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one of those oddities Seldwyla breeds. Viggi Störteler, a shrewd and respectable merchant, has the maggot to be thought learned, and by and by even aspires to authorship. Under the pseudonym of "Kurt of the Forest" he produces some wretched high-flown novelettes, concocted with ideas stolen from various sources, and a tenth-rate paper publishes his lucubrations. He now thinks himself an author, and desires that his good homely wife should rise to his level, and become educated to be his muse. He plies her in vain with old anthologies and extract-books. They convey no meaning to the good housewife accustomed to look after her domestic concerns and lead an active life. No suggestive utterances fall from her lips. Viggi now thinks a correspondence might rouse her. He has a business journey to make, and will write her romantic letters, to which she must reply. On no account, he enjoins, must domestic or trivial details creep into the letters; these she can add on a separate sheet. The despair of Grittli is great when a few hours after her husband's departure there comes a missive of the most high-flown, turgid phrases that were ever bred in the brain of a foolish man. And to this she is to reply in a like strain. In despair she bethinks herself of her neighbor, an usher, who has the reputation of being a poetical dreamer, and who had often cast admiring eyes at the handsome young woman next door. Copying her husband's letter and changing it so that it reads as if addressed to a man, she puts it into the youth's hands and begs him to let her have an answer. She meant no harm: the usher was held fair game by the women-folk of Seldwyla, to all of whom he was more or less devoted. In due course William returns her an answer, in no wise behind her husband in sentimentality, and far exceeding it in sense and in reality of feeling. This letter Grittli copies, making the needful changes of sex. Her foolish husband is beside himself with joy when he gets this reply, and instantly writes another yet longer and more bombastic epistle. Grittli again has recourse to William. So for some weeks the twofold comedy of errors is played on, Viggi remaining absent longer than he had meant in order that a sufficient number of these letters may accumulate, for he intends to publish them as "The Correspondence of Two Contemporaries." Meantime Grittli counts on William's good nature not to be hurt when he hears the whole thing is a joke. Indeed, she has hinted as much to him from the first. But William takes it seriously. One warm autumn day, as he is sitting in the wood, he is suddenly surprised by Viggi Störteler, who has come home unexpectedly. Wishing to avoid him, he rises and walks away, but unfortunately he leaves VOL. VIII.-35

his pocket-book behind him containing Grittli's letters. This Viggi finds, and, hoping to receive some ideas from the contents, reads with growing astonishment and anger as he recognizes his own words and his wife's writing. He storms home, will listen to no reason, and turns Grittli out of the house. Both sue for divorce, which is accorded on the ground of incompatibility, and Grittli's character is fully reestablished, while Viggi is the general mark for ridicule. William, however, is dismissed from his post as an unfit guide for youth. He leaves Seldwyla and farms a lonely plot of land some hours distant. In due time he becomes a worthy, steady character. He still loves Grittli, and she has grown to love him. The story of their courtship and ultimate marriage is a prose pastoral that makes us forget the ludicrous opening of the tale. While in the former part we are in a false and distorted atmosphere, here a breeze which has come across Alpine flowers and pure meadow-heights animates the whole. As a skit upon the pretensions of would-be authors, the story contains masterly touches, such as when Viggi is always on the search for ideas and characteristics which he carefully notes down, or when he passes an evening with authors of his sort, in whose conversations the words clique, honorarium, publisher, editor, paper, are the most prominent, while books are only read for business, and the classical writers are barely known by name. In "Dietegen" the scene is laid at the close of the fifteenth century, and deals with the feuds between Seldwyla and a neighboring town, totally unlike it in character. The connecting links are two children, and here again Keller displays his marvelous insight into the complex workings of the childlike mind. His children are singularly real, neither abnormally good nor naughty, but actual flesh and blood, little mortals foreshadowing their future failings and virtues. And these children remain true to their first draught: the youth and maiden are the parents of the boy and girl. And every incident in their lives and in the hostile attitude of the two towns is rendered with the same fidelity to nature. "Dietegen" is a complete and well-rounded composition, containing some dainty scenes and picturesque sketches of medieval life, with its beauty and its cruelty. While "Dietegen" takes us into the Switzerland of the middle ages, "The Lost Laugh" shows us its modern aspect, its political agitations, its commercial activity, its religious dissensions. The story opens with a national fête upon the Lake of Zurich, at which the hero and heroine first meet. The parents of the latter are silk-manufacturers; the former has tried all manner of trades, but has settled to none. This, however, in Switzerland does not necessarily characterize a good-for

