Page:Lawrence E A-first reader,1907.pdf/59

 birth gave the direction to all my future aims. The inhabitants of Bielstock are of four different nationalities— Russians, Poles, Germans, and Jews—each of which speaks a separate language, and is on bad terms with the others. 'There, more than anywhere, an impressionable nature feels the heavy misfortune of the diversity of tongues, and becomes convinced at every step that the diversity of language is the only, or at least the chief, cause which separates the human family, and divides it into inimical sections.

“I was brought up as an idealist. I was taught that all men are brothers; meanwhile in the street and at home everything, at every step, compelled me to feel that man does not exist, only Russians, Poles, Germans, Jews, etc. This thought ever deeply troubled (strongly tormented) my boyish mind— although many possibly will smile at this “sorrow for the world” in a child. At that time it seemed to me that the “grown ups” possessed a sort of almighty power, and I repeated to myself that when I was grown up I would without fail do away with this evil.

“Little by little I became convinced, of course, that this thing was not so practicable as it had seemed in my boyhood ; one after the other I cast aside my various childish utopias, only the dream of one single tongue for all mankind I never could dispel. Dimly, although of course without any defined plans, I, in some way, was drawn to it. I do not remember when, but, at all events, sufficiently early, I became conscious that the single language must be in some way neutral, belonging to none of the now-existing nations.

““When I passed from the Bielstock High School to the Second Classical High School, Warsaw, I was for some time allured by the dead languages, and dreamed that some day l would travel through the