Ik Marvel — Ilpendam — Imber

United States and Spain. He returned to his
home in St. Johnsbury, Vt., in August 1913, and
there spent the last years of his life. In addition
to his political activities, he served as director
of various banks, and of manufacturing and rail-
road companies. At the time of his death he
was president of the board of trustees of the St.
Johnsbury Academy.

[A biography of Ide by Arthur F. Stone is in prepa-
ration. Further sources for this sketch include: Who's
Who in America, 1920-21; U. S.Dept. of State, Papers
Relating to the Foreign Relations of the U. S.f 1894-
97; annual reports of the Philippine Commission, 1901-
06; D. P. Barrows, Hist, of the Philippines (ed. 1924) ;
J. H. Blount, The Am. Occupation of the Philippines,
1898-1912 (1912); E. T. Fairbanks, The Town of St.
Johnsbury, Vt. (1914); Burlington Free Press, June
14, 1921; the archives of the Dept. of State, and per-
sonal recollections of Wm. Howard Taft.] Q g^

IK MARVEL [See MITCHELL, DONALD
GRANT, 1822-1908.]

ILPENDAM, JAN JANSEN VAN [See
VAN ILPENDAM, JAN JANSEN, c. 1595-1647].

IMBER, NAPHTALI HERZ (Dec. 27,1856-
Oct. 8,1909), Hebrew poet, son of Samuel Jacob
Imber, was born in Zloczow (Galicia), Poland,
of poor, orthodox parents. His childhood was
spent in extreme poverty amidst a religiously
fanatical environment. His education was re-
stricted to Hebrew and the Talmud. At the age
of ten he was already composing poems in He-
brew, and one of them, dedicated to the Emperor
Franz Josef on the occasion of the annexation
of Bukowina to the Austrian Empire, won im-
perial recognition and a gift of money for the
young author. At the age of fifteen, he began
a life of wandering which was to cease only with
his death. He visited the city of Brody, then pro-
ceeded to Lemberg, where Rabbi Dr. Bernhard
Lowenstein, perceiving his unusual talents, took
him under his care and provided him with excel-
lent teachers. The restless youth remained only
half a year, however, after which he went to
Vienna. During the next few years he wan-
dered through Hungary, Servia, and Rumania,
remaining in the latter country for a lengthy pe-
riod and supporting himself by giving private
lessons. At the end of the Russo-Turkish war
he arrived in Constantinople. Here he met Mr.
and Mrs. Laurence Oliphant, who were attempt-
ing to obtain permission from the sultan to
found a Jewish settlement in Palestine. Imber
became their secretary, and settled down with
them at Haifa, near Mount Carmel, until Oli-
phant died in 1888. During this period he wrote
frequently for Hasebi and Habaseleth, the two
Hebrew periodicals in Jerusalem. After Oli-
phant's death he resumed his wandering through

Imber

Europe, finally turning up in London. Here he
struck up a friendship with Israel Zangwill,
whom he undertook to teach Hebrew in return
for lessons in English. Imber was soon able to
contribute articles to the Jewish Standard then
edited by Zangwill, while the latter translated
into English one of Imber's poems entitled "The
Watch on the Jordan" (Mishmar ha-Yarden).
It is claimed that the comic poet Melchizedek
Pinchas whom Zangwill introduced into his
Children of the Ghetto is a portrait drawn from
Imber. Imber remained only about four years
in England. In 1892 he left for the United
States.

Here he continued his vagrant existence. He
went to Boston (where he edited a journal,
Uriel), Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
and other cities, everywhere seeking to make the
acquaintance of persons interested in mysticism,
on which subject he afterwards wrote several
treatises. Later he returned to the East Side
of New York, in whose saloons and cafes he
soon became known as a popular and eccentric
figure. His contemporaries describe him as a
brilliant and fascinating personality, blood-
brother to the troubadours or minnesingers, with
the careless virtues and indulgent excesses of a
Francois Villon. His addiction to strong drink,
his inordinate vanity and other weaknesses were
the current gossip of New York's East Side, but
the price of a drink was little enough recom-
pense for the stream of wit and wisdom which
the poet would always turn on upon request.
His total inability to make any financial provi-
sion for himself would have left him absolutely
destitute had it not been for Judge Mayer Sulz-
berger, who allotted him a monthly stipend. At
the age of forty-four he married Dr. Amanda
Katie Davidson, a highly cultured woman, but
the union did not last.

Naphtali Herz Imber won recognition in mod-
ern Hebrew literature as a national poet. His
poems express the hope of Zion and sound a bat-
tle-cry in the struggle for a new Jerusalem. His
stirring poem Hatikvah ("The Hope"), which
has been adopted as the national anthem of the
Zionists, is said to have been composed in Ru-
mania in 1878, long before the advent of Theo-
dor Herzl and political Zionism. A fiery na-
tionalism was not Imber's only mood, however.
His mastery of Hebrew verse is equally well dis-
played in his skillful light compositions. He said
that he wished to do away with the lamentations
in the spirit of Jeremiah, which occupied so
large a place in Hebrew poetry, and introduce
the pagan spirit of love and wine. His Hebrew
national poems are contained in Barkai (1886),

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