The effort of his life
was to attain moral perfection in his own being.
was to attain moral perfection in his own being.
Krasinski - The Undivine Comedy
Because the victim is not dead, and there is
vast moral power in the force of public opinion. Because
the American mission is the actualization everywhere of
not merely nominal, but real freedom, founded upon jus-
tice and eternal truth. But chiefly it is done in the present
relation, because it is our ardent desire that the Polish poet
should be understood in all his sublime patriotism by
American readers, and to show that his deepest hues are
not so dark as the truth they depict ; because, for full sym-
pathy with his original conceptions, we must recognize his
own sad stand-point, and the melancholy position of the
country he so earnestly loved. For poet and people hold
positions entirely exceptional in the history of the world,
Poles and exiles ! it is with no light feeling of self-
distrust that the daughter of a distant land has ventured
to lay her daring hands upon the master-works of your
poet, patriot, and statesman. She would fain have called
the high poets of her country to the task of transmuting
the thoughts of the Polish Dante into fitting English;
but none seemed ready to begin the work. Wreathing
their lyres with their own immortal flowers, singing their
songs of freedom for the emancipation, cultivation, and
delight of humanity, — some of them perchance momen-
tarily charmed by the mystic might of Russia, — none were
prepared to burn the torch of their own genius to illume
the spiritual and majestic features of your illustrious dead.
Feeble as may be the fire of this torch as now borne,
sway and flicker as it may in the uncertain hands, may its
light yet be strong enough to manifest something of the
2»
14
PREFACE.
valiant "Polish soul" to my countrymen ! Strong enough
to point out to future translators the unexplored treasures
of Polish literature, in order that in more inspired ver-
sions they may yet place "The Undivine Comedy" and
" Iridion" where they deserve to rank, — after Dante and
Shakespeare, among the loftiest creations of human genius.
I know that through the medium of a less impassioned
language, and deprived of their exquisite form and bold
and undulating rhythm, these poems will seem cold and
imperfect in your eyes, but I beg of you to pardon the
deficiencies, because of the difficulty of the task and the
love and reverence which prompt its execution.
Whatever the material, venal, and passing phantoms of
the hour may seem to say, believe not that American
hearts have ceased to beat in unison with yours ! Your
courageous struggles for "a country" maybe still mis-
represented and misunderstood ; the brilliant serf-eman-
cipation in Russia may for a time dazzle us into ignorance
of the atrocious torments to which you are subjected, but
misconception not voluntary cannot long endure, the Sun
of Truth is everywhere rising and everywhere dispersing
the mists of falsehood under its happy light, true republi-
cans will learn that "the path to freedom lies not through
the charnel-house. " Right, not might, is the corner-
stone of God's kingdom upon earth !
Liberty, justice, equality before the law, and self-govern-
ment, are the normal dogmas of our political creed ; to
renounce them were to stultify ourselves. They are corner-
stones in the temple we are building for the refuge of
men; to uproot them were to bring it in ruins about our
own heads.
We know that, tortured and mutilated, Poland still
lives, and that, at every banquet of the " Holy Alliance,"
|ier grand and bloody form rises from her three graves to
appal the three crowned and rival murderers of a nation.
For she is buried, not in the corruption of the grave, but
in thp loyal h|earts of her patriotic and tortured children,
in the living sympathies of all who love virtue, self-sacri-
fice, and heroism, and in the eternal justice of God ; —
therefore is her resurrection certain !
Translator,
BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKL
The following imperfect sketch of the "Anonymous
Poet" is the only account we have been able to find of
him in European literature. It is translated chiefly from
" Unsere Zeit Jahrbuch zum Conversations Lexikon.
No. 5^. 1862. L. A. Brockhaus, Leipzig. "
"The silent organ loudest chants the master's requiem. "
So chants the fact that as yet no details of the life of the
great Pole can appear, because they might compromise
friends once very dear to him, living within reach of the
vengeful arm of Russia. He renounced all fame while
living, ever publishing anonymously, and the manifold
experiences of his internal life, with his numerous his-
torical and political letters, must slumber in the shroud
of silence, until Polish patriotism is no longer crime, and
confiscation and exile cease to be the doom of all con-
nected with those daring enough to defend their native
land.
The reader may, however, round this skeleton biogra-
phy into flesh, by clothing its bones from the veined
tissues he will not fail to find in the nervous pages of
Julian Klaczko.
When Napoleon entered Poland, in 1806, the leader
of the Polish Legions, General Dombrowski, summoned
the fiery patriot, Wybicki, to unite himself with armed
hand to the conqueror of nations ; and as Napoleon
spoke freely of the reconstitution of the country, such
summons fell not upon unheeding ears in Poland. Many
patriots of high distinction offered up property and life
15
l6 BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
in the new-born hopes for fatlierland, and, captivated by
the fallacious promises of Napoleon, hurried to join the
French eagles. Count Vincent Krasinski, then about
twenty-four years of age, a man of great wealth and high
distinction, was one of the first to greet the French Em-
peror on Polish ground, and afterwards accompanied him
in his campaigns as adjutant.
For a time Count Krasinski resided in Paris, in which
city his wife, Maria, a princess of the house of Radziwill,
presented him with a son, born on the 19th of February,
1812, who received in baptism the name of Sigismund
Napoleon. This boy became the "Anonymous Poet of
Poland. "
Bitterly deceived were the high hopes of the Poles.
After the signing of the act of abdication by Napoleon,
April II, 1814, Count Vincent Krasinski, then under
orders from the Czar Alexander, led the unhappy rem-
nants of the Polish legions back from France into
Poland.
His countess soon after joined him there with the
little Sigismund, then about three years old. Upon the
immense estates of his forefathers, under the tender care
of a devoted but very sickly mother, lived for many
happy years the young Sigismund, a dark-eyed boy with
long, fair curls, remarkable from his earliest years for rare
powers of wit and intellect, for rapid and acute answers
to difficult questions, for true and chivalric feeling, for
high-strung and self-sacrificing ardor. His health, how-
ever, was exceedingly delicate. When but five years of
age he was presented to the Czar, an especial friend of
his parents, and recited for him the lines of Voltaire,
"Tu dors, Brute! " meantime fearlessly gazing with
childlike confidence into the keen eyes of the autocrat.
Two years later he was introduced to the Empress, whom
he pleased greatly. She said laughingly to him, "lac-
knowledge you as my knight. Will you accept the ap-
pointment, and defend me against my enemies? " His
answer was as acute as chivalric. "I cannot," he re-
plied ; " your Majesty has no need of defenders, since
you have no enemies. "
He had instructors of great ability, and so rapidly was
BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
17
he advanced in his studies, that he was soon able to enter
the sixth class in the College of Warsaw. Uncommon
powers of intellect, i>nited with a great memory, ardent
and unceasing efforts for thorough mental cultivation,
distinguished him in his intercourse with his fellow-
students. But however rapid his advances, he failed to
satisfy his eager desire for exact and wide learning.
His mother died in 1822, and so bitter was the distress
of his father, that he withdrew himself from all social
intercourse, save that forced upon him by his official po-
sition, and devoted himself exclusively to the advance-
ment of his idolized boy. He followed his mental and
spiritual culture with eyes of constant watchfulness, and,
at an examination to which the savants interested in the
cause of education had been invited, he had the gratifi-
cation of seeing his son, then but twelve years of age,
astonish all present by his accurate knowledge of gram-
mar, literature, geography, and history.
Although Sigismund was too young as yet to take any
part in the meetings and discussions of the learned Poles
so frequently held in the house of his father, they never-
theless exerted great influence over the precocious boy,
and aided in preparing him for the vocation of an
author. His susceptible nature readily seized upon what-
ever appealed to the imagination or soul, and he would
often reproduce his impressions for tlie entertainment
and instruction of his companions. When but fourteen
years of age, he wrote a tale which he caused to be
secretly printed, and then presented to his father, who
approved the gift, but forbade all further essays at that
time, fearing that the facility of composition might lead
his son astray from more severe studies. But the boy
stole from the hours allowed for sleep the time to write
another tale, entitled "The Grave of the Family of
Reichstal. " This was followed by another, "Ladislaus
Hermann and his Court," written in the style of the
novels of Sir Walter Scott, of whose works he was at that
time deeply enamored. Both of these tales were printed
in 1829.
But a dreadful crisis was approaching in the fate of the
dutiful, loving, beloved, and patriotic son. His father
1 8 BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
and his country were to stand in deadly opposition to
each other, and his young dreams of fame to be forever
sacrificed. His life was a long penitential offering to his
incensed country for the faults of his father. He sacri-
ficed all glory to win silence and pardon for the illustrious
offender.
The year 1825 was a memorable one in Russian history,
in consequence of the sudden death of Alexander, and the
outbreak of a wide-spread conspiracy for a constitutional
government in Russia, of which the leaders were Pes-
tel, Orloff, Ryleief, Bestuchef-Rumin, and Kachowski.
During the inquiries instituted at St. Petersburg, it became
evident that there were societies existing in Poland whose
principal object was the restoration of that country to
independence. Uminski, Jablonowski, Soltyk, Kryza-
nowski, Lukasinski, and others, members of one of these
societies, were indicted for high treason. The trial fell
under the jurisdiction of the ancient kingdom of Poland,
whose capital was the city of Warsaw.
The reduced Poland of the Congress of Vienna en-
joyed a nominal constitution, and the Polish Senate was
convoked to preserve, ostensibly at least, a legal form.
Some Senators were then living abroad, as Prince Adam
Czartoryski, but they hastened home to record their pa-
triotic votes. The President of this high tribunal was
elected in the person of the Palatine, Peter Bielinski. The
Commission of Inquiry classed the accused under five
categories, and the Senate was charged to decide on their
fate. It appointed lawyers as counsel for the prisoners ;
the proceedings were public, and lasted a month, when
the court, with the exception of one dissentient voice,
set aside the charge of high treason, and gave tlieir de-
cision : "Not guilty;" a decision based on the- principle
that all Poles naturally desire the independence of their
fatherland. The one dissenting Polish voice was that
of General Count Vincent Krasinski, the father of our
Poet!
The Emperor ordered the judges to be reprimanded, a
thing before unheard of, and consoled himself by con-
fining the accused in the dungeons of St. Petersburg, in
direct violation of the constitution, — and this was one of
BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
19
the grievances subsequently alleged in defense of the
Polish revolution.
The constitutional victory of Poland, so full of pa-
triotic joy, was, however, greatly saddened by the fact
that a patriot so distinguished as Vincent Krasinski
should have voted on the side of the absolute Russian
Government, then represented in Warsaw by the Grand
Duke Constantine, famous for his persecution of all pa-
triotic Poles, as well as of the students of the univer-
sity.
Peter Bielinski, the President of the Senate and Com-
mission of Inquiry, died soon afterward, and, on the day
of his funeral, the fiery fellow-students of young Sigis-
mund Krasinski made a strong demonstration, in the
way of threats and insulting expressions, against the
young man, judging him utterly unworthy of their fel-
lowship, because of the unpatriotic vote rendered by his
father on the trial above mentioned.
An eye-witness, Professor Podbielski, then a fellow-
student of young Sigismund on the benches of the uni-
versity, thus describes the occurrence: "On one of the
subsequent days, after the public lecture to the students
in common of the faculties, I observed quite a commotion
among the young men ; many leaving the hall, rushed to
Krasinski, and as they tore the badges of the university
away from him, I heard them cry : 'You are not worthy
to be our fellow-student, because your father cast his de-
cision against our brothers, our noble patriots ! ' Sigis-
mund, with chivalric and undaunted bearing, though of
exceedingly slight form and delicate and refined ap-
pearance, met them fearlessly, and with true Polish spirit
offered them a sincere pardon for their insults to himself,
so utterly innocent in his own person of all wrong ;
but their leader, young Lubinski, and others, refused to
listen to his manly explanations. I was astonished at pro-
ceedings so unjust, but our Professor, with some friends,
finally interfered; I left the hall, and never again saw
our great Anonymous Poet, our long unknown, pure, and
noble patriot. "
This college occurrence was, without doubt, the origi-
nal of the scene described by "The Young Man" to
ao BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
" Dante" in the first part of " The Unfinished Poem" or
" Fragment. "
Constantine was greatly enraged at the decision of tlie
Polish Senators, tortured Lukasinski in prison, and sent
Krzyzanowski to Siberia. The Polish revolution broke
out in 1830, November 29th. Flying with the Russian
army from Poland, Constantine, cruel to the last, caused
the unfortunate Lukasinski to be chained to a cannon
and dragged with the flying troops.
