Americana Germanica [11 (Old Series; 15)]

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(5crman Qmetican Qnrtals CONTINUATION OF THE QUARTERLY

AMERICANA GERMANICA A RI-MONTHLY DEVOTED TO'THE COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE' Historical, Literary,

and Commercial

Linguistic, Educational OF

Relations

Germany and America ORGAN OF

The German American Historical Society The National German American Alliattce The Utiion of Old German Students in America

EDITOR,

MARION DEXTER LEARNED, University of Pennsylvania.

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: H.

C. G.

Brandt,

Julius Goebel,

Haniilton College.

University of

W. H. Carpenter,

J.

Illinois.

T. Hatfield,

Columbia University.

Northwestern University.

W.

W. H. Carruth, University of Kansas.

T. Hewett, Cornell University.

Hermann

A. R. Hohlfeld,

Starr W. Cutting,

Hugo

Collitz, Johns Hopkins University.

University of Wisconsin.

University of Chicago.

K. Schilling,

University of California.

Daniel K. Dodge,

H. Schmidt-Wartenberg, University of Chicago.

University of Illinois.

Hermann Schoenfeld,

A. B. Faust,

Columbian University. Calvin Thomas, Harvard University. Columbia University. Adolph Gerber, H. S. White, Late of Earlham College. Harvard University. Henry Wood, Johns Hopkins University. Cornell University.

Kuno Francke,

New

Series, Vol. ii.

Old

1913-

Series, Vol. 15.

published by

THE GERMAN AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY Fogel, Business Manager, College Hall, University of Pennsylvania

E. M.

Box

39,

pbtlaDelpbia. JSerlin

View

:

MAYER & MOLLER

CARL

l^ocft

A.

Xelp3(fl

:

STERN

F. A.

XonDon

KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TROBNER &

:

BROCKHAUS Paris

CO., Ltd.

H.

:

LeSOUDIER

/-M

J

,

K

//

Friedrich Armand Stkubberg [After the Portrait in possession of Frau Inspektor

Lenkmann,

Kassel.]

CONTENTS OF

GERMAN AMERICAN ANNALS Continuation of the Quarterly

Americana Germanica.

New

Old

Series, Vol. ii.

Series, Vol. 15.

1913-

Page

The American Indian in German German Drama in English on the German in Public Schools The Graffenried Manuscripts Friedrich

Fiction

143

Philadelphia Stage.

.

64, 175

100

205

Armand Strubberg

3.

Reviews

1

15

107, 313

PUBLISHED BY

THE GERMAN AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY E.

Box

M. FoGEL, Secretary,

39, College Hall, University of Pennsylvania,

Philadelphia. Berlin

New York CARL A. STERN

Leipzig

:

:

MAYER & MtJLLER

London

F. A.

:

KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRtJBNER & Paris

H.

:

LeSOUDIER

Ol^'^O^V^ \o\

:

BROCKHAUS

CO., Ltd.

(Berman Qmerican Qnnab CONTINUATION OP THE QUARTERLY

AMERICANA GERMANICA New Vol. XI.

Series,

Nos.

Jan. I

and

Feb.

,

,

Mar.

,

Old

and Apr. Vol.

1913.

2.

XV.

Series,

Nos.

i

and

2.

FRIEDRICH ARMAND STRUBBERG. (Continued.)

CHAPTER

III.

Strubberg's Works. Strubberg's predecessor Sealsfield has left an enduring legacy Strange as it may seem, his works were nevertheless to realism. inaffective in eradicating that romantic attitude

toward America

which existed among the German people at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

The

influence of his

works was potent among

the student and literary classes rather than among the great mass of the German reading public. This is due partly to the sketchy,

disconnected manner which he only too frequently employs in the treatment of his material, partly also to the strange "Kauder-

welsch" and peculiar sentence structure which the author conGerman the peculiarities of

sciously affected in order to convey in

English speech in America, and also to the introduction of a great mass of Spanish, French, and English words and phrases, all of

which features helped to make his works quite impossible for the average reader. Nor were Sealsfield's works published in Germany with the hope that the masses might become better informed of conditions in North America. In the most popular of Sealsfield's works. Das Cajiitenbuch (1841), we even read this rather (3)

Armand Struhhcrg

4

Fricdrich

startling footnote

:"....

bloss Gebildeten sincl diese Biicher

verstandlich, den Ungebildeten oder Halbgebildeten schvverlich befriedigen,

Dcr Virey und

.

.

die Aristokraten odcr

piibHsher writes

:

"Obwohl

sie

Mexiko im Jahre 1812, the Bnch fiir alle Klassen

iibrigens dieses

der biirgerlichen Gesellschaft geschrieben

nm Niemandes

werden

In the "Vorwort" to Sealsfield's

."

Erwarttingen

zii

ist,

so glauben wir doch,

taiischen, beifiigen

dass nur der hoher Gebildete, oder der mit

dem

zii

miissen,

weltgeschichtli-

chen Gange dieses merkwiirdigen Reiches bekannt werden Wol-

wahren und hohen Geniiss schopfen wird." works everywhere betrays the student and reader, a trait which is easily explained when we remember that

lende,

Sealsfield in his

he spent

five

years (1808-1813) as a student in the "Kreuzher-

renstift" in Prague,

and ten more years in the same institution as to have had an uncommon acquaintance with

He appears

a monk.

English literature, and his fondness authors in the course of his ant to his in

good

German

taste.^

for

allusion

to

English

works cannot always have been

readers, nor

is

his display of learning

pleas-

always

His love of erudite comparisons often leads

to

rather strange effects.-

Returning

now

to an examination of the

August Strubberg, we

find in

opposite characteristics.

them

works of Friedrich

to a great degree just the

Strubberg's works are essentially for

His language is smooth, and remarkable for its lucid sentences and lack of Germanized Latin words. This is all the more remarkable when we remember the the general mass of readers.

* In George Hozvard's, Esq., und Ralph Doughby's, Esq., Brautfahrt (1834), Sealsfield characterizes American women, but incidentally criticizes In the same work he mentions Ben Jonson, Scott, Bulwer, the Cooper. witches of Macbeth, and an Elegy by the American poet Paulding; also he quotes from J. S. Knowles The Beggar of Bethual Green. In the Cajiitcnbuch he speaks of Irving's Sleepy HoUozv and criticizes Bulwer.

Mn

Nathan, der Squattor-Regulator (1837) we read p. 440: "Unter ihnen Nathan wie eine tausendjiihrige Lebenseiche, oder ein gothischer

ragt der alte

Dora."

Of 1894),

a Kentuckian {George Hozvard's, Esq., etc., p. 250, m Ed. of he writes: "Seine Gesichtsfarbe ist ganz das Colorit von Benjamin

Wests Tode auf dem Pferde."

In Pflancerlehcn und die Farbigen, he sees a group of negro women with their pickaninnies and thinks the scene a worthy subject for the Dutch painters Wouvermann and Van der Velde.

^

Friedrich Aniiaiid Striihhcrg author's long residence abroad. characterize by

means of

5

Striibberg seldom attempts to

His Indians This may

peculiarities of language.

express themselves usually in a highly poetic German.

be a point subject to criticism, and will therefore be referred to in the consideration of his individual works.

seldom introduced and footnotes

Foreign words are

in explanation of textual peculi-

arities rarely appear.

Here

must be observed that Strubberg had by no means His literary career is in many respects a unique one. Although he enjoyed excellent educational facilities under the parental roof, they must nevertheless have it

enjoyed a literary training.

been only of a general nature. versity,

for he

He

never attended a

German

uni-

had been destined for a business career and

that end entered a mercantile house

in

Bremen

at the

to

age of

sixteen.

In 1827, while Sealsfield was working day and night in his

room

at

236 Spruce

Street,

Philadelphia, as correspondent for

German Journal, or engaged on his first novel Tokeah or White Rose, an Indian Tale (Phila., 1828), young Fritz Strubberg had taken up residence in New York as a business man. During these years of his first stay in America nothing could have been farther removed from his mind than the intention of putting his American experiences into literary form. If the impressions which America made on his really susceptible temperament sought a medium of expression it was rather that of the Cotta's the

pencil or brush.

While

Sealsfield

when

Sealsfield already rivalled Scott in letters,

was giving all his time to literary pursuits in the little Swiss town of Tagerweilen (1832-1837) and steadily acquiring fame, Strubberg was again in Germany aiding his father in the tobacco business. At the close of the thirties, at a time

returned to America to try his fortune anew. field

had brought

Long

his literary career to a close

Strubberg

after Seals-

(and

let

it

be

^ We recall here S.'s sketch of Niagara Falls (see My Biographical Sketch of S.). S.'s first work Amer. Jagd u. Reiseabenteuer was illustrated by sketches from his own pen.

«

FriedricJi Aniiaiid

6

Struhbcrg

observed that Sealsfield was Striibberg's senior by only thirteen still living the life of a frontiersman. Far removed from the book markets of the East he could not even have been informed of Germany's literary activities, had his interests lain that way. Though he had lived in Germany during the uprisings of the thirties, and though he often expresses "Young German" ideas in his works, we have no reason to suppose that Strub-

years) Striibberg was

berg was personally deeply interested in those

political differences

led the "Zweiunddreissiger" to emigrate to

which

America.

When

the "Aclitundvierziger" came, Strubberg had already lived on the frontier

many

years.

His reasons for coming

to

America were

purely personal ones.

Strubberg occupies a unique position in the history of German

He was

by the merest accident, might have ended his days as but for the intervention of which he a planter in Arkansas. Far from being a literary man, not even letters.

led to a literary career

own

widely read in his

literature,

much

less in

a foreign,

we

see

work in his fifty-second year. Influenced by no literary tendency, a member of no literary school, he wrote, so to speak, "frei von der Leber." A normal man, physically him publishing

his first

and mentally alert, he possessed a good store of that knowledge and wisdom which is acquired by one who has been about the world and thrown on his own resources. He sought to express that which he had seen, experienced, and heard, in a simple, ^ straightforward manner. There are but few literary allusions and little conformity to the prescribed forms of art. Having

strong,

lived a life it

which again proves that truth

is

stranger than fiction,

but natural that on having the pen pressed in his hand he

is

should draw on his

own

varied experiences.

An in all terial

endeavor to appeal to the popular reader can be noticed of Strubberg's novels. The rich mass of ethnographic mawith which Strubberg was so intimately acquainted by

virtue of his life

among

the Indians, negroes, and frontiersmen,

* In the course of his works Irving intimated also the Irish poet Moore Robinson Crusoe.

is

;

is

is

mentioned, a knowledge of Cooper several times referred to, as is also

:

Friedrich Armaiid Strubbcrg

though his

in

7

must always be considered the most important element works, was in itself not sufficient to warrant interest. it

Strubberg therefore made thread of romance.

It

how

never quite learned

this

material readable by adding a

must be acknowledged that Strubberg to create anything like a finely motivated

His novels are often extremely bizarre and do not conform to the stricter canons of novelistic art. The means which he employed for holding the attention of the reader through four or plot.

five

by

volumes

is

best illustrated by the following anecdote, related

W. Bennecke

.natiirlich,

:

"Bei meiner Bekanntschaft mit

Armand war

ersten novellistischen Versuche zur Durchsicht gab, aber er

von der einfachen Erzahlung Peffer!"

es

dass ich ihm, den alten, gewiegten Romancier, meine

war

standige

seine

schon und gut, aber

—

mehr

Peffer !"^

Strubberg spared no "Peffer"

He

story interesting.

infrequently

passes

in his

endeavors to make his

loves to deal in strong contrasts and not

over into the sensational.

reader of today there

war

wenig erbaut." "Mehr Ermahung, "das ist Alles recht

in denselben

Also,

for

the

an excess of sentimentality. Strubberg had in reality but one theme His own life on the extreme frontier of Texas, but he knew how to play numberless variations upon is

:

that theme.

No

matter in what part of America or in what is almost certain to have recurrence

period he opens a novel he

later to the rolling prairies of the State

which he knew so

well.

not surprising then to find his works to a large degree autobiographic. Strubberg himself appears in the third person in a It is

number of

works, and is always an interesting and Between the ages of 52 and 72 (1858-1878) Strubberg published 57 volumes of novels, all of which appeared

great

his

attractive character.

under

his second baptismal

name, that of Armand.

A

detailed

account of the contents of these somewhat loosely knit works,

would take us far beyond the bounds of

this

monograph.

Only

a brief treatment of Strubberg's works follows here in the order of their appearance

See Alls Armand' s Lcbcn. IlcsscnJand. No.

10.

Kassel, 16. Mai,

li

—

8

I'licdvicli

Aniiand Stnihhcrg Novels.

Amcrikanicshe Jagd- und Reiseabenteuer aits nicinem in den zvestlichen Indianergchietcn. Mit 24 vom Verfasser nach der Natur entworfenen Skizzen. Von Armand.

1858.

Lchen

Cotta, Stuttgart,

In this

first

i

Bd.

work Strubberg

at

once transports the reader to

on the Leona, a tributary of the Rio Grande. Here on the extreme western frontier of Texas, on territory of the his settlement

Comanche Indians, at the foothills of the Cordilleras, Strubberg, in company with three other German colonists, had erected his dwelling place, one side facing the river, the other three enclosed by palisades fourteen feet in height. To the North was a dense, primitive forest; to the South stretched the rolling prairie; to the

West

lay unexplored Indian lands; to the East, the nearest set-

tlement was eighty hours distant on horseback.

The author his life here

had

colonist

describes in great minuteness several years of

on the frontier of Texas, beyond which no other

at that time ventured.

the hunt, which frequently took

Mounted on

ment.

Strubberg's chief pursuit was

him

for weeks

six white Berber horses presented to

Sultan

of

from the settleby one of the President Taylor by the bloodhound Trust, two

his white stallion Czar, sired

Morocco, and

his

faithful

companions which become familiar figures in others of works, Strubberg exploited the surrounding country far and

faithful his

near.

of these journeys that forms the chief His struggles with the Indians are most

It is the description

substance for this work.

Comanches, Weicos, Catos, Lepans, the peaceDelawares, who had been given government lands along the

vividly narrated. ful

Kansas, Mescalieros, Blackfoots,

Kitscheis,

Apaches,

Kikapus,

and Pahnees cross our path at various times. Strubberg appears to have the closest acquaintance with the Comanches, though by description of manners and customs, and the delineation of features or dress, he makes careful efforts to distinguish between the various other tribes.

nowhere

in

German

objective manner.

The Indian of

literature been

the

West has perhaps more strikingly

treated in a

His Indians, with possibly a few exceptions.

Fricdricli

are not the academic type,

Cooper.

Arniami Stnihbcrg

made

Strubberg knew much

9

so popular through the less

works of

of the history of the Ameri-

can Indian than did Cooper, but he had a more direct acquaintance and did not hesitate to draw him as he was. The North

American Indians were, as he himself said, pronounced "Lumpe." Strubberg had already been an eager huntsman in his earlier days in Hessen. His ardor for the hunt with all that pertains to it explains the minuteness with which he relates his experiences. Overlooking a certain tedium which results from a detailed narration of adventures somewhat similar in nature, the book is quite unexcelled in its faithful pictures of animal and plant life in Texas before the approach of the white man. Though we may rest assured that the author has invented

many

of the incidents

employed, and that his marksmanship was somewhat less phenomenal, the fact nevertheless remains that the work could only have

who had had

been written by one

direct acquaintance with that of

which he wrote. Strubberg's eye was always open to nature. Nothing is overlooked. The buffalo moving over the prairie in herds of thousands, the various species of bears, deer, antelope, panther, jaguar, Mexican pig, wolf, beaver, and condor, are all

With

carefully described.

the

knowledge of one who has lived

for years beyond the boundaries of civilization, he further describes the preparation of the various animals for food,

process of tanning their hides for raiment.

of Texas equally engages his attention.

With

The

and the

rich plant life

the scrupulousness

of a botanist and the eye of an artist he acquaints us with the

magnolia, pecan, yucca, cactus, aloe, mosquito tree, laurel, live Strubberg is oak, and numberless other trees, shrubs and herbs. peculiarly

happy

The following method

in bringing local is

(p. 2 f.)

ich eines

geworden,

:

Abends

um

a

fair

atmosphere into his landscapes.

illustration of his poetic yet

"Nach einem sehr

realistic

heissen Friihlingstage hatte

mir zu spat Nacht war prachtig, die

diese Ouellen aufgesucht, da es

nach Hause zu reiten

;

die

Magnolien und grossbliihenden Cactusse senkten ihren Vanilleduft herunter zu mir bis in das hohe, kiihle Gras, ein Feuermeer von Milliarden von Leuchtkafern spriihte von Secunde zu Secunde seine Blitze iiber die endlosen Grasflachen umher, ein

Annand Strnbbcrg

Fricdrich

lo

galanter Spottvogcl (die amerikanische Nachtigall) flotete seine

Melodien aus der Spitze einer dunkeln Magnolie iiber mir Nacht hinatis. Die ganze Natiir schicn sich der Schonheit dieser Nacht zii frenen und Tausende von Insekten

si'issen

in die todtstille

aller

Art taiimelten

in ihren

Orgientanzen vor mir

in

mein kleines

Es war eine Nacht, wie sie Elfen zu ihren Spielen und lange habe ich unverwandt nach der unerDie Quellen rollten griindlichen blauen Tiefe vor mir gebHckt. wohl unaufhorhch ihre frischen Krystalhvellcn der Oberflache zu, aber die Loreleys wollten nicht kommen, sie haben sich nach Der Morgen war so herrlich Amerika noch nicht verirrt. Lagerfeuer.

sich erwahlen,

.

wie die Nacht.

Im Osten

.

.

begrenzte die flache Prairie den Hori-

Himmel

zont gleich einem Meer; der dunkle vollsten

Saum

Schmuck mit alien seinen Juwelen, wahrend schon der Gewandes in brennendes Karmin getaucht war; es Nacht schnell den Bergen zu und ihr nach zog der Tag

seines

floh die in

Die Sonne stieg gross

seinem schonsten Festkleide.

und lanten aufgegangen war, Prairie auf

beleuchtete ein Feld,

und

Haupter der zarten Pflanzen, fiir

war

der

worauf

iiber die

von

eine Saat

Bril-

Thau beugte

schwere

die

Morgendankgebet

als hielten sie ihr

Auch

die Ercjuickung, welche ihnen zu Theil geworden.

ich

von dem Thau durchnasst und musste meinen hirschAnzug zum Trocknen an das Feuer hangen das Leder

vollig

ledernen

war

prangte noch im

;

namlich iiber Holzrauch durchgerauchert. was das Hartwer-

den beim Trocknen

verhiitet."

It is safe to assert that in

no other work

in

German

litera-

ture, and perhaps in no other literature, has the prairie of West-

ern America been portrayed in skill

than in this work.

all its

moods with more

various

Strubberg excells especially

ing nature's grander and

in describ-

more sombre phenomena: the dark

hurricane whirling across the rolling plains, the crash of thunder, the flash of lightning, and the devastating hail or the all-devour;

ing prairie fire, with the mad stampede of cattle, mustangs, and wild animals of the prairie fleeing before its scorching flames. The

following description of a prairie

fire is

a characteristic example

of Strubberg's simple but vivid prose style (p. 147

f.)

:

FricdrkJi Armaiui Sinibhcrg

"Die Prairien standen

in

ii

Zwar

Flammen.

nicht das Feuer selbst, aber die schwarzen

ten sich schon dicht tibereinander fortrollend

sah ich noch

Rauchwolken drang-

am

Horizont herauf

und der Sturm trng sie bald vor mir iiber die letzte blaue Stelle des Himmels. Nur eine Rettung noch war moglich es gait eine Hohe zu erreichen, wo das Gras niedriger war, und ohne mich zu besinnen, gab ich Czar die Sporen und Ziigel und flog mit dem Sturmwind um die Wette iiber den Graswald vor mir. *'Ich sah mich um; auf der ganzen weiten Fliiche hinter mir lag es duster und dunkel, wie einbrechende Nacht, und unter den schwarz aufsteigenden Rauchwolken reckten die dunkelrothen, nach unten hellgliihenden Flammen ihre langen Zungen daran herauf und warfen ihr furchtbares Licht auf die Umrisse der wolkigen Rauchsaulen. Die ganze Ebene schien lebendig zu werden; so weit das Auge reichte, war sie iibersaet mit fliehenden Herden der Bewohner dieser Wildniss, deren schwarze Gestalten mit einem Feuerschein umgeben waren und sich iiber die in der Gluth zitternde Flache fortdrangten. Es war wie das Bild des jiingsten Gerichts, das mir meine Phantasie oft gemalt ;

hatte.

.

.

.

"Nicht mehr weit hatte ich zu der

mal

die

Hohe

vor mir; noch ein-

Sporen und mein gellender Jagdruf, und ich flog die hobblete mein zitterndes, schnaubendes Pferd

Hohe hinauf und

auf der kahlen, mit Kies und ganz diinn mit Gras bedeckten

nen Flache. nach

Mit dem Feuerzeug

dem hohen

in

der

Hand

klei-

rannte ich zuriick

Gras, ziindete es an, und im Augenblick schlugen

Flammen, wild gegen den Sturm ankiimpfend, in die Hohe und schwangen sich, die schwarzen dicken Rauchwolken gegen den finstern Himmel rollend, um meinen Hiigel herum, bis sie sich an seiner ostlichen Seite vereinten und unter lautem Knistern und Krachen sich wie eine Lawine mit dem heulenden Sturme fortwalzten. Jetzt erst blickte ich zuriick, mein braves, von der

die

Hobble wieder

befreites Pferd

die fiirchterlich belebte Flache,

am und

Ziigel haltend, hinunter

sah,

auf

wie die dunkeln leben-

den Gestalten, sich rechts und links in dem Thai unter dem Die ganze Thierwelt schien hier vereint Hiigel fortdrangten.

und

die letzten

Krafte anzuspannen,

um dem Flammentode

zu

12

Friedricli .Iniiaiid Striihhcrg

Zu

entriniieii. vviilil

beideii Seitcii iinter

Heerde hinter Heerde

mir donnerte im wirren Ge-

voriiber, Biiffel, Pferde,

Hirsche und

Antilopen drangten sich bunt dnrcheinander, und zwischen ihnen stiirzten

Baren, Tiger, Panther und Wolfe, einer nach

dem

an-

dern, unbekiimniert vorwiirts, das Gesicht von der Gluth abge-

wandt, die der Sturm mit einem dichten schwarzen Aschenregen iiber

das

Land

blies.

nur ein matter

ein,

men

Dunkle, schwarze Nacht

rotlilicher

hiillte

mich

jetzt

Schein schimmerte von den Flam-

Orkan Gewimmer mit dem dump-

her durch das dichte Aschengestober, wiihrend der

Wuth entfaltete und sein Erde erschiitternden Donner der tliehenden Thiermassen unter mir verschmolz."

seine hochste fen, die

The domestic

life

of Strubberg's three fellow-colonists, their various

activities,

the cultivation of the

soil,

and the defense

of the palisaded settlement against the attack of Indians, are all

carefully depicted.

The

arrival of

trapper, or prospective squatter,

an occasional bee-hunter,

was an occurrence of great

nificance in the history of this solitary settlement.

own

sig-

Strubberg's

adventures, however, afford the greater part of the material.

Much

work describes a journey to the Rocky Mountains which Strubberg made in company with Konigstein, one of the three German colonists, and several other young men who had lately settled on the frontier. On this of the second half of the

journey, which continued for several months, they visited the

Red

River, the Sacramento Mountains, the Canadian River, the

Arkansas, the Hot Springs, the Rio Grande, Rio Colorado, and

North

Platte.

In the vicinity of the Black Hills the party met

the exploring expedition of a certain

Lord

S.

The author

giyes

the reader a picture of the motley components of such early

expeditions to the

West before

the great transcontinental mi-

grations to the gold fields of California began.

In a manner most interesting to the American of today the

author also shows the gradual appearance of other frontiersmen

domain where he had been sovereign for a number of Encroaching civilization was disturbing the happy, idyllic years. life which he had so long enjoyed here in the solitude of nature. "Mein Leben," he writes (p. 229), "nahm iiberhaupt von jetzt in the

Fricdrich

an eine andere Richtnng.

Armand

.

.

Striihhcrg

13

Somit war das sorglose,

.

gliick-

Leben, welches mich hier, fern den Menschen, jahrelang

liche

ungestort iimgeben hatte, tansenderlei Leiden,

zii

Ende, nnd der Geldgott mit seinen

Gehassigkeiten nnd

Sorgen fing an seine Die Ruhe

despotische Herrschaft auch hier zu griinden.

war verschwunden und

.

.

.

hatte der rastlosen Thiitigkeit der Civili-

sation Platz gemacht."

Strubberg's novel,

we may

if

work which has not even name

give a

a thread of a story to connect one part with another, such a is

an Ich-Roman.

work harks back

In fact the

Crusoe and the novel of adventure.

to

Robinson

In true epic fashion the

hero, here the author himself, recounts his adventures.

work story.

but

In this

no atempt to appeal to the reader by means of a There is nothing to relieve the tedium of 460 octavo pages

there

is

animating

author's

tlie

periences often

somewhat

minute descriptions of

style

and

his

ability

to give

ex-

similar in character, fresh interest by

plants, animals

and natural beauties.

The book, by virtue of its matter, must appeal more to male The author would have us believe that these adventures were originally written for his sister Emilie, while he was still in America.*^ It is more probable, however, that Strubberg, as readers.

Bennecke

relates,"^

was encouraged

suggestion of the male

to write his adventures at the

who

friends

gathered and heard his

yarns in Hotel Schombardt, on the Wilhelmshohe.

made

The

written

upon his friends. He was urged to seek a publisher, and found one in Cotta ^ of sketches

a very favorable impression

Stuttgart.

The work author himself.®

is

illustrated with

twenty-four sketches by the

Though showing no remarkable

talent,

they are

further proof of the author's conscientious endeavors to give to

*

Cf.

"Vorwort"

''

Cf.

Aus Armand's Leben, Hesscnland. No.

to Anier.

Jagd-

u.

Reiseahenteuer. 9.

Kassel,

2.

Mai, 1889.

*The Cotta Pub. House had identified itself with the publication of "Young German" literature, and especially with works relating to America. Cotta had also published Sealsfield's

Strubberg

first

work.

in the "Vorwort" writes that most of these made upon the spot. That he engaged in sketching while living is further shown in a passage on page 6 of the above work. *

sketches were

on the frontier

—

Friedrich Aniiaud Stnthhcrg

14

the reader a faithful picture of

animal

life as

The

he beheld

work

value of the

Texan

for us of today lies in just this faith-

animal and plant

ful portrayal of

graphic material

it

landscape, and of plant and

it.

life,

and

in the

wealth of ethno-

contains concerning the aborigines at a time in

American history when the

culture of the white

man had

not yet

overtaken them.

The second

edition

of

the

work appeared

in

1876; the

third in 1892; the fourth in 1901.

1858.

Von Armand.

Bis in die Wildniss. Breslau.

This

Strubberg's

is

first

E. Tremendt.

4 Bde.

pretentious literary venture.

Its

form as a novel may be due to the fact that the author's interest lay more in the tracing out of his own life than in the romance itself. This work is one of the richest for autobiographical material. How much of it is "Truth" and how much "Fiction," it would be difficult to determine with definiteness. Strubberg had evidently early conceived the plan of embodying the various periods of his life in America in literary form. It is to be noted, too, that it is in his first works in which he himself plays the most prominent part. lack of

The time of action of this work antedates that of his first work Amer. Jagd- und Reiseabenteuer. It covers the period between the author's departure from Europe and the beginning of The novel opens in Rotterhis life on the banks of the Leona.

Armand

dam.

The

visit

described

years of the is

sails for is

thirties.

also referred to.

America on the

his second to

His

first visit,

Madame

Brillot,

sailing vessel

America, made

made about

"Medina."

in the latter

ten years earlier,

a Creole lady and her seven

daughters are fellow-passengers on the "Medina" to leans.

introduces some striking effects. first

New

Orhome at sea and volume Strubberg

Strubberg, like Cooper, shows himself at In the

first

manifests his interest in the slavery of the South.

afterwards

is

Slavery

given prominent consideration in a number of his

works.

Armand, while on the eldest of

Madame

the "Medina," falls in love with Eugenie, Brillot's daughters.

