THE WOMEN WRITERS 343

tales: Der Hof am Brink (1906; the period is that of the Thirty
Years War), Lucifer (1907; describes the resistance of peasants to
the tyranny of the Church), Sieger undftesiegte (1907). There is the
visionary fever of the expressionists in her tale of the Anabaptists,
Derjungste Tag (1921): a consumptive weaver preaches, in 1535,
the coming of the Last Day, and when it does not come sets the
village on fire with his own hand.

HELENE VOIGT-DIEDERICHS (1875-1952) belongs to Heimatkunst\
but, though she lovingly describes the life of the landed gentry
and farmers in her native Schleswig-Holstein (as in her short
stories: Schlesmg-Holsteiner LMndleute, 1898) she is a feminist too,
and in the best sense of the term, in her novels, which reveal keen
insight into the minds of growing girls, and throw light on the
interrelationship of mothers and daughters. She has a sense of
humour to relieve the strain of the tragic conflicts she evolves.
Into A.uf' Marienhoff(1925) she weaves memories of the estate of
the same name where she grew up. The awakening life of maiden-
hood is her theme in "Rjsgine Vosgerau (1901) and Dreiviertel Stund
vor Tag (1905). She deals honestly but decently with the problem
of the Ehe %u drift in 'Ring um Roderick (i 929). Aus Kinderland (i 907)
gathers in her tales told to children.

In present-day criticism INA SEIDEL (1885- ) is given very high
rank. She is a member of a literary dynasty: her uncle was Heinrich
Seidel of 'Leberecht Huhnchen fame; her brother is Willy Seidel, who
has been called 'a German Kipling' for the sake of his exotic tales;
she married her parson cousin, who writes too; and Georg Ebers
was her mother's stepfather. As a writer of verse (Gedichte, 1914;
Neben der Trommel her, 1915- war poems; Weltinnigketi, 1918; New
Gedichte, 1927) she has good technique, but is imitative. Her earlier
novels (Das Ham ^um Monde, 1917, with its sequel Sterne der Heim-
kehr, 1923) stand out by their careful and insistent handling of
woman's importance in family life; her speciality is the relation-
ship of brothers and sisters (Bromseshof, 1928; RjsttA und Earner,
1928). More interesting is Das Labyrinth (1922), a painfully Freud-
ian study of Georg Forster - who first translated the Sanscrit
drama Sakuntala - as the scholarly German dreamer helpless in a
world of schemers. His youth in Warrington is described, where
his father was a teacher - dismissed in due course for freethinking
- before sailing round the world with Cook, taking his boy with
him. On their return the father was appointed professor of natural