What? Does no Caesar, does no Achilles, appear on your stage now?
Not an Andromache e’en, not an Orestes, my friend?
No! there is nought to be seen there but parsons, and syndics of commerce,
Secretaries perchance, ensigns and majors of horse.
But, my good friend, pray tell, what can such people e’er meet with
That can be truly call’d great?—what that is great can they do?
SCHILLER: Shakespeare’s Ghost.
Contents
Author’s Dedication
To My Fatherland:
Recorded in the history of human sufferings is a cancer of so malignant a character that the least touch irritates it and awakens in it the sharpest pains. Thus, how many times, when in the midst of modern civilizations I have wished to call thee before me, now to accompany me in memories, now to compare thee with other countries, hath thy dear image presented itself showing a social cancer like to that other!
Desiring thy welfare, which is our own, and seeking the best treatment, I will do with thee what the ancients did with their sick, exposing them on the steps of the temple so that every one who came to invoke the Divinity might offer them a remedy.
And to this end, I will strive to reproduce thy condition faithfully, without discriminations; I will raise a part of the veil that covers the evil, sacrificing to truth everything, even vanity itself, since, as thy son, I am conscious that I also suffer from thy defects and weaknesses.
THE AUTHOR
EUROPE, 1886