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DEBIT AND CREDIT.
Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag,
BY L.C.C.
WITH A PREFACE,
BY CHRISTIAN CHARLES JOSIAS BUNSEN,
D.D., D.C.L., D.PH.
NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
1858.
LETTER FROM CHEVALIER BUNSEN.
CHARLOTTENBERG, NEAR HEIDELBERG, _10th October, 1857._
DEAR SIR,--It is now about five months since you expressed to me a wish
that I might be induced to imbody, in a few pages, my views on the
peculiar interest I attached--as you had been informed by a common
friend--to the most popular German novel of the age, Gustav Freytag's
_Soll und Haben_. I confess I was at first startled by your proposal. It
is true that, although I have not the honor of knowing the author
personally, his book inspired me with uncommon interest when I read it
soon after its appearance in 1855, and I did not hesitate to recommend
translation into English, as I had, in London, recommended that of the
Life of Perthes, since so successfully translated and edited under your
auspices. I also admit that I thought, and continue to think, the
English public at large would the better appreciate, not only the
merits, but also the importance of the work, if they were informed of
the bearing that it has upon the reality of things on the Continent;
for, although _Soll und Haben_ is a work altogether of fiction, and not
what is called a book of _tendency_, political or social, it exhibits,
nevertheless, more strikingly than any other I know, some highly
important social facts, which are more generally felt than understood.
It reveals a state of the relations of the higher and of the middle
classes of society, in the eastern provinces of Prussia and the adjacent
German and Slavonic countries, which are evidently connected with a
general social movement proceeding from irresistible realities, and, in
the main, independent of local circumstances and of political events. A
few explanatory words might certainly assist the English reader in
appreciating the truth and impartiality of the picture of reality
exhibited in this novel, and thus considerably enhance the enjoyment of
its poetical beauties, which speak for themselves.
At the same time, I thought that many other persons might explain this
much better than I, who am besides, and have been ever since I left
England, exclusively engaged in studies and compositions of a different
character. As, however, you thought the English public would like to
read what I might have to say on the subject, and that some observations
on the book in general, and on the circumstances alluded to in
particular, would prove a good means of introducing the author and his
work to your countrymen, I gladly engaged to employ a time of recreation
in one of our German baths in writing a few pages on the subject, to be
ready by the 1st of August. I was the more encouraged to do so when,
early in July, you communicated to me the proof-sheets of the first
volume of a translation, which I found not only to be faithful in an
eminent degree, but also to rival successfully the spirited tone and
classical style for which the German original is justly and universally
admired.
I began, accordingly, on the 15th July, to write the Introductory
Remarks desired by you, when circumstances occurred over which I had no
control, and neither leisure nor strength could be found for a literary
composition.
Now that I have regained both, I have thought it advisable to let you
have the best I can offer you in the shortest time possible, and
therefore send you a short Memoir on the subject, written in German,
placing it wholly at your disposal, and leaving it entirely to you to
give it either in part or in its totality to the English public, as may
seem best adapted to the occasion.
I shall be glad to hear of the success of your Translation, and remain,
with sincere consideration,
Dear sir, yours truly,
BUNSEN.
TO THOMAS CONSTABLE, ESQ.
PREFACE BY CHEVALIER BUNSEN.
THE HISTORY AND SPIRIT OF THE BOOK.
Since our German literature attained maturity, no novel has achieved a
reputation so immediate, or one so likely to increase and to endure, as
_Soll und Haben_, by Gustav Freytag. In the present, apparently
apathetic tone and temper of our nation, a book must be of rare
excellence which, in spite of its relatively high price (15s.), has
passed through six editions within two years; and which, notwithstanding
the carping criticism of a certain party in Church and State, has won
most honorable recognition on every hand. To form a just conception of
the hold the work has taken of the hearts of men in the educated middle
rank, it needs but to be told that hundreds of fathers belonging to the
higher industrious classes have presented this novel to their sons at
the outset of their career, not less as a work of national interest than
as a testimony to the dignity and high importance they attribute to the
social position they are called to occupy, and to their faith in the
future that awaits it.
The author, a man about fifty years of age, and by birth a Silesian, is
editor of the _Grenz-bote_ (Border Messenger), a highly-esteemed
political and literary journal, published in Leipsic. His residence
alternates between that city and a small estate near Gotha. Growing up
amid the influences of a highly cultivated family circle, and having
become an accomplished philologist under Lachmann, of Berlin, he early
acquired valuable life-experience, and formed distinguished social
connections. He also gained reputation as an author by skillfully
arranged and carefully elaborated dramatic compositions--the weak point
in the modern German school.
The enthusiastic reception of his novel can not, however, be attributed
to these earlier labors, nor to the personal influence of its author.
The favor of the public has certainly been obtained in great measure by
the rare intrinsic merit of the composition, in which we find aptly
chosen and melodious language, thoroughly artistic conception, life-like
portraiture, and highly cultivated literary taste. We see before us a
national and classic writer, not one of those mere journalists who count
nowadays in Germany for men of letters.
