Freytag's other work includes—'Die Technik des Dramas' (The Technique of the Drama: 1863), a consideration of the principles of dramatic construction; the life of his friend Karl Malthy, 1870; and 'Der Kronprinz und die Deutsche Kaiserkrone' (The Crown Prince and the German Imperial Crown: 1889), written after the death of Frederick III., with whom Freytag had had personal relations. To accompany the collected edition of his works (1887-88), he wrote a short autobiography, 'Erinnerungen aus Meinem Leben' (Recollections from My Life).
THE GERMAN PROFESSOR
From 'The Lost Manuscript'
Professors' wives also have trouble with their husbands. Sometimes when Ilse was seated in company with her intimate friends—with Madame Raschke, Madame Struvelius, or little Madame Günther—at one of those confidential coffee parties which they did not altogether despise, many things would come to light.
The conversation with these intellectual women was certainly very interesting. It is true the talk sometimes passed lightly over the heads of the servants, and sometimes housekeeping troubles ventured out of the pond of pleasant talk like croaking frogs. To Ilse's surprise, she found that even Flaminia Struvelius could discourse seriously about preserving little gherkins, and that she sought closely for the marks of youth in a plucked goose. The merry Madame Günther aroused horror and laughter in more experienced married women, when she asserted that she could not endure the crying of little children, and that from the very first she would force her child (which she had not yet got) to proper silence by chastisement. Thus conversation sometimes left greater subjects to stray into this domain. And when unimportant subjects were reviewed, it naturally came about that the men were honored by a quiet discussion. At such times it was evident that although the subject under consideration was men in general, each of the wives was thinking of her own husband, and that each silently carried about a secret bundle of cares, and justified the conclusion of her hearers that that husband too must be difficult to manage.
Madame Raschke's troubles could not be concealed; the whole town knew them. It was notorious that one market day her husband had gone to the university in his dressing-gown—in a brilliant dressing-gown, blue and orange, with a Turkish pattern. His students, who loved him dearly and were well aware of his habits, could not succeed in suppressing a loud laugh; and Raschke had calmly hung the dressing-gown over his pulpit, held his lecture in his shirt-sleeves, and returned home in one of the students' overcoats. Since that time Madame Raschke never let her husband go out without herself inspecting him. It also appeared that all these ten years he had not been able to learn his way about the town, and she dared not change her residence, because she was quite sure that her professor would never remember it, and always return to his old home. Struvelius also occasioned much anxiety. Ilse knew about the last and greatest cause; but it also came to light that he expected his wife to read Latin proof-sheets, as she knew something of that language. Besides, he was quite incapable of refusing commissions to amiable wine merchants. At her marriage Madame Struvelius had found a whole cellar full of large and small wine casks, none of which had been drawn off, while he complained bitterly that no wine was ever brought into his cellar. Even little Madame Günther related that her husband could not give up night work; and that once, when he wandered with a lamp among his books, he came too near the curtain, which caught fire. He tore it off, and in so doing burnt his hands, and burst into the bedroom with blackened fingers in great alarm, and resembling Othello more than a mineralogist....
Raschke was wandering about in the ante-room. Here too was confusion. Gabriel had not yet returned from his distant errand; the cook had left the remains of the meal standing on a side-table till his return; and Raschke had to find his greatcoat by himself. He rummaged among the clothes, and seized hold of a coat and a hat. As he was not so absent-minded as usual to-day, a glance at the despised supper reminded him just in time that he was to eat a fowl; so he seized hold of the newspaper which Gabriel had laid ready for his master, hastily took one of the chickens out of the dish, wrapped it in the journal, and thrust it in his pocket, agreeably surprised at the depth and capaciousness it revealed. Then he rushed past the astonished cook, and out of the house. When he opened the door of the étage he stumbled against something that was crouching on the threshold. He heard a horrible growling behind him, and stormed down the stairs and out of doors.
The words of the friend whom he had left now came into his mind. Werner's whole bearing was very characteristic; and there was something fine about it. It was strange that in a moment of anger Werner's face had acquired a sudden resemblance to a bull-dog's. Here the direct chain of the philosopher's contemplations was crossed by the remembrance of the conversation on animals' souls.
"It is really a pity that it is still so difficult to determine an animal's expression of soul. If we could succeed in that, science would gain. For if we could compare in all their minutiæ the expression and gestures of human beings and higher animals, we might make most interesting deductions from their common peculiarities and their particular differences. In this way the natural origin of their dramatic movements, and perhaps some new laws, would be discovered."