There seems a very general belief among sensible people that we have had
enough of the Germans. What with barons, and princes, and geheimraths, and
consistorialraths, and poets, and philosophers, burying their profundity
in tobacco smoke, and other "reek" more impervious still, we certainly
have had enough in book and essay, for the last few years, of the German
Man. And, latterly, the German women have come in for their share. If the
men have been puffed and praised till their very names are ridiculous and
offensive, it is not so with the gracious and high-born ladies. All the
old dowagers that flourish a goose-quill make a simultaneous assault on
the unfortunate "frau," or "fraulein;" pedantic old bachelors are
horrified at the wildness of some of the female Godwin's observations, and
fall to, in the general _melee_, tugging and tearing at the miserable
damsel till not a shred is left to cover her; and starched old maids, who
have been wondering for twenty years if Woman can etherealize society,
rejoice to see the punishment of such a presuming minx, and encourage the
performers with all their might. The attack may be very spirited, and the
culprit properly trounced in most cases--so we are contented to leave the
fantastic and philosophic heroines--so bepraised by their countrymen--to
the tender mercies of our Amazons at home; but we couch the lance, in
Maga's lists, on behalf of one whose name is known very widely, but whose
character is little understood, and constitute ourselves champion _a
l'outrance_ of Bettina Brentano. Yes, we are in love--over head and
ears--with Bettina Brentano. But we must guard ourselves a little in
making this confession. It is towards the nice, clever, black-eyed,
light-figured little houri of that name, in the pleasant years 1807-8-9,
and 10, that we own the soft impeachment, or rather make proud profession
of our feelings. With regard to the present bearer of the denomination,
who has gone, in despite of our affection, and married a man of the name
of Arnini, we confess we are utterly indifferent to her; and shall
maintain till our dying day, that the authoress of the _Letters to Goethe_
died in the early part of the year 1811, universally lamented, and giving
promise of a mind, when matured and steadied, such as no petticoated
genius--not De Stael herself--has equalled. Such letters, so full of wild
fancies, poetical descriptions, and burning declarations, were never
written by man to woman, or woman to man, before or since. They could not
be written by woman to man--they were written by a _child_ to Goethe. And
this is the key to the wonders of the correspondence. Don't let people
talk nonsense about the improprieties of her behaviour--and shake their
foolish heads, and lift their puritanic eyes up to heaven: her conduct, we
grant them, would have been very improper in _them_; but in Bettina
Brentano it was beautiful, graceful, and as free from impropriety as the
morning and evening walks of Paul and Virginia. Perhaps we may condescend
on some of the particulars dwelt on in the accusation--but perhaps we may
not--for the people who see errors and grossnesses in the language or
behaviour of Bettina, blush "celestial rosy red" at the Apollo and the
Venus. Let them get trousers and petticoats for the god and goddess, and
leave poor Bettina alone.
There lived in Frankfort, in the summer of 1807, a little girl of fourteen
or fifteen years of age, very small in stature, and so light and dancing
in her movements that she might have passed for an attendant of Queen
Titania; but in her deep black eyes there was a sort of light that the
fairies have not yet arrived at--and her voice was musical--and her lips
were rosy; and every where she was known as the cleverest little girl that
ever was seen, either in fairyland or Frankfort, or any where else. She
was of a sweet, affectionate, trusting nature, and entered with a romantic
tenderness into an alliance with a wild, half-insane enthusiast, several
years older than herself--the sister Guenderode, a canoness of a convent
on the Rhine. The lay-sister talked and reasoned herself into the
persuasion that she would be happier out of the world than in it; so,
instead of marrying the surgeon or other respectable inhabitant of the
free city, and having a large family to provide for, which would have put
more sensible thoughts into her head, she stabbed herself one fine day on
the bank of the river--and Bettina had no longer a friend.
