Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 21 (US).djvu/14

 viii soaring on bold pinion into the thundery regions of Atala, ou les Amours de deux Sauvages; some diving, on as bold fin, into the gory profundities of Frankenstein and The Vampyre; and very many travelling, contented in spirit, the ancient beaten highway of Commonplace. To discover the grain of truth among this mass of falsehood, especially where Time has not yet exercised its separating influence was no plain problem; nor can I flatter myself either that I have exhausted the search, or in no case been deceived in my selection.'

A more discouraging 'foreword' can seldom have been penned; and one cannot but admire the magnanimity of the publisher who could print it without remonstrance.

Carlyle, however, goes on to point out other serious difficulties in the way of satisfactory selection. The field open to him was severely limited by causes for which neither he nor his authors could be held responsible; so that, as he puts it, 'often not the excellence of a work but the humble considerations of its size, its subject, and its being untranslated, had to determine my choice.' This fact, he adds, has especially to be borne in mind with regard to two of the authors, Fouqué and Richter. The former's best-known work Undine had already found a translator, and both the Hesperus and the Titan of the latter were no doubt deemed inadmissible on the ground of length. But to us in these days the choice of authors seems much more curious than the selection from among their works—so unequal do they now appear in merit, and so vastly does one of them tower over the rest. Whether Jean Paul der einzige still enjoys the reputation among his countrymen which once was his, or whether, unlike his great English admirer, and in some sense imitator, he has failed to reconcile posterity by sheer force of genius to the eccentricities of his style, I hardly know; but, as compared with his companions in these volumes, there can be no doubt of his superior claims to posthumous life. Musæus, Tieck, Hoffmann, Fouqué, are none of them lacking in merit of various kinds, but for humour and imagination, for power of thought and mastery of language, the strongest of them will not bear comparison with Richter.