Read more
Excerpt from Der Bibliothekar
Neither Wallner nor Moser invited audiences to their theatre to study character but only to smile at the good humored caricature of their own foibles. To look for high comedy here would be not only to invite but to deserve disappointment. But the exaggerated treatment of idio syncrasies will be more easily enjoyed if it is applied to a nation or class foreign to the spectator. Hence Moser lays the scene of this play in England, which for genera tions has been the familiar hunting-ground of German humorists and a mark for the shafts of a somewhat jealous ridicule. But all this is purely external, and as far as the es sence of the play is concerned the scene might as well have been laid in Moser's own house at Gorlitz or in Thomas More's Utopia.
The play opens in London, but in the second act we are taken to the country seat of Marsland, an amiable squire, whose daughter and niece are what Scribe would have called the girls to be married, one of the essential constituents of every comedy. These dainty little creatures are a little coquettish, but quite lovable, and fruits so nearly ripe that they do not cling very closely to the paternal or avuncularbough. They are supposed to be kept in the path of mod est propriety by a governess whose sentimental prudery and spiritualism make an easy mark for satire. Now'marsland has engaged as private secretary, or Bibliothekar, Robert, a relative of the governess, who is exhibited to us as a cari cature of the awkward, bashful, simple-minded student of the idealistic type. Marsland is going to give a hunt at his country-seat and has invited Harry to come and bring the Bibliothekar with him. Harry, however, substitutes his friend Lothair for Robert, for both those young gentlemen are forced to leave London in haste to escape imprisonment for debt at the suit of the tailor Gibson, an arch-snob, whom they temporarily mollify by a little aristocratic ¿attery.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