The story, very unpretending in its opening, soon expands and becomes
more exciting, always increasing in significance as it proceeds. The
pattern of the web is soon disclosed after the various threads have been
arranged upon the loom; and yet the reader is occasionally surprised,
now by the appearance on the stage of a clever Americanized German, now
by the unexpected introduction of threatening complications, and even of
important political events. Though confined within a seemingly narrow
circle, every incident, and especially the Polish struggle, is depicted
grandly and to the life. In all this the author proves himself to be a
perfect artist and a true poet, not only in the treatment of separate
events, but in the far more rare and higher art of leading his
conception to a satisfactory development and _dénouement_. As this
requirement does not seem to be generally apprehended either by the
writers or the critics of our modern novels, I shall take the liberty of
somewhat more earnestly attempting its vindication.
The romance of modern times, if at all deserving of the name it inherits
from its predecessors in the _romantic_ Middle Ages, represents the
latest _stadium_ of the epic.
Every romance is intended, or ought to be, a new Iliad or Odyssey; in
other words, a poetic representation of a course of events consistent
with the highest laws of moral government, whether it delineate the
general history of a people, or narrate the fortunes of a chosen hero.
If we pass in review the romances of the last three centuries, we shall
find that those only have arrested the attention of more than one or two
generations which have satisfied this requirement. Every other romance,
let it moralize ever so loudly, is still immoral; let it offer ever so
much of so-called wisdom, is still irrational. The excellence of a
romance, like that of an epic or a drama, lies in the apprehension and
truthful exhibition of the course of human things.
_Candide_, which may appear to be an exception, owes its prolonged
existence to the charm of style and language; and, after all, how much
less it is now read than _Robinson Crusoe_, the work of the talented De
Foe; or than the _Vicar of Wakefield_, that simple narrative by
Voltaire's English contemporary. Whether or not the cause can be clearly
defined is here of little consequence; but an unskillfully developed
romance is like a musical composition that concludes with discord
unresolved--without perhaps inquiring wherefore, it leaves an unpleasant
impression on the mind.
If we carry our investigation deeper, we shall find that any such defect
violates our sense of artistic propriety, because it offends against our
healthy human instinct of the fundamental natural laws; and the artistic
merit, as well of a romance as of an epic, rises in proportion as the
plot is naturally developed, instead of being conducted to its solution
by a series of violent leaps and make-shifts, or even by a pretentious
sham. We shall take occasion hereafter to illustrate these views by
suitable examples.
That the work we are now considering fulfills, in a high degree, this
requirement of refined artistic feeling and artistic treatment, will be
at once apparent to all discriminating readers, though it can not be
denied that there are many of the higher and more delicate chords which
_Soll und Haben_ never strikes. The characters to whom we are introduced
appear to breathe a certain prosaic atmosphere, and the humorous and
comic scenes occasionally interwoven with the narrative bear no
comparison, in poetic delicacy of touch, with the creations of
Cervantes, nor yet with the plastic power of those of Fielding.
The author has given most evidence of poetic power in the delineation of
those dark characters who intrude like ghosts and demons upon the fair
and healthy current of the book, and vanish anon into the caverns and
cellars whence they came.
The great importance of the work, and the key to the almost unexampled
favor it has won, must be sought in a quite different direction--in the
close relation to the real and actual in our present social condition,
maintained throughout its pages. Such a relation is manifested, in very
various ways, in every novel of distinguished excellence. The object of
all alike is the same--to exhibit and establish, by means of a narrative
more or less fictitious, the really true and enduring elements in the
complicated or contradictory phenomena of a period or a character. The
poetic truthfulness of the immortal _Don Quixote_ lies not so much in
the absurdities of an effete Spanish chivalry as in the portraiture that
lies beneath, of the insignificance and profligacy of the life of the
higher ranks, which had succeeded the more decorous manners of the
Middle Ages. Don Quixote is not the only hero of the book, but also the
shattered Spanish people, among whom he moves with gipsies and smugglers
for companions, treading with all the freshness of imperishable youth
upon the buried ruins of political and spiritual life, rejoicing in the
geniality of the climate and the tranquillity of the country, reposing
proudly on his ancestral dignity. This conception--and not alone the
pure and lofty nature of the crazy besieger of wind-mills, who, in spite
of all, stands forth as at once the worthiest, and fundamentally the
wisest character in the book--constitutes the poetic background, and the
twilight glimmer amid the prevailing darkness in the life of the higher
classes. We feel that there is assuredly something deeply human and of
living power in these elements, and this reality will one day obtain the
victory over all opponents.
By what an entirely different atmosphere do we feel ourselves to be
surrounded in _Gil Blas_, where the highest poetry, the cunning
dexterity of the modern Spanish Figaro, is manifested in the midst of a
depraved nobility, and a priesthood alive only to their own material
interests. It is only the most perfect art that could have retained for
this novel readers in every quarter of the world. The _dénouement_ is as
perfect as with such materials it can be; and we feel that, instead of
Voltaire's withering and satiric contempt of all humanity, an element
of unfeigned good-humor lies in the background of the picture. How far
inferior is Swift! and how utterly horrible is the abandoned humor of a
despair that leaves all in flames behind it, which breathes upon us from
the pages of the unhappy _Rabelais_!
