• 256. Caroline to Ludwig Ferdinand Huber in Stuttgart: Jena, 22 November 1799 [*]
[Jena] 22 November [17]99
|577| Schlegel left this morning and will be gone several days to pick up Auguste, whom we have not had with us here for 8 weeks now. [1]
Your letter arrived a few hours ago; I opened it because I recognized your handwriting and thus knew I was permitted to do so. Please allow me to give a preliminary response now, that is, immediately, precisely so that my answer will be a response solely to your letter, since as of today the reviews themselves have still not appeared; perhaps they will come tomorrow. [2]
I believe Therese was right. Considering that your judgment was indeed such, you had either to decline the offer in the first place or let Schlegel know that you were taking it on. For, my dear Huber, you certainly knew enough about the spirit — or non-spirit — of the Literatur Zeitung and about the current atmosphere here to realize that by accepting this job you were playing straight into their hands.
Quite apart from any considerations of personality, you at least owed that much to the substance of the matter, which, hopefully, you do have in common with Schlegel in a larger sense, else I would hear no more of you from this point on. That particular manner of reproach, — that is what the common rabble mistakes for the substance, and in the L.Z. one writes only for the common rabble.
In this regard, Schlegel has told you on several occasions unequivocally what he thinks of this particular journal, with which he himself has had ample opportunity to become thoroughly acquainted. You |578| have probably seen from one of its more recent issues that, driven by the contemptible actions of the editors, Schlegel has issued a public declaration in the matter; [3] hence at this decisive moment you yourself have sincerely taken the side of this insincere clique. They are doubtless infinitely obliged to you as a result.
Believe me, my friend, the free unaffectedness of your judgment and taste cannot possibly take in the entire scope of this web, and it was for precisely that reason that you earlier allowed yourself to be prompted to encourage Kotzebue’s wretchedness through your own kind-hearted retraction. [4] You have now taken the first step toward linking the latter with the L.Z., both of whom, at least he and Schütz, do indeed form the most intimate coalition.
Schlegel’s literary conduct has on several occasions thus already had the rather striking effect of driving these miserable people closer together, since it is precisely against him that they form these alliances. Schütz had a prologue along the lines of the Kotzebue piece performed in his own house, [5] where Madam Schütz — half crazed — performed the character of Minna von Barnhelm; [6] and you similarly view the aged Nicolai more graciously now, and indeed now, after having been ashamed even to talk about anything he had written for years, now you suddenly review precisely this book, a book directed against the Schlegels. [7]
What is emerging now is a universal struggle between what is good and what is bad; because you yourself are acquainted with times of revolution, [8] you should be wary of being so caviling about the ways and means. In the political sphere, one calls what you are looking for “half measures”; I confess I consider you to be too peace-loving, including in the political sphere, and too excessively calculating, and that is why you were never able to achieve anything greater than you otherwise surely could have.
By this I am certainly not referring to any love of quarreling. It was not because of my own understanding of how things should be, nor indeed because of any lack of my own urgent entreaty, that a good half of the “Anzeiger” in Athenaeum |579| was not repressed. [9] I finally gave in to male forcefulness, remaining silent just as I would do in political matters as well, believing as I do that despite all our powers of reason, men do have a better understanding of such things.
Now that it is done, however, it seems to me to have been quite necessary even were the entire world to oppose it, which as a matter of fact is exactly what is happening. For you see, my friend, I know Schlegel — I am as convinced of it as I am of my own life that there is not even a shadow of personal acharnement in him. [10]
Did he not create all these enemies himself? He finds dullness, nullity, non-poesy repugnant even unto death itself. If one persecutes the cause, one is then also persecuting the person. Is not Wieland’s poesy also Wieland’s person? Only foolish wisdom tries to separate the two after the fact. Schlegel will never attack the private life of such a person; such then turns into a pasquinade, though he himself will probably have to endure something of that sort insofar as they will be using every weapon they can against him. I know of no one in a position to bear such things more calmly than he. His entire spirit is directed forward, and such resistance can only inspire it to even greater flight. Do not believe for a moment that he takes such deviltry seriously. He lives in completely different plans.
