He was now thirty-four. The poor, patient mother had just died, but not till she had heard the fame of her son spoken on every hand. After her death, Paul found a faded manuscript in which she had kept the record of those small gains in spinning into the midnight hours. He carried it next his heart, saying, "If all other manuscripts are destroyed, yet will I keep this, good mother." For weeks he was not able to write a letter, or mention the loss of his parent. His youngest brother, Samuel, a talented boy, was now ready for college; so Jean Paul determined to make Leipzig his home while his brother pursued his course. What changes the last few years had wrought! Then he was stealing away from Leipzig in debt for his board, cold, hungry, and desolate; now he was coming, the brilliant author whom everybody delighted to honor. When we are in want, few are ready to help; when above want, the world stands ready to lavish all upon us. After spending some time in Leipzig, he visited Dresden to enjoy the culture of that artistic city. During this visit, Samuel, who had become dissipated, broke into his brother's desk, stole all his hard-earned money, and left the city. He led a wandering life thereafter, dying in a hospital in Silesia. Paul never saw him again, but sent him a yearly allowance, as soon as he learned his abiding-place. What a noble character! He now returned to Weimar, dedicating his "Titan" to the four daughters of the Duke of Mecklenburg, one of whom became the mother of Emperor William, the famous and beautiful Louise of Prussia. He visited her later in Berlin, where he writes, "I have never been received in any city with such idolatry. I have a watch-chain of the hair of three sisters; and so much hair has been begged of me, that if I were to make it a traffic, I could live as well from the outside of my head as from what is inside of it." In this city he met the woman who was to be hereafter the very centre of his life. He had had a passing fancy for several, but never for one that seemed fitted, all in all, to make his life complete. Caroline Myer, the daughter of one of the most distinguished Prussian officers, was a refined, intellectual, noble girl, with almost unlimited resources within herself, devoted to her family and to every good. Paul had met women who dressed more elegantly, who were more sparkling in conversation, who were more beautiful, but they did not satisfy his heart. In his thirty-eighth year he had found a character that seemed perfection. He wrote, "Caroline has exactly that inexpressible love for all beings that I have till now failed to find even in those who in everything else possess the splendor and purity of the diamond. She preserves in the full harmony of her love to me the middle and lower tones of sympathy for every joy and sorrow in others."