[CCCCIII.] Ebersdorf, 30th August, 1817.

Read out this name at once to old Lotte,² dear heart, that she may rejoice to know me in one of the establishments of the congregation. We have come into quarters in very good time, and this gives me a little leisure for writing, but not much, for I want to pay a visit to the pastor, who is no doubt an old fellow-student from Barby, and we intend to go to a meeting, and have besides to make entries in our mineralogical diaries and to study for to-morrow.

Yesterday we made a long tour from Saalfeld to the top of the mountain ridge. The valley of the Saale is lovely indeed, and also very interesting from the mineralogical point of view, but the farther we left this behind us, and the higher we mounted, the more sterile and the less beautiful nature became, and the people had no longer the same true-hearted, frank, and cheerful manners that had pleased us so much in the inhabitants of the lower parts of the mountains… . .

My state of mind while amid a congregation of the United Brethren is always very peculiar. The greater part of my youth and the decisive moment in regard to the entire development of my life, are forcibly recalled to my mind. This point of transition, however casual it may appear on the one hand, seems to me on the other to have been so strictly necessary, that I cannot at all conceive myself without it. And though it would be quite impossible for me to live within the timid limitations of a congregation of brethren, the quiet simple life that reigns there makes such a refreshing impression on me, when contrasted with the noisy vanities of the world, that I cannot help feeling and thinking, that were these communities to be reorganized and modified in accordance with the spirit of the times, they might be converted into delightful and most enviable places of abode… . .

It almost vexes me that I have not written you more really descriptive letters, not that I care to depict the landscapes to you, but that I might have recorded my impressions, and have shown you how in each case a remembrance of you was in some way or other awakened. But, in truth, I was not able to do so, because time and the necessary materials (which in the present case, also, are of the very worst description) were almost always wanting.

This forenoon we were in Lobenstein, the residence of a Prince of Reuss, who was a comrade of mine at Niesky and Barby. I meant to call upon him, but he was absent from home. When we were at college together, his prospects of coming to the government were very uncertain, and we often teased him about it. He has now attained what was then the highest object of his wishes; but he is already married a second time, and is childless; and I could not help thinking how much happier a man I am than he. Were I but again at your side, and all the distracting festivities over, and our quiet winter life begun! Dear heart, there can hardly be happier people in the world than we may ever be, if we can but keep sufficiently aloof from the world, and learn to bear cheerfully the petty annoyances of life. And I trust we shall day by day succeed better in so doing. When I consider how much wiser we have already grown, and how much better I have become through you, I despair of nothing that may still lie before us. God bless you and strengthen you… . .

[CCCCIV.] Rudolstadt, Sunday, 31st, Evening.

We arrived here after a delightful, though rather warm walk… . . God grant that I may find you and every one else so well and full of life on my return, as I hope to be; for the journey seems to do me a great deal of good. Perhaps you may have heard of me through F——, if she has succeeded in seeing me in her visions, as I have often wished and secretly hoped.

… . Only two days more I shall be moving farther away from you; after that I shall daily be drawing nearer to you again. This morning again I awoke in the midst of a dream about you, my dear heart. May you have enjoyed many happy hours together with the pledges of our love! My own beloved wife, how thankful I ever feel to you for being mine! I fold you to my heart in imagination, and cover your hand with innumerable kisses. Embrace the little people for me, and give them many hearty messages. Tell Lotte that I am bringing her some poems by Albertini, which I have not myself read as yet. A thousand farewells!

In the autumn of 1818, Schleiermacher again made a tour with Georg Reimer and Leopold von Plehwe (then an officer in the guards in Berlin), to the country around Salzburg, the Tyrol, Munich, &c.; during which the following letters were written:—

[CCCCV.] Linz, 19th September, 1818.

