The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-05-03


at once struck root and grew, and now, what
ever criticism may say, is for poetical pur-
poses indestructible. After the ''White
Book came the 'Tellenlied" (1474), in which
the hero, who in the prose chronicle is called
1.-THE Tall" (Id0 signifying ''daft'O, bears
the name, which is never afterwards to desert
him, sWilhelm Tell" The "Tellenlied"
celebrates the formation of the Swiss Con-
federation, of which Uri is the nucleus, while
of this nucleus Tell is the heart and soul
The chronicle of Stumpff (154S) and that
of Tschudi (1572) give fuller and
fuller accounts of the history of the
imaginary William Tell; and Tschudi,
with the naive mendacity of an inventive
child, names the very day on which each sup
posed incident took place. 1t was on the 25th
July, 1907, being st. James Day, that Cess
lers hat was first hoisted on the pole, and it
was on the Sunday after the festival of St.
Othmar, the 18th of November in the same
year, that William Tell passed to and fro
before it without uncovering himself. The
insurrectionary movement began on the 1st
of January, 1908, and the oath of the three
cantons was sworn on the 9TH of January.
Tschudi could, if he pleased, name the hour
and the minute. AS it is, he tells us the
exact terms of the alliance, which was formed
for ten years. He was personally acquainted
with Furst, of Uri, and reveals for the first
time the fact, since accepted by Muller and
at later period by Seller and by Rossini,
that his Christian name was Walter.
Muller comes forward with details msus-
pected even by Tschudi. William Tell, he
has ascertained, was born at Burglen. He
married Furst's (Walter Furst's) daughter,
and he had two sons, William, named after
himself, and Walter, named after the
father-in-law. Gessler's Christian name was
Hermann, and Marguet, the wife of Stauf-
fonhar xpac Har1obioy bu birth Tbaca ,1or
ticulars, obviously of Mullers own fabrica-
ton, impart, nevertheless, wonderful air of
truthfulness to the narrative. The historian
knew as well as modern novelist the artistic
value of details, aud to give additional reality
to his tale did not hesitate to name and char
acterize every parsonage that he introduced.
So when he brought out the second edition of
his "Peau de Chagrin," Balzac, in the scene
of the banquet and designated by proper
names incidental characters whom, in the
first edition, he had vaguely mentioned as "a
barrister," "a vaudevilliste," ''a journalist"
"a physician, the French novelist had dis
covered what the Swiss hittorian knew full
well-that if you introduce parsonage to
reader, and wish him to be believed in, you
must at least take the trouble to give him q
name. .-. ... t.r.
Muller, all the same, was conscientious after
his own manner, only he held strange views
dS 70 tu0 uuUy VI I'LL ul6JOEldll, buluhluR HD-
parently that his one great aim should be to
render his work interesting to the reader.
Do not let us blame him too severely, for
Muller's descriptions furnished Schiller with
the groundwork of some of his finest passages,
and supplied material which was one day to
inspire Rossini. The rG11s des caches, the
storm on the lake, the fishermen, the shep-
herds, and all the picturesque details which
give such naturalness and beauty to the drama,
e h.,1Io ET..1Iz i
a contempt for mere truth; perhaps he did
not believe in it. But he professed an
artists regard for truthfulness, probability,
appropriateness; and he takes care in
foot-note to justify his description of Stauff-
acher's house, observing that ''the antiquity
of this mode of building is proved by Priscus,
Ldg0ti0 Gd AttiLam." You may think what
you please of his right to invent characters
and Incidents, but do not for one moment
suspect him of SHINING against tverlsimilitude,
either of time or place.
From period to period the story of William
Tell becomes not only more complete and
more dramatic, but also more and more Swiss,
until in Schiller's play there is such super
abundance of Swiss details that by that and
that alone Gas Swiss critic has ingeniously
pointed out) it can be seen that the poet is
not native of Switzerland. He knows the
country by hearsay and by his own
vivid Imagination. Everything in the
drama is thoroughly Swiss, only there is
too much of it. There are too many
remarks on COWS and chamois, two many
precipices and chasms, too many winding
paths; the shepherds of the Alps are like
German tourists-astonished at seeing in
| Switzerland what they never could have seen
| at Weimar. Finally, in the hands of Rossipi
| the drama becomes more intensely Swiss than
even Schiller had made it. In the opera we
not only see the Swiss sights, we hear the
Swiss sounds, though the critic just cited
would probably say that Swiss fishermen do
not sing barcaroles, that the c0f7ao dS bassettO
is not used in the Swiss mountains, and that
the rans des caches, according to Rossini, is
not so much a recollection as a beautiful
| dream of Switzerland.