There is but little doubt that the iron entered deeply
into the soul of the brilliant and enthusiastic boy at the
epoch of the mortifying scene above described. The
struggle must have been terrible in the heart of this
devoted son, this enthusiastic patriot. It was probably
at that time he made the double resolve which filled his
entire life with conflict. He piously determined to do
all in his power to contribute to the happiness of the
father who idolized him, never to desert him, and yet to
make his whole life a silent expiation for the crime of that
father ; to live only for the moral elevation of the wronged
country ; to devote all his powers to her resurrection ;
never to yield to the seductions of ambition ; never to
permit himself to wear the laurel crown with which his
unhappy country would so gladly have wreathed his brow
of genius. Is there in the whole range of literature a cry
more full of heart-rending pathos to be found than in the
sole allusion he ever suffered himself to make to his father,
in the appeal to his country, found on the last page of his
weird tale, "Temptation"?
From the time he quitted the university, his life was
but an unbroken chain of wanderings in search of health.
Always delicate, the shock he iiad received told sadly
upon him, and, as he grew older, his sufferings assumed
many depressing and severe forms. Henceforth the
reader must expect little but dates, reading the history of
his mind and soul in the original works marking the
times and places of his pilgrimage.
On quitting the university, he went first to Geneva,
where he wrote for the journals ; among such articles,
were some written in French for the "Revue Encyclo-
pedique. " Falling ill, his physician advised him to seek
BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
2X
a milder climate, and he spent the winter in Italy. Re-
turning again to Switzerland, he met there with Mickie-
wicz, and they made together the tour of that romantic
country. The daily association with that far-famed poet
kindled the slumbering sparks of creative genius in the
soul of Sigismund.
The close of the year 1830 found him in Italy, where
he received the distressing intelligence of the disastrous
events occurring in Warsaw. They made a profound
impression on the enthusiastic and patriotic young Pole,
but he was thoroughly unable to follow the dictates of his
heart. His moral strength would have been sufficient to
have supported him through the conflict then so wildly
raging in his breast, but he was forced to succumb to
physical weakness : the consequent struggle brought upon
him an illness which chained him to his bed during a
whole year. He has often declared that this was the
most painful period of his existence, and a state of bodily
suffering began in it which was to last as long as life
endured.
At the urgent request of his father he returned to War-
saw in 1832. Thence he went to St. Petersburg, where the
Emperor offered him such position in the service of the
state as he should deem most congenial with his tastes
and wishes. He, however, begged permission to con-
tinue his travels, and as the court physician declared the
severity of the climate would prove disastrous to health
so delicate, and his eyesight grew every day weaker and
weaker, it was decided that he should at once repair to
one of the foreign watering-places. His stay in St. Peters-
burg having lasted all winter, gave him an opportunity
to become thoroughly acquainted with Count Branicki,
in whose house he first saw the maiden whom Heaven had
destined to be the partner of his life.
It was about this date that Priessnitz, of water-cure
fame, began to be celebrated, and Sigismund, with other
Poles, hastened to Grafenberg to try that mode of cure.
He found it, to a limited extent, beneficial, and it enabled
him to pass the winters of 1833 and 1834 with some degree
of comfort in Vienna. It was then and there he wrote
the tale "Agai-Chan," in which there is a sketch of the
3
22 BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
usurper Dimitri, as well as "Maryna," a tale which he
afterwards discarded as unsatisfactory.
The terrible disasters which had convulsed his native
land in 1831 awakened in him the deepest sympathy,
the most concentrated reflection. He gave words to
the thoughts and feelings thus suggested in a marvelous
drama, '*The Undivine Comedy," the second part of
which was written in Vienna, and in which he evinced not
only the clearest insight into the perplexed Present, but
even tore the blinding veil from the distant Future.
The year 1838 he spent in Italy, where, surrounded by
the immortal memories of Rome, he wrote his "Iridion,"
a work which entitled him to a high rank in the literary
world. He also visited Warsaw in 1838, but was not able
to remain there for any length of time, for, though a true
Pole, he could not bear the rigor of his native air; after
a short stay in Karlsbad and Teplitz, he returned to Italy,
meeting and associating with many of his beloved com-
patriots in Rome and Naples.
In 1842, Count Branicki, with his three accomplished
daughters, visited Rome. It had long been the wish of
Count Vincent Krasinski that his son should seek his life-
companion in this family; that wish was now fulfilled.
Sigismund sued for the hand of Elizabeth Branicka, cele-
brated his betrothal, and was married at Dresden. The
blessing of the Church gave him a wife richly gifted in
body and soul, of an amiable temper, and possessing that
ready conception of the sublime and beautiful so calcu-
lated to throw over the life of the poet the atmosphere
necessary for full poetical development. The young
couple spent the first two years of their married life in the
land of their fathers, not indeed wholly untroubled, but
far from the vexatious turmoil of the world. The malady
of his eyes, as well as his general ill health, held him aloof
from society, limiting his intercourse to a few trusted
friends, among whom was Amilie Zaluska, who had grown
up with him, and whom he loved as a sister. His first
son, Ladislaus, was born in 1844. He would gladly have
continued to reside in his native land, but as this could
not be without the most injurious influence upon his
health, he was forced to resume his wanderings, tarrying
BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI. 23
for some time in Nice. The frightful occurrences of
which Galicia was the theatre, in 1846, affected him most
painfully. When referring to an opinion regarding these
circumstances expressed by him at a much earlier date,
he passionately exclaimed: "Ah! why was I not a false
prophet? " and almost cursed the exactness of his pro-
phetic vision. These startling events gave rise to a
discussion with the fiery poet, Julius Slowacki. This
discussion awakened intense interest, and will ever re-
main a most valuable exposition of the political opinions
of the times ; it also placed in the strongest light the an-
tagonistic genius of the two poets.
Toward the end of the year 1847, ^"<^ about a year after
the birth of his second son, Sigismund returned to Rome,
and was consequently an eye-witness of the political
scenes occurring during 1848 in the capital of the world.
His religious feelings were always deep, and it was most
natural that during his sojourn in Rome, a man of his char-
acter and antecedents should become through conviction
an ardent champion of the Catholic Church. In June,
1848, he returned to Heidelberg, whence he paid a short
visit to France, then convulsed by revolution. After a
trial of sea-bathing, he remained some time in Baden,
where, in spite of severe physical suffering, he labored upon
the first and third divisions of " The Undivine Comedy,"
of which, as already stated, he had finished the second
part in Vienna. It was his custom while thus occupied
to have his wife seated at the piano, that he might hear
her play the melodies he loved. When Baden was also
drawn into the whirlpool of the revolution, he went to
Berne, in which place he was utterly prostrated by sick-
ness. When just beginning to recover, he received a com-
mand from the Government to return immediately home.
He obeyed the summons, and suffered the necessary re-
sults. He spent that winter in Warsaw, but in consequence
of the disastrous effects of the rigor of the climate upon
his delicate organization, he was threatened with total
loss of eyesight. With great difficulty he obtained from
Russia permission again to leave Poland. He tried sea-
bathing at Triport, which, instead of mitigating, greatly
increased his maladies. He was allowed to select Heidel-
24
BIOGRAPHY OF KRA^ilNSKI.
berg as his residence for the winter, where his wife soon
joined him. The disease of his eyes had so increased as
to incapacitate him for all literary labor. The following
summer he spent at Baden ; the following winter in Rome.
He took great interest in the excavations and disinter-
ments then being made in the Appian Way, finding in
them the subject of a masterly poem dedicated to his wife,
which has never as yet been published. He went also
again to Naples, and was a frequent guest in the Palace
of the Grand Duchess, Stephanie von Baden, who took
as great pleasure in the society of the Polish poet as she
had already taken in the perusal of such of his works as
she could obtain in French. He then went to the Rhine,
but was ordered by the Government to return to Poland,
where he arrived with his family late in the autumn of
1852, and remained there until the close of the next
summer. But as his residence in that climate would have
been certain death to him, he again applied for permission
to go abroad. Having obtained it, he went to Boppard,
on the Rhine, to try for the second time the water-cure,
but he derived no benefit therefrom. His sons remained
in Warsaw with their grandfather, while he, tortured by
continual suffering, remained upon the Rhine. His wife,
after having given birth to a daughter, followed him to
Heidelberg, — the only place abroad in which the Russian
Government would allow him to remain for any length of
time. Dreadfully emaciated, he had become so weak
that, with tottering steps, he was only able to walk for a
few moments during the day under the shadow of the trees
in front of his dwelling, and could only Avrite with his
pencil. In this pitiable condition, the command was
again issued for his immediate return to Poland ! His wife
instantly returned to Warsaw, to endeavor to have the
order canceled. After the most untiring efforts she ob-
tained its recall, but with the express understanding that
permission to rejnain ah'oad was granted for the last time.
Return was certain death, but as Russia knouts her own
poets, she could scarcely be expected to attach any im-
portance to the prolongation of the life of the noble Pole.
The death of the stern Nicholas, in 1855, so for allevi-
ated the position of Krasinski that his residence abroad was
BIOGRAPHY OF KR AS IN SKI.
25
no longer bound by conditions so rigorous. The nomi-
nation of his father as Governor of Poland gratified him
exceedingly, so much the more as the appointment was
received with general satisfaction by his countrymen.
He tried the water-cure again at Kissingen in 1856, but
he remained so ill and debilitated that during a period of
ten months he was only able to move about by the aid of
crutches. He spent the following winter in Paris, and
was advised by his attending physician there to try sea-
bathing the ensuing summer.
But a heavy misfortune now fell upon him. Through
the failure of the house Thurneissen, he lost not only a
considerable portion of his own, but nearly the whole of
his wife's property.
As the old general greatly longed to see his son and
grandchildren once more around him, Sigismund deter-
mined to gratify the wishes of his father, although he was
well aware that such a journey in his state of health would
prove highly injurious to him. A new and deeper sorrow
awaited him on his return to his native land : the death
of his idolized daughter, Elizabeth. Utterly prostrated,
he hastened to Heidelberg, to place himself under the
advice of Dr. Chelius. He spent the remainder of that
winter tortured by perpetual cramps and spasms. He also
lost his beloved friend, Ary Scheffer. Dr. Walther, of
Dresden, pronounced his lungs affected, and advised him
to try Plombieres, from which trial, however, he derived
no benefit. He also tried the springs at Ems, but with
no better effect. He then returned to Dresden, to place
himself under the immediate care of Dr. Walther: useless
efforts ! The skillful physician saw at once the rapid
ravages of the deadly disease, and could only advise Italy
or Algiers. Krasinski, not satisfied with the advice of one
physician, went to Dr. Louis, in Paris, for additional con-
sultation, but, too timid to tell him the whole truth, that
physician gave him so much encouragement that he re-
soved to remain in that city. A new method of medical
treatment was essayed, but at its very commencement his
heart was again wrung by severe affliction. A telegraphic
dispatch announced that his father was lying at the point
of death. In consequence of his utter exhaustion, he was
3*
26 BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
unable to hasten to the dying bed, and was forced to
commit this tender duty to his wife, who fulfilled it so
efficiently that she arrrived in time to close the dying eyes
of Count Vincent Krasinski. The news of this death fear-
fully shattered the sinking frame of Sigismund ; he with-
drew from society, and was scarcely to be seen even by
his most intimate friends. He tried to soothe his aching
heart by preparing a sketch of his father's life for the
Italian sculptor who was to execute the monument of
General Krasinski, but was only able to bring it down to
1827.
Meanwhile, he was constantly urged by his friends,
who saw how rapidly he was declining, to seek a milder
clime; but he would not listen to their entreaties, and
remained in Paris. He watched the course of political
events with intense interest, and his soul was filled with
divinations of important and widely-spread changes yet
to be. His illness now suddenly assuiped a form so
marked that he at last became alarmed, and recalled to
Paris his wife, who, at his request, had remained in War-
saw to attend to the inheritance left him by his father. His
three physicians agreed in the opinion that his days were
numbered, and his wife saw on her return that there was
no hope for the husband so dearly loved.
The seal of death was indeed already upon him, and,
after a painful struggle, lasting through ten entire days,
his pure and immortal soul left his racked and suffering
body during the night of the 23d to the 24th of Febru-
ary, 1859.
The coffin containing his mortal remains was placed
temporarily in the Church of the Madeleine ; but later,
accompanied by Count Zamoyiski, it was taken to Po-
land, and at Opingora, the ancestral seat of the Kra-
sinskis, his body found its final resting-place, surrounded
by illustrious ancestors.
And this is all our author, who evidently loved the
subject of his biography, ventures to tell us of the inter-
nal life of the man, of the exhausting conflict between
filial veneration and duty and intense and glowing
patriotism, forever surging through the soul of the
sublime Poet.
BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
27
After a judicious analysis of the works of Krasinski,
which we omit because the subject is more widely treated
by the older and younger Mickiewicz, as well as by
Julian Klaczko, our biographer continues:
A fragment only has as yet appeared of an apparently
large work, entitled "Cracow in 1858," which seems to
be written in the style peculiar to this poet. A volume
of extracts from his letters has also been published in
Paris, under the supervision of one of his dearest friends,
Constantine Gaszynski, under whose name Krasinski pub-
lished "The Dawn. "
Poland venerates in him the distinguished author, the
inspired poet, the sublime spirit, the brave man who
knew how to sustain hope in adversity, and to quicken
with new powers the sinking soul.