… . We were unfortunately detained a few hours in Töplitz, and could not even avail ourselves of these to look about us, because we were told every instant that the horses were coming; thus we only arrived in Prague at nine o’clock on Sunday morning, after having travelled all through the night. The very first view one gets of the city, with its numberless towers, is very imposing; but it is from the Hradschin that it appears in its greatest splendour. The people seem to be quite indifferent to all the beautiful monuments that surround them, and to all the great memories that are attached to them, and appear to be utterly unconscious that, with their Protestantism and their religious liberty, they lost all their dignity. Many of the churches are in ruin, and, with the exception of the old cathedral, those that are the most accessible are from the later period when the Jesuits ruled, and are consequently in a tasteless style. The cathedral is a noble, but unfinished edifice, in Gothic style, with a few good paintings; beneath it the history of Bohemia lies interred. The church music that we heard was in the style of modern opera music, but not bad of its kind. The voices were beautiful, the execution on the organ, as well as the organ itself, very fine. We saw some rather good works of art in the Ständisch Gallery, which owes its origin to a noble idea, and which is to me a proof that the Bohemian nobles stand far above the British. Friedrich³ told us that the environs of Dresden were on a very small scale, when compared to those of Prague; and although the view from the bridge at Dresden is in itself more beautiful than that from the bridge at Prague, and the Moldau bridge itself is not more beautiful, though more splendid than that of Dresden, I cannot but agree with him, because of the view from the Hradschin, and the imposing effect produced by the buildings. I was actually seized with a shudder—a religious shudder—at the sight of the immense Jesuit college, and with a political shudder at the equally gigantic palace of Wallenstein. The palaces of the other magnates are on a smaller scale, but yet grand, in the old style. But what shall I say of the ruinous state of churches and convents? Protestantism has been wrenched from the people with unheard-of cruelty, but Catholicism they cannot prevent from rotting among them.

On Monday morning at ten o’clock we left Prague. The country in the vicinity is no more than pleasantly undulating; not until we reached Budweis, a really white town, with a large market-place out of all proportion to its size, did the high hills begin to reappear, and not until the next morning did we find ourselves again completely among the mountains, which here separate the territories of the Elbe from those of the Danube, and which are more and more beautiful the farther you advance… . The more beautiful the mountains became towards morning, the more beautiful also became the weather, and we crossed the Danube and made our entry into this stately city under a bright sun. We have taken up our abode in the market-place, which is surrounded by four-storied houses with Italian roofs, and has a colossal fountain in the middle, but which is never lighted up by the sun, that seems never to rise above the saints on the house-tops. Compared to the Danube, the Elbe near Dresden is a very child.

How I am longing for the first accounts from my dear ones I cannot describe… . .

[CCCCVI.] Frankenmarkt, on the road from Linz to Salzburg, Friday, 11th, Evening.

… . . To-day we have only travelled twelve short miles, but we took a circuitous route to see the Traunfall, and spent two hours in contemplation of this glorious spectacle, which art and nature have combined to make most interesting, and from which we could with difficulty tear ourselves away, so that we did not reach our night quarters here until eight o’clock in the evening, when we made our entry to the sound of a very pretty tune, performed by our postilion on his posthorn. The country on this side of the Danube is even more beautiful than on the other. While in the mountains we traversed the finest pine forests, with which those of Silesia cannot even be compared: the valleys were covered with lovely and abundantly watered meadow lands; the hills, with rich arable soil; potato fields were remarkably scarce; the winter seed, in some parts, already sown, in others, already sprouting; cherry-trees as large as oaks; and everywhere a blessed abundance of apples, pears, plums, and grapes. During our trip on the river, near Linz, we bought twenty large peaches for two-and-a-half groschen of our currency. The population are very good-natured, and we have met with several pretty hostesses in the inns, who seemed really virtuous. In the outward appearance of the people, more especially of the women, great variety prevails; some are slim and graceful, others square and vigorous. Near Linz, you see these slender, graceful figures carrying fruit and vegetables to market on their heads, in large flat baskets, covered with the whitest cloths. The men, also, are a frank, good-natured, sturdy race. Everything connected with material life is good and handsome: the peasant houses, in the villages and hamlets, are well built, and roofed with shingles, and have green Venetian blinds in the windows; the smaller cottages are like the châlets in the Alps. Manufactures are utterly neglected; even the splendid Styrian iron is excessively badly treated… . The administration of the country seems to me even far more oppressive, annoying, and unwise than at home, as I will prove to you by various amusing anecdotes when we meet. Taking all these things together, one cannot help feeling here an immense longing for the introduction of greater unity in Germany, in order that this glorious land also might imbibe the spirit that pervades the whole, and be regenerated by it. Catholicism, in these parts, seems to me to be of a lukewarm kind: there are not by far so many images of saints, so many pilgrimages, nor so much bigotry, as in Bohemia; and our Protestantism, which we are at no pains to conceal in public, when visiting churches or otherwise, appears neither to alarm nor to provoke the people. In Prague, on the contrary, they sometimes scowled at us, when we omitted to dip our fingers in the holy water, or to cross ourselves.

