(A.E.) George William Russell - "Imaginations and Reveries"

T.S. Arthur - "The Lights and Shadows of Real Life"

Homer Eon Flint - "The Emancipatrix"

Horatio Alger [supposed] - "Nothing to Eat"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: The Malady of the Century

M >> Max Nordau >> The Malady of the Century



Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

THE MALADY OF THE CENTURY

BY MAX NORDAU

Author of "THE COMEDY OF SENTIMENT," "HOW WOMEN LOVE," Etc., Etc.



CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
Mountain and Forest

CHAPTER II.
Vanity of Vanities

CHAPTER III.
Heroes

CHAPTER IV.
It was not to be

CHAPTER V.
A Lay Sermon

CHAPTER VI.
An Idyll

CHAPTER VII.
Symposium

CHAPTER VIII.
Dark Days

CHAPTER IX.
Results

CHAPTER X.
A Seaside Romance

CHAPTER XL
In the Horselberg

CHAPTER XII.
Tannhauser's Plight

CHAPTER XIII.
Consummation

CHAPTER XIV.
Uden Horizo




CHAPTER I.

MOUNTAIN AND FOREST.


"Come, you fellows, that's enough joking. This defection of yours,
melancholy Eynhardt, combines obstinacy with wisdom, like Balaam's
ass! Well! may you rest in peace. And now let us be off."

The glasses, filled with clear Affenthaler, rang merrily together,
the smiling landlord took up his money, and the company rose noisily
from the wooden bench, overturning it with a bang. The round table
was only proof against a similar accident on account of its
structure, which some one with wise forethought had so designed that
only the most tremendous shaking could upset its equilibrium. The
boisterous group consisted of five or six young men, easily
recognized as students by their caps with colored bands, the scars
on their faces, and their rather swaggering manner. They slung their
knapsacks on, stepped through the open door of the little arbor
where they had been sitting, on to the highroad, and gathered round
the previous speaker. He was a tall, good-looking young man, with
fair hair, laughing blue eyes, and a budding mustache.

"Then you are determined, Eynhardt, that you won't go any further?"
asked he, with an accent which betrayed him as a Rhinelander.

"Yes, I am determined," Eynhardt answered.

"A groan for the worthless fellow; but more in sorrow than in
anger," said the tall one to the others. They groaned three times
loudly, all together, while the Rhinelander gravely beat time. An
unpracticed ear would very likely have failed to note the shade of
feeling implied in the noise; but he appeared satisfied.

"Well, just as you like. No compulsion. Freedom is the best thing in
life--including the freedom to do stupid things."

"Perhaps he knows of some cave where he is going to turn hermit,"
said one of the group.

"Or he has a little business appointment, and we should be in the
way," said another.

They laughed, and the Rhinelander went on:

"Well! moon away here, and we will travel on. But before all things
be true to yourself. Don't forget that the whole world is as much a
phantom as the brown Black Forest maiden. And now farewell; and
think a great deal about us phantom people, who will always keep up
the ghost of a friendship for you."

The young man whom he addressed shook him and the others by the
hand, and they all lifted their caps with a loud "hurrah," and
struck out vigorously on the road. The sentiment of the farewell,
and the tender speeches, had been disposed of in the inn, so they
now parted gayly, in youth's happy fullness of life and hope for the
future, and without any of that secret melancholy which Time the
immeasurable distils into every parting. Hardly had they turned
their backs on the friend they left behind them when they began to
sing, "Im Schwarzen Walfisch zu Askalon," exaggerating the
melancholy of the first half of the tune, and the gayety of the
second, passing riotously away behind a turn of the road, their song
becoming fainter and fainter in the distance.

