In Rome, on the other hand, the artists were equally loth to part with the aesthetic Swiss. The venerable Koch sent her word, through the the painter Eberle, how much he regretted that he could no longer pass his winter evenings with her. Overbeck and others held with her an animated correspondence. But she remained in hallowed remembrance with the German art-colony, from the assistance she rendered to youthful talent, and her encouragement by actual commissions. The historical painter Adam Eberle, particularly, a pupil of Cornelius, friend and countryman of Lasaulx—a highly gifted and lofty mind, but struggling in the deepest poverty—to him she proved a generous benefactress; and we can truly say, that through her goodness his last days—he died at Rome, 1832—were illumined with a final gleam of sunshine. The letters which she received from the youthful departed, partly during her stay in Rome, partly after her departure, give ample testimony of this, and indicate the manner, generally, of her benevolence in such cases. Immediately on their first meeting in Rome, and learning of his condition, she gave him a commission for an oil painting; with deep emotion he thanked the friendly lady "for the confidence she had thus reposed in a nameless painter." Subsequently she purchased also several drawings of Eberle, each, like the oil painting, of a religious nature; among others, one that she particularly prized, and afterward caused to be engraved, "Peter and Paul journeying to the Occident."
On forwarding this drawing to Basle, together with another, the subject of which was taken from the Old Testament, "as the product of his muse since her departure," Eberle thus writes:
"What chiefly attracts me to these Bible subjects is the healthy and unaffected language, which I endeavor to translate into my art. Regard this work of mine as a study which is necessary for my taste. That which is lacking in it, I know full well, without the power of supplying it. Accept it, therefore, as it is. Altogether bad it is not. At a very sad period was it undertaken, and many a tear has fallen upon it, which, like a vein of noble metal, seven times purified in its earthen crucible, glistens through it. I have, indeed, some assurance that I have not fruitlessly worked, in Overbeck's judgment upon it, whom you saw at Bunsen's: and this not a little cheers me."
Her generous watchfulness wearied not in rescuing him, at the times of his greatest need, and Eberle, with overflowing gratitude, testified to these constant proofs of her goodness, and, even more, to the great delicacy and the kindly words which accompanied every act.
Her personal intercourse at Rome seemed also to have exerted a favorable influence upon his religious sentiments. The taste for mystical writings which, encouraged by Baader, she was cultivating at that period, grew also upon him; and when, shortly after her departure, Lasaulx came to Rome, Eberle was very happy that he could continue with him this favorite and elevating study. He writes to her at Basle on the 25th of September, 1831:
"An old friend of my youth and countryman of mine, C. Lasaulx, is now my almost exclusive companion: he will probably remain the winter here and share my dwelling with me. He is, as you know, a zealous disciple of Schelling, is deeply versed in the new philosophy, and, what to me is of still more value, in the mysticism of the middle ages. I rejoice to have gained in him some compensation for the loss of your society; yet I cannot share the expectations which he bases upon the new philosophy. Although my acquaintance with him has divested me of many a former prejudice, I find myself, nevertheless, attracted only the more to the 'one thing needful,' assured that only at the fountain of living waters, Jesus Christ, can our thirst be quenched."
He adds, however, concerning his friend:
"Lasaulx has nevertheless a very substantial Christian basis, and if ever his Knowing goes hand in hand with his Willing, and his Willing with his Knowing, we may certainly expect something very sterling from him."
It was Lasaulx himself who communicated the news to their mutual friend, in Germany, of the sudden death of Eberle. Eberle's plan had been to pass yet a year in Rome, then return to Germany, and, seeking again the sheltering wing of his master, Cornelius, in Munich, there to close his art-wanderings. Thus he himself wrote in a letter of the 7th of March, 1832. But a month later he was no more. He succumbed to a disease of the stomach. Shortly before his death, Miss Linder had cheered the invalid by a remittance. On the 24th of April, 1832, Lasaulx thus wrote from Rome: