lved social problems is added race opposition in
the breasts of neighbors, a deep, sullen historic hostility.
Hence when a writer of power appears among the Slavs, whether he
takes up the past or the present, he has that at hand through
which he compels the whole world to listen. Sienkiewicz has shown
this, so has Tolstoy, so have Dostoyevski and Gogol.

The present volume gives in translation a book which should be
widely read with much pleasure. The winning of money on an
immense scale to the neglect of all other objects, to the neglect
even of the nearest duties, is the sin of one Argonaut; the utter
neglect of money and the proper means of living is the ruin of
the other.

Darvid by "iron toil" laid the basis of a splendid structure, but
went no farther; he had not the time, he had not the power,
perhaps, to build thereon himself, and his wife, to whom he left
the task, had not the character to do so. By neglect of duty
Darvid is brought to madness; by neglect of money Kranitski is
brought to be a parasite, and when he loses even that position he
is supported by a servant.

The right use of wealth, the proper direction of labor, these are
supreme questions in our time, and beyond all in America.

Friends have advised Madame Orzeszko to visit this country and
study it; visit Chicago, the great business centre, the most
active city on earth, and New York, the great money capital. If
she comes she will see much to rouse thought. What will she see?
That we know how to win money and give proper use to it? Whatever
she sees, it will be something of value, that is undoubted;
something that may be compared with European conditions,
something to be compared with the story in this book.

Eliza Orzeszko writes because she cannot help writing; her works,
contained in forty-odd volumes, touch on the most vital subjects
in the world about her. She tells the truth precisely as she sees
it. We may hope for much yet from the pen of this lady, who is
still in the best years of her intellectual activity.

Madame Orzeszko was born a little more than fifty years ago in
Lithuania, that part of the Commonwealth which produced
Mickiewicz, the great poet, and Kosciuszko the hero.

THE ARGONAUTS

By Eliza Orzeszko (Orzeszkowa)

Translated by Jeremiah Curtin
Bristol, Vt., U.S.A.
September 12, 1901.

CHAPTER I

It was the mansion of a millionaire. On the furniture and the
walls of drawing-rooms, colors and gleams played