While still only a boy of twelve in the palace in Berlin, Frederick the Great had been reminded by his father"s anger and sorrow that the kings of Prussia had a duty as protectors toward the German colonies on the Vistula. For in 1724 a loud call from that quarter for help had rung through Germany, and the b.l.o.o.d.y tragedy at Thorn became an important subject of public interest and of diplomacy. During a procession which the Jesuits were conducting through the city, some Polish n.o.bles of the Jesuit college had insulted some citizens and schoolboys, and the angered populace had broken into the Jesuit school and college and inflicted damage. This petty street-riot had been brought up in the Polish parliament, sitting as a trial court, and the parliament, after a pa.s.sionate speech by the leader of the Jesuits, had condemned to death the two burgomasters of the city and sixteen citizens; whereupon the Jesuit party hastened to put to death the head burgomaster, Rossner, and nine citizens, in some cases with barbarous cruelty. The church of St. Mary was taken from the Protestants, the clergymen driven out, and the school closed. King Frederick William had tried in vain at the time to help the unfortunate city. He had prevailed upon all the neighboring powers to send stern notes, and had felt himself bitterly grieved and humiliated when all his representations were disregarded; now after fifty years his son came to put an end to this barbarous disorder, and to unite again with Prussia this land which before the Polish sovereignty had belonged to the Teutonic order.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FREDERICK THE GREAT ON A PLEASURE TRIP _From the Painting by Adolph von Menzel_]
Danzig, to be sure, indispensable to the Poles, maintained itself through these decades of disorder in aristocratic seclusion. It remained a free city under Slavic protection, for a long time suspicious of the great King and not well disposed toward him. Thorn also had to wait twenty years longer in oppression, separated from the other German colonies, as a Polish border city. But the energetic a.s.sistance of the King saved the country and most of the German towns from destruction. The Prussian officials who were sent into the country were astonished at the desolation of the unheard-of situation which existed but a few days" journey from their capital. Only certain larger towns, in which the German life had been protected by strong walls and the old market traffic, and some sheltered country districts, inhabited exclusively by Germans (such as the lowlands near Danzig, the villages under the mild rule of the Cistercians of Oliva, and the prosperous German places of the Catholic Ermeland), were left in tolerable condition. Other towns lay in ruins, as did most of the farmsteads of the open country. The Prussians found Bromberg, a German colonial city, in ruins; and it is even yet impossible to determine exactly how the city came into that condition. In fact, the vicissitudes which the whole Netze district had undergone in the last nine years before the Prussian occupation are completely unknown. No historian, no doc.u.ment, no chronicle, gives reports of the destruction and the slaughter which must have raged there. Evidently the Polish factions fought between themselves, and crop failures and pestilence may have done the rest. Kulm had preserved from an earlier time its well-built walls and stately churches, but in the streets the foundation walls of the cellars stood out of the decaying wood and broken tiles of the crumbled buildings. There were whole streets of nothing but such cellar rooms in which wretched people lived. Of the forty houses of the main market-place twenty-eight had no doors, no roofs, no windows, and no owners. Other cities were in a similar condition.
The majority of the country people also lived in circ.u.mstances which seemed pitiable to the King"s officers, especially on the borders of Pomerania, where the Wendish Ca.s.subians dwelt. Whoever approached a village there saw gray huts with ragged thatch on a bare plain without a tree, without a garden--only the wild cherry-trees were indigenous.
