Debit and Credit Part 1

Debit and Credit.

by Gustav Freytag.

LETTER FROM CHEVALIER BUNSEN.

CHARLOTTENBERG, NEAR HEIDELBERG, _10th October, 1857._

DEAR SIR,--It is now about five months since you expressed to me a wish that I might be induced to imbody, in a few pages, my views on the peculiar interest I attached--as you had been informed by a common friend--to the most popular German novel of the age, Gustav Freytag's _Soll und Haben_. I confess I was at first startled by your proposal. It is true that, although I have not the honor of knowing the author personally, his book inspired me with uncommon interest when I read it soon after its appearance in 1855, and I did not hesitate to recommend translation into English, as I had, in London, recommended that of the Life of Perthes, since so successfully translated and edited under your auspices. I also admit that I thought, and continue to think, the English public at large would the better appreciate, not only the merits, but also the importance of the work, if they were informed of the bearing that it has upon the reality of things on the Continent; for, although _Soll und Haben_ is a work altogether of fiction, and not what is called a book of _tendency_, political or social, it exhibits, nevertheless, more strikingly than any other I know, some highly important social facts, which are more generally felt than understood.

It reveals a state of the relations of the higher and of the middle cla.s.ses of society, in the eastern provinces of Prussia and the adjacent German and Slavonic countries, which are evidently connected with a general social movement proceeding from irresistible realities, and, in the main, independent of local circ.u.mstances and of political events. A few explanatory words might certainly a.s.sist the English reader in appreciating the truth and impartiality of the picture of reality exhibited in this novel, and thus considerably enhance the enjoyment of its poetical beauties, which speak for themselves.

At the same time, I thought that many other persons might explain this much better than I, who am besides, and have been ever since I left England, exclusively engaged in studies and compositions of a different character. As, however, you thought the English public would like to read what I might have to say on the subject, and that some observations on the book in general, and on the circ.u.mstances alluded to in particular, would prove a good means of introducing the author and his work to your countrymen, I gladly engaged to employ a time of recreation in one of our German baths in writing a few pages on the subject, to be ready by the 1st of August. I was the more encouraged to do so when, early in July, you communicated to me the proof-sheets of the first volume of a translation, which I found not only to be faithful in an eminent degree, but also to rival successfully the spirited tone and cla.s.sical style for which the German original is justly and universally admired.

I began, accordingly, on the 15th July, to write the Introductory Remarks desired by you, when circ.u.mstances occurred over which I had no control, and neither leisure nor strength could be found for a literary composition.

Now that I have regained both, I have thought it advisable to let you have the best I can offer you in the shortest time possible, and therefore send you a short Memoir on the subject, written in German, placing it wholly at your disposal, and leaving it entirely to you to give it either in part or in its totality to the English public, as may seem best adapted to the occasion.

I shall be glad to hear of the success of your Translation, and remain, with sincere consideration,

Dear sir, yours truly, BUNSEN.

TO THOMAS CONSTABLE, ESQ.

PREFACE BY CHEVALIER BUNSEN.

THE HISTORY AND SPIRIT OF THE BOOK.

Since our German literature attained maturity, no novel has achieved a reputation so immediate, or one so likely to increase and to endure, as _Soll und Haben_, by Gustav Freytag. In the present, apparently apathetic tone and temper of our nation, a book must be of rare excellence which, in spite of its relatively high price (15s.), has pa.s.sed through six editions within two years; and which, notwithstanding the carping criticism of a certain party in Church and State, has won most honorable recognition on every hand. To form a just conception of the hold the work has taken of the hearts of men in the educated middle rank, it needs but to be told that hundreds of fathers belonging to the higher industrious cla.s.ses have presented this novel to their sons at the outset of their career, not less as a work of national interest than as a testimony to the dignity and high importance they attribute to the social position they are called to occupy, and to their faith in the future that awaits it.

