Vilém Mrštík

“ The humour emanating from these tales is quite its own. It is entirely original, grown from itself—our very own. It stands by itself in the whole European literature. In it there is nothing sermonising or puritanical as in English, nothing moralistic or melancholy as in Russian, nothing heavy as in German, nothing wordly as in French, but innocent human Czech humour, free from all these aberrations, pure as crystal. It is the humour of the poetic cottages of our peasants, humour that is not angry, quarrels not, but yet soars above all worldly vanity. ”

“ Humour that only a man can master, who, in spite of all his troubles, is full of the joy of life. Even this humour will become a starting-point of a serious study into the nature of our humour in general. Its foundations are already given in these tales, and what will be added can be only by way of enriching, not of changing. It is possible to learn, but not to imitate. We have something of our own that is beautiful and good.
Irony light as breath flows through all the incidents of these tales. But this irony does not disgust you with man, on the contrary, it reconciles and equalises ”

“ There is nothing aggressive, nothing fragmentary, all seems to evolve from itself, without any ostentatious "idea." It is a real model of moralism. It does not offend, does not labour, but with pleasant communicativeness, by way of humour, it glides into poetry, never into a sermon. ”