that was long 
 ago. 
 
 " He did exist, this beggar, braggart, buffoon, town- 
 gossip, dealer in wind and old clothes, match-maker, 
 man of all occupations and no means of existence, 
 practical joker and general jester of the Ghetto of 
 Wilna; for such he was and as such he did his good 
 work. He was an outcast, and as such he ministered 
 to the sanity of society that hath cast him out, and 
 kept it from going to the extremes of stupidity. For 
 so it is; the outcast reduces respectability to the 
 ridiculous ; the criminal points to the futility of the 
 law ; the rascal shows the relativity of right ; the in 
 fidel reforms and enlarges our religion ; the enemy 
 of order advances our progress ; the earthly materi 
 alist proves the baselessness of all our idealisms ; 
 the ascetic demonstrates the stupidity of excess ; the 
 
 119 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 prohibitionist drives us to drink ; the strongest ac 
 cusation convicts the accuser; the plaint of the pes 
 simist makes life interesting ; the tyrant gives the 
 greatest lesson in freedom ; men write books to prove 
 what fools they are, and the jester suggests what a 
 tragic farce it all is. So many efforts in life, life itself 
 defeats its own purpose. It is the undesired that 
 happens. Help comes not from heaven because we 
 expect it from that source. They who break laws to 
 suit their own convenience make larger laws for the 
 welfare of society. I told you before that the out 
 casts of society are often its saviors. 
 " Now be in order, gentlemen. I have the floor this 
 time. This is my chance to get killed. Not to the 
 point ? But there are many points to this, and if I have 
 deviated from one I was only getting so much nearer 
 the other. I was trying to show what good this scoffer 
 and sycophant has done, and to point out the value 
 of the jest. God created the world and he saw what 
 he was up against/ so he smiled, and thus humor 
 was born. After awhile the divine flashlights from on 
 high began to play hide-and-seek in the unlit cham 
 bers of the human brain ; men became possessed of 
 the sense of humor, and this was the awakening and 
 dawn of civilization. The lightnings of the mind 
 which suddenly reveal the multitudinous contradic 
 tions of life, the mental illuminations which cause 
 the immediate recognition of the incongruous, the 
 flash which makes you see all in a moment, the wide 
 view which makes the universe as small as the lan- 
 
 120 
 
A "Jewish fester 
 
 tern in your hand, the whimsicality of thought for 
 ever creating unsuspected analogies and unexpected 
 comparisons, the sense of proportion which reduces 
 all things to what they are, or should be, truth seen 
 through the falsehoods, the sureties discovered 
 through the absurdities, the exactness of things 
 measured through their exaggerations, miracles of 
 instantaneous reasoning and feats of ingenious de 
 ductions, the intellectual rapid transit between the 
 sublime and the ridiculous, which keeps you from 
 going to either extreme, the magic charm which keeps 
 you above the abysses of the stupid, small and great, 
 the bright footlights to the tragedy of life such, in 
 brief, is humor. And what else is there that is so 
 powerful to prevent extravagances, to check excess 
 es, to arrest all sorts of frenzies, to curtail abnormal 
 credulity, to sober all kinds of intoxications ? In the 
 Ghetto, as everywhere else, humor is the saving 
 presence; it makes existence tolerable, andpreserves 
 the sanity of the little journey to the grave. It was 
 dark and dismal and dreary and dingy in the Russian 
 Ghettos, and life had the color of last year s snow, 
 and it all seemed like a funeral procession in a sul 
 try, rainy weather ; from without we were harassed 
 by our enemies ; from within we were harried by our 
 friends, our guardians of sacred law and traditional 
 superstition; it was sad and sorrowful, and so we 
 jested. God sent us some sunshine in the form of 
 such scoffers and outcasts as Motke Chabad, and we 
 laughed. We laughed and forgot to weep. Humor 
 
 121 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 is essentially pathetic, but the absence of it is tragic. 
 Did we not laugh a little we could not have lived. 
 Humor, my friends, is the redeeming grace. If you 
 have ever been very serious in life, why, you can 
 laugh it down. What shall we do to be saved ? Cul 
 tivate a sense of humor. 
 
 "How could we have lived it through without a 
 Chabad? With a smug, smooth, sullen, soulless re- 
 speftability that moves along the lines of least dar 
 ing and most obedience, that cannot do any good 
 because it must fulfil the *Taryag Mitxves the 313 
 precepts that commit all sorts of prescribed fol 
 lies on earth to be admitted into heaven, that di 
 vides its time between praying in the synagogue 
 three times a day and preying upon its less fortu 
 nate neighbors the rest of the time, with a mob of 
 skull-capped numskulls that did not think because 
 its mind was made up has been made up for it cen 
 turies ago a crowd that would not move an inch 
 because, as is insisted/ the hell that was good enough 
 for our fathers, is good enough for us with a class 
 of good people like that, how should we have fared 
 if we had not had a Motke to chastise it with his jests 
 and jeers and sneers and arrows of scorn? He 
 laughed with the lowly and for them ; he was on the 
 side of reason as against precept; he stood for natu 
 ral needs as against supernatural suppositions ; he was 
 one of theunder-dogs,but he barked loudly for their 
 cause, and his service shall not be forgotten as long 
 as we have a sense of humour left as long as we are 
 
 122 
 

 ews ester 
 
 human! Crude were his jests, and clownish most of 
 his jokes; did he have the talent of a Heine or 
 Biirne, he could not be what they were without 
 their possibilities; he was a rough-hewn, Ghetto- 
 enclosed child of darkness, but he did his work in 
 his own way, and the work told the story. 
 "God has spoiled his chosen people by choosing 
 them. Many of them are stiff-necked, stubborn, re- 
 aclionary ; and they do countless things in the name 
 that would not countenance it. As often as not the 
 powers that be in Jewish communities are haughty, 
 proud, unjustly aggressive, and they prey upon and 
 oppress the humbler children of Israel. It is well 
 that there should ever be some one constantly to 
 criticise, castigate, scold, and Carlyle these powers 
 that be and guard and interpret the law. So, in a 
 sense, every good Jew should be an anti-Semite. 
 Fie should beware of the abuses of organized bu 
 reaucracy by leaders of the community. He should 
 be opposed to the inimical doings of the united 
 many. United action is seldom good action. The in 
 dividual should look out for the crowd. In organi 
 zation, every one gives up part of his soul, and so 
 even organized religions are soulless. So let the good 
 Jew keep an eye on what the leaders in Judaism are 
 doing, and to make sure that he is right, let him put 
 his ear to the ground and listen to the voice of the 
 rejected prophet and blasphemous jester. 
 " Many stories of Chabad have been told, but a few 
 things may be mentioned to help me out of my poor 
 
 123 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 plight, to illustrate my meaning. Thus, once upon a 
 stormy day, when the rain and thunder and light 
 ning became fearful and awesome, Motke was seen 
 running through a street of Wilna, at his greatest 
 possible speed, frantically waving his hands. A few 
 Jews witnessing this, and overtaking him, stopped 
 him, demanding what the trouble was. ( Such terrible 
 thunder and lightning/ said he, all out of breath; C I 
 fear me that the Almighty is about to give us a new 
 Law! Here is a blessed bit of blasphemy which 
 strikingly voices the protest of a law-entangled, rit 
 ual-ridden, tradition-tied people against the grind 
 ing yoke of the Torah. There is a story by another 
 Ghetto jester, driving at the same evil. There came 
 a time once so the story runs when the chil 
 dren of Israel became weary of this heavy yoke, 
 when they could no longer live up to the laws forced 
 upon them amid the dramatic effects of Sinai, when 
 they could no longer bear all the sufferings and per 
 secutions that living up to these laws entailed, and 
 they prayed to God that they might be delivered 
 from the Law, that they might be permitted to re 
 turn to him the Tables of Stone ; and the Upper 
 most consented to take it all back; and so, upon a 
 day, the Jews from all corners of the earth started 
 on ajourney toward Mount Sinai, with heavy-laden 
 trains and ships and caravans of crolls and Biblical 
 Commentaries. They came from all parts of the 
 world from East and West, North and South, 
 from the Occident and the Orient; there were all 
 
 124 
 
A Jewish Jester 
 
 manner of Jews, and they came by all means of 
 transportation, but they all labored painfully under 
 their tremendous loads, which they brought to be 
 returned. At Sinai, they were to give up their bur 
 dens. Arrived there, they piled up their great packs 
 of precept upon precept around the holy eleva 
 tion, until their luggage formed a mountain larger 
 than Sinai. When the Uppermost appeared in his 
 invisible, yet blinding glory, he asked for the mean 
 ing of this huge mountain of books, and the Jews, 
 with their faces to the ground, cried, It is the Law. 
 Take it, O Lord/ The Lord so runs the story 
 was astonished at this, and he told the chosen peo 
 ple that only ten simple rules of living had been 
 given to them at Sinai. He knew nothing of all 
 these volumes. These multitudes of laws and end 
 less commentaries were of men s making, not of his 
 giving. They were empty vaporings of idle brains. 
 He refused to take the Law back in its present 
 form. So the Jews journeyed to their respective 
 homes in all parts of the world, wiser, if not re 
 lieved of their burdens. I was irresistibly reminded 
 of this story, and could not help telling it. It is the 
 product of a far more subtle brain than Chabad s 
 was. I do not remember the name of the author 
 now, but he and Chabad unwittingly worked for 
 the same cause." 
 
 A boisterous group of "dancing-school fellows," as 
 "the intellectuals" called them, entered the place, 
 demanding, at the point of their pay, something to 
 
 125 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 eat. Keidansky s audience became restless. But he 
 persistently kept on, despite all kinds of interrup 
 tions. 
 
 " Religion, as you all know, is the absence of the 
 sense of humor," he said. "It goes to all sorts of 
 absurd extremes. Its tower commands but one view 
 of life, and that view is marred by emotion. When 
 faith is not blind, it is, at least, short-sighted. The 
 loyal member of the sect is not a seer. Enthusiasts 
 are painfully one-sided. They see, or rather they 
 feel, but one side. All their glances are on one 
 thing. So we need the man with humor, who can 
 see all things in one glance. The jester is the wide- 
 eyed, all-observing fellow. He is the many-sided, 
 much-seeing man. The sense of humor is the true 
 sense of proportion, and it has been rightly urged 
 that only the humorists have perceived and painted 
 life as it is. Only they have presented life in all its 
 largeness. Of course, the humorists, who merely 
 chose to jest and not write great tragedies, did not 
 do such things, but they were ever great reformers. 
 The man who laughs can be deeply religious with 
 out being a pietist: he can be deeply religious, yet 
 behave decently; his existence is a sure cure for hy 
 steria. He infuses a little reason into things which 
 prevents the sublime from becoming ridiculous. 
 "A maggid, or preacher, once announced that he 
 had written a new commentary upon the c Hagadah. 
 What!* everybody asked, c are there not enough 
 commentaries already in existence? Yes, said 
 
 126 
 
A jfewisb y ester 
 
 Chabad, but he cannot make a living out of those/ 
 At a wedding of the Jewish aristocracy of Wilna, 
 where wealth was flaunted pompously, Motke was 
 asked to say something funny. f All the rich men of 
 Wilna ought to be hanged, he said. The wealthy 
 guests were scandalized. Wherein is the joke? 
 they asked. It is no joke/ said Motke. 
 "In the synagogue students of the Talmud were 
 disputing a point concerning the use or rejection of 
 an egg c with a blood-drop in it a point to which 
 so many pages of the holy books are devoted. 
 Why don t you throw the rotten egg out? said 
 Motke, who stood near. What s the use of wast 
 ing so much time? 
 
 "Once, it is told,when all his resources were at an end, 
 Chabad went to the burial committee of the town, 
 told the members that his wife had died and asked 
 for the means of performing the last rites and cere 
 monies. He accordingly secured a few roubles, and 
 when the committee-men and their officials came to 
 take charge of the body, they found Motke, his wife 
 and children, at their table enjoying a bountiful feast 
 of roasted goose and things. 
 
 " Gentlemen/ exclaimed the master of the house 
 hold, you will have her ; I swear to you, you will have 
 her. She is yours; it is only a question of time/ 
 " Fare thee well, said Motke one day to a rich mer 
 chant. I am going away, and all I want of you is a 
 few roubles for expenses/ His request was refused. 
 Then I am not going, he announced, and you 
 
 127 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 need not farewell/ Chabad was also a match-maker, 
 and his humor made him the best caricature of the 
 institution. Thus once he came to a young man to 
 speak of a match with a certain young woman. f Oh, 
 but she is lame/ protested the young man. Yes/ 
 Chabad admitted, but that will keep her home, and 
 prevent her from going out too much.* But she is 
 blind/ the young man argued. So much the better/ 
 said the sbadcben; she will not see you flirting with 
 other women/ f She is also deaf/ insisted the youth. 
 That is certainly fortunate/ was the reply; c you 
 will be able to say what you please in the house/ 
 But she is also dumb/ pleaded the victim/ Still 
 better/ Motke assured him. There will always be 
 quiet and peace in your home/ But she is also 
 humpbacked!* the young man cried out in anger. 
 Well, well/ said Chabad, do you expect her to be 
 without a single fault ? Now I am almost ready for 
 the maledictions," said Keidansky, as he was nearing 
 the close of his argument, but I was suddenly called 
 away. 
 
 128 
 
XIV 
 
 What Constitutes the Jew? 
 
 ONE day when I made a perilous ascent to 
 Keidansky s garret, barely escaping harm 
 through boxes and barrels and darkness and 
 things in the way, I found him hard at work on an 
 article this time in the English language on 
 " What Constitutes the Jew ? " A kind and inter 
 ested editor to whom I had the honor of introduc 
 ing him, asked my discovery to write on the subject, 
 and pleased with the suggestion he took it up. He 
 motioned to an up-turned coal scuttle for a seat as 
 I entered, and bade me take a Jewish paper and be 
 quiet. While I waited he finished his essay. " I 
 have n t any time to talk to you," he said, looking 
 disconsolate and running his long fingers through 
 his curly black hair: "I want to read you this thing 
 I Ve just scribbled. There he goes again " he 
 broke off in despair, as the old man in the next attic 
 began to chant the Psalms. " But I shall read louder 
 than he does," said Keidansky, "I pay rent here 
 sometimes and King David, the fruit vendor, 
 in there, sha n t put me down." I listened, and he 
 read as follows : 
 
 " And after we have read about him in the comic 
 weeklies, have seen him delineated in popular works 
 of fiction, have observed him caricatured in various 
 publications, have beheld him portrayed on the 
 
 129 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 vaudeville stage and have heard from the slum stu 
 dent of the Ghetto ; after we have visited a fewmoney 
 lenders on important business have heard our 
 minister talk patronizingly of him, telling pityingly 
 of how he hath a great past and possessed more than 
 a few commendable qualities, and of how he was, 
 alas ! doomed to damnation because he would not 
 accept the religion that he hath given to the world ; 
 after we have bought clothing in one of his stores, 
 taken a personal peep at the Ghetto, met a reformed 
 rabbi, conversed with a distant descendant of his 
 people, read the polite charges of his friend, the anti- 
 Semite, and gone down and made beautiful speeches 
 before him prior to the election ; I say even after we 
 have done these things, or some of these things have 
 happened to us, we must still ask the question : What 
 constitutes the Jew ? 
 
 " For, of a verity, he is so complex in his character, 
 so heterogeneous in his general composition, so di 
 verse in his activities, so many sided in his worldly 
 and heavenly pursuits, so widely varying in his ap 
 pearance, so wonderfully ubiquitous, and withal such 
 a living contradiction, that even after we have made 
 the above painful efforts to understand him, we are 
 still at a loss to know what we know about him. 
 "He represents one of the ancient races and yet is as 
 up to date as any ; he reaches deepest into the past 
 and looks furthest into the future ; he is the narrow 
 est conservative and the most advanced radical ; in 
 religion he is the most dogmatic, sectarian, station- 
 
 130 
 
IPhat Constitutes the "Jew ? 
 
 ary, orthodox, and also the most liberal and univer 
 sal reformer; he is a member of the feeblest and 
 strongest people on earth; he has no land of his own 
 and he owns many lands; his wealth is the talk and 
 the envy of the world, and none is so poor as he ; his 
 riches have ever been magnified and exaggerated, 
 his dire poverty ever overlooked. ( As poor as a 
 Jew would be a truer simile than the one now in 
 use. He is the infamous Shylock,the money-lender, 
 yet he borrows as much and more money than he 
 lends to others, only he pays his debts and so there 
 is no talk about it ; Christians and others who bor 
 row from him go to court, denounce him, call him 
 Shylock, and give him several pounds of c tongue/ 
 though he asks not for flesh, because it is not kosh 
 er, and because whatever he is he is never cruel. 
 Come to think of it, what a fine thing the Shylock 
 story has ever been for those who did not want to 
 pay their debts ! 
 
