the discipline which is lacking in the "Grüne "Doch bin ich immer Kind geblieben ideal flights, all imaginative subtilties, are lacking, whimsical, eccentric, angular characters flourish in this confined soil. Of this community Keller has constituted himself the chronicler, and, sharing most markedly many of its characteristics, he has both consciously and unconsciously reproduced these in a series of inimitable romances. Yet to Keller's first production, "Der grüne Heinrich," these remarks do not altogether apply. Nothing that Keller ever penned is imitative, even his first-born is sui generis, and springs from a fancy that has been unbiased and unrestrained. It is a strange work, full of glaring faults of construction; capricious, unequal, an incongruous medley, which nevertheless contains so many beauties that we can not lay it down unsatisfied, And, of this native land he is a faithful son, for it is full of that ineffable youthful fire of a owning its idiosyncrasies in fullest measure. He first effort which carries the reader over many is simple, strong, concrete, unsentimental, yet a rugged path. The book, published in 1854, not devoid of feeling. The granite of his Alps called forth much criticism and discussion, a sure brings forth men of granite, powerful and rug- sign that it had aroused interest; but it did not ged, yet sound to the core. Such a man is he, become popular, and can not be so any more and such live in his books. In confining his im- than "Wilhelm Meister," with which it is held agination to Switzerland, Keller has an advan- . to have some points in common. These are, tage over his German colleagues. In Switzerland social and political conditions are simpler, and hence more tangible. A true democracy, consisting mainly of peasants and members of the lower-middle class, there do not arise any of those complicated social perplexities that vex aristocratic nations. Men stand closer to each other, yet there is less jostling and crowding; conventionalities such as ours do not exist; within certain limits of distance everybody is known to everybody; and, as the aims of life are uniform and more elemental, everybody understands everybody. As herdsmen and tillers of the earth the landfolk derive their subsistence. They are thus kept in contact with nature, and do not lose sight of the realities of existence, are not blinded and smothered by the artificialities of civilization. Nor as a rule are they restless. The son continues to cut hay from his grandsire's acres. Among such a people traditions survive through all outward changes. At no time have these greatly affected Switzerland, which remained singularly untouched by the passing away of the old order in Europe. Patriotism, deep-seated love for their mountainous home, is for them no new emotion dating from yesterday. Hence, the air not being so full of doctrines and systems as in Germany, a Swiss novelist stands on firmer ground. He deals with a homely nation of a certain slow persistency of character, who form a sober commonwealth of practical persons, devoid of romanticism, whose aspirations do not arise beyond the preservation and increase of their goods and chattels. But, if all however, very superficial. It is at least a complete story, which the other is not. The resemblance begins and ends in the circumstance that both relate the mental development of their heroes. Keller's romance is a medley of truth and fiction, the autobiographical part telling of his own struggles as an artist. The hero is called "green" because of the color of his coats, but we also trace a symbolical meaning in this appellation, namely, that we are dealing with an unripe nature. It is the history of an irresponsibly contemplative character working itself out to maturity. Having completed his school studies, Heinrich attempts landscape-painting, and goes astray in various false schools. He then turns to science, where his ideality is rudely shaken by the materialistic views presented to him. Unable to find a solid basis, he wastes his time with boon companions, gets into debt, eats up his widowed mother's savings, and finally sets off on foot to return to his native Switzerland, a mental and moral failure. On his road he is entertained by a count whom he had known in better days. Here he meets with hospitality and the graces of life, falls in love, and is raised again mentally and physically. He then bethinks him of his mother, whom he has cruelly neglected, sets off for Zurich, and arrives in time to attend her funeral. This so shocks him, his errors rise so vividly before him, that he dies too. The end is clumsy, and open to sharp censure. It offends against all artistic canons, and leaves an unpleasant, harsh impression. Was it for this, we ask ourselves, that Heinrich suffered and made others suffer and sacrifice themselves for him, in order that he should die just when his strangely commingled nature had come to an harmonious issue, and has forced its way through the hampering inclosure? The best portion of this work is the hero's autobiography, which occupies two out of the four volumes, and deals with his childhood. We follow the development of an observant, silent, introspective child, endowed with a poet's nature, lacking stability of purpose, full of phantasy and intensity of emotion, with good and evil impulses struggling for mastery. And as