The author, a man about fifty years of age, and by birth a Silesian, is editor of the _Grenz-bote_ (Border Messenger), a highly-esteemed political and literary journal, published in Leipsic. His residence alternates between that city and a small estate near Gotha. Growing up amid the influences of a highly cultivated family circle, and having become an accomplished philologist under Lachmann, of Berlin, he early acquired valuable life-experience, and formed distinguished social connections. He also gained reputation as an author by skillfully arranged and carefully elaborated dramatic compositions--the weak point in the modern German school.

The enthusiastic reception of his novel can not, however, be attributed to these earlier labors, nor to the personal influence of its author.

The favor of the public has certainly been obtained in great measure by the rare intrinsic merit of the composition, in which we find aptly chosen and melodious language, thoroughly artistic conception, life-like portraiture, and highly cultivated literary taste. We see before us a national and cla.s.sic writer, not one of those mere journalists who count nowadays in Germany for men of letters.

The story, very unpretending in its opening, soon expands and becomes more exciting, always increasing in significance as it proceeds. The pattern of the web is soon disclosed after the various threads have been arranged upon the loom; and yet the reader is occasionally surprised, now by the appearance on the stage of a clever Americanized German, now by the unexpected introduction of threatening complications, and even of important political events. Though confined within a seemingly narrow circle, every incident, and especially the Polish struggle, is depicted grandly and to the life. In all this the author proves himself to be a perfect artist and a true poet, not only in the treatment of separate events, but in the far more rare and higher art of leading his conception to a satisfactory development and _denouement_. As this requirement does not seem to be generally apprehended either by the writers or the critics of our modern novels, I shall take the liberty of somewhat more earnestly attempting its vindication.

The romance of modern times, if at all deserving of the name it inherits from its predecessors in the _romantic_ Middle Ages, represents the latest _stadium_ of the epic.

Every romance is intended, or ought to be, a new Iliad or Odyssey; in other words, a poetic representation of a course of events consistent with the highest laws of moral government, whether it delineate the general history of a people, or narrate the fortunes of a chosen hero.

If we pa.s.s in review the romances of the last three centuries, we shall find that those only have arrested the attention of more than one or two generations which have satisfied this requirement. Every other romance, let it moralize ever so loudly, is still immoral; let it offer ever so much of so-called wisdom, is still irrational. The excellence of a romance, like that of an epic or a drama, lies in the apprehension and truthful exhibition of the course of human things.

_Candide_, which may appear to be an exception, owes its prolonged existence to the charm of style and language; and, after all, how much less it is now read than _Robinson Crusoe_, the work of the talented De Foe; or than the _Vicar of Wakefield_, that simple narrative by Voltaire's English contemporary. Whether or not the cause can be clearly defined is here of little consequence; but an unskillfully developed romance is like a musical composition that concludes with discord unresolved--without perhaps inquiring wherefore, it leaves an unpleasant impression on the mind.

If we carry our investigation deeper, we shall find that any such defect violates our sense of artistic propriety, because it offends against our healthy human instinct of the fundamental natural laws; and the artistic merit, as well of a romance as of an epic, rises in proportion as the plot is naturally developed, instead of being conducted to its solution by a series of violent leaps and make-s.h.i.+fts, or even by a pretentious sham. We shall take occasion hereafter to ill.u.s.trate these views by suitable examples.

That the work we are now considering fulfills, in a high degree, this requirement of refined artistic feeling and artistic treatment, will be at once apparent to all discriminating readers, though it can not be denied that there are many of the higher and more delicate chords which _Soll und Haben_ never strikes. The characters to whom we are introduced appear to breathe a certain prosaic atmosphere, and the humorous and comic scenes occasionally interwoven with the narrative bear no comparison, in poetic delicacy of touch, with the creations of Cervantes, nor yet with the plastic power of those of Fielding.

The author has given most evidence of poetic power in the delineation of those dark characters who intrude like ghosts and demons upon the fair and healthy current of the book, and vanish anon into the caverns and cellars whence they came.

