Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/446

 abroad gained sympathies for our nation by appeal to this program. Now we are an independent nation, we have our own state, we shall not be threatened by our former national enemies, Germans and Magyars, as we have been in the past. A truly national policy will not be chauvinistic. It is instructive to see serious German statesmen blame national chauvinism for war and German defeat. Chauvinism is always and everywhere blind. To be sure, there is also the international chauvinism or shallow cosmopolitism that despises small nations and does not realize that true internationalism is neither opposed nor indifferent to nationality. National minorities should contribute to the rapproachment of nations and thus to the desirable internationalism. The pure humanity of Kollar can manifest itself solely in nationality.

Our policy in this respect will gladly recognize national and language rights of the other nationalities of our republic. We have created the state, and it is thus natural that it will have a special character; that is implied in the very expression of independent state. But in our republic there will be no forcible denationalization.

I hope that the League of Nations will contribute to the strengthening of friendly relations between states and nations. In any case it must be the goal of our politics to further national tolerance; in our republic national minorities will be able to cultivate their nationality with out hindrance.

In conclusion I wish to take leave of you; probably I am speaking to you for the last time. The election law is being prepared, and elections should be held as soon as possible. You will be able to go with the knowledge that you have done big legislative work; under difficult and quite new circumstances you have worked very diligently.

Our parliament and our government must have their authority generally recognized in our republic, and I may say that since my return home I have supported their authority in every way. To that I shall remain faithful in the future. I have heard calls for a dictatorship, but I see in it only a desire for exemplary upbuilding of the republic. It may be that republican liberty is here and there badly understood, and that has its bad effects. But I am convinced that against liberty the only remedy is more liberty and true liberty.

Still moist, it lies there before him. As he looks at it, he seems to see thousands of heads bending over his shoulders, and thousands of eyes resting with all kinds of expressions upon these his thoughts and feelings, that appear to him so strange and new in their solemn garb of printer’s ink, in which they are making their first entry into the world.

For a whole week he has not stirred out of doors, and during this time he has read through the whole of his twenty free copies. On the evening of the eighth day, a messenger brought him a note from the publisher. When he had torn open the envelope with feverishly trembling fingers, he found inside it some money and the latest number of a certain critical journal. To his credit it must be added that he first seized upon the letter; an article on his poems at once caught his eye. Over and over again he read, with eyes aflame, that his verses were creating a new epoch in Czech literature, that he had bestowed upon the nation a garland of enchanting blossoms, filled with the dew of exquisite emotion and the loveliest fragrance of poetry.

It was not until he had read through this hackneyed eulogy for the sixth time, that with a gesture of contempt he stretched out his hand towards the money, and at the same time towards some shapeless object in the wardrobe. He went out into the dark street and in an out-of-the way and dimly lighted shop he bought some new clothes.

As in a vision he saw an angel hovering above him and bearing a laurel wreath, and the features of the maidenly countenance of this angel were familiar and lovely.

On the next day he went out early with a radiant face. It seemed to him as if many people whom he did not know were gazing respectfully upon him. He met a friend who from afar stretched out both hands towards him and exclaimed: “Congratulations, congratulations.”

“Not at all,” replied the poet modestly, lowering his eyes. “Still, I should be very interested to hear your opinion. Speak openly, without keeping anything back,—how do you like them?”

“They’re fine, they really are. Perhaps the colouring is a little too dark and—”

“They bear the tinting of my soul.”

“But excellent as regards stuff and workmanship. Their form is free and yet elegant, in the latest French style.”

“You are wrong,” objected the poet, somewhat offended. “I am not at all fond of the French manner. If you were to charge me with it, I would admit to some extent the influence of the great English models.”