background to the whole, Zurich with its lovely lake, and the country around, with its snowy mountains, its green swards, its purling streams, and its chalets. In none of his later writings has Keller so keenly reproduced the atmosphere of Switzerland, or told us as much of its national life and customs. The descriptions of landscape are full of intense sympathy with nature, of a semi-mystical and pantheistic kind, reminding of 'Wordsworth's treatment, but more simple and unaffected, because more unconscious, than the poet's method. But these descriptions are not the only exquisite thing in the work. The episode of Heinrich's childish innocent love for a young girl, Anna, recalls Longus's "Daphnis and Chloe" in its delicacy of narrative and treatment. The continuation of Heinrich's life-story is not so good; the author has lost sight of perspective, he grows too didactic, the narrative is too often interrupted by disquisitions. These are frequently excellent in themselves, and sometimes necessitated by the current of the story, but proportion has not been observed. Our author allows his pen to meander, the maxims and reflections do not always apply to the particular case. At last our conception of Heinrich grows confused amid this extraneous matter, and he disappears from our grasp into a nebulous dreamland. There is a casual air about the whole which destroys its epic character. It is a grave novel, strong in just those points to which the ordinary novelreader is, as a rule, indifferent. It is best characterized as a serious character-study, a psychological investigation of the most secret folds of the human heart, the analysis of an artistic nature that withdraws from customs and rules of ordinary life, and finds the laws for its conduct in its inner self. In every point the "Grüne Heinrich" is a first attempt, and at once stamped its creator as a bizarre, or what Mr. Bagehot would call "an irregular and unsymmetrical, writer," endowed with idiosyncrasy and ability. But "Die Leute von Seldwyla" is the work that founded Keller's fame. It is a series of novelettes that may be classified as peasant-stories, though they differ markedly from the labors of Auerbach or Gotthelf on the same domain, steering between the sentimentalisms and unrealities of the former and the bare prose of peasant-life as represented by the latter. While all the scenes and incidents are somewhat remote from real life, with its hot, busy strife, they are yet true to nature. Only the every-day vulgarities and commonplace elements do not thrust themselves into notice. Keller mingles ideality with the inflexible necessity of material things, the plummet of reality may be sunk into his depths, but a moonlit atmosphere suffuses the surface. Seldwyla is a fictitious town, a sort of Swiss Abdera. It is supposed to be still surrounded by its old fortifications, and remains the same quiet spot it was three hundred years ago. Its founders can never have meant it should come to much good, for they pitched it a full half-hour from any navigable river. But it is charmingly situated, in the midst of green hills open to the south, a fair wine ripens around its walls, while higher up the hills stretch boundless forests, the rich property of the commune. For this is one of the peculiarities of Seldwyla, that the commune is rich and the citizens are poor, in such a manner that no one in Seldwyla knows on what they have lived for centuries. And yet they live, and right merrily too, and are very critical concerning the ways of others if they quit their native town. The glory and nucleus of this little town consists of their young men of twenty to thirty-six, who give the tone in Seldwyla society and rule the roast. During these years they conduct their business by letting others do their work while they run into debt, an art the Seldwylers practice with a grace and good humor peculiar to themselves. When they have passed this age, and have lost all credit, they find it needful to begin life at the time when others are just taking firm root. Then they either enter foreign service and fight for strange tyrants, or go forth in search of adventures; and a Seldwyler is always to be recognized by the fact that he understands how to make himself comfortable in any latitude. Those who remain at home work at things they have never learned, and become the most industrious people possible. Timber there is enough and to spare, so that the very poorest are maintained by the commune from the produce of its wood-sales. And in this rotation the little people has gone on for centuries, remaining always contented and cheerful. If money is scarce or a shadow hangs over their souls, they cheer themselves by getting up political agitations, a further characteristic of the Seldwylers. For they are passionate partisans, constitution-menders, and agitators, and when their delegate at the Great Council brings forward some specially insane motion, or when the cry goes forth from Seldwyla that the con knows that at that moment money is tight among the Seldwylers. Besides this they like to change their opinions and principles, and are always in opposition the very day after a new government has been chosen. If it be too radical, to vex it, they range themselves round the conservative pious parson of the town, whom only yesterday they turned into ridicule, court him, crowd