• 159. August Ludwig von Schlözer to Caroline in Braunschweig: Göttingen, 13 Xbr [December] 1795
Göttingen, 13 Xbr [December] 1795
Madame,
|376| Out of shame, as is oft the case of poor correspondents, I might well have chosen not to answer your extraordinarily gracious and confidential letter of 22 8br [October] at all, [1] that is, were I not able to produce a valid excuse to gloss over my tardiness — to wit, my work with Herr Tychsen and the attempt to yet earn some money from among the manuscripts of your good father, work about which you have probably already received more detailed information.
But now the answer I owe you, line by line.
a. My essay en question [2] is first of all your property: [3] accordingly, you can do with it whatever you think is best: 1. Have |377| it published as an appendix to the Briefwechsel in the announced fashion: only 2. NB, please do announce in an avant-propos (to which no one need sign his name) that I delivered this essay, immediately after the deceased’s death, to the family as a source of consolation for them. 3. This avant-propos can even say something good about me, e.g., something about my grateful and enthusiastic admiration for the deceased: in fact, something of this sort must be inserted so that I under no circumstances appear in publico as the present editor of the essay. [4]
b. I am infinitely obliged to you for the continuation of your news from Gotha. My Carl has been here since March — primarily because we have an unhappy émigrée vicomtesse with us through whose daily interaction the boy is learning to chat in marvelous French. But this does not in any way mean I have given up on Gotha. [5] . . .
c. For a full 8 years now, I have been telling two of my sons [6] (but not the third, who though able to work does not particularly want to), “Were I 15 years younger, by God, I would go to America” [7] . . . . . . . I would go by myself; even more, however, would I prefer to go with an independent woman who in an emergency might serve as a crutch for my manly independence (which, alas, is so often a trait manqué [8] for us!). —
But how unthinking of me, what am I scribbling away here that without the proper commentaire (which is unsuitable for a letter) might be interpreted so ill! No, you, Madame, do not misinterpret it at all.
d. My wife was recently honored with a missive from your good mother that was of some statistical interest to me as well and which she will be answering very soon. In the meantime, she, in concert with me, commends herself most obediently to you all, — and is working most diligently on a new embroidery, broderie pointée or miniature |378| (please help this new designation for a new thing acquire currency), which, as she and Fiorillo opine, will be better than everything preceding, and which by the next trade fair she will — I know not whether to offer it for sale or merely for perusal (admiration?) — be sending along to you.
With unchanging respect,
Your most obedient servant,
Schlözer
Notes
[1] I.e., the items to which Schlözer will be responding below (“line for line”) were prompted by Caroline’s own letter (apparently not extant), which is of some interest insofar as, e.g., she seems to have mentioned quite straightforwardly her and Wilhelm’s plans to emigrate to America; that is, they were apparently still seriously considering the plan in October 1795. Back.
[2] August Ludwig von Schlözer’s essay on Johann David Michaelis’s ugly quarrel with Johann Jakob Reiske, “Michaelis und Reiske,” was supposed to be included in the third volume (1796) of the edition of Michaelis’s correspondence (Briefwechsel, see ibid., 3:vii). It appeared instead in Johann Friedrich Reichardt’s periodical Deutschland 2 (1796), 5:163–228.
Since Schlözer’s essay itself is too long to render here, see instead Rudolf Smend, Johann David Michaelis. Festrede im Namen der Georg-Augusts-Universität zur akademischen Preisvertheilung am VIII. Juni MDCCCXCVIII (Göttingen n.d. [1898]), 12–13:
The unhappiness that plagued Michaelis’s later years was not entirely undeserved considering the extent to which he was constantly acting with an eye on his own renown and his own status.
Such was the case especially in his relationship with Reiske. Along with Ernesti, it was especially Michaelis who prevented this genuinely great philologist [i.e., Reiske] from ever receiving the recognition he deserved during his lifetime or from ever attaining a position according him bearable living circumstances. As early as the 1750s, Michaelis was able to render a professorship in Göttingen forever impossible for Reiske and in so doing to eliminate a rival who as a scholar of the ancient Near East would have profoundly overshadowed Michaelis himself.
Utterly despairing of the hopelessness of his situation, Reiske had once written Michaelis a confidential letter in which he essentially hinted at his wish that the Hannoverian administration might at least pretend to offer him a professorship in Göttingen in order to improve his situation at large in Saxony. Michaelis was sufficiently familiar with the character of the writer from the Halle School for Orphans to know that this was a genuinely desperate request that, given Reiske’s overall character, deserved a gentle reception.
Even as such, at that time such procedures were not even remotely viewed as being as dishonorable as they are today. Indeed, Michaelis himself never held it against his own student Schlözer when the latter played off the Hannoverian administration against the Russian and the Russian against the Hannoverian; in fact, Michaelis had even supported him. At the very least, he should have refused to pass Reiske’s request on to the Hannoverian administration.
