Page:Czecho-Slovak Student Life, Volume 18.djvu/215

talents for prose literature. Upon Lutinov’s advice, Baar undertook to write stories, sketches from the life of a priest. These he published in the periodical “Nový Život”.

The life of a priest is a hard, bitter, and at times a painful occupation. As a consequence, Baar’s sketches betray certain bitterness, and treat in the main the burning questions of the priestly career. Into this group falls the sketch “Cestou Křížovou”, a touching story of a Czech priest, and “Farské historky” (Parish Episodes), a collection of several short stories. Another is “Farská Panička”. The tribulations of a common country pastor are amply described in the sketch “Stověl”, the unhappy quarrel between the school master and parish priest in “Kohouti”, “Žebračka”, “Pater Kolytek” and “Zolinka”. This group is concluded with a fine novel called “Holoubek”.

Even in these works, there is evidence of realistic imagination and perspicacity that is Baar’s own; nevertheless the style is of a moralistic nature although the plot predominates.

During his stay at different mission places, Baar began to describe village events in realistic fashion, concentrating more and more on his native district. Following his last didactic-literary effort “Poslední z rodu Sedmerova”, written during his stay in Klobuk na Stansku, he began to collect material for his very best work “Jan Cimbura” (three divisions), in which he describes the characteristics, the development, and the whole life of a typical, strong-minded Czech agriculturist. This work was the climax of Baar’s literary career. In a comparative study, Holeček’s story, “Naši”, alone, can perhaps merit equality with Baar’s “Jan Cimbura”. Beginning with this work, Baar’s efforts were all devoted to the people and problems of the “Chod”. The very first of this group was “Pro Kravičku” written in the so-called “Bulacki” dialect. It is a description of a real occurrence, relating the rather touching story how the “Chodováci” go to Bavaria to earn enough to buy the cow which means so much to the poor peasant folk. The success of the novels “Poslední Soud”, “Na Děkanství” and “Hanák” is due to the fact that they are replicas of the life in this land of the “Chodovák”. In the last group of his novels Baar gathered an immense amount of important national-historic material relating to the Chods. “Paní Komisařka”, an impersonation of Božena Němcová, (Czech authoress), “Osmačtyřicátnice” and “Fusy” These, however, are not on the par with “Jan Cimbura”. His last book-form novel was “Na srdce přírody”. It is a treatment of the birds and nature—a comparative study between these and human nature.

This graphic survey concludes his activity in the literary field. A study of his personal convictions is equally interesting. In all his works, Baar proves himself conservative. His life long struggle was to effect a reformation of