Excerpt: ...mysterious walls with sentries posted at the gates-walls curiously and accidentally associated in the minds of thousands of children with Longfellow's lines: I have read in some old, marvellous tale That a midnight host of spectres pale Beleaguered the walls of Prague. Not a good place in which to lose yourself at night-outside these walls-as a party of us found on our first expedition there. In the royal palace and offices are now accommodated the various ministeries of the new republic. Up in this purer air ...
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Excerpt: ...mysterious walls with sentries posted at the gates-walls curiously and accidentally associated in the minds of thousands of children with Longfellow's lines: I have read in some old, marvellous tale That a midnight host of spectres pale Beleaguered the walls of Prague. Not a good place in which to lose yourself at night-outside these walls-as a party of us found on our first expedition there. In the royal palace and offices are now accommodated the various ministeries of the new republic. Up in this purer air live also the President, M. Masaryk, and some of the diplomatic representatives of foreign powers. It is no doubt rare in this lazy age to find a new State administered and governed from the top of a crag, a steep climb on foot. But Czecho-Slovakia and Prague are governed from a mountain, and have the mountain point of view, which is the view of youth and vision. The new State has some thirteen millions of inhabitants, and the majority of the people speak both Czech and German. German is naturally discouraged as being anti-national, and it is now only used in emergencies. All names of places have been Slavonized. Even Carlsbad and Marienbad are now Carlovivari and Mariansky Laznie. Where names of places have to be printed both in German and in Czech-German goes into small letters and Czech into large. After the armistice was declared in 1918, it only took a few hundred Czechs to overthrow the Austrian power and proclaim a new national republic. It was a bloodless revolution. France and England were benevolently disposed toward a Czech republic, but America, thanks to the influence of the Slavophile millionaire, Charles Crane, with Wilson, and to the personal prestige of Masaryk, did most to confirm and strengthen Czecho-Slovakia. Gratitude to America is expressed everywhere, and Prague, in 1921, is perhaps the one capital in the world where Wilson's name and fame are still undimmed. Is not Wilson's face in bas-relief on the...
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Add this copy of Europe? ? ? Whither Bound? : Being Letters of Travel to cart. $53.96, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2007 by BiblioBazaar.
Add this copy of Europe? ? ? Whither Bound? : Being Letters of Travel to cart. $56.62, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2007 by BiblioBazaar.