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CZECHOSLOVAK STORIES

had just finished his philosophical and scientific studies in Prague, he came to the United States, remaining here for two impressionable years, the spirit of which is clearly discernible in many of his best poems particularly his lyrics and sonnets of which several volumes were published. Sládek’s stay in America had another result and that was the translation of Longfellow’s “The Song of Hiawatha” as well as of many single poems by individual American poets. He also translated Bret Harte’s “California Stories” and Aldrich’s “Tragedy of Stillwater” both of which proved very popular among Czech readers. Sládek made translations of “Frithiof” by the Swedish poet Tegner, the romance “Pepita Ximenes” from the Spanish of J. Valera, “Conrad Wallenrod” from the Polish of A. Mickiewicz, the “Hebrew Melodies” of Byron, ballads of Robert Burns and poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Julius Zeyer (1841–1901) though excelling as a lyric and epic poet has to his credit many volumes of successful novels, short stories, and dramas the subjects of most of which are culled from other than home fields. In his travels which included frequent trips to Russia, Vienna, Germany, Paris, Switzerland, Sweden, Italy, Greece, Constantinople, Spain, the Tyrol, Styria, Carniola, Croatia, the Crimea, he gathered impressions and motives which were later woven into his poems and stories. Thus in his lyric “Igor” and his novels “Darija” and “Ondřej Černyšev” (Andrew Černyšev) there is a clear echo of months spent in Russia; in his