enish immigrants whose efforts to found a
new home for themselves are brought to naught. A second novel of the
eastern frontier, _Absolvo Te_ (1907), is inferior to the first, not in
power of characterization, but in range of subject. Still a third work
treats the problem of a difference between blood and rearing, _A
Mother's Son_ (1906). The novel traces the development of the son of a
peasant woman of the Eifel who has been adopted by a Berlin family and
in whom, in spite of careful education, the evil disposition of his
father comes to the surface. In this artificial treatment of the theory
of heredity Clara Viebig's art does not appear to the best advantage;
her forte is rather unbiased objectivity and penetrating observation of
every-day life. The other novels having their scene in Berlin are
distinguished for a keen sense for realities, as, for example, _The
Daily Bread_ (1900), a treatment of the servant question which in the
technique of Zola gives a panorama of the metropolis and of life in the
lower strata. A rise above the level of naturalism may be noted in the
fact that the last two novels of this author do not deal with the
present but, like _The Watch on the Rhine_, revert to themes in the
history of social development. _Those without the Gates_ (1910) depicts
the fate of the suburbanites who are submerged in the gigantic organism
of the growing city; the latest novel, _Iron in the Fire_ (1913), has
for its subject the time from 1848 to 1866, the time of expectation; an
old-fashioned Berlin smithy is the scene, the fire in the forge and the
power behind the hammer are symbols of the growth of the nation. Only
in the dim background does the figure of Bismarck appear, the smith who
welded the parts of the empire into one; it is characteristic of Clara
Viebig's art that she allows great historical events to be mirrored
only in the little world of the actors in her little drama, whereas
Helene Boehlau grants to the historical figures of Old Weimar
participation at least in episodes. Clara Viebig can compass no great
characters or persons of superior intelligence; even men she hardly
shows otherwise than in their sensual brutality. She succeeds best with
simple, vegetative natures of elemental instincts and eruptive
passions, like the women of the Eifel, whose life of hardship,
unhappiness in love, and maternal sorrows she knows how to represent
with telling power. From the collection entitled _Forces of Nature_