201d. Wilhelm Schlegel to Gottlieb Hufeland in Jena: Dresden, 1 July 1798 [*]
Dresden, 1 July 1798
Just a few lines today, my esteemed friend, to report my successful arrival here and — let me confess right at the outset — to trouble you by requesting a small favor. I arrived here yesterday afternoon with my brother, our friend Gries visited us and told me he would be writing to you this morning, and I did not want to let the opportunity pass without enclosing something for you as well.
I found a quite contented letter from Eschen waiting for me here upon arrival; he told me he was immediately having all his books forwarded on to him in Switzerland. [1] Now, he left several Greek authors with me for safekeeping because he did not think he would be needing them and because it was convenient for me to have them close at hand. These books need to be turned over to Herr Lange that they may be sent on with the others.
Would you be so kind as to have my study opened, where the books are standing on some shelves where you can easily locate them and send them on to Herr Lange. [2] I am including a list with this letter. Please also ask Herr Lange if he received a manuscript of the Wissenschaftslehre from Eschen. [3] He will have received my brother’s new book through you. [4]
I am very anxious to hear some news from you and your family. I wrote you from both Leipzig and Berlin. You will soon hear more from us; Caroline will be writing to your dear wife and also sends her warm regards now. My brother sends his as well.
I left behind a poem of homage in Berlin for publication in the Jahrbücher der Preussischen Monarchie. [5] — Gotter’s Geisterinsel will be performed on the day of tribute with Reichardt’s music, which I heard in rehearsals and which seems quite radiant and romantic. [6] But let me not ramble on so and waste time.
I would like to receive the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung here in the usual fashion of weekly parcels, though I must also request the issues I have missed since leaving Jena. I only caught rare glimpses of this journal in Berlin, and several of my own pieces are in those issues. But what is the reason that others, including the French Musenalmanach, which really suffers from delayed publication, are yet outstanding? [7] I have no real problem if something must indeed be left out. You will soon receive a parcel of reviews from me.
Please do let me know the status of my petition for the professorship — I am not yet really familiar the course such things take. [8] Yesterday I found two letters from Coburg and Gotha waiting for me that did not, however, contain anything other than receipts for the chancellery fees. When and where and from whom will this be sent to me officially?
Stay well, and please pass on my warmest regards to your family and to my friends and acquaintances there.
Yours,
A. W. Schlegel
Notes
[*] Source: Körner (1930) 1:75–76. — This and numerous other letters to and from Gottlieb Hufeland — one of the editors of the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung and as such an extremely important player in Wilhelm and Caroline’s life with respect to finances, quite apart from being Caroline’s sister’s brother-in-law — are included to give readers a glimpse into the details of the lives of professional literary critics such as Wilhelm (and Caroline, who authored several of the anonymous reviews published by Wilhelm in the A.L.Z.) during this period as well as into the initially strong, but later — unfortunately — deteriorating and increasingly adversarial relationship between Wilhelm (and later Schelling) and the journal. Back.
[1] Friedrich August Eschen had written to Wilhelm from Bern on 8 June 1798. Concerning Eschen’s death in Switzerland in 1801, see the supplementary appendix Friedrich August Eschen; concerning his translations and other literary work, see Friedrich Schlegel’s letter to Caroline on 12 December 1797 (letter 192c) with note 7. Back.
[2] Herr Lange is unidentified. — That Wilhelm can so facilely request that Hufeland enter his apartment and open his study to fetch these books can be attributed at least in part to Hufeland’s status as a distant relative. It will be recalled that Gottlieb Hufeland and his wife were related to Luise Michaelis by marriage, the latter being married to Madam Hufeland’s brother. They lived, moreover, but a few steps across the courtyard in the other rear edifice at Leutragasse 5. Back.
[3] Körner (1930), 2:30, believes such involves notes from Fichte’s lectures. Back.
[4] Friedrich Schlegel, Griechen und Römer. Eschen and Friedrich were housemates during Friedrich’s earlier time in Jena. Back.
[5] “Am Tage der Huldigung. Berlin 6. Juli 1798,” Jahrbücher der preussischen Monarchie unter der Regierung Friedrich Wilhelms des Dritten (1798) 2 (May, June, July, August) 266–68 (Sämmtliche Werke 1:160–61). The official “homage” to Friedrich Wilhelm III in the White Hall of the Berlin Castle took place on 6 July 1798. See the translation of Wilhelm’s poem of homage to Friedrich Wilhelm III. Back.
[6] Concerning the Berlin performance of Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter’s Geisterinsel, see Caroline’s letters to Luise Gotter on 1 November 1797 and 2 May 1798 (letters 189, 200) and the accompanying cross references; see esp. supplementary appendix 107a.1 and supplementary appendix 181.1. Back.
[7] Wilhelm’s review of the Almanach Des Muses, Pour L’An V. De La République Françoise, 1797 vieux style (Paris 1797) in the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung (1798) 205 (Wednesday, 4 July 1798) 17–22 (Sämmtliche Werke 11:291–98). Back.
[8] Concerning Wilhelm’s petition for a professorship in Jena, see Hufeland’s response on 5 July 1798 (letter 201e), Christian Gottfried Schütz to Wilhelm in late July 1798 (letter 202d), and esp. Gottlieb Hufeland to Wilhelm on 2 August 1798 (letter 202e); several of Wilhelm’s letters during this period address this professional matter, particularly how to deal with the complicated protocol and communications with the various royal courts on which the administration of the university in Jena depended, viz., Weimar, Meinigen, Gotha, and Coburg (see Wilhelm’s letter to Goethe on 9 May 1798 [letter 200c], note 3).
Concerning this trusteeship, see the sections in the supplementary appendix on Germany in the late-eighteenth century on upper Saxony, esp. the note on the ErnestineTrustees collectively responsible for the university in Jena. Back.
Translation © 2012 Doug Stott