 "He loans money to kings, and the kings oppress 
 the Jews ; he is the great concentrator of wealth, and 
 he is the Socialist and Anarchist working ardently 
 for the abolition of the private ownership of wealth ; 
 he is eminently practical, and is ever among the 
 world-forgetting dreamers, the great host of im- 
 practicables ; he has no fine arts of his own, and he 
 carries off the highest prizes for his glorious contribu 
 tion to the arts of the nations. Now he is exclusively 
 confined to his own Hebrew, religious lore, believing 
 that beyond it there are no heights to scale, no depths 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 to fathom, and then he becomes a Georg Brandes, a 
 great interpreter of the literatures of the world ; his 
 own literature is so Puritanical, so religious and 
 chaste that there is hardly a single love song to be 
 found therein, and then comes a Heinrich Heine. 
 He is the slave of traditions and the first to break 
 them ; persecute him and he will die for the religion 
 of his fathers ; give him freedom and he will pity 
 them for their crude conceptions and applaud In- 
 gersoll ; he is intensely religious and the rankest in 
 fidel; he condemns the theatre as being immoral, 
 and he is the first to hail Ibsen and applaud him, 
 even on the Yiddish stage; there is no one so clan 
 nish and so cosmopolitan as he is, and these contrasts 
 can be multiplied to the abuse of time and space. 
 "If, then, he is everything and to be found any 
 where, to be seen in all sorts of circumstances, in all 
 walks of life and walking in so many diverse ways, 
 making his way in such strongly contrasting condi 
 tions, how shall we know him? How shall we know 
 what constitutes the Jew? He does not always abide 
 in the Ghetto, and, things are coming to such a pass, 
 that he rarely has the old Ghetto appearance. I sup 
 pose if our dear Mr. Zangwill had his own way he 
 wouldfill the world with Ghettos. He couldusethem 
 in his business. But perhaps the time is drawing nigh 
 when we must have the books of Mr. Zangwill and 
 other works of such excellence to preserve the most 
 picturesque life of a unique people and save it from 
 oblivion. The Ghetto walls are falling, falling. 
 
 132 
 
Constitutes the Jew ? 
 
 "Old-fashioned folk, like other things, go out of 
 fashion. The old-style long garb, the capota, will 
 take itself away after the toga, and such is the awful 
 power of civilization that even the time-honored 
 skull-caps of the men and the wigs of the women are 
 vanishing before it. Time, with its scythe, cuts down 
 even the curling sidelocks and the long beards dear 
 to tradition. Up-to-date fashion is a democratic ty 
 rant, an expansionist invading and permeating all 
 places and peoples. So we cannot count on these ex 
 ternals. Physiognomy is another thing by which to 
 be misguided. Other outer details may help us as 
 much as medicine can help the dead or the living, 
 for that matter. Then there are names. What s in a 
 name? An opportunity for misunderstanding. One 
 cannot even know himself by his name. All these 
 artificial designations do not designate. 
 " What, then, are the telling traits, the conspicuous 
 characteristics by which the typical, representative 
 Jew may be known? Now I am blissfully ignorant 
 of anthropology, and could not analyze scientifi 
 cally, even at the risk of being destroyed critically. 
 But through a certain accident anaccident of birth 
 I may be enabled to make a few suggestions, 
 which I will offer with all due and undue apologies, 
 of course. 
 
 " First and foremost I should mention his wonder 
 ful versatility ; he is the most versatile actor in this 
 play called life. He has acquired this versatility 
 throughout his wanderings, sufferings, trials and 
 
 133 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 tribulations, and, together with his prodigious 
 adaptability, it constitutes the secret of his sur 
 vival. Originally a being of the highest talent with 
 the radiant glow of the Orient upon his brow, he 
 had walked through the histories of many nations, 
 and being persecuted by all peoples who recog 
 nized his talent, he received a most liberal educa 
 tion in the school of sorrow. Thus his abilities were 
 cultivated and he learned to adapt himself easily to 
 all circumstances and to create his own little world 
 wherever he pitched his tent. 
 
 " Mentally alert, keen of comprehension, quick to 
 grasp any situation, almost too shrewd to be wise, 
 practical to the detriment of his high ideals, calm, 
 careful, cautious, calculating, hopeful in the face of 
 despair, optimistic to a discouraging degree, often 
 too regular and respectable to become great; in 
 tensely individualistic, proud of his past, anxious 
 about the future, ever devoted to his cause, self-ap- 
 preciatory, at times too sure of his capabilities, con 
 fident in the ultimate decency of things, deeply in 
 love with life these are among the qualities that 
 may be attributed to the Jew. 
 
 "His isolated, peculiar and purely religious life, 
 c the spiritual Palestine* which he has carried along 
 with him in his wanderings through the darkness 
 and cold of the Ghettos, has under all circumstances 
 and in all hazards preserved those fine domestic and 
 social qualities for which he is noted. What can now 
 be said about his domesticity, his love of home and 
 
What Constitutes the Jew ? 
 
 care of family ; his sobriety, thrift, peacefulness and 
 good deportment, the readiness with which he 
 cares for his poor, his public spirit in the interests 
 of his community wherever that may be his 
 unequalled kindness; what can now be said about 
 these things would be mere repetition; but these 
 are nevertheless some of the undisputed qualities 
 which constitute the Jew. Believing himself chosen 
 of God, he has strong faith in the part he plays, 
 the work he does, and the mission he is to per 
 form with his being. And like others who have 
 much faith in themselves, he has abundance of con 
 ceit. But let us not call it that. Sublime egotism* 
 sounds so much better, and besides, the line of de 
 marcation between the two is so fine that it does not 
 exist. The Jew is strongly individualistic in his so 
 cial tendencies, and for that reason often so progres 
 sive. He dares to deviate from the trodden path. He 
 is not always in harmony with the rest of his commu 
 nity in which there is from time to time much dis 
 cord discord that sometimes amounts to war.Thus 
 the persecution of the Jews often begins at home. 
 His receptive mental attitude often brings him into 
 the ranks of the most radical, despite his traditions, 
 which would hold him back. 
 
 " He has talent to waste, and much of it is really 
 wasted because he lacks opportunity for cultivation 
 and frequently has not the required concentration 
 and application. Perhaps it is better so ; for if all 
 Jewish talent was brought out in the various forms 
 
 J 35 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 of greatness, what would what would the anti- 
 Semites not say? They would say that the Jews have 
 stolen their talents. For anti-Semitism is the cry of 
 despair of defeated mediocrity, or it is the plaint of 
 the blinded Christian maddened byjealousy because 
 he has been beaten by the wandering Jew in his own 
 game of trade, commerce, politics, or art. But the 
 Jew is kind, his kindness is unsurpassed, and the 
 Hebrew line in which his people are called c merci 
 ful sons of the merciful is literally true. He pities 
 the anti-Semite as he pities all who suffer and who 
 are in want of the good things and the good quali 
 ties of life. 
 
 " The Jew is a great possibility. Sensitive of and 
 susceptible to all things, to the very color of the at 
 mosphere around him, with a soul sharpened by 
 sorrow and a mind of keenest understanding, he can 
 become anything and everything, assimilate himself 
 with any and all conditions, and illustrate life with a 
 new meaning or adorn it with a worthy work. He is 
 like unto an ^olian harp on which various breezes 
 play various tunes. 
 
 "His beautiful, consecrated, peaceful, religious, 
 home life, the life wherein the home is a synagogue 
 and the synagogue is a home, this on the one hand 
 and the strange world with its hard realities, with its 
 stumbling-blocks and stunning blockheads, on the 
 other, have created in the Jew a striking two-sided- 
 ness, a kind of duality and, if I may so call it, a sort 
 of conciliation between the ideal and the real. This 
 
What Constitutes the 
 
 forms another trait by which you may tell him. Thus 
 he is very practical, and still dreams, hopes for the 
 restoration of Palestine, and loves his home and his 
 country wherever he abides. He is an ardent Zionist 
 and a good citizen at the same time. 
 "Murder, or any other kind of talent, will out. Say 
 rather that talent will out even if it must come in the 
 shape of murder, so to speak. People capable of the 
 highest good and noblest greatness are often cast 
 down into the abyss of degradation by their loving 
 neighbors, or other circumstances. People must 
 live, you know, and therefore they often live a living 
 death. Not permitted to live rightly and happily, they 
 still must live somehow. The instinct of self-preser 
 vation preserves much evil, but life is life. Those 
 who have talent and are not permitted to use it for 
 the good of all, use it for their own temporal good, 
 regardless of the consequences. The thought that I 
 wish to leave here as we part with the Jew is : That 
 they who walk in darkness find the ways that are 
 dark. Over-praise is damning, and I want to be care 
 ful. The Jew has on the whole been far, far better 
 than he has been permitted to be and this, too, is 
 one of the charges against him. He is a graduate of 
 the school of sorrow, with the highest honors. 
 " What is that story about the man who in his long 
 quest after the ideal, at last found her in the woman 
 who has suffered? 
 " Well, here is the Jew, a being who has suffered." 
 
XV 
 
 The Tragedy of Humor 
 
 OMETIMES," said Keidansky, "it is 
 grossly immoral to live up to your highest 
 principle." And in reply to my half-uttered 
 protest, he quickly continued: " No, no; I am not 
 jesting. It s a sad business, this jesting about the hu 
 man tragedy. For what is it but mocking each other s 
 wounds, laughing at one another s infirmities in this 
 great lazaretto,where we are all pitiful patients ? What 
 is it but scoffing at our sores, grinning at our gashes, 
 deriding our diseases, laughing at our own weak 
 nesses? No, I am not jesting," and the speaker eyed 
 me strangely as he looked up from his manuscript 
 on the little table in Machtell s cafe. 
 " Beneath the levity is lead," he said slowly. " Be 
 hind all the fun is crushing failure. Behind all the 
 satire is sorrowful shortcoming. Behind the smile is 
 a searing smart. Grief lurks in the grin. Through all 
 the drollery despair peers forth, and there is noth 
 ing more lugubrious than laughter. Comedy is made 
 up of error, failure, confusion, misunderstanding, 
 misfortune, misdirected efforts and wasted energy. 
 Whenever error ends fatally it is called tragic, but 
 that is not the worst. The real tragedy is not the play 
 that ends with the death of the leading characters, 
 but the one in which they are condemned to struggle 
 and live on and laugh and be laughed at. Each one 
 
 139 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 of us is his own caricature. There is so little to do, 
 yet we all overdo it. We all reduce our lives to ab 
 surdities. Our efforts exaggerate their importance 
 and betray our barbarities. 
 
 cc We overdraw our characters and all our lifetime 
 suffer in our own estimation. The more serious we 
 are the more extravagant is the farce. As we creep 
 along the roads, the shadows we cast mock and men 
 ace us. 
 
 " We are poor debtors, all. With infinite intentions 
 in a world of infinitesimal possibilities, our efforts 
 constantly caricature and cartoon our aims. All our 
 works are filled with comic illustrations galore. We 
 make them ourselves, and they overshadow our 
 works. Did you ever see any one fall on the street 
 and a lot of lookers-on laugh? Well, that is in a 
 measure the history and interpretation of humor. 
 " We seek and do not find ; we fight and do not con 
 quer; we play and do not win; we attempt, but do 
 not achieve; we aspire and do not attain; we desire 
 and are not gratified; we long for light yet grope on 
 in darkness ; we struggle and are defeated ; we strive 
 for salvation and discover it to be a mere sham ; our 
 labor is lost, our love is not returned, our devotion 
 is not understood, our wings are broken at the point 
 of flying, all our yearnings are in vain; and then, the 
 newspaper humorist writes half a column of pointed 
 jottings out of these things; or else the literary come 
 dian will prepare a series of funny papers. Do you 
 understand now what an appalling, grim and grue- 
 
 140 
 
The Tragedy of Humor 
 
 some spectacle there is behind all these little jests ? 
 And how tragic it is for the humorist who sees it all? 
 They say that a Scotchman laughs on the third day 
 after he hears a joke. It does not take so long to find 
 that there is nothing to laugh at. It is all so sad. 
 Think what a tremendous tragedy the funny para- 
 grapher sums up in a few lines and sells to Puck 
 for $2.98. Come, take up a column of comicalities 
 in any publication and see what is at the bottom of 
 every jest. What is it about? Is it about a man and 
 a woman linked together by law, with a Chinese wall 
 of misunderstanding between them, c so strangely 
 unlike and so strongly attached to each other that 
 it is hell for both of them ? Or, is it about a woman 
 who wears her life away in the farce of c Vanitas Vani- 
 tatum? Is it about the greedy mercenary who loses 
 his soul to gain the world? Or is it about one who 
 gives up the world to gain nothing ? 
 " Is it about an enthusiastic youth who, to escape the 
 materialism of his surroundings, jumps from the fry 
 ing-pan into Bohemia; or is it about a philosopher 
 who, gazing at the stars, falls into a mud puddle? Is 
 it about the poet starving in a garret, or is it about 
 the artist lost in the quest of the unattainable ? Is it 
 about the moral principle trampled under foot be 
 cause of the material advantage, or is it about the 
 low life of him who longs for the highest ? What is 
 it about? Is it about a man who bleeds and a woman 
 who laughs, or is it about beings who sell themselves 
 for life with promises to love, honor, cherish and 
 
 141 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 protect ? Is it about some one groping in darkness, 
 grappling with the impossible, or is it about a great 
 republic gone mad over the visit of an effete repre 
 sentative of monarchy? Perhaps it is about a bright 
 American girl in quest of a titled idiot, or else about 
 a being so degraded that he is in mortal fear of work 
 and has a horror for soap ! It may be about medi 
 ocrity dreaming of talent, of failures chasing the 
 phantoms of success, of fading beauty, waning love, 
 of the stumbling of the blind, or of any and all the 
 confusions of error and the thousands of misunder 
 standings of the home and of people who are near 
 and fail to be dear to each other. The list is too long. 
 It can never be exhausted. But at the bottom of any 
 one of the jests, old or new, you will find an excru 
 ciating little tragedy. It is all so sad, sorrowful and 
 depressing. The humor of the situation ? Say rather 
 the tragedy of the case. 
 
 " And to look behind, to peer through the pano 
 rama, to see all this, to have a sense of humor and 
 to have it bad, is not such a cheerful thing as it is 
 thought to be, for it is also a sense of our hopeless 
 ness. It is a sad business, this jesting about the hu 
 man tragedy or the human farce. In other words, 
 it is to see the futility of all our efforts, the failure of 
 all our fighting, the uselessness of our aspirations, 
 the emptiness of our aims, the vanity of our striv 
 ings, the nothingness of it all. Life, with all its faults 
 and foibles and failures, with all its incongruities, 
 irreconcilables, clashes and unfitnesses, stretches out 
 
 142 
 
The Tragedy of Humor 
 
 before you as just so much material for sardonic sat 
 ire. Scrambling, squabbling, scurrying, seething, 
 squally squads and crowds of humanity, how grue- 
 somely grotesque it all is and how ludicrous ! With 
 all its heroics, brave deeds and still greater brava 
 does, with all its gloried wonders and wonderful 
 achievements, with all its glorious boasts, lofty hopes 
 and superb masteries, with all our arts and philoso 
 phies, humanity and the whole world seems to me 
 like a swarmingmole-hill,and at times moves me to 
 nothing but to laughter. It is so ridiculous, all the 
 mimicry of the whole microcosm. Tell me, have you 
 ever been seized by a sense of the utter absurdity of 
 it all, so that you laughed and laughed until there 
 were tears of blood, almost, in your eyes? 
 " I wonder if you know what it is to have a mocking 
 demon within you to laugh and leer at everything 
 you do, at every step you take, at your best deeds, 
 finest words, greatest strides, noblest endeavors. 
 Imagine a voice that at every turn of the road es 
 pecially when you act your grandest, talk your loud 
 est, achieve your highest that at every turn of the 
 road exclaims: How absurd, how silly of you! 
 Imagine a state of mind when all is farce around you 
 and your own caricature is your constant companion. 
 Such things happen to some people, and to them 
 everything is so unreal, so absurd, so stupid; the 
 greatest events, the sublimest utterances, are ever so 
 laughable. The more seriously the people play their 
 parts the more ridiculous the performance seems. 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 The greater the tragedy the more laughter. What is 
 so funny as Hamlet s soliloquy? What are so laugh 
 able as the ravings of Job ? And so it sometimes feels 
 with the other sublimely sad things that have been 
 written. The moving finger writes, and the mocking 
 voice within laughs laughs at everything and you 
 can take nothing seriously. You take up the best, 
 the most pathetic things you have written yourself, 
 and even these make you smile. Such things have 
 been said before and they were absurd and out of 
 place in the first place. Whatever you do you hear 
 the mocking voice from within say : c Silly creature, 
 those things have been done before, and they have 
 only led fools to their dusty death/ You whisper the 
 sweetest things, prompted by love to your lady fair, 
 and the voice from within: c Silly fool, these things 
 have been said before and the course of true love 
 never did run long/ You have a feeling that it is all 
 histrionic, all acting, all farce, and that we are all 
 overdoing our parts tremendously. Strutting, swag 
 gering, blustering, bombastic swashbucklers all. It 
 is not life. It is an historical novel. It will sink into 
 nothingness. c O, Tbor^du Tbor,duprablender ^Thorl 
 Do you remember Bret Harte s parody on Hugo s 
 f Les Miserables P So easily is the sublime tipped 
 over and made ridiculous. T is but a slight step from 
 pathos to bathos. But wait until I address this letter 
 to the New York c Abend Blatt/ Abe Cahan came 
 over here and spoke for the Socialists this afternoon, 
 so I wrote the thing up. He is in the other room with 
 
 144 
 
The Tragedy of Humor 
 
 that blatant crowd of Jewish actors. They are taking 
 him to task for one of his reviews in the c Arbeiter 
 Zeitung of a recent performance of theirs. They 
 never know exactly what a critic means except when 
 he does not criticise. They are to give here Gordin s 
 ( Jewish King Lear to-morrow night. You don t 
 know Cahan? He is one of the brightest, biggest 
 men in our movement. I come in here," Keidansky 
 explained, "because these actors are so ignorant of 
 the conventions, simple and natural, and I like them 
 for it. 
 
