Excerpt from The International Library of Famous Literature, Vol. 4 of 20: Selections From the World's Great Writers, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, With Biographical and Explanatory Notes and Critical Essays by Many Eminent Writers At the' bottom of the German heart there is a good deal of senti mentality: This feeling, which makes us so fond of singing and music, of intimate family life and cheerful conviviality, has given to our literature a peculiar flavour, a popular turn, an inclination to what moves the soul of the peasant and the labourer - sometimes indeed, at the cost of realistic incident or refined form. But out of this prevailing level of literary cottage-life there rises from time to time a bold fabric of intellect, aspiring to the mystical and the metaphysical. In the act of rearing such a structure the German mind has been used to exert all its original power, and then to abandon itself for a while to rest or distraction. In consequence we have had, in the course of centuries, several striking Bluthe perioden, but not that almost unbroken continuity of fine literature that England has enjoyed from the time of Chaucer to the present day. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.