had found his ideal in Victor Hugo. "This school might easily have become dangerous to us," says Jókai, "had not its influence, fortunately, coincided with the opening up of a new and hitherto unexplored field—the popular romance. Hitherto it had been the endeavour of Magyar writers to write in a style distinct from the language of ordinary life. Our group, on the other hand, started with the idea that it was just the very expressions, constructions, and modes of thought employed in everyday life that Hungarian writers ought to take as the fundamental principle of their writing, nay, that they should even develop ideally beautiful poetry itself from the life of the common people. . . . My own ambition," he adds, "was to explore those regions where the hoof of Pegasus had hitherto left no trace." And in this he certainly succeeded when he wrote his first considerable romance "Hétköznapok."

The novel had been successfully cultivated in Hungary long before Jókai appeared upon the scene. As early as 1794, Joseph Kármán had written "Fanni hagyományai" (Fanny's Legacies), obviously suggested by "Pamela," and still one of the best purely analytical romances in the language. A generation later, two noblemen, Baron Joseph Eötvös and Baron Michael Jósika, Jókai's elder contemporaries, respectively founded the didactic novel with a purpose and the historical romance. Eötvös, one of the most liberal and enlightened spirits of his age, fought, almost single-handed, against the abuses of feudalism in his great "A falu jegyzöje" (The Village Notary), while Jósika, an intelligent disciple of Walter Scott, enriched the national literature with a whole series of original historical romances which gave to Hungarian prose a new elevation and a distinction. But "Hétköznapok" was something quite new—so much so, indeed, that Jókai himself was doubtful about it, and determined that it should stand or fall by the verdict of the academician Ignatius Nagy, one of the most productive and ingenious writers of his day, whose influence was then at its height, and who was regarded as an oracle by literary "young Hungary." Jókai, who had never seen the great man before, approached him with considerable trepidation, which was not diminished by the very peculiar appearance of this Aristarchus. "He had," Jókai tells us, "a most embarrassing face covered with dark-red spots right up to his astonishingly lofty forehead, whose shiny baldness was half cut in two, as it were, by a bright black peruke. He had also an inconceivably big red nose, at which, however, you had no time to be amazed, so instantly were you spell-bound by a couple of squinting eyes—one of which glared as fixedly at you as if it was made wholly of stone. His voice, on the other hand, was as the voice of a little child. And within this repulsive frame dwelt the noblest of souls, in this crippled body the most energetic of characters. From no other strange face did I ever get a kinder glance than I got from those stiff, fishy eyes, and that rich voice announced to me my first great piece of good luck. Upon his recommendation, the publisher Hartleben agreed to publish my first romance, and gave me 360 silver florins for it—in those days an immense fortune to me. I had no further need now to go scribbling all day long in a lawyer's office at six florins a month."

"Hétköznapok" was published, in two volumes, in 1846. The book caused a profound sensation. Its very extravagance suited the taste of an age steeped in Eugene Sueism, and Petöfi, in introducing Jókai to Professor Roye as "a writer who writes French romances in Magyar," hit off both the book and its author to a nicety. It was just the brilliant, exuberant, fanciful sort of thing that a clever youth with a boundless imagination, and no knowledge whatever of the world, would be likely to produce. Still, even the writers who pointed out its crudities and morbidities, praised its striking originality and charm of style, and though it gave but a faint indication of the real genius of the author it brought him into notice, and editors began to look kindly upon him. Thus Frankenburg, the editor of the literary review Életképek, who had just parted with his dramatic critic for being a little too unmerciful to the artistes, was induced to take on Jókai in his place. By way of honorarium, he offered the young aspirant a free seat at the theatre and ten florins a month. But Jókai's year of office came to an end the very first week. To make up for his predecessor's want of gallantry, and obeying the dictates of his youthful enthusiasm, he lauded every lady artiste to the skies. "I can honestly say," Jókai tells us, with evident enjoyment of the laugh against himself, "that I meant every word of it. It was then that I saw a ballet for the first time in my life, and it was my solemn conviction that I was bound by a debt of gratitude to say a good word for the excellent damsel who exhibited her natural charms to the public eye with such magnanimous frankness. And a pretty lecture Frankenburg read me for it, too. 'Delightful Sylphid, indeed!—a clumsy stork, I should say!' Still, that might have passed. But it was my magnifying of Lilla Szilágyi, who took the part of Smike in The Beggars of London, which did the business for me. I called her 'a lovely sapling!' and promised her a brilliant future in her dramatic career. 'Leave her alone—she has no reputation at all,' said the editor. 'Then she'll get one!' said I. 'But you'll never get to be a critic,' said he. And so, for Lilla Szilágyi's sake, I laid down my rôle of critic; and yet I was right, after all, for she really did become a great artiste. I felt this snub very much at the time, but now I bless my fate that things fell out as they did. Fancy if now my sole title to fame rested upon my reputation as a dramatic critic!—terrible thought!"

A few days afterwards a new career suddenly opened out before Jókai. Paul Királyi, the editor of the Jelenkor, invited Jókai to join his paper as a correspondent at a salary of thirty-five florins a month. Of course he jumped at it; a newspaper contributor in Hungary was then a personage of some importance. About the same time he passed his first legal examination, and became a certificated lawyer. His diploma, if not præclarus, was, at any rate, laudabilis. The oral rigorosum he passed through brilliantly, but, oddly enough, his Hungarian style was not considered satisfactory. The publication of his diploma was a sufficiently dignified excuse for a visit to his native place. He was well received in the bosom of his family; the whole clan Jókai came together for dinner at his mother's, and for supper at the house of his brother-in-law, Francis Vály. The two Calvinist ministers of the place were also invited, and one of them toasted him as "the ward of two guardians, and guardian of Two Wards," the first allusion being to their spiritual guardianship, and the second to his new drama, The Two Wards. "It was the first toast that ever made me blush," says Jókai. The next day was fixed for the meeting of the County Board, and at the end of the proceedings his diploma was promulgated. On the same day his mother gave him his father's silver-mounted sword and the cornelian signet-ring with the old family crest upon it, which the elder Jókai had been wont to wear. "Democrat as I am," says Jókai, "I frankly confess that to me there was a soul-steeling thought in the reflection that with this sword my worthy ancestors, much better men than I, had defended their nation and constitution of yore, and that this signet-ring had put the seal upon their covenanted rights for all time."

On returning to Pest,