the beautiful, imperishable world, and every true heart that does not allow itself to be subdued but enjoys the golden days and has learned to gild the gray ones. He is even full of hope as regards the fate of his home country. In spite of all defeats, in spite of all disgrace and distress, he prophesies a new spring for her and calls the poet blessed who may then win for her "the jewel of poetry." It is only when he actually has to leave his home and move away with his wife and children that he begins to doubt as to his own return; then his hope changes into the prayer that at least his sons may once be able to go back, for "no man thrives without a fatherland." In 1853 Storm had entered the Prussian service, and for three years held the position of assistant judge in the circuit court in Potsdam. There he was not content, in spite of the cordiality with which he was received, especially by Berlin poets, artists, and lovers of art. If we understand him aright, he was oppressed by the feeling that in the society of Potsdam the worth of the individual was determined by the office he held and by his descent, and that the human being in that State was sacrificed to the citizen and the official, the man to the soldier. During those years Storm's poetical production faltered, and it was fortunate for him that in the autumn of 1856 he was transferred as a circuit judge to Heiligenstadt in Central Germany. This cozy little town in the mountains appealed exceedingly to his nature, and on the whole he was able to live there much as he had been accustomed to in Husum. In addition, the improvement in his financial condition and the lesser burden of his professional work undoubtedly contributed to the re-awakening in him of the poet. He was not so productive in lyric poetry as during the years in Husum, but, as regards artistic value, the poems of this period certainly do not stand below those of the earlier one. He tries his hand at folk-poetry and succeeds in striking its key of heartiness, simplicity, and spontaneity. He clothes the popular theme of the enamoured miller's daughter in a garment of artistic form, and yet, by means of roguish humor and naïve frankness, manages to sound the note of the folk-song. He employs one of the most telling means for lyric effect by drawing parallels between the conditions in nature and those in men, and in doing this he awakens the most delicate harmonies by portraying both conditions without pointing out the relation between them, or by placing an individual in the midst of a somewhat minutely described landscape and leading us to imagine him in a state that corresponds with that of nature.