The effort of his life
was to attain moral perfection in his own being. But he
rested not in this alone ; he strove, even through his
own constant sickness and sorrow, to call it forth not
only in individuals, but to make it the life-pulse of his en-
tire nation / The character of his works, and their mar-
velous influence upon his countrymen, have justly entitled
him to the rank of a truly National Poet. Every chord
which as an individual he struck upon his lyre rang in
harmony with the desires, feelings, thoughts, and hopes
of the Polish People. There certainly have been men on
earth who could absorb into their own wider and deeper
being all the thoughts, feelings, and hopes of their coun-
try ; who were capable of fusing them in the glow of
their own genius, and of bringing them forth in the clear
light and close unity of art. Undoubtedly Krasinski
takes a high, if not indeed the very highest, place among
such rare national creators. Continually crushed under
the weight of severe bodily afflictions, deeply wounded
in heart, he took into his inmost soul the sad history of
his People ; he felt it as his own anguish, and placed it
as his peculiar seal upon everything he has written. Sin-
cerity, truth, glow of sympathy, knowledge, nay, clear
prophetic insight, were the strong rounds of the ladder
by which he ascended to such glittering heights. Wher-
ever his people still breathed, not yet crushed to dust
under the merciless foot of the spoiler, there the Poet,
28 BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
raising his own sorrow-crowned head above the miseries
of Time, gazed with the holy trust of the martyr far into
the heavens, and " there saw God," divining with sacred
pride and joy that Future which the Polish people see
clearly revealed to them through their present agonies,
and which their poets, in spite of chains, prisons, tor-
ture, and exile, never cease to sing to them. In the vast
world of thought and the wide regions of poetry there
were no limits for Krasinski, and he reveled in that
mystic freedom of art which was alike denied to himself
and country in the sphere of politics. But no impurity
ever sullies his noble pages, and what he wrote on politi-
cal regeneration is already graven on the heart of the
world.
And yet he never once stooped to win popular ap-
plause. Compared with the contemporary writers of
Poland, he is especially distinguished by a nature not
objectively, but essentially and spiritually poetic, which
is stamped deeply upon all his writings. But his peculiar
traits are not to be found in the rich gifts of an excitable
fancy, wealth of imagery, charms of vivid description, or
luxury of ever-varying combinations. They are to be
looked for in a higher region, — in a love for justice, and
a clear and far-reaching insight into truth, into its devel-
opment in things yet to be, a power of so distinctly
portraying the future that one is strongly disposed to
characterize his works as "Apocalyptic. "
Known until now only as the "Anonymous Poet," he
never sought literary fame, but concealed the good he
was effecting as sedulously as others conceal shame. En-
joying the love and esteem of his countrymen, blessed
with a wife as high-souled as beautiful, and lovely chil-
dren, surrounded by many and true friends, and in the
possession of large property, he might have been re-
garded as one highly favored by destiny. But health,
that most inestimable of blessings, was denied him from
youth until his last sigh ; and his heart was wrung by
never-uttered sorrows. He was thus no friend to idle
and useless amusements, and was seldom seen in the
saloons of the gay world ; but he loved social inter-
course with the friends whom he trusted, and it always
BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
29
gave him pleasure to converse upon the historical and
philosophical questions of the day. Then would he open
a mine of intellectual wealth, of original and striking
views, of profound ideas, which, under more favorable
circumstances, would have made him at least the equal of
the statesmen of his time.
Devout in the very depths of his soul, he shrank from
no sacrifice for his family or friends, and was generous
and magnanimous almost to prodigality. His own words,
uttered in defense of the spirit of knighthood, are won-
derfully appropriate to himself:
" He burned, a never-consumed offering, upon the altar of his counti-y. "
PREFACE.
TRANSLATED FROM LADISLAS MICKIEWICZ, SON OF ADAM
MICKIEWICZ, THE GREAT POLISH POET.
Extracted from the French Edition of the Works of Krasiitski.
Polish Poetry, in the nineteenth century, stands in
striking contrast with contemporary literature. While
the latter has fallen under the corrupting influence of the
schools, has proclaimed art/or the sake of art, and volun-
tarily restricted its empire to the mysteries of the worship
of the Muses, the former has pursued another path, and
Poetry has remained in Poland, what it ought ever to be
in the heart of a great people, the vigorous and spon-
taneous expression of the feelings and thoughts which
constitute the spirit of the nation. From this common
fund have the poets, or, to use their own language, the
"prophets" of Poland, drawn all their inspiration; and
prophets they really are, for like tongues of fire they were
given to their people to express all their hopes and all
their agonies.
They cling to a firm belief in the Resurrection of their
Country, but no more than the patriotic feeling which en-
genders it is this faith confined to themselves, for however
irreconcilable it may seem with the actual fate of Poland,
it is, nevertheless, found in all Polish souls impressed by
an internal conviction far more powerful than the external
evidence of the moment.
Is it not indeed truly surprising to see this People, which,
in the day of its greatest prosperity, and two centuries
before its fall, had the fatal foreknowledge of that fall,
3'
32
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.
affirm with the same certainty, now when its ruin is con-
summated, its approaching resurrection? In this faith,
opposed to nature and fact, is there not something re-
sembling a pledge from Providence, something like a
sacred promise made to the oppressed ? At least the poets
have so understood it, and, confiding in this intuition,
they have, in the absence of a terrestrial country, created
an ideal one, the admission into which is only to be won
by devotion and virtue.
" To be a Pole
Is to have noble aspirations and a flame divine. "
Thus the aim of the Polish poets was essentially national,
but it would be a great error to deduce from this that the
absorption of the genius of Poland in the sad mysteries
of its own existence ever rendered it a stranger to the
thoughts and interests of the West. So entirely would
such a deduction be contrary to fact, that it is precisely
through the intuitions of her poetical genius that the
close union of the West and Poland — perhaps indeed the
dependence of their mutual destiny — is most clearly
revealed, the moral and intellectual life which animates
both springing from the same sources, and the whole
social organism being governed by the same necessities.
The works of the Anonymous Poet bear the frequent stamp
of this truth. They are full of important lessons even for
the most prosperous peoples. We have placed ourselves
in this double point of view in publishing these transla-
tions. The alliance between France and Poland, con-
secrated by blood, will be cemented by related ideas.
We hope it will be fertile, for to it we owe that system of
international justice, acknowledged by France, which is
summed up in the principle of the nationalities. It is
impossible to deny that the initiative in this movement
belongs to the reclamations of Poland. However warped
this principle may have been in Germany or elsewhere, it
cannot be gainsaid that it constitutes a moral progress
which will benefit all Europe.
It may be reserved for the history of Poland under her
present circumstances to introduce another motive-power,
as yet too little heeded \\\ public life, the principle of Duty
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.
Zl
as tlie *' primum mobile" of the State and of the citizen.
Is not her martyrdom truly a constant appeal to the self-
sacrifice of her sons, and to the fraternity of nations ?
That the nationalities are really collective individuals,
that each one has its part to play in the destiny of this
world, and that the lesson to be taught by Poland is the
guidance of governments by principles of abstract justice
and duty, are favorite themes with the Anonymous Poet.
He regards a nation as an entity differing from a merely
politically constituted State ; the one being merely a human,
the other a divine idea founded in the very nature of
things. It is the duty of nations to translate the designs
of God into the world of fact ; to incarnate them, to
make them useful to the entire humanity. Such should
be their aim and the purpose of their existence. Should
they fail to fulfill their mission, should they betray it, they
must perish as nations ; but if they struggle for the truth,
material. force alone will not be able to repress their de-
velopment ; their spirit must at last prevail, and they will
rise into a higher life.
From this theory springs a system of political morals,
not different from individual morality, nor parallel with
it, but the same elevated to a higlier degree. Applying
these conclusions to the situation forced upon his coun-
try, the Poet teaches her that hate is death to the spirit,
and always strikes it with im])otence.
To struggle without relaxation is an absolute necessity,
and he desires and urges it ; but let it be a constant com-
bat of good against evil, of light with darkness ; let the
love of God and man guide and support it, for such love
is the pledge of victory ! Without an ardent desire that
equal justice may be meted out to all, without Christian
forgiveness and moral superiority, he sees only cham-
pions of passion, or base gladiators in the wide arena.
The future of Poland looms magnificently before him ;
she is to resume her existence in the reconciliation of ex-
tremes and antagonisms, in a reign of peace and happi-
ness. He has no doubt of the progress of humanity, but
he assigns, as its absolute condition, the reparation of
one of the greatest crimes committed since the Death on
Calvary, — the assassination of a Nation, the violent sup-
4
34
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.
pression by man of a thought of God ! He predicts a
glorious resurrection to Poland, if she will faithfully guard
the principle of life implanted in her, if, surrounded by
hate, she can preserve herself from a moral fall.
Such are the ideas which have presided over the crea-
tion of all his works, and which he has interpreted with
unequaled splendor. He endeavored to present his
thought under two aspects: — the sterility of hate, dem-
onstrated in *'Iridion" and "The Undivine Comedy;"
and the fertility of love, as illustrated in "The Dawn"
and "The Psalms of the Future. "
We will attempt to give a rapid analysis of these poems.
Iridion is a type of the man of antiquity in deadly
combat with Fate. The descendant of an illustrious
family, which had fought to the last for the independ-
ence of Greece, he only lived to pursue victorious Rome
with the implacable enmity which had been enjoined
upon him by his ancestors. To aid him in the superhu-
man task to which he had been consecrated from infancy,
the intense hate of several generations had been occupied
in gathering mighty resources for the hour of struggle.
Wealth, influence, rank, relations with the barbarians,
alliances with their leaders, etc. , had all been skillfully
prepared. He, in his own person, seemed created for
such a role. To great vigor, manly beauty, and the en-
trancing fascination of a demigod, he joined the inexora-
ble heart of a hero. He knew neither pity nor weakness.
He had left room in his soul for only one thought, one
desire, — the destruction of Rome. Whatever this one
passionate thought could conceive, he executed without
recoiling from any sacrifice. On the other hand, the
Eternal City, under the rule of Heliogabalus, was but a
corpse, crushing with its inert weight all who sought to
live. All was peril without and confusion within ; soci-
ety was crumbling into ashes, and there was nothing to
sustain it save the imperial power, formidable for all who
feared it, but weak for those who defied it. Iridion
found everywhere fit instruments of vengeance ; he op-
pressed with the oppressors, and conspired with the
conspirators. His indomitable energy urged on the
conspiring and antagonistic elements to a gigantic and
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION. 3-
decisive struggle, which he intended should terminate in
their mutual destruction.
A single force refused to be made use of to serve the
hatred of Greece: the persecuted Christianity, which re-
pelled all violence, and placed its sole hope in spiritual
arms. Astonished at a resistance which he could not
understand, he at first sought to subdue it, but, growing
irritated, he moved too rapidly, and precipitated events.
The outbreak took place, but brought not the anticipated
results. Uniting in the name of their resentments, men
often move together in the path of their own interests.
Hatred, the savage sentiment of individual egotism,
although it may be strong enough to unite men in a
common action, is not sufficiently powerful when it be-
comes necessary to exact obedience from them ! Helio-
gabalus perished, but Rome endured. The efforts of the
heroic leader, aided by many chances of exceptional
success, miserably failed, because the whole enterprise
was vitiated by the very idea which inspired it !
The tendency of the poem is still more fully unveiled
in the epilogue. Introducing the supernatural into the
web of the plot, the Poet transports Iridion into our own
epoch, and shows him that very Rome which had op-
pressed others, itself destroyed and degraded, — fallen as
low as even his hate had dreamed it. But these black
ruins do not glorify vengeance, for above them rises the
Cross, the emblem of those Christians who had re-
nounced the transitory supremacy of power to establish
a reign of faith, charity, and forgiveness.
And this Cross, which here appears as the synthesis of
the Past, the Poet will once more bring before our eyes
in glory, as the supreme hope of the world of the
Present ! It will shine from the skies in sign of pardon
and alliance, and, in seeing it, the guilty conqueror will
say, "GaliL/EE, vicisti! " and will be engulfed in his
own nothingness! Such is the denouement of "The
Undivine Comedy," in which the glowing imagination
of the Anonymous Poet has traced the struggle which
is to precede that apocalyptic day.
Humanity, in "The Undivine Comedy," Is severed
into two camps, under the leadership of two chiefs,
36 PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDFTION.
Count Henry and Pancras. Irreconcilable enemies, both
having issued from a like critical spirit, the one repels
the Future, the other the Past. This absolute exclusion
is on both sides the fruit of an utter want of faith. Pan-
cras is the personification of human reason, which deifies
itself in its own essence, and believes only in finite calcu-
lation, — in action as the result of the power of numbers.
