tical details, that Hoelderlin's longings find expression.

Entirely consistent with this idealism is the nature of his love,
ardent, but etherial, "uebersinnlich." This is reflected also in his
lyrics, which are statuesque and beautiful, but lacking in passion and
sensuous charm. Hoelderlin's earliest love-affair, that with Louise Nast,
is important for his Weltschmerz only in its bearing upon the
development of his general character. This influence was a twofold one:
in the first place his sweetheart was herself inclined to a sort of
visionary mysticism, and therefore had an unwholesome influence upon the
youth, who had already been carried too far in that direction. She too
was a lover of solitude and wrote her letters to him in the stillness of
the night, when all others were asleep. There can be no doubt that she
had at least some share in determining his mental activity, especially
his reading. In one of his earliest letters to her he writes: "Weil Du
den Don Carlos liest, will ich ihn auch lesen."[28] It was during this
time too that that he became so ardent an admirer of Schubart and
Ossian. "Da leg' ich meinen Ossian weg und komme zu Dir," he writes in
1788 to his friend Nast. "Ich habe meine Seele geweidet an den Helden
des Barden, habe mit ihm getrauert, wann er trauert ueber sterbende
Maedchen."[29] There is not a sensuous note in all Hoelderlin's poems or
letters to Louise. Typical are the lines which he addresses to her on
his departure from Maulbronn:

Lass sie drohen, die Stuerme, die Leiden,
Lass trennen--der Trennung Jahre
Sie trennen uns nicht!
Sie trennen uns nicht!
Denn mein bist du! Und ueber das Grab hinaus
Soll sie dauren, die unzertrennbare Liebe.

O! wenn's einst da ist
Das grosse selige Jenseits,
Wo die Krone dem leidenden Pilger,
Die Palme dem Sieger blinkt,
Dann Freundin--lohnet auch Freundschaft--
Auch Freundschaft der Ewige.[30]

The second bearing which his relations to Louise have upon his
Weltschmerz lies in the fact that his love ended in disappointment. This
is true not only of this particular episode, not only of all his
love-affairs, but it may even be said that disappointment was the fate
to which he found himself doomed in all his aspirations. And in the
persistency with which this evil angel pursued his footsteps through
life may be found one of the chief causes of the early collapse of his
faculties. What David Mueller[31]