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Certainly the work of Jan Neruda, Svatopluk Čech, and Caroline SvĚtlá, to name no others, ranks with the best of the Russian masters, and the reader is compelled to speculate as to how many more equally fine writers remain unknown to him.

Then we linger on Bořivoj and note that German influence begins to make itself felt. St. Methodius is also mentioned, as is one Svatopluk, Prince of Moravia. Finally we arrive at properly authenticated Princes of Bohemia, each labelled and dated correctly, St. Wenceslaus and his brother Boleslav. Mentions also a saintly lady Ludmilla and her daughter-in-law Dragomira in vivid contrast.

"The Woman Who Was His Friend" and "The Gooseherd" are less important, but of considerable technical interest. This volume should be set beside the collection of "Czecho-Slovak Stories," which I have mentioned on an earlier page. Here will be found further stories by Jan Neruda and Svatopluk Čech, together with a remarkable group of stories by Rumanian, Serbian, Croatian, and Hungarian authors.

Neighbour Svatopluk's extensive empire had fallen to pieces owing to the quarrels of his sons and under Magyar aggression; this gave Spytihnev the opportunity of freeing himself from the supremacy of Moravia which Bořivoj had accepted in return for assistance rendered him by Svatopluk and the Slavonic liturgy thrown into the bargain.

He narrates that Bořivoj was not allowed to sit at table with Svatopluk, but was given a low stool apart, as being unfit to associate with Christian company. This is what the Christian chronicler says, and he made it his business to bear testimony on all occasions. It is, however, quite conceivable that Bořivoj's manners were not up to refined Moravian form.

It happened that Bořivoj had occasion to ask his neighbour Svatopluk, Prince of Moravia, for protection, and then he became acquainted with that energetic missionary, St. Methodius. Unhappily we have no precise information concerning date and place of this picturesque event. The chronicler has done his best by giving the following story to fill up the blank.