This particular amusement [11] will last a while, but once it is over it will not be without some effect; it will have been good insofar as it helped move things forward. —
Nor will he ever sacrifice himself in such things, since he has means other than merely critical ones at his disposal that enable him to assert himself. You merely show that you do not know Schlegel if you insist on admonishing him with regard to manliness. He is a man: free and independent as ever a man was, something into which the age itself has shaped him. I know what he will say in response to your letter and the review; I know not what he will say to you yourself.
I can, however, stand surety to you for any bitterness and can assure you |580| beforehand that such will in fact not take place should he himself perhaps not respond. With his “hand on his heart” and on his head, he would tell you that in his innermost conviction he does indeed think that ill of Wieland and considers him immoral to an even greater degree than he has ever declared publicly. And yet to declare precisely this, under his own name, is thus at least as reasonable and justified for him as it is for you to declare publicly your own disapproval of Athenaeum and Lucinde in the A.L.Z. under the protection of authority. [12]
Your psychological remarks concerning Friedrich really are equally unfounded. But that in its own turn is probably psychological, namely, to accuse someone of having an affectation or addiction to originality.
Friedrich has absolutely no idea other than that one is as wondrous as he himself appears to others. He himself reacts with childish amazement to our objections and head-shaking. Friedrich is a thoughtful, often deeply brooding, inwardly great person who externally walks about with it rather like a fool. He deals even with the artificial intentionality of his own compositions with childlike confidence and unawareness. He is sincere in everything, even into the deepest ground of his soul.
And now all of you are talking so casually about “affectation,” and about how he is rather odd, or rather is trying to make himself odd — whereas you might perhaps sooner consider that it has always been the discredit of extraordinary people to appear that way. In my opinion, Lucinde should not have been published, that is, not in the present. In 50 years, I could tolerate it having been published 50 years earlier. But what reason did you have for reviewing it? I would think that that, of all things, was an even less appropriate undertaking, not least because the book is not even finished yet. [13]
Do not imagine that these men are engaged |381| in flattering each other or in trying to fool each other: they know each other well, they speak their truths to each other, but they do indeed have a goal — and they are tightly focused on precisely that goal. I could well wish for myself the triumph of seeing you yourself among us. What lively, splendid debates would we have. —
What do you mean by “faction”? There is no revolution without factions, you know that much yourself, or have you suddenly become so modéré? [14] The complaints against the L.Z. and Schlegel’s declaration are to be understood as standing in an immediate and direct connection with Fichte and Schelling’s cause and complaint. [15] All this is going to get much louder, and the L.Z. is bitterly afraid. They did everything in their power to prevent Schlegel’s declaration, to which they responded, in good Hufelandic fashion, in an extremely refined and treacherous and also rather boring fashion. [16]
And do you believe that loftier personages are not also being drawn into the cause of these inferior writers? Everything possible was undertaken to incite the duke, and that which he did not or could not do was then falsely imputed to him nonetheless. [17] And this entire bunch will now boisterously rejoice at your review, et vous avés bien merité de la patrie! [18] The editors will doubtless also add an annotation pointing out that this review came from one of Schlegel’s own friends. [19]
Schlegel believed in all innocence he could request that you no longer work for the A.L.Z., for the sake of the good cause and for the sake of other projects as well, and especially that you not deliver to them the review of W[ilhelm] Meister. [20] He thought he might come to an agreement with you. I admittedly no longer find that appropriate for him. He will never credit himself with even the least merit in allowing justice to be done to your will, and in this sense to remain your friend the way he has hitherto been; but how on earth is he supposed to remain your friend?
I have now anticipated his own zeal in any event. Although you can, of course, find this particular partisanship to be quite natural, |382| you might want to remind yourself that Fichte’s matter has also heated me up in this sense. My zeal and enthusiasm have also been aroused in the larger sense by my renewed interest in the events in France, especially now that Buonaparte is consul. [21] Adieu . . .
N. B. Except for two small items, the “Litterarischer Reichsanzeiger” comes entirely from the hand of Wilhelm Schlegel; hence he is not merely participating in some halfway fashion.
