Up to this last bad business, Das hohe Lied exhibits that extraordinary power of psychological analysis that we have come to expect from Sudermann. Lilly, apart from her personal beauty, is not, after all, an interesting girl; her mind is thoroughly shallow and commonplace. Nor are the numerous adventures through which she passes particularly interesting. And yet the long book is by no means dull, and one reads it with steady attention. The reason for this becomes clear, after some reflexion. Not only are we absorbed by the contemplation of so masterly a piece of mental analysis, but what interests us most is the constant attempt of Lilly to analyse herself. We often wonder how people appear to themselves. The unspoken dialogues between Lilly and her own soul are amazingly well done. She is constantly surprised by herself, constantly bewildered by the fact that what she thought was one set of motives, turns out to be quite otherwise. All this comes to a great climax in the scene late at night when she writes first one letter, then another—each one meaning to be genuinely confessional. Each letter is to give an absolutely faithful account of her life, with a perfectly truthful depiction of her real character. Now the two letters are so different that in one she appears to be a low-lived adventuress, and in the other a noble woman, deceived through what is noblest in her. Finally she tears both up, for she realises that although each letter gives the facts, neither tells the truth. And then she sees that the truth cannot be told; that life is far too complex to be put into language.
In the attempts of German critics years ago to "classify" Sudermann, he was commonly placed in one of the three following groups. Many insisted that he was merely a Decadent, whose pleasure it was to deal in unhealthy social problems. That his interest in humanity was pathological. Others held that he was a fierce social Reformer, a kind of John the Baptist, who wished to reconstruct modern society along better lines, and who was therefore determined to make society realise its own rottenness. He was primarily a Satirist, not a Decadent. Professor Calvin Thomas quoted (without approbation) Professor Litzmann of Bonn, who said that Sudermann was "a born satirist, not one of the tame sort who only tickle and scratch, but one of the stamp of Juvenal, who swings his scourge with fierce satisfaction so that the blood starts from the soft, voluptuous flesh." A reading of Das hohe Lied will convince anyone that Sudermann, wherever he is, is not among the prophets. Finally, there were many critics who at the very start recognised Sudermann as primarily an artist, who chooses to paint the aspects of life that interest him. This is undoubtedly the true viewpoint. We may regret that he prefers to analyse human characters in morbid and abnormal development, but that, after all, is his affair, and we do not have to read him unless we wish to. Professor Thomas, in an admirable article on Das Glück im Winkel, contributed in 1895 to the New York Nation, said, "Sudermann is a man of the world, a psychologist, and an artist, not a voice crying in the wilderness. The immortality of Juvenal or Jeremiah would not be to his taste." It is vain to quarrel with the direction taken by genius; however much we may deplore its course. Sudermann is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of Germany's living writers, and every play or novel from his pen contains much material for serious thought.
VIII
ALFRED OLLIVANT
In the month of September, 1898, there appeared in America a novel with the attractive title, Bob, Son of Battle. Unheralded by author's fame or by the blare of advertisement, it was at first unnoticed; but in about a twelvemonth everybody was talking about it. It became one of the "best sellers"; unlike its companions, it has not vanished with the snows of yesteryear. At this moment it is being read and reread all over the United States. I do not believe there is a single large town in our country where the book is unknown, or where a reference to it fails to bring to the faces of intelligent people that glow of reminiscent delight aroused by the memory of happy hours passed in the world of imagination. It seemed so immensely superior to the ordinary run of new novels, that we gazed with pardonable curiosity at the unfamiliar signature on the title-page. Who was this writer who knew so much of the nature of dogs and men? Where had he found that extraordinarily vivid style, and what experiences had he passed through that gave him his subtle insight into character? But all that we could then discover was that Alfred Ollivant was an Englishman, and that Bob was his first novel. We decided that he must have lived long, observed all kinds of dogs, and a large variety of men, women, and children; and that for some reason best known to himself he had chosen to print nothing until he had descended into the vale of years. For only the other day we were not surprised to find that Joseph Vance was the winter fruit of a man nearly seventy; that book at any rate was the expression of a man who had had life, and had it abundantly.
Our astonishment was keen indeed when we learned that the author of Bob was a boy just out of his teens, who had written his wonderful book in horizontal pain and weakness. He had entered the army, receiving his commission as a cavalry officer in 1893, at the age of nineteen; a few weeks after this event, a fall from his horse injured his spine, previously affected by some mysterious malady; this accident abruptly checked his chosen military career, and made him a man of letters. Literature owes a great deal to enforced idleness, whether the writer be sick or in prison. The wind bloweth where it listeth; and we perceived once more that genius does not always accompany good health, or maturity, or ambition; it seems to select with absolute caprice the individuals through whom it speaks. And so this first-born child of the brain was delivered, like human infants, on a bed of suffering; being, to complete the analogy, none the less healthy on that account. The book was begun in 1894, when the author was twenty years old; during intervals of physical capacity in 1895 and 1896, it was continued, and was submitted to the publishers in 1897.
It was to have been published in the autumn, but the London firm decided to postpone its appearance one year. The author employed these months in completely rewriting the story, which he had named Owd Bob. Meanwhile, the New York publishers, who had a copy of the original manuscript, fearing that the title Owd Bob lacked magnetism, wisely rechristened it Bob, Son of Battle. And so, in September, 1898, the novel in its first form, but with a new name, was printed in America; simultaneously in England it appeared in a new form, but with the old name. In other words, the London first edition, Owd Bob, is a thoroughly revised version of the American first edition, Bob, Son of Battle, although they were published at the same time. It does not seem as though the author could have improved a book that so completely satisfies us as it stands; and Americans, to whom Owd Bob is unknown, may not believe that it can be superior to Bob, Son of Battle. Nevertheless it is. The two versions are of course alike in general features of the plot and in outline; but no one who has read both can hesitate an instant. One has only to compare the manner in which Red Wull made his début in America with the chapter where he first appears (in a totally different way) in the English edition, to see how clearly second thoughts were best.
And yet, despite the enormous popularity of Bob, Son of Battle in the United States, and despite the fact that Englishmen had the opportunity to read the story in a still finer form, it has not until very recently made any impression on British readers or on London critics. Is it possible that a book, like a dog, may be killed by a bad name? The novel was written by an Englishman, the scenes were laid in Britain, it dealt with manners and customs peculiarly English, and it was aimed directly at an English public. And yet, for nearly ten years after its publication, Owd Bob remained in obscurity.[12] But its day is coming, and the prophet will yet receive honour in his own country. In 1908 it was reprinted in a seven-pence edition, of which fifty thousand copies have already seen the light. This is nothing to the American circulation; but it is promising. Bearing in mind the futility of literary prophecy, I still believe that the day will come when Owd Bob will be generally recognised as belonging to English literature.