Schleiermacher to his Sister Charlotte.
[LXXI.] Berlin, 18th August, 1797.
To my own shame be it said, that on looking into my memorandums on sitting down to write to you, I find that my last letter was sent off on the 4th June, and, in addition to this, I have just read over the beginning of your last, in which you express what a poor opinion you have of a laggard correspondent. My remissness has now lasted almost three months, a period which has never been exceeded in our correspondence; and I therefore hang it up in the gallery of my follies as a rare cabinet picture.
Yes—yes: this finger laziness is a peculiar thing, and it is well nigh the greatest drawback and the most condemnatory feature in my life. There I sit, sometimes for hours together, looking at my thoughts and feelings with the greatest complaisance, just as the Indian gymnosophists sit and contemplate the points of their own noses: for of them it has never been heard that they have attempted to commit to paper the object of their contemplations. Like them, this summer more especially, I keep everything within myself, my letters, my Idyls, my sermons, and my philosophy. If you and Wedeke had received all the letters that I have written to you in my head, you would long ago have been in possession of the most interminable of epistles, dated from all kinds of places: from my room, from the Thiergarten, from Charlottenburg, from every house that I visit, from every street that I pass through. Wedeke, to whom I have also owed a letter for an age, will understand my remissness more readily than you can, for he suffers from the same complaint, while you are possessed by a most delightful spirit of scribble, which seems particularly to belong to the congregation. The extensive diaries which are kept by the greater number among you, the many extracts that are made by those who but rarely enjoy books, the sweet correspondence which is often carried on from one table to another, all this gives to those who have dwelt long in the congregation that ease and fluency in writing which I so often envy in Brinkmann.
As a natural coincidence, while on this topic, my thoughts revert to Mahler, who was also a great scribe before the Lord, and I shall therefore head the first chapter of my letter (for as it is much too late to admit of my writing in the usual chronological order, my epistle shall this time be divided into chapters):—
THE SPIRITS.
Within a short time three men have disappeared from this earth, who, at different periods, have, each in his way, had an influence on my life; these are, Mahler, Kohlreif, and Dedenroth. If you do not read the papers, I suppose you do not as yet know any particulars about the latter. According to the advertisement of the widow, if I be not mistaken, it was a rheumatic fever that carried him off after a very short illness. You know how delighted I was, a year ago, to meet again here this man whom I regarded as a friend, and also in some extent as a pupil of our never-to-be-forgotten father; for how young and ductile was he not still, when he began to attach himself to the latter? While I was in Landsberg I remained in correspondence with him, and how manly, and at the same time feeling and delicate, was the manner in which he touched upon my position after the loss of my father! From that time he became dearer to me than ever, and I am glad that I have in my possession written remembrances of his existence and of his character. They are placed in a large envelope, in which I put by the letters of all persons who write to me only occasionally. How many are not there brought together, who know nothing of each other, who would not indeed like each other if they did know each other, and many a one of whom would shake his head at me if he knew that I prized the other! yet each one of these is something to me, that I should be sorry to miss—is attached to some one of my life-strings. Are many of them still to die, so that when I wish to behold their features, and find but their empty places in this world, I must picture to myself their image in the next? Probable it is not, for they are all, if not younger, at least stronger than myself—yet “to-day in lively dance the merry boy disports,” &c., and Mahler was also stronger and seemingly more full of life than I.
In the heart of man, it is not, as in the world, that each place that is vacated is again filled up. When a friend dies, an empty space remains. Communings and feelings fail us, which can never again be called into existence; one chord of our being has lost its sounding-board, and this goes on, until the whole man is thrown into that lumber-room, whence only the great Music-master can call forth and renew all these antiquated instruments, and attune them to a heavenly and everlasting concert.
Kohlreif, whose death I have also learnt from the newspapers, was very dear to me; nay, I may say that of all the superintending Brethren with whom I was closely connected he was the one I loved most. I know that he was misjudged in various ways in the congregation. Was this, perhaps, because he looked at things from a more liberal point of view than the majority, and because he discerned failings and spoke openly about them? I have retained a distinct impression of his lessons—in which he conveyed, however, many things which, through all my changes of opinion, have ever remained foreign to me—and particularly of those lessons which he gave to young Z—— and myself privately, when we had received permission to partake of the communion. I was then all flaming imagination, and thought that he would fan the flame still brighter; but no, by the hand of history, and of more reasonable notions, he led me back to quiet earnestness and calm reflection.
Kind Mahler had very different plans, and vigour enough and bright prospects enough to make him look forward with confidence to their realization. A kind and particularly active disposition, which brought earnestness and industry to bear on everything he undertook, and his unwearying energy and sound sense, would have made him useful in any position. Had he been a married man and a father, loving activity would have characterized his domestic life. According to what you tell me, he is another example of that inexplicable foreboding of death, which is often met with in persons who neither devote much attention to their physical state, nor are otherwise prone to yield themselves up to predictions of the future. Can you at all understand this feeling or its origin?—Farewell! My first chapter is closed, and I must cease for the present.