national right to the soil of my birth has comforted and cheered me. The land where I saw the light of day, where my cradle stood, and where I spent the golden days of childhood, is, and ever remains my Fatherland. It is my native soil, its weal and woe lie close to my heart, and I have always been delighted when in some way or other I could help a Hungarian. 3. SOCIETY. If my ideas about religion and nationality are at variance with the prevailing notions in Western lands, this is still more the case with regard to our social standing. The European who has been in Asia for some length of time feels freer and less restricted there than in Europe, in spite of the anarchy, barbarism, and tyranny prevailing in the East. In the first place, as stranger and guest he has less to suffer from the despotism of the Government and the oppressive national customs. He stands under the protection of the dreaded West and is not subject to the laws of the land. He lives as an outlaw truly, and has to look after himself, but then he has the advantage of not being bound by any party spirit; no class prejudice exists here. In the East the highest in the land has to condescend to his inferiors, even princes are not exempt from this law, which is in accordance with the patriarchal spirit of the Government. I have witnessed simple peasants rebuking their landlord, without the latter daring to say a word of protest. With us in Europe the tax-paid official behaves not as the servant but the master of the public, and his arrogance is often very offensive. But still more objectionable is the conduct of the uneducated born aristocrats, who, on the strength of the problematic services of their forefathers, often without the least personal merit, exhibit an amount of pride as if the course of the universe depended upon them. I have never quite been able to understand why the born aristocrat should claim this exceptional position, which nowadays is not so much a matter of national law as of public opinion. If these privileges are a recognition and reward for services rendered, and to be continued from generation to generation, the harm done to society is incalculable, for the offspring only very seldom possess the intellectual heirloom of their ancestors, very seldom come up to the position they occupy, and moreover stand in the way of those better fitted to fill it. Of course in opposition to these views the succession theory is advanced, and in my discussions on this point I have often been met with the argument that as in the vegetable and animal kingdom there are superior species, this natural law also applies to the human race. The maxim, "_Fortes creatur fortibus_," is quoted, but one forgets that human strength, thanks to the advanced spirit of the age, consists now no longer in physical but in psychical qualities, and that greatness and perfection of intellectual power can be obtained only by study, zeal, and persevering