"LUCINDE" IN REAL LIFE
Behind this indistinct picture lay a far more definitely outlined
reality. The youthful life of the hero corresponded pretty accurately,
as Friedrich Schlegel's letters show, with that of the author. In
those days Berlin had not yet become pious, but was, according to
the evidence of contemporaries, a species of Venusberg, which none
approached with impunity. The example of the throne sanctioned every
species of moral licence. Enthusiasm for art and literature superseded
the official morality which a short time before had been so powerful,
but from which men were rapidly emancipating themselves.
In the autumn of 1799, the year in which _Lucinde_ was published,
Friedrich Schlegel wrote to Schleiermacher: "People here have been
behaving so outrageously that Schelling has had a fresh attack of his
old enthusiasm for irreligion, in which I support him with all my
might. He has composed an epicurean confession of faith in the Hans
Sachs-Goethe style." This was _Der Widerporst_.
"Kann es fürwahr nicht länger ertragen,
Muss wieder einmal um mich schlagen,
Wieder mich rühren mit allen Sinnen,
So mir dachten zu entrinnen
Von den hohen, überirdischen Lehren,
Dazu sie mich wollten mit Gewalt bekehren
Darum, so will auch ich bekennen
Wie ich in mir es fühle brennen,
Wie mir's in allen Adern schwillt,
Mein Wort so viel wie anderes gilt,
Da ich in bös' und guten Stunden
Mich habe gar trefflich befunden,
Seit ich gekommen in's Klare,
Die Materie sei das einzig Wahre.
Halte nichts vom Unsichtbaren,
Halt' mich allein am Offenbaren,
Was ich kann riechen, schmecken, fühlen,
Mit allen Sinnen drinnen wühlen.
Mein einzig' Religion ist die,
Dass ich liebe ein schönes Knie,
Volle Brust und schlanke Hüften,
Dazu Blumen mit süssen Düften,
Aller Lust volle Nährung,
Aller Liebe süsse Gewährung.
D'rum, sollt's eine Religion noch geben
(Ob ich gleich kann ohne solche leben),
Könnte mir vor den andern allen
Nur die katholische gefallen,
Wie sie war in den alten Zeiten,
Da es gab weder Zanken noch Streiten,
Waren alle ein Mus und Kuchen,
Thäten's nicht in der Ferne suchen,
Thäten nicht nach dem Himmel gaffen,
Hatten von Gott'nen lebend'gen Affen,
Hielten die Erde für's Centrum der Welt,
Zum Centrum der Erde Rom bestellt,
Darin der Statthalter residirt
Und der Welttheile Scepter führt,
Und lebten die Laien und die Pfaffen
Zusammen wie im Land der Schlaraffen,
Dazu sie im hohen Himmelhaus
Selber lebten in Saus und Braus,
War ein täglich Hochzeithalten
Zwischen der Jungfrau und dem Alten."[1]
Such a poem from such a hand is a genuine proof of the spirit of the
times; and it is instructive to observe that when Wilhelm Schlegel
(acting upon Goethe's advice) refuses to publish the poem in the
_Athenæum_, Novalis, against whom it was especially directed, writes:
"I cannot understand why _Der Widerporst_ should not be printed. Is it
on account of its atheism? Just think of _Die Götter Griechenlands_!"
The fashions were revolutionary--uncovered bosoms, orientally flowing
garments. The tone of the most notable young women of the day was
excessively free. No one was more talked of for her beauty at this
time than Pauline Wiesel. She was the wife of a highly intellectual
man, whose scepticism and satirical, cynical wit made a deep and
disturbing impression upon young Tieck (he was the model for Abdallah
and William Lovell); and she was one of Prince Louis Ferdinand's many
mistresses. The attachment of the dashing young prince, in this case
a real passion, still glows in his letters. A contemporary wrote of
her: "I look upon her in the light of a phenomenon of Greek mythology."
Alexander von Humboldt walked more than thirty miles to see her. It is
characteristic of the times that the connection by which Pauline Wiesel
compromised herself roused no disapprobation among her more advanced
women friends. The irreproachable Rahel, for example, has not a word
of blame for it; one might almost imagine that she envied Pauline. As
a young girl she writes despondently: "Every means, every possible
preparation for living, and yet one must never live; I never shall,
and those who dare to do so have the wretched world, the whole world,
against them."
