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HERE RESTS WHAT IS MORTAL
OF
FERDINAND LASSALLE,
THE
THINKER AND THE FIGHTER.

To understand the whole tragedy and to justify its great victim is to
feel something of the strain which comes to every thinker and fighter
who, like Lassalle, writes and speaks persistently to vast audiences,
often against great odds, and always with the prospect of a prison before
him. That his nerves were utterly unstrung, that he was not his real
self in those last days, is but too evident. Armed, as he claimed, with
the entire culture of his century, a maker of history if ever there was
one, he became the victim of a love drama which I suppose that Mr.
Matthew Arnold would describe as of the surgeon's apprentice order: but
which, apart from his political creed, will always endear him to men and
women who have "lived and loved."

And what shall we say of Helen von Donniges? Her own story is surely one
of the most romantic ever written. In _My Relation to Ferdinand
Lassalle_, she tells how Yanko broke to her the news that he was going to
fight Lassalle, and how much she grieved. "Lassalle will inevitably kill
Yanko," she thought; and she pitied him, but her pity was not without
calculation. "When Yanko is dead and they bring his body here, there
will be a stir in the house," she said, "and I can then fly to Lassalle."
But the hours flew by, and finally Yanko came to tell her that he had
wounded his opponent. For the moment, and indeed until after Lassalle's
death, she hated her successful lover; but a little later his undoubted
goodness, his tenderness and patience, won her heart. They were married,
but he died within a year, of consumption. Being disowned by her
relations, Helen then settled in Berlin, and studied for the stage. She
herself relates how at Breslau on one occasion, when acting a boy's part
in one of Moser's comedies, some of Lassalle's oldest friends being
present remarked upon her likeness to Lassalle in his youth, a
resemblance on which she and Lassalle had more than once prided
themselves. At a later date Frau von Racowitza married a Russian
Socialist, S. E. Shevitch, then resident in America. M. Shevitch
returned to Russia a few years after this and lived with his wife at
Riga. Those who have seen Madame Shevitch describe her as one of the
most fascinating women they have ever met. She and her husband were very
happy in their married life. Madame Shevitch is now living in M