• 236b (was 236a). Friedrich Schlegel to Wilhelm and Caroline Schlegel in Jena: Berlin, 7 May 1799 [*]
[Berlin] 7 May [1799]
. . . This [Dorothea’s illness] is also the reason I have not yet spoken at length with Fröhlich, but rather only for a few moments. The printing has to begin immediately. [1] — I will gratefully accept anything and everything Wilhelm can produce and send along. . . .
Wilhelm should not, by the way, allow himself to get discouraged about Athenaeum. [2] Fröhlich has no intention of withdrawing, nor can he. I am even more certain concerning what comes next — albeit not that Athenaeum will enjoy such good sales in exactly its present form that Fröhlich can continue it, but that it depends solely on us to secure its mercantile popularity beyond any shadow of a doubt by revolutionizing it in a way that does no harm to our own dignity.
It is divine that Wilhelm has put the dagger at the breast of the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung. [3] I am waiting longingly for success. . . .
. . . What Caroline wrote about Lucinde is beautiful, indeed is the most beautiful thing that anyone has said to me about it, nor am I likely to hear anything more beautiful in that regard.
It has given me courage, for which I am grateful to you.
I am most pleased that it gave you more pain than pleasure.
Dorothea said you were a Wunderfrau, “and to boot, she can also knit sox.” Indeed, the latter were quite welcome to me, for I have only very few, and these particular ones correspond to my innermost ideal of sox. . . .
Please extend my ardent thanks to Schelling for the book. [4] It is the first thing by him the initial acquaintance with which instills a sense of great confidence in me. Do try to see whether he might not like Lucinde so that I can send it to him in response. . . .
My good friend, we are by no means joking with religion, but rather are absolutely serious in our conviction that it is high time to found one. [5] That is the goal of goals, and the center. Indeed, I foresee the greatest birth of the new age already coming to light; modest like early Christianity, which no one suspected would soon devour the Roman Empire, and just as that grand catastrophe in its broader circles will swallow up the French Revolution, whose most solid value perhaps consists solely in having incited it.
The Fichtean disputes coincide magnificently with this moment. — I wonder how Hardenberg views this thing? [6]
Madam Unzelmann is not back yet. [7]
I greatly admire Schelling for being able to send Auguste flowers. I hope I myself am there the next time. [8] — The orange tree that was to bloom in your honor has already withered. It is still standing here before us, reminding us that all of you did not come. [9]
I had the printer immediately send me the 3rd and 4th volumes of Shakespeare. [10]
Notes
[*] Renumbered from 236a (Schmidt, [1913], 1:540) to 236b to accommodate Gottlieb Hufeland’s letter to Wilhelm on 2 May 1799. — Also in Walzel, 418–22; KFSA 24:281–84. Only the paragraphs beginning “What Caroline wrote about” and ending with “ideal of sox” were included in Schmidt (1913). Back.
[1] I.e., the printing of the second issue of Athenaeum (1799), which would appear in August 1799. Back.
[2] The periodical was not selling well, and the publisher — Frölich — was not entirely sure whether to continue it in its present form. Back.
[3] See Wilhelm’s letter to Gottlieb Hufeland in late April and Hufeland’s response on 2 May 1799 (letters 235a, 236a). Back.
[4] Erster Entwurf eines Systems der Naturphilosophie: Zum Behuf seiner Vorlesungen (Jena 1799); First Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature, trans. Keith R. Peterson (Albany, NY 2004). See Friedrich’s letter to Caroline on 19 February 1799 (letter 221), similarly his letter to Auguste in November 1798 (letter 207c). Back.
[5] “We” refers to Friedrich and Friedrich von Hardenberg; concerning this plan, see Friedrich’s letter to Caroline on 27 November 1798 (letter 21) with note 15. Back.
[6] See Caroline’s letter to Hardenberg on 20 February 1799 (letter 222), in which she mentions having related to Fichte most of Hardenberg’s — unfortunately lost — letter. Concerning Fichte’s atheism dispute, see supplementary appendix 215a.1. Back.
[7] Friederike Unzelmann was not yet back in Berlin from her guest tour. See Friedrich’s letter to Caroline in February 1799 (letter 224) with note 7. Back.
[8] Auguste had celebrated her fourteenth birthday on 28 April 1799. Back.
[9] I.e., to Berlin; the plan was to see the Berlin premiere of Hamlet in Wilhelm and Caroline’s translation; Iffland would not stage it until October 1799, though the Schlegels would not be in attendance. See Ella Horn’s essay on the background to the premiere of Hamlet in Berlin. Back.
[10] Friedrich was reading the proofs, lamenting earlier in this same letter that
Wilhelm cannot attribute the typographical errors in Shakespeare to us alone, since Unger [the publisher of the volumes] delayed the printing for so long, then sent me nothing more from either the end of the first piece or the entirety of the second apart from a single printer’s sheet, saying he himself had looked them over. Back.
Translation © 2013 Doug Stott