ch others would abandon as an
impossibility. While recognizing the fact that Lenau's "Faust" and "Don
Juan" are largely autobiographical, it is, I think, obvious that an
entirely adequate impression of his Weltschmerz may be gained from his
letters and lyrics alone, in which the poet's sincerest feelings need
not be subordinated for a moment to artistic purposes or demands. And
nowhere, either in lyrics or letters, do we find such spontaneous
outbursts of patriotic sentiment as greet us in Hoelderlin's poems:

Glueckselig Suevien, meine Mutter![115]

This could not be otherwise; for was he (Lenau) not an Hungarian by
birth, an Austrian by adoption, and in his professional affiliations a
German? Had his interests not been divided between Vienna and Stuttgart,
and had he not been possessed with an apparently uncontrollable
restlessness which drove him from place to place, his patriotic
enthusiasm would naturally have turned to Austria, and the poetic
expression of his home sentiments would not have been confined, perhaps,
to the one occasion when he had put the broad Atlantic between himself
and his kin. That his brother-in-law Schurz should wish to represent him
as a dyed-in-the-wool Austrian is only natural.[116] However this may
be, the poet does not hesitate to state in a letter to Emilie Reinbeck:
"Ein Hund in Schwaben hat mehr Achtung fuer mich als ein Polizeipraesident
in Oesterreich."[117] And although he professes to have become hardened
to the pestering interference of the authorities, as a matter of fact it
was a constant source of unhappiness to him. "So aber war mein Leben
seit meinem letzten Briefe ein bestaendiger Aerger. Die verfluchten
Vexationen der hiesigen Censurbehoerde haben selbst jetzt noch immer kein
Ende finden koennen."[118] Speaking of his hatred for the censorship law,
he says: "Und doch gebuehrt mein Hass noch immer viel weniger dem Gesetze
selbst, als denjenigen legalisierten Bestien, die das Gesetz auf eine so
niedertraechtige Art handhaben;--und unsre Censoren stellen im Gegensatze
der pflanzen- und fleischfressenden Tiere die Klasse der
geistfressenden Tiere dar, eine abscheuliche, monstroese Klasse!"[119]
Roustan expresses the opinion that with Lenau patriotism occupied a
secondary place.[120] He had too many "native lands" to become attached
to any one of them.

There is something of a counterpart to Hoelderlin's Hellenism and
championship of Greek liberty in Lenau's espousal of t