Whether this insensibility was more than apparent is not perfectly clear: the memoirs of Klopstock are not quite accurate or satisfactory in this part of his history. It should seem from the published correspondence, that his love was distinctly avowed, though he never had courage to make a direct offer of himself. Fanny Schmidt appears to have been a superior woman in point of mind, and full of admiration for his genius. She writes to him in terms of friendship and kindness, but she leaves him, after three years' attachment on his part, still in doubt whether her heart remain untouched,--and even whether she _had_ a heart to be touched. He intimates, but with a tender and guarded delicacy, that he had reason to complain of her coquetry;[72] and, with the sensibility of a proud but wounded heart, he was anxious to prove to himself that his romantic tenderness had not been unworthily bestowed. "All the peace and consolation of my after life depends on knowing whether Fanny _really_ has a heart?--a heart that _could_ have sympathised with mine?"[73] He had commissioned his friend Gleim to plead his cause, to sound her heart in its inmost depths; and in return, received the intelligence of her approaching union with another. "When (as he expresses it) not a hope was left to be destroyed," he became calm; but he suffered at first acutely; and this ill-fated attachment tinged with a deep gloom nearly four years of his life. While in suspense, he continually repeats his conviction that he can never love again. "Had I never seen her, I might have attached myself to another object, and perhaps have known the felicity of mutual love! But now it is impossible; my heart is steeled to every tender impression." The sentiment was natural; but, fortunately for himself, he was deceived. In passing through Hamburgh, in April 1751, and while he was still under the influence of this heart-wearing attachment to Fanny, he was introduced to Meta Moeller. The impression she made on him is thus described, in a letter to his friend and confidant, Gleim.