As these years seem to have been mainly instrumental in forming his character and shaping its outlines and giving depth and strength to its chief features, it is desirable to dwell for a moment upon the principal currents which at this time poured their influences upon him. By nature of a genial and gay temperament, gifted with an acute perception, which he had further trained in sharpness and accuracy, endowed with no small share of talent and with an ardent love for art, ambitious, vain in some respects, full of high spirits, and with a keen sense of humour, and not devoid of originality, he was daily chafed and galled in the depressing atmosphere of his home relations. He felt how illogical was the rigid methodicity, how unreasonable the arbitrary routine, how absurd the restrictions and restraints of his uncle's household regulations; he was eager to be quit of them, to turn his back upon them; he was anxious to find a congenial field for his powers-~a field where he could turn his accomplishments and genius to good account. The only way in which he could hope to do so at present, at least for some years to come, was by pursuing a legal career, and law he had no inclination for. He says, in a letter to Hippel, dated 25th Nov., 1795, "If it depended upon myself alone I should be a musical composer, and I have hopes that I could do something great in that line; as for the one I have now chosen, I shall be a bungler in it as long as I live." He gradually came to live upon a strained and barely tolerable footing with his uncle, since as he grew older his tricks and ironical behaviour towards little Otto assumed a more pronounced character, and stirred up in the old gentleman's mind feelings of suspicion against his unmanageable nephew. In these circumstances we may easily discern the germs of a dissatisfaction not only with his lot in life but also with himself.
Next came the fact of his hopeless love which has just been mentioned. And another and no less potent cause which tended to deepen and intensify this spirit of inward dissatisfaction was the delay that occurred between his passing his entrance examination into the legal profession in July, 1795, and his appointment to a definite post of active duty in June, 1796. To be compelled to wear out his independent, ambitious heart in forced inactivity must have been galling in the extreme, especially when it is remembered how eagerly he was longing to shake himself free from the relations amidst which he had grown up, and his no less earnest desire to get beyond the reach of the passion, or at any rate the object of the passion, that was gnawing at his very heart-strings. To an energetic spirit, longing for a useful sphere of activity, hardly anything can be more fruitful as a source of unhappiness than enforced idleness. And this sentiment Hoffmann gives frequent utterance to in his letters at this period.
During these same months he cultivated his mind by the perusal of the works of such writers as Jean Paul, Schiller, and Goethe, the intellectual giants upon whom the eyes of Germany were at that time fixed in wonder. But this course of reading, instead of counteracting, rather encouraged a native leaning towards poetic dreaming and sentimentality. In a letter to Hippel, dated 10th Jan., 1796, he even says, "I cannot possibly demand that she [the lady he loved] should love me to the same unmeasured extent of passionate devotion that has turned my head--and this torments me.... I can never leave her; she might weep for me for twenty-four hours and then forget me--I should never forget her." There was yet another cause or series of causes which co-operated with those mentioned above to increase the distracted and agitated condition of his heart. It has been already stated more than once that he was a diligent student of music and painting. These formed his recreation from the severe and dry study of law-books; but to these two arts he now added the fascination of literary composition, and wrote two novels, which he entitled Cornaro and Der Geheimnissvolle. The former was rejected by a publisher, who had at first held out some hopes of being able to accept it, on the ground that its author was unknown. Besides this, the productions of his brush failed to sell. Hence fresh sources of disappointment and vexation.
