"Einst als des Thorns heilig Lager uns umfing, Am Himmel glanzvoll prangte Lunas keuscher Schein, Der goldnen Aphrodite Gab' erwünschend mir, Von silberweissen Armen ich umflochten lag. Schon denkend, welch ein Wunderkind so holder Nacht, Welch Vaterlandserretter, kraftgepanzert, soll Dem zarten Leib entspriessen nach der Horen Tanz, Fühl' ich am Rücken hinter mir gar sanften Schlag: Da wähn ich, Liebsgekose neckt die Schulter mir, Und lächle fromm die süsse Braut und sinnig an: Bald naht mir der Enttäuschung grauser Höllenschmerz Das Strickzeug tanzt auf meinem Rücken thätig fort; Ja, stand das Werk just in der Ferse Beugung, wo Der Kundigste, ob vielem Zählen, selber pfuscht."[2] When the cult of the useful is carried as far as this, we can understand advocacy of purposelessness. But purposelessness and idleness are inseparable. "Only Italians," we are told, "know how to walk, and only Orientals how to lie; and where has the mind developed with more refinement and sweetness than in India? And in every clime it is idleness which distinguishes the noble from the simple, and which is, therefore, the essence of nobility." This last assertion is outrageous, but its very audacity is significant. It shows the attitude of Romanticism towards the masses. To have the means to do nothing is, in its estimation, the true patent of nobility. Its heroes are those who cultivate the unremunerative arts, and are supported by others--kings and knights like those in Fouqué's and Ingemann's books, artists and poets like those in Tieck's and Novalis's. It separates itself from humanity, will do nothing for it, but only for the favoured few. The hero and heroine in _Lucinde_ are the gifted artist and the woman of genius; it is not the ordinary union, but the "nature-marriage" or the "art-marriage" (_Naturehe, Kunstehe_) for which our interest is claimed. Observe how Julius at once asks Lucinde whether her child, if a girl, shall be trained as a portrait or as a landscape painter. Only as a member of the fraternity of artists do her parents take any interest in her. Only authors and artists have part and lot in the poetry of life. It is not difficult to understand how it was that _Lucinde_ was barren of any social results. But though the book had no practical outcome, though it was too feeble to effect any kind of reform, there was, nevertheless, something practical underlying it.