"I almost expected that this would happen," said Keidansky, "but I had to say what I did. It was an imperative duty. I am only sorry that I forgot a few more things I had on my mind to say. Audiences confuse me and make me forget my best points. I suppose they will call a special meeting and pass resolutions to condemn me and my proceedings. But this will only prove the superiority of individuals over society. Before a society can pass resolutions, the individual acts. I suppose they'll say lots of things now. They will say I was trying to make epigrams. Epigrams are always hateful--to those who cannot make a point in a volume. They will say I was uttering platitudes. After you convince people that there are such things as platitudes in the world, they begin to find them in everything you say. I once had an uncle (he is still living, only he is very rich, and so I disowned him), and at one time I explained to him the theory of our moving along the lines of least resistance. A short while after that we had a very intimate interview and my uncle told me that I was a lazy, good-for-nothing visionary; that I did not want to do anything, and moved along the lines of least resistance. "I had to say what I did because I did not want the people to go off with such crude and false conceptions of art. I knew that Lubinsky would not dare to differ from Tolstoy. He adores the old man. So do I, but I cannot afford to give up my mind to any one--not until I become a respectable member of the synagogue, and join a number of secret orders. Then it does not matter. The worst thing about a charming, noble personality is that our admiration for it gets the better of our reasoning power and we become ready to follow it in all its follies. This is the regrettable influence that Tolstoy has exerted upon Lubinsky. Thus our emancipators enslave us. 'Be yourself,' says Emerson, and you become an Emersonian. "But there is something else I wanted to say on this question of art. We Jews anticipated and lived in perfect accord with Tolstoy's theory of art--that art must be religious and must be burdened with a message, or a purpose--and the result is that we have no fine arts of our own, except poetry, which has more sighs and sobs and tears and piety than music and beauty. Of course, the reason for the absence of art among us is one of the commandments, which forbids the making of images, and oh, I cannot tell you how sorry I am that this commandment was ever observed. I do not object so much to the other nine commandments, but for this one I can never forgive my people. And here, by the way, is an example of what the religious consciousness can do for art.