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THE 
 
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\ 
 
 JN PRESS. 
 
 GEOGRAPHICAL STUDIES, 
 
 BY THE LATK 
 
 PROFESSOR CARL RITTER, 
 
 OF BERLIN. 
 
 S^ranslateb from lljje original (Herman, 
 
 WITH A 
 
 SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE, 
 B T 
 
 WILLIAM LEONHARD GAGE. 
 
 With a fine Portrtut of the Author. 
 
 Prof. ARNOLD GUYOT, the eminent physicist, and author of the popular 
 work, "The Earth and Man," in speaking of distinguished scientific men, says: — 
 " Humboldt, Ritter and Steffens are the three great minds who have breath* d 
 a new Ufe into the science of the physical and moral world. The scientific life of 
 the author opened under the full radiance of the light they spread around them, 
 and it is with a sentiment of filial piety that he delights to recall this connection 
 and to render to them his public homage." 
 
THE 
 
 STORY OF MY CAREER, 
 
 AS 
 
 STUDENT AT FREIBERG AND JENA, 
 
 AND AS 
 
 WITH 
 
 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF GOETHE, SCHILLER, SCHELLINQ, 
 
 6CHLEIERMACHER, FICHTE, NOVALIS, SCHLEGEL, 
 
 NEANDEE, AND OTHERS. 
 
 HEINRICH STEFFENS. 
 
 TEAK SLATED BT 
 
 I 
 
 WILLIAM LEONHARD GAGE. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 GOULD AND LINCOLN, 
 
 60 WASHINGTON STBEET. 
 
 NEW YORK: SHELDON AND COMPANY. 
 
 CINCINNATI: GEORGE S. BLANCHARD. 
 
 186 3. 
 
-\5 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by 
 
 GOULD AND LINCOLN, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 GEO. C. RAWD & AVERT, 
 ELECTEOTTrERS AND P R I X T S B Sv 
 
 1 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Heinrich Steffens was born at Stavanger, in Nor- 
 way, the second day of May, 1773. He spent but a few 
 years in his native country, and while he was a mere child 
 his parents removed to Copenhagen, which became the home 
 of his youth. He studied in the universities of Copenha- 
 gen and of Kiel, and became a licensed lecturer in the lat- 
 ter before reaching the age of twenty-five. He manifested 
 very early a love for a certain class of metaphysical studies, 
 — that which builds on a basis of physical science a lofty 
 though rather sHght and unsubstantial superstructure of sen- 
 timent. Steffens had a remarkable leaning to the philosophy 
 of rehgion, and though his was by no means a logical mind, 
 nor one which enjoyed logical processes, yet he loved those 
 long and vague meditations on the attributes of the Deity 
 in which many of the German scholars indulge. He came 
 mainly under the influence of Spinoza, and passed at a later 
 period under that of Jacobi, Kant, and Schelling. In his 
 mature years the last named was his master without a rival •, 
 
 m 
 
VI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 but Spinoza was the first great genius who awoke the pow- 
 ers of Steffens, and shaped his n^nd, and gave direction to 
 his aims. The young man was fortunate in his acquaint- 
 anceships, for Hensler of Kiel, Rist and Schimmehnaun, all 
 were drawn to him, and did what they could to develop his 
 faculties. Steffens was an admirer of the English Hterature, 
 and Shakspeare was the poet whom he most desired to 
 comprehend. He never was master of our language, and 
 what he read of our literatm'e had to come to him in trans- 
 lations, and no good version of Shakspeare had then been 
 made. After the verdict which has been silently passed 
 upon Young's Night Thoughts, it is amusing to see how he 
 struggled to get at the meaning of that ponderous and heavy 
 performance, and attributed his failure to the profundity 
 rather than to the real emptiness of the verbose mass. He 
 tried to fathom Sterne's humor, but could not reach the bot- 
 tom of it, and the real power of Tristam Shandy was always 
 hid from him. Yet, Steffens had a good natural taste for 
 the humorous, and a light play of mirth tinged the most of 
 his ordinary conversation. His leading quality, however, 
 was his vivacity, which was extraordinary^", and which never 
 died out, even in the advanced old age to which he Uved. 
 He was known as the " genial Steffens," and always wore 
 an air of benignity mingled with nobleness. Rev. Dr. 
 Sprague, of Albany, noticed this, and alludes to it in his 
 
INTRODUCTION. VII 
 
 " European Celebrities," where the countenance of Profes- 
 sor Steffens is compared to that of Dr. Nott, of Union Col- 
 lege, although, by a mistake in printing, the name is written 
 Stephens, and might easily pass without being recognized as 
 that of the physicist Steffens. 
 
 The man whose autobiography is given in the following 
 pages has been brought a number of tunes before the read- 
 ing public of this country and of England, but never ex- 
 cepting in a brief and unsatisfactory manner. In the letters 
 of Humboldt, which were put in the possession of Varnha- 
 gen von Ense, and published by Ludmilla Assing, a year or 
 two since, is one from the king of Denmark to Hmnboldt, in 
 which his majesty expresses himself in terms of great pride 
 in the reputation of the Danish professor resident in Berlin, 
 though Humboldt indulges in one of those ungenerous flings 
 at Steffens, so many of which are found in that unfortunate 
 book, and which have done so much to tarnish the fair fame 
 of him whom we hardly invested with the ordinary weak- 
 nesses of humanity. 
 
 But the most emphatic testimony to the value of Steffens's 
 scientific career is to be found in a book of wide reputation, 
 Guyot's " Earth and Man." He not only refers in the body 
 of that work to Steffens, but in the pi^face he alludes to him 
 and to Bitter as the two men to whom he was the most in- 
 debted for the interest which he has displayed in Physical 
 
VIII INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Geography, and the scientific training which has directed all 
 his researches m this new branch of knowledge. I read that 
 passage in Guyot's work years ago, just after its pubUcation, 
 and while I was a student at Cambridge. I knew nothing 
 of Ritter and nothing of Steffens, but the enthusiastic devo- 
 tion of their interpreter to their genius kindled an interest in 
 my own mind which led, after the lapse of five years, to my 
 enrolling myself as a pupil of Eitter, at Berlin, and to the 
 translating, still five years later, a selection ^ from the volu- 
 minous works of the former, and the preparation of the work 
 now before my readers. 
 
 The autobiography of Stefiens, written in his old age, and 
 called Was ich erlebte, or The Story of my Life, and pub- 
 lished in Breslau some years since, is very voluminous and 
 difiuse. Indeed, it would be perfectly correct to say that it 
 is tedious to a degree. It would be so to a German, it is 
 doubly so to an American or an Englishman. It is in ten 
 volumes, and covers four thousand pages. It is dictated in 
 all the garrulousness of old age. It is not written with a 
 discriminating appreciation of what men wish to know, and 
 the story of his childhood, and the accounts of his relatives 
 and of his college friends, are just as full as the allusions to 
 
 1 Greogn'aphical Studies. From the German of Professor Carl Rit- 
 ter. Beaton : Gould and Lincoln. (In press.) 
 
INTRODUCTION, IX 
 
 the great men and the great events of his time. It made 
 my task, as a whole, easier, for it made the labor of reject- 
 ing the useless parts a light one, and only subjected me to 
 the pains of wading through thousands of trifling and worth- 
 less pages. Yet there were more than " the four grains in 
 two bushels of chaff," and when I had found them, unlike 
 the ideas of Gratiano, they were worth the search. Steffens's 
 vivacity is reproduced in the pages of his autobiography, and 
 perhaps nowhere in the rich treasury of German literary me- 
 moirs is to be found a gallery of portraits so graphic and yet 
 so faithfiil as that which is opened in this work to American 
 readers. 
 
 I have passed over the first three volumes without draw- 
 in<y a word from them, excepting the facts which are stated 
 in the first pages of this Introduction. The life of Stefiens 
 begins to be interesting when, at the age of twenty-five, and 
 provided by Count Schinmaelmann, so well and favorably 
 known fi'om the letters of Niebuhr, with a stipend from the 
 Danish treasury to defray his travelling expenses, the young 
 philosopher enters Germany, the fiiture theatre of his career. 
 Schimmelmann was then minister of finance in Denmark, 
 and Stefiens had already gained^ his favor, and was about to 
 enter upon the enjoyment of it. With the opening of the 
 fourth volume, where Stefiens is seen passing into Germany, 
 my real task of collating and translating begins. 
 
X INTRODUCTION^. 
 
 In executing this work I have tried to reproduce the easy, 
 flowing style in which Stefiens wrote, and to draw out those 
 passages, and those only, which I have judged would most 
 interest cultivated readers who take an interest in the men 
 and in the literature of Germany. The ninth and tenth 
 chapters, on Steffens's Military Career, I find already trans- 
 lated, and so incorporate at second hand. 
 
 W. L. G. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 8TEFFENS ENTERS GERMANY — JOURNEY THROUGH THE HARTZ — 
 FOOT JOURNEY TO JENA — ERFURT AND ITS ATTRACTIVE LADIES 
 — JENA— LIFE IN JENA— STUDENT LIFE IN JENA — FOOT JOUR- 
 NEY THROUGH THE THURINGIAN FOREST — FIRST EXPERIENCE 
 IN BUYING A HORSE — ASPECTS OF GERMAN CHARACTER — THE 
 LIFE OF GERMAN MINERS — KANT, FICHTE AND SCHELLINQ — 
 FICHTE'S METAPHYSICS — RETURN TO JENA 15 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 FIRST VIEW OF SCHELLING — FICHTE IN THE LECTURE-ROOM — 
 LIFE IN JENA IN ITS GOLDEN TIME — SCHELLING — INTERVIEW 
 WITH GOETHE — STEFFENS'S VISIT TO GOETHE — SCHILLER COM- 
 PARED WITH GOETHE — FIRST REPRESENTATION OF SCHILLER'S 
 WALLENSTEIN — STEFFENS'S JUDGMENT OF WALLENSTEIN — UNI- 
 TY AMONG THE SCHOLARS OF JENA — STEFFENS'S LOVE OF THE 
 FINE ARTS — JACOBI'8 FA3I0US LETTER — SPIRIT OF CRITICISM 
 AT JENA 36 
 
 XI • 
 
XII CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 WANT OP ATTRACTIONS IN BERLIN — INCIDENT FROM FICHTE'S 
 I^IPE — HIS UNSWERVING ADVOCACY OF TRUTH— FICHTE DRIVEN 
 FROM JENA — HIS ACCOUNT OF THE USE OF HIS SYSTEM — CAR- 
 DINAL POINTS OF FICHTE'S PHILOSOPHY — HIS ALLEGED ATHE- 
 ISM—JOURNEY TO FREIBERG — SECOND RECEPTION BY GOETHE 
 — INTERVIEW WITH ]\IALTE BRUN — GLOOMY ENTRANCE INTO 
 HALLE — MORE FAVORABLE IMPRESSIONS — REICHARDT, THE MU- 
 SICAL COMPOSER 58 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 STEFFENS'S FIRST VISIT TO BERLIN — BERLIN — MEETS TIECK — 
 STEFFENS IN A STRAIT PLACE — FREIBERG — WERNER, THE MIN- 
 ERALOGIST—LIFE AT FREIBERG — VISITS DRESDEN — THE GAL- 
 LERY AT DRESDEN — FREEDOM OF LIFE AT FREIBERG — STEF- 
 FENS'S MANNER WITH OPPONENTS— REFLECTIONS ON ART — OLD 
 GERMAN POETRY — DISCOVERY OF THE VOLTAIC PILE — STEF- 
 FENS'S FIRST BOOK 74 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 FREDERICK SCHLEGEL — WIT AND WITTY MEN — GOETHE'S COM- 
 PREHENSIVENESS — NOVALIS — STEFFENS'S HUMILLVTION — HIS 
 ACQUAINT^VNCE %VITII TIECK — EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY — 
 RETURN TO DEN:MARK — LEAVING GER:MANY — COPENHAGEN — 
 KIND RECEPTION — GOETHE'S INVITATION — STEFFENS COMMEN- 
 CES A COURSE OF LECTURES — HIS MARRIAGE — MARRIED LIFE 
 AND DESPERATE CIRCUMSTANCES — BETTER PROSPECTS.. . .103 
 
CONTENTS. XIH 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 EETX2RN TO HALLE — COMMENCES HOUSEKLEEPING — DARK PROS- 
 PECTS — SCHLEIEEMACHER — SLIFE AS PROFESSOR AT HALLE — 
 FICHTE — JOHANNES VON MULLER — ALEX. VON HUMBOLDT — 
 POLITICAL ASPECTS — WARLIKE APPEARANCES — EXCITED FEEL- 
 ING IN ILiVLLE — THE SEIZING OF THE CITY BY THE FRENCH 
 — NAPOLEON AT HALLE — THE LTflVERSITY BROKEN UP BY 
 NAPOLEON — SAD DAYS — UNSETTLED LIFE 132 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 RETURNS TO HALLE — DISCOURAGING REOPENING OF THE UNI- 
 VERSITY — PATRIOTISM OF THE PROFESSORS — KING JEROME 
 BONAPARTE'S VISIT TO HALLE — INTERVIEW WITH JOHANNES 
 VON MULLER — SHATTERED CONDITION OF GERMANY — GALL, 
 THE FOL^NDER OF PHRENOLOGY — GOETHE AND GALL — GALL'S 
 PHRENOLOGICAL LECTURE AT HALLE — SCHELLING-ACHDI VON 
 ARNDI — ^VILLIAM GRIMM, THE PHILOLOGIST — FOUNDING OF 
 THE WflVERSITY AT BERLIN — STEFFENS'S VIEWS OF NATURAL 
 SCIENCE — LAST TRIALS AT HALLE 1C5 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CALL TO BRESLAU — TRIP TO JENA AND BERLIN — NAPOLEON'S 
 RECEPTION AT WEIMAR — GOETHE — DINNER AT GOETHE'S — HIS 
 ONSLAUGHT AT DINNER — SCHLEIERMACHER AS PROFESSOR AT 
 BERLIN — THE FACULTY AT BERLIN — BOECKH, BEKKER, NIE- 
 BUHR — GATHERINGS OF BERLIN SAVANS — ARRIVAL AT BRES- 
 LAU — STEFFENS'S LOVE OF GERMANY — COMMENCEMENT OF 
 PROFESSORSHIP AT BRESLAU 188 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 STEFFENS'S MILITARY CAREER. — DARK POLITICAL PROS- 
 PECTS—GENERAL GNEISENAU —PUBLIC EXCITEMENT — STIR IN 
 BRESLAU — SCENE IN STEFFENS'S LECTURE-ROOM — HIS LETTER 
 FROM THE KING — THE PHILOSOPHER BECOMES LIEUTENANT — 
 STEIN — BLtJCHER. . , 207 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 STEFFENS'S MILITARY CAREER MY FIRST SIGHT OF 
 
 WAR — "MY KINGDOM FOR A HORSE " — GNEISENAU'S COURAGE 
 AT GROSS-GORSCHEN — SCHARNHORST MORTALLY WOUNDED — 
 BATTLE OF LEIPZIG — STEFFENS'S RESIGNATION AND RETURN 
 TO BRESLAU. 240 
 
 CHAPTER XI. ^ 
 
 LABORS IN BRESLAU — AVERSION OF NATURALISTS TO METAPHYS- 
 ICS — NEANDER — PLATONIC ATTACHMENTS — JACOBI — FRANTZ 
 BAADER— STEFFENS'S PROFESSIONAL LIFE AT BRESLAU — RAHEL, 
 WIFE OF VARNHAGEN VON ENSE — BETTINA VON ARMIN — DE LA 
 MOTTE FOUQUE — STEFFENS'S RELIGIOUS FAITH — THEOLOGICAL 
 INQUIRIES — TRANSFER TO BERLIN — CONCLUSION 264 
 
THE 
 
 STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 8TEFFENS ENTERS GERMANY — JOURNEY THROUGH THE HARTZ — 
 FOOT JOURNEY TO JENA — ERFURT AND ITS ATTRACTIVE LADIES 
 — JENA — LIFE IN JENA — STUDENT LIFE IN JENA — FOOT JOUR- 
 NEY THROUGH THE THURINGIAN FOREST — FIRST EXPERIENCE 
 IN BUYING* A HORSE — ASPECTS OF GERMAN CHARACTER — THE 
 LIFE OF GERMAN MINERS — KANT, FICHTE AND SCHELLING — 
 FICHTE'S METAPHYSICS — RETURN TO JENA. 
 