On

arriving in

New

Friedrich Arniand Striibberg

15

Orleans he accompanies the Brillots to their summer

home on Lake Ponchartrain, where he and Eugenie become betrothed. Marriage with Eugenie

is

prevented through the intervention of

a Methodist clergyman.

We

now follow Armand from Lake Ponchartrain to Moand thence by way of Alabama and Georgia to Charleston, S. C. After a short time he goes to Wilmington, N. C, and thence by rail to Richmond whence he takes a steamer to Baltimore, "die Stadt der Monumente." From there he journeys by rail to New York, where he has letters of credit to several business bile,

Armand

houses.

We

takes up residence in

New York

as a shipping

now made acquainted with the New York of medium of a German. Here is introduced the love episode with Mary Mercer and the fatal duel with her cousin John Mercer, upon which Armand leaves New York merchant.

are

the thirties through the

as a fugitive

medicine

in

the

journeys to Cincinnati as Mr.

to

Louisville,

medical

school

doctor's

his

receives

He

from the law.

thence

Frederick,

becomes

there,

He now

diploma.

a

student

of

and after two years prepares

himself

West in search of a suitable place to from Memphis on his lately purchased white

for his journey to the

Starting

settle.

stallion

Czar,

and

accompanied

by

his

bloodhound

he crosses the river into Arkansas, continues by

way

Trust,

of Little

Rock and Ultima Thule, a border town of Arkansas, across Choctaw Indian lands to Dallas, Texas, and on to the San Saba Mountains. ^^ After following the Rio Grande for some time he comes

to

its

tributary, the Leona,

stretch of land for settlement. tonio,

on which he chooses a suitable returns by way of San An-

He

Austin and Nagadoches to Louisiana.

takes the steamer to Memphis.

On

At Natchez he

arriving he sets about at once

to prepare himself for his proposed stay

on the

and to that purpose interests three men, a saddler, a carpenter and an The work closes with the agriculturist, to accompany him. erection of the palisaded fortress on the Leona.

"Reference to an atlas will to describe his travels.

frontier,

show how accurately Strubberg endeavors

6

:

Fricdrich

1

The above

Ann and

Strubhcrg

brief outline of Bis in die Wildniss

is filled

with observations on the most varied phases of American country,

City,

political,

ravages of yellow fever in

New

life:

The

and religious conditions.

social

out

Orleans, the sufferings and mal-

treatment of slaves on the Southern plantations, the religious fervor and emotionalism of Methodism,

New

of

balls

famous quadroon

the

Orleans and the sensuous beauty of their partici-

New

pants, society life in

York, horse-racing, a great

political

convention in Baltimore in the interests of the presidential candi-

—these form

date Clay

a part of the extensive

panorama of Amer-

ican life here shown.

Strubberg's observations

sometimes exaggerated and

are

On

betray an endeavor to appeal by sensation. Vol. Ill,

"Um

Armand

describes the cowcatcher of the

page 140 of

American

train:

das tJberrennen von Vieh zu vermeiden, befand sich vor

der Lokomotive eine grosse, holzerne, eisenbeschlagene Schaufel,

geraumig genug,

um

mehrere

Rindvieh aufzunehmen und

Stiick

so breit, dass sie zu beiden Seiten die Schienen iiberragte."

the steamboat

American

from Cincinnati

sport,

to Louisville

namely whittling(

!)

On

he notices a favorite

(p. 143,

Vol. Ill)

:

"Dabei

unterhielten sich Viele derselben mit einem Gedankenspiel, wel-

ches so originell als seltsam erscheint, jedocli seine Reize haben

muss, da es in ganz Amerika sehr beliebt

Weise Unterhaltende ein nun mit seinem scharfen Taschenmesser

sich auf diese

der

Hand und

Es hat namlich der Stiick weiches Holz in

ist.

schneidet

grosse und kleine Spiihne von demselben ab, bis es ganzlich ver-

braucht

ist,

und

einem Haufen von Holzschnitzeln

er in

sitzt,

wo-

rauf er sein Messer auf der Schuhsohle wetzt und sich wieder

nach einem anderen Stiick Holz umsieht. so weit, dass,

wenn

kein solches zu

Tische und Banke mit in

dem Messer

den niedrigren Wirthshausern

Diese Liebhaberei geht

bekommen

ist,

man

Stiihle,

angreift, weshalb namentlich

stets fiir

Holz zu diesem Ge-

brauch gesorgt wird."

For than the

a criticism of the

cite the

first

work

in its totality

remarks of Philipp Hofmeister

edition

we can do no in his

better

"Vorwort"

to

—

Fricdrich

Armand Strubbcrg

17

"Fern von dem geschiiftigen Treiben grosser Stadte meine Musesttinden stillen literarischen Arbeiten widmend, ist es doppelt anziehend, die VVunder entlegener Lander, die Reize einer grossartigen Natur und das rasche Wogen der Volker im Bilde an sich voriiberziehen zu lassen; und so gestehe ich gern, dass mich diese Blatter in seltener Weise gefesselt haben. Unwillkiirdrangte sich mir das schone

lich

nur hinein

in's voile

interessant."

.

.

Der Verfasser

.

Wort von Goethe auf

Menscheleben und

wo man's

giebt,

was

"Greift

:

da

ist's

er horte, sah

und

packt,

ohne die Zuthat der ausschmiickenden Phantasie

erlebte, giebt es

Oder der sinnenden Betrachtung.

Er

greift hinein in

den Schatz

seiner reichen Erfahrung und seines treuen Gedachtnisses, Bege-

benheiten reihen sich an Begebenheiten, Charaktere an Charak-

das voile Menschenleben, wie es die alte Welt schon lange

tere,

nicht

mehr

Meer mit

und dessen Anschauen nur Wenigen

vor den erstaunten Blicken des Lesers.

entrollt sich

ist,

in

bietet,

.

seinen Gefahren, seiner erhabenen Grosse, der

seiner

gestattet

Das Urwald

,

.

unentweihten Schonheit und seinen

Schrecken, das Thierreich und die Pflanzenwelt, wie sie unter tropischer Sonne sich entwickeln, der

Farmer und der

Stadter, der rothe

Wilde und

der kiihne Frontier, die Freiheit und das Sclavenleben, das Laster

und der Edelmuth,

und der Hass das sind die EleHand und offenem Schilderungen zusammengewebt. Es steht diese die Liebe

;

mente, aus denen der Verfasser mit sicherer

Auge

seine

.

.

.

Schrift einzig in ihrer Art da, wird eine bleibende Stelle in der

Literatur behaupten und

fiir

Deutschland, wie

fiir

Amerika von hochstem Interesse sein." This work also appeared in serial form

England und

in the

Kolnische

Zeitimg, in 1858.

A 1859.

second edition of Bis in die Wildniss appeared in 1863.

An

der Indianer-Grenze oder Treiier Liebe Lohn.

Armand.

C. Riimpler. Hannover.

This third of Strubberg's works valuable contribution to literature.

in

many

respects his

most

In no other of his works has

American border life been depicted so no other has Strubberg drawn such an array of

the cultural condition of

graphically; in

is

Von

4 Bde.

8

Fricdrich Aniiand Stnihhcrg

1

individual characters.

Sensationalism has been replaced by a gen-

At the same time this work includes some of Strubmost poetic endeavors. It is a happy combination of the romantic and the realistic. Amer. Jagd- und Rciseabentctier de-

nine realism. berg's

votes itself to those years

when Strubberg

still

lived in his fort

from the haunts of men. Bis in die Wildniss on the frontier. The time of An der Indiancr-Grenze is a few years later, when Strubberg had, so to speak, again been overtaken by civilization. The surrounding territory was gradually becoming settled. The single squatter, the rich planter with slaves and cattle from the Southern States, as well as the criminal and outcast of society, became

on the Leona,

far

depicts Strubberg's life before he settled

To

his neighbors.

give an inclusive account of this motley soci-

ety, its political, religious

and

social activities,

was

the task Strub-

work of no American writer gives a more complete account of the cultural conditions of the period and place under consideration. At the opening of the work Strubberg, who has assumed the name of Farnwakl, already appears on his white stallion. His berg

set

himself to do.

It is

trusty bloodhound bears the (p.

I):" "Es war

safe to assert that the

name

of Joe in this novel.

ein schlanker, kraftiger, junger

We

read

Mann, dessen Aus-

seres die Stellung in der menschlichen Gesellschaft verriet, wel-

cher er jetzt angehorte.

Er war

ein

Mann von

der aussersten

Nord-Amerikas, war Paar Revolver in dem Giirtel um den Leib, ein langes Jagdmesser an der Seite und eine Doppelbiichse schaukelnd vor sich auf dem Sattel. Der lange schwarze Frontiere,

von der Grenze der

Civilisation

in Hirschleder gekleidet, trug ein

Bart und der schwarze

Filz,

dessen breiter

Rand

sein Gesicht iiber-

gaben seiner Erscheinung fast etwas Finsteres; im Widerspruch damit standen jedoch die Liebkosungen, die er seinem Pferde durch Klopfen und Streichen mit der Hand zukomschattete,

men lich

liess,

und

die freundlichen

Worte, die

er

einem ungewohn-

grossen gelben Hunde, der vor ihm hinrannte und von Zeit

zu Zeit zu ihm zuriickkehrte, zurief.

The Weimar

Ed., 1894, has been used.

9

Friedrich

Armand Strubbcrg

1

war Farnwakl." "Farnwakl, cin geborener Dentscher, hatte schon seit viekn Jahren seiner Heimat unci seinen Lieben in derselben Lebewohl gesagt um sich in Amerika eine neue seinem "Der Name

dieses Reiters

(p. 21

Further

f.):

thatenkistigen, wilknskraftigen Gciste

mehr zusagende zu

griin-

den.

"Vom Norden

dieser neuen

Wek

hatte ihn sein Geschick un-

erwartet von Jahr zu Jahr weiter siidwestHch gefiihrt, durch derwiirtigkeiten,

ihn

Ungkicksfiille

mehr und mehr

und ihn

The

.

.

Lebenserfahrungen

Welt

zerfallen lassen

."

lonely fort on the I,

bittere

noch unbekannte Wildniss ge-

zuletzt hinaus in diese fast

trieben.

23, Vol.

und

mit der civiHsierten

Wi-

Leona

Strubberg mentions

is

again referred of the

the visit

On

to.

owner and

page

editor

of one of the most important newspapers in the United States, who visits Farnwald in order to be able to inform his readers of the advantages in settling in those parts.

In consequence, immi-

grants and land speculators soon begin to arrive. third year of Farnwald's sojourn in the fort, the

appeared and

erected his hut

During the first

about an hour distant.

squatter

Upon

the

approach of other settlers Farnwald forsook the fort and built himself a more modern residence among his neighbors. A part of the first volume is devoted to Farnwald's love for Owaja, a beau-

Lepan-Indian maid. This delightful little episode, no integral part of the work, has been called the most poetic thing tiful

Strubberg has ever written.^^ Qwaja is a beautiful child of naShe is one of Strubberg's Rousseauian creture, naive and good. ations, a descendant of the children of Chateaubriand and Bernardin

St.

Pierre, only

contrasts.

a

It is

more

effective.

Strubberg was clever at

his skilful handling of the

background often harshly

lightful reading, in spite of

realistic, its

that

romantic over against

makes

this novel de-

inadequacy of form.

With

little

regard for the sympathy of the reader Owaja is left to die early daughter of in the work, and Farnwald's love for Dorolice, the a wealthy Spanish

settler, supplies

most of the romance for the

"Cf. Hermann Ethe: Der transatlantisch-exotische Hauptvertreter in Essays und Studien, p. 92. Berlin, 1872.

Roman und

seine

20

Friedrich

remainder of the novel.

Armand Strnhherg

Around

these tender tales of love Strub-

berg has woven the varicolored threads of frontier

among

Life

life.

the Indians, their customs and habits both in their villages

and on the hunt, white childern,

their attacks

life

among

on the whites, the abducting of

the planters, both cultured and crass,

the conditions of slavery, quarrels over land claims, the execution

of the law in a time individual

;

all is

when

the law lay largely in the

depicted in a most vivid manner.

minor occurrences of frontier

life

food and raiment, the squatter ling

omitted

court-room scenes, the gambling

meeting,

all

find

place.

:

in his fields

The reader

are the

The preparation of or on the hunt, thril-

table, a is

hand of the

Nor

Methodist revival

The

spared nothing.

and thrilling enough to please the most hlase of readers. The negro fight in Chap. 21 of Vol. II is a splendid bit of narrative, and finely illustrates the gauging and lynching scenes are

realistic

author's graphic, visualizing style.

In the later half of the second volume scenes from the Mexi-

can

War

are introduced.

Commanding General Taylor

is

sta-

Corpus Christi, awaiting orders from Washington to begin the attack on the Mexicans. In the army are many volunFarnwald himself gathers a comteers from the Eastern States.

tioned at

pany, and as

its

Colonel leads

ness the beginning of the

it

war on

The Mexican War, however,

to the field of action.

We

wit-

the broad plains of Palo Alto.

occupies a very subsidiary place.

It

serves to bring together Farnwald and Dorolice, his Spanish love.

The work

closes with

an intimation of their union, though Strub-

berg in good taste never permits himself as a character to enter into

matrimony.

Farnwald

is

the predominating figure throughout the work.

Strubberg's fondness for portraying himself in high lights, as a character epically heroic, a paragon of bravery and nobility of

mind, a benefactor of humanity in times of peace and a mediator To be in periods of strife, is not always pleasing to the reader. his own weaknesses to petty ascribe to hesitate fair, he does not character, but his virtues are always greatly in preponderance. Throughout the work his successes as a doctor of medicine are

brought out with special emphasis.

—

Fricdrich

Armand Stnihhcrg

Perhaps the most evident weakness of

21 this

work

is

the

author's inabihty to harmoniously wield the great mass of

ma-

After the fashion of the ancient epic writer, all must be told whether interesting or otherwise at an expense of the progress of the action. Nevertheless An der Indianer-Grenze remains one of Strubberg's most valuable achievements. It aphand.

terial at

peared in serial form in the Kolnische Zeitimg in the same year

with

A

publication in book form.

its

1894 as "Erste Abteilung"

lished in

second edition was pub-

Armand' s ausgew. Ro-

in

mane.

Von Armand.

Alte und neue Heimath.

1859.

Eduard Trewendt.

As works. ture

it

a novel this

As

is

a cultural

i

Breslau.

Bd.

one of the most readable of Strubberg's

document

it

is

invaluable for the fine pic-

gives us of one of the darkest periods in the history of the

State of Texas

:

German

the planting of

colonies in

Texas by the

"Mainzer Adelsverein," through whose misdirected efforts thousands of Germans suffered untold miseries and hundreds died a

wretched death.

In November, 1844, the

first

ship with immi-

grants sent by the "Verein" had arrived; soon thereafter came

two

others, bringing in all about seven

hundred people.

Late

in

1845 four thousand three hundred and four more arrived.^^ The immigrants of 1844 could not be conveyed at once to the lands

They were obliged to camp on the coast, and only some time were transported to the interior, where the town of Neu-Braunfels was founded. Those of 1845 fared even worse. Transportation was made practically impossible through proposed.

after

the fact that nearly

all

vehicles

had been

called into service

by the

American Army for the Mexican War. They were obliged to camp on the coast in wretched shelter, with only the poorest food. The winter was a severe one, disease spread, and hundreds died. Strubberg has taken for his subject the hardships of the arrival of immigrants, but he has apparently

drawn on the

first

inci-

dents connected with the combined arrivals of 1844 and 1845. The action of the novel consequently takes place during the latter " Cf. Festausgabe.

Pp. 39 and 48.

FricdricJi Aniiaiid Stnihhcrg

22

The author was

months of 1844 and during 1845.

in all probability living in the interior of

the Leona.

It

was only

in

burg as Colonial Director. with his material

in the vicinity of

1846 that he was called

He was hand.

at first

Texas,

at this time

to Friedrichs-

consequently not acquainted

Through

his connections with

the colony of Friedrichsburg in the following year he learned to

know many

of the immigrants themselves, and had beyond a

doubt abundant opportunity to hear them from the coast to the interior of Texas.

The author comfortable

little

introduces us to the

home

in

Werner family

South Germany.

occasion to wander from the prosperous

wanderings

relate their

Few

little

their

in

people had had

town, but the "Ver-

zum Schutze deutscher Auswanderer" (Mainzer Adelsverein) had issued such glowing reports of the beauties of Texas and the advantages of emigrating thither that Herr Cassirer Werner and ein

family decided to embark on the emigration ship to

sail

for

Amer-

from Havre in October (evidently 1844). The adventures of family form the framework for this novel. In the second chapter we stand on the coast of Texas with hundreds of other ica

this

Germans and await an incoming ship. On it is the Werner family. The idealistic anticipation of these naive Germans is most pathetic: "Nun, Kinder, ist alles Schwierige iiberwunden, bald werden wir auf unserer Plantage sein," sagte Herr Werner, als der Steg das Werft erreicht hatte und Alles dariiber hinunter ''Kommt mit mir und lasst uns die amerikanische Erde rannte. betreten" (p. 29). The immigrants for want of means of transportation are obliged to remain in Galveston, some in hotels, the poorer in wooden shacks without the city. It was a motley "Sie stellten," writes Strubberg (p. 21), "eine wahre crowd. Musterkarte

aus

alien

moglichen

menschlichen Gesellschaft dar.

Standcn

Hier sah

und

man den

Klasscn

dcr

unbehilflichcn.

ungelenken, langhaarigen Bauer nebst Familie mit offenem Maul

vor den Schaufenstern der Laden stehen; da den jungen Stutzer mit (lem Kneifer vor dem Auge, mit Glaceehandschuhen und ho-

hen bespornten Absatzen nach dem Trinkhause wandern den Kramer, den Soldaten, den Handwerker. den Schauspieler, ;

den Pachter, den Burger, den Edelmann, den Grafen;

x\lle

.

.

.

konnte

Friedrich Arinand Strubhcrg

man

hier

wandeln sehen mid

Stand errathen, dem

sie

leicht

in ihrer

23

aus ihrer Erscheiniing den

deutschen Heimath angeliort

hatten.

"Mitiinter jedoch in

war der Anzng, namentlich

dieser Beziehung triigerisch,

jtinger

indem dieselben

bei

Manner,

der

ihrer Tracht entweder ihrem eigenen, bei ihrer Abreise

Wahl

von Eu-

ropa an Nichts mehr gebundenen Geschmack gefolgt waren, oder irgend ein Ideal, welches ihre Phantasie begeisterte,

zum Muster

gewahit und sich darnach kostumirt hatten.

Man

purfarbene und rothe, mit Schnuren

besetzte

reich

erblickte pur-

sammetne

Paletots, spanische Uberwiirfe mit aufgeschlitzten wciten italienische Anziige

deranziige

Armeln,

nach Rinaldo Rinaldini und Masaniello, Le-

nach Natti aus Cooper's Letztem der Mohikaner,

Strumpfmiitzen, mittelalterliche Reiterhiite mit aufgekrampten

Randern und mit Federn, spitze graue Filzkappen, wie sie Narren auf deutschen Maskeraden zu tragen pflegen, und Stiefel-FaQons aus alien Jahrhunderten, in denen solche getragen wurden. In einer Hinsicht aber stimmten diese Leute sammtlich iiberein; sie waren Alle bis an die Zahne bewaffnet und trugen Pistolen, Jagdmesser, so wie Dolche im Giirtel, was ihnen, im Verein mit ihren abnormen Barten, ein desperates, martialisches Ansehen gab." Daily more immigrants arrived. Food and drink was sold at exorbitant prices. By means of a little sailing vessel the Werners are taken from Galveston to Indian Point, where other Germans had also pitched their camp. From here the Werners had hoped to be conveyed to the colony's lands, but the same difficulties preThe extreme heat and want of vailed, and they remained here. proper food soon brought on disease, and many fell victims, among them one of Werner's daughters. The immigrants are Many of them, taking with them only the driven to despair. barest necessities, started out to reach Neu-Braunfels on foot, two hundred miles distant only a few ever reached their destination, the remaining ones fell by the wayside. ^^ Werners deterbreiten die

;

" Cf. An historical account of these hardships: Franz Loeher's Gesch. Zustdnde der Deutschen in Amerika. Cincinnati und Leipzig, 1847. P. 351 f. Also Olmsteed's Wanderungen durcJi Texas, etc. Lpz. 1857. P. 120 f. M.

;

Fricdrich Annaiid Stnibbcrg

24

mined

to get

conveyance

sent to Neii-Brannfels in

any cost. Their son Albert had been the hopes of having a vehicle sent from

at

A few native whites hearing of the distress of the Germans, came to camp with their vehicles and extorted exorbitant prices for transportation. The Werners finally submit themselves thence.

to a heartless teamster,

is

who

extracts an

enormous sum from

Their drive over the sandy waste under a glaring sun,

them.

strikingly pictured.

The teamster

turns off from the road to

Neu-Braunfels, forsakes them there, returns and extorts

The Werners

money from them.

more

contract the fever on this pro-

tracted journey and only the eldest daughter, Matilda, survives.

The teamster and his brother seize all the Werner possessions. The wanderings of Albert Werner, the son, are now taken up from the time he left Indian Point for Neu-Braunfels. Albert remains in Neu-Braunfels for some time the author incidentally introduces the life and activities of that German settlement. ;

Albert, on parents.

returning to Indian Point finds the graves of his

Not knowing of

his surviving sister Matilda,

he joins

Greneral Taylor's forces at Point Isabel.

The Mexican War part of the work.

We

occupies a prominent place in the latter

follow Albert as one of the Texas rangers

(a body of ununiformed, undisciplined men, says the author, whose only Commando lay in the words "at them !") to Palo Alto as under officer he goes on to Resaca de la Palma the Mexicans are routed Albert becomes second lieutenant he camps with the Americans at Matamoras; he becomes first lieutenant; they march to Monterey Forts Federacion, Teneria and Obispada are taken Monterey is stormed, and finally capitulates, a truce follows, during which Werner is seriously wounded by a tiger and is cared for in the house of Dona Rosa Marcia Garcia. A beautiful romance develops between Albert and Dona Rosa, which results in a happy union. ]\Iathilda had been received into the home of the planter Harmuth she finds a German bridegroom and is in the end restored to her brother. The novel ends with Strubberg's manner of treating hisa brilliant wedding scene. torical matter is well illustrated by his introduction of the Mexican War. Conspicuous figures such as Generals Taylor and ;

;

;

;

;

;

—

Fricdrich Aniuutd Slnihhcrg

Worth

25

are mentioned, but seldom permitted to take an active

A

part.

Captain Falkland takes part in the dialog and remarks

a German. Definite historical references in connection with Strubberg's introduction of the settlement of Neu-Braunfels is more or less avoided.

that he

is

Mention is made of Graf H., Lieutenant v. C., Graf S., and Graf H. v. d.^^ The "Sophienburg," built by Prinz Solms and named after his lady-love Sophia, Princess of Salm-Salm, is also referred to.^®

This work went through but one edition.

Scenen aus den Kdmpfcn der Mexicaner und NordameriVon Armand. Breslau. Eduard Trewendt. i Bd.

1859.

kancr.

This novel. It

is is

Strubberg's first attempt at a shorter form of the perhaps unfortunate that Strubberg did not resort to

a briefer form

more

frequently, though

material, so varied in nature,

was

it

must be admitted that

adapted for expression in a

ill

brief concise form.

This work appeared Grenae.

It consists

in the

same year with An der IndianerDie Amerikaner in Mexico

of two novelettes

:

and Der Sturm von San Antonio. In the introduction to these two "Scenen" the author has given a historical account of the

war between Mexico and

differences that led to the

the United

States.

The pages. milieu.

first

It

is

the

first

Die Amerikaner

Mexico, occupies 115 of Strubberg's works to have a Spanish

novelette.

It is in reality

in

a series of scenes.

introduced toward the end of the work, but

A

slender romance

it is

is

almost obscured

by the wealth of military and cultural details introduced. It opens with cannon thundering forth from Forts Santiago, San Jose, San Fernando and Santa Barbara over the city of Vera Cruz.

In the harbor lay the American

forth volleys of thunder.

Under

fleet

of war, also sending

similar strains the

Mexican

in-

"The first two abbreviations probably refer to Graf Edmond von Hatzfeld and Graf Karl von Castell the last two the writer has not located. Cf. List of members of the "Mainzer Adelsverein" in Festaufgahe, p. 41 f. ;

" Cf. Festaiisgabe,

pp. 40

and

44.

26

rricdvich ^Innaiid Stntbbcrg

Vera Cruz had, months before, lost their

habitants of

in struggling for their

independence

and the Americans had taken possession of the town. Now the fall of the City of Mexico itself Colonel Harris, Captain Falkland and Lieutenant is announced. Moorland, three officers who had marched triumphantly with the six

liberty,

American General Scott into Mexico, had brought this message The joy of the people knew no to Vera Cruz at break of day. end. The stars and stripes waved over the black fortress. The American Army is described thus (p. 8) "Ziigellose Banden von Volontairs, die erst kiirzlich mit Transportschiffen von den Vereinigten Staaten hierher befordert waren, schwarmten betrunken, mit Revolvern und langen Jagdmessern im Giirtel, durch die Strassen, zogen von einem Trinkhause zum andern und machten in ihrer nachlassigen, zerlumpten Kleidung, ihren zerrissenen, iiber die Hosen gezogenen Stiefeln und zerfetzten breitrandigen Hiiten mehr den Eindruck einer Rauberbande, als den der Armee eines hochcivilisirten Staates wie Nord-Amerika." At a banquet held by American soldiers a health is drunk to a brave Mexican officer, the First Lieutenant of Marines, Sebastian Holzinger, a German. (Strubberg always appears well in touch with the activity of the Germans then in North America. The author delights to introduce Germans into his works, and Holzinger had usually portrays them in an attractive manner.) during the bombardment of Vera Cruz heroically defended Fort Santa Barbara against the Americans, and when the flag pole was broken by an American ball, had, amid a torrent of bullets, held up the flag. Through his bravery he had won the esteem of the Americans and been given his freedom on condition that he would no longer serve in the Mexican Army. We are led into the country palace of Santa Anna, the Na:

poleon of the South, as he

Spanish guerillas

is

drawn.

making between American

is

called.

A

vivid picture of the

Gambling, horsethieving and lovesoldiers

and Spanish beauties give

the scenes a dash of color.

The second

novelette,

Der Sturm von San Antonio, is better The author first gives a

proportioned and contains more unity. brief historical sketch of Texas,

"das Nordamerikanische Ita-

FricdricJi Aniiaiid lien," since the

Sinihbcrg

27

days of Ferdinand Cortcz up to 1825, when the

great migrations to Texas began.

Strubberg writes

(p.

121):

"Die Bevolkerung von Texas hatte bisher kanm dreitausend Seedoch mm stromten von Norden tmd von Osten her Einwanderer in Menge herein, imd das Land war in kiirzer Zeit

len betragen

;

der Freihafen

von dem Gesetze der be-

diejenigen, die

ftir alle

nachbarten Vereinigten Staaten fliehen mussten.

Taugenichtse,

Schwindler, Diebe, Ranber und Morder siichten hier eine sichere

imd Sklaveneigner, die von ihren Glaubigern bewaren, flohen mit Hunderten von Negern nach diesem

Zufluchtsstatte, driingt

Asyl."

The

history of Texas

1835, and

its

final

a republic

in

1836.

is

then traced through the uprisings in

from Mexico

declaration of independence

novel takes place.

It is

we remember, had operated

Sealsfield,

about the same period in his Cajiltenhitch.

lies

beyond the

own personal experience. It is perhaps for this that we miss his own familiar figure in the work.

author's

berg's intimate acquaintance with the territory aids

ing the proper atmosphere, even

years before his

own

if

is

him

reason,

Strub-

in strik-

the action takes place several

The crude and

activities in that region.

vagabondish character of the population

Texas

in

Unlike that of most

of the earlier works the milieu of this novelette

too,

as

about this time that the action of the

in these early

days

in

happily depicted, and in strong contrast to the beautiful

scenic background.

In stronger contrast

still is

the pretty

romance

between young Gordon and the Spanish maid Beatrice de Almonte. Gordon is an idealist and stands up for the Indian whom he thinks shamefully and unjustly treated. says (p.

unter diese Menschen geschleudert

haben.

nicht allein ihr Eigenthum, trieben sie

die wilden Thiere, sie

hatten."

