Susette Gontard, which were vastly more important in their influence
upon the poet's character and Weltschmerz, until we come to the
discussion of his "Hyperion," of which Susette, under the pseudonym of
Diotima, forms one of the central figures.

To speak of all the disappointments which fell to Hölderlin's lot would
practically require the writing of his biography from the time of his
graduation from Tübingen to his return from Bordeaux, almost the entire
period of his sane manhood. Unsuccessful in his first position as a
tutor, and unable, after having abandoned this, to provide even a meagre
living for himself with his pen, his migration to Frankfort to the house
of the merchant Gontard at last gave him a hope of better things, but a
hope which soon proved vain. Following close upon these disappointments
was his failure to carry out a project which he had long cherished, of
establishing a literary journal; then came his dismissal from a
situation which he had just entered upon in Switzerland. On his return
he wrote to Schiller for help and advice, and his failure to receive a
reply grieved him deeply. We can only surmise that it was a cruel
disappointment, finally, which caused his sudden departure from
Bordeaux, and brought him back a mental wreck to his mother's home. Even
as early as 1788 Hölderlin complains bitterly in the poem "Der Lorbeer,"
in which he eulogizes the poets Klopstock and Young and expresses his
own ambition to aspire to their greatness:

Schon so manche Früchte schöner Keime
Logen grausam mir ins Angesicht.[33]

As the years passed, this feeling of disappointment and disillusion
became more and more intense and bitter. A stanza from one of his more
mature poems (1795) "An die Natur," will serve to illustrate the