 "There is a story by J. L. Peretz," Keidansky con 
 tinued, after he had folded up and addressed his 
 communication, " that I want to tell you apropos of 
 what I have been saying. Peretz is one of the literary 
 masters of to-day, but he writes in Yiddish, so the 
 world misses his greatness. The story is about a re 
 former, a revolutionary, an idealist. He addresses a 
 meeting in behalf of his cause, speaks fervently, pas 
 sionately, spits fire/ waves a sharp sword at his au 
 dience and makes a ringing appeal for the truth. In 
 the room where he speaks there is a mirror. Acci 
 dentally he looks into it. He sees himself. His enthu 
 siasm leaves him at once, his fervor vanishes, he loses 
 his power of speech, becomes calm, indifferent, and 
 finishes his oration in disgust. He no longer feels 
 the saint and hero he felt. While speaking so ex 
 citedly he looked like a murderer in the mirror. 
 After this he has an unearthly dream about the 
 part of hell that is allotted to reformers. When he 
 
 HS 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 wakes up he receives a postal card asking him to 
 come to another meeting of the revolutionists. He 
 immediately burns the card. This is giving but the 
 faintest outlines of the story, but you see Peretz, 
 like Heine, also has the sense of humor developed 
 to a tragic extent to the extent of seeing the absur 
 dity, futility and irony of it all even our grandest 
 efforts. 
 
 " Yes, so it seems to some eyes, and so it is at least to 
 those who see it so. After all, what is it? A cry and a 
 struggle and a sigh, a flash of light and a streak of 
 dawn and darkness, and then we stand by the grave 
 and weep for the dead that the living may see our 
 tears. Ah, the helplessness and hopelessness of it all; 
 the desolation and despondency, the thoughts that 
 paralyze the mind and stifle the soul; all things out 
 of joint, out of proportion, and Fate cries out to you 
 in the slang phrase c you don t fit! Ah, the humor 
 of the entire procession and the deep tragic back 
 ground behind it. Seek and you will find, and when 
 you find you shall not want it. Wealth makes us 
 weary of it. Fame brings her wreath and finds her 
 poet dead. Faith consoles, but we have the con 
 sciousness all along that we are sick and are taking 
 medicine. c Love grows hate for love s sake and life 
 takes death for guide/ Love? Have ever two souls 
 come near each other? Those whom we love most 
 understand us least. Happiness? The art of finding 
 happiness is one of the lost arts. No one is ever con 
 sciously happy. Knowledge is almost positive proof 
 
 146 
 
The Tragedy of Humor 
 
 that we cannot know. With it we are more puzzled 
 than we were without it. The last word of science is 
 wait. Whatdoweknow? Moses went up to heaven, 
 but God refused to be interviewed. The people, like 
 the modern editor, insisted upon a story and so we 
 have the Bible. But science and the higher criticism 
 has interrupted our reading and spoiled the pleasure 
 of it. What do we know? Even Professor Daniel De 
 Leon does not know everything. Man asks ques 
 tions, investigates, und ein Narr wartet aut Ant- 
 wort Life contains more emptiness than anything 
 else. Life is a long wait for that which does not come. 
 Is life worth living? Tis not worth while asking the 
 question." 
 
 " If that is so, or seems so," I hazarded the question, 
 "then why be here?" 
 
 "Why, to see it all, to enjoy the tragedy," Kei- 
 dansky answered with swift enthusiasm. " I would 
 not advise my best friend to commit suicide. Such 
 an exciting farce. What would life be, what would 
 art be without the tragic elements in it? It s great! 
 But I began to tell you why it is sometimes grossly 
 immoral to live up to your highest principles, when 
 my train of thought was wrecked. Some other time. 
 Come, let s go into the other room and I 11 intro 
 duce you to the players and to Comrade Cahan if 
 he is still alive." 
 
XVI 
 
 Immorality of Principles 
 
 YES, I have promised to tell you why it is 
 sometimes grossly immoral to live up to 
 your highest principles. 1 1 was a rash prom 
 ise, yet I shall try to make it good. And though it 
 was several weeks ago, I am more than ever in 
 clined to think the same way." 
 Thus spake Keidansky when I reproachfully re 
 minded him of a former utterance. 
 " There are the missionaries," he said, " who go forth 
 among peaceful, law-avoiding savages to force upon 
 them a religion that has outlived its usefulness, a re 
 ligion that has not prevented them from doing such 
 an immoral,impolite thing.They go forth to promul 
 gate the truth of which they are not sure. They in 
 vidiously invade the premises of goodly primitive 
 people, and ruthlessly trample upon their traditions, 
 beliefs, superstitions and feelings. We shut people 
 out of our country, and we send missionaries to offer 
 them free admission or standing-room in our heaven. 
 Heedless that their bodies are starving, we come and 
 ask to let us save their souls. We forget that they 
 have a right to their religion, to their way of non 
 thinking, to take the medicine they like ; that their 
 method of salvation is best for them, 
 
 That human hopes and human creeds 
 Have their roots in human needs. 
 149 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 We forget that they have just as much a right to 
 wear their mental corsets as we have to wear ours, 
 or, if you wish, that their beliefs are as true to 
 them as ours are to us. We forget that they speak 
 to God in their own language. We go forth among 
 them and mock at all that is holy and dear to their 
 hearts. 
 
 "Of course, missionaries, like all agitators, are de 
 voted people, living up to their very highest prin 
 ciples, and we all mean well ; but this sort of business, 
 this invasion and utter disregard for others, is to me 
 grossly immoral. And to court and minister to the 
 needs of cannibals and brigands is too much altru 
 ism on our part, and that excessive phase of it is 
 wicked and hurtful." 
 
 " But," I protested, "is not the legitimate advocacy 
 of ideas justifiable ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Keidansky, "the legitimate advocacy of 
 ideas. There are those who on one day of the week 
 would turn our cities into cemeteries, who would 
 stifle our spirits and starve our souls, who on that 
 day deny us music and mirth and song think it 
 a sin to smile, wicked to be happy, and a crime to 
 make merry. If they could reach the sun, they 
 would stop it from working overtime and shining 
 on the Lord s day; yet if the sun should ever reach 
 them, their piety would not cast such a pall over 
 the community. Yes, I know; but listen. Have pa 
 tience. Patience is a Christian virtue, which Chris 
 tians have forced upon Jewish money-lenders. I 
 
 150 
 
The Immorality of Principles 
 
 know that there are many people to-day who have 
 quite a high opinion of the Almighty, believing that 
 He loves light and sunshine, laughter and joy, and 
 glories in the happiness of every living thing, 
 down to the humblest worm. But I am speaking of 
 the others those who deny the pleasure of every 
 thing except self-denial; for whom the only laws of 
 life are the blue laws. 
 
 "Just now our city is being held up by the police, 
 and at the point of a club told to be good and 
 pious and religious. We are told not to breathe, or 
 sigh, or sneeze, or smile, or show any signs of life 
 on Sunday. Orders to stop the circulation of our 
 blood on that day have not yet been issued, but 
 everything comes to those who wait every evil 
 comes to those who have over-zealous pietists among 
 them. To heaven, or be damned. It is a case of 
 your adherence, or your life. You must be killed, 
 or cured. Now in this disregard of disbelievers, the 
 narrowness of vision and hurtful overzeal, I dis 
 cern something immoral. 
 
 "Yet it is a matter of principle to spread whatever 
 gospel one has been captured by. Personally, I have 
 never been so tortured by any as by those people 
 who wished to save me, and out of justice to them, 
 I must say that they tortured me according to their 
 highest principles. It must be admitted that there is 
 an amount of good and pleasure for the agitator, in 
 volved in agitation, yet his work cannot, generally, 
 be called moral on the ground that it conduces to 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 happiness, because he is only one, and those whom 
 he is molesting to save are many. 
 "And so many of those who sacrifice and abnegate 
 and deny themselves, who neglect nature, ignore 
 the laws of their being, emaciate their bodies and 
 starve their souls, is it not immoral of them to weak 
 en their constitutions, minds and spirits, and dimin 
 ish their power for positive good in the world? In 
 the end, are not many of them miserably misled by 
 their highest principles? 
 
 "If he loseth the world, what shall it profit a man 
 that he gaineth his soul? Of what earthly use is a 
 soul, without a wicked world to use it in? To what 
 good is a soul without all the opportunities of los 
 ing it? 
 
 "Alone in the -mountains, far from the madding 
 crowd, it is easy to be sane and soulful and saintly ; 
 but to me, every effort to separate the soul from the 
 world is immoral, though it is in accord with some 
 lofty principles. The soul outside of the world is a 
 tramp who shirks work. To remain in the world, to 
 do, to work, to wage war against weakness, to live 
 strongly and have no fear that is the soul doing 
 its duty, and sowing happiness for all. 
 "And speaking of happiness for others, in the first 
 place, it is not right to force it upon others against 
 their consent, and in the second place, it is wrong 
 to do it at the expense of your own welfare. Do all 
 that you can for yourself first, or you are not justi 
 fied in trying to manage other lives on a better 
 
 152 
 
The Immorality of Principles 
 
 basis. I believe in perfection, but I believe that as 
 much of it as is possible should begin with the per- 
 fedtionists. I believe that nothing is worth doing, 
 unless there is a sound reason for it. I believe in 
 egoism. Altruism may have done much good, but 
 I pity the Altruists, who have enervated, weakened 
 and impoverished themselves by their mostly futile 
 attempts to help others. 
 
 " Largely, altruism is an attempt to do for others 
 what you cannot do for yourself. 
 "There are principles which have led people to lose 
 all that was good in them. The roads to unattain 
 able ideals and impossible perfections are strewn 
 with countless corpses of lost victims. People lose 
 their health, peace, welfare and all, trying to do for 
 others what, in so many cases, cannot be done at 
 all. All this is wrong. It is wrong to add to the store 
 of the world s misery, though you are attempting 
 to alleviate it. No, no one should work for philan 
 thropy unless he gets a good salary for it. As to 
 asceticism, it has never been a profitable business. 
 Contrary to other religions, Judaism rather stood 
 for the joy of life than the arrest of it. 
 "I have seen much of the problem of immoral prin 
 ciples among our radicals of the Ghetto, many of 
 whom have ruined and wrecked their lives because 
 of the ideas they advocated. If the dream of social 
 justice would be realized to-morrow, many of them 
 would not have the strength to enjoy it. Others are 
 so weak that they would not be able to stand the 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 shock. There were those who had others dependent 
 upon them, and who neglected everything and 
 everybody, particularly themselves, for the sake of 
 c the cause/ and who finally became utterly useless. 
 They added to the poverty of the East Side in their 
 efforts to abolish it, while if they had taken good 
 care of themselves they would, in the long run, 
 have done vastly more for their ideals. Among my 
 plots for stories that I have never written, is the 
 case of a man who became a tramp, because he was 
 too anxious to abolish the system that produces 
 tramps. One of the finest poets of the East Side is 
 now a mental and physical wreck, because he lived 
 up to his highest principles and neglected him 
 self. 
 
 "Enthusiasts very often lose the sense of justice, 
 become oblivious to everything except the in 
 visible. I know too well the nobility of the motives; 
 I know that there are more of them on the East 
 Side than any other place in America ; I know, also, 
 that a cause requires such sacrifices, yet, what are 
 the results ? Very often, failure. It has been observed 
 that a man, who in the midst of a savage or barba 
 rous community, in defiance of current social or re 
 ligious customs, should attempt to live the ideal life 
 of a perfect civilization, would doubtless be quickly 
 eliminated from such a society by violent and tragi 
 cal means, and thus effectively be stopped from in 
 fluencing those around him to better ways of living. 
 A great deal of our enforced civilization of savage 
 
The Immorality of Principles 
 
 races has been fatal in its effects upon the health 
 and happiness of the vast majority, while it has 
 failed to elevate the average morals of the survi 
 vors. Authorities say that this is likely to be the 
 result, whenever conventional education is forced 
 upon a people in advance of their functional de 
 velopment. The Hawaiian Islanders are pointed out 
 as an impressive example, and the missionaries, as 
 well as the radicals of the Ghetto, trying to convert 
 their orthodox brethren, ought to remember these 
 things. 
 
 "The way out of it? Some one says: That course 
 of conduct must be adopted which will promote the 
 greatest possible development of life-giving ener 
 gies, both in the individuals immediately affected, 
 and in society at large, including the life of poster 
 ity/ That s science, if I have the quotation right. 
 Principles should be founded on fact, and be con 
 ducive to the largest happiness, including even the 
 happiness of the one who holds the principles. In 
 size, they should be more than 8 by 12 inches. They 
 should be a yard wide wide enough and true 
 enough for all. Yet they should be such principles 
 as to allow others to hold other principles.The right 
 principles, in accord with the best laws of life, and 
 not theology, will come up to all requirements, and 
 they will be moral. 
 
 "Yes, individualism by all means," he added; "be 
 yourself, but don t be a savage." 
 
XVII 
 
 *The Exile of the Earnest 
 
 I MET Keidansky at the performance of a Yid 
 dish play, and our talk turned to matters dra 
 matic. 
 
