Schleiermacher to Henriette von Willich.

[CCLXXXVII.] Halle, 25th March, 1807.

My poor, dear child! Could I but press thee, poor mourner, to my heart, we would mingle our tears; for I also am shedding bitter, scalding tears! Oh, to see so sweet a happiness destroyed! You know how my heart exulted in it. But you set me such a beautiful example. Your grief is so pure and so holy; there is nought in it that your father could wish otherwise. Let us, therefore, count it among the noblest possessions of our lives, and love it as we loved the dear departed, and submit tranquilly, though sorrowfully, to God’s eternal order of things. But you appeal to me to settle your doubts. It is, however, only the images of your painfully travailing imagination, which you wish me to confirm. Dear Jette, what can I say to you? Certainty beyond this life is not given to us. Do not misunderstand me. I mean certainty for phantasy, which desires to see everything in distinct images; but, otherwise, there is the greatest certainty—and nothing would be certain if it were not so—that for the soul there is no such thing as death, no annihilation. But personal life is not the essence of spiritual being; it is but an outward presentment thereof. How this is repeated we know not—we can form no conception of it; we can only form poetic visions. But while giving yourself up to your sacred grief, let your loving, pious phantasy shape its visions freely, and restrain it not. It is a pious phantasy; it cannot will what is contrary to the eternal order of Providence; and, therefore, all that it paints will be true, if you leave it but free scope. And thus, I can assure you, that your love will ever attain all that it desires. Surely you cannot now wish that Ehrenfried—O God! the beloved name! with what emotion I write it for the first time!— surely you cannot now wish that he should return to life, for that would be contrary to the eternal order of things, to which we all cling more earnestly than to any of our individual desires. In this life, however, your love desires to bear him in its heart, to preserve his memory ineffaceably, to have his image ever before you as a holy and lifelike presence; and that he thus lives on in you, and lives anew in your sweet children—let this be enough for you. What would, or what ought to satisfy you in a future life, you cannot know; for you know not the order that prevails there. But when you are removed thither, you will know it, and then there, as little as here, you will desire what would be opposed to it, and most assuredly it will afford you as full and rapturous satisfaction.

But if your imagination suggest to you a merging in the great all, let not this, dear child, fill you with bitter, poignant anguish. Do not conceive of it as a lifeless, but as a living commingling—as the highest life. Is not the ideal towards which we are all striving even in this world, though we never reach it—the merging of the life of each in the life of all, and the putting away from us every semblance of a separate existence? If then he lives in God, and you love him eternally in God, as you knew God and loved God in him, can you conceive of anything more glorious or more delightful? Is it not the highest goal which love can reach, compared with which every feeling that clings to the personal life, and springs from that alone, is as nothing? But if you picture to yourself a phenomenal life like the present, and conceive that you may, under such circumstances, be distant from your beloved, and that others may be nearer to him—dear daughter, that is an empty phantom, that you must try to get rid of. Love is the power that attracts spirits—the great and eternal law of their nature. Does any one then love him more than you do? or does he love another better than you? Are you not two halves that complete each other? Oh, as sure as my holy joy in your marriage is one of the dearest sentiments of my heart, you are this, and never in all eternity will any obstacle rise up between you!

The day after to-morrow, it will be the anniversary of the death of Christ. I will preach upon the text, “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” I will show how death sanctifies all love; how, at his death, the most blessed action of man begins, and that this is true in regard to each human being in like manner as it is true in regard to Christ. Dear Jette, my thoughts will be full of you and the dear departed, and I shall speak with deeply-moved heart. I shall renew with him the bond of true and holy brotherhood. I shall speak comfort to myself—could I but do so to you likewise! In him the Gospel also has lost a faithful teacher, a preacher full of truth and zeal, a soul without guile, which, through its truth and its fidelity, would have worked much good. Let us not forget this in our loss, and let us weep for this also.

Dear daughter, by this time you are probably once more a mother. Do let me know soon. Yes, many tears you will shed over your babe. I have a presentiment that you have given birth to a boy—oh, nourish his father’s spirit in him, and may God’s blessing attend your endeavours, so that he may thrive, and take the place of him whom the world has lost. Oh, dear Jette, could I but be your father in every sense, could I but tend you and support you in your sorrow with fatherly affection, I would do so without concealing from you my own grief. Try, therefore, to conquer all obstacles, and to write to me often. It is a consolation to me to know that you are in Sagard, in the house where your happy bridal days were spent, and I bless your faithful, affectionate brother for it. Yes, you are again his bride;¹ your love has returned to the period of sweet longings, and an eternal wreath adorns your brow. As such it was that I first named you my daughter, and such you shall remain to me.

