with him by means of letters. It seems to me that he was extremely
clear in the relations of life and friendship, and that he had a
correct feeling for the positions of persons among each other,
and with reference to himself. All the letters which I saw by him
were excellent, and much plainer than his works, because here the
reference to time, circumstances, and personal affairs, was more
clearly prominent. I thought, however, that I could discern this much
generally, that he, feeling the superiority of his mental gifts, in the
most _naïve_ manner, always considered himself somewhat wiser and more
shrewd than his correspondents, whom he treated rather ironically than
heartily. If this held good only of single cases, it applied to the
majority, as far as my own observation went, and was the cause that I
never felt a desire to approach him.
On the other hand, a kindly literary communication between Herder and
us was maintained with great vivacity, though it was a pity that he
could not keep himself quiet. But Herder never left off his teazing
and scolding; and much was not required to irritate Merck, who also
contrived to excite me to impatience. Because now Herder, among all
authors and men, seems to respect Swift the most, he was among us
called the "Dean," and this gave further occasion to all sorts of
perplexities and annoyances.
Nevertheless we were highly pleased when we learned that he was to
have an appointment at Bückeburg, which would bring him double honour,
for his new patron had the highest fame as a clear-headed and brave,
though eccentric man. Thomas Abt had been known and celebrated in this
service; his country still mourned his death, and was pleased with
the monument which his patron had erected for him. Now Herder, in the
place of the untimely deceased, was to fulfil all those hopes which his
predecessor had so worthily excited.
The epoch in which this happened gave a double brilliancy and value to
such an appointment; for several German princes already followed the
example of the Count of Lippe, inasmuch as they took into their service
not merely learned men, and men of business, properly so called, but
also persons of mind and promise. Thus, it was said, Klopstock had
been invited by the Margrave Charles of Baden, not for real business,
but that by his presence he might impart a grace and be useful to the
higher society. As now the regard felt for this excellent prince,
who paid attention to all that was useful and beautiful, increased
in consequence, so also was the veneration for Klopstock not a
little heightened. Everything that emanated from him was held dear
and valuable; and we carefully wrote down his odes and elegies as we
could get them. We were therefore highly delighted when the great
Land-gravine Caroline of Hesse-Darmstadt made a collection of them,
and we obtained possession of one of the few copies, which enabled us
to complete our own manuscript collection. Hence those first readings
have long been most in favour with us; nay, we have often refreshed and
delighted ourselves with poems which the author afterwards rejected.
So true it is, that the life which presses forth out of a "fine soul"
works with the greater freedom the less it appears to be drawn by
criticism into the department of art.
Klopstock, by his character and conduct, had managed to attain regard
and dignity, both for himself and for other men of talent; now they
were also, if possible, to be indebted to him for the security and
improvement of their domestic condition. For the book-trade, in the
previous period, had more to do with important scientific books,
belonging to the different faculties--with stock-works, for which a
moderate remuneration was paid. But the production of poetical works
was looked upon as something sacred; and in this case the acceptance or
increase of any remuneration would have been regarded almost as simony.
Authors and publishers stood in the strangest reciprocal position.
Both appeared, accordingly as it was taken, as patrons and clients.
The authors, who, irrespectively of their talent, were generally
respected and levered by the public as highly moral men, had a mental
rank, and felt themselves rewarded by the success of their labours;
the publishers were well satisfied with the second place, and enjoyed
a considerable profit. But now opulence again set the rich bookseller
above the poor poet, and thus everything stood in the most beautiful
equilibrium. Magnanimity and gratitude were not unfrequent on either
side. Breitkopf and Gottsched lived, all their lives, as inmates of the
same house. Stinginess and meanness, especially that of piracy, were
not yet in vogue.
[Side-note: Commotion in the Book-Trade.]
Nevertheless a general commotion had arisen among the German authors.
