But at last Chamisso found consolation in work. With great ardour he
applied himself to the study of the German language and literature, and
particularly to poetry and philosophy. He learned Greek, and the Iliad
became his constant companion. Klopstock and Schiller attracted him
greatly; but he also read J. J. Rousseau, Voltaire and Diderot. He
published several poems in the language of his adopted country,
compositions distinguished by an originality of style and a peculiar
vigour. Chamisso's first work is supposed to have been "The Count de
Comminges," written in 1801 or 1802. It is not an original work, but
rather an imitation or translation of a drama from the pen of Baculard
d'Arnaud, produced in 1790. Later on he read Wieland and Goethe, and in
1803 appeared his Faust, in which the influence of the philosophy of
Fichte made itself felt. It was also in this year that love, by the
side of poetry and metaphysics, occupied the mind and heart of the
young lieutenant. Chamisso fell in love with Madame Ceres Duvernay, a
young French coquette widow, of whom--unlike Sam Weller--he did not
learn to beware. He had made her acquaintance in the salon of the
banker Ephraim, and asked her to marry him. Madame Duvernay, however,
was a practical Frenchwoman and refused the legitimate love of the poor
lieutenant! This love affair and its sad ending increased Chamisso's
melancholy and his inclination for solitude. The war with France then
broke out, and Chamisso tasted the bitterness which is so often the lot
of that unhappy product of modern civilization and political
circumstances: _the naturalized alien_! He found himself in an
anomalous position which caused him great distress, for it isolated him
among many millions. Although a naturalized German, nay, at heart
attached to Germany and animated--like so many of his _confreres_--by
the spirit of liberty--he was nevertheless of French parentage. It was
not only a question whether he should take up arms on behalf of
Germany, but also, whether he should fight against France and the
people with whom he was connected by ties of blood and family
relationship. Hence arose a struggle in his breast. "I, and I alone,"
he exclaimed in his despair, "am forbidden at this juncture to wield a
sword!" Very few people understand the tragedy of those exiles who are
compelled to seek a new home and adopt a new country which they love as
much, if not more, than the people among whom they have come t