The houses were built of poles daubed with clay. The entrance door opened into a room with a great fireplace and no chimney; heating stoves were unknown. Seldom was a candle lighted, only pineknots brightened the darkness of the long winter evenings. The chief article of the wretched furniture was a crucifix with a holy water basin below. The filthy and uncouth people lived on rye porridge, often on herbs which they cooked like cabbage in a soup, on herrings, and on brandy, to which women as well as men were addicted. Bread was baked only by the richest. Many had never in their lives tasted such a delicacy; few villages had an oven. If the people ever kept bees they sold the honey to the city dwellers, they also trafficked in carved spoons and stolen bark; in exchange for these they got at the fairs their coa.r.s.e blue cloth coats, black fur caps, and bright red kerchiefs for the women. Looms were rare and spinning-wheels were unknown. The Prussians heard there no popular songs, no dances, no music--pleasures which even the most wretched Pole does not give up; stupid and clumsy, the people drank their wretched brandy, fought, and fell into the corners. And the country n.o.bility were hardly different from the peasants; they drove their own primitive plows and clattered about in wooden shoes on the earthen floors of their cottages. It was difficult even for the King of Prussia to help these people. Only the potato spread quickly; but for a long time the fruit-trees which had been planted by order were destroyed by the people, and all other attempts at promoting agriculture met with opposition.
Just as poverty-stricken and ruined were the border districts with a Polish population. But the Polish peasant in all his poverty and disorder at least kept the greater vivacity of his race. Even on the estates of the higher n.o.bility, of the starosts, and of the crown, all the farm buildings were dilapidated and useless. Any one who wished to send a letter must employ a special messenger, for there was no post in the country. To be sure, no need was felt of one in the villages, for most of the n.o.bility knew no more of reading and writing than the peasants. If any one fell ill, he found no help but the secret remedies of some old village crone, for there was not an apothecary in the whole country. If any one needed a coat he could do no better than take needle in hand himself--for many miles there was no tailor, unless one of the trade made a trip through the country on the chances of finding work. If any one wished to build a house he must provide for artisans from the West as best he could. The country people were still living in a hopeless struggle with the packs of wolves, and there were few villages in which every winter men and animals were not decimated. If the smallpox broke out, or any other contagious disease came upon the country, the people saw the white image of pestilence flying through the air and alighting upon their cottages; they knew what such an apparition meant: it was the desolation of their homes, the wiping out of whole communities; and with gloomy resignation they awaited their fate. There was hardly anything like justice in the country. Only the larger cities maintained powerless courts. The n.o.blemen and the starosts inflicted their punishments with unrestrained caprice. They habitually beat and threw into horrible dungeons not only the peasants but the citizens of the country towns who were ruled by them or fell into their hands. In the quarrels which they had with one another, they fought by bribery in the few courts which had jurisdiction over them. In later years that too had almost ceased. They sought vengeance with their own resources, by sudden onslaughts and b.l.o.o.d.y sword-play.
It was in reality an abandoned country without discipline, without law, without masters. It was a desert; on about 13,000 square miles 500,000 people lived, less than forty to a square mile. And the Prussian King treated his acquisition like an uninhabited prairie. He located boundary stones almost at his pleasure, then moved them some miles farther again. Up to the present time the tradition remains in Ermeland, the district around Heilberg and Braunsberg, with twelve towns and a hundred villages, that two Prussian drummers with twelve men conquered all Ermeland with four drumsticks. And then the King in his magnificent manner began to build up the country. He was attracted by precisely these run-down conditions, and West Prussia henceforth became, as Silesia had been before, his favorite child, which with infinite care, like a dutiful mother, he washed and brushed, provided with new clothes, forced into school and good behavior, and never let out of his sight. The diplomatic negotiations about the conquest were still going on when he sent a troop of his best officials into the wilderness. The territory was subdivided into small districts, in the shortest possible time the whole land area was appraised and equitably taxed, each district provided with a provincial magistrate, with a court, and with post-offices and sanitary police. New parishes were called into life as if by magic, a company of 187 school teachers was brought into the country--the worthy Semler had chosen and drilled part of them--and squads of German artisans were got together, from the machinist down to the brickmaker. Everywhere was heard the bustle of digging, hammering, building. The cities were filled with colonists, street after street rose from the ruins, the estates of the starosts were changed into crown estates, new villages of colonists were laid out, new agricultural enterprises ordered. In the first year after the occupation the great ca.n.a.l was dug, which in a course of a dozen miles or so unites the Vistula by way of the Netze with the Oder and the Elbe. A year after the King issued the order for the ca.n.a.l he saw with his own eyes laden Oder barges 120 feet long enter the Vistula, bound east. Through the new waterway broad stretches of land were drained and immediately filled with German colonists. Incessantly the King urged on, praised, and censured. However great the zeal of his officials was, it was seldom able to satisfy him. In this way, in a few years, the wild Slavic weeds which had sprung up here and there even over the German fields were brought under control, and the Polish districts, too, got used to the orderliness of the new life; and West Prussia showed itself, in the wars after 1806, almost as stoutly Prussian as the old provinces.
