Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/587

 When in Germany in 1835, Platen gave all except the latest volumes of the manuscript to a friend. Dr. Pfeufer. But after Platen's death, Dr. Pfeufer and Professor Schelling, another near friend, and also the poet's mother, were shy of publishing the complete work. Its revelations were.too disconcerting. The poot's mother decided that the books would best be given to Count Friedrich Fugger, her son's intimate, confidential friend, who. would use it with discretion in preparing the biography of Platen that Fugger had in mind to make. But Fugger died shortly. So came the Diary back into the hands of Dr. Pfeufer. The public had been eagerly expecting a a biography of so distinguished a literary man as Platen. Only a small, dull section of the record presently appeared, avoiding carefully all the most important psychologic history and incidents. The more suspicious part of the public were mystified, but had to be content. (This edition frequently is met now, as the complete Diary of the poet.) But the bulky original remained shut away in the Royal Library of Munich, to be seen only by privileged eyes. In 1896, on the centenary of the poet's birth appeared the volume of the complete Journal, to the extent of one large moiety; and in 1900 came the concluding volume, deciphered and edited by Herr Laubmann (of the Royal Library of Munich) and his associate Dr. L. von Scheffler. This edition is absolutely complete, word for word, line by line, with Platen's own record; except where he himself tore out pages, now and then. The Cotta publication-house, in Leipsic, issued the edition; and it is the only one that should be consulted by persons interested in its absorbingly fascinating if painful history. Various recent summaries of it, reviews, etc., in German, French and one or two other languages, are conspicuously deficient or even grossly incorrect.

A linguist of great talents, Platen wrote the Journal not only in his own tongue, but—as to considerable