his church, praise his sermons, and hawk about his tracts and Bâle Missionary Society reports, without, however, contributing a farthing. If, on the other hand, a half-way conservative government is in power, at once they gather round their schoolmaster, and the parson has to pay a heavy sum to the glazier. Should, however, a government of liberal jurists and rich men be at the helm, at once they combine with the nearest socialists and elect them into the council, demanding a veto, and direct self-government with permanent assemblies. But very soon they are tired of this, speak as though they are weary of public life, and let half a dozen sleepy old bankrupts attend to the elections, while they lounge in taverns, watching their labors, and laughing in their sleeves. Yesterday they were enthusiastic for confederate life, and righteously indignant that absolute national unity was not established in 1848; to-day they are as ardent for cantonal sovereignty, and send no representatives to the national council. Occasionally, when they carry things too far, and their agitations and motions threaten the peace, the government sends a commission of inquiry to regulate the management of the Seldwyla communal property. This always subdues them, they have to look after affairs at home, and danger is averted. All this causes them great pleasure, which is only exceeded by the annual festivity, when the young wine ferments and the whole place smells of must, and there is a devil of a noise about, and the Seldwylers are more good-for-nothing than usual. Yet it is a curious fact that, the more good-for-nothing a Seldwyler is at home, the better he becomes when he goes out into the world, and quits the warm, sunny valley in which he has not thriven. stitution needs mending, then all the country by Seldwyla, and each has offered to bestow upon him its freedom if he will only pronounce in its favor. To appease them, since he already has a home of his own which is as proud as their ambitious communes, he tells them that in every town and valley in Switzerland stands a tower of Seldwyla; that this spot is a combination of many such towns, and must be regarded as imaginary. Some have suggested that it is Rapperschwyl. The stories are obviously laid near the Lake of Zurich. But Keller will be betrayed into no geographical definitions. However, while these towns seek to secure their Homer during his lifetime, a greater change has come over the real Seldwyla in the course of the last ten years than has occurred for centuries. Or rather, to speak more correctly, the general life of the land has so shaped itself that the peculiar faculties of the Seldwylers have found a fruitful field for due development, so that they have become more like other people. This is especially recognizable in the growth of speculation in stocks, a lazy business that just suits their temperament. But since that time they laugh less, are monosyllabic, have little time to spare for jokes or playing tricks. Instead of bankruptcies with disgrace attached to them, they now arrange with their creditors. Politics they have almost abandoned, because they think these lead to war. Already the Seldwylers are like every one else, nothing more of interest occurs among them. Therefore the author in a second volume has gathered in an aftermath from the past events of the little town. Each volume contains five stories. "Romeo and Juliet of the Village" is the gem of the series; indeed, it deserves the palm above all else that Keller has ever penned. The story opens with a carefully detailed picture of two worthy Swiss peasants who, on a fine September morning, are plowing their respective fields. These fields lie touching each other on a slope of the river that runs near the town. Between their properties lies a like piece of ground, but it was barren and only covered with stones and weeds. And the rubbish seems likely to accumulate, for each peasant throws on these unclaimed acres whatever encumbers his own fields. Thus they plow on, until mid-day, when a little hand-cart comes up from the village, drawn by a boy of seven and a little girl of six. It contains the dinner of the two men, and among the food thrones a naked one-legged doll. The men halt from their labor, and sit down in a furrow to discuss their meal. Their conversation turns upon the middle field, and each tells the other how the commune has tried to induce him to pay rent for it until its lawful owner should appear. No one has yet claimed it, but they feel pretty well convinced it must belong to a certain That a strange merry town like this lends itself to all manner of strange careers is not astonishing. Of these, as Keller says in his preface, he proposes to narrate a few, which, though in some senses exceptional, yet could not have happened except at Seldwyla. Now, Seldwyla is not a real town, as we have said, but a typical one; still it is characteristic of its truth to nature that in the preface to his second volume, published fifteen years after the first, the author tells us that seven towns in Switzerland have been disputing as to which of them is intended black fiddler who lives with the homeless folk and can produce no baptismal certificate, for he is the very image of the owner who disappeared from Seldwyla many years ago. It is a pity for the soil to let it lie thus fallow, they agree. While