HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ.


I once read a short story, in which a Slav author had all the lilies
and bells in a forest bending toward each other, whispering and
resounding softly the words: "Glory! Glory! Glory!" until the whole
forest and then the whole world repeated the song of flowers.

Such is to-day the fate of the author of the powerful historical
trilogy: "With Fire and Sword," "The Deluge" and "Pan Michael,"
preceded by short stories, "Lillian Morris," "Yanko the Musician,"
"After Bread," "Hania," "Let Us Follow Him," followed by two problem
novels, "Without Dogma," and "Children of the Soil," and crowned by a
masterpiece of an incomparable artistic beauty, "Quo Vadis." Eleven
good books adopted from the Polish language and set into circulation
are of great importance for the English-reading people--just now I am
emphasizing only this--because these books are written in the most
beautiful language ever written by any Polish author! Eleven books of
masterly, personal, and simple prose! Eleven good books given to
the circulation and received not only with admiration but with
gratitude--books where there are more or less good or sincere pages,
but where there is not one on which original humor, nobleness, charm,
some comforting thoughts, some elevated sentiments do not shine. Some
other author would perhaps have stopped after producing "Quo Vadis,"
without any doubt the best of Sienkiewicz's books. But Sienkiewicz
looks into the future and cares more about works which he is going to
write, than about those which we have already in our libraries, and he
renews his talents, searching, perhaps unknowingly, for new themes and
tendencies.