EPHRAIM; OR, THE MANY AND THE FEW.* "Tons les genres
Bout bons hors le genre ennnyeux," says the wise French proverb ; and undoubtedly this applies with especial force to novels, which lose their very raison d'être if they are dull. True, Lamartine has also told us that .novels are the opium of the Occident ; and in that case certainly Ephraim.
• Ephraim; or, Ma the ny and the Few. From tha German of A. Nismann. By Christina Tyrrell. 3 vols. London; Bentley and Son. 1883. fulfils its life-purpose, for anything duller, more stupifying, more narcotic, it would be difficult to imagine. The work being therefore so little admirable, we feel justified in making it the text for dilating upon two themes that recent publications have forced upon our attention,—namely, the intrinsic difference between German and English novels and the particular class of German novels that it seems to please English translators to put before the English public. It is truly not to be marvelled at that the public is prejudiced against foreign, and especially German, literature. German novels at their best can hardly compete with English ; the Lust mon fabuliren, and the power of doing so with art, is far more an English than a German quality. Still, strict justice demands that we should point out that there are excellent modern German novels far worthier of the honour of translation than Ephraim. and some others lately put before the English public ; and we are at a perfect loss to imagine why publishers and translators persist in selecting from among the number the least worthy specimens for presentation to our public. We do not expect to find—we should be disappointed did we look for it—a knowledge of foreign literature in a pub- lisher, but these men usually have an eye to the main chance ; and surely these heavy works—often, too, so badly rendered into English that without a knowledge of the original tongue they convey no lucid meaning to the reader—cannot repay them for the outlay of paper and printer's ink, not to name the re- muneration due to the translator. For surely no one would be willing to impose upon themselves so dull a task pour is Roi de Prusse. Indeed, the number of persons willing to work for that excellent monarch diminishes daily, even in departments where more ideal aims may be looked for than in the mechanical one of translating third-rate novels. Of late our English novels have undergone some change, thanks to the influence of Messrs. James and Howells, and the more realistic analytic school ; so that the historical novel, as well as the novel of mere plot and incident, has been somewhat neglected. In Germany the novel of incident still has full sway ; while the novel of analysis, when written, grows so strictly philosophic and abstruse, that it no longer fulfils the requirements of a novel as a means of recreation, but demands hard reading and fixed attention to follow its argument and purpose. Ephrainr professes to combine the two ; and, in a somewhat pompons pre- face, the author explains to us the philosophic purpose of his book. We should here remark that in the original his work bears the title " Bak-chen und Thyrsostraeger," the title being suggested by the passage in Phaedo in which Socrates—whom our author, with singular inappropriate- ness, calls the "prince of philosophers "—quotes the Orphic apophthegm, "The wandbearers are many, but the inspired are few." This apophthegm be applies to modern society and to the series of modern portraits with which he presents us, and, we might repeat, with singular inappropriateness, for a careful read- ing of the book has failed to discover to us who are the inspired. We are presented with a bewildering series of characters of very low moral standard, but with none whose aims are lofty, whose life is admirable, who stand a head-and-shoulders above their fellows. A larger series of unpleasant puppets we have rarely encountered within the covers of the conventional three volumes ; for, though we are treated to long-winded discourses from all the dramatis personce, they remain puppets still, their individuality not paint- ing itself in their words; as, indeed, how should it, when the words put into their mouths are frequently not their own ? A more flagrant case of literary plagiarism than we have encountered in this book has rarely come under our notice. The hero, Ephraim, a weak-minded youth and insufferable prig, who poses as a philosopher, a pose his tedious father has also affected throughout his life, is depicted as holding a conversation on government and justice, in which the arguments, and even whole passages, are "conveyed" wholesale from Plato's Republic, and chiefly from the second book, in which occurs the well-known comparison between the absolutely just and the absolutely unjust man. The author does not even scruple to use as his own Plato's familiar illustration of the pilot and physician. He also lets the son discuss with the father the theory of the three kinds of good in a conversation literally stolen from that between Socrates and Glaucon. To put us off the scent, he occasionally introduces the Christian line of thought; but the very juxtaposition of these very different mental attitudes spoils the force of both, and arrests the attention of the thoughtful reader, who is perplexed by these incongruous conclusions. Indeed, Dr. Stahlhardt—that is this name of the
