PART III.
FROM SCHLEIERMACHER’S APPOINTMENT IN HALLE (OCTOBER, 1804) UNTIL HIS MARRIAGE IN MAY, 1809.
In Halle, whither Schleiermacher went in October, 1804, he formed a warm friendship for Steffens, which continued for many years, although their direct co-operation in life ceased already in the year 1806, in consequence of the stormy times which led to the dissolution of the University. While at Halle, he took his half-sister Nanni to live with him, and she remained in his house, even after his marriage, until the year 1817, when she became the wife of E. M. Arndt. In February, 1807, Schleiermacher’s friend Willich died, at the age of thirty, in Stralsund, of a nervous fever that raged there during the siege, leaving his widow, then only eighteen years old, with a little daughter, and a son, who was born shortly after the father’s death.
Subsequently, Henriette von Willich lived with her children in the island of Rügen, in close proximity to her relatives; and her correspondence with Schleiermacher continued and gradually assumed a more and more intimate character, until in the summer of 1808, during a visit to Rügen, he engaged himself to her. In May, 1809, they were married, and Schleiermacher took his bride to Berlin, where he soon obtained a regular appointment, and a new sphere of activity, at the re-constituted University. Schleiermacher was then forty-one years of age, and his wife only twenty-one; but though at first very reserved, and, as it were, overruled by the superior and far more mature mind of her husband, her peculiar nature, nourished by him, gradually developed itself more decidedly and more independently, as was indeed quite in accordance with his wishes; and the influence which she on her side exercised over him is repeatedly expressed in his subsequent letters.
[The subjoined passages, borrowed from the Memoirs of H. Steffens, afford some interesting characteristics of Schleiermacher at the period of his first appearance at Halle. Speaking of his own appointment as professor of natural philosophy at that university, Steffens says: “I was there to meet a man whose acquaintance was destined to form an epoch in my life. This was Schleiermacher, who was at the same time as myself, or a few weeks later, called to Halle as professor extraordinarius. Schleiermacher, as is well known, was small of stature and slightly deformed, but so slightly as hardly to be disfigured by it. His movements were quick and animated, his features highly expressive. A certain sharpness in his eye acted, perhaps, repulsively at times. He seemed, indeed, to look through every one. He was a few years older than myself. His face was long, his features sharply defined, his lips firmly and severely closed, his chin prominent, his eyes lively and full of fire, his look always earnest, collected, and self-possessed. I saw him under various circumstances in life—deeply meditative and sportive, mild and fired with anger, moved by joy and sorrow—but ever an unalterable composure, greater, mightier than every passing emotion, seemed to dominate his being. A slight expression of irony played round his features; the sincerest sympathy ever animated his heart; and an almost childlike goodness shone through the outward calm. His constant presence of mind had sharpened his senses in a most remarkable degree. Even while engaged in the most animated conversation, nothing escaped him. He saw everything that was passing around him, and heard everything, even the most low-toned conversation… . We attached ourselves at once and unconditionally to each other… . We lived on the most intimate terms, we shared each other’s views, thoughts, and even likes and dislikes. With the family Reichardt,1 Schleiermacher lived as I did: we walked together, made excursions together, went into society together, and our best auditors, those who were in full earnest, we had in common. His lectures on ethics, and mine on natural philosophy, seemed to our hearers to be intimately connected, and to supplement each other. We mutually communicated to each other what we knew; and if Schleiermacher profited by my lectures on physics, he, in return, opened up to me Greek philosophy, and through him I became acquainted with Plato… . The more deeply, the more earnestly, the more religiously Schleiermacher regarded life and science, the more decidedly he discarded, in life as in science, everything that seemed to him hollow and useless. Nay, he seemed, indeed, sometimes to delight in setting outward forms at defiance, and many exaggerated and even false reports about him circulated in the town, and probably spread even further. People used, among other things, to tell each other of how the Professor of Theology went about botanizing in a green jacket and light-coloured trousers, with a tin case slung across his back.”2
This picture is confirmed and completed in a passage in the work Die deutschen Universitäten, by Karl von Raumer, who, having lived in Halle from 1806 to 1808, describes Schleiermacher as follows:—“A small, quiet, ever self-possessed man. In society, he never fell into speechifying. He followed attentively what others said; formed a clear perception of it, and expressed his agreement or his disagreement with his well-known dialectical acuteness and skill. He was never seen in a state of passionate excitement; even when anything roused his indignation, though he expressed his displeasure energetically, he never lost his self-possession, and never overstepped the bounds of moderation. His command over himself was further shown in his power of concentrating his attention even on subjects into the depths of which it was not given to him to enter. In this way he made himself at home in such matters also as were in fact foreign to his nature. The almost tyrannical mastery which he exercised over himself was likewise shown in small matters, and perhaps more in these than in others. On one occasion, for instance, when a dispute had arisen as to whether the Low-German pronunciation of sp, st, &c., or the South-German pronunciation of these letters as schp, scht, &c., were most euphonious and most correct, Schleiermacher gave his vote in favour of the Low-German. ‘Why then,’ asked some one present, ‘do you not adhere to this pronunciation in the pulpit?’ Instead of excusing himself with early habit, he replied, ‘From next Sunday I will begin to do so.’ I have been assured that he carried out his determination without once forgetting himself.”]3