Fielding's novels, _Tom Jones_ in particular, bear the same resemblance
to the composition of Cervantes that the paintings of Murillo bear to
those of Rembrandt. The peculiarity of _Wilhelm Meister_ as a novel is
more difficult of apprehension, if one does not seek the novel where in
truth it lies--in the story of Mignon and the Harper, and only sees in
the remainder the certainly somewhat diffuse but deeply-thought and
classically-delineated picture of the earnest striving after culture of
a German in the end of the eighteenth century. It would argue, however,
as it appears to me, much prejudice, and an utterly unreasonable temper,
not to recognize a perfect novel in the _Wahlverwandschaften_, however
absolutely one may deny the propriety of thus tampering with and
endangering the holiest family relationships, or thus making them the
subjects of a work of fiction. Goethe, however, has here placed before
us, and that with the most noble seriousness and the most artistic
skill, a reality which lies deep in human nature and the period he
represents. The tragical complications and consequences resulting even
from errors which never took shape in evil deeds could not in the
highest tragedy be represented more purely and strikingly than here. The
stain of impurity rests upon the soul of him who thinks that he detects
it, not in the book itself. Ottilie is as pure and immortal a creation
of genius as Mignon.
As novel-literature has developed itself in Europe, an attempt has been
made to employ it as a mirror of the past, into which mankind shall love
to look, and thereby ascertain whether civilization has advanced or
retrograded with the lapse of time. This is a reaction against the
eighteenth century, and it appears under two forms--the
idealistic-sentimental and the strongly realistic-social. The earliest
instance in Germany of the romantic school, _Heinrich von Ofterdingen_,
is the apotheosis of the art and literature of the Middle Ages. The
writings of Walter Scott put an end to this sentimentalism, and this is
indeed their highest merit. Those of his works will continue to maintain
the most prominent place, standing forth as true and living
representations of character, which deal with the events of Scottish
history in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Still more the work
of genius, however, and of deeper worth, Hope's _Anastasius_ must be
admitted to be--that marvelous picture of life in the Levant, and in the
whole Turkish Empire, as far as Arabia, as it was about the end of the
last and the beginning of the present century. In this work truth and
fiction are most happily blended; the episodes, especially that of
Euphrosyne, may be placed, without disparagement, beside the novels of
Cervantes, and strike far deeper chords in the human heart than the
creations of Walter Scott. Kingsley's _Hypatia_, alone of modern works,
is worthy to be named along with it. That, indeed, is a marvelous and
daring composition, with a still higher aim and still deeper
soul-pictures. Both of them will live forever as examples of union of
the idealistic and the realistic schools, poetic evocations of a by-gone
reality, with all the truth and poetry of new creations. In reading
either of them we forget that the work is as instructive as it is
imaginative.
The most vehement longing of our times, however, is manifestly after a
faithful mirror of the present; that is to say, after a life-picture of
the social relations and the struggles to which the evils of the present
day have given rise. We feel that great events are being enacted; that
greater still are in preparation; and we long for an epic, a
world-moulding epic, to imbody and depict them. The undertaking is a
dangerous one--many a lance is shivered in the first encounter. A mere
tendency-novel is in itself a monster. A picture of the age must be, in
the highest acceptation of the word, a poem. It must not represent real
persons or places--it must create such. It must not ingraft itself upon
the passing and the accidental, but be pervaded by a poetic intuition of
the real. He that attempts it must look with a poet's eye at the real
and enduring elements in the confusing contradictions of the time, and
place the result before us as an actual existence. It has been the high
privilege of the English realistic school, which we may call without
hesitation the school of Dickens, that it has been the first to strike
the key-note with a firm and skillful hand. Its excellence would stand
out with undimmed lustre had it not, as its gloomy background, the
French school of Victor Hugo and Balzac, that opposite of "the poetry of
despair," as Goethe calls it. Here again, in this new English school,
has the genius of Kingsley alighted. Most of his novels belong to it.
And, besides himself and Dickens, there stand forth as its most
brilliant members the distinguished authoress of _Mary Barton_, and the
sorely-tried Charlotte Brontë, the gifted writer of _Jane Eyre_--too
soon, alas! removed from us. This school has portrayed, in colors
doubtless somewhat strong, the sufferings and the virtues, the dangers
and the hopes of the working-classes, especially in towns and factories.
But, instead of enjoining hatred of the higher classes, and despair of
all improvement in the future for humanity, a healthy tone pervades
their writings throughout, and an unwavering and cheering hope of better
things to come shines through the gloomy clouds that surround the dreary
present. There are throes of anguish--but they tell of coming
deliverance; there are discords--but they resolve into harmony. The
spirit finds, pervading the entire composition, that satisfaction of the
desires of our higher nature which constitutes true artistic success.
Dickens, too, has at length chosen the real life of the working-classes
in their relations to those above them as a subject for his masterly
pen. _Dombey and Son_ will not readily be forgotten.
