Your worst pessimist is, after all, an optimist with regard to himself. - Abraham Cahan

If you feel that you are good, don't be too proud of it.

Now, it is easy for me to separate the passages that were written from the heart, with conviction, from those which were written as propaganda, from a sense of duty. We used propaganda for an honest purpose, and there are still socialists who feel that this should be done.

Today when an immigrant comes to America he finds a Jewish world already established here. It is full of strange sights but it is nevertheless Jewish. The earlier arrival, the "ungreen" Russian, Pole, Galician or Rumanian, is still a Jew, the same as the greenhorn. Quickly, the newcomer grows accustomed to his "ungreen" friends and thus to America. Today's Jewish immigrant has become familiar with American Jewish words and habits from the letters and newspapers from America that he received at home. But we found few Jews and only a small Jewish world on our arrival. The strangeness we felt was much deeper, the loneliness much sharper. America was, in a literal sense, a new world, a strange world, a disagreeable world, but also a challenging world that strengthened me with a strong, healthy odor like that of a freshly plowed field. America intrigued me, puzzled me. It seemed to me that America lives more in one day than Russia does in ten. The cat I had spied on the Philadelphia pier was living proof that America was part of the same world that included Vilna, Petersburg, Lemberg and Berlin. But in the first months, as I came to know America, I had the opposite impression. It was a new, different kind of a world. It was a pleasant world that tantalized me. All around me was astounding wealth, activity and enterprise. I had not yet heard the expression "the land of unlimited possibilities." But I felt all around me the sense of opportunity. Slowly, I began to perceive a change in myself. Every minute, it seemed, I savored some new experience. I examined all, I listened to everything, I observed everywhere. I was repelled and attracted, possessed and homesick and excited by expectations. My success as a speaker, the stimulating taste of applause, the stunning feeling that thousands knew me, intoxicated me. But they did not overcome my homesickness. I was torn between the pleasure of new achievement and the longing for home. Sometimes, in my restlessness, I didn't recognize my old self. (p 244)