(1905) we have taken the story of a mother who for blind love of her
son becomes an incendiary--a story which reveals in high degree the
peculiar quality of this authoress. The scenes of Clara Viebig's life
and work are on a line running from west to east; the corresponding
line for the following writers runs from north to south. Count Eduard
Keyserling and Thomas Mann are both of North German extraction and have
both settled in Munich; both are moreover very similar in their high
esthetic culture and in a certain languid aristocracy of feeling and
ironical reticence; and their literary models (Dickens, Thackeray,
Balzac, Fontane) were the same.

Count Keyserling (born in 1858 at Pelsz-Paddernin in Curland) had the
same experience as Fontane, in that he was late in developing his
particular style in narrative composition. When in the eighties he made
his first appearance in literary circles in Munich, he essayed very
naturalistic novels; his first, _Rosa Herz_ (1885) deals with the fate
of a poor victim of seduction. Thereupon followed a series of dramas
(_Spring Sacrifice_, 1899, _Stupid Jack_, 1901, _Peter Hawel_, 1903)
which in their delicate atmosphere, their finished technique, and the
interest of their dialogue deserved more attention than they received.
Not until after the dawn of the new century did the author find his
true vocation in the telling of tales of his home country. _Beata and
Mamie_ (1903) and _Dumala_ (1908) are the great novels; _Muggy Days_
(1906) and _Gay Hearts_ (1909) are collections of short stories. All
revolve in the sphere of the East German country gentry, in their white
castles reflected in lakes, in their garden pavilions, and on the broad
tracts of their hunting preserves. It is always the same people with
whom we have to do: imperious counts who wish to be admired and to
enjoy themselves, and whose life consists of hunting, gaming, adultery,
duelling, and ultimate return to impeccable correctness in their
peaceful homes. In this world, "hung with fine white curtains," there
are women with the fine pallor of the old families, they also full of
longing for freshly pulsating life. When, however, the yearned-for
great experience finally knocks at their door, they draw back
disappointed. Thus it was with young Countess Billy when she eloped
with her Polish cousin.

It is not this writer's business to preach new, revolutionary ideas and
views. He narrates typical cases with the dignified