So says the author! I do not think that these sentimental phrases produce the smallest effect on anybody. Note (in the original) how Fulda, an author of talent, in no way affiliated to the ‘Young-German realists,’ is himself sufficiently intimidated by their ranting to seek for ‘modernity’ by using the Berlin dialect.
[477] Ernst von Wildenbruch, Die Haubenlerche, Schauspiel in vier Akten. Berlin, 1891. Cf. p. 134:
August. Work builds the world. Therefore, it must be executed for its own sake; it must be loved!... And you—when I have seen you standing before your tub—with the water-scoop in your hand—in such a way that the windows flew open—then I thought, Ah! here is one who loves his tub!...
Ilefeld. Master August, ‘tis as if I had been married to it, to my tub—that’s how it’s been!
August. And yet you leave it standing there so that anybody might take your place? What am I to say to the tub, should it ask after Paul Ilefeld?
Ilefeld (sits down heavily and dries his eyes with his hand).
All the workmen I know would be convulsed with laughing at this conversation.
[478] Madame Minna Wettstein-Adelt, Three and a Half Months in a Factory, Eine praktische Studie, 2e Auflage. Berlin, 1892.
[479] Paul Gœhre, Three Months Factory Hand and Apprentice, Eine praktische Studie. Leipzig, 1892.
[480] Dr. S. Frenkel, ‘Die Therapie atactischer Bewegungstörungen,’ Münchener medizinische Wochenschrift, Nr. 52. 1892.