"Another thing is in the way," I hastened to add; for I saw that my host was eager to talk: "The Slavs lack collective wisdom. Where there are three thinking Slavs, there are always three quarrels. People who wish to rule must learn to act wisely together; yet in the history of the Slavs this collective wisdom, this inability of one group to acknowledge the equality of the other, has been their greatest lack. "The Russian revolution failed, even as the Polish revolution failed, and as the Czechs' will fail, because they lack collective wisdom. It will take at least a hundred years," I concluded prophetically, "before you Slavs will confederate." My host laughed nervously. "You are a false prophet. It will come in a decade. We will flow together like small rivers into a great stream. We Poles, of course, being the most cultured, the most civilized, and the best prepared to play the leading rôle, will be the stream into which all these lesser rivers will flow. In the great overture of Slavic union, the Pole will play the leading part." To reason with such a man was futile; so I drank my tea and looked at the beautiful lady opposite me, in whom the practical American and the idealistic Pole were so harmoniously blended. Perhaps in her person she was a prophecy of the great day to come. The Count talked incessantly about Poland, its past, its powers, its enemies; but I was not listening. From my silence he thought he had convinced me, and as I rose to go, he asked: "Have you not changed your mind about its taking a hundred years to federate the Slavs?" "Yes," I replied, "I have changed my mind. It will take two hundred years; unless"--and I looked at my fair hostess--"you bring back many more such Polish women from America." IX THE DISCIPLES IN THE CARPATHIANS The river Waag has a broad and beautiful valley in which to indulge its vagabond habits. Now it seeks a channel close to the Carpathian hills on one side, and again rushes far away towards the mountain wall, close to the Austrian border. The Romans appropriately named the river "Waag," the vagabond river, and it lives up to its reputation at all times of the year. One can scarcely find fault with its wandering propensities, for both shore lines are imposing and wildly beautiful; many of the little towns are castle-crowned, while each town and each castle has its myth and story, rivalling those of the Rhine in fantastic invention and equalling them in historic interest. The river Waag, however, is not in Germany, where everything is prohibited, regulated, and subdued, even the turbulent rivers. This is Hungary, the ill-mated spouse in that Austro-Hungarian alliance, in which quarrels are continual, and divorce, with alimony or without it, is threatened every day. Here rivers and races foam and rage; floods of hate beat against historic walls and there are no smooth channels for politics, education, or religion.