Produced by Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive.) Life and Death _And Other Legends and Stories_ THE WORKS OF HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL POLISH BY JEREMIAH CURTIN. _The Zagloba Romances_ WITH FIRE AND SWORD. 1 vol. THE DELUGE. 2 vols. PAN MICHAEL. 1 vol. QUO VADIS. 1 vol. THE KNIGHTS OF THE CROSS. 2 vols. CHILDREN OF THE SOIL. 1 vol. HANIA, AND OTHER STORIES. 1 vol. SIELANKA, AND OTHER STORIES. 1 vol. IN VAIN. 1 vol. LIFE AND DEATH AND OTHER LEGENDS AND STORIES. 1 vol. WITHOUT DOGMA. (Translated by Iza Young.) 1 vol. [Illustration: HOUSE PRESENTED TO HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ BY THE POLES Mr. Sienkiewicz and Mr. Curtin in the foreground] Life and Death _And Other Legends and Stories_ By Henryk Sienkiewicz Author of "With Fire and Sword," "The Deluge," "Pan Michael," "Quo Vadis," "Knights of the Cross," etc. _Translated from the Original Polish by_ Jeremiah Curtin Boston Little, Brown, and Company 1904 _Copyright, 1897, 1899, 1900, 1904_, BY JEREMIAH CURTIN. _All rights reserved_ THE UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. PREFACE _"Is He the Dearest One?" was produced under the following circumstances: About fourteen years ago there was a famine, or at least hunger, in Silesia. Though that land is a German possession at present, it was once a part of the Polish Commonwealth, and there are many un-Germanized Poles in it yet._ _The mother in this sketch is Poland. Yasko, the most unfortunate of her sons, is Silesia. Poor, ill-fated, he neglects his own language, forgets his mother; but she does not forget him, as was shown on the occasion of that hunger in Silesia. The Poles of Russian Poland collected one million marks and sent them to Yasko._ _The ship "Purple" represents Poland and its career, and is a very brief summary of the essence and meaning of Polish history. Like some of the author's most beautiful short productions, it was written for a benevolent object, all the money obtained for it being devoted to that object._ _All persons who have read "Charcoal Sketches," in Sienkiewicz's "Hania," will be interested to learn the origin of that striking production. It was written mainly and finished in Los Angeles, Cal., as Sienkiewicz told me in Switzerland six years ago, but it was begun at Anaheim Landing, as is described in the sketch printed in this volume, "The Cranes." Besides being begun at Anaheim Landing, the whole plan of "Charcoal Sketches" was worked out there. "The Cranes" appeared in Lvov, or Lemburg, a few years ago, in a paper which was published for one day only, and was made up of contributions from Polish authors who gave these contributions for a benevolent purpose. The Hindu legend, "Life and Death," to be read by Sienkiewicz at Warsaw in January, is his latest work._