But there dwelt in the same town a majestic woman--strong-minded,
tender-hearted--and with talent enough to compensate for the stupidity of
all the other old women (male and female) in Frankfort; and her name was
Madame Goethe, and she was seventy-five years old, and lived in an old
house by herself. Bettina went to her, with her head sunk in grief, and
her heart yearning for somebody to make a friend of, and sat down on a
stool at the old lady's feet, and said, "I have lost my Guenderode, will
you be my friend in her stead?" And the old lady was delighted, and kissed
her; and Bettina sat at her feet, day after day, from that time forth; and
they were the two tenderest friends in Germany. And a pleasant thing it
would be to have been a mouse in the wall to hear such conversation as was
carried on by the two.
Now, in the year 1749, there was born a boy in Frankfort,--a poet, great
in soul--the maker of his country's literature--no other than the
illustrious Goethe--a son worthy of such a mother as Bettina's friend; and
while all Germany and France--the whole civilized world in short--were
almost worshipping his matured, perhaps his decaying genius, the noble
mother was loud and eloquent in her description of him as a boy--as a
youth--as a poet of twenty years old; and the little girl of fifteen sat
and listened, till there arose in her heart--or rather in her brain, for
it was a stirring of the intellect more than the affections--a feeling of
intense admiration, softened under the mother's teaching into something
that she herself fancied was love; for which audacious fancy the sagacious
old woman gave her some raps over the knuckles--(we are not sure that they
were altogether figurative either, but good substantial raps)--enough to
make the fingers tingle in a very disagreeable manner indeed. But in spite
of raps, whether figurative or not, she went on feeding her fancy with all
these glowing accounts; and for a while we have no doubt that she never
gave the almanac a thought--nor the baptismal register--nor the fact,
known to all arithmeticians, that a person born in 1749 was fifty-eight
years old in 1807. Fifty-eight years old, with long white hair. But
Bettina had never seen him. She only knew him in his works as a poet, and
as a man--or rather as a boy--in the beautiful recollections of his
mother. "You don't ask after Wolfgang," says that sensible old matron in
one of her letters; "I've always said to you--wait a while till some one
else comes, you'll not trouble your _head_ about _him_ any more." But in
the mean time she did trouble her _head_ about him to an intolerable
extent; and great was her rejoicing when her brother-in-law offered to
take her as companion to his wife, in a journey he was forced to make to
Berlin, and afterwards to Weimar. The country was at that time the seat of
war; camps and positions of many different armies had to be passed
through; and as a protection to the ladies they were dressed in men's
clothes. Bettina sat on the box the whole time--passed as a little tiger
at the inns where they slept--making herself generally useful, harnessing
and unharnessing the horses--sleeping all night outside, though the
weather was piercingly cold; and finally, after a week of hard travelling,
arrived at the city of the sages--the literary capital of Germany. Her
first care here was to change her dress, and find out her relation
Wieland--from him she got a note to Goethe, and, armed with that,
presented herself at his house. This is her account of the meeting in her
letter to his mother:--
"The door opened, and there he stood, solemn and still, and looked
steadily at me. I stretched my hands to him, I believe--but soon I was
unconscious of every thing. Goethe catched me to his breast.--'Poor child,
have I frightened you?' These were the first words that made their way to
my heart. He led me into his room, and placed me on a sofa opposite him.
We were both silent--at last he said, 'You have read in the newspapers
that we have lately met with a severe loss, in the death of the Duchess
Amelie.' 'Ah! I said, 'I never read the newspapers.' 'Indeed! I thought
you took an interest in all that goes on at Weimar.' 'No, no, I take no
interest in any thing at Weimar but you; and I have not patience enough to
toil through a newspaper.' 'You are an affectionate little girl.' A long
pause--I, banished all the while to the horrid sofa, and very fidgety of
course. You know how impossible it is for me to sit there and do the
pretty behaved. Ah, mother, can a person change his nature all at once? I
said plump--'Here, on this sofa, I can't stay,' and sprang up. 'Make
yourself comfortable, by all means,' said he. So I flew to him, and put my
arms round his neck. He took me on his knee, and pressed me to his heart.