From our sail on the Danube, I have still a few gleanings to communicate. On account of the weather we were obliged to divide it into two parts. In the morning we sailed up the river from the city. Whether the Danube be here much broader than that part of the Rhine we visited together, I cannot say; but, upon the whole, the stream is more rapid, and the breadth more uniform throughout, but the banks less interesting. Our goal was a monastery, which was founded about six hundred years ago by two childless brothers, and endowed with their entire landed estates. But during these six hundred years, not a single remarkable man has ever issued from this convent. The most that can be said of the most renowned of its prelates is, that he was so fortunate as to survive a great many misfortunes. In the afternoon we sailed down the river below the city, and here the Danube soon becomes much broader than the Rhine, and, with the many islands on its bosom, appears in all its peculiar majesty. The banks here, for about two miles, are mountainous on the one side only. A few pistol shots were fired, which I thought would hardly reach the opposite bank, but I was mistaken, and they produced, moreover, a splendid echo.

Forgive the disconnected manner in which I jot down all this. I wish, as you cannot be here to enjoy with me, that I could place everything vividly before you; but I know that description is not my forte, and therefore it would be much better if you could travel, and I remain at home. I can hardly hope to find a letter from you to-morrow, though I have an inexpressible longing for one. God grant that all may be well at home! I do not in the least fear that anything very serious has happened; but my thoughts about home always take the form of the most fervent prayer, and of the liveliest feeling, that my life and my happiness are locked up in you and the children. Good-night, it is high time for me to go to bed, as we are to start to-morrow morning at four o’clock.

[CCCCVII.] Berchtesgaden, Tuesday, 15th, Evening.

… . The time spent in Salzburg was not thrown away. The people with whom we came most in contact there, were the family of a bookseller, by name Z——. The husband perished in the great fire, and the family lost almost everything. Reimer had rendered them great services by collecting considerable sums for them, and he was, in consequence, received with profound regard. On Saturday morning we took a walk with the son through the city, which is built in the form of a half-moon on each side of the river, and is surrounded by mountains, but at a greater distance than at Heidelberg. The public buildings are in the grand old style of the ecclesiastical princes; the churches also are grand, but not in good taste, yet not overladen with ornamentation. Everywhere there are traces of former well-being, but present decay, and on all sides great dissatisfaction with the Austrian Government, which very coolly and unconsciously, as it were, allows the parts to go to destruction for the sake of the whole.

The evening previous to our starting for the mountains, we invited a schoolmaster, who is well acquainted with them, and who is a good botanist, to be our guide, and in company with him we broke up at two o’clock in the afternoon, and proceeded towards this place. During the first hour we were soaked through and through by the clouds, which lay thick and dense in the ravines and on the mountain tops, but I did my best to keep the company in good humour. Subsequently the sky cleared, and we arrived here in the finest weather. The road was very beautiful. The snowclad giant mountains appeared before us in succession; we walked along the banks of a rushing mountain stream, beheld the loveliest Alpine pastures on all the slopes, covered with happy, well-fed cattle, and Leopold was for ever firing off his pistols, and producing the finest echoes. This morning we awoke under the happy auspices of a blue sky and an unclouded sunrise, and started at seven o’clock for the Königsee, the beautiful dark green waters of which are shut up between high mountains, which rise so immediately and so perpendicularly out of the lake, that there are but few spots on which one can land. Our road took us towards the further extremity of the lake, where we were received in a huntsman’s lodge, which is attached to a monastery, and whence we proceeded afterwards, accompanied by the huntsman, on a little Alpine ramble, which proved most satisfactory; for we saw about ten chamois, also saw and heard half a dozen small avalanches, and towards the end of our ramble came upon a little glacier; and thus during a good hour’s walk, we had learnt to know all the features of Alpine scenery. To me the ramble was made still further interesting by the presence of a botanizing gardener, who knew, and with practised eye detected, many plants that were unknown to me. In the middle of the lake there is a spot (the only one on which it is allowed to fire a shot) where there is a very fine echo, which was not on this occasion allowed to sleep. It rolls around you like thunder; and when the first ceases, the second takes up the sound still louder, until after a time it gradually dies away. The lake, surrounded by steep rock walls, and with the snow-capped mountains mirroring themselves in its 160 fathom deep but tranquil waters, spread out like a glass in the bright sunshine, afforded a spectacle of unique beauty. While sailing on its bosom, we sang hymns from the hymn-book, not very correctly, but not, therefore, the less to the edification of all present. On our return to this place, I had a very interesting mineralogical conversation with Professor Kaiser from Norway, whom I had seen in Berlin, and who had inquired for me in Salzburg, and followed me hither. Our schoolmaster and the gardener having left us to return home, we afterwards inspected a curious depôt of articles of bone and wood, made in the locality, where we purchased some trifles for the children. Subsequently we received a visit from a Catholic ecclesiastic, who pleased me so much, that we parted from each other with a brotherly kiss and with tearful eyes. It is a lovely, fresh, moonlight night, and I have the best hopes of the weather to-morrow. Every evening we drink to the health of No. 37, Wilhelms Street,⁴ and do not in the least mind, should even Mr. von B—— and H. L—— get their share.

[CCCCVIII.] Sunday, 20th.

… . . Our Wednesday tour was glorious, not only as regards our final goal, but as regards the whole route thither. How often I have deplored that none of us can draw! Snow and forest-covered mountains, rock walls, Alpine meadows, waterfalls, ever new and ever greater beauties, now narrow valleys, now broad ones, in which we found ourselves surrounded by a circle of mountains, and where the pistol shots called forth splendid echoes. Leopold looked quite idyllic, with an Alpine nosegay in his button-hole and another in his cap, with his pistol in his girdle, and his powder-flask at his side. We travelled ten Stunden, about seven of our miles, that day, and all bore it very well. On the Thursday we meant to have travelled fourteen Stunden, as far as Gastein, had the weather been favourable. But after the first three Stunden, it began to rain; and this not only upset our plan, but also in a great measure spoilt our pleasure on the road, which lay through similar and even more beautiful scenes than those of the day before, more especially the views up the Pinzgau, a mountain valley, the upper part of which stretches as far as the frontiers of the Tyrol. Perhaps you know it by name from a song which is sung a great deal in Berlin—The Pinzgauers were going a Pilgrimage. In this song the people are described as coarse and rude; but such we have not found them. On Thursday, after six hours’ march in the rain, we were obliged to stop in a little market town, on the borders of the Pinzgau, to dry ourselves. At the table in the inn, we found among others a regular Pinzgauer, with beer and brandy before him. He entered into conversation with us, and asked many questions; and no sooner had he discovered that we were Prussians, than he broke out into praise of Prussia, and spoke out freely, giving utterance to very sound political notions, expressing very great contempt for the Austrian Government, and constantly alluding to Prussia and Bavaria as the two pillars of Germany. He was a fine, vigorous fellow, tall and broad shouldered, with a Roman nose, clear blue eyes, and a healthy, manly colour. When we got outside, he fell upon Leopold’s neck and kissed him. We proceeded two Stunden further, and were again obliged to turn in somewhere to dry ourselves; and as the rain never ceased, and we could get no horses to take us on to Gastein, we were obliged to go into quarters. A meal was prepared for us; and at half-past eight o’clock I said: “Children, it is very late, we must go to bed,” and the motion was agreed to nem. con. The next morning, having secured horses, we drove two miles further, through a beautiful wild ravine, down which the Gasteinbach rushed foaming to meet us. As the rain had ceased, we walked the last miles towards the bathing-place, engaged lodgings, and then immediately proceeded to visit the mines. To reach these we had to mount during three hours; by that time we were some hundred feet higher than the Schneekoppe; but to reach the summit of the mountain, which is more than 8,000 feet high, we would have been obliged to mount during two hours more. Reimer did not enter the mine with us, and I had the pleasure of being the first to introduce the mining operations to Leopold. We had waded a considerable part of our way up through snow; and when we came out of the galleries, it was snowing very hard. Further down it was raining, and the heavens looked so very little propitious, that we gave up the hope of carrying out our plan. Early on Saturday morning, after having feasted our eyes on the spectacle of the Gastein waterfall, we recommenced our wanderings on foot; but after having accomplished one mile, we were again obliged to have recourse to a post-chaise.

