The Monmouth inquirer., 1926-02-25
(Prepared by the National Geogra phic So
ciety. Washington. D. CO


ciety Washington, d. CO
OLOTS involving succession to the
- throne OF Hungary excite the
world but in Hungary itself the
excitement is chiefly in the great
governing city of Budapest. In the
country, it is safe to say, the Hunga-
rian peasant goes undisturbed about
his usual business.
Rural Hungary is upon the plane
of rural England. Physically she has
a beauty all her own. True, the noble
magniffcence of the English estate is
not reproduced, but there is a general
air of the feudal tradition. heightened
by castle, tower and battlement,
which bring Norman England appre
ciably nearer. Abbeys and monas-
teries, creations of pure architectural
beauty, there are not; but the Rocco,
the Seccessio and that splendid Moor
ish type which passes, strangely
enough, for Gothic, fairly represent
the achievements of the race. The
baronial splendors of the old homes
of the magnates are first patriarchal
and then wonderful.
The picture is of an old-world state,
the character Of whose people is inf1u
enced by its historic past, whose SYM
bols and outlook, constitution and sub
sidiary organism bring back Merrie
England Of Robin Hood and the Roses.
The vision of Magyar halcyon days
is indeed alluring. Wide stretches of
gold relieved by the green of virgin
woods; Indian SKIES hills decorated
with white stone obelisks to mark the
stations of the cross bright fields nod
ding in honor of some holy one look
ing down from the little shrine upon
his charge; here the gypsy encamp-
ment, there the gay homestead; anon
the great expanse relieved by GASES
and the fading away into the forest
depths of Pennsylvania.
When the land is snow-bound, swept
by the keen, clear, cold air of the
white north, and the long winter
nights fall, great wood-fires crackle
on bare hearthstones; children and old
folk turn to the spinning of silk; the
schools take their toll, and virile en-
ergies are given over to basket weay-
ing, reed plating and wood carving.
What the Magyar is Like.
What may be the psychological key
note of pastoral and peasant people,
shepherd kings, whose whole corpo-
rate national life has been one long
test of endurance that in the end has
tired out Turk, Teuton, Slav and even
Destiny herself? A musical, wine
loving, hospitable race; warm, gen
erous and combative; proud and vain.
Imagine this people, its gods still
the bards of the victor's camp, cut
off from all the world we know by its
Truanian tongue, whose beauty
chained the admiration of Cardinal
Mezzofanti (who is said to have spo-
ken So languages), but holding its own
as minority by sheer force of char
acter in that strange pentecostal mo-
sale of race, creed and caste which
holds tile Danube and the central plain
in fief for Christendom.
Imagine a viriIe stock which can
still sit and think, can mourn its past
in fair present, can fall into gleam-
ing frenzy as its harp or picture-poet
storms delicate imagination with
breathless deed; a race which COM
bines the Buddhist aversion from ac-
ton with the Celtic instinct Of oppo-
sition; improvident, again, as the Celt;
lavish, naively charmed at the cour-
tesy of the stranger simple, with the
barbarian lust of pleasure to the eye;
sensitive to its inmost chords to gen.
tleness--a passionate, chivalric, low
able, dreamy race Of fatalists; the
true Asian mystery.
Perhaps the true psyche of a race
might be gathered from its folklore.
The mine is rich and rare. Here the
keynote is a sad and plaintive being
mourning dead glories, but electrified
to his strong depths by the barbaric
beauty of battle songs. The language
itself is a picture-poem. fitted like the
Doric for the alto-reIieyo of rough, UNI
tutored emotion fitted like the Phryg
ian for the cadence Of sorrow, yet
lacking Attic grace.
No true Magyar Of the plain could
reclte battle lyric Of Petofi to the