Page:Masterpieces of German literature volume 10.djvu/350

 sympathetic investigator of and writer on manifold ethnic life, the scientific explorer of the regions on the rivers Tigris and Euphrates." It is obvious, though, that this mastery of style, this superb union of form and content, was not attained miraculously and from the start. Still, his first production, published in 1827, a tale (Novelle) in the style of Tieck and his followers, shows distinctive talent, and a tendency toward brevity as well as adequacy of expression, not to mention a sustained sense of harmony and proportion. The young lieutenant also published, anonymously, some poetry, and showed a clever hand in translating from foreign poets. It is a pity that most of these attempts are buried in inaccessible periodicals and have never been republished. But he left the field of poetry and fiction, so far as we know, forever with his next work, the first published under his name and in pamphlet form, a work which, though of genuine political interest and love, was at the same time intended to increase his income to the level of a living wage: ''Holland and Belgium in their mutual relations; from their separation, under Philip II. till their re-union, under William I.'' He read more than five thousand pages of sources for the preparation of this small pamphlet. It was published in 1831, and followed within a year by another one: An account of the internal state of affairs and of the social condition of Poland. Both writings, as in fact everything else from his pen since about 1830, had a more or less direct bearing on his military vocation; since war, according to Clausewitz, is nothing but the continuation of politics by other than diplomatic means.

But the height of his literary mastery is reached in 1841 by the publication of the Letters on the condition and events in Turkey from the years 1835 till 1839, the matured fruit of those eventful and adventurous but, at the same time, constructive years in the Orient. They have been likened to Goethe's Italian Journey. The comparison is justified by striking resemblances. Both works have resulted from