Henriette von Willich to Schleiermacher.

[CCLXXXVIII.] April.

My beloved father, I thank you most heartily for your letter—oh, how inexpressibly I longed for the first words from you—it was as if Ehrenfried was once more to speak comfort to me. You have strengthened like a true father—you must be my father in the highest sense of the word—you can be so—I give you my entire filial affection from the innermost impulse of my heart—I lean upon you alone. You will support and guide your child; you will not desert me in the dear, dear hours, when grief seizes my heart with its sharpest fangs. Oh, my father, it is too much—to live, and to live without my Ehrenfried—it seems such a dreadful contradiction!

My hour of trial is over—a healthy child is in my arms. Oh, my God, what feelings have passed through my heart on this occasion!

The poor, dear, little children! Alas, what can poor I, with all my love, do for them!—from him I drew all my strength—he was my light, my sun.

Secretly, I nourished in my heart the thought that I should die, and almost let it grow into a hope or a foreboding; but alas, I am to live! I can write no more—ah, love me, and speak soon again a few kind words to me. Nothing soothes me so much as to know that you are weeeping with me.

Schleiermacher to Henriette von Willich.

[CCLXXXIX.] Halle, 13th April, 1807.

My letters, which were sent by the same conveyance that brought me yours, you have, I trust, received, my dear, my noble daughter. And now I have obtained from Lotte’s letter the happy certainty that I had prophesied right. You have given birth to a boy! On the day of the Resurrection, Heaven bestowed upon you this new life—a restored, a new-born Ehrenfried. You will call him thus. I am sure you will give him this earnest, solemn name;² he brings you peace now, and will be an honour to you hereafter. Oh, could I but fold in one embrace the sweet babe, and you, my daughter, and your little Jette—the son of sorrow and the daughter of joy! May I be able in time to help you to bring up and educate the boy, and to teach him as a man what his father was, as you will teach it to him as a woman.

Oh, what bitter sweet exultation I feel in you, in your hallowed affliction, in your inexhaustible grief, in all the glorious things that I hear about you, but which I need not hear to believe! For I know you and your love, which was too deep and too pure to allow of a less pious and beautiful outburst of grief. I have wept tears”of sorrow, but also tears of thankfulness over you, and have rejoiced that you were my daughter, and have recognized myself in your suffering; for I feel that I would bear in the same manner, outwardly and inwardly, could I be subjected to a similar trial. Dear daughter, once more I bless you in your affliction; though your sorrow will never vanish, a new life of joy will open up for you in your children. Your son, the blessed Easter gift, will represent to you him who has gone before into eternal bliss; you will form his image in the boy, and try to bring it forth in ever truer beauty, and thus it will be the vocation of your widowhood, to tend and protect as a mother that which you love and hold sacred as a bride. For a short time, or for a long—how little does this signify in the world—the highest happiness has been yours, and is still yours, and, therefore, even in your sorrow you are, as ever, my happy daughter.

At the hour when you brought the sweet boy so safely into the world, I must just have been preparing to go to church; and I remember that I thought of you at the time. I spoke of the glorified life of Christ upon earth. May the beautiful, free, heavenly existence which I painted, be the lot of the dear child, in like manner as your life and your love are now truly glorified, and raised above all earthly trials.

Henriette von Willich to Schleiermacher.

[CCXC.] 28th April.

How much good your kind words do me! How your affection and your approval comfort me. But, I implore you, do not picture me to yourself in too bright colours, for this makes me uneasy. Deep and pure as was my love for Ehrenfried, so is also my sorrow, and I shall ever strive to become that which the sweet life with him would have made me; for though he is no longer with me, he still lives in me, and continues to mould and form me. But, believe me, I am nevertheless very weak—do not, I beseech you, praise the strength and composure with which I have borne my loss, for my state of mind would only be praiseworthy had I attained to it through hard struggles; but such is not the case. I have been simply what I could not help being, because such is my nature. As grief came to me, so I have borne it, and that is tranquilly. I should be tormented by the thought that my grief for the matchless and beloved man were not sufficiently acute, did I not ever feel so vividly within me the most unutterable love for him; were I not ever conscious of the most intimate indissoluble union with him, and of the undying character of my affliction, which has, so to say, become part and parcel of my being. There have been hours, indeed, during which I have learnt to know the deepest human anguish; yet even after this, the certainty that my Ehrenfried could never leave me, has always returned to me, and has given me courage to bear a joyless existence, through help of the blissful hope that I shall once find again in God, that which He has taken away. Ah! dear father, if I carried out at all times what I recognize as right in hours of ecstasy, and then believe myself capable of—then I should be what you believe me to be, and what you love in me—but alas, the excellence and the beauty which I love and treasure in thought, I so seldom realize in myself or carry out in life; not because I lack good-will, but because I am wanting in inward strength and quick sensibilities. At former periods of my life already I had a painful consciousness of my deficiencies in this respect, and so also now—now that I must strive to attain the highest, if I would not lose all.

