XVI. produced so deep an impression on him, that he commenced an address to the National Convention, which was, however, outrun by rapid events. Like Wieland, he saw no hope but in a dictatorship. Such being the position of the leading minds, we are not to wonder if we find them pursuing their avocations just as if nothing were going on in France or elsewhere. Weimar could play no part in European politics. The men of Weimar had. their part to play in Literature, through which they saw a possible regeneration. Believing in the potent efficacy of culture, they devoted themselves with patriotism to that. A glance at the condition of German Literature will show how patriotism had noble work to do in such a cause. The Leipsic Fair was a rival to our Minerva Press; Chivalry-romances, Robber-stories and Specter-romances, old German superstitions, Augustus Lafontaine's sentimental family-pictures, and Plays of the Sturm und Drang style, swarmed into the sacred places of Art, like another invasion of the Goths. On the stage Kotzebue was king. The "Stranger" was filling every theater, and moving the sensibilities of a too readily moved pit. Klopstock was becoming more and more oracular, less and less poetical. Jean Paul indeed gave signs of power and originality; but except Goethe and Schiller, Voss, who had written his "Luise" and translated Homer, alone seemed likely to form the chief of a school of which the nation might be proud. It was in this state of things that Schiller conceived the plan of a periodical,- Die Horen, memorable in many ways to all students of German Literature. Goethe, Herder, Kant, Fichte, the Humboldts, Klopstock, Jacobi, Engel, Meyer, Garve, Matthisson, and others, were to form a phalanx whose irresistible might should speedily give them possession of the land. Such was the undertaking which formed the first link in the friendship of Goethe and Schiller. JONAS LIE. LIE, JONAS LAURITZ IDEMIL, a noted Norwegian novelist and poet; born at Hongsound, near Drammen, Norway, November 6, 1833. He was educated at Bergen and the University of Christiania, adopted the legal profession, and began practice in Kongsvinger. He published a volume of "Poems" in 1866 and not long after gave up his profession, and for a short time was a journalist in Christiania. In 1871 he left Norway, and has since lived abroad, his winter residence being in Paris. In 1870 appeared his first story, "Den Fremsynte" ("The Man with the Second Sight"); in 1871, a volume of short stories, "Fortaellinger ;" and in 1872 a novel, "Tremasteren Fremtiden" ("The Three-master The Future""). His subsequent works are "Lodsen og hans Hustru" ("The Pilot and his Wife"), a novel which has been extensively translated (1874); "Faustina Strozzi," a drama in verse (1876); "Thomas Ross (1878); "Adam Schrader" (1879); "Grabow's Cat," a comedy (1880); "Rutland" (1881); "Gaa paa" ("Go Ahead") (1882); "Livsslaven" ("The Slave for Life") (1883); "Familjen paa Gilje" ("The Family at Gilje") (1883); "En Malström " ("A Whirlpool") (1883); "Kommandörens Döttre" ("The Commodore's Daughters") (1886); "Et Samlir" ("A Wedded Life") (1887); "Maisa Jons" (1888); "Onde Magter" ("Evil Forces ") (1890); "Otte Fortaellinger," a volume of stories (1890); "Poems" (1890); "Trold," a collection of sea stories (1891); "Niobe " (1894); "Naar Sol gaar ned" ("At Sunset ") (1895); "Dyre Rein" (1896). His life has been written by Arne Garborg, "Jonas Lie, en Udviklingshistorie" (1893). THE TEMPTATION. (From "Niobe.") Ir was late before the doctor started homewards. He had not been able to convince himself that it was a case of diphtheria, but had taken all necessary precautions to isolate the case and prevent contagion. VOL. XIII.-30 He was jogging along in his kariol down the ill-kept by-road accompanied by one of the people from the farm, who carried. a lantern and led the horse by the rein, while the doctor was enforcing upon him the importance of following the directions he had given with regard to the sick child. There was no moonlight at this time of the night-it was so dark he could scarcely see the reins, only now and then a glimpse of a half-melted snowdrift. He did not expect to get home till after one. It had been a relief to him that his thoughts had been occupied by the threatening epidemic, and the precautions which had to be taken to quell it in its birth. On reaching the main road the man left him; the doctor pulled his muffler higher up round his neck, and fell into a reverie, hearing only in the darkness the slow even trot of his horse, and now and then the clash of his hoofs. . . . Kjel's stiff, terror-stricken face appeared again before him. . . ... He had seen despair written on it, had read in it something