Notes
[*] This introductory editorial note applies to letters 256 and 257 insofar as they constitute essentially a single letter. Letter 256 was accessible to Erich Schmidt (1913) only in an old copy, letter 257 only as the draft of the copy that was actually sent to Ludwig Ferdinand Huber.
At issue in these two letters (as well as in Wilhelm Schlegel’s letter to Huber on 28 December 1799 [letter 258a]) is Huber’s review “Athenäum 1798, 1799,” in the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, (1799) 372 (Thursday, 21 November 1799) 473–77, though here Caroline — as she herself is quick to point out — is responding solely to Huber’s letter to Wilhelm Schlegel; for the text of the review, see supplementary appendix 256.1.
Wilhelm had been at odds with the editors of the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung about
(1) the absence of any review of Athenaeum in their journal (see his exchange with Gottlieb Hufeland in late April and early May 1799 [letters 235a, 236a], and Wilhelm’s letter to him in July 1799 [letter 242b]), and about
(2) their (and the journal’s) increasingly adversarial attitude toward Athenaeum and the Jena Romantics generally (see Wilhelm’s exchange with Christian Gottfried Schütz on 20–21 October 1799 [letters 249b, 249c, 249d]).
These quarrels eventually led to Wilhelm’s withdrawal as a contributor to the A.L.Z. (see his exchange with Gottlieb Hufeland on 3–4 November 1799 [letters 252e, 252f] and his declaration in the Intelligenzblatt on 2 November 1799 [letter/document 255a]).
Concerning the overall background, see Wilhelm Dilthey’s essay on the break between the Romantics and the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, ibid., 225–31 (supplementary appendix 258a.1); also the supplementary appendix Garlieb Merkel on C. G. Schütz, the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, and Wilhelm Schlegel.
Caroline’s previous experiences with Ludwig Ferdinand Huber and Therese Huber, née Heyne in Mainz (and with Therese previously during their childhood in Göttingen) only added to the charged atmosphere in which she reacts and writes (she alludes several times in these letters to Huber’s experiences in situations of revolution). Caroline did not see the Hubers again until 1803 in Stuttgart, where she found herself sitting behind Huber in the theater and met personally with Therese at the initiative and through the mediation of, surprisingly perhaps, Friederike Unzelmann.
__________
Erich Schmidt remarks in his notes, (1913), 1:749–52, that Caroline’s withering reproach in these letters was well deserved, since Huber’s review is indeed extraordinarily flat, with hardly a reference to anything of significance or anything really characteristic. Huber announced the review to Wilhelm beforehand in a letter (since lost) “brimming and preening with morality and character” and with reference to his relationship to both Wilhelm and, especially, Caroline (thus the remarks of Friedrich Schlegel in a letter to Schleiermacher in late November 1799 [letter 257a]).
Although Huber’s review begins with a reference to “a fraternal alliance of not inconsiderable talents and erudition,” it immediately chastises Wilhelm’s dialogue “Die Sprachen” for being fatiguing, and the translations of elegies from the Greek for being as “harsh” as Wilhelm’s “hammered-out” (whence Caroline’s allusion in letter 257) “Kunst der Griechen,” utterly ignores the main pieces in the journal, and generally finds fault with the arrogant presumption of being ahead of the times and with the affectation of originality and the factional inclinations.
Friedrich writes to Schleiermacher in that same letter (letter 257a): “I confess I really would not have expected something this stale and trivial.” And Wilhelm writes to Schleiermacher on 16 December 1799 (letter 257d):
Although Huber’s letter to me would doubtless greatly amuse you, copying it out would be too extensive a task, and I would prefer not to send you the letter itself because I may perhaps yet get around to answering it. That there is nothing to say publicly goes without saying. Please do let us know what people think of the review. They are doubtless quite pleased, without exception — since it really has been written as if from the very soul of the rabble; but anyone who is even remotely a relative beginner would inevitably, it seems to me, perceive the paltriness of his judgments.
Huber’s considerably more animated and negative review of Lucinde was similarly published in Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung 130 (7 May 1800) 297–300 (for the text of the review, see supplementary appendix 256.2); Friedrich had been anticipating the review since the end of November 1799 (“We can anticipate a similar review, one probably even more stupid, for Lucinde” [letter 257a]).