The original of Lucinde, however, was certainly superior to her
portrait, a woman of an altogether nobler type. She belonged to Rahel's
circle, that group of clever young Jewesses who then represented the
noblest, freest intellectual life of Berlin--a circle historically
important from the fact that it was the only one in which as yet
Goethe's fame was really established and true homage paid him.[2]
The lady in question was Moses Mendelssohn's clever, self-reliant
daughter, Dorothea, who, to please her parents, had bestowed her hand
upon the well-known banker, Veit. It was not by beauty but by her wit
and her keen intellectuality that she captivated Friedrich Schlegel.
He was at the time twenty-five years of age, she thirty-two. There was
nothing sensuous or frivolous in either her appearance or manner; she
had large piercing eyes and a masculine severity of expression. In
his letters to his brother Wilhelm, Friedrich Schlegel praises "her
sterling worth." "She is," he says, "very straightforward, and cares
for nothing but love, music, wit, and philosophy." In 1789 Dorothea was
divorced from her husband and followed Schlegel to Jena. The latter
writes at this time: "It has never been our intention to bind ourselves
to each other by any marriage contract, though I have long considered
it impossible that anything but death should part us. The calculation
and adjustment of present and future is antipathetic to me, yet if the
detested ceremony were the necessary condition of inseparableness, I
should act according to the requirement of the moment and sacrifice my
most cherished opinions."
In the arranging of their relations, none of their intimates helped
Friedrich and Dorothea more than their clerical friend, Schleiermacher.
On none of Schlegel's friends had _Lucinde_ had such a powerful effect.
Schleiermacher was at this time chaplain of the Charité Church in
Berlin. He had long followed Friedrich's emancipatory endeavours with
warm sympathy, and even admiration. In his essay _On Diotima_, as well
as in his harsh criticism of Schiller's _Würde der Frauen_, Friedrich
had attacked the traditional conception of woman's position in society.
He had held up to contempt the ordinary marriage, in which the wedded
pair "live together with a feeling of mutual contempt, he seeing in
her only her sex, she in him his social position, and both in their
children their own production and property." What he desired was the
moral and intellectual emancipation of women. Intellect and culture,
combined with enthusiasm, were the qualities which in his eyes made
a woman lovable. The ordinary ideal of womanliness he scorned. He
writes with bitterness of the stupidity and criminality of the men
who demand ignorance and innocence in women, thereby compelling them
to be prudish. Prudery is false pretence of innocence. True innocence
in woman he maintains to be perfectly compatible with intellectual
culture. It exists wherever there is religion, i.e. capacity for
enthusiasm. The idea that noble, enlightened free-thought is less
becoming in the case of women than of men is only one of the many
generally accepted platitudes set in circulation by Rousseau. "The
thraldom of woman" is one of the curses of humanity. His highest
desire as an author was, as he naively puts it, "to found a system of
morality" (eine Moral zu stiften). He calls opposition to positive law
and conventional ideas of right, "the first moral impulse" felt by man.
In his _Vernunftkatechismus für edle Frauen_ ("Catechism of Reason for
Noble-minded Women"), a fragment which appeared in the _Athenæum_,
Schleiermacher writes in exactly the same strain, calling upon women to
free themselves from the bonds of their sex. Nay, incredible as it may
sound, it is quite possible (as Haym has proved) that the frequently
quoted saying of Friedrich Schlegel, that there is nothing of serious
importance to be urged against a _marriage à quatre_, really emanated
from Schleiermacher. It is levelled at the many degrading and unreal
marriages, at the "unsuccessful attempts at marriage," which the State
in its foolishness makes binding, and which prevent the possibility
of a true marriage. The writer of the fragment in which the saying
occurs observes that most marriages are only preparatory and distant
approximations to the true marriage; and Schleiermacher, in his
Letters, writes that many attempts are necessary, and that "if four or
five couples were taken together, really good marriages might result,
provided they were allowed to exchange."