Oh, how easy it was to be good, when I was happy! I could do nothing better than love him, and through him enjoy life in gladness. Ah! why was it to endure so short, that sweet happiness? So young, so new to life, and yet, to be dead to all its joys—alas! am I not deeply to be pitied? Still, how willingly would I not renounce every joy, could I but have kept him; what strength did I not ever feel to bear calmly every human suffering could I but be at his side; with what courage I contemplated the horrors of the war! Ehrenfried often said to me in jest, that he believed I was wishing that the enemy would come, that I might have an opportunity of proving my intrepidity. They did not come—something far more dreadful was to befall me.

But I must speak to you a little of my sweet children. How inexpressibly I love them, you know. Alas, there have, indeed, been moments when I have contemplated their existence with a kind of bitterness and pain, because I felt as if they alone prevented me from following my beloved. But at other times I have felt ever deeper and deeper how God’s mercy has been revealed to me through them. My God, what should I be now without them! The darling children! Thanks be to God that I am here to devote my life to them.

… . May He give me strength to rear the tender plants, and by wise nurture to help them put forth the fullest and fairest blossoms. I watch over them with ever-wakeful care, yet how little can I do! I have so little reliance on myself, and yet, on the other hand, I feel that I cannot leave to another what nature has entrusted to the mother—the first guidance of her children. To you I may confide, that I am often troubled by the fear that kind and loving individuals of my family may feel themselves called upon to interfere on this point, because they think that so young a mother is hardly mature enough for the task. But perhaps I do them injustice, and I will, therefore, endeavour to discard the thought. Should they do so, it will at all events be from pure affection. Oh, my dear father, I need not tell you what a joyful prospect it would be to me could I hope that you would once serve my boy as model and example. But the future is dark, and I can only wish and hope. My heart is often sorely oppressed. It would be a great comfort to me could I see you soon; but I suppose it is vain to hope for this. It seems to me as if I had so much to say to you. The children occupy me all the day; they draw me necessarily and irresistibly into the midst of life, and I can already quite well skip about with little Jette and play with her, though inwardly my heart weeps the while for my Ehrenfried. When I am quite alone with Ehrenfried’s letters, I seek comfort and strength in tears and prayer. There is no more joy for me than what may come to me through the happiness and the improvement of the children—to myself directly, the source is for ever closed.

Schleiermacher to Henriette von Willich.

[CCXCI.] Halle, 8th May, 1807.

How may you and your little ones be getting on? I cannot help hoping that you are all well, and that the smiles of your infant, and the innocent playfulness of your first-born, in her unconsciousness of her great loss, as also the soothing charms of nature, have by this time calmed your sacred sorrow and deprived it of its bitterness, while they have enhanced the sweetness which it contains, and which you have also already tasted. Dear, mourning daughter, you are, nevertheless, a blessed woman. For over such love as yours death has no power, it is but a false appearance, which will vanish more and more. You will attain ever greater and more lively certainty that Ehrenfried lives in you and in the children, and in every case in which formerly you would have looked up to him for guidance, he will now also afford it to you; and every experience that you may acquire, every new energy of love that arises within you, you will feel comes from him. Therefore, also, you may be assured that you will be to his and your children all that you ought to be, and able to do for them all that you ought to do—you alone, with your treasure of love, and that unclouded understanding, that has its source in a pure heart. Oh! could I also, now and in future, be something to your sweet children, so as to be able to exercise over them the rights of a father, which you again so delightfully concede to me as regards yourself. You know how indifferent life had become to me; but now that the dear friend has left us, who, humanly speaking, ought to have far outlived me, life lays again a firm hold on me. I have now a dear daughter who wants the support of her father; and her son, the heir of the beloved name, will be glad on entering life to find a faithful fatherly friend to guide him. See, dearest daughter, for this let us live, and live willingly, I implore you, though I think it quite natural that you should have wished to die. God bless you, and comfort you, and strengthen you!

Henriette von Willich to Schleiermacher.

[CCXCII.] No date.

