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of our higher nature which constitutes true artistic success.
Dickens, too, has at length chosen the real life of the working-classes in
their relations to those above them as a subject for his masterly pen.
Dombey and Son will not readily be forgotten.
It was necessary to take a comprehensive view of novel literature,
and--although in the merest outline--still to look at it in its historical
connection, in order to find the suitable niche for a book which claims
an important place in its European development; for it is precisely in
the class last described--that which undertakes faithfully, and yet in a
poetic spirit, to represent the real condition of our most peculiar and

intimate social relations--that our author has chosen to enroll himself.
With what a full appreciation of this high end, and with what patriotic
enthusiasm he has entered on his task, the admirable dedication of the
work at once declares, which is addressed to a talented and
liberal-minded prince, deservedly beloved and honored throughout
Germany. In the work itself, besides, there occur repeated pictures of
these relations, which display at once a clear comprehension of the
social problem, and a poetic power which keeps pace with the power of
life-like description. To come more closely to the point, however, what
is that reality which is exhibited in the story of our novel? We should
very inadequately describe it were we to say, the nobility of labor and
the duties of property, particularly those of the proprietor of land. This
is certainly the key-note of the whole conservative-social, or Dickens
school, to which the novel belongs. It is not, however, the conflict
between rich and poor, between labor and capital in general, and
between manufacturers and their people in particular, whose natural
course is here detailed. And this is a point which an English reader
must above all keep clearly in view. He will otherwise altogether fail to
understand the author's purpose; for it is just here that the entirely
different blending of the social masses in England and in Germany is
displayed. We have here the conflict between the feudal system and
that class of industrial and wealthy persons, together with the majority
of the educated public functionaries, who constitute in Germany the
citizen-class. Before the fall of the Prussian monarchy in 1807, the
noble families--for the most part hereditary knights (Herrn von)--almost
entirely monopolized the governmental and higher municipal posts, and
a considerable portion of the peasantry were under servitude to them as
feudal superiors. The numbers of the lesser nobility--in consequence of
the right of every nobleman's son, of whatever grade, to bear his
father's title--were so great, and since the introduction by the great
Elector,[A] and his royal successors, of the new system of taxation,
their revenues had become so small, that they considered themselves
entitled to the monopoly of all the higher offices of state, and regarded
every citizen of culture, fortune, and consideration with jealousy, as an
upstart. The new monarchic constitution of 1808-12, which has
immortalized the names of Frederick William III., and of his ministers,
Stein and Hardenberg, altered this system, and abolished the vassalage

and feudal service of the peasants in those provinces that lie to the east
of the Elbe. The fruits of this wise act of social reform were soon
apparent, not only in the increase of prosperity and of the population,
but also in that steady and progressive elevation of the national spirit
which alone made it possible in 1813-14 for the house of Hohenzollern
to raise the monarchy to the first rank among the European powers.
[Footnote A: The friend and brother-in-law of William III.]
The further development in Prussia of political freedom unfortunately
did not keep pace with these social changes; and so--to say no more--it
happened that the consequences of all half measures soon resulted.
Even before the struggles of 1848, down to which period the story of
our novel reaches, the classes of the more polished nobility and citizens,
instead of fusing into one band of gentry, and thus forming the basis of
a landed aristocracy, had assumed an unfriendly attitude, in
consequence of a stagnation in the growth of a national lower nobility
as the head of the wealthy and cultivated bourgeoisie, resulting from an
unhappy reaction which then took place in Prussia. The feudal
proprietor was meanwhile becoming continually poorer, because he
lived beyond his income. Falling into embarrassments of every sort, he
has recourse for aid to the provincial banks. His habits of life, however,
often prevent him from employing these loans on the improvement of
his property, and he seldom makes farming the steady occupation and
business of his life. But he allows himself readily to become involved
in the establishment of factories--whether for the manufacture of
brandy or for