The underlying reason for the warm personal interest taken by
Schleiermacher in Friedrich and Dorothea is, no doubt, to be found in
his own position and circumstances at that time. A devoted attachment
existed between him and Eleonore Grunow, the childless and most unhappy
wife of a Berlin clergyman.
It seemed to Schleiermacher that the popular indignation roused
by _Lucinde_ was largely compounded of philistine and Pharisaical
ignorance. The very people who abused it were revelling in Wieland's
and Crébillon's immoral tales. "It reminds me," he says, "of the trials
for witchcraft, where malice formulated the charge, and pious stupidity
carried out the sentence." But what especially led to his ardent
championship of the persecuted pair was, he tells us himself, the fact
that most of those who complained loudly of offended morality were
simply seeking a pretext for a private personal attack on Schlegel.
An invincible spirit dwelt in Dorothea's frail body. She bore
unfalteringly all that her violation of conventional morality brought
upon her--private condemnation and public defamation in the shape
of innuendoes in the attacks on _Lucinde_. She displayed the most
enduring devotion and the most self-sacrificing faithfulness to the
man she had chosen. She not only shares his interests and aims, but
bears with his unreasonableness and resigns herself uncomplainingly
to the caprices of the most capricious of lovers. Nay, more than
this, her good sense and cheerfulness scatter all the clouds of
despondency that gather round herself and others. Her merry laughter
brings relief from Schleiermacher's subtle argumentativeness and
Friedrich's transcendental irony. Free in every other respect from
feminine sentimentality, she is completely engrossed in admiration of
the man she loves, and, with touching modesty, centres all her pride
in him. When her novel _Florentin_ is published, a book in which,
in spite of its many weaknesses, there is more creative power than
in any of Friedrich Schlegel's productions, what makes her happiest
and proudest is that his name (as editor) stands on the title-page.
She jests merrily on the subject of her literary activity. Blushing
and with a beating heart, she sends the first volume of her book to
Schleiermacher, and she smiles at the numerous red strokes which adorn
the returned manuscript. "There is always the deuce in it where the
dative and accusative ought to be." The fact that she too felt impelled
to write at the time (about the year 1800) when all the Romanticists,
even Schleiermacher and Schelling, were committing literary sins,
marks her as one of the German Romantic literary circle; and, moreover,
her novel is, in reality, an expression of all the prevailing ideas,
an imitation of _Wilhelm Meister_ and _Franz Sternbald_, an exaltation
of the harmoniously cultivated few at the expense of the vulgar crowd,
a glorification of the free Bohemian life, of idleness and admirable
frivolity, of purposelessness in the midst of the prose of reality.
Dorothea has endowed her hero with characteristics which obviously
correspond to Friedrich's as they appeared to her admiring woman's
eyes. "In spite of a peculiar and often repellent manner, he has the
gift of making himself popular, and wins all hearts without caring
whether he does or not. It is of no avail to arm one's self against
him with all one's pride; somehow or other he gains entire possession
of one. It is often most exasperating not to be able to withstand him,
as he himself is not to be won. At times it seems as if he attached
another meaning to his words than their obvious one; sometimes when the
most flattering things are said to him, he looks utterly indifferent,
as if it were a matter of course; at other times, quite unexpectedly,
some chance word, let fall without any special intention, affords him
the greatest pleasure; he either finds in it or puts into it some
peculiar meaning.... But you can imagine how often he gives offence in
society."
Florentin's confessions, too, especially those relating to his
wild life as a youth in Venice, remind us of Friedrich's youthful
experiences in Leipzig. Although Florentin is an Italian, he feels
himself strongly attracted by German art and German artists. He teaches
himself to draw and paint, and makes his living, now as the gifted
Romantic dilettante artist, now as the no less Romantic musician,
roaming from village to village. His birth is wrapt in mystery. He is,
as he himself says, "the solitary, the outcast, the child of chance.
Something indescribable, which I can only call my destiny, drives me
on." He avoids all ties of affection: "Alone will I bear the curse
which has been laid upon me."[3]
It is unnecessary to criticise this characterisation in detail and
point out how naïve and excessively Romantic it is. None the less, its
writer is in many ways superior to her surroundings. Not for nothing
was she the daughter of the sober, sagacious Moses Mendelssohn.