 My long-cherished wish now approached its ful- 
 filment, and Europe lay before me. Yet, while 
 every country in it was attractive to me, Germany 
 was the one nearest to my heart and claimed my 
 first attention. Free from care, happy and full of 
 hope, I was now in a condition to turn my steps 
 whichever way I would. As a naturalist, or rather 
 as a mineralogist, I had received a certain sum for 
 travelling expenses from my government, but a 
 deep and real interest in my scientific pursuits filled 
 me. Philosophical speculation was not what would 
 be called my specialty ; I would not be a stranger 
 
 to this department, but it did not meet all the de- 
 ls 
 
16 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 mands of my being. I had a kind of premonition 
 of the nature of the epoch which was just opening 
 in all directions. I saw old authorities losing their 
 value, and I comj^rehended quite well that on one 
 side Goethe and on the other Philosophy were set- 
 ting all the scientific elements into a ferment. I 
 saw that I must be a man of the new time just 
 opening. I had attempted much, and in almost all 
 dejjartments of human knowledge I had sought to 
 attain clear views. What Spinoza had been to mo 
 I have already stated, — the casket which contained 
 all the riches that the future seemed to hold in store 
 for me. Fichte had taught me that the glory of 
 man's self-determining will finds its only worthy 
 equipoise, and, indeed, its more than equivalent, in 
 the inward activity of the mind itself ^ut it was 
 to be Schelling who should transfer me to a new 
 stand-point, one which should give an interpreta- 
 tion to the whole previous course of my life from 
 childhood up. A new existence seemed to be open- 
 ing to me, and I addressed myself to the task .of 
 grouping what is deepest and noblest in knowledge, 
 and of comprehending the harmony which exists 
 between all the conflicting elements of nature. But, 
 full of joy as this rich future made me, it did not 
 hinder me from giving myself unreservedly to the 
 delight of the present. 
 
 It is not easy to conceive how imposing to the 
 (^Q of a North European are the mental conflicts 
 which are going forward in the heart of the conti- 
 nent. The distant murmurs have an enchanting 
 tone in his ear, and every name which cohies to 
 
STEFFENS EyTEIiS GERMANY. 17 
 
 him seems surrounded with a halo of glory. The 
 petty animosities, the literary and scientific squab- 
 bles, are lost in the great whole, and the scholars of 
 Europe are elevated in his eyes into high-priests of 
 knowledge. A cultivated German can hardly visit 
 Italy or Greece or the East with more interest than 
 I felt in approaching Germany. What they seek is 
 a dead Past, which must be strange and distant 
 even were they to live in its very midst. I was 
 looking for a glorious Future in which I might live 
 and have a share, — a future which should absorb 
 the entire activities of my nature. It would kindle 
 my every power, and unfold to me, as to the world, 
 a new and brigjht era. 
 
 As we approached Brunswick, and the beautiful 
 environs of the city began to appear, I tried to 
 descry away beyond the buildings the outlines of 
 the Hartz Mountains. My longing for mountainous 
 scenery had been much increased by my recent so- 
 journ in Norway. We stopped at the Blue Angel 
 Inn, which had pleasant associations for me in con- 
 nection with the author Knigge. But when we left 
 Brunswick, as we journeyed in the fairest weather 
 and thi;ough ^le most delightful scenery, and in the 
 neighborhood discerned Wolfenbiittel, and later the 
 towers of Halberstadt, and soon after passed Qued- 
 linburg, which, although it did not come in sight, yet 
 was not far away, well-known names and old recol-- 
 lections came thronging in ujoon me, and a bright 
 sun within me seemed to emulate the outer one in 
 giving a charm to the whole landscape. All the 
 chords of my being resounded in harmony. Les- 
 
18 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 sins: bad lived in Wolfenbiittel, and Gleim's house 
 at Hal])erstadt had been a favorite resort of almost 
 all the leading poets of the time. Gotze had lived 
 his busy, calm, retired, naturalist's life in Quedlin- 
 burg, and his name brought a charm of namelct^s 
 but real interest upon the whole village. I saw Les- 
 sing in his library, revolving great thoughts on the 
 past, and at last giving expression to them with his 
 matchless skill. And from Halberstadt rung out 
 the sonjTs like those which once sounded from the 
 Wartburg. Gotze, and with him Rosel, Gleichen, 
 Schofer, strode through the fields, lost themselves 
 in the forests, made observations in the gardens, 
 while the blossoms reached out to them as to old 
 friends, and the cheerful insects seemed to leap 
 from the grass to bid them welcome. Thus was 
 the whole district peopled to my imagination, and 
 almost seemed to me like classic ground. In this 
 happy frame of mind, in which everything outward 
 as well as inward united to make me cheerful, I 
 passed a day never to be forgotten. It was about 
 midnight, dark and late, when we arrived at Blank- 
 enburg. 
 
 The Hartz Mountains, through wbose ni)rthern 
 spurs we were now passing, I have since traversed 
 many times in all directions ; and there are so many 
 pleasant associations connected with those journey- 
 ings, that the Hartz Mountains, small as they are, 
 fill quite a prominent place in my life. They have 
 had to serve mo as an example of mountain chains 
 in general, and from them I have been compelled to 
 draw most of my geognostical theories and illustra- 
 
JOURNEY THROUGH THE HARTZ. 19 
 
 tions. The spurs towards the north, east, and 
 south, are indeed charming, often imposing. 
 
 I think with delight on that fair summer's day 
 when we wandered on foot through the woods at 
 the base of the Ilartz, discovered Wernigerode and 
 the bold Castle of the Mountain, visited the steep 
 rocks in the Ilsethal, and climbed the next day to 
 the ruins of Hartzburg. All was beautiful ; man, 
 landscape, sunshine, air, forest, and mountains, com- 
 bined to throw us into the happiest of moods. We 
 had been told that the way to the Brocken through 
 the Ilsethal was the most difficult, and so we se- 
 lected it for that very reason ; but what its diffi- 
 culties were we never could discover. Ascending 
 by this route, the Brocken in its solitude had a look 
 which was really imposing. We spent the night in 
 a mean little hut on Heinrichshohe, and in the twi- 
 lij^ht the Brocken reminded me somewhat of the 
 Norway mountains, yet the German landscape was 
 so lovely that the difference in favor of the Hartz 
 scenery was immense. That night was to me one 
 of perfect delight. My companion was a dear 
 friend, a thorough proficient in botany, and so I 
 had in his accurate knowledge a source of happiness 
 which I had not enjoyed wdien journeying through 
 my own country, and obliged to depend wholly 
 upon my own attainments. 
 
 Tlie view of the Ilartz from the Brocken is in no 
 way imposing. The neighboring heights have no 
 attractive features ; it is only the distant prospect 
 and the general harmony of the whole picture that 
 give it its fame. Nine times I have ascended the 
 
20 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 Brocken from different directions. Once I had the 
 good fortune to see the famous Spectre from the 
 Tower of the Brocken House. I have often admired 
 tlie shadows which j^layed over the level land at 
 the base, when the sun went down, as one of the 
 most attractive features of the landscape. But at 
 evening there arises almost always a mist which ob- 
 scures everything. Yet at my first visit the atmos- 
 phere was entirely clear. The shadows extended 
 eastward as for as the horizon, and even prolonged 
 themselves into the distant sky, so that the summit 
 of the mountain, the Brocken House, the Tower, 
 and we, the wondering observers, swam as shadows 
 in the air. 
 
 The ancient solitude of the Hartz has wholly 
 passed away. For the witclies there no longer re- 
 mains a place. Ladies and gentlemen riding, trav- 
 ellers of all kinds, from a distance as well as from 
 the neighborhood, singing journeymen and shout- 
 ing students, met us whenever we turned in to visit 
 shaded dells and desolate ravines. Where we ex- 
 pected the spirits of the mountains, we encountered 
 servant-girls, and the throng of people threatened 
 to wear smooth even the craggy heights themselves. 
 
 And yet I must confess that even this cheerful 
 gathering-place of so many, who all feel happy, has 
 its own peculiar charm. Even nature seems subor- 
 dinate to life, when mountain chains share a part in 
 the merriment of men. Where T had seen them in 
 the cold North, they commune silently among them- 
 selves, and the human voice is lost in their oppres- 
 sive stillness. 
 
^ FOOT JOURNEY TO JENA. 21 
 
 When we came back to Blankenbiirg I could not 
 repress the desn-e to go alone and on foot to Jena. 
 I took a shirt in one pocket, a map in the other ; 
 even the thought that I might lose ray way had 
 something attractive for me. My outside garment 
 was a light kerseymere overcoat. In my hand I 
 carried a long, clay j^ipe. So, towards evening, with- 
 out having wandered at all out of my way, I came 
 to Stolberg. I stepped into a tavern, which seemed 
 fitted up for travellers by the coach. The landlady 
 received me rather coolly, and when I asked for 
 some supper she gave me a seat in tlie corner of 
 the room, and placed before me some tripe soup. 
 This whole proceeding seemed singular, and threw 
 me into great perplexity how to act. I thought of 
 the Norwegian peasants, who would have consid- 
 ered an unwillingness to partake of food that they 
 might offer a personal offence to themselves, and yet, 
 hungry as I was, I could not bring myself to taste 
 of the vile dish. The landlady noticed my perplex- 
 ity ; but, instead of feeling hurt, she began to look 
 upon me with new fivor. "Ah," said she, "the 
 gentleman is piobably not used to such fare." I 
 then received something better. The best chamber 
 in the house was put at my disposal, and I enjoyed 
 the luxury of a perfectly clean bed. On the next 
 day, I passed through the whole of the charming 
 valley to Rottleberode, and that walk remains in my 
 memory as one of the pleasantest I ever enjoyed. 
 I wholly forgot that I was on a journey. I spent a 
 great part of the day in the valley. I lived over 
 again the days of my childhood. I studied all the 
 
22 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 flowers I met, and was even pleased to fall in with 
 new ones which reminded me that I was no long- 
 er in my native land. I pursued dragon-flies and 
 linnets, or rested by the side of a swittly-runiiing, 
 shaded brook. I could scarcely tear myself from 
 the valley ; steep banks on both sides shut it closely 
 in. It seemed to me as if one of the fair landscapes 
 of Denmark lay before me, with its back-ground of 
 Scandinavian mountains. 
 
 The rest of the journey I do not remember so 
 well. Sonderhausen, where I spent a night, seemed 
 a pleasant village ; Erfurt I distinctly remember. 
 I stopped at the "Roman Emperor;" and at this 
 house, as elsewhere on the whole journey, I was re- 
 ceived without the exhibition of a prying curiosity. 
 This fine old German town made a very agreeable 
 impression upon me. I visited the great bell in 
 Dalberg's palace. 
 
 I do not know whether Erfurt is really celebrated 
 for pretty girls ; I only know that the matrons and 
 the maidens whom I saw were charming. I had 
 had enough of foot-journeying, and was going to 
 take the stage-coach to Weimai*'. Having nothing 
 to do, I looked out upon the square in front of the 
 hotel. By good fortune I saw three or four ladies 
 of the burgher class, who attracted my attention 
 by their genteel figures, fair skins, and fine fea- 
 tures. The costume of the Saxon ladies, the mantle 
 lightly thrown over the shoulders, and the graceful 
 caps, may have contributed to render them attrac- 
 tive in my sight. I turned to the landlord and can- 
 celled my order for the stage, and declared that I 
 
ERFURT— ITS ATTRACTIVE LADIES. 23 
 
 would spend some days in Erfurt, taking no pains to 
 conceal my reason. He smiled, and when I asked 
 him if he would not introduce me during my stay 
 to some families where these angels lived, he prom- 
 ised his kind help. In the afternoon he took me to 
 a garden, and introduced me to some families, who 
 were drinking tea there, as a Norwegian. I had 
 expressly stipulated that these should be none of 
 the learned classes, for on this journey I would bid 
 a temporary adieu to all learning. 
 
 Here I at first experienced an advantage which 
 has since stood me iu great service when intro- 
 duced to strangers. It has always been a whim of 
 mine never to take letters of introduction with 
 me. When I went to Germany I had none, and 
 I was foolish enough to believe that my own bear- 
 ing would be my best passport. But I soon found 
 that what called attention to me was not my bear- 
 ing, but my birthplace. Even at the hotel the land- 
 lord looked at me with great astonishment when I 
 announced myself as a Norwegian. And in the 
 families, too, the same cause procured me much con- 
 sideration. People had fanciful conceptions of my 
 native land in the remote North. Norway was then 
 little visited ; it lay on one side of the great course 
 of travel, and a journey thither was regarded in 
 almost the same light as one to the coasts of Asia 
 or Africa. And so here in Erfurt my foreign ex- 
 traction awakened much interest. My faint and in- 
 distinct pronunciation and abundant errors in Ger- 
 man were a source of great amusement. Many 
 
24 THE STORY OF MY CAHEEP.. 
 
 agreeable days I passed in Erfnrt, and then in the 
 happiest of moods took the coach for Jena. 
 
 So in this place I had arrived at last, and what 
 liad driven me thither was so clear in my mind that 
 Jena almost seemed the goal of my journey. I in- 
 deed remembered that in my own country I was 
 regarded as a mineralogist, and that it was expected 
 of me that I should hasten directly to Freiberg to 
 study in the famous school of mineralogy, of which 
 Werner was then at the head. But it would have 
 been impossible for me to pass by the real centre of 
 intellectual life in Germany. The little city of Jena 
 in its lovely valley was very attractive, and after a 
 few days I felt quite at home. 
 
 I did not, indeed, intend to spend the summer 
 months before me in Jena. I reserved these for a 
 geological tour in the Thuringian forest, and wliat 
 drew me specially in that direction was Heim's work 
 upon the mineralogy of that district, which would 
 serve me as an instructive companion at every step. 
 I was not one of those young men who have the 
 boldness to crowd themselves without any reserve 
 upon distinguished scholars. To visit Goethe, in 
 Weimar, did not occur to me, interesting as it would 
 have been to have approached him. I left it to 
 time and to circumstances, and reckoned safely upon 
 these that they would ultimately bring me into con- 
 tact with him. I had already heard that Schelling 
 liad received a call to Jena as Professor Extraordi- 
 narius. His arrival was expected in the autumn. 
 
 I alighted at the Black Bear, and on the evening 
 
STUDENT LIFE IN JENA. 25 
 
 of my arrival I experienced a touch of the exceed- 
 ing roughness of the Jena students. 
 
 A city in which one proposes to tarry for a little 
 while, and which may even have some relation to 
 our future career, has a certain impressive aspect at 
 the outset. It seems to inclose even the secret of 
 our destiny. At the hotel I found my friend, who 
 had arrived some days before me. He found a great 
 deal of fault with the bad fare, which in truth for us 
 men of the Xorth, who were used to hearty and 
 nourishing food, seemed execrable. We entertained 
 each other with much lively talk, for we had been 
 separated some time, and had enough to tell of. It 
 grew dark. I looked out into the neighborhood so 
 strange to me, and a restless suspicion of what was 
 to come ran through my mind. Then we heard in 
 the distance a loud shoutinsr like the voices of a 
 number of men, and nearer and nearer they seemed 
 to come. Lights had been brought shortly before, 
 and, as the uproar was close upon us, a servant 
 burst in to warn us to extinguish them. We asked, 
 with curiosity, why, and what the shouting mob 
 wanted. We suspected, indeed, that it was stu- 
 dents. The servant told us that they were on their 
 way to the house of Professor A., who was unpop- 
 ular with them, — I know not why, — to salute him 
 Tvith their Pereat, or college damnation. The cry 
 of some hundred students grew plainer and plainer. 
 "Out with lights" was called, and just then we 
 heard the panes of glass clatter, when the warning 
 was not quickly enough complied with. I confess 
 that this circumstance, occurring so soon after my 
 
26 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 arrival, filled me with a kind of gloom. It was not 
 such things as this that had called me to Jena ; 
 these Avere not the voices which I wished and ex- 
 pected to hear, and my first night was a sad one. 
 