 "I notice by the papers," I remarked, "that Sarah 
 Bernhardt has just produced a play written for her 
 by F. Marion Crawford, the American novelist. So 
 we are going to supply the theatres of other coun 
 tries with plays. Are you interested?" 
 <c Very much," said Keidansky ; " this is not the only 
 case of an American writing for the foreign stage, 
 and it suggests to me a fine possibility. About Craw 
 ford I know but little; but he is one of our popular 
 men. He has, according to his own confession, writ 
 ten to please; he has never offended any living 
 beings by putting them into his works ; he has never 
 attempted to picture life, uninteresting as it is, and 
 he is, on the whole, not one of those that we should 
 want to send away to write plays for the people of 
 other lands. And I am rather glad his c Francesca da 
 Rimini has failed in London. 
 {C But if there are any among us who are terribly in 
 earnest, with tremendous intentions to elevate the 
 stage, to write plays that will instruct, stimulate, up 
 lift, to take all the struggles of humanity and put 
 them into dramas why let them learn some one of 
 the foreign languages and go abroad and write plays 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 for the serious people of Europe. Yes, if they persist 
 in these things, and want to make us think, and all 
 that sort of thing, which is short of pleasure, if they 
 cannot amuse us with something funny or entertain 
 us with something nice and romantic, why let them 
 go abroad. It s the only way we can get rid of them, 
 and we shall not mourn the loss of those who would 
 have us do nothing else but mourn. 
 "We Americans do not want any plays that require 
 intellect, for we need all that we have in our business 
 enterprises ; we do not want to think in the theatre, 
 because it takes all our thoughts to advertise and sell 
 our goods, nor do we want our emotions stirred, for 
 that is a nervous strain, clouds the mind, and makes 
 people unfit for speculation, scheming or anything 
 on the next day. Then, these plays that arrest the 
 brain and touch our very soul, they make us senti 
 mental, soft-hearted, kind-natured, and draw us out 
 on long conversations with our wives, children and 
 friends. Meanwhile the wheels of trade are turning, 
 and in the race for success we are left behind. 
 "We are a healthy people, and we don t want any 
 morbid, lurid, ghastly productions over here, and in 
 a large sense all very serious works are morbid, lu 
 gubrious and gloomy. At bottom of them there is 
 always a problem, an evil, a crying wrong, a morbid 
 state of something. A happy home is not dramatic; 
 people at peace with themselves and the world are 
 not good subjects for tragedy. According to the 
 conception of these earnest writers there is no plot 
 
The Exile of the Earnest 
 
 for a play without a peck of trouble. We don t want 
 any such dramatic dishes served. We don t want 
 people to play upon our feelings, and yet pay them 
 for it. Occasionally, we are willing to have something 
 a little bit sad, but we want it to end happily. But 
 the earnest ones tell us that in real life few sad stories 
 end happily, that their pictures are true to life. Hang 
 it, we ourselves know they are true to life. There s 
 plenty of trouble at home, that s why we go to the 
 theatre to forget it. Gorky pictures a man fat 
 and forty, successful and comfortable as a govern 
 ment official a man, who after reading c a book of 
 one of these modern much-praised writers/ comes 
 to the conclusion that he is c an insignificant nonen 
 tity, a superfluous being, of no use to any one. 
 " This is just what one of the modern plays does for 
 you. See, it seems to say, see, you crown of creation, 
 what a crawling creature you are. Your past is what 
 it ought not to have been. Your present is what it 
 ought not to be. c The future is but the past again, 
 entered through another gate/ Yesterday you were 
 a fool to-morrow you will be a still greater one. 
 Your best resolutions shall become bitter regrets. 
 You are weak, and you make laws and build gov 
 ernments and create creeds, and they make you 
 weaker yet. All the adornments of your civilization 
 are relics of barbarism. Evolution is too slow for 
 anything, and you cannot get ahead of yourself. You 
 have talked all your life and not uttered an original 
 thought. There have been a few original beings, but 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 most of you are poor imitations you must follow 
 others. You must have a master, either in heaven, or 
 on earth ; you are a slave of society. You strike for 
 freedom and anti-conventionality only when it be 
 comes a fad. You don t understand. Your children 
 cannot teach you any thing. You are too old to learn. 
 When you were young you had only your parents 
 to instruct you. Your home rests upon false assump 
 tions. It is a field of battle or there are no strong 
 individuals in it and all is peace. The theory of he 
 redity is not true your children are stupid; your 
 wife is a doll, which you have chosen for her pretty 
 cheeks, and, though she is fading, claims the rights 
 of a free-born human being, and does not under 
 stand but what s the use? Of what earthly good 
 can such plays be? Why should we in this free, in 
 dependent and prosperous country listen to such 
 things ? Besides, family quarrels, filial relations, dis 
 agreements between relatives are not fit materials 
 for the dramatist. It is none of his business to med 
 dle in such private matters. If there is trouble in the 
 home, if a man and a woman find that one and one is 
 two, if the interests of certain persons, or classes, are 
 against those of others, if people find their religion 
 too small for them and their laws not big enough, 
 why there are courts that they can go to, and legis 
 latures and clergymen and lawyers and Christian 
 Scientists and so many other sources of help and 
 salvation. For a writer it is extremely bad taste to 
 deal with such matters. His mission is to amuse us, 
 
 1 60 
 
The Exile of the Earnest 
 
 and he has no right to abdicate the sovereignty of 
 his exalted office. 
 
 "At least that is what we Americans the majority 
 of our people think, andif there are writers among 
 us so abnormally serious as to see things otherwise, 
 there is but one thing to do with them we should 
 send them away to other countries where people 
 like that kind of dreary drama. 
 " Let them, like Marion Crawford, write for the 
 French stage. The French are not even shocked 
 when they see a real resemblance between life and 
 the drama. In fact they put everything into their 
 plays, all their faults, and I wonder how they can 
 look at these plays. So many things happen in 
 France, and it is all in their books and plays, besides 
 a lot of things that never happen. You cannot in 
 their country escape life and all its troubles by going 
 to the theatre or reading one of their novels. All 
 life s tribulations, turmoil and travail are in them. 
 Not that the people are over-earnest, but that they 
 like something strong, love to be stirred and moved, 
 and are recklessly unafraid of the vertigoes of 
 thought. They have great artists and wonderfully 
 fine writers, but their dramatic works are terribly 
 upsetting. A good performance of c Camille breaks 
 a person up for several days. They are a dangerous 
 lot, all the French writers. 
 
 " No, we over here do not want such productions. 
 There are plenty of pretty incidents and fables out 
 of our romantic history that we can use on our stage. 
 
 161 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 Every veteran of our wars tells enough of his own 
 heroic deeds to make a dozen of plays. Then there 
 are so many historical novels, guaranteed to have 
 nothing to do with life, that have not as yet been 
 dramatized. Such plays would help us to understand 
 our grand history. 
 
 " But there is lots of room in Europe for our would- 
 be realists, and our government would do well by 
 making an appropriation for their instruction in 
 foreign languages and their deportation to the lands 
 of burdensome intentions, revolutionary move 
 ments and problem plays. This would mean peace 
 in our own country. 
 
 "There are the Germans, who love Schopenhauer 
 and beer and usually drink the two together. They 
 feel intensely, revel in realism and have the keenest 
 enjoyment of tragedy. Nothing is too sad, sombre, 
 or too stirring for their stage. All the unanswered 
 questions that have vainly troubled the ages are 
 raised in their dramatic and literary works. What an 
 uncomfortable prospect that is ! They always have 
 men who writes plays that will never die. They have 
 no shame, these Germans. They feel strongly and 
 openly show it. Altogether they have a passion for 
 the thoughtful, and give the modern playwright 
 with tendencies a splendid opportunity. But what is 
 to be said of a country that can produce such play 
 as Hauptmann s ( Die Weber* a country that can 
 send fifty Socialist members to the Reichstag? Yes, 
 we can safely send them to Germany, or else to 
 
 162 
 
The Exile of the Earnest 
 
 Russia. It would be hard for an American to learn 
 that language, but Russia is the land where they say 
 the most daring, the boldest things in the most can 
 did manner, or without any manner at all. I don t 
 know why it is unless it is because free speech is for 
 bidden in that country. There the play, or the novel, 
 palpitates with life and vibrates with heart-throbs. 
 All the evil and oppression and ruin of the country 
 cries out through its literature and drama, and the 
 people worship such art. Life itself is seen on the 
 Russian stage. This is where we should send our 
 earnest writers. True, there is a censorship in Russia, 
 but the radical utterances of an American authorwill 
 easily pass the Russian censor. 
 " There is Norway, where a man like Ibsen, who 
 has made that country the scene of action of all the 
 tragedies of the world, is allowed at large after an 
 exile of many years. Ibsen has held up the Land of 
 the Midnight Sun as a dominion of darkness, yet 
 they like him and are also proud of him in his coun 
 try. Belgium is another good market for the serious 
 and revolutionary drama. In Spain, Echegarayis do 
 ing nearly what Ibsen is doing in Norway, and he 
 has a number of literary companions with similar 
 sombre intentions. Even in England they are be 
 ginning to write such plays, and an American can 
 easily learn the English language. It s a good 
 thing that Henry James prefers to live in England, 
 only we ought to put a tariff on his psychological 
 stories. We need not fear. Any and all these coun- 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 tries will serve us as places of exile for our earnest 
 authors. 
 
 " But hold on, I Ve nearly forgotten. Perhaps the 
 expenses of sending these people to Europe can be 
 saved. Let them learn to write in Yiddish, for in the 
 Jewish theatres of the New York Ghetto all sorts 
 of serious, sombre, life-like, problematic and power 
 ful plays are produced." 
 
 164 
 
XVIII 
 
 Why Social Reformers Should Be Abolished 
 
 I 
 
 T S quite a problem/ said Keidansky, sudden 
 ly, after a pensive pause, as he watched the 
 glimmering lights of the Cambridge bridge 
 
 across the gloomy Charles. 
 "What is?" I asked. 
 
 "How to abolish the social reformers," he answered 
 in a tone of determination. 
 
 It was nearly two o clock in the morning when we left 
 the little cafe where we spent part of the evening, and 
 he said it was too early to go home, which in any case 
 was the last resort. 1 1 was so roasting hot up in his at 
 tic, that no matter what time he climbed up there, he 
 would be "well done" by the time he rose in the 
 morning. But the place he told me of had this advan 
 tage : it was delightfully cool in the winter. Keidansky 
 was physically exhausted and mentally lazy, and 
 would say but little at first. He had spent the day in 
 preparing an article for one of the Jewish papers, and 
 during the evening gave two lessons in English, visit 
 ing his pupils at their homes ; for it was thus, he once 
 informed me, that he learned what English he knew 
 by teaching it to others. Incidentally these lessons 
 he gave and his journalistic efforts helped to pay for 
 the necessities of life, such as rent, laundry, lunches, 
 symphony concerts ("on the rush"), admissions to 
 picture exhibitions, books, gallery tickets to the best 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 plays that came to town, etc. He had worked very 
 hard that day, he said, which was a direct violation 
 of his principle. He did what he could to keep his 
 ideas out of his article, and he hoped it would be pub 
 lished. He felt tired, did not want to go home, and 
 proposed that we walk over to the Charlesbank Park 
 where, on a night like this, we could at least in im 
 agination conjure up a breeze. 
 "Your whim is law," I said, and we set off for the 
 park. I had been speaking of a Yiddish melodrama 
 which had been produced in Boston a few days be 
 fore. Keidansky had not seen the play, but he intend 
 ed to write a review of it for one of the New York 
 papers. He knew all about it and the species to which 
 it belonged. When capital punishment was abol 
 ished, sitting through one of these plays would bean 
 all-sufficient penalty for murder, he said. Then this 
 subject gave out and there was a pause, after which 
 Keidansky made the startling remark concerning 
 social reformers. 
 
 "Abolish them? Do you really mean it?" I asked. 
 "Yes, though I do say it," he replied. 
 " What for ?" I, being puzzled, queried again, and he 
 answered : 
 
 " For the welfare of society, and perhaps also the sure 
 approach of the millennium." He continued : "The 
 social reformers, as a rule, are a most unsocial job lot 
 of people. As I have known them, their business has 
 been to frighten, to scowl, to scare, and to make a 
 mountain of evil out of a mole-hill that did not exist. 
 
 166 
 
Social Reformers Should be Abolished 
 
 They are often the most blinded zealots, the nar 
 rowest-minded, one-sided partisans, with tremen 
 dous, almost Dante-like propensities to conjure up 
 hair-raising horribles, but with the genius and the 
 poetry of a Dante left out. Their method is to cut 
 life up piecemeal, pepper itgood and heavy, and send 
 you to bed with a few bitter morsels. After a night of 
 the most excruciating nightmares, you wake up with 
 a nauseous taste in your mouth, and a pronounced 
 case of reformania. It is not so much what they say, 
 as howthey emphasize it;thevery dictionary groans 
 beneath the weight of their abuse of adjectives, and 
 after a time they convince you that you don t know 
 your own address, that you have not, as you imag 
 ined, been living on the planet earth, but in the most 
 devilish, hellish purgatory. 
 
 "In order to convert this earth into a heaven, they 
 must needs make it appear to be the blackest hell. In 
 order to abolish evil, they must prove that nothing 
 else exists. To convince you of the infinite possibili 
 ties in the development of men, they must prove to 
 you that they have ever been divided between par 
 asitic capitalists and starving slaves. Evolution, as 
 they concoct it for you, has been a process of going 
 from bad to worse, from a mild form of slavery to a 
 more abject one. 
 
 "You see, they are in for effect, and with the aid of 
 the most bombastic language and turgid phraseol 
 ogy they are bound to make it, no matter how many 
 people they dishearten, discourage and dismay. To 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 damn humanity, they think, is but a trifle when their 
 supreme end is to save the world. Hope is not in 
 heaven, earth sees no gentler star; earth is hell and 
 hell bows down before the social reformer. The re 
 former that I mean is a man ever wandering about 
 with a pail of black paint in one hand, a brush in the 
 other, and with an expression of heartrending sorrow 
 in his face because he cannot find a ladder high 
 enough to enable him to put a few coats of his paint 
 on the skies. The world must be saved at any cost, 
 say these reformers, and if the world is the cost, why it 
 is dead cheap at that, when they can become saviors 
 of society and possibly sainted martyrs. And so they 
 proceed to exaggerate the evils that exist in the most 
 brazen-faced manner and to magnify the evils they 
 imagine to the utmost extent. They generously en 
 large every iniquity that is and fully describe those 
 that have never been; they complicate every simple 
 problem in order to puzzle mankind and to be mis 
 understood and to appear great. The world has be 
 come so civilized, the reformers reason, or rather 
 think, that it is hard to find its monstrous wrongs and 
 social reform are being forgotten, and so out with our 
 telescopes, magnifying glasses and alarm clocks. The 
 capitalists must be dethroned, the down-trodden 
 wage-slave must be enthroned, and then our saviors 
 riot and revel in their never-ending disquisitions. 
 Yes, when there are many reformers in the world, 
 the world is in sore need of reform. 
 " These people are pitifully short-sighted and can 
 
 168 
 
Social Reformers Should be Abolished 
 
 barely see one side of life at a time; they dissect life 
 and remove it from reality. Their solutions are so 
 fine that they have nothing to do with the real prob 
 lems. They detach humanity from the world. They 
 abolish the concrete (for convenience) and get lost 
 in their abstractions like the detective who disguised 
 himself so much that he could not discover his own 
 identity. They conceive more evil than exists be 
 cause they rarely know the difference between right 
 and wrong. They are visionaries without breadth of 
 visions ; theorists, not knowing the uselessness of all 
 theories ; people who would save the world because 
 they do not know it ; builders without a foundation ; 
 saviors without the saving graces of truth and beau 
 ty. They embitter humanity, they darken the world, 
 painting it blacker than it ever was in the barbaric 
 past and they make me weary, the more so be 
 cause they constantly remind me how foolish I once 
 was myself. 
 
 " I tell you, the world is better to-day than it ever 
 was before, and it would become still better if we 
 could abolish these disparaging, discouraging, slan 
 derous social reformers. The true reformers are those 
 who make us see how good and great the old world 
 is. As you said the other day, the greatest explorers 
 were those who discovered heaven on earth. And 
 after we have abolished the reformers we could grad 
 ually also abolish the other evils which afflict our 
 civilization and mar existence. They would no longer 
 impede our progress and we could little by little 
 
 169 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 wipe out the wrongs that oppress us and institute 
 more just conditions for all members of society. 
 These things could be done gradually, reasonably, 
 with good cheer, and with the best results. For an 
 other trouble with the vaudeville social reformers 
 that I did not mention is their overweening, over 
 whelming conceit, which makes them so ludicrously 
 unreasonable and prevents them from seeing that 
 the world is just a trifle bigger than one of their 
 numbers." 
 
 It was nearing dawn, and I asked him how he was 
 going to do away with the reformers. 
 " Well, there s the rub," he said. " I do not know 
 exactly, but I Ve been thinking that perhaps the 
 only and best way of abolishing the social reformers 
 would be by finding the true solution of the social 
 problem and abolishing all the wrongs and iniquities 
 of our civilization. Let us destroy, annihilate the 
 evils of unjust laws, governments and monopolies, 
 and institute a just system of society and the social 
 reformers will disappear. 
 
 "Let us have a society wherein all will share equally 
 in all the joys and sorrows of life, wherein none shall 
 be starved and none shall be pampered to death, 
 wherein none shall have too much of the goods of 
 the world and all shall have enough, wherein no 
 hungry babes will wallow in the gutters to become 
 candidates for the prisons and insane asylums, and 
 no children shall be ruined by riches ; a world where 
 in there will be no temperance movements to drive 
 
 170 
 
Social Reformers Should be Abolished 
 
 men to drink, no trust to destroy men s souls, and 
 no churches to harbor infidels; a world without the 
 constant clouds of harrowing, sad thoughts, without 
 the rains of tears, and with more and more of sun 
 shine. Let us do that and we will abolish the obnox 
 ious reformers. Let us abolish the monstrous crime 
 of poverty, which has not the shadow of a reason for 
 existence in a world that is overwhelmed with wealth, 
 and the occupation of the reformers will be gone, 
 and they will vanish. Really, we ought to be willing 
 and ready to do anything for their abolition." 
 
 171 
 
XIX 
 
 Buying a Book in Salem Street 
 
 T" AM going to buy a book on Salem street," 
 I said my friend, when we suddenly encountered 
 JL on Tremont Row. " Do you wish to come 
 along?" 
 