It was necessary to take a comprehensive view of novel literature,
and--although in the merest outline--still to look at it in its
historical connection, in order to find the suitable niche for a book
which claims an important place in its European development; for it is
precisely in the class last described--that which undertakes faithfully,
and yet in a poetic spirit, to represent the real condition of our most
peculiar and intimate social relations--that our author has chosen to
enroll himself. With what a full appreciation of this high end, and with
what patriotic enthusiasm he has entered on his task, the admirable
dedication of the work at once declares, which is addressed to a
talented and liberal-minded prince, deservedly beloved and honored
throughout Germany. In the work itself, besides, there occur repeated
pictures of these relations, which display at once a clear comprehension
of the social problem, and a poetic power which keeps pace with the
power of life-like description. To come more closely to the point,
however, what is that reality which is exhibited in the story of our
novel? We should very inadequately describe it were we to say, the
nobility of labor and the duties of property, particularly those of the
proprietor of land. This is certainly the key-note of the whole
conservative-social, or Dickens school, to which the novel belongs. It
is not, however, the conflict between rich and poor, between labor and
capital in general, and between manufacturers and their people in
particular, whose natural course is here detailed. And this is a point
which an English reader must above all keep clearly in view. He will
otherwise altogether fail to understand the author's purpose; for it is
just here that the entirely different blending of the social masses in
England and in Germany is displayed. We have here the conflict between
the feudal system and that class of industrial and wealthy persons,
together with the majority of the educated public functionaries, who
constitute in Germany the citizen-class. Before the fall of the Prussian
monarchy in 1807, the noble families--for the most part hereditary
knights (Herrn _von_)--almost entirely monopolized the governmental and
higher municipal posts, and a considerable portion of the peasantry were
under servitude to them as feudal superiors. The numbers of the lesser
nobility--in consequence of the right of every nobleman's son, of
whatever grade, to bear his father's title--were so great, and since the
introduction by the great Elector,[A] and his royal successors, of the
new system of taxation, their revenues had become so small, that they
considered themselves entitled to the monopoly of all the higher offices
of state, and regarded every citizen of culture, fortune, and
consideration with jealousy, as an upstart. The new monarchic
constitution of 1808-12, which has immortalized the names of Frederick
William III., and of his ministers, Stein and Hardenberg, altered this
system, and abolished the vassalage and feudal service of the peasants
in those provinces that lie to the east of the Elbe. The fruits of this
wise act of social reform were soon apparent, not only in the increase
of prosperity and of the population, but also in that steady and
progressive elevation of the national spirit which alone made it
possible in 1813-14 for the house of Hohenzollern to raise the monarchy
to the first rank among the European powers.
[Footnote A: The friend and brother-in-law of William III.]
The further development in Prussia of political freedom unfortunately
did not keep pace with these social changes; and so--to say no more--it
happened that the consequences of all half measures soon resulted. Even
before the struggles of 1848, down to which period the story of our
novel reaches, the classes of the more polished nobility and citizens,
instead of fusing into one band of _gentry_, and thus forming the basis
of a landed aristocracy, had assumed an unfriendly attitude, in
consequence of a stagnation in the growth of a national lower nobility
as the head of the wealthy and cultivated _bourgeoisie_, resulting from
an unhappy reaction which then took place in Prussia. The feudal
proprietor was meanwhile becoming continually poorer, because he lived
beyond his income. Falling into embarrassments of every sort, he has
recourse for aid to the provincial banks. His habits of life, however,
often prevent him from employing these loans on the improvement of his
property, and he seldom makes farming the steady occupation and business
of his life. But he allows himself readily to become involved in the
establishment of factories--whether for the manufacture of brandy or for
the production of beet-root sugar--which promise a larger and speedier
return, besides the enhancement of the value of the land. But, in order
to succeed in such undertakings, he wants the requisite capital and
experience. He manifests even less prudence in the conduct of these
speculations than in the cultivation of his ancestral acres, and the
inevitable result ensues that an ever-increasing debt at length
necessitates the sale of his estate. Such estates are ever more and more
frequently becoming the property of the merchant or manufacturer from
the town, or perhaps of the neighboring proprietor of the same inferior
rank, who has lately settled in the country, and become entitled to the
exercise of equal rights with the hereditary owner. There is no
essential difference in social culture between the two classes, but
there is a mighty difference between the habits of their lives. The
mercantile class of citizens is in Germany more refined than in any
other country, and has more political ambition than the corresponding
class in England has yet exhibited. The families of public functionaries
constitute the other half of the cultivated citizen class; and as the
former have the superiority in point of wealth, so these bear the palm
in respect of intellectual culture and administrative talent. Almost all
authors, since the days of Luther, have belonged to this class. In
school and college learning, in information, and in the conduct of
public affairs, the citizen is thus, for the most part, as far superior
to the nobleman as in fashionable manners the latter is to him. The
whole nation, however, enjoys alike the advantage of military education,
and every man may become an officer who passes the necessary
examination. Thus, in the manufacturing towns, the citizens occupy the
highest place, and the nobility in the garrison towns and those of royal
residence. This fact, however, must not be lost sight of--that Berlin,
the most populous city of Germany, has also gradually become the chief
and the richest commercial one, while the great fortress of Magdeburg
has also been becoming the seat of a wealthy and cultivated mercantile
community.
