one who,
like Winckelmann, was born with the desire to see. This is increased by
the great number of strangers on their passage through Rome making
sensible or useless preparations to travel in these lands, and who on
their return never tire of describing distant wonders and exhibiting
specimens of them.

And so Winckelmann planned to travel everywhere, partly on his own
responsibility, partly in company with such wealthy travelers as would
recognize the value of a scholarly and talented comrade.

Another cause of this inner restlessness and discomfort does honor to
his heart--the irresistible longing for absent friends. Upon this the
ardent desire of a man that otherwise lived so much in the present seems
to have been peculiarly concentrated; he sees his friends before him, he
converses with them through letters, he longs for their embraces, and
wishes to repeat the days formerly lived together.

These wishes, especially directed toward his friends in the North, were
awakened anew by the Peace of Hubertusbury (Feb., 1763). It would have
been his pride to present himself before the great king who had already
honored him with an offer to enter his service; to see again the Prince
of Dessau, whose exalted, reposeful nature he regarded as a gift of God
to the earth; to pay his respects to the Duke of Brunswick, whose great
capacities he well knew how to prize; to praise in person Minister of
State von Muenchausen, who had done so much for science, and to admire
his immortal foundation at Goettingen; to rejoice again in the lively and
intimate intercourse with his Swiss friends--such allurements filled his
heart and his imagination; with such images was his mind so long
occupied that he unfortunately followed this impulse and so went to his
death.

He was devoted body and soul to his Italian lot to such an extent that
every other one seemed insufferable to him. On his former journey, the
cliffs and mountains of Tyrol had interested, yea, delighted him, and
now, on his return to the fatherland, he felt terrified, as if he were
being dragged through the Cimmerian portal and convinced of the
impossibility of continuing his journey.

DEPARTURE

And thus upon the highest pinnacle of happiness that he could himself
have wished for, he departed this earth. His fatherland awaited him, his
friends stretched their arms toward him; all the expressions of love
which he so deeply needed, all testimonials of public honor, which he