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To say that they teach, more or less directly, a wholesome morality, is but indifferent praise; for morality is the cheap veneering wherewith would-be poets attempt to conceal the lack of the true faculty. We prefer to let our readers judge for themselves concerning this feature of Hebel's poetry. The Alemannic dialect, we have said, is at first harsh to the ear.
These singularities of the dialect render the translation of Hebel's poems into a foreign language a work of great difficulty. In the absence of any English dialect which possesses corresponding features, the peculiar quaintness and raciness which they confer must inevitably be lost. Fresh, wild, and lovely as the Schwarzwald heather, they are equally apt to die in transplanting.
The contractions, elisions, and corruptions which German words undergo, with the multitude of terms in common use derived from the Gothic, Greek, Latin, and Italian, give it almost the character of a different language. It was Hebel's mother-tongue, and his poetic faculty always returned to its use with a fresh delight which insured success. His German poems are inferior in all respects.
Among her best works are "The Death of St. Catherine of Alexandria," "The Death of Tasso," and twelve illustrations for a volume of Hebel's poems. <b>REMY, MARIE.</b> Born in Berlin, 1829. Daughter of Professor August Remy of the Berlin Academy. Pupil of her father, Hermine Stilke, and Theude Grönland.
A prominent peak among the mountains which inclose the valley of his favorite "Meadow" has been solemnly christened "Hebel's Mount"; and a flower of the Forest the Anthericum of Linnaeus now figures in German botanies as the Hebelia Alemannica.
We have not scrupled to imitate this irregularity, as not inconsistent with the plain, ungrammatical speech of the characters introduced, and the homely air of even the most imaginative passages. An extract from it will illustrate what Jean Paul calls the "hazardous boldness" of Hebel's personifications:
The later years of Hebel's life quietly passed away in the circle of his friends at Carlsruhe. After the peculiar mood which called forth the Alemannic poems had passed away, he seems to have felt no further temptation to pursue his literary success.
Contrast this somewhat confused rhapsody with the clear, precise, yet genial words wherewith Goethe welcomed the new poet. He instantly seized, weighed in the fine balance of his ordered mind, and valued with nice discrimination, those qualities of Hebel's genius which had but stirred the splendid chaos of Richter with an emotion of vague delight.
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