Frigyes Riedl

“ Adam sees mankind rapidly nearing the time when the last feeble spark of human life will be extinguished. The globe of the sun, shorn of its rays, so that Adam takes its blood-red disc for the moon, sheds its dim light upon a frozen world. The last men of the race, a few degenerate Esquimaux, are dragging out a miserable existence. When Adam arrives among them they take him for a god, and request that he would see that there were fewer Esquimaux but more seals.
So this is the goal to which all his struggles and aspirations are to lead, Adam thinks. ”

“ Every fault finds its merciless judge in his own soul. In the first part of the epic the young Toldi unintentionally commits a crime, and then goes straight to the king at Buda, to receive either punishment or pardon. He cannot rest while there is a stain upon his character. In the second part, when Toldi breaks the rules of chivalry by fighting under another's colours and winning the hand of a lady for his friend, and when too late his own passion awakes and gives him infinite pain, it is still the pangs of an uneasy conscience from which he suffers most. ”

“ Hungary's three greatest poets, Vörösmarty, Petőfi, and Arany, happened to be contemporary with her three greatest statesmen, Széchenyi, Kossuth and Deák. Those men together, by herculean efforts, managed to awaken the country from its torpor, and to fill men's hearts with hope. They organised the population into a true nation. By their wisdom they created a future for their country, and by their poetry they surrounded it with glory. ”

“ Accordingly the privileged class had grown exceedingly, and numbered from five to six hundred thousand persons, nearly as many as the burgesses in England. But one day the Hungarian nobility, like the Phoenix in the fable, lit with its own hand the fire which consumed it as a separate, privileged class, and they rose from its ashes, as an integral portion of one large free community. Liberty, equal rights, equal duties for all citizens, without any distinction on account of race, language or religion, those were the fruits borne by the events of 1848. ”

“ In 1471, King Matthias wrote to a famous Roman humanist: "Scholars, how happy are you! You strive not after blood-stained glory nor monarchs' crowns, but for the laurels of poetry and virtue. You are even able to compel us to forget the tumult of war."
Let us cast a glance at the polite society of the period, and enter one of the halls in the palace of Buda. It is furnished with all the luxury and artistic taste of the Renaissance. On the walls are wondrous tapestries interwoven with gold, alternating with frescoes representing scenes from Hungarian history. ”

“ Baron Joseph Eőtvős was one of the noblest figures in the world of Hungarian literature. He distinguished himself as a statesman, a novelist, a poet and a scientific writer. His literary activity, like his life, had an idealistic tendency. He was a man of reflection rather than of action, but his reflections were penetrated with feeling, and his logic was infused with warmth of heart. His personality presents the feature, so rare in authors, which is expressed in the words of Vauvenargues: Les grandes pensées viennent du cœur. ”

“ At the moment of waking, the visions just seen appear so terrible to him that he decides to put a speedy end to the long, painful struggle, of the dreadful issue of which he been warned by those prophetic dreams—yes, to put an end to it, or, rather, to prevent its ever beginning by stopping the stream of human life at its source—by his own self-destruction. But just as he is stepping on to the brink of a precipice, to carry out his fatal resolve, Eve approaches and whispers in his ear a secret, the first secret of the young world: she is going to become a mother. ”

“ By means of equitable laws we enabled all the people to share with us our rights, and all the blessings of our country and constitution. We called them to be our brothers, one with us in the enjoyment of personal, religious, social and political freedom; to be as entirely equal with us in these respects as we all are equal, whether king or beggar, rich or poor, in the certainty of death and in the common hope of a life beyond the grave. ”

“ On the shelves, the literary works of classical antiquity stand side by side with those of the new revival, all of them bound in silk, white the workmanship of their silver clasps and corners is as worthy of admiration as the miniatures to be found inside, which display the rich imagination of the Renaissance blended with that of antiquity—graceful garlands of flowers and fruit, Cupids riding on fawns or playing with rainbow-coloured butterflies, Tritons and nymphs sporting, and, as a border, antique gems, and delicate climbing plants with golden flowers. ”

“ In composition it reminds us of Pushkin's Onyegin, but in language of John Arany. The hero is a well-drawn specimen of a type that was common in the sixties, a sort of Hungarian Don Quixote. He is a good fellow, and loves his country sincerely, but has many faults. His enthusiasm is like a fire of twigs which blazes up in a moment and quickly expires. He loves to build castles in the air, but lacks persistence. He goes abroad, fights for Italian liberty under Garibaldi, then rambles about Europe and at length returns to Hungary. ”

“ The fate of a nation lies in our bands. When we have lifted this country out of its errors and misfortunes, we shall be able to say, as our eyes close in death, 'We thank thee, life, for all the grand opportunities of work which thou hast given us, and which have enabled us to play our part here manfully.'"
Vörösmarty was a great poet, but not a great dramatist, because he lacked two important qualifications. ”

“ Bessenyei threw himself into the new movement, and in his day-dreams, saw a flourishing Hungarian literature, and a vigorous mental life, with himself, perhaps, as the Voltaire of Hungary, for its centre. In co-operation with a few other Hungarian Lifeguard officers, Bessenyei formed a small literary circle. It was strange that Vienna, the very centre of hostility to every national effort, should be the scene of the revival of Hungarian literature. ”