The great importance of the work, and the key to the almost unexampled favor it has won, must be sought in a quite different direction--in the close relation to the real and actual in our present social condition, maintained throughout its pages. Such a relation is manifested, in very various ways, in every novel of distinguished excellence. The object of all alike is the same--to exhibit and establish, by means of a narrative more or less fict.i.tious, the really true and enduring elements in the complicated or contradictory phenomena of a period or a character. The poetic truthfulness of the immortal _Don Quixote_ lies not so much in the absurdities of an effete Spanish chivalry as in the portraiture that lies beneath, of the insignificance and profligacy of the life of the higher ranks, which had succeeded the more decorous manners of the Middle Ages. Don Quixote is not the only hero of the book, but also the shattered Spanish people, among whom he moves with gipsies and smugglers for companions, treading with all the freshness of imperishable youth upon the buried ruins of political and spiritual life, rejoicing in the geniality of the climate and the tranquillity of the country, reposing proudly on his ancestral dignity. This conception--and not alone the pure and lofty nature of the crazy besieger of wind-mills, who, in spite of all, stands forth as at once the worthiest, and fundamentally the wisest character in the book--const.i.tutes the poetic background, and the twilight glimmer amid the prevailing darkness in the life of the higher cla.s.ses. We feel that there is a.s.suredly something deeply human and of living power in these elements, and this reality will one day obtain the victory over all opponents.

By what an entirely different atmosphere do we feel ourselves to be surrounded in _Gil Blas_, where the highest poetry, the cunning dexterity of the modern Spanish Figaro, is manifested in the midst of a depraved n.o.bility, and a priesthood alive only to their own material interests. It is only the most perfect art that could have retained for this novel readers in every quarter of the world. The _denouement_ is as perfect as with such materials it can be; and we feel that, instead of Voltaire's withering and satiric contempt of all humanity, an element of unfeigned good-humor lies in the background of the picture. How far inferior is Swift! and how utterly horrible is the abandoned humor of a despair that leaves all in flames behind it, which breathes upon us from the pages of the unhappy _Rabelais_!

Fielding's novels, _Tom Jones_ in particular, bear the same resemblance to the composition of Cervantes that the paintings of Murillo bear to those of Rembrandt. The peculiarity of _Wilhelm Meister_ as a novel is more difficult of apprehension, if one does not seek the novel where in truth it lies--in the story of Mignon and the Harper, and only sees in the remainder the certainly somewhat diffuse but deeply-thought and cla.s.sically-delineated picture of the earnest striving after culture of a German in the end of the eighteenth century. It would argue, however, as it appears to me, much prejudice, and an utterly unreasonable temper, not to recognize a perfect novel in the _Wahlverwandschaften_, however absolutely one may deny the propriety of thus tampering with and endangering the holiest family relations.h.i.+ps, or thus making them the subjects of a work of fiction. Goethe, however, has here placed before us, and that with the most n.o.ble seriousness and the most artistic skill, a reality which lies deep in human nature and the period he represents. The tragical complications and consequences resulting even from errors which never took shape in evil deeds could not in the highest tragedy be represented more purely and strikingly than here. The stain of impurity rests upon the soul of him who thinks that he detects it, not in the book itself. Ottilie is as pure and immortal a creation of genius as Mignon.

As novel-literature has developed itself in Europe, an attempt has been made to employ it as a mirror of the past, into which mankind shall love to look, and thereby ascertain whether civilization has advanced or retrograded with the lapse of time. This is a reaction against the eighteenth century, and it appears under two forms--the idealistic-sentimental and the strongly realistic-social. The earliest instance in Germany of the romantic school, _Heinrich von Ofterdingen_, is the apotheosis of the art and literature of the Middle Ages. The writings of Walter Scott put an end to this sentimentalism, and this is indeed their highest merit. Those of his works will continue to maintain the most prominent place, standing forth as true and living representations of character, which deal with the events of Scottish history in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Still more the work of genius, however, and of deeper worth, Hope's _Anastasius_ must be admitted to be--that marvelous picture of life in the Levant, and in the whole Turkish Empire, as far as Arabia, as it was about the end of the last and the beginning of the present century. In this work truth and fiction are most happily blended; the episodes, especially that of Euphrosyne, may be placed, without disparagement, beside the novels of Cervantes, and strike far deeper chords in the human heart than the creations of Walter Scott. Kingsley's _Hypatia_, alone of modern works, is worthy to be named along with it. That, indeed, is a marvelous and daring composition, with a still higher aim and still deeper soul-pictures. Both of them will live forever as examples of union of the idealistic and the realistic schools, poetic evocations of a by-gone reality, with all the truth and poetry of new creations. In reading either of them we forget that the work is as instructive as it is imaginative.

