e feels the heavy misfortune of diversity of
tongues. One is convinced at every step that the diversity of
language is the only, or at least the chief, cause which separates
the human family and divides it into inimical sections.

"I was brought up as an idealist. I was taught that all men are
brothers; meanwhile in the street and at home everything, at every
step, compelled me to feel that _humanity_ does not exist, that there
are only Russians, Poles, Germans, Jews, etc. This thought ever
deeply troubled my boyish mind--although many may smile at the
thought of a lad sorrowing for humanity. But at that time it seemed
to me that the 'grown ups' possessed an almighty power, and I said to
myself that when I was grown up I would utterly dissipate this evil.

"Little by little I became convinced, of course, that these things
were not so practicable as in my boyhood I had imagined; one by one I
cast aside my various childish utopias, but the dream of one single
tongue for all mankind I never could dispel. In a dim fashion, without
any defined plan, in some way it allured me. I do not remember when,
but, at all events, it was very early, I arrived at the consciousness
that an international language was possible only if it were neutral
and belonged to none of the now-existing nationalities.

"When I passed from the Bielstock Gymnasium[2] to the Second
Classical School of Warsaw, I was for some time seduced by the dead
languages, and dreamed that some day I would travel throughout the
world, and in flaming words persuade mankind to revive one of these
languages for the common use. Subsequently, I do not now remember
how, the conviction came to me that that was an impossibility, and I
began, indistinctly, to dream of a new and artificial language. I
often made attempts, inventing a profusion of declensions and
conjugations, but the language of man, with, as it seemed to me, its
endless mass of grammatical forms, its hundreds of thousands of words
and ponderous dictionaries, appeared to be such a colossal, and yet
tricky, machine that many a time I exclaimed--'Away with dreams! this
labour is beyond human powers!' But, in spite of all, I always
returned to my dream.

"In childhood (before I could make comparisons or work out
conclusions) I had learnt French and German, but when, being in the
5th class of the gymnasium, I began to study English, the simplicity
of its grammar flashed upon my comprehension, thanks, chiefly, to