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CHARLES OF ŽEROTIN
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Žerotin has left voluminous writings. His correspondence, to which I have already alluded, was very extensive. Continued, as it was, during the whole of his life, it is, of course, of the greatest value for the history of his time. Žerotin has also left several volumes of memoirs, referring principally to the doings of the Diet of Moravia during the period that he presided over that assembly. He also wrote a very curious work entitled Obrana or Apology, addressed to George, Lord of Hodic. It appears that Hodic had blamed Žerotin publicly for having temporarily retired from political life. This work, written in a pure but eloquent manner, showing traces of profound study of the classical writers, is a recognised masterpiece of Bohemian prose. The original great reluctance of the members of the Brotherhood to enter the stormy arena of political life had indeed decreased since many nobles and other influential persons had joined their Church, but traces of this feeling appear in Žerotin's work. He writes: "You were pleased, my Lord of Hodic, to remark of me at the meeting of the Estates that 'I act wrongly in stifling the gifts which God has given to me.' By these words—few and quickly spoken, yet containing much meaning—you were pleased to attack me sharply and to deal me a severe blow; for what else is stifling God's gift but refusing to remain in that state in which God has placed us? And what, again, is not remaining in the state in which God has placed us but not being as I should be? What conclusion then can be drawn other than that if I am not as I should be, then—though I declare that I am a lover of my country, her true son, an own limb of her body, sharing her wounds—in fact, her twin-brother, who was born with her and will die