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KELLER, A.—KELLERMANN

of benzene which has been called the “most brilliant piece of prediction to be found in the whole range of organic chemistry,” and this in turn led in particular to the elucidation of the constitution of the “aromatic compounds,” and in general to new methods of chemical synthesis and decomposition, and to a deeper insight into the composition of numberless organic bodies and their mutual relations. Professor F. R. Japp, in the Kekulé memorial lecture he delivered before the London Chemical Society on the 15th of December 1897, declared that three-fourths of modern organic chemistry is directly or indirectly the product of Kekulé’s benzene theory, and that without its guidance and inspiration the industries of the coal-tar colours and artificial therapeutic agents in their present form and extension would have been inconceivable.

Many of Kekulé’s papers appeared in the Annalen der Chemie, of which he was editor, and he also published an important work, Lehrbuch der organischen Chemie, of which the first three volumes are dated 1861, 1866 and 1882, while of the fourth only one small section was issued in 1887.


KELLER, ALBERT (1845–  ), German painter, was born at Gais, in Switzerland; he studied at the Munich Academy under Lenbach and Ramberg, and must be counted among the leading colourists of the modern German school. Travels in Italy, France, England and Holland, and a prolonged sojourn in Paris, helped to develop his style, which is marked by a sense of elegance and refinement all too rare in German art. His scenes of society life, such as the famous “Dinner” (1890), are painted with thoroughly Parisian esprit, and his portraits are marked by the same elegant distinction. He is particularly successful in the rendering of rustling silk and satin dresses and draperies. His historical and imaginative works are as modern in spirit and as unacademical as his portraits. At the Munich Pinakothek is his painting “Jairi Töchterlein” (1886), whilst the Königsberg Museum contains his “Roman Bath,” and the Liebieg collection in Reichenberg the “Audience with Louis XV.,” the first picture that drew attention to his talent. Among other important works he painted “Faustina in the Temple of Juno at Praeneste,” “The Witches’ Sleep” (1888), “The Judgment of Paris,” “The Happy Sister,” “Temptation” (1892), “Autumn” (1893), “An Adventure” (1896), and “The Crucifixion.”


KELLER, GOTTFRIED (1819–1890), German poet and novelist, was born at Zürich on the 19th of July 1819. His father, a master joiner, dying while Gottfried was young, his early education was neglected; he, however, was in 1835 apprenticed to a landscape painter, and subsequently spent two years (1840–1842) in Munich learning to paint. Interest in politics drew him into literature, and his talents were first disclosed in a volume of short poems, Gedichte (1846). This obtained him recognition from the government of his native canton, and he was in 1848 enabled to take a short course of philosophical study at the university of Heidelberg. From 1850 to 1855 he lived in Berlin, where he wrote his most important novel, Der grüne Heinrich (1851–1853; revised edition 1879–1880), remarkable for its delicate autographic portraiture and the beautiful episodes interwoven with the action. This was followed by Die Leute von Seldwyla (1856), studies of Swiss provincial life, including in Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe one of the most powerful short stories in the German language, and in Die drei gerechten Kammmacher, almost as great a masterpiece of humorous writing. Returning to his native city with a considerable reputation, he received in 1861 the appointment of secretary to the canton. For a time his creative faculty seemed paralysed by his public duties, but in 1872 appeared Sieben Legenden, and in 1874 a second series of Die Leute von Seldwyla, in both of which books he displayed no abatement of power and originality. He retired from the public service in 1876 and employed his leisure in the production of Züricher Novellen (1878), Das Sinngedicht, a collection of short stories (1881), and a novel, Martin Salander (Berlin, 1886). He died on the 15th of July 1890 at Hottingen. Keller’s place among German novelists is very high. Few have united such fancy and imagination to such uncompromising realism, or such tragic earnestness to such abounding humour. As a lyric poet, his genius is no less original; he takes rank with the best German poets of this class in the second half of the 19th century.