While the gray-haired King planned and created, year after year pa.s.sed over his thoughtful head. His surroundings became stiller and more solitary; the circle of men whom he took into his confidence became smaller. He had laid aside his flute, and the new French literature appeared to him shallow and tedious. Sometimes it seemed to him as if a new life were budding under him in Germany, but he was a stranger to it. He worked untiringly for his army and for the prosperity of his people; the instruments he used were of less and less importance to him, while his feeling for the great duties of his crown became ever loftier and more pa.s.sionate.
But just as his seven years" struggle in war may be called superhuman, so now there was in his work something tremendous, which appeared to his contemporaries sometimes more than earthly and sometimes inhuman.
It was great, but it was also terrible, that for him the prosperity of the whole was at any moment the highest thing, and the comfort of the individual so utterly nothing. When he drove out of the service with bitter censure, in the presence of his men, a colonel whose regiment had made a vexatious mistake on review; when in the swamp land of the Netze he counted more the strokes of the 10,000 spades than the sufferings of the workmen who lay ill with malarial fever in the hospitals he had erected for them; when he antic.i.p.ated with his restless demands the most rapid execution, there was, though united with the deepest respect and devotion, a feeling of awe among his people, as before one whose being is moved by some unearthly power. He appeared to the Prussians as the fate of the State, unaccountable, inexorable, omniscient, comprehending the greatest as well as the smallest. And when they told each other that he had also tried to overcome Nature, and that yet his orange trees had perished in the last frosts of spring, then they quietly rejoiced that there was a limit for their King after all, but still more that he had submitted to it with such good-humor and had taken off his hat to the cold days of May.
With touching sympathy the people collected all the incidents of the King"s life which showed human feeling, and thus gave an intimate picture of him. Lonesome as his house and garden were, the imagination of his Prussians hovered incessantly around the consecrated place. If any one on a warm moonlight night succeeded in getting into the vicinity of the palace, he found the doors open, perhaps without a guard, and he could see the great King sleeping in his room on a camp bed. The fragrance of the flowers, the song of the night birds, the quiet moonlight, were the only guards, almost the only courtiers of the lonely man. Fourteen times the oranges bloomed at Sans Souci after the acquisition of West Prussia--then Nature a.s.serted her rights over the great King. He died alone, with but his servants about him.
He had set out in his prime with an ambitious spirit and had wrested from fate all the great and magnificent prizes of life. A prince of poets and philosophers, a historian and general, no triumph which he had won had satisfied him. All earthly glory had become to him fortuitous, uncertain and worthless, and he had kept only his iron sense of duty incessantly active. His soul had grown up and out of the dangerous habit of alternating between warm enthusiasm and sober keenness of perception. Once he had idealized with poetic caprice some individuals, and despised the ma.s.ses that surrounded him. But in the struggles of his life he lost all selfishness, he lost almost everything which was personally dear to him; and at last came to set little value upon the individual, while the need of living for the whole grew stronger and stronger in him. With the most refined selfishness he had desired the greatest things for himself, and unselfishly at last he gave himself for the common good and the happiness of the humble people. He had entered upon life as an idealist, and even the most terrible experiences had not destroyed these ideals but enn.o.bled and purified them. He had sacrificed many men for his State, but no one so completely as himself.
Such a phenomenon appeared unusual and great to his contemporaries; it seems still greater to us who can trace even today in the character of our people, in our political life, and in our art and literature, the influence of his activities.