All was still. I had not slept for such a time. I had sighed to see him
for years. I fell asleep with my head on his breast; and, when I awoke, it
was to a new existence;--and that is all at this present writing."
Bettina, we repeat, was fifteen--Goethe was fifty-eight; and this
narrative was sent to his mother. We will only add, that Voltaire affected
an interesting blush when he thought on the improprieties of the Book of
Ruth. So, hold up your head, our bright-eyed, beautiful Bettina, and cheer
the heart of the old man eloquent with your affection; and tell him over
and over, in your own wild and captivating manner, that you love him, and
worship him, and think of him always, and sing his ballads, and read his
books--and nobody in their senses will think a bit the worse of you for
it--not even your worthy husband, who was five or six and twenty years old
when you married him; and, very likely, was nearly as enthusiastic about
Wolfgang as yourself. And as to kissing and jumping on people's knees, and
hugging close to the heart, these seem equivalent, among the Germans of
all ranks and ages, to a good hearty shake of the hand among our more
sedately behaved population; and though we think that, under ordinary
circumstances, our national customs in those respects are preferable, we
are not prepared to say that we should be sorry for the introduction of a
little Germanism in our own case, if we were a great poet at the age of
fifty-eight, and were acquainted with a lively, happy, charming little
genius like Bettina, of fifteen. And that she was all that we have called
her--and more--we will now proceed to show, by giving a few translations
from her letters; and, if we can find an opportunity of introducing a
story or two by the mother, we will not let it pass.--And here let us make
a remark, savouring, perhaps, of national vanity--of which failing we have
heard our countrymen not unfrequently accused. Our remark is this, that
the Frau Rath, as Goethe's mother is called, has many characteristics
about her which we have been in the habit of considering Scotch. If we
reduced her reported conversations to our native Doric, they would read
exactly like the best parts of Scott and Galt--a great deal of shrewdness,
mixed with a wild sort of humour, sarcastic and descriptive; but in her,
perhaps, elevated by an occasional burst of poetry into something higher
than is met with in the _Ayrshire Legatees_, or even in _Cyril Thornton_.
In saying this, we allude, of course, to none of the tedious "havers"
contained in the book dedicated to the King of Prussia, or at least to the
anti-biblical parts of them--the old Frau Rath being about the worst
commentator it has ever been our fortune to meet.
But let us go back to Bettina. "Morris Bethman tells me," says the Frau
Rath, in a letter to her pet, "that the De Stael is going to call on me.
She has been in Weimar. I wish you were here, for I must get up my French
as well as I can." And the jealousy of the fiery Bettina bursts out at the
very thought of any one being at Weimar and visiting Goethe but herself.
"I have not heard from your son since the 13th of August, and here is the
end of September. De Stael has made his time pass quickly, and driven me
out of his head. A celebrated woman is a curiosity. Nobody else can
compete with her. She is like brandy, which the poor grain it is made from
can never be compared to. For brandy smacks on the tongue and gets into
the heard, and so does a celebrated woman. But the simple wheat is better
far to me;--the sower sows it in the loosened soil, and the bounteous sun
and fruitful showers draw it from the earth again, and it makes green the
whole field, and bears golden ears, and at last gives rise to a happy
harvest-home. I would rather be a simple wheat-grain than a celebrated
woman; and rather, far rather, that he should break me for his daily bread
than that I should get into his head like a dram. And now I will tell you
that I supped last night with De Stael in Maintz. No woman would sit next
her at table, so I sat down beside her myself. It was uncomfortable
enough; for the gentlemen stood round the table, and crowded behind our
chairs, to speak to her and see her close. They bent over me. I
said--'_Vos adorateurs me suffoquent_.' She laughed. She told me that
Goethe had spoken to her of me. I would fain have sat and listened, for I
should like to hear what it was he said. And yet I was wrong; for I would
rather he did not speak of me to any one--and I don't believe he did--she
perhaps only said so. At last so many came to speak to her, and pressed
upon me so much, that I couldn't bear it any longer. I said to her--'_Vos
lauriers me pesent trop sur les epaules_;' and I stood up, and pushed my
way through the crowd. Sismondi, her companion, came to me and kissed my
hand, and told me I was very clever, and said it to the rest, and they
repeated it twenty times over, as if I had been a prince whose sayings are
always thought so wise though ever so commonplace.