She would like, she says, to see Friedrich the literary artist, but she
would love him better still if she could see in him the worthy citizen
of a well-ordered state; it seems to her, indeed, that the character
and desires of all her revolutionary friends make literary occupations,
reviewing and such-like, as unsuitable for them as a child's cradle for
a giant: her ideal is Götz von Berlichingen, who only took up the pen
as a rest from the sword.[4]
Here again we are impressed by what strikes us in reading of Frau von
Kalb, namely, that the women of this period display more virile and
more concentrated power than the men, and that they persist in treating
from the social standpoint questions which the men desire to treat only
from the literary. They feel the oppression of existing circumstances
more strongly, are less enervated by overmuch book-learning, and look
at things more practically than the men.
The first important event in the life of the young couple was Fichte's
coming to live with them. Fichte had been accused of teaching atheism,
and his position as a professor was in jeopardy. Caroline Schlegel
writes to a friend: "I must answer your questions about the Fichte
affair, though it is a very painful one to me and to all admirers of
honourable, frank behaviour. You know pretty well yourself what to
think of the first accusation, made by a bigoted sovereign and his
counsellors, half of them Catholics, the rest Moravian Brethren....
But Fichte is so exasperated by all sorts of reports from Weimar,
about things looking bad for him there, &c. &c., that he declares
he will resign if they reprimand him, or put any restriction on his
teaching.... All who would stand well at court, and the professors whom
Fichte has outshone, denounce his boldness and precipitancy. He is
abandoned, actually avoided."
In a letter written jointly by Friedrich, Schleiermacher, and Dorothea,
the last-mentioned says: "Things are going well with Fichte here; he
is left in peace. Nicolai has intimated that no notice whatever will be
taken of him so long as he does not attempt to give public lectures;
this would not be well received.... I get on excellently with Fichte,
and feel as much at home in this gathering of philosophers as if I
had never been accustomed to anything inferior. Though I am still a
little timid, this has nothing to do with Fichte personally, but rather
with my own position to the world and to Friedrich--I am afraid--yet
possibly I am mistaken. I cannot write another word, dear, for my
philosophers are pacing up and down the room so incessantly that I am
quite giddy."
Here we have a little domestic scene from Dorothea's life in Berlin.
The three were so comfortable together that Fichte was desirous to make
the arrangement permanent. He writes to his wife that he is trying to
persuade Friedrich to remain in Berlin, and August Wilhelm and his wife
to remove there. "If my plan succeeds, the two Schlegels, Schelling,
who must also be persuaded to come, and we ourselves will form one
family, take a large house, have only one cook, &c., &c."[5] The plan
was not carried out. The wives of the two Schlegels did not get on with
each other. But is it not like a breath from another world to come,
in the midst of all this solicitude for Fichte and indignation at the
wrong done him, upon such a passage in one of Dorothea's letters as
the following: "I heartily thank your mother for the sweet picture of
the saint. I keep it where I can always see it. She is the very saint
I should have chosen for myself; she suits me exactly. These pictures
and the Catholic music touch me so, that I am determined, if I become
a Christian, to be a Catholic."[6] Nowhere is the religious confusion
which distinguishes the Romantic School more plainly displayed.
But Dorothea is not the only female portrait in _Lucinde_. During the
course of his development Julius makes the acquaintance of an admirable
woman, who is described as follows: "This disease was cured, was
expelled, by the very first sight of a woman who was quite unique, and
who was the first to exercise complete influence over his mind.... She
had made her choice, and had given herself to one who was his friend as
well as hers, and who was worthy of her love. Julius was the confidant.