This little scene, which took place on an August afternoon in the
year 1869, had for its theater the highroad leading from Hausach to
Triberg, just at the place where a footpath descends into the valley
to the little town of Hornberg. The persons represented were young
men who had lately graduated at Heidelberg, and who were taking a
holiday together in the Black Forest, recovering from the recent
terrors of examination in the fragrant air of the pine woods. As far
off as Offenburg they had traveled by the railway in the prosaic
fashion of commercial travelers, from there they had tramped like
Canadian backwoodsmen, and reached Hasslach--twelve miles as the
crow flies. After resting for a day they set out at the first
cockcrow, and before the noontide heat reached the lovely
Kinzigthal, which lies all along the way from Hausach to Hornberg.
Over the door of a wayside inn a signboard, festooned with freshly-
cut carpenter's shavings, beckoned invitingly to them, and here the
young men halted. The view from this place was particularly
beautiful. The road made a kind of terrace halfway up the mountain,
on one side rising sheer up for a hundred feet to its summit,
thickly wooded all the way, on the other side sloping to the wide
valley, where the Gutach flowed, at times tumbling over rough
stones, or again spreading itself softly like oil, through flat
meadow land. Below lay the little town of Hornberg, with its crooked
streets and alleys, its stately square, framing an old church,
several inns, and prosperous-looking houses and shops. Beyond the
valley rose a high, steep hill, with a white path climbing in
zigzags through its wooded sides. On the summit a white house with
many windows was perched, seeming to hang perpendicularly a thousand
feet above the valley. Its whitewashed walls stood out sharply
against the background of green pine trees, clearly visible for many
miles round. A conspicuous inscription in large black letters showed
that this audacious and picturesque house was the Schloss hotel, and
a glance at the gray ruined tower which rose behind it gave at once
a meaning to the name. Behind the hill, with its outline softened by
trees and encircled by the blue sky, were ridges of other hills in
parallel lines meeting the horizon, alternately sharp-edged and
rounded, stretching from north to south. They seemed like some great
sea, with majestic wave-hills and wave-valleys; behind the first
appeared a second, then a third, then a fourth, as far as one's eye
could see; each one of a distinct tone of color, and of all the
shades from the deepest green through blue and violet to vaporous
pale gray.

The sight of this picture had decided Wilhelm Eynhardt not to go any
further. The others had resolved to push on to Triberg the same day,
and above all, not to turn back till they had bathed in the Boden-
see. As every persuasion was powerless to alter Eynhardt's decision,
they separated, and the travelers started on their walk to Triberg.
Eynhardt, however, stayed at Hornberg, meaning to climb to the
Schloss hotel again from the other side.

Wilhelm Eynhardt was a young man of twenty-four, tall and slim of
figure, with a strikingly handsome face. His eyes were almond-
shaped, not large but very dark, with much charm of expression. The
finely-marked eyebrows served by their raven blackness to emphasize
the whiteness of the forehead, which was crowned by an abundant mass
of curling black hair. His fresh complexion had still the bloom of
early youth, and would hardly have betrayed his age, if it had not
been shaded by a dark brown silky beard, which had never known a
razor. It was an entirely uncommon type, recalling in profile,
Antinous, and the full face reminding one of the St. Sebastian of
Guido Roni in the museum of the Capitol; a face of the noblest
manhood, without a single coarse feature. His manner, although
quiet, gave the impression of keen enthusiasm, or, more rightly
speaking, of unworldly inspiration. All who saw him were powerfully
attracted, but half-unconsciously felt a slight doubt whether even
so fine a specimen of manhood was quite fitly organized and equipped
for the strife of existence. At the university he had been given the
nickname of Wilhelmina, on account of a certain gentleness and
delicacy of manner, and because he neither drank nor smoked. Such
jokes, not ill-natured, were directed against his outward
appearance, but had a shade of meaning as regards his character.

As Wilhelm walked into the courtyard of the Schloss hotel he stopped
a moment to regain his breath. Before him was the stately new house,
whose white-painted walls and many windows had looked down on the
high-road; to the left stood the round tower inclosed within a
ruined wall, shading an airy lattice-work building, in which on a
raised wooden floor stood a table and some benches. Several people,
evidently guests at the hotel, sat there drinking wine and beer, and
eying the newcomer curiously. The burly landlord, in village dress,
emerged from the open door of the cellar in the tower, and wished
him "good-day." He had a thick beard and a sunburned face, with
good-natured blue eyes. With a searching glance at the young man's
cap and knapsack, he waited for Wilhelm to speak.

"Can I have a room looking on to the valley?" asked the latter.

"Not at this moment," the landlord answered, clearing his throat
loudly; "there is hardly a room free here, and that only in the top
story. But to-morrow, or the day after, many people are leaving, and
then I can give you what you want."

Wilhelm's face clouded with disappointment, but only for a moment,
then he said: "Very well, I will stay."

"Luggage?" said the landlord, in his short, unceremonious way. "My
luggage is at Haslach. It can come up to-morrow."

"Bertha," called the landlord, in such a strident tone that the
mountains echoed the sound. The visitors drinking in the kiosk
smiled; they were well accustomed to the man. A neat red-cheeked
girl appeared in the doorway. "Number 47," shouted the landlord, and
went off to his other duties.

