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Mondor - Yes: I beg pardon. It is true that in my zeal I have failed in respect; but the past made me suspicious of the future.

Damis-A hundred crowns? Guess! More or less, it does not matter. We'll share the prizes I shall soon win.

Mondor - The prizes?

Damis-Yes: the silver or gold which France distributes in different places to whoever composes the best verses. I have competed everywhere,- at Paris, Rouen, Toulouse, Marseilles: everywhere I've done wonders!

Mondor -Ah! so well that Paris will pay the board, Toulouse the barber, Marseilles the draper, and the Devil my wages! Damis- You doubt that I will win everywhere?

Mondor-No, doubt nothing; but haven't you a better security for the tailor and the landlord?.

Damis-Yes, indeed: the noblest kind of security. security. The Théâtre Français is to give my play to-day. My secret is safe. Except one actor and yourself, no one in the world knows it is mine. [Showing the letter which Mondor brought him.] This very evening they play it-this says so. To-day my talents are revealed to Europe. I have taken the first steps toward immortality. Dear friend, how much this great day means to me! Another hope –

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Damis- An adorable girl, only daughter, rare, famous, clever, incomparable!

Mondor-What do you hope from this rare girl?

Damis—If I triumph to-day, to-morrow I can be her husband. [Mondor wants to go.] To-morrow Where are you going,

Mondor?

Mondor To seek a master.

Damis-Eh! Why am I so suddenly judged unworthy?
Mondor Monsieur, air is very poor nourishment.

Damis - Who wants you to live on air? Are you mad?
Mondor-Not at all.

What, you revolt on the eve
Since you force me to details

Damis-Faith, you're not wise! at the very moment of harvest? unworthy of me, let us take a clear view of the state of my fortunes, past and present. The payment of your wages is already sure: one part to-night and the rest the day after to-morrow. will succeed; I will marry a scholarly woman. That is the beautiful future before me. Generous young eaglets, worthy their race,

I

will fly after us. If we have three, we will bequeath one to comedy, one to tragedy, and the third to lyricism. These three possess the whole stage. And my spouse and I, if we uttered each year, I but a half-poem, she but a single novel, would draw crowds from all sides. Behold gold and silver rolling through the house, and our united intellects levying from theatre and press!

Mondor-In self-esteem you are a rare man, and on that pillow you nap soundly. But the noise of hissing may wake you. Damis [forcing him to take the paper]-Go! My embarrassments merit some consideration. One play announced, another in my head; one in which I am playing, and another all ready to read! This is having the mind occupied.

Mondor - An inheritance and lots of time thrown away [He goes, and Damis returns to the house.]

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Once saw I clear, now dimmed the view;

Once wise was I, but now I'm blate.

I, step by step, have reached the pass

Which may be shunned by fool nor sage,

To go, where know I not, alas!

Adieu, Piron, and bon voyage!

AUGUST VON PLATEN

(1796-1835)

T IS by reason rather of his exquisite perfection of form than of his poetic inspiration, that Count Platen maintained his distinguished place among the poets of Germany. The service which he rendered to German literature was this: that amid the mad rush of Romanticism towards banal sentimentality and fastastic formlessness, he stood firm to the ideal of pure and lofty thoughts cast in a chastened and classic form. The softer emotions rarely find voice in his verse; but human dignity, profound sorrow, manly independence, and fierce hatred of oppression, have thrilling utterance. He strove, like Goethe, to live in a serene atmosphere of intellect, disdaining popular tastes and vulgar sentiments. Truth was his Muse, and his poetry reflects her cold and crystal beauty.

Count August von Platen-Hallermund was born of a wealthy and noble family at Ansbach, on October 24th, 1796. He was educated at the cadet academy of Munich, and at the age of eighteen became a lieutenant in the Bavarian army. His part in the campaign of 1815 was a tame one, and garrison life was irksome to him. He spent most of his time on furlough, studying philosophy and philology at the universities of Würzburg and Erlangen. Schelling exercised an austere influence upon his thought.

