Gordin and a few other men, such as Rosenfeld, Korbin, Winchevsky, might have introduced new blood and life into the Jewish drama, but the managers and the silly actors who in their pride permit their names to go down on the billboards as second Salvinis and Booths have willed otherwise. But then they are following in this the common course pursued by all dying literatures, and they are not, after all, to be blamed more than the public that permits such things, and the public in its turn is merely succumbing rapidly to the influence of American institutions, which before long will overwhelm peaceably, but none the less surely, the Jewish theatre and the Judeo-German language. Before the inevitable shall happen, they have attempted to cling to their old traditions; but it is only a very faint glimpse of their old life they are getting now, and in the very weak performances that one may still see on the Jewish stage there is already a great deal more of the reflex of their new home than the glow of their old. It is very doubtful whether the Jewish theatre can subsist in America another ten years. Of late the theatre has been revived in Galicia and Roumania; if I am not mistaken, there exists also a Jewish theatre in Warsaw. The plays performed there are mainly the productions of Goldfaden, Lerner, and a few other writers of the older period. Occasionally a play is given there that has previously been played in New York. If the theatre is to survive in Europe, it will naturally develop quite independently from the American stage. It must remain more national if it is at all to be Jewish. And such we really find it to be. In addition to the several dramas mentioned throughout the book there might be added David Sahik's 'A Rose between Thorns' and Sanwill Frumkis's 'A Faithful Love,' which are among the best comedies produced in Judeo-German. Excepting the peculiar development of the theatre in America, the Judeo-German drama has remained more or less a popular form of poetry. In the form of Goldfaden's farces we may see an evolution of the farcical Purim plays, while his historical dramas stand in very much the same relation to our time that the mysteries occupied two centuries ago. Similarly the theatre, even at its best, has remained of a primitive nature. XVI. OTHER ASPECTS OF LITERATURE