Through all this, however, even in his darkest moods and most desperate moments, he was upheld by the feelings and sentiments associated with his friendship for his unshaken friend Hippel. To him he poured out all his troubles in a series of letters,[5] which gave a most graphic account of his mental condition at this period. He led a very retired life, hardly seeing anybody; he calls himself an anchorite, and states he was living apart from all the world, seeking to find food for contemplation and reflection in his own self. He also fostered, perhaps unconscious to himself, high poetic aspirations, and also those extravagant dreams of friendship which were so fashionable in the days of "Posa" and "Werther" and Wieland; "his heart was never more susceptible to what is good," and "his bosom never swelled with nobler thoughts," he says in one of his letters. Then he goes on to describe the "flat, stale, and unprofitable" surroundings in the midst of which he was confined. "Round about me here it is icy cold, as in Nova Zembla, whilst I am burning and being consumed by the fiery breath within me," he says in another place. The violence of his inner conflict, of his heart-torture and unhappiness, finds vent in a wild burst in the letter before quoted of 10th Jan., 1796 (and also in others). He says:--
"Many a time I think it's all over with me, and if it were not for my uncle's little musical evenings. I don't know what really would become of me.... Let me stay here and eat my heart out.... Nothing can be made of me, that you will see quite well.... I am ruined for everything; I have been cheated in everything, and in a most exasperating way." ... Again, "If I thought it possible that this frantic imp, my fancy, at which I laugh right sardonically in my calmer moments, could ever strain the fibres of my brain or could touch the feelers of my emotional power, I should wish to cry with Shakespeare's Falstaff, 'I would it were bedtime, and all well;'" ... and "I am accused by the Santa Hermandad of my own conscience." And in another letter he unbares the root of all his troubles in the exclamation, "Oh! that I had a mother like you."
Tearing himself away from his lady-love with a violent wrench, Hoffmann left Königsberg in a sort of "dazed or intoxicated state," his heart bleeding with the anguish of parting. He arrived at Glogau on 15th June, and met with a very friendly reception from his uncle and his uncle's family, which consisted of his wife and a son and two daughters. But though they appear to have exerted themselves to make the unhappy youth comfortable, his heart and mind were too much occupied with the dear one he had left behind for him to derive full benefit from their kind and well-meant attentions. In the first letter he wrote to his friend from his new home he says, "As Hamlet advised his mother, I have thrown away the worser part of my heart to live the purer with the other half.... Am I happy, you ask? I was never more unhappy." In other letters, written some months later, he writes, "I am tired of railing against Destiny and myself.... There are moments in which I despair of all that is good, in which I feel it has been enjoined upon me to work against everything that makes a vaunt of specious happiness." But he took no manful and resolute steps to battle against his unhappy state; he continued to correspond with the lady of his affections, to gaze upon her portrait, to write to his friend about her, and to dwell upon the past, the hours he had spent in her society. His relatives, though treating him with all kindness, would seem to have endeavoured to reason him out of his passion, since after he had been some months in Glogau, he complains that those who had at first been all love and sympathy were now cold and reserved towards him; he was misunderstood; he was tormented with ennui, and looked with contempt (partly amused and partly bitter) upon the childish follies and fopperies, the trifling and dandling with serious feelings and affections, of the folks amongst whom he lived, who spent their time in "hunting after flies and bonmots." During these months, however, and during the course of the two years he spent in Silesia, he penetrated deeper into the secret constitution of his own nature than he ever did before or after: we find him confessing to his hot passionate disposition and his quickness to take offence, and making mention of the change that had taken place in him since the days of his early friendship with Hippel--he was become hypochondriacal, dissatisfied with himself, ready to kick against destiny, and prone to assume a defiant attitude towards her and to blame her and call her to account for her treatment of him; then again he was melancholy and sad and sentimental, using in his letters expressions built up after Jean Paul's style, and indulging in gushing protestations of unalterable friendship. But then this was the age of exaggerated friendships. His humour and joviality did not, however, altogether desert him; he made himself a welcome guest of an evening, and carried out amusing pranks with his merry cousins.
In the spring of 1797 Hoffmann accompanied his uncle on a journey to Königsberg, where he again saw the young girl he loved, but only to open up again all the anguish of the wounds that had never yet fully healed. On his return to Glogau things continued much as they were previous to his visit to his native town.