He knew exactly what it was that made him unhappy, and sternly judged
his own baseness.... He forced all his love back into his inmost heart
and let passion rage and burn and consume there. But his outward
man was quite changed. So successful was he in counterfeiting the
most childlike frankness and innocence, and in assuming a sort of
fraternal brusqueness to prevent his melting into tenderness, that
she never entertained the slightest suspicion. She was gay and genial
in her happiness; suspecting nothing, she shunned nothing, but gave
her mood and wit free play when she found him unamiable. All the
nobility and all the grace, all the divinity and all the waywardness
of the feminine character found in her their most refined, their most
womanly expression. Each quality was allowed to develop as freely
and vigorously as if it were the only one; and the daring mixture of
dissimilar elements did not produce confusion, for a spirit inspired
it which was a living breath of harmony and love. In the course of
the same hour she would reproduce some comic episode with the refined
abandon of the accomplished actress, and read a great poem with
simple, touching dignity. At one time it pleased her fancy to shine
and trifle in society, at another she was all enthusiasm and ardour,
and presently she would be assisting others by word and deed, serious,
unassuming, and gentle as a tender mother. Her manner of relating it
made any trifling incident as entertaining as a delightful fairy tale.
She embellished everything with feeling and wit; she had a power of
comprehending everything, and of ennobling everything she touched.
Nothing great or good was too holy or too common for her passionate
sympathy. She understood the slightest suggestion, and answered even
the question that was not asked. It was not possible to make long
speeches to her; they turned naturally into interesting conversations,
during which an ever-varying music of intelligent glances and sweet
expressions played over her delicate features. One seemed to see
these glances and expressions while reading her letters, so lucidly
and genially did she write, as if talking with her correspondent.
Those who only knew this side of her might think that she was merely
lovable, that she would make an enchanting actress, that nothing but
metre and rhyme were wanting to make her winged words exquisite poetry.
But this same woman showed on every occasion that called for it the
most astonishing courage and energy; and it was from this side of her
character, by her own heroic standard, that she judged men."
There is more praise than art in this portrait. Sainte-Beuve would have
given us a very different delineation. The original of the picture
is a woman who, after the publication of her letters under the title
Caroline, was known, as if she had been a queen, only by this, her
Christian name. It simplified matters, too, to designate her thus, for
she had had so many surnames that it was difficult to know by which
to call her. She was a daughter of the well-known German philologist,
Michaelis; her first husband was a Dr. Böhmer; after his death she
married A. W. Schlegel, and her third husband was Schelling. These two
last marriages placed her in the centre of the Romantic circle, which
seems naturally to group itself round her. She was its own special
muse. Grier, the gifted translator of Calderon and Ariosto, says of
her that she is by far the cleverest woman he has known. Steffens
and Wilhelm von Humboldt use similar expressions. A. W. Schlegel
writes of several of his essays, that they are "in part the work of
a highly gifted woman, who possessed all the qualifications of a
successful author, but whose ambition did not lie in that direction."
Schelling writes at the time of her death: "Even had she not been to
me what she was, I should mourn the human being, should lament that
this intellectual paragon no longer exists, this rare woman, who
to masculine strength of soul and the keenest intellect united the
tenderest, most womanly, most loving heart. We shall never see her like
again." Her portrait is very striking--fascinating, refined, roguish,
and yet tender. She is quite in Leonardo's style. Dorothea is far less
complex.
Caroline was born in 1763, and was twenty-one at the time of her first
marriage. A. W. Schlegel made her acquaintance whilst he was a student
at Göttingen, and fell in love with her, but she refused to marry him.
Intercourse between them was broken off for a time, but was carried on
by correspondence while Schlegel was at Amsterdam, where he went as a
tutor in 1791. Here various amorous episodes, amongst them one serious
love affair, threw Caroline for a time into the shade. Meanwhile, she
was entangling herself in a net of the strangest relations. In 1799
she had gone to Mainz, where she lived in the house of Georg Forster,
Humboldt's teacher, a man equally distinguished as a scientist and
an author. When this gifted and admirable, but far too sanguine man,
embarked on revolutionary enterprises and attempted to extend French
republicanism to the Rhine districts, Caroline enthusiastically
aided and abetted him. She was in communication with the members
of the Republican Club in Mainz, and she was unjustly suspected of
communicating with the enemy through her brother-in-law, G. Böhmer,
who was Custine's secretary. When Mainz was reconquered by the German
troops, she was arrested, and spent several months in barbarous
imprisonment, sharing a room with seven other people. From prison she
wrote to A. W. Schlegel for assistance.
