145. The Free Literary Society in Berlin 1897

A delightful evening of lectures was offered to the members of this society on November 25. Hans Olden read out a "youthful experience". In a humorous way, he characterizes a celebrated stage artist who is idolized by the whole world and therefore also by the society to which the young Olden belonged - Musenheim, of course - as an ideal of man, and who ultimately turns out to be a vain poseur. He not only plays comedy on stage, but also in the "Musenheim". Such an experience, which has had a similar effect on almost every young person at one time or another, cannot be portrayed in a funnier way than Olden has done. And I think that Olden's presentation proved to be unusually effective that evening. - Wilhelm Hegeler read two atmospheric works: "Des Pfarrers Traum" is an artistically intimate performance. The stone-deaf pastor, to whom a dream announces in the evening of life that his blind old wife will give him another baby, and to whom his young candidate, in league with the lady of the house, realizes this dream - he is a delicious character. No less the artist in "Goldenes Licht auf dunklem Grunde", which Hegeler read aloud. - Carlot G. Reuling entertained in a splendid way with his humoresque "Der verlorene Gedanke". His mockery of barren scholarship, which almost flees from real thought, is just as overwhelming in the accuracy of its portrayal as the work is amusing due to the amiable form in which it appears.