her
place. We are rich and consider ourselves poor; we have the diamonds,
and there shall not be wanting people who know how to cut them. May the
second part of Wienbarg's treatise very soon appear! Many a one is now
pushing forward the hand on the horologe of time and hastening nothing
thereby but the hour of his own execution. Wienbarg is not one of these.

REVIEW OF HEINRICH VON KLEIST'S PLAY

THE PRINCE OF HOMBURG, OR THE BATTLE OF
FEHRBELLIN (1850)

By FRIEDRICH HEBBEL

TRANSLATED BY FRANCES H. KING

THE PRINCE OF HOMBURG is one of the most peculiar creations of the
German mind, for the reason that in it, through the mere horror of
death, through death's darkening shadow, has been achieved what in all
other tragedies (this work is a tragedy) is achieved only through death
itself: that is to say, the moral purification and apotheosis of the
hero. The whole drama is planned to bring about this result, and what
Tieck, in a well known passage, declares to be, the kernel of it, namely
the illustration of what subordination is, in reality is only the means
to an end. Neither do I agree with Tieck when he remarks further that
the sleep-walking scene with which the piece begins, and the final
_denouement_ connected with it add to the other merits of the drama by
lending it the charm of a pleasing and attractive fairy-tale. On the
contrary, this feature is to be censured because it is disturbing, and
if, as in _Kaethchen of Heilbronn_, it were intimately inwoven in the
organism of the work it would deprive the latter of its claim to be
considered a classic. For man must not be forced to do penance for the
mischief which the moon causes; otherwise we might be obliged to call it
a tragedy if a man, having climbed up to the apex of the roof in his
sleep, and been spied there by his sweetheart, who, in the first terror
of surprise, called his name, should fall at her feet crushed to pieces!
Happily, however, we can eliminate the whole sleep-walking episode and
the work continues to be what it is; it stands immovable on a solid
psychological foundation, and the rank weeds of Romanticism, have only
twined themselves around it like superfluous arabesques. That, indeed,
must not be understood to mean that half of the first and half of the
last act could be struck out. If such a barbaric procedure were
possible, Kleist would not be what, he is, a true poet, whom, like every
original God-given growth, one must accept