 I had the caprice to try to live as frugally as a 
 Jena student, and made a week's experiment of it. 
 But I lost flesh visibly. The landlord understood 
 the art of treating the flesh of an old ox or ram 
 with such exquisite skill that all the flavor of the 
 meat disappeared, and only the woody fibre re- 
 mained. As I could not drink, like a true German 
 student, eight or nine bottles of lager every day, 
 I grew very hungry, and had to provide for myself. 
 Yet I did not give up my purpose of studying criti- 
 cally German student life. In Dorndorf there was 
 »i3pointed a great commerce, or carouse. Hundreds 
 of students collected themselves in the halls of the 
 hotel, arrayed in their well-known bizarre costume. 
 I mingled anions: them. Some even of the wildest 
 came up to me and asked me to drink brotherhood 
 with them. I did not tarry long. It was a j^leasant 
 day, the country was charming ; I took a long walk 
 to Hamburg, and when I returned to Dorndorf the 
 commerce was in full glow. I heard the frightful 
 shouting, the wild revelry, and hurried on with a 
 kind of horror. I had reason afterwards to rue this 
 first visit. The very next day I was waited upon 
 by some wild Westphalians in leather trousers, short 
 jackets, and cannon-like boots, in the right one of 
 which was the handkerchief, in the left the pipe, 
 while a tobacco-pouch hung at a button-hole ; these 
 were my brothers of yesterday. They filled their 
 
THROUGH THE THURINGIAN FOREST. 27 
 
 pipes with their vile tobacco, threw themselves upon 
 the sofa, and called for beer. Their visit brought 
 me almost to despair; they remained some hours, 
 and I had to feign an engagement to get away. I 
 hastened to Grios, in order to recount my foolish ad- 
 venture and its unfortunate fruits. He very prop- 
 erly gave rae a good chiding, and told me that I 
 must now bear with patience what could not be 
 obviated. Only one resource remained to me. I 
 left Jena, and took a foot journey through the Thu- 
 ringian forest. 
 
 Five or six weeks T spent in this tour, pursuing 
 the most of my journey without any companion. 
 There was some fear of meetino; robbers in those 
 times, but with the precautions which I took I en- 
 countered no attack. The whole of my journey 
 was rich in adventures of a small kind ; rich, too, in 
 observations of life, and in additions to my knowl- 
 edge. I came nearer to the people, and learned to 
 love and prize them. I came in contact with the 
 most varied persons, and chimed in with the pecu- 
 liar tone of each. Meanwhile I applied myself 
 closely to my own science. I became acquainted 
 with the structure of the Thuringian Mountains, the 
 position of the strata, and sought to bring my ob- 
 servations into relation with those which I had else- 
 where made. I did not seek to come into contact 
 with learned people, excepting Heira, who could di- 
 rect my studies ; it was foresters and miners with 
 whom I had to do. The whole journey was one of 
 enjoyment. My mind was interested in my work, 
 my system free from disease. Indeed, I have never 
 
28 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 been in better liealth than when, in the midst of 
 great activity, T have liad to live in a very moderate 
 way. When in the solitary mountains I have had 
 nothing more choice than eggs, sausages, and bacon, 
 with water to drink, I have felt so thoroughly well, 
 so elastic in spirit, so light in limb, that I still look 
 back with joy to those days of vigor and hearty 
 sympathy with life. I was in love with the pres- 
 ent ; and those dark problems which I had left at 
 Jena for future solution looked foggy and forbid- 
 ding. 
 
 I must narrate one circumstance which reminds 
 me forcibly of Gil Bias. I found the constant jour- 
 neying on foot very tedious, particularly when I 
 was leaving mile after mile behind me in passing 
 through uninteresting districts in order to reach 
 places which had value to me. The most disagreea- 
 ble thing was the heat at noon. Fatigue, the warm 
 sun, often hunger, troubled me to such an extent as 
 to quite cloud the pleasures of my journey, and 
 make ray occupation seem mean and forbidding. 
 
 I often fell in with merchants travelling on horse- 
 back, and I almost envied them their advantages. 
 If I only had a horse, I said to myself; then the 
 heat might blaze away and I would not complain; 
 and even if the first expense might be considerable, 
 yet it cannot be so very great a sum. I can take 
 good care of my horse, and then sell him again. 
 When at last I made my resolve there was no lack 
 of opportunities to carry it into effect. A Saalfeld 
 mountaineer gave me the benefit of his advice. I 
 found an admirable horse, and bought him at what 
 
FIRST EXPERIENCE IN BUYING A HORSE. 29 
 
 I have no doubt was a good bargain. But now 
 began new troubles. When I aliglited at a country 
 tavern I had first to care for my horse ; but that was 
 a very small matter. When, after leaving a number 
 of miles behind me, I reached an important field of 
 observation, I often had to leave my horse for a 
 whole day at a stable, while I rambled through the 
 mountains on foot. Often it would have been con- 
 venient to have continued my wanderings some dis- 
 tance on these brancjj excursions, but round I must 
 turn and traverse again my old track because of my 
 horse, and so my ease cost me dear. N"ot seldom, 
 in my complete ignorance of such matters, I over- 
 worked the poor creature. On one pleasant sum- 
 mer evening, as I was riding leisurely along, want- 
 ing to enjoy the scenery and beautiful weather, 
 something suddenly seemed to ail the horse. All 
 my happiness vanished at once. I was full of anx- 
 iety. I knew nothing of what was to be done in 
 such cases. When at last I reached a village, and 
 the horse was led into a stable, I looked at it behind 
 and before, but could see nothing, and went anx- 
 iously into the house. Shortly after appeared the 
 landlord. "On that horse you can travel no further," 
 said he. " He has hurt himself, and will be good for 
 nothing if you do not call in a horse-doctor and let 
 him rest for some days." My worst fears were real- 
 ized, and I asked the good man for advice. " I can 
 remain here under no conditions," said I. There- 
 upon he began to j^our out a volume of assurances 
 that he would treat me honorably and the like ; but 
 the next morning I rode off on my sorry nag. I 
 
30 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 will give him good fare, said I to myself, and ho will 
 soon recover. But it soon appeared that the horse 
 was really lame. At last he stopped. I, an unskil- 
 ful rider, could not move him from the spot. I was 
 compelled to dismount, and not only to drag myself 
 along, but also my horse. I thanked God when an 
 opportunity occurred, on the third day, to sell my 
 horse for a third of the sum which I paid for him. 
 So I otood again on my own sound feet, and really 
 felt myself fortunate to be th^e, although the loss 
 of so much money compelled me to very much 
 shorten my tour. 
 
 I had now given myself for some time to the 
 scenery of Germany, for which I had yearned from 
 my earliest childhood. I had hurried through Wei- 
 mar, so full of interest to me ; had found Jena as 
 good as empty for my purposes. I had approached 
 no one of the eminent men whose names were sa- 
 cred in my ear, but I had seen much. I had entered 
 upon a world which was new to me. The winning 
 openness with which the Germans greet strangers, 
 the confidence which they yield to them, the sim- 
 plicity of the peasantry as they communicate their 
 joys and sorrows, and tell of the injuries even which 
 have been done to them, made me soon feel at home 
 among them. I had seen them in many conditions. 
 I had become acquainted with the cities and vil- 
 lages and charming landscapes of this happy land. 
 Olieerful in my eye were the small residences or 
 homes of the minor German princes Rudolstadt 
 and Meiningen, Hildburghausen and Coburg, Bam- 
 berg and Wurtzburg. The castles, with their great 
 
TBE LIFE OF GERMAN MINERS. 31 
 
 gardens, and the houses of the court servants, with 
 their attractive surroundings, had for me a most 
 winning look. The relation of the people to the 
 princes was beautiful ; in the eye of a foreigner 
 there Avas that mutual confidence and patriarchal 
 aspect of life which drew largely on my sympathies. 
 
 But I liad enlarged my circle of interest in other 
 directions, and especially had become much drawn to 
 the life of the miners, whose occupation and man- 
 ners were so constantly under my eye as I pursued 
 my mineralogical investigations. I soon learned to 
 prize their practical efficiency. When, during my 
 wanderings into the most lonely districts, the water- 
 courses were my guide, and led me to a cabin or 
 to an opened mineral vein, where I had to creep 
 through the narrow passage-ways, the slightest cir- 
 cumstances grew important, and the structure of 
 the mountain, the object of my inquiries, stood in 
 the closest relation with the task which the practi- 
 cal miner had to perform. Here I first learned with 
 what difficulties man has to contend when he opens 
 the earth to bring forth its hidden treasures ; how 
 opposing elements stand in his way; how now the 
 friable falling rock, now the waters streaming up 
 from below, can destroy the work of many years ; 
 how the miner must watch Avith uninterrupted anx- 
 iety every outbreak of those hostile forces with 
 which he battles, in order to turn them to his own 
 profit, and make his adversaries his helpers. 
 
 Indeed, there is scarcely any practical service of 
 life which makes such constant demands upon judg- 
 ment and care as that of the miner ; and I, com- 
 
82 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 pletely ignorant of this manner of life, and looking 
 at it for the first time, could only wonder at the ac- 
 tivity which amidst such obstacles could work with 
 singleness towards its mark. The man who busies 
 himself merely in his own chamber, who loses him- 
 self in abstract i^rincij^les of thought, is only too 
 much inclined to undervalue practical life. From 
 my own childhood up I had thought of practical 
 thins^s as at a distance. I- had looked at them more 
 in the light of poetry and fancy than reality ; but 
 now the most trivial matters grew interesting, and 
 I tried to bring them into living relation with my 
 previous speculations. I look back to those days as 
 a period of calm enjoyment. The past lay like a 
 smiling landscape in my view ; the present calm, 
 peaceful, and indescribably attractive. The friendly 
 attentions paid to me, the magnificent Germnn lan- 
 guage which I was always hearing, the frankness of 
 fellow-tourists, all warmed my soul with kindness 
 and with love, caused my heart to beat with new 
 joy, and made the future look bright and beautiful. 
 As I wandered along I thought ; and the more I 
 thought the more plainly I saw that the dawn of a 
 new scientific era was breaking, and that I must 
 give myself wholly to the next age rather than the 
 past. Kant broke upon me suddenly as the rej^re- 
 sentative man of the time ; the limits which he im- 
 posed upon the extent of our knowledge satisfied 
 me. I began to see that he must constitute a neces- 
 sary member, an unavoidable step in the progress of 
 the human mind. Natural science had so much en- 
 grossed me that I could not be unacquainted with 
 
KANT. 33 
 
 the power of the appeal which it makes to the 
 senses, and upon which it lays such authoritative 
 stress. I perceived it as a fact that the Kantian 
 categories in their treatment of space must find 
 their perfect expression in the exact language of 
 mathematics. But even under these limitations, 
 dealing as they did with only the outer realities of 
 the world of sense, that which they excluded, the 
 spiritual, was brought out with new distinctness, 
 and the more determinedly Kant tried to waive such 
 problems the more strongly did they press them- 
 selves upon the consideration, and I saw very plainly 
 that Schelling as well as Fichte would pass from 
 Kant, and through the path which he had opened, 
 to a higher philosophy. So it seemed to me very 
 important to study him. I believed that the un- 
 eatisfactoriness of my studies hitherto lay in the 
 fact that I had not begun with him in laying the 
 foundations of my intellectual development. I 
 longed for his writings, I wanted to enter upon a 
 systematic course of training, and I was cheered 
 with the thought that things which were dark to 
 me would be cleared up, and that I should feel 
 through my whole future life the influence of this 
 new philosophy. I longed to make the acquaint- 
 ance of the men whom I should soon see in Jena. 
 Fichte had, indeed, been there some time, but I had 
 purposely shunned meeting him. The sudden turn 
 of all my afiairs, the mass of new observations which 
 I had made, and the power which these had exerted 
 upon me, had thrown my life into temporary confu- 
 sion, and I had not yet wished to meet face to face 
 
34 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 the man wliom I regarded as the mightiest intellect 
 and the profoundest speculator of the age. I had 
 wanted to wait till my thoughts were again cen- 
 tred, and my life ready to flow in a new and 
 unbroken channel. 
 
 In Kiel, I had busied myself in metaphysics, but I 
 had not fully compassed it ; now, however, I applied 
 myself to it with assiduity and with an intentness 
 which I had not known since I studied the ethics 
 of Spinoza. Fichte's wonderful dialectic power, 
 that monologue of his which presents the Ego pro- 
 foundly communing with itself, that representation 
 of Feeling as the final issue of this inward commu- 
 nion which first sought to establish what Kant had 
 empirically conjectured, suddenly gave me light on 
 a subject on which I had thought much, namely, the 
 consecutive development which goes on in the evo- 
 lution of ideas. Fichte's language was at first unin- 
 telligible to me, but after I found that the establish- 
 ment of the simple idea of self, the Ego, was the 
 corner-stone of his system of metaphysics, I discov- 
 ered that its study demanded a power of persistent 
 abstraction which was not very difiicult to me to 
 attain, and in which I delighted much when I had 
 attained it. To make the personal acquaintance 
 of Fichte at this point was very important. The 
 limitation of the Ego, the central figure of his phi- 
 losophy, was in no way clear to me from the mere 
 study of his works. 
 
 It was wonderful with what feelings I looked at 
 the mountains, when, as it were, out of another 
 heaven, the sun shone into my chamber, and, as if 
 
FICHTE AND SCHELLING. 35 
 
 transplanted to another world, the trees murmured, 
 and the birds sung, when I returned to conscious- 
 ness again after the study of Fichte, and looked 
 out again uj^on the face of nature. It was like the 
 greeting of a friend after a long absence, a friend 
 whom I had known and loved under very different 
 circumstances from those in which I now was. 
 
 But besides Fichte, I hoped to meet, on my return 
 to Jena, A. W. Schlegel and Schelling. The com- 
 ing into contact with such men, with Goethe close 
 by, promised me a future whose worth I could not 
 overrate. I left the solitudes of the mountains and 
 hastened to Jena. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 FIRST VIEW OF SCHELLING — FICIITE IN THE LECTURE-ROOM — 
 LIFE IN JENA IN ITS GOLDEN TIME — SCIIELLING — INTERVIEW 
 WITH GOETHE — STEFFENS'S VISIT TO GOETHE — SCHILLER COM- 
 PARED WITH GOETHE — FIRST REPRESENTATION OF SCHILLER'S 
 WALLENSTEIN — STEFFENS'S JUDGMENT OF WALLENSTEIN — UNI- 
 TY AMONG THE SCHOLARS OF JENA — STEFFENS'S LOVE OF THE 
 FINE ARTS — JACOBI'S FAMOUS LETTER — SPIRIT OF CRITICISil 
 AT JENA. 
 
 A. W. ScHLEGEL had now come to Jena with 
 his liighly-gifted wife, and also Schelling, who was 
 to deliver a trial lecture in the great hall of the 
 university. He had just come from Leipsic, and 
 was recoverinor from severe illness. Professors and 
 students were mingled together in his auditory. 
 Schelling ascended to his chair. He had a youth- 
 ful countenance ; he was two years younger than I, 
 and now the first of the men of eminence whose 
 acquaintance I was eager to make. He had an air 
 of decision, I might say, a half-defiant look, broad 
 shoulders, the temples wide apart, the brow high, 
 the countenance expressive of energy, the nose a 
 little inclined upwards, and in his large, clear eyes 
 lay a mighty power. When he began to speak he 
 seemed constrained only a few moments. The sub- 
 ject of his lecture was one which then absorbed his 
 whole soul. He spoke of the idea of a philosophy 
 
 86 
 
' STEFFENS'S MEETING WITH SCHELLING. 37 
 
 of nature, of the need of embracing nature in her 
 unity, of the light which would be thrown upon all 
 subjects when philosophers should begin their specu- 
 lations at the stand-point of the unity of nature. 
 He carried me completely away, and the following 
 day I hastened to visit him. Galvanism then was 
 attracting the attention of all naturalists ; the great 
 mystery which unites electricity with it under the 
 law of a higher unity was then just coming under 
 study. I, too, was deeply interested in it. Schelling 
 received me not merely in a friendly, but in a most 
 hearty way. I was the first professed naturalist 
 who came to his views without halting and without 
 reservation. Among men of my walk he had found 
 only antagonists, and such, too, as were really una- 
 ble to comprehend him. 
 
