h a nimbus of wonder, or
even as a sort of daemonic being. Though these evenings were beyond all
conception gay and festive, Hoffmann seldom drank to excess. Of course
he drank a good deal: he had acquired the habit, as remarked, at Posen,
but he was not a common drinker, who drinks for the drink's sake. It
was the exhilaration it gave to his spirits and the fire it gave to his
mind and brilliant parts that he found attractive in the habit.[16]
Excursions were also made into the country, particularly to Bug; and
here, as at Warsaw, the restless "quicksilver" man was everywhere.

In March, 1811, he was fortunate to be introduced to Von Weber the
musician, whose regard for his musical talents continued undiminished
until his death; and in the same month Hoffmann paid a visit to Jean
Paul at Bayreuth, and had from him a fairly cordial reception. Towards
the end of the year came the intelligence that his uncle Otto Doerffer
of Koenigsberg had died, leaving him heir to his property. But the sum
Hoffmann received barely sufficed, if indeed it did suffice, to pay his
debts. These had been accumulated first by Hoffmann's own want of
prudence--when he had money in his purse he spent it merrily without a
thought about the morrow--and secondly, by the frequent illness of his
wife, the simple, homely, unassuming, good-natured creature with whom
he always lived on happy terms in spite of his own unpardonable
vagaries. Curiously enough, he used to labour under the odd delusion
that she was gifted with keen critical taste and was an intellectual
woman, though this was far from being the truth, according to the
express evidence of his bosom-friend Kunz.

Amongst Hoffmann's pupils was a young girl of sixteen, Julia M----;
this was his favourite pupil. For her he came to conceive an
overmastering passion; but whether it was more of the imagination or of
the heart it would appear difficult to decide with absolute certainty.
He did not know himself; "he preferred to remain a riddle to himself, a
riddle which he always dreaded to have solved;" and he demanded from
his friend Kunz that he should look upon him as a "sacred inexplicable
hieroglyph." The girl, who was pretty and amiable, of good
understanding, and of child-like deportment towards her music-master,
never for a single moment dreamt of such a thing as his passion for
her, and so of course she never consciously encouraged it in any way.
She did not even show any signs of possessin