ith the outer world, Lenau's on the other hand must be attributed
mainly to the unceasing conflict or "Zwiespalt" within his breast. In
his childhood a devout Roman Catholic, he shows in his "Faust" (1833-36)
a mind filled with scepticism and pantheistic ideas; "Savonarola" (1837)
marks his return to and glorification of the Christian faith; while in
the "Albigenser" (1838-42) the poet again champions complete
emancipation of thought and belief. Only a few months elapsed between
the writing of the two poems "Wanderung im Gebirge" (1830), in which the
most orthodox faith in a personal God is expressed, and "Die Zweifler"
(1831). The only consistent feature of his poems is their profound
melancholy. But Lenau's inner struggle of soul did not consist merely in
his vacillating between religious faith and doubt; it was the conflict
of instinct with reason. This is evident in his relations with Sophie
Loewenthal. He knows that their love is an unequal one[124] and chides
her for her coldness,[125] warning her not to humiliate him, not even in
jest;[126] he knows too that his alternating moods of exaltation and
dejection resulting from the intensity of his unsatisfied love are
destroying him.[127] "Oefter hat sich der Gedanke bei mir angemeldet:
Entschlage dich dieser Abhaengigkeit und gestatte diesem Weibe keinen so
maechtigen Einfluss auf deine Stimmungen. Kein Mensch auf Erden soll dich
so beherrschen. Doch bald stiess ich diesen Gedanken wieder zurueck als
einen Verraeter an meiner Liebe, und ich bot mein reizbares Herz wieder
gerne dar Deinen zaertlichen Misshandlungen.--O geliebtes Herz!
missbrauche Deine Gewalt nicht! Ich bitte Dich, liebe Sophie!"[128] And
yet, in spite of it all, he is unable to free himself from the thrall of
passion: "Wie wird doch all mein Trotz und Stolz so gar zu nichte, wenn
die Furcht in mir erwacht, dass Du mich weniger liebest";[129] and all
this from the same pen that once wrote: "das Wort Gnade hat ein Schuft
erfunden."[130]

But just as helpless as this defiant pride proved before his
all-consuming love for Sophie, so strongly did it assert itself in all
his other relations with men and things. A hasty word from one of his
best friends could so deeply offend his spirit that, according to his
own admission, all subsequent apologies were futile.[131] For Lenau,
then, such an attitude of hero worship as that assumed by Hoelderlin
towards Schiller, would have been an utter impossibility. We hav