 His conversational manner was charming. I was 
 familiar with his writings, I coincided almost en- 
 tirely with his views, and I anticipated from him 
 and his efforts great changes in all natural science. 
 I could not prolong my visit, — the young teacher 
 was busy with his lectures. But the few moments 
 which I spent with him were so delightful that in 
 my memory they expanded into hours. Through 
 my entire harmony of views with him I gained a 
 certain kind of confidence, w^iich might almost be 
 called boldness. True, he was younger than I, but 
 he was sustained by a powerful nature, was trained 
 among the most favorable circumstances, had early 
 attained to a great reputation, and stood as a 
 haughty adversary over against the whole power- 
 
38 THE STOIiY OF MT CAREER. 
 
 less horde, whose leaders, timid and crouching, 
 shrank back in fear. 
 
 I was much interested at this time in the opening 
 genius of Franz Baader, whose contributions to 
 metaphysics had been printed even earlier than 
 Schelling's writings on the philosophy of nature; 
 but Baader rose out of the dark clouds of mysti- 
 cism; Schelling, on the contrary, from the clearer 
 light of scientific knowledge. The night of mysti- 
 cism received what light it had from distant stars, 
 which only could shine in the darkness, but could 
 not illumine our path. But the sun of an older 
 philosophy, which set in the time of Grecian wis- 
 dom, arose again with Schelling, promising a bright 
 and beautiful day. On this clear morning I awoke, 
 full of animation and spirit, ready to give myself, 
 without reserve or constraint, into the guidance of 
 this young man, to lose myself in him. 
 
 After my personal interview with Schelling, I 
 went to hear Fichte lecture, who was just com- 
 mencino: his course on the Constitution of Man. 
 His short, thick figure, with its sharp, authoritative 
 eyes, struck me with an imposing effect when I saw 
 him for the first time. His style of speech was cut- 
 ting as a knife ; his sentences fell like the stroke 
 from a razor. Already acquainted with even the 
 weaknesses of his pupils, he sought in every way 
 to make himself intelligible to them. He took all 
 possible pains to substantiate what he said by proof; 
 but yet he had a certain authoritative air, as if he 
 would remove every doubt by a command, to which 
 unhesitating obedience should be paid. "Gentle- 
 
LIFE JX JENA IN ITS GOLDEN DAYS. 39 
 
 men," said he, " withdraw within yourselves ; enter 
 into your own mind ; we are now not dealing with 
 anything outward, — purely with ourselves." 
 
 The hearers, thus bidden, really seemed to with- 
 draw into their own minds. Some changed their 
 position and straightened themselves up ; others 
 bowed themselves over and closed their eyes. All 
 waited with great eagerness to see what should 
 come next. "Gentlemen," continued Fichte, "let 
 your thought be the wall." I could see that the 
 hearers set their minds most intently upon the 
 wall, and everything seemed favorable thus far. 
 "Have you thought — the wall?" asked Fichte. 
 " Now, then, gentlemen, let your thought be that 
 that thought the wall." It was curious to see 
 what confusion and perplexity now seemed to 
 arise. Many of the hearers seemed no ways able 
 to discover that that had thought the wall, and I 
 now understood how it might well happen that 
 young men who stumbled over the first approaches 
 to speculative philosophy in so clumsy a way might, 
 in later efibrts, fall into errors which should be 
 grave, not to say dangerous. Fichte's lecture was 
 exceedingly distinct and clear. I was wholly ab- 
 sorbed in his subject, and had to confess that I had 
 never listened to such a speaker before. 
 
 I gradually became acquainted with a number of 
 families in Jena. A. W. Schlegel and his distin- 
 guished and highly accomplished wife, with their 
 amiable daughter, were the friends whose house I 
 most habitually sought. Through them I became 
 acquainted with Hufeland, joint editor with Schlegel 
 
40 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 of the Journal of Literature. He received me cor- 
 dially into his house. In fact, he, Schlegel and Fro- 
 niann formed the circle in which I lived. Our talk 
 was almost exclusively confined to literary matters, 
 the quarrels of authors, and their relations to their 
 antagonists ; and, although not a writer myself, I 
 suddenly found myself transferred to a field of crit- 
 icism which I saw would sooner or later bring me 
 into public collision with prominent men. My mind 
 was very productive ; ideas crowded in upon me, 
 but I lacked the quiet needed to work them out 
 and apply them. I studied, experimented, and was 
 borne more rapidly than ever along in the cuiTcnt 
 of fresh thoughts. Schelling was expounding the 
 Philosophy of Nature according to a prospectus 
 which was printed and distributed among his stu- 
 dents. I attended his lectures; every hour gave 
 me fresh food for thought and made my stay in 
 Jena more valuable. I seemed twinsferred to a 
 new life. The men of* whom I had heard and 
 whose works I had read, the men for whose ac- 
 quaintance I had so earnestly longed, were now 
 my daily companions. The still monologue of my 
 life had transferred itself into the animated play of 
 conversation ; I could hardly understand the nov- 
 elty of my situation. Schelling seemed to stand 
 the nearest to me, and even what there was antag- 
 onistic in our modes of thought drew me to him all 
 the more. lie had advanced from philosophy to 
 the study of nature. I now became acquainted 
 with his philosophical writings, and wondered at 
 the thoroughness and confidence and power with 
 
GOETHE. 41 
 
 which, even in extreme youth, he handled themes 
 which were foreign to the thought of any man of 
 the time. He was scarcely twenty years old when 
 he wrote his treatise on The Ego as the Foundation 
 Principle of Philosophy. He seemed to have re- 
 newed in him powers which for centuries had not 
 been seen ; he seemed called to the work of raising 
 philosophy from the dust. At times I felt too in- 
 significant to sit in his presence; but his nearness 
 awaked me to new energies and to enlarged views, 
 which without him I never should have attained. 
 Spinoza roused rae from sleep ; Schelling set me to 
 workinor. 
 
 One eveninoj I was invited to Fromann's. Goe- 
 the was expected. With what trepidation I looked 
 forward to the meeting, every one can imagine who 
 knows what Goethe had been to me from my child- 
 hood up. 
 
 My intimate acquaintance with Goethe's wi'itings 
 had attracted the attention of Schlegel and his wife. 
 The^ wished to have us meet, and see what impres- 
 sion the great poet of Weimar would make on the 
 man from the North. I was invited by them to 
 read from Faust, the first part of which had just 
 appeared. The book, however, was not readily 
 found, and I repeated the first monologue from 
 memory. I asked if I should go on, and could 
 have repeated a good part of the book without 
 help. Lady Schlegel was delighted, and agreed to 
 introduce me to the poet forthwith. But Fromann 
 anticipated her kind intention. 
 
 It is a peculiar feeling with which one meets for 
 
42 THE STORY OF MY CAREEH. 
 
 the first time a man who has exercised a great and 
 decisive influence on his life. Such a moment 
 forms an ej^och in the Ufe ; and it seemed to me, 
 as I walked to Fromann's house, as if a great catas- 
 trophe were just at hand. Goethe appeared. It is 
 known to every one who has seen him, how his 
 noble figure, his admirable carriage, his speaking 
 eye, the majesty of liis whole appearance, and the 
 composure with which he does everything, were 
 overwhelmingly imposing on all who met him for 
 the first time. The greatness revealed in his works 
 was fitly expressed in the man himself. When I 
 first saw him I had to turn away to hide my tears, 
 so much was I overcome. It seemed as if I were 
 looking upon Egmont, Orange, and Tasso, in him. 
 In the company was a Mr. Stackelberg, of Liefland ; 
 he was introduced to Goethe at the same time with 
 myself 
 
 The hallucination that Goethe must have had a 
 suspicion of what he had been to me was natural; 
 but he entertained himself the whole evening^with 
 Mr. Stackelberg. It was not my good fortune to 
 draw his attention for a single moment. Goethe 
 was then in his best days. The composure which 
 characterized his whole manner began to displease 
 me, yes, even to embitter me. I was silent, troubled, 
 and felt myself wounded. I remembered stories of 
 his haughtiness and coolness, and went to my rooms 
 in a mood almost unendurable. The northern Euro- 
 pean is by nature easily wounded in this way, and I 
 have had to struggle all my life with a sensitiveness 
 which has often made me very unhappy. How- 
 
 .._ /■ 
 
INTERVIEW WITH GOETHE. 43 
 
 ever, I got along as well as I could, and repeated 
 Philene's words as I walked home, — 
 
 " If I don't loye thee, what is't to thee ? " 
 
 but yet it would lie like a dark shadow across my 
 path. 
 
 I must communicate my troubles to some one, 
 and so on the next day I hurried to the Schlegels. 
 Lady Schlegel was amazed at the bitterness with 
 which I spoke. It troubled her, too, that Fromann 
 had anticipated her, and she promised that at a sec- 
 ond interview with Goethe, which she Avould bring 
 about, all should be amicably settled. But here my 
 northern stubbornness came in. The higher I hon- 
 ored him, the more decisive the influence he had 
 exercised upon me, the more difficult I found it to 
 consent *to meet him a second time. I expressed 
 myself strongly that Goethe must call upon me 
 first ; no entreaty changed my mind. One evening 
 I was invited to the Schlegels : they had, out of 
 pure kindness, planned a surprise. Goethe was to 
 be there, and I was not to know it. I saw through 
 it, wheeled round, and did not appear in the com- 
 pany. Weeks elapsed, and I gave myself to my 
 studies. Still I often had a bitterness of heart, as 
 if I had lost some great good. The family of the 
 celebrated anatomist Loder was among those who 
 had received me in the most friendly way. His 
 birthday was approaching, and it was the intention 
 to celebrate it by a theatrical performance. The 
 ^' Actor against his Will" was selected, and I was ap- 
 
44 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 pointed to take the chief part. Singularly enough, 
 for years before I had devoted myself passionately 
 to the drama, and had acquired some skill in theat- 
 rical representations. The stage erected, repeated 
 rehearsals were held. I was not only the chief 
 player, but the manager also. I took the liberty 
 to make some changes in the play, and introduced 
 a few passages from the poems of Iffland and Schil- 
 ler. 
 
 The days flew by ; the time for the final rehearsal 
 arrived. To my amazement, as we were just begin- 
 ning, Goethe appeared. He had promised, it seemed, 
 to be present at the final rehearsal, but that I did 
 not know. After he had saluted the ladies, he 
 came up to me and greeted me as an old acquaint- 
 ance and friend. "I have long been hoping to see 
 you in Weimar," said he ; "I have much to talk 
 over with you. When these aff*airs are b/, I hope 
 you will accompany me home." Who was happier 
 than I ? It seemed as if now my hour of highest 
 joy had come. I fear that some of my delight 
 appeared in my acting. Here and there Goethe 
 gave some good counsel. As I was repeating the 
 passage from Schiller, Goethe stepped up to me in 
 a friendly way and said, " Select other passages, if 
 you please ; better leave our good friend Schiller 
 out of the play." All then passed ofi* well. I sub- 
 stituted Kotzebue for Schiller ; the birthday festival 
 was a success, and I added the reputation of a skil- 
 ful actor to what credit Avith the public I had won 
 before. 
 
 The day after, according to promise, Goethe ap- 
 
STEFFENS'S VISIT TO GOETHE. 45 
 
 peared before my house. I kurried down, with my 
 coat under my arm, and rode by his side to Wei- 
 mar. I stayed there a number of days as his guest. 
 Goethe was communicative in the highest degree, 
 and this by necessity, because it was his object to 
 gain over young naturaUsts to his views. The days 
 at Weimar sped by in uninterrupted conversation 
 on scientific subjects. I became acquainted with 
 Goethe on a side of his character hitherto unknown 
 to me. His deep sympathy w4th nature, that quick- 
 ening, creative power which appeared in all his 
 poems and threw its clear light over all his words, 
 became apparent ; plants and animals, and even 
 the flashing colors of the rainbow, he could view, 
 not in their isolated unity, but in all their mutual 
 dependences and relations. Whoever has followed 
 the course of my own life, and studied my charac- 
 ter, will understand how valuable those days with 
 Goethe must have been to me. The object of all 
 my efforts he seemed to grasp in a moment, and the 
 treasure I so restlessly sought appeared to be his 
 peaceful possession. I spent those days in a kind 
 of ecstasy; and I now felt thoroughly persuaded 
 that I had gained such a comprehensive insight 
 into nature, that it would be a spring of undying 
 poetical feeling, and would crown my whole life 
 with the richest fruits. My previous career seemed 
 like a dark prophecy whose fulfilment lay close at 
 hand ; and, full of animation and hope, I hastened 
 back to Jena to communicate to Schelling what I 
 believed I had discovered. But he knew it all bet- 
 ter than I, although whether he had then come to 
 
46 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 personal contact witj^ Goethe I cannot perfectly 
 recall. 
 
 During this time of excited feeling, which had 
 not yet crystallized into a school, and while there 
 was so much scientific and political activity, every 
 event called forth a lively interest. According to 
 the brothers Schlegel, Schiller could hardly be com- 
 pared to Goethe. The latter was deified, the wri- 
 ting of Wilhelm Meister was regarded as the deci- 
 sive turning-point of modern imaginative art, and 
 as the greatest event of the times ; the former was 
 criticised with severity and rudeness. I could not 
 join in this. The frank, knightly spirit which pre- 
 vailed in his poems exercised a powerful influence 
 over me, and the severe truthfulness of his dramas 
 pleased me much. I never favored the views of 
 those men who made nothing of life but a long- 
 drawn play of irony. And although I never could 
 compare Schiller with Goethe, although I believed I 
 could discern a kind of narrowness in his writings, 
 yet everything which he wrote was pervaded with 
 a crystal clearness and purity which pleased me. 
 Schiller had for some years been laboring at his 
 great drama, Wallenstein. Wallenstein's Camp had 
 already been brought upon the stage, and it is well 
 known how lively an interest Goethe took in its 
 representation. It was, if I mistake not, the first 
 fruit which appeared of the friendly alliance of these 
 two great poets. Goethe found in the varied and 
 changing scenes of this drama a favorable opening 
 for a musical composition to be interwoven, and 
 added to the clearness and vividness of the whole. 
 
FIRST EEPRESENTATION OF WALLENSTEIN. 47 
 
 The tragic moment which causes you to suspect the 
 downfall of the hero of the great drama throAvs an 
 eventful light through the whole play. It was in 
 fact a complete dramatic composition. Much pains 
 were taken with all the surroundings ; the decora- 
 tions were not merely respectable, they were fine. 
 Everything seemed favorable for an admirable rep- 
 resentation, and the people of Jena do not willingly 
 neglect any such opportunity as this. The more 
 cultivated regarded this dramatic entertainment as 
 an important affair, one that would give the drama 
 a higher importance, and by which both city and 
 university would be improved and made eminent. 
 
 Piccolomini, the opening part of the great drama, 
 was complete, and would be represented for the first 
 time. The excitement Avith which people looked 
 forward to this event was striking. The families of 
 the professors manifested the greatest eagerness to 
 obtain places at the first announcement of the play. 
 Through the whole city the people talked of noth- 
 ing else. Mothers and daughters intrigued in each 
 other's behalf for tickets ; and whoever had obtained 
 a place held himself fortunate. Amid all this anx- 
 ious striving quarrels arose, which did not quickly 
 pass away. I rode with the counsellors Hufeland 
 and Loder; the wives of both were with us, and 
 Loder's beautiful daughter. So we six crowded 
 into one coach, dismounted at the Elephant Tavern, 
 and hurried to the theatre. Schlegel's gifted wife 
 was left at home. Schelling, too, remained, cease- 
 lessly busy with his lectures. I had obtained a seat 
 
48 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 in Schiller's own box, and made his personal ac- 
 quaintance under these interesting circumstances. 
 