"After that I listened to what she said about Goethe. She said she
expected to find him a second Werther, but she was disappointed--neither
his manners nor appearance were like it, and she was very sorry that he
fell short of him so entirely. Frau Rath, I was in a rage at this, (that
was of no use you will say,) and I turned to Schlegel, and said to him in
German, 'Madame de Stael has made a double mistake--first in her
expectation, and then in her judgment. We Germans expect that Goethe can
shake twenty heroes from his sleeve to astonish the French--but in our
judgment he himself is a hero of a very different sort.' Schlegel is very
wrong not to have informed her better on this. She threw a laurel leaf
that she had been playing with on the ground. I stamped on it, and pushed
it out of the way with my foot, and went off. That was my interview with
the celebrated woman."
But the De Stael is made the heroine of another letter, in which Bettina
give Goethe an account of her presentation to his mother. The ceremony
took place in the apartments of Morris Bethman.
"Your mother--whether out of irony or pride--had decked herself
wonderfully out--but with German fancy, not in French taste; and I must
tell you that, when I saw her with three feathers on her head, swaying
from side to side--red, white, and blue--the French national
colours--which rose from a field of sun-flowers--my heart beat high with
pleasure and expectation. She was rouged with the greatest skill; her
great black eyes fired a thundering volley; about her neck hung the
well-known ornament of the Queen of Prussia; lace of a fine ancestral look
and great beauty--a real family treasure--covered her bosom. And there she
stood, with white _glacee_ gloves;--in one hand an ornamented fan, with
which she set the air in motion; with the other, which was bare, and all
be-ringed with sparkling jewels, she every now and then took a pinch from
the snuff-box with your miniature on the lid--the one with long locks,
powdered, and with the head leant down as if in thought. A number of
dignified old dowagers formed a semicircle in the bedroom of Morris
Bethman; and the assemblage, on a deep-red carpet--a white field in the
middle, on which was worked a leopard--looked very grand and imposing.
Along the walls were ranged tall Indian plants, and the room was dimly
lighted with glass-lamps. Opposite the semicircle stood the bed, on an
estrade raised two steps, also covered with a deep-red carpet, with
candelabra at each side.
"At last came the long-expected visitor through a suite of illuminated
rooms, accompanied Benjamin Constant. She was dressed like Corinne;--a
turban of aurora and orange-coloured silk--a gown of the same, with an
orange tunic, very high in the waist, so that her heart had very little
room. Her black eyebrows and eyelashes shone, and so did her lips also,
with a mystic red. The gloves were turned down, and only covered the hand,
in which she carried, as usual, the myrtle twig. As the room where she was
waited for was much lower than the others, she had four steps to descend.
Unluckily she lifted up her gown from the front instead of from behind,
which gave a severe blow to the solemnity of her reception; for it
appeared for a moment worse even than merely funny, when this
extraordinary figure, dressed in strictly Oriental fashion, broke loose
upon the staid and virtuous _elite_ of Frankfort society. Your mother gave
me a courageous look when they were introduced. I had taken my stand at a
distance to watch the scene. I observed De Stael's surprise at the
wonderful adornment of your mother, and at her manner, which was full of
dignity. She spread out her gown with her left hand, giving the salute
with her right which sported the fan; and, while she bowed her head
repeatedly with great condescension, she said in a loud voice, that
sounded distinctly through the room--'_Je suis la mere de Goethe._'--'_Ah,
je suis charmee!_' said the authoress; and then there was a solemn
silence. Then followed the presentation of her distinguished companions,
who were all anxious also to be introduced to Goethe's mother. She
answered all their polite speeches with a new-year's wish in French, which
she muttered between her teeth, with a multitude of stately curtsies. In
short the audience was now begun, and must have given them a fine idea of
our German _grandezza_. Your mother beckoned me to her side to interpret
between them; the conversation was all about you--about your childhood.
The portrait on the snuff-box was examined. It was painted in Leipsic
before the great illness you had; but even then you were very thin. It was
easy to see all your present greatness in those childish features, and
particularly the author of _Werther_. De Stael spoke of your letter, and
said she would like to see how you write to your mother, and your mother
promised to show her; but, thought I, she shall never get any of your
letters from _me_, for I don't like her. Every time your name was
mentioned by those ill-shaped lips, a secret rage came upon me. She told
me you called her 'Amie' in your letters. Ah! she must have seen how
surprised I was to hear it; yes--and she told me more--but my patience
failed. How _can_ you be friendly to such an ugly face? Ah! there may be
seen how vain you are!--or is it possible she can have been telling a
story?"
With this charitable resolution of her doubts, Bettina leaves off her
description of the meeting between De Stael and "la mere de Goethe." We
think the affected jealousy of the little creature very amusing; and,
moreover, we consider that all her words and actions in relation to
Goethe, were in keeping with an imaginary character she had determined to
assume. I shall be in love with him, and he shall be in love with me; and
as he is a poet, I will be very poetical in my passion; as he writes
tragedies, I will be dramatic; as he is "a student of the human mind," I
will puzzle him with the wisdom of sixty, united to the playfulness of ten
or twelve,--the flames of Sappho to the childishness of my real age and
disposition. And so indeed she did. The old philosopher of Weimar did not
know what to make of her. He keeps writing to her that he cannot decide
whether she is most "wunderbar" or "wunderlich"--wonderful or odd. And
round about his puzzled head she buzzes; now a fire-fly, nearly singeing
his elevated eyebrows--now a hornet, inserting a sharp little sting in his
nose--now a butterfly, lighting with beautiful wings on the nosegay in his
breast; but at all times bright, brilliant, and enchanting. So, no wonder
the astonished and gratified egotist called out for more; "more"--"more
letters, dear Bettina," "write to me as often as you can." And to show her
that her letters were useful to him, he not unfrequently sent her back
long passages of her own epistles, turned into rhyme--and very good
rhymes they are, and make a very respectable appearance among his
collected poems. And a true philosopher old Goethe was (of the Sir Joseph
Banks' school of philosophy as illustrated by Peter Pindar.) Instead of
admiring the lovely wings and airy evolutions of the butterfly that rested
so happily on his bouquet--he determined to examine it more minutely, and
put it into his dried collection. So he laid coarse hands upon
it--transfixed it with a brass pin, and listened to its humming as long as
it had strength to hum; and finally transferred it to a book as an
extraordinary specimen of a new species--for which astonishing discovery,
he was bespattered with undeserved praises by the whole press of Germany.
At this time, he was writing his _Wahlverwandtshafter_, or Electric
Affinities; and as it introduced a young girl filled with the same wild
passion for another woman's husband that Bettina affected to feel for him,
letter by letter was sedulously studied, to give a new touch, either of
tenderness or originality, to his contemptible Miss Ottilie. But we have
already in this Magazine expressed our opinion of that performance, and of
the great Goethe in general; so that we shall not return to the subject on
the present occasion. Pleasanter it is to follow the fairy-footed Bettina
in her scramblings over rock and fell, her wadings through rivers, and
sleepings on the dizzy verge of old castle walls that look down a hundred
fathoms of sheer descent into the Rhine. And pleasanter still, to hear her
give utterance to sentiments--unknown to the pusillanimous, unpatriotic
heart of the author of _Werther_--of sympathy with the noble Tyrolese in
their struggles for freedom, and her generous regard for them when they
were subdued.
