• 152d. Caroline to Georg Joachim Göschen in Leipzig: Braunschweig, 9 August 1795 [*]
[Braunschweig, 9 August 1795]
[Postscript.]
|365| Schlegel has handed me this letter for posting, but I cannot seal it up before doing what I should like to have done long ago but for my constant fear of interrupting your business; for I have not yet acknowledged the receipt of the sad little packet you sent me, nor thanked you for your sympathy. [1] Time will not heal the sense that through this death I have lost the possibility of my happiness, even of my inner peace; |366| and if what I thus feel inside myself is at all less acute, it is only because it has been blunted by my becoming accustomed to sorrow and loss.
To have Schlegel here till his further fortunes be decided is a true consolation for me, till this joy also passes away. [2]
If you answer him, please do also let me know whether you are satisfied with Gotter’s manusscript. [3] The latter’s wife tells me he himself is rather anxious about it. Although at the moment of composition he is enthusiastic to the point of smugness, afterward he greatly mistrusts himself.
I am not, however, satisfied with you. At the book fair you should have presented a second part to Johann, not a little person. [4] The poor, dear woman. May her burden be quite light. Warmest regards to you both and to Marianne. I am doing well here in every respect. Do please let me hear from you soon.
C. B.
Notes
[*] Originally letter 152a in Erich Schmidt (1913), 1:365–66, one of the few letters whose original numbering I have altered to accommodate the intervening letter numbers in a more streamlined fashion.
This letter is a postscript Caroline added to Wilhelm Schlegel’s letter to Georg Joachim Göschen on 9 August 1795. Initially published as a fragment (first two paragraphs) in Viscount George Goschen’s Life and Times of Georg Joachim Goschen. Publisher and Printer of Leipzig. 1752–1828, 2 vols. (New York, London 1903), 2:179 (translated and adapted by T. A. Fischer as Das Leben Georg Joachim Göschens von seinem Enkel Vicount Goschen, 2 vols. [Leipzig 1905], 2:156–57), it was published in full by Oskar Walzel, “Wilhelm Schlegel und Georg Joachim Göschen,” in Untersuchungen und Quellen zur Germanischen und Romanischen Philologie. Johann von Kelle dargebracht von seinen Kollegen und Schülern, 2 vols., Prager Deutsche Studien 8 and 9 (Prague 1908), 2:125–47, here 139–40 (not 15 as in Schmidt [1913], 1:708). Walzel introduces the letter there (“Wilhelm Schlegel und Georg Joachim Göschen,” 139): “Caroline’s letters are not so numerous that we might be satisfied with the publication merely of a fragment.” The translation of the first two paragraphs is that of Viscount Goschen. Back.
[1] Caroline does not otherwise mention this “sad little packet,” which presumably contained keepsakes or similar items associated with her deceased son Wilhelm Julius Böhmer, who had died in Lucka on 20 April 1795. For the text of the birth certificate and death registry, see Erich Schmidt’s introduction to Caroline’s time in Lucka; concerning the cemetery in Lucka where Julius was likely buried, see the gallery on Caroline in Lucka; concerning Caroline’s and Wilhelm Schlegel’s relationship with Göschen, see supplementary appendix 137c.1. Back.
[2] Wilhelm returned from Holland in late June or early July 1795 and settled in Braunschweig because of Caroline, where he already had connections through Johann Joachim Eschenburg and where his own family would also have liked to see him employed (see Moritz Schlegel’s letter to Wilhelm on 22 June 1795 [letter 150d] with note 1) (Thomas Kitchin, Germany [n.p., n.d.]):
His mother, a (in Schmidt’s opinion, [1913], 1:708) simple, kind woman who had been widowed since 1793, was naturally quite concerned about the rumors of an engagement of her son to the same Madam Böhmer who was so despised in Göttingen, and certainly also with rumors of their possible emigration to America; ultimately, however, she gave her favorite son and his lady friend her heartfelt blessing (see the letters index for her letters to Wilhelm from Hannover during this period). — Caroline’s remark here concerning the “joy” of having Wilhelm in Braunschweig passing away suggests either she or he or both were not yet seriously considering marriage. Back.
[3] Orthography of manusscript as in original — Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter’s Schauspiele, 3 vols. (1: Die stolze Vasthi; 2: Esther; 3: Die Basen) (Leipzig: Göschen, 1795); Caroline will mention these plays again in her letter to Luise Gotter on 20 August 1795 (letter 154). The plays were the subject of earlier discussion as well: see Caroline’s letters to Friedrich Ludwig Wilhelm Meyer on 24 October 1789 (letter 92), with note 8, on 10 May 1794 (letter 144) with note 11, her letter to him on 7 June 1794 (letter 145); see also her letter to Luise Gotter on 20 August 1795 (letter 154). Back.
[4] Göschen did not write a sequel to his novel, Reise von Johann. Erster Theil (Leipzig 1793); here the frontispiece:
By contrast, his marriage (thus Schmidt [1913], 1:708) was all the more fruitful: eight sons (four dying early) and two daughters; the “little person” Caroline is anticipating is Henriette Göschen, who would be born on 26 October (Almanach und Taschenbuch für häusliche u Gesellschaft Freuden 1798; Inhaltsverzeichnis deutscher Almanache, Theodor Springmann Stiftung):
Translation © 2011 Doug Stott