(1844-54) were Fontane, Scherenberg, Hesekiel, and Heinrich Smidt.  Smidt, sometimes called the Marryat of Germany, was a prolific spinner of yarns, which were interesting, though of a low quality.  He employed, however, many of the same motives that Fontane later put to better use.  Hesekiel was a voluminous writer of light fiction.  From him Fontane learned to discard high-sounding phrases and to cultivate the true-to-life tone of spoken speech.  Scherenberg, enthusiastically heralded as the founder of a new epic style, confined himself largely to poetic descriptions of battles.

When Fontane joined the “Tunnel” the particular genre of poetry in vogue at the meetings was the ballad, due to Strachwitz’s clever imitations of Scottish models.  Fontane’s lyrics were too much like Herwegh’s to win applause, but his ballads were enthusiastically received.  One, in celebration of Derfflinger, established his standing in the Club, and one in honor of Zieten brought him permanently into favor with a wider public; these poems were composed in 1846.  Two years later he read two books that for a long time determined his literary trend—­Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry and Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.  He began to write ballads on English subjects and one of them, Archibald Douglas, created a great sensation at the “Tunnel” meeting and has ever since maintained its place among the best German poems.  Its popularity is partly due to the fact that it was so appropriately set to music by Carl Loewe.  When Fontane returned to Berlin in 1852, after a summer’s absence in England, he felt estranged from the “Tunnel” and ceased attending the meetings.  Two noblemen members, von Lepel and von Merckel, who had become his friends, introduced him to the country nobility of the Mark of Brandenburg, which enabled him to make valuable additions to his portfolio of studies later drawn upon for his novels, among others, Effi Briest.

In 1847 Fontane passed the apothecary’s examination by a “hair’s breadth” and soon found employment in Berlin.  In the March Revolution (1848) he played a comical role, but was subsequently elected a delegate to the first convention to choose a representative.  For a year and a quarter he taught two deaconesses pharmacy at an institution called “Bethany.”  When that employment came to an end he decided that the hoped-for time had finally arrived to give up the dispensing of medicines and earn his living by his pen.  Some of his new ballads were accepted by the Morgenblatt, and a volume of verses, dedicated to his fiancee, found a publisher.  When news arrived of the victory of Denmark over Schleswig-Holstein at Idstedt (1850) he set out for Kiel to enlist in the army.  In Altona he received a letter offering him a position in the press department of the Prussian Ministry of the Interior.  He accepted immediately and at the same time wrote to Emilie Kummer, to whom he had been