Page:Masterpieces of German literature volume 18.djvu/411

 Rh too, is no victor over circumstances, for the title of Triumphgasse (the street of triumph) is mere mockery. He dies "a fettered slave in the procession of life."

What the novelist portrays in these two books shows her changed attitude toward the humbler classes. In the two first mentioned novels, she is rather remote from the life of the toiling many; e. g., all the Ursleus "wear life like a beautiful garment or ornament." Then, when living in Trieste, as she told in a letter, Ricarda Huch saw what women and children had to suffer, and what it meant to be a social outlaw. Now, after this experience, she feels how a common man feels who has lost his happiness or, worse still, his self-respect and honor. And with subtle observation she pictures wildgrown human beings, men blinded with passion or even raging maniacs. She does not, however, raise her characters from the despair of drudgery and brutality to confidence in life. She is no Jane Addams, nor does she want to be more than an objectively observing bystander. She sketches life as it is, and her method is more analytic than intuitive. Yet she must not be classed with the naturalists, because she is too refined and tasteful. The plots and structures of most of her stories deserve unstinted praise, and delight lovers of artistically organized and well-proportioned novels. And over all her books there plays that symbolistic spirit of neo-romanticism which spreads a veil of beauty even over the ugliness of life.

It is impossible to sum up Ricarda Huch's life and message to our generation in a few sentences. All her books from first to last command our respect. She is not afraid of life as so many old and new romanticists are, nor is she ignorant of it. She has lived on terms of sympathetic contact with primitive people as well as with representatives of an overrefined civilization. She has thought honestly and does not shrink from declaring her criticism of life. But her characters are no winners in the fight of life, because her self-centred philosophy is a humane scep-