In which case, Leopold was by no means futile, but proved, after all, to be the saving clause for the Arnolds.
Gallant young fellow, one loves to believe it of him; and to add it to the one other fact now known of him, which was also beautiful, though tragic.

Six years after, Spring, 1785, Oder River, swollen by rains, was in wild deluge; houses in the suburbs like to be washed away.

Leopold, looking on it from the Bridge or shore, perhaps partly with an Official eye, saw the inhabitants of some houses like to be drowned; looked wildly for assistance, but found none; and did, himself, in uncontrollable pity, dash off in a little boat, through the wild-eddying surges; and got his own death there, himself drowned in struggling to save others.

Which occasioned loud lamentation in the world; in his poor Mother's heart what unnamable voiceless lamentation! [Friedrich's Letter to her: _OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxvii.i.351 ("12th May, 1785").] He had founded a Garrison School at Frankfurt; spared no expenditure of pains or of money.

A man adored in Frankfurt.