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. Greek tyrants, Roman emperors, Popes, savage invaders, poets, painters, and soldiers, and in a few firm strokes presents their leading characteristics.

As a prose-writer Machar also ranks very high in Czech literature. Here again we find the same polemical tendencies, the same bold criticism of social and political shams, and, it must be added, the same unsparing self-revelation. For instance. "The Confession of a Literary Man" (1901) is Machar's autobiography, in which he depicts his youth and manhood with sardonic frankness. One of his most famous prose works is "Rome", prompted by his violent aversion to Catholicism and its adherents. Much of Machar's prose writing consists of newspaper feuilletons commenting upon topics of the day, and it is probably these which have gained him the greatest number of readers. Yet however trifling the subject in itself, the vigorous style in which it is discussed invests it with a more than transient interest.

Machar's record as an author reveals him as a personality of unswerving courage. In the course of his career he has not flinched from wounding the national susceptilitiessusceptibilities [sic] of his fellow-countrymen when he considered that the interests of truth demanded it. He has lost friends and made enemies by the uncompromising expression of his views. It was inevitable that such a man should come into contact with the Austrian authorities during the war, and it is the various incidents connected with his supervision and inprisonmentimprisonment [sic] which form the subject of "The Jail". Here we have all manifestations of the typical Machar,—his strong human sympathies, his psychological insight, his courage, his candour, his sarcasm, his humour, his dramatic instinct and his faculties for describing places, persons and events. But the qualities of the book are so obvious that they do not need to be indicated further. It is enough to add