thought the Germans were trying to get at me through my laundry. The matter would not be worth mentioning but for the fact that the same thing happened to me in England, where the doctor also diagnosed poison. I put it down to lack of air and exercise, and took to riding; for on horseback one is supposed to pass twice as much air through the lungs as when walking.
Naturally our chief care was to counteract Austrian intrigues and propaganda, the stupidity of which often helped us. But we took into account the difficult position of Switzerland who was exposed to ruthless German and Austrian pressure. At the same time I studied with interest the racial and political institutions of the Swiss; for the relationship between the French, German and Italian Swiss resembled roughly what the relationship of Czechs, Germans and Magyars would be in the Czechoslovak State which we hoped to found. There are indeed many similarities between us and the Swiss. Switzerland, too, arose from a struggle against Austria and, like us, she has no access to the sea. Weightier seemed to me the fact that, despite the sharp antagonisms of racial feeling, the unity of the Helvetian Republic was not disturbed during the war. Many distinguished German Swiss, like the poet Spitteler, came out strongly against Prussianism. I had already known Swiss writers, e.g. Keller, C. F. Meyer, Spitteler, Amiel, Seippel, Rod and Ramuz; and after the war I made the acquaintance of the German Swiss writer, Roninger. The realism of these Swiss writers is, I believe, an effect of Swiss democracy. I have always taken the quality of Swiss literature as a proof that inter-racialism is not detrimental to racial character and that no harm is done when French and Germans live as friends side by side. Linguistically and racially, Switzerland is a classical example of strong racial originality combined with the closest inter-racial intercourse.
Small though she is, Switzerland gained her influence upon European civilization through her spirit. She has developed inter-racially as intensely as racially—witness the humanitarian international institutions, from the Red Cross to the League of Nations, which are established on her soil. True, Switzerland is democratic and free whereas, in Austria and in Hungary, races were held together by force under monarchical absolutism. For this very reason we Czechs may learn from the Swiss, though we must always remember the differences between us and them. Of these the most important is that Switzerland is a Federation of small independent State-Cantons all of whose citizens belong
