II.

SCHILLER, GOETHE AND MADAME DE STAEL

[1832.]

In this age, by some called the Locomotive, when men travel with all manner of practical, scientific and unscientific purposes: to fish Mexican oysters, and convert the heathen; in search of the picturesque, in search of cheap land, good groceries, bibliography, wives, new cookery, and, generally, though without effect, in search of happiness; when even kings, queens and constitutions, are so often seut on their travels; and what with railways, what with revolutions. absolutely nothing will stay in its place, the interest that once attached to mere travellers is gone: no Othello could now by such means win the simplest Desdemona. Nevertheless, in Madame de Staël's Travels there is still something peculiar. Shut out from her bright beloved Paris, she gyrates round it in a wider or narrower circle. Haunted with danger, affliction, love of knowledge, and above all with ennui, she sets forth in her private carriage on two intermingled errands: first, 'to find noble characters;' secondly, to study national physiognomies.' The most distinguished female hv ing will see face to face the most distinguished personages living, be they male or female; will have sweet counsel with them, or, in philosophic tourney, 'free passages of arms;' will gauge them with her physiognomical callipers, and, if so seem fit, print their dimensions in books. Not to study the charters, police and economy of nations; to stand in their council-halls, workshops, dress-shops and social assemblages; least of all, to gaze on waterfalls, and ruined robbertowers, and low over them, as the cattle on a thousand hills can do, is she posting through the world: but to read the living book of man, as written in various tongues; nay, to read the chrestomathy and diamond-edition of that living polyglot book of man, wherein, for clear eyes, all his subordinate performances, practices and arrangements, or the best spirit of these, stand legible. It is a tour, therefore, not for this or that object of culture, this or that branch of wisdom; but for culture generally, for wisdom itself: and combines with this distinction that of being a true tour of knight-errantry, and search of spiritual adventures and feats of intellect, the only knighterrantry practicable in these times. With such high-soaring views, Madame first penetrated into Germany in 1803; and could not miss Weimar, where the flower of intellectual Germany was then assembled.

1 FRASER'S MAGAZINE, NO. 26.

The figure of such a three as Goethe, Schiller and De Staël, to whom Wieland, Müller and other giants, might be joined, rises beautiful in our imagination, and throws powder in the eyes; and perhaps, for merely poetic purposes, it were best if we left it invested with that rose-coloured cloud, and pried no deeper. But insatiable curiosity will nowise let the matter rest there; Science, as well as Fancy, must have its satisfaction. The spiritual Amazon' was a mortal woman; those philosophic joustings and symposia were also transacted on our common clay earth: behind that gorgeous arras, of which we see not the knotty side, who knows what vulgar, angular stone and mortar lies concealed! In the Sixth Volume of the Correspondence between Schiller and Goethe, lately published; still more, in the Thirty-first Volume of Goethe's Works, even now publishing, where, under the title of Tag- und Jahres-Heft, is a continuation of his Autobiography, we find some indications and disclosures. These the British world, for insight into this matter, shall now also behold, in juxtaposition, if not in combination. Of Madame in London

there are some sketches in Byron's Letters, but more in the way of daubing than of painting; done too, not with philosophic permanentcolours, but with mere dandyic ochre and japan, which last were but indifferently applicable here. The following are in a more artistic style, and may be relied on as sincere and a real likeness.

We give the whole series of Notices, which we have translated, long and short, arranged according to the order of dates, beginning with the first note of distant preparation, and ending with the latest reminiscence. Goethe is, for the time, at Jena, engaged in laborious official duties of a literary kind, when, on the 30th of November 1803, Schiller thus finishes a letter to him from Weimar :

⚫ Madame de Staël is actually in Frankfort, and we may soon look 'for her here. If she but understand German, I doubt not we shall 'do our part; but to preach our religion to her in French phrases, and standing the brunt of French volubility, were too hard a prob'lem. We should not get through so cleverly as Schelling did with Camille Jourdan. Farewell.'

The next will explain themselves :

'Jena, 13th December 1803.

'It was to be foreseen, that when Madame de Staël came to Weimar, I should be called thither. I have taken counsel with myself, that the moment might not surprise me, and determined on staying 'here. For the laborious and dubious business that now lies on me, 'whatever physical force I have, especially in this bad month, will

'scantily suffice; from the intellectual surveyance down to the me'chanical typographical department, I need to have it all before me. You, my dear friend, see, not without horror, 'what a case I am in; with Meyer, indeed, to comfort me, yet with'out help or complete fellow-feeling from any one for whatever is 'so much as possible, our people look upon as easy. Wherefore, I 'entreat you, take my place; guide the whole matter for the best, so 'far as possible. If Madame de Staël please to visit me, she shall be 'well received. Let me but know four-and-twenty hours beforehand, 'and part of the Loder apartments shall be furnished to lodge her; 'she will find a burgher's table, and welcome; we shall actually meet ' and speak together; she can stay while such remains her pleasure. 'What I have to do here is transacted in separate half-hours; the 'rest of my time shall be hers: but in this weather to go and to come, to dress, appear at court and in company, is, once for all, im'possible, as decisively as ever you, in the like condition, have pro'nounced it.

