coupled with ignorance of our real people in Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia, seemed totally inadequate. From childhood I thought it my duty towards the Czechs to acquire concrete understanding of the character, views and life of our people in Slovakia as well as in Moravia and in Bohemia. The rights of Prague are assuredly as good as those of any Slovak village—though too many people in Prague do not live the life Neruda lived, but content themselves with coffee-house theories and pothouse imaginings. As a Czechoslovak and a Slav I feel at home with the country-folk and with their dialects; and, philosophically, I stand with Hus, Chelčický[1] and Žižka, down to Havlíček and his successors. At home and in Vienna parochialism oppressed me, the parochialism of Prague and the characteristic parochialism of Austria. Pettiness does not proceed from geography but from men, characters, manners. One does not become a citizen of the world merely by travel of the ordinary sort, or by official international intercourse, but by penetrating spiritually into the life of individuals, of nations and of mankind. It was my own great good fortune and happiness that, in my journey through life, I met Charlotte Garrigue, in whom French blood and American vigour were united. Without her I should never have seen clearly either the sense of life or my own political task. Thus France and America helped me and, through me, helped our nation to win beneficent freedom.
I can only indicate, not describe, how life prepared me for the work that fell to my lot during the world war, how I conceive purposefulness in individuals, in nations and in humanity, and how single lives are organically combined with the life of whole communities. Despite my political vigour I can say, with a clear conscience, that I never came forward unbidden, that I never sought prominence. I was begged and driven to take up the matter of the Königinhofer manuscripts; I was challenged to make a stand in the Hilsner affair; into the conflict over the Agram High Treason and Friedjung trials and with Aehrenthal, my Croat university students literally dragged me. Even my literary work consists largely of answers to questions that were forced upon me. There is deep truth in the words “He lives well who is well hidden,” and they apply not only to monks but to politicians. And, if it be permissible to compare small things with great, God guides the Universe
- ↑ Peter Chelčický, a disciple of John Hus and founder of the Bohemian Brotherhood Church in the fifteenth century. He was opposed to war on moral grounds and preached the doctrine of conquest by meekness and humility.