"Denke," he

.

alle

Vertrage,

alle

the

nahmen ihnen

zu, sie jagten sie

sie

Comanche

sie

wie

brachten

gaben ihnen Branntwein und

Versprechungen, die

In the latter half of the

West among

Sie

erschlugen ganze Stamme;

ihnen zerstorende Krankheiten,

the

.

von ihrer Heimath weiter

und weiter dem oden Gestein der Anden

brachen

.

265), "an das unsagliche Ungliick, welches die Weissen

work we

Indians.

sie

ihnen gegeben

are taken farther to

Chief of the Comanches

—

28

Fricdrich

Annami Struhhcrg

His two sons are Santa Anna and Sanacho, The love of Sanacho for Ora. the daughter of the hostile Chiricagui tribe is for loftiness both of language and conception, and The folidyllic beauty one of Strubberg's most charming bits. "Die lowing passage is almost Hebraic in character (p. 249) Tochter der Chiricaguies ist tapfer; sie hat bei Tage die brennende Wiiste durchwandert, Speise und Trank fi'ir den Kranken Sanacho geholt und Nachts fiir sein Leben gewacht; sie hat die Zahne des Jaguars gebrochen und seine Krallen abgestumpft; sie hat den Sturm bekiimpft und den Comanche zu den Schatten der Magnolien gefiihrt sie hat ihm sein Pferd wiedergegeben und ihm einen Zaum fiir dasselbe gemacht, sie ist Sanacho's Weib, und die Frauen der Comanches werden ihr Wigwam mit den schonsten Hauten schmiicken, ihre Haare mit Barenol salben und ihr Lager mit Blumen bestreuen." is

'^'^

Mopotuska.

:

;

Strubberg has very plainly idealized

the

Indian

novelette, perhaps to bring the injustice of the whites

in

this

toward the

The author is very evidently in red man's cause. The ignoble actions of the

Indians into stronger contrast.

sympathy with the

whites, their faithlessness in upholding the peace contract with

the Indians, the terrible vengeance which the latter reek upon

them, to which Gordon and Beatrice

fall

innocent victims, form

the machinery of the work.

Scencn aus den Kdmpfen der Mexicaner und Nordamerikaner was never republished. i860.

Ralph Norwood. Von Armand. ler.

Hannover. Carl Riimp-

5 Vols.

The work is dedicated as follows "Dem Freiherrn J. W. Spiegel zum Desenberg, Domherrn zu Halberstadt, Hochwiir:

den, Hochwohlgeboren."

From

the Preface

above gentleman

in the

we learn summer

that Strubberg lived with the

of 1859, in order, as he says,

" This Indian was named after the Mexican General. Strubberg is here Mopotuska appears to be a dealing with an historical Indian character. perversion of Mopechucope (old owl). Cf. Festausgabe, p. 98.

Fricdrich "fiir

manche hcrbe

lebens Ersatz

zii

Armand

Striihhcrg

29

Stiinde meines langjahrigen ernsten

Wander-

finden."

Perhaps none of Strubberg's works contains a more varied or greater number of scenes from American culture of the early

decades of the nineteenth century than Ralph Norivood.

Its ex-

treme length, quite unmotivated, and the multitude of crimes and horrors scattered over

its

pages, prevent

own

from occupying a very

The author

high place as a literary work. the bounds of his

it

for once steps out of

The

personal experience.

story begins a

few years after the treaty between the United States and Spain (February, 182 1), in which the latter resigned her interests in Florida. In 1817 General Jackson had entered Florida and cre-

among

The scene The chief character is Ralph Norwood, the son of Tom Norwood and a Seminole woman. It is the life and crimes of Ralph Norwood which form the material for Strubberg's novel. The history of the struggles ated havoc

the S'eminole and Creek Indians.

opens on the northern border of Florida.

of the Seminoles in Florida and the

removal of the small

final

remaining number by the Government to the Far West serves as the ethnographic background.

No

attempt

the Indian by peculiarities of language.

made to characterize The following speech,

is

delivered by Tallihadjo, the chief of the hunted Seminoles,

is

an

example of the author's usual Indian speech (Vol. I, p. 168) "Du bist der Leopard, der die Antilope gegen die hungrige :

Schaar seiner Briider seltener, als der

in

Schutz nimmt, deine Freundschaft

weissgeborene

Biiffel,

Seminolen wird ewig dauern, wie die

und

ist

die Dankbarkeit der

Wogen

des grossen

Was-

Der Zorn des grossen Geistes liegt schwer auf unserm Volke, und das starke Herz Tallihadjo's hat schon viel um dasselbe gelitten. Er wollte ihm auch sein Land opfern und es den Weissen iiberlassen, darum zog er sers, welche die Kiiste Floridas bespiilen.

mit seinem

Stamme

davon, ohne dass seine Fahrte sagte wohin."

The marauding

expeditions of the pirate vessel the "Sturm-

vogel" along the Atlantic coast occupy a prominent part in the

work.

A

German

sailor

neglects to introduce

is

on the

Germans

pirate vessel.

into his works.

The author never

Armand Struhhcrg

Friedrich

30

In the second volume Lafayette's

him

the great ovations given

in

final visit to

America and

various American cities are

described.

The

story

now

along the sea coast

shifts to Florida, then again to Baltimore

;

the reader

is

and

even given an excursion up the

Hudson to Trenton Falls, as well as Niagara. The terrible atrocities against the Indians, partly brought on through Ralph Norwood, who acts as a government spy, reflect no credit on the whites. The author's sympathies point strongly toward the Indians. At the end of the fourth volume, the last decisive battle of the Seminole war is fought. The few remaining Seminoles are taken by the government to the western part of the State of Arkansas.

years

later.

He

well.

old dog,

The

fifth

volume opens there sixteen

again on the territory he knows so

is

promptly introduces himself, his white

who

as follows

The author

:

here bears the

name

of Guard.

He

stallion

and his

introduces himself

"Farland, ein Deutscher von Geburt, war der erste

Ansiedler in dieser Gegend gewesen, zu jener Zeit als dieselbe sich

noch weit und

breit in

dem

Besitz der Indianer befand.

Er war

Arzt, hatte aber seine wissenschaftlichen medizinischen Kenntnisse seit seinem hiesigen Aufenthalt nie anders benutzt, als

um

unentgeltlich seinen, sich taglich mit jedem Jahr betrachtlicher mehrenden weissen Nachbarn und auch den ihm befreundeten InEr war dianern beizustehen, wenn sie seiner Hiilfe bedurften. von ungewohnlicher geistiger Alter, kraftigsten und Mann im ein

korperlicher Ausdauer, der mit vielen schweren Schicksalen ge-

kampft, herbe Leiden getragen und sich dennoch Antheil an den

Freuden des Lebens und Theilnahme seiner Mitmenschen erhalten hatte."

The last volume shows Though so near the

home.

fiir

das

Wohl und Wehe

us the Seminoles in their Western natural conclusion of the novel, a

violent affair of the heart between Farland and Berenice, daughter of

Ralph Norwood, now comes into the foreground.

Berenice

The work ends with Tallihadjo's terrible revenge on Ralph Norwood for his traitorous deeds against the Indians, his own Ralph Norwood and the mother's kin, while still in Florida. dies.

pirate captain of the

"Sturmvogel" are both burned

at the stake.

—

Friedrich Arriiand Striibberg Sklavcrci in Amcrika odcr ScJiivarzcs Bint.

1862.

Hannover.

Under

Carl Riimpler.

this title are included the three following novels

when

a time

the agitations of slavery in

Striibberg,

though we infer from

This

way

Amerika with

less at

as to arouse the

sympathy of the reader.

the only one of Strubberg's works, however, devoted en-

is

would be gojng too far

to credit Sklaverei

direct anti-slavery tendencies.

The author aims

tirely to the negro.

It

giving a wide cultural panorama of slavery in

details than is in

works that he himself

his

an antipathy to slavery as an institution. frequently introduces slaves into his works, but usually porslaves, manifests

trays them in such a

in

Die

:

They were written at America had reached

War.

their climax in the Civil

owned

Von Armand.

3 Bde.

Quadrotte, Die Midlatin, and Die Negerin.

He

31

an interesting literary product.

its

minutest

Sklaverei in Amerika

a sense an epic trilogy on the black man.

The beauty

of the

black man's life in his natural surroundings in Africa, his re-

moval to America and entrance into bondage, the loves, sorrows, and tragedies of his descendants in slavery; this is the machinery with which Strubberg operates. The plots of these three novels are more carefully constructed, better motivated and more finely proportioned, being less hampered by the usual mass of episodes. As a cultural document of the period of slavery in America it has less value; as a purely literary achievement,

however,

author's

many works.

Wilhelm

I,

The

King of

first

novel.

it

takes the

The work

is

first

place

among

the

dedicated to His Majesty,

Prussia.

Die Quadrone, takes up 106 pages.

Strub-

berg was very partial to the beautiful quadroons of the South and excelled especially in the description of those

exceptional advantages. ^^

The heroine

is

who had enjoyed

Leonta,^^ the daughter

of the southern planter Crawford, and a mulatto

woman.

The

" Cf. Description of quadroon ball in Bis in die IVildniss, p. 9 f. 4. Bd. " Note variations on the name of the river Leona. Cf. Leonide, the Indian Maid in Aus Armand's Frontierleben; also Neone, Farland's quadroon slave in Ralph Norwood.

Friedrich Armaiid Struhhcrg

32

planter, pressed for

money,

sells his

human

ware, the sale of Leonta and her con-

selling

sequent

form the material for

A

beautiful daughter into

Descriptions of a southern slave market, methods of

slavery.

buying and

tion of

own

life

fuller account of this its

this novel.

work follows

later in the considera-

dramatized form.

Die Midattin, the second novel,

is

somewhat

longer, occupy-

ing 33 1 pages. Rosiana, like Leonta, also has a white father, a clergyman.

Her mother

is

a negress.

In this

himself able to motivate a real

work

at least, the

conflict.

author shows

Rosiana, possessed of

great physical beauty, and having enjoyed excellent mental and

hands of her reverend father, is in every the same social plane as do the fairer daughters of the old city of Richmond. Though endowed mentally, and physically, with great beauty, Rosiana is an outcast. It The author now cleverly inis the clash of white against black. troduces two Germans, Franval ^" (who is none other other than moral training

respect fitted to

at the

move on

Strubberg himself), and Fehrmann, thus providing a situation in which white foreigners, totally unprejudiced against the blacks, can without injuring the Southerner, sit in judgment on the slave Lincoln, a prominent young advocate, an anti-aboliquestion.

"Auch kann man diesen Farbigen selbst selten trauen, das Negerblut, das in ihren Adern fliesst, macht sie hinterlistig und blutdiirstig, und wir Amerikaner haben nicht ganz ohne Grund ein solches unbeugsames Vorurtheil gegen tionist,

sie.

remarks (Vol.

I, p.

122)

:

—

"Du republikanischer Sclavereimann Ihr Amerikaner saugt Verachtung gegen die schwarzen Menschenracen mit der Muttermilch ein. Komm mit zu meinen drei dunkeln Engeln und

die

*°"Franval war ein Deutscher, der vor wenigen Jahren in New York ein bedeutendes iiberseeisches Geschaft gegriindet hatte und sich augenblicklich (Vol. I, p. 119.) hier befand, um zwei Schiffe nach Europa zu beladen." Note the various names Strubberg assumes when he himself appears. "Armand" is most frequently employed. In "Farnwald" in An der IndianerGrenze, "Farland" in Ralph Nonvood, and "Franval" in the above novel, the similarity of the vowels and consonants is very striking. This similarity vvas no doubt resorted to in order to make the identification of the character with the author himself more easily perceptible.

Armand Stntbbcrg

FricdricJi

mich sehen, ob Dii

lass

Du

ob

gleichgiiltig

gegen ihre Reize

ihnen gegeniiber noch behaupten kannst,

Thieren niiher standen,

Damen,"

sagte

Weib

Fehrmann.

.

.

und

sie

den

weissen

.

von dem

nicht reizen,

gilt es gleich,

aber mich kann

Vorfahren mir schon zuwider,"

ich weiss, dass ihre

Der Gedanke daran macht

Neger waren.

bleibst

class

als die zerbrechlichen geistlosen

"Schon, oder geistreich, mir ein

33

sie

entgegnete Lincoln.

"Du

ein

bist

nnverbesserlicher

Nordamerikaner und

ich

wijnsche weiter nichts, als dass du dich doch einmal in eine Farbige verlieben mochtest, damit du zu ihren Fiissen dein Unrecht

bekennen miisstest,"

Between the have

elapsed. ^^

.

first

.

sagte

.

Fehrmann."

and second half of

this

work four years

Fehrmann had left Richmond and gone to New was thrown from his horse and died. Franval

Orleans, where he

had been overtaken by misfortune and lost his bride. He had fled from the world and sought solace on the frontier of the West, where he had settled with several other unfortunates. Lincoln had fallen a victim to Rosiana's

forsaken his

friends,

and

charms, staked his promising career, fled

with Rosiana to the extreme

settled in a little town near the borders of Mexhundred miles south of Franval's settlement. Here Lincoln lived happily with Rosiana and their children. Strubberg is now again in his own frontier atmosphere. He

West, where he several

ico,

stops to describe himself

— the

familiar, weather-beaten rider in

leathern garments and his white stallion.

are again brought together. interrupted.

Franval and Lincoln

Lincoln's happiness

Rosiana's father had neglected to

the freedom of his daughter, and

her as saleable property.

upon

Lincoln's

soon to be

is

officially declare

his death his heirs claim

home

is

attacked

;

he defends

himself and family; Rosiana manages to escape, and Lincoln imprisoned, but escapes by bribery and joins his family.

"

The time

is

Fran-

of action of the first half of the novel, though not designated is probably the latter thirties, when S. was shipping agent in New York and elsewhere, if we may accept these lines (Vol. I, p. "Franval hatte sich durch eigne Thatigkeit und Umsicht in New York 251) ein grossartiges iiberseeisches Geschiift gegriindet, auch ilim lachtc in ciner ." reizenden siissen Braut das Gluck seiner Zukunft entgegen.

by

definite textual data,

:

.

.

A nit and

Fricdrich

34 val conducts

them

to his settlement

some

cohis remain with Franval for

are his

on slave

still

Struhhcrg

territory, they

on the Leona.^^

The Lin-

time, but discovering they

migrate to Boston, where he and

mulatto wife need suffer no social ignominy.

Die Negerin

the longest of the three novels comprised in

is

occupies the last 95 pages of the second volume and the entire third volume of 331 pages.

Sklaverei in Amcrika.

Though not any Amerika are

of these three novels published under Sklarelated to each other, a

verei in

would have been:

i.

It

Die Negerin;

2.

more natural order 3. Die Qua-

Die Mulattin;

drone.

In Die Negerin the author has opened the scene of action

among

the negro tribes of Africa,

acted.

In no other

ability

more

work

He

clearly shown.

totally foreign to him.

where half of the story

is

en-

the author's imaginative and inventive

is

This

ponderance of the romantic

is

may

here operating with material

account to a degree for the pre-

The negro

spirit.

prince Buardo, son

of the King of the Annagus, and Semona, a negress of another tribe, are two of Strubberg's most poetic creations. Buardo, while with his warriors on an elephant hunt, meets the slave-dealer Sarfzan, who has for years brought slaves from the eastern to

His destination

the western part of Africa.

the

King of Dahomey,

whom

him some of

his

the coastland of

he has long furnished with wives.

Sarfzan, on hearing that Buardo sires to sell

is

is

human

prince of the Annagus, de-

Buardo, however,

wares.

Cape Coast, on him, until Sem-

the Christian Mission

had enjoyed instruction in and Sarfzan's dark beauties have

little

effect

in

gem of the collection, is brought before him, "wie cine Ebenholz geschnittene Venus," writes Strubberg with his aus marvelous visualizing power (Vol. II, p. 197 f.), "stand sie vor ona, the

dem

erstarrten Blicke Buardo's, der mit einem Laut der tjber-

raschung auffuhr und seine Hande gegen

"Semona war

sie

ausstreckte."

so schwarz, dass alle die iibrigen Sclavinnen

bleich gegen sie erschienen.

Sie

war

eine hohe, edle Gestalt, ihr

" Strubberg again describes the familiar palisaded fort and its interior furnishings. He mentions some valuable paintings on the wall (Vol. II, p. Cf. Letters in the Appendix, 168).

Fricdrich Aruiand Stnihhcrg

Kopf war

35

Nacken schlank und rnnd, und ihr voller Busen wie aus schwarzem Marmor gehauen. Um ihre breiten Hiiften lag ein scharlachrother seideiier Shawl gebunden, und mit goldenen Schniiren waren die Sandalen itnter ihren kleinen Fiissen

um

klein, ihr

ihre zierlichen Enkel befestigt.

Ihr regelmassig schones Ge-

sicht trug die Form der edelsten weissen Menschenrace Asiens, und eine Cirkassierin wiirde sie um ihr Profil beneidet haben. Das Weiss ihrer grossen tiefdunkeln Augen war rein, wie die Perle an Persiens Gestaden und die Reihen ihrer wunderbar schon

geformten Ziihne glanzten wie der Schnee auf den Gebirgen Indiens. Ihre reizend geschnittenen iippig vollen Lippen gliihten, wie die Granatbliithe in einer schwarzen Marmorschale und in ihrem melanchohschen seelenvollen Antilopenblick stand ihr Ihr glanzend schwarzes

Schicksal geschrieben. dicht an ihrem

Kopf

sammen und auf

in

unzahHge kleine

ihrer zarten

Haut

Haar

zierliche

rollte sich

Lockchen zu-

lag ein weicher

Sammet-

hauch."

Buardo loves Semona and buys her from Sarfzan for an enormous amount of ivory and gold dust. The gentle love of these two negroes is depicted with a beauty and delicacy that puts Of course Strubberg has to shame that of their white brethren. idealized beyond recognition. He is again embodying Rousseauian ideas. Strubberg has spared no effort to give his story color by the introduction of African scenery, and plants and animals native to Africa. The fierce wars between savage negro At times, however, the reader feels tribes are vividly described. that the author has transferred Indian customs to the negro.

The

love of

Buardo and Semona, the recapture of Semona,

together with Buardo by Sarfzan, their

final disposal to a slave

who transports them to a slave-ship bound for America, form the contents of the first half of the novel. The author does

dealer

not omit giving his readers an account of

life

on the slave

ship,

and the manner of plying between the African and American The slave-ship anchors in coasts under difficulties of the law. on€ of the little bays along the coast of North Carolina. In America Buardo and Semona are sold to the same planter.

They

live

happily and are permitted to unite in marriage.

Fricdrich Arniand Struhhcrg

36

The

conditions of slavery are portrayed unreservedly by the au-

The good fortune of the two slaves continues but when conditions cause their owner to sell them

thor. little

while,

Their unhappy fate as slaves in America

is

for a apart.

told with a realism

strongly in contrast with their romantic life in their tropical

homes in Africa. The author, in poetic justice, finally after many difficulties brings Buardo and Semona together on a whaling ship. While on an expedition south of Cape Horn, they manage one dark night to lower one of the small boats and effect their escape to a little

island.

Semona

Here amid

live out the rest

beautiful

surroundings Buardo and

Through

of their days in happiness.

whale ships which occasionally stopped at the island they had

re-

ceived fowls and garden seeds, and wanted none of the necessities

of

life.

"Von

jetzt an,"

Strubberg

fahrer die Buardo-Insel, wie

closes,

man

sie

"besuchten

Wallfisch-

cille

nannte, und besorgten sich

dort mit Gemiisen, mit Obst, Federvieh und frischem Fleisch,

und noch auf den heutigen Tag ist die zahlreiche Familie Buardo's und Semona's im alleinigen Besitze der Insel und jeder Kapitan sieht mit Freuden und mit einem Trostgefiihl nach der schonen kleinen Welt hin, an deren Ufer so mancher Seefahrer Hiilfe und Rettung gefunden hat." H Strubberg had any purpose beyond the writing of a fascinating novel it was rather that of embodying the Rousseauian The virtues of nature theories than any anti-slavery purpose. strikingly set forth in Buardo very man in his simple state are and Semona. That Rousseau's works were in the author's mind appears evident from a passage in which a prospective slavebuyer, being told of Semona's beauty and her present intense

mourning for the

lost

Buardo, says (Vol. HI,

finde ich ja reizend, es zeigt

von Gefiihl

;

p.

229)

"Das

:

bin wirklich neugierig,

eine schwarze Heloise zu sehen."

The dwelling of

the two in happiness on the

island also points to Bernardin St. Pierre's

one of the

first

Paid

little

et

tropical

Virginie,

literary pieces to reflect Rousseau.

Sklavcrei in

Amerika was never

republished.

One

novels Die Mulattin was, however, published separately

of

its

in 1897.

Armand Struhhcrg

Fricdrich 1863.

—^^^^ Scharnhorst.

Ahenteuer eines deittschen Knaben

Von Armand. Mit

Aincrika.

i

in

sechs Bildern in Farbendruck,

nach Zeichnungen von August Hengst. Riimpler.

2)7

Hannover.

Carl

Bd.

In a manner similar to that pursued in Alte iind

Neue Hci-

moth, Strubberg again introduces us to a German family, Turners, on their comfortable

little

farm

the

in the beautiful valley

Through a cousin, who possesses a farm along the Chesapeake Bay in America, they are persuaded to migrate to America. The family consists of Herr and Frau Turner, one daughter, two sons, and a related orphan, Carl Scharnhorst, whom the Turners had received into their family as one of their of the Werra.

own.

We

follow the Turners over the Atlantic to Baltimore.^^

Their cousin having

in the

meanwhile

died, they find themselves

Through a bank which has demuch of their money. In despair

alone and friendless in America. faulted in Baltimore they lose

in the Far West. On the voyage to with become acquainted one of the crew, America the Turners had The Turners, being Germans, did not enterthe negro Daniel. tain the same prejudice against negroes, and were especially kind

they conclude to find a

home

and friendly to Dan. The negro decides to serve and accompany them to the West. The author, in bringing Dan into the German family as a servant, takes the opportunity of showing the American attitude against the negro over against a foreigner's tertains

who

en-

no such prejudices.

We

follow the Turner family by train to Cincinnati, and

thence by water to Memphis, where they start overland with two

wagons drawn by horses and oxen. They reach

the Indian terri-

tory west of Arkansas and stop at Fort Towsen, where a post of

dragoons was stationed against the Indians. lin,

cross the

**

Strubberg

He

Red

is

order to protect the white settler

They next reach the border town of Frankcamp on the northern border of

River, and

partial to

Baltimore and appears to be especially acquainted He lets many of his German it in his works.

frequently mentions characters land there. there.

in

Fi icdrich Annaiid Striibbcrg

38

After journeying a week longer they arrive

Texas.

Creek they

The

"Warwick" clearing. away on Bear Creek.

find the

settle five miles

On

on the Red River.

the last border settlement

They

at Preston,

the

Choctaw

are persuaded to

lad Carl Scharnhorst develops wonderful abilities as a

huntsman, and terial for this

it

his

is

adventures that provide most of the ma-

Dan, the negro, had earlier been a slave of

book.

the Indians, and through

him Carl became thoroughly acquainted Dan had been called the

with Indian manners and customs. "Spiirer" by the Indians.

Strubberg

Western

now

again introduces the whole machinery of

life into this

work.

between the various Indian

The author draws

the distinction

tribes, describes in a thrilling

man-

ner their fights with each other, and their attacks on the whites, as well as the friendly intercourse of the Delawares with the set-

We

tlers.

and the

know minutely

learn to

plain.

The

various animals of the forest

beauties of the prairie are not omitted.

The

author again introduces one of his splendid descriptions of a prairie

as

it

fire,

with the terrified animals, fleeing before

were the author's own Anicr. Jagd-

it.

We re-read

iind Rcisc-Abcnteuer,

only presented in a shorter form, and with an attempt to connect

number The daring

the great

Leatherstocking.

of episodes with the threads of a story. boy, Carl Scharnhorst,

wealth of minute descriptions of

America that have helped

is

a sort of youthful

youth's thrilling adventures and the

It is the

to

life

make

on the frontier of Western

this the

most popular of

all

of

was read by old and young, but it has always possessed a peculiar charm for the young, and even today Strubberg's works.

It

occupies a prominent place

among

the juvenile books in

German

literature.^'*

This work has passed through twelve editions.

"Abel and Miiller, the publishers of the twelfth edition, place it in the works for boys of 10-14 years of age along with Alexis' Die Hosen des Herrn von Bredow, Cooper's Der Spion, W. Scott's Ivanhoe, Quentin DurSee book list at end of work in ward, Der Talisman, Kenilworth, etc. class of

twelfth edition.

—

Fricdricli Ariiiaiid Stnibhcrg

Von Armand.

Der Sprung vom Niagarafalle.

1864.

Schmorl

nover.

Of

this

work

the

first

unci

39

von Seefeld.

Hanno-

4 Bde.

volume and a half of the second takes is taken up with a rather con-

place in Scotland and Ireland, and

ventional romance between

Edward

Corblair, son of the forester

of Sir Oskar Aringthur in Ireland and Agnes Walcott, the daughter of a

wealthy manufacturer.

position

make him an

There

cott.

tures

on sea

in this part of the

is little

of Strubberg unless

Edward

Corblair's poverty and

it is

work

his accounts of the

that

One day

off the coast of Ireland.

Edward

Corblair.

It is

is

characteristic

hunt and the adven-

Fallenjdger im Westen von Amerika, happens of

Wal-

impossible suitor in the eyes of Mr.

the account of a

a tale entitled Die to reach the

hands

young Englishman

had wandered to America and accompanied several beaver trappers to the Far West. The hunt, the dangers, the struggles with the Indians, and especially the wealth which the trappers amassed from their beaver hides had much attraction for Edward, and he resolves to emigrate to America to who,

in a similar position,

hatte Amerika win a home there for Agnes and himself. ". nicht schon manches kranke Herz aufgenommen und geheilt, schon manche Schmerzensthrane getrocknet und das Auge mit Freudenthranen gefiillt berechtigten Edward's Fahigkeiten, Kenntnisse und Krafte ihn nicht zu der Hoffnung, dort fiir sich .

.

—

und fiir Agnes in kurzer Zeit eine sorgenfreie Stellung zu erkampfen?" (Vol. II, p. 121.) Edward sails to America. The captain of the vessel is a German. Edward no sooner lands in New York than the epithet "damned foreigner" greets his ears. He is also soon given an opportunity to see the hatred of the whites against the blacks. "Ich glaubte hier in New York sei die Sclaverei abgeschafft?" fragte

Edward.

.

.

.

"Das

heisst, hier

gehort der Schwarze nicht

wie im Siiden einem Herrn als Eigenthum an, hier ist er der verIm Siiden hat der Neger einen achtete Sclave Jedermanns. Schutz, eine Sicherstellung in seinem Herrn, wer dem Sclaven zu

nahe kommt,

tritt

auch dessen Eigenthiimer

in

den

Weg;

hier

findet der Neger nirgends Schutz, hier wird er von Jedem miss(Vol. II, p. 172.) handelt," entgegenete der Capitan. .

.

.

Fricdrich Annaiid Struhhcrg

40

In the latter half of the second volume especially the darker side of

is

it,

New York The

portrayed.

life,

author, as

and

may

now himself appears on the scene in a subsidiary name of Armand. He is introduced as a very young man, who has just returned from the West Indies. Strubbe expected,

role under the

berg

is

Sam

probably thinking here of his

Armand and Edward

1827.

Corblair,

first trip

who

America, about

to

has assumed the

name

Patch, meet and become friends.

In the third volume Strubberg introduces the rather startling episode of a buffalo

hunt

New

in the city of

who reminds

a frontiersman,

us a

York. Sturton,

of Cooper's Leather-

little

stocking, has conceived the idea of bringing a party of Sioux In-

dians and a small herd of buffalo to the East and there presenting the public with

sham

buffalo hunts.

disastrous result in the city of

arranges to travel return.

Edward

The

New York

buffalo chase and is

West with Sturton and

decides to join.

its

described.

Armand

his Indians

on their

From New York

the Indians

are taken to Washington, where they are presented to the President, *'der grosse Vater."

