Sienkiewicz was born in 1845. After student days at Warsaw, he came over in 1876-1877 to California, in a party that included Madame Modjeska. They attempted to establish a kind of socialistic community, which bears in the retrospect a certain resemblance to Brook Farm. Fortunately for the cause of art, which the world needs more than it does socialism, the enterprise was a failure. Sienkiewicz returned to Poland, and began his literary career; Madame Modjeska became one of the chief ornaments of the English stage for a quarter of a century. Her ashes now rest in the ancient Polish city where President Gilman uttered his fine tribute to the friend of her youth. The three great Polish romances were all written in the eighties; and at about the same time the author was also engaged in the composition of purely realistic work, which displays his powers in a quite different form of art, and constitutes the most original--though not the most popular--part of his literary production. The _Children of the Soil_, which some of the elect in Poland consider his masterpiece, is a novel, constructed and executed in the strictest style of realism; _Without Dogma_ is still farther removed from the Romantic manner, for it is a story of psychological analytical introspection. Sienkiewicz himself regards _Children of the Soil_ as his favourite, although he is "not prepared to say just why." And _Without Dogma_ he thinks to be "in many respects my strongest work." It is evident that he does not consider himself primarily a maker of stirring historical romance. But in the nineties he returned to this form of fiction, producing his Roman panorama called _Quo Vadis_, which, although it has made the biggest noise of all his books, is perhaps the least valuable. Like _Ben Hur_, it was warmed over into a tremendously successful melodrama, and received the final compliment of parody.[7] Toward the close of the century, Sienkiewicz completed another massive historical romance, _The Knights of the Cross_, which, in its abundant action, striking characterisation, and charming humour, recalled the Trilogy; this was followed by _On the Field of Glory_, and we may confidently expect more, though never too much; he simply could not be dull if he tried. [7] One of the most grotesque and laughable burlesques ever seen on the American stage was the travesty of _Quo Vadis_, with the heroine Lithia, who drew a lobster on the sand: the strong man, Zero, wrenched the neck off a wild borax.