soul, if not always very deep, at least written with art. And his
merit in that respect is greater than of any other writers, if we
take in consideration that in Poland heroic lyricism and poetical
picturesqueness prevail in the literature.

The one who wishes to find in the modern literature some aphorism
to classify the characteristics of the people, in order to be able
afterward to apply them to their fellow-men, must read "Children of
the Soil."

But the one who is less selfish and wicked, and wishes to collect for
his own use such a library as to be able at any moment to take a book
from a shelf and find in it something which would make him thoughtful
or would make him forget the ordinary life,--he must get "Quo Vadis,"
because there he will find pages which will recomfort him by their
beauty and dignity; it will enable him to go out from his surroundings
and enter into himself, _i.e_., in that better man whom we sometimes
feel in our interior. And while reading this book he ought to leave
on its pages the traces of his readings, some marks made with a lead
pencil or with his whole memory.

It seems that in that book a new man was aroused in Sienkiewicz, and
any praise said about this unrivaled masterpiece will be as pale as
any powerful lamp is pale comparatively with the glory of the sun.
For instance, if I say that Sienkiewicz has made a thorough study of
Nero's epoch, and that his great talent and his plastic imagination
created the most powerful pictures in the historical background, will
it not be a very tame praise, compared with his book--which, while
reading it, one shivers and the blood freezes in one's veins?