Die Welt

Published every Friday.

Editorial office and administration: VIENNA, IX., Türkenstrasse No. 9. Telephone 14199. Correspondence is to be addressed not to individual persons but to the Editor or the Administration: Vienna, IX., Türkenstrasse No. 9. Unstamped letters are not accepted, and manuscripts are not returned. The Editor receives daily from half-past eleven to half-past twelve. Advertisement rates: according to the tariff on file. The advertising section closes on Tuesday evening. Single numbers 30 Heller.

Subscription rates: Austria-Hungary: yearly Kr. 12.—, half-yearly Kr. 6.—, quarterly Kr. 3.—. Abroad: Germany yearly Mk. 13.70, half-yearly Mk. 6.85, quarterly Mk. 3.45; England yearly Shg. 14.—, half-yearly Shg. 7.—, quarterly Shg. 3.10; Russia yearly R. 7.—, half-yearly R. 3.50, quarterly R. 1.75; Switzerland, France, Italy, Turkey, Roumania, Bulgaria, Servia, Greece, Egypt yearly Frcs. 17.—, half-yearly Frcs. 8.50, quarterly 4.25; America yearly Doll. 3.40, half-yearly Doll. 1.70, quarterly Doll. —.85

No. 26. | Vienna, 27 June 1902. | 6th Year

Two Celebrations.

From the Diary of a World-Wanderer.

On one and the same day, beneath the same sky, in the same city, two festivals are kept which lie worlds apart from one another, and which, for all their nearness, stand to each other as the sunset to the sunrise, as the gloomy smile about the lips of a dying man to that of a happy child, as the Orient to the Occident, Asia to Europe. On the one side, in the half-dark synagogue built in the Gothic style, the Passover is being celebrated; on the other, beneath the open vault of heaven, the glorious blue Italian firmament, in sight of the green and luxuriant hills, the memory is solemnly honoured of the heroes who fell at Mentana, who wrested Rome from the tyranny of the Popes, gave back the Eternal City to their fatherland, would have made the new Rome, the city of the Caesars, the summit and focus of the new "third" Italy, and who paid for their heroic purpose with their lives . . . .

With old, discordant tones, sounds out of the past, out of grey and moss-grown ages, sounds from a strange and unknown world, from the Beyond — with the knell of the dead the few Jewish citizens of the beautiful Tuscan city keep their festival, the spring festival of the Jewish people, the name-day of our youth, when our stock began to sprout, to bloom and to bud. Without feeling and without thought they droned through, in the old inherited fashion, the great words of the national hymn, the song of jubilation, which poured forth from the overflowing hearts of our forefathers when the dazzling light of freedom first shone before their eyes. Nothing stirs any longer in the numbed and frozen hearts of these men at the remembrance of the glorious times of our history, of the time of struggles and of victories; no picture of the mighty events that unfold in the plain words of the hymn of jubilation rises before their mind's eye, no tear dims their bodily ones. Cold, dreary, dismal . . . "O Israel, how dismal are thy tents, and how dreary thy dwellings, O Jacob! And I go out of this stifling atmosphere, away from the medieval, wild, shrill tones which were once wrung from the tortured, bleeding hearts of our distant forefathers in base and cruel Spain and in other vales of sorrow, and which have been preserved down to this day, petrified like the descendants of those forefathers, stagnant like their hearts. Outside the sun smiles, and warms and shines and caresses and rejoices in itself. The streets are thronged. A vast surging tide of people, many with flags, others with musical instruments, others again in red Garibaldian blouses and caps to match, but all with jubilant faces, hasten towards one point — to the square where the statue of those who fell at Mentana in the year 1867 is being unveiled. And the veil is lifted, and the statue appears before the eyes of the people: a warrior dying with the banner in his hand. From all the onlookers, as from one man, there bursts a cry, and in that cry is everything; it is more eloquent than the finest speeches, more meaningful than the best writings, deep as the soul of the people and unfathomable as it. And this cry would express grief for the past, hope for the future, admiration, gratitude, jubilation and melancholy all at once.

And what did these heroes do, who are now celebrated by the whole Italian people? Did they conquer new lands for the Italians? Did they win freedom for their country, deliver it from the yoke of foreign rule? No — their only deed was their heroic death; they died for their fatherland, they fell for its freedom, though not as victors. For it is not victory alone that brings the wreath and crowns the deed, but also the struggle in and for itself. To fall on the field of battle as a defender of one's fatherland was held by the Hellenes to be the highest happiness.

To conquer, there must be sacrifices; the bodies of the fallen level the path for the victors. The heroes of Mentana fell, but their sacrifice was not in vain.

Rome was after all conquered in the end by the lion-hearted bands of Garibaldi, Italy end-