[73] Werke, Vol. II, p. 181.
[74] Werke, Vol. I, p. 253.
CHAPTER III
Lenau
If Hölderlin's Weltschmerz has been fittingly characterized as idealistic, Lenau's on the other hand may appropriately be termed the naturalistic type. He is par excellence the "Pathetiker" of Weltschmerz.
Without presuming even to attempt a final solution of a problem of pathology concerning which specialists have failed to agree, there seems to be sufficient circumstantial as well as direct evidence to warrant the assumption that Lenau's case presents an instance of hereditary taint. Notwithstanding the fact that Dr. Karl Weiler[75] discredits the idea of "erbliche Belastung" and calls heredity "den vielgerittenen Verlegenheitsgaul," the conclusion forces itself upon us that if the theory has any scientific value whatsoever, no more plausible instance of it could be found than the one under consideration. The poet's great-grandfather and grandfather had been officers in the Austrian army, the latter with some considerable distinction. Of his five children, only Franz, the poet's father, survived. The complete lack of anything like a systematic education, and the nomadic life of the army did not fail to produce the most disastrous results in the wild and dissolute character of the young man. Even before the birth of the poet, his father had broken his marriage vows and his wife's heart by his abominable dissipations and drunkenness. Lenau was but five years old when his father, not yet thirty-five, died of a disease which he is believed to have contracted as a result of these sensual and senseless excesses. To the poet he bequeathed something of his own pathological sensuality, instability of thought and action, lack of will-energy, and the tears of a heartbroken mother, a sufficient guarantee, surely, of a poet of melancholy. Even though we cannot avoid the reflection that the loss of such a father was a blessing in disguise, the fact remains that Lenau during his childhood and youth needed paternal guidance and training even more than did Hölderlin. He became the idol of his mother, who in her blind devotion did not hesitate to show him the utmost partiality in all things. This important fact alone must account to a large extent for that presumptuous pride, which led him to expect perhaps more than his just share from life and from the world.
Lenau's aimlessness and instability were so extreme that they may properly be counted a pathological trait. It is best illustrated by his university career. In 1819 he went to Vienna to commence his studies. Beginning with Philosophy, he soon transferred his interests to Law, first Hungarian, then German; finding the study of Law entirely unsuited to his tastes, he now declared his intention of pursuing once more a philosophical course, with a view to an eventual professorship. But this plan was frustrated by his grandmother, the upshot of it all being that Lenau allowed himself to be persuaded to take up the study of agriculture at Altenburg. But a few months sufficed to bring him back to Vienna. Here his legal studies, which he had resumed and almost completed, were interrupted by a severe affection of the throat which developed into laryngitis and from which he never quite recovered. This too, according to Dr. Sadger,[76] marks the neurasthenic, and often constitutes a hereditary taint. Lenau thereupon shifted once more and entered upon a medical course, this time not absolutely without predilection. He did himself no small credit in his medical examinations, but the death of his grandmother, just before his intended graduation, provided a sufficient excuse for him to discontinue the work, which was never again resumed or brought to a conclusion. But not only in matters of such relative importance did Lenau exhibit this vacillation. There was a spirit of restlessness in him which made it impossible for him to remain long in the same place. Of this condition no one was more fully aware than he himself. In one of his letters he writes: "Gestern hat jemand berechnet, wieviel Poststunden ich in zwei Monaten gefahren bin, und es ergab sich die kolossale Summe von 644, die ich im Eilwagen unter beständiger Gemütsbewegung gefahren bin."[77] That this habit of almost incessant travel tended to aggravate his nervous condition is a fair supposition, notwithstanding the fact that Dr. Karl Weiler[78] skeptically asks "what about commercial travellers?" Lenau himself complains frequently of the distressing effect of such journeys: "Ein heftiger Kopfschmerz und grosse Müdigkeit waren die Folgen der von Linz an unausgesetzten Reise im Eilwagen bei schlechtem Wetter und abmüdenden Gedanken an meine Zukunft."[79] Many similar Statements might be quoted from his letters to show that it was not merely the ordinary process of traveling, though that at best must have been trying enough, but the breathless haste of his journeys, combined with mental anxiety, which usually characterized them, that made them so detrimental to his health.
It is as interesting as it is significant to note in this connection the fact that while on a journey to Munich, just a short time before the light of his intellect failed, Lenau wrote the following lines, the last but one of all his poems: