-Greater New
York?

"On thee be Allah's grace,
Who hath the well-loved face!"

No; not toward this City does his heart flap its wings of song. He is
on another sea, in another harbour. Indeed, what are these wonders as
compared with those of the City of Love? The Statue of Eros there is
more imposing than the Statue of Liberty here. And the bridges are
not of iron and concrete, but of rainbows and--moonshine! Indeed, both
these lads are now on the wharf of enchantment; the one on the
palpable, the sensuous, the other on the impalpable and unseen. But
both, alas, are suddenly, but temporarily, disenchanted as they are
jostled out of the steamer into the barge which brings them to the
Juhannam of Ellis Island. Here, the unhappy children of the steerage
are dumped into the Bureau of Emigration as--such stuff! For even in
the land of equal rights and freedom, we have a right to expect from
others the courtesy and decency which we ourselves do not have to
show, or do not know.

These are sturdy and adventurous foreigners whom the grumpy officers
jostle and hustle about. For neither poverty, nor oppression, nor both
together can drive a man out of his country, unless the soul within
him awaken. Indeed, many a misventurous cowering peasant continues to
live on bread and olives in his little village, chained in the fear of
dying of hunger in a foreign land. Only the brave and daring spirits
hearken to the voice of discontent within them. They give themselves
up to the higher aspirations of the soul, no matter how limited such
aspirations might be, regardless of the dangers and hardship of a long
sea voyage, and the precariousness of their plans and hopes. There may
be nothing noble in renouncing one's country, in abandoning one's
home, in forsaking one's people; but is there not something remarkable
in this great move one makes? Whether for better or for worse, does
not the emigrant place himself above his country, his people and his
Government, when he turns away from them, when he goes forth propelled
by that inner self which demands of him a new life?

And might it not be a better, a cleaner, a higher life? What say our
Masters of the Island of Ellis? Are not these straggling, smelling,
downcast emigrants almost as clean inwardly, and as pure, as the
grumpy officers who harass and humiliate them? Is not that spirit of
discontent which they cherish, and for which they carry the cross, so
to speak, across the se