 I was bent on any adventure, and so we started for 
 the quarter, down through Hanover street. It was 
 but a short distance, and before we had done much 
 chatting in the way of exchanging ideas, we were at 
 the head of the street, facing the pawnshop of No. 
 I, with the welcome legend of" Money to Loan." 
 We passed safely the bedecked and bedraggled sec 
 ond-hand clothing stores, though the pullers-in were 
 out in full force. As my companion explained, it is 
 only the seeming strangers who are approached and 
 asked to buy, or sell, but familiar figures and per 
 sons in their company are never molested. One of 
 these attendants, a dark, sad-eyed, kind-faced young 
 man, was leaning against the door-post of a store 
 and intently reading a Jewish magazine. We were 
 across the street and we stopped to look. This fel 
 low, who was engaged in the most sordid business, 
 was reading the " Zukunft," the magazine of dreams, 
 ideals and Utopias, published by the New York radi 
 cals. An elderly, bearded and stout man came down 
 the street. Without looking up from his booklet the 
 youth mechanically asked: "Any clothing to-day?" 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 " No," the man shouted, " no clothing to-day, and 
 you 11 never sell anything if this is the way you 11 
 attend to your business/ It was the proprietor of 
 the store. For a moment the puller-in seemed dazed. 
 Then he shoved his " Zukunft " into his coat pocket. 
 He began to cast his eyes about for customers. He 
 looked a model of sorrow. I was told that it was his 
 idealism, his striving for the impossible, beautiful, 
 that reduced him to the ugly position he was in. We 
 moved on. There were other men reading, if only in 
 snatches, but they apparently owned their stores and 
 had their assistants. One of the pullers pointed out 
 to me is one of the most enthusiastic Zionists in this 
 city. Children were playing on sidewalks and door 
 steps, sedately but happily. A school-teacher from 
 one of the neighboring institutions passed through 
 the street. Several little girls recognized and flocked 
 about her. One took the teacher s umbrella, the oth 
 er asked for the privilege of carrying the young la 
 dy s Boston bag. They took hold of her arms and 
 went along dancing and smiling as she talked to 
 them. Above the rumbling of wagons were heard 
 the pleasing notes of a piano and the singing of a 
 sweet-voiced daughter of the tenements. 
 Farther up the street was more crowded. It was 
 Thursday afternoon. The stores were all activity and 
 bustle, and the pedlers with their wagons and push 
 carts were crying their foods and wares for " the 
 Holy Sabbath " in quaint and singing Yiddish 
 phrases. I was reminded by my friend that Abraham 
 
 174 
 
Buying a Book in Salem Street 
 
 Goldfoden, the father of the Jewish stage, in one of 
 his operettas uses a swarming, eve-of-Sabbath mar 
 ket-scene like this very effectively, and makes his 
 hucksters sing beautifully of the things they have to 
 sell. Said my guide : " Of course, in the operetta of 
 The Witch the pedlers are not so ragged and be 
 smeared, and you cannot hear the smell of the meat 
 and the fish, but neither can you buy and eat these 
 things. After all, if art is beautiful, real life is quite 
 useful. 
 
 " To our people," said Keidansky, casting his eyes 
 about, cc everything here is a matter of course, and 
 there is nothing unusual about it all. The strang 
 est things are the strangers, who come to stare, 
 study and wonder. In facl, the self-concentration of 
 the Jew, probably the secret of his survival, makes 
 this the only place in the world, the temporary Pal 
 estine, the centre of the universe. There are other 
 places in this city, but they are only the outskirts, the 
 suburbs of the Ghetto. There are other peoples and 
 religions, but we are the people and ours is the faith. 
 The flattery that children receive from their parents 
 afterwards helps them to bear the brunt of the bat 
 tle. The consciousness of his being chosen helped 
 Israel to find his way through the dark labyrinth of 
 the centuries. Everything here is as it should be, 
 only a little more on the exclusive and pious Euro 
 pean plan. This is more of the old fashioned view, 
 but it is still extant, inasmuch as the Ghetto remains." 
 Now we were near Bersowsky s book-store which 
 
 175 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 was on the other side of the street and we stopped, 
 facing it. A street-organ was playing in front of the 
 strange emporium and a band of children were danc 
 ing gayly to its music. We could see the books and 
 periodicals, phy latteries and newspapers, holy fringe- 
 garments and sheets of Jewish music in the windows 
 from the other side of the street. And as we came 
 nearer we could see the very aged woman, bewigged 
 and kerchiefed, wan, wrinkled and wry the most 
 familiar figure in the Ghetto we could see her sit 
 ting on her high stool, drinking a glass of tea and 
 selling newspapers. There were several simple prints 
 and chromos in the window, reproductions from pic 
 tures of Jewish life. Parents blessing their children 
 on the Day of Atonement, the Feast of Passover, 
 high priests lighting the candles in the temple 
 these were their subjects. In the windows were also 
 brass candlesticks, such as are being lighted and 
 blessed on the eve of each Sabbath. We stood outside 
 and mused. 
 
 "This," Keidansky explained, "is the leading Jew 
 ish book-store in Boston, and it is in a sense also the 
 spiritual centre of this Ghetto. If any one were to ask 
 me what is to-day the moral condition of the Jews, 
 their spiritual state, what are their intellectual status 
 and religious aspirations, if any one should ask me 
 I would take them into this store and let them see 
 what it contains. Religion, history, literature it is 
 all in here at least in all its physical manifestations. 
 Pentateuchs, Bibles, prayer-books, all books of re- 
 
Buying a Book in Salem Street 
 
 ligious instruction, books of piety and penance, vol 
 umes of the Talmud and of Mishna, phylacteries 
 and holy scrolls, covers for the scrolls and curtains 
 for the Holy Ark, ram s horns to sound on New 
 Year s, knives wherewith to kill cattle according to a 
 merciful ritual, candle-sticks and show-threads which 
 the Jews were commanded to wear at the bottom of 
 their garments (and some of them now wear under 
 their garments) in a word, all that stands to pre 
 serve the old faith is here. All the symbolism of our 
 old faith is here incarnated. And yet side by side with 
 these are the things which tend towards the trans 
 formation or dissolution of the ancient religion 
 the publications of the radicals, the destroying utter 
 ances of the revolutionists. Here come the ortho 
 dox for prayer-books and the anti-religious for free- 
 thought pamphlets. Here you find the organs of the 
 patriots and Zionists, who wish to preserve and re 
 generate the Jewish people, and also the organs of 
 the Socialists and Anarchists who are fighting against 
 all national ideas and for an assimilated humanity. 
 Come in and I 11 show you. There is the c Zukunft 
 (Future), the best literary and scientific monthly we 
 ever had, which is published by the Socialists. It was 
 formerly edited by Abe Cahan, now Dr. Caspe has 
 charge of it. And look ! c Die Freie Arbeiter Stim- 
 me, the Anarchist weekly, ably edited by S. Yan- 
 ofsky, one of the cleverest Yiddish writers. 
 "And," my friend whispered, " this old lady, who 
 stands for all that is pious and ancient, handing 
 
 177 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 out the c Freie Arbeiter Stimme and the Socialist 
 Vorwarts, is to me as strongly dramatic and as 
 profoundly symbolic a picture as any thing in life and 
 literature. Mr. Bersowsky, who started this store, 
 now sells books, it is hoped, in a better world. Look 
 at this young old woman his widow and see if 
 hearts ever break around here. The aged lady is his 
 mother, and she would not be in any other place in 
 the world, except where her husband, and afterwards 
 her son spent their last days. So she stays here all 
 the time the store is open,and sells papers and books 
 in spite of protests. 
 
 " The Jew is so practical that he always looks ahead ; 
 he is chronically optimistic, and his imagination cre 
 ates everything that the world denies him. Dreamer 
 he has been ever since the prophets, and even before 
 their time. It must have been superb idealism and 
 beautiful faith which enabled him to loan money 
 to his neighbors during the Middle Ages. It still re 
 quires fine imagination to do it to-day. 
 " Between the sordid and the sublime stands the 
 Jew, who is either one or the other, or both, as cir 
 cumstances shape his destiny. You can see this in 
 all his literature, from the stories of Motke Chabad 
 to the plays of Jacob Gordin. 
 "Is it not strange how quickly we adapt ourselves, 
 and how soon we come up to date and ahead of 
 date ? But yesterday we had no literature except our 
 religious guides, our only beacon lights in the old- 
 world Ghettos ; and now we have splendid modern 
 
Buying a Book in Salem Street 
 
 works, both in Hebrew and Yiddish, all breathing 
 the modern spirit. Many standard works from all 
 European tongues have been translated for us; but 
 we have a number of great masters of our own. It 
 is such a short time ago that we had no fiction to 
 speak of us (except the sermons of our preachers); 
 and now there is Abromowitz and Peretz, Spector 
 and Rubenowitz, and so many others. There is a 
 whole group of modern poets, who have also grown 
 up in no time. And the struggle between the old 
 and the new, which this literature represents, the 
 striving for the modern, and the longing for the an 
 cient that is what makes it so painful and pleasant 
 so stirring, and therefore uch good art. All grades 
 of feeling and believing, thinking and non-thinking, 
 are in the books and periodicals that you find in 
 this store. And the men and women who come here, 
 living in the same Ghetto, are often millions of 
 miles apart in their ideas." 
 
 My guide asked for his book, a Hebrew story, by 
 L. M. Lillenblum. The elderly man, who is a rela 
 tive of the family and a partner in the business, 
 knew all about it, found it after a long search, and 
 made my friend happy. The story, I was told, was 
 written about twenty years ago by a native of Kei- 
 dan. At that time there was a general literary awak 
 ening, and many talented men wrote profane and 
 useful books in the holy language, and shocked the 
 orthodox Jews of Russia. In Keidan, they wanted 
 to excommunicate the author of "The Follies of 
 
 179 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 My Youth"; but the rabbi of Kovno telegraphed, 
 saying that the infidel was a great man, and should 
 be left alone with his book. An old man came in, 
 and after much bargaining, bought a silk praying- 
 shawl. Several persons came in for papers. A young 
 man bought the "Zukunft" and "The Merchant 
 of Venice" translated in blank verse, by Joseph 
 Bovshover. 
 
 He wore glasses, long hair, carried an umbrella and 
 a green bag; in fa6t, one might have met him in a 
 vegetarian restaurant. He was pointed out to me as 
 a noted radical, a dreamer, who writes for the " Vor- 
 warts," works as a tailor in a sweat-shop, and is said 
 to be writing a book. A comely young maiden, with 
 a madonna-like face, came near the store. She had a 
 few may flowers in her hand and gave them to a 
 ragged little child standing there. She came in and 
 bought a paper. She did not read Yiddish; but it 
 was for her father. She was a college student, I was 
 told, of advanced ideas, but deeply in love with the 
 people of the Ghetto and their beliefs was plan 
 ning to devote her life to settlements and social re 
 form work one of the many dreamers who came 
 into this store. 
 
 " Once," said my guide, " I told her that I would 
 put her into a book. c Thank you/ she answered. 
 I don t want to sink into oblivion so soon/ But 
 she is an idyl of the Ghetto just the same. Look; 
 here are the poems of David Edelstaat. He sleeps 
 now in a lonely grave in the Jewish cemetery at 
 
 1 80 
 
Buying a Book in Salem Street 
 
 Denver, Colorado, by the side of the fence, for he 
 was a delinquent in Israel. He went there by way of 
 the corroding sweat-shop and a damp cellar in New 
 York, where he edited a little communist weekly. 
 Many of our idealists go to Denver this way. It is 
 the only time they travel and take a vacation. The 
 hospitals there are crowded. But Edelstaat s poems, 
 they are a sacred treasure among the Jewish work 
 ing people." 
 
 181 
 
XX 
 
 The Purpose of Immoral Plays 
 
 THE smoke was so thick and the din so 
 heavy, that I did not see him when I came 
 in and barely heard his shouted greeting. 
 Such was the crowded condition of the regular re 
 sort on Saturday night; yet I found Keidansky 
 tucked up in a corner of the cafe, "oblivious to the 
 obvious," around him, with a pile of newspapers in 
 his hands. " The group" had not as yet assembled, 
 so my friend was reading. 
 
 "This has been a great week," he said with glad 
 some emphasis, after we had exchanged courtesies. 
 I at once suspecled what he meant. 
 "A great week," I said, "because you have been 
 able to see humanity piteously dissected, human be 
 ings mercilessly analyzed, souls stript of their rai 
 ment, wounded and bleeding, our fellow-men on 
 exhibition, crippled by custom and walking on 
 the crutches of convention, our best arrangements 
 of life held up to ridicule and scorn. A great week," 
 I said, " because you have fed on tragedy like a 
 fiend?" 
 
 "Yes, there is something sad about tragedy," an 
 swered Keidansky, ignoring my bitterness, "but the 
 man who sees things clearly, who looks a long dis 
 tance behind the scenes, the man who sees the worst 
 and does not die, but lives to cast his observations 
 
 183 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 into a perfect work, and to lift you up to the moun 
 tain-top with him, is not this man great and glad 
 dening? Is there not cause for exultation in a really 
 big tragedy ? And this is saying but little about the 
 aesthetic pleasure of a story told in heart-breaking 
 and soul-stirring manner," he added. "Some one 
 must do this work, and it makes one feel real good 
 when the right man comes along. 
 " The saddest stories are yet to be told, before there 
 can be much more happiness in the world. We can 
 never reach the heights until we realize the depths. 
 As for myself, I give all the world to the man who 
 can make it better than it is. And such works are 
 making the longed-for improvement, by perform 
 ing the miracle of making men and women think, 
 doing this, not by any pedantic preachments, but 
 by the power of suggestiveness and the large vision 
 of the newer and truer art. Art with a purpose? But 
 all art has this purpose. And the less the purpose 
 is consciously inculcated into art, the better is that 
 purpose carried out. They call them problem plays, 
 but was there ever a great play without some sort 
 of problem in it? Without some burning question 
 of life, and love, and death? What s that? Immoral? 
 Was there ever a masterly and mastering work that 
 was not immoral, according to the popular judg 
 ments ? Was there ever a work with a big purpose 
 that conformed to the critics and to current lack of 
 opinions? Could there be much of a purpose to any 
 thing that did not shock the world s conspiracy of 
 
 184 
 
The Purpose of Immoral Plays 
 
 cowardice they call morality? Gott is mit dirl You 
 must go abroad and take some cure. You have been 
 reading the American dramatic critics. It was a great 
 week, I say, with Ibsen and Bjornson, Sudermann 
 and Pinero, and two wonderful artists to interpret 
 them, but the pleasure was very much spoiled for 
 me by some of these critics. Ah, these poor critics. 
 Here are the papers, and I can still hear them chok 
 ing and croaking and cackling, and my heart goes out 
 to them and turns sick. What a wonderful lot of fel 
 lows they are. What endless platitudes and empty 
 phrases full of nonsense they have delivered 
 themselves of this week, yet I don t think they are 
 any the wiser for it. I know one of the fraternity 
 (there is sufficient disagreement between themselves 
 to be called a fraternity) who is a perfect genius. 
 With one stroke of his mighty pen he once anni 
 hilated Ibsen, Echegaray, Astrowsky, Paul Her- 
 vieueand Edward Martyn. It was all c morbid trash, 
 he said of a series of their plays, and it is strange 
 that these men are still heard of occasionally. That 
 was after the John Blair experiment, and I walked 
 into this critic s office and made a few extempora 
 neous remarks. He said I ought to have more re 
 spect for a man who can get as much advertising 
 for his paper as he can. Of course, this was indis 
 putable. It would take so little courage to do it, 
 yet they dare not think their own thoughts, the dear, 
 dear critics. No, there is not any use in trying to 
 reason with them, but I sometimes would like to get 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 them all together in one room and give them all a 
 sound horsewhipping. 
 
 "One of the critics, who writes in silk gloves, 
 swears in the most perfect, correct English, and 
 compares every play he sees to something of Shake 
 speare, objects to c The Second Mrs. Tanqueray 
 as an immoral play. The dissection of this woman s 
 heart and mind, he protests, is not the proper busi 
 ness of the dramatist, nor is the inspection of his 
 dissecting table after the job has been done a proper 
 amusement for theatrical spectators. C A process of 
 repentance and purification and that sort of thing, 
 on the part of this unfortunate, must be indicated, 
 if art is to approach this kind of life. The entire 
 scheme of ethics is bad. Yet the critic admits that 
 the performance was terrible and touching, and that 
 Mrs. Campbell Heaven bless her for coming to 
 see us won a remarkable and complete victory in 
 the part; altogether he praises her very generously. 
 "Now, what I say is this. If we can be moved and 
 stirred by an immoral play, there is either something 
 the matter with our morality, or there is some 
 thing radically wrong with our hearts. I must re 
 call to you the lines of Stephen Crane. Behold the 
 grave of a wicked man, and near is a stern spirit. 
 There came a drooping maid with violets, but the 
 spirit grasped her arm. "No flowers for him," he 
 said. The maid wept: "Oh, I loved him." But the 
 spirit grim and frowning: "No flowers for him." 
 Now, this is it. If the spirit was just, why did the 
 
 186 
 
The Purpose of Immoral Plays 
 
 maid weep? If our standard of morality is right, 
 why do our hearts go out for Paula Tanqueray, for 
 Nora Helmer, for Mad Agnes? Is it because we 
 have become so humane as to be far ahead of our 
 morality? What does it mean, anyway? We are told 
 that the contents of the plays seen here last week, 
 are not fit subjects for the drama. Well, art might 
 as well go out of business, if it is not going to look 
 life squarely in the face, if it is not going to sound 
 the very depths of things, and mirror conditions as 
 they are to-day, for modern humanity. The play in 
 particular, it is clear, must deal with the intense ef 
 forts, the dramatic essences of life ; the play in par 
 ticular will have nothing to do unless it takes up 
 the crucial conditions, the large realities, the stir 
 ring struggles, the sterling aspirations of the clashing 
 life of to-day under the new and as yet unadjusted 
 surroundings. The drama must take up shame and 
 crime, error and suffering, or there is no plot for a 
 great play anywhere. The few pretty, romantic, silly 
 stories have been told over and over again. Now we 
 have grown. There is a larger life before us, and we 
 want something stronger. We must have plays to 
 educate our critics, if that is possible. 
 " He who is without sin among ye, let him cast the 
 first stone/ If Christ had said nothing else, would 
 not this have made him a great man ? Yet after eight 
 een hundred years it is necessary for another Jew, 
 a Portuguese Jew named Pinero, to say the same 
 thing through the medium of a play, because the 
 
 187 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 Christians say that Christ s teachings are immoral. 
 And then the stones of the critics are thrown at Pi- 
 nero." 
 