THE LIFE OF THEODOR FONTANE
By WILLIAM A. COOPER, A.M.
a.s.sociate Professor of German, Leland Stanford Jr. University
Theodor Fontane was by both his parents a descendant of French Huguenots. His grandfather Fontane, while teaching the princes of Prussia the art of drawing, won the friendship of Queen Luise, who later appointed him her private secretary. Our poet"s father, Louis Fontane, served his apprenticeship as an apothecary in Berlin. In 1818 the stately Gascon married Emilie Labry, whose ancestors had come from the Cevennes, not far from the region whence the Fontanes had emigrated to Germany. The young couple moved to Neu-Ruppin, where they bought an apothecary"s shop. Here Theodor was born on the thirtieth of December, 1819.
Louis Fontane was irresponsible and fantastic, full of _bonhomie_, and an engaging story teller. He possessed a "stupendous" fund of anecdotes of Napoleon and his marshals, and told them with such charm that his son acquired an unusual fondness for anecdotes, which he indulges extensively in some of his writings, particularly the autobiographical works and books of travel. The problem of making both ends meet seems to have occupied the father less than the gratification of his "n.o.ble pa.s.sions," chief among which was card playing. He gambled away so much money that in eight years he was forced to sell his business and move to other parts. He purposely continued the search for a new business as long as possible, but finally bought an apothecary"s shop in Swinemunde.
His young wife was pa.s.sionate and independent, energetic and practical, but unselfish. To her husband"s democratic tendency she opposed a strong aristocratic leaning. Their ill fortune in Neu-Ruppin affected her nerves so seriously that she went to Berlin for treatment while the family was moving.
In Swinemunde the father put the children in the public school, but when the aristocratic mother arrived from Berlin she took them out, and for a time the little ones were taught at home. The unindustrious father was prevailed upon to divide with the mother the burden of teaching them and undertook the task with a mild protest, employing what he humorously designated the "Socratic method." He taught geography and history together, chiefly by means of anecdotes, with little regard for accuracy or thoroughness. Though his method was far from Socratic, it interested young Theodor and left an impression on him for life. His mother confined her efforts mainly to the cultivation of a good appearance and gentle manners, for, as one might perhaps expect of the daughter of a French silk merchant, she valued outward graces above inward culture, and she avowedly had little respect for the authority of scholars and books.
After a while an arrangement was made whereby Theodor shared for two years the private lessons given by a Dr. Lau to the children of a neighbor, and "whatever backbone his knowledge possessed" he owed to this instruction. A similar arrangement was made with the private tutor who succeeded Dr. Lau. He had the children learn the most of Schiller"s ballads by heart. Fontane always remained grateful for this, probably because it was as a writer of ballads that he first won recognition. If we look upon the ballad as a poetically heightened form of anecdote we discover an element of unity in his early education, and that will help us to understand why the technique of his novels shows such a marked influence of the ballad.
"How were we children trained?" asks Fontane in _My Childhood Years_.
"Not at all, and excellently," is his answer, referring to the lack of strict parental discipline in the home and to the quiet influence of his mother"s example.
[Ill.u.s.tration: _Permission Berlin Photo Co, New York_ THEODOR FONTANE HANNS FECHNER]
Among the notable events of the five years Theodor spent in Swinemunde, were the liberation of Greece, the war between Russia and Turkey, the conquest of Algiers, the revolution in France, the separation of Belgium from Holland, and the Polish insurrection.
Little wonder that the lad watched eagerly for the arrival of the newspapers and quickly devoured their contents.
In Swinemunde the family again lived beyond their means. The father"s extravagance and his pa.s.sion for gambling showed no signs of abatement. The mother was very generous in the giving of presents, for she said that what money they had would be spent anyhow and it might as well go for some useful purpose. The city being a popular summer resort, they had a great many guests from Berlin during the season, and in the winter they frequently entertained Swinemunde friends.
Theodor left home at the age of twelve to begin his preparation for life. The first year he spent at the gymnasium in Neu-Ruppin. The following year (1833) he was sent to an industrial school in Berlin.
