English, German, Polish, Magyar, Scandinavian and even Chinese without even speaking of his rare ability in presenting in beautiful Czech equivalent the spirit and content of the authors translated. He showed most conclusively the rich possibilities of his native tongue as a vehicle for the noblest of thoughts and technically for the transference of the most difficult rhymes and meters in modern European literature.
Victor Hugo, Leconte de Lisle, Corneille, Molière, Beaudelaire, Dumas, France, Maupassant, Balzac, Rostand, Petrarch, Dante, Ariosto, Tasso, Michelangelo, Parini, Leopardi, Carducci, Gracosa, Anno Vivanti, Cannizzaro, Camoens, Echegaray, Verdaguer, Mickiewicz, Arany, Petofi, Hafiz, Shi King, Byron, Swinburne, Browning, Shelley, Tennyson, Whitman, Poe, Schiller, Goethe, Hamerling, Ibsen, Andersen—the masterpieces of all these were worthily made known to his countrymen through the untiring energy of Vrchlický.
While Vrchlický is now more fully appreciated in his own land, he has not escaped criticism which at times has been bitterly harsh, especially in the ’70’s when it was thought he should choose subjects oftener from the history of the Czech nation. Then, too, as the originator of such vast stores of literature, it is not a matter of wonder that the critics charged him with technical and formal errors, with banalities and improvisations. Yet withal Vrchlický stands as a master among masters, who was slave to no school, who felt the deepest, most