Her position was even worse than it appeared to be. In Mainz, in
desperation at the disappointment of her dearest hopes (she had
expected that the manly, energetic Tatter would offer her his hand),
she had thrown herself into the arms of her adorer for the moment,
a Frenchman, and the results of this connection would inevitably
compromise her for ever, if she were not freed from prison in time.
Schlegel's influence and her own brother's unremitting endeavours
procured her release. With quiet chivalry August Wilhelm placed
Caroline, now forsaken by all her other friends, under the protection
of his younger brother, Friedrich. It was in these singularly
unpropitious circumstances that Friedrich made her acquaintance. He was
by no means prepossessed in her favour, in fact, was inclined to look
upon her with contempt; yet this is how he writes: "I had certainly
not expected simplicity and a positively divine truthfulness.... She
made a profound impression upon me. I longed to be in a position to
win her confidence and friendship; but the moment she showed some
return of the feeling I saw very clearly that the bare attempt would
lead to the most painful struggles, and that if a friendship between
us were possible at all, it could only be the fruit of much that was
unjustifiable.... Thenceforward every selfish desire was abandoned.
The relation in which I stood to her was perfectly innocent and
simple. In my behaviour there was the reverence of a son, the candour
of a brother, the frankness of a child, and the unobtrusiveness of a
stranger."[7]
In 1796 A. W. Schlegel married his somewhat deeply compromised friend.
Her circle soon included all the leading men of the day. She was in
constant intercourse with Goethe, Herder, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel,
Tieck, Schleiermacher, and Hardenberg. This was the time of Goethe's
intimate connection with the young school. It was in the process of
formation, and its members held their first meetings at Jena. Caroline
breakfasts with Goethe, dines with Fichte, and is soon only too
inseparable from Schelling.
The following extract from one of her letters to Schelling (March
1, 1801) affords an example of the vigour and the subtlety of this
remarkable woman's criticism: "You surely do not expect me, dearest
friend, to enlighten you as to the compass of Fichte's mind, though
you almost express yourself as if you did. It has always seemed to me
as if, in spite of his incomparable reasoning powers, the soundness
of his deductions, his lucidity and accuracy, his direct intuition of
the Ego, and his discoverer's enthusiasm--as if in spite of all this
he were limited. My explanation of the matter is, that the divine
spark is lacking in him; and if you have broken through a circle from
which he has not been able to escape, I believe that you have done it
not so much as the philosopher--don't scold me if I am using the word
wrongly--but rather because there is poetry in you and none in him.
Poetical inspiration led you directly to productiveness; keenness
of apprehension led him to knowledge. He has light, the clearest and
brightest, but you have warmth as well; and light can only illuminate,
while warmth produces. Now, have I not seen all this cleverly?--just as
one sees a boundless landscape through a keyhole."
In another letter we find an amusing reference to Hegel, which shows
us that philosopher in a novel light: "Hegel is playing the beau and
general gallant" (Hegel macht den Galanten und allgemeinen Cicisbeo).[8]
Caroline shares enthusiastically in all the efforts of the Romantic
School; she revises, reviews anonymously, writes herself, influences
other writers directly and indirectly. She is obliged to expend that
politico-revolutionary ardour, of which she possesses a far larger
share than the men, on literary skirmishes and intrigues. We find
her, for instance, writing an anonymous and tolerably sharp review of
Schlegel's _Ion_; Schlegel replies, also anonymously, criticising her
criticism; then Caroline calls Schelling to her assistance, and he,
acting as her champion, falls upon Schlegel still more heavily in a
third anonymous article, written in an extremely polished manner--at
the same time writing privately to him that he hopes he will not take
it amiss. It is to Caroline that the misunderstanding and final rupture
between Schiller and Schlegel is due; she sets the brothers against
the poet by her extremely witty but unfair mockery of his style;
Schiller, on his side, cannot be acquitted of having treated them with
considerable haughtiness at the beginning of their literary career. His
name for Caroline is "Dame Lucifer."
