ings again. I
believe it would not be too late yet." It was not to be. Successful
production of a high order would probably have been impossible under
such circumstances in any case. With Ludwig it was further prevented by
an obstacle of a psychological nature. As the feeling of health and
strength and ease of mind departed from him, there came in its place an
ever growing, almost morbid, spirit of self-questioning criticism and
doubt. As the springs of creative energy ceased flowing, Ludwig thought
he could replenish them by turning to theory and analysis. In the free
intervals between the attacks of his illness, when his mind worked as
vigorously as ever, the luckless poet filled volume upon volume with
esthetic and ethical reflections upon poetry and literature. From
Shakespeare especially he thought he might be able to wrest those last
secrets of an art which tantalizingly hovered before his vision. In
these studies, fragmentary, ill-organized, not prepared for publication
as they are, we nevertheless possess a veritable treasure-house of
soundest reflection and subtlest intuition on many of the fundamental
questions of poetry, especially of the drama. They have often been
compared with Lessing's _Hamburg Dramaturgy_, of which, in many
respects, they are the worthiest continuation. But in this unequal
struggle Ludwig became less and less able to give life and color to his
own conceptions or to be satisfied with his results when he had done so.
How many could safely try to measure up to a standard taken directly
from Shakespeare! Plan upon plan was started and laid aside. A field of
ruins, disquieting, threatening, piled up around the lonesome fighter
who slowly succumbed beneath the crushing greatness of his vision.
Noble, but also tragic beyond words it is when, shortly before his
death, Ludwig declared to one of his friends that even in his suffering
no poet had ever been to him such a source of strength as Shakespeare,
to whom he owed far more than the clarification of his ideals of art.
Thus the mariner sang the praises of the ocean as it was about to engulf
his shipwrecked craft. Ludwig died in Dresden in February, 1865,
fifty-two years of age. Of his three surviving children, two sons came
to this western hemisphere and attained, in successful business and
professional life, to positions of honor and influence among the German
element of Southern Brazil.

Aside from the posthumous _Studies_ just spoken of, Lud