See also Friedrich’s subsequent distich on Huber in a letter to Wilhelm from Jena in mid-February 1801 (Wilhelm was in Berlin) (Walzel, 460; KFSA 25:232). Friedrich eventually published the lines in Friedrich Eberhard Rambach’s periodical Kronos: Ein Archiv der Zeit (1801) 1 (January–April) 4 (April) 274:
Huber, my friend, be a dear and have yourself preserved in spiritus, For posterity, too, is worthy of viewing the critic.
Huber responded to Wilhelm on 9 January 1800 (letter 258d). Therese Huber put her own slant on these events in a letter to her daughter Therese Forster between 17 and 25 July 1803 (letter 380b). See also Wilhelm’s thorough settling of accounts in his letter to Huber on 28 December 1799 (letter 258a).
These quarrels were joined by the break between Schelling and the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, a break whose tone was considerably more vitriolic on both sides, ultimately prompted by the dispute concerning the acceptance of a review of Schelling’s work by his friend Henrik Steffens. See the Intelligenzblatt of the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung 142 (Saturday, 2 November 1799) 1150–51, with Schelling’s sharp “request,” dated 6 October 1799, to the editors of the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung concerning two reviews of his Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur,” reviews by what he dismissively considers to be sophomoric criticasters (letter/document 252d).
As if these tedious and fatiguing quarrels were not enough, a second, even more vitriolic battle between the Romantics and the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung followed in 1802 (see vol. 2 of this edition), albeit one from which, given its association with Auguste’s death, a grieving Caroline wholly kept her distance.
Concerning the Romantics’ overall disposition toward the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung during 1800, see, finally, the supplementary appendix on Ludwig Tieck’s deft parody on the Last Judgment and the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung. Back.
[1] Auguste had been staying with the Tischbeins in Dessau since mid-September (Dessau in an engraving by Matthäus Merian; map: Rudolf Koch and Fritz Kredel, Deutschland und angrenzende Gebiete [Leipzig 1937]):
[2] Caroline is writing on Friday, 22 November 1799; Huber’s review of Athenaeum appeared in issue 372 of the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung dated the day before, on Thursday, 21 November 1799. As seen in her letter to Huber on 24 November 1799 (letter 257), the issue did indeed arrive the following day, 23 November.
Huber’s letter seems no longer to be extant (nor is it listed in Anton Klette’s Verzeichniss der von A.W. Schlegel nachgelassenen Briefsammlung, nebst Mittheilung ausgewählter Proben des Briefwechsels mit den Gebrüdern von Humboldt, F. Schleiermacher, B.G. Niebuhr, und J. Grimm [Bonn 1868]), so one cannot compare his remarks in that letter to her responses here. That said, one can nonetheless reconstruct various points in his letter from Caroline’s response. Back.
[3] Intelligenzblatt of the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung on 2 November 1799 (letter/document 255a). Back.
[4] See Friedrich’s letter to Caroline ca. 20 November 1798 (letter 209), with note 10. Back.
[5] Wilhelm and Christian Gottfried Schütz exchanged three testy letters on 20–21 October 1799 (letter 249b, 249c, 249d) concerning the prologue performed in the Schützes’ amateur theater one evening in the style of August von Kotzebue’s anti-Romantic play Der hyperboreische Esel. Concerning Kotzebue’s play, including notes, excerpts, and Huber’s review of the play in the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, see Wilhelm’s initial letter to Schütz on 20 October (letter 249b) with note 3, and esp. supplementary appendix 250.1. Back.
