KONRAD FERDINAND MEYER (1825-) OREMOST among the German poets and novelists of our time stand the two Swiss writers Gottfried Keller and Konrad Ferdinand Meyer. Strongly contrasted as their lives were in external circumstances, and widely different as were the fields from which they chose their materials, in their artistic aims the two men had much in common. Keller's life was a long battle with small things, and fame was slow in coming; Meyer has led a life of literary leisure, devoted to self-cultivation and indifferent to public recognition. But in the work of each of these poets there is the same perfection of form and fastidious polish of style. Keller is perhaps more rugged and vigorous; Meyer depicts life with the keen insight of a contemplative and poetic student of history. In both cases the treatment is realistic. Keller's, however, is obviously the realism of actual observation and experience; Meyer's is the realism of a plastic mind infusing life into the facts and forms of a bygone age. Together these two men are the chief ornaments of modern Swiss literature. K. F. MEYER Konrad Ferdinand Meyer was born at Zürich on October 12th, 1825. His younger years were passed in Geneva and Lausanne, where he acquired command of the French language. For a time it was his intention to study law; but after a brief experience at the University of Zürich, he abandoned the idea. Moved solely by his own inclinations, and for years with no other purpose than the gratification of his own tastes, he devoted himself with scholarly ardor to the study of history. It is a curious instance of a blind impulse guiding genius into its proper course. Still unproductive, he went to Paris in 1857 to pursue his historical studies, and spent the following year in Italy. Since 1875 he has lived at his country home, at Kilchberg near Zürich. His life has been free from sordid cares, and filled chiefly with the joys of scholarly labor and poetic creation. Meyer had reached the prime of life when he first entered the field of literature. His first public venture was a collection of 'Ballads' which came out in 1867, when their author was in his fortysecond year. In 1870 came a volume of poems entitled 'Romances and Pictures.' But it was not until the appearance of 'Hutten's Last Days'-a highly original cycle of poems, half lyric, half epic - that Meyer began to attract attention. This was in 1871; and in the same year the idyllic Engelberg' was published. Herein also may be found the epic element which reveals the mind of a poet, whose chief intellectual delight is the study of history. But it was the long array of his vigorous and brilliant stories that brought to Meyer the full measure of fame he now enjoys. 'Der Heilige' (The Saint), in which is told the story of Thomas Becket, is one of the most finished pieces of historical fiction in German literature. Next in finish of execution to this figure of Becket stands that of the sombre and impressive Dante, into whose mouth, as he sits in the halls of Cangrande, is put the thrilling tale of 'The Monk's Wedding.' This book, which appeared in 1884, and 'The Temptation of Pescara' (1889), may perhaps be singled out as the best of these historical romances; but the list of Meyer's works is a long one, and none of them shows hasty workmanship nor flagging powers; and the public interest remains unabated. Meyer is a master of clear objective treatment. He never interposes himself, nor intrudes historical information. As the reader accompanies the characters through their experiences, he has only to look about to see how things once appeared, and how men once behaved in the dead days which the poet is re-creating. The thing is presented as the author sees it in his plastic imagination, and the vividness of the impression it conveys is independent of all historical accessories and learned elucidation. Meyer is the veteran chief of German novelistic literature at the end of the nineteenth century. FROM THE MONK'S WEDDING' s IT at all necessary that there should be monks?" whispered a voice out of a dim corner, as if to suggest that any sort of escape from an unnatural condition was a blessing. The audacious question caused no shock; for at this court the boldest discussion of religious matters was allowed,- yes, smiled upon, whilst a free or incautious word in regard to the person or policy of the Emperor was certain destruction. Dante's eyes sought the speaker, and recognized in him a young ecclesiastic whose fingers toyed with the heavy gold cross he wore over his priestly robe. "Not on my account," said the Florentine deliberately. "May the monks die out as soon as a race is born that understands how to unite justice and mercy-the two highest attributes of the human soul-which seem now to exclude one another. Until that late hour in the world's history may the State administer the one, and the Church the other. Since, however, the exercise of mercy requires a thoroughly unselfish heart, the three monastic. vows are not only a proper but essential preparation; for experience has taught that total abnegation is less difficult than a reserved and partial self-surrender." "Are there not more bad than good monks?" persisted the doubting ecclesiastic. "No," said Dante, "when we take into consideration human weakness; else there are more unjust than righteous judges, more cowards than brave warriors, more