nothing as it would with us. There various callings are not so sharply separated. A merchant will turn clergyman, a clergyman merchant, an officer a silk-weaver, without losing caste. Thus Jucundus is no turncoat, but a versatile and restless youth, who, however, proves not sufficiently worldly wise to cope with others, and nearly comes to grief. The story is loosely put together, and often halts to allow of disquisitions. Yet these are always put into the mouths of the various characters. The author never obtrudes. Nevertheless, we may safely infer that here we gain an insight into Keller's views on the burning questions of the day. We see his ardent Liberalism, his hatred of formalism in any shape, his dislike to phrase-making and the ritual observances which have invaded even the plain Church of Calvin. In "The Lost Laugh "it is particularly prominent how Keller's mind has a gait of its own, so that the development of his stories is often slow of growth, and his grasp, though penetrating, seems at times a little uncertain in outline. Consequently he is apt to deviate, but in the end he generally gathers up all his threads, and we come to understand the hidden reason of apparent digressions. The Swiss character, with its healthy and often jejune common sense, its national self-consciousness and democratic pride, its absence of abstract range of thought, its stolidity, its true-heartedness and sturdy honesty, is reproduced in the various characters of this story.

Between the publication of the first and second volumes of "The People of Seldwyla" falls a work of a somewhat different kind, namely, a cycle of "Seven Legends." These stories ("Märchen ") are perhaps the most individual of Keller's productions, in which his comic instincts, his mirth, now purely genial, now underlaid with earnestness, his fantastic humors, have full play. The legends are all constructed upon the basis of Church traditions. In some cases Keller has merely expanded these, in others he has caught the spirit and form of the narrative but changed the conditions. The fundamental idea, however, is in all cases subverted. It is the human and natural elements in man that are made to triumph over the unnatural asceticisms of religious fanatics. We are shown how enthusiasm can be carried to an absurd pitch; how, when love interposes, the subject succumbs to natural emotions and is brought back to earth. Their whole purport is to show that while we are in the world we must do the world's work, and have no right thus to withdraw ourselves from its duties and temptations for the selfish gratification of our own inclinations. Keller is a freethinker in the best and noblest sense of the word, a profoundly religious soul unfettered by forms, and it is

against the worship of mere forms that he combats in these legends. But his purpose is hidden under airy conceits, and it is possible to read and enjoy these dainty stories without a guess at their deeper aim. Written in the spirit of the middle ages, which saw no irreverence in familiarity with divine things, they are carried out in the pure and delicate spirit of noble humanism. Perhaps the most racy and original is Keller's amplification of the old legend told by St. Gregory of Nyssa, of Musa, the girl who loved dancing and was forbidden by the Virgin to exercise her pastime upon earth. In accordance with the records of the same Church father, the nine Muses were permitted to quit hell once a year and enter heaven. Keller has availed himself of this notion, and depicts the manner in which this one day was spent. The Muses, in gratitude for this annual respite from torment, compose a hymn of praise, which they propose to perform the next time they are admitted within the precincts of paradise. Words and melody are modeled upon the psalms they hear the angels sing. But, alas! the earth-tones, the earth-yearnings, the minor key of unfulfilled desires and aspirations so sobs through their composition that what seemed cheerful sounds like wailing when heard in heaven. Their hymn creates a disturbance, and the nine are thenceforth banished from heaven for all time. The semi-comic, semimournful manner in which this incident is told is incomparable, and so is the roguish gravity, the quiet, unforced satire, that runs through these seven tales.

We now come to the last book published by Keller. He is not, therefore, as we see, a prolific writer, and hence has the right to be heard, as he only speaks when he has something to say. "Zurich Novelettes" ("Zürcher Novellen ") is the collective title of the series. The fair city of Zurich was till lately full of old-fashioned ways and things, and boasts a long and agitated history, which furnishes rich matter to a chronicler. Keller traces this from mediæval times down to the present day, connecting the whole by a loose framework, which probably serves an allegorical purpose. The stories are supposed to be told by a godfather to his godson, Jaques, a youth whose one desire it was to be an original, and who had read, to his sorrow, that our modern conditions do not produce originals, but that all people are alike, as though turned out by the dozen. He was determined to make an attempt to rise above this modern curse. He had various projects for achieving distinction. He had already planned a new Ovid, which was to deal with the metamorphoses of nymphs and mortals into the plants and dyes used in his father's factory, only somehow the subject was not inspiring, and the book

