"In Leipsic I had lived a short time on the street nearest the Rosenthal with a hatmaker, who manufactured straw hats. Near to him, as it chanced, was another well-known firm, which administered to the same need of the male sex by felt-hats. This accident suggested the invention of the families Hummel and Hahn, although here also neither the characters nor the hostilities of the two families are copied from real life. Only the incident is made use of, that my landlord took particular pleasure in decorating his garden by ever new inventions: the White Muse, the Chinese lanterns, and the summer-house by the road, I have taken from his little garden. Moreover, two characters of his household,--the very ones which, by reason of their mythical character, have given offence, are exact copies of reality; namely, the dogs Fighthahn and Spitehahn. These my landlord had bought at an auction somewhere to act as warders of his property; they excited through their currish behavior the indignation of the whole street, until they were poisoned by an exasperated neighbor. Fighthahn died. Spitehahn survived and, after that time, was quite as bristly and misanthropical as he is portrayed in the novel, so that finally in consequence of the perpetration of numberless misdeeds his owner was obliged to banish him forever to rural life." The novel, as is the case with every work of prominence and influence, did not escape criticism, even among the friends of the author. In his Autobiographical Reminiscences, Gustav Freytag refers to the fact. He says: "The Lost Manuscript met with disapproval from many intimate critics of mine. The sombre coloring of the last volume gave offence. It was much objected that the religious struggles and the spiritual development of the heroine Ilse were not placed in the foreground, and again that Felix Werner was not more severely punished for the neglect of his duty towards his wife. But the insanity of the Sovereign was especially objectionable, and it was claimed that in our time such a figure was no longer possible. My friends were wrong in this criticism. The Sovereign and his son the Hereditary Prince were also taken as types. The former represents the perverted development of an earlier generation which had sprung up from the ruin of Napoleonic times; the latter the restriction and narrowness of life in the petty principalities that then made up the German nation."