Page:The music of Bohemia.djvu/30

 been held in the grip of systematic Germanization.Now,in the age of "Liberté—Egalité—Fraternité," the natural outcome of Bohemian reformation, founded on the same principles, was to lift up the torch of freedom and reason.

Particular attention was paid during this period to everything that had originality and the essence of Czech culture. Music and literature had only one source—the folk-song. It was the "common" people who in the period of darkness under the feudal system had preserved their mother tongue in the unwritten folk-poetry with its unwritten tunes. It is not necessary for one to be educated in music or in literature, if his mind is emotional enough and his mouth and throat able to produce a musical sound; then his natural desire for self-expression finds its outlet in the most natural musical form—in song. Thus the Czech people expressed in their uncensored songs whatever in their souls was uprising,—their love, their passions,— paralyzing the misrule of their