book might find shelter
beneath roofs of thatch, and that the village girls, as they spin and turn
the wheel, humming the while their much-loved verses, of the girl who so
loved to make music that while fiddling she lost her geese, or of the
orphan, who, fair as the dawn, went to drive home the birds at eventide--if
even those village girls might take into their hands this book, simple as
their songs!

"So in my own day, along with the village sports, they sometimes read
aloud, under the linden tree on the green, the song of Justina,(7) or the
story of Wieslaw;(8) and the bailiff, dozing at the table, or the steward,
or even the master of the farm, did not forbid us to read; he himself
would deign to listen, and would interpret the harder places to the
younger folk; he praised the beauties and forgave the faults.

"And the young folk envied the fame of the bards, which in their own land
still echoes through the woods and the fields; of bards to whom dearer
than the laurel of the Capitol is a wreath plaited by the hands of a
village girl, of blue cornflowers and green rue."

1 Quoted from a letter of Krasinski, by Kallenbach, _Adam Mickiewicz_
(Cracow, 1897), vol. ii. p. 174.

_ 2 Poland, a Study of the Land, People, and Literature_ (London and
New York, 1903), p. 284.

3 Vilna on our maps; Wilno is the Polish spelling.

4 English readers are fortunate in possessing an excellent account of
the life and writings of Mickiewicz in the work by Miss Monica M.
Gardner, _Adam Mickiewicz, the National Poet of Poland_ (London and
New York, 1911).

5 I am here indebted to Kallenbach (_Adam Mickiewicz_, Cracow, 1897),
and Pilat (Introduction to edition of _Pan Tadeusz_ of _Towarzystwo
Literackie_, Lemberg).

6 Brueckner, _Geschichte der polnischen Litteratur_ (Leipzig, 1901), p.
371.

7 By Franciszek Karpinski, 1741-1825.

8 By Kazimierz Brodzinski, 1791-1835.

LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS IN "PAN TADEUSZ" WITH NOTES ON POLISH
PRONUNCIATION

THE principal characters in _Pan Tadeusz_ are as follows. The approximate
pronunciation of each proper name is indicated in brackets, according to
the system used in _Webster's New International Dictionary_.

Thaddeus (Tadeusz) Soplica [Ta-de'oosh So-ple'tsae].
Jacek Soplica, his father [Yae'tsek],
Judge Soplica, brother of Jacek.
Telimena, a distant relative of the Sop