Page:Nine Yiddish Writers.djvu/111

 are to be detected in some of the most artistic works of this period.

Perhaps this was inevitable. The Russian Jew of the Ghetto towns in the last quarter of the nineteenth century had much greater need of the reform and enlightenment of knowledge than of the edification and ennoblement of art. Whether it be the result or the cause of circumstances, Asch escaped the greater menace almost completely. His art has very seldom been weakened by tendency, has very seldom been made to serve a purpose, a cause, be it ever so high, ever so sacred to his own soul. In the terrible revolutionary upheaval in the Jewish towns of Russia at the beginning of this century, when the entire Jewish youth was drawn into the vortex and confusion of strife, Asch remained loyal to his art. Not that he was indifferent to the momentous events, not that those terrible days failed to stir his soul and heat his blood. Nay, he saw all, he absorbed and responded. But this he did not as a worker, not as a participant in the struggle, not as a zealot, or a believer or soldier; but as the artist, as the dreamer, philosopher and interpreter and painter of emotions and impressions.

This is also true of his attitude to the agitation