How I get on, dear father? Ah! could I but tell you, could I but understand myself. Grief and calm reign alternately in my bosom—calm, when I am surrounded by my relatives, or when I am actively engaged with or for the children; but when no one sees and hears me, grief takes possession of me. Then the murmurs so long restrained burst forth—then the oppressed heart seeks relief in tears and sobs. I do not weep much nor often, but when relieving tears come, they are scalding tears, and well up from the innermost depths of my being; and then I feel that God sees them, and that they are not wept in vain. Oh, my dear father, the sweet comfort that you speak to me I have just experienced in another way. I have just come from church; could I but describe to you how I feel when I give myself up entirely to God, when my spirit is absorbed in Him, when, without a wish and without a murmur, satisfied in all ways, it demands nothing better than to melt away with the tones of the hymn that sets forth His praise—when thought ceases, and solemn light and darkness seem at one and the same time to veil my eyes, and when I feel Ehrenfried’s presence so vividly, and that God will never take him from me, because our love is His most beautiful law, and because God dwells in him, and also draws me ever nearer and nearer to Himself. How glorious it is to feel that I am a child of God, that I have freed myself from the world, that it has no more power over me, that it can give me nothing and can take nothing away!

I have thought much of you to-day, and have felt how true it is that I am your daughter. Indeed, I often feel how much I resemble you, and how I shall grow ever more and more like you.

The first time I went to church after the birth of my little Ehrenfried, I took the communion. Oh, what moments were those! How my soul travailed and prayed for a real, true life in God, and for that true composure which does not exclude the most lively grief, and for deliverance from that dead tranquillity which is not tranquillity, but torpor. At such moments I feel as if I had in me the strength to attain to all that my soul beholds in its visions; and to you I may say it, that when I examine my heart, I find no desire, no interest in me that would interpose itself between me and my goal, and lead me away from the latter. But nature has not endowed me with the’ quick sensibilities and lively emotions which I see in others, and which even in early youth I prayed for as a heavenly gift, the deficiency of which I felt bitterly. I know, had I this, I could do much; it would be like a sacred flame, and would attune to a higher pitch the eternal chords of humanity within me.

Ehrenfried would never allow that I had any right to make this complaint; but I know that it is true, and will prove it to you. See, dear father, while in others I perceive that on given occasions their feelings are intensified to such a degree, that they are obliged to struggle hard with them, and that their whole being seems violently agitated—in regard to myself, I hardly know what such a struggle is. I believe that no elevated or beautiful sentiment is quite unknown to me, but, with the degree in which I experience them, I have surely often reason to be dissatisfied. Even in my present position, I have rarely experienced such frenzied, despairing anguish that seems almost to annihilate all clear consciousness, and yet mine is an affliction that cannot be exceeded—yea, an affliction even unto death. My beloved father, I wish so much that you should know me exactly as I am!

You say that Ehrenfried lives in me and in the children. Yes, dear father, I also feel this. I feel that he never refuses to be with me, when I call to him with earnest longing; I cannot fail to recognize that he diffuses a heavenly blessing through my soul. But then, oh, God! as he must also live another independent life besides this in us, I cannot help indulging my heart in the blessed hope that I shall one day participate more thoroughly in that life. It seems to me that it is only this hope that gives truth and strength to the continued mental life with him as long as I am on this earth. It would be intensely painful to me were I to conceive of the beautiful relations between human beings as merely evanescent, for in that case they would be only subordinate means. How delightful it is, on the contrary, to think of them as continuous, and as gradually expanding into ever greater beauty as man himself reaches, step by step, a higher perfection! Dear father, I entreat you, give me your mind on this subject. How much do I not also wish to hear explained, better than I am able to do so for myself, how the spiritual in us is separated from the material, or, rather, that which is immortal from that which is perishable. To me it seems as if with life the images of life also must vanish, though they are, indeed, taken in by the mind; yet, again, that self-consciousness must necessarily continue, and that this cannot be possible without remembrance of the past.

If I speak confusedly, have patience with me. Thank God, you are my father, and I need have no fear of you. If Ehrenfried is able to think of me and the children, I know exactly how he thinks of us; and, oh, what emotion it causes me when I dwell on this! This evening, again, I have felt such inexpressible longing for my beloved. It is a lovely summer evening. A little girl told me that her mother was lying under the mound in the churchyard. I went aside and wept bitterly at the thought that he also lies there—he who was everything to me; and at the thought that I can enjoy nothing now with a light heart, not even a lovely summer’s day.

[CCXCIII.] Poseritz, October 12th.

