Page:The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart.pdf/15



certain that it is venturesome to attempt to bring a work of a Bohemian writer before the English-speaking public, now the largest public of readers in the world. Even the name of my country has been known to English readers only in connection with associations that are both incongruous and absurd.

It seems to me certain that the judgment that Bohemian critics have passed on Komensky's masterpiece, the "Labyrinth of the World," claiming it to be one of the world's great books, is not unfounded or based on patriotic predilections. That the book is so little known must be attributed to various causes. Almost at the time that the "Labyrinth" appeared, Komensky's Church, the "Unity," as it was called, of the Bohemian or "Moravian" brethren, was expelled from Bohemia, and it became impossible for a book, written by so eminent a member of that community, to find readers in those countries where the language in which it was written was almost exclusively known. That language itself declined completely after Bohemian independence had perished in 1620, at the battle of the White Mountain, near Prague. These obstacles continued for many years. Dr.