licacy and a chastity rare in
the literature of that period of storm and stress. _Youth_ was the work
of a true poet and would have been hailed as such even had the author
been born into a period less generous in its bestowal of praise upon
the works of the "coming men."

In _Mother Earth_, published in 1897, Max Halbe shows himself at his
best both in spirit and in manner. The hero of that play is estranged
from his paternal hearth, with its ancestral traditions and from the
simple rural life and the innocent tender love of his youth. For he has
gone to Berlin, has drifted into the circles of the intellectuals,
married the brilliant and advanced daughter of a professor and become
actively interested in feminist propaganda. Subconsciously, however,
this life does not satisfy him, and when on the death of his father he
returns to the old home and feels once more its charm, he realizes that
he has forfeited real happiness for a vague and alien ideal. In this
work with its firmly knit and logically evolved action Max Halbe
reached a climax in his development. Since its production his star has
been steadily declining and the thirteen or more works that have since
come from his pen have not added to his reputation. Embittered by his
failures, he chose some years ago to attack his rivals and critics in a
satirical comedy. _The Isle of the Blessed_, but he had miscalculated
the effect of the poorly disguised personal animosities upon an
audience not sufficiently interested in the author's friendships and
enmities. He has, however, not become sadly resigned to his fate, like
Hirschfeld, but continues to court the favor of the stage with the
tenacity of a man disappointed in his hopes but unwilling to admit his
defeat.

An important aspect of the social and esthetic programme of the new
school was the unflinching frankness with which it faced a problem
belonging to intimate life and barring public discussion, yet closely
connected with the economic conditions of society: the problem of sex.
The curious revival of pagan eroticism in lyric poetry and the growing
tendency toward a scientific cynicism in fiction were supplemented by
attempts to handle sex from the standpoint of modern psychology and
social ethics in drama. With works of that class has the name of Frank
Wedekind become inseparably associated. He is the most positive
intellect among the writers of Young Germany and their most radical
innovator in regard to form. He