Das Haidedorf

von
EDITED FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS
OTTO HELLER
professor of the German language and literature, Washington University
If any prose-writer may be called a poet, none is more worthy of that name than Adalbert Stifter. And, unless it be a requirement that, to be ranked as classic, a writer must be dead for many years, Stifter is entitled to an honorable place among the classic writers of Germany. Not all he has written bears the stamp of beauty and genius, but at his best he is truly great, and of his best we have a great deal.
Adalbert Stifter was born in Oberplan, Bohemia, October 23d, 1806. His father was a poor linen-weaver who was killed by an accident when the boy was only ten years old. An uncle assumed charge of his education and sent him to the monastic Latin School at Kremsmünster. His education was completed in Vienna, whither he went in 1826, principally to study history and philosophy, but also to cultivate his love of nature by the pursuit of natural science and landscape-painting. His love for nature remained throughout his life the most characteristic trait of the man. In all his works, but especially in his Studien, he showed himself to be a painter of words who has only one equal in German Literature--Paul Heyse. His love of detail confined him to one form of literary production, the short novel. And even within these narrow limits Stifter's works show little action. But for this we are amply compensated by the simple beauty of his diction, its calm moderated tone, with never a word superfluous or lacking, the manly nobility of his sentiment, and the almost womanly delicacy of his perception. No one can read Das Haidedorf without feeling the poet's love for man and nature.
The two volumes of which Das Haidedorf forms a small part are entitled Studien. In an English translation of extracts from Stifter this is rendered by Sketches. Far from being sketches, they are exquisite studies carefully finished by a master hand. It may be said without exaggeration that the following beautiful prose-idyl will suggest to a sensitive and appreciative mind a succession of pictures destined to remain as permanent possessions of art. And, when it is added that the style is simple and modern, no further apology need be made for this publication, save this, that the Studien have not, as far as I have been able to gather, been reprinted singly.