l the great and magnificent prizes of life. A prince of
poets and philosophers, a historian and general, no triumph which he
had won had satisfied him. All earthly glory had become to him
fortuitous, uncertain and worthless, and he had kept only his iron
sense of duty incessantly active. His soul had grown up and out of the
dangerous habit of alternating between warm enthusiasm and sober
keenness of perception. Once he had idealized with poetic caprice some
individuals, and despised the masses that surrounded him. But in the
struggles of his life he lost all selfishness, he lost almost
everything which was personally dear to him; and at last came to set
little value upon the individual, while the need of living for the
whole grew stronger and stronger in him. With the most refined
selfishness he had desired the greatest things for himself, and
unselfishly at last he gave himself for the common good and the
happiness of the humble people. He had entered upon life as an
idealist, and even the most terrible experiences had not destroyed
these ideals but ennobled and purified them. He had sacrificed many
men for his State, but no one so completely as himself.

Such a phenomenon appeared unusual and great to his contemporaries; it
seems still greater to us who can trace even today in the character of
our people, in our political life, and in our art and literature, the
influence of his activities.

* * * *

THE LIFE OF THEODOR FONTANE

By WILLIAM A. COOPER, A.M.

Associate Professor of German, Leland Stanford Jr. University

Theodor Fontane was by both his parents a descendant of French
Huguenots. His grandfather Fontane, while teaching the princes of
Prussia the art of drawing, won the friendship of Queen Luise, who
later appointed him her private secretary. Our poet's father, Louis
Fontane, served his apprenticeship as an apothecary in Berlin. In 1818
the stately Gascon married Emilie Labry, whose ancestors had come from
the Cevennes, not far from the region whence the Fontanes had
emigrated to Germany. The young couple moved to Neu-Ruppin, where they
bought an apothecary's shop. Here Theodor was born on the thirtieth of
December, 1819.

Louis Fontane was irresponsible and fantastic, full of _bonhomie_, and
an engaging story teller. He possessed a "stupendous" fund of
anecdotes of Napoleon and his marshals, and told them with such charm
that his son acquired an unusual fondness for