ll further overlaid by being sung slowly to a tune.
'I might as well have turned a prayer-wheel,' he said regretfully, as
he perceived with what iron tenacity the race beaten down by the Roman
Empire and by every power that had reigned since, had preserved its
aspiration for its old territory. And this mystery of race and blood,
this beauty of unforgetting aspiration, was all physically incarnate
in Mabel Aaronsberg.

He did not move one inch out of his way to see her, because he saw her
all day long. She appeared all over his studio in countless designs in
clay. But from this image of the beauty of the race, his deepening
insight drove him to interpret the tragedy also, and he sought out
from the slums and small synagogues of the East End strange forlorn
figures, with ragged curls and wistful eyes. It was from one of these
figures that he learnt to his astonishment that the dream of Zion,
whereof he imagined himself the sole dreamer, was shared by myriads,
and had even materialized into a national movement.

He joined the movement, and it led him into strange conventicles. He
was put on a committee which met in a little back-room, and which at
first treated him and his arguments with deference, soon with
familiarity, and occasionally with contempt. Hucksters and
cigar-makers held forth much more eloquently on their ideals than he
could, with far greater command of Talmudic quotation, while their
knowledge of how to run their local organization was naturally
superior. But throughout all the mean surroundings, the petty
wrangles, and the grotesque jealousies that tarnished the movement he
retained his inner exaltation. He had at last found himself and found
his art. He fell to work upon a great Michel-angelesque figure of the
awakening genius of his people, blowing the trumpet of resurrection.
It was sent for exhibition to a Zionist Congress, where it caused a
furore, and where the artist met other artists who had long been
working under the very inspiration which was so novel to him, and
whose work was all around him in plaque and picture, in bust and book,
and even postcard. Some of them were setting out for Palestine to
start a School of Arts and Crafts.

Barstein began to think of joining them. Meantime the Bohemian circles
which he had adorned with his gaiety and good-fellowship had been
wondering what had become of him. His new work in the Exhibitions
supplied a sort of answer, and the few who chanced to meet hi