259e. Dorothea Veit to Karl Friedrich and Juliane Zelter in Berlin: Jena, 11 April 1800 [*]
Jena, 11 April 1800
Missives as cordial and uplifting as yours should be answered on the spot, and I really long intended to do so; but because one should not respond without being in the proper, cheerful disposition, I repeatedly left it undone.
For since I wrote you the first time, an inhospitable demon has severely disrupted our wonderful life here. Madame Schlegel has been extremely ill for 6 weeks now with a pernicious nervous fever. You can imagine the extent to which that has taken the wind out of our sails and ruined all our leisure time and all the good things we otherwise so enjoyed in our domestic circle here. And just as misfortune never comes unaccompanied, so also has there been no lack of unpleasantness of every sort.
Madam Schlegel has now taken a turn for the better, however, and with the charming springtime that “afflicts” us so beautifully just now, I am sure things will get better again.
What a magnificent spring we are having here, my dear Zelter! You can hardly be having more of it than that construction has begun again and you yourself are getting sunburned first from one side, then from the other. [1] I feel sorry for you. You need to be here, to climb the mountains and meander along the banks of the Saale River; here you would sense that God lives on earth just as in heaven! What do Berliners know about springtime? — . . .
Notes
[*] Source: Briefe von und an Friedrich und Dorothea Schlegel, ed. Josef Körner, (Berlin 1926), 25–26; KFSA 25:90–91. Back.
[1] Zelter was still a brick mason and would not take over the Berlin vocal academy until later that year. Back.
Translation © 2014 Doug Stott