 Here I said something about the relation between 
 art and morality, but Keidansky protested. 
 " Art has nothing to do with morality/ he said, 
 " and therefore it teaches such great moral lessons. 
 It re-creates and reproduces Nature and life in forms 
 of beauty and power. And because it approaches ele 
 mentary conditions without bias and preconceived 
 notions, and illumines its material with the touch of 
 human genius, it shows us life in its largeness, right 
 in its relativeness, and raises us above our established 
 moralities. Because art is the spontaneous expres 
 sion of the humane, the true, the good and the beau 
 tiful in our souls, it helps us to see the larger rights, 
 the greater justice, and helps us to make, change and 
 advance our morality. Art touches the commonplace 
 and makes it divine. It makes a saint out of a sin 
 ner by showing causes, and casting a kindly light 
 over human weakness. 
 
 "In real life The Second Mrs. Tanqueray is a 
 shameful scandal, to be exploited by sensational 
 newspapers, and we avoid the parties concerned and 
 run away from them ; but art raises the story to the 
 height of the tragic and the epic, and we suffer and 
 grieve with Paula, and even the cold critic, who tries 
 so hard not to be humane, is moved. In life we are 
 even afraid to mention the names of such people; 
 but art makes us weep for Camille, sympathize with 
 
 188 
 
The Purpose of Immoral Plays 
 
 Sapho, be sad, or gay, with the vagabond Frar^ois 
 Villon, sigh for Denise, grieve with Don Jose, and 
 follow Manon Lescaut through the desert of North 
 America. Art helps us to realize that there is no sin 
 but error, no degradation but dulness of the mind, 
 no vice but lack of vision. 
 
 " I don t want to speak to you because you did not 
 go to see Bjornson s s Beyond Human Power and 
 Mrs. Campbell s acling in that piece. Yet since you 
 did not go you ought to be enlightened. You have 
 read the story? Did you see how the critics dodged 
 the issues of the play, beating about the bush and 
 puzzling each other ? A case of faith and reason, 
 you know, and you must n t talk about these things. 
 A blind leader of the blind, a man who f lacks the 
 sense of reality and sees only what he wishes to see ; 
 a woman of intellecl who wastes her love on him ; 
 unbelieving children of a miracle worker; the clash 
 between the new and the old; the decrepitude of 
 orthodoxy ; the contrast between the master and his 
 disciples and who can never realize the impossible, 
 unnatural ideals ; the faith that kills. The play has 
 all the tragedy of a dying religion, and the last a6l is 
 as powerful as anything I have ever seen anywhere. 
 What does it mean ? To me it indicates the dying of 
 the old Christianity, and I believe that Bjornson, 
 unlike Ibsen, is a Christian. The quiet, subdued, 
 subtle work of Mrs. Campbell was worthy of the 
 play. 
 
 "And there was Henrik Ibsen s c A Doll s House/ 
 
 189 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 I shall never forget the performance of it. What a 
 simple story, how concise and terse, not a superflu 
 ous word in the whole of it, yet how strong and stir 
 ring! It is primarily a picture, a powerful dramatic 
 picture without a shadow of preachiness in it. You 
 say there is a problem in it? Yes, but it s in the pic 
 ture, the picture is the problem. Here is a perfect 
 work of a great master, if there ever was one. There 
 are whole cities made up of such dolls houses, with 
 women as playthings, toys, means of amusement, 
 slaves of conventionality and of slavish men, yet the 
 critics are croaking and raising the cry of c immoral 
 ity/ Save on the New York East Side Ghetto, Ib 
 sen is comparatively unknown in America, but it is 
 not true that the American people are not interested 
 in his plays whenever they are given and that they 
 would not go to see them if more of them were per 
 formed. In saying so the critics say what is not true, 
 as was manifest from the enthusiastic audiences at 
 the last week s performances. There is a Yiddish 
 translation of the play by the poet Morris Winchew- 
 sky, and it was performed by Mr. and Mrs. Jacob 
 P. Adler, but I have never seen it. Mrs. Fiske s 
 c Nora is positively great. H er delicacy, her mastery 
 of light and shade, her manner of speech and poise, 
 and on the whole her perfect conception of the char 
 acter is a stroke of genius. Why did you not see it P 
 Do you want to go ? You can pay for my lunch. 
 Ibsen and Bjornson have impoverished me this 
 week." 
 
 190 
 
The Purpose of Immoral Plays 
 
 " So you don t think much of the American critics ? " 
 I asked at this point. 
 
 " On the contrary," he said, "with the exception of 
 some, I think they are all good advertising agents." 
 
 191 
 
XXI 
 "The Poet and the Problem 
 
 THIS time I met Keidansky in front of the 
 Jewish theatre. He had just left the re 
 hearsal of a play which he had translated 
 from the German into Yiddish. As I approached he 
 pointed to a huge sign on top of the building across 
 the street advertising, in a pretty jingle of rhymes, a 
 new biscuit of undreamed of deliciousness. 
 " I have solved the problem," he said proudly. This 
 was not such a surprise to me. To solve problems 
 was my friend s business. 
 "What problem is that?" I asked. 
 " The problem of the poet," he answered. "After the 
 ages of oppression, persecution and poverty, after the 
 exiles, insults and negligence of centuries, the poet 
 will at last come into his own, into bread and butter 
 and a respected position in society. Immunity from 
 starvation, peace, prosperity will at last be his. His 
 worth will be recognized and he will be put to work 
 and made a useful member of society." 
 "What will he do? "I asked. 
 
 "He will write the advertisements for manufacturers 
 andstorekeepers, "said Keidansky ;" he will singthe 
 song of the products of modern industry, chant of the 
 wonderful performances of the age and glorify the 
 fruits of our civilization, extol the things of use and 
 of beauty that serve the needs of to-day s humanity. 
 
 I 93 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 This will be an ample theme for his Muse and the 
 guerdon of his songwill be tangible. His talents will 
 serve a great practical need. He will prove at last 
 that there is some advantage in genius. The world, 
 the world of reality, of fa<fts, figures and statistics 
 will no longer ask, What s the use of poetry ? The 
 world will recognize its usefulness, and commerce 
 and trade and capital shall become its friends. In 
 graceful rhymes, in silvery stanzas, in beautiful 
 verses will the poet voice the marvels of all the re 
 sults of the inventiveness, ingenuity and skill with 
 which our era is so richly blessed. And whatever ar 
 ticle on the market will be the burden of his song, 
 it will bring good prices and make easy the life of the 
 singer. And people will no longer have to strain their 
 eyes to find the poet s lines in an obscure corner of 
 a magazine, or in a little volume of tiny type ; the 
 bards will no longer have to depend upon such poor 
 methods of attracting attention. 
 "In great, glaring, garish and golden letters their 
 poems will look down upon people from the roof 
 tops, from the high walls of factories and barns, 
 from fences and huge signs by all the roadsides, rail 
 road sides, mountain sides, seasides, and all sides, 
 and people will be compelled to look up to them, 
 because there will be nowhere else to look. There 
 will be no escape. The large letters painted in glow 
 ing colors and with their artistic arrangement will 
 arrest the attention of all. And when a foreigner will 
 come here to study this country and write it up, he 
 
 194 
 
The Poet and the Problem 
 
 will not be able to see anything on account of these 
 signs which will cover the land, and after reading 
 the inscriptions upon them, he will go forth saying 
 that it is the most poetic country in the whole world. 
 So inspired will the stranger become that he will go 
 forth and tell the world of the wonderful things we 
 make and advertise here. Thus poetry, at last, be 
 come useful, will help us conquer the foreign mar 
 ket. After all, the bards will come down from the 
 clouds and the garrets of starvation, and in their 
 song embrace the whole world; celebrate the things 
 concrete, material and real. Poetry and the world will 
 at last become reconciled; spirit and substance will 
 be united to the practical advantage of the spirit. 
 " For too long a time has the poet wandered about 
 in distress, begging for a pittance, persecuted every 
 where, singing his song for nothing, with starvation 
 and inspiration as his only rewards. For too long a 
 time has the poet, c the unacknowledged legislator 
 of the world/ been subjected to all manner of scorn, 
 persecution, calumny, and been compelled to seek in 
 vain some one who will pay well for a dedication of 
 his work. His own lot was ever hard, and, besides, 
 he suffered all the sorrows of humanity. He lived 
 with all and grieved with all. He put his life into his 
 songs, yet few paid any heed to them. Poets have ever 
 been the victims of the prosiness of things. The world 
 was ever ugly to them because they made it so beauti 
 ful. No matter how great their immortality, they 
 never could pay their rent. C A genius is an accused 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 man/ said Victor Hugo in his book on Shakespeare, 
 and then he goes on to enumerate all the banish 
 ments, persecutions, imprisonments and outrages 
 that were heaped upon the poets of all lands and all 
 ages, including Victor Hugo himself. Yes, a poet has 
 ever been an accused man, and nearly every one has 
 found him guilty. But as I say, these cruelties had for 
 too long been practised upon the singers and the time 
 has come for a change. With the advance of civiliza 
 tion he will be given useful employment, a decent 
 wage, and thus enabled to make a living without 
 working overtime. Richard Le Gallienne shall weep 
 no more for a government endowment for the poet. 
 The poet shall become self-supporting. He will sing 
 of things whereof the owners can afford to pay for 
 the song. Whether he will create immortal works 
 or not he will work, and work is immortal. It will 
 continue unto the end of time." 
 Here I wished to remonstrate, but Keidansky would 
 not permit me. He continued, as we walked along 
 through the Ghetto. 
 
 "The human and other machines of the age are 
 bringing such wonderful things into existence, and 
 the poet will lift his voice in praise of them. It real 
 ly takes the imagination of a poet to piclure and glo 
 rify the countless commodities that are manufac 
 tured and put upon the markets of our time. It takes a 
 poet to point out their usefulness. What will he not 
 sing of on those huge street signs and in the double- 
 page advertisements in the newspapers ? Of pre-di- 
 
 196 
 
The Poet and the Problem 
 
 gested foods, of squeezeless corsets, of baking pow 
 der that bakes the cakes without any form of heat, 
 of ink that endows the pen with brains, of cigars 
 that are conducive to health, of watches that make 
 people up to date, of a hair restorer that keeps the 
 hair you have, of shoes with which you can walk in 
 the air, of clothes that make man and woman out of 
 nothing, pianos that make Paderewskys, of bicycles 
 and typewriters, and razors and house-lots and fur 
 niture, and peerless, rare, surpassing, extraordinary 
 everything mentionable. What will he not sing of? 
 These things will be. God will send us a Bobby 
 Burns and he will sing the song of the best steam 
 ship company, and he will not only be able to go a- 
 broad often, but he may in the course of time even be 
 come the general passenger agent. It takes a compe 
 tent fortune to escape the materialism of the age, and 
 to acquire this the poet will associate himself with 
 the material interests of the time and become as free 
 as a bird in the woods. 
 
 " The process has begun, and already one finds pret 
 ty little poems and fine sentiments in all advertise 
 ments, particularly those that meet one s eyes in the 
 street cars. I usually have a book with me on the cars, 
 but of late I find the advertisements more amus 
 ing. Pretty soon the best literature will appear in 
 the advertisements of all publications. One firm 
 advertises in choice epigrams, which show the possi 
 bilities for some future wits. I do not know whether 
 they are written by Elbert Hubbard or not, but 
 
 197 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 they sound like it and show which way things are 
 going. 
 
 "This is the solution of the problem of the poet. I 
 pondered over it long, but found it at last. Our hope 
 comes from Parnassus. The poets will help us con 
 quer the foreign market." 
 
 198 
 
XXII 
 
 My Vacation on the East Side " 
 
 REEN fields, fair forests, singing streams, 
 pine-clad mountains, verdant vistas from 
 the monotony of the city to the monotony 
 of nature. I wanted a complete change, and so I went 
 to the East Side of New York for my vacation. That 
 is where I have been." 
 
 Thus did our friend explain his strange disappear 
 ance and unusual absence from Boston for a whole 
 week. For the first time since he came here from 
 New York he had been missing from his home, his 
 regular haunts, such as the cafes, Jewish book-stores 
 and the debating club, and none of those whom I 
 asked knew whither he had betaken himself. The 
 direct cause of his disappearance, explained Keidan- 
 sky, was a railroad pass, which he had secured from 
 a friendly editor for whom he had done some work. 
 He went on explaining. " I wanted to break away 
 for awhile from the sameness and solemnness, the 
 routine and respectability of this town, from my 
 weary idleness, empty labors, and uniformity of our 
 ideas here, so when the opportunity was available I 
 took a little journey to the big metropolis. One be 
 comes rusty and falls into a rut in this suburb. I was 
 becoming so sedate, stale and quiet that I was begin 
 ning to be afraid of myself. The revolutionary spirit 
 has somewhat subsided. Many of the comrades have 
 
 199 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 gone back on their ideas, have begun to practise what 
 they preach, to improve their conditions by going 
 into business and into work, and I often feel lonely. 
 Anti-imperialism, Christian Science and the New 
 Thought are amusing; but there is not enough ex 
 citement here. Boston is not progressive ; there are 
 not enough foreigners in this city. People from many 
 lands with all sorts of ideas and the friction that arises 
 between them that causes progress. New York is 
 the place, and it is also the refuge of all radicals, rev 
 olutionaries and good people whom the wicked old 
 world has cast out. America, to retain its originalchar- 
 acter, must constantly be replenished by hounded 
 refugees and victims of persecution in despotic lands. 
 To remain lovers of freedom we must have suffer 
 ers from oppression with us. Sad commentary, this, 
 upon our human nature ; but so are nearly all com 
 mentaries upon human nature. Commentaries upon 
 the superhuman are tragic. New York with its Ger 
 mans and Russians and Jews is a characteristic Amer 
 ican city. Boston and other places are too much like 
 Europe cold, narrow and provincial. I came to 
 Boston some time ago because I had relatives here 
 the last reason in the world why any one should 
 go anywhere ; but I was ignorant and superstitious 
 in those days. I have since managed to emancipate 
 myself, more or less, from the baneful influences of 
 those near ; but meanwhile I have established my 
 self, have become interested in the movements and 
 institutions of the community, and here I am. The 
 
 200 
 
"My Vacation on the East Side" 
 
 symphony concerts, the radical movement, the li 
 brary, leclnires on art, the sunsets over the Charles 
 River, the Faneuil Hall protest meetings against 
 everything that continues to be, the literary paper 
 published, the Atlantic Monthly, Gamelial Brad 
 ford, Philip Hale and so many other fixtures of Bos 
 ton have since endeared it to me and I stayed. Be 
 sides, it would cost me too much to ship all my books 
 to New York. 
 
