It is this same confusion of feeling which gives their morbidness to all his productions. Even _Michael Kohlhaas_, that masterpiece of the art of story-telling, at the beginning of which each character is drawn with the precision of genius, ends in a kind of dream-like confusion. Towards the close of the story there appear two spectral figures--the sickly and at last half-insane Elector of Saxony, and an extraordinary gipsy woman, who, we are given to understand, is possessed by the spirit of Kohlhaas's dead wife--characters which contrast very forcibly with the simple, sane personages introduced to us at the beginning. _Die heilige Cäcilie_ (St. Cecilia) is a Catholic legend, with a moral pointed against iconoclasm. The author revels here with a certain satisfaction in superstitious ideas; he makes the saint punish the haters and destroyers of the art treasures of the Church with sudden madness. Kleist early became addicted to indulgence in opium, a fact of which some of these works remind us. In the year 1809 the poet appears as an ardent political agitator. Now, for a time, his voice sounds clear and full. He reproaches his countrymen with not having sufficient confidence in the mysterious power of the heart. He calls Napoleon a sinner, whose iniquity it is beyond the power of human language to express. Such resistance as has been offered to the French seems to him contemptibly weak. He dislikes Fichte's _Addresses to the German Nation_, sneers at Fichte himself as a pedant who talks but cannot act, and expresses unbounded contempt for the members of the _Tugendbund_ and their puerile inactivity. He writes a tragedy, _Die Hermannsschlacht_, with the object of inciting his countrymen to treat Napoleon as Hermann (Arminius) treated Varus. The following lines in it are aimed at the laggard youth of the day:-- "Die schreiben, Deutschland zu befreien, Mit Chiffren, schicken mit Gefahr des Lebens Einander Boten, die die Römer hängen, Versammeln sich um Zwielicht--essen, trinken, Und schlafen, kommt die Nacht, bei ihren Frauen. * * * * * * * * * Die Hoffnung: morgen stirbt Augustus Lockt sie, bedeckt mit Schmach und Schande, Von einer Woche in die andere."[16] So little care does he bestow on the historical colouring of this play that he makes Hermann talk of a "bill" (of exchange), and Varus compare the leader of the Cheruski to a Dervish. He wanted such a war as the Spaniards used to wage, with murder and perjury, burning villages and poisoned wells. The battle of Wagram shattered all his hopes. Aghast, he asked if there were no such thing as justice upon earth.