A Portrait

Voice of the Ghetto

Eager, active, completely absorbed in a study of life, Fannie Hurst seems to me not only the intuitive portrayer of feminine emotion but also the hard-working literary craftsman. If you call on her in her apartment in Manhattan with its Italian furnishing and its soft lighting, with two tawny Pekinese saying how-do-you-do at your feet, if you see her there, a striking figure in a high-backed chair, her straight black hair drawn back stiffly from her forehead, you will perhaps not realize the keen, almost childlike qualities that her mind possesses. She understands life in its simplest moments. Complex tragedies unravel for her because she reduces them to the common denominator of primitive emotions. This quality, I believe, together with reportorial ability, must be the possession of every writer of great human appeal. Miss Hurst gathers her friends, and they are found to range from politicians to shop girls and poets.

Miss Hurst understands the American immigrant as do few other of our native writers. This is partly because of her unusual emotional equipment, partly because, though of foreign blood, she was born in America. With sympathy, she yet has a sense of perspective. With genius of the kind that develops quickly into success, she yet has the character to work every day with unflagging zeal. The infusion of racial differences has already had a great effect on the thought-stream of American literature, and it will have an increasing effect. Yet I believe that the greatness of our writing depends on the ability of these foreigners to build upon the foundation of English and American writing, of English and American character. Too many of them turn away quickly from what they believe to be a narrow puritanical ideal, and content themselves with a cheap imitation of European writing. This does not make for great writing. The closer to the soil a writer is, the greater is his work. You may bring to America the color, the passion, the luxuriousness of the Orient; but unless this is laid out upon the rocks of our national culture, it cannot be a part of us. David Pinski, who lives on New York's East Side and writes in Yid- dish, can scarcely be called an American writer, although he has been in this country some years. It is from. a. combination of abilities, ideals, and emotions like that which Fannie Hurst commands that America will reap most fully the benefit of her. rich store of foreign .blood. I know of no one who has so great a chance to furnish us with the great story of American immigrant life.. So far, I do not believe that she has done it. Will she? J. F.