Nothing, perhaps, is more astonishing in these letters--considering the
date of them, 1809-10--than the utter silence maintained on the state of
public affairs. The French are mentioned once or twice--but generally in
praise--Napoleon as often; but not a word to show that there was any
stirring in the German mind on the subject of their country or
independence. There they went on, smoking and drinking beer, writing
treatises on the Greek article, or poems on Oriental subjects, in the same
prosy, dull, dreamy fashion as ever, with the cannon of Jena sounding in
their ears, and the blood of Hofer fresh upon the ground. Well done, then,
beautiful, merry, deep-souled, tender-hearted Bettina! From her windows at
Munich, she saw the smoke of the burning villages in the Tyrol; and her
constant wish is for men's clothes and a sword, to go and join the
patriots, and have a dash at the stupid, dunderheaded Bavarians. But our
clever little friend is not alone in her good feelings. Count Stadion, a
dignitary of the church, and Austrian ambassador, is her sworn ally; and
few things are more beautiful than the descriptions of the reverend
diplomatist and the fiery-eyed little Bettina being united by their
sympathy in what was then a fallen and hopeless cause. But there was still
another sympathiser, and the discovery of his feelings we will let Bettina
herself describe:--
Next day was Good-Friday. Stadion took me with him to read me mass. I told
him, with many blushes, the great longing I had to join the Tyrolese.
Stadion told me to depend on _him_; he would take a knapsack on his back
and go into the Tyrol, and do all I wanted to do instead of me. This was
the last mass that he could read to me, for his departure in a few days
was settled. Ah me! it fell heavy on my heart that I was to lose so dear a
friend. After mass, I went into the choir, threw on a surplice, and joined
in Winter's Lament. In the mean time, the Crown-prince and his brother
came in--the crucifix lay on the ground--both the brothers kissed it, and
afterwards embraced. They had had a quarrel till that day about a court
tutor, whom the Crown-prince had thought ill of, and dismissed from his
brother's service. They were reconciled in the way I have said, in the old
church, and it was a delightful thing to see it. Bopp, an old music-master
of the Crown-prince, who also gave me some lessons, accompanied me home.
He showed me a sonnet composed by the Crown-prince that morning. It speaks
well for his 'inner soul,' that he feels this inclination to poetry in
interesting circumstances. Nature assuredly asserts her rights in him, and
he will surely not let the Tyrolese be hardly dealt with. Yes, I have
great trust in him. Old Bopp told me many things that raised my opinion of
him to the highest pitch. On the third holiday, he carried me to the
English garden to hear the Crown-prince's address to the assembled troops,
with whom he was going, to serve his first campaign. I could hear nothing
distinctly, but what I did hear, I did not at all like; he spoke of their
bravery, their perseverance, and loyalty, and that he, with their
assistance, would bring back the Tyrolese to obedience, and that he
considered his own honour conjoined to theirs, &c. &c. As I went home,
this worried me very much. I saw that the Crown-prince, in the hands of
his generals, would do all that his heart rebelled against. I thought, as
I returned from the show, that no man in the world ever speaks truth to
one in power, but rather that there are always flatterers to approve of
all he does; and the worse his conduct, the greater their fear that he may
doubt of their approbation. They have never the good of mankind in their
eye, but only the favour of their master. So I determined to take a bold
step, to satisfy my own feelings--and I hope you will excuse me if you
think I did wrong.