which meant "break or bear." And this point, to which he continually reverted, — the temptation he was exposed to in the savings bank.. This continually increasing anxiety which he tried to shake off, but which always returned accompanied by still further reasons, by still greater probabilities. Kjel's firm belief in being able to overcome all difficulties — his sanguineness. . . . No doubt hard driven - worried to death; perhaps the question of means of subsistence staring him every day in the face. One would not be human it would not be Kjel, if a slight abuse in granting money. . . . "Oh! oh!" he groaned and leant forwards, "Oh, Oh!" If Kjel smashed. The thought had up till then stood before him as something terrible, overwhelming. . . . After all what did it really amount to? an ordinary failure such as happens everywhere in the commercial world in bad times. . . he might have had to give up his house and his position and find something in a subordinate one, sufficient to live upon. Well, that would not kill The doctor stared blankly before him as at a dark wall, bis fears increasing every moment . . . found guilty of fraudulent practices against the bank which had been intrusted to him seized, arrested, condemned to a convict prison. "And we the convict's father, the convict's mother, the convict's sisters and brothers, wife and child." He clenched his teeth and shook his fists. "Only thirty-five thousand, and he would be on his legs again would not be a convict ... not a "Whoa, whoa!" . . The doctor reined in his horse and sat lost in thought. . "With that everything could be got over .. with that " ... He groaned as he leant forward in his kariol. "Nonsense... Am I mad? Why the devil has the horse stopped here in the middle of the road? Gee up!" and he gave the horse a slash with the whip. "Only thirty-five thousand! Kjel looked so frightfully worried." "Convict life is no joke Little Baard would be turned out of his nest into poverty. . . .' The roar of the waterfall near the mill began in the darkness to mingle with his thoughts. cheat "And Kjel who had gone about there so secure and safe, and so much liked among them . . . now - swindler the millstone which would drag them all to the bottom-impostor, forger. The savings bank left like an empty gap in the parish after him. . . . The devil knows what I wanted with this cigar." The kariol rolled along at a rattling pace, while the doctor now and then reined in the horse, and then again urged it on with the whip. The horse soon fell into an even, but quick, sharp trot. Near the bridge by the mill, the horse, as was its wont, slackened its pace. Suddenly, in the darkness among the shavings, gleamed the phosphorescent streak of a couple of matches, which had been lighted and thrown down in passing. The doctor took a pull or two at his lighted cigar. "Now" He turned hurriedly round, staring in the direction in which he had thrown the matches. "Nonsense that 's the look-out of the wind and the shav The horse now set out with its usual eagerness homewards. "I really don't see why any one should cry, if an accident did occur," he muttered, as he drove up the hill . . . "the insurance company - the bank — abstract personalities, without any blood in them. . . who have no Borvig and no Bente to wring their hands and die of shame and sorrow Massy to hide the fact that her brother is a convict. . . . "Nonsense. . . All bosh and nonsense. my senses? . . no little .. Have I lost The cigar which he had chewed to pieces he spat out near the fence outside his house. He called the farm lad to take the horse and asked for a lantern and a light. He had to go into the small disinfecting room in one of the out-houses and disinfect himself after his visit to the diphtheric patient. He stood in the carbolized air washing his hands. "If anything should happen feel anxious. " he thought, beginning to "Well if anything should happen — Kjel is in town. "I think there is something wrong with me to-night-a regular fever. . . standing here and reasoning as if I were the worst. Two miserable matches, which..." he poohpoohed the idea! . . . "This meeting with Kjel has upset me altogether." ... The doctor woke up with a start, as if suddenly roused from a heavy uneasy sleep or dream, by a gleam of light from the window. . . . A sudden terror took possession of him. The perspiration stood on his brow. He did not lift his head from the pillow but lay looking at the blind. It became dark again and the blind could no longer be seen; then it lightened up again - by fits and starts. "Stuff and nonsense - the moon, of course, which has He felt an irresistible desire to get up and look out of the window in the yellow room; but he felt he dared not. |