• 251. Caroline to Auguste in Dessau: Jena, after 21 (27?) October 1799 [*]
[Jena, after 21 October 1799]
[Beginning of letter is missing.]
|571| . . . Although Grandison is childish reading, it can do no harm for you to become acquainted with it. [1]
You talk about Bullinger exactly the way Betty does. Admittedly rather divinely! Nor can that sort of young madcap be anything less. You seemed determined to do things just like your mommy: your first love is to be a real comedian. But consider that I had picked out an honorable man with wife and children, [2] not this sort of vagabond tenor.
My God, if you put your hopes in the young Schelling you will admittedly have a bad time of it, and will really have your hands full — a real bear, and speaks with such a strong Swabian accent. He came to the house for a visit — you can imagine how amused Wilhelm was with him. Schelling quipped that our company was still much too good for him, that he intended to send him over to the Niethammers first so he could be properly hammered, and only then over here to be beschlegeled. [3] Wilhelm countered that either way, not a Shilling would come of it. [4]
Adieu, my dear. A thousand greetings to Madam Tischbein and the children. May God keep you. Wilhelm is very fond of you.
P.S. Very few students have arrived, even Hufeland has only a few in his lecture, I would guess only about twenty. [5] Although this is unprecedented, things will get even worse, and people in Weimar will be scratching their heads. [6]
Notes
[*] Dating: Although Schelling’s brother Karl had just arrived on 20 October 1799 when Caroline last wrote Auguste on 21 October 1799 (letter 250), he had not yet visited the Schlegels; Caroline mentions in this letter that he has done so.
That said, she also mentions that “Hufeland” had only a few students in his lecture. In her letter to Auguste on 28 October (letter 252), however, she mentions that the Hufelands — that is, Gottlieb and Konradine Luise Hufeland — had “come again (or back)” the previous day, i.e., 27 October 1799, and later in the letter more unequivocally that they are now “back.”
The question becomes: which Hufeland is meant in this present letter, Gottlieb Hufeland or the physician Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland, who was also lecturing in Jena (he would not move to Berlin until 1801), but who, it seems, had not been away from Jena. That it is the former is also suggested by the consideration in note 5 below.
In any event, rather than change the numbering and position of this present letter, I have chosen to leave it as in Schmidt, (1913), 571 (who does not otherwise support his dating) despite the chronological problems. Back.
[1] Samuel Richardson, The History of Sir Charles Grandison in a series of letters published from the originals by the Editor of Pamela and Clarissa in seven volumes (London 1753–54). For Thomas Stothard’s complete illustrations to The History of Sir Charles Grandison, click on the following gallery:
See Caroline’s previous mention of Richardson’s novel and its characters in her letter to Lotte Michaelis on 28 March 1787 (letter 77), esp. the initial lines of the letter and note 1; her letter to Luise Gotter on 31 October 1791 (letter 107), again esp. the initial lines of the letter and note 1; Friedrich Wilhelm and Luise Gotter’s response to that letter on 3 November 1791 (letter 108), with note 5; and her own response to Gotter on 13 November 1791 (letter 110). Back.
[2] Uncertain (literary?) allusion. Back.
[3] Play on the family name Schlegel, which in German also means “mallet; sledge hammer;” note the three appearances of the tool in the coat-of-arms below (exlibris with the coat of arms of A. W. Schlegel von Gottleben [one of Wilhelm’s ancestors had been so ennobled for service to the church]; Sächsische Landesbibliothek; Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden [SLUB]; Mscr.Dresd.e.90,II,10):
[4] Play on the family name Schelling and the monetary unit “shilling.”
This paragraph otherwise arguably suggests that Auguste was, from a distance, eyeing Karl Schelling as a possible romantic interest, possibly because she was aware of Caroline’s interest in Schelling. Dorothea Veit adds to this confusion by maintaining that Schelling was initially interested in Auguste and that Caroline was herself interested in that alliance. The confusion continues when one considers Caroline’s letters from Braunschweig to Schelling in Jena following Auguste’s death. Back.
[5] The rear edifice of the house at Leutragasse 5 contained a large hall used as a lecture hall by Gottlieb Hufeland, Wilhelm Schlegel, and others (and probably the same hall used as the ballroom mentioned in the memoirs of Caroline Tischbein, née Wilken) , which is why Caroline could easily have been aware of the number of students. The hall was later transformed into an orthopedic rehabilitation hall (Eduard Helmke, Bericht über die Orthopaedisch-gymnastische Heilanstalt in Jena [Leipzig 1863], 1). Back.
[6] Uncertain allusion, though after Fichte’s departure on 1 July 1799 because of the atheism dispute, the university in Jena began a gradual decline that culminated in the departure of several important professors in 1803, including Schelling (with Caroline, who married him in June of that year). See supplementary appendix 377c.1. Back.
Translation © 2013 Doug Stott