In the same city

Armand and Edward

join Sturton and his Sioux on their return to the West.

way, though

first in

the third volume,

ritory of the Indians.

With

we

In this

are again led to the ter-

the introduction of

Western scenery

and Indians, material with which the author is best acquainted, the narrative at once improves in quality and literary value. Nothing but misfortune awaits Edward Corblair in the West. On the way thither the party is attacked by a band of Pahnee InIn the attack Edward is separated from the others of the dians. party, but, after a time of solitary wandering, he

a band of lowas.

Through

the Indian

Utho he

is

picked up by

finally reaches

village of the Chippewas, only a journey of a few days

Lake

Erie.

the Niagara.

a

from

Utho accompanies him to the head of the falls of It was here that Utho executed grim revenge on

Zateka and her abductor, the white trader ToroThe character of the mighty Niagara Falls, which have

his faithless bride

ney.^^

" See for the same episode Strubbcrg's attached to the first edition of In Mexico.

poem Die Rache

in

the

poems

!

Friedrich

Armand Strubbcrg

frequently found interpreters in Germany,

pages well portrayed in the author's

Edward

A

falls.

place,

is

41

throughout these

virile style.

dejected in spirit takes lodging in the hotel by the

great fete

is

about to be held.

and a full-rigged schooner

Illuminations are to take

to be sent over the falls.

sands of guests are expected to witness the spectacle.

Thou-

Edward

examined them carefully and concluded it was not an impossibility for a good swimmer to venture a leap from the head of the falls into the seething river below. He had failed in his endeavors to acquire wealth by hunting the beaver. For money he will venture to leap from the head

had walked

of the

falls into

landlord,

event

to the foot of the falls,

is

who

the river below.

assures

him of

Flis proposal is accepted

at least six

to take place during the fete.

thousand

dollars.

The landlord

gins to advertise in true American fashion.

by the

The

at once be-

from this sensaEdward, flushed with tional leap that the work takes its name. success, allows himself to be persuaded to do a similar feat over In the meanwhile Agthe Trenton Falls near the city of Utica. nes, left an orphan by the death of her father, who committed suicide on account of financial ruin, comes to America to join Edward. Hearing of the intended leap she hastens to Trenton Falls. The crowds are already gathered, the moment has come, Edward steps out upon the bridge prepared for him and leaps just as Agnes calling his name presses through the crowd to detain him. Edward disappears in the foaming mass below and is never seen again. Thus the hero whom we have followed through four volumes is whimsically disposed of. Agnes marries the faithful friend Aringthur, thus drawing this rambling work It is

to an unsatisfactory conclusion.

The

episodes with which this novel

is

decked out are interest-

now and then somewhat exaggerated So for instance in Vol. Ill, p. 104, Strubberg thrilling street scene in New York, where creditors engaged in tearing down the building of a bank which

ing enough, though they are

and out of describes a

are actively

taste.

has failed

In Vol. IV, is

p.

again introduced.

93, a

camp-meeting scene, a favorite subject,

Fricdrich Annaiid Struhhcrg

42 In Vol. IV,

p.

153, an

Englishman

for daring to strut along the streets of

is

tarred and feathered

New York

in the

much

hated English military uniform.

The

method of carrying forward his "Neis nowhere better illustrated than in Vol. IV, p. 113. Here in one paragraph we find Agnes attending a Methodist camp-meeting in the vicinity of New York author's unhappy

beneinander" threads in the novel

In the very next paragraph

City.

we

find ourselves

without a

word of warning with Edward as a beaver hunter on the frontier. Der Sprung vom Niagarafallc went through only one edition.

Before

its

publication in book form,

it

had appeared

in the

Kolnische Zeitiing in 1863. 1865.

—

Mexico.

-^'^

Von Armand.

Leipzig.

Julius

Werner.

4Bde. This of

all

Strubberg's works, with the possible exception of

is the richest in purely historical material. The we remember, had drawn upon the incidents of the Mexican War in his Scenenaiis den Kdmpfen der Mexicaner und Nordamerikaner and also episodically in Altc und neite Heimath. hi Mexico is, however, the only pretentious work devoted entirely to this epoch of American history. Though Strubberg was a contemporary of the war and in all probability served in the same for a

In Siid-Carolina author,

drawn to some extent upon historiworks for his material. Ethe has called In Mexico a supplement to Sealsfield's Der Virey imd die Aristokraten, oder Mcxiko im Jahrc 1812 (1834), and Si'idcn und Nordcn (1842-1843), whose time of action is 1825.^® The time of Strubberg's work is from ca. 1847 to 1849. In this novel the separation of the plot and its background About half the work is taken up is particularly noticeable. with narrative dealing with the Mexican War and the Americans short period, he has evidently

cal

in

The

Mexico.

^'

Ethe

Cf.

Studien,

p.

47

:

f.

Der

figure of Santa

Anna

transatlantisch-cxotische

Berlin, 1872.

stands out prominently.

Roman,

etc.,

in

Essays und

FricdricJi Aniiaiid

Sirubbcrg

43

His ambitions, his diplomacies, his manoeuvres in battle are all related in a most attractive way, yet all this is very meagerly connected with the story

This historical setting, into which

itself.

are introduced Generals Scott, Taylor and Worth, and

other officers apparently

fictitious,

many

serves but as a background for

a rather bizarre romance in which the leading characters are

among

chosen from

the Spanish aristocracy.

The

historical back-

ground gives the work a dignity and value rather out of harmony with the gaudy story itself. Perhaps the author's greatest achievement in the work lies in his gorgeous descriptions of natural scenery.

Strubberg's abilities are never

advantage than in his descriptions the eye of the artist and the

in

shown

to better

which he catches up, with

words of the

poet, the very

odor and

atmosphere of the forests, mountains and prairies of Western

The following

America. Ed. 2)

description will illustrate (Vol.

I, p.

14,

:

"Lange noch ehe das Grauen des Morgens sich zeigte, errosigem Schein zwei Punkte am dunkeln, mit Milliarden funkelnder Sterne iibersaeten siidlichen Himmel, die sich wie zwei rasch wachsende Gestirne an Farbenpracht zu iiber-

gliihten plotzlich in

bieten schienen.

Von einem

blassen rosa Hauch, der sie zuerst

andeutete, gingen sie in ein tiefes

Carmin

iiber

und glanzten bald

Es waren die eisgekronten Haupter der beiden Vulkane Itztaccihuatl und Popocatepetl, darauf wie gliihend leuchtende Rubine.

die in ihrer

Welt

um

Morgen

schwindelnden Aetherhohe

sie

wurden. Heller, schillernder und feuriger wechFarben von Minute zu Minute, bis sie bei dem Errothen

des ostlichen

und

die

Himmels

in die

Schattierungen des Goldes iibergin-

ganzen Riesengestalten der beiden Berge aus der

fliehenden Nacht hervortraten. birge

lag,

gekiisst

selten ihre

gen,

wo noch die von dem nahenden

jetzt schon,

her in tiefer finsterer Nacht

Bald farbten sich audi die Gc-

im Westen des noch von der Nacht

verhiillten Thales

von

und ihre Kuppen erglanzten in dem ersten Lichte des Morgens, wahrend die Sterne am Himmel erbleichten und das Feuerlicht in der Stadt Mexiko vor der Helligkeit des Tages Tenochtillan,

verschwand."

—

FricdricJi Aniiaiid

44

The

Stnihbcrg

chief characters in the story are the

young German

painter Lothar von Colmar,^'^ and the Spanisli Condesa Urania.

Their love for each other suppHes the thread of romance. hi Mexico, like so

many

of Strubberg's novels, lacks unity.

The Mexican War having come to an end, we follow the German Von Colmar on his way to California, whither the recent discovery of gold is leading thousands of others. The author with his usual

on

skill

portrays the emigrants wandering across the prairies

way

their

In thrilling narrative he depicts the

to California.

hardships

horrors of the prairie

fire,

stretches without water,

and the death of many of the caravan

the

through blood-thirsty Indians.

We

of

long

traveling

are also given a picture of

San Francisco during the gold fever. volume of the first edition of this novel are found a number of poems which will be considered

the infant city of

At

the end of the fourth

separately.

A

second edition of In Mexico appeared in an abridged form

in 1898.

1866.

The poems were not added. Saat und Ernte.

Roman von Armand.

Julius Giinther.

The

We

scene of action opens

Leipzig.

Ernst

5 Bde.

among

slave

owners

in

Kentucky.

are introduced to the old aristocratic Williams family; also

to the Randolphs.

The

latter,

have come from the State of

who

New

possess less slaves and

soil,

York and entertain Northern

democratic views as to slavery, which causes the Williams's to hate them intensely.

dolph one

named

It is the

Williams has a son named Harry and Ran-

Albert.

purpose of the author to follow the

lives of these

two young men throughout many interesting adventures and to bring them together at times, thus comparing Albert's noble life with that of the scoundrel Harry Williams. Strubberg is fond of contrasting the good and the evil and letting the former triumph over the latter. The reader, however, must feel that this could " In spite of the letters ar, with which the author characterized the names employed for his own personality as Armand, Farnwald, Franval, and Farland, the character Lothar von Colmar cannot be identified as Strubberg's.

Armand

Friedrich

be accomplished in

less

than

Striihherg

volumes.

five

45

The rambling,

episodic

character of the work, so unduly prolonged suggests that the author's interests were mercenary rather than literary.

For some time Strubberg describes the

illustrious career of

Albert Randolph as a law student in Philadelphia, where he be-

comes a poet and bert.

is

celebrated

all

over America as the poet Al-

In this part of the novel the conditions of the

German

labor-

ing class in Philadelphia and the great strike, which results from the fact that the

money

is

German

laborer gives better sei*vice for less

vividly reflected.

Soon we are again transported to the familiar soil of Texas, whither Albert had migrated. The author's invariable endeavors to bring his characters to Texas are sometimes rather strained, though he usually attempts to give a reason. Of Texas he says (Vol. I, p. 71 ) "Es gab ein Land, welches nach Allem, was man :

davon wusste, zu solchen hochfliegenden Hoffnungen berechtigte, welches bei halber Arbeit doppelte Ernten lieferte, wel-

bis jetzt

ches nicht mit dem Fluch verherender Krankheiten belastet war und welches einen schuldbeladenen Fremden als schuldfreien ." Bijrger in sich aufnahm. Dies Land war Texas. Harry Williams deals in slaves and unlawfully conducts slave ships to the coast of Africa, where he bought up negroes, .

.

and returned to the coast of Brazil, not without much danger from the English, who had scouting vessels out, which often

To

gave successful chase.

avoid this danger the slave ship was

provided with two captains, the second being called the flying

The real captain received his rights of sailing to and from Africa from the Brazilian marine. The flying captain received his papers from the American consul in Brazil, with percaptain.

mission to dust,

and

sail to

ivory.

Africa and return with cargo of palmoil, gold-

When

was held up by an English

the ship

scouting vessel which suspected slaves, the flying captain stepped

forward, showed his papers, and

In the second volume Harry Brazil.

The

author,

it

was

well.

shipwrecked off the coast of has been observed, is very partial to ship-

wrecks and introduces them his

all

wanderings arrives

in

is

at the least provocation.

Mexico

in

1832.

Harry in The author now

—

)

Friedrich

46

Armand Struhherg

brings in a mass of historical matter, which in point of time pre-

umphed over self

Mexico at a time when the Anna, who had triGeneral Bustamente, and now him-

Harry

cedes that in In Mexico. air resounds with

Vivas

!

enters

for the hero Santa

the president,

attempted to mount the presidential chair.

Anna was

In 1833 Santa

elected to the presidency.

In Vol.

Santa Anna,

IV we

obey orders.

witness the attack of General Houston upon

which the

in

Santa Anna

latter is

is

taken prisoner and

made

to

described as a proud character, of

courteous exterior, gallant toward the ladies, cruel in battle, but

cowardly when captured. In the meanwhile Texas declares

itself

a republic.

Harry Williams

is

accused of forgery and Strubberg intro-

duces one of his thrilling court-room scenes. (The author appears to have had an uncommon knowledge of the law and delights in describing lawsuits.

Once we follow

the noble life of Albert Randolph, then

again the low career of Harry Williams.

The

novel illustrates

the "Nebeneinander" technique, though in a rather diffuse

One

ner.

man-

episode follows another, characters are introduced and

and new ones take their place in a most kaleidoThere is no reason why the work is so long any more than why it should stop at the end of the fifth volume. A commercial interest either on the part of the author or publisher

make

their exits,

scopic fashion.

does not seem to be quite absent.

This work appeared as Vols. 9-13 in the Album. Bibliothek 21. Jahrgang, 1866. deiitscher Originalromane. 135^, in

Friedrkhshiirg, die Colonic des dcutschcn Fiirstenvereins

Texas.

Von Armand.

Leipzig.

Friedrich

Fleischer.

2 Bde. Friedrichshnrg

is

together with Alte

und Neue Heimath,

Strubberg's most important contribution to the cultural history of Germans in America. Strubberg has never received due

the

recognition for having given to the world the most faithful account of the German colonies, Neu-Braunfels and Friedrichsburg.

Though

these accounts are in literary form, a comparison

Friedrich

Armand Stnihhcrg

with later histories will show

how

conscientiously the author en-

deavored to give accuracy to his work. author has devoted himself

47

In Friedrichshurg the

in particular to that

colony in whose

early history he himself played no unimportant role as Colonialdirector.

The

novel

is

dedicated as follows

:

"Seiner Hoheit

gierenden Herzog von Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha Ernst

vom

Ehrfurcht unterthanigst gewidmet

nun

lung

als

re-

II. in tiefster

Verfasser."

In the preface the author states his purposes thus: ich

dem

"Wenn

und wahr dem Leben entnommene ErzahWiirze den Faden eines Romanes eingeflochten habe, desin diese, treu

sen einzelne

Momente jedoch

gleichfalls auf wirklichen

Begeben-

Weise storend, oder das Geschichtliche des Werkes ein, sondern dient

heiten beruhen, so greift derselbe in keiner entstellend in

vielmehr dazu,

und

hellere

dem entworfenen

Bilde noch lebendigere Farbe

Beleuchtung zu verleihen.

"Wie manches Band

der Verwandschaft, der Freundschaft,

dem fernen Wunderlande geWunsch zog mit den dahineilenden den weiten Ocean nach dem verheissenen Para-

der Liebe, wurde damals nach spannt, wie

mancher

heisse

Freunden iiber diese, und wie mancher innige Herzensgruss wandert wohl noch immer aus der alten deutschen Heimath durch den ungemessenen Raum nach dem wonnigen, sonnigen ewiggriinen Texas hiniibcr! Und darum darf ich wohl hofifen, dass die nachstehenden treuen Schilderungen der damaligen Zustande und Verhaltnisse der deutschen Colonien in Texas, so wie des Landes, der Ureinwohner desselben

und deren

Sitten

und Gebrauchen auch

jetzt

meinen verehrten Lesern Interesse finden werden.

noch unter

Der Verfas-

ser.

The scene of action opens on a clear star-lit night in Texas. Rudolph von Wildhorst, the young man around whom much of the romance in the novel clusters, is riding wildly along the road from the colony Neu-Braunfels toward the more recent German

He

settlement Friedrichshurg. rides

down

the

main

street,

is

pursued by Indians.

greeted at early

dawn by

he

San Sabastrasse of Friedrichshurg, to a lonely house, where he

and then down the Schubbertstrasse is

Now

his love

Ludwina Nimanski.

Friedrich

48

Major Nimanski of sioned Prussian

Armand

Striihhcrg

Galizia and Obrist

v.

Wiklhorst, a pen-

the fathers of the above

officer,

young

couple,

were attracted by the alkiring advertisements sent through Germany by the "Mainzer Adelsverein," and emigrated with many other

Germans

to Texas,

where the German settlements

Neu-

Braunfels and Friedrichsburg were founded. -^ is soon introduced and remains dominating character throughout the novel. It will

Colonialdirektor Schubbert in a sense the

have been apparent before

haughty domineering that valuable

little

now

that Strubberg

spirit is evident

an

is

throughout

His

egoist.

this

work.

book, Fest-Aiisgahe zuni funfsigj'dhrigen

In

Jiibi-

Idum der deutschen Kolonie Friedrichshiirg (1896), he is characterized by the same traits.-*^ A comparison of the incidents in the novel with those connected with the early history of the colony

how much on

of what appears

many

years later, will

show

as fiction in the novel is really

based

as recounted in the Fest-Aitsgabe so

historic facts.

The

inception of the "Mainzer Adelsverein,"

Texas,

in

sharks Fischer and Miller,

its activities in

its

its

purpose,

its

dealings with the land

endeavors to acquire land

founding the colonies

Neu-Braunfels and Friedrichsburg are carefully outlined, though but few historical characters are actually introduced.

The

suf-

Texas before being the settlement, and the

ferings of the emigrants on the coast of

transported to the interior, their

fairly well authenticated

The

life in

among them,

breaking out of disease

by

great peace treaty with the

duced by Strubberg,

is

as related

by Strubberg

is

historical works.^^

Comanche

Indians, intro-

probably a reflection of the peace treaty

entered upon on Freiherr von Meusebach's expedition/'^

Von

" The pseudonym which Strubberg had in reaHty assumed. The German See however, seem to have spelled the name with only one b.

colonists,

Fest-Ausgabe. In the ""In the novel the author draws himself in a favorable light. Fest-Ausgabe he is portrayed as a character not beyond reproach. ^° Cf. Franz Loeher: Gcsch. u. Zustlindc der Deutschen- in Amerika, 1847; also Frederick Law Olmsted: Wandcrungcn durch Texas und im p. 348 f mexicanischcn Grcnzlande. Aus dem Englischcn, 1857, p. 120 f. Strubberg's statement that 8000 emigrants landed and several thousand died is exag.

;

gerated. ='

Cf. Fest-Ausgabe, p. 86.

—

!

Friedrich

Armand

Strithherg

49

Meusebach, by far the most important figure in the history of German settlements, is not mentioned by Strubberg. Strubberg introduces in his novel Santa Anna, an Indian chief, named these

after the great

umsi,

who

Mexican General, and Mopochocopie."- Kateis probably the Ketemoczy of the

figures in the novel,

Fest-Aiisgabe.

Proviantmeister Bickel, according to the Fest-

Aiisgahe, a despicable character,

natured person.

The

is

introduced as a pleasant, good-

Mormons

description of the

in their settle-

ment near Friedrichsburg is also based on fact.^^ The Friedrichsburg cannon, which is such a prominent object in the novel, was actually one of the colony's early weapons of defense. The graphic description at the beginning of the second volume of the Indians gathered in Friedrichsburg to receive the presents agreed

upon Vol.

at the II, p.

time of the peace treaty

stone of the church.

octagonal wooden (

also based

is

on

fact.^^

In

150, occurs the festival of the laying of the corner-

No

doubt reference

is

here

made

to the

church, built at the instigation of Schubbert

Strubberg). ^^

The work is rich in Indian material. The author does not draw Indians realistically. In Friedrichsburg, however, some of the Indians introduced are exceedingly noble, and even from excess of emotion weep Though Fricdrichshiirg is for us of today one of the most hesitate to

many

valuable of Strubberg's

works,

it

went through only one

edition.

Alls

1868.

Armand' s

Julius

As

the

title

Von Armand.

Frontierlehen.

Werner.

Leipzig.

3 Bde.

suggests, Strubberg has again

drawn upon

his

never-failing source: the years spent as a frontiersman on the

banks of the Leona. Under this title are included the novel Leonide, which takes up two volumes and a few pages of the third,

and the two

novelettes,

" Both are mentioned Mopechucope. Cf. p. 106. ^ Cf. Fest-Ausgabe, p.

Die drei Haushdlterinnen and Bin Wilder. in

the Fest-Ausgabe,

108.

"Cf. Fest-Ausgabe, p. 117. " Cf Ibid, p, 73. For picture of same, .

only

see

p. 24.

the

latter

is

spelled

Fried rich

50

Armand

Striihherg

Leonide is named after its heroine. The form of the novel, most of Strubberg's, is open to criticism. Strubberg never learned to skilfully weave his exposition into the body of a work. He must of necessity begin with the very beginning. In this instance we are taken to the San Saba Mountains, where we learn to know Alfred Davis, whom misfortune had driven to these lonely parts where he had already for ten years been engaged as a trapper of beaver. "Wie die Magnetnadel nach Norden zeigt, like

so winkt in

of

chief live

Amerika das Ungliick immer nach Westen"

won

Davis had

the

(p. 4). the affections of Kionata, the daughter of the

who had

Caddoes,

Kionata

with him.

falls

secretly

her

left

tribe

to

a victim to the revenge of her

kinsmen

and leaves Davis alone with a small daughter, Leonide. Kionata had adhered to the religion of her fathers and extracted a solemn promise from her child to remain faithful to the same. It is the fate of Leonide and the conflict of the naturereligion of her

mother with the religion of her white father within

her that form the substance for this work. Leonide

most delightful of Strubberg's creations.

marked

it

is

one of the

has been re-

female

that the author excelled in the delineation of

characters.

It is

a fact that Strubberg has spent his most poetic

efforts in the portrayal of

such

Indeed,

who

live

on the border

It is in the depicting

latto of the

female personalities, and especially line of

nature and of civilization.^^

of the Indian girl and the quadroon or mul-

South that he has allowed himself the greatest poetic

license.

In this novel Strubberg again appears to be operating with the Rousseauian idea that defiled

human

nature

is

good before it becomes Leonide is a

through the influence of human culture.

Rousseauian character. Leonide's father remarries and settles at a distance of a several days' ride

Leonide

is

in such a

from Strubberg's settlement on the Leona.

reared with

remote

all

district

the advantages that a Christian

could offer.

In spite of

••Cf, H. Ethe: Der transatlantisch-exotische Berlin, 1872.

Studien.

Roman,

all

etc.,

she

in

is

home never

Essays und

Armand Sirubberg

Friedrich quite able to release herself

berg under the name of

from the

Armand

51

faith of her mother.

Strub-

himself plays the role of lover

The poetry of this romance is put in rough realism of a frontier village. As a background serves an intrigue between several white men inimical to Armand and the Indian kinsmen of Leonide for the purpose to the fair Indian maid. fine contrast to the

of disposing of

On

her people.

Armand and

fearful storm rages,

At the moment

Indians.

incidentally restoring Leonide to

Armand's marriage with Leonide a during which the Davis home is attacked by

the eve of

that Leonide sinks in the

arms of the Indian chief Toscalor, her maternal grandfather, both are hurled ground and

to the close

totally

killed

by a bolt of lightning.

This sensational

only another instance of Strubberg's weakness. Leonide's

is

unmotivated death

is

distasteful in the highest degree,

and

introduced for no other apparent reason than to avoid Armand's

The author

union with Leonide.

frequently introduces himself

in his novels as the lover, but consistently avoids actual

mar-

riage.^'^

Die drei Haiishdltcrinnen, the second work included under the

Aus Armand's

title

Frontierleben occupies 135 pages of the This, with the novelette Ein Wilder, which follows

third volume. directly

upon

aits

den Kampfen der Mexi-

little

work Der Methodisten-

together with Scenen

it,

caner und Nordamerikaner, and the

Geistliche, comprise Strubberg's only endeavors in the shorter

We

novelistic form.

can only wish he had taken this form more

frequently and thus avoided those difficulties which he never

mastered

One is

in the

more extensive form.

trait in

Strubberg's works, conspicuous by

a sense of humor.

amusing.

many

This lack

vicissitudes in

this novellette.

ever, really

The author's seriousness is of humor may be due partly life,

almost

to the author's

In

Die drei Haushdlterinnen, the author has, howIt is

series of

perhaps the most refreshing of

berg's works.

" Cf. Bis

absence,

partly also to the age of the author.

proved himself capable of sketching a

ous situations.

its

in itself

in die

Wildlniss and

An

der Indianer-Grenze.

all

humor-

of Strub-

Fricdrich

52

We

are again taken to the banks of the Leona.

Armand and

once occupied by

fort,

Armand Stnthhcrg The

lonely

his three fellow colonists,

now forsaken and ruined. With the advance of other settlers, Armand found it necessary to alter his habits of life, and to that

is

end

more pretentious residence on

built himself a

the Leona, only

a half-hour below the old fort which served as "ein Anhaltspunkt seiner Erinnerung an die gliicklichen

Tage der Ruhe und Zufrie-

denheit nach den schweren Lebensstiirmen, die ihn hierher ver-

schlagen hatten."

One

of the most decided steps toward a return

was the giving over of his domestic affairs into the hands of a woman, Suky, a colossal colored mammy. Suky's wonderful perspiring propensities, however, soon make it quite to civilization

Armand to appreciate her German friend in New Orleans to

impossible for writes a

housekeeper. Armand's

man in

difficulties

who have no

housekeepers

culinary art, and he

secure

him a German

with the three successive Ger-

sooner arrived than they are taken

marriage by the lonely, wife-seeking squatters of that remote

form the material for this delightful little story. This is followed by Ein Wilder, a novelette of 113 pages. It the romance of a stalwart Indian youth and the only daughter

district,

is

of a frontiersman.

The daughter Lydia had been

the Indians, but

restored to her people by the Indian brave

Paneo,

who

Through

is

carried off by

has fallen a victim to the charms of the fair captive.

Armand, who again makes

the efforts of

his

appearance

and plays the benefactor as so often, the Indian youth Christian instruction and finally marries Lydia. Paneo ized in the extreme.

mouth of The

The

is

given

is

ideal-

splendid imagery and rhetoric in the

the Indian youth appears out of place.

numerous letters throughout the three volumes of Ans Armand's Frontierlchcn, a note at the end of the work explains is due to no fault of the compositor, but done at inversion of

the order of the author.

work

It

was Strubberg's way of protecting

his

against pirating publishers.

In the same year (1868) a second edition of Aus Armand's Frontierleben was published in one volume by Carl Rumpler, of

Hannover.

—

;

Fricdrich

In Siid-Carolina

1869.

Von Armand.

salza.

The

sensational

tiiid aiif

ing threads.

Striihbcrg

dem

Hannover.

romance woven

on the author and we

credit

Armand

may

53

Schlachtfclde von Langen-

Carl Riimpler. 4 Bde. into this

work

reflects little

well omit tracing out

rambl-

its

For the panorama which the work gives of the

rise

Civil War, however, the author deserves unThe wealth of political and military detail and the conscientious accuracy observed throughout is all the more remarkable when we recall that the author has again passed out

and progress of the reserved praise.

own experiences for his material, having Germany several years before the time of

of the sphere of his again returned to action.

reports

The author is therefore probably indebted or more accurate historical works. The

and the descriptions of Southern plantation personal experience.

life

This work has perhaps

porter of national events, and

The

all else is

newspaper

slave element

no doubt

less

than his earlier ones, but here the author

terial

to

is

rest

of cultural

above

all

on

maa re-

secondary.

scene of action opens on a Louisiana plantation.

The

planter and his family are greatly concerned about the outcome

of the pending presidential election. pia

The

older daughter

Olym-

and her lover Staunton are vehement supporters of the South

the younger daughter loves Captain Bayard, a Northern engineer,

then building the forts Jackson and St. Philipp on the Mississippi.

The younger daughter's sympathies are naturally with the North. The vigorous dialog between the two daughters and their lovers, and the final ostracism of the younger daughter give the author ample opportunity for introducing the political differences of the North and the South. Of the Southerners Olympia says (Vol. I, "Frei und zum Herrn geboren, hat der Siidlander das ihm p. 9) von seinen edlen Vorfahren hinterlassene Erbtheil, seine Macht, seine Rechte, bis jetzt seinem Verbiindeten, dem Nordlander ge:

und zu schiitzen gewusst, er ist die starkste Union gewesen, hat die Schlachten gegen deren Feinde geschlagen und mit seinem Blute ihre Grenzen erweitert, ihren Reichthum, ihre Grosse vermehrt. Doch der Ritter des Siidens wird dem Schacherer im Norden zu reich, zu machtig, zu geniiber zu schirmen Stiitze

der

unabhangig, er giebt diesen nordischen Kramerseelen ^och nicht

Armand Struhbcrg

Fricdrich

54

genug Prozente ab von clem Verdienste, welchen er der Erde abgewinnt, iind um seine Macht zu brechen, ihn dem Norden unterthanig zu machen, greift

man nach

tution garantirten Rechten,

Sclaven nehmen.

