vel and extraordinary _entree_ in
the New World, that they may deserve to win the interest of the foreign
reader.

Hungary still represents a piece and parcel of the Old World; she is not
so much Europe as a modern Asia. My novels centre round those peculiar
figures of Hungarian common life; and in every work of mine a bit of
history of true common life will be found described. I have had a
particular delight, however, in occupying myself with foreign countries,
especially with the East. There have been years when I was compelled to
choose subjects for novel-writing in foreign parts.

In English and in Hungarian literature we find a common trait in that
humor which is discovered also in the tragic; a characteristic of the
nation itself.

It is with perfect confidence and in good hope that I present my present
work (translated so faithfully) before the much-esteemed English reading
public. May God bless that home of freedom, by whose example we have
learnt how to unite the greatness of the state with the welfare of the
people.

DR. MAURUS JOKAI.

BUDAPEST, May 11th, 1898.

DR. MAURUS JOKAI

A Sketch

To a man who has earned such titles as "The Shakespeare of Hungary" and
"The Glory of Hungarian Literature"; who published in fifty years three
hundred and fifty novels, dramas, and miscellaneous works, not to
mention innumerable articles for the press that owes its freedom chiefly
to him, it seems incredible that there was ever a time of indecision as
to what career he was best fitted to follow. The idle life of the
nobility into which Maurus Jokay was born in 1825 had no attractions for
a strongly intellectual boy, fired with zeal and energy that carried him
easily to the head of each class in school and college; nor did he feel
any attraction for the prosaic practice of law, his father's profession,
to which Austria's despotism drove many a nobleman in those wretched
days for Hungary. It was Petofi, the poet, who was his dearest friend
during the student-life at Papa; idealism ever attracted him, and, by
natural gravitation toward the finest minds, he chose the friendship of
young men who quickly rose into eminence during the days of revolution
and invasion that tried men's souls.

For a time Jokay, as he then wrote his name, was undecided whether to
choose literature or art as an outlet for the idealism, imagination, and
devotion that overflowed in two directions from this boy of seventeen.
With some