Instead of desiring landed property, and perhaps a patent of nobility
for his children, and an alliance with some noble country family, the
rich citizen rather sticks to his business, and prefers a young man in
his own rank, or perhaps a clergyman, or professor, or some municipal
officer as a suitor to his daughter, to the elegant officer or man of
noble blood; for the richest and most refined citizen, though the wife
or daughter of a noble official, is not entitled to appear at court with
her husband or her father. It is not, therefore, as in England or
Scotland, the aim of a man who has plied his industrious calling with
success to assume the rank and habits of a nobleman or country squire.
The rich man remains in town among his equals. It is only when we
understand this difference in the condition of the social relations in
Germany and in England that the scope and intention of our novel can be
apprehended.
It would be a mistake to suppose that our remarks are only applicable to
the eastern provinces of Prussia. If, perhaps, they are less harshly
manifested in the western division of our kingdom, and indeed in Western
Germany, it is in consequence of noble families being fewer in number,
and the conditions of property being more favorable to the citizen
class. The defective principle is the same, as also the national feeling
in regard to it. It is easily understood, indeed, how this should have
become much stronger since 1850, seeing that the greater and lesser
nobility have blindly united in endeavoring to bring about a
reaction--demanding all possible and impossible privileges and
exemptions, or compensations, and are separating themselves more and
more widely from the body of the nation.
In Silesia and Posen, however, the theatres on which our story is
enacted, other and peculiar elements, though lying, perhaps, beneath the
surface, affect the social relations of the various classes. In both
provinces, but especially in Posen, the great majority of noblemen are
the proprietors of land, and the enactment under Hardenberg and Stein in
1808-10, in regard to peasant rights, had been very imperfectly carried
out in districts where vassalage, as in all countries of Slavonic
origin, was nearly universal. Many estates are of large extent, and
some, indeed, are strictly entailed. These circumstances naturally give
to a country life in Silesia or Posen quite a different character than
that in the Rhine provinces. In Posen, besides, two foreign
elements--found in Silesia also in a far lesser degree--exercise a
mighty influence on the social relations of the people. One is the
Jewish, the other the Polish element. In Posen, the Jews constitute in
the country the class of innkeepers and farmers; of course, they carry
on some trade in addition. The large banking establishments are partly,
the smaller ones almost exclusively, in their hands. They become, by
these means, occasionally the possessors of land; but they regard such
property almost always as a mere subject for speculation, and it is but
rarely that the quondam innkeeper or peddler settles down as a tiller of
the soil. In Silesia, their chief seat is in Breslau, where the general
trade of the country, as well as the purchase and the sale of land, is
for the most part transacted. It is a pretty general feeling in Germany
that Freytag has not dealt altogether impartially with this class, by
failing to introduce in contrast to the abandoned men whom he selects
for exhibition a single honest, upright Jew, a character not wanting
among that remarkable people. The inextinguishable higher element of our
nature, and the fruits of German culture, are manifested, it is true, in
the Jewish hero of the tale, ignorant alike of the world and its ways,
buried among his cherished books, and doomed to early death; but this is
done more as a poetic comfort to humanity than in honor of Judaism, from
which plainly in his inmost soul he had departed, that he might turn to
the Christianized spirit and to the poetry of the Gentiles.
The Polish element, however, is of still far greater importance.
Forming, as they once did, with the exception of a few German
settlements, the entire population of the province, the Poles have
become, in the course of the last century, and especially since the
removal of restrictions on the sale of land, less numerous year by year.
In Posen proper they constitute, numerically, perhaps the half of the
population; but in point of prosperity and mental culture their
influence is scarcely as one fourth upon the whole. On the other hand,
in some districts, as, for instance, in Gnesen, the Polish influence
predominates in the towns, and reigns undisputed in the country. The
middle class is exclusively German or Jewish; where these elements are
lacking, there is none. The Polish vassal, emancipated by the enactment
of 1810, is gradually ripening into an independent yeoman, and knows
full well that he owes his freedom, not to his former Polish masters,
but to Prussian legislation and administration. The exhibition of these
social relations, as they were manifested by the contending parties in
1848, is, in all respects, one of the most admirable portions of our
novel. The events are all vividly depicted, and, in all essential
points, historically true. One feature here appears, little known in
foreign lands, but deserving careful observation, not only on its own
account, but as a key to the meaning and intention of the attractive
narrative before us.
The two national elements may be thus generally characterized: The
Prusso-German element is Protestant; the Polish element is Catholic.
Possessing equal rights, the former is continually pressing onward with
irresistible force, as in Ireland, in virtue of the principles of
industry and frugality by which it is animated. This is true alike of
landlord and tenant, of merchant and official.