Instead, however, he sent Reiske’s letter to Münchhausen, to whom he pointed out the dishonest nature of the request. Then, with ostentatious correctness, he passed on to Reiske Hannover’s indignant rejection. Reiske’s anger rose up momentarily, and he responded by publishing a severe criticism of Michaelis’s own philological accomplishments.
A few months later, however, Reiske, whom all the world had thus abused, had apparently forgotten everything Michaelis had done to him. Through Ernesti he sent him the essay in which, by the way, he defended himself against Michaelis’s demeaning judgment concerning his pedagogical activity and in the process told him he “had no intention of acting hostilely, nor held any grudge” against Michaelis — whereupon Ernesti then commended the “Hypochondriacus” to Michaelis’s empathy.
Later, however, Michaelis entered anew into an extraordinarily bitter personal quarrel with Reiske and afterward even with Reiske’s widow, and yet toward the end of his life looked back with utter equanimity at his relationship with Reiske. In his autobiography, Michaelis says with respect to his former classmate that “there was never any meeting of the minds between us, for I was simply too jovial for him.”
See further Richard Förster, “Johann Jacob Reiske. 1716 bis 1774,” Allgemeine deutsche Biographie 28 (Leipzig 1889), 129–43, here 139:
Johann David Michaelis wrote a review of Reiske’s autobiography [D. Johann Jacob Reiskens von ihm selbst aufgesetzte Lebensbeschreibung (Leipzig 1783)] in the Neue orientalische und exegetische Bibliothek 1 (Göttingen 1786), 131–60, in which he tried to justify his own behavior toward Reiske. In response, Madam Reiske published a sharply worded declaration against Michaelis under the title “An das Publicum” in the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung 3 (1786) 156 (Saturday, 1 July 1786) 1–4 (preceding the regular pagination).
It is against this declaration that the essay “Michaelis und Reiske” is directed that August Ludwig Schlözer composed after the death of Michaelis (24 December 1791) and published in the periodical Deutschland 2 (1796) 5:163–228; Schlözer, drawing from letters Reiske wrote to Michaelis and Heyne, tries to demonstrate that in the feud between Reiske and Michaelis a certain role was played by failures of memory on both sides, by inexperience and vehemence on the side of Reiske, and by absent-mindedness, though also harshness on the side of Michaelis, though Schlözer does not sufficiently address the irresponsible breach of trust of which Michaelis was guilty toward Reiske. Back.
[3] Wilhelm Schlegel writes to Johann Friedrich Reichardt from Jena on 20 June 1796 (Körner [1930], 1:31), remarking: “I have before me the fifth issue of Deutschland and am quite happy to see Schlözer’s essay on Michaelis published there, since I am quite interested in the latter’s family.” Reichardt responded on 23 June 1796 from Giebichenstein (ibid., 1:32):
I am pleased that you are satisfied with the publication of Schlözer’s essay in Deutschland. But please do tell me to whom it might be most appropriate for me to send the honorarium for it. In a letter, Hufeland mentioned a married or widowed daughter of the late Michaelis [i.e., Caroline], but I have forgotten the name and misplaced Hufeland’s letter. Back.
[4] Schlözer’s request here was implemented in full, though there is no way to determine whether it was indeed Caroline who prompted the following introductory footnote in Deutschland 2 (1796) 5:163:
This essay was a gift that Herr Hofrath Schlözer presented to the surviving family of the late Michaelis soon after his death. Although chance circumstances and omissions delayed the publication of this essay, the persuasion is that it is not too late to fulfill the survivors’ wish to cleanse the memory of a man and father from harsh disparagement and simultaneously to preserve publicly, to the honor of both parties, the manifold demonstrations of noble zealousness prompted by the author’s friendship for the deceased. Back.
[5] Schlözer may have been considering sending his son to the Gymnasium in Gotha (see Caroline’s letter to Julie von Studnitz on 25 August 1779 [letter 9]), note 1. Back.
[6] Presumably the aforementioned Carl and then also Christian. The identity of the third is uncertain (Schlözer and his wife lost two of their five sons early). Back.
[7] Again, Caroline seems to have mentioned these plans quite straightforwardly to Schlözer even at this relatively late date (relatively late insofar as Wilhelm Schlegel was already sending out queries for possible work with the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung in Jena; see his letter to Schiller on 13 October 1795 [letter 158a] and the letter from the editors of the periodical to Wilhelm on 3 November 1795 [letter 158b]). Back.
[8] Fr., “lacking, missing”; Schlözer uses a Germanized verb form (manquiren) of the French verb (manquer) with the customary ending -i[e]ren. Back.
Translation © 2011 Doug Stott