Page:Poet Lore, volume 4, 1892.djvu/21

 is powerful as yet in Bohemia and hard to oppose, and Arbes is a liberal freethinker: his writings fight against prejudices of all sorts and religious and other superstitions; it follows that he cannot be as explicit as we might wish, only a hint, an allusion here and there, allows the reader to guess the author's real meaning. And finally there is the state’s attorney, who is always ready to suppress anything that would seem to infringe upon the authority of the established church. Church and State walk hand in hand in Austria, and telling truth about either of them is high treason. In the present days persecutions of writers and journalists are but sporadic; twenty-five years ago they were of every-day occurrence. ‘Pláč koruny české’ (A Grief of the Bohemian Crown)—a mere record of these persecutions for a few years and of the thousands of moneys paid by the Bohemian journals by way of fines, which was published by Arbes in 1870—is a handsome pamphlet. Arbes himself has tasted of Austrian prisons, for beside being a poet he is also a Bohemian patriot, a democrat, taking an active part in the stormy political life of Bohemia. From 1868 to 1877 he was editor of the Národní Listy (The National News), a liberal daily, now the greatest in Bohemia. The courage which he displayed in his editorials, fighting and exposing the Austrian bureaucracy, brought him several times before the courts, for liberty of the Press was (and we may say is) wholly unknown in Austria.

Thus Arbes spent altogether one year three months and one week in various prisons. After 1877 he devoted his time and his genius chiefly to literary work. The great variety of his subjects, and his striving for originality both in the plots and the ideas of his books, may be partially accounted for by the fact that, as regards his living, Arbes is wholly dependent on his literary work, and in order to stand the competition of a host of excellent writers he must always have something not only good but also original and interesting to offer to the reading public. The life of one who has consecrated all his days exclusively to the Muses is by no means a rosy one in Bohemia, although there are comparatively more readers in that country than in many other nations. Joseph KràlKrál [sic].