Thank you, Reinhard.
Thank you, Grishka.

Yes, the word "Wandel" seems to be one of those words,
every language has them, with multiple possible meanings according to context.
I quite like Grishka's suggestion of
"Way of life" within Author Haug's praise of Jacobi's example.

Slight change of subject within the opus 118 topic.
1814 is given as the date when Beethoven composed his music,
and more specifically, a particular date in August 1814
is cited with reference to Pasqualati to whom the work is dedicated.
It is stated that Pasqualati's beloved wife had died three years earlier in August.
Those writers who speak of the first performance of opus 118 --
not all writers go this far, though --
say the piece was performed August 1814 in tribute to Pasqualati's deceased wife.
This suggests that the performance was a fairly private affair.
I don't find, in my searches, a date of a really official public concert performance or premiere for opus 118.

Note, then, that the Author, Friedrich Haug, first published his
"Bey der Kunde von Jacobi's Tod"
in January, 1814.
So the dates do line up:
the poem is published on the front page of the Morgenblatt in January,
and that gives Beethoven several months in between to compose the setting.

It would have been considerate of Beethoven, of course,
to identify the Author from whom he helped himself to the text.
However, as the biographers agree,
1814 was a very busy year for Beethoven.

Worth noting that in 1822, according the Theodore Albrecht edition of published Letters of Beethoven,
the composer offered opus 118 to publisher Peters.
Nothing came of that offer, it seems, before 1826.