[CXV.] 16th June, 1799.

If the distance were not so great, and the postage not so expensive, and my publisher were at home, I would send you with this a copy of the English sermons that I have translated into German, and which have at length appeared. Not that I think that they will please you much; as sermons, indeed, I am sure they will not please you at all, though, perhaps, as eloquent discourses; but as a work of my industry, and as specimens of how much pains I take with such things, they will no doubt interest you. Me they have pleased very much—otherwise I should not indeed have translated them—not only as the products of an original mind, and as masterworks of a certain kind of eloquence, but still more as proofs of how much one can do, and how much more persuasively and impressively a man can speak when he is addressing a tolerably homogeneous assembly, and when he knows that every one present is there because he feels an interest in the subject, and appreciates the qualities of the speaker.

Your desire to see some of my productions in print may now be gratified in another way also, though only on a very small scale. The two Schlegels are editing a periodical called the Athenæum. In the second number of this there are, under the heading “Fragments,” a collection of detached thoughts, many of which may not, indeed, interest you, as they refer to abstract philosophy, but others of which I am sure you will read with pleasure. Among these detached thoughts are several of mine, and I shall leave you to find out for yourself, when you see the paper, which of them bear my impress. I think it will not be difficult for you to detect. Send it to you I cannot, as single numbers cannot be purchased, and the second number is, indeed, still in the press. So far Schlegel has brought me; but the idea of my writing anything more extensive must be given up, for I can make much better use of my time; and, besides, it is disagreeable to me to see myself in print. I could hardly bear it even in the case of these few detached thoughts, which scarcely fill a sheet.

I was very glad to hear once more something about your readings. The Mysteries of Udolfo I do not know, though I know the lady who has translated them from the English, and who was here during a few weeks last year. I very seldom see a novel now. In lieu of all others I have been reading Wilhelm Meister again with Henrietta Herz; her illness has, however, caused an interruption, and we have stopped in the middle of the Confessions of a Fair Saint. That Goethe, when writing this, had an original draught in his hands, is evident to me, and I would even undertake to point out with unerring criticism whole passages that are, beyond a doubt, authentic, and wherein only some trifling changes have been introduced, and others which are as certainly of his own concoction. In the beginning he has made a great many alterations, and has also introduced a great many things of his own, in order, as people say, to render the whole character of the mind psychologically correct and easily understood; but all that he has made easy to be understood is, that he does not understand anything about it himself. The presumption of wishing to have characters in his book which should, in a manner, embrace the whole of human nature, has punished itself. I speak as if you had read Wilhelm Meister, and yet I do not know if you have; but, if not, I wish you would read it, because of its celebrity.

Another of our popular writers, Friedrich Richter, the author of Hesperus, I shall probably learn to know in a few weeks; he is at present in Leipzic, and intends to pay a visit to Berlin.

Schleiermacher to Henrietta Herz.

[CXVI.] Berlin, 18th June, 1799.

… . Did you think of me when visiting the Dieskau Orphan Asylum? There I philosophized with Brinkmann, learnt domestic philosophy, read poetry, and let him tell me about the people he saw, for I refused to see any one myself. It was not so much outward circumstances, as the consciousness of my own inward incompleteness and fermentation, that made me hold aloof; and all the beautiful things that he told me, did not suffice to prevent the first germs of contempt from developing themselves in me just at that period, in spite of the consciousness that I could not measure myself with a culture such as Brinkmann described, and such as I saw it in himself. I was not exactly dead at that epoch; but, outwardly, I certainly was not alive. I do not think there ever was a young man who thought less of the future and yet enjoyed the present so little, or used it so little. Even in science I secretly despaired. I saw how spiritless everything was carried on; and even Kant, whom I was studying with great zeal, could not destroy in me the belief that philosophy had not reached its proper height. It was therefore natural, and quite in accordance with my idleness, that I laveered; and this bad manœuvre has, thank God, proved tolerably successful.

[CXVII.] Wednesday Evening.

I dined with Mrs. Veit to-day, and wrote there a clean copy of my notice of Kant’s Anthropology, and then went to Bellevue, where the fragrance of the acacias was most delicious. Later I had a wonderful conversation with Schlegel about myself, during which, probably, neither understood the other. He is at present writing a notice of the Discourses on Religion, and is, in consequence, making a regular study of me. He wants to know what is my centre, and we have not been able to agree upon the subject. I wonder if I understand myself as he wishes to understand me? I told him I should probably never reach the centre, I meant as regards composition; but he told me this was a blasphemy against myself, and so we quarrelled. What is my centre? Do you know?