They compared their own very moderate, if not poor condition, with
the wealth of the eminent booksellers; they considered how great was
the fame of a Gellert, of a Rabener, and in what narrow domestic
circumstances an universally esteemed German poet must struggle
on, if he did not render life easy by some other calling. Even the
mediocre and lesser minds felt a strong desire to see their situation
improved,--to make themselves free of the publishers.
Now Klopstock came forward and offered his "Republic of Letters"
(_Gelehrte-Republik_) for subscription. Although the latter cantos of
the _Messiah_, partly on account of their subject, partly on account of
the treatment, could not produce the same effect as the earlier ones,
which, themselves pure and innocent, came into a pure and innocent
time, the same respect was always maintained for the poet, who, by
the publication of his odes, had drawn to himself the hearts, minds,
and feelings of many persons. Many well-thinking men, among whom were
several of great influence, offered to secure payment beforehand. This
was fixed at a _Louis d'or_, the object being, it was said, not so much
to pay for the book, as on this occasion to reward the author for his
services to his country. Now every one pressed forward; even youths and
young girls, who had not much to expend, opened their saving-boxes; men
and women, the higher and the middle classes, contributed to this holy
offering; and perhaps a thousand subscribers, all paying in advance,
were collected. Expectation was raised to the highest pitch, and
confidence was as great as possible.
After this, the work, on its appearance, was compelled to experience
the strangest result in the world; it was, indeed, of important value,
but by no means universally interesting. Klopstock's thoughts on poetry
and literature were set forth in the form of an old German Druidical
republic; his maxims on the true and false were expressed in pithy
laconic aphorisms, in which, however, much that was instructive was
sacrificed to the singularity of form. For authors and _littérateurs_,
the book was and is invaluable; but it was only in this circle that
it could be useful and effective. He who had thought himself followed
the thinker; he who knew how to seek and prize what was genuine, found
himself instructed by the profound, honest man; but the amateur, the
general reader, was not enlightened,--to him the book remained sealed;
and yet it had been placed in all hands; and while every one expected
a perfectly serviceable work, most of them obtained one from which
they could not get the smallest taste. The astonishment was general,
but the esteem for the man was so great, that no grumbling, scarcely a
murmur, arose. The young and beautiful part of the world got over their
loss, and now freely gave away the copies they had so dearly purchased.
I received several from kind female friends, but none of them have
remained with me.
This undertaking, which was successful to the author, but a failure
to the public, had the ill consequence, that there was now no further
thought about subscriptions and prepayments; nevertheless the wish
had been too generally diffused for the attempt not to be renewed.
The Dessau publishing-house now offered to do this on a large scale.
Learned men and publishers were here, by a close compact, to enjoy,
both in a certain proportion, the hoped-for advantage. The necessity,
so long painfully felt, again awakened a great confidence; but this
could not last long; and after a brief endeavour the parties separated,
with a loss on both sides.
[Side-note: Combination of young poets.]
However, a speedy communication among the friends of literature was
already introduced. The _Musenalmanache_[1] united all the young poets
with each other; the journals united the poet with other authors. My
own pleasure in production was boundless; to what I had produced I
remained indifferent; only when, in social circles, I made it present
to myself and others, my affection for it was renewed. Moreover, many
persons took an interest in both my larger and smaller works, because
I urgently pressed every one who felt in any degree inclined and
adapted to production, to produce something independently, after his
own fashion, and was, in turn, challenged by all to new poetising and
writing. These mutual impulses, which were carried even to an extreme,
gave every one a happy influence in his own fashion; and from this
whirling and working, this living and letting-live, this taking and
giving, which was carried on by so many youths, from their own free
hearts, without any theoretical guiding-star, according to the innate
character of each, and without any special design, arose that famed,
extolled, and decried epoch in literature, when a mass of young genial
men, with all that audacity and assumption which is peculiar to their
own period of youth, produced, by the application of their powers,
much that was good, and by the abuse of these, much ill-feeling and
mischief; and it is, indeed, the action and reaction which proceeded
from this source, that form the chief theme of this volume.