Of his two favourite arts, painting seems to have occupied him more than music just at this period. Probably this was due to the influence of the painter Molinari, whose acquaintance he made before he had been six months in Glogau; and besides this man, whom he styles a "child of misfortune" like himself, he also enjoyed the society of Holbein, dramatic poet and actor; of Julius von Voss, a well-known writer; and of the Countess Lichtenau, formerly favourite of Frederick William II. of Prussia, but at that time a sort of prisoner in the garrison at Glogau.[6] The serious study of law he also prosecuted most assiduously, and to such good purpose that in June, 1798, he was able to surmount successfully his second or "referendary" examination. But for this earnest and persevering labour there was a special incitement--a particular cause. However contradictory it may sound, he was already engaged in another love affair; this time with the lady who afterwards became his wife, Maria Thekla Michaelina Rorer, of Polish extraction. The beginning of his intimacy with her dates, strange to say, from the early part of the year 1797, just previous to his journey to Königsberg with his uncle. Soon after passing his "referendary" examination, he was moved to the Supreme Court at Berlin, as a consequence of the promotion of his uncle to be geheimer Obertribunalsrath in the capital. But before proceeding to Berlin to take up his residence there, Hoffmann made a tour through the Silesian mountains, partly with an eccentric friend of his uncle's and partly alone, finishing up the trip by an inspection of the art treasures of Dresden, where he was specially struck with works by Correggio and Battoni (mentioned in Der Sandmann, &c.) and Raphael. One very remarkable incident which happened to him during this trip must not be passed over in silence. He was induced to play at faro at a certain place where he stopped, and though he was perfectly unskilled in the game, yet he had such an extraordinary run of good luck, that he rose from the table with what was for him a small fortune. Next morning the event made so deep and powerful an impression upon his excitable temperament--his mind was so awed by the magnitude of his winnings--that he vowed never to touch a card again so long as he lived; and this vow he faithfully kept. In the tale Spielerglück ("Gambler's Luck") we find the incident recorded in the experiences of Baron Siegfried; and in the third volume of the Serapionsbrüder (Part VI.) he relates some of the very amusing eccentricities of his travelling companion, which are too long to be given here.
We next find Hoffmann in Berlin, where, whilst the impressions which he had brought back with him from his excursion were still fresh upon his mind, he began to revel in the enjoyment of the picture-galleries and other opportunities for cultivating his taste in art. Here he saw really how little his own skill in painting was developed; he threw away colours, and took up drawing again like a beginner. His position in a professional regard now took a more favourable turn. Freiherr von Schleinitz, the first president of the court to which Hoffmann was attached, was a friend of Hippel's; and both he and the genial good- hearted second president Von Kircheisen noticed and encouraged his talents. In consequence, he laboured at his duties and studies with such zeal that he succeeded in passing his third and last examination, the so-called examen rigorosum, and so qualifying for the position of judge in the highest courts of Prussia, in the summer of 1799. He was recommended for an appointment as councillor in a provincial supreme court; but before proceeding to the dignity of councillor it was obligatory upon him to serve a probationary year as assessor. He was accordingly sent down to the newly-acquired Polish provinces (South Prussia, as they were called), to the town of Posen, where work was plentiful and talented and energetic workers were in demand. Before leaving the capital he had the pleasure of seeing his friend Hippel, who spent two happy months with him, living the past over again, visiting Potsdam, Dessau, Leipsic, Dresden, &c., and discussing the journey to Italy, which through all his life Hoffmann continued to dream of as an ideal plan to be some time consummated, but which unfortunately never was consummated. Hippel accompanied his friend to Posen.
The Polish provinces were fraught with great danger for any young man who was not possessed of exceptional firmness and sound moral principles. For a young lawyer, the work was severe and exacting, but the emoluments were large. Time, however, failed to allow of cultivating the higher sources of enjoyment; hence all hastened to make the most of it by throwing themselves into the lower. Drinking was a habit of the country; and the drink that was drunk was of the strongest kinds, the fiery wines of Hungary and strong liquors. There reigned also a deplorable laxity of morals; and the graceful Polish women were very seductive. That Hoffmann followed the example of his colleagues, and plunged into the giddy whirlpool of miscalled pleasure, will perhaps appear natural when we take into consideration the sources of discontent that had for some time been fermenting in his spirit. Having been submitted to the trammels of unreasonable constraint, it need not be wondered at that his passionate restless nature should be enticed by the temptations to which he was now so suddenly and unreservedly exposed, that he forgot all his higher strivings and cast his better purposes to the winds, and drank greedily of the pleasures of life which his newly-won freedom brought in so easy and seductive a form within his reach. He candidly states, "for some months a conflict of feelings, principles, &c., which are directly contradictory the one to the other, has been raging within me; I wished to stifle all recollection, and become what schoolmasters, preachers, uncles, and aunts call profligate." There was none in the circles which he frequented to encourage him in his desire to reach out after better things, to live himself into "the poetry of life," as Hitzig expresses it; and hence he fell into the mire of demoralisation, and his fall was the greater since he set about it with deliberate intent.