"Yes. Do you see it sometimes?"
"I did, once. I am going to subscribe for it. Anyhow, the poem belies itself. It shows that your harp has not fallen silent."
He smiled, flushed with satisfaction, like a shy schoolboy, and proceeded to recite another Hebrew poem: "Most song-birds do not sing in captivity. I was once a song-bird, but America is my cage. It is not my home. My song is gone."
"This poem, too, gives itself the lie!" I declared. "But the idea of
America being likened to a prison!"
"It is of my soul I speak," he said, resentfully. "Russia did not imprison it, did it? Russia is a better country than America, anyhow, even if she is oppressed by a czar. It's a freer country, too—for the spirit, at least.
There is more poetry there, more music, more feeling, even if our people do suffer appalling persecution. The Russian people are really a warm-hearted people. Besides, one enjoys life in Russia better than here. Oh, a thousand times better. There is too much materialism here, too much hurry and too much prose, and—yes, too much machinery. It's all very well to make shoes or bread by machinery, but alas! the things of the spirit, too, seem to be machine-made in America. If my younger children were not so attached to this country and did not love it so, and if I could make a living in Russia now, I should be ready to go back at once."
"'Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God,'" I quoted, gaily.
"It's all a matter of mood. Poets are men of moods." And again I quoted, "'Attend unto me, O my friend, and give ear unto me, O my comrade.'" I took up the cudgels for America
He listened gloomily, leaving my arguments unanswered. By way of broaching the subject of his daughter I steered my talk to a point that gave me a chance to refer to his little "meditation," "My Children." "How well you do remember my poor little volumes," he said, greatly flattered. "Yes, 'My children love me.' They are not children, but angels.
And yet—God save me from having to be supported by them. They bring in a considerable sum at the end of the week, and they hate to see me work or worry. But, oh, how sweet it is to earn one's own living! Thank God, I do earn my share and my wife's. My children are bitterly opposed to it. They beg me to stay home, but I say: 'No, children mine! As long as your father can earn his bread, his bread he will earn.' That's why my humdrum occupation is so sweet to me." At this he lowered his eyes and said, with the embarrassed simper which seemed to accompany every remark of his that implied self-appreciation, "I wrote something on this subject the other day, just a line or two: 'There are instances when the jewel of poetry glints out of the prose of trade.'"