Schleiermacher to Charlotte von Kathen.
[CCLXXI.] Halle, 20th June, 1806.
Is it not very hard, dear Charlotte, that I cannot even by writing compensate myself a little for the disappointed hope of spending some time with you? But I will not begin with complaints. We know, nevertheless, that our lives are connected, and that we are with each other in spirit; and your letter itself consoles me so sweetly for the privation. For what is it that prevents me from writing, but my working for my young friends and pupils; and if they are attached to me, and retain a profound impression of what I teach them, can I desire greater happiness, or pay too highly for it? I have been deeply moved by what you tell me about K——. Give him my very kind regards. I remember him quite well, though I never learnt to know him intimately. I could not then, as now—since my sister has been with me—have a certain evening in the week on which to receive the most zealous and best informed of my young hearers. I do not know which party gains most by this arrangement, the young people or myself. To them, perhaps, many ‘an obscure point is cleared up during our unconstrained conversations, and they gain confidence; but, on my side, I acquire an increased tact for the guidance of my lectures, and learn to know more thoroughly what are the wants, and what are the faculties, of the most superior among my hearers. In this manner, I also gain more courage; and thus, each year the path which I have to tread widens more and more before me.
How kind of you to give me such a detailed account of the two days which I should have liked so much to spend among you—the day of the christening and the birthday. You had, indeed, most kind intentions in regard to me. Thank dear Kathen very heartily for so willingly bestowing upon me this privilege, and for taking upon himself to represent me. And the excellent Mrs. Baier, the venerable lady, towards whom I felt as towards a mother almost from the first moment I saw her—with what pious emotion I unite with her, even from hence, in love, faith, and hope for the little creature. Yes, dear friend, I should have reckoned it among the happiest moments of my life, had I been able to present your dear child with love and prayer to God and Christ. But, even as it is, I press it to my heart with love and prayer, and rejoice in the thought of how it thrives in shelter of your maternal affection.
These lines have been retarded a fortnight, and now another letter from you, dear Charlotte, together with others from Stralsund, have arrived. You may see now, by the instance of the Christmas Festival, how quietly I can wait for a pleasure, without spoiling it by precipitancy. I wanted to see whether my friends would recognize me in the little work, in which there are various peculiarities, which may make it appear quite unlike any of my other writings. For this reason, I did not myself present it to any one, and let it at first appear here and in Berlin without my name, which accounts for the notices in the newspapers having come so late. My friend Steffens at once guessed my authorship, and so did a couple of the young men who attend my lectures. In Berlin, I do not know how it would have been, had not Jette been so precipitate. But you, I believed, would at once discover me, because no one could describe your sufferings as I could. That I misled you is no matter, if you only recognized yourself such as I see you, and if you be not displeased at beholding some of your traits delineated in that picture. You and your little darling were from the commencement so mixed up with the idea of the whole, that it would have been impossible for me not to introduce you in the narrative. Indeed, my art can do no better than weave together what I have seen revealed in noble souls, and this tale has touched many persons in a peculiar manner. It is, therefore, not a gift that I have offered you, but one which you have bestowed upon me, and which, having confidence in you, I have accepted from you. I have long been anxiously expecting to hear what you thought of it. Have you shown it to the Willichs, and were they pleased with it?
You ask me how I feel in these warlike times? Alas, dear friend, I often think of you all with much anxiety, also of your beautiful country. The causes for this anxiety have varied much within the last months. A war between our two kings I no longer expect; but, it is much to be feared, that the French, who are now evacuating Southern Germany, will soon attack the Swedes. Dear friend, if in that case your king should resolve to make a determined resistance, brace up your courage, and be ready to sacrifice everything in order to gain everything, and reckon everything that is preserved to you for gain. Remember that the individual cannot stand, cannot save himself, if that in which each and all are rooted—German freedom and German feeling—be lost; and it is these that are threatened. Would you desire to be spared any danger, any suffering, at the cost of the conviction of having delivered over future generations to base servitude, and of having exposed them to be inoculated with the despicable sentiments of an utterly corrupted people? Believe me, sooner or later, a great and universal struggle must ensue, the objects of which will be as much our sentiments, our religion, and our mental culture, as our outward liberty and worldly goods—a struggle which must be carried on, not by kings and their hired armies, but by the nations and their kings together—a struggle which will unite sovereign and people by a more beautiful bond than has existed for centuries, and in which every one—every one, without exception—must take the part that the common weal imposes on him. That which seems at present impending over you is, indeed, such a separate matter, and has so little interest for you, that your anxiety for your own special circle may well predominate; but when the great movements draw nigh to you, then the general power of these to awaken courage will also be proved in your case, and you will learn to look even upon the fearful images which your imagination conjures up as something external, and as belonging to the conditions of the movement against which you are bound to struggle. The crisis in Germany (and Germany is, after all, the heart of Europe) stands as distinctly before my eyes as the smaller one to which you allude stands before yours. The air around me is thick and sultry, and I hope that the coming storm will precipitate an explosion; for that it should pass over, I think we can no longer hope.
How can you think that you ever could speak too much to me of your children? Kiss them all from me, and now farewell.