nn's own wish, for all introductions except those which stand as
_prolegomena_ before a scientific work he hated--when a well-known
writer prefixed an introduction before the work of an unknown as a sort
of attestation, it seemed to him like "an incendiary letter which the
young author takes into his hand in order to go and beg for applause
with it." Another short passage from one of his letters to Kunz of this
same summer may here be quoted as illustrating a trait in his
character:--

"So far about business; and now the earnest request that you will keep
in mind and constantly before your eyes who and what I am, and let
our business even be inspired with that spirit of cheerfulness and
good-humour which always marked our intercourse with each other, and
even in money matters prevented the dead, stiff, frosty mercantile
style from coming to the surface. I am sure it was quite foreign to
both of us, and could only excite in us such fear as we feel when set
upon by an angry 'wauwau,' at which afterwards we can only laugh to
each other."

This unwillingness, nay almost repugnance to look at things from their
serious side, was quite characteristic of him. "But these are _odiosa_"
was a frequent phrase in his mouth.

On 9th December Seconda and his opera company once more repaired to
Leipsic, and Hoffmann of course along with them. There on New Year's
Day he was struck down by a severe attack of inflammation in the chest,
aggravated by gout, in consequence of a violent cold caught in
the theatre; the case was so severe and grave that his life was at
times in danger. "Podagrists are generally visited by an especial
humour--brilliant fancies; this comforts me; I experience the truth of
it, since often when I feel the sharpest pangs I write _con amore_," he
states in a letter to Kunz (24th March). And during his illness one of
his friends "found him in one of the meanest rooms in one of the
meanest inns, sitting on a wretched bed, but ill protected against the
cold, and with his feet drawn up by gout." A board was lying in front
of him, and he appeared to be busy doing something upon it. "God
bless me!" exclaimed his friend, "whatever are you doing?" "Making
caricatures," replied Hoffmann laughing--"caricatures of the cursed
Frenchman; I am inventing them, drawing them, and colouring them." He
also wrote about this time the _Vision auf dem Schlachtfelde bei
Dresden_ and other pieces, and finished his _Undine_; further, w