ground whatever for assuming that Hölderlin's Weltschmerz owed its
inception in any degree to hereditary tendencies, notwithstanding
Hermann Fischer's opinion to the contrary.[12] There is no sufficient
reason to assume "erbliche Belastung," and there are other sufficient
causes without merely guessing at such a possibility.

But while there are no sufficient historical grounds for the supposition
that he brought the germ of his subsequent mental disease with him in
his birth, we cannot fail to observe, even in the child, certain
natural traits, which, being allowed to develop unchecked, must of
necessity hasten and intensify the gloom which hung over his life. To
his deep thoughtfulness was added an abnormal sensitiveness to all
external influences. Like the delicate anemone, he recoiled and withdrew
within himself when touched by the rougher material things of life.[13]
He himself poetically describes his absentmindedness when a boy, and
calls himself "ein Träumer"; and a dreamer he remained all his life. It
seems to have been this which first brought him into discord with the
world:

Oft sollt' ich stracks in meine Schule wandern,
Doch ehe sich der Träumer es versah,
So hatt' er in den Garten sich verirrt,
Und sass behaglich unter den Oliven,
Und baute Flotten, schifft' ins hohe Meer.

* * * * *

Dies kostete mich tausend kleine Leiden,
Verzeihlich war es immer, wenn mich oft
Die Klügeren, mit herzlichem Gelächter