Our dear Rügen is sighing under a heavy yoke, and no one knows how it will end. Alas! how I wish the strangers would go back again to their homes, after which they are longing so much! Though I do not suffer in regard to external circumstances, yet, as you know, every individual suffers much in various other ways during such times. All bonds are dissevered, all enlivening social intercourse impeded. I often feel so unutterably lonely, I can neither see my sisters and brothers, nor any other friends… . Nature is carrying her beauties to the grave; she speaks no longer to me with cheerful prophetic voice—no longer breathes the spirit of love and joy; around me and within me all is dark and dismal. The dear children are my only occupation and my only solace. Reading and writing I am seldom able to indulge in. I cannot deny that sometimes I feel the privation rather bitterly, and it seems to me that I ought not entirely to submit to it. Ah! dear father, you will not misunderstand me, you will not take as a complaint that which I disclose merely to give you a true picture of my life. I have at all times present to me that I am nothing but an instrument to promote the well-being of the dear children, to nurse and to tend them. It is not as if I lived a life of my own, and in this sense I may say that I often forget myself and my fate entirely; but when I awake to greater consciousness, I am terrified at the misery and emptiness of the life that is left to me. Months go by without my having an opportunity of hearing one forcible, elevating thought—one deep and striking truth from the lips of a cultivated man; and yet for me there is no higher enjoyment than to strive after light and truth, in as far as my powers will admit.

Schleiermacher to Henriette von Willich.

[CCXCIV.] No date.

At last I am able to write a few words to you, my dearly beloved daughter, with the assurance that they will reach you safely. The uncertainty in which I was hitherto in regard to this, has deterred me from writing, and I have lived with you in silent, uncommunicated thought only. You, also, have kept back much that you would otherwise have communicated. Perhaps hereafter the usual means of communication will be open—though from such distressing causes that I would far rather it should not be so—and then we shall often interchange words, until the time comes when I hope I shall be able to go to you and seek sad but sweet solace in your company and that of your little ones.

For the present, I know not where to begin, as I would fain avail myself of this opportunity to say all that I wish to say. First of all, then, let me express what has given me most pleasure, that you continue to call yourself my daughter, and that you feel how much you resemble me. Yes, it is so, my dear child; and it is a consolation and a great happiness to me in my lonesome life. But let me tell you, even in regard to those points in yourself of which you complain, you resemble me; and as I thoroughly understand myself, and have the power of looking calmly into myself, I cannot admit the validity of your complaints. You cannot but feel that that of which you complain is not a deficiency arising out of the neglected culture of your nature, but your nature itself. And how can you venture to complain of that which is the immediate creation of God, for as such one nature must be as good as another. That which you look up to in others as greater and more excellent, is simply different, and you must see that you also reveal to them noble elements which they do not find in themselves. Against this, indeed, you humbly contend, and maintain that you have not attained to what you are through struggles, but that it has come of itself. But, dear child, that is just the way that all that is most beautiful comes. What can man do more than develop and purify his nature more and more through the work of the spirit? Force he need never use, unless where he has previously allowed his nature to be violated by some evil influence. Otherwise the work of divine grace in man is a silent, quiet work; and the more completely it is carried out, the more natural it seems, and the more natural it is in reality. Only that virtue which conquers faults is a struggle; that virtue through which each one of us evinces his own peculiar perfection in the sense and spirit of God is nothing more than calm action. Why should you, therefore, deplore that you rarely feel distracting grief? Do not you, even you, because it is your nature, feel in your gentle sorrow more of the divine and the beautiful influences, in which the beloved of your heart reveals himself, than you are conscious of in the moments of your more impassioned grief? The perfection of those dispositions, in whom you admire the higher degree of life and sensibility, is one, yours and mine is another. The former embrace, indeed, in their existence a greater variety of the emotions that may arise in man, and in so far they are richer, but they are at the same time more dependent on surrounding circumstances, more confused, and more subject to irregular impulses. You are more equable, and therefore a more immediate image of the eternal; and you possess yourself in a higher degree, you are more uniformly in harmony with all the conditions amid which you are placed, because you do not in a one-sided manner now seize upon them in one way and now in another, but always comprehend each in its entirety. That state which you call torpor is also well known to me; it is the natural defect of such dispositions as ours, and it always makes its appearance when they have been excited beyond their usual measure. In the deepest anguish, when my whole being has been the most convulsed, I have felt this torpor more than at any other time. But you will no doubt always find, either in pious and tranquil self-communion, or in active occupation, the means of restoring the clear consciousness of your inner being. In one thing I beg you never to relax, and that is in your endeavours to maintain the perfect independence of your maternal relation to your children. This is due to you, and is also necessary for you; and in like manner as you are persuaded that it would only be affection that would prompt any interference with you on this point, so will you find the right mode of evading it without giving offence… . .

