[73] In reply to a letter addressed to Professor Elster on October 4, 1914, the writer received the following most kind reply on November 23: "Die Frage, die Sie an mich richten ist leicht beantwortet: Heine hat Loeben in seinen Schriften nicht erwähnt, aber das besagt nicht viel; er hat manchen benutzt, den er nicht nennt. Und es kann _gar keinem Zweifel unterliegen_, dass Loeben für die Lorelei Heines _unmittelbares_ Vorbild ist; darauf habe ich öfter hingewiesen, aber wohl auch andere. Das Taschenbuch _Urania_ für das Jahr 1821, wo Loebens Gedicht u. Novelle zuerst erschienen, ist unserem Dichter zweifellos zu Gesicht gekommen." No one can view Professor Elster in any other light than as an eminent authority on Heine, but his certainty here must be accepted with reserve, and his "wohl auch andere" is, in view of the fact that, he was by no means the first, and certainly not the last, to make this assertion, a trifle disconcerting. [74] The ultimate determining of sources is an ungrateful theme. Some excellent suggestions on this subject are offered by Hans Rohl in his _Die ältere Romantik und die Kunst des jungen Goethe_, Berlin, 1909, pp. 70-72. This work was written under the general leadership of Professor Elster. The disciple would, in this case, hardly agree with the master. Pissin likewise speaks wisely in discussing the influence of Novalis on Loeben in his monograph on the latter, pp. 97-98. and 129-30. And Heine himself (Elster edition, V. 294) says in regard to the question whether Hegel did borrow so much from Schelling: "Nichts ist lächerlicher als das reklamierte Eigentumsrecht an Ideen." He then shows how the ideas were not original with Schelling either; he had them from Spinoza. And it is just so here. Brentano started the legend; Heine goes back to him indirectly. Eichenidorff and Vogt directly; Schreiber borrowed from Vogt, Loeben from Schreiber, and Heine from Schreiber--and thereafter it would be impossible to say who borrowed from whom. [75] The majority of the _Loreleidichtungen_ can be found in: _Opern-Handbuch_, by Hugo Riemann, Leipzig, 1886: _Zur Geschichte der Märchenoper_, by Leopold Schmidt, Halle, 1895; _Die Loreleysage in Dichtung und Musik_, by Hermann Seeliger, Leipzig, 1898. Seeliger took the majority of his titles from _Nassau in seinen Sagen, Geschichten und Liedern_, by Henniger, Wiesbaden, 1845. At least he says so, but one is inclined to doubt the statement, for "die meisten Balladen" have been written since 1845. Seeliger's book is on the whole unsatisfactory. He has, for example, Schreiber improving on, and remodeling Loeben's saga; but Schreiber was twenty-three years older than Loeben, and wrote his saga at least three years before Loeben wrote his.