 To speak here of this drama were superfluous. 
 The excitement of the public mind communicated 
 itself to every one. The greatest j^ains had been 
 spent in the preparation, the long passages were 
 spoken without any breaks, and the by-play was ex- 
 cellent ; there was no fault in this respect to be 
 found ; all the performers, it was plain, made the 
 greatest effort. Every one wanted to earn praise. 
 And in truth all the circumstances could not be 
 more favorable. Goethe, to whom the dramatic art 
 was a matter of great importance, vras himself the 
 chief manager ; and his eminence gave him an in- 
 fluence over the whole theatre corps which was 
 hardly ever equalled elsewhere. The performers 
 did not so much fear him for his greatness as they 
 respected him for his skill ; th well knew tha^ 
 whoever did credit to the staL,e of Weimar had 
 gained a reputation which would be known tlirough 
 Germany, and that if circumstances should make it 
 desirable to leave Weimar they would not be long 
 in securing an advantageous position. Enthusiasm 
 for a science which was cherished by Goethe's active 
 interest was united with a desire to secure all the 
 advantages which acting might give to such a play 
 as Wallenstein. The public excitement, too, natu- 
 rally reacted upon the performers and stimulated 
 their efforts. The impression which all this pro- 
 duced upon me reminded me vividly of the evening 
 in Wilhelm Meister when Plamlet was played for 
 the first time. 
 
FIRST REPRESENTATION OF WALLENSTEIN. 49 
 
 And yet I was thrown into great perplexity. I 
 have ah-eady alluded to the passion which I had 
 in Copenhagen for dramatic representations. Picco- 
 lomini was the first important play which I saw in 
 Weimar. I carried with me to the theatre the most 
 exalted ideas of what the Weimar stage must be 
 under Goethe's direction, and now I was compelled 
 to confess that the playing was freer and more nat- 
 ural, and that the ability of the performers in Co- 
 penhagen was greater than here. I had seen Schro- 
 der, and of course did not expect to find his equal 
 in Weimar. But what was efiected in Hamburg 
 and Copenhagen by eminent skill, was made up in 
 Weimar by the masterly management of Goethe, 
 leaving as he did not one deficiency or marked de- 
 fect to mar the unity of the whole. 
 
 I always like to read over a noted drama if it is 
 possible before i. ' T)layed. The reading is of itself 
 a sort of representation, and he must have a dull 
 mind who is not better pleased with this than with 
 what he ordinarily meets at the theatre. Only a 
 great actor who is himself a poet can bring out 
 those hidden beauties which escape us in the read- 
 ing. While we are acting the drama on the theatre 
 of our own mind, the personages of the j^lay form 
 themselves with great distinctness in our thought, 
 and if at the public representation we do not see 
 those who correspond to our own imaginings of 
 hero and heroines, the impression is only transitory, 
 and the one which we formed in the stillness of our 
 own study is the permanent one. Wholly different is 
 it when we make the acquaintance of a drama within 
 
60 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 the walls of a the!itre. The dramatis personaB stamp 
 their figures so ineradicably in my mind at least 
 that I can never shake them off; and so I always 
 carry about with me the lank, haggard, sorrowful- 
 looking Graff as Wallenstein. He had taken un- 
 speakable pains with his part, and had committed 
 it thoroughly ; his diction was admirable. In no 
 place was there that unhappy false tone which al- 
 ways appears when a player is expressing what he 
 does not understand ; and yet his figure, his move- 
 ment, and his playing, were thoroughly wooden. It 
 appeared as if he were repeating a lesson which 
 Goethe and Schiller had taught him with the great- 
 est care. Even when at a later period I saw the 
 incomparable Fleck as Wallenstein, the unhappy 
 Graff always came into my mind as his shadow, and 
 dispelled the charm. Even Bohz did not please me 
 as Max at all ; only Miss Jagemann, young, bloom- 
 ing, and spirited, charmed me as Theckla. 
 
 But I soon saw that Schiller, who sat by my side, 
 was more than satisfied with all ; he was delighted. 
 " By such playing as this," said he, " a man comes to 
 learn what his own piece is ; it is ennobled by such 
 a representation, and the words when spoken are 
 better than when I wrote them." I was particu- 
 larly surprised at the applause which Schiller gave 
 to a young woman who played the part of Terzky. 
 There was, indeed, a certain vivacity and even pas- 
 sion m her playing, and in the most effective passa- 
 ges she never missed a word ; so far as this the part 
 was well performed. But in her figure, her move- 
 ment, and her pronunciation, there was something 
 
STEFFENS'S JUDGMENT OF WALLENSTEIN. 51 
 
 SO mean that she was to me positively offensive ; 
 and yet Schiller was delighted. How he, with his 
 accurate high German accent, could bear her flat 
 Berlin pronunciation, was past ray comprehension. 
 Even Goethe, who occasionally came into the box 
 where we sat, appeared entirely pleased with the 
 performance, althougli he did' not express himself 
 enthusiastically as Schiller did. Looked at from the 
 point of view which was probably the true one, that 
 he did not wish to disturb the evident satisfaction 
 of Schiller, it is conceivable that Goethe, after many 
 painstaking rehearsals, came at last to fairly wonder 
 how, out of the materials at his command, he could 
 attain such comparative perfection. 
 
 Directly at the close of the performance we drove 
 out to Jena, and, although it was very late, some of 
 us assembled at the house of Professor Schleofel to 
 talk witli his wife about the play. She demanded, 
 in that decisive way habitual to her, a definite opin- 
 ion of the piece ; and here the fact showed itself 
 that the first impression of a work grasped as a 
 whole will not admit of the sharp language of pos- 
 itive criticism. Most critics, when they undertake 
 to pronounce judgment upon works of genius in all 
 departments of literature, particularly when they 
 are arranged with a definite plot, are apt to feel 
 that they must give verbal expression to the spell 
 which is laid upon them. And so, in trying to de- 
 scribe the indescribable, the real spirit of the work 
 is reduced to nothing in their hands, and the plot 
 remains as the only thing of value. 
 
 In this circle there was no great inclination to 
 
52 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 pronounce a very favorable judgment upon Schiller. 
 He barely could gnin justice, not to sa/ leniency, 
 and yet the deep impression produced by his play 
 had to Gret vent. I well remember how Madame 
 Schlegel, after much had been said on this side 
 and that, turned abruptly to me with the ques- 
 tion, " Have you not, also, an opinion to express ? " 
 Schlegel, the most thoughtful one of us all, remained 
 silent to hear my judgment. I had noticed a cer- 
 tain similarity between Wallenstein and Don Car- 
 los. I had observed that the same thought lies 
 as the ground-work of each, although developed 
 in entirely different ways. I remarked upon this 
 resemblance, commenting upon the parallelism be- 
 tween the loves of Max and Theckla in Piccolo- 
 mini, and Elizabeth and Posa in Don Carlos. I 
 criticised the length of special passages, and the air 
 of mere declamation which this length must give 
 them when spoken ; and I showed that out of the 
 same source would spring a tedious uniformity, 
 which would prevent the hearer from discrimina- 
 ting between the characters of the play. Indeed, 
 it has become plain to me since, that this declama- 
 tory style of Schiller has been very hostile to the in- 
 terests of the stage, for it has not only banished that 
 individuality which men love to see clearly marked, 
 but it has also produced a theatrical style of speak- 
 ing which is noticeable everywhere, heard even in 
 the pulj^it, and in the mouths of school-boys, as they 
 declaim at exhibition. And the effect of this mo- 
 notonous style adopted by Schiller is felt in the fine 
 arts, in painting, and especially in music. We notice 
 
UNITY AMONG THE SCHOLARS OF JENA. 53 
 
 that in these two branches the sharply-defined works 
 of our ancestors, and the clear-cut melodies which 
 live in the memory, have given place to broad, plat- 
 itudinous masses of color and sound, without indi- 
 viduality, and as lifeless as they are vague. All our 
 hope for the future rests upon the constant dimin- 
 ishing of this monotonous declamatory style, and 
 the restoring, as Tieck is now doing, of that sharp 
 delineation of character which distinguishes all the 
 works of Goethe ; that the painters may return to 
 their former clear simplicity ; that Thorwaldsen may 
 restore individuality to the works of sculpture ; and 
 that Mendelssohn may bring out of the chaos of 
 modern sound the strength and definiteness and 
 crystal beauty which* make eminent the time of 
 Handel and Bach. 
 
 What made those times so delightful at Jena was 
 the unity which prevailed among all those founders 
 of a new school of literature. It was almost like 
 the unity which prevails in the organic world, where 
 one root puts forth many forms, different in aspect, 
 but in full agreement with each other. They all felt 
 that they had a common work to do, and that they 
 could do it together. Fichte and Schelling under- 
 stood the differences in their philosophy, although 
 they had never expressed it. Meantime they did 
 not see each other often, and could come to no 
 agreement. Fichte gave himself entirely to ethics 
 and its kindred theories, so that thqy seldom came 
 into direct collision. 
 
 Berlin was then regarded as the seat of the lowest 
 order of mind in Germany, and was but little thought 
 
54 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 of. The General German Library, published by Ni- 
 colai, the Berlin Monthly, by Biester, were viewed 
 as the staples of common-place thought; but yet 
 even at Berlin there were men of mark. Among 
 them was Schleiermacher, but as yet I knew him 
 only by name. Tieck, the poet, made a strong im- 
 pression upon me. The appreciation of poetry had 
 fallen so low in Germany, that Tieck's first writings 
 made no stir, and his publisher tells us that his 
 works lay on his counters as valueless as waste 
 paper. The brothers Schlegel were the first who 
 called attention to the richness and grace of Tieck, 
 and it now seems almost incredible how it was pos- 
 sible not to discern the charming style and the 
 poetical freshness of that man, destined to such 
 eminence. 
 
 A. W. Schlegel's translation and criticism of Ro- 
 meo and Juliet, his paper on Dante, and the writings 
 which followed these, called the minds of men away 
 from the narrower literature which had interested 
 them, and taught them to use a better standard for 
 trying works of poetry ; and it began to be seen 
 that the whole genius of literature had changed, 
 and that we were entering on a new epoch. No 
 sense of the beauty of the fine arts had yet been 
 awakened in rhe. I only suspected their worth. 
 Lessing's Laocoon could give me thoughts, but few 
 definite images. I now perceived what the merit 
 of Winckelmann was in opening to my generation 
 the resources of Greek and Roman art ; but as yet I 
 had seen as good as nothing, my eye was closed to 
 the beauty of art ; what Goethe showed me with 
 
JACOB J' S CELEBRATED LETTER. 65 
 
 80 kindly a feeling could only have worth to the en- 
 lightened vision. I sighed when I confessed with 
 Northern honesty that a sense of the fine arts 
 seemed to be wanting to me, and yet the con- 
 sciousness filled me that every man must have a cer- 
 tain native power of appreciating the beautiful. I 
 saw myself transferred, as it were, to a higher world, 
 and it could not be that I must remain a stranger to 
 what was in it. As sky and earth, mountains and 
 seas, plants and animals, surround me in the world 
 of sense, so to my more cultivated and awakened 
 eye there must be displayed forms of beauty which 
 I could not then perceive. I did not pretend to 
 affect what I did not possess, and only looked for- 
 ward with hope to new attainments in the apprecia- 
 tion of art. Goethe spoke comforting words to me. 
 I had never given up the looking forward to an 
 Italian journey, but he directed me not to Italy, but 
 to Dresden. "There," said he, "you will find treas- 
 ures of art which will be ample material for study." 
 The honesty with which I spoke of my deficiencies 
 seemed to please him. 
 
 During my winter in Jena a letter of Jacobi 
 called out a great degree of attention. It had that 
 singular blending of simple assent and contradiction 
 which characterized evervthino; of Jacobi's when 
 he treated of things metaphysical. The celebra- 
 ted passage, in which he pleads the right of some 
 to oppose the generally-conceded principles of mo- 
 rality, made a deep impression on the public mind. 
 I quote his words ; they are in a certain way clas- 
 sic : " I am," he says, " that atheist and godless 
 
56 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 mair who will lie as Desdemona, dying, lied ; will 
 deceive as Pylades did in behalf of Orestes ; Ayill 
 murder as Tiraoleon did ; will break law and oath 
 as did Epaminondas and John de Witt ; will com- 
 mit suicide like Otho ; will rob temples like David ; 
 yes, pluck ears of corn on the Sabbath merely be- 
 cause I am hungry, and because the law is made for 
 the sake of man, not man for the sake of the law; 
 for with the holiest devotion to conscience I know 
 that the privilegium cujgratiandi in cases of such a 
 nature is the peculiar right of man, the seal of his 
 worth and of his divine origin." 
 
 This letter, written upon green paper, on account 
 of the weakness of Jacobi's eyes, was passed around, 
 and was read by us all in the same spirit in which 
 it was written. It was praised by some, and criti- 
 cised severely by others, although the time had not 
 yet come in Avhich he was a mark for the most gen- 
 eral as well as the most bitter attacks. 
 
 What specially characterized those halcyon days 
 at Jena, were the assiduity and zeal which prevailed 
 in every one ; the conviction that in order to meet 
 an opponent one must fight on his own ground, and 
 must employ not mere generalities nor happy turns of 
 rhetoric, but must use the strong weapons of a precise 
 view and extended knowledge. The men who were 
 at the head of all had published works whose praise 
 was ill all mouths ; like Lessing, they had won their 
 literary citizenship by the most strenuous labor and 
 the most skilful attacks upon the prevailing views ; 
 they were men who knew what they wanted, hav- 
 ing a definite aim which they persistently followed; 
 
SPIRIT OF THE CRITICISM OF JENA. 57 
 
 and when criticism was sharp and close, it was, not- 
 withstanding the power of thought, of views which, 
 long cherished, had come to maturit^^, and made 
 way for themselves. The times were not such as to 
 make men content with trying to revive ojd forms, 
 and to catch applause by specious show ; it was an 
 era fall of young life and untried powers, and it 
 threw off the fetters of mere custom ; it would not 
 bear the stiffness of old age ; it must be active and 
 jubilant in new strength. Men found fault with such 
 innovators as the brothers Schlegel, and charged 
 them with pursuing paradoxes ; but must not every- 
 thing, which is really the fruit of greatness, seem 
 strange, unintelligible, paradoxical, to those who are 
 simply trying to grasp the scattered details of life 
 and science ? 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 WANT OF ATTRACTIONS IN BERLIN — INCIDENT FROM FKJHTE'S 
 LIFE — ins UNSWERVING ADVOCACY OF TRUTH— FICHTE DRIVEN 
 FROM JENA— HIS ACCOUNT OF THE USE OF HIS SYSTEM — CAR- 
 DINAL POINTS OF FICHTE'S PHILOSOPHY — HIS ALLEGED ATHE- 
 ISM — JOURNEY TO FREIBERG — SECOND RECEPTION BY GOETHE 
 — INTERVIEW WITH MALTE BRUN — GLOOMY ENTRANCE INTO 
 HALLE — MORE FAVORABLE IMPRESSIONS — REICHARDT, THE MU- 
 SICAL COMPOSER. 
 
 In Jena, Berlin did not stand very high, and that 
 city had not for me any special attractions. Tlie 
 sandy surroundings, the character of the poets resi- 
 dent there, the Berlin philosophy, and the library, 
 formed an aggregate which seemed in my eyes poor 
 and mean, and from all I saw and heard I had no 
 desire to tarry long in Berlin. Lessing, I was told, 
 could find no place there. Goethe had a horror of 
 it, and, it was believed, had never been there ; all 
 my acquaintances thought little of Berlin. I had no 
 interest in the political affairs of Germany, and as 
 for fine soldiers, having been brought up among 
 them, my curiosity had been satisfied. And yet 
 there were three men livincf there who were amonsr 
 my most intimate friends, and although Jena seemed 
 most charged with activity, yet I could not forget 
 those three men. Schleiermacher was there, filling 
 the humble post of preacher at the Charite Hospital, 
 
 58 
 
^-V INCIDENT FJiOM FICHTE'S LIFE. 59 
 
 Frederick Schlegel was then there, and Tieck was 
 a native of Berlin. 
 
