To seek for this truth, and where found to exhibit it, I hold to be the duty of my own life.
And now let me dedicate, with deepest reverence, my unimportant work to you, my honored lord.

I shall rejoice if this novel leaves on the mind of your highness the impression that its conception is in faithful keeping with the laws of life and of art, without ever being a slavish copy of the accidental occurrences of the day.
GUSTAV FREYTAG.
LEIPSIC, _April_, 1855.
DEBIT AND CREDIT..