ideration that in Poland heroic lyricism and poetical
picturesqueness prevail in the literature.

The one who wishes to find in the modern literature some aphorism
to classify the characteristics of the people, in order to be able
afterward to apply them to their fellow-men, must read "Children of
the Soil."

But the one who is less selfish and wicked, and wishes to collect for
his own use such a library as to be able at any moment to take a book
from a shelf and find in it something which would make him thoughtful
or would make him forget the ordinary life,--he must get "Quo Vadis,"
because there he will find pages which will recomfort him by their
beauty and dignity; it will enable him to go out from his surroundings
and enter into himself, _i.e_., in that better man whom we sometimes
feel in our interior. And while reading this book he ought to leave
on its pages the traces of his readings, some marks made with a lead
pencil or with his whole memory.

It seems that in that book a new man was aroused in Sienkiewicz, and
any praise said about this unrivaled masterpiece will be as pale as
any powerful lamp is pale comparatively with the glory of the sun.
For instance, if I say that Sienkiewicz has made a thorough study of
Nero's epoch, and that his great talent and his plastic imagination
created the most powerful pictures in the historical background, will
it not be a very tame praise, compared with his book--which, while
reading it, one shivers and the blood freezes in one's veins?

In "Quo Vadis" the whole _alta Roma_, beginning with slaves carrying
mosaics for their refined masters, and ending with patricians, who
were so fond of beautiful things that one of them for instance used to
kiss at every moment a superb vase, stands before our eyes as if it
was reconstructed by a magical power from ruins and death.

There is no better description of the burning of Rome in any
literature. While reading it everything turns red in one's eyes, and
immense noises fill one's ears. And the moment when Christ appears
on the hill to the frightened Peter, who is going to leave Rome, not
feeling strong enough to fight with mighty Caesar, will remain one of
the strongest passages of the literature of the whole world.

After having read again and again this great--shall I say the greatest
historical novel?--and having wondered at its deep conception,
masterly execution, beautiful language, powerful painting of the
epoch, plastic