street
loafers and dogs at her heels. "The Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals" (the Government) cannot make up its mind whether the
mare should be granted equal rights with the native horses, or should be
left unprotected, and the matter is submitted to a special commission.
In the meantime, certain horsemen from among the "communal benefactors"
jump upon the back of the unfortunate mare, beat and torment her
well-nigh to death, and drive her for their pleasure, until she
collapses.

Leaving the field of polemical allegory, Abramovich published the
humorous description of the "Travels of Benjamin the Third" (_Masse'ot
Benyamin ha-Shelishi_, 1878), [1] portraying a Jewish Don Quixote and
Sancho Panza, who make an oversea journey to the mythical river
Sambation--on the way from Berdychev to Kiev. A subtle observation of
existing conditions combined with a profound analysis of the problems of
Jewish life, artistic power matched with publicistic skill--such are the
salient features of the first phase of Abramovich's literary activity.

[Footnote 1: A famous Jewish traveller by the name of Benjamin lived in
the twelfth century. Another modern Jewish traveller by the name of
Joseph Israel, who died in 1864, adopted the name Benjamin II.
Abramovich humorously designates his fictitious travelling hero as
Benjamin III.]

In the following period, beginning with the eighties, his literary
creations exhibit greater artistic harmony in their content. As far as
their linguistic garb is concerned, they combine the Yiddish vernacular
with the Hebrew national tongue, which are employed side by side by our
author as the vehicles of his thought, and reach at his hands an equally
high state of perfection.

6. THE HARBINGER OF JEWISH NATIONALISM (PEREZ
SMOLENSKIN)

The artistic portrayer of life was, however, a rare exception in the
literature of the Haskalah. Riven by social and cultural strife, the
period of enlightenment called rather for theories than for art, and the
novelist no less than the publicist was called upon to supply the want.
This theoretic element was paramount in the novels of Perez Smolenskin.
(1842-1885), the editor of the popular Hebrew magazine _ha-Shahar_. [1]
The pupil of a White Russian yeshibah, he afterwards drifted into
frivolous Odessa and still later to Vienna, suffering painfully from the
shock of the contrast. Personally he had emerged unscathed from this
conflict of ideas. But round