advanced no further than the title. One fine afternoon he wandered along the banks of the Sihl, recalling all the classical memories that hung around them, and hoping for inspiration there; instead, the more prosaic observation would force itself upon him that Zurich must consume a great deal of firewood, to judge by the quantity of timber that floated down the stream, and he began a rough calculation as to costs and profits. His godfather undertook to prove to him how such forced attempts are not originality, how a good original is only a person who deserves to be imitated, and such a one is any person who carries out thoroughly whatever he undertakes to do, even though this something be nothing specially extraordinary. And to do this is so rare that those who achieve it are therefore original, and stand forth from among their fellows. Is this a note of warning from Keller to his townsfolk, who still arrogate to themselves learned airs because once upon a time their city was a center of learning, and whose present hard-headed manufacturing proclivities are not compatible therewith, and hence produce a mongrel and far from pleasant type of character?

As a type of excellence the first stories introduce us to the old Zurich family of Manesse, and we follow their fortunes from the end of the thirteenth to the middle of the fifteenth century. Till quite recently there stood in Zurich an old tower, the last remnant of the town-house of the Manesse family, of whom one at least, Rüdiger von Manesse, erected to himself a less perishable monument. For to him we owe the "Manesse Codex," preserved at Paris, the most important MS. collection of Minnesinger songs on record. This was made at Rüdiger's instigation by Hadlaub, the son of a free Zurich peasant, and who became known as an early German poet. He is the hero of the story, which consists of a series of episodes, and is somewhat rambling and discursive. As is the case with all Keller's stories, its charm lies in the telling. There are no stirring incidents, but there is much naïveté and many pretty scenes. Medieval Zurich is conjured before us; we live among its worldly bishops and nuns, its knights and ladies, and share their intellectual pleasure when Hadlaub discovers a forgotten poem of Walter von der Vogelweide, or timidly brings forward one of his own. The occupation with poetry has made him a poet too, who by his songs and his charms wins the hand of Fides, the lovely daughter of the Bishop of Constance. The love-story, which runs like a golden thread through the narrative, beginning unconsciously when the two are children, is told in Keller's happiest and most delicate vein. No less finely drawn, and absolutely natural, is the last of the race, Ital Manesse, a gifted and agree

able man, who, wanting in all powers of endurance, sprang restlessly from one occupation to another, came to no good, and missed everywhere the blessings and joys that life could afford him. There was still one Manesse, a degenerate scion, who was known as the Fool, and inhabited the ruined family castle until it was burned down over his head. This man's one aim in life was to pass off as something different from what he was, and over this endeavor his character warped and his brain gave way. Now it was his desire to impress the landfolk with the conviction that he was a learned prelate, again he wished to appear a valiant warrior. Distinction at all hazards was his craving, but when the moment came to prove the reality of his boasts his courage evaporated like Falstaff's. He is a grotesque and ludicrous figure, conceived and delineated with power and psychological insight.

So far the symbolical has been uppermost in these stories, and there is less of the humorous element than usual. This comes forward again in the next, "The Landvogt of Greifensee," a story that misses excellence from its prolixity, but which would be delicious if tersely told. The fundamental idea is sufficiently humorous, and we are assured that it is founded on fact. The hero is Salomon Landolt, who created the corps of Zurich sharp-shooters. He was not happy in his love-affairs: four fair ones jilted him, and a fifth refused to marry him, although she loved him truly, on account of madness in her family. After many years, when all but this one were married, to give himself a happy day and to banish all irritation for ever, Landolt invited his five former loves to spend a day with him at his official residence, not informing any one that she was to meet the others. The denouement is highly absurd, and the whole ends merrily and well. These five ancient flames furnish vignettes of various types of Swiss women, of whom the brightest and most charming is the unmarried Figura Leu. The background is formed of pictures from the life of eighteenthcentury Zurich, with its sumptuary laws, its strict Calvinism, its æsthetic coquetries. It was the period of the literary controversies between Switzerland and Leipsic, and Bodmer is introduced as he walks on the ramparts, surrounded by admiring disciples, to whom he is dictatorially expounding his views on poetry, or telling them news of what is going on in the world, as, for example, that the magistrates of Dantsic have resolved in council that the young burghers of their town shall be forbidden to employ the hexameter measure in their poetic flights, on account of the improper and revolutionary character of this form of rhythm. We are transported back into a

wind-still period, where life did not tear along so fast, where love endured, where feuds were hotly waged and not soon forgotten, where hurry and speed were words unknown. It is perhaps because he realized this too vividly that Keller has spun out this story unduly.

