to Hungarian, he is
particularly interested; historical novels, romances of pure
imagination, short tales, dramatic works, essays on literature and
social questions, came pouring from his surcharged brain and heart. The
very virtues of his work, its intensity, and the boundless scope of its
imagination, sometimes produce a lack of unity and an improbability to
which the hypercritical in the West draw attention with a sense of
superior wisdom; but the Hungarians themselves, who know whereof he
writes, can see no faults whatever in his work. It is essentially
idealistic; the true and the beautiful shine through it with radiant
lustre, in sharp distinction from the scenes of famine and carnage that
abound. His Turkish stories have been described as "full of blood and
roses."

Of his more mature productions, the best known are: "A Magyar Nabob";
"The Fools of Love"; "The New Landlord"; "Black Diamonds"; "A Romance of
the Coming Century"; "Handsome Michael"; "God is One," in which the
Unitarians play an important part; "The Nameless Castle," that gives an
account of the Hungarian army employed against Napoleon in 1809;
"Captive Raby," a romance of the times of Joseph II.; and "As We Grow
Old," the latter being the author's own favorite and, strangely enough,
the people's also. Dr. Jokai greatly deplores that what the critics call
his best work should not have been given to the English-speaking people.

In 1896 Hungary celebrated the completion of his fifty years of literary
labor by issuing a beautiful jubilee edition of his works, for which the
people of all grades of society subscribed $100,000. Every county in the
country sent him memorials in the form of albums wrought in gold and
precious stones, two hundred of these souvenirs filling one side of the
author's large library and reception-room. Low bookcases running around
the walls are filled only with his own publications, the various
editions of his three hundred and fifty books making a large library in
themselves. The cabinets hold sketches and paintings sent by the artists
of Hungary as a jubilee gift; there are cases containing carvings,
embroidery, lace, and natural-history specimens sent him by the
peasants, and orders in gold and silver, studded with jewels, with
autograph letters from the kings and queens of Europe. In the midst of
all this inspiring display of loving appreciation, Dr. Jokai has his
desk; a pile of neatly written, even manuscript ever before