253a. Dorothea Veit to Sophie Bernhardi in Berlin: Jena, 4 November 1799 [*]
Jena, 4 November [17]99
Your manuscript is still not here, and I cannot do anything about the money until it arrives; Becker will turn loose of absolutely nothing until he has at least most of the manuscript. [1] It makes me extremely anxious to know what an awkward position you are in, but I nonetheless can do absolutely nothing. —
Your plans are quite good. Go ahead and send the fairy tales; [2] Becker and Huber are always looking for this sort of light fare, for their smaller pocket books, so there you have the advantage insofar as your can then publish them again in the future; and they will also be better paid than from a bookseller. I know for a fact that Friedrich will be in favor of your using your own name; it is right, and good.
But I cannot write you anything today, I have already written Madam Herz and Fichte, and truly have writer’s fatigue, and am, moreover, not really well. Your brother is the darling of everyone here, whereas everyone views Malchen as that which is quite incomprehensible about Tieck. [3]
By the way, everything is going well here and things are nice and cordial. Tieck recently spent a good hour telling me all about you, how he respects and loves you, and how the poem in Sternbald is actually by you! [4] But I was clever enough to act as if I did not know. He also, as far as I know, spoke a great deal about you to Hardenberg. And in general it seems he did not show you yourself all the love he actually has for you, for I have never seen him speak as cordially with you as he does about you. Warm regards to Bernhardi. . . .
We are now waiting for Hamlet. [5] What do you think about the sonnet on Merkel? [6] Dear Bernhardi, you really should have been here when they composed it; what an hour that was! [7]
The entire committee [8] herewith charges Bernhardi with finding out whether one can in any way prompt Jänisch to own he is the author of Diogenes Laterne, since there can be no question that he is indeed the author. [9]
Dear, if Madam Herz asks for the piano or the sofa, please be so kind as to send it over to her, since precisely what I anticipated has come about, namely, that they must be sold, and I have charged Madam Herz with taking care of it. [10] Stay well, please make do today with this letter; I intend to write more soon.
Your D[orothea] V[eit]
. . .
Notes
[*] Sources: Wieneke, (1914), 305–7; KFSA 25:21–22. Back.
[1] See Caroline’s letter to Wilhelm Gottlieb Becker on 23 September 1799 (letter 244a) concerning attempts to place Sophie Bernhardi’s novel Julie Saint Albain with a publisher. Sophie did not turn in the rest of the manuscript until 23 December 1799 (KFSA 25:386) after receiving an advance from Becker of 50 Reichsthaler. Back.
[2] The beginnings of what was eventually published as Wunderbilder und Träume in eilf Mährchen (Königsberg 1802); Sophie Bernhardi did indeed, as Dorothea goes on to suggest in this letter, use her own name as author of the volume: “Sophie B.” Back.
[3] Amalie Tieck was generally viewed, and even mocked, as being intellectually inferior to her husband; see Friedrich Schlegel, Dorothea, and Schleiermacher’s letter to Caroline in July 1799 (letter 241a) with note 6 and the cross references there. Back.
[4] Franz Sternbalds Wanderungen, 2 vols. (Berlin 1798); the poem is probably “Die Phantasie” (book 4, chapter 2), something also supported stylistically (KFSA 25:387fn11). For the text of the beginning of the poem, see Friedrich’s letter to Auguste in mid-April 1799 (letter 230f) with note 4. Back.
[5] A review by Rahel Levin of the Berlin performance of Hamlet from the edition of Shakespeare of Wilhelm Schlegel and Caroline; see Dorothea’s letter to Schleiermacher on 28 October 1799 (letter 252a) with note 19. Rahel does not seem to have done such a review. For two reviews of the premiere, see the supplementary appendices review of the premiere of Hamlet (1) and review of the premiere of Hamlet (2) in Berlin on 15 October 1799. Back.
[6] Wilhelm Schlegel and Ludwig Tieck’s satirical sonnet contra Garlieb Merkel; see supplementary appendix 252.1. Back.
[7] See Caroline’s description of that evening in her letter to Auguste on 28 October 1799 (letter 252). Back.
[8] Both Friedrich and Hardenberg referred to the Jena group as, among other things, the comité du salut public universel, the “committee of universal public safety”; see Hardenberg’s letter to Caroline on 9 or 16 September 1798 (letter 203), with note 6. Back.
[9] Daniel Jenisch (Dorothea spells his last name phonetically), Diogenes Laterne (Leipzig 1799). See Friedrich’a letter to Fichte on 3 November 1799 (letter 252g) and supplementary appendix 252g.1. Back.
[10] To raise much needed money, Dorothea was having Henriette Herz sell off some of her and Friedrich’s remaining furniture in Berlin. Back.
Translation © 2013 Doug Stott