The passionate and ill-regulated Polish element stands forth in
opposition--the intellectual and peculiarly courteous and accomplished
nobility, as well as the priesthood--but in vain. Seeing that the law
secures perfect equality of rights, and is impartially administered;
that, besides, the conduct of the German settlers is correct and
inoffensive, the Poles can adduce no well-grounded causes of complaint
either against their neighbors or the government. It is their innate
want of order that throws business, money, and, at length, the land
itself, into the hands of Jews and Protestants. This fact is also here
worthy of notice, that the Jewish usurer is disappearing or withdrawing
wherever the Protestant element is taking firmer ground. The Jew remains
in the country, but becomes a citizen, and sometimes even a
peasant-proprietor. This phenomenon is manifesting itself also in other
places where there is a concurrence of the German and Slavonic elements.
In Prussia, however, there is this peculiarity in addition, of which
Freytag has made the most effective use--I mean the education of the
Prussian people, not alone in the national schools, but also in the
science of national defense, which this people of seventeen millions has
in common with Sparta and with Rome.
It is well known that every Prussian not physically disqualified, of
whatever rank he be, must become a soldier. The volunteer serves in the
line for one year, and without pay; other persons serve for two or
three years. Thereafter, all beyond the age of twenty-five are yearly
called out as militia, and drilled for several weeks after harvest. This
enactment has been in force since 1813, and it is a well-known fact,
brought prominently forward in the work before us, that, notwithstanding
the immense sacrifice it requires, it is enthusiastically cherished by
the nation as a school of manly discipline, and as exercising a most
beneficial influence on all classes of society. This institution it is
which gives that high standard of order, duty, and military honor, and
that mutual confidence between officers and men, which at the first
glance distinguishes the Prussian, not only from the Russian, but the
Austrian soldier. This high feeling of confidence in the national
defenses is indeed peculiar to Prussia beyond the other German nations,
and may be at once recognized in the manly and dignified bearing, even
of the lowest classes, alike in town and country.
This spirit is depicted to the life in the striking episode of the
troubles in the year 1848. Even in the wildest months of that year, when
the German minority were left entirely to their own resources, this
spirit of order and mutual confidence continued undisturbed. Our
patriotic author has never needed to draw upon his imagination for
facts, though he has depicted with consummate skill the actual reality.
We feel that it has been to him a labor of love to console himself and
his fellow-countrymen under so many disappointments and shattered hopes,
to cherish and to strengthen that sense of independence, without which
no people can stand erect among the nations.
The Prusso-German population feel it to be a mission in the cause of
civilization to press forward in occupation of the Sarmatian
territory--a sacred duty, which, however, can only be fulfilled by
honest means, by privations and self-sacrificing exertions of every
kind. In such a spirit must the work be carried forward; this is the
suggestive thought with which our author's narrative concludes. It is
not without a meaning, we believe, that the zealous German hero of the
book is furnished with the money necessary for carrying out his schemes
by a fellow-countryman and friend, who had returned to his fatherland
with a fortune acquired beyond the Atlantic. Our talented author has
certainly not lost sight of the fact that Germany, as a whole, has as
little recovered from the devastation of the Thirty Years' War as the
eastern districts of Prussia have recovered from the effects of the war
with France in the present century. Let the faults and failings of our
national German character be what they may (and we should like to know
what nation has endured and survived similar spoliation and partition),
the greatest sin of Germany during the last two hundred years,
especially in the less-favored north, has always been its poverty--the
condition of all classes, with few exceptions. National poverty,
however, becomes indeed a political sin when a people, by its
cultivation, has become constitutionally fit for freedom.
In the background of the whole picture of the disordered and sickly
condition of our social circumstances here so vividly presented, the
author has plainly discerned Dante's noble proverb--
"Di libertà indipendenza è primo grado."
The existence of independent citizen-families qualified and ready for
every public service, though beyond the need of such employment--this is
the fundamental condition of a healthy development of political freedom,
alike impregnable by revolution and reaction; this is the only sure
ground and basis on which a constitutional form of government can be
reared and administered with advantage to every class, repressing alike
successfully absolutism and democracy.
And now we have reached the point where we are enabled to gather up, and
to express to the reader, without desiring to forestall his own
judgment, or to load him with axioms and formulas beyond his
comprehension, the beautiful fundamental idea of the book, clearly and
simply.
We would express it thus: The future of all European states depends
mainly on three propositions, and the politics of every statesman of our
period are determined by the way in which he views them.
These propositions are,
1st. The fusion of the educated classes, and the total abolition of
bureaucracy, and all social barriers between the ancient nobility and
the educated classes in the nation, especially the industrial and
mercantile population.
2d. The just and Christian bearing of this united body toward the
working-classes, especially in towns.
3d. The recognition of the mighty fact that the educated middle classes
of all nations, but especially of those of Germany, are perfectly aware
that even the present, but still more the near future, is their own, if
they advance along the legal path to a perfect constitutional monarchy,
resisting all temptations to the right hand or to the left, not with
imbittered feelings, but in the cheerful temper of a moral
self-confidence.
* * * * *
It is faith in truths such as these that has inspired our author in the
composition of the work which is here offered to the English reading
public. It is his highest praise, however, that he has imbodied this
faith in a true work of art, which speaks for itself. He has thereby
enkindled or strengthened a like faith in many thousand hearts, and that
with a noble and conciliatory intention which the dedication well
expresses.