Bertha led the new guest up three flights of uncarpeted wooden
staircase, down a long passage to a light, clean, but sparely-
furnished room. The girl told him the hours of meals, brought some
water, and left him alone. He hung his knapsack on a hook on the
wall, opened the little window, and gazed long at the view.
Underneath was the open space where he had been standing, to the
left the tower, and behind, over the ruined walls, he could see the
old, neglected castle yard full of weeds and heaps of rubbish--a
picture of decay and desolation.

"I have chosen well," thought Wilhelm, for he loved solitude, and
promised himself enjoyable hours of wandering in the ruins in
company with luxuriant flowers and singing birds.

He barely gave himself time to freshen his face with cold water, and
to change his thick walking shoes for lighter ones; immediately
hurrying out to make acquaintance with the castle. Before he could
get there he had first to find in the tumbledown wall a hole large
enough to enable him to get through. He shortly found himself in a
fairly large square space, the uneven ground being formed of a mass
of rubbish, mounds of earth, and deep holes. Woods protected the
greater part of it, most of the trees stunted and choked by
undergrowth and shrubs, with occasionally a high, solitary pine
tree, and near to the west and south walls half-withered oaks and
mighty beeches stood thickly. Here and there from the bushes peeped
up bare pieces of crumbling stone and broken pieces of mortar, in
whose crevices hung long grasses, and where yellow, white, and red
flowers nestled. Climbing, stumbling, and slipping, he worked his
way through this wilderness, the length and breath of which he
wished to inspect so as to discover a place where he could rest
quietly, when he suddenly came to a precipitous fall of the ground,
concealed from him by a thick curtain of leaves. Startled and taken
by surprise, the ground seemed to him to sink under his feet. He
instinctively caught hold of some branches to keep himself from
falling, pricking his hands with the thorns, and breaking a slender
bough, finally rolling in company with dust and earth, torn-out
bushes and stone, down a steep declivity of several feet to a little
grass plot at the bottom. He heard a slight scream near him, and a
girlish form sprang up and cried in an anxious voice:

"Have you hurt yourself?"

Wilhelm picked himself up as quickly as he could, brushed the earth
from his clothes, and taking off his cap said, "Thanks, not much.
Only a piece of awkwardness. But I am afraid I have frightened you?"
he added.

"A little bit; but that is all right."

They looked at each other for the first time, and the lady laughed,
while Wilhelm blushed deeply. She stopped again directly, blushed
also, and dropped her eyes. She was a girl in the first bloom of
youth, of particularly fine and well-made figure, with a beautiful
face; two dimples in her cheeks giving her a roguish expression, and
a pair of lively brown eyes. A healthy color was in her cheeks, and
in the well-cut, seductive little mouth. Her luxuriant, golden-brown
hair, in the fashion of the day, was brushed back in long curls. She
had as her only ornament a pale gold band in her hair, and wore a
simple dress of light-flowered material, the high waistband fitting
close to the girlish figure. Conventionality began to assert its
rights over nature, and the girl too felt confused at finding
herself in the middle of a conversation with a strange man, suddenly
shot down at her very feet. Wilhelm understood and shared her
embarrassment, and bowing, he said:

"As no doubt we are at the same house, allow me to introduce myself.
My name is Wilhelm Eynhardt. I come from Berlin, and took up my
abode an hour ago at the Schloss hotel."

"From Berlin," said the girl quickly; "then we are neighbors. That
is very nice. And where do you live in Berlin, if I may ask?"

"In Dorotheenstrasse."

"Of course you do," and a clear laugh deepened the shadow of her
dimples.

"Why 'of course?'" asked Wilhelm, rather surprised.

"Why, because that is our Latin quarter, and as a student--you are a
student, I suppose?"

"Yes, and no. In the German sense I am no longer a student, for I
took my degree a year ago; but the word in English is better and
truer, as there 'student' is used where we should say scholar
(gelehrter). Scholars we are, not only learners. In the English
sense then I am a student, and hope to remain so all my life."

"Ah, you speak English," she said, quickly catching at the word;
"that is charming. I am tremendously fond of English, and am quite
accustomed to it, as I spent a great part of my time in England when
I was very young. I have been told that I have a slight English
accent in speaking German. Do you think so?"

"My ear is not expert enough for that," said Wilhelm apologetically.

"My friends," she chattered on, "nearly all speak French; but I
think English is much more uncommon. Fluent English in a German is
always proof of good education. Don't you think so?"

"Not always," said Wilhem frankly; "it might happen that one had
worked as a journeyman in America."

