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