The most vehement longing of our times, however, is manifestly after a faithful mirror of the present; that is to say, after a life-picture of the social relations and the struggles to which the evils of the present day have given rise. We feel that great events are being enacted; that greater still are in preparation; and we long for an epic, a world-moulding epic, to imbody and depict them. The undertaking is a dangerous one--many a lance is s.h.i.+vered in the first encounter. A mere tendency-novel is in itself a monster. A picture of the age must be, in the highest acceptation of the word, a poem. It must not represent real persons or places--it must create such. It must not ingraft itself upon the pa.s.sing and the accidental, but be pervaded by a poetic intuition of the real. He that attempts it must look with a poet's eye at the real and enduring elements in the confusing contradictions of the time, and place the result before us as an actual existence. It has been the high privilege of the English realistic school, which we may call without hesitation the school of d.i.c.kens, that it has been the first to strike the key-note with a firm and skillful hand. Its excellence would stand out with undimmed l.u.s.tre had it not, as its gloomy background, the French school of Victor Hugo and Balzac, that opposite of "the poetry of despair," as Goethe calls it. Here again, in this new English school, has the genius of Kingsley alighted. Most of his novels belong to it.

And, besides himself and d.i.c.kens, there stand forth as its most brilliant members the distinguished auth.o.r.ess of _Mary Barton_, and the sorely-tried Charlotte Bronte, the gifted writer of _Jane Eyre_--too soon, alas! removed from us. This school has portrayed, in colors doubtless somewhat strong, the sufferings and the virtues, the dangers and the hopes of the working-cla.s.ses, especially in towns and factories.

But, instead of enjoining hatred of the higher cla.s.ses, and despair of all improvement in the future for humanity, a healthy tone pervades their writings throughout, and an unwavering and cheering hope of better things to come s.h.i.+nes through the gloomy clouds that surround the dreary present. There are throes of anguish--but they tell of coming deliverance; there are discords--but they resolve into harmony. The spirit finds, pervading the entire composition, that satisfaction of the desires of our higher nature which const.i.tutes true artistic success.

d.i.c.kens, too, has at length chosen the real life of the working-cla.s.ses in their relations to those above them as a subject for his masterly pen. _Dombey and Son_ will not readily be forgotten.

It was necessary to take a comprehensive view of novel literature, and--although in the merest outline--still to look at it in its historical connection, in order to find the suitable niche for a book which claims an important place in its European development; for it is precisely in the cla.s.s last described--that which undertakes faithfully, and yet in a poetic spirit, to represent the real condition of our most peculiar and intimate social relations--that our author has chosen to enroll himself. With what a full appreciation of this high end, and with what patriotic enthusiasm he has entered on his task, the admirable dedication of the work at once declares, which is addressed to a talented and liberal-minded prince, deservedly beloved and honored throughout Germany. In the work itself, besides, there occur repeated pictures of these relations, which display at once a clear comprehension of the social problem, and a poetic power which keeps pace with the power of life-like description. To come more closely to the point, however, what is that reality which is exhibited in the story of our novel? We should very inadequately describe it were we to say, the n.o.bility of labor and the duties of property, particularly those of the proprietor of land. This is certainly the key-note of the whole conservative-social, or d.i.c.kens school, to which the novel belongs. It is not, however, the conflict between rich and poor, between labor and capital in general, and between manufacturers and their people in particular, whose natural course is here detailed. And this is a point which an English reader must above all keep clearly in view. He will otherwise altogether fail to understand the author's purpose; for it is just here that the entirely different blending of the social ma.s.ses in England and in Germany is displayed. We have here the conflict between the feudal system and that cla.s.s of industrial and wealthy persons, together with the majority of the educated public functionaries, who const.i.tute in Germany the citizen-cla.s.s. Before the fall of the Prussian monarchy in 1807, the n.o.ble families--for the most part hereditary knights (Herrn _von_)--almost entirely monopolized the governmental and higher munic.i.p.al posts, and a considerable portion of the peasantry were under servitude to them as feudal superiors. The numbers of the lesser n.o.bility--in consequence of the right of every n.o.bleman's son, of whatever grade, to bear his father's t.i.tle--were so great, and since the introduction by the great Elector,[A] and his royal successors, of the new system of taxation, their revenues had become so small, that they considered themselves ent.i.tled to the monopoly of all the higher offices of state, and regarded every citizen of culture, fortune, and consideration with jealousy, as an upstart. The new monarchic const.i.tution of 1808-12, which has immortalized the names of Frederick William III., and of his ministers, Stein and Hardenberg, altered this system, and abolished the va.s.salage and feudal service of the peasants in those provinces that lie to the east of the Elbe. The fruits of this wise act of social reform were soon apparent, not only in the increase of prosperity and of the population, but also in that steady and progressive elevation of the national spirit which alone made it possible in 1813-14 for the house of Hohenzollern to raise the monarchy to the first rank among the European powers.

