The Lost Manuscript: A Novel

The Lost Manuscript: A Novel
Gustav Freytag

Gustav Freytag

The Lost Manuscript: A Novel

PART I

"A noble human life does not end on earth with death. It continues in the minds and the deeds of friends, as well as in the thoughts and the activity of the nation."

PUBLISHERS' PREFACE

Gustav Freytag has expressed the central idea of his novel The Lost Manuscript in the motto which he has written for the American edition:

"A noble human life does not end on earth with death. It continues in the minds and the deeds of friends, as well as in the thoughts and the activity of the nation."

This idea of the continuity and preservation of soul-life permeates the whole work. It meets us at every hand. We observe the professor in his study, ever eager to fathom the thoughts of the great thinkers of the past and imbuing his students with their lofty spirit. We sympathize with the heroine of this novel, the strong, pious Saxon maiden, in her religious and intellectual development; we behold her soul enlarging under the influence of unusual and trying situations; we watch her mentally growing amid the new ideas crowding in upon her. We enjoy the droll characterizations of the half-educated, of Mrs. Rollmaus and the servants, in whose minds the mysteries of soul-life appear in the shape of superstitious notions. And we see, again, the consequences of wrong-doing, of errors, and of mistakes continuing like a heavy curse, depressing the mind and hindering its freedom. And this last provokes a wholesome reaction and is finally conquered by unshirking courage in honest spiritual combat.

Illustrations of psychical laws showing the connections and continuity of the threads in the warp and woof of human soul-life, are found indeed in all the works of Gustav Freytag. The great novelist anticipated the results that have of late been established by the experiments of modern psychology. He says in his Autobiographical Reminiscences:

"What a man's own life accomplishes in the formation of his character, and the extent to which it fully develops his native capacities, we observe and estimate even in the best cases only with imperfect knowledge. But still more difficult is it to determine and comprehend what the living have acquired in the way of advancement and hindrance from their parents and ancestors; for the threads are not always visible that bind the existence of the present to the souls of generations past; and even where they are discernible, their power and influence are scarcely to be calculated. Only we notice that the force with which they operate is not equally strong in every life, and that sometimes it is too powerful and terrible.

"It is well that from us men usually remains concealed, what is inheritance from the remote past, and what the independent acquisition of our own existence; since our life would become full of anxiety and misery, if we, as continuations of the men of the past, had perpetually to reckon with the blessings and curses which former times leave hanging over the problems of our own existence. But it is indeed a joyous labor, at times, by a retrospective glance into the past, to bring into fullest consciousness the fact that many of our successes and achievements have only been made possible through the possessions that have come to us from the lives of our parents, and through that also which the previous ancestral life of our family has accomplished and produced for us."

Is not this a revival of the old idea of the transmigration of souls? To be sure, the soul is not a material thing made of an invisible and airy substance, fluttering about after death and entering into another body. There are no material migrations of soul taking place, however tenuous the substance of the soul might be imagined to be. The memories of the present, our recollection of our past existence, depend on the fact that the living matter which is constantly replacing itself in us by other living matter, like the water in a wave rolling on the surface of the sea, always assumes the same form. It is the form that is constantly reproducing. In this sense, man (that is his soul) is the product of education. The soul of the future man stands in the same relation to our soul as the future edition of a book, revised and enlarged, stands to its present edition.[1 - Compare the library scene in the chapter "A Day of Visits," Vol. 1, p. 265, of this novel.] One man impresses his modes of thought, his habits, his methods of action, his ideals upon his fellow men, and thus implants his very soul into their lives. In this sense a transmigration of souls is taking place constantly, and he who opens his eyes will see it. No one has given plainer examples of this truth in the pleasant shape of novelistic narration, than Gustav Freytag.

The Lost Manuscript is in more than one respect a representative work, incorporating the spirit of the times. It is interesting from its descriptions of University circles, of country life, and of the vanity fair at the smaller princely courts of Germany. Yet these interesting descriptions gain in value, because we are taught by the author to comprehend the secret laws that rule the growth of, and determine the hidden interconnections between, the souls of men.

The plot of The Lost Manuscript. Gustav Freytag briefly characterizes as follows:

"In the upright soul of a German scholar, through the wish to discover something of great worth for knowledge, are cast juggling shadows, which, like as moonlight distorts the forms in the landscape, disturb the order of his life, and are at last overcome only through painful experiences."

Concerning the invention of the plot as well as of the characters of The Lost Manuscript, the following account from Gustav Freytag's Reminiscences will be of interest:

"In this story I depicted circles of life that were familiar to me since student days: the agricultural life of the country and the University life of the city. The reader will, I trust, discover in the characterizations of the work, that I have drawn cheerfully and unrestrainedly from this life at large. In the figures of the academical world he would seek in vain for special models, since Mr. and Mrs. Struvelius, Raschke, and others are types to whom in every German University single personalities will correspond. In the character of Professor Werner my friend Haupt has been recognized. But one can find in it only so much of the manner and method of Haupt, as a poet dares to take up of the being of a real man without interfering with the freedom of artistic creation, and without offending him through lack of delicacy. Haupt himself perceived with pleasure a certain remote resemblance, and of this connection with the romance he gave expression in his own way; having on several occasions, when sending me the prospectus of his Berlin lectures on the Latin historiographer Ammianus, good-humoredly signed himself 'Magister Knips,' which latter personage plays a sorrowful part in the story, and is only prevented from hanging himself by the thought of his professional researches in the Latin author mentioned.

