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John Nepomuk. He is probably quite unknown to England even to this day, notwithstanding the fact that he stood in close if somewhat uncomfortable relations to one who figures in an English carol, namely, this Good King Wenceslaus. Now there is relativity in goodness, and this feature was strongly marked in the King of Bohemia of whom we sing at Christmas time.
John Nepomuk, the history of Wallenstein, with Schiller's finest tragedy, all lend their interest to Prague. In the journey through Bohemia and southern Germany, dirty and uncomfortable inns were conspicuous. The Lake of Gemuenden much struck Mary with its poetic beauty, and she felt it was the place she should like to retreat to for a summer.
One of them, the dean, moved by indignation, dealt the emperor so heavy a blow on the head with his sword-knot as to bring the blood. It does not appear that he was made to suffer for his boldness, but two of the lower ecclesiastics, John of Nepomuk and Puchnik, were put to the rack to make them confess facts learned by them in the confessional. They persistently refused to answer.
John Nepomuk was relegated to the background where live the quiet souls whose beliefs are not affected by nationalism.
We have seen that among other remedies against heresy they introduced, or perhaps re-introduced, a national saint, John Nepomuk, had him canonized and an effigy of him set up on the Charles Bridge; this effigy was followed by many others, among them that of Loyola.
On Saturday came the Kaiser, too, and Kaiserinn, to their high Nouse, the Schloss in Prag; and there occurred, in the incognito form, "as if by accident," three visits or counter-visits, two of them of some length. The King went dashing about; saw, deliberately or in glimpses, all manner of things, from "the Military Hospital" to "the Tongue of St. Nepomuk" again.
He had to fling his poor Queen's Confessor into the River Moldau, Johann of Nepomuk, Saint so called, if he is not a fable altogether; whose Statue stands on Bridges ever since, in those parts. Wenzel's Bohemians revolted against him; put him in jail; and he broke prison, a boatman's daughter helping him out, with adventures.
"What's the rest of your name? There are so many Johanns on the calendar." "I am Johann Nepomuk." Muller took a little calendar from his pocket and turned its pages. "It was May sixteenth," volunteered the valet. "Quite right. May sixteenth was a Saturday. And since then you have gone to the theatre every Saturday evening?" "Yes, sir. "When did the owner of the house go away?" "Last April.
"Well, and how have I scandalized the good fellow?" "Not long ago Mr. Sárvölgyi had a large Saint Nepomuk painted on the façade of his house, in oils on a sheet of bronze, and before the chief figure he was himself painted, in a kneeling position." "I know: I saw it." "From the lips of St.
John Nepomuk. Owing to centuries of oppression the mind of the people of Bohemia has developed a strong "spirit of negation," "der Geist der stets verneint," as Goethe would say, to the detriment of constructive ability, so it may be that this spirit having failed to reconstruct a church of some sort, at least on national lines, is going under before the mightiest organization the world has ever known, the Church of Rome.
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