Count Henry also personifies human reason, which glori-
fies itself, in his case, in his own individuality, denying
all general laws, and, as a rule of conduct, bowing only
to his individual fancies. If he believes in the cause
which he defends, it is because he believes in himself,
and when he is defeated, he despairs and rushes into sui-
cide. He kills himself at the very moment that the God
of Life has chosen to reveal Himself in the most striking
manner to the conscience of the Peoples !
A feeling of astonishment is at first created by the fact
that our author gives the victory to Pancras, the cynic
and scorner, the unyielding antagonist of the truth whose
triumph is announced. But this victory was necessary to
demonstrate that in any struggle undertaken only with
the arms of hate, the advantage is always assured to blind
force. A still deeper design is also manifest. The de-
feat of Pancras by Count Henry would have only resulted
in the glorification of the genius of man ; and the inter-
vention of the divine symbol, instead of originating an
instantaneous reaction, would but have strengthened the
pride of Count Henry, in such case, invincible. Now
neither pride, nor genius, are the supreme arbiters of
human destinies ! The onward path which in their free
progress leads men to good, is the Good itself, and it
alone, in which, according to the noble words of the
Poet, all wisdom is contained ! Upon the perfecting of
virtue and on its reign depend our salvation in this world
and in the next. Triple and one, identical in its terms
which cannot be separated, cause, means, and effect, that
good is origin and life, divine order and immortality, for
it is the universal bond which links the Spirit of every
being to the Spirit of God. It proceeds in its manifesta-
tions by order, harmony, love, and union, and is the woof
in the work of the universe which, in the divine loom.
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.
37
supports and unites the infinite threads of Creation : —
threads which all move under its direction, and weft, to
which every human effort must be attached, if fertile or
imperishable results are to be evolved. Whosoever works
otherwise, builds upon the sands; striving to annul the
labors of the centuries, he can found nothing true, real,
or absolute ; the lightest wind will sweep away the build-
ing reared by his ignorance and presumption.
All the generous ardor with which such convictions in-
spired our Poet, he wrought into the service of his cause
in "The Psalms of the Future. " Sublime Pleader! His
nation in its agony was then ready to rush into measures
of extremity, but, braving unpopularity, he started up at
once to the defense of practical good sense and chivalric
honor, against the madness of despair.
In 1846, Galicia was mined with conspiracies, all of
which had adopted the national flag as their symbol of
order and rallying sign. Nevertheless, for some of the
affiliated, this flag was to bear in its folds, not only the
independence of their country, but also a violent and
radical transformation of society. These radicals, while
holding up the foreign usurpers to the indignation of the
people, also doomed the higher classes of the Polish na-
tion as accomplices in an oppression from which they,
however, had been the first to suffer. The Government
of M. de Metternich, though fully informed with regard
to the insurrection, left free course to the democratic and
socialistic propaganda, certain in advance that when the
revolution did break out, it would fall exhausted by mutual
destruction before reaching the Government, and that in a
soil so torn and uprooted by internal convulsions, it would
be easy to build a firmer foundation for Austrian power.
The Anonymous Poet understood the danger, and di-
vined the calculation of the Austrian Government ; he
endeavored to avoid the peril, and disappoint Austria;
and to effect this, he used the arms which his own genius
placed in his hands, — that mastery of poetic form which
stamped his words with so much authority ! He wrote
the Psalms of Faith, of Hope, and of Love, and in them
he made eloquent appeals to the heart, as well as to the
political acumen of his fellow-citizens. He demonstrated
38 PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.
all that was false in their ideas, all that was culpable in
their contemplated acts, dissuading them from their de-
signs ; and then, rising to a majestic grandeur of concep-
tion, he opened before them paths which would inevitably
lead them to realize the highest ideal upon earth.
But the passions of men were already unloosed, and
nothing could arrest them. They found even an apologist
in a man of genius and a rival of our Poet, who replied
to him in poetic tones — a mingling of biblical prophecy
and zealous polemics — " that all jjrogress must be bought
by blood, and that God renewed the face of humanity as
He did that of the earth, by a series of deluges ! " The
contest of the two poets retains its celebrity among the
literary glories of Poland, and we will find its last echo
in the final scene of "The Fragment," which was not
published until after the death of the author.
The contest was still in progress, when the events them-
selves assumed the reply. Truly it was not Poland, but
the all-powerful administration of M. Bach, which rose
from the massacres in Galicia ! Austrian domination
triumphed materially and morally over its opponents, and
seemed to realize the conditions which render a victory
final. The ideas of the Anonymous Poet, slighted at a
time when they would have insured success, were now
confirmed in every conscience as a reproach or a regret.
But the utter discouragement which pervaded all minds,
joined to the conviction that repentance came too late,
struck such regret with sterility. Alas ! hours of like
prostration occur in the history of most nations ; hours
of gloom and despair, when all that is still living lives
only in the feeling of impotence and utter nothingness!
Such terrible trials are inevitable in the course of time ; —
probations which decide upon the life or death of a people,
as it shall triumph over its despair or abandon itself to
torpor ! . . . , The Anonymous Poet, always in the
breach, felt it now his duty to react against this dis-
couragement, and to use the moral authority he had
gained through such tragical occurrences to waken the
dormant energies of his comjiatriots. Under this con-
viction, he published the "Psalms of Grief and of Good
Will," in which, through his ideal, he re{i|vns to hope,
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.
39
— hope for Poland, whose immortality he never ceases to
proclaim !
Especially is the last Psalm remarkable for its boldness
of conception. In the very moment in which accumu-
lated disasters bore his country to the earth, and the
wretchedness of slavery consumed it like a leprosy, not
suffering himself to be shaken by its apparent decomposi-
tion and death, and looking far into the future, he points
out how everything is preparing for and aiding in the
Advent of Eternal Justice.
Addressing himself to God, he thanks Him for all the
benefits He had never ceased to bestow on Poland, and
blessing His all-powerful Hand, he exclaims: "It is not
Hope which we beseech from Thee, O Lord ! it falls upon
us like a rain of flowers, — nor is it the destruction of our
enemies: their doom is written on to-morrow's cloud !
It is not to break the gates of our grave : they are already
broken, O our God 1 Nor is it arms for the combat :
they are already speeding on the tempests' wings ! Nor is
it succor: Thou hast already oped for us the field of ac-
tion, but in the midst of this explosion* of dire events,
we pray Thee, Lord, to purify our hearts! Give us the
gift of gifts : the Holy Will which opens every grave! "
A faith so vast, so limitless, almost defying Heaven to
disappoint it, could not be without influence over other
souls. It ought to have elevated and inspired them, — and
so indeed it really did. Therefore the Psalms are not
regarded merely as a literary fad, but as a political event,
which has its place marked in the National History.
The Dawn was written several years before the Psalms.
It is composed of a succession of lyrical pieces, in which
we seethe constant development of the political and hu-
manitarian ideal which had become, as it were, a religion
to the Poet. This poem shadows forth the earth restored
to the rule of harmony, which is itseternal law, and, after
its deluge of blood and crime, blossoming anew under
the eye of God.
All the works of the Anonymous Poet are written in the
spirit we have essayed to portray in this succinct analysis.
He devoted himself to the development of these ideas, and
* The Revolution of 1848.
40 PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.
to their introduction into the morals and life of his nation.
The mere singer of the beautiful, the worshiper of the
Muses, is elevated by him into sterner regions ; he uses
the poetic powers to enforce moral convictions, profound
thoughts, and conscientious patriotism. In other circum-
stances, and under another government than that to which
Poland is subjected, he would not have strung the lyre,
but would have mounted the rostrum, and become the
centre of political action. But neither rostrum nor po-
litical life was possible for him upon his native soil.
Through poetry alone could he popularize his conceptions
by preserving their precision in the frame of an exquisite,
imperishable, and easily-retained form : poetry is also the
delight of the nation, whose woes are cradled in its magic,
and whose soul palpitates in its divine accents, its lyric
enchantment. Therefore he bowed his genius to the exac-
tions of rhyme and rhythm. And never had he to com-
plain that he had so done, for not only did he attain the
proposed political aim, but he won a brilliant literary
glory, only surpassed by that of Mickiewicz.
Before closing this preface, one point remains to be
glanced at, which would furnish material for a long devel-
opment, a profound examination. The Anonymous Poet
is ranked in Poland among her Catholic writers. It would
be far more conformable with the truth to say that he pos-
sessed a religious soul, for, with regard to the doctrines
revealed in his works, it is very evident that there are wide
gaps to fill and important theses to be cut off, before it
would be possible reasonably to include them in any de-
fined limits of the dogmas of the Church. At all events,
a commentary would be required to establish their exact
meaning and bearing. But if the judgment of the public
upon this point is erroneous, it is because that public is
more logical than the author himself. Without following
him into his theosophic ideas, obscure even for those ac-
customed to such studies, his readers became imbued with
the moral side of his work, and seized upon its spirit, —
a spirit which was soon to find its final form in Catho-
licity, to which the author definitely returned toward the
close of his life.
This said, let the reader read and judge !
ANALYSIS OF THE UNDIVINE COMEDY.
EXTRACTED FROM " T. ES SLAVES," A COURSE OF LECTURES DELIV-
ERED BEFORE THE COLLEGE OF FRANCE (1842-43), BY THE MOST
RENOWNED MODERN POLISH POET, ADAM MICKIEWICZ.
[In this very remarkable work, by Adam Mickiewicz, written in
French, and which, by some strange oversight, has not yet appeared in
Engh'sh, no less than four lectures are devoted to a criticism upon " The
Undivine (or Infernal) Comedy. " The Essay of Julian Klaczko has
been found so long and exhaustive, that it is the intention of the Trans-
lator to give but a few condensed extracts from the analysis of Mickie-
wicz. The whole course of Lectures is recommended to the reader, as
full of information not elsewhere to be found; and, although in the
latter portion somewhat blemished by the elaboration of certain futile
theories, containing a mine of brilliant, deep, and highly original
thoughts. — Translator. ]
The word "Undivine" is used in preference to "Infernal" (the term
employed in the French translation) as better expressing the relation of
the drama to the " Divine Comedy" of Dante. The word is so appro-
priate that its coinage may be pardoned. — Editor.
It is my intention now to place before you the analysis
of a very remarkable work which appeared in 1834, en-
titled "The Undivine or Infernal Comedy. "
I will not call this work a fantastic Drama, although it
is now customary to give this name to all compositions
in which the characters and scenes are not immediately
derived from the world of prosaic reality. Utility and
Reality are indeed the boast of our century; but what
can be more variable, more contingent, than what we
choose to call solid reality, — that visible and material
world which is ever on the wing, which is always yet to
be, and which has no Present ? It is through the soul
alone that we are able to seize the connections and rela-
41
42
ANALYSIS OF THE UNDIVINE COMEDY.
tions of the visible world ; it alone gives them fixity or
reality ; it alone generates ideas, institutions, litera-
ture, — the only things truly real, the only things which
penetrate the soul, become incorporated with it, and
constitute the living traditions of the human race. Every
work which causes the chords of souls to vibrate, which
generates new views of life, must be considered real;
and foreign writers render but justice to Polish Poetry in
declaring it, so regarded, as very real ; — and there is
nothing more palpitating in its strange actuality than the
work we are now about to consider.
The time, the place, the characters of "The Undivine
Comedy" are all of poetic creation. The scene of the
drama is laid in the future ; and, for the first time in the
history of art, an author has attempted to construct a
prophetic play, — to describe places, introduce persons, re-
count actions which are yet to be. The struggle of the
dying Past with the vigorous but immature Future forms
the groundwork of the drama. The coloring is not local
nor characteristic of any country in particular (though
we recognize it to be Polish by the melancholy contrast
felt rather than seen between the state of the nation and
that of the individuals who compose it), because the
truths to be illustrated are of universal application, and
are evolving their own solution in all parts of the civil-
ized world.
The soul of the hero. Count Henry, is great and vig-
orous ; he is by nature a poet. Belonging to the Future
by the very essence of his being, he becomes disgusted
with the debasing materialism into which its exponents,
the new men, have fallen ; he then loses all hope in the
possible progress of humanity, and is soon presented to
us as the champion of the dying but poetic Past. But in
this he finds no rest, and is involved in perpetual strug-
gles and contradictions. Baffled in a consuming desire
to solve the y)erplexing social and religious problems of
the day by the force of his own intellect ; longing for,
yet despairing of, human progress; discerning the im-
])racticability and chicanery of most of the modern i)lans
for social amelioration ; finding nowhere his ideal ; ^he
determines to throw himself into common life, — to bind
ANALYSIS OF THE UNDIVINE COMEDY.
43
himself to his race by stringent laws and duties. The
drama opens when he is about to contract marriage.
