A WISH has frequently been expressed that Schleiermacher’s surviving relatives would give publicity to a selection, at least, of the numerous letters of the deceased left in their possession. Various reasons have hitherto prevented their complying with this wish.
Schleiermacher has written but few letters in which scientific and public matters are treated of—and these are not in the possession of his family—yet it is such in particular that have an interest for the general public. However, during the earlier part of his life, while he stood alone in the world, it was a constant necessity of his heart to pour itself out fully and freely, in confidential communication with friends, on all subjects which stirred his inward life. This necessity is frequently alluded to in his letters. Thus, under date 15th February, 1799, he says: “I stretch forth all my roots and leaves in search of affection; it is necessary for me to feel myself in immediate contact with it, and when I am unable to drink in full draughts of it, I at once dry up and wither. Such is my nature, there is no remedy for it; and if there were I should not wish to employ it.” The intimate bonds of friendship entered into under the influence of this feeling were more frequently formed with women than with men. In reference to this he writes to his sister in a letter of 23rd March, 1799, that this tendency also is deeply rooted in his nature, because there is much in hi soul that most men cannot understand; at the same time, allusions and references to public life and to science are by no means wanting in the letters, but are, on the contrary, constantly occurring; for, from early youth Schleiermacher was strongly moved by public events, and it was ever his endeavour not to isolate himself, but to live in and for the community; and of him it may with truth be said, that his scientific life, and his personal life, his theory and practice, were always tending towards perfect harmony.
But that which has been spoken so freely from the heart, and which in many cases has reference to the most delicate relations of his inner life, is for this very reason so sacred in the eyes of those who stood nearest to the deceased, and who were bound to him by the closest ties of affection, that it was not without great reluctance that they could resolve to deliver up these intimate communings to strangers, who cannot be expected to regard them with the same feelings of reverence and love. To this were added considerations connected with the peculiarities of Schleiermacher’s character. In like manner, as following an inward necessity of his nature, he endeavoured, in regard to science, to free himself as far as possible from everything traditional, and to trace an independent path for himself on such foundation as his convictions pointed out to him as firm and immoveable—so also in social intercourse, in all relations between man and man, he held the conventional in no respect, in as far as it appeared to him as purely conventional and without any higher claim to authority. Thus heeding but little the remarks and talk of the world, because he was of opinion, as he expresses it in one of his letters to his sister, that it was the duty of men of his profession to despise mere appearances whenever there was good reason for so doing, he sought (or rather he was unconsciously led) to follow in relation to those he loved, a mode of conduct peculiar and natural to himself, and which expressed the connection in its entire truth; and although these endeavours might, no doubt, be shown to be in intimate and evident relation to the mental tendencies of the age in which Schleiermacher’s life developed itself, they naturally gave rise to fears that he might be misunderstood, more especially as such was the case even in his lifetime. Of still greater importance, however, was the consideration that these confidential communications refer almost exclusively to the earlier period of Schleiermacher’s life, and that they ceased almost entirely when he established a home of his own, and contemporaneously found a sphere of action that made such great demands on his strength and activity, that little time was left for corresponding with his friends as formerly, even had the desire for such constant communication continued. But in reality this desire ceased when he found in his family and in his immediate circle that sympathy which he had before sought for at a distance. At the same time it will be readily understood that a man like Schleiermacher, whose mental life was ever progressing, must during a period of five and twenty years (for so long he was preserved to his family) have experienced much that could not fail to exercise a modifying effect on his views and feelings, and that he could not therefore at the earlier period to which the letters mostly belong, have attained the height which he subsequently reached; and therefore, to have to refer the reader exclusively to his printed works and sermons for the evidences of the progress of his mental life during this later period, seemed very unsatisfactory. When determining, in spite of all the reasons militating against it, to give publicity to the correspondence contained in these volumes, the editors were principally actuated by the desire to complete such accounts of Schleiermacher’s life as have appeared from time to time in a very imperfect form, and to afford means of following more in detail, and of judging more correctly, the course of his mental development, during one period of his life at least, in as far as it can be traced in his intercourse with friends. Still more, however, have they been actuated by the conviction that all scruples ought to yield to the wishes of those who, taking an affectionate interest in Schleiermacher’s public life and activity, are desirous of knowing him likewise as he appeared in the most intimate and delicate relations of domestic life. “I have thought so much about the beauty and sanctity of family life,” says Schleiermacher in a letter written in 1808 immediately after his betrothal, “that it is but right that I should now have an opportunity of showing that my precepts were something more than fine-sounding but empty words—that on the contrary, what I taught was the product of my best powers and of my deepest self-consciousness.”
To those who have rejoiced in his doctrines it cannot either be unimportant to see how they were carried out in his personal relations, and what form these inward convictions assumed in his outward life; and although it was as little given to him, as to any other human being, to reproduce his inward life in a pure and perfect form in his outward life, and although the consciousness of his own imperfection and the yearning after greater perfection was never absent from him, yet everything is of interest which gives a deeper insight into the manner in which a man animated by such aspirations, succeeded in giving outward expression to all that he had inwardly conquered.
What Schleiermacher says in the preface to his Monologues, viz. that man cannot offer to man a more precious gift than his deepest and most intimate communings with himself, is equally applicable to his most intimate communings with friends and relatives; and the latter are even in so far more valuable, as that which in the former case only dwells in the soul as inward contemplation, must here maintain and commend itself in lively interchange of thought with others.
As such a gift, then, we send forth these pages from the obscurity of the home circle in which they have hitherto been kept. May the spirit of love, of healthy, cheerful, fearless love, which during Schleiermacher’s earthly career, embraced, like a clear summer atmosphere, all those who stood near to him, even now that his lips have been closed for ever, still speak to other minds; and, in whatever way the fleeting word, born of the mood of the moment, may affect them, may it prove profitable to their inner life, and may it be attended with the blessing of God!