The admirable delineation of character, the richness of invention, the
artistic arrangement, the lively descriptions of nature, will be ever
more fully acknowledged by the sympathizing reader as he advances in the
perusal of the attractive volumes.
TO HIS HIGHNESS ERNEST II.,
DUKE OF SAXE-COBURG-GOTHA.
I visited Kallenberg one lovely evening in the month of May. The high
ground near the castle was steeped in perfume from the blossoms of the
spring, and the leaves of the pink acacia cast their checkered shadows
on the dewy grass. Beneath me, in the shady valley, deer bounded
fearless from their covert in the wood, following greedily with their
eyes the bright figure of that lady who greets with kind and hospitable
welcome all who enter the precincts of the castle--men, and all living
things. The repose of evening lay on hill and dale; no sound was heard
save the occasional roll of thunder from afar above the bright and
cheerful landscape. On this very evening, leaning against the wall of
the ancient castle, your highness gazed with troubled aspect into the
gloomy distance. What my noble prince then said about the conflicts of
the last few years, the relaxed and utterly despondent temper of the
nation, and the duty of authors, at such a time especially, to show the
people, for their encouragement and elevation, as in a mirror, what they
are capable of doing--those were golden words, revealing a great grasp
of intellect and a warm heart, and their echo will not soon die away in
the heart of him who heard them. It was on that evening the desire awoke
within me to grace with your highness's name the work whose plan had
been already in my mind.
Nearly two years have passed since then. A terrible war is raging, and
Germans look with gloomy apprehension to the future of their fatherland.
At such a time, when the strongest political feelings agitate the life
of every individual, that spirit of cheerful tranquillity, so needful to
an author for the artistic moulding of his creations, readily forsakes
his writing-table. It is long, alas! since the German author has enjoyed
it. He has far too little interest in home and foreign life; he wants
that composure and proud satisfaction which the writers of other
countries feel in dwelling on the past and present of their nation,
while he has enough and to spare of humiliation on account of his
country, of wishes unfulfilled and passionate indignation. At such a
time, in drawing an imaginative picture, not love alone, but hatred too,
flows freely and readily from the pen--practical tendencies are apt to
usurp the place of poetic fancy; and, instead of a genial tone and
temper, the reader is apt to find an unpleasing mixture of blunt reality
and artificial sentiment.
Surrounded by such dangers, it becomes twofold the duty of an author
carefully to avoid distortion in the outline of his pictures, and to
keep his own soul free from unjust prepossession. To give the highest
expression to the beautiful in its noblest form is not the privilege of
every time; but, in all times alike, it is the duty of the writer of
fiction to be true to his art and to his country. To seek for this
truth, and where found to exhibit it, I hold to be the duty of my own
life.
And now let me dedicate, with deepest reverence, my unimportant work to
you, my honored lord. I shall rejoice if this novel leaves on the mind
of your highness the impression that its conception is in faithful
keeping with the laws of life and of art, without ever being a slavish
copy of the accidental occurrences of the day.
GUSTAV FREYTAG.
LEIPSIC, _April_, 1855.
DEBIT AND CREDIT.
CHAPTER I.
Ostrau is a small town near the Oder, celebrated even as far as Poland
for its gymnasium and its gingerbread. In this patriarchal spot had
dwelt for many years the accountant-royal, Wohlfart, an enthusiastically
loyal subject, and a hearty lover of his fellow-men--with one or two
exceptions. He married late in life, and his wife and he lived in a
small house, the garden of which he himself kept in order. For a long
time the happy pair were childless; but at length came a day when the
good woman, having smartened up her white bed-curtains with a broad
fringe and heavy tassels, disappeared behind them amid the approbation
of all her female friends. It was under the shade of those white
bed-curtains that the hero of our tale was born.
Anton was a good child, who, according to his mother, displayed
remarkable peculiarities from the very day of his birth. For instance,
he had a great objection to going to bed at the proper hour; he would
pore time untold over his picture-alphabet, and hold lengthy
conversations with the red cock depicted upon its last page, imploring
him to exert himself in the cause of his young family, and not allow the
maid-servant to carry them off and roast them. Lastly, he would often
run away from his playfellows, and sit lost in thought in a corner of
the room. His greatest delight, however, was to perch himself on a chair
opposite his father, cross his legs in the same way, and smoke a mimic
pipe in emulation. Moreover, he was so seldom naughty, that all such of
the female population of Ostrau as took a gloomy view of things in
general held it doubtful that he could live to grow up, till one day
Anton publicly thrashed the councilor's son, which in some degree
modified the opinions concerning him. In short, he was just the boy that
the only child of warm-hearted parents might be expected to prove. At
school he was an example of industry; and when the drawing-master began
to declare that he must be a painter, and the classical teacher to
devote him to Philology, the boy might have been in some danger of being
diverted from the serious pursuit of any one specific calling but for an
accident which determined his choice.