The Angels desire to aid him, to open a way into the
Future for him through the accomplishment of his du-
ties j the Demons tempt him to embrace falsehood.
vast moral power in the force of public opinion. Because
the American mission is the actualization everywhere of
not merely nominal, but real freedom, founded upon jus-
tice and eternal truth. But chiefly it is done in the present
relation, because it is our ardent desire that the Polish poet
should be understood in all his sublime patriotism by
American readers, and to show that his deepest hues are
not so dark as the truth they depict ; because, for full sym-
pathy with his original conceptions, we must recognize his
own sad stand-point, and the melancholy position of the
country he so earnestly loved. For poet and people hold
positions entirely exceptional in the history of the world,
Poles and exiles ! it is with no light feeling of self-
distrust that the daughter of a distant land has ventured
to lay her daring hands upon the master-works of your
poet, patriot, and statesman. She would fain have called
the high poets of her country to the task of transmuting
the thoughts of the Polish Dante into fitting English;
but none seemed ready to begin the work. Wreathing
their lyres with their own immortal flowers, singing their
songs of freedom for the emancipation, cultivation, and
delight of humanity, — some of them perchance momen-
tarily charmed by the mystic might of Russia, — none were
prepared to burn the torch of their own genius to illume
the spiritual and majestic features of your illustrious dead.
Feeble as may be the fire of this torch as now borne,
sway and flicker as it may in the uncertain hands, may its
light yet be strong enough to manifest something of the
2»
14
PREFACE.
valiant "Polish soul" to my countrymen ! Strong enough
to point out to future translators the unexplored treasures
of Polish literature, in order that in more inspired ver-
sions they may yet place "The Undivine Comedy" and
" Iridion" where they deserve to rank, — after Dante and
Shakespeare, among the loftiest creations of human genius.
I know that through the medium of a less impassioned
language, and deprived of their exquisite form and bold
and undulating rhythm, these poems will seem cold and
imperfect in your eyes, but I beg of you to pardon the
deficiencies, because of the difficulty of the task and the
love and reverence which prompt its execution.
Whatever the material, venal, and passing phantoms of
the hour may seem to say, believe not that American
hearts have ceased to beat in unison with yours ! Your
courageous struggles for "a country" maybe still mis-
represented and misunderstood ; the brilliant serf-eman-
cipation in Russia may for a time dazzle us into ignorance
of the atrocious torments to which you are subjected, but
misconception not voluntary cannot long endure, the Sun
of Truth is everywhere rising and everywhere dispersing
the mists of falsehood under its happy light, true republi-
cans will learn that "the path to freedom lies not through
the charnel-house. " Right, not might, is the corner-
stone of God's kingdom upon earth !
Liberty, justice, equality before the law, and self-govern-
ment, are the normal dogmas of our political creed ; to
renounce them were to stultify ourselves. They are corner-
stones in the temple we are building for the refuge of
men; to uproot them were to bring it in ruins about our
own heads.
We know that, tortured and mutilated, Poland still
lives, and that, at every banquet of the " Holy Alliance,"
|ier grand and bloody form rises from her three graves to
appal the three crowned and rival murderers of a nation.
For she is buried, not in the corruption of the grave, but
in thp loyal h|earts of her patriotic and tortured children,
in the living sympathies of all who love virtue, self-sacri-
fice, and heroism, and in the eternal justice of God ; —
therefore is her resurrection certain !
Translator,
BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKL
The following imperfect sketch of the "Anonymous
Poet" is the only account we have been able to find of
him in European literature. It is translated chiefly from
" Unsere Zeit Jahrbuch zum Conversations Lexikon.
No. 5^. 1862. L. A. Brockhaus, Leipzig. "
"The silent organ loudest chants the master's requiem. "
So chants the fact that as yet no details of the life of the
great Pole can appear, because they might compromise
friends once very dear to him, living within reach of the
vengeful arm of Russia. He renounced all fame while
living, ever publishing anonymously, and the manifold
experiences of his internal life, with his numerous his-
torical and political letters, must slumber in the shroud
of silence, until Polish patriotism is no longer crime, and
confiscation and exile cease to be the doom of all con-
nected with those daring enough to defend their native
land.
The reader may, however, round this skeleton biogra-
phy into flesh, by clothing its bones from the veined
tissues he will not fail to find in the nervous pages of
Julian Klaczko.
When Napoleon entered Poland, in 1806, the leader
of the Polish Legions, General Dombrowski, summoned
the fiery patriot, Wybicki, to unite himself with armed
hand to the conqueror of nations ; and as Napoleon
spoke freely of the reconstitution of the country, such
summons fell not upon unheeding ears in Poland. Many
patriots of high distinction offered up property and life
15
l6 BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
in the new-born hopes for fatlierland, and, captivated by
the fallacious promises of Napoleon, hurried to join the
French eagles. Count Vincent Krasinski, then about
twenty-four years of age, a man of great wealth and high
distinction, was one of the first to greet the French Em-
peror on Polish ground, and afterwards accompanied him
in his campaigns as adjutant.
For a time Count Krasinski resided in Paris, in which
city his wife, Maria, a princess of the house of Radziwill,
presented him with a son, born on the 19th of February,
1812, who received in baptism the name of Sigismund
Napoleon. This boy became the "Anonymous Poet of
Poland. "
Bitterly deceived were the high hopes of the Poles.
After the signing of the act of abdication by Napoleon,
April II, 1814, Count Vincent Krasinski, then under
orders from the Czar Alexander, led the unhappy rem-
nants of the Polish legions back from France into
Poland.
His countess soon after joined him there with the
little Sigismund, then about three years old. Upon the
immense estates of his forefathers, under the tender care
of a devoted but very sickly mother, lived for many
happy years the young Sigismund, a dark-eyed boy with
long, fair curls, remarkable from his earliest years for rare
powers of wit and intellect, for rapid and acute answers
to difficult questions, for true and chivalric feeling, for
high-strung and self-sacrificing ardor. His health, how-
ever, was exceedingly delicate. When but five years of
age he was presented to the Czar, an especial friend of
his parents, and recited for him the lines of Voltaire,
"Tu dors, Brute! " meantime fearlessly gazing with
childlike confidence into the keen eyes of the autocrat.
Two years later he was introduced to the Empress, whom
he pleased greatly. She said laughingly to him, "lac-
knowledge you as my knight. Will you accept the ap-
pointment, and defend me against my enemies? " His
answer was as acute as chivalric. "I cannot," he re-
plied ; " your Majesty has no need of defenders, since
you have no enemies. "
He had instructors of great ability, and so rapidly was
BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
17
he advanced in his studies, that he was soon able to enter
the sixth class in the College of Warsaw. Uncommon
powers of intellect, i>nited with a great memory, ardent
and unceasing efforts for thorough mental cultivation,
distinguished him in his intercourse with his fellow-
students. But however rapid his advances, he failed to
satisfy his eager desire for exact and wide learning.
His mother died in 1822, and so bitter was the distress
of his father, that he withdrew himself from all social
intercourse, save that forced upon him by his official po-
sition, and devoted himself exclusively to the advance-
ment of his idolized boy. He followed his mental and
spiritual culture with eyes of constant watchfulness, and,
at an examination to which the savants interested in the
cause of education had been invited, he had the gratifi-
cation of seeing his son, then but twelve years of age,
astonish all present by his accurate knowledge of gram-
mar, literature, geography, and history.
Although Sigismund was too young as yet to take any
part in the meetings and discussions of the learned Poles
so frequently held in the house of his father, they never-
theless exerted great influence over the precocious boy,
and aided in preparing him for the vocation of an
author. His susceptible nature readily seized upon what-
ever appealed to the imagination or soul, and he would
often reproduce his impressions for tlie entertainment
and instruction of his companions. When but fourteen
years of age, he wrote a tale which he caused to be
secretly printed, and then presented to his father, who
approved the gift, but forbade all further essays at that
time, fearing that the facility of composition might lead
his son astray from more severe studies. But the boy
stole from the hours allowed for sleep the time to write
another tale, entitled "The Grave of the Family of
Reichstal. " This was followed by another, "Ladislaus
Hermann and his Court," written in the style of the
novels of Sir Walter Scott, of whose works he was at that
time deeply enamored. Both of these tales were printed
in 1829.
But a dreadful crisis was approaching in the fate of the
dutiful, loving, beloved, and patriotic son. His father
1 8 BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
and his country were to stand in deadly opposition to
each other, and his young dreams of fame to be forever
sacrificed. His life was a long penitential offering to his
incensed country for the faults of his father. He sacri-
ficed all glory to win silence and pardon for the illustrious
offender.
The year 1825 was a memorable one in Russian history,
in consequence of the sudden death of Alexander, and the
outbreak of a wide-spread conspiracy for a constitutional
government in Russia, of which the leaders were Pes-
tel, Orloff, Ryleief, Bestuchef-Rumin, and Kachowski.
During the inquiries instituted at St. Petersburg, it became
evident that there were societies existing in Poland whose
principal object was the restoration of that country to
independence. Uminski, Jablonowski, Soltyk, Kryza-
nowski, Lukasinski, and others, members of one of these
societies, were indicted for high treason. The trial fell
under the jurisdiction of the ancient kingdom of Poland,
whose capital was the city of Warsaw.
The reduced Poland of the Congress of Vienna en-
joyed a nominal constitution, and the Polish Senate was
convoked to preserve, ostensibly at least, a legal form.
Some Senators were then living abroad, as Prince Adam
Czartoryski, but they hastened home to record their pa-
triotic votes. The President of this high tribunal was
elected in the person of the Palatine, Peter Bielinski. The
Commission of Inquiry classed the accused under five
categories, and the Senate was charged to decide on their
fate. It appointed lawyers as counsel for the prisoners ;
the proceedings were public, and lasted a month, when
the court, with the exception of one dissentient voice,
set aside the charge of high treason, and gave tlieir de-
cision : "Not guilty;" a decision based on the- principle
that all Poles naturally desire the independence of their
fatherland. The one dissenting Polish voice was that
of General Count Vincent Krasinski, the father of our
Poet!
The Emperor ordered the judges to be reprimanded, a
thing before unheard of, and consoled himself by con-
fining the accused in the dungeons of St. Petersburg, in
direct violation of the constitution, — and this was one of
BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
19
the grievances subsequently alleged in defense of the
Polish revolution.
The constitutional victory of Poland, so full of pa-
triotic joy, was, however, greatly saddened by the fact
that a patriot so distinguished as Vincent Krasinski
should have voted on the side of the absolute Russian
Government, then represented in Warsaw by the Grand
Duke Constantine, famous for his persecution of all pa-
triotic Poles, as well as of the students of the univer-
sity.
Peter Bielinski, the President of the Senate and Com-
mission of Inquiry, died soon afterward, and, on the day
of his funeral, the fiery fellow-students of young Sigis-
mund Krasinski made a strong demonstration, in the
way of threats and insulting expressions, against the
young man, judging him utterly unworthy of their fel-
lowship, because of the unpatriotic vote rendered by his
father on the trial above mentioned.
An eye-witness, Professor Podbielski, then a fellow-
student of young Sigismund on the benches of the uni-
versity, thus describes the occurrence: "On one of the
subsequent days, after the public lecture to the students
in common of the faculties, I observed quite a commotion
among the young men ; many leaving the hall, rushed to
Krasinski, and as they tore the badges of the university
away from him, I heard them cry : 'You are not worthy
to be our fellow-student, because your father cast his de-
cision against our brothers, our noble patriots ! ' Sigis-
mund, with chivalric and undaunted bearing, though of
exceedingly slight form and delicate and refined ap-
pearance, met them fearlessly, and with true Polish spirit
offered them a sincere pardon for their insults to himself,
so utterly innocent in his own person of all wrong ;
but their leader, young Lubinski, and others, refused to
listen to his manly explanations. I was astonished at pro-
ceedings so unjust, but our Professor, with some friends,
finally interfered; I left the hall, and never again saw
our great Anonymous Poet, our long unknown, pure, and
noble patriot. "
This college occurrence was, without doubt, the origi-
nal of the scene described by "The Young Man" to
ao BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
" Dante" in the first part of " The Unfinished Poem" or
" Fragment. "
Constantine was greatly enraged at the decision of tlie
Polish Senators, tortured Lukasinski in prison, and sent
Krzyzanowski to Siberia. The Polish revolution broke
out in 1830, November 29th. Flying with the Russian
army from Poland, Constantine, cruel to the last, caused
the unfortunate Lukasinski to be chained to a cannon
and dragged with the flying troops.
