THE "RECI BESEDNI"

75

The Reci Besedni, in Professor Hattala's edition, contains two prefaces. The first, by an unknown writer, gives a few interesting details concerning the author of the Reii Besedni; it tells us "that during the reign of

Wenceslas of Bohemia, the fourth of that name, there lived a renowned knight, Thomas of Stitny, a good man of letters, honourable in his times and irreproachable in his noble life up to his death. Leading a pious and peaceful life, he composed these books in the Bohemian language. . . . Possessing a sharp intellect, he produced beautiful, enchanting works, in which he used the writings of the Old and of the New Testament, and of the

holy fathers." The second preface, by Stitny himself, explains his reason for writing his work in the form of a dialogue between father and son.

"Thinking

then and remem-

" how pleasant it was to me in my

bering," he tells us, youth to listen to my father or mother when they talked on Christian matters, and how it was through them that I acquired some knowledge of Scripture, I devised these books, (written) as if children questioned their father and he answered them."

A quotation from the first chapter of the Religious Conversations will be interesting as showing the manner in which Stitny opens up the discussion of his difficult subject. The chapter entitled, " How the children now begin to question their father as to what God is and how He can be known to us," begins with the following question : " Dear father ,1 we would be glad to ask you, and to understand, what God is ? " The father " answers thus : O children, you have asked a short, ' Literally "little father," tatiku.

The frequent diminutives mian language are very difficult to render in English.

of the Bohe-