The second bearing which his relations to Louise have upon his
Weltschmerz lies in the fact that his love ended in disappointment. This
is true not only of this particular episode, not only of all his
love-affairs, but it may even be said that disappointment was the fate
to which he found himself doomed in all his aspirations. And in the
persistency with which this evil angel pursued his footsteps through
life may be found one of the chief causes of the early collapse of his
faculties. What David Müller[31] and Hermann Fischer[32] have said in
their essays in regard to this point--that Hölderlin did not become
insane because his life was a succession of unsatisfactory situations
and painful disappointments, but because he had not the strength to work
himself out of these situations into more favorable ones--states only
half the case. True, a stronger mental organization might have overcome
these or even greater difficulties; Schiller, Herder, Fichte are
examples; but not all of Hölderlin's failures and disappointments were
the result of his weakness, and so while it is right to state that a
stronger and more robust nature would have conquered in the fight, it is
also fair to say that Hölderlin would have had a good chance of winning,
had fortune been more kind. For this reason these external influences
must be reckoned with as an important cause of his Weltschmerz and
subsequently of his insanity.

This suggests an interesting point of comparison--if I may be permitted
to anticipate somewhat--with Lenau, the second type selected. Hölderlin
earnestly pursued happiness and contentment, but it eluded him at every
step. Lenau on the contrary reached a point in his Weltschmerz where he
refused to see anything in life but pain, wilfully thrusting from him
even such happiness as came within his reach.

We may postpone any detailed reference to Hölderlin's relations with