There he lived with his uncle August, whose character and financial management remind one of our poet"s father. Theodor was irregular in his attendance at school and showed more interest in the newspapers and magazines than in his studies. At the age of sixteen he became the apprentice of a Berlin apothecary with the expectation of eventually succeeding his father in business. After serving his apprenticeship he was employed as a.s.sistant dispenser by apothecaries in Berlin, Burg, Leipzig, and Dresden. When he reached the age of thirty he became a full-fledged dispenser and was in a position to manage the business of his father, but the latter had long ago retired and moved to the village of Letschin. The Fontane home was later broken up by the mutual agreement of the parents to dissolve their unhappy union. The father went first to Eberswalde and then to Schiffmuhle, where he died in 1867; the mother returned to Neu-Ruppin and died there in 1869.
The beginning of Theodor"s first published story appeared in the _Berliner Figaro_ a few days before he was twenty years of age. The same organ had previously contained some of his lyrics and ballads.
The budding poet had belonged to a Lenau Club and the fondness he had there acquired for Lenau"s poetry remained unchanged throughout his long life, which is more than can be said of many literary products that won his admiration in youth. He also joined a Platen Club, which afforded him less literary stimulus, but far more social pleasure.
During his year in Leipzig he brought himself to the notice of literary circles by the publication, in the _Tageblatt_, of a satirical poem ent.i.tled _Shakespeare"s Stocking_. As a result he was made a member of the Herwegh Club, where he met, among others, the celebrated Max Muller, who remained his life-long friend. After a year in Dresden Fontane returned to Leipzig, hoping to be able to support himself there by his writings. He made the venture too soon. When he ran short of funds he visited his parents for a while and then went to Berlin to serve his year in the army (1844). He was granted a furlough of two weeks for a trip to London at the expense of a friend. In Berlin he joined a Sunday Club, humorously called the "Tunnel over the Spree," at the meetings of which original literary productions were read and frankly criticised. During the middle of the nineteenth century almost all the poetic lights of Berlin were members of the "Tunnel." Heyse, Storm, and Dahn were on the roll, and Fontane came into touch with them; he and Storm remained friends in spite of the fact that Storm once called him "frivolous." Fontane later evened the score by cla.s.sing Storm among the "sacred kiss monopolists." The most productive members of the Club during this period (1844-54) were Fontane, Scherenberg, Hesekiel, and Heinrich Smidt. Smidt, sometimes called the Marryat of Germany, was a prolific spinner of yarns, which were interesting, though of a low quality. He employed, however, many of the same motives that Fontane later put to better use. Hesekiel was a voluminous writer of light fiction. From him Fontane learned to discard high-sounding phrases and to cultivate the true-to-life tone of spoken speech. Scherenberg, enthusiastically heralded as the founder of a new epic style, confined himself largely to poetic descriptions of battles.
When Fontane joined the "Tunnel" the particular _genre_ of poetry in vogue at the meetings was the ballad, due to Strachwitz"s clever imitations of Scottish models. Fontane"s lyrics were too much like Herwegh"s to win applause, but his ballads were enthusiastically received. One, in celebration of Derfflinger, established his standing in the Club, and one in honor of Zieten brought him permanently into favor with a wider public; these poems were composed in 1846. Two years later he read two books that for a long time determined his literary trend--Percy"s _Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_ and Scott"s _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_. He began to write ballads on English subjects and one of them, _Archibald Douglas_, created a great sensation at the "Tunnel" meeting and has ever since maintained its place among the best German poems. Its popularity is partly due to the fact that it was so appropriately set to music by Carl Lowe. When Fontane returned to Berlin in 1852, after a summer"s absence in England, he felt estranged from the "Tunnel" and ceased attending the meetings. Two n.o.blemen members, von Lepel and von Merckel, who had become his friends, introduced him to the country n.o.bility of the Mark of Brandenburg, which enabled him to make valuable additions to his portfolio of studies later drawn upon for his novels, among others, _Effi Briest_.