philosophical father who so cheaply passes for a sage—rarely makes any original utterances. Once he appropriates as his own idea Plato's theory of ibiag; and when not occupied with the work of appropriation, this old gentleman interlards his conver- sation with quotations from the Greek poets. Indeed, he rarely opens his mouth to speak on even the most common-place everyday theme but he sees himself forced to hark back to at least the Egyptians for an illustration. The son Ephraim, from whom the novel takes its name, really plays quite a subsidiary part in it. He is represented as a lad who has overworked his brain, and whom his father sends to the Heidelberg University to recover health and tone. Here he meets with a facile young lady, to whom he makes love, and then is withheld from offering marriage to her by the consideration that the state of Christian wedlock is not in accordance with the ideas of the founder of that religion. His researches on this point lead him to embrace the doctrines of the Essenes, and to become a vegetarian. Like Modus in The Hunchback, who tried to do his courtship out of the "Art of Love,' so Ephraim endeavours to court his lovar with the doctrines of the Essenes, with the result that lie is scoffed at for his pains by the young lady, who throws him over for a less didactic lover. It will, no doubt, be a relief to our readers to hear that this terrible youth is happily removed at the end of the third volume from a world for which he was so wholly unfitted,—dying, apparently, from no cause except that which makes the stars shine in the well-known verse, "for they had nothing else to do."
Among the other characters figure a vicious and dishonest member of the Reichstag,—once designated the " Riechstag," from that merciful desire to relieve the tedium of the reviewer's office that often distinguishes printers,—a vicious lieutenant of the German army, a vicious prince, a vicious wife, and half-a- dozen minor but equally vicious personages. We are introduced to gambling-hells, fast clubs, to bankers' secret parlours, and are shown the wires that pull important personages and events. About all this there is a suggestion of our countrywoman " Guide ;" but her laxity is at least relieved by a certain liveliness, while this book is not only choke-full of hideous and immoral stories, but, to quote the author's own words, "it is not only immoral, but it is also foolish." No better criticism than Herr Niemann's own words could be applied to his production, and if the work finds favour in Germany—of which, however, we have not heard—low indeed must be the German standard for a novel. It certainly will not find favour here. It has nothing to redeem it. As a picture of contemporary German society it is not even true. There is, no doubt, vice there, as there is vice everywhere ; but it is not so shameless or so rampant. All German officials are not venal, all German officers not vile. On the contrary, in no European country, perhaps, is the bureaucratic standard higher. Nothing could be more unfair than thus to depict German official society to English readers, and the translator has not been in any respect well advised in choosing Ephraim for conversion into English.
Nor has her judgment alone been at fault. We can, unfortu- nately, say little that is good of the translation. At best, the English reads throughout in that rough, uneven manner peculiar to indifferent translation ; while in many cases the wording is so obscure that we found ourselves forced to translate the sentences back into German to comprehend their drift. When this is needful, the raison Vire of a translation is gone. We will not attribute to her, bat rather to the printer's eccentricity, the fathering of the Bacchanalia upon the tyrant of Syracuse, rather than upon the God of Wine ; but we must make Mrs. Tyrrell responsible for such expressions as the following :—" A piquant picture was offered to the view ;" "the article dedicated to your distinguished family," meaning the article in a" Peerage" devoted to a certain noble family ; "whereas the description in Exodus is coloured by a strong and evident tendency ;" " he thought of the msthetic lectures which he had heard delivered," apparently meaning lectures on eesthetics, and not lucubrations a la Oscar Wilde. Speaking of a loan, Mrs. Tyrrell writes, "It will be subscribed in Germany almost in toto ;" she makes Ephraim send an article on the lea agraria to a scientific paper, the editor of which periodical must have been slightly astonished at this contribution. The orignal German is, of course, tassel's- schaftlich. From the above remarks, our readers will perceive that we cannot for any reasons recommend to them the perusal of Ephraim. If they desire to make themselves acquainted with current German literature, we can honestly assure them that this is not a fair specimen, and can but once more regret that
such misleading works are put before them by publishers and translators.
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