He lived there, with his beloved wife and his imagination, till his death in 1843.
And all the time life was to him a poet's dream.

He lived in a continual glamour of spiritual romance, bathing everything, from the old deities of the Valhalla down to the champions of German liberation, in an ideal glow of purity and nobleness, earnestly Christian throughout, even in his dealings with Northern mythology, for he saw Christ unconsciously shown in Baldur, and Satan in Loki.
Thus he lived, felt, and believed what he wrote, and though his dramas and poems do not rise above fair mediocrity, and the great number of his prose stories are injured by a certain monotony, the charm of them is in their elevation of sentiment and the earnest faith pervading all.

His knights might be Sir Galahad-- "My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure." Evil comes to them as something to be conquered, generally as a form of magic enchantment, and his "wondrous fair maidens" are worthy of them.
Yet there is adventure enough to afford much pleasure, and often we have a touch of true genius, which has given actual ideas to the world, and precious ones.
This genius is especially traceable in his two masterpieces, Sintram and Undine.

Sintram was inspired by Albert Durer's engraving of the "Knight of Death," of which we give a presentation.

It was sent to Fouque by his friend Edward Hitzig, with a request that he would compose a ballad on it.