TO PROFESSOR SCHIRMER AT DÜSSELDORF.
Berlin, 21st November, 1838.
……. It is said I have become pious! If by this is meant what I understand by pious, and what you from your way of speaking appear to understand too, then I can only say that, unhappily, I have not become so, but I strive towards it every day with what power I have, and seek to become so more and more. Frankly, I know it will never succeed with me outright, but to get nearer is something. But if people mean I have turned into a Pietist, one of those who folds his hands on his bosom and waits for God to accomplish all things for him, or one who, instead of struggling after perfection in his earthly calling, talks of a heavenly calling which is incompatible with mundane efforts, or one who cannot truly love any person or anything in this world—such a one I have not become, thank Heaven! nor will, I trust, all my life long. And for the very reason that I so much desire to be soundly and sanely pious, I need care, I hope, very little about that species of piety. But it is curious that people should pitch upon this special time for saying things of the
