Page:Bohemian poems, ancient and modern (Lyra czecho-slovanska).djvu/33

Rh without a language. The language is the impress of the whole being of a nation; it is the store-house of its experience, the mirror of its knowledge and wisdom; it has grown from its marrow, and been watered with its blood; in it it has deposited its whole history, and its dearest memorials. Does the language begin to be corrupted, the national existence also suffers detriment; each weakening or crippling of the language is a step of the nation towards degeneracy. With each alteration of the language arises also an alteration of the nation; and were a nation to disown and fling aside its language, it must first have lost and transformed all its inborn qualities, it must with the new language have become also a new nation. Is it possible that this can ever be the case with our people?’

Experience, ranging from the year 1620 to the present day, has answered the question in the negative. It is impossible to annihilate the nationality of the Bohemians; it must be recognized and dealt with as an element of the country, and as such must enter largely into the considerations of the statesmen, whom the working of God’s Providence has called to the difficult task of arranging and reconciling the conflicting interests of the many nations of the Austrian Empire. And indeed, since