Gottfried Keller, best known as the master of the Novelle, was born in ZÜrich, July 19, 1819, as the son of a master turner. A love for the concrete world of reality induced him to take up painting. Keller was not without talent in this line, but achieving no signal success, he gave up painting for letters. To secure for himself a stable footing in the civic world, Keller, after a number of years spent in Germany, in 1861 assumed the office of a municipal secretary of his native city, where he died July 15, 1890. Early in life, Keller threw aside all conventional beliefs, and his religion henceforth was a deep love of and a joyous faith in all life. Although Keller was in many respects decidedly matter-of-fact, a calm objective observer with a strong leaning toward utilitarian ideals—he had all the homely virtues of his ancestry—he nevertheless delighted in a myth-creating fancy. Thus Keller is very much akin to his countryman Arnold BÖcklin, whom the German world honors as its greatest modern painter.

99. One of the finest expressions extant of love for one's native land. The various national anthems pale before its beauty.

3. OB = obgleich.

9. HELVETIA, Switzerland.

13. GUT UND HAB (usually Hab und Gut), possessions; render, all that I have.

15. OB, compare 3.

100. The grief and woe of Nature held by the fetters of winter personified by this nymph climbing the "Seebaum," whose branches are held by the ice. A mythical creation such as BÖcklin delighted in.

12. GLIED UM GLIED, limb upon limb, i.e., each separate limb.

14. HER UND HIN, forth and back.

16. The very sound of this line is a cry of pity.

101. Written 1879. Theodor Storm called it the best lyric poem since Goethe. Compare C. F. Meyer's letter to Keller congratulating him on his seventieth birthday. Meyer praises Keller's poetry because of its "innere Heiterkeit," and continues: "Auch meine ich, daß Ihr fester Glaube an die GÜte des Daseins die hÖchste Bedeutung Ihrer Schriften ist. Ihnen ist wahrhaftig nichts zu wÜnschen als die Beharrung in Ihrem Wesen. Weil Sie die Erde lieben, wird die Erde Sie auch so lange als mÖglich festhalten."