scured the greater things which were further removed. He
thought he upheld a higher principle of morality by applying the
principles of von Stein to a new situation; but be failed to see the
new, larger morality imbedded in much confusion. History has reversed
his judgment.

After completing his studies he received a government appointment in the
provincial capital of Westphalia, Muenster. Here, in this conservative
old town, began one of the most extraordinary relations between man and
woman in modern German literary history. Immermann fell in love with
Countess Elisa von Luetzow-Ahlefeldt, wife of the famous old commander
of volunteers, Brigadier-General von Luetzow. Elisa, an extremely gifted
and spirited woman, had formed a circle of interesting people, in which
her husband, a dashing soldier but a man of uninteresting mentality,
played a very subordinate part. Immermann and Elisa struggled along
against the tyranny of the affinity that drew them together. Immermann
wrote a number of dramas, highly romantic, in which the passion and
strife within him found varied expression. The play which made him known
beyond his immediate circle, was _Cardenio and Celinde_, the conflict of
which was suggested by his own.

Elisa was finally divorced from Luetzow. Immermann was appointed a judge
in Magdeburg, and later in Duesseldorf. He asked Elisa to marry him. She
refused, but offered to live with him in free companionship. They joined
their lives, pledging themselves not to enter other relations. They
remained together until 1839, less than a year before Immermann's death,
when he married a young girl of nineteen. Elisa left his house in sorrow
and bitterness. Immermann characterized his relation to her thus in a
letter to his fiancee, in 1839: "I loved the countess deeply and purely
when I was kindled by her flame. But she took such a strange position
toward me that I never could have a pure, genuine, enduring joy in this
love. There were delights, but no quiet gladness. I always felt as if a
splendid comet had appeared on the horizon, but never as if the dear
warm God's sun had risen."

His life with Elisa in Duesseldorf was rich in friends and works. The
sculptor Schadow, the founder of the art school there, the dramatists
von Uechtritz and Michael Beer, brother of Meyerbeer, were among his
friends. He had intimate relations with Mendelssohn during the years of
the latter's stay in Duesseldorf. He tried to assist Grabbe, t