needed for their proper development could scarcely have been devised
than that which existed in the chilling atmosphere and rigorous
discipline of the monastery. He had not even an incentive to endure
hardships for the sake of what lay beyond, for it was merely in passive
submission to his mother's wish that he had decided to enter holy
orders. And now, clad in a sombre monkish gown, deprived of all freedom
of thought or movement and forced into companionship with twenty-five or
thirty fellows of his own age, who nearly all misunderstood him,
Hölderlin felt himself wretched indeed. "Wär' ich doch ewig ferne von
diesen Mauern des Elends!" he writes in a poem at Maulbronn in 1787.[18]
There was for him but one way of escape. It was to isolate himself as
much as possible from the world of harsh reality about him, to be alone,
and there in his solitude to construct for himself an ideal world of
fancy, a poetic dreamland. This mental habit not only remained with him
as he grew into manhood, it may be said to have been through life one of
his most distinguishing characteristics. It would be impossible to make
room here for all the passages in his poems and letters of this period,
which reflect his love of solitude and his habit of retreating into a
world of his own imagining. His letters to his friend Nast almost
invariably contain some expression of his heart-ache. "Bilfinger ist
wohl mein Freund, aber es geht ihm zu glücklich, als dass er sich nach
mir umsehen möchte. Du wirst mich schon verstehen--er ist immer lustig,
ich hänge immer den Kopf."[19] Another letter begins: "Wieder eine
Stunde wegphantasiert!--dass es doch so schlechte Menschen giebt, unter
meinen Cameraden so elende Kerls--wann mich die Freundschaft nicht
zuweilen wieder gut machte, so hätt' ich mich manchmal schon lieber an
jeden andern Ort gewünscht, als unter Menschengesellschaft.--Wann ich
nur auch einmal etwas recht Lustiges schreiben könnte! Nur Gedult! 's
wird kommen--hoff' ich, oder--oder hab' ich dann nicht genug getragen?
Erfuhr ich nicht schon als Bube, was den Mann seufzen machen würde? und