It will soon be three weeks since I left you, and as yet I have not had a word from you. These are the bitters of travelling. Greet the whole dear tribe of children, old Lotte, P—— and K——, and all friends, not forgetting my honest Winkel.⁵ As regards my remembrance of you, there can be no question of more or less; for you are ever present to me.

[CCCCIX.] Nürnberg, Friday, 2nd October.

Your second letter, dear heart, I found in Munich; but, though we prolonged our stay there four days, I could not find a moment to write to you, so constantly was I handed over from one person to another, and it would have been still worse had I not so studiously avoided the grandees. For the rest, one cannot help feeling respect for Munich. The city has a stately appearance, though it is not large; but latterly the gates have been thrown down, and its limits thus rendered indefinite, and already large open squares and great buildings, out of all proportion to the rest of the city, are springing up on the outskirts. It is, however, the great scientific and artistic institutions which inspire the greatest respect, and these mostly date from a period when the state was not so extensive by far as at present. There also great dissatisfaction with the government prevails; but along with this there is great union and much hope in the constitution, which has already been granted and sworn to, and for the opening of which preparations are now being made. People there showed me an amount of friendliness that I cannot sufficiently acknowledge, and old Jacobi was actually moved on seeing me. We endeavoured to come to an understanding relative to our views, but we got no further than to understand wherein the difference between us consists; and he always listened to me very good-naturedly when I told him that I thought his great mistake was that he confounded this difference with another, and sought its foundation in the disposition of mind. I have learnt to like him very much, and have requested permission to write to him. With his sisters, also, I soon found myself on a very friendly footing, and we playfully quarrelled and teazed each other a good deal. We all three dined with Jacobi every day, and each time met some other guests: I always managed to be the first to arrive and the last to depart. Schelling was absent, which did not much distress me, more particularly as I have not read his last productions, and should have found it difficult to conceal this. Many interesting persons of secondary importance I also missed, but I had quite enough for the short time I was there, especially as there were picture and sculpture galleries to be seen. As it was, I could only give a very cursory glance at the library and the numismatic collection.

Yesterday morning we arrived in Augsburg, visited the town-house and the collection of pictures there, as also the cathedral; ran through the principal streets; and started again, after a hurried dinner, and travelled all through the night. How much we have to see in this place I do not know, but I hope we shall be able to leave to-morrow afternoon, and to spend Sunday afternoon and evening with Jean Paul.

Augsburg reminds one of Frankfort-on-the-Maine; Nürnberg has a much more antique character; and, in spite of their ugliness and want of fertility, the environs bear the traces of former wealth and of great commercial activity.

My thoughts are now constantly turning homewards, with great joy at the approaching meeting with you all, but also with some anxiety about the accumulation of work that awaits me, and which will hardly allow me to settle down at once to the quiet enjoyment of home-life. But you are already aware of all this, and many of the details of my journey, which I have saved for verbal communication, may, if you wish to have them, be imparted while we are taking our tea. In like manner, it seems, you have reserved for my return all the most interesting accounts about F——. Pray do not neglect to familiarize yourself gradually with the fact that, in the month of June, Napoleon was really quite safe in St. Helena, and modify your rules of interpretation accordingly. It would really be unworthy of your endeavours after truth, were you to insist upon not believing this.

Good-bye, dear heart, probably for the last time until we meet. I have been once magnetized by Ringseis, and would have been glad to have repeated the experiment, but time would not admit of it. However, in spite of Jacobi’s dinners and night travelling, my health is very satisfactory. Greetings to all in the house and out of the house. God grant that we may have a happy meeting.

As mentioned in the above letter, Schleiermacher had, during his interviews with Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, reserved to himself the privilege of writing to the latter, to endeavour further to elucidate the differences existing between them. This agreement seems to have given rise to the subjoined letter, a copy of which was found among Schleiermacher’s correspondence, but without date. A short correspondence between Reinhold and Jacobi, to which Schleiermacher refers, is also given.

---

← Mesmerism · Contents · Letter to Jacobi →

Footnotes

1. This plan of eventually retiring to a country parsonage, was often mooted by Schleiermacher. ↩

2. His sister Charlotte, who was then living in his house. ↩

3. The great landscape painter. ↩

4. Where Schleiermacher then lived in the Sack Palace, which had been purchased by Georg Reimer, and which, being surrounded by a large parklike garden, obviated the necessity of Schleiermacher’s removal to the Thiergarten in summer. ↩

5. A man who had been many years in his service. ↩