The Lost Manuscript: A Novel

by Gustav Freytag

"That is not to be said of all," replied the Professor; "but the superior ones are more even than a labor."

He gazed lovingly on the walls along which the high book-shelves reached up to the very ceiling, so that the room looked as if papered with the backs of books.

"The great number of them quite frightens me," said Ilse, helping him to make room for his own books in a dark corner, which was now cleared for them as their resting-place. "They look so calm and composed, and yet many of them may have been written with such impassioned feeling, and have excited their readers, too."

"Yes," said her husband, "they are the great treasure-wards of the human race. They preserve all that is most valuable of what has ever been thought or discovered, from one century to another; and they proclaim what existed once, and once only, upon the earth. Here is what was produced full a thousand years before our era, and close beside them those that have come into the world but a few weeks ago."

"Yet, from the coats that they wear, they look almost like each other," said Ilse. "I should have difficulty in distinguishing them."

The Professor explained their arrangement and led her from one book shelf to another, pointing out those works which were his special favorites.

"And you use them all?"

"Yes, and many more at times. These that you see here are only an infinitely small portion of the books that have been printed; for since the invention of books, almost all that we know and call learning is to be found in them. But that is not all," he continued; "few know that a book is something more than simply a product of the creative mind, which its author sends forth as a cabinet-maker does a chair that has been ordered. There remains, indeed, attached to every human work something of the soul of the man who has produced it. But a book contains between its covers the actual soul of the man. The real value of a man to others--the best portion of his life--remains in this form for the generations that follow, and perhaps for the farthermost future. Moreover, not only those who write a good book, but those whose lives and actions are portrayed in it, continue in fact living among us. We converse with them as with friends and opponents; we admire or contend with, love or hate them, not less than if they dwelt bodily among us. The human soul that is enclosed in such a cover becomes imperishable on earth, and, therefore, we may say that the soul-life of the individual becomes enduring in books, and only the soul which is encased in a book has certain duration on earth."

"But error persists also," said Ilse, "and so do liars and impure spirits when they are put in books."

"They undoubtedly do, but are refuted by better souls. Very different, certainly, is the value and import of these imperishable records. Few maintain their beauty and importance for all periods; many are only valuable at a later time, because we ascertain from them the character and life of men in their days, while others are quite useless and ephemeral. But all books that have ever been written from the earliest to the latest, have a mysterious connection. For, observe, no one who has written a book has of himself become what he is; every one stands on the shoulders of his predecessor; all that was produced before his time has helped to form his life and soul. Again, what he has produced, has in some sort formed other men, and thus his soul has passed to later times. In this way the contents of books form one great soul-empire on earth, and all who now write, live and nourish themselves on the souls of the past generations. From this point of view the soul of mankind is an immeasurable unity, which comprises every one who ever thus lived and worked, as well as those who breathe and produce new works at present. The soul, which past generations felt as their own, has been and is daily transmigrating into others. What is written today may to-morrow become the possession of thousands of strangers. Those who have long ago ceased to exist in the body continue to live in new forms here on earth, and daily revive in thousands of others."