 An important circumstance took place before I 
 left Jena. Fichte was arraigned as an atheist by 
 the theologian Keinhard, acting in behalf of the 
 court of Saxony. This whole aiiair has become so 
 public that it seems almost superfluous to speak of 
 it at the present time. It was occasioned by an ar- 
 ticle published by Forberg, in Nietbamner's Journal, 
 on moral government. Fichte took upon himself 
 the answering of this article. The whole story may 
 be found in the biography of Fichte, written by his 
 son. What impression this affair made upon us, 
 may easily be imagined. .We were roused at once. 
 We believed that we saw in it a protest against 
 the spirit of free inquiry. Fichte's conduct was 
 throughout firm and worthy of him. When he was 
 summoned to an explanation, he answered at once 
 that if he were cramped in his freedom it would 
 compel him to leave Jena. The reply from Weimar 
 contained a reproof for the injudicious manner with 
 which he had expressed himself on the most sacred 
 subjects, and a warning to be more careful in the 
 future. It was, as we saw, the object of the Wei- 
 mar court to give the affair a look as if Fichte 
 had voluntarily withdrawn. His removal from Jena 
 seemed unavoidable. The court worded its reproof 
 so as to call out if possible his resignation at once. 
 But when Fichte declared that this reproof was not 
 of a kind to compel him to withdraw, the court in 
 Weimar saw itself forced to remove him by the ex- 
 ercise of authority. Just then, when all minds were 
 
60 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 in agitation, Paulus declared earnestly for Fichte. I 
 was often at his house, and it was earnestly talked 
 of there whether it would not be a useful thing to 
 draw up a petition of the students. Almost all of 
 these were from a distance. Fichte's celebrity had 
 drawn the majority thither; and it really seemed as 
 if they had the right to ask for the continuance in 
 office of the teacher who had drawn them together. 
 I drew up such a petition, in Avhich Fichte's great 
 service, and the right which the students claimed, 
 were stated. I carried it to Paulus. He adopted it 
 with few changes, and I did not doubt that through 
 the influence of my countryman, Malte Muller, who 
 exercised a great influence over many students, it 
 would receive a large number of names. 
 
 In the mean time a similar course was struck out 
 at Weimar. Another jDctition was drawn up in the 
 name of the students, in which the duke was be- 
 sought to retain Fichte in the university. But the 
 petition contained, also, the confession that Fichte 
 had expressed himself in his lectures with blame- 
 worthy carelessness, and the favor of the duke was 
 implored in behalf of one who in other things was 
 so honored and loved. A student from Rugen re- 
 ceived this petition through the hands of Hufeland, 
 and it was represented to him that Fichte himself 
 did not disapprove of the manner in which it was 
 drawn up. Anxious to be of service to Fichte in 
 any way, he sought to obtain names for the petition, 
 and succeeded in a manner equal to his hopes. 
 
 I found a young man to whom I gave the peti- 
 tion which had been drawn up by me, and told him 
 
^.V INCIDENT FROM FICHTE'S LIFE. 61 
 
 to carry it to the lecture-rooms, and wherever else 
 he could obtain the signatures of students. He had 
 read the other petition, and had noticed what a 
 different impression it gave. The Rugen student 
 was carrying it around, and had already obtained a 
 number of signatures, for the students had no hesi- 
 tation about giving their names. I was amazed. I 
 snatched up my petition and ran around to find the 
 Rugen student, who was known to me. I met him 
 in a short time on the street, hurrying from house to 
 house, and drew him aside. I was excited in the 
 highest degree. I represented to him that through 
 the petition which he was carrying round victory 
 was granted to the opponents of Fichte, and showed 
 him my petition, and told him that I had showed it 
 to Professor Paulus. I easily gained over the young 
 man, and all the more readily when I exhibited to 
 him the source from which his petition came, and 
 made him acquainted with all the circumstances. 
 He was now wholly won over to my side ; he 
 pressed into the most crowded lecture-rooms, con- 
 fessed his mistake, and easily obtained the names 
 of the young men on the paper which I had drawn 
 up. On the afternoon of the same day my petition 
 lay before me with several hundred signatures, and 
 two delegates carried it at once to "Weimar to lay it 
 before the duke. Hufeland, the jurist, had received 
 from Weimar the one drawn up in the interest of 
 Fichte's adversaries, or had himself drawn it up ; 
 the Rugen student had received it as I knew from 
 his hands. I was invited to his house that evening. 
 I found him in a pet, and I will not deny that I took 
 
62 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 a kind of selfish pleasure in the thought that I knew 
 the secret cf his trouble. It was only years after- 
 ward, when I read the Life of Fichtc, that I learned 
 with astonishment that two petitions were sent to 
 the duke. Ficlite's adversaries must, therefore, have 
 succeeded in getting some names. 
 
 I expected no result from the petition. After 
 some days the students were called together by the 
 pro-rector, and informed that, by the decision of the 
 Weimer court, Fichte had virtually asked for his 
 dismission in tlie steps Avhich he had taken. 
 
 This whole circumstance was of the greatest in- 
 terest to me in more than one respect. I did not, 
 indeed, see Fichte very often ; my studies and my 
 whole mode of thou2:ht removed me from him. 
 Yet I could not help loving him, and the strength 
 of his moral convictions, forming as they did the 
 basis of his whole philosophy, won for him my high 
 respect. It was very easy when I was with him 
 to be drawn into talk upon his metaphysical sys- 
 tem, and even to debate with him heartily. Against 
 the rigidity of his ideas of truth I had much to say. 
 Even before the appearance of Jacobi's letter I had a 
 hot contest with him for the Fiat justitia^ ^:)ereai 
 tnundus / this unswerving way of stating moral truth 
 was contrary to my nature. When I heard him say 
 that under no condition is one right in telling an 
 untruth, I ventured to propose to him the following 
 case : A woman with her child is dangerously sick; the 
 infant, in a dying state, lies in the next room. The 
 physicians have decisively declared that any excite- 
 ment will cost her her life. The child dies. I sit at 
 
FICHTE DRIVEN FROM JENA. 63 
 
 the bed of ray wife ; she asks after the welfare of the 
 little one. The truth will kill her ; shall it be told ? 
 *'It shall," answered Fichte ; " her question must be 
 answered." "That is," replied I, "speaking exactly, 
 your cliild is dead. I would lie," said I ; and tears 
 burst from my eyes, because I remembered witness- 
 ing just such a scene, "and I decidedly call this lie 
 a truth, my truth." "Your truth," replied Fichte, 
 with indignation ; " there is none such belonging to 
 any man ; truth rules over you, not you over truth. 
 If the wife dies with the telling the truth, she must 
 die." I saw the impossibility of coming to a mutual 
 understanding with him on this subject, and to make 
 clear to him my idea of what would be right in such 
 a case. With all the rigidness of his doctrine, Fichte 
 was himself the most kind-hearted of men. I was 
 convinced that under such circumstances he himself 
 would lie, and remained silent. 
 
 I had now lived to see a man whom I honored 
 and loved, charged as an atheist, and driven from 
 his post. The thing which had shocked me when I 
 read of it as occurring in past centuries was now 
 taking place under my eyes, and in the very circle 
 of my friends. All the recollections of my child- 
 hood awoke again, and I asked myself whether the 
 charo;e which was brous^ht aofainst the distinsfuished 
 philosopher was completely groundless or not. That 
 Fichte's system was in direct line with that of 
 Kant, I could plainly see. The subjects of sure 
 knowledge exist in apparent form around us ; but 
 philosophy has to deal with truth. The moral feel- 
 ing and its expression, the conscience, are a fact of 
 
64 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 consciousness as much as space and time, only with 
 this important difference, that the things taken into 
 cognizance by the conscience are not imaginary, but 
 exist 2^Gr se. Besides, it could not be predicated of 
 morals that they exist in the same sense in which 
 matter exists ; they remain evermore a Thou shalt, 
 but as such they are outside of the imagination, and 
 have absolute existence. 
 
 I remember well how in a narrow circle of inti- 
 mate friends Fichte related to us how his philoso- 
 phy rose, and how the first conception of it entered 
 his mind. It had long seemed to him that truth 
 lies in the union and unity, of thought and the ob- 
 ject of thought ; he had learned that this unity can 
 never be found within the domain of the senses, and 
 that where it does appear, as in the mathematics, it 
 is only a dull, dead formalism, and wholly divorced 
 from life. At that point the thought suddenly struck 
 him that the act in which the self-consciousness con- 
 ceives of itself is yet a subject of our knowledge. 
 The ego recognizes itself through its own manifesta- 
 tion of itself; the ego thinking and the ego thought, 
 the knowing and the object of the knowledge, are 
 one, and from this point of unity, and not from scat- 
 tered elements, time and space and the postulates 
 of all thought proceed. If, then, thought he to him- 
 self, I can grasp this first act of self-knowledge, pre- 
 supposed as it is in all human thinking and doing, 
 and hidden as it is in the various opinions and ac- 
 tions of men, — if I can grasp this and develop it in 
 its simple clearness, and follow it to its last results, 
 must there not be displayed in it, active, and work- 
 
FJCHTE'S PHILOSOPHY. 65 
 
 ing, that same certainty which we now possess in 
 mathematics ? This thought struck him with such 
 power that he conceived the idea to make the ego 
 the basis of his philosophy. In the bookseller's an- 
 nouncement of his writings it was declared that 
 Fichte would be to philosophy what Euclid was to 
 mathematics. I do not know that this expression 
 was ever published in the words of Fichte ; but, 
 after I had heard from his own lips the account of 
 the rise of his philosophy, I felt convinced that the 
 announcements contained his own expressed hopes 
 of the place which he was to fill. 
 
 When it is remembered that Fichte's training 
 was under Kant's influence, it cannot be doubted 
 that the master's rigid support of an absolute, un- 
 bending morality as a result, and not a means, formed 
 the basis and the leading feature in the independent 
 action of the ego, and that what he borrowed from 
 Kant must become clearer and clearer in the system 
 of Fichte himself It is true that in the scheme of 
 the latter it always remained a thing unexplained, 
 and, indeed, incomprehensible, how the moral law, 
 which was only a postulate, having its mere signifi- 
 cance in the eflfbrt to realize it, rather than in the 
 possibility of doing so, could come to be a positive 
 guiding principle, an active thing which had its 
 value in its own reality. Out of this impossible 
 conception sprang all our ideas. And so there lay 
 at the basis of Fichte's philosophy a real mys- 
 tery, unsolvable, and, indeed, unapproachable ; and 
 it must have been a prime object with him to 
 keep those subjects which pertain to the domains 
 
66 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 of things known and intelligible off from this 
 more mysterious ground. And in this mystery 
 lay Fichte's God. I understood this well, and the 
 charge of atheism, now brought against Fichte, was 
 to me a sad proof of the j^oor superficiality of the 
 times ; much more insignificant was this exalted and 
 mysterious God of morality than that God whom 
 most men feared rather than loved, whom they 
 pushed away into a far distant domain, where he 
 hid himself behind laws to which he subjected him- 
 self no less than us. And yet, I said to myself, 
 thinking it all over in my own mind, that is not the 
 God of my childhood, whom I have lost and whom 
 I seek again. 
 
 But it was not merely this suspicion of a deeper 
 divine nature which separated me from Fichte ; in 
 still another respect we were wide apart. The dis- 
 crimination made by Kant between theoretical and 
 practical philosophy, the confessed uncertainty of 
 the former, and the empty generalities of the latter, 
 I opposed with my inmost soul. And yet the world 
 contains not only what is appreciable to the senses, 
 but also a higher, even if it be a mysterious, reality. 
 This latter was lost sight of in Fichte's scheme. It 
 was always a sad thing to me to look at the world 
 from his point of view ; there was no tree, no liv- 
 ing creature, no landscape that he then could per- 
 ceive in all its beauty. That the mystery of our 
 spiritual nature is not only found in human thoughts 
 and deeds, but also in the rich fulness of the imag- 
 ination and in the form itself, seemed to be com- 
 pletely hidden from him. What. Kant treated as 
 
SECOND RECEPTION BY GOETHE. 67 
 
 phantasm, to Ficlite became mere negation, and 
 •that was everything which was not the ego, and 
 in which the ego manifested itself. The fantastic 
 image remained, and that, too, in perfect distinct- 
 ness, but only to be changed through the instru- 
 mentality of the ego into the ego itself. In other 
 words, the servant of an incomprehensible law is 
 transformed into the Titan of self-determination, 
 and even into the Creator of heaven and of earth. 
 Such a philosophy was completely contrary to my 
 nature, and the more closely I comprehended it, the 
 more willingly I rejected it. 
 
 Schelling's system is doctrine of identity. The 
 unity of subjective and objective in the conception 
 of ideas was more kindred to my taste, trained as I 
 had been in the school of Spinoza. 
 
 It was not without sadness that I left Jena ; and, 
 althouo'h the tie that bound me to the distino^uished 
 men there was too purely an intellectual one to be 
 severed by mere distance, yet I felt how nuich I was 
 losing. I travelled by way of Weimar, and visited 
 Goethe, w^ho gave me a cordial greeting, although I 
 thouscht I could detect some embarrassment in his 
 manner. He seemed to be acquainted with the part 
 which I had taken in the Fichte affair, and the Wei- 
 mar court, of which Goethe was a leading member, 
 found itself in an unpleasant dilemma ; for in one 
 point of view it felt itself bound to favor that free 
 development of thought of which Goethe was a 
 most distinguished advocate ; and in another point 
 of view it was necessary to take cognizance of a 
 charge, which was a serious one in the eyes of the 
 
68 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 duke, the court, and Goethe himself. Through the 
 pressure of all the Saxon princes demanding his dis= 
 missal, Fichte fell, but his patrons could not disguise 
 a certain sense of shame at the event. Fichte, the 
 younger, has cited passages from Goethe's Recollec- 
 tions of his own Life, and expressions found in his 
 letters, in which the perplexity of the Weimar court 
 appears, and especially the pain which Goethe suf- 
 fered at being a participant in the affair. 
 
 When I left Goethe the whole course of events 
 in which I had just taken a part rose vividly before 
 my eyes ; and a mournful suspicion that that beau- 
 tiful flower, which had bloomed with such fairness 
 at Jena, was now to have its petals and its fragrance 
 carried away on all the random winds of heaven, 
 filled me with unspeakable sorrow. 
 
