"Nimmst Du die Welt, sein grosses Werk, wohl wahr? Siehst Du ihn in der Abendröthe Schimmer, Wenn sie durch schweigende Gebüsche fällt? Hörst Du ihn beim Gesaüsel der Gewässer, Und bei dem Schlag der üpp'gen Nachtigall? Verkündigt nicht umsonst der Berg ihn Dir, Gethürmt gen Himmel, nicht umsonst ihn Der felszerstiebten Katarakten Fall? Wenn hoch die Sonn' in seinen Tempel strahlt, Und, von der Freude Pulsschlag eingeläutet, Ihn alle Gättungen Erschaff'ner preisen, Steigst Du nicht in des Herzens Schacht hinab Und betest Deinen Götzen an?"[14] Therefore, also, Alcmene is repeatedly addressed as "Thou Holy One!" "Du bist, Du Heilige, vor jedem Zutritt Mit diamantnem Gürtel angethan. Auch selbst der Glückliche, den Du empfängst, Entlässt Dich schuldlos noch und rein."...[15] Adam Müller wrote an enthusiastic, mystical preface to the play. And in one of his letters to Gentz he writes: "Hartmann has painted a grand picture, 'The Three Marys at the Sepulchre.' This and Amphitryon seem to me to herald a new period in art. For Amphitryon unmistakably treats of the immaculate conception of the Holy Virgin as well as of the mystery of love in general." Even Goethe felt this. He said: "The play contains nothing less than a new, Christian interpretation of the myth as a parallel to the overshadowing of Mary by the Holy Ghost." In 1806 Kleist had resigned his appointment and left Königsberg. When the war broke out between France and Prussia, he was, from a misunderstanding, imprisoned for a time by the French. In 1808 he went to Dresden, where he became acquainted with Adam Müller. It was now Müller's ambition, as it had previously been Fr. Schlegel's, to influence men's minds in the capacity of prophet and apostle of Romanticism. He professed ardent admiration for Kleist, and, unfortunately, succeeded in gaining considerable power over him. Müller was a phrasemonger, who had acquired some little knowledge of several sciences, and was at this moment on the point of announcing a new philosophy, in which there was (so he maintained) none of the one-sidedness characteristic of all previous systems. Its distinguishing doctrine was the doctrine of "opposites," of the constantly changing, constantly renewed and superseded "opposite." According to Müller, the spirit of the eighteenth century and the spirit of Romanticism were only disguises of one and the same truth-- a truth of which he no doubt believed himself to have entered into complete and enduring possession when he joined the Church of Rome in 1805.