[Footnote A: The friend and brother-in-law of William III.]

The further development in Prussia of political freedom unfortunately did not keep pace with these social changes; and so--to say no more--it happened that the consequences of all half measures soon resulted. Even before the struggles of 1848, down to which period the story of our novel reaches, the cla.s.ses of the more polished n.o.bility and citizens, instead of fusing into one band of _gentry_, and thus forming the basis of a landed aristocracy, had a.s.sumed an unfriendly att.i.tude, in consequence of a stagnation in the growth of a national lower n.o.bility as the head of the wealthy and cultivated _bourgeoisie_, resulting from an unhappy reaction which then took place in Prussia. The feudal proprietor was meanwhile becoming continually poorer, because he lived beyond his income. Falling into embarra.s.sments of every sort, he has recourse for aid to the provincial banks. His habits of life, however, often prevent him from employing these loans on the improvement of his property, and he seldom makes farming the steady occupation and business of his life. But he allows himself readily to become involved in the establishment of factories--whether for the manufacture of brandy or for the production of beet-root sugar--which promise a larger and speedier return, besides the enhancement of the value of the land. But, in order to succeed in such undertakings, he wants the requisite capital and experience. He manifests even less prudence in the conduct of these speculations than in the cultivation of his ancestral acres, and the inevitable result ensues that an ever-increasing debt at length necessitates the sale of his estate. Such estates are ever more and more frequently becoming the property of the merchant or manufacturer from the town, or perhaps of the neighboring proprietor of the same inferior rank, who has lately settled in the country, and become ent.i.tled to the exercise of equal rights with the hereditary owner. There is no essential difference in social culture between the two cla.s.ses, but there is a mighty difference between the habits of their lives. The mercantile cla.s.s of citizens is in Germany more refined than in any other country, and has more political ambition than the corresponding cla.s.s in England has yet exhibited. The families of public functionaries const.i.tute the other half of the cultivated citizen cla.s.s; and as the former have the superiority in point of wealth, so these bear the palm in respect of intellectual culture and administrative talent. Almost all authors, since the days of Luther, have belonged to this cla.s.s. In school and college learning, in information, and in the conduct of public affairs, the citizen is thus, for the most part, as far superior to the n.o.bleman as in fas.h.i.+onable manners the latter is to him. The whole nation, however, enjoys alike the advantage of military education, and every man may become an officer who pa.s.ses the necessary examination. Thus, in the manufacturing towns, the citizens occupy the highest place, and the n.o.bility in the garrison towns and those of royal residence. This fact, however, must not be lost sight of--that Berlin, the most populous city of Germany, has also gradually become the chief and the richest commercial one, while the great fortress of Magdeburg has also been becoming the seat of a wealthy and cultivated mercantile community.

