large quantities of it.  He smoked to excess, and the strongest cigars at that; in short, he seems to have been entirely without regard for his physical condition.  Or was it perverseness which prompted him to prefer close confinement in his room to the long walks which he ought to have taken for his health?  Even his recreation, which consisted chiefly in playing the violin, brought him no nervous relaxation, for it is said that he would often play himself into a state of extreme nervous excitement.

All these considerations corroborate the opinion of those who knew him best, that his Weltschmerz, and eventually his insanity, had its origin in a pathological condition.  Indeed this was the poet’s own view of the case.  In a letter to his brother-in-law, Anton Schurz, dated 1834, he says:  “Aber, lieber Bruder, die Hypochondrie schlaegt bei mir immer tiefere Wurzel.  Es hilft alles nichts.  Der gewisse innere Riss wird immer tiefer und weiter.  Es hilft alles nichts.  Ich weiss, es liegt im Koerper; aber—­aber—­“[88] In its origin then, Lenau’s Weltschmerz differs altogether from that of Hoelderlin, who exhibits no such symptoms of neurasthenia.

Lenau’s nervous condition was seriously aggravated at an early date by the outcome of his unfortunate relations with the object of his first love, Bertha, who became his mistress when he was still a mere boy.  His grief on finding her faithless was doubtless as genuine as his conduct with her had been reprehensible, for he cherished for many long years the memory of his painful disappointment.  The general statement, “Lenau war stets verlobt, fand aber stets in sich selbst einen Widerstand und unerklaerliche Angst, wenn die Verbindung endgiltig gemacht werden sollte,"[89] is inaccurate and misleading, inasmuch as it fails to take into proper account the causes, mediate and immediate, of his hesitation to marry.  Lenau was only once “verlobt,” and it was the stroke of facial paralysis[90] which announced the beginning of the end, rather than any “unerklaerliche Angst,” that convinced him of the inexpediency of that important step.

Beyond a doubt his long drawn out and abject devotion to the wife of his friend Max Loewenthal proved the most important single factor in his life.  It was during the year 1834, after his return from America, that Lenau made the acquaintance of the Loewenthal family in Vienna.[91] Sophie, who was the sister of his old comrade Fritz Kleyle, so attracted the poet that he remained in the city for a number of weeks instead of going at once to Stuttgart, as he had planned and promised.  What at first seemed an ideal friendship, increased in intensity until it became, at least on Lenau’s part, the very glow of passion.  We have already alluded to the poet’s premature erotic instinct, an impulse which he doubtless inherited from his sensual parents.  In his numerous letters and notes to Sophie, he has left us a remarkable record of the intensity of his passion.  Not even excepting