A DIVIDED HEART

Paul Heyse

FROM

PAUL HEYSE

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH
With an Introduction

BY

CONSTANCE STEWART COPELAND

New York:

BRENTANO'S

CHICAGO    PARIS    WASHINGTON

Copyright. 1894,
BY
BRENTANO'S.

To

My Mother

C. S. C.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION--PAUL HEYSE

PAUL HEYSE.

INTRODUCTION.

It occasionally happens that a reader expecting to find the customary account of an author's early struggles for bread and knowledge, his bitter disappointments, his late and almost joyless success, is surprised by the record of a singularly fortunate life; of a life which advances easily and naturally from a peaceful and promising childhood to an equally peaceful, famous old age. Goethe's was such a life; and reading it, one feels that sharp encounter with the hardest facts of existence would have lessened his greatness, would have disturbed that perfect serenity of soul which made him philosopher as well as poet, and fostered his fidelity to high ideals of life and art.

A countryman of Goethe's, Paul Heyse, born in Berlin in 1830, two years before the great poet's death, was no less fortunate in the lot to which fate assigned him. Heyse's power was unlike Goethe's in kind and degree, but the opportunities for its development were equally favorable. His father was a philologist and lexicographer, whose home was comfortable and refined, and whose friends were cultured and literary. He took charge of his son's early education, and naturally laid great stress on language, inculcating the love for purity and exactness in its use, which is one of Heyse's best qualities. Stimulated by the atmosphere of his home, and by these studies in literary technique, Heyse began to try his skill in original work at a very early age, and was only seventeen years old when his first book, "Jungbrunnen: New Tales by a Travelling Scholar," appeared. Although this production encouraged his friends in the belief that a great future lay before him, it made no impression whatever on the world at large, and the young author pursued his studies at the Berlin University without astounding anyone by phenomenal brilliancy or success.

Finishing at Berlin, he betook himself to Bonn, and spent a year studying Romance and philology with the famous Diez. So great was the interest in mediaeval languages which Diez succeeded in awakening in the young man, that in 1850 Heyse travelled to Italy and employed a year in examining the precious manuscripts of the old Italian libraries. The results of these researches were afterwards published under the title "Romanische Jnedita auf italienischen Bibliotheken gesammelt;" and a book of Italian songs was also presented to the world.

Upon his return to Germany, Heyse at once began serious literary work, and put the first rung in the traditional ladder to fame. Although his present place in literature is due to his work as a novelist, his first creations were dramas in verse. He aspired to become a poet; not a singer of songs and lyrics, but a great dramatic poet, whose lines should chant, and whose thoughts should create a new era. To this end he experimented with the various styles of dramatic composition and tried the Shakespearian, the Greek, and the late French, in rapid succession. His work was so beautiful in form and so faultless in finish that it attracted immediate attention. A master's hand was evident in every line, and albeit there was a subtle something lacking of the true poetic fire, a certain circle of fastidious and critical literati found the dramas highly satisfactory and hailed Heyse as a rising poet. In 1854, King Maximilian II. of Bavaria, whose court was a veritable literary academy, called him to Munich and assured to him an audience and an income. After a time the income was discontinued, but Heyse's works were then amply remunerative, and he has lived in Munich to this day. No environment could be imagined more congenial to a man of Heyse's tastes than that of the court at Munich; and once settled there, he began to fulfil the hopeful prophecies of his friends. In 1857, his drama, "The Sabine Women," took the prize offered by the king, and was produced on the royal stage. Notwithstanding that it satisfied the literary sense of the court, it failed to please the people. There was too much finish, too much studied elegance, and too little warmth of feeling, to appeal to their sympathies. Not until "Colberg," "Elizabeth Charlotte," and "Hans Lange" had appeared, would the general public acknowledge Heyse as a great dramatist. Even then they found a flaw; for, although the characters were strong and interesting, and some of the situations were intensely dramatic, Heyse's dramas, as a whole, were lacking in one essential quality, action. They were more suitable for the study than the stage; more interesting to one appreciative reader who could enjoy the beauty of the workmanship and feel the strength of the conception, than to an indifferent audience expecting to be amused or excited by actual happenings.

In fact, they were dramatized novels, instead of true dramas, or dramatic poems. "Not deep the poet sees, but wide," and Heyse's view was not wide. He lacked a poet's objectivity, the power to create the type from the individual, the power to discern the universal and essential beyond the particular and accidental. He studied life attentively and described it vividly and truthfully, but he saw no new message, created no new thought.

Evidently, Heyse was neither a great dramatist nor a great poet; and although he was a man of unquestionable power,