bad men than good." ner. "And is not this the case?" asked the guest in the dim cor "No, certainly not," Dante replied, a heavenly brightness suddenly illuminating his stern features. "Is not philosophy asking and striving to find out how evil came into this world? Had the bad formed the majority, we should, on the contrary, have been asking how good came into the world." This proud enigmatical remark impressed the party forcibly, but at the same time excited some apprehension lest the Florentine was going deeper into scholasticism instead of relating his story. Cangrande, seeing his pretty young friend suppress a yawn, said, "Noble Dante, are you to tell us a true story, or will you embellish a legend current among the people; or can you not give us a pure invention out of your own laurel-crowned head?" Dante replied with slow emphasis, "I evolve my story from an inscription on a grave." "On a grave!" "Yes, from an inscription on a gravestone which I read years ago, when with the Franciscans at Padua. The stone was in a corner of the cloister garden, hidden under wild rose-bushes, but still accessible to the novices, if they crept on all fours and did not mind scratching their cheeks with thorns. I ordered the prior-or, I should say, besought him-to have the puzzling stone removed to the library, and there commended to the interest of a gray-headed custodian. "What was on the stone?" interposed somewhat listlessly the wife of the Prince. "The inscription," answered Dante, "was in Latin, and ran thus: "Hic jacet monachus Astorre cum uxore Antiope. Sepeliebat Azzolinus.» left. "What does it mean?" eagerly cried the lady on Cangrande's The Prince fluently translated: "Here sleeps the monk Astorre beside his wife Antiope. Both buried by Ezzelin." "Atrocious tyrant!" exclaimed the impressible maiden: "I am sure he had them buried alive, because they were lovers; and he insulted the poor victims even in their graves, by styling her the 'wife of the monk,' — cruel wretch that he was!" "Hardly," said Dante: "I construe it quite differently, and according to the history this seems improbable; for Ezzelin's rigor was directed rather against breaches of ecclesiastical discipline. He interested himself little either in the making or breaking of sacred vows. I take the 'sepeliebat' in a friendly sense, and believe the meaning to be that he gave the two burial." "Right," exclaimed Cangrande. "Florentine, I agree with you! Ezzelin was a born ruler, and as such men usually are, somewhat harsh and violent; but nine-tenths of the crimes imputed to him are inventions-forgeries of the clergy and scandalloving people.” "Would it were so!" sighed Dante; "at any rate, where he appears upon the stage in my romance, he has not yet become the monster which the chronicle, be it true or false, pictures him to be; his cruelty is only beginning to show itself in certain lines about the mouth." "A commanding figure," exclaimed Cangrande enthusiastically, desiring to bring him more palpably before the audience, "with black hair bristling round his great brow, as you paint him, in your Twelfth Canto, among the inhabitants of hell. But whence have you taken this dark head?" "It is yours," replied Dante boldly; and Cangrande felt himself flattered. "And the rest of the characters in my story," he said with smiling menace, "I will also take from among you, if you will allow me," and he turned toward his listeners: "I borrow your names only, leaving untouched what is innermost; for that I cannot read." "My outward self I lend you gladly," responded the Princess, whose indifference was beginning to yield. A murmur of intense excitement now ran through the courtly circle, and "Thy story, Dante, thy story!" was heard on all sides. "Here it is," he said, and began: [Dante begins his tale with a description of a bridal party returning in festal barges upon the waters of the Brenta to Padua, where the wedding is to be solemnized. Umberto Vicedomini, with his three sons by a former marriage, and his bride, Diana, occupy one barge; an accident overturns the vessel, and the entire party is drowned, with the exception of Diana, who is rescued by Astorre, Umberto's younger brother. The news of this accident is brought to the aged head of the house of Vicedomini, who thus sees all his hopes of a posterity cut off, for his only surviving son has already assumed monastic vows. Upon his willingness to renounce these vows now depends the future of the house of the Vicedomini. The old man is in the midst of a heated interview with the ruler Ezzelin when Diana enters his chamber.] Just then he caught sight of his daughter-in-law, who had pressed through the crowd of servants in advance of the monk, and was standing on the threshold. Spite of his physical weakness he rushed towards her, staggering; seized and wrenched her hands apart, as if to make her responsible for the misfortune which had befallen them. "Where is my son, Diana?" he gasped out. "He lies in the Brenta," she answered sadly, and her blue. eyes grew dim. "Where are my three grandchildren ?» "In the Brenta," she repeated. "And you bring me yourself as a gift-you are presented to me?" and the old man laughed discordantly. "Would that the Almighty," she said slowly, "had drawn me deeper under the waves, and that thy children stood here in my stead!" She was silent; then bursting into sudden anger, XVII-624 |