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The author of the following work is a man well on in the fifties and lives-as he should-on his native soil. Born in Steiermark, Austria, in a lonely mountain region, he led the life of a forest peasant until he reached the age of eighteen, when he became apprenticed to a travelling peasant tailor. On the expiration of this apprenticeship, which covered a period of four years, he spent other four years as charity scholar in the commercial school at Graz. After these experiences, and after having mastered such a variety of subjects, he began to work at something which he t only had t mastered but with which he was wholly unfamiliar-literature. He had always had a passion for books, but having money with which to buy them, he had made them for himself. In the peasant hut and in the workshop had been brought forth less than twenty-four magnificent volumes, closely written with ink made from soot, illustrated with lead-pencil, and painted in water-colours with a brush made from his own hair-edition de luxe! But worthy to be printed!-t a single line. Thus this youth had worked for ten long years, every Sunday, every holiday, and often late into the night, by the light of a pine torch and in the midst of the ise of his house companions, who occupied the same room. The intellectual and spiritual life of the poor lad was a very lonely one. He did t write for print; the incent boy scarcely knew that books were already being printed in this age, for the most of those which he had seen were old folios. He simply wrote to make two out of one, to place himself before himself, in his thoughts, in poems, in all kinds of yarns and tales, that in his great loneliness he might at least have a comrade. Beyond this he did t think or strive, was happy rather than unhappy, cherishing a vague hope that his life would at some time change. Whenever he asked himself what this change might be, he would calmly answer: - Probably death. But at this point things took a strange turn. The young man was completely transformed; t only from boy to youth, from youth to man; he changed t his coat alone, but in his fustian jacket, in his workman's blouse or student's garb, there appeared each time ather being, which during all these transformations had t once died. It finally seemed to him as though three or four different natures were dwelling in him, and as the original one had formerly tried to express itself, so w, in great confusion, they all struggled with one ather to do the same. He was twenty-six years old, he had seen something of life, had read many books and had seen how they were made. Thus he was inspired to write afresh, and this time-for print.