.

.

und

will

seinen, ihn durch die Consti-

ihm

The announcement of

Lincoln's election

consternation prevails (Vol.

I,

p.

142 f.):

Blitz in eine Pulvcrmine, so flog der

Siidstaaten Amerika's,

und

setzte

Wuth und

is

brought.

"Wie

Name

Great

ein ziindender

Lincoln durch die

Reich und Arm,

und Jung, Mann und Weib

Niedrig, Alt

gung, in

seine Arbeitskrafte, seine

."

Vornehm und

in stiirmische

Aufre-

Raserei.

"In keinem der Sclavenstaaten aber war die Wirkung eine so heftige, eine so ziigellose,

nem

wie

in Siid-Carolina,

welches

seit sei-

Union stets dem Norden das Widerspiel gehalund immer der Leiter der iibrigen Sclavenstaaten ge-

Eintritt in die

ten hatte,

wesen war.

.

.

."

"Der Augenblick war

erschienen,

wo

die langjahrigen Be-

miihungen dieser Feinde der Union Friichte tragen sollten, und Siid-Carolina zogerte niclit einen Augenblick nach Lincoln's Erwahlung, das Feuer

in

das Pulverfass zu werfen.

"Die Gesetzgebung dieses kleinen Staates war versammelt, und beschloss einstimmig die sofortige Lostrennung von der Union. In Charleston kiindigten mit wenigen Ausnahmen alle Beamten der Regierung ihren Dienst, die Bewohner der Stadt begannen, in die Miliz einzutreten, blaue Cocarden erschienen an den Hiiten der Manner. ..." Major AnderForts Moultrey and Sumter are described.

whose career is sketched, is stationed at the former. In December of i860 the battleship "Pluto" makes its appearance. Anderson's removal to Fort Sumter and the burning of Fort

son,

]\Ioultrey are told at length

by the author.

The second volume opens

in Charleston,

with people, gathered there to await the

had seceded.

On

January

5,

which

crisis.

is

thronged

South Carolina

1861, arrives the report that Presi-

dent Buchanan refused to receive the officers of the independent state

and that he entertained no intention of withdrawing the

Union troops from

the forts.

"Das," writes Strubberg (Vol.

II,

Fricdrich Aruiand Stnihhcrg p.

16

f.

),

"war der

zi'indende Blitz, der die

in Siid-Carolina entfesselte

und

55

Flammen

des Krieges

nach den iibrigcn Sclavenstaa-

sie

ten hiniiber lodern Hess."

The author

continues to weave into his story a

the actions of the South.

Mississippi,

Louisiana, and finally Texas, Carolina.

now

now

Strubberg quiet

also join the republic of

In Montgomery, Alabama, the Confederacy

and Jefferson Davis elected to modest home

its

On

by the Southerners to murder Lincoln,

Washington

General Scott,

army

how

he leaves his

the

is

way

a plot arranged

discovered and Lincoln

day earlier than he had planned. Mexican War, had gathered a old hero of the the

secretly taken to

small

tells

and travels by way of Philadel-

phia and Baltimore to Washington.

is

to protect Lincoln.

a

The Confederacy now

institutes

an army and appoints Major Pierre Gustave Toutant,

In April Beauregard receives orders

command Major Anderson

Sumter and

to attack the

of the Union to evacuate Fort

same upon

refusal.

Then

132), a splendid description of the attack

II, p.

named

Strubberg stops to carefully

Beauregard as Brigadier-General. sketch Beauregard's career. to

South

founded

is

Presidency.

takes up Lincoln,

in Springfield,

report of

full

Alabama, Florida, Georgia,

follows (Vol.

on Fort Sumter

and the beginning of the Civil War. further secession of Virginia, Arkansas, North Caro-

The lina

and Tennessee, and the

rebellious

South

final

recounted.

is

declaration of

war

against the

Jefferson Davis, though the au-

thor seldom introduces conspicuous historical figures into the

dialog

itself,

makes

his

appearance

at a social in the palace

of

Artega, a wealthy Southerner, in Charleston, where the principals in the

romance are gathered.

In

Vol.

Ill

a spirited

table

German

in

account

of

Bull

Run

is

given.

volume introduced his inevithe person of young Wallstein, who, out of

Strubberg had already

in the first

enthusiasm for the republican form of government, comes to

His unpleasant experiences and his ideas of the repubThey lic, and its slavery form an interesting part of the work. probably reflect some of the author's own ideas. America.

—

Fricdrich

56

Annand Strnhherg

Bayard's activities as a spy, the bombardment of Forts Jackson and St. Philipp under Farragut, and the attack on New OrGenerals Lee leans, form the chief episodes of the third volume.

and MacClellan are mentioned. After following Staunton, the lover of Olympia, through three volumes, the author with astonishing brevity disposes of

him by

an alligator swallow him on the banks of the Mis-

letting

where Staunton lay wounded from a naval

sissippi,

battle.

The author's total lack of proportion and inner unity is nowhere more clearly shown than in this work. At the end of the third volume Strubberg with inartistic abruptness abandons all the characters we have learned to know but Wallstein who, sick of America, returns to his own home in Westphalia and again takes up his work as an advocate. The fourth volume appears enlarge the work.

It consists

to

have no other purpose than to

of a rather insipid love story, in

which Wallstein plays only an unimportant role. Its only redeeming feature is its political reflections and the graphic description of the meeting of the Hannoverian army with the Prussian on the

battlefield of

Langensalza.

This work was never republished. 1870.

Der Kr'osus von

Philadelphia.

Carl Riimpler.

Von Armand. Hannover. 4 Bde.

Strubberg's baroque form of composition in

Der Krosus.

now

ences, he

Having

well exhausted his

reverts to other phases of

is

own

well illustrated

personal experi-

American history. In War was exploited.

the previous novel the period of the Civil

Der Krosiis author's in

which

own

is

the

time

first is

work

in

introduced.

which material antedating the It is in

part a historical novel,

the author betrays a close study of

The

American

afifairs.

action of the novel begins with the year 1791, in St.

Graf Louvencourt, a rich planter and slaveholder, dangerous position on account of the strained condition between the whites and the blacks. At a recent congress in Paris the mulattoes had been given equal rights with the whites.

Domingo.

finds himself in a

Fricdrich Aruiand Stnihbcrg

To

this

congress Vincent

the French island St.

By a

Oge

^^

had been sent as a mulatto from

Domingo.

decree of July, 1792, also

all

now

of

whom

were already wealthy and

influential,

draw all the inhabitants of color to themselves and by power the privileges hitherto denied them by the The uprisings against the whites and the fearful atroci-

plotted to

extract whites. ties

many

who were born the whites. The

negroes

of free parents were given equal rights with mulattoes,

57

resorted to in the execution of their revenge are skilfully nar-

rated and occupy a large part of the

first

volume. ^^

In the fifth chapter, the scene of action changes to the peaceful Quaker city of Philadelphia.

At this time the United West Indies almost solely in its own hands. Philadelphia, "die Bruderstadt," was the chief business centre for this commerce. One of the oldest commercial houses in Philadelphia was that of Thomas Pennel, who is porStates had the

commerce with

trayed as a miser.

employ an orphaned remarkable business office of

the

Pennel had ten years before taken into his Irish lad,

Richard Gatlard,

faculties, but

is

who

develops

nevertheless retained in the

The

Pennel at a wretched salary.

reports of an ap-

proaching famine in St. Domingo reach the ears of Pennel. The war between England and France prevented France from sending supplies. The internal uprisings on the island also prevented the production of food.

Flour

is

already selling at $20 per barrel.

Pennel buys up flour at $2.50 per barrel, loads the vessel "Nepit, and sends young Gatlard to St Domingo with it.

tune" with

Pennel hopes to win $50,000. Gatlard

is

to receive five per cent,

commission.

On

arriving at St. Domingo, Gatlard

is

beseeched by Lou-

vencourt to save them from the murdering negroes,

who were

Louvencourt offers Gatlard an enormous sum for conveying himself, family and possessions to an American port. Gatlard agrees, but will take no passengers mercilessly slaying the whites.

on

until the following day.

In the meanwhile their possessions

"The character Vincent Oge "The two-volume edition of

suggests Theodor Miiggc's Toussaint (1840). 1898 has been used.

Fricdricli

58

Armaiid Stntbbcrg

Louvencourt and many others bring on board expecting an onslaught from

are to be brought on board. their countless treasures

On

moment.

the negroes at any

the

morrow

all

are to be taken

on board.

The sun had sunk behind the hills of Cape Haiti. Gatlard had gotten $150,000 from the whites as passage money. He was His eyes glanced over the numberless chests a wealthy man. and casks on the deck, holding priceless treasures and money beyond counting. H the owners, thought Gatlard, should fall victims to the negro insurgents, would he not be lawful heir? Strange indefinite thoughts

flit

through his active mind.

Why

must he wait for the passengers tomorrow ? The day dawns, the The negroes have fallen upon the report of cannon is heard. fleeing, put out to sea on a small sailwhites. The Louvencourts, Seeking a slight excuse in the boat, headed for the "Neptune." dangers of himself being attacked by the negroes, he orders the

"Neptune"

to lift

anchor and

sail

away before

the very face of

the despairing Louvencourts.

Gatlard escapes with the treasures, returns to Philadelphia,

with

connections

dissolves

man

wealthiest

stricken Gatlard, though novel,

is

Fennel,

and becomes by

The

Philadelphia.

in

life

much obscured by

the theme of the work. Gatlard

is

of

the

far

the

conscience-

other threads in the

"Der Krosus von Phi-

ladelphia."

The Louvencourts vessel, the

"Delphia," bound for

Strubberg, having readers,

are finally picked up by another sailing

now

little

Mississippi,

Orleans.

stops to give an historical account of Louisiana.

The Louvencourts have still

New

consideration for the patience of his

and

settle

left

New

Orleans, taken a boat up the

on the Black River, a very remote

territory,

open to hostile Indians. Strubberg

now

introduces his usual Indian element.

The

Indian's relation with the Spanish and the French, also receive

due discussion.

The author here introduces a Spanish fort, situRed and the Black Rivers, which is

ated at the confluence of the

Don Sarzano, who insists on men in defiance of the Indians.

occupied by General life

here with sixtv

spending his General

Don

2

Friedricii

Anuand Struhhcvg

59

is one of the author's most individual characters. His and strange relation to the beautiful Whelika, daughter of an Indian chief, have only a very slight connection with the main thread of the work and form an interesting little novelette in

Sarzano

life

itself.

At

volume we revert

the beginning of the second

career of Gatlard,

who

lives in regal

to the

splendor in Philadelphia.

He

has forsaken his early love Aglaja Astor and becomes the successful suitor of Octavio, the beautiful daughter of the wealthy

Lord Rowley, residing

Don Sarzano Indians.

His body

is

The episode of General

in Philadelphia.^^

in his fort

is

continued.

sunk

He

at last falls a victim to

at night into the

waters of the Black

River, at the place familiar to future generations as "Sarzano's

Grave."

The century had drawn

to a close.

Washington, the father

of the great new republic, had passed away.

Louisiana to France. The new president was "ein alter Soldat aus die rechte

Hand

dem

Spain had sold

Thomas

Jefferson,

Unabhangigkeitskriege, ein Freund und

des verstorbenen Washington, ein reiner edler

Republikaner, der schon bei der Unabhangigkeitserklarung darauf drang, dass kein Stiick amerikanischer Erde unter einer fremden

Macht verbleiben

diirfe" (Vol. II,

p.

184).

Through

Jefferson's

endeavors Louisianna had been purchased.

Louvencourt had prospered on the North River.

His happiness was increased through the arrival of many other French families who, through the influence of the negro Toussaint upon the unbridled negro insurgents, were enabled to leave St. Domingo and reach American soil in safety. The years passed in peace and quiet until suddenly in 181 the country plunged into a second war with England. The author mentions the storming of Washington and the burning of the Also he mentions General Jackson and his fortifying capitol. New Orleans by means of cotton bales. An attack on the city by the English in January, 181 5,

is

described.

*• It is the Philadelphia of the period directly after the Revolution. The author introduces less definite local color, however, than is noticeable in those of his works whose time of action is contemporaneous.

—

6o

FricdricJi .'iDiiaiid

The time

On

1828.

of action

the slender

Struhhcrg

now suddenly

American

ing up the sparkling Chesapeake

shifts to the spring of

brig, the is

"Lady Adams," sailyoung

a single passenger, a

German named Armand.*^ Strubberg, regardless of the action of his story, now takes time to speak of Armand; is careful to show that Armand never takes brandy i*^ lets him visit the Washington monument in Baltimore, then in course of erection then On the way Armand brings him on to Philadelphia by water. Armand asks him meets a young American officer, Horton. whether he knows the wealthy Richard Gatlard, for he has letters ;

of credit and recommendation addressed to him. that

Horton

is

Armand

ter.

father

was a

Louvencourt,

He

discovers

Gatlard's nephew, his mother being Gatlard's sis-

pays Gatlard a

It is

visit.

through Horton, whose

friend of Louvencourt, that the aged Gatlard and

whom

he so foully robbed in his youth, are brought

together in a very striking scene at the close of the work.

were ever to know what a wretched "Krosus" had lived. The citizens of

life

Few

the conscience-stricken

Philadelphia recognized in

him only the kind old philanthropist. With the completion of this novel Strubberg had spanned in his works in a manner the whole period of the history of the United States from the time directly after the Revolution down through the Civil War. A second edition of Dcr Krosus was published in two volumes in 1895 as the third "Abtheilung" in Armand' s aiisgczvdhlte Romane. 1872.

Die

alte spanische

Urktmdc.

Carl Riimpler.

Von Armand.

Hannover.

2 Bde.

This work commands the attention of the reader from be-

on a rather absurd idea. Robert and Sarah Walton are the orphaned children of an Irish father and

ginning to end, but

is

built

"This autobiographic reference America antedates 1828.

is

hardly

accurate.

Strubberg's

first

trip to

^'A friend of the author living in Gelnhausen today told the writer that Strubberg said he had never drunk a glass of "Feuerwasser" in his life.

!

Friedrich Arinand Stnihherg

6i

a Spanish mother, the daughter of an old aristocrat Mendoza,

who

lived

in

document

They have in their possession an old shows that Mendoza had received large grants

America.

v^^hich

of land along the Gulf of Mexico from the Spanish government,

which land they are the lawful

to

we

heirs.

In the

first

sixty pages

follow the two heirs with their document to Havanna.

After

a stirring ocean voyage the two land at Havanna, where their

when the Spanish lands along the Gulf passed into French control. Through the assistance of the English consul investigations are made in the Spanish bureau, and it is discovered that Robert and Sarah Walton are the legitigrandfather, Mendoza, had gone

mate is

heirs of

all

the land on which the prosperous city of Mobile

located

The author now

leaves the

Far West,

ers to the

two

to the land he

the banks of the beautiful Leona. rich Spaniard,

tinues for enters.

whose name

some

time.

Though

heirs

is

and transfers

Mendoza, the action now con-

also

Doctor Armand (the author himself) now

not very active, he

An

giving advice and counsel.

is

a potent factor, constantly

unnatural humility or modesty

never prevented Strubberg from revealing his (or shall

we

his read-

knows so well, the land on Here on the plantation of a

own

say the better part of his personality?).

biographical material introduced

found elsewhere throughout spare himself in ascribing to

his works.

Armand

The

The author does not manner which

that haughty

seems to have been one of his most evident characteristics

He

lets

one of the characters say of

auto-

consistent with that

fairly

is

personality

Armand

(Vol.

I,

p.

in life.

235

f. )

:

"Dort kommt auch Finer herangeritten, der nicht weiss, wo Hochmuth lassen soil und der die Gegend hier lange genung beherrscht hat, weil er friiher der einzige Arzt hier war."

er sich vor

An

old planter, Arnold, replies

:

"Und wohl

mit Recht, Herr

Doctor, thun ihm die Leute hier gern etwas nach Wunsch, denn er hat Jahre lang dieses es der Indianer

Land bewohnt,

als kein

wegen wagte, hierher zu

endlich die Ansiedler sich

den und geholfen,

wo

um

anderer Weisser

ziehen,

und

hat,

als

ihn niederliessen, ihnen beigestan-

er konnte,

und hat

sie

mit grosster Auf-

Friedrich ArDiaiid Stnibbcrg

62

Sagen Sie mir nichts Krankheiten behandelt. gegen Doctor Armand, oder wir werden bose Freunde!" opfening

The

in

.

.

.

action of the novel takes place at a time

when Armand

had forsaken his fort on the Leona (probably about 1845), ^"d taken a more pretentious dwelling nearby, where he lived with Addison, his mulatto boy, Milly, his quadroon housekeeper, and

dog

his old

Joe.

the picturesque ruins of his old fort on the high banks

Of

Leona he says (Vol.

of the

wehmiitig,

wenn

ich nach

I, p.

dem

243)

:

"Mich stimmt

alten, lieben Asyl,

nach

es

immer

dem Fort

hinaufschaue und daran denke, wie mich damals das Gefiihl, Herr zu sein so weit der Flimmel blau, erhebend und fiir friihere Leiden entschadigend durchstromte, wie ich dort mein Schicksal in

Hand

eigener

trug und

alles

Unangenehme aus meinem Reiche

zuriickwies und von mir abschiittelte."

In the meanwhile Robert and Sarah Walton have come to

Mobile and put

on which that

in their claims for the possession of all the land

city

is

located.

They succeed

inent advocate Starford to take bile rise

up

up the

case.

in getting the

The

prom-

citizens of

in indignation against the foreign upstarts,

who

Moare

Robert Walton is killed and the advocate Sarah had been sent to New Orleans in order A price is set on her head and to escape the expected troubles. claiming their lands.

is

obliged to

she

is

flee.

pursued.

The

consul of

New

Orleans had placed her in

Armand as Mary Black. Through Armand she enters the home of Mendoza as governess. The second volume develops the love story of Mary Black the hands of

and Carlos, the stepson of Mendoza. The lawsuit, ress, is

kept in the background.

a compromise with the city of

still

in

prog-

The advocate finally enters into Mobile. The latter pays to Sarah

Walton ten million dollars, of which the advocate gets ten per The identity of Mary Black is revealed. She is married to cent. Carlos and

is

happy.

The Indian element and life so

a minute

description

of Western

frequently introduced in the author's works are notably

absent in this novel.

Strubberg's Residence in Gelnhausen

Fricdrich

Die

alte spanische

Armand Stnihhcrg

Urkundc had

also appeared in serial

63

form

in the Kolnische Zeitiing of 1872.

A

second edition appeared in the second "Abteilung" of

Arinand's Ausgcivdhltc Rouianc,

in

1895-1896,

Preston A. Barba. Indiana University. (To be continued.)

THE GERMAN DRAMA

IN ENGLISH ON THE PHILADELPHIA STAGE. (Continued.)

The assumption spite of the

that the Philadelphia play Reconciliation, in

unusual secondary

Dunlap's version, introduction

is

still

more

title

Fraternal Discord, was not

justified

from a passage

Dunlap's Fraternal Discord,

to

Longworth, 1807.^^-

"This comedy

is

Drama

in the

in 5 Acts,

a translation by

Wm.

Dunlap, Esq., of New York, from the German of Kotzebue, and ranks among the best of the productions of that celebrated author. ... It met with a reception corresponding to its distinguished merits. There is another but very inferior translation of this play, which has been performed in Philadelphia

under the

title

Was

Reconciliation/'

New York

of the

it

perhaps the popularity

play Fraternal Discord that caused the Phila-

delphia managers to add to Reconciliation the secondary

title

Fraternal Discord in place of the usual one of Dibdin's version,

The Birthday f The one new German play for this season was The Wanfrom Kotzebue. As apderer; or. The Rights of Hospitality, pears from the German title given this was not an original play ^^'-^

of Kotzebue, but a free translation from the French of Duval. It

was announced

as a play translated

zebue by Charles Kemble.

formance

this season,

No

March

cast

6th,

been given again in Philadelphia

is

from the German of Kotgiven with the only per-

and

it

till

1 820-1 821, at the Tivoli

does not seem to have

was announced in advance for April 3d, of this season, but a change must have been made, for the actual bill for According to that day was the Gamester and Forty Thieves. Sellier it was popular in London and given frequently at Covent Theatre.

It

'"'This reference is taken from the copy, forming a part of the Jackson Collection of American Plays at the University of Pennsylvania. ^"^

Ednard

Drama

in drei

frey iibersetzt.

(64)

Schottland oder Die Nciclit eines Fliichtlings, historisches Akten von Dnval, aus dem vom Verfaser mitgeteihen Mscr.

in

Leipzig, 1804.

Genu an Drama Garden Theatre

English on Philadelphia Stage

into the twenties,

time in iSoS.^*^^

first

in

It

year and as a reprint in

having appeared there for the

appeared in print in London

New

65

this

same

York.^®^

Harlequin Dr. Faustus was given once

this season,

Decem-

ber loth, and Cumberland's Wheel of Fortune also once, April A number of plays, while not announced as German plays, 7th.

nor even acknowledged as such by the authors,

may

be altera-

German plays or at least partly taken from or suggested by such or German romances. Such are Adrian and Orilla, by Dimond, November i6th, the cast of which is given in the preceding season. ^^" Theodore Edw. Hook is represented by two plays:

tions of

77?^ Fortress,

December

24th, January 6th, also spoken of last

season with characters and scene, and Tekeli; or, The Siege of in 3 Acts from Drury Lane, London, two

Montgatz, Melodrama

Count Tekeli, Wolf, his friends, Bras de Fer and Maurice, his soldiers, Edmund, Austrian Lieutenant, Isidore, Austrian Soldiers, Peasants, Female Act 2, Interior of the StoreFirst Scene, Forest. Peasants. House of the Mill of Keben, Conrad the Miller, Christine his daughter, Frank, Principal Dancers, Count Caraffa, Dragoons. Act. 3. Gothic Hall, Procession of the Standard of Hungary, for God and our Country, Caraffa falls and Tekeli gives freedom to his country. Tekeli saw five performances this season, February seasons for the

loth,

6th,

first

time in Philadelphia.

15th, 24th

and March

seems to have been more case

we have

at least a partial

of his writings.

The

first

nounced as a Tragedy

3d.

M.

prolific in this line

G. Lewis, however,

of plays and in his

admittance of the source of some

of these plays to note

in 5 Acts, for the first

is

Adelgitha, an-

time in Philadelphia

by the author of Castle Spectre, now performing in London with most distinguished applause. Act i, A Grove with Chapel; 2, Port of Otranto; 4, Cavern; 5, Gothic Hall; with the following characters, Guiscard, Michael Ducas, Lothaire,

phion, Hubert, Julian, Tancred, Adelgitha, '"*

Derectus, Ala-

Imma,

Claudia,

Ab-

Cf. Sellier, p. 76.

^*'

Cf. Wilkens, App. 129. Adrian and Orilla was given last season on February 22nd, of the Anniversary of George Washington's Birthday." ^^

"in

honor

German Drama

66

in

English on Philadelphia Stage

Adelgitha was given three times this season, January 20th,

bess.

The second play of Lewis to note is The The Clock Has Struck, announced as a Melfrom the original manuscript never yet pub-

23d and March

ist.

Wood Daemon;

or,

odrama

in 3 Acts,

by the author of Castle Spectre, Adelgitha, Alfonso, etc. (Dimond). Some of the characters are given, Hardyknute, Gu-

lished,

elpho, steward of castle; Wittikind, his son; Seelyn, a

Sangrida,

Wood Daemon;

Clotilda,

Una.

It

dumb boy;

was given

three

times this season, April loth, 12th and 13th.

Later on, in one of announced as "translated from The third play was Adelmorn the Outlazv, Ro-

the other theatres, the

German."

mantic

Drama

it

is

directly

in 3 Acts,

with the following characters, Sigis-

Count of Bergen, Adelmorn,

mund, Duke of Saxony,

Ulric,

Father Cyprian, Imogen.

This was given but once

this season,

is January 24th. The illustrated by the appearance this same year in New York of Romantic Tales, by M. G. Lewis, a reprint of the London edition of 1808,^^" in two volumes, containing Mistrust; or, Blanche and Osbright; The Admiral Gnarino; King Rodrigo's Fall; Ber-

interest in this style of plays at this time

trand and Mary-Belle; The Lord of Falkenstein; Sir Guy, the Seeker; The Anaconda; The Dying Bride; The Four Facardins,

Part

I

and Part

Three Sisters;

II

My

Oberon's Henchman, or the Legend of the Uncle's Garret-window; Bill Jones; Amoras;

san, or the Spirit of the

In the preface Lewis

Frozen Ocean.

admits that Mistrust, The Anaconda,

My

Uncle's Garret-zvindow,

Amorassan, Bcrtrand and Mary-Belle and The Lord of Falkenstein are taken from the German or partly suggested by German In connection with Rngantino of next season another works. reference will be found to Lewis' indebtedness to

Other plays

to note for this season are

German

Bunker

Hill,

14th, the first time at the Chestnut Street Theatre.

writers.

January

This

is

by

John Burk and was severely criticised by Dunlap in his letter from Boston to Hodgkinson in 1796.^*^^ In a letter to Dunlap in 1797 John Burk also speaks of his new tragedy Joan of Arc; or, Cf. Wilkens, App. 135. Cf, Dunlap,

p.

161.

German Drama

in

The Maid of Orleans, Brook's Giistaviis Vasa; one performance.

English on Philadelphia Stage

67

now ready

for representation. Henry The Deliverer of His Country, saw new plays "by a Philadelphian" were

or,

Two

School for Prodigals, with only one performance, February 20th, not to be confused with Richard Penn Smith's The Disowned;

The Prodigals, from

the French and published in 1830,

and The Wounded Hussar, March 29th. Holcroft's Melodrama, Lady of the Rock, appeared for the first time in Philadelphia and saw four performances. The most popular play of the season was R. B. Sheridan's Forty Thieves, an Operatic Romance, for the first time in America January i, 191 9, and had a run of twelve performances. A. Cherry's Operatic Drama, The Travelers; or, Music's Fascination, appeared as altered and adapted to the American stage by a citizen of Philadelphia, original music by Corri, orchestra, Pellisiere, December 26th and two additional or,

performances.

This

is

probably of French origin, and besides

the French play Follies of a

we

Day;

The Marriage of Figaro, Who Pays the Piper? French by Bray, March 25th. or,

note one other play of French origin,

Comic Opera

translated

Shakespeare

is

from the

well represented this season by twelve dif-

and Cooper's long engagement accounts for them. They were, As You Like It, Catharine and Petrucchio, Hamlet, two performances; Henry IV, Jidius Caesar, King Lear, Macbeth, Merchant of Venice, Merry Wives of Windsor, Othello, Richard HI and Romeo and Jidiet. The publications listed by Wilkens for 1809 are Dunlap's Fraternal Discord, D. Longworth, New York; J. H. Payne's versioa of Lovers' Vows, Baltimore, which will be referred to ferent plays, thirteen performances,

again in connection with the next season B.

Sheridan's Plzarro;

M.

;

a Boston reprint of R.

G. Lewis' Romantic Talcs, already

referred to above in connection with his plays for this season;

Baltimore and Boston reprints of M. G. Lewis' translation of Ahaellino, the Bravo of Venice}^^

There

is little

or no reference

to the theatre this season in the magazines of Philadelphia.

Portfolio has a short notice of

new works

Cf. Wilkens, App. 132-135, 138 and 139,

The

of Kotzebue and

and also 146 for

1810.

German Drama

68

in

English on Philadelphia Stage

Wieland. Several magazines at this time, notably the Monthly Anthology and Boston Revieiv, print a parody on M. G. Lewis' and Walter Scott's translations of German and Danish ballads, ascril)ed to Washington Allston, namely, The Paint King}"'^ No plays are listed from the Old Theatre this season. Seventeenth Season, Chestnut Street

Theatre,

November

20,

i8og, to April 2y, 18 10.

The German plays for this season were, Of Age To Morrow, November 20th and April 7th Pizarro, November 22nd and December 15th; Reconciliation, November 29th; Abaellino, December 1st; Lovers' Vozvs, December 9th; The Robbers, January 19th; Rugantino, March 21st. There were nine performances of seven plays, four from Kotzebue, one from Shiller and two from ;

Zschokke.