 I travelled to Halle by way of Leipsic, and now 
 passed the Prussian frontiers for the first time. In 
 Leipsic, where I tarried only two or three days, I 
 met Malte Brun, who wearied me with his dema- 
 gogue-like talk. He had been banished from Den- 
 mark ; he was now on his way to more liberal 
 France, and hoped to find a situation in Paris. But 
 his representations of Prussia were not without effect 
 upon me. He represented it as a land in servitude ; 
 the great army he thought would not only be turned 
 against the enemies of the country, but against the 
 people themselves ; he supposed that the aristocracy 
 would be oppressive in consequence of their pride, 
 and ofiicials in consequence of their superciliousness. 
 I had heard so much of this kind of talk that my 
 breath almost choked me as I approached the fron- 
 
GLOOMY ENTRAXCE INTO HALLE. 69 
 
 tiers, and my first impressions were accidentally 
 very unfavorable. I was shut up in an uncomfort- 
 able post-wagon, and jolted till I was mellow. The 
 country around Halle seemed desolate ; the day was 
 foggy and rainy, and the wind whistled over the 
 fields. When we were quite near the city a fellow- 
 traveller pointed a gallows out to me. A part of 
 the town lying around was called " Before-the-Gal- 
 lows-Gate." We drove through this barrier of dis- 
 mal name, and traversed a long, dark street, whose 
 high, gloomy, dirty houses were most unpleasant 
 to see. This was called the Gallows Street. But 
 we had to go yet further to the stage-office, and 
 my companion pointed me out a second gallows, 
 which stood upon the market-place, and on which 
 the names of soldiers who had suffered there were 
 inscribed. I instinctively put my hand to my throat 
 to see if it was safe. I felt like a criminal on his 
 way to execution. We arrived at the stage-office ; 
 baggage-teams and post-wagons with their passen- 
 gers were there ; it was the time of the Fair, and 
 there was much travel through Halle. The post- 
 wagon was cleared, the trunks of the passengers were 
 stacked side by side ; but we saw the custom-house 
 officers so busy with the baggage- wagons, and with 
 the goods of other travellers, that we had little pros- 
 pect of being attended to for hours. I tried to 
 keep my patience, but I felt a deep bitterness boil- 
 ing within me which I could hardly suppress. I bit 
 my lips together, and walked silent to and fro. The 
 officials may have observed my humor. After what 
 seemed to me a short eternity our turn came. I put 
 
70 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 on a cheerful mien, walked politely to one of the 
 custom-house officers, and asked him to release me 
 as soon as possible. He gave me a savage look, an- 
 swered not a word, and turned his back upon me. I 
 was the very last to be served ; but now my mad- 
 ness had reached its highest point. The official 
 commanded me to open my trunk, and asked in an 
 authoritative way whether there were any dutiable 
 goods in it. I answered not a wojd. He repeated 
 the question in a loud and almost threatening tone. 
 I held my peace, and opened the trunk. The things 
 were now examined with the most rigorous exact- 
 ness ; clothes, linen, and books were laid upon the 
 trunks around, and the examination of my effects 
 took a longer time than that of all the other passen- 
 gers together. My defiant air had displeased the 
 official, and he wanted to punish me. I looked on 
 with assumed calmness ; they found nothing. When 
 the examination was at an end, I began to pack my 
 things very slowly and with great care. "Hurry 
 up," cried the custom-house man, tartly; "you see 
 that you are in the way." " That is not my fault," 
 I answered, coolly. "Aren't you ready yet?" he 
 asked, threateningly. "Sir," said I now, "I am a 
 traveller from a distant country. I am journeying 
 under the protection of my king. I have said not a 
 word that could offend you. I carry no contraband 
 goods ; my person can excite no suspicion ; and yet 
 you have treated me unhandsomely arwd impolitely ; 
 you have robbed me of hours which I might have 
 better spent ; you have torn all my goods from the 
 trunk. Now it is my turn. I claim the right to 
 
MO HE FAVORABLE IMPRESSIOXS. 71 
 
 take care of my own }3roperty. I must look care- 
 fully to see whether, in the haste of unpacking, 
 something may not have fallen among the chests 
 and packages ; my linen and clothes must be laid 
 back without a fold ; just now I happen to have 
 time, and shall stay here till I am ready to go." 
 The official seemed to have a great desire to use 
 force upon me. I assured him coolly that I should 
 cany it to the last extremity, and that the least 
 violence done to my person would be reported by 
 the ambassador to my king. 
 
 Some of my fellow-travellers were still there, and 
 I called them in as witnesses. The official walked 
 growling up and down. I got through at last, and 
 when I left the stage-office I felt like a stranger in a 
 foreign land. Such an unfriendly greeting did I 
 receive from the country to which I was about to 
 dedicate the best powers of my life. 
 
 I tarried a few days in Halle, and confess that, as 
 I came in contact with the scholars of the place, my 
 first impressions gave way to more favorable ones. 
 The new king (Frederick William III.) had just 
 taken a tour of propitiation through his territories, 
 and the enthusiasm with which he had been re- 
 ceived knew no bounds. The universal talk was 
 about him. Much, yes, everything, was expected of 
 him, of his honesty and of his knowledge of the 
 times and their demands. The queen, the beautiful 
 Louisa, whose genius was prized, and whose purity 
 was" admired, was almost the object of worship to 
 the people. Wherever I went I was sure to hear 
 the praises of the royal pair. Landlord and boots 
 
72 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 at the inn, merchants in the stores, every man with 
 whom I came in contact, had his word on the king's 
 excellent sense and the queen's beauty and loveli- 
 ness. Now how diiFerent the country looked to me ; 
 how changed the people appeared ; how speedily 
 vanished that darker impression with which I en- 
 tered the kingdom, and how much I found to prize 
 in this new land ! 
 
 While in Halle, I visited the house of Professor 
 Reinhold Forster, the distinguished circumnaviga- 
 tor of the globe, and the father of a son to be yet 
 more noted as a traveller, George Forster. Profes- 
 sor Forster had very recently died, and I was per- 
 mitted to examine the valuable collections which he 
 left, and to use his extensive library. Little thought 
 I that I was to be his successor. 
 
 I made the acquaintance of Reichardt, the dis- 
 tinguished musical composer. He lived in the little 
 village of Giebichenstein, just outside of the walls of 
 Halle. The daughter, afterwards to be so near to 
 me, was at Hamburg, and I did not meet her, but I 
 was often at her father's, where I always received a 
 cordial welcome. Reichardt was then just on the 
 point of going to Berlin to bring out his opera of 
 Brennus. He was strongly inclined to democratic 
 ideas, and this put him not only under the ban of 
 government, but exposed him to the bitter attacks 
 of Goethe, and to harshness from the Schlegels. 
 But hard as was the treatment, and severe as were 
 the charges which he received in consequence of his 
 leaning to democracy, my heart went out towards 
 him, and in his house I was always received as a 
 
REICHARDT. 73 
 
 friend. Reichardt gave me his Berlin address, and 
 urged me to visit him, when I should come thither. 
 Thus had I, without my knowledge, been wel- 
 come within the homes of my predecessor in the 
 professor's chair and of my father-in-law. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 STEFFENS'S FIRST VISIT TO BERLIN — BERLIN — MEETS TIECK — 
 STEFFENS IN A STRAIT PLACE — FREIBERG — WERNER, THE MIN- 
 ERALOGIST—LIFE AT FREIBERG — VISITS DRESDEN — THE GAL- 
 LERY AT DRESDEftr — FREEDOM OF LIFE AT FREIBERG — STEF- 
 FENS'S MANNER WITH OPPONENTS— REFLECTIONS ON ART — OLD 
 GERMAN POETRY — DISCOVERY OF THE VOLTAIC PILE — STEF- 
 FENS'S FIRST BOOK. 
 
 I LEFT Halle after some days, and came, in the 
 month of May, 1799, to Berlin. Whoever is old 
 enough to remember Berlin as it was at the close 
 of the last century, would scarcely recognize it now. 
 The suburbs, the ci^, the people, are all changed. 
 I came thither with the most favorable preposses- 
 sions, and yet I was surprised at the grandeur of 
 Potsdam, and the Prussian capital, and the splendor 
 of the edifices. No one can enter Berlin at the 
 Potsdam gate and not be impressed with the view. 
 After being set down from the stage in which I 
 had rode for two days and a night, I thanked God, 
 and hurried to the Black Eagle, and was glad to 
 touch a bed. I do not know how long I slept. 
 
 I had no address in Berlin ; I knew no one, and 
 had nothing which I could use to secure acquaint- 
 ances, but the invitation of Reichardt to visit him 
 at his lodgings. I did not hasten to avail myself of 
 it. The day after my arrival I found a room in the 
 
 74 
 
STEFFENS'S FIRST VISIT TO BERLIN. 75 
 
 Konigstrasse. My landlord supposed I had come to 
 the city to see the great spring military review. In 
 Leipsic, in Halle, everywhere, I had heard people talk- 
 ing about this review. My landlord was astonished 
 at my telling him that I cared nothing for it. The 
 regiments passed under my window the next day. I 
 scarcely looked at them ; and yet I must confess that 
 the precision displayed, the perfect drill, struck me 
 strongly. I had in my own land seen armies trained 
 for use in times of war, and not for display in times 
 of peace ; so beautiful an exhibition of military 
 pomp I had never seen. And yet I could not think 
 with satisfaction on a land over which such an im- 
 mense and perfectly trained army domineered, and 
 whose liberties might be subverted at the bidding 
 of a general. It seemed as if a nation which moved 
 always under the shadow of such an army must 
 grow into a shackled and servile manner of thought. 
 I tried to get rid of such reflections, but I could not 
 shake them off. 
 
 A young man who came to Berlin in those days 
 was compelled to resort to a frivolous and profitless 
 way of spending his time, such as now is no longer 
 demanded. The young men whose acquaintance I 
 incidentally made at the public places were not at all 
 to my taste. I did not hasten to look up Reichardt, 
 and spent a number of days entirely alone. Every 
 one must confess that the street Unter den Linden, 
 as one looks through the Brandenburg gate towards 
 the palace, gives an almost unrivalled view. There 
 is hardly another city where so many splendid build- 
 ings are crowded into the same space ; the impres- 
 
76 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 sion which the whole gives cannot be forgotten. 
 As I wandered hither and thither, my mind was 
 full of thoughts of this new city, so lately made 
 prominent in European affairs, the capital of a king- 
 dom so young, and which must have such a part yet 
 to play in the history of the world. For the first 
 time in ray life I felt that I was confronting objects 
 of hugfcr mafjnitude and vaster interests than I had 
 ever mingled with. My previous life seemed con- 
 tracted and mean, and I could not persuade myself 
 to make new acquaintances while I could muse on 
 the great drama of European history. The very 
 magnitude of the city oppressed me. The broad, 
 regular streets repelled me, and all the impressions 
 with which I came to the city were reversed. 
 
 Of course there was with all this an attractive 
 side. Only twenty-six years had passed away since 
 the Seven Years' War; it was not more remote to me 
 when I was in Berlin than the Napoleonic wars are 
 to me as I write these lines to-day. In earlier times 
 I had been a great admirer of Frederick the Great, 
 and although the French Revolution, occurring in 
 ray youth, had somewhat crowded him out of mind, 
 yet, when at Berlin, the old feelings of admiration 
 arose in their strength, as I looked upon a city 
 which was to a good extent the work of his hands. 
 Filled with these thoughts, I traversed the city in 
 all directions. I visited the Cabinet of Minerals, 
 the Botanic Garden, the Veterinary School, passing 
 everywhere as a young man visiting the curiosities 
 of the place. I called upon no distinguished per- 
 sonages, I made no interesting acquaintances. Fred- 
 
REICHARDT, THE MUSICAL COMPOSER. 77 
 
 erick Schlegel had left Berlin, Schleiermacher I did 
 not visit ; Tieck I fell in with by accident. This 
 proud presence of Prussia's might was so baneful to 
 me that I even felt as a stranger to myself. The 
 Thiergarten was the place I loved most; its soli- 
 tudes strongly attracted me. 
 
 I was several weeks in Berlin before I called on 
 Reichardt. He was very busy. Parts of his Bren- 
 nus were to be given as a concert, and he was very 
 busy in the preparation. I had heard much about 
 Reichardt, his skill as a composer, his ability as a 
 writer, and his large circle of acquaintances. He 
 had lived at court, I heard, and had exerted large 
 influence, rather, however, in favor of others than 
 in his own behalf. Almost everybody knew him. 
 Every one whom I met had at some time or other 
 had relations Avith him. Almost all the men of emi- 
 nence in Germany, men of the most varied natures, 
 had been or were still his friends. With Lavater and 
 with Goethe he had long been on terms of intimacy. 
 He had lived in France during the Revolution, and 
 was acquainted with the leaders. His strong demo- 
 cratic leaninQ:s had made him obnoxious to the court, 
 and, having been made director of the Salt Works 
 at Halle, he lived at Giebichen stein in a kind of 
 exile ; and yet he made his home a centre of the 
 most generous hospitality. People spoke warmly 
 of the amiability of his family. No man of emi- 
 nence came to Halle without visitinof him. Minis- 
 ters, generals, even princes, alighted at his door. 
 To be noticed by him as I had been was no slight 
 honor. And when at last I called upon him in 
 
78 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 Berlin, I was astonished to learn how much he had 
 been interested in me. He told me that he had in- 
 quired for me at the hotel where I had first lodged, 
 but in vain ; and that he had wished to know my 
 lodgings that he might introduce me into general 
 society. I could only thank him, while I did not 
 say that I had a secret pleasure in my solitary wan- 
 derings through the city, and in my meditations on 
 Prussian history. At Reichardt's invitation, how- 
 ever, I was a guest at a brilliant supper, where I met 
 Tieck, the poet, novelist, and sculptor. He was, in 
 external appearance, a handsome, slim man ; his 
 clear eye full of fire, his features expressive, while 
 his judgments, given during the evening, were sharp 
 and cutting, full of sense and power. 
 
 During the last days of my stay in Berlin, I met 
 with a little adventure which did not tend to ele- 
 vate the character of the people of that city in my 
 sight. My allowance for travelling expenses was not 
 meagre, and it had held out till now ; but I forgot 
 to send for a remittance till my last copper was 
 spent, and I was in considerable perplexity for want 
 of money. I had fallen into the sam.e trouble while 
 on my foot tour through the Thuringian Mountains, 
 but had been most unexpectedly relieved by falling 
 in with an old Norwegian schoolmate. I could not 
 hope to be so fortunate again. I could not expect a 
 remittance for some weeks. In Berlin I knew no 
 one, for Reichardt had returned to Halle. So at 
 last I resolved to sell my watch, which was of 
 some value. A stranger as I was in the city, I 
 might have gone to the nearest watchmaker with- 
 
STEFFENS IN A STRAIT PLACE. 79 
 
 out being known. But shame held me back, and I 
 felt comjDelled to find one in the most distant quar- 
 ter of the city. So I walked from King Street, 
 where my room was, to the upper part of William 
 Street, near the Halle gate, and when I found a 
 watchmaker's shop, I went stealthily in, feeling like 
 a thief, and ofiered to sell him my watch. He put 
 me coarsely off, while I noticed that he carefully 
 scrutinized it. At last he named a sum which was 
 so insignificant that I indignantly demanded the 
 watch. But he coolly retained it, looked at me 
 from top to toe, asked my name, and where I had 
 got the watch. "You are a stranger to me," he 
 said, " and I do not know how you may have come 
 into possession of the article." How I winced under 
 his words I cannot express. I could not have felt 
 more disgraced if I had actually stolen the watch. 
 I really believed it necessary to give him a false 
 name. But the man had gained his point ; he had 
 shamed me into horror. He gave me a trifling sum 
 of money, and, full of humiliation, I left the shop, 
 my watch gone, and only a pittance for it sufficient 
 for the wants of a few days. The next day, as I 
 was sitting down to dinner at the Black Eagle 
 Inn, full of thought and perplexity, I discovered an 
 old Norwegian friend. "Was ever such good for- 
 tune ! He had ample means, and was ready to help 
 me at once. After I had recounted to him my ad- 
 venture of the day before, we started together for 
 the watchmaker's. I hoped to get my watch back. 
 I confessed that I had given a false name to him, 
 showed him my passport, offered him more than lie 
 
80 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 had given me, doubled the sum, but all in vain. He 
 kept the watch. His cold-blooded manner, as he 
 refused to surrender the article, enraged me more 
 than the loss of the watch. I did not know then, 
 as I did afterwards, that the law would have given 
 it back to me at once, and so I lost it ; yet, to con- 
 fess the truth, it was not long before I forgot the 
 whole affair. 
 
 By and by the expected money came from Copen- 
 hagen, and I left Berlin for Freiberg. 
 
 Certainly the first impressions of this city of mi- 
 ners were by no means agreeable. The mountains 
 around had a dreary, desolate look, and the creaking 
 of signs, and solemn tolling of a bell in some lofty 
 tower, intimidated me. The prospect of making a 
 long delay in Freiberg seemed gloomy enough. But 
 after I had left the inn, and had found myself com- 
 fortably quartered in lodgings, the feeling of dis* 
 content soon wore away, and the city did not seem 
 so dismal. The new occupation which was to en- 
 gross me, the going into the very bowels of the 
 earth, and laboring there for scientific ends, raised 
 my curiosity, and I hastened to make the acquaint- 
 ance of the two most eminent men of the city, 
 Charpentier and Werner. I was not entirely un- 
 known to them by name, for my paper on Mineral- 
 ogy and its Study had awakened some interest in 
 Freiberg. 
 
