Hoffmann was, as already observed, the child of extremes. These were revealed not only in his life and action, but also in his writings; for his writings are the man. Indeed German critics have said that his works, particularly the Fantasiestücke, are "lyrics in prose." What they mean by this phrase is chiefly that the things he wrote exhibit subjective phrases of his nature, and are disconnected, or rather not connected, not balanced parts of a systematic whole. This is true so far as it is true that Hoffmann never did complete a long work, except the Elixiere, and this work, as there has been occasion to point out, consists of two disjointed parts. One of the things that strike us most in reading his books is the peculiar mixture of the real and the unreal, of matters appertaining to actual life and of fantasies born only of the imagination. Very often the imagination would be called by most people a diseased imagination; but it is not always so, sometimes it is the poet's imagination. Hence, from this blending or close alternation of reality with what is not of the earth--hence came his love for fairy tales, tales in which we meet with kobolds, imps, witches, little monsters of all kinds--the spirits and apparitions in fact which used to haunt his excited fancy in such a strange way. Several of these are poetic creatures, whom he handles in a light, graceful, and pleasing style (Goldener Topf, Nussknacker, Das fremde Kind, &c.); others, on the other hand, are drawn in horrible and unearthly colours and awaken the sentiments of awe and dread. What he loved especially to dwell upon was the "night side of natural science," the puzzling relations between the psychic and the physical principles both in man and in Nature. Hence such states as somnambulism, magnetism, dreams, dark forebodings of the terrible, inhuman passions, and such things as automata and vampyres, had for him an insuperable attraction. Insanity was a mystery that haunted his thoughts for years: it figures largely in Die Elixiere and Der Sandmann; and in the third part of Kater Murr it was his intention to represent Kreisler's battle with adverse circumstances as culminating in insanity. Handling these, and states and situations equally hideous, fantastic, and grotesque, with extraordinary clearness and precision both of thought and of language, considering the often misty nature of the subjects he treats of, and pouring upon the vivid pictures he conjures up the brightness of his wit and the exuberant gaiety and grace of his fancy, he succeeds in creating scenes, situations, and characters which seem verily instinct with real life. This end was attained principally by the true genius he displayed in perception, apprehension, and description. His graphic descriptive power is that which mainly procured him his wide-reaching fame during his own lifetime, not only in Germany but also in France, and is that which principally gives to his works whatever permanent value they may possess. With a painter's eye he grasps a character or a scene by a few of its more prominent and essential features, and with a painter's hand and eye he sketches them in a few telling strokes. The reader must not look to find in Hoffmann any clever or subtle analysis of the deeper motives that work towards the development of character; all that Hoffmann can give him will be talented pictures. He himself lays down his canon of literary spirit in the introduction to the first volume of the Serapionsbrüder--
"Vain are an author's efforts to bring us to believe in what he does not believe in himself, in what he cannot believe in, since he has not made it his own by seeing it (erschauen). What else are the characters of such an author, who, to borrow the old phrase, is no true seer, but deceitful marionettes, painfully glued together out of alien materials?... At least let each one of us [the Brethren] strive earnestly and truly to grasp the image that has arisen in his mind in all its features, its colours, its lights and its shades, and then when he feels himself really enkindled by them let him proceed to embody them in an external description."
Hoffmann has mostly succeeded in acting up to his canon and has written in its spirit; and in so far true genius cannot be denied him. And he possessed in no less eminent a degree the true art of the born story- teller. The interest seldom if ever flags; and the curious anomalies of men and of men-creatures (Mensch-Thiere), whom he mingles amongst his winning heroines and his delightful satiric characters, oftener than not quite enthrall the mind or afford it true enjoyment as the case may be, and this they do in spite of the fact that, owing to their own nature, they frequently stand outside the ordinary sphere of human sympathies. Of course it may readily be conceived that the danger which he was liable to fall into was want of clearness in conception and sentiment, but he has avoided this rock for the most part with wonderful skill. One of his latest productions, Prinzessin Brambilla, is the one where this fault is most markedly conspicuous; nor is the Elixiere free from it.
German critics have not failed to notice the sweet grace and winning loveliness which hover about the characters of most of his heroines. They are nearly all presented in colours impregnated with real poetic beauty; see, for instance, Seraphina (Das Majorat), Annunciata (Doge), Madelon and Mdlle. de Scudéry (Scudéri), Rose (Meister Martin), Cecily (Berganza), and others.