There is but little doubt that the iron entered deeply
into the soul of the brilliant and enthusiastic boy at the
epoch of the mortifying scene above described. The
struggle must have been terrible in the heart of this
devoted son, this enthusiastic patriot. It was probably
at that time he made the double resolve which filled his
entire life with conflict. He piously determined to do
all in his power to contribute to the happiness of the
father who idolized him, never to desert him, and yet to
make his whole life a silent expiation for the crime of that
father ; to live only for the moral elevation of the wronged
country ; to devote all his powers to her resurrection ;
never to yield to the seductions of ambition ; never to
permit himself to wear the laurel crown with which his
unhappy country would so gladly have wreathed his brow
of genius. Is there in the whole range of literature a cry
more full of heart-rending pathos to be found than in the
sole allusion he ever suffered himself to make to his father,
in the appeal to his country, found on the last page of his
weird tale, "Temptation"?
From the time he quitted the university, his life was
but an unbroken chain of wanderings in search of health.
Always delicate, the shock he iiad received told sadly
upon him, and, as he grew older, his sufferings assumed
many depressing and severe forms. Henceforth the
reader must expect little but dates, reading the history of
his mind and soul in the original works marking the
times and places of his pilgrimage.
On quitting the university, he went first to Geneva,
where he wrote for the journals ; among such articles,
were some written in French for the "Revue Encyclo-
pedique. " Falling ill, his physician advised him to seek
BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
2X
a milder climate, and he spent the winter in Italy. Re-
turning again to Switzerland, he met there with Mickie-
wicz, and they made together the tour of that romantic
country. The daily association with that far-famed poet
kindled the slumbering sparks of creative genius in the
soul of Sigismund.
The close of the year 1830 found him in Italy, where
he received the distressing intelligence of the disastrous
events occurring in Warsaw. They made a profound
impression on the enthusiastic and patriotic young Pole,
but he was thoroughly unable to follow the dictates of his
heart. His moral strength would have been sufficient to
have supported him through the conflict then so wildly
raging in his breast, but he was forced to succumb to
physical weakness : the consequent struggle brought upon
him an illness which chained him to his bed during a
whole year. He has often declared that this was the
most painful period of his existence, and a state of bodily
suffering began in it which was to last as long as life
endured.
At the urgent request of his father he returned to War-
saw in 1832. Thence he went to St. Petersburg, where the
Emperor offered him such position in the service of the
state as he should deem most congenial with his tastes
and wishes. He, however, begged permission to con-
tinue his travels, and as the court physician declared the
severity of the climate would prove disastrous to health
so delicate, and his eyesight grew every day weaker and
weaker, it was decided that he should at once repair to
one of the foreign watering-places. His stay in St. Peters-
burg having lasted all winter, gave him an opportunity
to become thoroughly acquainted with Count Branicki,
in whose house he first saw the maiden whom Heaven had
destined to be the partner of his life.
It was about this date that Priessnitz, of water-cure
fame, began to be celebrated, and Sigismund, with other
Poles, hastened to Grafenberg to try that mode of cure.
He found it, to a limited extent, beneficial, and it enabled
him to pass the winters of 1833 and 1834 with some degree
of comfort in Vienna. It was then and there he wrote
the tale "Agai-Chan," in which there is a sketch of the
3
22 BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
usurper Dimitri, as well as "Maryna," a tale which he
afterwards discarded as unsatisfactory.
The terrible disasters which had convulsed his native
land in 1831 awakened in him the deepest sympathy,
the most concentrated reflection. He gave words to
the thoughts and feelings thus suggested in a marvelous
drama, '*The Undivine Comedy," the second part of
which was written in Vienna, and in which he evinced not
only the clearest insight into the perplexed Present, but
even tore the blinding veil from the distant Future.
The year 1838 he spent in Italy, where, surrounded by
the immortal memories of Rome, he wrote his "Iridion,"
a work which entitled him to a high rank in the literary
world. He also visited Warsaw in 1838, but was not able
to remain there for any length of time, for, though a true
Pole, he could not bear the rigor of his native air; after
a short stay in Karlsbad and Teplitz, he returned to Italy,
meeting and associating with many of his beloved com-
patriots in Rome and Naples.
In 1842, Count Branicki, with his three accomplished
daughters, visited Rome. It had long been the wish of
Count Vincent Krasinski that his son should seek his life-
companion in this family; that wish was now fulfilled.
Sigismund sued for the hand of Elizabeth Branicka, cele-
brated his betrothal, and was married at Dresden. The
blessing of the Church gave him a wife richly gifted in
body and soul, of an amiable temper, and possessing that
ready conception of the sublime and beautiful so calcu-
lated to throw over the life of the poet the atmosphere
necessary for full poetical development. The young
couple spent the first two years of their married life in the
land of their fathers, not indeed wholly untroubled, but
far from the vexatious turmoil of the world. The malady
of his eyes, as well as his general ill health, held him aloof
from society, limiting his intercourse to a few trusted
friends, among whom was Amilie Zaluska, who had grown
up with him, and whom he loved as a sister. His first
son, Ladislaus, was born in 1844. He would gladly have
continued to reside in his native land, but as this could
not be without the most injurious influence upon his
health, he was forced to resume his wanderings, tarrying
BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI. 23
for some time in Nice. The frightful occurrences of
which Galicia was the theatre, in 1846, affected him most
painfully. When referring to an opinion regarding these
circumstances expressed by him at a much earlier date,
he passionately exclaimed: "Ah! why was I not a false
prophet? " and almost cursed the exactness of his pro-
phetic vision. These startling events gave rise to a
discussion with the fiery poet, Julius Slowacki. This
discussion awakened intense interest, and will ever re-
main a most valuable exposition of the political opinions
of the times ; it also placed in the strongest light the an-
tagonistic genius of the two poets.
Toward the end of the year 1847, ^"<^ about a year after
the birth of his second son, Sigismund returned to Rome,
and was consequently an eye-witness of the political
scenes occurring during 1848 in the capital of the world.
His religious feelings were always deep, and it was most
natural that during his sojourn in Rome, a man of his char-
acter and antecedents should become through conviction
an ardent champion of the Catholic Church. In June,
1848, he returned to Heidelberg, whence he paid a short
visit to France, then convulsed by revolution. After a
trial of sea-bathing, he remained some time in Baden,
where, in spite of severe physical suffering, he labored upon
the first and third divisions of " The Undivine Comedy,"
of which, as already stated, he had finished the second
part in Vienna. It was his custom while thus occupied
to have his wife seated at the piano, that he might hear
her play the melodies he loved. When Baden was also
drawn into the whirlpool of the revolution, he went to
Berne, in which place he was utterly prostrated by sick-
ness. When just beginning to recover, he received a com-
mand from the Government to return immediately home.
He obeyed the summons, and suffered the necessary re-
sults. He spent that winter in Warsaw, but in consequence
of the disastrous effects of the rigor of the climate upon
his delicate organization, he was threatened with total
loss of eyesight. With great difficulty he obtained from
Russia permission again to leave Poland. He tried sea-
bathing at Triport, which, instead of mitigating, greatly
increased his maladies. He was allowed to select Heidel-
24
BIOGRAPHY OF KRA^ilNSKI.
berg as his residence for the winter, where his wife soon
joined him. The disease of his eyes had so increased as
to incapacitate him for all literary labor. The following
summer he spent at Baden ; the following winter in Rome.
He took great interest in the excavations and disinter-
ments then being made in the Appian Way, finding in
them the subject of a masterly poem dedicated to his wife,
which has never as yet been published. He went also
again to Naples, and was a frequent guest in the Palace
of the Grand Duchess, Stephanie von Baden, who took
as great pleasure in the society of the Polish poet as she
had already taken in the perusal of such of his works as
she could obtain in French. He then went to the Rhine,
but was ordered by the Government to return to Poland,
where he arrived with his family late in the autumn of
1852, and remained there until the close of the next
summer. But as his residence in that climate would have
been certain death to him, he again applied for permission
to go abroad. Having obtained it, he went to Boppard,
on the Rhine, to try for the second time the water-cure,
but he derived no benefit therefrom. His sons remained
in Warsaw with their grandfather, while he, tortured by
continual suffering, remained upon the Rhine. His wife,
after having given birth to a daughter, followed him to
Heidelberg, — the only place abroad in which the Russian
Government would allow him to remain for any length of
time. Dreadfully emaciated, he had become so weak
that, with tottering steps, he was only able to walk for a
few moments during the day under the shadow of the trees
in front of his dwelling, and could only Avrite with his
pencil. In this pitiable condition, the command was
again issued for his immediate return to Poland ! His wife
instantly returned to Warsaw, to endeavor to have the
order canceled. After the most untiring efforts she ob-
tained its recall, but with the express understanding that
permission to rejnain ah'oad was granted for the last time.
Return was certain death, but as Russia knouts her own
poets, she could scarcely be expected to attach any im-
portance to the prolongation of the life of the noble Pole.
The death of the stern Nicholas, in 1855, so for allevi-
ated the position of Krasinski that his residence abroad was
BIOGRAPHY OF KR AS IN SKI.
25
no longer bound by conditions so rigorous. The nomi-
nation of his father as Governor of Poland gratified him
exceedingly, so much the more as the appointment was
received with general satisfaction by his countrymen.
He tried the water-cure again at Kissingen in 1856, but
he remained so ill and debilitated that during a period of
ten months he was only able to move about by the aid of
crutches. He spent the following winter in Paris, and
was advised by his attending physician there to try sea-
bathing the ensuing summer.
But a heavy misfortune now fell upon him. Through
the failure of the house Thurneissen, he lost not only a
considerable portion of his own, but nearly the whole of
his wife's property.
As the old general greatly longed to see his son and
grandchildren once more around him, Sigismund deter-
mined to gratify the wishes of his father, although he was
well aware that such a journey in his state of health would
prove highly injurious to him. A new and deeper sorrow
awaited him on his return to his native land : the death
of his idolized daughter, Elizabeth. Utterly prostrated,
he hastened to Heidelberg, to place himself under the
advice of Dr. Chelius. He spent the remainder of that
winter tortured by perpetual cramps and spasms. He also
lost his beloved friend, Ary Scheffer. Dr. Walther, of
Dresden, pronounced his lungs affected, and advised him
to try Plombieres, from which trial, however, he derived
no benefit. He also tried the springs at Ems, but with
no better effect. He then returned to Dresden, to place
himself under the immediate care of Dr. Walther: useless
efforts ! The skillful physician saw at once the rapid
ravages of the deadly disease, and could only advise Italy
or Algiers. Krasinski, not satisfied with the advice of one
physician, went to Dr. Louis, in Paris, for additional con-
sultation, but, too timid to tell him the whole truth, that
physician gave him so much encouragement that he re-
soved to remain in that city. A new method of medical
treatment was essayed, but at its very commencement his
heart was again wrung by severe affliction. A telegraphic
dispatch announced that his father was lying at the point
of death. In consequence of his utter exhaustion, he was
3*
26 BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
unable to hasten to the dying bed, and was forced to
commit this tender duty to his wife, who fulfilled it so
efficiently that she arrrived in time to close the dying eyes
of Count Vincent Krasinski. The news of this death fear-
fully shattered the sinking frame of Sigismund ; he with-
drew from society, and was scarcely to be seen even by
his most intimate friends. He tried to soothe his aching
heart by preparing a sketch of his father's life for the
Italian sculptor who was to execute the monument of
General Krasinski, but was only able to bring it down to
1827.
Meanwhile, he was constantly urged by his friends,
who saw how rapidly he was declining, to seek a milder
clime; but he would not listen to their entreaties, and
remained in Paris. He watched the course of political
events with intense interest, and his soul was filled with
divinations of important and widely-spread changes yet
to be. His illness now suddenly assuiped a form so
marked that he at last became alarmed, and recalled to
Paris his wife, who, at his request, had remained in War-
saw to attend to the inheritance left him by his father. His
three physicians agreed in the opinion that his days were
numbered, and his wife saw on her return that there was
no hope for the husband so dearly loved.
The seal of death was indeed already upon him, and,
after a painful struggle, lasting through ten entire days,
his pure and immortal soul left his racked and suffering
body during the night of the 23d to the 24th of Febru-
ary, 1859.
The coffin containing his mortal remains was placed
temporarily in the Church of the Madeleine ; but later,
accompanied by Count Zamoyiski, it was taken to Po-
land, and at Opingora, the ancestral seat of the Kra-
sinskis, his body found its final resting-place, surrounded
by illustrious ancestors.
And this is all our author, who evidently loved the
subject of his biography, ventures to tell us of the inter-
nal life of the man, of the exhausting conflict between
filial veneration and duty and intense and glowing
patriotism, forever surging through the soul of the
sublime Poet.
BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
27
After a judicious analysis of the works of Krasinski,
which we omit because the subject is more widely treated
by the older and younger Mickiewicz, as well as by
Julian Klaczko, our biographer continues:
A fragment only has as yet appeared of an apparently
large work, entitled "Cracow in 1858," which seems to
be written in the style peculiar to this poet. A volume
of extracts from his letters has also been published in
Paris, under the supervision of one of his dearest friends,
Constantine Gaszynski, under whose name Krasinski pub-
lished "The Dawn. "
Poland venerates in him the distinguished author, the
inspired poet, the sublime spirit, the brave man who
knew how to sustain hope in adversity, and to quicken
with new powers the sinking soul.
