“And the young folk envied the fame of the bards, which in their own land still echoes through the woods and the fields; of bards to whom dearer than the laurel of the Capitol is a wreath plaited by the hands of a village girl, of blue cornflowers and green rue.”
Quoted from a letter of Krasinski, by Kallenbach, Adam Mickiewicz (Cracow, 1897), vol. ii. p. 174.
Poland, a Study of the Land, People, and Literature (London and New York, 1903), p. 284.
Vilna on our maps; Wilno is the Polish spelling.
English readers are fortunate in possessing an excellent account of the life and writings of Mickiewicz in the work by Miss Monica M. Gardner, Adam Mickiewicz, the National Poet of Poland (London and New York, 1911).
I am here indebted to Kallenbach (Adam Mickiewicz, Cracow, 1897), and Pilat (Introduction to edition of Pan Tadeusz of Towarzystwo Literackie, Lemberg).
Brückner, Geschichte der polnischen Litteratur (Leipzig, 1901), p. 371.
By Franciszek Karpinski, 1741-1825.
By Kazimierz Brodzinski, 1791-1835.