She came towards him with an elaborately bound book in her hand.
Ah, a proof ad hominem!
“How does this binding suit you, Mr. Světlý?”
“Oh, these poor attempts are not worthy of such a splendid garb.”
“Not at all. They are very pretty little poems. I read two of them yesterday, before I went to sleep.”
Světlý conjured up a vision of the poems resting upon the snowy surface of her bosom, his heart trembled with bliss, it shimmered over, and from his lips burst forth the question: “How do you like the first poem?”
“Ha.ha.ha!” was the answer in a peal of meloidous laughter.
“Oh, how can you laugh? Did it convey no thing to you, nothing at all? Did you not recognize in the person described there, in those features, the neck, the eyes, someone you know,—yes, I will speak painly,—someone you know from your mirror?”
“What! Really, that’s too much!” exclaimed the girl angrily. “You’re not exactly flattering, Mr. Světlý.”
Thoroughly abashed, the wretched poet caught sight of the book in her hands. On the cover gleamed the title in German, amid a wreath of golden oak-leaves: “Hans Sauerkohl’s Poems,” and the first poem bore the superscription: “To my Angora cat.”
As he passed from the room with the increasing conviction that his fair pupil had not the faintest idea of his poetical abilities, he was stopped by her father, who led him into his study.
The old gentleman sat down majestically in an armchair, and beckoned Světlý to bring up a seat for himself.
“I have noticed that you are a young man of considerable gifts,” he began condescendingly.
Světlý stammered something about too much kindness.
“I want to ask you a favour,—in the interest of a matter which is sacred to us both,” continued the happy father. “Have you not observed that the national spirit amongst us is weakening, that it is being crippled by a sort of weight which is resting upon it, that faintness and despondency are creeping in on all sides? It is the highest time for this to be remedied, for an electric spark to be flung among the people, which would brace them up to new activity, kindle a new enthusiasm for the sacred cause. For this purpose it is no use at all to go fussing about in the clubs and riding the high horse of politics. We must descend among the people, address them with tongue of fire, point out to them their eternal safeguards, their ancient rights, their language, their literature, their science, inspire them for these things with energetic, fiery winged words . . . Well, wouldn’t you like to contribute your talent towards this object?” The poet was pleasantly surprised. So after all, he had read the volume, and now he wanted to rouse him up to patriotic poetry. He replied modestly: “Sir, you overrate my feeble powers. I have certainly tried various kinds of lyric poetry, but I do not feel myself possessed of sufficient capabilities to venture on poetry which is to exert a mighty influence.”
The old gentleman’s eyes bulged with amazement. “What’s all this about poems? Ha, ha, ha! I never even dreamt of misleading you into so thankless an occupation. Ha, ha, ha!”
He laughed heartily for a while, then he once more arranged his countenance in solemn lines and restored the humiliated poet who had been again disappointed, with these words: “There’s no harm done. Listen to what I mean. I am going to issue a political pamphlet. I have just completed it. But I must confess that I have had neither time nor inclination to attend to the latest literary productions, with the result that my spelling has remained rather old-fashioned. This new spelling of yours is the very dickens. Well, I wanted to ask you to revise my manuscript in this respect where necessary. That’s all. I have chosen for the title of my pamphlet my motto: ‘“The nation’s shield and sword is its character and its language.” ***
In the night after this triumphant campaign Světlý dreamt that all his poems came flying back to him with tears in their eyes and bitterly reproached him for having issued them.
“We’ll stick some new covers on, and a new edition will be ready,” was the comfort he received from the publisher a year later. “We’ll send ’em off to all the patrons of literature,—though I expect a few copies will gather dust for all that.”
AMERICAN NURSES IN PRAGUE.
As part of the American Red Cross policy of making secure the benefits arising from its help to the hardpressed small states of Europe, both during the war and since the armistice, two nurses are sailing for overseas to establish a training school for nurses under the American Red Cross and the Czechoslovak government at Prague, Bohemia. Miss Marion Parsons, of Canton, Mass., recently chief nurse of general hospital No. 22, of the British Expeditionary force, and Miss Alotta M. Lentell, who served with the American Red Cross at La Panne, Belgium, are the two nurses assigned to the work.
During the three years that these nurses will develop the school at Prague, two young women from Czechoslovakia will be sent to this country to enter an American training school for nurses to prepare themselves to carry on the work initiated by the Americans, upon their return.
