Our Little Czecho-Slovak CousinWinlow, Clara Vostrovsky
General
Our Little Czecho-Slovak Cousin
Winlow, Clara Vostrovsky
Children -- Czechoslovakia -- Juvenile literature
"I walked past these fortifications early one morning," was the
message, "and hundreds of birds were among the ruins, all singing the
news of our glorious resurrection."
The third card showed Karluv Tyn, built by Charles for the protection
of the crown jewels and the charters of Bohemia. This beautiful
castle stands not far from Praha, on a rock of jasper a thousand feet
above the River Mze. To it the King-Emperor sometimes retired for the
meditative devotion which he found so helpful. On this card the message
was the longest:
"Charles did more than build beautiful castles and splendid cathedrals.
He welcomed men of learning and made higher education possible even
for the poor by founding the University of Praha, the first university
in all of Central Europe. He freed the land of robbers; he secured
justice to the peasants by making it possible for them to appeal to the
King from the decision of their own feudal lords. His name has come
down to us revered and beloved, because of the many evidences of his
unselfish, constant thought for the people's welfare."
By a strange coincidence, on the very day that the last postcard came
to Jozef in Slovakia, another reached him from his friend, Jaroslav.
It was dated from the famous watering place, Carlsbad, in northern
Bohemia, where Jaroslav had accompanied his father, who had some
business there.
"The Germans here, who have largely control of things," it stated, "are
angry at the turn affairs have taken. They clamor about the rights
of the minority, they who never considered the rights of the Slavic
majority. But I think they are calming down, for they see that they're
going to get justice. The Czechs are not revengeful. If we treated
them as they treated us--whew!" He said no more of the Germans, but
humorously described some of the patients he had seen; some very fat,
some very thin, all expecting cure from digestive disturbances.
A few days before he left, Jozef's godfather took one more walk across
the sixteen-arched statue decorated Charles Bridge (Karluv most),
through the picturesque Little Side, with its quaint old-time palaces
of nobles, up a steep and winding street to the Hradcany, as the group
of buildings around the royal palace together with it, is called.
From these heights, Praha is seen in all its wondrous beauty lying on
both sides of the River Vltava (Moldau). It seems an endless succession
of parks, gardens, queer roofs that are the delight of every artist
that sees them, and innumerable towers and steeples. Across the river
he could see the rocky Vysehrad, the seat of the early rulers. It
was there that Libusa, the reputed founder of Praha, made her famous
prophecy: "Lo, before me I see a city whose glory reaches to the
skies!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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