Of Age Farce and

to

at

Morrow

is

announced

at

one time as a Musical

another as a Musical Entertainment, and no longer

as last season as

Comic Opera.

Robbers, in which as usual

Wood

With

the exception of

played Charles de

The

Moor and

Mrs. Wood, Amelia, and the new play Rugantino, no author

is

The Robbers the German title is given The interest of the season cenin German letters Die Rauber. tered for the most part in "Master Payne" (John Howard Payne), who appeared for the first time on December 6th, as

mentioned.

In the case of

Young Narval in Douglass, and in an extended engagement of Cooper. The former appeared among other plays in two German Vows, December 9th, and as Rolla For his benefit he chose Romeo Cooper does not seem to have appeared in any Ger-

plays, as Frederick in Lovers' in Pizarro,

and

Jidiet.

man

on December 15th.

plays this season, but mostly in Shakespeare plays.

one new German play for

this

season was Rugantino ;

or.

The The

Bravo of Venice, March 21st, announced as a Romantic Melodrama, taken from the celebrated German novel of that name by "°

The full text of "The Paint King" can also be found in Davis' TransGerman Poetry in American Magazines, 1741-1810; Americana Germanka, 1905; p. 183. Cf., also Goodnight, pp. 120, 170-176. lation of

German Drama Lewis. ^^^

G.

69

This dramatized version of Zschokke's romance

had already appeared and now

English on Philadelphia Stage

in

in print in

again March,

181 o,

Baltimore and Boston in 1809

New

in

York, D. Longworth.

These were all reprints of the London publication of 1805.^^^ Its first performance in London was October 18, 1809, at Covent

Garden Theatre.

It

does not seem to have been repeated

till

the

season of 181 3-14, at one of the other theatres.

have already referred

I

The

to the

Mirror of Taste and Dramatic

number of this interesting periodical apIt was published by Bradford and January, 1810.

^'''•^

Censor.

peared in

first

Innskeep, Philadelphia; Innskeep and Bradford,

New

York, and ^'^*

William MTllhenny, Boston; Smith and McKenzie, Printers. Its editor was Stephen Cullen Carpenter, from whose pen are

many

of the articles contained in

was born and educated

India Service returned to the

commencement of

Stephen Cullen Carpenter

it.

and after years in the East England with the rank of Major at

in Ireland,

He then became Commons and in 1800

the French Revolution.

Reporter of the Debates of the House of

came

to the

periodicals.

United States and was active as an editor of various

He

The purpose and scope of

died July 24, 1830.

work may best be seen from a few ment as it appears in the first issue.^^''

extracts of the announce-

the

fore, will contain a regular journal of

.

.

all,

.

"This work, there-

worthy of

notice, that

passes in the theatre of Philadelphia, and an account of each night's performances,

play and after piece, .

.

.

a regular account of theatrical transactions from the cap-

ital cities is

accompanied with a critical analysis of the and remarks upon the merits of the actors,

of other states."

This "Domestic Dramatic Censor"

a "Foreign

Dramatic Censor" dealing especially

followed by

with the theatres of Great Britain.

"'^

It

appeared once a month,

Abaellino, der grosse Bandit, 1794. Note i6g for the references from Wilkens.

'" Cf.

""Cf. Note 145. was transferred in 181 1 to Thomas Barton Zantzinger & Company, and the first number of the year 181 1 was published at their store, Shakespeare Buildings, South Sixth, near Chestnut Street. '"^Mirror of Taste and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, p. 7. "* It

German Praina

yo

two volumes added, by

in

English on Pliiladclphia Stage

"To each number will be of appendix an entire play or after piece, paged

a year, $8.00 per year.

way

so as to be collected into a separate volume." tained for the

first

This was maintwo volumes and then stopped, probably at

the suggestion of various correspondents, one of

whom

gave the

pertinent reason that "a large portion of the patrons of your

undertaking are in possession of collections of dramatic perform." ances, some of them very extensive. This throws an .

on the extent

.

which plays were read in those days. The plays published with the first six numbers were, Foundling of the Forest, by Dimond Man and Wife, by Samuel James Arnold; Verroni; or, Novice of St. Mark's, by M. G. Lewis; New Way to Pay Old Debts, by Ph. Massinger; Alfonso, interesting sidelight

to

;

King of

by M. G. Lewis; The Free Knights; or, The Edict of Charlemagne, by Fr. Reynolds. The numbers of the second volume included. The Exile; or. The Russian Daughter, Castille,

by F. Reynolds; Emilia Galotti, Tragedy in 5 Acts, translated from the German of G. E. Lessing by Miss Fanny Holcroft; The Bondman, by Ph. Massinger; Maid of Honour, Massinger, and Fatal Dowry, founded on Massinger's Comedy, The City Madam. The various numbers contain material in the following order, a series of papers on the History of the Stage from ancient times on, parts of which will be referred to later; Biography; Miscellany Communications Sports Music Dramatic Censor. ;

;

Of Age

to

brief remark:

;

Morrozv, November 20th,

"Every character

November 22nd,

;

its

weapons

to very dulness,

worn down

we cannot

Pizarro,

"Although

receives a serious discussion.

attack and defence of Pizarro criticism has

of

dismissed with the

is

tolerably well played."

in the

the edges

forbear taking the

opportunity of recording our opinions of that extraordinary production.

"No sesses the

play that has appeared during the last century pos-

power of agitating the

passions,

feelings in an equal degree to Pizarro.

and interesting the

From

a child of the

brain of Kotzebue, trained and corrected by Sheridan,

might be expected. talents of such

men.

And

the piece before us

is

much

worthy of the

German Drama

"What and

is

simplicity,

to such a

man

English on Philadelphia Stage

that play in

which there

such a mass of virtue

is

Not

one.

The

lofty

moral sentiments of Rolla,

exquisite feelings and exalted notions as the

He

friend, the lover, are unequalled. lives but for others

;

patriot,

the

exists out of himself

and

for his country, his king, his friend and the

whom

dearest object of his love, of friend, he

71

and such a number of amiable personages opposed of villainy, subtlety, fraud ful avarice and sensual

vice as Pizarro? his

in

being bereft by that very

—

becomes their brother their protector, devotes man, escaping that, devotes it again

to death to save the

his life

to save

Need we say more then of Pizarro than to conhim with such a character? The only gleam of light that

their offspring. trast

breaks in upon that black Erebus, his heart, Rolla,

when

is

the latter throws aside his dagger

;

his conduct to

and

this the poet

(Sheridan) has artfully contrived for the purpose of heightening the lustre of such virtue, by showing that even that ster could not be insensible to

glorious

is

two plays and put each out of

we

competition with any other that

mon-

exclusive of Rolla's

a massif excellence sufficient to

qualities,

character of any

There

it.

make

the

the reach of

can immediately think of.

Such as we have described are the emotions which are always produced by the play now under consideration when it happens to be properly represented.

Fortunately or unfortunately as is

it

may

so constructed that almost every part of

it

happen, the play

contributes largely,

We saw it in England and America, but have never yet seen it performed to our perfect satisfaction." ^'^^ This is followed by a discussion of

according to

its

kind, to the interest of the piece.

the merits of various actors essaying the leading part.

The

"Master Payne" included two German plays for In the latter he played season, Lovers' Vows and Pizarro.

repertoire of this

Rolla December 15. Reconciliation,

ondary acts

title

November

29,

and not Dunlap's drama ^Mirror of Taste,

etc.,

Vol.

I,

in

appears

still

with the sec-

is Dibdin's comedy in three five acts. There is but a brief

Fraternal Discord, but

p. 62.

Gcniimi Praiiia

72

in Iliujlish

on Philadelphia Stage

reference to this performance: "It would be superfluous to say

anything of a play so well known and so justly admired."

December

Abaellino, the Great Bandit, ing

comment: ''The Great Bandit

is

i,

^"^"^

received the follow-

one of those extraordinary

productions which distinguish the present dramatic writers of

Germany from

those of

all

ages and

all

There are

countries.

more German drama. A proper would require more room than we can at is promised for a future number and will

but few topics connected with the stage which deserve serious discussion than this of the investigation of

it

present spare."

It

be referred to

later.

renewed

interest

Lovers' Voivs, December

with "Master Payne"

in

the

9,

called forth

role

of

Fred-

His engagement this season included nine plays, ten performances, two of which were the German plays referred to. The other plays were Douglass, given twice; The Mounerick.

Mahomet, Tancred and Sigismunda, Barbarossa and Romeo and Juliet. The Mirror of Taste gives on pages

taineers,

140-161 a long account of him, with comparisons with Cooper and other noted actors of the time. Further on we read "Of the characters represented by this young gentleman, those in which he has evinced greatest powers are Douglass, Tancred and Romeo, while that in which he is least exceptionable is Frederick in Lovers' Vows. His performance of Frederick was one consistent piece of natural, affecting and indeed skill:

In the scenes of

ful acting.

and

in

filial

tenderness with his mother,

the solemn but spirited remonstrances with the

Baron

Wildenheim, he displayed such equal excellence that criticism might incur the charge of injustice by giving the preference

The character, as Master Payne acted it, was made by him from the two antecedent translations of Mrs. Inchbald and Mr. Thompson; by a union of both of which this to either.

youth has produced a better acting play than published

it

in

either.

He

lately

Baltimore with an advertisement prefixed, writ-

ten by himself, to which

Mirror of Taste,

etc.,

Vol.

we

I, p.

refer our readers with a strong

72.

German Drama recommendation

in

them

to

English on Philadelphia Stage peruse

to

it."

^'^^

In

73

own

Payne's

words: "The present copy of Lovers' Vows is made up of Thompson's Frederick and Agatha; Mrs. Inchbald's Verdun and Amelia; while in forming Count Cassel and the Baron, sometimes the former and sometimes the In

been adopted.

many

A

taken the liberty to differ from both."

"From some English Europe.

fame of Even at

countries

is

that

the

in

papers

now

version has

the compiler has

later notice

our possession

in

known

in these

the other.

in

Wood

also

:

He

popular favor at Baltimore.

{Douglass),

Zaphna

Hamlet,

Frederic

taineers),

(Mahomet)

appearance

find

young gentleman has already reached this time, the intercourse between the two such that nothing worthy of notice passes in one

words "On my return to the United October, 1909, I found Master Payne in the full

Payne

reads:

we

this

without being soon to

latter

instances, however,

in

Romeo,

.''^"''-^

Tancred,

New York was in

of

Young Narval Octavian (Moun(Pimrro), Dunlap his

Rolla

According

born 1792, went to England

States, tide

appeared as

Vows),

(Lovers'

refers

to

and first

February 26, 1809. He was 1812, and made his debut at

Drury Lane in 1813. Dunlap, referring to a later period, says: "Mr. Payne has recently returned from Europe. He has visited its

continent and contributed to the English and American stage

from French dramas. How far dramas Adeline, Charles Second, Clari,^^^ Therese, Love in

several successful translations his

Humble

we do

Life are translations or original

of his plays have been and continue

England and America."

not know.

Many

(1832) very popular

in

^^^

Lovers' Voivs, a play in five acts. Altered from the translations of Mrs. Inchbald and Benjamin Thompson. By J. H. Payne, Baltimore; printed by Geo. Dobbin and Murphy, No. 10, Baltimore Street, 1809. 16°, pp. III-VII, adv. (by J. H. Payne), 9-90. Cf. Also Wilkens, App. 133. A copy may be seen in the Jackson Collection of American Plays at the Library of the University of Pennsylvania, referred to in note 162. "' Cf.

Wood,

^^^

Clari or

>»>

Dunlap,

p.

127.

The Maid of Milan, contains

the well-known song "Home, Sweet Home," and will be referred to again in connection with its first presentation in Philadelphia. A copy of this play is also in the Jackson Collection, Library of the University of Pennsylvania. p. 358.

—

German Drama

74

in

English on Philadclpliia Stage

Plays, some of which have already been referred to as plays showing German influence and others which are suspected to be such, were even better represented this season than last season.

We

Wheel of Fortune, School for Reform, Adrian and Adelmorn, Tekcli, Adelgitha and JVood Dccmon. The reference in the Mirror of Taste to Dimond's Wood Dccmon, February 9, is far from complimentary. "Where will the taste of England stop in its descent? Where will the impositions on note

Orilla,

it

by bastard genius end?"

ing for the

first

^^^

Other plays of

this nature

appear-

time this season were James Kenny's Ella Rosen-

Dimond's Eonndling of the Forest and James Kenny's Blind Boy. Ella Rosenberg is announced as a melodrama in two acts, and some of the characters are The berg, Dibdin's Is he a Prince,

Elector, Colonel Montfort, Rosenberg,

Captain Storm, Fluter-

mann, Ella Rosenberg, Christiana and Mrs. Flutermann. It appeared first in Drury Lane Theatre in 1807. It was given this season four times, November 2"/, December 4, January 17 and February 9. The Blind Boy is announced as a melodrama in four acts and as having been received with unbounded applause in London. Sellier says that in 1808 a play, The Blind Boy, was played with success in Covent Garden Theatre.

The

play of this

season was not likely the London play and has nothing to do with Dunlap's version of Kotzebue's Epigram,'^^^ which he began

New York stage in 1803, fii'st appearance French version of Kotzebue's Epigram appeared in 1806, with the secondary title Les dangers de la satire. The cast as given on January i was Stanislaus, King of Sarmatia in

1802 and put on the

March

30.

A

—

— —

Downie; Edmund, his son Mrs. Wilmot; Rodolph Master Oberto Warren; Kalig, friend to Edmund Cone;

—

Barret;

Molino, country boy

Wood;

Mrs.

—

^Jefferson

;

Elvina, betrothed to

Lida, Duchess of Lithuania

—Mrs.

Edmund

Jacobs,

etc.

It

was given five times between January i and February 28. Is he a Prince was an after piece by Dibdin, given for the first time January 6, and shows the following characters: Baron Crack'

^

Cf.

Mirror of Taste,

Das Epigram,

etc.,

I,

pp. 72-73.

Lustspiel in vier Akten.

Leipzig, 1801.

German Drama

in

English on Philadelphia Stage

Rosenblum, Caroline, Miss

lenburg. Blaffberg, Lindorf, Count

Fredonia-Albertina-Wilhelmina Cracklenburg.

German names may

75

not signify any

German

In this case the

play, but

it

may

be

an original burlesque. The last play of this class to note is Foundling of the Forest, a play in three acts by Dimond, given for the first time in Philadelphia, February 14, 1810, and was eleven times during the season, and was the first play The characters as given on published in the Mirror of Taste. February 14 were Count de Valmont, Baron de Longueville,

given in

all

Florian (a foundling adopted by Valmont), L'Eclair, Gaspard, an old domestic; Sanguine, Le Noire, bravoes in the play;

Valmont Rosabella, Monica, unknown female. The scene of the second act is the Castle Garden and of act three

Garaldine, niece to

;

on the banks of the Rhine.

The

considerable criticism, although

it

success of the play called forth

was mostly unfavorable.

The

references in the Mirror of Taste are of great interest and will be given in full to illustrate a phase of the attitude toward plays with so-called

German

"Of

characteristics.

the quality of this production

would be

it

difficult

for

speak candidly without adverting to the present miserable state of dramatic poetry in England, which from the days of Sam Foote has been gradually descending to its present

criticism

to

deplorable condition. thirty years

that corruption. in all times

and

The body

of dramatic writers of the last

corrupted the public taste and

first

By

now

thrive by

hasty sketches, not of nature as she appears

places, but of particular

and eccentric manners

and characters, the excresences of overloaded society, they have made a short cut to the favor of the public, and inundated the stage with a torrent of ephemeral productions to the depravation of the public taste and in defiance of classical criticism.

again later: "This production which we have annexed to our first number, not on account of its superior merit, but because it was the most recently published of any that has "184

yet

come

^^^

to our hands, will

Mirror of Taste,

I, p.

60.

on the most

superficial reading be

Gcniuui Praiiia

76

on Pliiladclpliia Stage

in EiujlisJi

German

discerned to be of true

The

cost.

the characters at the end of the scene,

upon them, by way of leaving audience to guess the others of that breed, like all

is

to the general conception of the

it

as

rest,

old trick of grouping

and dropping the curtain

is

done

in the Stranger,

all

Those who

here twice put in practice.

such things mixed up with a quantum

and

of horror, and

sufficit

the hairbreadth escapes, and incidents so forced as to stagger

belief,

which make up the hotch potch romances whether narra-

A

tive or dramatic of the present day, will like this. critic,

London

remarking with just severity upon the strange way

which the divinity defaces almost

all

is

addressed

modern

the

in the

in tragedies

tions of the deity, indicative only of

no one

fluence,

'This blot

German

'comedies larmoyantes'

at this time are so vital full,

for,

whether favor-

plays and their supposed in-

German plays They might have been given

will question the interest in

cated by these discussions.

In

we have eternal imprecamadness in literature." ^^^

These serious discussions of the drama to this study that they must be given in able or unfavorable to the

:

low, vulgar swearing unworthy

even the refuse of society, while

(weeping comedies), and

says

this piece,

things called dramas or plays.

we have

the farcical comedies

in

in

indiin a

concluding chapter, and there indeed their contents will be referred to with emphasis, but their place

The Foundling of read once more

on

this

is

here to complete the setting

In the meantime the theatre season had closed.

of the season.

:

had met with success and now we number we made a few observations

the Forest

"In our

first

comedy. They were not very favorable to

standing

its

great success in representation,

we

it

;

and notwith-

are not at

all dis-

posed to retract any of them, because our opinion of the intrinsic value of the piece it

is all

—

is

In representation

not in the least altered.

in the closet nothing.

This arises from the conduct of

the plot, which indeed constitutes the whole of

Europe, as

in

America, the judgment of every

ance with the decision of the multitude upon

'"

Mirror of Taste,

I,

p. 80.

it,

its

merit.

In

critic is at vari-

for,

while at the

German Drama

Lyceum

in

English on Philadelphia Stage

has been applauded by 'the milhon,'

it

it

77

has been lashed

by the judicious in various respectable publications.

"The time has been, nor has it long passed by, when that body in the community who decided the fate of every literary performance, far from being contented with effect on the stage, were not produced by an adequate cause in To that body the farrago of melodrama, written specnature. tacle, and mysterious agency, would have been objects of ridicule or disapprobation, and the just influence of their opinions upon

condemned

it,

if it

would have driven back the German muse with all her paraphernalia of tempests, castles, dungeons and murderers, to the public

rave on her native ground except in their proper place ( farce or pantomime) they would not have been tolerated. To write only to the passions, to expose human beings to circumstances that can ;

not in the natural course of

life occur,

and

release

them by means

which outrage all probability, and to these ends to urge vice and virtue beyond all possible bounds, and fabricate extreme characters such as have rarely or never existed, characters either better than saints, or worse than devils, for the mere purpose of producing horror and astonishment, and hanging up the feelings of the multitude on the tenterhooks of fearful suspense and painful

—

apprehension

to violate all the rules prescribed

by nature and

experience, and place heroes and heroines in situations so far out

of the course of

human conduct

that the poet can not get

out again by rational, feasible means, but their fate to the guess of the spectators

and dropping the

curtain.

What

is

is

them

compelled to leave

by picturesque grouping

this but to reverse the

very

nature of the drama, 'whose end,' says its father Shakespeare, both at the first and now, was and is to 'hold as 'twere the mirror

up to natnre' to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of time his form and pressure,' and if the alarming and horrific be legitimate objects for a dramatist, Mr. Dimond has succeeded most marvelously. .

The

.

sorriest critic,

however, knows that horror ought not to be

produced on the stage. horror

is

The boundary

the lawful limit

—the

that separates terror

line not to

be broken.

from

The mighty

magician of Udolpho, as the author of the pursuits of literature

:

German Drama

78

in

English on Philadelphia Stage

Mrs. Radcliff, with powers almost beyond human, infused which has not yet

calls

into the British public a taste for the horrible

been palled by the nauseous draughts of it, poured forth by her Every season brings forth a new impotent successors. .

.

.

taste, so far

proof that that

from being extinguished, has grown

an appetite canine and ravenous which devours with indiscriminating greediness the elegant eats of the sumptuous board and the offal of the shambles; provided only that they have suffito

cient of the

German haut-gout

of the marvelous and horrible."

In the extract just quoted the taste for the horrible

is

same breath traced to Mrs. Radcliff and to the German Another writer traces another phase of the corruption of taste in

In the latter case

we have an

showing a different view of the matter. "A general sense seems to pervade every department of

life

in that

public taste in dramatic literature

high-handed scourge and receives

musico-mania of absurdity.

is .

tJie

country.

and it.

is

the most intelligent

wanting

in

.

.

The

fact

German dramas, and

is

The corruption of

Among

other things the

acme

that the robust and vigorous

worn down by is

almost

acting, cries aloud for a

attacked as having reached the highest

appetite of the English has been

it

plays.

public

interesting rejoinder,

all

of Great Britain that a reformation

use of

in the

dramatic literature to "the intemperate use of German

dramas."

men

^^^

the intemperate

so vitiated and enfeebled that

can swallow nothing but hot-spiced truth, or water gruel spoon

Are the French wrong in calling John Bull 'stupide-barthey see him pouring thousands into the laps of foreign when bare' singers, and for what ? Why, to such songs as this

meat.

Tom

Gobble was a grocer's son

Heigho! says Gobble. He gave a venison dinner for fun And he had a belly as big as a ton, With his handy dandy, bacon and gravy, Ah, hah, says Alderman Gobble.

'

Mirror of Taste,

I, p.

345.

Gcniian

This trash

in EiiglisJi

degrading

low,

vile,

called the

Drama

on Philadelphia Stage

farrago

Russian Imposter, or Siege of Sloremskho.

will be delightful to turn to

it

Byron on

from an opera

taken

is

^^'^

this subject."

some

After such

lines written

Here follow the

79

by Lord quoted

lines already

of the season 1801-1802, in connection with

in the discussion

the remarks of authors being "misled by the lights of erring taste, the

German

meteors, from the gay walk of Farquhar and

Congreve to the cypress shade of Cumberland and Kotzebue."

And now

audiat et altera pars

:

"It has for a considerable time been fashionable to declaim

against the theatrical performances translated

from

the

German.

are pretty generally charged with having corrupted the

They

and been the means of introducing the ribaldry and nonsense which, particularly in the form of songs, have so frequently appeared of late, and disgraced the London English dramatic

audiences,

who

taste,

contenanced such trash.

than insinuated in the

first

number of

This charge

is

more

page 97, the sublime, refined and admirable this miscellany,

and by way of illustration, song of Adlerman Gobble is introduced.

On this point I hold an opinion diametrically opposite and hope to convince the reader that the allegations against the German writers are entirely groundless. In no German play that I have ever seen

is

there to be found anything of this species.

true character of the

— —

esting

theatre

—

is

incidents

and pointed attention of the reader or

spectator.

notwithstanding the disadvantages of appearing for

it

The

the very antipodes to

numerous and intera dramatis personae of the boldest and most finished and in fact everything that can command the most marked Strong, bold sentiments

this.

kind

German

hardly need be stated

lations

how

wretchedly

And

all

this

in foreign dress;

many

of the trans-

have been executed.

That many of the German plays are highly exceptionable in their

tendency

when they

is

equally lamentable, as

it

is

undesirable.

And

are adapted for representation here, they ought to

be altered and modified to suit the Mirror of Taste,

I, p.

97.

taste, the

manners and the

German Drama

8o

in

English on Philadelphia Stage

state of society in this country.

I

allude to

The Stranger, Lovers'

Vozvs and others of this cast.

But the depravation of

taste,

of which such loud complaints

now made, and which is so freely charged to the account of the German theatres, existed on the London stage before any of the German plays were translated. The Stranger was among are

the earliest of them; the

appearance was in the year 1798.

first

It is absolutely certain that

not one of them was acted previous

Egcrton's

to the year 1788, as

Remembrancer, pub-

Theatrical

and containing a complete list of all dramatic language, makes no mention of prove that this depraved taste existed anterior to

lished in that year,

performances them.

If I

1788

it

in

the English

finally decides the question.

These

vile

songs

may

.

.

.

be fairly traced to O'Keefe.

many

motley productions contained

of them and paved the

for the deluge of those that has since followed.

was performed

Castle of Andalitsia

which .

.

my

fully proves It is

.

opened

in

.

.

.

His

way The

1782 and contains a song position, "Galloping Dreary Dan." ^^^ in

of interest to note that the Chestnut Street Theatre

1794 with

Right in

this play.

line

with this discussion

some remarks by Dunlap English dramatists have for ages translated from the Continental languages and given no credit to the original authors. At the time Kotzebue brought the Gerare

man

:

school into fashion, the playwrights employed to measure

out dialogue and pantomime for the

London

theatres were super-

seded by the honest, homely translations of German plays; the Thomsons and Pliimtrees. They took the alarm and all joined in

crying

down

the

German drama;

the hired journalists followed

and John Bull was convinced that nothing could be so absurd as the exhibitions he had been zveeping over or had received with shouts of applause and peals of laughter. This done, the cunning manufacturers for the theatres had the poor Germans at their mercy; and for years whole scenes and whole plots were given to admiring audiences as English every inch and filled with true British patriotism, although the\ were in the

hue and

cry,

Mirror of Taste,

I,

p. 251,

:

German Drama /

stolen

in

English on Philadelphia Stage

from these very Dutchmen the

plagiarists

8i

had decried by

sound of trumpet. ^^'^

Other plays to note for this season were The African, play in three acts, by J. Coleman, April i8 and 19; The Caravan, or the Driver and His Dog, serio-comic romance, by Reynolds, :

March 23 and 26 Count of Narhonne, drama, by Jephson, from ;

romance Castle of Otranto, by Horace Walpole, Forty Thieves continued popular, Man and Wife,

the mysterious

March 27. comedy in

five acts,

by Samuel

J.

Arnold, March 14,

of the plays published in the Mirror of Taste.

v^^as

one

Mother Goose,

pantomimic operatic romance, was performed for the first time in America February 5, followed by four more performances. Besides these we note Gustavus Vasa, March 4, Mr. Wood playing

Gustavus, and

Tancred

and

Sigismnnda,

December

18,

French plays, or plays of French origin, were Child of Nature, March 26; Follies of a Day, February 12, and Lodoiska, romantic

drama in three acts, for the first time in Philadelphia. To these must be added Don Juan, tragic pantomime, December 2, of "No play ever made so deep which the Mirror of Taste says and so universal an impression as Don Juan. The merit of the Averse on principle to the play we original belongs to Moliere. have often felt ourselves indebted to it for relief from the modern :

play."

Shakespeare was represented by the following Catharine and Petrucchio, Hamlet, Henry IV, Jidius Cccsar, Macbeth, Merry Wives of Windsor, Othello, Richard IH, Romeo and :

Juliet, nine plays,

The

twelve performances in

publications of

German

all.

plays listed for 19 10 are Less-

Emilia Galotti, Bradford and Innskeep, Philadelphia, the same as mentioned above as appearing in the Mirror of Taste

ing's

and taken from the Theatrical Recorder, Vol.

I,

London, 1805.

Rinaldo Rinaldini, or the Great Banditti, a dramatized version of Vulpius' Rinaldo Rinaldini, by an American and citizen of

York, characterized by Wilkens as a

The History of Rinaldo "'

Dunlap,

p.

196.

servile adaptation

Rinaldini, Captain of Banditti.

New

from Trans-

German Drama

82

English on Philadelphia Stage

in

from the German of Vulpius.

lated

By

J.

Hinckley, Esq., Lon-

don, 1800; Rugantino, or the Bravo of Venice, a dramatized version of Zschokke's Abaellino referred to above.*"" The Port-

and other magazines of Philadelphia show no discussions

folio

of any of the plays of this season, but

we

note as a matter of

indirect interest in the Portfolio a review of

Sotheby's trans-

Wieland's Oheron, also a shorter review of the same with a biographical sketch of Wieland in the Boston Revieiv as well as the announcement of The Village Pastor and His lation of

Children (Aus the

German

worth,

1

dem Leben

910.

eines

La

of Augustus

armen Landpredigers).

Fontaine,

New

From

York, D. Long-

In the same magazine see also an announcement

of Goethe's Wahlvenvandschaften and the Nibelujigenlied}'^^ No plays appear to have been given at the Old Theatre and

none appeared

Olympic (Walnut Street) before 1812.

at the

Eighteenth Season, Chestnut Street Theatre, to April so, 18 1 1.