Every Christmas evening the mail brought to the house of the paternal
Wohlfart a box containing a loaf of the finest sugar and a quantity of
the best coffee. This sugar the good man himself broke into squares: the
coffee was roasted by his wife's own hands; and the complacency with
which they sipped their first cup was pleasant to behold. These were
seasons when, to the childish soul of Anton, the whole house seemed
pervaded with poetry, and his father was never weary of telling him the
history of this periodical present. Many years ago, he had chanced to
find, in a dusty bundle of law-papers, a document of great importance to
a well-known mercantile house in the capital. This document he had at
once forwarded, and, in consequence of it, the firm had been enabled to
gain a long-pending lawsuit, which had previously threatened to go
against them; upon which the young head of the concern had written his
acknowledgments, and Wohlfart had refused to be thanked, having, he
said, only done his duty. From that time forth the box we have described
made its appearance every Christmas evening, accompanied by a few
cordial lines, to which Wohlfart responded in a masterpiece of
caligraphy, expressing his surprise at the unexpected arrival, and
wishing a happy new year to the firm. The old gentleman persisted, even
to his wife, in treating this Christmas box as a mere accident, a
trifle, a whim of some clerk in the house of T. O. Schröter, and yearly
protested against the expectation of its arrival, by which the good
woman's household purchases were more or less influenced. But its
arrival was, in reality, of the utmost importance in his eyes; and that,
not for the sake of the actual coffee and sugar themselves, but of the
poetry of this connecting link between him and the life of a perfect
stranger. He carefully tied up all the letters of the firm, together
with three love-letters from his wife. He became a connoisseur in
colonial produce, an oracle in coffee, whose decision was much deferred
to by the Ostrau shopkeepers. He began to interest himself in the
affairs of the great firm, and never failed to note the ups and downs
reported in a certain corner of the newspapers, wholly mysterious to the
uninitiated. Nay, he even indulged in fancy speculations and an ideal
partnership, chafed when sugars fell, and chuckled at the rise of
coffee.
A strange, invisible, filmy thread it was, this which connected
Wohlfart's quiet household with the activity of the great mercantile
world, and yet it was by this that little Anton's whole life was swayed;
for when the old gentleman sat in his garden of an evening in his satin
cap, and pipe in his mouth, he would dilate upon the advantages of
trade, and ask his son whether he should like to be a merchant;
whereupon a kind of kaleidoscope-picture suddenly shaped itself in the
little fellow's mind, made up of sugar-loaves, raisins, and almonds,
golden oranges, his father's smile, and the mysterious delight which the
arrival of the box always occasioned him, and he replied at once, "Yes,
father, _that_ I should!"
Let no one say that our life is poor in poetical influences; still does
the enchantress sway us mortals as of old. Rather let each take heed
what dreams he nurses in his heart's innermost fold, for when they are
full grown they may prove tyrants, ay, and cruel ones too.
In this way the Wohlfart family lived on for many a year; and whenever
the good woman privately entreated her husband to form some decision as
to the boy's way of life, he would reply, "It is formed already; he is
to be a merchant." But in his own heart he was a little doubtful as to
how this dream of his could ever be realized.
Meanwhile a dark day drew on, when the shutters of the house remained
late unclosed, the servant-girl with red eyes, ran up and down the
steps, the doctor came and shook his head, the old gentleman stood in
prayer near his wife's bed, and the boy knelt sobbing by, while his
dying mother's hand still tried to stroke his curls. Three days later
came the funeral, and father and son sat together alone. Both wept, but
the boy's red cheeks returned. Not so the old man's health and strength.
Not that he complained; he still sat and smoked his pipe as before, and
still concerned himself about the price of sugars, but there was no
heart in the smoking or the concern; and he would often look anxiously
at his young companion, who wondered what his father could have on his
mind. One evening, when he had for the hundredth time asked him whether
he would really like to be a merchant, and received the unvarying
answer, he rose from his seat with an air of decision, and told the
servant-girl to order a conveyance to take him the next morning to the
capital, but he said nothing about the object of his expedition.
Late on the following day he returned in a very different mood--happier,
indeed, than he had ever been since his wife's death. He enchanted his
son by his account of the incredible charms of the extensive business,
and the kindness of the great merchant toward himself. He had been
invited to dinner, he had eaten peewits' eggs, and drunk Greek wine,
compared to which the very best wine in Ostrau was mere vinegar; and,
above all, he had received the promise of having his son taken into
their office, and a few hints as to the future course of his education.
The very next day saw Anton seated at a ledger, disposing arbitrarily of
hundreds of thousands, converting them into every existing currency, and
putting them out at every possible rate of interest.
Thus another year passed away. Anton was just eighteen, when again the
windows remained darkened, and the red-eyed servant-girl ran up and
down, and the doctor shook his head. This time it was the old gentleman
by whose bed Anton sat, holding both his hands. But there was no keeping
him back; and after repeatedly blessing his son, he died, and Anton was
left alone in the silent dwelling, at the entrance of a new life.
Old Wohlfart had not been an accountant for nothing; he left his house
in the highest order; his affairs were balanced to a farthing, and he
had written a letter of introduction to the merchant only a few days
before his death. A month later, on a fine summer morning, Anton stood
upon the threshold of his home, placed the key in a friendly hand, made
over his luggage to the carrier, and, with his father's letter in his
pocket, took his way to the great city.