The Topeka state journal., 1902-11-15

Then he gave it up, bankrupt in money
and hope
soul a passionate hatred of what he
calls the naterialism of the Jews in
America Only in Europe, he thinks,
does the love of the spiritual remain
he spoke with bitterness. They" he
said. ARE the natural teachers of the
people. They could do much for the
Hebrew language and literature. Why
brew and have no culture. In Russia
the Jews demand that their rabbis
should be learned and spiritual, but here
they are ignorant and materialistic."
So Mr.. Schwartzberg wrote a pamphlet
which is now famous in the Ghetto. 4
wrote it with my hearts blood he said
with swapping eyes In it / painted
the spiritual condition of the Jews in
New York in the gloomiest colors.''
Mr.. Hapgood tells also of the sub
merged scholar of the Canal street
printing shop. who sits waiting for his
children to grow UP in order that they
may add their mite of savings to his
for the purpose of publishing his mag
nus opus, cyclopedia of Biblical litera-
ture. All the Ghetto scholars speak of
this work with bated breath as a tre-
mendously learned affair, yet the ole
man has been BILE thus far to issue only
two volumes because of a lack of
money.
The New York Ghetto coneeals many
artists, musicians and writer's OF whom
the world will yet hear. Mr.. Hapgood
has done real service in recording,
among other things, a criticism of Amer
ican writers by Ghetto craftsman.
1T IS a vast and fruitful land he
says ''bu. there is no order and little
sincerity as far as art is concerned.
Your writers try to amuse the readers.
to entertain them merely, rather than to
give them serious and vital truth Why
is it that a race which is clever and
TrOorr6Seivro in al 4a raio in
dustrial matters, which in such things
has no overpowering respect for the
past. IS weighed down in art by a re
gard for all the literary ghosts of by
gone times? Look at the books put
forth in any one year in the United
StateSi What senSeless hodge podge
it is. Variety of all kinds, historical
novels, short stories. social plays. cos
tions de luxe, new editions of books
written in all ages alongside of the
latest productions of the day. The
Americans have great tact in most
things; they are the cleverest people in
the world, and yet they are backward in
literature.
Indeed. the whole Anglo-Saxon race.
great economically and practically as it
is, is curiously al sea and chaotic in all
that pertains to literary art. There are
men of genius, great artists among
them, but they are artists only in part,
fragmentarily, artists without being
understanding of what art is Your
great men are hindered by their en-
vironment. America and England are
the most difficult countries in the world
for real art to get hearing; for all the
people insist on being amused by their
authors. They treat them as they do
their actors, merely as public servants
whose duty is to amuse the public when
it is tired.
Another indication of what mean is
the way you all talk about style over
here, as if style had anything to do
with art. Some of the great Russian
realists have no style, but they are great
artlstsc- There was a time when to-
write well was an exception, and people
who did it were supposed to be great.
Now so many write well that it con-
Stitutes no longer any particular dis
tinction. Real art consists in the pre-
sentation of ideas in images, and in the
power of seeing in images, and of re-
producing imaginatively; what is thus
seen is wholly independent of style A
man writes a pretty, style. There may
be no idea of image, beneath it, but you
Anglo-Saxons say: .Ha! Here is a man
with a style, a great artistI' But he is
no artist! He doesn't seize earnestly
upon life and tell the truth about it.
Now and then, indeed, I see indications
of real art in your writerS-great inn
ages, great characters, great truths, but.
all merely in suggestion. You don't
know when you do anything good and
most of you don't like it when you see
it. You prefer an exciting plot to
great delineation of character. Some
times you throw OFF, often in newspa-
pers, something that indicates great tall
ent, real art, but you cover it UP with
an indistinguishable mass of rubbish.
You don't know what you are after.
You have no method Every writer goes
his single way. confused, at cross pur-
poses. There is no school of literature.
Consequently, there is great loss of en-
ergy, great waste of material: great
riches, but what carelessness, what de-
plOrable carelessness about the deepest
and noblest and most serious things in
life. Sincerity. realism, purpose and
unity are what as a race you need if you
wish ever to have a consistent and gem
uine art.
Altogether 1.-The Spirit of the Ghetto''
is distinct addition to the good books
of the year.
HERBERT RREWSTER.