perform an endless amount of additional work. His scope was so
unlimited that he would never have been able to find a goal, and the
constantly increasing activity of his mind would never have allowed
him time for stopping. For long years ahead he would have been able to
enjoy the happiness, the rapture, yes, the bliss of his occupation as
a poet, as he so inimitably describes it in one of the letters in this
collection, written about a plan for an idyl. His life ended indeed
before the customary limit had been reached, yet, while it lasted, he
worked exclusively and uninterruptedly in the realm of ideas and
fancy.

Of no one else, perhaps, can it be said so truthfully that "he had
thrown away the fear of that which was earthly and had escaped out of
the narrow gloomy life into the realm of the ideal." And it may be
observed, in closing, that he had lived surrounded only by the most
exalted ideas and the most brilliant visions which it is possible for
a mortal to appropriate and to create. One who thus departs from earth
cannot be regarded as otherwise than happy.




THE EARLY ROMANTIC SCHOOL

By JAMES TAFT HATFIELD, PH.D.

Professor of the German Language and Literature, Northwestern
University.

The latter half of the eighteenth century has been styled the Age of