All this I commit to your friendly guidance, for there is nothing that would gratify me more than to see this distinguished lady, and 'personally make acquaintance with her; really glad were I, could 'she spend these two leagues of road on me. Worse quarters than ' await her here she has been used to by the way. Do you lead and 'manage these conditions with your delicate and kind hand, and send me an express when anything decided occurs.

'Good speed to all that your solitude produces, as yourself could 'wish and will! For me, I am rowing in a foreign element; nay, I * might say, only splashing and spluttering therein, with loss for the ' outward man, and without the smallest satisfaction for the inward or from the inward. But after all, if it be true, as Homer and 'Polygnotos teach me more and more, that we poor mortals have 'properly a kind of hell to enact in this earth of ours, such a life may pass among the rest. A thousand farewells in the celestial 'sense! 'GOETHE.'

Weimar, 14th December 1803.

'Against your reasons for not coming hither there is nothing solid to be urged; I have stated them with all impressiveness 'to the Duke. For Madame de Staël herself too, it must be 'much pleasanter to see you without that train of dissipation; and 'for yourself, under such an arrangement, this acquaintance may 'prove a real satisfaction, which were otherwise a burden not to 'be borne.

'Fare you heartily well; keep sound and cheerful, and deal gently 'with the Pilgrimess that wends towards you. When I hear more, 'you shall learn. SCHILLER.

'P. S. The Duke gives me answer that he will write to you him'self, and speak with me in the Theatre.'

Weimar, 21st December 1803.

'The rapid and truly toilsome alternation of productive solitude 1 'with formal society, and its altogether heterogeneous dissipations, 'so fatigued me last week, that I absolutely could not take the pen, ' and left it to my wife to give you some picture of us.

Madame de Staël you will find quite as you have a priori con'strued her she is all of one piece; there is no adventitious, false, 'pathological speck in her. Hereby is it that, notwithstanding the 'immeasurable difference in temper and way of thought, one is per'fectly at ease with her, can hear all from her, and say all to her. 'She represents French culture in its purity, and under a most inter'esting aspect. In all that we name philosophy, therefore in all 'highest and ultimate questions, one is at issue with her, and re'mains so in spite of all arguing. But her nature, her feeling, is 'better than her metaphysics; and her fine understanding rises to 'the rank of genial. She insists on explaining everything, on seeing 'into it, measuring it; she allows nothing dark, inaccessible; whith'ersoever her torch cannot throw its light, there nothing exists for 'her. Hence follows an aversion, a horror, for the transcendental 'philosophy, which in her view leads to mysticism and superstition. This is the carbonic gas in which she dies. For what we call poetry 'there is no sense in her: from such works it is only the passionate, 'the oratorical, the intellectual, that she can appropriate; yet she 'will endure no falsehood there, only does not always recognise the 'true.

'You infer from these few words that the clearness, decidedness 'and rich vivacity of her nature cannot but affect one favourably. Our only grievance is the altogether unprecedented glibness of her 'tongue: you must make yourself all ear, if you would follow her. 'Nevertheless, as even I, with my small faculty of speaking French, 'get along quite tolerably with her, you, with your greater practice, 'will find communication very easy.

1 Schiller was now busied with Wilhelm Tell; on which last and greatest of his Dramas this portion of the Correspondence with Goethe mainly turns.

'My proposal were, that you came over on Saturday; opened the 'acquaintance, and then returned on Sunday to your Jena business. 'If she stay longer than the new year, you will find her here; if she 'leave us sooner, she can still visit you in Jena before going.

'The great point at present is, that you hasten to get a sight of her, ' and so free yourself of the stretch of expectation. If you can come sooner than Saturday, so much the better.

For the present, farewell. My labour has not, indeed, advanced 'much this week, but also not stood still. It is truly a pity that this so interesting Phenomenon should have come upon us at the wrong season, when pressing engagements, bad weather, and the sad public occurrences over which one cannot rise quite triumphant, conspire to oppress us. SCHILLER.'

Goethe, having finished his work, returns to Weimar, but not in health. We find no mention of Madame till the 4th of January, and then only this:

* * Of the Lady de Staël I hear nothing: I hope she 'is busy with Benjamin Constant. What would I give for quietness, 'liberty and health, through the next four weeks! I should then 'have almost done. 'SCHILLER.'

(Apparently of the same date.)

'Here come the new Periodicals, with the request that you would 'forward them, after use, to Meyer: especially I recommend No. 13 'to notice. So there is nothing new under the sun? And did not our accomplished Pilgrimess assure me this morning, with the ut most naïveté, that whatever words of mine she could lay hold of, she 'meant to print? That story about Rousseau's Letters1 does her no 'good with me at present. One sees oneself and the foolish French 'petticoat-ambition as in a diamond-adamant mirror. The best 'wishes for you. 'GOETHE.'

(No date.)

Madame de Staël, in a note to my wife, this morn'ing, speaks of a speedy departure, but also of a very probable return 'by Weimar. * 'SCHILLER.'

1 This will explain itself afterwards.