When in 1839 a mutual regard sprang up between Lenau and the singer Karoline Unger, a regard which held out to him the hope of a fuller and happier existence, we may surmise the nature of Sophie’s interference from the following reply to her:  “Sie haben mir mit Ihren paar Zeilen das Herz zerschmettert,—­Karoline liebt mich und will mein werden.  Sie sieht’s als ihre Sendung an, mein Leben zu versoehnen und zu begluecken.—­Es ist an Ihnen Menschlichkeit zu ueben an meinem zerrissenen Herzen.—­Verstosse ich sie, so mache ich sie elend und mich zugleich.—­Entziehen Sie mir Ihr Herz, so geben Sie mir den Tod; sind Sie ungluecklich, so will ich sterben.  Der Knoten ist geschuerzt.  Ich wollte, ich waere schon tot!"[99] Not only was this proposed match broken off, but when some five years later Lenau made the acquaintance of and became engaged to a charming young girl, Marie Behrends, and all the poet’s friends rejoiced with him at the prospect of a happy marriage, a “Musterehe,” as he fondly called it, Sophie wrote him the cruel words:  “Eines von uns muss wahnsinnig werden."[100] Only a few months were needed to decide which of them it should be.

The foregoing illustrations are ample to show what sort of influence Sophie exerted over the poet’s entire nature, and therefore upon his Weltschmerz.  Whereas in their hopeless loves, Hoelderlin and to an even greater extent Goethe, struggled through to the point of renunciation, Lenau constantly retrogrades, and allows his baser sensual instincts more and more to control him.  He promises to subdue his wild outbursts a little,[101] and when he fails he tries to explain,[102] to apologize.[103] If with Hoelderlin love was to a predominating degree a thing of the soul, it was with Lenau in an equal measure a matter of nerves, and as such, under these conditions, it could not but contribute largely to his physical, mental and moral disruption.  With Hoelderlin it was the rude interruption from without of his quiet and happy intercourse with Susette, which embittered his soul.  With Lenau it was the feverish, tumultuous nature of the love itself, that deepened his melancholy.

The charge of affectation in their Weltschmerz would be an entirely baseless one, both in the case of Hoelderlin and Lenau.  But this difference is readily discovered in the impressions made upon us by their writings, namely that Hoelderlin’s Weltschmerz is absolutely naive and unconscious, while that of Lenau is at all times self-conscious and self-centered.  Mention has already been made, in speaking of Lenau’s pathological traits,[104] of his confirmed habit of self-diagnosis.  This he applied not only to his physical condition but to his mental experiences as well.  No one knew so well as he how deeply the roots of melancholy had penetrated his being.  “Ich bin ein Melancholiker” he once wrote to Sophie, “der Kompass meiner Seele zittert immer wieder zurueck nach dem Schmerze des Lebens."[105] Innumerable illustrations of this fact might be found in his lyrics, all of which would repeat with variations the theme of the stanza: