AUS DEM LEBEN EINES TAUGE NICHTS (1826) ("Out of the Life of a Good for-Nothing"), by Josef Freiherr von Eich endorff is one of the most pleasing products of German romanticism, a story of perennial charm. The hero, whose name, oddly enough, is never disclosed, listens dreamily to the melody of his father's mill-wheel, but he hears rather the call of the open road, and with naive recklessness he simply wanders forth from the humdrum and the every-day on a quest for the unknown, his only luggage being his violin. The story is the record of his diverting and highly romantic adventures. His attitude as a traveler may well be described in the words of another wanderer with whom he journeys for a time: "When we start out in the morning, the finest thing about it is that we have no idea what chimney is smoking for us that day, or what good fortune may be ours before night fall." But, unlike various other stories of romantic wandering, Tieck's 'Franz Stern balds for example, Eichendorff's talc has a genuine plot upon which a substan tial part of the interest depends. As a late
product of the romantic era, the story lacks the earlier vagueness, mysticism or morbidity of the school; it is an unsurpassed example of romantic "Wanderlust," and it illustrates as well the characteristic turning of northern eyes toward the colorful lands of the south, for the hero seeks the road to Italy and finds it. Eichendorff's talent was essentially lyric, and his little story is flooded with lyric feeling; in it, indeed, several of his most charming lyrics are embedded; for example: Wem Gott will rechte Gunst erweisen, den schickt er in die weite Welt ("When God a special favor granteth, He sends one roaming through the world", or, Wer in die Fremde will wandern ("Who in distant lands would Con sult trans. by C. G. Leland, 'Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing> (New York 1866), and by Mrs. A. L. Wister, 'Leaves from the Life of a Good-for-Nothing' (Philadelphia 1889).