Carlyle, whose brief and for the most part truthful essay upon Hoffmann (in vol. ii. of his German Romance, 1829) appears to have been based largely upon others' opinions rather than upon first-hand acquaintance with his author, says that in him "there are the materials of a glorious poet, but no poet has been fashioned out of them." And when we seek for poetic elements in Hoffmann's works, we are not altogether disappointed. We have just stated that his heroines are creations of a poet's fancy; and in the scene between Father Hilarius and Kreisler in Kater Murr, and in the passages and characters already alluded to in Die Elixiere, in the sunny cheerful Märchen--Der goldene Topf (which Hoffmann calls his "poetic masterpiece"), in Das Gelübde, Nussknacker, &c., we enter the world of higher imagination. Again, whilst in Doge und Dogaresse we are arrested by the poetic charm of the island life of the Lagune in the golden days of Venice's splendour, in Meister Martin we are no less, perhaps still more impressed by the rich romantic beauty of life in the old mediæval town of Nuremberg. In Die Scudéri we are made acquainted with the cold glittering court of Louis XIV. through the lovable character of Mdlle. de Scudéry; and whilst on the one hand following with deep interest the fate of Brusson and his love, on the other we are led to contrast the subtilty of the plot with the fine analytic power of Poe in The Murders in the Rue Morgue. When visiting with Hoffmann the weird castle of Das Majorat, we are made to hear the cold shrill blasts of the Baltic whistling past our ears, and to feel the storm and the sea-spray dashing in our faces. These four tales are unquestionably the best that Hoffmann has written; to them must be added Meister Wachte, on account of its excellent characterisation of the hero. In striking contrast with the majority of the things he has written, these five tales show him when he is most objective; in them he has wielded his powers with more wise restraint than in any of the others, and introduced less of his strange fantastic caricatures. Next after these tales must be named, though on a lower level, and simply because they best illustrate his peculiar genius, the two books of Kater Murr, the fairy tale Der goldene Topf, and Des Vetters Eckfenster. In the works here named we have the best fruits of Hoffmann's pen. And if instead of asking in the mistaken spirit of competition which is now so much in vogue. What is Hoffmann's position in literature? we ask rather, Has he written anything that deserves to be read? we shall have already had our answer. The works here singled out are worthy of being preserved and read; and of them Das Majorat and Meister Martin are perhaps entitled to be called the best, though some German critics have mentioned Meister Wacht along with the former as having a claim to the first rank.
It is now time to take a glance at Hoffmann's satiric power. This was launched principally against two classes of society; the one is that of which his uncle Otto was a type, the man who is unreasonably obstinate in defence of the conventionalities of life, and no less so in their steady observance: the second class was that whose representatives aroused Hoffmann's ire so greatly at Bamberg and Berlin "tea-circles," or "tea-sings"--those who coquetted with art in an unworthy or frivolous manner. Against this latter class his irony and satiric wrath were especially fierce, as may be read in Berganza, Die Irrungen, the Kreisleriana, Kater Murr, Signor Formica, &c. Perhaps the most amusing, for quiet humour, of the former class is Die Brautwahl. The force of his satiric power lay in the skilful use of sudden contrast. Hence it plays more frequently upon or near the surface, and lacks the depth and pathos of true humour; but it is idle to expect from a man what he hasn't got.
In so far as this author had any serious philosophical belief, it would appear to have been that man was a slave of Chance, or Fate, or Destiny, or whatever it may be called. Sometimes he is the plaything of circumstances; sometimes a defenceless victim under "Fate's brazen hand," or of "that Eternal Power which rules over us." The real significance of life is summoned up in the statement that it is a struggle between contending powers of good and evil, against both of which man is equally helpless. He believed that whenever any good fell to a man's lot there was always some evil lurking in ambush behind it, or, to borrow his own expressive phrase, "the Devil must put his tail upon everything." His further views are here quoted from Der Magnetiseur:--
"We are knitted with all things without us, with all Nature, in such close ties, both psychic and physical, that the severance from them would, if it were indeed possible, destroy our own existence. Our so- called intensive life is conditioned by the extensive; the former is only a reflex of the latter, in which the figures and images received, as if reflected in a concave mirror, often appear in changed relations that are wonderful and singularly strange, notwithstanding that these caricatures again And their real originals in life. I boldly maintain, that no man has ever thought or dreamt anything the elements of which were not to be found in Nature; nohow can he get out of her."
Was this the cause or the result of the visions he used to see?
From his conception of strife between good and evil as interpreting the significance of existence arose that dissonance which lies at the root of nearly all his most characteristic works--that sense of want, that failure to find final satisfaction which may be only too readily detected. For the conflict within himself he knew no real mediatory: he was baffled to discover a higher category in which to unite the conflicting principles. Religion he never willingly talked about; hence it could not give him the satisfaction he lacked. He thought he found it in Art, however; since for Art he battled with all the strength of his genius, and in the sacred mission of Art he believed with all his soul. He has many enthusiastic bursts on the subject, agreeing in some respects with the views laid down by Schiller in his Aesthetische Erziehung des Menschen:--