Caroline's worst side was displayed in her small-minded hatred of poor
Dorothea Veit, whom she positively persecuted. This hatred disturbed
the beautiful relation between August Wilhelm and Friedrich, who
were intimate friends as well as brothers. At one time it threatened
to separate them altogether. Observe the way in which she speaks of
Dorothea: "Friedrich was present at the performance of _Alarkos_, and
immediately afterwards got into a post-chaise and set off for France,
where it is his intention to be married in republican fashion.
Under Robespierre, drowning in the Loire went by the name of _noces
republicaines_; such a wedding for one half of the couple I should not
object to."
Her best qualities were called forth by her daughter, that remarkable
child, Auguste Böhmer, whose name, although she died at the age of
fifteen, has a place in the history of German literature. All who
read this child's criticism of Friedrich or of Dorothea, or her
rhymed letters to Tieck and Schleiermacher, are astounded by her
precociousness. Her death was a turning-point in Caroline's life.
Schelling, who very possibly had been first attracted by the daughter,
drew nearer to the mother in her sudden and sad bereavement. He was
then quite young, labouring ardently at his earliest works, glowing
with passion, sparkling with genius, the favourite of Goethe. Caroline
and he had a great common sorrow and need of consolation. Their
feeling for each other soon assumed the character of passionate love.
The publication by the unscrupulous opponents of the Romanticists of
a pamphlet in which it was asserted that Schelling, with his crazy
_Naturphilosophie_ and the treatment he had recommended, had shortened
the child's life, only drew them closer together. The charge was a pure
fabrication. It was in his reply to this pamphlet that Schelling made
use of the violent language quoted in the introduction to Lassalle's
_Capital and Labour_. Caroline's relations with Schlegel had long been
of the coldest; he and she lived in different towns. Had she been of a
jealous disposition, she would have found abundant cause for complaint.
After his separation from Caroline, Schlegel formed a connection with
Tieck's sister, Sophie Bernhardi, who divorced her husband for his
sake. His last attempt at marriage, with the daughter of Paulus, the
rationalist, was not a success, and ended in a divorce.
When Schelling and Caroline had become so indispensable to each other
that it was necessary to break the tie which bound her to Schlegel,
the latter, with perfect chivalry, gave his consent. Writing of the
divorce, Caroline says: "We broke a tie which neither of us had ever
considered permanently binding."[9] Her new marriage was a perfectly
happy one.
The way in which Schlegel takes Caroline's decision enlightens us not
only as to the theories of the Romanticists, but as to the manner
in which the leaders of the school applied them in their own lives.
August Wilhelm not only gives his consent, but continues to keep up a
friendly correspondence with Schelling, and in literary matters the two
men render each other valuable assistance. Caroline herself maintains
the friendliest relations with Schlegel long after he is aware of the
relation in which she stands to Schelling. She writes to him in May
1801: "Will you, please, decide a dispute between Schelling and me?
Are these hexameters (Schelling's) worth anything? I consider the last
lines awkward, but he maintains that they are good." Schlegel actually
visited the couple at Munich, in company with Madame de Staël.
Thus even very serious personal disagreements and ruptures could
not divide those whom fellowship of ideas and a common endeavour to
promote them, united. The Romanticists considered personal liberty an
inalienable right, and respected it in others while demanding it for
themselves.
But we learn something else besides the fact that the Romanticists were
very changeable in their loves, and perfectly regardless of social
ties; and that something is, that their women were superior to them
in everything but talent, and that what the men did was to drag them
down to their own level. We see the strong-minded, energetic Dorothea,
who is so keenly sensible of the pettiness of the purely literary
endeavours of the Romanticists, slowly change, see her reluctantly
admire _Lucinde_, then write novels herself in the prescribed style,
and finally follow Friedrich to Vienna and become a Catholic along
with him. Or look at the high-spirited, enthusiastic, resolute
Caroline, who, as a young widow not much over twenty, attempts to
revolutionise the Rhineland. So unflinching is she then, that she
compromises herself recklessly, and risks the life and well-being of
those dearest to her with absolute regardlessness. Friedrich writes
to August Wilhelm: "I shall never forgive her heartlessness in being
ready to beguile you, her friend, into that vortex of ignoble dangers
and worthless characters." Only a few years later we see this same
woman writing anonymous reviews, favourable or unfavourable, of her
husband's wretched dramas, and entirely absorbed in literary intrigues.