This censure does not apply to "Ursula." Here in a condensed narrative is brought before us with bold and powerful strokes the Zurich of Zwingli's day, introducing the religious and political changes wrought by this Reformer. Keller's story deals chiefly with the Anabaptist movement, which he regards as one of the inevitable ugly excrescences produced by every great revolution, and he reproduces with horrible fidelity the delirious speeches and deeds of this misguided faction. In this story the plot is nothing, the accessories are everything. "The Flag of the Seven Upright Ones is perfect all round, and a worthy pendant to the "Romeo and Juliet of the Village." Plot, treatment, mise en scène, all are original and equally excellent, and give full scope to Keller's peculiar talents. His best quips and quirks, his best vein of drollery, his gentle satire, his tenderness, are all represented here. In the "Romeo and Juliet" the father's hatred separated the children: here the fathers were the best of friends, but they did not wish the young people to marry because the one was rich and the other poor. For the father of Karl Hediger was only a tailor, while Hermine Frymann's was a master carpenter, who owned a stately house and yard on the lake, and could afford to give his daughter a dowry. The two had known each other since childhood, and it was hard that they should suddenly be forbidden to meet. But so it had been resolved at the last meeting of the Club of the Seven Upright Ones. This club consisted of seven worthy friends who met twice a week alternately at the house of two of their number who were innkeepers. They were all tradesmen, ardent politicians, patriots, lovers of freedom, and stern home despots. Born in the last century, they had witnessed as children the downfall of the old times and the birth-throes of the new, and had held together manfully during the agitated period of Swiss history, when aristocrats and Jesuits threatened the unity and good fellowship of the little state, until in 1848, after the eighteen days' war with the Sonderbund, Switzerland broke for ever with the Jesuits and revived to new strength and unity. Some of these men came from the former subject states of the Confederacy, and remembered how as children they had to kneel down by the roadside when a coachful of dignitaries passed; others had been related to imprisoned or executed revolutionists, and all were filled with a burning hatred of aristocracy and priesthood. They formed this

For,

club as a bulwark against such enemies, and they
were ever true to their cause, asked for no re-
ward for their exertions, and placed all individual
advantages in the background if these came into
conflict with their consciences. But now that
since 1848 the new constitution seemed to have
guaranteed all they had struggled for, there were
fewer political matters to discuss, and hence
domestic troubles were also brought forward and
talked over with great impartiality at their meet-
ings. On the night that the story opens, the sub-
ject under discussion was a visit the club as a
body proposed to pay to the next shooting fête
at Aarau, the first held since the new constitu-
tion came into force. It was the evening of the
club's political life-how could they close it more
worthily than by such a demonstration? A
member proposed that they should march to
Aarau with a flag of their own, another that
they should present a handsome prize at the fête.
Both proposals were accepted, and the details
hotly discussed. The design of the flag did not
occupy them long, but what was the gift to be?
The seven stanch friends, whose friendship all
political agitations and divergences had not shak-
en, nearly fell out over this deliberation.
while seeking to do an honor to their country,
they also sought to do a little stroke of business
for themselves. Kuser, the silversmith, proposed
they should present a silver cup that he had had
by him for years, and which he would sell them
cheap for the glory of the Fatherland. Syfrig, the
blacksmith, recommended an ornamental plow
which he had exhibited at the last agricultural
show. Bürgi, the cabinet-maker, offered a four-
post bedstead he had made for a couple whose
wedding never took place. This last proposition,
however, raised only ridicule. Then followed
Pfister, one of the innkeepers, with a warm com-
mendation of his red Schweizerblut of '34; and
Erismann, the farmer, proposed a young cow of
pure breed, but who was known to be a kicker.
At last a cup was decided upon, but it was to be
made and designed for the occasion. This mat-
ter settled, Frymann brought forward his griev-
ance, that Hediger's son was courting his daugh-
ter, and he explained to him how he could not
do with a poor son-in-law. Hediger by no means
took his friend's frankness amiss; they were
quite agreed that the match was undesirable.
They would not become relations; they reiterated
they would remain friends-no more and no less.
The other members twitted them gently with
their resolve, and asked them if they were so very
sure that young love could be checked by con-
vention, and were willing to bet that Cupid's
wiles would prove too strong for the fathers.
Not so; they persisted—were they not of the
number of the upright and firm, and would they

