Page:Nine Yiddish Writers.djvu/30

 creatures breathe and act, and that spirit and soul and atmosphere are Jewish, thoroughly and profoundly Jewish.

Abramovitz laid bare the great sources of passion and emotion that stir in the Jewish heart; he revealed the general outlines of the social structure the Jew has built for himself in the ghettoes of Russia and Poland; he threw out in bold relief a sketch of the Jew's internal tragedy resulting from his terrible position amongst the nations. It was a gigantic achievement, a great literary feat that he had accomplished. As a pioneer, no greater work could have been wrought by him.

But speaking from a strictly artistic standpoint, Abramovitz did not possess the "key that opens the golden gate." There is too much argument and too little life in all his creations. His artistic eye never penetrated deep into the heart of things. Rather was the light diffused, spread out and dim. Very rarely does he grow ecstatic or exalted; very rarely does he lose his "presence of mind" in the flood of emotion.

It was left to the two younger fathers of Yiddish literature, Rabinovitz (Sholem Aleichem) and Perez to enter into the very holy of holies of literary art.