In what can young people take the highest interest, how are they to
excite interest among those of their own age, if they are not animated
by love, and if affairs of the heart, of whatever kind they may be, are
not living within them? I had in secret to complain of a love I had
lost; this made me mild and tolerant, and more agreeable to society
than in those brilliant times when nothing reminded me of a want or a
fault, and I went storming along completely without restraint.
Frederica's answer to a written adieu rent my heart. It was the same
hand, the same tone of thought, the same feeling, which had formed
itself for me and by me. I now, for the first time, felt the loss which
she suffered, and saw no means to supply it, or even to alleviate it.
She was completely present to me; I always felt that she was wanting to
me and, what was worst of all, I could not forgive myself for my own
misfortune. Gretchen had been taken away from me; Annette had left me;
now, for the first time, I was guilty I had wounded the most beautiful
heart to its very depths; and the period of a gloomy repentance, with
the absence of a refreshing love, to which I had grown accustomed,
was most agonising, nay, insupportable. But man will live; and hence
I took an honest interest in others; I sought to disentangle their
embarrassments, and to unite what was about to part, that they might
not have the same lot as myself. They were hence accustomed to call
me the "confidant," and on account of wandering about the district,
the "wanderer." In producing that calm for my mind, which I felt under
the open sky, in the valleys, on the heights, in the fields and in the
woods, the situation of Frankfort was serviceable, as it lay in the
middle between Darmstadt and Hamburg, two pleasant places, which are on
good terms with each other, through the relationship of both courts. I
accustomed myself to live on the road, and, like a messenger, to wander
about between the mountains and the flat country. Often I went alone,
or in company, through my native city, as if it did not at all concern
me, dined at one of the great inns in the High-street, and after dinner
went further on my way. More than ever was I directed to the open
world and to free nature. On my way I sang to myself strange hymns
and dithyrambics, of which one entitled "The Wanderer's Storm-song"
(_Wanderer's Sturmlied_) still remains. This half-nonsense I sang
aloud, in an impassioned manner, when I found myself in a terrific
storm, which I was obliged to meet.
My heart was untouched and unoccupied; I conscientiously avoided all
closer connexion with ladies, and thus it remained concealed from me,
that, inattentive and unconscious as I was, an amiable spirit was
secretly hovering round me. It was not until many years afterwards,
nay, until after her death, that I learned of her secret heavenly
love, in a manner that necessarily overwhelmed me. But I was innocent,
and could purely and honestly pity an innocent being; nay, I could do
this the more, as the discovery occurred at an epoch when, completely
without passion, I had the happiness of living for myself and my own
intellectual inclinations.
At the time when I was pained by my grief at Frederica's situation,
I again, after my old fashion, sought aid from poetry. I again
continued the poetical confession which I had commenced, that by this
self-tormenting penance I might be worthy of an internal absolution.
The two Marias in _Götz von Berlichingen_ and _Clavigo_, and the two
bad characters who play the part of their lovers, may have been the
results of such penitent reflections.
[Side-note: Skating.]
But as in youth one soon overcomes mental wounds and diseases, because
a healthy system of organic life can rise up for a sick one, and
allow it time to grow healthy again, corporeal exercises, on many a
favourable opportunity, came forward with very advantageous effect;
and I was excited in many ways to man myself afresh, and to seek new
pleasures of life and enjoyments. Riding gradually took the place of
those sauntering, melancholy, toilsome, and at the same time tedious
and aimless rambles on foot; one reached one's end more quickly,
merrily, and commodiously. The young people again introduced fencing,
but in particular, on the setting-in of winter, a new world was
revealed to us, since I at once determined to skate,--an exercise
which I had never attempted,--and, in a short time, by practice,
reflection, and perseverance, brought it as far as was necessary to
enjoy with others a gay, animated course on the ice, without wishing to
distinguish myself.
