Debit and Credit | Page 9

a noble and conciliatory intention which the dedication well expresses.
The admirable delineation of character, the richness of invention, the artistic arrangement, the lively descriptions of nature, will be ever more fully acknowledged by the sympathizing reader as he advances in the perusal of the attractive volumes.

TO HIS HIGHNESS ERNEST II.,
DUKE OF SAXE-COBURG-GOTHA.
I visited Kallenberg one lovely evening in the month of May. The high ground near the castle was steeped in perfume from the blossoms of the spring, and the leaves of the pink acacia cast their checkered shadows on the dewy grass. Beneath me, in the shady valley, deer bounded fearless from their covert in the wood, following greedily with their eyes the bright figure of that lady who greets with kind and hospitable welcome all who enter the precincts of the castle--men, and all living things. The repose of evening lay on hill and dale; no sound was heard save the occasional roll of thunder from afar above the bright and cheerful landscape. On this very evening, leaning against the wall of the ancient castle, your highness gazed with troubled aspect into the gloomy distance. What my noble prince then said about the conflicts of the last few years, the relaxed and utterly despondent temper of the nation, and the duty of authors, at such a time especially, to show the people, for their encouragement and elevation, as in a mirror, what they are capable of doing--those were golden words, revealing a great grasp of intellect and a warm heart, and their echo will not soon die away in the heart of him who heard them. It was on that evening the desire awoke within me to grace with your highness's name the work whose plan had been already in my mind.
Nearly two years have passed since then. A terrible war is raging, and Germans look with gloomy apprehension to the future of their fatherland. At such a time, when the strongest political feelings agitate the life of every individual, that spirit of cheerful tranquillity, so needful to an author for the artistic moulding of his creations, readily forsakes his writing-table. It is long, alas! since the German author has enjoyed it. He has far too little interest in home and foreign life; he wants that composure and proud satisfaction which the writers of other countries feel in dwelling on the past and present of their nation, while he has enough and to spare of humiliation on account of his country, of wishes unfulfilled and passionate indignation. At such a time, in drawing an imaginative picture, not love alone, but hatred too, flows freely and readily from the pen--practical tendencies are apt to usurp the place of poetic fancy; and, instead of a genial tone and temper, the reader is apt to find an unpleasing mixture of blunt reality and artificial sentiment.
Surrounded by such dangers, it becomes twofold the duty of an author carefully to avoid distortion in the outline of his pictures, and to keep his own soul free from unjust prepossession. To give the highest expression to the beautiful in its noblest form is not the privilege of every time; but, in all times alike, it is the duty of the writer of fiction to be true to his art and to his country. To seek for this truth, and where found to exhibit it, I hold to be the duty of my own life.
And now let me dedicate, with deepest reverence, my unimportant work to you, my honored lord. I shall rejoice if this novel leaves on the mind of your highness the impression that its conception is in faithful keeping with the laws of life and of art, without ever being a slavish copy of the accidental occurrences of the day.
GUSTAV FREYTAG.
LEIPSIC, April, 1855.

DEBIT AND CREDIT.
CHAPTER I.
Ostrau is a small town near the Oder, celebrated even as far as Poland for its gymnasium and its gingerbread. In this patriarchal spot had dwelt for many years the accountant-royal, Wohlfart, an enthusiastically loyal subject, and a hearty lover of his fellow-men--with one or two exceptions. He married late in life, and his wife and he lived in a small house, the garden of which he himself kept in order. For a long time the happy pair were childless; but at length came a day when the good woman, having smartened up her white bed-curtains with a broad fringe and heavy tassels, disappeared behind them amid the approbation of all her female friends. It was under the shade of those white bed-curtains that the hero of our tale was born.
Anton was a good child, who, according to his mother, displayed remarkable peculiarities from the very day of his birth. For instance, he had a great objection to going to bed at the proper hour; he would pore