By far the most original author of this latest period is Perez,[106] whose poetical works have been discussed before. With him Judeo-German letters enter into competition with what there is best in the world's literature, where he will some day occupy an honorable place. Among his voluminous works there is not one that is mediocre, not one that would lose anything of its comprehensibleness by being translated into another language. Although they at times deal with situations taken from Jewish life, it is their universal human import that interests him, not their specifically racial characteristics. It is mere inertia and the desire to serve his people that keep him in the ranks of Judeo-German writers. He does not belong there by any criterions that we have applied to his confreres, who themselves complain that his symbolism is inaccessible to the masses for whom he pretends to write. While this accusation is certainly just in the case of some of his works, it cannot be brought up in many other cases, where, in spite of the allegory, mysticism, or symbolism underlying his tale, there is a sufficient real residue of intelligible story for the humblest of his readers. He, too, aims at the education of his people, but in a vastly different sense from his predecessors. It is not the material information of mere facts that he strives for, nor even the broader culture of the schools that he would substitute for the Jewish lore and religious training, nor is he satisfied, with Spektor, to rouse the dormant national consciousness. His sympathies are with humanity at large, and the Jews are but one of the units that are to be redeemed from the social slavery under which the wretched of the world groan. It is those who have become timid under oppression of whatsoever form, who have lost the power of thinking, who have developed only the power of suffering, who are saints without knowing it, that Perez loves best. To them he would restore the human rights so long withheld from them, not by political and social enfranchisement, but by a consciousness of their human dignity which must precede all reform. To those to whom belongs the Kingdom of Heaven must also be given the Kingdom on Earth. While, nevertheless, the material things are withheld from them, there is no reason why the spiritual things should not be turned over to them. Perez, for one, offers gladly all he has, his genius, in the service of the lowly. Literature, according to him, is not to be a flimsy pastime of the otiose, but a consolation to those who have no other consolation, a safe and pleasurable retreat for those who are buffeted about on the stormy sea of life. For these reasons he writes in Judeo-German and not in any other language with which he is conversant, and for these same reasons he prefers to dwell with the downtrodden and the submerged.