For this new joyous activity we were also indebted to Klopstock,--to
his enthusiasm for this happy species of motion, which private accounts
confirmed, while his odes gave an undeniable evidence of it. I still
exactly remember that on a cheerful frosty morning I sprang out of bed,
and uttered aloud these passages:--
"Already, glad with feeling of health,
Far down along the shore, I have whiten'd
The covering crystal.
'How does the winter's advancing day
Softly illumine the lake! The night has cast
The glittering frost, like stars, upon it.'
My hesitating and wavering resolution was fixed at once, and I flew
straight to the place where so old a beginner might with some degree
of propriety make his first trial. And, indeed, this manifestation of
our strength well deserved to be commended by Klopstock, for it is an
exercise which brings us into contact with the freshest childhood,
summons the youth to the full enjoyment of his suppleness, and is
fitted to keep off a stagnant old age. We were immoderately addicted
to this pleasure. To pass thus a splendid Sunday on the ice did not
satisfy us, we continued our movement late into the night. For as other
exertions fatigue the body, so does this give it a constantly new
power. The full moon rising from the clouds, over the wide nocturnal
meadows, which were frozen into fields of ice; the night-breeze, which
rustled towards us on our course; the solemn thunder of the ice, which
sank as the water decreased; the strange echo of our own movements,
rendered the scenes of Ossian just present to our minds. Now this
friend, now that, uttered an ode of Klopstock's, in a declamatory
recitative; and if we found ourselves together at dawn, the unfeigned
praise of the author of our joys broke forth:--
"And should he not be immortal,
Who found for us health and joys
Which the horse, though bold in his course, never gave,
And which even the ball is without?"
Such gratitude is earned by a man who knows how to honour and worthily
to extend an earthly act by spiritual incitement.
And thus, as children of talent, whose mental gifts have, at an early
period, been cultivated to an extraordinary degree, return, if they
can, to the simplest sports of youth, did we, too, often forget our
calling to more serious things. Nevertheless this very motion, so
often carried on in solitude--this agreeable soaring in undetermined
space--again excited many of my internal wants, which had, for a time,
lain dormant; and I have been indebted to such hours for a more speedy
elaboration of older plans.
The darker ages of German history had always occupied my desire for
knowledge and my imagination. The thought of dramatizing _Götz von
Berlichingen_, with all the circumstances of his time, was one which
I much liked and valued. I industriously read the chief authors; to
Datt's work, _De Pace Publica_, I devoted all my attention; I had
sedulously studied it through, and rendered those singular details as
visible to me as possible. These endeavours, which were directed to
moral and poetical ends, I could also use in another direction, and
I was now to visit Wetzlar. I had sufficient historical preparation;
for the Imperial Chamber had arisen in consequence of the public
tranquillity, and its history could serve as an important clue through
the confused events of Germany. Indeed, the constitution of the courts
and armies gives the most accurate insight into the constitution of
every empire. Even the finances, the influence of which are considered
so important, come much less under consideration; for if the whole is
deficient, it is only necessary to take from the individual what he has
laboriously scraped together, and thus the state is always sufficiently
rich.
What occurred to me at Wetzlar is of no great importance, but it may
inspire a greater interest, if the reader will not disdain a cursory
history of the Imperial Chamber, in order to render present to his mind
the unfavourable moment at which I arrived there.
[Side-note: History of the Imperial Chamber.]
