![]() Charlotte von Kalb, who was anything but obtuse, grasped the underlying truth. ![]() The boy of nine had a stronger will than the man of twenty-five. Hölderlin’s incapacity to meet the demands of everyday life was in this matter all too plain. He spoke of his pupil’s stubbornness, of defects in the lad’s character which he, as tutor, was impotent to remedy. He still rationalised the immanent inflammability of his impulses by discovering objective causes for them. In this first crisis he probably failed to understand that the trouble sprang from the daemonism within him, from the jealous exclusiveness of the spirit that possessed him, making mundane relationships impossible. No existence other than that of a poet was acceptable. ![]() He could not endure regular occupation, could not bear to participate in the daily round of ordinary people. He began to complain of his “dependent position”, and the forces at work within him soon became obvious. ![]() ![]() Shadows of gloom and discontent crept into his letters. “Ere long, however, the daemon was wrestling with him once more he was seized by that “terrible spirit of unrest” which drove him “like the deluge, to the mountain peaks”. ![]()
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