Henriette von Willich to Schleiermacher.

[CCXCV.] No date.

Your last letter has given me great pleasure, my beloved father; I had been looking forward to it with intense longing. Oh, dear friend, let us never again be so long separated! To me this separation has been very painful —do you not know that no one in the world can strengthen me as you do? ——, I intreat you let me often have a loving word from your full heart, an elevating word from the depths of your faith, that my faith may strengthen and refresh itself therewith. Alas, dear father! why is there so much suffering in the world? A few days ago my beloved brother bore his third child to the grave. Such tender parents they were, whose happiness centred in their children, and they have lost three babes one after the other. My brother’s misfortune touches my heart very nearly; he was of a gay and cheerful temperament, his married life began so happily, and now—all its young buds are prematurely nipped. My youngest sister S. has also been deprived by this of her greatest delight in life. She is staying with my brother, and to be with the children was her highest happiness, and exercised a most beneficial influence on her. I think I have never yet spoken to you about her, though I am very fond of her. I believe she is by no means mentally insignificant. But her fate has been the same as mine, and must no doubt bear the blame of the crushed blossoms of cheerfulness, of the absence of openness and animation. We were in childhood left much to ourselves, with the exception of a short period, during which we were under the guidance of an excellent man, who died just as I was beginning to cling to him with strong affection, and to devote myself with great zeal to the mental occupations which he had opened up to me.

Permit me, dear father, to put a question to you regarding one observation in your letter which I do not quite understand. You say that one nature is as good as another—that I do not understand. It seems to me that there is very great difference between men, that some are born with higher, more celestial, others with more earthly natures — that some are called to lead a life so glorious and heavenly, that others dare not even strive towards it, because it lies so entirely beyond the limits of their powers. Now, when the latter become conscious of their limitations, I think it is but natural and allowable that they should be filled with sadness, though I believe, and have indeed experienced it, that every murmur dies away when we resign ourselves entirely to God, and a certain contentment takes possession of the heart, together with the hope that through the grace of God we may perhaps one day obtain that for which we pine.

You say, also, that our nature is the immediate creation of God. But do we not frequently inherit from our parents the defects and deficiencies of their natures? Do you not believe that many children are born in sin, and can only, subsequently, purify themselves by conflict and repentance? Allow me to ask you, you dear father, do you believe that God exercises direct action here below, independently of his being in man and in everything that is? and do you recognize in individual events, only the natural course of things, following each other ‘as cause and effect, which must, indeed, also depend upon God — or a distinct willing and working of the Highest? Forgive me, dear friend, if I do not always express clearly what I mean… … May I continue to chat with you in this way about any subject that occurs to me?

Schleiermacher to Charlotte von Kathen.

[CCXCVI.] Berlin (no date).

Dearest Charlotte, what a time it is since I have written to you, though I have repeatedly received welcome and friendly lines from you. Want of safe means of conveyance has deterred me, and, besides this, my writing letters always depends upon my enjoying a certain amount of quiet, which at the present period I can rarely command. I cannot now think of Rügen, and more especially of you, without anxiety, as the roar of battle is likely soon to be heard in your vicinity. But you are courageous and prudent, and in your Kathen you have a strong and faithful supporter such as few have. I do not wonder that you feel yourself bound to him more closely than ever, but I rejoice heartily at it. The present, though a period of dissolution, in many ways tightens the bonds of union between those who are closely related, and also affords uncommon opportunities for the revelation of inward capacity and of the strength of affection. And it is thus, no doubt, that you two have been able to gain a deeper insight into each other’s hearts, from which you have derived new joy in each other. I should like to know what view Kathen takes of the position of your lovely country, and what are his hopes and his wishes in regard to it, though it is true that no hope can be entertained for any country separately, but all must depend upon the effect of these convulsions on our common German fatherland. We must look far into the future, and learn to discern with some certainty what it promises, if we would not lose all courage and all joy in life. My endeavours to do this absorb so much of my time and strength, that I have little left (perhaps less than I ought to have) for those matters which used to occupy me the most, and which come most immediately within my sphere. But as regards my own very uncertain, and at this moment apparently utterly ruined prospects, I am even more composed and indifferent than I expected to be. In view of the great spectacle that is unrolling itself, the little separate interests of life entirely disappear. The least that I might be able to effect in regard to the former, would, at this moment, give me infinitely more pleasure than the greatest that I could effect in my own circle… . .