November

26, 1810,

December 21 and January 30; Of Age to Morrozv, December 22 and April 8 The Stranger, January 4 and February 23 The Robbers, February 15 and April 24; Abaellino, February 22 and 23, and There were eleven performances of Reconciliation, March 18. and one each from Schiller and Kotzebue from four plays, six

The German

plays for this season were Pizarro,

;

;

No new

Zschokke.

Wood

play of

German

origin appeared this season.

speaks of this season as unexampled and in proof number of plays. "We opened with

gives the proceeds of a

Way

to

Get Married, $782; Mrs. Twait's

first

appearance as

Lady Macbeth with Wood

for the first time as Macbeth, $1334; Foundling of the Forest, $814; Mrs. Beaumont acted fourteen nights at an average of $750; Fennel commenced with Lear,

$1348, and completed thirteen nights to $730 per night; Christmas night brought $1412 and New Year's night, $1449; Mr. ^^ Cf.

Wilkens, App. 144 and

'"Cf. Goodnight, pp. ences.

120,

146.

177-189, for these

and other interesting refer-

German Drama Galbraith

made

in

English on Philadelphia Stage

a very successful

The Revenge to $1226 and Beaumont also appeared for

first

appearance as Zanga in

Charles de

in

Moor

few nights

a

83

to $846.

as Rolla,

Mr.

Octavius

Cooke some of the Shakespeare and one, memorable made older English comedies prevailing more than during previous In Pi::arro, December 21, Beaumont played Rolla, and seasons. on January 30 Fennel for his last night chose the same role. The Stranger, January 4, is announced as the celebrated comedy in five acts, translated from the German of Kotzebue by Benjamin Thompson from the original and genuine copy as performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, upwards of one hunOn February 23 Wood appeared in dred and twenty nights. The Stranger for the first time. In The Robbers, February 15, Wood played Charles de Moor, and April 24 Galbraith, as menAbaellino, February 22, was chosen by Cone as tioned above. a benefit night, and it was repeated the next night with The Stranger, two German plays the same night. The Mirror of Taste at this time does not discuss the German plays, nor, in fact, any of the plays as performed this Stranger, etc." Beside the Beaumonts, Fennel, Cooper and the season a

names them with the

season, but merely

remark here and all

there, such as

the English pieces,

German roles of

or the French."

German

plays

many

:

*Tt

is

dates,

with only a casual

not possible to follow up

of which are adapted from the

The extent to which leading actors chose is shown in an account of John Hodg-

kinson and the American theatre appearing this year in the

Mirror of Taste. John Hodgkinson was born in 1765, came to America in 1792, and died a victim of the yellow fever in After the retirement of Dunlap he became the sole man1805. ager of the

New York

theatre.

mentioned Rolla, Gustavus Vasa,

Among his Don Carlos,

Stranger, Abaellino and Rinaldo, and of

ror of Taste says

"When

:

he played

leading roles are

Charles de Moor,

some of these the MirRomeo, Flodoardo,

Jaffier,

the eyes of the actor were no less eloquent than the language of the poet ... yet

it

was

him,

he

Charles de Moor,

his

suitable

to

in the parts

we

allude to, as being

thought himself unrivalled

...

most his

Flodoardo or his Osmond were almost be-

German Drama

84

in

English on Philadelphia Stage

yond praise; in these he has not had a competitor, but his chefd'anvre was certainly Captain Bertram in Fraternal Discord on the other hand he fell short of his general level in .

.

.

the Stranger

the

.

etc."

,

.

The most

serious criticism of any

Portfolio

of

German

play appeared in

The

namely, The Robbers.

1812,

repetition

of this play from season to season, and sometimes twice a season,

and the

fact that every great tragedian,

the Philadelphia

company or

whether a member of

a visitor, included

it

in his reper-

shows what a hold it had and what an effect it must have produced in spite of its extravagancies and the severest kind of criticism. It seems a pity that Schiller was known in those days only as the author of The Robbers and some of his other plays toire,

were not produced, but

The

concluding chapter. for

this question will

be considered in the

criticism in the Portfolio

may

speak

itself.

"Some have contended

The Robbers was

that the tragedy of

written to expose the dangerous principle of fatalism, but what-

ever

its

object

we

are clearly of opinion that the Deity

Charles

subject proper for theatrical address.

is

made

is

not a

the victim

of fraternal treachery and intrigue; abandoned by his father and

chosen commander of a band of outlaws and banditti.

Francis,

the younger son, having removed this obstacle to his aggrandize-

ment, next removes his father and seizes on his inheritance. the meantime Charles

relieves his father

from a dungeon,

In

detects

the deep laid conspiracy, and takes revenge on Francis, the agent

of

all

his misfortunes.

Now

prosperity, the smiles of his Amelia,

and the reconciliation of his father await to reward him; but it seems he is bound by his oath never to forsake his banditti, and this we presume is the fatalism to which he so often alludes. In dispair he murders Amelia and surrenders himself to justice.

What

merit there

is

either in the plot or execution of this tragedy,

to extort so large a portion of popular respect,

it is

The language German school, and

all

power

to imagine.

gance of the

upon nature and common

sense.

is

replete with

beyond our the extrava-

the sentiments are an outrage

Cordially do

opinion Charles expresses of himself

:

"Poor

we concur

fool

!

O

in the

shame hast ;

German Drama

in Englisli o)i

Philadelphia Stage

85

thou then presumptuously dared to wield Jove's thunder, and with thy aimless arm, to let tlie Titan scape, while the poor pigmy

go slave! 'tis not for thee to wield the sword of the most Here let me renounce the rash design; let me seek some cavern of the earth to hide my shame from the eye of day." These were sentiments that did honor to his character and prove how just an estimate we may sometimes form of our own merits. The following is a specimen of the German sublime, and we have no doubt that those who admire the sublimity will com-

suffers? high.

mend

Charles

likewise the piety of the passage.

cating vengeance on Francis

curse him.

.

this stone I

May

.

.

circle of

her works,

do not shed that parricide's blood,

till

if

from the fountain of his heart rise into air and dim The happy conceit of dimming the sun by is

formed, that the penalty invoked

and

The

inoffensive.

the blessed this

newly

a pledge given, so easily peris

no doubt perfectly harmless

sublimity of this passage

millstone ponderosity of the following one. Francis,

here upon

the foul vapour

sun."

discovered species of vapour,

impre-

Heaven I me like some

nature curse me, expel

from out the

horrible abortion

now

is

''Here in the face of

:

is

The

resolved by the father says to

—

—

"Go may God forgive you! I have forgiven!" Charles "And may my curse accompany that prayer and clog

exclaims, it

with a millstone's weight, that

seat of

.

.

.

never reach the mercy

How wonderfully pathetic is the dying speech How admirable was the expedient resolved

Heaven."

of Amelia.

may

it

guilt of his fellow robbers and assassins assuming whole the to himself! Taking Switzer by tlie hand by he exclaims, "These hands I have imbrued deep with blood that be mine offence not thine here, with this grasp, I take what is

by Charles, to purify the

mine own." and impiety

—

—

:

But these passages, abounding in nonsense as they do, are nothing in comparison to others. The .

.

.

following imprecation of Charles on his brother Francis

specimen prayer!

"O Judge

:

.

."

.

is

a

of heaven and earth, hear a murderer's

Charles

when he

is

tence on his brother Francis utters this

about to pronounce sen-

pompous blasphemy,

"I

stand commissioned here as a minister of heaven's Almighty king."

.

.

.

What

is

this

but to

call that

pure and holy being,

:

Gcruian

86

whom

Drama

Christians worship, the

assassins.

.

on Philadelphia Stage

in Eiujlish

God

of thieves, murderers and

.

.

FataHsm

is

said to be the principle, the folly of which the

author of this tragedy labors to expose. be

a thief, a

murderer and

Now

assassin.

Charles

is

admitted to

overcome the strong

to

disgust excited by the disclosure of such qualities, there must be

some counter-poising and generous

;

properties, he

abounding

in

filial

We

sionate to romantic excess.

is

therefore brave, intrepid

sensibility

are led to

;

kind and compas-

wonder how, under

the pressure of adverse incident, characters so contrarient can be

This the author ascribes to fatalism, and

united in one person.

represents his hero as obeying

date of heaven.

what he conceives

Charles, however,

when

it

man-

to be the

answers his purpose

does not seem so pertinaceously attached to

fatalism

as

his

was

the

defenders contend. It

requires

uncommon

charity to believe that

it

object of the author to expose the pernicious nature of fatalism.

Fatalism appears subordinate to other purposes; to

make

introduced

is

it

the character of Charles consistent and to give an air

of probability to his actions, and palliation to his

sins.

.

.

.

Robbery and murder, therefore, are not introduced to bring reproach upon fatalism; but fatalism is introduced to sanction robbery and murder. This is the artifice of the German drama the most abominable of all actions are always done from the Let us see in what language this pious, and sentimental robber will speak of his Creator. best of motives.

.

.

such ingenuity in the character of Charles compounded

laws are represented as

frail

delicate .

With

— human

and incapable of punishing the

guilty.

Some

latitude

is

always to be allowed

every amusement; but

it

in the

indulgence of

not demanding too great a sacrifice

is

that no play should have an

immoral tendency. The obligations

imposed both by the laws of our country and our religion, and the awful penalties annexed to the violation of both, are found inadequate securities to prevent the perpetration of vice.

would lead us to believe would be cheerfully given

This

that whatever aid genius could give to the support of such salutory pre-

cepts.

English on Philadelphia Stage

German Drama

in

For our mutual

tranquility

motives,

we might

expect a

quiet, if not

and

87

from higher

confederacy among men

of letters,

divines and magistrates for the repression of vice; but

no such confederacy

lamentable fact that of which

we have been speaking

it

is

a

The tragedy

exists.

a proof, both of the neces-

is

...

Is such a union and that no such union exists. subjects handles he when writer, public of a expect to it too much of this nature, that he would contribute all the aid of his talents

sity of

Yet the

and so just?

to enforce a principle so indispensable

author of this tragedy acts in professed violation of this maxim, and as an evidence of his sincerity he is constantly invoking the propitious regards of his Maker.

.

.

.

Suppose that a charanswer for

acter like Charles brought before the bar of justice to

where

his deeds,

demnation?

.

.

we

the law on which

is

found

shall

Charles does discover and

.

his con-

that often, too,

compunction and remorse. This was done by the author for the purpose of soothing our resentment and to excite compassion for his character. This we contend, so far from palliating, is an high aggravation of the blasphemy he utters. writer

mean

to assert

clearer perception of

him ? This

I

am

man

is

good and

more evil,

wise,

.

.

more

than the being

Does

.

just,

this

and has a

who

created

unwilling to suppose to have been his sentiments,

but they inevitably flow from the character he has drawn. The plain fact is that the author, shocked at the outline of the char-

wished to soften

acter,

it

down

to

our

must commit abominable deeds; but abhorrence

if

he

is

Charles,

liking.

it

will

What

sensible of such enormity.

there left for his actions?

it is

true,

undoubtedly palliate apology

is

Fatalism? forsooth! a conviction that

whatever he does the Diety enjoins.

We

can but congratulate

the wonderful ingenuity of this author that he has attempted

from reproach at the expense Maker! And after all, what is this wonderful fatalism by which Charles is bound so peremptory and indissoluble? It is contained in the magic of the following words. Charles "And now by this man's right hand I swear to your faithful commander till death. Now by my soul I will make a corpse of him

to rescue the character of his hero

of his

:

who

first

shows fear among you; and when

I

break

my

oath,

;

German Drama

88 be such all

my

is

English on Philadelphia Stage

from you!

fate

agreed." It

in

evident this

—

Are you agreed?" "All we are was the spell for when he relents and ;

one of his honorable fraternity thus expresses himself: "Didst thou not lift that hand to heaven and swear swear never to forsake us never to desert those who sinks into the

arms of

his Amelia,

—

—

—

had been thus true to thee?" Charles replies: " 'Tis done I fain would have gone back but he who rules in heaven has said, no ." An obligation entered into, to commit robbery and murder amongst thieves and outlaws, he is both willing and ;

.

.

anxious to retract, as his

own

conscience dictates; but he

seems, compelled by heaven to the performance of

of his fidelity he murders his Amelia. to suspect that this said

We

it,

and as a

test

Charles, this hero, lover, theologian,

name he

be called, amidst such a jumble of opposite perfections, never

common law

studied the

morality

.

.

.

of England, or the

(here follow a

common law

number of court

that illegal obligations are not binding in law). this

it

are inclined shrewdly

robber, sentimentalist, thief, murderer, or by whatever

may

is

kind,

if

it

had been seasonably imparted,

of

show Knowledge of

cases to

if

Charles had

consulted counsel, as in propriety he ought to have done, would

have saved him and Destiny much trouble, his father many

tears,

and to Amelia a husband, who would have given her evidence of affection not quite so equivocal as the poinard of an assassin. It is true, Charles seems to have an instinctive antipathy to a court, whom he denominates "poor ministers of earthly justice" in opposition to his

ignorance of the

heavenly

common

justice.

may

This

account for his

law, and the indispensable necessity

was that this hero must be free in order to be great, and murder the unoffending Amelia. "^'**Of plays which may be classified as possible or partial German plays we note Adelgitha, December i Adrian and Or ilia, December lo and March 13; Doubtful Son, or Secrets of a Palace, March 13; Ella Rosenberg, December 12 and February 15, and irhccl of Portune, February 25, seven performances of five different plays. The Doubtfid Son, by Dimond, author of

there to

;

^Portfolio,

New

Series,

VI;

1831.

German Drama

in

Enylish on Philadelphia Stage

89

Hero of the North, Hunter of the Alps, Adrian and Orilla, Foundling of the Forest, etc., was played for the first time this season. Of it the Mirror of Taste says: "Respecting the merits of this composition criticism

is

reduced to the same state of

unwilling acquiescence in the prevailing taste of the times

it

is

so often called upon to exercise in giving judgment upon most

of the productions of fancy, whether novel, romance or drama,

which now inundate Great Britain. All that can be said in favor of this whole class of compositions is that the authors write and

make money by them;

that the people are pleased to receive

them and

must take them as they come, whether

that the critic

he will or no."

^®^

Other plays to note for Gustavus Vasa, Dunlap's Perils, for the first

this season are

Budget of Blunders,

Roman Father and

Pilgrim or Love's

time in Philadelphia by Garrick, with additions

by Dryden and Kemble; The Gamester and Blue Beard.

Of

French origin we note Child of Nature, Distressed Mother, Don Juan, La Forct Noir, or The Natural Son, Richard Coeur de Lion, historical musical

drama

in three acts

from French of M.

Sedaine by Mr. Linley, Drury Lane, March Terror, dramatic romance from Moliere's play, Statue, by

i

;

also

Tale of

The Feast of

the

Henry Siddons.

Shakespeare

is

represented by Catharine and Petrucchio,

Henry IV, Part

King L^ar, four performances; Macbeth, two performances; Merchant of Venice, two performances; Othello, four performances; Richard HI, five

Coriolanus, Hamlet,

performances

;

Romeo and

two performances.

I;

Juliet, ten different plays

and twenty-

This large number of Shakespeare plays was

due to the visiting actors Fennel, Cooper and Cooke, especially the latter, in whom the Mirror of Taste glories and to whom it devotes

itself.

At the Old Theatre on South Street the circus under the management of Pepin and Brashard continued during the winter, and the announcements include Manfredi and family, Cayetano, with rope dancing, pantomime and dances. But from June 12 'Mirror of Taste, 181 1,

p. 55.

—

Gcniian

90

Drama

English on

i)i

PliilacIclpJiia

Slagc

August 14 a theatre was occupied by a regular tlieatre company under the name of the Apollo Theatre. It is described as situated near the back of the Old Play House and was announced to open with new scenery, etc. There were fortythree plays, and forty-nine performances in all, consisting for the most part of well known and other plays, with nothing new to note. One German play is found among them, namely. Lovers' to

Vows, June 21. The cast shows the following actors: Baron Wildenheim Mr. Cross; Count Cassel Mr. Webster; Anhalt Mr. Lindsley; Verdun Mr. Anderson; Frederick Mr. Morgan; Anna Wildenheim Mrs. Williams; Agatha Mrs. Bray;

—

a cottager's wife

— Mrs.

maid

—

— —

—Mrs.

— —

Morris; country

girl

— Miss

Roberts;

Sweet.

This makes for the season for

all

the theatres twelve per-

formances of seven different German plays.

Wilkens note a

lists

New York

no publications of plays for 181

1,

but

we may

publication of one of Kotzebue's novels, Zaida;

or the Dethronement of

Mohammed

IV, a novel founded on

his-

from the German of Augustus von Kotzebue. To which is added, The Beautiful Unknoivn, a dramatic history by the same author, by Charles Smith. ^^^ Outside of the criticism of Schiller's Robbers in the Portfolio already cited above no other references are noted in the magatoric

facts,

translated

zines of Philadelphia.^^^

Nineteenth Season, Chestnut Street Theatre, September to

The German

March

g,

1811,

14, 18.12.

plays for this season were

:

Of Age

Morrow, November

to

September 9 and February 29; Pizarro, September 13, I and December 18; Lovers' Vozvs, September 16; Stranger, September 30 and December 7; The Robbers, January 4; Abacilino,

October 9 and January 22. There were in all this season Chestnut Street Theatre eleven performances of six dif-

at the

"* Cf.

Wilkens, App. 150, and also 98. For notices of Goethe's Elective Affinities and Sotheby's translation of Wieland's Oberon and other interesting notices, cf., Goodnight, 190 to 204; **°

pp. 121, 122.

Gcriiuui

Drama

on Philadelphia Stage

in EnglisJi

91

four from Kotzebue, one from Schiller and one from Zschokke, the same as last season, except that Lovers' Vows appears in place of Reconciliation. In the season from

ferent plays,

we have noted

1805 to 18 10 of

German

and with

sons,

reaches

its

The

was

compared with the

season begins a gradual

last

18 13-18 14.

height in the season

these seasons of

plays

only seven or eight performances

plays, a decrease as

which

But just during

fewer performances the interest in German

livelier, as

increase in

earlier sea-

increase

manifested in the periodicals

number

is

still

existent.

partly due to an additional theatre,

namely, the Walnut Street Theatre,

known

at this time as the

Olympic, Apparently, at least judging from the number and variety of plays and the continued

visits

of noted actors, this season

would be considered as prosperous, as the last one but Wood draws a different picture, saying: "There were various causes which combined to render the season of 181 1 which now followed, particularly disastrous and unproductive. An extreme commercial

depression

time

prevailed,

chiefly

occa-

sioned by the threatening aspect of our relations with

Eng-

land,

which

in

and an excited

a few state

at

this

months

resulted

in

of public feeling, always unfavorable to

Then came

the success of theatrical representations. tion of the

declaration of war,

Richmond Theatre, with

its

the destruc-

dreadful consequences.

This awful event would alone have arrested for a season the It seemed to create a perfect panic, which deterred the largest portion of the audience for a long time from venturing into a crowd, either theatrical or other. But the striking incident of the season at Philadelphia arose from the McKenzie riots. On the day previous to a perform-

current of the best fortune.

ance fixed, when our bills announced Mr. McKenzie as Mordent and Mr. Dwyer as Cheverel, a counter announcement was circulated of Mr. McKenzie's first appearance at the Walnut Street

House

to be

opened that night."

Of Age

to

opera in two *°*

Cf.

Wood,

^^^

Morroiv, September

acts, translated Recollections,

9,

is

announced as a comic

from German Dcr IVildfang, and

etc., p.

144.

:

Gcnnan Drama

92

in EnglisJi

on Philadelphia Stage

on February 29 as a favorite musical farce. In Pizarro, September 13, McKenzie played Pizarro; Wood, Rolla, and Mrs. Wood, Cora. Mr. Cooper chose this same play for his benefit, November i, the second play for the evening being Ella Rosen-

had an engagement of eight nights this season and appeared as Rolla on December 18. In Lovers' Vows a new actor of the Haymarket Theatre, London, played Fred"The erick, and the Mirror of Taste has the short notice berg.

Payne

also

:

novelty of this

evening was a young actor of the name of Spiller

in the character of Frederick."

Spiller

is

then discussed, but not

The Stranger saw two performances, September 30 and December 7. It was the Thompson version from the original and genuine copy as performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. On September 30 Wood played The Stranger and on December 7 McCIeary. Abaellino maintained its popularity and was given October 9, Wood playing Flodoardo-Abaellino, and January 22 Cooper in the leading role. A special effort was made on October 9 to make it attractive, for there is announced in act 5 a Grand Gala in the Palace of the Doge of Venice, the

in

play.

which

introduced a concerto on the violin by Mr. January 12 The Robbers is announced for the season, with Wood as "Charles de Moor" and Gal-

will be

On

Gillingham.

only time this

braith as "Francis."

The second

play for the evening

was Ella

Rosenberg, by James Kenny.

The

plays

of

possible

Adelgitha, October

or

partial

German

origin

were

Boy, March 9; Ella Rosenberg,

11; Blind

October 25, November i, 4 and March 4; Fortress, March 11; Foundling of the Forest, September 18, December 30 and February 8; Hunter of the Alps, November 4; Dimond's Hero of the North,

for the

first

and Cumberland's Wheel of Fortune. were The Bridal Ring, by Reynolds, America; Lady of the Lake, January i, 181 2,

February

Other plays

18,

to note

time in

dramatic romance by John

:

Edmond

much admired poem of that name by Walter Scott, for the first time in America. It was a favorite of the season and saw seven performances. Eyre, from the

Oscar and Melvina, or the Llall of Fingall, grand heroic pantomime, taken from Ossian, October 2; Peasant Boy, tragedy in

Drama

Geriuan

in

English on Philadelphia Stage

93

five acts by Dimond, for the first time in America, March 14; Feudal Times, by Coleman, for the first time in Philadelphia, and Raymond and Agnes, or the Bleeding Nun, grand pantomime

No new

spectacle.

plays of French origin are to be noted.

Child

of Nature, Distressed Mother and Doyi Juan appear as usual.

Shakespeare

is

represented by Catharine and Petrucchio,

two performances Hamlet, three times Henry IV; King John, two performances Ki)ig Lear, two performances Macbeth, three times; Merchant of Venice, three times; Merry Wives of Windsor; Much Ado About Nothing; Othello, two performances; Richard HI, four times Romeo and Juliet, three times Tempest, two performances; twenty-nine performances of thirteen plays. The revival of Shakespeare begun last season was due to visiting actors, this season, Cooper, Cooke, Dwyer and Payne. I found no announcements from the Old Theatre this sea;

;

;

;

;

;

son except occasional references to miscellaneous entertainments such as Optical Illusions, etc. There are various indications of trouble, as in

181

1

we can

see

from the reference

cited

from Wood, and

a notice appeared announcing a postponement "owing

Mr. and Mrs. Wilmot, who refused to play, would be a disgrace to their talents to appear before such an audience as was there assembled." With this season

to the caprice of

alleging

it

another theatre early enters the field to share the patronage and becomes gradually a serious competitor of the Chestnut Street This is the Walnut Street Theatre, at this time known house. as

Wood's

Olympic.

the

McKenzie's appearance October

12, 181

1,

reference

at both

to

announcements

of

houses the same night, namely,

indicates that plays

were given

in 181

1,

but

I

found no plays earlier than January i, 18 12, when the following notice appeared "The public are respectfully informed that the :

Olympic Theatre

(late circus), being

now

finished in a style of

elegance never before equalled on the continent of America, will

open on the evening of January

i

with a great display of horse-

manship, after which the celebrated comedy of The Rivals. The following actors appear in the announcements: Tyler (New

York Theatre), Dwyer, McKenzie, Smalley (Covent Garden, London),

Webster,

Fisher

(Charleston

Theatre),

Wilmot,

German Drama

94

English on Philadelphia Stage

in

Thornton, Wilkie, Sonthey, Miss Wilmot, Miss Brebston, Mrs. Wilmot, Mrs. Bray, Mrs. Thornton, the Jacobs and Mestayers and Master Howslow. The performances took place on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, and after the end of

March 13, on Mondays, The season lasted from followed be 18 to May to by a short summer i, 12, January 15, season from June 29 to July 17.- The German plays for this season were: Abaellino, March 12, McKenzie in the leading role, Mrs. Wilmot as Rosamunda; Lovers' Vows, March 16, Mr. Dwyer as Frederick, and La Peroiise, April 10, 20 and 2y, as the Chestnut Street Theatre season,

Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

a grand pantomime, "got

up under the direction of Mr. Smalley,

with entire new scenery, dresses and decorations and the orig-

Co vent Garden Theatre." The plays of possible or partial German origin were Adelgitha, March 12; Adrian and Orilla, March 18, and Foundling of the Forest, March 10. Other plays to note were Battle of Lodi, or Osway and inal

music as performed

at

pantomime; Black Beard, the Pirate, nautical pantomime; Chivalry, or grand carousal, tournaments, combats on horseback, and the pantomimes O^z' and Don Quixote; Exile by Fr. Reynolds, founded on the no\Tl Exiles of Siberia, by Mme. French plays are represented by Don Juan, Escape of Gotten. Adelina, or The Robbers of the Pyrenees, a grand serio-comic pantomime from the Olympic Theatre, Paris, four hundred nights La Fille Hnssar, grand equestrian pantomime from Paris, two hundred nights. The cast shows the following characters: Walker (a Swedish sergeant). General Switzer, Prince Tresmandorf, Old Frederick, Julia (La Fille Hussar), the general's daughter. Guerre Onverte, or Ruse contre Ruse, a comedy from the French Impatient Lover, comedy, for the first time in America, from the French by a gentleman of this city; Telemachus on the Island of Calypso, from the French of Fenelon. Shakespeare is represented by As Yon Like It; Richard III, two performances; Romeo ami Jtdiet, and Winter's Tale, five performances. Summary for the season 1811-1812 for all the theatres: Lilla,

Days of

;

;

German

plays,

sixteen performances of seven different plays;

Gcniiaii

Drama

plays of possible

in EnglisJi

German

on Philadelphia Stage

95

sixteen performances of ten

origin,

different plays; Shakespeare, thirty-four

performances of

fifteen

different plays.

Announcements of various gardens become more regular Philadelphia Garden, Race, between Ninth and Tenth, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, Grand Admission on days of music, 12^ Italian Band, Jos. Letorno. cents, which is returnable in refreshments. Astolfi & Company announce the appearance of the Manfredi Company at their

during this season.

Columbia Garden, 461 Market Street. Admission, 25 cents, half of which is returned in refreshments. Besides music and the entertainment usual at such places there were pantomimes

ligliter

and

farces, but

no

definite

announcements appear.

Wilkens gives no publication for the year 1812.

No

plays

are discussed or referred to in the Philadelphia magazines out-

Mirror of Taste. The Polyanthos, of Boston, has several references to performances at the Boston Theatre of the

side

several

of

Kotzebue's plays,

Pizarro,

Lovers'

Vows and La

In an announcement in the Aurora, January 29, a sale of a stock of books is announced, and in the list

Pcyroiise}^" 1

81 2,

we

find

one hundred copies of Gessner's

Wood

Idylls.

speaks of the very great interest in

German

during the season of 181 3-1 81 4, but this greater interest to

have manifested

itself

even

much

Taste did not devote

earlier,

for,

plays

seems

while the Mirror of

space to the actual performances

at the theatre, the editor thought

it

worth while

to give the

promised serious discussion of the German drama.

The first The Life of Lessing, author of Emilia tragedy, which was one of the plays given by the

reference of this kind Galotti,

a

Mirror of Taste.

among

is

"It

the best critics in

appears to be the prevailing doctrine

Germany

that Lessing

the greatest of their dramatic authors. lately rivalled

more

by Goethe, Schiller or Kotzebue

likely to be justly decided

when

is

justly esteemed

Whether he has been will be a subject

those authors are no longer

"' For these references and many other interesting ones on erary matters, of. Goodnight, 205 to 224, pp. 122, 123.

German

lit-

Gcnnan Drama

96

living. ^"^

mans

The name

in

English on Philadelphia Stage

of Kotzebue particularly has, by the Ger-

themselves, been eminently treated with disrespect, while his

works have been translated into all the languages of civilized Europe and, in several instances, they have been everywhere, not ;

merely well, but rapturously received." Then follows the Life of Lcssing, taken chiefly from C. F. R. Vetterlein, Handbuch der poctischen Littcratnr dcr Dcutschcn.