The lords of the earth are such, principally because they can assemble
around them, in war, the bravest and most resolute, and in peace, the
wisest and most just. Even to the state of a German emperor belonged
a court of this kind, which always accompanied him in his expeditions
through the empire. But neither this precaution, nor the Suabian law,
which prevailed in the south of Germany, nor the Saxon law, which
prevailed in the north,--neither the judges appointed to maintain them,
nor the decisions of the peers of the contending parties,--neither
the umpires recognised by agreement, nor friendly compacts instituted
by the clergy,--nothing, in short, could quiet that excited chivalric
spirit of feuds which had been roused, fostered, and made a custom
among the Germans, by internal discord, by foreign campaigns, by the
crusades especially, and even by judicial usages. To the emperor,
as well as to the powerful estates, these squabbles were extremely
annoying, while, through them, the less powerful became troublesome
to each other, and if they combined, to the great also. All outward
strength was paralysed, while internal order was destroyed; and besides
this, a great part of the country was still encumbered with the
_Vehmgericht_, of the horrors of which a notion may be formed, if we
think that it degenerated into a secret police, which, at last, even
fell into the hands of private persons.
Many attempts to steer against these evils had been made in vain,
until, at last, the estates urgently proposed a court formed from
among themselves. This proposal, well-meant as it might have been,
nevertheless indicated an extension of the privileges of the estates,
and a limitation of the imperial power. Under Frederic III. the matter
is delayed; his son Maximilian, being pressed from without, complies.
He appoints the chief judge, the estates send the assistants. There
were to be four-and-twenty of them; but, at first, twelve are thought
sufficient.
An universal fault, of which men are guilty in their under-takings, was
the first and perpetual fundamental defect of the Imperial Chamber:
insufficient means were applied to a great end. The number of the
assessors was too small. How was the difficult and extensive problem
to be solved by them? But who could urge an efficient arrangement?
The emperor could not favour an institution which seemed to work more
against him than for him; far more reason had he to complete the
formation of his own court--his own council. If, on the other hand,
we regard the interest of the estates, all that they could properly
have to do with was the stoppage of bloodshed. Whether the wound was
healed, did not so much concern them: and now there was to be, besides,
a new expense. It may not have been quite plainly seen that by this
institution every prince increased his retinue, for a decided end
indeed,--but who readily gives money for what is necessary? Every one
would be satisfied, if he could have what is useful "for God's sake."
At first the assistants were to live on fees; then followed a moderate
grant from the estates; both were scanty. But to meet the great and
striking exigency, willing, clever, and industrious men were found,
and the court was established. Whether it was perceived that the
question here was concerning only the alleviation and not the cure
of the evil, or whether, as in similar cases, the flattering hope
was entertained that much was to be done with little, is not to be
decided. It is enough that the court served rather as a pretext to
punish the originators of mischief, than completely to prevent wrong.
But it has scarcely met, than a power grows out of itself; it feels the
eminence on which it is placed; it recognises its own great political
importance. It now endeavours, by a striking activity, to acquire for
itself a more decided respect; they briskly got through what can and
must be rapidly dispatched, what can be decided at the moment, or what
can otherwise be easily judged; and thus, throughout the empire, they
appear effective and dignified. On the other hand, matters of weightier
import, the law-suits, properly so called, remained behindhand,
and this was no misfortune. The only concern of the state is, that
possession shall be certain and secure; whether it is also legal, is of
less consequence. Hence, from the monstrous and ever-swelling number
of delayed suits, no mischief arose to the empire. Against people who
employed force, provision was already made, and with such matters could
be settled; but those, on the other hand, who legally disputed about
possession, lived, enjoyed, or starved, as they could; they died, were
ruined, or made it up; but all this was the good or evil of individual
families,--the empire was gradually tranquillised. For the Imperial
Chamber was endowed with a legal club-law against the disobedient; had
it been able to hurl the bolt of excommunication, this would have been
more effective.
But now, what with the sometimes increased, sometimes diminished
number of assessors, what with the many interruptions, what with the
removal of the court from one place to another, these arrears, these
records necessarily increased to an infinite extent. Now, in the
distress of war, a part of the archives was sent for safety from Spire
to Aschaffenburg, a part to Worms, the third fell into the hands of
the French, who thought they had gained the state-archives, but would
afterwards have been glad to get rid of such a chaos of paper, if any
one would but have furnished the carriages.