He is never guilty of writing about a character; the men and women are before us and we are left to draw our own conclusions. Yet we inevitably sympathize with him, and blame or praise as he would have us do. Heyse uses nature merely as a background for human beings. He never indulges in long rhapsodies over sunsets and beautiful views, or in lengthy descriptions of any scenes whatever; but he has Thomas Hardy's power of making places absolutely real in a few vivid words. Nature must be very dear to him, and he must understand her very thoroughly, or he could never reproduce her charm so truly. "Rothenburg on the Tauber" is a story of the spring-time; and reading it, we breathe the cool air of spring, see her pale tints, live through her sunny days and misty, moonlit nights. In "Minka," the gloom of a sombre autumn day depresses us as it does Eugene, and lends some of its own unearthly sadness to the strange story. All of Heyse's writings have atmosphere, that indefinable quality which no amount of mere description of places and people can give, but which comes of itself from the heart of the sympathetic writer. And Heyse is evidently deeply in sympathy with every subject which he treats. Feeling intensely himself, he wishes his readers to share his feeling, and he is so consummate a master of his art that he is sure of this effect. From the first word it is plain that he has something important to say, and the reader has no choice but to read on to the end. Nor is it possible by reading ten of Heyse's stories to divine what the eleventh may be. He is true to his principle of making each one utterly unlike all the others. This, perhaps, is one of Heyse's greatest charms. Prolific as he is, he never wearies one with sameness; his twentieth volume is as interesting and surprising as his first. Whether or no Heyse's works will live is a problem which must be left to its own solution. They are purely modern products, tales of nineteenth-century people, actuated by nineteenth-century thoughts and feelings; and though many of them are artistically perfect, they are saturated with the author's own personality, and have not that universal truth of application which usually characterizes the world's classics. "L'Arabbiata," "On the Banks of the Tiber," "The Maiden of Treppi," "The Mother's Picture," "A Divided Heart," and "Rothenburg on the Tauber," are among the best of the short stories. His "Tales of the Troubadours" are very beautiful, but are somewhat marred by a freedom of speech which approaches actual vulgarity. It is this unfortunate and unnecessary frankness which has brought against Heyse the accusation of immorality, although all his stories have an "upward tendency," and are time to the highest ideals. No one reading "A Divided Heart," or "Rothenburg on the Tauber," could doubt the rectitude of the writer's moral sense, or his love for the best in human nature.