Strauss's book itself had not satisfied him. Rationalist as he was, he felt the need for a historic Jesus, and betook himself to the study of Reimarus's old _Wolfenbüttel Fragments_, to which Lessing before him had devoted so much attention. He determined to publish a selection from these, but it was in vain that he applied with this intention to the most courageous of the German publishers, Campe. In spite of his bold political attitude, Campe dared not expose himself to the rancour of the Hamburg clergy, Pastor Goetze's successors in the cure of souls. It was about this time that the noble Charlotte Stieglitz committed suicide. The impression produced by this tragic event combined itself in Gutzkow's mind with the impressions made by his young friend's remark and by Reimarus's Biblical criticism--and _Wally, the Sceptic_, was the result. It is a childish book, this _Wally_, but it is innocent, honest, and artless. The heroine is a young lady moving in good society, who, in despair at not being able to overcome the religious doubts awakened in her mind by the man she loves, the sceptical, _blasé_ Cæsar, kills herself with a dagger. Gutzkow had been unable to withstand the temptation of reminding the venerable lights and defenders of the Church, the dignitaries of all the different classes of the Order of the Red Eagle, that there had once lived men named Hume, Voltaire, Lessing, &c. There was something fascinating to a young man in the idea of reminding such grand folks of such forgotten existences. But it ought to have been done with talent. In Gutzkow's novel the plot was a mere excuse for ventilating theories, _Wally_ was a weak imitation of _Lélia_, the last novel which George Sand had published. But its author was in the spring-tide of his youth. It seemed to him as if the whole world were growing young again. The glow of Hegel's sinking sun still illuminated the horizon, Bettina arose like a morning star, the ever-young wisdom of Rahel was scattered abroad over the earth after her death like fruitful dew, Lenau's and Rückert's early poems were like the song of the lark, Ruge's first critical articles and Feuerbach's first philosophic writings were like fresh spring breezes that cleared the air--the time seemed to him so sunny, so promising, so laden with fruit, that it was as it were symbolised by the two glorious summers of 1834 and 1835, with their rich harvests of corn and wine. And it was then he committed his first great youthful blunder. He was not satisfied with embodying his religious heterodoxy in his book; he also proclaimed his moral heterodoxy, his defiance of the accepted code of sexual morality--a very clumsy and immature defiance. But the best idea of how very innocently Gutzkow interpreted that watchword, "the emancipation of the flesh," which he himself employs, is to be gained from the notorious scene in _Wally_, which was intended by the author to express his worship of beauty.