This work was the forerunner (and, according to its Author's nephew and
biographer, the _cradle_), of some of his principal subsequent
Romances, especially Hesperus and Titan. "The _Invisible Lodge_," says
Spazier, "is, in more than one sense, the Genesis of Jean Paul's poetic
world and its inhabitants--the birth history of his first Romances." It
is peculiarly interesting as containing, both in spirit and in
incident, a good deal of Richter's own biography. It was written in
1792, when the Author was 29 years old, and is the work which decided,
if not his reputation, at least his determination to make his
countrymen appreciate his work and his worth. It was the first of his
productions which, he felt, was somewhat munificently paid for, as it
gave him the joy of bursting in upon his poor old mother and pouring
some 250 dollars into her lap.
The date of this work is the transition period in the Author's life,
when (in his own words) he came out of the "vinegar manufactory," where
he had concocted his "Greenland Law-suits," and "Papers of the Devil,"
and passed through the "honey-sour" interval which gave birth to the
Idyl of the "Contented Little Schoolmaster, Wutz," into the happier and
more harmonious period which began with the "Invisible Lodge."
In this Romance, says Mrs. Lee, "the different epochs in the history of
his soul are embodied." "To Ottomar he has given his dreams and
aspirations; to Fenk his satire and comic humor; and in Gustavus the
events of his autobiography are clothed in a poetic garment."
A few weeks before his death, which took place in November 1825, (and
of which he seems to have had a singular presentiment not long before
this book was written), referring to its abrupt ending he says: "What
life in the world do we see that is not interrupted and incomplete? And
if we complain that a Romance is left unfinished--that it does not even
inform us what came of Kunz's second courtship and Elsie's despair on
the occasion--how Hans escaped the claws of the sheriff, and Faust
those of Mephistopheles--still let us console ourselves with the
reflection that man, in his present existence, sees nothing on any side
but knots, that only beyond his grave lie the solutions, and that all
History is to him an unfinished Romance.
"Baireuth, Oct. 1825."
On the 14th of the month following, the hand that penned these lines
was cold in death. C. T. B.
Newport, Oct. 1882.