The San Francisco call., 1896-02-16

simplicity. Here is woman's existence
reduced to its simplest expression, deprived
of all grace of surroundings, of all that we
are apt to think indispensable to poetry
and the .poetical atmosphere; life in
which culture was an unattainabIe luxury
and intellectual companionship a
thing apparently unknown. All the great
human experiences have come to this
woman in rugged intensity, without ac-
cessories, but they have struck sacred fire
from her ardent spirit. The conditions of
her life are almost incredible and far sur
pass Carlyle's Utopia of Independent sim
plicity. Poverty as she has known it is a
rude taskmaster, and Johanna Ambrosius
has endured the prick of its goad since her
earliest childhood. In feeble health. she
has worked year in and year out, not at
her woman's work only, but on the thrash
ing floor ana in the stable, to support her
family and keep the wolf from the door.
The outline OF Johanna Ambrosius' life,
as Mr.. Schrattenthal gives it, is more than
simple perhaps as her friend he felt un-
able to give us q fuller account of it. She
was born on August 3, 1854 at Lengwethen
a small village in East Prussia. She was
the second child of worklnglnan. As a
little girl she went to the village school,
but only until her eleventh year, when her
time was required for household work.
Their mother was an invalid, and Johanna
and her sister, while yet mere children,
were called on to do all the work for the
amily-cooking, sweeping, washing and
scrubbing.
Their father. fortunately, was fond of
books. and did what he could to make UP
to the children for the advantages
great treat be allowed them to take
the Gartenlaube, a weekly illustrated mag
aZine. and they were glad enough to de-
prive themselves of any other pleasure for
the sake of this literary luxury. For many
years its pages seem to have been their
only intellectual pasturage, and Johanna
describes the unfaiing delight of poring
over them after the hard days work was
done. AS a young girl the unfortunate
poet went into service, but seems to have
been very unhappy, for she soon returned
to her home.
AT 20 Johanna married young peasant
by the name of Voigt. We are told moth
ing of her subsequent life beyond the fact
that son and q daughter We're born to the
young couple and that the struggle for eX-
istence was more strenuous than ever.
The joys and sorrows of motherhood seem
to wear a keener edge for her, sharpened
as they are by the ever-present sense of
poverty and want. Yet the note
OF Joy predominates when she thinks
and writes CT her children. and
such poem as ''Mein Bub" seems to have
come from the heart of all happy mothers.
1t is this quality of universally which is
so admirable in her verses. There is moth
ing of the village poet ahoIt her. One who
did not read the introduction to these
poems and the account of her life would
be at a loss to know where and when
to place the author, for even where
we can find trace of autobiography in
here and there verse, it is always
the universally human side of the
experience that is presented to US. Her
poems have been compared to all that is
classic in German literature, yet Herr
Schrattenthal assures US that it is only
within the last year or two that the works
of the German Olympians have been ac-
cessible to her. She looks back regretfully