Page:Poet Lore, volume 35, 1924.pdf/362

 Klementina.—But Filipina loves Mr. Scheffel!

Dr. Svoboda.—How unfortunate!

Klementina.—And he would be a very desirable husband!

Dr. Svoboda (With a laugh).—A very practical one!

Klementina.—To turn him away means that we must blight the happiness and the good fortune of our daughter.

Dr. Svoboda.—But we cannot wave a charmed wand and bring the money here.

Klementina.— There is another way to get it.

Dr. Svoboda.—What is it?

Klementina.—Consider the suggestion of selling your estate.

Dr. Svoboda.—That is not necessary. I will undertake the management of the place myself and save it.

Klementina.—Your undertakings, as far as merely abstract things are not concerned, vanish in the air like a phantom. Everything comes and goes with you.

Dr. Svoboda.—Energy does not need to proclaim itself.

Klementina.—But perseverance does. You are not a man of hard practical sense, and you never will be.

Dr. Svoboda.—Then find me a buyer who will be a successor to my political principles,—and I will then be induced to sell,—yes, perhaps even a part of my own heart with it.

Klementina.—The buyer is here; there is no need of inquiring about his political principles.

Dr. Svoboda.—Every honorable man today must do so. The soil of this estate does not belong to me, a private person, alone, but to the sons of this land and their country.

Klementina.—You subordinate the sacred duty you owe your family to your duty toward your country? Nationalism is mere fanaticism, a relic of barbarism, the intellectual limitation of a greater or lesser number of people.

Dr. Svoboda.—A diversity of nationalism is a characteristic, a national trait of the people. With the exception of sex, and the physiological parts of the body, there is not a more natural division among the people. For that reason, it is justifiable.

Klementina.—The people, however, gravitate toward unity, and toward that purpose, diversity of nationalism is an obstacle.

Dr. Svoboda.—Unity among the people can be only intellecualintelectual [sic], and diversity of nationalism is no obstacle to it.

Klementina—The people are gravitating even toward a universal language.

Dr. Svoboda.—That was attempted by the Roman kings, and