Hauff had grown tired of being a private tutor in 1826, and spent the
profits of Lichtenstein in a journey to the North of Germany and to
Paris in the latter half of that year. It was upon that occasion that
he visited Bremen, although not upon the errand imagined in the text.
On his return to the South in 1827 he became Editor of the 'Morning
News for the Educated Classes,' to which his brother, who succeeded him
in the editorship, was already a contributor. This paper survived till
1865, when it expired a few months after the death of Hermann Hauff,
whom from all we know of him we imagine to have been a much more
business-like editor than Wilhelm. Contemporarily with this responsible
post Wilhelm took to himself a wife, one of his own cousins, who bore
him a daughter but a few days before his death. He died of fever on the
18th November, 1827. Prefixed to the edition of 1853 is a very pretty
little poem of L. Uhland's on the occasion, and also a funeral oration
by Mr. Court Chaplain Grüneisen, who was his cousin, both of which were
recited over his grave in true German fashion. If we could believe all
that this worthy priest said--and we have not a scrap of evidence to
the contrary--Wilhelm Hauff's life must indeed have been a bright and
happy one; 'Wonnezeit voll holder Träume,' as he himself called the
season of youth. Apparently he made no enemies, and he made every one
whom he chose his friend; his tender affection for his mother seems to
have been the mainspring of his existence; to his bride he had been
long attached in a half playful spirit, that wanted only the shadow of
a difficulty to withdraw their love into those regions of romance in
which his mind delighted to dwell. It was about a month before his
death that he produced, as a reminiscence of his northern journey, the
following story, entitled--
'THE WINE-GHOSTS OF BREMEN.'
NOTE (_written before the late incorporation of the Hanse towns with
the Empire_).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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