The girl turned up her nose a little at this rather unkind
observation, but Wilhelm went on:

"With your leave I would rather keep to our mother-tongue. To speak
in a foreign language with a fellow-country-woman without any
necessity would be like acting a charade, and a very uncomfortable
thing."

"I think a charade is very amusing," she answered; "but just as you
like. Opportunities of speaking English are not far to seek. Most of
the visitors at the hotel are English. I dare say you have noticed
it already. But they are not the best sort. They are common city
people, who even drop their h's, but who play at being lords on the
Continent. Of course I have learned already to tell a 'gentleman'
from a 'snob.'"

Wilhelm smiled at the self-conscious importance with which she
spoke. His eyes wandered over her beautiful hair, to the tender
curve of her slender neck and beautiful shoulders, while she,
feeling perfectly secure again, settled herself comfortably. Her
seat was a projecting piece of stone, which had been converted by a
soft covering of moss into a delightful resting-place. An
overhanging bush shaded it pleasantly. In front lay a corner of the
castle; across a smooth piece of turf and through a wide gap in the
wall they caught a view of the mountains, as if painted by some
artist's brush--a perfect composition which would have put the
crowning touch to his fame. The girl had been trying to make a
sketch of the view in a well-worn sketchbook which lay near.

"You have given a sufficient excuse for your sketches by your
feeling for natural beauty," remarked Wilhelm. "May I look at the
page?"

"Oh," she said, somewhat confused, "my will is of the best, but I
can do so little," and she hesitatingly gave him her album. He took
it and also the pencil, looked alternately at the mountains and on
the page of the book, and without asking leave began to improve upon
it, strengthening a line here, lightening a shadow and giving
greater breadth, and then growing deeply interested in his work, he
sat down without ceremony on the mossy bank, took a piece of india-
rubber, and erasing here, adding lines there, sometimes laying in a
shadow, giving strength to the foreground and lightness to the
background, he ended by making a really pretty and artistic sketch.

The girl had watched him wonderingly, and said as he returned the
album, "But you are a great artist," and without letting him speak
she went on, "and by your appearance I had taken you for a student!
But you are not in the least like a student, nor in fact like a
German either. I have often met Indian princes in society in London,
and I think you are very much like them."

Wilhelm smiled. "There is a grain of truth in what you say, although
you overrate it a little. A great artist I certainly am not, nor
even a little one, but I have always observed much and painted a
good deal myself, and originally I thought of devoting myself to an
artist's career; and if I have nothing in common with Indian
princes, and am merely a plebeian German, I very likely have a drop
of Indian blood in my veins."

"Really," she said, with curiosity.

"Yes, my mother was a Russian German living in Moscow, and whose
father, a Thuringian, had married a Russian girl of gypsy descent.
Through this grandmother, whom I never knew, I am related by remote
genealogical descent to Indians. But you do not look like a German
either, with your beautiful dark hair and eyebrows."

She took this personal compliment in good part as she answered
quickly:

"There is some reason for that too. Just as you have Indian, I have
French blood in my veins. My father's mother was a Colonial, her
maiden name was Du Binache."

So they gossiped on like old acquaintances. Young and beautiful as
they were, they found the deepest pleasure in one another, and the
cold feeling of strangeness melted as by a charm. They were awakened
to the consciousness that half an hour earlier neither of them had
an idea of the other's existence, by the appearance of a girl in the
gap in the wall, who seemed very much surprised at the sight of
their evident intimacy. The young lady stood up rather hastily and
went a few steps toward the newcomer, a servant-maid, who had
brought a cloak for her mistress, and took charge of her album,
sunshade, and large straw hat.

"Is it so late already?" she said, with a naive surprise, which left
no room for doubt even to Wilhelm's modesty.

"Certainly, fraulein," said the maid, pointing with her hand to the
distant mountain, whose peaks were already clothed with the orange
hue of twilight; then she looked alternately at her young mistress
and the strange gentleman, whose handsome face she inwardly noted.

"Do you think of making any stay here?" asked the young lady of
Wilhelm, who followed slowly.

"Yes, certainly," he answered at once.

"Then we may become good friends. My parents will be glad to make
your acquaintance. I did not tell you before that my father is Herr
Ellrich."

As Wilhelm merely bowed, without seeming to recognize the name, she
said rather sharply, and slightly raising her voice:

"I thought as you came from Berlin you would be sure to know my
father's name--Councilor Ellrich, Vice-President of the
'Seehandlung.'"

