Their inspiration is to be found almost exclusively in Heine’s love-affairs, decent and indecent.  Now the pain of disappointed love is the motive and the theme of very many of Hoelderlin’s and Lenau’s lyrics, poems which are heavy with Weltschmerz, while most of Heine’s are not.  To speak only of the poet’s most important attachments, of his unrequited love for his cousin Amalie, and his unsuccessful wooing of her sister Therese,—­there can be no doubt that these unhappy loves brought years of pain and bitterness into his life, sorrow probably as genuine as any he ever experienced, and yet how little, comparatively, there is in his poetry to convince us of the fact.  Nearly all these early lyrics are variations of this love-theme, and yet it is the exception rather than the rule when the poet maintains a sincere note long enough to engender sympathy and carry conviction.  Such are his beautiful lyrics “Ich grolle nicht,"[198] “Du hast Diamanten und Perlen."[199] Let us see how Lenau treats the same theme: 

    Die dunklen Wolken hingen
    Herab so bang und schwer,
    Wir beide traurig gingen
    Im Garten hin und her.

    So heiss und stumm, so truebe,
    Und sternlos war die Nacht,
    So ganz wie unsre Liebe
    Zu Thraenen nur gemacht.

    Und als ich musste scheiden
    Und gute Nacht dir bot,
    Wuenscht’ ich bekuemmert beiden
    Im Herzen uns den Tod.[200]

We believe implicitly in the poet’s almost inexpressible grief, and because we are convinced, we sympathize.  And we feel too that the poet’s sorrow is so overwhelming and has so filled his soul that it has entirely changed his views of life and of nature, or has at least contributed materially to such a change,—­that it has assumed larger proportions and may rightly be called Weltschmerz.  Compare with this the first and third stanzas of Heine’s “Der arme Peter:” 

    Der Hans und die Grete tanzen herum,
    Und jauchzen vor lauter Freude. 
    Der Peter steht so still und stumm,
    Und ist so blass wie Kreide.

* * * * *

    Der Peter spricht leise vor sich her
    Und schauet betruebet auf beide: 
    “Ach! wenn ich nicht zu vernuenftig waer’,
    Ich thaet’ mir was zu leide."[201]

It is scarcely necessary to cite further examples of this mannerism of Heine’s, for so it early became, such as his “Erbsensuppe,"[202] “Ich wollte, er schoesse mich tot,"[203] “Doktor, sind Sie des Teufels;"[204] “Madame, ich liebe Sie!"[205] and many other glaring instances of the “Sturzbad,” in order to show how the poet himself deliberately attempted, and usually with success, to destroy the traces of his grief.  This process of self-irony, which plays such havoc with all sincere feeling and therefore with his Weltschmerz, becomes so fixed a habit that we are almost incapable, finally, of taking the poet seriously.  He makes a significant