one of his poems, as Miss Gardner
not unjustly contends, might well be his epitaph: 'If you would mark him
out by any sign, call him a Pole, for he loved Poland. In this love he
lived and in it died.'

"Krasinski died in Paris, where he had also been born, in 1859, only
outliving his father by three months, in which he was engaged on a
memoir, never completed, in vindication of the memory of the man who had
dominated his earthly existence. He had many devoted friends who advised
and helped him, acted as his amanuenses, and, as we have seen, shielded
him by assuming authorship of his works. In turn he was the generous
friend of all Polish patriots in distress, whatever were their politics.
Deeply susceptible from his boyhood, he was profoundly influenced by
three women: Mme. Bobrowa, to whom he dedicated his _Undivine Comedy_
and other works; the beautiful and unhappy Countess Delphina Potocka,
immortalized by her friendship with Chopin, who both before and for
several years after Krasinski's marriage was his Egeria, and to whom he
inscribed a series of love lyrics and the mystical poem 'Dawn,' in which
two exiles on the Lake of Como dream of the resurrection of their
nation. The idealistic nature of Krasinski's love for Delphina Potocka,
as compared with his infatuation for Mme. Bobrowa, is emphasized by his
latest biographer. She was his Beatrice, and the figure of the woman he
loved constantly merges in that of his eternal mistress, Poland. The
third woman was his wife, Elzbieta Branicka, whom he married
reluctantly, treated coldly for years, but came in the end to respect
and love for her goodness and forbearance, repairing his neglect in the
beautiful poems of repentance and gratitude addressed to her in the last
years of his troubled life. Miss Gardner's translations, especially
those from Krasinski's prose works, are done with spirit and no little
skill. The difficulties of the poems are greater, but she has given us
at any rate a good idea of their mystical eloquence. She has made
excellent use of the already extensive literature on the subject,
culminating in the complete edition of his works published in 1912, the
year of Krasinski's centenary. And she has drawn freely from the
remarkable letters written in French to Henry Reeve, whom he met in
Geneva in 1830--when Reeve was a romantic, enthusiastic youth 'with the
face of a beautiful girl'--and corresponded with for several years. More
than sixty years later