The effort of his life
was to attain moral perfection in his own being. But he
rested not in this alone ; he strove, even through his
own constant sickness and sorrow, to call it forth not
only in individuals, but to make it the life-pulse of his en-
tire nation / The character of his works, and their mar-
velous influence upon his countrymen, have justly entitled
him to the rank of a truly National Poet. Every chord
which as an individual he struck upon his lyre rang in
harmony with the desires, feelings, thoughts, and hopes
of the Polish People. There certainly have been men on
earth who could absorb into their own wider and deeper
being all the thoughts, feelings, and hopes of their coun-
try ; who were capable of fusing them in the glow of
their own genius, and of bringing them forth in the clear
light and close unity of art. Undoubtedly Krasinski
takes a high, if not indeed the very highest, place among
such rare national creators. Continually crushed under
the weight of severe bodily afflictions, deeply wounded
in heart, he took into his inmost soul the sad history of
his People ; he felt it as his own anguish, and placed it
as his peculiar seal upon everything he has written. Sin-
cerity, truth, glow of sympathy, knowledge, nay, clear
prophetic insight, were the strong rounds of the ladder
by which he ascended to such glittering heights. Wher-
ever his people still breathed, not yet crushed to dust
under the merciless foot of the spoiler, there the Poet,
28 BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
raising his own sorrow-crowned head above the miseries
of Time, gazed with the holy trust of the martyr far into
the heavens, and " there saw God," divining with sacred
pride and joy that Future which the Polish people see
clearly revealed to them through their present agonies,
and which their poets, in spite of chains, prisons, tor-
ture, and exile, never cease to sing to them. In the vast
world of thought and the wide regions of poetry there
were no limits for Krasinski, and he reveled in that
mystic freedom of art which was alike denied to himself
and country in the sphere of politics. But no impurity
ever sullies his noble pages, and what he wrote on politi-
cal regeneration is already graven on the heart of the
world.
And yet he never once stooped to win popular ap-
plause. Compared with the contemporary writers of
Poland, he is especially distinguished by a nature not
objectively, but essentially and spiritually poetic, which
is stamped deeply upon all his writings. But his peculiar
traits are not to be found in the rich gifts of an excitable
fancy, wealth of imagery, charms of vivid description, or
luxury of ever-varying combinations. They are to be
looked for in a higher region, — in a love for justice, and
a clear and far-reaching insight into truth, into its devel-
opment in things yet to be, a power of so distinctly
portraying the future that one is strongly disposed to
characterize his works as "Apocalyptic. "
Known until now only as the "Anonymous Poet," he
never sought literary fame, but concealed the good he
was effecting as sedulously as others conceal shame. En-
joying the love and esteem of his countrymen, blessed
with a wife as high-souled as beautiful, and lovely chil-
dren, surrounded by many and true friends, and in the
possession of large property, he might have been re-
garded as one highly favored by destiny. But health,
that most inestimable of blessings, was denied him from
youth until his last sigh ; and his heart was wrung by
never-uttered sorrows. He was thus no friend to idle
and useless amusements, and was seldom seen in the
saloons of the gay world ; but he loved social inter-
course with the friends whom he trusted, and it always
BIOGRAPHY OF KRASINSKI.
29
gave him pleasure to converse upon the historical and
philosophical questions of the day. Then would he open
a mine of intellectual wealth, of original and striking
views, of profound ideas, which, under more favorable
circumstances, would have made him at least the equal of
the statesmen of his time.
Devout in the very depths of his soul, he shrank from
no sacrifice for his family or friends, and was generous
and magnanimous almost to prodigality. His own words,
uttered in defense of the spirit of knighthood, are won-
derfully appropriate to himself:
" He burned, a never-consumed offering, upon the altar of his counti-y. "
PREFACE.
TRANSLATED FROM LADISLAS MICKIEWICZ, SON OF ADAM
MICKIEWICZ, THE GREAT POLISH POET.
Extracted from the French Edition of the Works of Krasiitski.
Polish Poetry, in the nineteenth century, stands in
striking contrast with contemporary literature. While
the latter has fallen under the corrupting influence of the
schools, has proclaimed art/or the sake of art, and volun-
tarily restricted its empire to the mysteries of the worship
of the Muses, the former has pursued another path, and
Poetry has remained in Poland, what it ought ever to be
in the heart of a great people, the vigorous and spon-
taneous expression of the feelings and thoughts which
constitute the spirit of the nation. From this common
fund have the poets, or, to use their own language, the
"prophets" of Poland, drawn all their inspiration; and
prophets they really are, for like tongues of fire they were
given to their people to express all their hopes and all
their agonies.
They cling to a firm belief in the Resurrection of their
Country, but no more than the patriotic feeling which en-
genders it is this faith confined to themselves, for however
irreconcilable it may seem with the actual fate of Poland,
it is, nevertheless, found in all Polish souls impressed by
an internal conviction far more powerful than the external
evidence of the moment.
Is it not indeed truly surprising to see this People, which,
in the day of its greatest prosperity, and two centuries
before its fall, had the fatal foreknowledge of that fall,
3'
32
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.
affirm with the same certainty, now when its ruin is con-
summated, its approaching resurrection? In this faith,
opposed to nature and fact, is there not something re-
sembling a pledge from Providence, something like a
sacred promise made to the oppressed ? At least the poets
have so understood it, and, confiding in this intuition,
they have, in the absence of a terrestrial country, created
an ideal one, the admission into which is only to be won
by devotion and virtue.
" To be a Pole
Is to have noble aspirations and a flame divine. "
Thus the aim of the Polish poets was essentially national,
but it would be a great error to deduce from this that the
absorption of the genius of Poland in the sad mysteries
of its own existence ever rendered it a stranger to the
thoughts and interests of the West. So entirely would
such a deduction be contrary to fact, that it is precisely
through the intuitions of her poetical genius that the
close union of the West and Poland — perhaps indeed the
dependence of their mutual destiny — is most clearly
revealed, the moral and intellectual life which animates
both springing from the same sources, and the whole
social organism being governed by the same necessities.
The works of the Anonymous Poet bear the frequent stamp
of this truth. They are full of important lessons even for
the most prosperous peoples. We have placed ourselves
in this double point of view in publishing these transla-
tions. The alliance between France and Poland, con-
secrated by blood, will be cemented by related ideas.
We hope it will be fertile, for to it we owe that system of
international justice, acknowledged by France, which is
summed up in the principle of the nationalities. It is
impossible to deny that the initiative in this movement
belongs to the reclamations of Poland. However warped
this principle may have been in Germany or elsewhere, it
cannot be gainsaid that it constitutes a moral progress
which will benefit all Europe.
It may be reserved for the history of Poland under her
present circumstances to introduce another motive-power,
as yet too little heeded \\\ public life, the principle of Duty
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.
Zl
as tlie *' primum mobile" of the State and of the citizen.
Is not her martyrdom truly a constant appeal to the self-
sacrifice of her sons, and to the fraternity of nations ?
That the nationalities are really collective individuals,
that each one has its part to play in the destiny of this
world, and that the lesson to be taught by Poland is the
guidance of governments by principles of abstract justice
and duty, are favorite themes with the Anonymous Poet.
He regards a nation as an entity differing from a merely
politically constituted State ; the one being merely a human,
the other a divine idea founded in the very nature of
things. It is the duty of nations to translate the designs
of God into the world of fact ; to incarnate them, to
make them useful to the entire humanity. Such should
be their aim and the purpose of their existence. Should
they fail to fulfill their mission, should they betray it, they
must perish as nations ; but if they struggle for the truth,
material. force alone will not be able to repress their de-
velopment ; their spirit must at last prevail, and they will
rise into a higher life.
From this theory springs a system of political morals,
not different from individual morality, nor parallel with
it, but the same elevated to a higlier degree. Applying
these conclusions to the situation forced upon his coun-
try, the Poet teaches her that hate is death to the spirit,
and always strikes it with im])otence.
To struggle without relaxation is an absolute necessity,
and he desires and urges it ; but let it be a constant com-
bat of good against evil, of light with darkness ; let the
love of God and man guide and support it, for such love
is the pledge of victory ! Without an ardent desire that
equal justice may be meted out to all, without Christian
forgiveness and moral superiority, he sees only cham-
pions of passion, or base gladiators in the wide arena.
The future of Poland looms magnificently before him ;
she is to resume her existence in the reconciliation of ex-
tremes and antagonisms, in a reign of peace and happi-
ness. He has no doubt of the progress of humanity, but
he assigns, as its absolute condition, the reparation of
one of the greatest crimes committed since the Death on
Calvary, — the assassination of a Nation, the violent sup-
4
34
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.
pression by man of a thought of God ! He predicts a
glorious resurrection to Poland, if she will faithfully guard
the principle of life implanted in her, if, surrounded by
hate, she can preserve herself from a moral fall.
Such are the ideas which have presided over the crea-
tion of all his works, and which he has interpreted with
unequaled splendor. He endeavored to present his
thought under two aspects: — the sterility of hate, dem-
onstrated in *'Iridion" and "The Undivine Comedy;"
and the fertility of love, as illustrated in "The Dawn"
and "The Psalms of the Future. "
We will attempt to give a rapid analysis of these poems.
Iridion is a type of the man of antiquity in deadly
combat with Fate. The descendant of an illustrious
family, which had fought to the last for the independ-
ence of Greece, he only lived to pursue victorious Rome
with the implacable enmity which had been enjoined
upon him by his ancestors. To aid him in the superhu-
man task to which he had been consecrated from infancy,
the intense hate of several generations had been occupied
in gathering mighty resources for the hour of struggle.
Wealth, influence, rank, relations with the barbarians,
alliances with their leaders, etc. , had all been skillfully
prepared. He, in his own person, seemed created for
such a role. To great vigor, manly beauty, and the en-
trancing fascination of a demigod, he joined the inexora-
ble heart of a hero. He knew neither pity nor weakness.
He had left room in his soul for only one thought, one
desire, — the destruction of Rome. Whatever this one
passionate thought could conceive, he executed without
recoiling from any sacrifice. On the other hand, the
Eternal City, under the rule of Heliogabalus, was but a
corpse, crushing with its inert weight all who sought to
live. All was peril without and confusion within ; soci-
ety was crumbling into ashes, and there was nothing to
sustain it save the imperial power, formidable for all who
feared it, but weak for those who defied it. Iridion
found everywhere fit instruments of vengeance ; he op-
pressed with the oppressors, and conspired with the
conspirators. His indomitable energy urged on the
conspiring and antagonistic elements to a gigantic and
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION. 3-
decisive struggle, which he intended should terminate in
their mutual destruction.
A single force refused to be made use of to serve the
hatred of Greece: the persecuted Christianity, which re-
pelled all violence, and placed its sole hope in spiritual
arms. Astonished at a resistance which he could not
understand, he at first sought to subdue it, but, growing
irritated, he moved too rapidly, and precipitated events.
The outbreak took place, but brought not the anticipated
results. Uniting in the name of their resentments, men
often move together in the path of their own interests.
Hatred, the savage sentiment of individual egotism,
although it may be strong enough to unite men in a
common action, is not sufficiently powerful when it be-
comes necessary to exact obedience from them ! Helio-
gabalus perished, but Rome endured. The efforts of the
heroic leader, aided by many chances of exceptional
success, miserably failed, because the whole enterprise
was vitiated by the very idea which inspired it !
The tendency of the poem is still more fully unveiled
in the epilogue. Introducing the supernatural into the
web of the plot, the Poet transports Iridion into our own
epoch, and shows him that very Rome which had op-
pressed others, itself destroyed and degraded, — fallen as
low as even his hate had dreamed it. But these black
ruins do not glorify vengeance, for above them rises the
Cross, the emblem of those Christians who had re-
nounced the transitory supremacy of power to establish
a reign of faith, charity, and forgiveness.
And this Cross, which here appears as the synthesis of
the Past, the Poet will once more bring before our eyes
in glory, as the supreme hope of the world of the
Present ! It will shine from the skies in sign of pardon
and alliance, and, in seeing it, the guilty conqueror will
say, "GaliL/EE, vicisti! " and will be engulfed in his
own nothingness! Such is the denouement of "The
Undivine Comedy," in which the glowing imagination
of the Anonymous Poet has traced the struggle which
is to precede that apocalyptic day.
Humanity, in "The Undivine Comedy," Is severed
into two camps, under the leadership of two chiefs,
36 PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDFTION.
Count Henry and Pancras. Irreconcilable enemies, both
having issued from a like critical spirit, the one repels
the Future, the other the Past. This absolute exclusion
is on both sides the fruit of an utter want of faith. Pan-
cras is the personification of human reason, which deifies
itself in its own essence, and believes only in finite calcu-
lation, — in action as the result of the power of numbers.
