Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/513

Rh E E U E E V 495 High German, but this work is of slight importance in comparison with the series of stories which he had already begun, and by which he was to establish his fame as one of the foremost writers of his age. To this series he gave the general title Olle Kamellen. The first volume, Zwei Lustige Geschichte, published in 1860, contained Woans ik tau 'ne Fru Icamm and Ut de Franzosentid. Ut mine Feslungstid (1861) formed the second volume ; Ut Mine Stromtid (1864) the third, fourth, and fifth volumes; and Ddrchlauchting (1866) the sixth volume. Woans ik tau 'ne Fru kamm is a bright little tale, in which Keuter tells, in a half serious half bantering tone, how he wooed the lady who became his wife. In Ut de Franzosentid he undertook a more difficult task, which enabled him for the first time to do full justice to his genius. The scene is laid in and near Stavenhagen (Platt Deutsch, Stemhagen) in the year 1813, and the principal complica- tions spring from the disappearance of a Frenchman, which gives rise to suspicions of foul play. In this powerful tale the characters are depicted by means of a few bold and rapid strokes, and our interest in them is heightened by the fact that their personal fortunes are associated with the great events which at the beginning of the 19th century stirred the heart of Germany to its depths. Ut mine Festungstid is of less general interest than Ut de Franzosentid, but it is not less vigorous either in conception or in style. It contains a narrative of Reuter's hardships during the term of his imprisonment, and it awakens sympathy all the more effectually because it is brightened by many a gleam of kindly and humorous feeling. Ut mine Stromtid is by far the greatest of Reuter's writings, and ranks with the most famous master- pieces of modern fiction. He records few incidents which might not happen in the lives of ordinary men and women, yet he never loses his hold over the imagination of his readers, so full of vitality are the characters of his story, and so deep is his insight into the enduring facts of human nature. The most original character in the book is Brasig, an eccentric old bachelor, fond of gossip and apt to interfere too much in the affairs of his neighbours, but humorous, loyal to the core, and coming out most brightly when his good qualities are put to the severest test. There is a touch of romance, too, in this simple and genial nature, for he retains to the last his love for the woman who had fascinated him in his youth, and is always at hand to serve her when she needs his help. Another powerfully conceived character is Havermann, a man of solid and serious judgment, calm and undemonstra- tive, of sterling rectitude, and revealing at the great crises of life infinite depths of love and pity. Equally attractive in their own way are the good pastor and his wife, who bring up Havermann's daughter, Louise, in their quiet parsonage; and we come to know intimately every member of the pleasant household in which Havermann's frank and comely sister (whom Brasig secretly loves) is the central figure. In this great book Reuter displays imaginative power of the highest order in the expression of every mood and passion within the proper range of his art ; and he fails, or at least does not perfectly succeed, only when he deals with characters belonging to classes he had never had an opportunity of studying closely. As in Ut de Franzosentid he describes the deep national impulse m obedience to which Germany rose against Napoleon, so in Ut mine Stromtid he presents many aspects of the revolutionary movement of 1848. He shows little sym- pathy with some of the most characteristic aspirations of the period, but in many passages he indicates by slight but significant touches the strength of the forces which had begun to make for social as distinguished from merely political reorganization. In 1863 Reuter transferred his residence from Neubran- denburg to Eisenach; and here he died on the 12th June 1874. In the works produced at Eisenach he did not maintain the high level of his earlier writings. Dorchlauchting, although it contains some striking passages, lacks the freshness and spontaneity of the other tales of the series to which it belongs ; and admirers of his genius found little to interest them in Die Montechi und Capuleti in Konstantinopel, which he wrote after a visit to the Turkish capital. Reuter is the most realistic of the great German writers. To the dreamers of the romantic school he has not the faintest resem- blance, nor does he ever attempt to describe ideally perfect characters. The men and women of his stories are the men and women he knew ill the villages and farmhouses of Mecklenburg, and the circumstances in which he places them are the circum- stances by which they were surrounded in actual life. His fidelity to facts is as exact as that of the Dutch school of painters, and, like them, he thinks nothing too minute for his use, if by small details he can give variety and animation to his pictures. But he does not merely glide over the surface of life ; he penetrates to the inmost springs of feeling, and in simple peasant folk finds char- acteristics which in his hands become types of universal qualities. The sources of tears and the sources of laughter he touches with equal ease ; but, while his humour is sometimes rather extra- vagant, his pathetic passages are always marked by perfect truth and delicacy. His description of the death of the old pastor in Ut mine Stromtid is one of the gems of modern literature, and the scene in which Brasig dies, holding the hand of the woman he has loved all his life, is in a different way not less impressive. Reuter's only serious defect as an artist is that he fails to main- tain the due proportion between the different parts of his stories. If an idea attracts him, he cannot resist the temptation to unfold its full significance, whether or not it is in organic relation with his scheme as a whole. To some extent, however, the reader is compensated for these interruptions by happy strokes of humour which would have been rendered impossible had Reuter forced himself to adopt a more rigid method. Renter's Sammtliche Werke in thirteen volumes (edited by Ad. Wildbrandt) were published in 18C3-68. To these were added in 1875 two volumes of Nach- gelassene Schriften, with a biography; and in 1878 a comedy, Die drei Langhanse. See Glagau, Fritz Reuter und Seine Dichtungen, 1866 ; Ebert, Fritz Reuter, 1874 ; and Zeil, " Fritz Reuter," in Unsere Zeit, 1875. (J. SI.) REUTLINGEN, a manufacturing town of "Wurtemberg, situated in a fertile and pretty district on the Echatz, an affluent of the Neckar, near the base of the Achalm, and 20 miles to the south of Stuttgart. It is a quaint but well-built town, with numerous picturesque houses and a fine Gothic church of the 13th and 14th centuries, overtopped by a lofty spire. The tanneries of Reutlingen are extensive, producing large quantities of leather ; and its other industrial products are very multifarious, includ- ing cotton, woollen, and knitted goods, lace, ribbons, hats, shoes, paper, machinery, hardware, and lime. To fruit- growers Reutlingen is interesting as the seat of a celebrated pomological institute, while the Christian-socialist refuges of Pastor Werner are widely known in philanthropic circles. In 1880 the town contained 16,609 inhabitants, of whom 809 were Roman Catholics and 44 Jews. Reutlingen was made a free imperial town by Frederick II. in 1240, and was unflinching in its loyalty to the emperors of his line. It successfully resisted a siege by Heinrich Raspe, the rival of Conrad IV., and in 1377 its citizens defeated Count UMch of Wurtemberg at the Achalm. At a later period Reutlingen became a member of the Swabian League, and it was among the first Swabian towns to embrace the Reformation. It was annexed to Wurtemberg in 1802. REVAL, or REVEL (Russian Revel, formerly Kolywan ; Esthonian Tallina), a seaport of Russia, capital of Esthonia, is situated in a bay on the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland, in 59 27' N. lat. and 24 45' E. long., 230 miles west of St Petersburg by rail. The city consists of two parts the "Domberg" or "Dom," which occupies a hill, and the lower town on the beach and is surrounded by pleasant suburban houses with gardens. The " Dom " contains the castle, where the provincial administration has its seat, and the slopes of the hill are covered with the well-built houses of the German aristocracy. It has