and _Des
Vetters Eckfenster_, In the works here named we have the best fruits of
Hoffmann's pen. And if instead of asking in the mistaken spirit of
competition which is now so much in vogue. What is Hoffmann's position
in literature? we ask rather, Has he written anything that deserves to
be read? we shall have already had our answer. The works here singled
out are worthy of being preserved and read; and of them _Das Majorat_
and _Meister Martin_ are perhaps entitled to be called the best, though
some German critics have mentioned _Meister Wacht_ along with the
former as having a claim to the first rank.

It is now time to take a glance at Hoffmann's satiric power. This was
launched principally against two classes of society; the one is that of
which his uncle Otto was a type, the man who is unreasonably obstinate
in defence of the conventionalities of life, and no less so in their
steady observance: the second class was that whose representatives
aroused Hoffmann's ire so greatly at Bamberg and Berlin "tea-circles,"
or "tea-sings"--those who coquetted with art in an unworthy or
frivolous manner. Against this latter class his irony and satiric wrath
were especially fierce, as may be read in _Berganza_, _Die Irrungen_,
the _Kreisleriana_, _Kater Murr_, _Signor Formica_, &c. Perhaps the
most amusing, for quiet humour, of the former class is _Die Brautwahl_.
The force of his satiric power lay in the skilful use of sudden
contrast. Hence it plays more frequently upon or near the surface, and
lacks the depth and pathos of true humour; but it is idle to expect
from a man what he hasn't got.

In so far as this author had any serious philosophical belief, it would
appear to have been that man was a slave of Chance, or Fate, or
Destiny, or whatever it may be called. Sometimes he is the plaything of
circumstances; sometimes a defenceless victim under "Fate's brazen
hand," or of "that Eternal Power which rules over us." The real
significance of life is summoned up in the statement that it is a
struggle between contending powers of good and evil, against both of
which man is equally helpless. He believed that whenever any good fell
to a man's lot there was always some evil lurking in ambush behind it,
or, to borrow his own expressive phrase, "the Devil must put his tail
upon everything." His further views are here quoted from _Der
Magnetiseur_:--

"We are knitted with all things without us, with all Nature, in such
close tie