TO PROFESSOR SCHIRMER AT DÜSSELDORF.
……. 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 sort, now that I am so happy inwardly and outwardly, both through my new home-like and also through busy work, that I never know how to set about being sufficiently thankful. And since you wish me on the way to quiet and peace, let me say I never hoped for so peaceful a life as has now fallen to my lot. Receive my best of thanks for your good wishes, and do not be troubled for my tranquillity.
What you write me of yourself and your work pleases me very much, especially your sharing the opinion that what people usually term fame and glory is a wretched business; while another higher spiritual glory is as needful as it is rare. One sees this most clearly with those who possess all conceivable distinctions, yet never have a moment’s joy in them, but hunger continually for more; this first became perfectly apparent to me in Paris. Yet I am glad that you do not speak so contemptuously of the French painters, for I have long taken great delight in the best men they have at present, and I cannot in the least imagine how people can be sincere who find a great poetic stimulus in your pictures and then look down on Horace Vernet from a critical altitude—it seems to me if one finds pleasure in one sort of beauty, another sort cannot remain quite indifferent; or at least such is the case with me.