I landed yesterday, and took refuge here till this afternoon; and my first
employment is to thank you for your affectionate and faithful letter, and
to tell you that I am not only to be here as hitherto, but that, with the
permission of the King, I am to fill the post of confidential accredited
minister of the _Reichsverweser_, formerly held by Baron Andrian. During
my stay here, be it long or short, it will always be a pleasure and
refreshment to me to see you as often as you can come to us. You know our
way of living, which will remain the same, except now and then, when
Palmerston may fix his conferences for a Sunday.
Pertz is quite ready to agree to the proposal of a regular completion of
the Chambers collection: the best thing would be for you to offer to make
the catalogue. He is waiting your proposal. The dark clouds of civil war
are lowering over our dear and mighty Fatherland. Prussia will go on its
own way quietly as a mediating power.
[4.]
CARLTON TERRACE, _April 22, 1849_.
Yesterday evening, and night, and this morning early, I have been reading
Froude’s “Nemesis of Faith,” and am so moved by it that I must write you a
few lines. I cannot describe the power of attraction exercised upon me by
this deeply searching, noble spirit: I feel the tragic nature of his
position, and long have I foreseen that such tragical combinations await
the souls of men in this island-world. Arnold and Carlyle, each in his own
way, had seen this long before me. In the general world, no one can
understand such a state of mind, except so far as to be enabled to
misconstrue it.
In the shortcoming of the English mind in judging of this book, its great
alienation from the philosophy of Art is revealed. This book is not
comprehended as a work of Art, claiming as such due proportions and
relative significance of parts; otherwise many individuals would at least
have been moved to a more sparing judgment upon it, and in the first place
they would take in the import of the title.
This book shows the fatal result of the renunciation of the Church system
of belief. The subject of the tale simply experiences moral annihilation;
but the object of his affection, whose mind he had been the means of
unsettling in her faith, burst through the boundaries which humanity has
placed, and the moral order of the world imposes: they perish both,—each
at odds with self, with God, and with human society: only for him there
yet remains room for further development. Then the curtain falls,—that is
right, according to artistic rule of composition; true and necessary
according to the views of those who hold the faith of the Church of
England; and from a theological point of view, no other solution could be
expected from the book than that which it has given.
But here the author has disclosed the inward disease, the fearful
hollowness, the spiritual death, of the nation’s philosophical and
theological forms, with resistless eloquence; and like the Jews of old,
they will exclaim, “That man is a criminal! stone him!”
I wish you could let him know how deeply I feel for him, without ever
having seen him; and how I desire to admonish him to accept and endure
this fatality, as, in the nature of things, he must surely have
anticipated it; and as he has pointed out and defended the freedom of the
spirit, so must he now (and I believe he will) show in himself, and make
manifest to the world, the courage, active in deed, cheerful in power, of
that free spirit.
It is presumptuous to intrude into the fate and mystery of life in the
case of any man, and more especially of a man so remarkable; but the
consciousness of community of spirits, of knowing, and endeavoring after
what is morally good, and true, and perfect, and of the yearning after
every real disciple of the inner religion of Christians, impels me to
suggest to you to tell him from me, that I believe the spasm of his
spiritual efforts would sooner be calmed, and the solution of the great
problem would sooner be found, if he were to live for a time among _us_; I
mean, if he resided for a time in one of the German universities. We
Germans have been for seventy years working as thinkers, inquirers, poets,
seers, also as men of action, to pull down the old and to erect the new
Zion; each great man with us has contributed his materials towards the
sanctuary, invisible, but firmly fixed in German hearts; the whole nation
has neglected and sacrificed political, individual existence and common
freedom—to pursue in faith the search after truth. From us something may
be learnt, by every spirit of this age. He will experience how truly the
divine Plato spoke, when he said, “Seven years of silent inquiry were
needful for a man to learn the truth, but fourteen in order to learn how
to make it known to his fellow-men.”
Froude must know Schleiermacher’s “Discourses on Religion,” and perhaps
also his “Dogmatics.” In this series of developments this is perhaps, as
far as the form is concerned, the most satisfactory work which immediately
concerns religion and its reconciliation with philosophy on the basis of
more liberal Christian investigation. But at all events we have not
striven and suffered in vain: our philosophy, research, and poetry show
this. But men, not books, are needed by such a mind, in order to become
conscious of the truth, which (to quote Spinoza) “remoto errore nuda
remanet.” He has still much to learn, and he should learn it as a man from
man. I should like to propose to him first to go to Bonn. He would there
find that most deeply thoughtful and most original of speculative minds
among our living theologians, the Hamann of this century, my dear friend
R. Rothe; also a noble philosopher and teacher of ethics, Brandis; an
honest master of exegesis, Bleek; and young minds would soon attach
themselves to him. In Halle he would find Erdmann, almost the only
distinguished speculative follower of Hegel, and Tholuck, who has advanced
much farther in the philosophical treatment of Christianity than is
generally thought. I will gladly give him introductions to all of these.
They would all willingly admit him into their world of thought, and enter
with sympathy into his. It would be sure to suit him.... The free
atmosphere of thought would do him good, as formerly the atmosphere of
free England was good for Germans still struggling for political liberty.
He certainly needs physical change and invigorating. For this the lovely
Rhine is decidedly to be recommended. With £100 he could live there as a
prince. Why go off to Van Diemen’s Land? I should always be glad to be of
the least service to him, still more to make his personal acquaintance.
And now, my dear M., you can, if you wish, read out to him what I have
written, but do not give the letter out of your own hands.
[5.]