To Professor Schirmer, Düsseldorf, (now director of the carlsruhe academy.)

Berlin, November 21st, 1838.

So I am said to be a saint! If this is intended to convey what I conceive to be the meaning of the word, and what your expressions lead me to think you also understand by it, then I can only say that, alas! I am not so, though every day of my life I strive with greater earnestness, according to my ability, more and more to resemble this character. I know indeed that I can never hope to be altogether a saint, but if I ever approach to one, it will be well. If people, however, understand by the word ‘saint’ a Pietist, one of those who lay their hands on their laps, and expect that Providence will do their work for them, and who, instead of striving in their vocation to press on towards perfection, talk of a heavenly calling being incompatible with an earthly one, and are incapable of loving with their whole hearts any human being, or anything on earth,—then, God be praised! such a one I am not, and hope never to become, so long as I live; and though I am sincerely desirous to live piously, and really to be so, I hope this does not necessarily entail the other character. It is singular that people should select precisely this time to say such a thing, when I am in the enjoyment of so much happiness, both through my inner and outer life, and my new domestic ties, as well as busy work, that I really never know how sufficiently to show my thankfulness. And, as you wish me to follow the path which leads to rest and peace, believe me, I never expected to live in the rest and peace which have now fallen to my lot. I offer you a thousand thanks for your good wishes, and beg you not to be uneasy on either of these points.

It is pleasant to learn what you write to me of yourself and your works, and that you also are persuaded that what people usually call honour and fame are but doubtful advantages, while another species of honour, of a more elevated and spiritual nature, is as essential as it is rare. The truth of this is best seen in the case of those who possess all possible worldly distinctions, without deriving from them one moment of real pleasure, but only causing them the more greedily to crave after them; and this fact was first made quite evident to me in Paris. I rejoice that you are not one of those who speak in a contemptuous strain of French painters, for I have always received great pleasure from the good ones of the present day, and I cannot believe in the sincerity of those persons who, at sight of one your pictures, fall into ecstasies, and yet presume from the height of their throne to look down on one of Horace Vernet’s. What I mean is, that if one beautiful object pleases the eye, another cannot fail also to inspire sympathy; at least, so it is with myself.