Gottfried Keller may fitly be called the greatest narrative writer that Switzerland has ever produced. Born July 19, 1819, near Zurich, he was reared in direst poverty. By dint of the hardest labor and by practicing the utmost frugality, his father was barely able to provide bread for wife and children. But in the midst of this penury the genius of his young son Gottfried expanded. As a mere child he gave already unmistakable evidence of being a dreamer, a thinker, a philosopher, a "fabulist," an artist. Just able to write, the little boy forever scribbled poems and fanciful tales, made rapid sketches with pencil and pen, portraits, caricatures, landscapes. At the village school he imbibed k…
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