beautiful poem on Columbus, a poem that rouses the heart like the sound of a trumpet, Schiller has given us the essence of his soul. Steure, mutiger Segler! Es mag der Witz dich verhöhnen Und der Schiffer am Steu'r senken die lässige Hand Immer, immer nach West! Dort muss die Küste sich zeigen, Liegt sie doch deutlich und liegt schimmernd vor deinem Verstand. Traue dem leitenden Gott und folge dem schweigenden Wär' sie noch nicht, sie stieg' jetzt aus dem Fluten empor. XIII CONVERSATIONS WITH PAUL HEYSE PAUL HEYSE died on the second of April 1914, at his home in Munich, having reached the age of eighty-four years. His literary career began in 1850, and he wrote steadily to his last hour; his publications covered an immense range - novels, short stories, poems, plays, with a great number of essays in philosophy and criticism. The King of Bavaria in 1854 offered him a home in Munich, with a pension of five hundred dollars a year, so that nearly the whole active life of this Berliner was identified with the intellectual centre of South Germany. In 1910 he received the Nobel Prize. When I was a very young man, I came across an old paper-cover translation of Heyse's long novel, The Children of the World. I read it with such delight that I remember my first waking thoughts every day were full of happy anticipation. I lived with that group of characters, and whenever I open the book now, I find their charm as potent as ever. My hope of sometime seeing and talking with the man who had given me so much pleasure was satisfied in 1904. It was Sunday, the fifth of June, and a bright, warm afternoon, when I walked along the Luisenstrasse in Munich, and stopped at Number 22. Almost before I knew it, I was talking intimately with the famous novelist. He was then seventyfour, but remarkably vigorous and fresh-faced, an abundant shower of dark hair falling on his neck and shoulders, and his full beard slightly grizzled. He was immensely interested in the criticisms of his play, Maria von Magdala, which Mrs. Fiske had been presenting with great success in America. He told me with ardent satisfaction of the large cash royalties that had steadily poured in from across the sea. He wished to know infinite detail about Mrs. Fiske. "She is a most beautiful woman, is she not ?" asked the old man, eagerly. "On the contrary," said I, "she is decidedly lacking in physical charm, both in face and figure." This seemed a cruel disappointment to him, as he had evidently pictured a superbly handsome creature as the incarnation of his work. I explained to him that so soon as Mrs. Fiske had spoken a dozen lines on the stage, no one knew or cared whether she were beautiful or not; her personality was so impressive, so compelling, that she drew irresistibly the most intense sympathy; that this seemed to me her greatest triumph, by sheer brains and art to produce the illusion of a lovely, suffering woman. But Heyse was not satisfied. "Man hat mir gesagt, dass sie sehr schön ist." Several other visitors entered, and Heyse, forgetting he was a dramatist, and remembering only that he was a doctor of philosophy, plunged into an excited discussion about the work of Professor Justi, of the University of Bonn. Not being particularly interested, I have forgotten everything he said about this philosopher and art-critic. I waited patiently for a change in the weather. It came. The conversation suddenly shifted to American literature. "Who is your greatest living writer?" I knew that Heyse was a grave, serious, melancholy man, but I boldly answered, "Mark Twain." Heyse shook his head, more in sorrow than in anger. "I have always heard of Mark Twain's humour-that he was the funniest man on earth. I therefore read with the most conscientious attention every word of Huckleberry Finn. I never laughed once. I found absolutely not a funny thing in the book." Before going, I asked him to write his name in my copy of Kinder der Welt. He complied most graciously, though he was surprised, and not overpleased to learn of my enthusiasm for this particular novel. He gave me a really affectionate farewell, and asked me with the most charming courtesy to come and see him whenever I should be in Munich. On the twenty-first of January 1912, a glorious winter day, I went to see him again, and literally sat at his feet. He was over eighty years old; he occupied a huge carved chair in the centre of his library; the winter sunlight streamed through the windows, crowning his noble head with gold. The walls of the room were entirely lined with books, and he made such an impressive picture in these surroundings, that for a time I hardly heard a word he said, so absorbed was I by the dignity and beauty of the scene. I took a little chair, directly in front of him, looking up with real reverence into his face. "I have lived in this same house nearly sixty years. When I first came here, everyone said, 'Why do you live in the country, so far from the city?' But you see the city has come to me, and now I am in the very heart of Munich. I love this house and this street, for I have known no other home since I came to Bavaria." Once more I told him of my youthful enthusiasm for The Children of the World. He said with the utmost sincerity: "I never read any of my own works. I have forgotten practically everything in the book you admire. But I do remember that it does not express my real attitude towards life, only a certain viewpoint. Everyone who reads that story ought also to read my Merlin, as it supplies exactly the proper anti |