DISCOURSES OF KEIDANSKY
DISCOURSES OF
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
Note
The majority of these papers have appeared in the Boston EveningTranscript, and thanks are extended to the editors not only for theirpermission to reprint the same, but also for the many kindnesses theyhave shown my friend Keidansky and myself.
All the papers have undergone many changes, and numerous corrections andadditions have been made.
B. G. R.
Introductory
Heretical, iconoclastic, revolutionary; yet the flashing eye, thetrembling hand, the stirring voice held us spellbound, removed alldifferences, and there were no longer any conservatives and extremists;only so many human beings led onward and upward by a string ofirresistible words.
"Outrageous heresies," some said, yet those who paused to listen for amoment lingered longer, and as they hearkened to the harangues, markedthe words and followed the flights of fancy, it came to them that thesedreamers of dreams and builders of all sorts of social Utopias upon thevacant lots of the vague future; these ribald rebels holding forth overtheir glasses of steaming Russian tea in the cafés, or on the streetcorners under the floating red flag—that they were but a continuationof the prophets of old in Israel.
Those who paused to listen were loath to depart and some prayed for aperpetuation of the things that came out of a throbbing heart andsoaring mind. Faint reflections here of the outpourings of a soul, butmayhap they will shed some little light upon the inner life of thatstrange cosmos called the Ghetto and point again to the Dream it hasharbored and cherished through the harsh realities of the centuries.
"Why perpetuate these things," you wrote to me, "since that life is sofast slipping away from under my feet; practicability is urged on everyhand, and to-morrow I may be led under the canopy, perhaps elected tothe presidency of a congregation, given full charge of an orthodoxpaper, or put into a big store on East Broadway, and then, what I saidwould only stand out to taunt and menace me about the life that couldnot be. Besides, I may become so radical that I shall not want to sayanything." Yes, we change, and the castles we build in the air becometenement houses, and we are either the tenants, or worse, the landlords;but "life has its own theories," and if the fine poetry of youth bereduced to plain prose in later years, and wisdom teach us to be stupid,why, we are still a pace ahead and those who will come after shall puttheir shoulders to the Dream and move it up at least one inch nearer tolife. "And if the dreamer dies," as you said yourself, "will not theDream live ever on?"
Surely! And let me send you the glad assurance that death will comesooner than the presidency of a synagogue.
You are safe, Keidansky; the orthodox will never forgive you.
We change, yet those who fail also come to their own, and even lostsouls make great discoveries. Did you not say that "Life is theprofoundest of all platitudes?"
B. G. R.