“ Kazinczy saw clearly the part which he was called to play in literature. He once wrote: "We have merely commenced the work of reform. Our life has had to be spent in clearing and preparing the path of progress. But the time draws nigh when the sons of the gods will appear and cover Hungary with glory. Still, if the path has been made ready for them, the merit is ours."
And Kazinczy was right. Soon after him the "sons of the gods"—the great geniuses—arrived. The nineteenth century was the grand siècle of Hungary. It was the cen­tury of Vörösmarty, Petőfi, Arany, Széchenyi, Deák and Kossuth. ”

“ The JOHN ARANY 231 squire's horse is as old and as gaunt as his rider's weapons are rusty, and his garments are old-fashioned and shabby. When the people see his rusty weapons they mock him and ask him if he sells them as old iron. The boys tease the old horse, which soon comes to a standstill, and on tuming round the poor squire finds that they are holding on to its tail. When the old monk hears the laughter, he turns round and shakes his huge lance at the crowd, whirling it above his head as though it were a latb, so that mockery gives place to awe. ”

“ Every European people has its own special gift. Greece and Italy have the gift of art; Rome has law England political liberty and the power of planting colonies; Germany has metaphysics and scientific method; while France is distinguished by good taste. Hungary's endowment was a strong sense of nationality, that is to say, the desire to found and to maintain a state which knitted the people into an organic whole. Simultaneously with the growth of the national spirit, and lending it strong support, arose the nation's literature. ”

“ Every branch of art received its inspiration from religion, and statues and pictures reveal exactly the same naïveté and the same religious fervour as the parchment books of that little library which has been bequeathed to the present generation as the Hungarian literature of the Middle Ages. ”

“ Every age has a different conception of space and time, of the place occupied in the Universe by Man, and of the changes which the whirligig of time brings to mankind and to the world in general. The man of the Middle Ages was convinced that his little Earth was the centre, and the chief concern of the Universe. Such a conception is entirely childish to our mind. ”

“ THE LANGUAGE REFORM
At the commencement of the nineteenth century Hungarian literature presents a remarkable phenomenon. In the course of a few years the literary language was so entirely transformed, that practically a new tongue came to be at the service of poets. As culture and literary taste spread, and authors grappled with the theory of art and of poetry, it became more and more evident that the Hungarian language was neither rich enough, nor polished enough, to express all the new ideas which increased culture had called into being. ”

“ Janus Pannonius belonged to the best class of Renaissance scholars. It is only in that age that we find such ardent admiration of and genuine enthusiasm for everything connected with classical culture. Pedantry and dry scholastic study had not yet made the world tired of the past, and for the Renaissance scholar the classical authors had the dignity of antiquity, together with the zest of novelty. ”

“ His soul thirsted for the extraordinary and the grand, and he shunned commonplace people. "Our age," he said bitterly, "is the conspiracy of organised mediocrity against genius." In poetry he sought for the great, the profound, the surprising. As a young man he fell in love with a dancer named Gina, who was famous for her beauty, and who became for him the symbol of an unattainable ideal. ”

“ Henceforth Hungarian life and literature developed in perfect sympathy with one another, and kept pace so accurately together that, in the middle of the nineteenth century, when new aims opened before the people, and an ardent patriotism enthusiastically welcomed the new ideals of democracy, the nation's literature attained its zenith. ”

“ It strengthened the feeling of patriotism just as the Reformation increased religious fervour. The Hungarians became zealous both for their fatherland and for religious liberty. Great national misfortunes always light the flame of patriotism, which in times of security often becomes extinguished. Hungarian poetry of this period echoes the patriot's grief; the note is now soft, now harsh, but always the expression of real affliction; and in some of the poems we find the sadness of the patriot blended with fervent religious feeling. ”

“ Hungarian literature is, in fact, the record of Hungarian patriotism. The ideas of nation, fatherland and race are much more pronounced in it than in other literatures. It is quite natural, for we always cherish more anxiously what we are in constant danger of losing, than the most precious treasures which we can quietly enjoy in the security of unchallenged possession. These features also are uppermost in the popular tales and ballads, as we saw when considering the Kurucz poetry. ”

“ In this work of reform only pure common sense or reason was to be consulted. Whatever conflicted with pure reason must be transformed. All the most weighty institutions, such as religion, the State, the constitution, and moral laws, they urged, were based on convention. But things created by convention can also be changed by a fresh convention as soon as reason finds it advisable. Was not religion invented by the priests, kingship by tyrants, the state by the aristocrats, and language by a few of our intelligent ancestors? ”

“ I shall rise from the death-world, beloved, to find it A kerchief /or tears in that far land of gloom. But thought of oblivion shall never, oh never Weigh low on my spirit, or cause me to grieve, For my love will be with thee for ever and ever, And live while eternity's eyeles shall live. ”

“ And at the end of thirteen centuries there were again lovers of Plato in "the land of the four rivers." The great fascination exercised by Plato upon the minds of men in the fifteenth century is clearly shown in the letters written to King Matthias by the great Florentine Platonist Marsilius Ficinus, all of them full of allusions to the philosopher and enthusiastic in his praise.
The centre of the gathering in Buda was always Matthias, not the most learned there, but the most gifted, his vast mind open to every new impression, his attention always keen, and his curiosity insatiable. ”