His young wife was passionate and independent, energetic and practical, but unselfish. To her husband's democratic tendency she opposed a strong aristocratic leaning. Their ill fortune in Neu-Ruppin affected her nerves so seriously that she went to Berlin for treatment while the family was moving.
In Swinemünde the father put the children in the public school, but when the aristocratic mother arrived from Berlin she took them out, and for a time the little ones were taught at home. The unindustrious father was prevailed upon to divide with the mother the burden of teaching them and undertook the task with a mild protest, employing what he humorously designated the "Socratic method." He taught geography and history together, chiefly by means of anecdotes, with little regard for accuracy or thoroughness. Though his method was far from Socratic, it interested young Theodor and left an impression on him for life. His mother confined her efforts mainly to the cultivation of a good appearance and gentle manners, for, as one might perhaps expect of the daughter of a French silk merchant, she valued outward graces above inward culture, and she avowedly had little respect for the authority of scholars and books.
After a while an arrangement was made whereby Theodor shared for two years the private lessons given by a Dr. Lau to the children of a neighbor, and "whatever backbone his knowledge possessed" he owed to this instruction. A similar arrangement was made with the private tutor who succeeded Dr. Lau. He had the children learn the most of Schiller's ballads by heart. Fontane always remained grateful for this, probably because it was as a writer of ballads that he first won recognition. If we look upon the ballad as a poetically heightened form of anecdote we discover an element of unity in his early education, and that will help us to understand why the technique of his novels shows such a marked influence of the ballad.
"How were we children trained?" asks Fontane in My Childhood Years. "Not at all, and excellently," is his answer, referring to the lack of strict parental discipline in the home and to the quiet influence of his mother's example.
[Illustration: Permission Berlin Photo Co, New York
THEODOR FONTANE HANNS FECHNER]
Among the notable events of the five years Theodor spent in Swinemünde, were the liberation of Greece, the war between Russia and Turkey, the conquest of Algiers, the revolution in France, the separation of Belgium from Holland, and the Polish insurrection. Little wonder that the lad watched eagerly for the arrival of the newspapers and quickly devoured their contents.
In Swinemünde the family again lived beyond their means. The father's extravagance and his passion for gambling showed no signs of abatement. The mother was very generous in the giving of presents, for she said that what money they had would be spent anyhow and it might as well go for some useful purpose. The city being a popular summer resort, they had a great many guests from Berlin during the season, and in the winter they frequently entertained Swinemünde friends.
Theodor left home at the age of twelve to begin his preparation for life. The first year he spent at the gymnasium in Neu-Ruppin. The following year (1833) he was sent to an industrial school in Berlin. There he lived with his uncle August, whose character and financial management remind one of our poet's father. Theodor was irregular in his attendance at school and showed more interest in the newspapers and magazines than in his studies. At the age of sixteen he became the apprentice of a Berlin apothecary with the expectation of eventually succeeding his father in business. After serving his apprenticeship he was employed as assistant dispenser by apothecaries in Berlin, Burg, Leipzig, and Dresden. When he reached the age of thirty he became a full-fledged dispenser and was in a position to manage the business of his father, but the latter had long ago retired and moved to the village of Letschin. The Fontane home was later broken up by the mutual agreement of the parents to dissolve their unhappy union. The father went first to Eberswalde and then to Schiffmühle, where he died in 1867; the mother returned to Neu-Ruppin and died there in 1869.
The beginning of Theodor's first published story appeared in the Berliner Figaro a few days before he was twenty years of age. The same organ had previously contained some of his lyrics and ballads. The budding poet had belonged to a Lenau Club and the fondness he had there acquired for Lenau's poetry remained unchanged throughout his long life, which is more than can be said of many literary products that won his admiration in youth. He also joined a Platen Club, which afforded him less literary stimulus, but far more social pleasure. During his year in Leipzig he brought himself to the notice of literary circles by the publication, in the Tageblatt, of a satirical poem entitled Shakespeare's Stocking. As a result he was made a member of the Herwegh Club, where he met, among others, the celebrated Max Müller, who remained his life-long friend. After a year in Dresden Fontane returned to Leipzig, hoping to be able to support himself there by his writings. He made the venture too soon. When he ran short of funds he visited his parents for a while and then went to Berlin to serve his year in the army (1844). He was granted a furlough of two weeks for a trip to London at the expense of a friend. In Berlin he joined a Sunday Club, humorously called the "Tunnel over the Spree," at the meetings of which original literary productions were read and frankly criticised. During the middle of the nineteenth century almost all the poetic lights of Berlin were members of the "Tunnel." Heyse, Storm, and Dahn were on the roll, and Fontane came into touch with them; he and Storm remained friends in spite of the fact that Storm once called him "frivolous." Fontane later evened the score by classing Storm among the "sacred kiss monopolists." The most productive members of the Club during this period (1844-54) were Fontane, Scherenberg, Hesekiel, and Heinrich Smidt. Smidt, sometimes called the Marryat of Germany, was a prolific spinner of yarns, which were interesting, though of a low quality. He employed, however, many of the same motives that Fontane later put to better use. Hesekiel was a voluminous writer of light fiction. From him Fontane learned to discard high-sounding phrases and to cultivate the true-to-life tone of spoken speech. Scherenberg, enthusiastically heralded as the founder of a new epic style, confined himself largely to poetic descriptions of battles.
When Fontane joined the "Tunnel" the particular genre of poetry in vogue at the meetings was the ballad, due to Strachwitz's clever imitations of Scottish models. Fontane's lyrics were too much like Herwegh's to win applause, but his ballads were enthusiastically received. One, in celebration of Derfflinger, established his standing in the Club, and one in honor of Zieten brought him permanently into favor with a wider public; these poems were composed in 1846. Two years later he read two books that for a long time determined his literary trend—Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry and Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. He began to write ballads on English subjects and one of them, Archibald Douglas, created a great sensation at the "Tunnel" meeting and has ever since maintained its place among the best German poems. Its popularity is partly due to the fact that it was so appropriately set to music by Carl Löwe. When Fontane returned to Berlin in 1852, after a summer's absence in England, he felt estranged from the "Tunnel" and ceased attending the meetings. Two noblemen members, von Lepel and von Merckel, who had become his friends, introduced him to the country nobility of the Mark of Brandenburg, which enabled him to make valuable additions to his portfolio of studies later drawn upon for his novels, among others, Effi Briest.