My dear friend, Mr. Roderick A. Ginsburg, undertook to familiarize the English-reading public in this country and abroad with one of Vrchlicky’s earliest epic poems, "Satanella" (1874), written at the age of twenty-four years under the spell of romanticism so happily inaugurated in Czech literature in 1836 by Karel Hynek Macha and his immortal epico-lyrical poem "Maj" (May).
It is my firm conviction that Mr. Ginsburg fully succeeded in his difficult and painstaking task of interpreting Vrchlicky's beautifully molded verses into their equivalent English counterparts.
I hope that his English version of Vrchlicky's colorful poem will be gratefully received by English lovers of poetry who will have the opportunity to see to what extent the Czechs, now flourishing as a virile, independent nation, possess commendable qualities not only in the domain of music, so well known through the compositions of Dvorak, Smetana and Janacek, but also in the wide realm of literature.
Chicago, Illinois, U. S. A., May 1932.
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