In 1847 Fontane pa.s.sed the apothecary"s examination by a "hair"s breadth" and soon found employment in Berlin. In the March Revolution (1848) he played a comical role, but was subsequently elected a delegate to the first convention to choose a representative. For a year and a quarter he taught two deaconesses pharmacy at an inst.i.tution called "Bethany." When that employment came to an end he decided that the hoped-for time had finally arrived to give up the dispensing of medicines and earn his living by his pen. Some of his new ballads were accepted by the _Morgenblatt_, and a volume of verses, dedicated to his fiancee, found a publisher. When news arrived of the victory of Denmark over Schleswig-Holstein at Idstedt (1850) he set out for Kiel to enlist in the army. In Altona he received a letter offering him a position in the press department of the Prussian Ministry of the Interior. He accepted immediately and at the same time wrote to Emilie k.u.mmer, to whom he had been engaged for five years, proposing that they should be married in October. She hastened to secure an apartment in Berlin and furnish it, and the wedding was celebrated on the sixteenth of October. Fontane thought he had entered the harbor of success, but he lost his ministerial position in six weeks and was again at sea. He had, however, a companion ready to share his trials and triumphs, and their union proved to be very happy.
In the summer of 1852 he was sent by the Prussian Ministry to London to study English conditions and write reports for the government journals, _Preussische Zeitung_ and _Die Zeit_. In 1855 he was again sent to England, and this time his journalistic engagement lasted for four years. Accounts of his experiences are contained in _A Summer in London_ (1854) and _Beyond the Tweed_ (1860). From 1860 to 1870 he was on the staff of the _Kreuzzeitung_ and during this time served as a war correspondent in the campaigns of 1864, 1866, and 1870-71. While accompanying the army in France he was seized with a desire to visit the home of Joan of Arc at Domremy, and was captured, taken for a spy, and imprisoned for a time on the island of Oleron in the Atlantic Ocean. An interesting account of his experiences is given in _Prisoner of War_ (1871). During his years in England he had taken advantage of the opportunity to visit Scotland and familiarize himself with its picturesque beauties and its wealth of historical and literary a.s.sociations. In the midst of these travels the thought had occurred to him that his own Mark of Brandenburg had its beauties, too, and its wealth of a.s.sociations. On returning to Berlin he began his long series of journeyings through his native province, making a thorough study of both country and people, particularly the Junkers, for which his trained powers of observation, combined with warm patriotism and true love of historical research, eminently fitted him. His published records of these travels, _Rambles through the Mark of Brandenburg_ (1862-81) and _Five Castles_ (1889), won for him the t.i.tle of the interpreter of the Mark. His right to this distinction was further established by the novels in which he later employed the fruits of these studies.
Fontane is equally celebrated as an interpreter of Berlin, where he lived for over fifty years, being the one prominent German writer to identify himself with a great city. His two autobiographical works, _From Twenty to Thirty_ and _C.F. Scherenberg_, tell of his early experiences in the Prussian capital. From 1870 to 1889 he was dramatic critic for the _Vossische Zeitung_, for which he reviewed the performances at the Royal Theatre. In one of his last criticisms he hailed Hauptmann as a dramatist of promise. In 1876 he was elected secretary of the Berlin Academy of Arts, but served only a brief time.
In 1891 the Emperor made him a present of three thousand marks for his services to German literature. In 1894 the University of Berlin bestowed upon him the honorary t.i.tle of doctor of philosophy. He died on the twentieth day of September, 1898.
Fontane"s lyric poetry in the narrower sense is not of a high order; in fact almost none of his writings show the true lyric quality. There is also a striking lack of the dramatic element in his works, and he seems to have felt this limitation of his genius, for he studiously avoided the portrayal of scenes that might prove intensely dramatic.
As a writer of ballads he excelled and ranks among the foremost of Germany. The British subjects he treated were impressed upon him during his travels in England and his study of English history. His German themes were taken largely from Prussian history, particularly the period of Frederick the Great. His permanent place in the history of German literature is due, however, not so much to his verse as to his prose writings. He is best known as a novelist, and in the field of the modern novel he is one of the most conspicuous figures.
German novels of the older school were usually too long for a single volume. Fontane"s first important work of fiction, _Before the Storm_, filled four volumes; but he had so much trouble in finding a publisher for it that he began to write one-volume novels, introducing a practice which has since become the common tradition. He employed in them a typical feature of the technique of the ballad, which leaps from one situation to another, leaving gaps to be filled by the fancy of the reader. He says himself, in _Before the Storm_: "I have always observed that the leaping action of the ballad is one of the chief characteristics and beauties of this branch of poetry. All that is necessary is that fancy be given the right kind of a stimulus. When that end is attained, one may boldly a.s.sert, the less told the better."
At the beginning of Fontane"s career the Berlin novelists were disciples of Scott, but the only one to survive was Alexis, who adapted Scott"s method to the Mark of Brandenburg. Fontane imitated him in _Before the Storm_ (1878), which deals with conditions in the Mark before the wars of liberation. _Schach von Wuthenow_ (1883), a sort of prelude to _Before the Storm_, was far superior as a novel and helped to establish Fontane"s supremacy among his contemporaries, for he had become the leader of the younger generation after the publication of two stories of crimes, _Grete Minde_ (1880) and _Ellernklipp_ (1881), and the creation of the modern Berlin novel, in _L"Adultera_ (1882). _L"Adultera_ unfolds the history of a marriage of reason between a young wife and a considerably older husband, a situation which Fontane later treated, with important variations and ever increasing skill, in _Count Petofi_ (1884), _Cecile_ (1887), and _Effi Briest_ (1895). With his inexhaustible fund of observation to draw upon he could make the action of his novels a minor consideration and concentrate his rare psychological powers upon realistic conversations in which characters reveal themselves and incidentally acquaint us intimately with others. We see and hear what the world ordinarily sees and hears. A past master in the art of suggestion, which he acquired in his ballad period, Fontane omits many scenes that others would elaborate with minute detail, such as love scenes and pa.s.sionate crises, and contents himself with bringing vividly before us his true-to-life figures in their historical and social environments. As a conservative Prussian he believed in the supremacy of the law and the punishment of transgression, and his works reflect this belief.
_Trials and Tribulations_ (1887) and _Stine_ (1890) were the first German novels absolutely to avoid the introduction of exciting scenes merely for effect. These histories of mismated couples from different social strata are recounted with hearty simplicity, deep understanding of life, and frank recognition of human weakness, but without condemnation, tears, or pointing a moral. They made Fontane famous.
_Frau Jenny Treibel_ (1892), an exquisitely humorous picture of the Berlin _bourgeoisie_, and _Effi Briest_ "the most profound miracle of Fontane"s youthful art," added considerably to the fame of the gray-haired "modern," while _The Poggenpuhls_ (1896) and _Stechlin_ (1898) won him further laurels at a time when most writers would long ago have been resting on those they had already achieved. If a line were drawn to represent graphically his productivity from his sixtieth year on, it would take the form of a gradually rising curve.
His career as a novelist began so late in life that when he once discovered his particular field he cultivated it with persistent diligence and would not allow himself to be drawn away by enthusiasts into other fields. Strength of character was not, however, a new phenomenon in his life, for as long ago as the days when he was an active member of the "Tunnel" he had come in close contact with the Kugler coterie in Berlin, where the so-called Munich school originated, and yet he did not follow his friends in that eclectic movement. So when the naturalistic school of writers began to win enthusiastic support, even though he found himself in the main in sympathy with their announced creed, he did not join them in practice.
He felt that what the literature of the Fatherland needed was "originality," and he sought to attain it in his own way, apart from storm and stress. As his mind matured through acc.u.mulated knowledge of the world, and his heart mellowed through years of experience and observation, he rose to a point of view above sentiment and prejudice, where the fogs of pa.s.sion melt away and the light of kindly wisdom shines.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FONTANE MONUMENT AT NEU RUPPIN.]
_THEODOR FONTANE_
EFFI BRIEST (1895)
TRANSLATED AND ABRIDGED BY WILLIAM A. COOPER, A.M.