Svatopluk Čech

“ That’s all. I have chosen for the title of my pamphlet my motto: ‘“The nation’s shield and sword is its character and its language.” ***
In the night after this triumphant campaign Světlý dreamt that all his poems came flying back to him with tears in their eyes and bitterly reproached him for having issued them.
“We’ll stick some new covers on, and a new edition will be ready,” was the comfort he received from the publisher a year later. “We’ll send ’em off to all the patrons of literature,—though I expect a few copies will gather dust for all that.” ”

“ The poet let go of his enthusiastic friend’s arm and said in an icy tone:
“We must both be making some mistake. I thought you were going to the bookseller’s for a volume of my poems.”
“Your poems? I never dreamt of such a thing. I was hurrying to get a ticket for today’s performance of the Tyrolese girl singers.”
“I can’t oblige you with that.”
“Oh, hang you and your poems. Now I’ve got to go all that way back to the bookseller’s.” ***
Our hero entered a café. He knew that there, behind a certain pillar in a dim recess, a set of young men regularly threshed out the events of the day. ”

“ You shall get it from me for nothing.”
“Repeat those heavenly words!” exclaimed his friend joyfully, taking the poet by the arm. “I was just going to spend the remains of my cash on it. I tell you, I’m enraptured, crazy, off my head.”
Our hero observed rather suspiciously this outburst of enthusiasm on the part of his friend, and interrupted it with the question: “And which of them do you like the best?”
“The smallest one with the Alpine rose in her hat. ”