I am longing to get back to my books and papers, so as to make amends in winter for the sins of the summer, and to be able once more to enjoy with my sister the society of our friends in Halle. But not even a few weeks in advance, is it possible at present to make any plans; the peace, for which we bear no blame, is even more uncertain than was the war. One determination only I hold fast, and that is, to follow the fortunes of my immediate fatherland, Prussia, as long as it continues to exist, and does not prove itself quite unworthy of this resolve. Should it entirely succumb, then I will, as long as it is feasible, seek the German fatherland wherever a Protestant can live, and a German governs. In this way, I shall always be able to accomplish, in some measure, the duties of my vocation. Such must be the consolation of those who cannot bear arms. Ah! take care that your boys grow up strong, and powerful, and firm, and defiant, and warlike, yet gentle and affectionate.

Do write soon again.

[CCXCVII.] Berlin, 31st December, 1807.

Dearest Charlotte, I am delighted with the glorious thought that has been discussed since I wrote to you. I watched with great anxiety the plans of emigration projected by our friend Herz,³ and I did all that I could to upset them or to delay their execution, and to devise means for her awaiting here the final result of affairs. But to know that she is with you is even more satisfactory to me than to have her here, although I shall lose so much by it. It is long since anything has pleased me so much as this, and I can now contemplate with so much greater serenity my own unsettled and, as to the future, most uncertain position. You must have been in some error regarding this matter, dear friend, when, during my stay here last summer, you wrote that you would rather wish me back in my wonted sphere of activity in Halle. This was and is destroyed; the university is provisionally dissolved, and only a peace favourable to Prussia could have rendered its re-establishment possible. The new Westphalian government does, indeed, hold out a hope of its reconstitution; but I cannot submit to that government, and as long as there be a German prince, under such I must live. For to operations which are directed straightways towards the destruction of German sentiment and German spirit, I cannot give even the support which my presence would imply. During the last two months of my stay in Halle, I felt under great restraint, and after prayers had been ordered in the churches for the king and queen of Westphalia, it was no longer possible for me to stand up in the pulpit. In short, I have not heart to teach there, and I have therefore left the place entirely, and I should have left, even had I not had the firm conviction that a French government cannot possibly allow a German university to go on undisturbed. I came here in the summer to deliver some lectures, and thus to substitute something similar for my ruined sphere of activity. At present I hold the same object in view, if I can but find auditors. The government has, besides, declared its intention to found a university here instead of the one that has been lost, and, as one of the preliminaries, my appointment to it has been talked of. I shall, therefore, settle here for the present to see whether circumstances will favour the execution of this plan. Here I may still preach without feeling my heart oppressed; and this, with a little leisure and my daily bread, is all that I strictly require.

The year that ends to-day has taken much from us all; so much that I heartily rejoice to think of friends who have only shared some individual loss or other with me, or have only suffered such themselves. My welfare has on all sides been shaken to its very foundations, yet I see nothing that promises an entire change for the better. To keep up my courage and be steadfast, to enjoy cheerfully what is left, to look hopefully forward to what I shall not live to witness, that is all that remains to me. Give my hearty, most hearty greetings to dear Kathen. How rejoiced I am at the importance he attaches to having our friend with you! How delighted I shall be if I am able this summer to go to you, and to find us all again united, with the exception of one who is gone before us!

I hope soon to be more settled here, and to be able to write to you oftener.

Henriette von Willich to Schleiermacher.

[CCXCVIII.] 30th January, 1808.

… . Ah! you know what memories are stirring in me in these days—what painful scenes are passing before me—how I sat at the bedside of my suffering husband and felt myself so forlorn—how I listened to every breath—how I watched every gentle movement, in earnest expectation that some sign of improvement would soon show itself. Alas! I waited and waited.

How often I lose myself in contemplation of the wonderful guidance of our destiny! how darkness closes around me when I venture to look deeper into its mysterious concatenations! But ever more and more clear is my faith in the relation between the individual and his fate; ever more clearly I understand those words of Novalis: “Destiny and character (gemüth) are only two different names for the same idea,” which long dwelt in my memory without my understanding them. It is certain that in early youth already, a vague presentiment of my present fate was shadowed forth in the dreams of the girl. Wide-spread and cheerful activity in the midst of the world was never included in the pictures of life which accompanied my steps up its ascent; quiet retirement from the world and its affairs—renunciation of the sweetest joys of life—longing looks towards heaven, seeking for love there—high enjoyment in spiritual intercourse with the living and the dead—such were the tendencies early developed in me, and most in accordance with my nature. It was no surprise to me when I found love, but when enduring earthly happiness was opened up to me, then I was surprised. And to me, in the depths of my pain, it seemed neither strange nor unexpected when it vanished.

