• 367. Caroline to Wilhelm Schlegel in Berlin: Jena, 29 June 1802 [*]
Jena, 29 June [1802]
|337| [1] To escape the constant nagging at least a bit, I paid out half the sum from Schelling’s funds after receiving the enclosed billet from Madam Niethammer yet again today. [2] I have also settled 5 rthl 16 gr that were yet attributable to my own expenses. I see that the rest comes to less than I originally thought, and that you have 91 rthl. 8 gr. to pay. But since Schelling needs this sum himself, he must ask for remuneration as soon as possible, just as I would also seek a settlement of the whole as soon as possible considering I am quite alone in being subjected to these people’s importunate demands. [3]
|338| I am very obliged to you for having taken care of the matter with Cecile. [4] — Tiek had already told us the rather entertaining bit news about Jenisch. [5]
The volume of Calderon is here. [6]
Our lengthier trip [7] was suddenly postponed by other matters and at least initially by a stay in Lauchstädt that we might attend the prologue by Goethe and a whole series of remarkable performances there. [8]
If the things I requested from Madam Bernhardi have not yet been sent off when you receive this letter, which is certainly possible, allow me to repeat one request I recently forgot, namely, that I get back the letters I wrote last winter. They could simply be enclosed with the other things. [9]
Also a bit of news: At its dedicatory celebration, where every department awarded a doctorate, the university at Landshut made Schelling a Doctor of Medicine, something that had already been unanimously resolved even before Röschlaub arrived. [10]
In haste,
C. S.
Notes
[*] Although the manuscript of this letter reads “21 June,” Erich Schmidt added “[29?]” to indicate that this letter cannot have been written on 21 June 1802. Its earliest possible dating is 29 June, immediately after Caroline’s and Schelling’s return from Lauchstädt.
The theater opening there with Goethe’s Was wir bringen and Mozart’s Titus (La clemenza di Tito; Germ. Die Milde des Titus, often known earlier simply as Titus [e.g., Das Repertoire des Weimarischen Theaters, 43]) took place on 26 June, and the performance of Friedrich Hildebrand von Einsiedel’s play Die Brüder. Ein Lustspiel nach Terenz in fünf Akten on 27 June. Back.
[1] Erich Schmidt did not include in his edition the text up to the sentence beginning “But since Schelling etc.” The omitted text reads as follows in the manuscript (Digitale Edition der Korrespondenz August Wilhelm Schlegels [august-wilhelm-schlegel dot de]; line breaks as in original; transcription by the translator):
Auf beyliegendes Billet von der Nieth. das ich
wiederum heut erhalten habe ich um dem
beständigen Dringen einiger maßen zu
entgehn die Hälfte, von Schellings Geld
ausgezahlt. 5 rthl 16 gr welche noch
auf meine Rechnung kommen sind außerdem
berichtigt ich sehe dass der Rest weniger
beträgt wie ich glaubte und du 91 rthl 8 gr
zu bezahlen hast. Back.
[2] Caroline had mentioned a debt owed to the Niethammers as well as a sense of urgency in taking care of that debt in her letter to Wilhelm on 18 June 1802 (letter 364); see note 6 there. The reference is to outstanding rent interest for the apartment at Leutragasse 5 (see Schelling’s letter to Wilhelm on 30 July 1802 [letter 368b]). Back.
[3] Caroline had been living alone with Rose, her maidservant, in her new apartment since returning from Berlin on the evening of 24 May 1802 (Der Freund des schönen Geschlechts: ein angenehm und nützlicher Taschenkalender für das Jahr 1808):
[4] At issue is the possibility of Cecile Gotter continuing her training in portraiture in Dresden. Caroline queried Wilhelm about examining possibilities while he was in Dresden after her return from Berlin to Jena with Schelling. Caroline last mentions the matter to Wilhelm in her letter to him on 18 June 1802 (letter 364). Wilhelm responds in a letter she cites in her own letter to Cecile in late June 1802 (letter 366). Back.
[5] Uncertain allusion, though possibly the anticipation of an article Daniel Jenisch, the author of the anti-Romantic Diogenes-Laterne, was about to publish concerning a “revivification of true religious sensibility among the population,” “Ueber Liturgie, Predigt und Predigerstand, mit besonderer Hinsicht auf die, von Friedrich Wilhlem III. dem preußis. Ober-Konsistorium abgefoderten, Vorschläge zur Belebung eines echt-religiösen Volkssinnes,” Brennus. Eine Zeitschrift für das nördliche Deutschland (1802), 219–53,
in which the author, after a bombastic introductory lament concerning the disdain for religion as a consequence of the Zeitgeist and a garrulous argument to the effect that solely the public veneration of God might counter the universal moral decline and especially the “degeneration of sexual desire,” particularly if preachers were to be subjected to stricter church discipline, then sends the reader — as well as the topic originally announced in the title — into empty space by merely announcing that he will deal with this subject in a future essay. (KGA 1:5:lxxii) Back.
[6] The first volume of Wilhelm’s anthology Spanisches Theater (Berlin 1803) contained three works by Calderon. See also Caroline’s letter to Wilhelm on 21 January 1802 (letter 342), note 15. Back.
[7] To Italy. In a letter to his father on 28 May 1802 (letter 361a), Schelling had asked that his parents welcome Caroline into their home during the coming summer (the trip was not made), adding that “I thought it justifiable to solicit my father’s house for Madame Schlegel beforehand for this trip insofar as I have the prospect of making a longer trip to Italy with her.” See esp. note 12 there. Back.
[8] See the supplementary appendix on Lauchstädt. Back.
[9] The specifics of what Sophie Bernhardi was to secure for Caroline is unknown.
Erich Schmidt, (1913), 2:639, remarks that Caroline did indeed receive back her letters back to no. 327 (her letter to Wilhelm on 27 July 1801), i.e., her final letter to him before his arrival in Jena from Berlin on 11 August 1801. Her next letter to him was that on 16 November 1801 (letter 330) after his return to Berlin in early November. Back.
[10] Concerning Schelling’s honorary doctorate in Landshut, see supplementary appendix 367.1. Back.
Translation © 2016 Doug Stott