Transcriber's Note:
Page scan source:http://www.archive.org/details/seldwylafolksthr00kellrich
Gottfried Keller may fitly be called the greatest narrative writer thatSwitzerland has ever produced. Born July 19, 1819, near Zurich, he wasreared in direst poverty. By dint of the hardest labor and bypracticing the utmost frugality, his father was barely able to providebread for wife and children. But in the midst of this penury the geniusof his young son Gottfried expanded. As a mere child he gave alreadyunmistakable evidence of being a dreamer, a thinker, a philosopher, a"fabulist," an artist. Just able to write, the little boy foreverscribbled poems and fanciful tales, made rapid sketches with pencil andpen, portraits, caricatures, landscapes. At the village school heimbibed knowledge like a sponge. Soon the gnarled old schoolmaster,half peasant, half teacher, looked aghast at his little scholar: he hadno more to teach him. Generous friends sent the youth to Munich, thereto study art. For at that time his desire was to become a greatpainter. Desperately and with fiery energy the young fellow devotedhimself to study, and his attainments were considerable. They wouldfully have sufficed for a career as a mediocre portrait painter. Buthis very excess of zeal led to surfeit, to exhaustion, to a period oflethargy. "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." This fit oflistlessness lasted even for some time after Gottfried's return home.All effort with him slackened.
Patrons finally intervened. With their aid he went to Heidelberg, andfor two full years, 1848-1850, he there pursued literary and historicalresearch. The historian, Hettner, took great interest in the youngSwiss. Next he went to Berlin, and during the ensuing five years hewrote and studied in a desultory manner there. Great attention was paidhim by Goethe's intimate friend, Varnhagen von Ense, and the latter'swife, the "seeress," Rahel, who drew the shy young man into their wideliterary circle, comprising for two decades the beaux esprits of thecapital. But his bluntness of speech, his sturdy Swiss republicanism,often gave offense.
For that was one of the remarkable points about Gottfried Keller:despite his long residence on German soil and the flattering receptionaccorded him by the intellectual élite there, he remained a thoroughdemocrat, an uncompromising friend of the plain people, a fearlesschampion of Swiss free government, a hater of tyranny in any form, adespiser of monarchs and their favors. Among his poems, later collectedinto a bulky tome, there are many that breathe defiance to royalty by"divine grace."
Much of this sentiment of anti-monarchism has crept into his firstgreat work, the "Gruener Heinrich." This, a sort of autob