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On the longest marches, in the fiercest battles, whatever signal the commanding officer wished to have transmitted by means of the drum, night or day, amid the smoke of battle or the dust of the march, Auerbach was always on hand.

My reading is, at present, confined to Calderon, who will at last induce me to learn a little Spanish. Heaven forbid that in that case I should remind you of H. Nageli. The necessary cache-nez I possess. My wife has given me one, together with a splendid carpet with swans on it, a la Lohengrin. I heard recently of your Dresden life with Gutzkow, Auerbach, etc., etc. Oh, you tremendous fellow!

Perhaps this was because I had reached the point through my acquaintance with Tolstoy where I was impatient even of the artifice that hid itself. In 'Smoke' I was now aware of an artifice that kept out of sight, but was still always present somewhere, invisibly operating the story. I must not fail to own the great pleasure that I have had in some of the stories of Auerbach.

As to manner, he was the best lecturer on history I heard in Germany; and, with the exception of Laboulaye at the Coll<e!>ge de France, Seelye at English Cambridge, and Goldwin Smith at Cornell, the best I ever heard anywhere. Especially delightful were sundry men of letters. Of these I knew best Auerbach, whose delightful ``Dorfgeschichten'' were then in full fame.

On the other hand, I sincerely enjoyed the thoughtful eloquence of Berthold Auerbach, who understood how to invest with poetic charm not only great and noble subjects, but trivial ones gathered from the dust. If I am permitted to record the memories of my later life, I shall have more to say of him.

In painting these sinewy figures, full of a character of their own, he was very felicitous, had an enormous success, and drew a host of less gifted followers after him. Herr Ludwig is one of these. We shall not despair of his becoming, at some future time, a second Auerbach; but he is not one yet.

The political condition of Germany until a recent date was such as to attract large numbers to the pursuits of literature and science. It is possible to allude to but few of the principal authors. Gustav Freytag has written some of the best of the later German novels. Auerbach, Keller, and Spielhagen stand very high on the roll of novelists.

Here are five stories of considerable length, and a number of slighter sketches, in which the Norwegian peasant is portrayed with intimate and loving knowledge. The peasant tale was no new thing in European literature, for the names of Auerbach and George Sand, to say nothing of many others, at once come to the mind.

Among the thirteen who were accepted there were names which have since become illustrious: Julian, Bourgeois, Auerbach.... I do not envy my colleagues on the summits of their official honors; I read their works with commiseration; and the pitiful errors to which they are condemned by the insufficiency of their documents would amply counterbalance my chagrin and fill me with ironic joy, had I not been raised long since above the satisfaction of self-love.

Her figure was slight, of middle height, and rather drooping, like a flower heavy with dew; her luxuriant gold-brown hair fell in rich curls on her shoulders, her complexion was of transparent delicacy, her smile charming, and she had the most bewitching deep blue eyes I ever beheld, with dark eyelashes and eyebrows.... Her whole aspect had a Madonna air, what Berthold Auerbach so beautifully calls Marienhaft.