e forgotten.

It was necessary to take a comprehensive view of novel literature,
and--although in the merest outline--still to look at it in its
historical connection, in order to find the suitable niche for a book
which claims an important place in its European development; for it is
precisely in the class last described--that which undertakes faithfully,
and yet in a poetic spirit, to represent the real condition of our most
peculiar and intimate social relations--that our author has chosen to
enroll himself. With what a full appreciation of this high end, and with
what patriotic enthusiasm he has entered on his task, the admirable
dedication of the work at once declares, which is addressed to a
talented and liberal-minded prince, deservedly beloved and honored
throughout Germany. In the work itself, besides, there occur repeated
pictures of these relations, which display at once a clear comprehension
of the social problem, and a poetic power which keeps pace with the
power of life-like description. To come more closely to the point,
however, what is that reality which is exhibited in the story of our
novel? We should very inadequately describe it were we to say, the
nobility of labor and the duties of property, particularly those of the
proprietor of land. This is certainly the key-note of the whole
conservative-social, or Dickens school, to which the novel belongs. It
is not, however, the conflict between rich and poor, between labor and
capital in general, and between manufacturers and their people in
particular, whose natural course is here detailed. And this is a point
which an English reader must above all keep clearly in view. He will
otherwise altogether fail to understand the author's purpose; for it is
just here that the entirely different blending of the social masses in
England and in Germany is displayed. We have here the conflict between
the feudal system and that class of industrial and wealthy persons,
together with the majority of the educated public functionaries, who
constitute in Germany the citizen-class. Before the fall of the Prussian
monarchy in 1807, the noble families--for the most part hereditary
knights (Herrn _von_)--almost entirely monopolized the governmental and
higher municipal posts, and a considerable portion of the peasantry were
under servitude to them as feudal superiors. The numbers of the lesser
nobility--in consequence of the right of every nobleman's son, of
whatever grade, to