At the University of Bonn, where Heyse went from Berlin, he showed much interest in Romance languages. He was fascinated with Spanish, especially the writings of Cervantes and Calderon. In 1849, and again in 1852, he traveled in Italy, adding Dante, Boccaccio, and Leopardi to his list of literary heroes. The homes of artists were open to him and he found Italy an ideal land of “colour and grace.” Shakespeare received his tribute throughout his literary life. He began to write dramas and lyric poems, tales in verse and prose with youthful zest and marks of great promise. In 1854, King Max of Bavaria offered to him a position at the Court of Munich, at a salary of 1500 florins. Munich was an environment sure to awaken his talent and satisfy his love of beauty. Under Louis I it had been favored with some fine buildings; an atmosphere of culture was pervasive. Among the poets and scholars, with whom Heyse became associated here, were Geibel, Bodenstedt, Wilbrandt, Luogg, and Schack, the historian. In 1868, when Louis II, successor to King Max, insulted Geibel, the poet, and caused him to leave the city, Heyse was depressed although he stayed in Munich, living in a charming villa there until his death in 1914. From the early years of his authorship, Heyse showed an aristocratic culture which did not dim his interest in fisherfolk, peasants, and rural characters. Although family sorrows came upon him, and he suffered, from 1880 to 1900, from attacks by the ardent followers of Zola and Ibsen, yet he never lost his serenity of character and his belief in individualistic expression. “Instinct” was his guide, as he has exemplified in scores of his tales and dramas. The “child of nature,” or the man or woman of inherent nobility, was incapable of any low or mean action according to his belief. In _Salamander_, which Mr. Georg Brandes regards as his best _Novelle_ in versified form,[73] he expresses his creed of the vigorous life, of allegiance to nature, in spite of failings and adverse judgments against him by the “naturalistic school”: I never yet of virtue or of failing Have been ashamed, nor proudly did adorn Myself of one, nor thought my sins of veiling. Beyond all else, betwixt the nobly born And vulgar herd, this marks the separation,-- The cowards whose hypocrisy we scorn. Him I call noble, who, with moderation, Carves his own honor, and but little heeds His neighbors’ slander or their approbation.[74] Another character, familiar to readers of Heyse, Toinette of _Kinder der Welt_ (_Children of the World_) speaks words of similar trend often quoted; “There is but _one_ genuine nobility; to remain true to one’s self.... He who bears within himself the true rank, lives and dies through his own grace, and is, therefore, sovereign.”