Keller’s Gesammelte Werke were published in 10 vols. (1889–1890), to which was added another volume, Nachgelassene Schriften und Dichtungen, containing the fragment of a tragedy (1893). In English appeared, G. Keller: A Selection of his Tales translated with a Memoir by Kate Freiligrath-Kroeker (1891). For a further estimate of Keller’s life and works cf. O. Brahm (1883); E. Brenning, G. Keller nach seinem Leben und Dichten (1892); F. Baldensperger, G. Keller; sa vie et ses oeuvres (1893); A. Frey, Erinnerungen an Gottfried Keller (1893); J. Baechtold, Kellers Leben. Seine Briefe und Tagebücher (Berlin, 1894–1897); A. Köster, G. Keller (1900; 2nd ed., 1907); and for his work as a painter, H. E. von Berlepsch, Gottfried Keller als Maler (1895).


KELLER, HELEN ADAMS (1880–  ), American blind deaf-mute, was born at Tuscumbia, Alabama, in 1880. When barely two years old she was deprived of sight, smell and hearing, by an attack of scarlet fever. At the request of her parents, who were acquainted with the success attained in the case of Laura Bridgman (q.v.), one of the graduates of the Perkins Institution at Boston, Miss Anne M. Sullivan, who was familiar with the teachings of Dr S. G. Howe (q.v.), was sent to instruct her at home. Unfortunately an exact record of the steps in her education was not kept; but from 1888 onwards, at the Perkins Institution, Boston, and under Miss Sarah Fuller at the Horace Mann school in New York, and at the Wright Humason school, she not only learnt to read, write, and talk, but became proficient, to an exceptional degree, in the ordinary educational curriculum. In 1900 she entered Radcliffe College, and successfully passed the examinations in mathematics, &c. for her degree of A.B. in 1904. Miss Sullivan, whose ability as a teacher must be considered almost as marvellous as the talent of her pupil, was throughout her devoted companion. The case of Helen Keller is the most extraordinary ever known in the education of blind deaf-mutes (see Deaf and Dumb ad fin.), her acquirements including several languages and her general culture being exceptionally wide. She wrote The Story of My Life (1902), and volumes on Optimism (1903), and The World I Live in (1908), which both in literary style and in outlook on life are a striking revelation of the results of modern methods of educating those who have been so handicapped by natural disabilities.


KELLERMANN, FRANÇOIS CHRISTOPHE DE (1735–1820), duke of Valmy and marshal of France, came of a Saxon family, long settled in Strassburg and ennobled, and was born there on the 28th of May 1735. He entered the French army as a volunteer, and served in the Seven Years’ War and in Louis XV.’s Polish expedition of 1771, on returning from which he was made a lieutenant-colonel. He became brigadier in 1784, and in the following year maréchal-de-camp. In 1789 Kellermann enthusiastically embraced the cause of the Revolution, and in 1791 became general of the army in Alsace. In April 1792 he was made a lieutenant-general, and in August of the same year there came to him the opportunity of his lifetime. He rose to the occasion, and his victory of Valmy (see French Revolutionary Wars) over the Prussians, in Goethe’s words, “opened a new era in the history of the world.” Transferred to the army on the Moselle, Kellermann was accused by General Custine of neglecting to support his operations on the Rhine; but he was acquitted at the bar of the Convention in Paris, and placed at the head of the army of the Alps and of Italy, in which position he showed himself a careful commander and excellent administrator. Shortly afterwards he received instructions to reduce Lyons, then in revolt against the Convention, but shortly after the surrender he was imprisoned in Paris for thirteen months. Once more honourably acquitted, he was reinstated in his command, and did good service in maintaining the south-eastern border against the Austrians until his army was merged into that of General Bonaparte in Italy. He was then sixty-two years of age, still physically equal to his work, but the young generals who had come to the front in these two years represented the new spirit and the new art of war, and Kellermann’s active career came to an end. But the hero of Valmy was never forgotten. When Napoleon came to power Kellermann was named