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.