"After expressing to the Crown-prince my love, and respect for his genius,
I confessed to him my sentiments towards the Tyrolese, who were gaining
such a heroic crown--my confidence that he would show mildness and
forbearance, where his people were now giving way only to cruelty and
revenge--I asked him if the title 'Duke of the Tyrol' had not a nobler
sound than the names of the four kings who had united their power to
exterminate those heroes? And, however it turned out, I hoped he would
acquire from his conduct even the title of 'The Humane.'
"This was the contents of a letter that filled four pages. After writing
it in the most furious excitement, I sealed it very calmly, and gave it
into the music-master's hands, telling him--'This is something about the
Tyrolese that may be very useful to the Crown-prince.'
"How glad a man is to make himself of importance! Old Bopp nearly tumbled
down-stairs it his hurry to give such an interesting letter to the Prince;
and I, with my usual light-headedness, forgot all about it. I went to
Winter to sing hymns--to Tieck--to Jacobi--nowhere could I find any body to
agree with me; every where there seemed nothing but fear; and if they had
known what I had done, they would have forbidden me their houses. I looked
bitterly on them all, and thought--Be you Bavarian and French--I and the
Crown-prince are German and Tyrolese. Or he gets me put in prison--and
then I am at once free and independent; and if I ever get out again, I
will go over to the Tyrolese, and meet the Crown-prince on the field, and
force from him what he now refuses to my entreaty.
"The old music-master came back, pale and trembling.
"'What was there in the paper you gave me for the Crown-prince?' he said.
'It may ruin me for life. The Crown-prince looked excited as he read
it--ay, angry; and when he saw me there, he ordered me off without one
gracious word.'
"I could not help laughing. The music-master grew more and more anxious,
and I more and more delighted. I rejoiced already in my imprisonment; and
I thought how I could carry on my philosophic speculations in my solitude.
Once only I saw the Crown-prince at the theatre. He gave me a friendly
nod. Very good. For eight days I had not seen Stadion; but, on the 10th of
April, I got certain information that he had gone off by night. I was very
sorry to think I had seen him for the last time; and it struck me, with
strange significance, that he read his last mass on Good-Friday. At last
my long repressed and dissembled feelings burst forth in tears. It is in
solitude one knows his own wishes and his helplessness. I found no place
of repose for my struggling heart; and, tired with weeping, I at length
fell asleep. Have you ever fallen asleep worn out with weeping? But men
do not weep. You have never wept so that the sobs shook your breast even
in your sleep? Sobbing in my dreams, I heard my name. It was dark. By the
faint glimmer of the street lamps, I perceive a man near me, in a foreign
military uniform, sabre, sabretash--dark hair. I should have thought it
was Black Fred, (Stadion's name among his intimates.)
"No--it is no mistake; it is indeed Black Fred, come to take his leave.
"'My carriage is at the door--I am going--as a soldier--to the Austrian
army; and with regard to your Tyrolese friends, you shall have nothing to
reproach me with, or you never see me more; for I give you my word of
honour I will not consent to their being betrayed. I have this moment been
with the Crown-prince. He drank with me the health of the Tyrolese, and a
'_pereat_' to Napoleon. He took me by the hand, and said--'Remember that,
in the year nine, in April, during the Tyrolese rebellion, the
Crown-prince of Bavaria opposes Napoleon.' And so saying, he clanged his
glass on mine so, that he broke the foot of it off.'
"I said to Stadion--'Now then I am all alone, and have no friend left.'
"He smiled, and said--'You write to Goethe. Write him from me that the
Catholic priest will gather laurels on the Tyrolese battle-field.'
"I said--'I shall not soon hear a mass again.'
"'And I shall not soon read one,' he answered.
"He then took up his weapons, and reached me his hand to say good-by. I am
sure I shall never see him again.
"Scarcely was he gone, when a knock came to the door, and old Bopp came
in. It was still dark in the room, but I knew by his voice he was in
good-humour. He held out a broken glass to me; with great solemnity, and
said--'The Crown-prince sends you this, and bids me tell you that he drank
the health of those you take under your protection out of it; and here he
sends you his cockade, as a pledge of honour that he will keep his word to
you, and prevent all cruelty and injustice.'"