Count Henry also personifies human reason, which glori-
fies itself, in his case, in his own individuality, denying
all general laws, and, as a rule of conduct, bowing only
to his individual fancies. If he believes in the cause
which he defends, it is because he believes in himself,
and when he is defeated, he despairs and rushes into sui-
cide. He kills himself at the very moment that the God
of Life has chosen to reveal Himself in the most striking
manner to the conscience of the Peoples !
A feeling of astonishment is at first created by the fact
that our author gives the victory to Pancras, the cynic
and scorner, the unyielding antagonist of the truth whose
triumph is announced. But this victory was necessary to
demonstrate that in any struggle undertaken only with
the arms of hate, the advantage is always assured to blind
force. A still deeper design is also manifest. The de-
feat of Pancras by Count Henry would have only resulted
in the glorification of the genius of man ; and the inter-
vention of the divine symbol, instead of originating an
instantaneous reaction, would but have strengthened the
pride of Count Henry, in such case, invincible. Now
neither pride, nor genius, are the supreme arbiters of
human destinies ! The onward path which in their free
progress leads men to good, is the Good itself, and it
alone, in which, according to the noble words of the
Poet, all wisdom is contained ! Upon the perfecting of
virtue and on its reign depend our salvation in this world
and in the next. Triple and one, identical in its terms
which cannot be separated, cause, means, and effect, that
good is origin and life, divine order and immortality, for
it is the universal bond which links the Spirit of every
being to the Spirit of God. It proceeds in its manifesta-
tions by order, harmony, love, and union, and is the woof
in the work of the universe which, in the divine loom.
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.
37
supports and unites the infinite threads of Creation : —
threads which all move under its direction, and weft, to
which every human effort must be attached, if fertile or
imperishable results are to be evolved. Whosoever works
otherwise, builds upon the sands; striving to annul the
labors of the centuries, he can found nothing true, real,
or absolute ; the lightest wind will sweep away the build-
ing reared by his ignorance and presumption.
All the generous ardor with which such convictions in-
spired our Poet, he wrought into the service of his cause
in "The Psalms of the Future. " Sublime Pleader! His
nation in its agony was then ready to rush into measures
of extremity, but, braving unpopularity, he started up at
once to the defense of practical good sense and chivalric
honor, against the madness of despair.
In 1846, Galicia was mined with conspiracies, all of
which had adopted the national flag as their symbol of
order and rallying sign. Nevertheless, for some of the
affiliated, this flag was to bear in its folds, not only the
independence of their country, but also a violent and
radical transformation of society. These radicals, while
holding up the foreign usurpers to the indignation of the
people, also doomed the higher classes of the Polish na-
tion as accomplices in an oppression from which they,
however, had been the first to suffer. The Government
of M. de Metternich, though fully informed with regard
to the insurrection, left free course to the democratic and
socialistic propaganda, certain in advance that when the
revolution did break out, it would fall exhausted by mutual
destruction before reaching the Government, and that in a
soil so torn and uprooted by internal convulsions, it would
be easy to build a firmer foundation for Austrian power.
The Anonymous Poet understood the danger, and di-
vined the calculation of the Austrian Government ; he
endeavored to avoid the peril, and disappoint Austria;
and to effect this, he used the arms which his own genius
placed in his hands, — that mastery of poetic form which
stamped his words with so much authority ! He wrote
the Psalms of Faith, of Hope, and of Love, and in them
he made eloquent appeals to the heart, as well as to the
political acumen of his fellow-citizens. He demonstrated
38 PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.
all that was false in their ideas, all that was culpable in
their contemplated acts, dissuading them from their de-
signs ; and then, rising to a majestic grandeur of concep-
tion, he opened before them paths which would inevitably
lead them to realize the highest ideal upon earth.
But the passions of men were already unloosed, and
nothing could arrest them. They found even an apologist
in a man of genius and a rival of our Poet, who replied
to him in poetic tones — a mingling of biblical prophecy
and zealous polemics — " that all jjrogress must be bought
by blood, and that God renewed the face of humanity as
He did that of the earth, by a series of deluges ! " The
contest of the two poets retains its celebrity among the
literary glories of Poland, and we will find its last echo
in the final scene of "The Fragment," which was not
published until after the death of the author.
The contest was still in progress, when the events them-
selves assumed the reply. Truly it was not Poland, but
the all-powerful administration of M. Bach, which rose
from the massacres in Galicia ! Austrian domination
triumphed materially and morally over its opponents, and
seemed to realize the conditions which render a victory
final. The ideas of the Anonymous Poet, slighted at a
time when they would have insured success, were now
confirmed in every conscience as a reproach or a regret.
But the utter discouragement which pervaded all minds,
joined to the conviction that repentance came too late,
struck such regret with sterility. Alas ! hours of like
prostration occur in the history of most nations ; hours
of gloom and despair, when all that is still living lives
only in the feeling of impotence and utter nothingness!
Such terrible trials are inevitable in the course of time ; —
probations which decide upon the life or death of a people,
as it shall triumph over its despair or abandon itself to
torpor ! . . . , The Anonymous Poet, always in the
breach, felt it now his duty to react against this dis-
couragement, and to use the moral authority he had
gained through such tragical occurrences to waken the
dormant energies of his comjiatriots. Under this con-
viction, he published the "Psalms of Grief and of Good
Will," in which, through his ideal, he re{i|vns to hope,
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.
39
— hope for Poland, whose immortality he never ceases to
proclaim !
Especially is the last Psalm remarkable for its boldness
of conception. In the very moment in which accumu-
lated disasters bore his country to the earth, and the
wretchedness of slavery consumed it like a leprosy, not
suffering himself to be shaken by its apparent decomposi-
tion and death, and looking far into the future, he points
out how everything is preparing for and aiding in the
Advent of Eternal Justice.
Addressing himself to God, he thanks Him for all the
benefits He had never ceased to bestow on Poland, and
blessing His all-powerful Hand, he exclaims: "It is not
Hope which we beseech from Thee, O Lord ! it falls upon
us like a rain of flowers, — nor is it the destruction of our
enemies: their doom is written on to-morrow's cloud !
It is not to break the gates of our grave : they are already
broken, O our God 1 Nor is it arms for the combat :
they are already speeding on the tempests' wings ! Nor is
it succor: Thou hast already oped for us the field of ac-
tion, but in the midst of this explosion* of dire events,
we pray Thee, Lord, to purify our hearts! Give us the
gift of gifts : the Holy Will which opens every grave! "
A faith so vast, so limitless, almost defying Heaven to
disappoint it, could not be without influence over other
souls. It ought to have elevated and inspired them, — and
so indeed it really did. Therefore the Psalms are not
regarded merely as a literary fad, but as a political event,
which has its place marked in the National History.
The Dawn was written several years before the Psalms.
It is composed of a succession of lyrical pieces, in which
we seethe constant development of the political and hu-
manitarian ideal which had become, as it were, a religion
to the Poet. This poem shadows forth the earth restored
to the rule of harmony, which is itseternal law, and, after
its deluge of blood and crime, blossoming anew under
the eye of God.
All the works of the Anonymous Poet are written in the
spirit we have essayed to portray in this succinct analysis.
He devoted himself to the development of these ideas, and
* The Revolution of 1848.
40 PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.
to their introduction into the morals and life of his nation.
The mere singer of the beautiful, the worshiper of the
Muses, is elevated by him into sterner regions ; he uses
the poetic powers to enforce moral convictions, profound
thoughts, and conscientious patriotism. In other circum-
stances, and under another government than that to which
Poland is subjected, he would not have strung the lyre,
but would have mounted the rostrum, and become the
centre of political action. But neither rostrum nor po-
litical life was possible for him upon his native soil.
Through poetry alone could he popularize his conceptions
by preserving their precision in the frame of an exquisite,
imperishable, and easily-retained form : poetry is also the
delight of the nation, whose woes are cradled in its magic,
and whose soul palpitates in its divine accents, its lyric
enchantment. Therefore he bowed his genius to the exac-
tions of rhyme and rhythm. And never had he to com-
plain that he had so done, for not only did he attain the
proposed political aim, but he won a brilliant literary
glory, only surpassed by that of Mickiewicz.
Before closing this preface, one point remains to be
glanced at, which would furnish material for a long devel-
opment, a profound examination. The Anonymous Poet
is ranked in Poland among her Catholic writers. It would
be far more conformable with the truth to say that he pos-
sessed a religious soul, for, with regard to the doctrines
revealed in his works, it is very evident that there are wide
gaps to fill and important theses to be cut off, before it
would be possible reasonably to include them in any de-
fined limits of the dogmas of the Church. At all events,
a commentary would be required to establish their exact
meaning and bearing. But if the judgment of the public
upon this point is erroneous, it is because that public is
more logical than the author himself. Without following
him into his theosophic ideas, obscure even for those ac-
customed to such studies, his readers became imbued with
the moral side of his work, and seized upon its spirit, —
a spirit which was soon to find its final form in Catho-
licity, to which the author definitely returned toward the
close of his life.
This said, let the reader read and judge !
ANALYSIS OF THE UNDIVINE COMEDY.
EXTRACTED FROM " T. ES SLAVES," A COURSE OF LECTURES DELIV-
ERED BEFORE THE COLLEGE OF FRANCE (1842-43), BY THE MOST
RENOWNED MODERN POLISH POET, ADAM MICKIEWICZ.
[In this very remarkable work, by Adam Mickiewicz, written in
French, and which, by some strange oversight, has not yet appeared in
Engh'sh, no less than four lectures are devoted to a criticism upon " The
Undivine (or Infernal) Comedy. " The Essay of Julian Klaczko has
been found so long and exhaustive, that it is the intention of the Trans-
lator to give but a few condensed extracts from the analysis of Mickie-
wicz. The whole course of Lectures is recommended to the reader, as
full of information not elsewhere to be found; and, although in the
latter portion somewhat blemished by the elaboration of certain futile
theories, containing a mine of brilliant, deep, and highly original
thoughts. — Translator. ]
The word "Undivine" is used in preference to "Infernal" (the term
employed in the French translation) as better expressing the relation of
the drama to the " Divine Comedy" of Dante. The word is so appro-
priate that its coinage may be pardoned. — Editor.
It is my intention now to place before you the analysis
of a very remarkable work which appeared in 1834, en-
titled "The Undivine or Infernal Comedy. "
I will not call this work a fantastic Drama, although it
is now customary to give this name to all compositions
in which the characters and scenes are not immediately
derived from the world of prosaic reality. Utility and
Reality are indeed the boast of our century; but what
can be more variable, more contingent, than what we
choose to call solid reality, — that visible and material
world which is ever on the wing, which is always yet to
be, and which has no Present ? It is through the soul
alone that we are able to seize the connections and rela-
41
42
ANALYSIS OF THE UNDIVINE COMEDY.
tions of the visible world ; it alone gives them fixity or
reality ; it alone generates ideas, institutions, litera-
ture, — the only things truly real, the only things which
penetrate the soul, become incorporated with it, and
constitute the living traditions of the human race. Every
work which causes the chords of souls to vibrate, which
generates new views of life, must be considered real;
and foreign writers render but justice to Polish Poetry in
declaring it, so regarded, as very real ; — and there is
nothing more palpitating in its strange actuality than the
work we are now about to consider.
The time, the place, the characters of "The Undivine
Comedy" are all of poetic creation. The scene of the
drama is laid in the future ; and, for the first time in the
history of art, an author has attempted to construct a
prophetic play, — to describe places, introduce persons, re-
count actions which are yet to be. The struggle of the
dying Past with the vigorous but immature Future forms
the groundwork of the drama. The coloring is not local
nor characteristic of any country in particular (though
we recognize it to be Polish by the melancholy contrast
felt rather than seen between the state of the nation and
that of the individuals who compose it), because the
truths to be illustrated are of universal application, and
are evolving their own solution in all parts of the civil-
ized world.
The soul of the hero. Count Henry, is great and vig-
orous ; he is by nature a poet. Belonging to the Future
by the very essence of his being, he becomes disgusted
with the debasing materialism into which its exponents,
the new men, have fallen ; he then loses all hope in the
possible progress of humanity, and is soon presented to
us as the champion of the dying but poetic Past. But in
this he finds no rest, and is involved in perpetual strug-
gles and contradictions. Baffled in a consuming desire
to solve the y)erplexing social and religious problems of
the day by the force of his own intellect ; longing for,
yet despairing of, human progress; discerning the im-
])racticability and chicanery of most of the modern i)lans
for social amelioration ; finding nowhere his ideal ; ^he
determines to throw himself into common life, — to bind
ANALYSIS OF THE UNDIVINE COMEDY.
43
himself to his race by stringent laws and duties. The
drama opens when he is about to contract marriage.
The Angels desire to aid him, to open a way into the
Future for him through the accomplishment of his du-
ties j the Demons tempt him to embrace falsehood.
