If any prose-writer may be called a poet, none is more worthy of that name than Adalbert Stifter. And, unless it be a requirement that, to be ranked as classic, a writer must be dead for many years, Stifter is entitled to an honorable place among the classic writers of Germany. Not all he has written bears the stamp of beauty and genius, but at his best he is truly great, and of his best we have a great deal.