ly and persistently
between time and eternity.

From Gottfried Keller, on the other hand, Hesse has derived the
specific gravity of realism; and so the romantic life of the peasant
boy Peter Camenzind concludes, after protracted roving through Italy
and France, like that of Green Henry, with a weary, resigned return
home. The novel _On the Rack_, which represents a falling off after
this brilliant beginning, was followed by a new efflorescence in
Hesse's artistry with the novels _Gertrude_ (1910) and the latest work
_Rosshalde_, a story of matrimony which combines the former merits of
poetic atmosphere with the merit of a greater concentration upon
action. Between the two lie the collections of short stories _On this
Side_ (1907) and _Neighbors_ (1908). From the second is taken the story
here translated, _In the Old Sun_, which as an idyll of the Poorhouse
has something of the qualities of Gottfried Keller, while the mystic
setting is quite the property of the Swabian author.

From the half-Swiss author Hermann Hesse to the full-blooded Swiss
novelists is but a short step. Among these, Ernst Zahn is the most
widely read and the most fruitful. A succession of voluminous novels
(_Erni Beheim_, 1898, _God's Puppets_ [_Herrgottsfaeden_], 1901, _Albin
Indergand_, 1901, _Claire Marie_, 1904, _Luke Hochstrasser's House_,
1907, _Solitude_, 1909, _The Women of Tanno_, 1911, _The Apothecary of
Little Worldville_, 1913) and an equal number of collections of short
stories (_Heart Struggles_, 1893, _Echo_, 1895, _New Tales of the
Mountains_, 1898, _Men and Women_, 1900, _The Shady Side_, 1903,
_Heroes of Every Day_, 1905, _Those Who Come and Go_, 1908, _What Life
Destroys_, 1912) have come thick and fast; and since they all deal with
the everyday fortunes of the simple Alpine villagers, it was inevitable
that in course of time a certain satiety dulled admiration of the sheer
inexhaustible store of motifs--for nobody can say that Zahn ever
exactly repeats himself. In particular, his fellow-countrymen are no
longer quite willing to regard him as the Swiss novelist _par
excellence_. And yet Zahn is himself the very incarnation of a
fundamental trait of Swiss character; namely, the peculiar blending of
practical common sense and esthetic culture. Where else than in this
veritable democracy could one and the same man day in and day out serve
soup to thousands of travelers, sit down at his desk after the day's
work was done and gather a