"Some years before the appearance of my 'Debit and Credit' Haupt had unexpectedly requested me to write a novel. This accorded at that time with secret designs of mine, and I promised him. To The Lost Manuscript he contributed, however, in quite another manner. For as we were once sitting alone with one another at Leipsic, before he was called to Berlin, he disclosed to me in the greatest confidence, that somewhere in a small Westphalian town in the loft of an old house, lay the remains of a convent library. It was very possible that among them there was hidden a manuscript of the lost Decades of Livy. The master of this treasure, however, was, as Haupt had learned, a surly and quite inaccessible gentleman. Thereupon I put forward the proposition to travel together to the mysterious house, move the old fellow's heart, hoodwink him, and, in case of extreme necessity, drink him under the table, to secure the precious treasure. As Haupt had some confidence in my powers of seduction when joined with a good glass, he declared himself agreeable therewith, and we reveled in and developed to the fullest extent the pleasure we had in prospect of enlarging the tomes of the Roman historian for a grateful posterity. Nothing came of the affair; but the remembrance of the intended trip greatly helped me in developing the action of the novel.

"In Leipsic I had lived a short time on the street nearest the Rosenthal with a hatmaker, who manufactured straw hats. Near to him, as it chanced, was another well-known firm, which administered to the same need of the male sex by felt-hats. This accident suggested the invention of the families Hummel and Hahn, although here also neither the characters nor the hostilities of the two families are copied from real life. Only the incident is made use of, that my landlord took particular pleasure in decorating his garden by ever new inventions: the White Muse, the Chinese lanterns, and the summer-house by the road, I have taken from his little garden. Moreover, two characters of his household, – the very ones which, by reason of their mythical character, have given offence, are exact copies of reality; namely, the dogs Fighthahn and Spitehahn. These my landlord had bought at an auction somewhere to act as warders of his property; they excited through their currish behavior the indignation of the whole street, until they were poisoned by an exasperated neighbor. Fighthahn died. Spitehahn survived and, after that time, was quite as bristly and misanthropical as he is portrayed in the novel, so that finally in consequence of the perpetration of numberless misdeeds his owner was obliged to banish him forever to rural life."

The novel, as is the case with every work of prominence and influence, did not escape criticism, even among the friends of the author. In his Autobiographical Reminiscences, Gustav Freytag refers to the fact. He says:

"The Lost Manuscript met with disapproval from many intimate critics of mine. The sombre coloring of the last volume gave offence. It was much objected that the religious struggles and the spiritual development of the heroine Ilse were not placed in the foreground, and again that Felix Werner was not more severely punished for the neglect of his duty towards his wife. But the insanity of the Sovereign was especially objectionable, and it was claimed that in our time such a figure was no longer possible. My friends were wrong in this criticism. The Sovereign and his son the Hereditary Prince were also taken as types. The former represents the perverted development of an earlier generation which had sprung up from the ruin of Napoleonic times; the latter the restriction and narrowness of life in the petty principalities that then made up the German nation."

The American public will perhaps feel the strength of the criticism to which Gustav Freytag in the passage quoted refers, more strongly than the European friends of the Author. We at least have felt it, and believe that almost all the citizens of the New World will feel it. Nevertheless, considering all in all, we confess that Gustav Freytag was fully justified in preserving these traces of the national soul-life of Germany. For they form an important link in the development of German thought, and have cast dark shadows as well as rays of sunlight over the aspirations of scientific progress; now disturbing it by the vanity and egotism of these petty sovereigns, now promoting it by an enthusiastic protection of the ideal treasures of the nation.

The Lost Manuscript teaches us an object-lesson respecting the unity of human soul-life. Under the masterly treatment of Gustav Freytag's ingenious pen, we become aware of the invisible threads that interconnect our thoughts and the actions prompted by our thoughts. We observe the after-effects of our ideas and our deeds. Ideas live and develop not alone in single individuals, but from generation to generation. They escape death and partake of that life which knows no death: they are immortal.

Gustav Freytag, it is true, did not write his novel with the intention of teaching psychology or preaching ethics. But the impartial description of life does teach ethics, and every poet is a psychologist in the sense that he portrays human souls. In a letter to the publisher, Gustav Freytag says:

"… The essential thing with the poet was not the teachings that may be drawn from the book, but the joyful creating of characters and events which become possible and intelligible through the persons depicted. The details he worked into artistic unity under the impulsion of a poetical idea.

"But I may now also express to you how great my pleasure is at the agreement that exists between the ethical contents of the story (The Lost Manuscript) and the world-conception (Weltanchauung) which you labor to disseminate…" (Translated from the German.)

The laws that govern the warp and woof of soul-life in its evolution hold good everywhere, also among us. We also have inherited curses and blessings from the past; our present is surrounded with dangers, and our future is full of bright hopes, the fulfilment of which mainly depends upon our own efforts in realizing our ideals.

CONTENTS:

CHAPTER I.

A Discovery

CHAPTER II.

The Hostile Neighbors

CHAPTER III.

A Fool's Errand

CHAPTER IV.

The Old House

CHAPTER V.

Among Herds and Sheaves

CHAPTER VI.

A Learned Lady from the Country

CHAPTER VII.

New Hostilities

CHAPTER VIII.

Tacitus Again

CHAPTER IX.

Ilse

CHAPTER X.

The Wooing.

CHAPTER XI.