o be the Polish Georges Sand, even by the
Germans, who are in many respects the rivals of Slavs in politics and
literature.

Henryk Sienkiewicz, asked by an interviewer what he thought about the
contemporary Polish literary talents, replied: "At the head of all
stand Waclaw Sieroszewski and Stefan Zeromski; they are young, and very
promising writers. But Eliza Orzeszko still holds the sceptre as a
novelist."

When the "Revue des Deux Mondes" asked the authors of different
nationalities to furnish an essay on women of their respective
countries, Mme. Orzeszko was chosen among the Polish writers to write
about the Polish women. It may be stated that translations of her
novels appeared in the same magazine more than twenty years ago. She is
not only a talented but also a prolific writer. She has suffered much
in her life, and her sufferings have brought out those sterling
qualities of soul and heart, which make her books so intensely human,
and characterise all her works, and place her high above contemporary
Polish writers. The present volume may stand as a proof of her
all-embracing talent.

C.S. DE SOISSONS.

AN OBSCURE APOSTLE

INTRODUCTION

On the summits of civilisation the various branches of the great tree
of humanity are united and harmonised. Education is the best apostle
of universal brotherhood. It polishes the roughness without and cuts
the overgrowth within; it permits of the development, side by side
and with mutual respect, of the natural characteristics of different
individuals; it prunes even religious beliefs produced by the needs
of the time, and reduces them to their simplest expression, the
result being that people can live without antipathies.

Quite a different state of affairs exists in the social valley
unlighted by the sun of knowledge. There people are the same to-day
as they were in the remote centuries. Time, while making tombs for
the dead people, has not buried with them the forms which, being
continually regenerated, create among amazed societies unintelligible
anachronisms. Here exist distinctions which, with sharp edges, push
back everything which belongs not to them; here are crawling moral
and physical miseries which are unknown, even by name, to those who
have reached the summits; here is a gathering of dark figures,
standing out against the background of the world, resembling vague
outlines of sphinxes keeping guard over the graveyards; here are
widely-spread petrific