FAREWELL TO REFORM 277
by a romantic relationship between the young journeyman and
some forgotten maid whom he met during his Continental
Wanderjahre. One is a love poem about a rose which is picked by
the beautiful hands of the beloved only to fade upon her lovely
bosom, while the banished lover yearns for a similar fate. Another,
entitled "Life's Dream," is a farewell to a loved one forever lost.
Still another, in script that has so faded from the old yellow paper
that it is almost indecipherable, is a passionate declaration of de
votion. Several stanzas, dated August 24, 1844, purport to be a
lover's song of gratitude to a bride with whom he soon will share
all the joys of matrimony. A week later, the poet wrote of a for
gotten "Anna" who, like an angel, had led him to heaven and
taught him all the blissful suffering of love. Though the lover
vowed his undying devotion, the poet had produced another poem
before a month had passed about a "little sister" whose love had
cooled and the "other sisters" whom God had sent to comfort him.
These poetic fragments are written in a lyric style that has ele
ments of grace and charm, yet they may have been only the liter
ary fancies of a youth whose spirit soared into the world of
romance primarily for relief from the routine cares of the day. It
is not known by whom these stanzas were inspired, nor whether
they were addressed to any particular woman among the scores
whom an attractive and jovial young journeyman was likely to
meet as he wandered from village to village and town to town
through the romantic German and Austrian countryside.
In 1854, Weitling married the young German girl who shared
the joys and sorrows of the rest of his years. Her life with the man
whose mind never found peace at the tailor's bench was marked by
complete devotion to her husband and to their children and a
willingness to make every sacrifice for their welfare. Dorothea
Caroline Louise Toedt, twenty-two years old, married a man more
than twice her age. She had come to the United States from Wit
tenberg in Mecklenburg-Schwerin in 1852 with her parents, a
sister, and two half-brothers.
In the church records of the pastor of her native town, the
barré
(Barré)
#1