The fate of Hofer comes unfortunately to our memory to mar the
pleasantness of this little dramatic incident; but the whole story gives a
favourable impression of the Crown-prince, who is now the poetical Louis
of Bavaria--the dullest and stupidest of whose works (we may observe in a
parenthesis) makes a poor figure in its Greek dress, and had better be
retranslated as quickly as possible into its original Teutsch.
It is curious to see the sort of society that Bettina moves
in--crown-princes, and prince-bishops, and ambassadors-extraordinary--and
all treating her with the greatest regard. There must have been something
very taking in the bright black eyes and rosy lips of the correspondent of
Goethe, and friend, apparently, of all the German magnificoes; for she
uses them with very little ceremony, and holds her head as high among them
as if she knew there was more in it than was contained under all their
crowns and mitres. But it was not with the magnates of the land alone that
she was on such terms. The literary potentates were equally pleased with
her attention. If a rising artist wants encouragement, he applies to
Bettina. Sculptors, painters, musicians, all lay their claims before her;
and we find her constantly using her influence on their behalf with the
literary dictator of Weimar. If a scholar or philosopher is sick, she sits
at his bedside; and in the midst of all the playfulness, wildness,
eccentricity, (and perhaps affectation,) we meet with in the letters, we
see enough of right spirit and good heart to counterbalance them all; and
such a malicious little minx! and such a despiser of prudery, and
contemner of humbug in all its branches! It is delightful to reflect on
the torment she must have been to all the silly stiff-backed old maids
within reach of tongue and eye. And therefore--and for many reasons
besides--we maintain that Bettina, from fifteen to seventeen, is an
exquisite creature, fiery and impassioned as Juliet, and witty as Beatrix.
We will also maintain till our dying day, that neither her Romeo nor
Benedict was near sixty years old.
The information given by the Frau Rath about her son has already been
incorporated in the thousand and one memoirs and recollections supplied by
the love and admiration of his friends;--we will therefore not follow
Bettina in her record of his boyish days, as gathered from his mother and
reported to himself, further than to remark, that vanity seems from the
very first to have been his prevailing characteristic--even to so low a
pitch as the "sumptuousness of apparel." Think of a little snob in the
Lawnmarket--son of a baillie--dressing himself two or three times
a-day--once plainly--once half-and-half--and finally in hat and
feather--silks and satins--a caricature of a courtier of Louis XIV.; and
all this at the age of eight or nine!
We have said that our love for Bettina only extends to the three years of
her life from 1807 to 1810. At that period it dies a natural death. She
assumed at fourteen the feelings of a love-inspired, heart-devoted
"character"--as fictitious, we are persuaded, as any created by dramatist
or poet; and it was pleasant to see with what art and eloquence she acted
up to it. It seemed a wonderful effort of histrionic skill, and superior,
in an infinite degree, to the mere representation on the stage of an
Ophelia or Miranda. But when years passed on, and she still continued the
same "character," she strikes us with the same feelings that would be
excited by some actress who should grow so enamoured of her favourite
part, as to go on Opheliaizing or Desdemonaing off the stage--singing
snatches of unchristian ballads, with the hair dishevelled, during prayers
in church; or perpetually smothering herself with pillows on the
drawing-room sofa. It is as if General Tom Thumb were to grow to a decent
size, and still go on imitating Napoleon, and insisting on people paying a
shilling to see his smallness. Bettina should have stopped before she grew
womanly; for though we have not the least suspicion of her having had any
meaning in what she did--further than to show her cleverness--still, the
attitudes that are graceful and becoming in a children's dance, take a
very different expression in an Indian _nautch_. And therefore we return
to our belief at the commencement of this paper, that the "child" of
Goethe's correspondence died, and was buried in a garden of roses, in the
year 1810--_De mortuis nil nisi bonum_.