 " But wishing a change, I wanted to go to the big 
 metropolis. No, not to the country ; not for me those 
 parasitic, pestering and polished summer hotels, 
 where a pile of people get together to gossip and 
 giggle and gormandize and bore each other for sev 
 eral weeks. An accident once brought me to one of 
 these places. I went out to see some friends, and I 
 know what they are. They spend most of their time 
 dressing ; these vacationists dress three times a day ; 
 the green waist, and yellow waist, the brown skirt 
 and the blue suit, the red jacket, the white hat, and 
 the gray coat, and then the same turn over again ; 
 they fill themselves with all sorts of heavy and un 
 wholesome foods brought from the cities ; they sit 
 around the verandas and talk all day, never daring 
 to venture into the woods ; they do no good to them 
 selves, coming home tired and sick, and they do un 
 speakable wrong by turning good, honest farmers 
 into parasitic, sophisticated boarder-breeders, and 
 by turning them away from the tilling of the soil. 
 No more of these places for me. Of course, if one 
 
 201 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 could go into the woods and live as simply as a sav 
 age for awhile itwould be fine ; but one needs a tent, 
 and I never did own any real estate. 
 " But this time I wanted a complete change; I want 
 ed something to move and stir me out of the given 
 groove, the beaten path I was falling into, some ex 
 citement that would shake the cobwebs out of my 
 brain, so I turned towards the East Side. 
 " They are all there, the comrades, the radicals, the 
 red ones, and dreamers ; people who are free because 
 they own nothing. Poets, philosophers, novelists, 
 dramatists, artists, editors, agitators and other idle 
 and useless beings, they form a great galaxy in the 
 New York Ghetto. For several years, ever since I 
 left New York, I had been receiving instruction and 
 inspiration from them through the medium of the 
 Yiddish and the Socialist press, where my own things 
 often appeared beside their spirited outpourings, and 
 now I was overcome by an overpowering desire to 
 meet them again, talk matters over and fight it all 
 out. There is no sham about the East Side branch 
 of the ancient and most honorable order of Bohe 
 mians the little changing, moving world that is 
 flowing with the milk of human kindness and the 
 honey of fraternal affections, where those who live 
 may die and those who die may live. Here among 
 the East Side Bohemians people feel freely, acl: in 
 dependently, speak as they think and are not at all 
 ashamed of their feelings. They have courage. They 
 wear their conviclions in public. They do as they 
 
 202 
 
"My Vacation on the East Side" 
 
 please, whether that pleases everybody else or not. 
 They talk with the purpose of saying something. 
 They write with the objed: of expressing their ideas. 
 They tell the truth and shame those who do not. 
 Hearts are warm because they own their souls. Those 
 who really own their souls will never lose them. As 
 Joseph Bovshover, the fine poet of the East Side 
 has sung: 
 
 c Beauty bideth, 
 Nature cbideth. 
 When the heart is cold; 
 Fame is galling, 
 Gold s enthralling, 
 When the mind is sold. 
 
 " They all assemble in the cafes, those universities 
 of the East Side, and in these places of judgment all 
 things are determined. Is there a great world prob 
 lem that puzzles and vexes all mankind ? The de 
 baters at one of these tea-houses take it up at their 
 earliest discussion and soon the problem is solved 
 and the way of human progress is clear again. Is 
 there a question that has troubled the ages ? Come 
 and spend fifteen minutes on the East Side, and the 
 salvation of humanity will be assured to you. There 
 is so much squalor and suffering and sorrow here 
 that nothing can overcome the optimism of these 
 chosen people. Their incurable faith cannot be shak 
 en even by their religious leaders, and when they be 
 come atheists they are the most pious atheists in all 
 the world. But in the cafes the great issues given up 
 
 203 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 in despair by famous statesmen are met and decided 
 upon. The trusts ? Are they not paving the way for 
 the realization of Socialism ? Not until all the indus 
 tries have been concentrated by the trusts will the 
 people through the government be able to take pos 
 session of them. Otherwise, how in the world will 
 the new regime, for instance, ever organize and take 
 hold of all the peanut stands of the land? You do 
 not understand the question thoroughly if you have 
 not read the articles of I. A. Hurwitz in the c Vor- 
 warts. The future of war ? There will be no war in 
 the future. The workingmen of all countries are 
 uniting and so are the capitalists. The international 
 movement is not laboring in vain. Socialism is 
 spreading in the European armies. Every govern 
 ment will have enough trouble in its own land. Oth 
 ers come here and say that every government will 
 have to fight for its own life and will not be able to 
 do anything else. People will take Tolstoy s advice 
 and cease to pay taxes and withdraw their support 
 from the powers that rule. Tolstoy, say some, is a 
 masterful artist, but puerile as a philosopher, a curi 
 ous mixture of genius and narrow-mindedness, a 
 man, who once having erred, now sins against man 
 kind by denying it the right of erring. The red- 
 haired ragged orator with blue eye-glasses and the 
 face of a Hebrew Beethoven quotes Ingersoll. c Tol 
 stoy/ said the agnostic, c stands with his back to the 
 rising sun/ And did not Edward Carpenter say of 
 Tolstoy s book, c that strange jumble of real acumen 
 
 204 
 
"My Vacation on the East Side" 
 
 and bad logic, large-heartedness and fanaticism 
 What is art? 
 
 " Ibsen is somber because he is almost alone in see 
 ing the most tragic phases of life, because he feels 
 compelled to treat what all other artists have neg 
 lected. Many of his plays are too much like life to be 
 a&ed, and we go to the theatre only to see plays. 
 One of the listeners speaks of the appreciation of Ib 
 sen in The New Spirit, by Havellock Ellis, and of 
 the analogy that he finds between Ibsen and Whit 
 man. Zangwill places Ibsen above Shakespeare, and 
 more recently he has bestowed great praise upon 
 Hauptmann. Rather strange of Zangwill, who is 
 himself not a realist and has gone in for Zionism, to 
 like Ibsen so much. And who is greater than Ibsen ? 
 some one asks. Perhaps it is I. Zangwill/ says the 
 cynical, frowzy and frowning little journalist. G. 
 Bernard Shaw is mentioned as a candidate, and his 
 great little book on Ibsenism comes in for a heated 
 discussion. Brandes is quoted, and several of his 
 admirers present go into ecstasies over his works 
 and almost forget the writers whom he has treated. 
 The pale-faced, wistful-eyed poet with the Christ- 
 like face rises high on the wings of his eloquence 
 in praise of the Danish critic s appreciation of Heine, 
 and Brandes is declared to be one of the greatest 
 Jews in the world. What was it Brandes said about 
 Zionism? Zionism, Socialism and Anarchism come 
 up in turn, and so many trenchant and vital things 
 are said on these subjects. Will the novel pass away? 
 
 205 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 The dramatist bulky and bearded, impressive and 
 strong-looking, with wonderful piercing eyes the 
 dramatist is inclined to think that it will. The short 
 story is the story of the future. Long novels give 
 one a glimpse of eternity. By the time you come to 
 the last chapter, conditions have so changed in the 
 world that you do not know whether the story is 
 true to life or not. It is the necessarily historical, the 
 long novel is. Old Jules Verne has won the East 
 Side over with the fine words he has said on Guy De 
 Maupassant. Some admirers of Z. Libin say that 
 the Frenchman is too romantic, but on the whole 
 he is the favorite story-writer. Yes, says the Jewish 
 actor, c De Maupassant writes for all the Yiddish 
 papers ; and in fad: all the East Side dailies have 
 for years been treating their readers to his charming 
 tales. He may be imagined to be a constant contrib 
 utor. Did not an old Israelite walk into the office 
 of the Jewish Cry and ask to see Friedrich Nie 
 tzsche? And then the problem of Nietzsche comes 
 up ; whether he was, or was not a reaction against, or 
 the opposite extreme from, the meekness of Chris 
 tianity, the weakness of his time. Wagner s music, 
 Stephen Phillips s poetry, Zola s essay on realism, 
 Maeterlinck s transcendentalism, Gorky s rise in let 
 ters, the Anglo-Saxon isolation in literature, Lud- 
 wig Fuldas s latest play, all these things are decided 
 upon by people who understand them, more or 
 less. 
 
 " I cannot tell you more, but these meetings and 
 
 206 
 
"My Vacation on the East Side" 
 
 these talks at various times and in various places 
 made my vacation on the East Side delightful. Then 
 there were lectures and meetings and social gather 
 ings of the comrades. The sun of new ideas rises on 
 the East Side. Everywhere you meet people who are 
 ready to fight for what they believe in and who do 
 not believe in fighting. For a complete change and 
 for pure air you must go among the people who 
 think about something, have faith in something. 
 Katz,Cahan, Gordin, Yanofsky, Zolotaroff,Hark- 
 avy, Frumkin, Krantz, Zametkin, Zeifert, Lessin, 
 Elisovitz, Winchevsky, Jeff, Leontief, Lipsky, 
 Freidus, Frominson, Selikowitch, Palay, Barondess, 
 and many other intellectual leaders, come into the 
 cafes to pour out wisdom and drink tea, and here 
 comes also Huchins Hapgood to get his education. 
 Each man bears his own particular lantern, it is true, 
 but each one carries a light and every one brings a 
 man with him. 
 
 "There was that memorial mass-meeting in honor 
 of Hirsh Leckert, the Jewish shoemaker, who shot 
 at the governor of Wilna, who took his life in hand 
 to avenge a hideous outrage perpetrated upon his 
 fellow-workers by a despicable despot. The Jewish 
 working-people of Wilna organized a peaceful pro 
 cession, and at the behest of the governor hundreds 
 of them were mercilessly flogged flogged until 
 they fainted, and when revived, flogged again. Then 
 came this lowly hero, Leckert, and made a glorious 
 ascent on the scaffold. In the afternoon news reached 
 
 207 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 the East Side that Leckert was hanged. The same 
 evening the working-people, just out of their faclo- 
 ries and sweat-shops, in overwhelming numbers as 
 sembled in New Irving Hall, and the fervor and 
 enthusiasm, the sobbing and the sighing, the tear- 
 stained faces and love-lit eyes the soul-stirring eu 
 logies delivered I shall never forget it. I tell you 
 no man ever saw anything greater or more inspiring 
 on his vacation. 
 
 "Mr. Jacob Gordin gave me a memorable treat, took 
 me to see his latest and one of his best plays, Gott, 
 Mensch, und der Teufel. I have seen many of his 
 works and it is hard to decide which is the best be 
 cause they are nearly all so good. But this strange 
 story of a Jewish Faust, the pious, saintly Jew who, 
 tempted by Satan s gold, step by step loses his soul 
 and cannot live without it; this wonderful blending 
 of modern realism and supernatural symbolism, this 
 superb summary of man and the new problem of life, 
 the beauty and the strength of the work, is remark 
 able, to say the least. As in times of yore, says Satan, 
 c the sons of Adam are divided into Abels and Cains. 
 The former are constantly murdered and the latter 
 are the constant murderers. Gracious Lord, in the 
 new man there dwells the old savage Adam/ Sorry I 
 cannot tell you more about it now, but the last words 
 of the play have been ringing through my mind ever 
 since I saw it. 
 
 ( All must die, all that is and lives ; 
 Life alone is immortal. 
 208 
 
"My Vacation on the East Side" 
 
 That only is mortal that desires and strives, 
 The striving and the desire immortal 
 
 "Why/ added Keidansky, as a final thunderbolt, " I 
 have gained enough ideas on the East Side to last 
 me here in Boston for ten years." 
 
 209 
 
XXIII 
 
 Our Rivals in Fiflion 
 
 " A FTER all, what is man when compared to the 
 /\ hero of romance P " asked Keidansky. " Be- 
 J^ V side the dashing, dauntless, duelling cava 
 lier that now moves through the popular novel and 
 struts our stage/ he said, "the ordinary, mortal man 
 of mere flesh and blood pales into insignificance. Be 
 side the extraordinary exploits of the storied hero, 
 the doings of the every-day man are like the foolish 
 games of little children, only not half so graceful. 
 Beside the strange adventures of the leading charac 
 ter, the simple efforts of earthly man are accounted 
 as naught. It would not be so bad if no one ever 
 made comparisons, but women do, and so men are 
 always found wanting, and have a harrowing time 
 of it. 
 
 "In the epic, the drama, the novel, the hero has 
 nothing else to do but to make love, to deliver 
 pretty speeches, perform remarkable feats and look 
 graceful, and so he is ever so attractive. He plays 
 upon the hearts, takes hold of the minds, fastens 
 himself upon the imaginations of the gentle fair and 
 fanciful. He knows just what to say, justwhat to do, 
 and just where to go, just when to return, and is al 
 ways so punctual appears just in the nick of time 
 to save as many lives as are in danger. He becomes 
 a model, a type, that the lady fair goes in quest of, 
 
 211 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 when the play is over, or the novel is ended. She 
 turns to life for the realization. 
 "In real life the young man has other things to do 
 than making love, posing prettily, whispering sweet 
 somethings, framing compliments and ading the 
 gallant and defender of the fair and perfectly safe. 
 He has other things to do than wearing fine clothes 
 and winning smiles. In real life he has a real battle 
 to fight. In real life he cannot always look neat, act 
 aptly, prate loudly, and say the improper thing at 
 the proper time. The improper thing at the proper 
 time that is the secret of genius. Things are not 
 so smooth in life. The guidance of Providence is not 
 so clear as are the directions of the playwright and 
 novelist. Hard to tell just what to do, just what to 
 say, just where to go, and just when to swear with 
 impunity. Human beings are clumsy, awkward, un 
 couth. Life is an embarrassing affair. To observe all 
 the niceties is madness, not to observe them is to be 
 sent to a madhouse. What can a man do against his 
 all-powerful rival in fiction and the drama. His 
 course is clear, but we walk in darkness. The ways 
 of God are mysterious, the ways of men are crooked, 
 and then we are told to find the way. No matter 
 how much you stand on ceremony you are likely to 
 slip and fall anyway. Life is a labyrinth for which 
 there is no specific geography. 
 "To state the matter more definitely, the problem is 
 this : A young man spends a half of his week s wages, 
 takes the lady of his heart s desire to the theatre 
 
 212 
 
Our Rivals in FiElion 
 
 and she falls in love with the hero of the play the 
 omnipresent, omnipotent hero. His every look, 
 every word, every gesture, every step, every ven 
 ture it is just too lovely for anything. Oh, it is 
 adorable, entrancing ! And the young man who took 
 her to the theatre, the young man who really exists, 
 what does he amount to ? What a puny dwarf he be 
 comes beside the great giant of the drama. Who can 
 say things so sweetly, so smoothly, so sonorously, 
 as the leading character or characters in a play ? Who 
 can do things so neatly, so masterfully, and sur 
 mount such overwhelming difficulties in the twink 
 ling of an eye? Such magnetic, magnanimous, ma 
 jestic figures ! It was after a pretty love scene on the 
 stage that I once heard a lady sitting near me say to 
 her companion, Oh, if some one would say " my 
 dear " to me in that manner ! And perhaps the young 
 lady will go all through life without finding the man, 
 who will know enough to imitate that actor. 
 "A young man buys the latest and most loudly ad 
 vertised historical novel and sends it to the lady of 
 his dreams. On the next evening when he calls she 
 is so absorbed, so immersed in the book that she 
 hardly has anytime to speak to him. When she does 
 look up from the tome she tells him all about the 
 hair-raising hero, Count de Mar. c He is a man, she 
 says, and so goes on to relate about his mighty ex 
 ploits. There is nothing worth while in all the world 
 except a man like Count de Mar. Imagine, if you 
 can, how the young man feels. And the lady chases 
 
 213 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 the phantom of Count de Mar in real life until she 
 becomes a shadow of her former self, and the young 
 man goes through existence cursing the historical 
 novel in general and Count de Mar in particular. 
 What else but misery should there be for mere man 
 of mere reality ? What is he beside such lords of crea 
 tion as Count de Mar, Richard Carvel, Ralph Percy, 
 Ralph Marlow, Stephen Brice, Clayton Halowell, 
 Charley Steele, Jean Hugon, Marmaduke Howard, 
 Count Karobke, Boris Godofsky, Louis De Lamoy, 
 General Kapzen, Prince Meturof what is he be 
 side these ? Everything is so small in life, in books 
 things are so big. The world is already created, but 
 fiction is still being written. If Adam were created 
 by a novelist he would have fared much better. The 
 story would never have ended happily. These won 
 derful heroes, what fine means they have, what splen 
 did opportunities, what glorious achievements, what 
 great accomplishments are theirs. They can do just 
 as they please, have fortunes to squander, and riot 
 in luxuries. They are all born rich, or their rich rel 
 atives die early, and in good will. 
 "In reality it is so different. We have to work for a 
 living and poverty is our reward. In real life we have 
 to write historical novels for a living. We have to 
 write popular plays and pretty poems and sugar- 
 coated stories. Yes, such is life, and there is poverty 
 and the misery of the masses, and there are social 
 problems and political evils things unknown in 
 the average novel, and in popular art generally. We 
 
 214 
 
Our Rivals in FiElion 
 
 must do so much that is irksome in order to have a 
 pleasurable moment. 
 
