“Yes, that was Hoffmann.  Soon afterwards he died.  The closing scene was striking.  He gradually lost all sensation, though his mind remained vigorous.  Feeling no more pain, he said to his physician; ‘It will soon be over now.  I feel no more pain.’  He thought himself well again; but the physician knew that he was dying, and said; ‘Yes, it will soon be over!’ The next morning he called his wife to his bed-side; and begged her to fold his motionless hands together.  Then, as he raised his eyes to heaven, she heard him say, ’We must, then, think of God, also!’ More sorrowful words than these have seldom fallen from the lips of man.  Shortly afterwards the flame of life glared up within him; he said he was well again; that in the evening he should go on with the story he was writing; and wished that the last sentence might be read over to him.  Shortly after this they turned his face to the wall, and he died.”

“And thus passed to its account a human soul, after much self-inflicted suffering.  Let us tread lightly upon the poet’s ashes.  For my part, I confess, that I have not the heart to take him from the general crowd of erring, sinful men, and judge him harshly.  The little I have seen of the world, and know of the history of mankind, teaches me to look upon the errors of others in sorrow, not inanger.  When I take the history of one poor heart that has sinned and suffered, and represent to myself the struggles and temptations it has passed,—­the brief pulsations of joy,—­the feverish inquie-tude of hope and fear,—­the tears of regret,—­the feebleness of purpose,—­the pressure of want,—­the desertion of friends,—­the scorn of a world that has little charity,—­the desolation of the soul’s sanctuary,—­and threatening voices within,—­health gone,—­happiness gone,—­even hope, that stays longest with us, gone,—­I have little heart for aught else than thankfulness, that it is not so with me, and would fain leave the erring soul of my fellow-man with Him, from whose hands it came,

’even as a little child,

Weeping and laughing in its childish sport.’”

“You are right.  And it is worth a student’s while to observe calmly how tobacco, wine, and midnight did their work like fiends upon the delicate frame of Hoffmann; and no less thoroughly upon his delicate mind.  He who drinks beer, thinks beer; and he who drinks wine, thinks wine;—­and he who drinks midnight, thinks midnight.  He was a man of rare intellect.  He was endowed with racy humor and sarcastic wit, and a glorious imagination.  But the fire of his genius burned not peacefully, and with a steady flame, upon the hearth of his home.  It was a glaring and irregular flame;—­for the branches that he fed it with, were not branches from the Tree of Life,—­but from another tree that grew in Paradise,—­and they were wet with the unhealthy dews of night, and more unhealthy wine; and thus, amid smoke and ashes the fire burned fitfully, and went out with a glare, which leaves the beholder blind.”