[6] Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Minna von Barnhelm oder Das Soldatenglück: Ein Lustspiel in fünf Aufzügen (Berlin 1767), a comedy set during the Seven Years War involving betrothed but separated lovers, presumed dishonor, intrigue, and a happy ending. Here Minna in act 2, scene 7; the maidservant Franziska enters from the left (Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki, Minna von Barnhelm II. Aufzug. VII. Auftrit, Herzog August Bibliothek; Museums./Signatur Uh 4° 47 [74])
[7] Concerning Huber’s review of Friedrich Nicolai’s Vertraute Briefe von Adelheid B** (Berlin, Stettin 1799) in the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung (1799) 343 (Saturday, 26 October 1799) 246–48, see Friedrich’s letter to Fichte on 3 November 1799 (letter 252g) with note 8. Although Friedrich thought the anonymous review was by Christian Gottfried Schütz, this present passage allows the deduction that it was in fact Huber, who must have acknowledged its authorship in his letter to Wilhelm to which Caroline is here responding. For that review and a discussion of the piece, see the supplementary appendix on Friedrich Nicolai’s Vertraute Briefe. Back.
[8] Huber had been in Mainz before it fell to the French in October 1792, then returned only to leave again. See esp. Caroline’s letter to Luise Gotter on 24 January 1793 (letter 120), note 2. Back.
[9] The scandalous and bitingly satirical “Litterarischer Reichsanzeiger oder Archiv der Zeit und ihres Geschmacks,” Athenaeum (1799) 328–40, “Imperial Literary Gazette or Archive of the Age and Its Taste.”
Wilhelm wrote to Ludwig Tieck on 16 August 1799 (letter 243b) precisely about Caroline’s “anxiety” concerning the consequences of the “Litterarischer Reichsanzeiger” (illustration: Toiletten Kalender für Frauenzimmer 1796; Inhaltsverzeichnis deutscher Almanache, Theodor Springmann Stiftung):
Friedrich reports that the “Litterarischer Reichsanzeiger” has caused a sensational stir in Berlin and that its insulted opponents have already raised considerable cries of zetermordio against it. Caroline is plagued by such anxiety concerning the consequences that she has not yet dared even to look at it, and wherever she sees it lying around, even from afar, she immediately covers her head with her hands.
[10] In French in original, “rancor, animosity; stubbornness, obstinancy.” Back.
[11] In French in original. Back.
[12] Schmidt, (1913), wondered whether Caroline did not mean “anonymity” instead of “authority.” In any event, Huber seems to have announced his review of Lucinde (and acknowledged his authorship of that review) in the letter to Wilhelm. The review would appear in the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung (1800) 130 (Wednesday, 7 May 1800) 297–300 (for the text, see supplementary appendix 256.2). Back.
[13] Caroline is referring to the anticipated continuation of the novel, volume 1 of which had appeared in the autumn of 1799; volume 2 — though she could not know at the time — would never be finished. Back.
[14] In French in the original; “moderate, moderated.” Back.
[15] Fichte’s atheism dispute, though Fichte was an opponent of the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung in any event; then also Schelling’s declaration in the Intelligenzblatt of the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung 142 (Saturday, 2 November 1799) 1150–51 (letter/document 252d). Back.
[16] For the text of that editorial response, see letter/document 255a. Back.
[17] Garlieb Merkel was spreading rumors in Berlin that Duke Karl August had reprimanded the Schlegels for certain items in Athenaeum. See Fichte’s letter to Schelling on 22 October 1799 (letter 250a). Back.
[18] Fr., “Your country can be proud of you.” Back.
[19] They did indeed; see supplementary appendix 256.1. Back.
[20] In their response to Wilhelm’s declaration (letter/document 255a), the editors of the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung remarked that
To be specific, it cannot but be quite unpleasant for us not to have published an assessment of Wilhelm Meister. But a man whom Herr Schlegel himself would not deny can be viewed as one of our best critics gave us hope for a quite long time that he would indeed deliver such; then, however, Herr Schlegel took over that responsibility himself, albeit without delivering such either (we intend no reproach on this account, but merely to clarify our own actions). The responsibility for the review was then withdrawn from him with his agreement and assigned to a man from whom we might yet anticipate something extraordinary.
Huber’s review of Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre appeared in the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung (1801) 1 (Thursday, 1 January 1801) 1–8; 2 (Friday, 2 January 1801) 9–11. Back.
[21] See Caroline’s letter to Auguste on 28 October 1799 (letter 252), note 8. Back.
Translation © 2013 Doug Stott