 "When Richard Mansfield was delivering those 
 sumptuous stump speeches in Shakespeare s spectac 
 ular melodrama of Henry V. and the soldiers were 
 stirred up to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, the fair 
 fraulein in front of me constantly kept saying, Who 
 would n t fight for Harry ? Who would n t fight for 
 Harry ? A tremendous artist with superb words put 
 into his mouth by Shakespeare,with a beautiful scenic 
 background behind him, with gorgeous costumes 
 and gleaming armor, with glowing eledric lights, 
 with an army ofwell-drilled, well-paid supers, with all 
 the pomp and power of a king on the stage who 
 wouldn t fight for Harry? But the poor, obscure, 
 unknown Harry of real life, who faithfully fights 
 against poverty, disease, despair, who battles for the 
 right, for his honor and salvation, without scenic ef 
 fects, without any art, or author s directions, without 
 any light or armor, without any aid or guides, with 
 out any one to show the way this Harry, who will 
 fight for him ? Who does not fight against him ? 
 What fair damosel will deign to smile on him and 
 shed some sunshine into his life ? 
 " This was on a street car, and I overheard a young 
 woman say to her escort, c Ah,if you would only put 
 your gloves on as Mansfield does in " Beaucaire" ! 
 So this was the great thing in the play the manner 
 in which c Beaucaire donned his gloves. And yet 
 fool that I was I had wondered why an actor of 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 Mansfield s surpassingtalent should put on thestage 
 such a trivial, trashy affair. And I had gone without 
 gloves all winter in order that I might be able to see 
 Mansfield. Heavens ! But see, how the little niceties, 
 the small delicacies and the petty graces on the stage 
 and in books eclipse all our drudging and trudging, 
 moiling and toiling in real life. We are expected to 
 observe them whatever else we do. Failing in these 
 we fail to win affections and are voted dead failures. 
 Beside these we are expected to do things that can 
 only be done in books and on the stage, under the 
 auspices of Alexandre Dumas the elder and Victor 
 Sardou, for instance. We are expected to equal those 
 magic creatures of the imagination, the heroes with 
 their opulent supplies of good looks, words and 
 wealth, and their strange power to do aught on earth. 
 "James we will call him that is red-headed, 
 freckled, plain, and generally not at all dudish. He 
 is, however, true, loyal, devoted and determined to 
 do some good in the world. He tries to meet her 
 every day after work. He often brings a flower 
 with him, tucked up in his sleeve. Once we saw him 
 press it to his lips, for soon the bloom will be hers. 
 But she is reading an historical novel, and even the 
 flower fails to deliver his message and fades without 
 fulfilling its mission. Of course, James has this ad 
 vantage over the ideal hero in the novel: that he 
 really exists ; but what is reality to the glowing fancy 
 of a youthful maiden? And in spite of his existence, 
 where does James come in? 
 
 216 
 
Our Rivals in FiElion 
 
 "These are local and popular incidents I have men 
 tioned, but in a measure all literature, all art has 
 created impossible dreams, unattainable ideals. 
 This is probably the reason why so many aspira 
 tions have failed. They were not founded on reality. 
 There are in life considerations c without which the 
 noblest dreams are a form of opium eating. Who 
 knows how many have gone grieving through life 
 because they have followed the phantoms conjured 
 up by the false standards of art ? With all that is 
 great and grand, heroic and epic in real life there is 
 still such a thing as 
 
 ( The high that proved too high, the heroic 
 
 for earth too hard, 
 The passion that left the ground to lose 
 
 itself in the sky/ 
 
 "Anyway, it is about time to protest against the 
 false heroes of paper and ink, who cut us out of our 
 earthly paradise, to give our rivals in ficlion the 
 death stab; about time to remember that that which 
 is not cannot be great, and that all the beauty of this 
 universe is in real life. It is about time to deny the 
 existence of that which does not exist. 
 " This demand for the superhuman is inhuman. We 
 are not what we are not. We cannot do whatwe can 
 not do, and these platitudes are as profound as they 
 are obvious. The weakness of the world is pointed 
 out by its heromania. That we look for our heroes 
 not in life but in artificial creations shows how blind 
 we are. The most striking sign of our imperfection is 
 
 217 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 our longing for impossible perfection. Life has a 
 great grudge against art. It has been slighted, disre 
 garded, abused. With its misleading models it has 
 set up an unjust competition against life. The hope 
 is that the artists to come will give life a hearing and 
 adjust matters. As for the novelists, every time the 
 good Mr. Howells horsewhips the swashbucklers I 
 heartily applaud him. But I am not going to lay 
 down any principles. I don t feel like it to-day. Per 
 haps things as they were were for the best. Perhaps 
 it is for the dreams of women that there are real men 
 in the world to-day. Perhaps it is their longing for 
 the impossible that made the best that is possible 
 to-day. I sometimes think that a woman s reason is 
 the very acme of all wisdom. But I am going to 
 treat this thing more fully in my volume of essays 
 if I ever get around to writing them." 
 
 218 
 
XXIV 
 
 On Enjoying One s Own Writings 
 
 I WAS alone,ensconced in a corner of the noisy, 
 smoky cafe, perusing the pages of a valued vol 
 ume. Keidansky walked in hastily, took up my 
 book and looked at it. 
 
 "How can you read anything that you have not 
 written yourself? " he asked, with surprising solem 
 nity. " Why, I don t mind it any longer; I am used 
 to it now," I mumbled in astonishment. But conver 
 sations with Keidansky are one-sided. Before I had 
 formed half a thought he was all ready with speech. 
 "You are coming down, dear fellow/ he said; 
 " you are compromising and becoming reconciled to 
 everything. You cannot supply your own demand, 
 so you are going elsewhere for your literature 
 spending on others your days and your nights that 
 you may devote to the excavations of the things 
 that lie deep and dormant within thyself. I wager 
 that before long you will even be reading the clas 
 sics. You will abdicate from the sovereignty of your 
 own genius, and measure life by the enjoyment that 
 you derive from the things that other people do. 
 " Aliens, foreigners, strangers as far away from you 
 as different individuals are, millions of miles of im 
 passable icebergs impeding any possible approach. 
 They were not born as you were born, they have 
 not lived as you have lived, they have not loved as 
 
 219 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 you have loved, they have not hated as you have 
 hated, they have not grappled with the agonies as 
 you have, they have not died as you have over and 
 over again, and yet you read their books and pre 
 tend to enjoy them." 
 
 I asked my friend to be seated, but he preferred to 
 stand up, and with a characteristic wave of the hand, 
 showed his annoyance at being interrupted. " If you 
 have not felt what I have felt," he said, "it is use 
 less for me to speak to you, and for you to enjoy 
 what I write is hard and tedious labor. You cannot 
 get behind the things others say, and all that re 
 mains for you to do is to read the meaning in so 
 many words; and no meaning is ever absolutely 
 uttered in so many words. There is almost always 
 something unsaid behind the thing that is said. 
 There is as much in as there is out. Thought is an 
 endless chain of which we only see separate rings. 
 We are fortunate to see that in the case of other 
 persons. Most often you only hear and read their 
 talk. But when you read your own thought, you 
 read so vastly more than you have written, and you 
 read the history of your thoughts, their far-away 
 causes, their prehistoric origins, and their subter 
 ranean sources and you enjoy it. You enjoy it, if 
 you are intimately concerned in one near and dear 
 personality, in the greatest study in all mankind 
 yourself. Also, if you are interested in the evolu 
 tion of human thought, and can see it through the 
 operations of your own mind. 
 
 220 
 
On Enjoying Ones Own Writings 
 
 "We say in Yiddish about this or that person: ( Er 
 kumt mit sich fun ein stedtel? Well, I, too, come from 
 the same town with myself. I have gone through 
 the dark labyrinth of life with myself in my hand. 
 I have felt, experienced and known the same things 
 that Keidansky has gone through, and frankly 
 I enjoy my own writings. Sometimes my favorite 
 works are my own. They move me, they stir me and 
 they stimulate me to higher things. There is a qual 
 ity about them, more human, more intimate, more 
 personal, that brings them nearer to me than any 
 other writings. The pathos is so touching, the hu 
 mor so rollicking, the satire so pungent. It is all so 
 effective, significant and strong. Words, lines, sen 
 tences, pages that fall flat on the ears of another, 
 they are pregnant with meaning, choked full of sug 
 gestion, and often so thrilling. That one has felt, 
 thought, said, given birth to these things, is so fine; 
 so splendid to watch a grand procession of the chil 
 dren of your brain particularly when you are in 
 tuitively convinced that they are, well, a goodly and 
 well-formed brood, and worthy of you. They have 
 to be quite robust to withstand that uncomfortable 
 critical sense. 
 
 "You see, I want a personality, a man, a certain 
 mental attitude, a sense of reserve force, deep-root 
 ed sincerity and determined intentions behind what 
 I read, and I am sure of all that, in the case of my 
 own writings. This gives one a feeling of gladness 
 and joy. In the productions of others one must grope 
 
 221 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 in darkness, painfully explore, and so often search 
 in vain for these qualities through their mental ma 
 noeuvres and spiritual contortions. 
 "In our own work we can easily forgive the flaws, 
 faults and shortcomings. We know why they exist, 
 and to what to attribute them ; we realize that they 
 are not due to lack of talent or any cause like that. 
 Our characteristic carelessness, our hasty manner, 
 impatience at the slow accommodations of mere me 
 chanical words, a desire to say too many things at 
 the same time if it is not the one, it is the other. 
 But we know that we could do better if we wanted 
 to; if we cared less about the matter than about the 
 form. We know that the quality is there. There is 
 nothing the matter with that. But somehow we can 
 not account so well for the crudities, defects and de 
 formities in the performances of others, which jar 
 upon us terribly and mar so much of our pleasure. 
 Their failings are so flagrant, their meanings so neb 
 ulous, their ideas so hazy. It is all so far off and so 
 unsatisfying. Why do people write things we do not 
 like? Oh, the rogues, we answer ourselves, as the 
 thought comes to us, they must be doing it for their 
 own enjoyment. They can fill in the gaps, read in 
 everything that is lacking; they can make master 
 pieces while they read their commonplace utterances 
 but we? We ought to read our own immortal 
 works. We ought to, if we have any appreciation of 
 great literature. 
 "One great source of the enjoyment of our own 
 
 222 
 
On Enjoying One s Own Writings 
 
 writings is that as we read we remember when each 
 thought came to us, whence each idea sprang into 
 birth, how each flying fancy originated, and every 
 vaporous whimsy took shape. We go over the old 
 ground, tread the paths of the past again, the paths 
 overgrown with grass, or covered with the moss of 
 the years, and we live our life over again. Words, 
 lines, paragraphs, pages ; each turn of a phrase brings 
 one back to some turning-point of life; each flash 
 of thought is the reflection of some vital incident. 
 Behind every revolution of mind was a distinct 
 period of evolution. Every old cry conjures up a 
 crisis. That epigram sums up an entire epoch. This 
 page is a condensed history of your heart. Yonder 
 little etching, who knows of what stuff you have 
 woven it? It all comes back to you so vividly, so 
 graphically, so impressively. You read the things 
 that you have written, no matter how long ago, and 
 you live your life over again. The past reaches out 
 its arms and hugs you to its tender breast again. 
 " One night, far away from the city, nigh by the sea, a 
 painful silence was broken by agonizing speech. One 
 word, and the world that God had created in seven 
 days was annihilated for you in a second. When you 
 came back in the silence of a sleepless night you 
 wrotein your note-book. c Our dreams are crimes for 
 which we are punished by the harsh realities of the 
 world. See how ideas evolve ! One day you were 
 chided on the shortness of your stature. You said 
 that you have not had any time to grow. Later you 
 
 223 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 said to some one else that the shape of one s destiny 
 depends on the management of his time. 
 " The origin of a thought is greater than the thought. 
 It is often an entire drama; and you see it performed 
 as you read. The crowding multitudes of memories 
 that your literary productions bring up ! This was 
 suggested at a social gathering, where you felt dis 
 tressingly lonely, and it was such a soothing conso 
 lation. It was while witnessing a play that that idea 
 came into your mind. The play was a popular suc 
 cess, so you were thinking your own thoughts. One 
 night at a symphony concert you wrote on the edge 
 of a programme : c Music makes mute poets of us all. 
 You read it years after, and oh, the cherished recol 
 lections that it brings up ! But no one else can ever 
 know how great that line is. Here is an idea that il 
 lumined your mind while in conversation with . 
 
 There were so many delightful conversations, stir 
 ring discussions, endearing episodes ; there were 
 scenes that you witnessed, events transpired of which 
 you were part ; there were little dramas of which you 
 were both the villain and the hero. They have all 
 passed away, and yet you have saved them from ob 
 livion because you have written, and they cannot die. 
 All things are immortal so long as you live. You 
 read, and the old talks and the old walks, the things 
 that you have seen and done, the joys you have felt 
 and the sorrows you have endured come back and 
 you enjoy them over again. You find this in your 
 writings and so much more. The net results of your 
 
 224 
 
On Enjoying Ones Own Writings 
 
 own ruminations are so large that there is no won 
 der all other writers suffer from the comparison. 
 Your writings are the plants, the weeds and the flow 
 ers that have grown out of your life, and their aroma 
 and fragrance of earliest bloom follow you to the 
 end of your days. There is that in your inner con 
 sciousness which you cannot find anywhere else. 
 " The whole universe is within yourself; in others 
 there is only a queer notion of it. Your crudest ex 
 pression has more feeling and thought behind it than 
 the most beautiful expression of others. We all cher 
 ish and relish our own screeds. Are we not all con 
 vinced of their merits and superior qualities ? Are we 
 not all anxious to secure editors and publishers ? And 
 who rejects them? These editors and the publishers, 
 the people who had nothing to do with the produc 
 tion of these undoubted works of genius. I have piles 
 of scraps of old bits of paper and note-books up in 
 my place, extending over a number of years. They 
 contain stray fragments of thought that I have jotted 
 down at all places and seasons and under all sorts of 
 circumstances. As I come across them now and then, 
 I not only re-experience what has long vanished, but 
 I am again exalted unto all heights of human aspira 
 tion and inspiration. The foolishness and the follies, 
 the faith and the fervor, and the blind hopes of my 
 youth are mine again. 
 
 " Once I was with some Jewish actors, friends of 
 mine, when a long-bearded, old-fashioned Israelite 
 came in to offer them a play that he had written for 
 
 225 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 production. It was such a touching, thrilling story, 
 the old man said, that it made him weep every time 
 he read it weep like a child over the sad compli 
 cations of the characters in his play. Oh, if he could 
 only see it performed, it would melt, it would break 
 his heart. Oh, if the actors would only take it! And 
 as he began to read parts of the first act we actually 
 saw tears in his eyes. There you have it. What Dick 
 ens, what Tolstoy, what Perez, what Gordin could 
 probably not do for this man, he had done for him 
 self. His own writings made him weep. Honestly, 
 now," Keidansky broke out violently, "don t you 
 enjoy your own effusions ? " 
 
 I admitted that they often gave me pleasure, and 
 that at other times I felt strongly disappointed over 
 them. " Sometimes," I said, " I am puzzled and can 
 not account how I have done certain things. I say to 
 myself that I must have been drunk to have been so 
 witty ; or I imagine that I must have been in the com 
 pany of bright people to have been so dull. Often as 
 I read I think that my stomach was out of order to 
 make me so thoughtful. And again I am sure that I 
 was awfully hungry to have been so ingenious." I 
 confessed that I found it quite possible to overlook 
 and forgive the faults of my own compositions, and 
 that on the whole they were not infrequently a source 
 of pleasure to me. I ventured to say that I also en 
 joyed a few things that other people have written. 
 <c Well," said Keidansky, and then he became silent 
 for awhile. 
 
 226 
 
On Enjoying One s Own Jt^ritings 
 
 C Immortal works are good enough to kill time," he 
 said after a pause ; " but my own writings for real, 
 downright enjoyment, every time. At the occasion 
 of a big convention or political gathering in a cer 
 tain city the newspaper correspondents, I am told, 
 present a striking scene as they assemble in the lobby 
 of their hotel when the newspapers arrive. Each man 
 rushes to the news-stand and buys c his paper/ and 
 loses not a minute before reading his own report. 
 There they sit all together, oblivious even of a good 
 piece of news, should it happen to be near them, each 
 one buried in his newspaper, intently reading his 
 complete account of the stormy proceedings, and 
 many of them cursing and swearing at the stupid 
 editors, c who left out the best things/ Editors are 
 always stupid and always leave out the best things ; 
 but if they did n t they would be idiots. My point, 
 however, is that this scene shows how much people 
 enjoy their own writings. Each author has at least 
 one great admirer. 
 
 " And this is saying nothing of the gratification of 
 writing, of the thrills of pleasure one feels, when a 
 burst of inspiration breaks upon him, of the great, 
 unutterable moments of exultation when a new 
 heaven of thoughts opens before one s mind, of the 
 joys of perpetuating the evanescent and the fleet- 
 ing." 
 
 My friend was about to enumerate some more ex 
 amples, but it was growing late into the night, so I 
 said : 
 
 227 
 
Discourses of Keidansky 
 
 " But you do read some things that eminent authors 
 
 have written, do you not?" 
 
 " Yes/ said Keidansky, " but merely for purposes 
 
 of comparison. I want to see how total is their 
 
 eclips 
 
 e!" 
 
 228 
 
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