Ever and anon her spirit is momentarily stirred by a breath wafted
from the old times. Then we feel how changed she is. Writing to her
daughter in October 1799, after giving her a quantity of family news,
the last item of which is: "Hofrath Hufeland has returned, with wife
and children," she exclaims: "But what sorry trash is all this!
_Buonaparte is in Paris!_ Think of that, child! All will go well again.
The Russians have been driven out of Switzerland; they and the English
will be obliged to capitulate with disgrace in Holland; the French
are making way in Swabia; and now comes Buonaparte. Rejoice with me,
or I shall think that you are entirely taken up with frivolities and
have no serious thoughts at all." Then, almost in the same breath,
literary gossip: "Tieck is here and we are much together. You would
never believe all that these men take it into their heads to do. I
will send you a sonnet on Merkel. He has been running about Berlin,
telling that the Schlegels have received a reprimand from the Duke on
account of the _Athenæum_, &c. So Wilhelm and Tieck set to work the
other evening and wrote a wicked sonnet in his honour. It was splendid
to see the two pairs of brown eyes flashing at each other, and the wild
merriment with which the perfectly justifiable squib was concocted.
Dorothea and I almost rolled on the floor with laughter. She knows
how to laugh, which will recommend her to you. Merkel is done for; he
will never recover it. There will be a terrible uproar.... Schelling
is attacking the _Allgemeine Litteraturzeitung_ with all his might.
_These quarrels, however, are of no importance to you; but Buonaparte
and the Russians most certainly are_." It is as though she strove to
keep the larger interests alive in her daughter, feeling that they were
dying in herself. Soon she marries Schelling, and conforms to all the
established conventions of that great clerical stronghold, Bavaria.
Many great men have vainly attempted to teach the women they loved to
share their interests. To my mind no worse accusation can be brought
against gifted men, no surer sign of their weakness adduced than this,
that, far from raising the women who have given themselves to them
and followed them, they have dragged them down, taken from them their
highest interests and noblest sympathies, and given them small and
mean ones in exchange. From such a charge the Romanticists cannot free
themselves. They treated the great women given them by the gods as they
did the great ideas which were their own heritage; they took from them
the noble, liberal-minded social and political enthusiasm by which
they were naturally characterised, and made them, first Romantic and
literary, then remorseful, and finally Catholic.
[1] Plitt: _Aus Schelling's Leben_, i. 282. "I can bear it no longer; I
must live once more, must let my senses have free play--these senses of
which I have well-nigh been robbed by the grand transcendental theories
to which they have done their utmost to convert me. But I too will now
confess how my heart leaps and the hot blood rushes through my veins;
my word is as good as any man's; and of good cheer have I been, in fair
weather and in foul, since I became persuaded that there is nothing
real but matter. I care not for the invisible; I keep to the tangible,
to what I can taste and smell, and feel, and satisfy all my senses
with. I have no religion but this, that I love a well-shaped knee, a
fair, plump bosom, a slender waist, flowers with the sweetest odours,
full satisfaction of all desires, the granting of all sweet love can
ask. If I am obliged to have a religion (though I can live most happily
without it), then it must be the Catholic, such as it was in the olden
days, when there was no scolding and quarrelling, when all were kneaded
of one dough. They did not trouble about the far-off, did not look
longingly up to heaven; they had a living image of God. The earth they
held to be the centre of the universe, and the centre of the earth was
Rome. There the great vicegerent sat enthroned, and wielded the sceptre
of the world; and priests and laity lived together as they live in the
land of Cocagne; and in the house of God itself high revelry was held."
[2] Köpke: _Tieck's Leben_, i. 193.
[3] Florentin, pp. 65, 80, 170, 195, 230, 310.
[4] Haym, _Die romantische Schule_, 509, 525, 663, &c.
[5] _Caroline_, i. 254, 259, 261.
[6] _Caroline_, i. 393.
[7] _Caroline_, i. 347, 348.
[8] _Caroline_, ii. 2.
[9] _Caroline_, ii. 237.