The Project Gutenberg EBook of From Plotzk to Boston, by Mary Antin

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Title: From Plotzk to Boston

Author: Mary Antin

Commentator: Israel Zangwill

Release Date: February 21, 2007 [EBook #20638]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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From Plotzk to Boston

BY
MARY ANTIN

WITH A FOREWORD BY

ISRAEL ZANGWILL

BOSTON, MASS.
W. B. CLARKE & CO., PARK STREET CHURCH
1899

COPYRIGHT, 1899
BY MARY ANTIN

PRESS OF PHILIP COWEN
NEW YORK CITY

* * * * *

DEDICATED TO

HATTIE L. HECHT

WITH THE LOVE AND GRATITUDE OF
THE AUTHOR

* * * * *

FOREWORD

The "infant phenomenon" in literature is rarer than in more physical
branches of art, but its productions are not likely to be of value
outside the doting domestic circle. Even Pope who "lisped in numbers for
the numbers came," did not add to our Anthology from his cradle, though
he may therein have acquired his monotonous rocking-metre. Immaturity of
mind and experience, so easily disguised on the stage or the
music-stool--even by adults--is more obvious in the field of pure
intellect. The contribution with which Mary Antin makes her debut in
letters is, however, saved from the emptiness of embryonic thinking by
being a record of a real experience, the greatest of her life; her
journey from Poland to Boston. Even so, and remarkable as her
description is for a girl of eleven--for it was at this age that she
first wrote the thing in Yiddish, though she was thirteen when she
translated it into English--it would scarcely be worth publishing merely
as a literary curiosity. But it happens to possess an extraneous value.
For, despite the great wave of Russian immigration into the United
States, and despite the noble spirit in which the Jews of America have
grappled with the invasion, we still know too little of the inner
feelings