Schlegel says, among other things in his notice, which is only just begun, that the style in the Discourses is not unworthy of the ancients; but that must be too much. For the rest, I am very curious to know what he will say in this notice.

Good night! In what nest may you be sleeping? To-morrow you will be in Ilsenburg; and, I think, that when you see the Harz new ideas of the Deity a new enthusiasm will dawn upon you.

[CXVIII.] Berlin, 20th June, 1799.

I am somewhat surprised to see that Art has won so complete a victory over Nature in your mind, that you even speak with a certain indifference of that sublime natural scenery which you looked forward to with so much delight. Though highly pleased at the power that Art exercises over you, I should be very sorry if that scenery failed to produce an effect on you. You know that it is not so much the beautiful in Nature that I hold so high in honour, as the sublime. The impressions produced are, in reality, not only different in degree, but different in kind, and awaken quite different emotions. When you are on a mountain or on the sea, the distance gives you the feeling of standing apart from the earth, and this I like very much.

[CXIX.] 1st July, 1799.

How I stand with Friedrich I do not know, in fact, and it makes me very uncomfortable. On this point, again, I am not entirely of your opinion. Friedrich’s and my character seems to me, indeed, to be made for each other, not in the way yours and mine are, but because of their dissimilarity, which makes them supplement each other. That under such circumstances it is more difficult to find the right point of coincidence, is a matter of course; but it may be found, and will be found, if Schlegel’s fiery and impatient temper does not turn us away from the right path. I do not know if he can bear a connection so loosened in all its bonds, I cannot; and I shall soon take courage and speak to him on the subject. I am very reluctant, nevertheless, to do anything that may affect him unpleasantly, because uneasiness of mind has so detrimental an influence on his writings. Ah! I am very miserable! With Dorothea¹ I cannot speak of these matters; she looks upon them from such a mistaken point of view, that it is impossible to touch upon them to her. The point you refer to is, indeed, something. His complete misconception of the relation existing between you and me, is distinctly manifested in various passages of the Lucinda; but this is not all, he does not either understand my relation to him, and misinterprets the humility and reverential forbearance towards him, which induce me to make so many sacrifices. But these things must be discussed verbally; and in regard to this matter also, I hope much from your presence here.

I do not know what it may be you have read in the papers about Tieck, nothing of the kind has come to my knowledge: but he will never be made vain-glorious by praise; he has too great a contempt for men. For the rest, I become daily more convinced that he holds a very important position in German literature, and one which neither Goethe, nor Schiller, nor Richter, nor, perhaps, any one but himself could fill. Were he only not obliged to hurry on his works so much. With the rude things said in the Athenæum, you ought not to find fault if they be necessary truths, and if it can be shown that, viewed in the proper light, it would have been still more rude to have expressed them otherwise.

As for your feelings in regard to nature, I am still at a loss to understand them. You have looked upon it as a dead substance meant to be wrought into shape by an artistic hand, and now this one, and now that one, of us struck you as being the one who would be the most likely to treat this or that part of it in the best manner. But how have you treated it yourself? Friedrich says in his notice of the Discourses on Religion, that whenever I approach the subject of nature my irreligion reveals itself as a deficiency. He has peculiar ideas about nature, which I do not as yet comprehend; but my mode of treating it I understand very well. That which you have so often interpreted as mere controversy, viz., my assertion of the infinitude of chemical action, is my bitter earnest, although, in consequence of this conviction, I lose many an enjoyment, which, however, I consider to be of a less exalted nature. One very good thing Friedrich said about me in the course of our conversation; I do not know how it has come to him, but true it is in all its applications. He said that I must exert myself to the utmost to keep up the freshness and vitality of my soul. No one is at all times so near decay and extinction as I am; I can neither construe nor demonstrate the fact, but it is, alas! but too true.

As regards your questionings, dear Jette, you exaggerate the matter, and I would rather beg you to adopt the opposite course. Nothing is more beneficial to me than to be made to give an account of myself; and I think you must have felt this whenever the case has occurred. It may be a difficult operation, but I entreat you to persevere in it.

[CXX.] 4th July, 1799.