The name and title made very little impression on Wilhelm, but his
politeness brought forth an "Ah!" which satisfied Fraulein Ellrich.
They left the ruins by an easy path which Wilhelm had not noticed
before, and walked together to the entrance of the hotel, where she
took leave of him by an inclination of her head. He betook himself
to his room in a dream, and while he recalled to his mind the
picture of her beautiful face, and the clear ring of her voice, he
thought how grateful he was to this chance, that not only had he
become acquainted with the girl, but that he had avoided in such a
glorious fashion the discomfort of a formal introduction. Also
Wilhelm knew himself well, and felt sure that, badly endowed as he
was for forming new acquaintances, he could never have become
friends with Fraulein Ellrich apart from the accident of his fall in
the castle yard.

Dinner was served at separate tables where single guests might take
it as they pleased, and Wilhelm was absentminded and dreamy when he
sat down. He scarcely glanced at the large, cool dining-room,
ornamented with engravings of portraits of the Grand Dukes of Baden
and their wives. Six large windows looked into the valley of the
Gutach with its little town of Hornberg, and the mountains lying
beyond. He hardly noticed the rather silent people at the other
tables, in which the English element predominated. He had come in
purposely late in the hope of finding Fraulein Ellrich already
there. She was not present; but he was not kept long in suspense
before a waiter opened the door, and the lovely girl appeared
accompanied by a stately gentleman and a stout lady. They seemed to
be known to the servants, for as soon as they appeared the
headwaiter and his subordinates rushed toward them, and with many
bows and scrapes took their wraps from them and ushered them to
their places.

Wilhelm, who possessed very little knowledge of society, was
somewhat at a loss. Ought he to recognize the young lady? If he
followed his inclination, he certainly would do so. But her parents!
They seemed to be cold and reserved-looking. Happily all fell out
for the best. The Ellrichs walked straight to the table where he was
sitting, and in a moment Wilhelm was greeting his lovely
acquaintance with a low bow. Her quick eyes had already recognized
him from the doorway. She returned his greeting smiling and
blushing, and as her father nodded kindly, the ice was broken.
Wilhelm introduced himself, and the councilor gave him the tips of
his fingers and said: "If you have no objection we will sit at your
table." His wife, who gazed at Wilhelm through a gold "pince-nez"
with hardly concealed surprise, took her place next to him; on the
other side sat her husband, and opposite the daughter's face smiled
at him.

The councilor was a well-preserved man of about fifty, of good
height, dressed in a well-made gray traveling suit, with a light
gray silk tie adorned with a pin of black pearl. His closely-cut
hair was very thin, and had almost disappeared from the top of his
head. His chin was clean-shaven, but his well-brushed whiskers and
closely-cut mustache showed signs of gray. His light blue eyes were
cold and rather tired-looking, at the corners of the mouth were
evident signs of indolence, and his whole appearance gave an
impression of self-consciousness mixed with indifference toward the
rest of mankind; his wife, stout, blooming, and tranquil, appeared
to be a kindly soul.

The conversation opened trivially on the circumstances of Wilhelm
meeting with Fraulein Ellrich, and on the beauty of the
neighborhood, which Herr Ellrich glorified as not being overrun.

"I would much rather recommend it for quiet than Switzerland with
its crowds," he said.

Wilhelm agreed with him, and related how he was induced by the
romantic aspect of the place to give up his original plans, and to
anchor himself here. When they questioned him, he gave them some
information about Heidelberg and his journey to Hornberg. Frau
Ellrich complimented him on his sketch, and while he modestly
disclaimed the praise, she asked him why he had not devoted himself
to art.

"That is a peculiar result of my development," answered Wilhelm
thoughtfully. "While I was still at the gymnasium I sketched and
painted hard, and after the final examination I went to the Art
Academy for two years; but the further I went into the study of art,
and the more attentively I followed in the beaten track of art-
studies, the clearer it was to me that he who would secure an
abiding success in art must be a blind copyist of nature. Certainly
the personal peculiarities of an artist often please his
contemporaries. It is the fashion to do him honor if he flatters the
prevailing direction of taste. But those of the race who follow
after, scorn what those before them have admired, and exactly what
those of one time have prized as progressive innovations, they who
come after reject as mere aberration. What the artist has himself
accomplished, I mean his so-called personal comprehension or his
capricious interpretation of nature, passes away; but what he simply
and honorably reproduces, as he has truly seen it, lives forever,
and the remotest age will gladly recognize in such art-work its old
acquaintance, unchanging nature."