“ The old precarious existence became a horror to him, he made a deliberate breach with it by marrying (in 1846) the beautiful and wealthy actress Christine Enghaus, ruthlessly sacrificing the girl who had given up all for him and who remained faithful till her death, on the ground that “a man’s first duty is to the most powerful force within him, that which alone can give him happiness and be of service to the world”: in his case the poetical faculty, which would have perished “in the miserable struggle for existence.” ”

“ In Paris he wrote his fine “tragedy of common life,” Maria Magdalene (1844) . On his return from Italy Hebbel met at Vienna two Polish noblemen, the brothers Zerboni di Sposetti, who in their enthusiasm for his genius urged him to remain, and supplied him with the means to mingle in the best intellectual society of the Austrian capital. The unwonted life of ease had its effect. ”