The Promised Land

The Promised Land, by Mary
Antin

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Title: The Promised Land
Author: Mary Antin
Release Date: March 23, 2007 [EBook #20885]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE PROMISED LAND
[Illustration: MASHKE AND FETCHKE]

THE PROMISED LAND
BY MARY ANTIN
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
[Illustration]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge 1912

COPYRIGHT, 1911 AND 1912, BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY
COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN
COMPANY
Published April 1912

To the Memory of JOSEPHINE LAZARUS Who lives in the fulfilment
of her prophecies

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION xi
I. WITHIN THE PALE 1
II. CHILDREN OF THE LAW 29
III. BOTH THEIR HOUSES 42
IV. DAILY BREAD 60
V. I REMEMBER 79
VI. THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE 111
VII. THE BOUNDARIES STRETCH 137
VIII. THE EXODUS 163
IX. THE PROMISED LAND 180
X. INITIATION 206
XI. "MY COUNTRY" 222
XII. MIRACLES 241
XIII. A CHILD'S PARADISE 252
XIV. MANNA 264
XV. TARNISHED LAURELS 276
XVI. DOVER STREET 286
XVII. THE LANDLADY 301
XVIII. THE BURNING BUSH 321
XIX. A KINGDOM IN THE SLUMS 337

XX. THE HERITAGE 359
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 365
GLOSSARY 367

ILLUSTRATIONS
MASHKE AND FETCHKE Frontispiece
THE GRAVE-DIGGER OF POLOTZK 24
HEDER (HEBREW SCHOOL) FOR BOYS IN POLOTZK 34
THE WOOD MARKET, POLOTZK 52
MY FATHER'S PORTRAIT 70
MY GRANDFATHER'S HOUSE, WHERE I WAS BORN 80
THE MEAT MARKET, POLOTZK 98
SABBATH LOAVES FOR SALE (BREAD MARKET, POLOTZK)
124
WINTER SCENE ON THE DVINA 144
UNION PLACE (BOSTON) WHERE MY NEW HOME WAITED
FOR ME 184
TWOSCORE OF MY FELLOW-CITIZENS--PUBLIC SCHOOL,
CHELSEA 230
WHEELER STREET, IN THE LOWER SOUTH END OF BOSTON
264
HARRISON AVENUE IS THE HEART OF THE SOUTH END
GHETTO 288

I LIKED TO STAND AND LOOK DOWN ON THE DIM TANGLE
OF RAILROAD TRACKS BELOW 298
THE NATURAL HISTORY CLUB HAD FREQUENT FIELD
EXCURSIONS 328
BATES HALL, WHERE I SPENT MY LONGEST HOURS IN THE
LIBRARY 342
THE FAMOUS STUDY, THAT WAS FIT TO HAVE BEEN
PRESERVED AS A SHRINE 346
THE TIDE HAD RUSHED IN, STEALING AWAY OUR SEAWEED
CUSHIONS 362

INTRODUCTION
I was born, I have lived, and I have been made over. Is it not time to
write my life's story? I am just as much out of the way as if I were dead,
for I am absolutely other than the person whose story I have to tell.
Physical continuity with my earlier self is no disadvantage. I could
speak in the third person and not feel that I was masquerading. I can
analyze my subject, I can reveal everything; for she, and not I, is my
real heroine. My life I have still to live; her life ended when mine
began.
A generation is sometimes a more satisfactory unit for the study of
humanity than a lifetime; and spiritual generations are as easy to
demark as physical ones. Now I am the spiritual offspring of the
marriage within my conscious experience of the Past and the Present.
My second birth was no less a birth because there was no distinct
incarnation. Surely it has happened before that one body served more
than one spiritual organization. Nor am I disowning my father and
mother of the flesh, for they were also partners in the generation of my
second self; copartners with my entire line of ancestors. They gave me
body, so that I have eyes like my father's and hair like my mother's. The
spirit also they gave me, so that I reason like my father and endure like

my mother. But did they set me down in a sheltered garden, where the
sun should warm me, and no winter should hurt, while they fed me
from their hands? No; they early let me run in the fields--perhaps
because I would not be held--and eat of the wild