they eat and talk, the children have been playing in the desert field, until in the hot noonday sun both drop to sleep exhausted. Meantime the fathers have finished plowing, but before leaving work each tears a deep furrow into the middle field that adjoins his own. Neither takes notice of the other's deed, though each sees what the other has done. Harvest succeeds harvest, and each year sees the ownerless field grow narrower and narrower; the stones upon it have risen to a ridge so high that the boy and girl, though they have grown taller, can no longer see across it when they come to visit their fathers at their work. Years pass. The commune decides that the waste land must be sold. Manz and Marti, the two peasants, are the only people who care to bid for it, every one in Seldwyla knowing how the ground had become reduced. Finally it is knocked down to Manz, who instantly complains that Marti has lately cut off a three-cornered piece of the land that is now his, and summons him to straighten the boundary. A violent altercation ensues, and a lawsuit is finally commenced that robs both men of their sound judgment, impoverishes their estates, wastes their time, and only ends in their mutual ruin. The hatred between them, of course, hinders the meeting of their children. Moreover, Manz leaves Seldwyla. After some years Sali meets Vrenchen, and the old childish love is reawakened. Their delight at meeting is great, but Vrenchen fears lest her father should learn that she is speaking to his enemy's son. She begs Sali be gone, and at last promises to meet him on their old play-ground. Here they are interrupted by the black fiddler. He greets them with a sardonic smile. He knows them, he says; they are the children of those who have robbed him of his land. Well, they will come to no good, he feels sure, and he will live to see them go the way of all flesh before him. Nevertheless, if they wish to dance, he is willing to fiddle. This sinister apparition casts a gloom over their meeting, but it does not last long. Vrenchen's joyous nature casts off the angry omen with a merry laugh, and the two chatter away, bemoan their fathers' hatred, and regret the glad days spent on this spot. In happy talk they pass the afternoon sitting in the high corn, listening to the singing of the lark, and dreaming day-dreams as fervent as her song. Here Marti finds them. Furious with both, he insults Sali, who loses all self-control, and hurls a stone at Marti that strikes him down senseless, He recovers, but only to prove a hopeless idiot, and be placed in the public asylum. His house and remaining acre are sold to pay his creditors, and Vrenchen must go out into the world and earn her living. As she sadly ponders this, the last day in the empty, lonely house, thinking of Sali, he comes in. In vain they try to cheer each other; their future looks too drear, they must part, and yet they feel that separated they can know no joy. In her despair the fancy seizes Vrenchen that she must dance once more with Sali, must spend one more day of happiness; then, come what may, she will bear it. Tomorrow is Kermess at a neighboring place— could they not go? Sali consents. Early next day he fetches her, and she quits her empty, desolate home. They pass through a wood, they halt at a wayside inn, they linger beside streams, they talk and are silent in turns. It is such a happy day, as bright in their hearts as the cloudless sky above their heads! When afternoon comes they join the dancers. The black fiddler leads the music, he smiles as he perceives them. On and on they dance; the moon rises and floods the floor with light, midnight comes and the guests leave, and still Vrenchen and Sali can not make up their minds to part. Indeed, it has grown only harder. The fiddler interposes; they are foolish children, he says, he will advise them. He and his friends are returning to the mountains, they will give them bridal escort, he will furnish the music, and once among the houseless folk they will need no forms to celebrate their wedding. He works upon their feelings till they consent, almost without knowing what they do, and the wild procession goes out into the night singing and playing. But as they pass Vrenchen's former home Sali's reason returns. He detains the girl, and they manage to escape unperceived. But as the frenzied notes of the fiddle fade into the distance and all is still around them, Sali says, "We have fled from these, but how shall we flee from ourselves?" With passionate ardor Vrenchen implores him never to leave her. For a time Sali keeps his reason, but his love and her ardor are too strong for his young blood. After all, he counts but nineteen years. There is only one thing they can do, he says, hold their wedding at this hour, and then perish together in the river. They find a haybarge anchored to the shore; Sali looses it, they step into the soft fragrant mass, and the boat floats slowly down stream, past woods through which the moonlight glints, past dark meadows, past sleeping farms. At chill daybreak two pale figures, holding each other in a tight embrace, slip into the river, and when the sun has fully risen the boat comes to a standstill at the nearest town. It is empty, and none can tell how it came thither. Such this story, which is told with simple earnestness and pathos. Its construction is masterly. This, however, is