This was, moreover, actually realized, and in poetry a new epoch emerged which was necessarily as antagonistic to our friend as he was to it.  From this time on he experienced many unfavorable judgments, yet without being very deeply influenced by them; and I here expressly mention this circumstance, since the consequent struggle in German literature is as yet by no means allayed and adjusted, and since a friend who desires to value Wieland’s merits and sturdily to uphold his memory must be perfectly conversant with the situation of affairs, with the rise and with the sequence of opinions, and with the character and with the talents of the cooperators; he must know well the powers and the services of both sides; and, to work impartially, he must, in a sense, belong to both factions.  Yet from those minor or major controversies which arose from his intellectual attitude I am drawn by a serious consideration, to which we must now turn.

The peace which for many years had blissfully dwelt amid our mountains and hills, and in our delightfully watered valleys, had long been, if not disturbed, at least threatened, by military expeditions.  When the eventful day dawned which filled us with amazement and alarm, since the fate of the world was decided in our walks, even in those terrible hours toward which our friend’s carefree life flowed on, fortune did not desert him, for he was saved first through the precaution of a young and resolute friend, and then through the attention of the French conquerors, who honored in him both the meritorious author, famed throughout the world, and a member of their own great literary institute.

Soon afterward he had to bear the loss of Amelia, so bitter to us all.  Court and city endeavored to extend him every compensation, and soon afterward he was favored by two emperors with insignia of honor, the like of which he had not sought, and had not even expected, throughout his long life.

Yet in the day of joy as in the day of sorrow he remained constant to himself, and thus he exemplified the superiority of delicate natures, whose equanimity knows how to meet with moderation good and evil fortune alike.

But he appeared most remarkable of all, considered in body and in spirit, after the bitter calamity which befell him in such advanced years when, together with a beloved daughter, he was very severely injured by the overturning of his carriage.  The painful results of the accident and the tedium of convalescence he bore with the utmost equanimity, and he comforted his friends rather than himself by the declaration that he had never met with a like misfortune, and it might well have seemed pleasing to the gods that in this way he discharge the debt of humanity.  Now, moreover, he speedily recovered, since his constitution, like that of a youth, was quickly restored, and thus he became a proof for us of the way in which great physical strength may be combined with delicacy and clean living.