Instead of desiring landed property, and perhaps a patent of n.o.bility for his children, and an alliance with some n.o.ble country family, the rich citizen rather sticks to his business, and prefers a young man in his own rank, or perhaps a clergyman, or professor, or some munic.i.p.al officer as a suitor to his daughter, to the elegant officer or man of n.o.ble blood; for the richest and most refined citizen, though the wife or daughter of a n.o.ble official, is not ent.i.tled to appear at court with her husband or her father. It is not, therefore, as in England or Scotland, the aim of a man who has plied his industrious calling with success to a.s.sume the rank and habits of a n.o.bleman or country squire.

The rich man remains in town among his equals. It is only when we understand this difference in the condition of the social relations in Germany and in England that the scope and intention of our novel can be apprehended.

It would be a mistake to suppose that our remarks are only applicable to the eastern provinces of Prussia. If, perhaps, they are less harshly manifested in the western division of our kingdom, and indeed in Western Germany, it is in consequence of n.o.ble families being fewer in number, and the conditions of property being more favorable to the citizen cla.s.s. The defective principle is the same, as also the national feeling in regard to it. It is easily understood, indeed, how this should have become much stronger since 1850, seeing that the greater and lesser n.o.bility have blindly united in endeavoring to bring about a reaction--demanding all possible and impossible privileges and exemptions, or compensations, and are separating themselves more and more widely from the body of the nation.

In Silesia and Posen, however, the theatres on which our story is enacted, other and peculiar elements, though lying, perhaps, beneath the surface, affect the social relations of the various cla.s.ses. In both provinces, but especially in Posen, the great majority of n.o.blemen are the proprietors of land, and the enactment under Hardenberg and Stein in 1808-10, in regard to peasant rights, had been very imperfectly carried out in districts where va.s.salage, as in all countries of Slavonic origin, was nearly universal. Many estates are of large extent, and some, indeed, are strictly entailed. These circ.u.mstances naturally give to a country life in Silesia or Posen quite a different character than that in the Rhine provinces. In Posen, besides, two foreign elements--found in Silesia also in a far lesser degree--exercise a mighty influence on the social relations of the people. One is the Jewish, the other the Polish element. In Posen, the Jews const.i.tute in the country the cla.s.s of innkeepers and farmers; of course, they carry on some trade in addition. The large banking establishments are partly, the smaller ones almost exclusively, in their hands. They become, by these means, occasionally the possessors of land; but they regard such property almost always as a mere subject for speculation, and it is but rarely that the quondam innkeeper or peddler settles down as a tiller of the soil. In Silesia, their chief seat is in Breslau, where the general trade of the country, as well as the purchase and the sale of land, is for the most part transacted. It is a pretty general feeling in Germany that Freytag has not dealt altogether impartially with this cla.s.s, by failing to introduce in contrast to the abandoned men whom he selects for exhibition a single honest, upright Jew, a character not wanting among that remarkable people. The inextinguishable higher element of our nature, and the fruits of German culture, are manifested, it is true, in the Jewish hero of the tale, ignorant alike of the world and its ways, buried among his cherished books, and doomed to early death; but this is done more as a poetic comfort to humanity than in honor of Judaism, from which plainly in his inmost soul he had departed, that he might turn to the Christianized spirit and to the poetry of the Gentiles.

The Polish element, however, is of still far greater importance.

Forming, as they once did, with the exception of a few German settlements, the entire population of the province, the Poles have become, in the course of the last century, and especially since the removal of restrictions on the sale of land, less numerous year by year.

In Posen proper they const.i.tute, numerically, perhaps the half of the population; but in point of prosperity and mental culture their influence is scarcely as one fourth upon the whole. On the other hand, in some districts, as, for instance, in Gnesen, the Polish influence predominates in the towns, and reigns undisputed in the country. The middle cla.s.s is exclusively German or Jewish; where these elements are lacking, there is none. The Polish va.s.sal, emanc.i.p.ated by the enactment of 1810, is gradually ripening into an independent yeoman, and knows full well that he owes his freedom, not to his former Polish masters, but to Prussian legislation and administration. The exhibition of these social relations, as they were manifested by the contending parties in 1848, is, in all respects, one of the most admirable portions of our novel. The events are all vividly depicted, and, in all essential points, historically true. One feature here appears, little known in foreign lands, but deserving careful observation, not only on its own account, but as a key to the meaning and intention of the attractive narrative before us.