far from being the case as a rule. In point of construction there is usually much to condemn in Keller: it is often lax and shapeless, his stories are apt to plunge like fairy tales into the midst of their subject. He seems to fancy that we too are Seldwylers and have known our neighbors and their concerns since childhood, that it is only needful to mention so-and-so for the whole bearings to rise up before us. This literalness, however, throws so powerful an air of reality over Keller's creations that even when these points are exaggerated we do not feel the exaggeration as we read, but are carried along by the stream of his persuasive plausibility. Into the "Romeo and Juliet" there enters no element of the burlesque, rarely absent from Keller's stories. Its Nemesis is Hellenic in its remorselessness. Nor is there anything forced or unnatural in the feelings and acts of these youthful peasants. "Frau Regel Amrain and her Youngestborn" is a loosely framed tale, showing how a worthy, practical woman saved her son from the devious career of the Seldwyla youths, and converted him into a worthy burgher. The feeling of public spirit is strongly developed in the Swiss, where it is every man's duty to hold views upon the government and assist in it. And this is admirably brought out here. In "The Three Righteous Combmakers" Keller lets loose all his fun and extravagance, and inimitable it is to read. It is an excellent skit upon apparent probity of conduct unrooted in true morality, the counterfeit for which the real thing is often mistaken. These three phlegmatic and avaricious young combmakers try to establish a good name in Seldwyla, because each wishes to succeed his master in the business. They all appear so excellent the master can not choose between them, yet neither can he afford to keep more than one in his employ. He therefore proposes an absurd race to decide the matter, and all Seldwyla turns out to see the fun, which, as usual, they think is got up for their especial delectation. A canny old maid, the possessor of some money, has also been wooed by the three. She favors none, for she is resolved only to marry the one that will become the master. When she hears of the proposed race she joins her admirers and befools each in turn until she is at last herself befooled, and is made to accept the man she least favored, and who wins both business and bride by a happy ruse. Thus baldly told, it is impossible to convey an adequate idea of the absurdity of the story, which, narrated in Keller's quiet tone of realism, carries us along over all buffoonery, so that while we read we fully believe. Neither do Keller's novelettes run in the usual groove, and love is by no means always or often the pivot of his plots. A poor tailor who is leaving Seldwyla in search of work is the hero of "Clothes make the Man." This tailor has the weakness always to dress in a long cloak and a Polish fur cap, which give an air of distinction to his appearance, and lead to his being mistaken for a count. The incident is trivial and hackneyed, not so its development. The stupefied assent of the tailor to the honors that are heaped upon him leads to many absurd situations. Though we despise the man's initial weakness that led him step by step into a web of falsehood, the story is so ingeniously told that we can never withhold our sympathy, and are relieved when all ends well and he wins a rich bride, who having deemed him a count remains faithful to a tailor. The way in which he is unmasked is characteristically Swiss. It is the custom in various parts of the country for the young people of the towns to divert themselves in winter with masquerade sledge-processions. Such a procession a few winters ago started from Samaden in the Engadine and visited the neighboring towns, parodying the past and present of that district-the sledges of the past bearing the herdsmen, the spinningwheels, Alpine horns, and dairy utensils of former days; the sledges of the present containing tourists, red guide-books in hand, or armed with Alpenstöcke, ropes, and ice-axes, waiters and landlords bearing bills of endless length. And such a procession, starting from Seldwyla, proceeded to Goldach to open the eyes of its inhabitants to the real status of their presumed Polish count. Their cavalcade represented a very history of tailoring, depicting tailors of all times and nations. The foremost sledge bore the inscription "Men make Clothes," the last, “Clothes make Men." To the confusion of the luckless workman, the party parade before him as he is about to celebrate his wedding. A gentle touch of irony runs through the whole, revealing how the Swiss, like their brother republicans the Americans, attach great value to titles. "Faber Fortunæ suæ ("The Smith of his Fortune ") is a trifle too broad, but it contains some ludicrous scenes. We are not told whether John Kabys knew this proverb-he certainly from boyhood built his life upon the idea. How he sets about achieving his fortune without doing real work for the same, and how his attempts end in grievous failures, must be read to be enjoyed. The serious close surprises in such a pure extravaganza. John ends by being a nailsmith who late in life learns to know the happiness of modest labor and honest earnings. "" "The Misused Love-Letters" is a medley of comedy and idyl. Here we are introduced to |