is true that Hoffmann never did complete a long work, except
the _Elixiere_, and this work, as there has been occasion to point out,
consists of two disjointed parts. One of the things that strike us most
in reading his books is the peculiar mixture of the real and the
unreal, of matters appertaining to actual life and of fantasies born
only of the imagination. Very often the imagination would be called by
most people a diseased imagination; but it is not always so, sometimes
it is the poet's imagination. Hence, from this blending or close
alternation of reality with what is not of the earth--hence came his
love for fairy tales, tales in which we meet with kobolds, imps,
witches, little monsters of all kinds--the spirits and apparitions in
fact which used to haunt his excited fancy in such a strange way.
Several of these are poetic creatures, whom he handles in a light,
graceful, and pleasing style (_Goldener Topf_, _Nussknacker_, _Das
fremde Kind_, &c.); others, on the other hand, are drawn in horrible
and unearthly colours and awaken the sentiments of awe and dread. What
he loved especially to dwell upon was the "night side of natural
science," the puzzling relations between the psychic and the physical
principles both in man and in Nature. Hence such states as
somnambulism, magnetism, dreams, dark forebodings of the terrible,
inhuman passions, and such things as automata and vampyres, had for him
an insuperable attraction. Insanity was a mystery that haunted his
thoughts for years: it figures largely in _Die Elixiere_ and _Der
Sandmann_; and in the third part of _Kater Murr_ it was his intention
to represent Kreisler's battle with adverse circumstances as
culminating in insanity. Handling these, and states and situations
equally hideous, fantastic, and grotesque, with extraordinary clearness
and precision both of thought and of language, considering the often
misty nature of the subjects he treats of, and pouring upon the vivid
pictures he conjures up the brightness of his wit and the exuberant
gaiety and grace of his fancy, he succeeds in creating scenes,
situations, and characters which seem verily instinct with real life.
This end was attained principally by the true genius he displayed in
perception, apprehension, and description. His graphic descriptive
power is that which mainly procured him his wide-reaching fame during
his own lifetime, not only in Germany but also in France, and is that
which principally give