journey of
fifty hours is mere play. But I sincerely believe that no other trait
of ours causes the European to regard our nation with such suspicion
as our utter unconcern of long journeys. Nothing short of accession to
a title or to escape being caught by the police would induce the
Continental to travel over a few hours. So when I decided to go to
Poland in order to be a member of a gorgeous house-party, I might as
well have robbed a bank and given my friends something to be
suspicious of. They never believed that I would do such a fatiguing
and unheard-of thing until I really left.

But Poland has always beckoned me like a friend--a friend which
combined all the poetry, romance, fascination, nobility, and honor of
a first love. If the Pole is proud, he has something to be proud of.
His honor has dignity. His country's sorrows touch the heart. Polish
literature has sentiment, her music has fire, her men of genius stand
out like heroes, her women are adorable. Balzac describes not only one
but a not infrequent type when he dedicates _Modeste Mignon_ "To a
Polish Lady" in the most exquisite apostrophe which ever graced the
entrance-hall to one of the noblest novels of this inimitable master.

"Daughter of an enslaved land, angel through love, witch through
fancy, child by faith, aged by experience, man in brain, woman in
heart, giant by hope, mother through sorrow, poet in thy dreams, to
Thee belongs this book, in which thy love, thy fancy, thy experience,
thy sorrow, thy hope, thy dreams, are the warp through which is shot a
woof less brilliant than the poesy of thy soul, whose expression when
it shines upon thy countenance is, to those who love thee, what the
characters of a lost language are to scholars."

Such a tribute as this would of itself be sufficient to turn the heart
expectantly towards Poland, to say nothing of the interest her history
has for the brain. The history of Poland is one long struggle for home
and country. The Pole is a patriot by inheritance. His patriotism,
goes deeper than his love.

His country comes first in his soul, and for that reason the Poles
have in me an enthusiastic ally, an ardent admirer, and a sympathetic
friend.

In speaking of the story of Poland with a cold-blooded reader of
history I expressed my appreciation of the noble proportions of their
struggles and my sympathy for their present unfortunate plight, to
which she replied: "Yes, but it is so entirely their own faul