The two national elements may be thus generally characterized: The Prusso-German element is Protestant; the Polish element is Catholic.

Possessing equal rights, the former is continually pressing onward with irresistible force, as in Ireland, in virtue of the principles of industry and frugality by which it is animated. This is true alike of landlord and tenant, of merchant and official.

The pa.s.sionate and ill-regulated Polish element stands forth in opposition--the intellectual and peculiarly courteous and accomplished n.o.bility, as well as the priesthood--but in vain. Seeing that the law secures perfect equality of rights, and is impartially administered; that, besides, the conduct of the German settlers is correct and inoffensive, the Poles can adduce no well-grounded causes of complaint either against their neighbors or the government. It is their innate want of order that throws business, money, and, at length, the land itself, into the hands of Jews and Protestants. This fact is also here worthy of notice, that the Jewish usurer is disappearing or withdrawing wherever the Protestant element is taking firmer ground. The Jew remains in the country, but becomes a citizen, and sometimes even a peasant-proprietor. This phenomenon is manifesting itself also in other places where there is a concurrence of the German and Slavonic elements.

In Prussia, however, there is this peculiarity in addition, of which Freytag has made the most effective use--I mean the education of the Prussian people, not alone in the national schools, but also in the science of national defense, which this people of seventeen millions has in common with Sparta and with Rome.

It is well known that every Prussian not physically disqualified, of whatever rank he be, must become a soldier. The volunteer serves in the line for one year, and without pay; other persons serve for two or three years. Thereafter, all beyond the age of twenty-five are yearly called out as militia, and drilled for several weeks after harvest. This enactment has been in force since 1813, and it is a well-known fact, brought prominently forward in the work before us, that, notwithstanding the immense sacrifice it requires, it is enthusiastically cherished by the nation as a school of manly discipline, and as exercising a most beneficial influence on all cla.s.ses of society. This inst.i.tution it is which gives that high standard of order, duty, and military honor, and that mutual confidence between officers and men, which at the first glance distinguishes the Prussian, not only from the Russian, but the Austrian soldier. This high feeling of confidence in the national defenses is indeed peculiar to Prussia beyond the other German nations, and may be at once recognized in the manly and dignified bearing, even of the lowest cla.s.ses, alike in town and country.

This spirit is depicted to the life in the striking episode of the troubles in the year 1848. Even in the wildest months of that year, when the German minority were left entirely to their own resources, this spirit of order and mutual confidence continued undisturbed. Our patriotic author has never needed to draw upon his imagination for facts, though he has depicted with consummate skill the actual reality.

We feel that it has been to him a labor of love to console himself and his fellow-countrymen under so many disappointments and shattered hopes, to cherish and to strengthen that sense of independence, without which no people can stand erect among the nations.

The Prusso-German population feel it to be a mission in the cause of civilization to press forward in occupation of the Sarmatian territory--a sacred duty, which, however, can only be fulfilled by honest means, by privations and self-sacrificing exertions of every kind. In such a spirit must the work be carried forward; this is the suggestive thought with which our author's narrative concludes. It is not without a meaning, we believe, that the zealous German hero of the book is furnished with the money necessary for carrying out his schemes by a fellow-countryman and friend, who had returned to his fatherland with a fortune acquired beyond the Atlantic. Our talented author has certainly not lost sight of the fact that Germany, as a whole, has as little recovered from the devastation of the Thirty Years' War as the eastern districts of Prussia have recovered from the effects of the war with France in the present century. Let the faults and failings of our national German character be what they may (and we should like to know what nation has endured and survived similar spoliation and part.i.tion), the greatest sin of Germany during the last two hundred years, especially in the less-favored north, has always been its poverty--the condition of all cla.s.ses, with few exceptions. National poverty, however, becomes indeed a political sin when a people, by its cultivation, has become const.i.tutionally fit for freedom.

In the background of the whole picture of the disordered and sickly condition of our social circ.u.mstances here so vividly presented, the author has plainly discerned Dante's n.o.ble proverb--