The novel, as is the case with every work of prominence and influence, did not escape criticism, even among the friends of the author. In his Autobiographical Reminiscences, Gustav Freytag refers to the fact. He says:
"The Lost Manuscript met with disapproval from many intimate critics of mine. The sombre coloring of the last volume gave offence. It was much objected that the religious struggles and the spiritual development of the heroine Ilse were not placed in the foreground, and again that Felix Werner was not more severely punished for the neglect of his duty towards his wife. But the insanity of the Sovereign was especially objectionable, and it was claimed that in our time such a figure was no longer possible. My friends were wrong in this criticism. The Sovereign and his son the Hereditary Prince were also taken as types. The former represents the perverted development of an earlier generation which had sprung up from the ruin of Napoleonic times; the latter the restriction and narrowness of life in the petty principalities that then made up the German nation."
The American public will perhaps feel the strength of the criticism to which Gustav Freytag in the passage quoted refers, more strongly than the European friends of the Author. We at least have felt it, and believe that almost all the citizens of the New World will feel it. Nevertheless, considering all in all, we confess that Gustav Freytag was fully justified in preserving these traces of the national soul-life of Germany. For they form an important link in the development of German thought, and have cast dark shadows as well as rays of sunlight over the aspirations of scientific progress; now disturbing it by the vanity and egotism of these petty sovereigns, now promoting it by an enthusiastic protection of the ideal treasures of the nation.
The Lost Manuscript teaches us an object-lesson respecting the unity of human soul-life. Under the masterly treatment of Gustav Freytag's ingenious pen, we become aware of the invisible threads that interconnect our thoughts and the actions prompted by our thoughts. We observe the after-effects of our ideas and our deeds. Ideas live and develop not alone in single individuals, but from generation to generation. They escape death and partake of that life which knows no death: they are immortal.
Gustav Freytag, it is true, did not write his novel with the intention of teaching psychology or preaching ethics. But the impartial description of life does teach ethics, and every poet is a psychologist in the sense that he portrays human souls. In a letter to the publisher, Gustav Freytag says:
"… The essential thing with the poet was not the teachings that may be drawn from the book, but the joyful creating of characters and events which become possible and intelligible through the persons depicted. The details he worked into artistic unity under the impulsion of a poetical idea.
"But I may now also express to you how great my pleasure is at the agreement that exists between the ethical contents of the story (The Lost Manuscript) and the world-conception (Weltanchauung) which you labor to disseminate…" (Translated from the German.)
The laws that govern the warp and woof of soul-life in its evolution hold good everywhere, also among us. We also have inherited curses and blessings from the past; our present is surrounded with dangers, and our future is full of bright hopes, the fulfilment of which mainly depends upon our own efforts in realizing our ideals.
CONTENTS:
CHAPTER I.
A Discovery
CHAPTER II.
The Hostile Neighbors
CHAPTER III.
A Fool's Errand
CHAPTER IV.
The Old House
CHAPTER V.
Among Herds and Sheaves
CHAPTER VI.
A Learned Lady from the Country
CHAPTER VII.
New Hostilities
CHAPTER VIII.
Tacitus Again
CHAPTER IX.
Ilse
CHAPTER X.
The Wooing.
CHAPTER XI.
Spitehahn
CHAPTER XII.
The Departure from the Estate
CHAPTER XIII.
The First Greetings of the City
CHAPTER XIV.
A Day of Visits
CHAPTER XV.
Among the Learned
CHAPTER XVI.
The Professors' Ball
CHAPTER XVII.
The Deception of Mr. Hummel
CHAPTER XVIII.
Cloudlets
CHAPTER XIX.
The Illness
CHAPTER XX.
A Court Matter
CHAPTER I.
A DISCOVERY
It is late evening in the forest-park of our town. Softly the foliage murmurs in the warm summer air and the chirping of the crickets in the distant meadows is heard far in among the trees.
Through the tree-tops a pale light falls down upon the forest-path and upon the dark undergrowth of bush and shrubbery. The moon sprinkles the pathway with shimmering spots, and kindles strange lights in the mass of leaves and branches. Here, the blue streaks of light pour down from the tree-trunks like streams of burning spirits; there, in the hollow, the broad fern-branches gleam from out the darkness in colors of emerald gold, and over the pathway the withered boughs tower like huge whitened antlers. But between and beneath, impenetrable, Stygian gloom. Round-faced moon in heaven, thine attempts to light this wood of ours are feeble, sickly, and capricious. Pray keep thy scanty light upon the highway leading to the city; throw thy faded beams not so crookedly before us, for at the left the ground slopes precipitately into morass and water.
Fie, thou traitor! Plump in the swamp and the wayfarer's shoe behind! But that might have been expected. Deceit and treachery are thy favorite pastimes, thou wayward freak of heaven. People wonder now that men of primitive times made a God of thee. The Grecian girl once called thee Selene, and wreathed thy cup with purple poppies, by thy magic to lure back the faithless lover to her door. But that is now all over. We have science and phosphorus, and thou hast degenerated into a wretched old Juggler. A Juggler! And people show thee too much consideration, to treat thee as a thing of life even. What art thou, anyhow? A ball of burnt out slag, blistered, airless, colorless, waterless. A ball? Why our scientists know that thou art not even round-caught in a lie again! We people on the earth have pulled thee out of shape. In truth thou art pointed, thou hast a wretched and unsymmetrical figure. Thou'rt a sort of big turnip that dances about us in perennial slavery-nothing more.
The wood opens. Between the wayfarer and the city extends a broad stretch of lawn, and in the centre a large pond. Welcome, thou dale of verdure! Well-kept paths of gravel lead over the forest meadow; here and there a clump of waving undergrowth is seen, and beneath it a garden-bench. Here the well-to-do citizen sits of an afternoon, and resting his hands upon the bamboo-cane that he carries, looks