practical sense, it was this dreamy, tender-spirited
child.[15] The love and sympathy which his mother bestowed upon him was
not calculated to fit him for the rugged experiences of life, and while
probably natural and pardonable, it was nevertheless extremely
unfortunate that the boy was unconsciously encouraged to be and to
remain a "Muttersoehnchen." But even with his peculiar trend of
disposition, the result might not have been an unhappy one, had the
course of his life not brought him more than an ordinary share of
misfortune. This overtook him early in life, for when but two years of
age his father died. His widowed mother now lived for a few years in
complete retirement with her two children--the poet's sister Henrietta
having been born just a few weeks after his father's demise. But it was
not long before death again entered the household and robbed it of
Hoelderlin's aunt, his deceased father's sister, who was herself a widow
and the faithful companion of the poet's mother. When the latter found
herself again alone with her two little ones, whose care was weighing
heavily upon her, she consented to become the wife of her late husband's
friend, Kammerrat Gock, and accompanied him to his home in the little
town of Nuertingen on the Neckar. But this re-established marital
happiness was to be of brief duration, for in 1779 her second husband
died, and the mother was now left with four little children to care and
provide for.

The frequency with which death visited the family during his childhood
and youth, familiarized him at an early age with scenes of sorrow and
grief. No doubt he was too young when his father died to comprehend the
calamity that had come upon the household, but it was not many months
before he knew the meaning of his mother's tears, not only for his
father, but also for his sister, who died in her infancy. Referring to
his father's death, he writes in one of his early poems, "Einst und
Jetzt":[16]

Einst schlugst du mir so ruhig, empoertes Herz!

* * * * *

Einst in des Vaters Schoosse, des liebenden
Geliebten Vaters,--aber der Wuerger kam,
Wir weinten, flehten, doch der Wuerger
Schnellte den Pfeil, und es sank die Stuetze.

At his tenderest and most impressionable age, the boy was thus made
sadly aware of the fleetingness of human life and the pains of
bereavement. We cannot wonder then at finding these impressions
reflected in his most ju