Do you know the newest news, dear friend? Fichte is here, provisionally for a few weeks, in order to look about him. Friedrich had known for some time that he was coming, and had taken a furnished lodging for him under the Lindens; but it was to be a profound secret; and as one never knows what may happen with letters, I thought it best not to write to you about it. Even Tieck did not know it, and was perfectly astounded to-day on hearing it. This morning early Dorothea brought him to our rooms; and, except a couple of hours, we have been together all day. Describe him to you I cannot, nor have I any remarks to make about him. You know these do not come to me so soon.

[CXXI.] Friday Evening.

I am actually a little frightened lest Fichte should one of these days read my Discourses; not because I think that he will find much to object to—that I know beforehand, and am not afraid of it; but it is because I am doubtful as to what points he will attack, and I fear I may not be able to meet him worthily. He is just now engaged on the Lucinda, and has told Friedrich that certain passages please him, but, that in order to give an opinion upon the whole, he must regularly study it. He has to-day already received a visit from the police, who endeavoured to find out whether it was his intention to take up his fixed abode here, &c., &c. He answered that he had come here for his pleasure, and did not know how long he should remain. In the meantime, he will, no doubt, be kept in sight by the subordinate police. It would grieve me were he to be exposed to any unpleasantness. Great matters we have not yet discussed together; I wish to let them come on slowly and gradually, as is my wont.

I am writing to Brinkmann to-day, and have given him a hint about the authorship of the Discourses. As so many other people are acquainted with it, he may as well know it also. To my mind, his elegies are not simple, as he wrote they were, but monotonous; the same idea runs through them all; and Paris has made so little impression on him that, with the exception of the title, there is not a trace of their having been written there. The verses are, however, for the most part as good as any that we have.

Schlegel has recently demonstrated to me, in many ways, that I ought to write a novel. My religious notions of love, marriage, and friendship, cannot, he says, be communicated in any other form, and communicated they ought to be, consequently, I ought to be able to write the novel. I confessed to him that I had for some time felt it to be my vocation, but that I doubted of my ability, and so I do still.

[CXXII.] Berlin, 8th July, 1799.

Yesterday—in accordance with the well-known necessity—I was obliged to read Titan. It is really nothing but the same thing over again; and even in the story and the scenery there are no new features, facts which prove a wonderful paucity of invention. Even the characters, if not exactly copied, are, at least, in exactly the some genre. Nevertheless, many things are better than in Hesperus, or in the Lodge, even the incongruities. I have only the appendix left, and that I will read at breakfast.

Between this line and the last the whole appendix has been inserted, which I have just read through. Little by little Richter is growing wise enough to print separately the things that will by no means fit into the rest; but, nevertheless, the Richter spirit is so strong in him that they must be tacked to the rest, and must not be internally connected. How he can call the beginning comical and satirical it is difficult to conceive. The only thing really comical in it is a satire upon himself, a receipt for making his books, namely, a game of narrative, in which you have to introduce into a narrative already begun words uttered by some one else; but, at the same time, it is not taken very much amiss if, occasionally, you only seem to have introduced them. He is also beginning to add notes to his witticisms, and he even ends this book with such a note; and should some more ladies tell him that he is heavy—i. e. dull—he will, no doubt, introduce still further improvements of this kind.

That the W——s live so beautifully together I always thought; and, in a certain way, theirs is, no doubt, a true marriage; but, dear Jette, every true marriage must be different from all others, and, therefore, it follows, as a matter of course, that mine will be quite otherwise. In reference to this, there is no must or must not, as though people could decide beforehand how they would live together. What strange results this would lead to! As not one man or woman is like another, and, therefore, no couple can be like another couple, the product, that is, the marriage, must also, in each case, assume a different character. In numbers it is true 3 times 8 are just the same as 4 times 6, but in the world of spirit this rule does not hold good.

I must now leave you, in order to conclude Genoveva while finishing my breakfast, for it must be sent away to-day. There are, indeed, many beautiful things in it, but it must be read several times and studied, and for this I have unfortunately no time. Tieck’s poetical journal I also read yesterday: at least, so much of it as has reached us here. It is in every way according to his manner. As yet there is neither theory nor criticism to be found in it, and the letters upon Shakspeare contain almost nothing about Shakspeare, while the form has not either pleased me so much as Schlegel led me to expect. Nay, my Fichte is not of the kind that people can read themselves into; that I have taken care of! But the most people will not know what I am driving at; and those who have not read the book will hardly understand one word of the review.

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Footnotes

1. Mrs. Veit. ↩