not be so still? But the young couple were resolved not to be parted thus easily. July and the shooting-festival approached, the cup and flag were ready, when it dawned on the club that their gift must be introduced by a speech. But who should hold this? All hung back, none would undertake the task. At last by lot it fell to Frymann. For days beforehand he was miserable, could think of nothing to say but fierce and inappropriate invectives against the Jesuits. The great day arrived, the little faithful band drove to Aarau in a four-horse omnibus, they marched in procession, Frymann carrying the flag with a face as though he were going to execution. They neared the confederate tent, and at the last moment his courage failed him, and he declared he could not speak and so this glorious and patriotic expedition seemed likely to end in failure. But Hermine had foreseen some such catastrophe when she bade Karl be sure to come to Aarau for the fête. He now volunteered to be spokesman for the band, and Frymann himself was the first to assent, and hand him over the flag. Karl then pronounced an admirable discourse, in which he explained with tender humor the aims and purposes of these seven gray-headed men, and offered their gift to the Fatherland. Applause greeted his words; the seven marched away from the tent, pleased with themselves and him. The friends seconded Frymann's proposal to give his daughter to this worthy youth; and at last, not without difficulty, the proud and sternly radical Hediger also gave his consent, on the condition that Frymann should allow the pair

no more money than was good for them. The story, of which this is the bald outline, is full of freshness and beauty. It is easy to see that what Keller describes here is a reflection of the men and scenes among which he moves, and the picture of Swiss life as here presented will be new to most readers who know little or nothing of the distinctive feelings and modes of life of this little people. It also contains strongly emphasized a distinctive feature of Keller's genius. This is the genial nature of his humor. He makes us smile at his characters without injury to their dignity. While we are amused at the weaknesses of poor humanity, we never lose our respect for the persons in whom these weaknesses are embodied. We smile gently over the heads of the seven upright veterans, while at the same time their creator forces us to bow down with respect for their integrity and high-minded purposes.

We must still say a word about Keller's manner, which is no less his own than his matter. He handles the German language with rare skill; no conventional phrases, no rhetorical flourishes, no affectations or mannerisms disfigure his pages. His style is simple and unadorned, and hence perfectly in keeping with the homely republican nature of his characters; yet withal so pithy, piquant, quaint, that the most ordinary expressions acquire a new force under his pen, and the whole effect is far removed from commonplace. Not the least of Keller's charms lies in his style, his happy mode of narration. Such, briefly, is the Swiss writer whose remarkable originality we have tried faintly to indicate.

HELEN ZIMMERN (Fraser's Magazine).

PEOPLE

DREAM S.

EOPLE need be very wide awake to find a rational explanation of dreams. Like their father Sleep, they are still wrapped in mystery; and science has yet to lay bare the secret which has puzzled many a patient thinker. The subject concerns every one, especially if we believe what Shakespeare says, “Thoughts are but dreams till their effects be tried." In olden times, before the written revelation of the Divine will was given to men, dreams were frequently made the medium of communication with humankind. Of this we have abundant evidence in the Bible. By means of dreams, God taught his people that they had spiritual faculties, and that there was a spiritual universe beyond the material one. Over the uneducated mind, dreams have a great influence even to this day; and many a thought

less man has been led by a dream to think of higher and more serious things.

The opinions of learned men of all ages on this topic are widely divergent; and this divergence by no means arises from a flippant or superficial consideration of the subject, for some of the ancients spent a great portion of their lives in trying to reduce dreams to a science, or to embody them in songs and poems. The language of Homer is singularly rich in expressions for the visions of fancy which float before the dreamer. The sorely tried Ulysses, buffeted and tossed by the angry waves after leaving Calypso's isle, makes his bed of gathered leaves:

"And golden dreams (the gift of sweet repose)

Lulled all his cares, and banished all his woes."

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