HUNGARIAN LITERATDRE races, had kept its political independence the l ongest. He writes : " It was at sunset that I reached the summit of a bill where Hungary and Transylvania touch one another. I stopped awh ile, for both before and behind me there opened a grand view, which nevertheless made my heart ache. To the west I saw my cou ntry, with her wide-stretch ing plains, which I had to leave. To the east lay Transylvania, with a line of dark blue hills in the distance, her u nduJating surfa ce swelling like the waves of the ocean. "My heart also began to s well at the thought of parting. To take in th e pictu re around me, I threw myself down upon the ground, just on the frontier line ; my bead and my heart rested on the soil of that dear fatherland which my next step would leave behind. Tears fell from my eyes upon the uttermost sods of my cou ntry, and at that moment I resoh·ed that I, a descen dant of those who had conquered this land, even thou gh a nametess child of the middle cl ass, would work with ali my might, even if silently and unobtrusively-I would work like the silkworm, spioning fro m the su bsta no:e of my own heart what might serve my ill-starred nation, if aught that I could bring of inspiring wo rd or true deed migh t prove of service." The you th, who was not Iess inspired by poetic geniu s than by fervent patriotism, did actual ly spin the silken thread of wh ich he had dreamed, and weave it into fabrics of beauty. He was Alexan der Kisfalu dy, the author of Hiuify and one of the pioneers of the nine teenth cen tury. In 1818, at Athens, a yonng Hungarian traveller (styled by the Greeks " the English lord " on account both of his weal th and his dress) was musing amid the ruins
