Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive Transcriber's Note: 1.Page scan source: http://www.archive.org/details/seldwylafolksthr00kellrich SELDWYLA FOLKS THREE SINGULAR TALES SELDWYLA FOLKS THREE SINGULAR TALES BY THE SWISS POET GOTTFRIED KELLER TRANSLATIONS BY WOLF VON SCHIERBRAND, Ph.D. NEW YORK BRENTANO'S PUBLISHERS COPYRIGHT, 1919 BRENTANO'S * * * _All rights reserved_ PREFACE Gottfried Keller may fitly be called the greatest narrative writer that Switzerland has ever produced. Born July 19, 1819, near Zurich, he was reared in direst poverty. By dint of the hardest labor and by practicing the utmost frugality, his father was barely able to provide bread for wife and children. But in the midst of this penury the genius of his young son Gottfried expanded. As a mere child he gave already unmistakable evidence of being a dreamer, a thinker, a philosopher, a "fabulist," an artist. Just able to write, the little boy forever scribbled poems and fanciful tales, made rapid sketches with pencil and pen, portraits, caricatures, landscapes. At the village school he imbibed knowledge like a sponge. Soon the gnarled old schoolmaster, half peasant, half teacher, looked aghast at his little scholar: he had no more to teach him. Generous friends sent the youth to Munich, there to study art. For at that time his desire was to become a great painter. Desperately and with fiery energy the young fellow devoted himself to study, and his attainments were considerable. They would fully have sufficed for a career as a mediocre portrait painter. But his very excess of zeal led to surfeit, to exhaustion, to a period of lethargy. "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." This fit of listlessness lasted even for some time after Gottfried's return home. All effort with him slackened.