the secret of dramatic style; like the child in the fairy-tale I had
sought it from the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars. At length I had found
it: my soul could create securely and comfortably after the manner
which the stage itself demanded." He had found it, we are given to
understand, in part through the study of the French dramatists of his
own day of whom Scribe was one just then in vogue. From them, says a
critic, he learned "lightness of touch, brevity, conciseness,
directness, the use of little traits as a means of giving insight into
character, different ways of keeping the interest at the proper point
of tension, and a thousand little devices for clearing the stage of
superfluous figures or making needed ones appear at the crucial
moment." Among his tricks of style, if we may call them so, are
inversion and elision; by the one he puts the emphasis just where he
wishes, by the other he hastens the action without sacrificing the
meaning. Another of his weapons is contrast--grave and gay, high and
low succeed each other rapidly, while vice and virtue follow suit.

No writer ever trained himself for his work more consciously and
consistently. He experimented with each play, watched its effect on
his audiences, asked himself seriously whether their apparent want of
interest in this or that portion was due to some defect in his work or
to their own obtuseness. He had failures, but remarkably few, and they
did not discourage him; nor did momentary success in one field
prevent him from abandoning it for another in which he hoped to
accomplish greater things. He is his own severest critic, and in his
autobiography speaks of certain productions as worthless which are
only relatively wanting in merit.

Freytag's orderly treatment of his themes affords constant pleasure to
the reader. He proceeds as steadily toward his climax as the builder