And

later

under the

History of the Stage heading German Theatre: "Were it necessary to adhere to strict chronological order in the arrangement

would be

of this article,

it

French or the

German

difficult

German drama, however, has that

it

seems to

me

whether the

to determine

theatre had a right to precedence.

of late excited so

rather a claim to preference,

larly as its title to notice

commenced

at so

very

much more

The

interest

particu-

late a period.

For some time indeed the French theatre had no advantin the number of genius of its authors, and the two might be said to travel together in an equal pace. Corneille and Moliere, however, first gave a turn to the scales and the weight of Racine and Voltaire completely gave the age of the German, either

He

ascendant to the former." speaks of

German opera

then reviews Gottsched's efforts,

way

giving

to Italian, of the

Danish

Theatre, the Dutch Theatre in Amsterdam, and so on to the

Weimar, Berlin, Leipzig and Hamburg theatres. Of the latter, where the best actors were invited and Loewe gave public lessons on the art of pantomime, he says "This great undertaking gener:

ated a spirit of national emulation, contributed to encourage

and advance the drama; and, what was of much greater consequence as a national consideration, to overcome that aversion which most of the great entertained for productions in the German language."

He

Hamburg and

continues then to speak of Lessing coming to

of his

'Dramaturgic de Hamburg.'

labored to cure the rage of the tion of foreign productions.

they should truly feel

how

German

He was

"Lessing

writers for servile imitaparticularly desirous that

far the rules laid

"'This was written in 1811. Including Schiller doubt an inadvertance due to the grouping.

down by still

among

the ancients,

the living

is

no

German Drama and particularly by

in

English on Philadelphia Stage

Aristotle,

were practicable

genius informed him were by some too

much

—

rules

97

which

insisted upon,

his

and

by others too little. In 1768 the Hamburg enterprise failed and the company were reduced to the general fate of German actors, that of wandering from town to town; or, as it is called in England, strolling." Weisse is thus discussed and then "Lessing's Minna von Barnhelm is the best comedy in the German language. It is of the grave and sentimental kind of comedy, in which the characters carry on a war of generosity, from which the embarrassments

and implications of the

or

What shallow man

artificial ones, result.

when comparing

a

the witty

plot,

Henry Fielding

to a shallow book,

with some justice of the characters of the 'They may be easily seen through.'

general

want of

may

says,

be said

German drama

—

ing these defects, and the

not very intricate

in

Yet notwithstandfrom which the

vis coniica,

nature and situation of the particular characters almost of necessity preclude it, the play is pleasing and interesting to every reader.

There

is

in the constitution of the

thing so congenial

to

generosity,

human mind some-

disinterestedness

and mag-

nanimity, that characters founded on these qualities can scarcely fail to interest and please the majority of mankind, however contradictory to nature they

ment may condemn them.

may be, or however critical discernMuch of the art of the German

dramatists will be found, on consideration, to rest on the management of this part; not but there are occasional flows of comic humor in some of them of which the severity of criticism must

speak with praise. Lessing's tragedy Emilic dc Galotti constitutes an epoch in the the

ing

German drama. German critics is

Galotti

It is

not our business here to contest with

the correctness of their doctrine that Less-

the greatest of their dramatic poets, or that Emilie de is the best of their tragedies, or whether Goethe, Schiller

or Kotzebue are his equals, superiors or inferiors; but we are persuaded that those who shall read, or rather who shall study Emilie, allowing for the difference of genius which pervades each nation, and the kind of drama which must necessarily result, will

render justice to this tragedy.

Yet

in this play

may

be discovered

German Drama

98

English on Philadelphia Stage

in

the disadvantage of overstrained attachment to the Aristotelian

and

rules,

all

the old fanaticism about the unities. Lessing

formed

himself too scrupulously upon the model of the ancients and

wished to bring the German drama to a perfect conformity with it. The fable of Emilie therefore, as well as of his other tragedies,

more regular than happy. be observed of the German is

in

But there

force.

Countess of Orsina, the

.

Indeed

it

may

in general

the most defective both in beauty

another lady in this tragedy, the

is

last

.

pieces that the characters of the

much

female personages are by

and

.

betrayed and abandoned mistress of

whose character the poet has delineated with great is followed by a brief discussion of Sara Sampson, and the article ends with a brief reference to Goethe: "Next to the prince, ability."

This

Lessing in point of name

is

Goethe.

He

is

the author of Goets de

Berlichingen and Clavigo, two tragedies, as well as of a

The

Stella.

first

is

rather than a tragedy.

characters nor the is

much

entitled to

uncommon

In Clavigo, neither the delineation of the

management of

first two acts wrought up with

the plot in the

applause, but the last act

force.

drama

irregular in plan, a biography in dialogue

His other performance,

is

Stella,

is

strongly

marked with that enthusiastic sentiment and refined sensibility which in the Sorrows of Werthcr he has so warmly indulged and in point of immoral effect the drama is not an atom less repre;

hensible than the novel." ^^^

The editor of the Mirror of Taste, S. C. Carpenter, was a special champion of the actor Cooke, and Wood's comment is "During Cooke's engagement the spirit was suddenly aroused in Philadelphia to an uncom-

not without interest here

of criticism

mon

degree.

among

First

erable

Several persons, well skilled in the delicate branch

made

performances the subject of constant eulogy; eulogy which had neither variation nor limit.

of literature, critical

:

his

these stood S. C. Carpenter,

celebrity

who

acquired consid-

by his well-written notices published

'Mirror of Taste,'

Mirror of Taste,

now

II, pp.

first

established.

225 to 228.

.

.

.

in

He was

the

a

German Drama practised writer, with

and Hodgkinson."

English on Philadelphia Stage

in

most violent prejudices

in

99

favor of Cooke

^"^

The Chestnut

Street Theatre

in Philadelphia early,

Company

closed their season

on March

14, and repaired to Washington for a summer campaign, which, after a few nights, was brought to an untimely end by the declaration of war against England.

This, following so closely on continued disasters, nearly destroyed all

hope of the future.

The well-timed

care and liberality of Mr.

Foster, the British Minister, provided

some performers significantly,

omitted.

to

the

their

native

Baltimore

means

country.

autumn

for the return of

And Wood adds

season

of

1812

was

201

Charles F. Brede. Philadelphia.

(To be continued.)

'

Cf. Cf.

Wood, Wood,

Recollections, p.

172.

etc., p.

169.

GERMAN

THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

IN

{Printed at the Request of the National

German American

Alliance.)

In the recent reports of the Bureau of Education in ington, treating the subject of the teaching of in

American

schools,

colleges

and

Wash-

modern languages

universities,

there

is

ample

evidence of the necessity of directing the attention of our school

boards and college administrations to the perilous conditions of

now running riot in American eduimminent danger that the ill-informed demands

the educational method,

There

cation.

is

of the public for vocational training, at the expense of a funda-

mental education for

all,

may

rob the next generation of even

This vocationalism would

the essentials of efficient training.

reduce

all

education to the simple problem of acquiring a bread-

winning occupation and ignore the fundamentals of national culture.

In the darkness of this confusion of educational aims and to examine into the subjects it is highly necessary which make for true national culture and constitute the first duty of the state or municipality to the rising generation, and

purposes

same time to sound a warning to our educators against removing the foundations upon which our culture must always

at the

rest.

The experience of 2500 years literature are the corner-stones of cation.

Even

teaches us that language and

any

efficient

system of edu-

the most radical reformers of the last quarter of

the nineteenth century recognized the necessity of retaining a

mastery of modern cultural languages as subjects of instruction in the practical and technical schools (Realschulen und Technische Hochschulen).

But our American schoolmasters,

in their

misguided enthusiasm, threaten even the essentials of the national idiom as a means to cultural efficiency. The first and fundamental discipline of

mastery of that language (100)

which

is

the

all

means of

education

is

the

daily intercourse.

Gcnnaii

in the

Public ScJwols

In the Middle Ages this language

In later times

classes.

it

was the

In the case of Americans

it

all

civilized nations

—one

the educated

native language of the people.

has been English.

times, however, there have been

for

was Latin among

loi

In

all

recent

two mediums of communication

the native tongue, the other that

language, which serves as the key to the highest culture of the

world

at large.

This foreign language for centuries to the several

nations of Western civilization still

found

in

was French,

traces of which are

our diplomatic intercourse with foreign nations.

In the nineteenth century the language of international culture has shifted

from French

to

German, because the German modern intellectual

people have risen to the foremost place in life in all

The

the fields of science and letters. efficiency of

of every other nation

our American culture as of the culture is

measured by the mastery of the national

medium of national intercourse and of our science and literature. The study of this language sliould be the first language, the

aim of our national education. While the necessity of the study is theoretically recognized, English is one of the most poorly taught subjects in our American schools from the kinderof English

garten to the university.

The cause of

this is that in spite of our under the ban of the tradition of incompetent teaching and confused notions of the real pur-

educational progress,

we

pose of public education.

are

still

Any

trained scholar must blush,

when

he goes into the elementary schools and observes the lack of

knowledge and method displayed in the teaching of English. The writer can remember the time, when the great aim in the study of English was to commit to memory the thirty-two rules of Smith's English Grammar, while it seemed not to occur even to the teacher that these rules were intended to be put into practice in speaking and writing the language. The result was that pupils English the left the class with the same slipshod habit of incorrect speaking with which they entered. At present the demands upon the educated man are far more complex. The old grammars have been replaced by more up-to-date books, but the teaching is still far from satisfactory and fails to awaken a sense for language and to cultivate a habit

German

I02

in the

Public Scliools

To

of accurate thought and expression in daily Hfe.

tomed

to correct English the use of the

schools

is

simply abhorrent.

It

is

teachers in the colleges, that the

the

first

tongue have to be taught in the college

one accus-

language heard in our

common

experience of

principles of the

mother

The knowledge

classes.

of grammar, derivation and distinction of words, the essentials of S)mtax and style are but a hazy mass of ideas to the average

freshman entering college. have spent so many years is

a class of students,

One wonders how

in such fruitless preparation.

who form

There

a notable exception to this help-

and

lessness in the use of English

who have

the schools could

in general discipline, viz., those

been trained in Latin and Greek.

Students with the

training in strongly inflected languages exhibit a far better grasp

of the mother tongue as well as of other kindred subjects.

The conclusion

is

self-evident that the discipline of studying

a highly-developed ancient or

modern speech

cultivates the habit

of analytic logical thought and precise expression in the native tongue.

were no other argument for the study of Latin American schools, this one should be sufficient to

If there

and Greek

in

keep the classical languages in the school curriculum.

What

is

true of the disciplinary value of the study of Latin

and Greek applies also with equal force to German, which has a highly inflected structure. A further advantage for the English-speaking pupil in the study of

language having a

common

German

is

that

it is

a cognate

basic vocabulary with English

and

therefore enriching the speech content of the pupil's knowledge.

But there

German

is

a

more cogent argument

in the public schools of

of some of the subjects is

now

for the teaching of

America, even

taught.

at the exclusion

This reason

is

that

German

the key which unlocks the best sources of literary and scien-

tific

knowledge of our age.

A

national system of education should equip the pupil with

those branches of knowledge which are essential to the most efficient service in

any

trade, occupation or profession in

life.

fundamental general education are These languages, geography, history, elementary mathematics, hygiene, essential elements of a

and government.

The

subjects to be

most emphasized are the

German

in the

Public ScJwols

103

native speech and the great culture-bearing foreign languages,

geography and history.*

Much

confusion has come into our courses of study during

recent years by the reckless tampering of incompetent educators

with well-established ideals of education and by the clamor of the patronizing

and temporizing public in demanding of the state from the beginning of school work.

public vocational training It is

not the

first

business of the state or municipality to provide

vocational or trade education for the pupil

any more than to

The

provide free public schools of law or medicine. of the state

is

to give the pupil

mental training necessary to

— every boy and vocations.

all

wishes to furnish special vocational training, prepare for the trades,

let it

this

essential

If in

first

duty

—the funda-

the state then

which pupils may

offer such training in special trade

schools, after the fundamental education

In

girl

foreign

training

obtained.

is

languages

should

be

included in order to secure to every pupil in the plastic years a

command

of some speech outside of his native tongue, so that in

later years he

may

be able to enter with ease any calling in

That language or those languages should be well-educated

man

or

woman

selected,

life.

which every

come into The cultural value of depend upon the number of persons will need, in order to

touch with the best culture of his time. foreign languages does not

speaking that language in this or that country

medium

or

even

in

America, but that language which

is

important culture of the age.

depended upon the numbers

If

it

the

of persons speaking the foreign language, Italians,

Scandinavians,

Greeks, and tive

many

Russians,

others would

all

Poles,

of the most

Germans, French, Jews,

Hungarians.

be insisting that their respec-

tongues he taught in American schools, thus turning our

public schools into a confusion of tongues worse than that of

Babel. It is

men

a well-established and generally-recognized fact

among

of culture and scientific training, that the most essential

living language in the culture of our time

is

German.

The

cen-

* Such subjects as singing, drawing and gymnastics should be included as a matter of course in the grade schools.

I04

Gcruiaii in the Public Schools

tury just closed witnessed the greatest intellectual triumphs in

Germany and one

who

the knowledge of

German

is

indispensable to every

pretends to speak with first-hand authority in science,

literature or art.

The preceding generation put

the

modern languages, French

and German, into the secondary, high, and fitting, schools. This experiment has been tried and the result is dismal failure. The language preparation for college has become so inadequate that

some

colleges are already preparing to give elementary instruc-

tion in these languages in order to

make up

for the failures of

the preparatory schools.

Our American

students, in great

numbers of

cases,

do not

even learn to read the French and German languages they study,

much

less to

speak or write them, because they have not been

properly prepared before entering college, and have not the neces-

make up for this lack during the college years. In our high schools and fitting schools, w^hich prepare for college,

sary time to

is so arranged that the ancient languages, Latin and Greek, and mathematics, have the best attention, and what

the curriculum

time

is

left

for foreign languages

indifferent

way

It

clear,

is

to

is

devoted in a half-hearted,

French and German.

then, that

German, the most

essential

modern

language in our American culture, should be given more time

in

the curriculum and should be taught in the grade schools, while

young enough

an accurate pronunciation, and can learn to read and speak and write the language as a living speech, and not merely as a book language. Americans are notoriously careless in their study of modern languages, and the pupils are

to acquire

cut a sorry figure, often, in contact with their contemporaries in

European countries. In Europe the educated and cultivated man and woman can speak from one to three foreign languages with respectable accuracy; while the average college-bred American, after three to five years of foreign-language study, finds himself a

"dummy"

a European assembly or salon, unless, perchance, he meets a Surely, at this point of our foreigner who can speak English.

in

national education

if

anywhere,

we

need to apply the "efficiency

German The cause of our

test."

in the

Public Schools

105

inefficiency in languages

is

easily found.

great majority of teachers of French and German have never mastered the pronunciation or idiom of the languages

The

which they try to

teach.

In the proper teaching of foreign languages, much depends upon the phonetic process of producing tlie sounds of these languages, but phonetics in general, even as applied to English,

a terra incognita, a

Bohemian

forest,

to

is

most American edu-

cators.

Let the public schools, then, introduce the study of German and have it taught by teachers able to

into the grade schools,

speak and write both English and German, and

let it

be taught

with the avowed purpose of enabling the pupils to read and write German. This will be a paying investment, even if some of the

numerous non-essential vocational studies have to be removed from the course, to make way for the foreign language which will be a permanent factor of efficiency in any vocation, be it a trade or a learned profession.

In such a study of the foreign

tongues the pupil will acquire a true feeling or sense for language, and will enonnously facilitate his study of English, and will at the

same time have

the key to the best

eral fields of science, literature

thus acquire a

new

and

works

in the sev-

Young America will language, a new sense of

art.

appreciation of

by emancipating himself from the thraldom of a single speech. The sense of freedom possessed by one, who can converse in the tongues of other people, is a possession worthy of liberty,

the quest.

With such a real mastery of the German language, the medium of this age, our American youth could take up any calling with a sense of power which would increase manifold cultural

our efficiency as a people, and save us from that fatal insularism and provincialism now threatening the English Empire of today. This knowledge of German would bring our tradesmen, artisans, manufacturers, and what is of vast importance for our future

development the

—our

advanced

German

—

agricultural classes into intelligent touch with

methods which

have

raised

the

dismembered

nation of a hundred years ago to the forefront of the

German

io6

in the

civilized nations of the world.

Public Schools

An

adequate

knowledge and

application of the efficiency of the varied departments of

German

industry and trade would increase the efficiency and prosperity

of our great country to a degree of which

dreamed.

we have never

yet

This mastery of the German language in our schools

would give us a commanding position among the nations of the world, and elicit the respect which is due us as a people of the highest cultural ideals. It is

not enough for Philadelphia to repeat the experiment

made by Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and other cities of the but the movement should be nation-wide and persistent, in

already land,

order to secure our national prestige in the eyes of the civilized world.

M. D.

LEARNED.

REVIEWS.

AND THE

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH Anent some

Die hose Fran

studies in Palaestra

in

(Mayer &

It is

Miiller, Berlin).

der dcutschen Litteratur des Mittclaltcrs.

Franz Brietzmann. (Palaestra XLII.) Luther und der dentscJic Volksaberglauhe. (Palaestra LVI.) astonishing, not to say lamentable,

enlightened,

PUBLIC.

presumptions,

so-called

Von how

cultivated

Von

Erich Klingner.

little

our would-be

public

knows or

cares about the results of research going on at our great universities

on both sides of the Atlantic. This indifiference to serious study and research is fostered in no small degree by a class of popular lecturers and demagogues who retail the contents of cyclopaedias and loosely written books as the authoritative pronunciamento in all matters of literature, science and art to public audiences, thus thwarting the highest purpose of education.

In this enlightened (?) age of fads and fancies, when the subwoman's rights and the reign of superstition are on every

ject of

tongue, light,

it

would seem

fitting that the public, if-really

eager for more

should begin to ask, what have the special investigators of the

age to say on such subjects?

The two monographs, whose able information on these

two

conception of society was in In the

first

are given above, have valu-

titles

subjects, at a time,

its

when

the

modern

infancy.

work, Die hose Fran, Brietzmann publishes the text

of the two middle

High German poems of

the Strieker:

Von einem iihclen zuehe (Novelle) Von iibelen zvehen (Lehrgedicht), and accompanies the texts with a

critical

discussion of the language,

value and relation of the MSS., the rhyme, metre and style of the poems. It is the second part of the work which claims more gen(107)

I

oS

Rcviezvs

eral interest.

Here

the author traces the early relations of

woman

as wife and housewife in the literature of the twelfth, thirtcentli, fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. literature

we

see

how

At

the

band of

this

the wife, as the subordinate of her husband,

gradually revolts against his overlordship by seeking other secret, alliances, thus disturbing the conjugal harmony, and then by attempting to wrest from the husband, the "Pantoffel held," his illicit

dominion

in the

management of

emancipation, calling into play

all

the household.

This process of

the arts and artifices of the wife

and bringing down upon her head all the punishments which husband and priest can devise, forms the significant chapter in the history of the new woman in Germany and furnishes much for the modern suffragette to reflect upon, when she begins to burn castles and hurl bombs, lest she after all turn her liberty into lawlessness and her highly emancipated and idealized femininity into the hideous figure of "das bose Weib," so graphically drawn by the middle High Gemian poets six and seven centuries ago. We commend the study of the history of woman and the role she has played in literature as a wholesome substitute for the silly fad of "hiking" to solicit the much!" coveted "Votes for Women In the second of the two works mentioned by title above, Luther iind dcr deutsche Volksglanhe, Erich Klingner enters the wide field of German folklore and shows how popular superstition entered into the warp and woof of the character and work of Luther, the Those who may great reformer and demolisher of superstition. have read Grisar's Life of Luther will doubtless have felt as if the last word had been said on Luther's attitude toward superstition, but a perusal of Klingner's treatise will shed much new light on the subject.

Every student of Luther will recall the incidents in the relife, which he accepted as occurring under occult or mysterious circumstances, or as the results of evil powers of devil former's early

or witch.

The sources of Luther's superstition are varied. The most important was the rich folklore of the mining community in which In that age of belief in the devil and he spent his early years. witches as evil powers in the believe that his brother

who

life

of man,

it

was easy

for

him

to

died while yet a boy, met his death

through the magic arts of a witch.

;

Reviews

The

109

Bible, too, in his early years, tended, in its

overgrowth of

legend and tradition, to strengthen his faith in the popular beliefs while his

study of the church

Fathers and medinsval literature

favored the superstitious attitude of mind, and the antique pantheon filled his

for the

fancy with a

many demons

new order of

youthful imagination. practices of his

own

air,

From

of mythical divinities as a parallel

woods and water, which

time, he acquired an

powers of the black art. alchemy, magic were the spirit

infested his

mediaeval books and even from the

uncanny sense of the mag-

Astrology, astronomy, chiromancy,

ical

sciences,

which bewildered the minds

of that age.

The one

superstition,

which above

all

dominated the

life

of the

great reformer, was the belief in the devil, the one striking evidence

of which

room

growing inksplotch on the wall of Luther's Klingner's investigation shows that this Wartburg. the devil and his agents, witches and evil spirits, ready to is

the ever

at the

belief in

do their master's bidding, was ever present in the life of the man who gave the German people and the world a free Bible and the In his eagerness to dispel the one great superstiliberty to read it. tion, which cast its spell over his age, "den romischen Aberglauben," Luther lost sight of the baleful influences of minor demons, which in the form of popular superstitions ("aberglaubische Volksbrauche") beset him at every turn in life. The fact that he could not exorcise these divinities, which held him in their magic spell, only shows, that even the great liberator and reformer is in a serious sense the product of his environment.

Alts

und

iiher

Amerika.

Studicn iiber die kultur in den Vereinigten Von Dr. Adolf Rambeau, a. o.

Staaten von Nordamerika.

Professor der romanischen Sprachen an der Universitat Berlin. Lehrer des Englischen am Seminar fur orientalische Sprachen. Erste Serie. Marburg in Hessen. N. G. Elwcrtsche Verlags-

buchhandlung.

New

York.

G. E. Stechert !"

&

Co. &c. 19 12.

"Another book on America one will be inclined to exclaim, it is a real book on the subject, not the hastily caught impressions of a touring lecturer or exchange professor, but the observation and experience of a German professor, who, after teaching but this time

:

1 1

o

Reviews

in the best school in the city of Hamburg, spent many years in America as professor at one of the best universities, was also head of the department of modern languages in an institute of technology and director of language instruction in a state normal school and this too in different parts of the country south of Mason and Dixon's Line, in New England and in the Middle West and after all this returned to Germany to take up his labors again at the Prussian and Imperial capital, as a citizen of the German Empire.

—

—

—

This to begin with gives the author a great advantage over all who have written German books about America.

his predecessors,

Two

things might be expected of such a schoolman,

found

at last

1.

A

2.

A

his calling in his native land, after his

who

has

wanderings

familiarity with the conditions of the people he describes,

and

"Land of

it

sober,

unimpassioned judgment of the people of

this

the Future."

These two things characterize the book of Rambeau, and make by far the best account of American conditions yet printed in the

German language. The writer speaks

at

the facts, giving in very

many

ture of

every step with intimate knowledge of

American conditions

instances an almost photographic picas they actually

ductory chapter he shows, that the acterizes the

dominant race even

in

exi.st.

In the intro-

name "Yankee" no longer

New

char-

England, but has gradually

given place to the composite race idea expressed by the term "American,"

which includes the

of the world.

result of the

The author then

mixture of the many races

discusses the factors which have

entered into American culture, and to a large extent, determined the character of

American

institutions.

He

traces with a fane accur-

acy the development of the old College after the English model, and

German type, and first exUniversity. He then proceeds to Hopkins Johns in the Colleges, educations of American phases various discuss the the States. One of systems of the school and in Universities, the will no doubt, German readers, to interest greatest the chapters of Here, too, America. in and equality freedom be that dealing with the European will get some valuable hints as to the value of that the

new

University, modeled after the

emplified in the

1

Reviews

The

freedom.

1 1

discussion of the labor problem, with

its

"bosses"

and affords a good glimpse into the political The bitter and sweet of American life are well life of the people. summed up in chapters 4 and 5, where the author discusses "Ups and Downs in Life," "America is God's Own Country," "Pull," "Booms," "Shorn Lambs," "Labor Unions," "Religious DenominaIn the last chapter the tions," "College Fraternities," and the like. and "jobs"

is

timely,

author discusses,

among

other things, the important questions of

"Religious and Academic Liberty," and finds the religious sentiment

of the American people of to-day to be "undogmatic," the hard and fast lines

In between the denominations gradually disappearing. Academic freedom, the liberty is mostly on the side

the matter of

of the student, and this student liberty is taking the form of selfgovernment in many institutions. Academic liberty for the professor or teacher in America, in the German sense of the word, exists only with the most cramping limitations, inasmuch as the tenure of office is often very insecure, and local interests determine the sphere of liberty, particularly in economic questions, which the professor may exercise in his teaching. As regards academic administration, the author speaks very plainly of the incompetency of the boards of visitors, boards of trustees,

and similar bodies,

vision to the

work of

in giving intelligent direction

the colleges

and

and super-

universities.

In the matter of teaching, the author makes his most accurate

and authoritative statements, for est experience.

it

here that he has had his rich-

is

Uncomplimentary as

American education has been in

all

it

may

schools,

sound, the motto of

and

still

is

to a large

extent in Secondary and Elementary schools, that cleverly designated by the author as "Docendo discimus" "We learn by teachIt is this learning by teaching, not only in the schools, but in ing." other departments of life, that characterizes, alas too generally,

—

!

American procedure, in matters of education, in business, in politics, and in state-craft, and until we can reverse this order by a thorough going national system of educational discipline in all departments of life, including the trades, we shall be exposed to unfavorable comparison with our European neighbors. One cannot help noticing an undertone in the book which bespeaks the "Amerikamiide", and yet just this quality of the book saves it from the extravagant enthusiasm of the rosy-hued impres-

Reviews

112

sions of the hasty observer, and on the other hand, does not close

the eyes of the author to the things in

permanently alluring and great.

book for

its

accuracy of

detail.

America which are

really

The German reader can

and

trust the

;

:

(5crman Ctmerican Qnrtals r-

CONTINUATION OF THE QUARTERLY

AMERICA NA GE RMANICA A BI-MONTHLY DEVOTED TO THE COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE Historical, Literary,

and Cnmmercial

Linguistic, Educational OF

Relations

Germany and America ORGAN OF

The German American Historical Society The National Gertnan American Alliance The Union of Old German Students in America

EDITOR,

MARION DEXTER LEARNED, University of Pennsylvania.

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: H. C. G. Brandt, Hamilton College. H. Carpenter, Columbia University. H. Carruth,

Julius Goebel,

W w

J.

University of T. Hatfield,

Northwestern University.

W.

University of Kansas.

T. Hewett, Cornell University.

Hermann

A. R. Hohlfeld,

Starr W. Cutting,

Hugo

Collitz, Johns Hopkins University.

University of Wisconsin.

University of Chicago.

K. Schilling,

University of California.

Daniel K. Dodge. University of

Illinois.

H. Schmidt-VVartenberg, University of Chicago.

Illinois.

Hermann Schoenfeld,

A. B. Faust,

Columbian University. Calvin Thomas, Harvard University. Columbia University. H. S. White, Adolph Gerber, Late of Earlham College. Harvard University. Henry Wood, Johns Hopkins University. Cornell University.

KuNO Francke,

New

Series, Vol. ii.

Old

1913-

Series, Vol. 15.

published by

THE GERMAN AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY Fogel, Business Manager, College Hall, University of Pennsylvania

E. M.

Box

39,

iPbilaOelpbta. JScrlin

:

MAYER & MULLER

KEGAN

IRew

CARL

l^otft

A.

Xondon PAUL, TRENCH, TROBNER

ILclpsia

:

STERN

F. A.

:

BROCKHAUS parte

&

CO., Ltd.

H.

LbSOUDIER

Strubberg as Huntsman [After a Photograph in the possession of Oberst

von Strubberg, Erfurt.]

—