To Italy, Heyse turns for sensuous delights in many of his tales. _L’Arrabiata_, probably the best known of any of his _Novellen_ by students of German in colleges and classes, written when he was twenty-three, has an interesting history.[75] Paul Heyse as a young man, and his friend, Joseph Victor Scheffel, were at an inn at Sorrento. They had been together at Capri and had planned to hold a “literary joust,” to read to each other, at Sorrento, some new tale or poem. Scheffel contributed the poem, _Der Trumpeter von Gättingen_; Heyse read _L’Arrabiata_. Piquant is this tale of the maiden’s love for Antonio, the boatman, and her maidenly pride and resistance to his love until the injury to his arm and his plea to her, in memory of her mother, brings about a romantic sequel. Twenty-five years later Heyse was again at Sorrento; he sent a greeting, in rhyme, to this friend of earlier days and later life. He told him that he had seen again his model, “Laurella,” on the street but she did not recognize him; she was far removed from the “madcap” of fifteen, the “cross-patch,” with her youthful charm and wistful appeal. The background of this tale, against Naples and Vesuvius, is painted with that vivid photography which characterizes Heyse’s scenes in drama and fiction. Unlike Balzac or Turgenieff, he wrote few words of description but “created atmosphere” that was alive. Striking examples are the familiar tales, “Barbarossa,” “At the Ghost Hour” and “The Dead Lake.” In the later _Novellen_, as well as the novels and plays of other years, Heyse showed tendencies towards realism and less romanticism. On the other hand, he never lost his urge for sensuous beauty, his determination “to follow one’s bent” (“sich gehen zu lassen”). He would not compel himself to irksome writing; he would yield to impulse and mood. “The real sin is against nature” was his keynote, reiterated from the short tale of “Reise nach dem Glück” (“Journey After Happiness”) to the longer novels, _Kinder der Welt_ (_Children of the World_) and _Im Paradiese_ (_In Paradise_). In philosophy he has been called both fatalistic and epicurean. The conflicts between restraint and self-surrender, especially in women, are germ-ideas in such diverse writings as _L’Arrabiata_, _The Sabine Women_ (with the heroine, Tullia) and _In Paradise_, with the forceful character of Irene. In the dialogue, in _Children of the World_, between Balder, the invalid-idealist and Franzel, the socialist-printer, the author’s convictions are unfolded. Balder declares that life is full of enjoyment to him, in spite of outward sufferings, because “he can experience past and future,” because he can “conjure up” all the periods of his life and find a totality, a completeness of enjoyment. So the young baron in the novel, _In Paradise_, which has been vehemently discussed for two generations, sins against his own nature and his friend and, for a time, his “inner harmony” is destroyed but