NOVELS.
THE EARTH AND THE FULLNESS THEREOF.*
ACCEPTANCE of the mainspring of the plot of The Earth and the Fullness Thereof involves no undue effort of imagination on the part of the sympathetic reader. The exploit of Hans Trautendorffer, editor of the department of Political Economy on the Continental Post of Vienna, can be paralleled by the • The Earth and the Fullness Thereof : a Romance of Modern Styria. By Peter Rosegger. Authorised Translation by Frances E. Skinner. London : G. P. Putnam's Sons. LOs.J
self-imposed labours of many modern journalists and writers who, in the quest of " copy " or from benevolent motives, have for the while cast in their lot with different strata of the working population,—who have, that is, tramped with tramps, signed on before the mast, entered domestic service, or in various other ways have exchanged the sphere of brain-work for that of manual or menial labour. Herr Rosegger has merely availed himself of a convenient formula, so to speak, for the illustration of his unrivalled knowledge of peasant life in Styria. His hero is a young journalist who, after serving his time in the Army, has joined the honourable corporation of the goosequill and become attached to the staff of a Viennese paper as a specialist on political economy. The staff are in the habit of meeting at a restaurant, and at one of their symposia Tmutendorffer, elated by Riidesheimer, descants upon the superior morals of the peasantry as compared with bankers or journalists, "who are always temporising or re- canting." Challenged by his editor to practise what he preaches, he accepts a wager on the following terms. If he spends the coming year from beginning to end as a common
farm hand in the company of his "ideal people," the editor pledges himself to pay him twenty thousand Kronen. But if
he abandons the role one day before the year is out, he is to "recant and temporise" for the paper for two entire years without a salary. He sets off at once to Styria, and after a few abortive attempts, gets taken on as a farm hand by a poor farmer in the highlands, and recounts his experiences in a series of letters written on Sundays to his greatest friend. The life described is extraordinarily primitive, the fare of the roughest, the toil unceasing. Of the intellectual equipment of the mountain peasants we get many diverting illustrations. The older men have no idea of the flight of time. But all the same, they discuss politics in the calmest manner in the Hoisendorf tavern :—
"For example, they say : 'The Russians are coming, and since they object to large cities, they will burn them all down, as they once burned their own capital, Moscow. The Jews are to be exterminated and their money divided among the poor peasants. The Chinese are also going to be exterminated, and the German Emperor is to have long whips made out of their pigtails—for the Social Democrats. The Holy Father has forbidden the nations to go to war, and if one should begin all the others would be obliged to unite against it.' They still have the greatest horror of the 'arch-fiend' Napoleon ; they build all their hopes upon Emperor
Joseph ' who sleeps in a mountain cavern and will re-awaken when cherry-trees bloom at Christmas.' Sometimes the peasant is told that now everyone must become German. At this he shakes his head. He had always believed that, with the exception of a few pedlers and Frenchmen, the whole world was composed of Germans."
The family with whom Hans casts in his lot are all admir- ably drawn,—the homely but heroic father, fighting a gallant fight against ill-health, poverty, and bad seasons ; the shrewd, angular, indefatigable housewife ; the guileless daughter ; and the invalid son, laid up by a wound received in a poaching affray. Then the situation is complicated in a variety of ways. To begin with, Hans wants to win his wager, but he has to prove his capacity, and there is hardly a single task that he has not to learn from the beginning: he has to conquer an almost in- superable desire to abandon an extremely irksome and arduous role; and he has to inspire confidence in his employers, who are ignorant of his antecedents, despise book-learning, and look askance on newspapers. It may readily be guessed that love comes to the rescue, but his courtship of the gentle but luckless Barbel is by no means plain sailing, and it is only after her life has come near being utterly shipwrecked by another suitor that Hans, who gradually develops into the good genius of the family, sees his way to rescue her from a loveless marriage. The narrative, which is cast in the epis- tolary form, is carried out with the utmost spirit and fresh- ness. The character of the narrator, imperturbably good- humoured, always ready to laugh at himself, Quixotic yet level-headed, reveals itself throughout the gradual progress of the domestic tragedy with a charm that is most engaging. To all who are weary of the chatter of the smart society novel we can recommend no better antidote than this touching tragi-comedy of rural life in the highlands of Styria.
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