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AUGUST VON PLATEN

In 1821 Platen came before the public as a poet, with his exquisite and inimitable 'Ghaselen' (Gazels),- poems in the Persian manner; and in another book of verse called 'Lyrische Blätter' (Lyric Leaves). In 1823 came a second volume of 'Gazels.' These poems elicited warm words of praise from Goethe, and attracted the attention of poets generally. It was the refinement of thought, and the easy precision with which a difficult verse-form was handled, that astonished and fascinated. For purposes of dogmatic classification Platen may be enrolled among the Romantic poets; but except in his choice of exotic material he has little in common with them. Limpid

clearness and severe structural beauty distinguish even his earliest work, and these qualities were at last elevated by him into a gospel of art. Few poets have taken their calling more seriously, or held their gifts more sacred.

In 1824 Platen visited Venice; and the noble 'Sonnets from Venice' show how his talents were stimulated there. Thenceforth his life was exclusively devoted to scholarly pursuits and the work of poetic creation. He was filled with glowing indignation at the bungling of the later Romanticists, the lyrics of empty words, the novels of mass without matter, and the tasteless "tragedies of fate." This indignation was concentrated in a comedy after the manner of Aristophanes, 'Die Verhängnissvolle Gabel' (The Fatal Fork). The cordial recognition which Platen received from Goethe, Uhland, and Rückert raised his already well-developed self-esteem to the fighting point. He became a poet militant, and so arose the unfortunate literary war with Immermann and Heine. A second Aristophanic comedy was directed against Immermann,-'Der Romantische Edipus' (The Romantic Edipus): Immermann had ridiculed the 'Gazels'; and Heine, who had joined in the ridicule, was included in the satire. Heine's reply, deliciously witty but bitterly personal, appeared in the 'Reisebilder' (Travel-Pictures).

The indifference with which literary Germany generally received Platen's enthusiasm for dignity of thought and purity of form increased his wrath, and he left his native land in disgust. In Florence, Rome, and Naples he found more congenial surroundings. Goethe blamed him for not forgetting the pettinesses of German literary strife amid such scenes. Nevertheless these years were the happiest of his life. Ballads, lyrics, odes, and dramas swelled the volume of his contributions to literature. He wrote also a perfunctory History of the Kingdom of Naples'; and a charming fairy epic, 'Die Abassiden,' written in 1830 but not published until 1834. His last drama was the 'League of Cambray.' The flaming 'Polenlieder' (Songs of the Poles), which gave restrained but powerful expression to his love of freedom, and his hatred of the Czar, were forbidden by the censor, and did not appear until after the poet's death. It was this act of tyranny that elicited the glowing stanzas with which the series comes to an end.

Platen returned to Germany in 1832, and in the following year brought out the first complete edition of his works. His poems won new admirers constantly, and long before his death he had ceased to be the voice of one crying in the wilderness. In 1834 he went back to Italy; and on December 5th, 1835, he died in Sicily.

Platen was an alien in his native land. It was not only that he was rejected: he was not himself in touch with his time. Indeed, it

is his chief merit that he checked the movement that threatened literary chaos. After his death, enthusiastic admiration went almost as far in the upward direction as indifference had sunk in the downward. To-day we recognize in Platen the "sculptor in words," the master of form, the stickler for truth, and the sincere thinker, who, unable to reconcile himself to vulgar views of life, died disappointed and in exile, rather

"Than the yoke of blind plebeian hatred bear."

[This, and other selections from Longfellow's Poets and Poetry of Europe,' are reprinted with the approval of Houghton, Mifflin & Co., publishers.]

REMORSE

ow I started up in the night, in the night,

How Drawn on without rest or reprieval!

The streets, with their watchmen, were lost to my sight,

As I wandered so light

In the night, in the night,

Through the gate with the arch mediæval.

The mill-brook rushed through the rocky height,
I leaned o'er the bridge in my yearning;
Deep under me watched I the waves in their flight,
As they glided so light

In the night, in the night,

Yet backward not one was returning.

O'erhead were revolving, so countless and bright,

The stars in melodious existence;

And with them the moon, more serenely bedight;
They sparkled so light

In the night, in the night,

Through the magical, measureless distance.

And upward I gazed in the night, in the night,
And again on the waves in their fleeting;
Ah, woe! thou hast wasted thy days in delight!
Now silence thou, light

In the night, in the night,

The remorse in thy heart that is beating.

Translation of Henry W. Longfellow.

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