Dear father, you do not know how much good you do me, you more than any one else, by your confidence in me. How I wish I could adequately thank you for it! and yet again, it depresses me, because I always feel so little worthy of it! I often see distinctly how you carry over upon me the sweet image, which you bear within yourself, of a daughter such as would be worthy of you; and as there is indeed some resemblance between me and the beloved image, you overlook the great dissimilarities that are concealed beneath it. Alas! I have often such violent attacks of this morbid self-distrust, that I feel as if I must tear myself away from all those who cling to me, because they see me in a deceptive light, and it is denied to me to become that which they believe me to be. You know that this state is but transitory, but a lasting discontent, nevertheless, dwells in me, and because it is lasting I know that it cannot be unfounded. Ah! dear friend, I shall never be healed while here; the source is deeper—ah! how shall I express to you what I believe it is? want of love, narrowness of heart—I believe it is that. Kind father, withdraw not thy hand from me, when one day thou shalt become aware that I am speaking the truth.

[CCXCIX.] 2nd February.

Calm sorrow dwells in me on this anniversary of the most painful parting, and serene and solemn joy, that he, the dear one, is gone into a higher life and to higher joys. This day will be celebrated by those spirits with whom the glorious soul entered into closer bonds when he took leave of this life.

Just as this morning a bright sunbeam fell upon me, so also on that morning the sun shone out after many gloomy days, and its brightness made an indescribable impression on me. The preceding night had been full of terror, being the first in which total hopelessness had taken possession of me—but then I could pray, I could hope again; and, full of new strength, I went in to the beloved patient, to devote myself anew to nursing him. But, alas! when the symptoms of the malady became so terrific that I could not maintain my composure, my friends led me away, and I never saw him again alive! It has pained me greatly, and I have often deeply regretted, that I did not hold his hand at the last moment; but a certain anxiety about myself and desire to spare myself in the state I then was, induced me to yield to the entreaties of my friends to keep away from his room. Ah! would that I had not yielded! How indescribably I longed, and in memory still long, for one moment only of clear consciousness, for one loving word at parting? Oh! why was this happiness denied to me? Surely I would have been strong, and such words would have been for ever after a source of infinite comfort to me. Oh, how beautiful was the death of my mother! When she had expressed with full certainty that death was approaching, the pious, sorrowing old father, who was seated at her bedside, asked her if he should read to her out of the Bible or the hymn-book. “No, dear father,” she answered, “I need not that; I have long been prepared for this hour. Now call together our children; I wish once more to see and to speak to them all.” She took most affectionate leave of us, and then calmly fell asleep… . .

With what fervour I have to-day consecrated my life anew to the dear children—his children. … .

Believe me, dear father, there are dissonances in me of which you have no suspicion. I would not give expression to them in distinct words; but believe me, and detract something from the sweet image of me, which you bear in your heart. One thing that pacifies me in regard to myself is, that there is one point in which I feel that I can concentrate all that is best in me—my motherhood. Yes, dear father, I promise you, I will be a good mother; for this I feel strength and capacity, and not only good will. You shall never have reason to upbraid me with weakness, or with motherly vanity; only when reproach would be unjust—when the limits of my nature forbid me to be more—only then will you find me fail.

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Footnotes

1. In German, bride denotes the period before marriage.—TRANS. ↩

2. Literally, “honour peace.”—TRANS. ↩

3. At her husband’s death, already, a great change had taken place in the pecuniary position of Henrietta Herz, who was, in consequence, obliged, in a great measure, to renounce that sociable life which had been to her the source of the greatest enjoyment, because, in intercourse with all the brightest spirits of the day, she felt that she was not only a recipient, but also a diffuser of moral and intellectual life. Subsequently, the political convulsions which disturbed †he finances of the country further reduced the resources of this excellent and distinguished woman, who was the sole support of her blind mother and unmarried sister, and she found it necessary to look around for some means of making a livelihood. Having, at the entreaty of her friends, and more especially of Wilhelm von Humboldt, declined to accept brilliant offers made to her abroad to undertake the education of princely scions, she ultimately determined to remove to Rügen, and there took up her domicile with Charlotte von Kathen, and became the instructress of her children.—See Fürst, Henriette Herz, Ihr Leben, &c.—TRANS. ↩