 The Mineralogical School of this city was now 
 in its full glory. Werner stood confessedly at the 
 head of his science in Europe, and was even re- 
 garded as its founder. No one could compare with 
 
 
WERNER, THE MINERAL OGIST. 81 
 
 him in the knowledge of fossils, and Linnaeus never 
 stood more preeminently at the head of botany than 
 did "Werner at the head of mineralogy. It was 
 conceded that the Neptunists had gained a deci^ 
 sive victory over the Vulcanists. From all parts 
 of Europe and America, mineralogists streamed to 
 Freiberg. Humboldt, Leopold von Buch, Esmark 
 the Norwegian, Elyar the Mexican, Andrada the 
 Brazilian, had been there a few years before. I 
 found Irishmen, Scotchmen, and Frenchmen there, 
 some of whom afterwards- gained great eminence. 
 Werner was then in the prime of his power, and 
 was foity-nine years old. 
 
 He was a man of remarkable personal qualities, 
 and gained an admirer in me at our first interviewi 
 He was of medium height, and broad-shouldered ; 
 his round, pleasant face did not promise much at 
 first, and yet he commanded the attention of every 
 one who addi'essed him. His eye was fiery; his 
 features were full of expression when he spoke ; his 
 voice had a certain sharpness which was not so 
 agreeable, but every word was well considered ; 
 the utmost clearness of conception and precision 
 of thought were manifest in every sentence. And 
 with all this he had so much goodness that he won 
 all hearts. 
 
 Werner suffered from an affection of the stomach ; 
 he was, therefore, obliged to be very careful of his 
 health. His clothing was very warm, and he always 
 wore fur over his bowels. The climate in Freiberg 
 is certainly rude, but I confessed I was not a little 
 astonished to find him, in the month of July, keep- 
 
82 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 ing a fire in his room. He was in all things most 
 punctual, even to pedantry. He used to carry fa- 
 vorite scholars of his in his carriage to see some 
 new and interesting field of inquiries. He was most 
 exact about the time of starting; no one might 
 come a minute too early, no one a minute too late. 
 If you came too early, he would look at you inquir- 
 ingly, then at his watch, and then go on with his 
 work ; if you came too late, even but a very few 
 minutes, you would find him standing on the stair- 
 case, with his overcoat and fur collar in his hand, 
 waiting for you. I used to be very particular to 
 keep my watch exactly with his. I loved this great 
 man with my whole heart, and he in turn was very 
 kind to me, and cautioned me very faithfully about 
 my own health. 
 
 I remember one circumstance in connection with 
 Werner which I shall not forget. His collection 
 of precious stones was one of the most perfect in 
 Europe. In one of his lectures a drawer was passed 
 round, containing jaspers. Every one, knowing Wer- 
 ner's great care, handled the drawer with the utmost 
 delicacy, lest it should fall or be overturned. Acci- 
 dentally it was struck by some one's arm ; tlie gems 
 were thrown into confusion, and for an instant it 
 seemed as if some would fly out. It was an anxious 
 moment. Werner turned pale, and could not speak. 
 Happily no harm was done. It was seven or eight 
 minutes before Werner could command his voice. 
 "Do not be offended, gentlemen, that I am so 
 much afiected ; in case of loss to ray gems, the 
 world could not replace them." The lecture was at 
 
WERNER AS A TEACHER. 83 
 
 an end. Werner was not seen for two or three 
 days ; it was only by degrees that he could recover 
 from such a shock. 
 
 Werner's great scientific excellence lay* in his 
 sharp discrimination of little points. No one could 
 be clearer than he about all details. He compelled 
 his hearers to equally exact habits ; they must no- 
 tice even the nicest shades and the minutest varia- 
 tions of form. Though he did not use mathematical 
 formulae in his classifications, yet he had a simple 
 way of attaining almost as much exactness as if he 
 had used them. His main excellence as a teacher 
 lay in his demanding the closest attention to his 
 views. If any scholar of his was about to make a 
 mineralogical tour, Werner prepared a schedule of 
 investigation for him, and expected that it would be 
 followed to the letter. Whoever would profit by 
 Werner's instruction must be undividedly Werner's 
 disciple. The master so bound everything together 
 in his system, that the scholar could not give up 
 one point without seeing the whole fabric totter. 
 I have never seen another man who held others 
 in absolute subjection to his views. And he long 
 lived to see his authority everywhere confessed. 
 But it pained him in his old age to see the sceptre 
 passing from his hands and new views usurping the 
 place of his own. 
 
 It is singular how rarely men are able to express 
 an accurate judgment upon the true place which an 
 eminent scholar ought to take in history. Som^e are 
 rble to realize the condition of science in times ear- 
 lier than their own, and to make allowance for the 
 
84 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 obstacles which impeded great discoverers. They 
 are able to prize at a true value the merit of a man 
 like Werner, who not only lays the foundation of a 
 new branch of science, but who develops it till it 
 fills a large place in the eyes of men. Werner was 
 to mineralogy what Linnoeus was to zoology and 
 botany. He found all his materials in the rudest 
 state ; he hannonized them and brought from them 
 system and profit. And even the victories which 
 were gained over him were gained by weapons which 
 Werner had himself furnished to his antaofonists. 
 He published few books ; but he committed his 
 name and his reputation to hundreds of scholars, 
 who will see that he receives only honor. 
 
 My life in Freiberg assumed new charms daily. I 
 had become intimate in the family of Werner's great 
 rival, the eminent Charpentier, one of whose daugh- 
 ters was married to General Thielemann, of the 
 Saxon army, one to Dr. Keinhardt, the court preach- 
 er, of Dresden, while still another was betrothed 
 to Hardenborg, or Novalis, to use the name most 
 current in literature. My relations with the for- 
 eigners then at Freiberg were very agreeable. I 
 was, indeed, very happy. I bought me a miner's 
 suit, and could then go everywhere. Twice every 
 week I made a visit into the mines. Werner ad- 
 vised me where to commence, and in which direc- 
 tion to proceed. This subterranean world had great 
 attractions for me. It, indeed, cost me much toil to 
 worl^ on in the gloom, to study fossils and layers of 
 rock, lighted only by the dim lamp which the miners 
 use, and to bring out from moisture and dirt the 
 
STEFFENS'S LIFE AT FREIBERG. 85 
 
 materials which I must examine. Hard it was, at 
 the outset ahnost impossible, to follow the strata, 
 and to see where they crossed and diverged again. 
 And yet it was, indeed, a romantic kind of life to go 
 down steep ladders into the earth, to see the blue 
 sky fad6 away, to hear the wheels turaing to pump 
 up the waste water, and to hear the melancholy 
 sound of the bell which strikes at each revolution. 
 By and by I arrived at the most distant excava- 
 tions. Strangers who came to Freiberg to study 
 were admitted to all the mines excepting those 
 which contain cobalt and arsenic. I found that 
 this curious life did not lose its romantic air by fa- 
 miliarity with it, but, on the other hand, only grew 
 in attractiveness. There was, indeed, hardly any 
 limit to my researches, for the ground was excava- 
 ted for miles around the city. The mines had been 
 worked for five hundred years, and old shafts, run- 
 ning either perpendicularly or obliquely, and worked 
 either partly or wholly, were everywhere to be found. 
 My fancy was, indeed, powerfully stimulated at 
 Freiberg. When thousands of years have passed, 
 what, I asked myself, will be left as a memorial of 
 our times ? What, that can be compared with Susa 
 and Palmyra, with the Greek and Roman ruins, 
 roads, and aqueducts ? Our slightly-built cities will 
 not exhibit a trace of what they were, our palaces 
 will crumble, and our great factories will as thor- 
 oughly have passed away as their fabrics themselves. 
 Here and there the ruins of a church, built in the 
 middle ages, will testify to past architectural skill, 
 but everything else which now looks so permanent 
 
86 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 will have vanished. But even then these mines will 
 testify to the labors of this age ; these long shafts 
 will bear witness to the skill and patience and great 
 achievements of our times. Such fancies as these 
 interested me greatly, and the life of the miners 
 themselves had some attractions. They were a sim- 
 ple, peaceable race, very poor, and quite happy, but 
 unable to lay up much store for the future. Of 
 poetic fjincy they did not seem to possess much. 
 But everything connected with the mines inter- 
 ested me. I studied under Kohler's directions into 
 the development of the once rich deposits of min- 
 eral wealth. It was plain that once the j^recious 
 metals could be gleaned from the very surface of 
 the ground. I saw how they had lessened and les- 
 sened down to the present time, till at last the toil 
 of many days often yielded but little return. So, 
 studying into all these things, the desolate aspect of 
 the city and its surroundings did not trouble me, 
 and, cheerless as they were, I was happy. 
 
 To speak the whole truth, only half of my mind 
 was at Freiberg, the other half was at Jena. I 
 kept up a correspondence with friends there, espe- 
 cially with Schelling, and from him I learned all 
 that was transpiring. Meanwhile, Werner's scien- 
 tific views grew in value to me. They contained 
 elements on which I worked, and from which I was 
 gradually evolving a system of my own. I commu- 
 nicated all that I thought to Werner. A man so 
 set in his views as he was could not be happy at 
 meeting ideas which at all conflicted with or were 
 an outgrowth from his own. He spoke out his dis- 
 
LIFE IN FREIBERG. 87 
 
 content, and his suspicion that there might some- 
 thing grow out of my system which might weaken 
 pubUc confidence in his theories. And yet, despite 
 this, my intimacy with him grew closer. The esteem 
 which I felt for him as a man, the respect which I 
 had for his devotion to his special department, even 
 the hope that his own views might be brought to a 
 more complete development by me, bound me to 
 him, and gave rise to relations between us which 
 seldom exist between teacher and taught. And yet, 
 such was the constitution of his mind that every 
 attempt to show him what I had developed from 
 his views seemed disagreeable to him, and appar- 
 ently awakened the fear that he was to find in me 
 one who would overthrow his theories, and rob him 
 of his fame. And such was the influence which 
 Werner exercised upon his pupils, that I began to 
 be looked upon by them as a disturbing force, as a 
 dangerous element in their midst. 
 
 I lived on terms of intimacy with the foreigners 
 who were at Freiberg, especially with the English- 
 men, Mitchell and Jameson. I was invited to de- 
 liver lectures on philosophy to them, and was glad 
 to have an opportunity to speak of what was of so 
 much interest to me. I commenced my course ac- 
 cordingly, and tried to make real to myself, as well 
 as to my handful of hearers, the ideal side of philos- 
 ophy, to show the parallelism between the real and 
 the ideal, and how they are united in a higher unity. 
 But I never succeeded in making my meaning clear 
 to my hearers. I gained no disciples to philosophy 
 in Freiberg. Indeed, that was the last place in the 
 
88 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 world to make the attempt. Philosophy was too 
 remote from the circle of studies pursued there, for 
 mineralogy had to do alone with the world of sense. 
 The Ensrlishmen were curious to know what Ger- 
 man philosophy is, and what it proposes to solve. 
 But it was not comprehensible to them. They, 
 caring for no evidence but that of the senses, and 
 valuing no results but those which are gained by 
 experiment and observation, satisfied with a religion 
 which has a determinate and absolute value, and 
 which lets the seen world and the unseen world 
 touch each other, without being in unity, were not 
 the men to comprehend our philosophy. I do not 
 know to how great an extent the two Englishmen 
 at Freiberg were religiously inclined. Upon such 
 subjects the Englishman rarely expresses himself, 
 and when he does, it is in the most practical way. 
 It was curious to observe how difficult it was for my 
 philosophical ideas to get a lodgement in the minds 
 of my English friends at Freiberg, and how speedily 
 they flitted away. I saw that it was in vain to con- 
 tinue my lectures, and soon gave them up. Only 
 one man, and he a Pole, seemed to be interested hi 
 them. The Frenchmen, even those who in mineral- 
 ogical studies were my constant companions, took 
 no interest in my prelections ; and so I was left to 
 study Schelling by myself, and to think of Jena. 
 
 The young men who came to Freiberg from 
 abroad used to run over to Dresden for recreation. 
 I had once passed through that city, but made no 
 stay, as I intended soon visiting and becoming 
 acquainted with it. The beautiful environs, the 
 
VISITS DRESDEN. 89 
 
 charming situation of the place, had pleased me at 
 the first view, and I was delighted with the thought 
 of returning thither. But I was so engaged with 
 my studies at Freiberg that a couple of months 
 passed before I felt at leisure to go to Dresden. It 
 was about the end of August that a friend of mine 
 joined me, and we hired a couple of saddle-horses, 
 and journeyed to the city of art. It was a beauti- 
 ful morning when we arrived. The sun was giving 
 the spires their most brilliant appearance. We went 
 directly to the inn, took a hearty breakfast, and then 
 hastened to the gallery. 
 
 The lofty halls, crowded with pictures, had in 
 my eyes an imj^osing look ; the visitors, alone or in 
 groups, traversed the apartments in an almost sol- 
 emn silence. I was in a peculiar frame of mind, 
 very much excited, and supposing that every picture 
 which was allowed a place in the Dresden gallery 
 must be a work of great excellence. The veteran 
 Riedel was my guide, and tried to enlighten me on 
 the merits of the various paintings, but I hardly 
 heeded a word that he said. The pictures seemed 
 to float before my eyes, and I walked from room to 
 room like one in a dream. I wondered whether 
 people could see in what a state of mind I was, and 
 glanced at them to discover whether I was a subject 
 of special remark. My feelings grew painful ; my 
 mind was overwrought, and I longed to geit through 
 and be in the air again. In my weakness I almost 
 reeled. The pictures seemed to be animate, and 
 the people around me seemed to be portraits with- 
 out frames. Still the guide led me on and on. My 
 
90 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 excitement was constantly increasing. At last we 
 stood before a picture of uncommon size. A wo- 
 man's figure seemed to be floating on clouds, and 
 in her arms she bore a child whose face was of 
 strange and ineffiiblo beauty. My feelings had 
 reached their height. I could bear them no longer, 
 and I burst into violent and uncontrollable weep- 
 ing. I tried to govern myself, for I felt that every 
 eye was upon me, and at length I succeeded. And 
 then I learned that the picture which had so moved 
 me was the most celebrated of the gallery, the Ma- 
 donna of San Sisto, Raphael's great Avork. 
 
 We were now in the last room, and I thanked 
 God when we Avere fairly in the street again. 
 
 Dresden is one of the most delightful places in 
 summer that I have ever seen. I have been there 
 a great many times in all, but whether it has been 
 rainy or fair, it has always seemed to me to be sun- 
 shine in Dresden. And not only is the city proper 
 rich in attractions, but the environs are charming. 
 You cannot go beyond the walls in any direction 
 without passing through places of even romantic 
 beauty. The number of strangers who flock thither 
 relieves the somewhat prim manners of a German 
 town, and infuses a certain genial character into 
 the population. In no place could a stranger live 
 in more perfect independence of the world than in 
 Dresden ; in no place could one surrender himself 
 more completely to the humors of the hour than 
 there. The English, who came thither in large 
 numbers, even as long ago as at my first visit, at the 
 opening of this century, used to lead in extrava- 
 
FREEDOM OF LIFE AT FREIBERG. 91 
 
 gances, and the young men among them acted like 
 rude, unlicked bears. Dresden being not very large, 
 humors could be allowed which would not be toler- 
 ated for a day in a great city like Berlin. It was 
 just so at Freiberg. All the strangers there lived 
 very much according to their will, while the people 
 of the city were subjected to a rigid discipline which 
 was in great contrast to our freedom. In fact, it 
 was rather provoking, and the Freiberg folk could 
 not conceal their irritation. For example, some of 
 us students joined the English in having our dinner 
 at five o'clock in the afternoon. The general dining 
 hour at Freiberg was twelve, and, as we used to sit 
 quite in an exposed view as we dined, being on the 
 lower floor of a hotel, we used to be amused at see- 
 ing the people look in with curiosity upon us, and 
 with some disgust at our oddly-chosen hour. In 
 Dresden, the ways of strangers were not so much 
 marked by the inhabk-ants, and so there was a 
 delightful freedom. 
 
 So, with study at Freiberg and with recreation at 
 Dresden, that summer and the following winter 
 passed away, and so, too, did the next summer and 
 the next autumn. It was one of the most delight- 
 ful epochs of my life. I had exercise enough for my 
 body, and the most delightful relations with a band 
 of kindred spirits. I was always lively, and well 
 do I remember the animated conversations of those 
 long evenings which only terminated at midnight. 
 It was a time, too, of great political movements. 
 Bonaparte was on his return from Egypt, and 
 
92 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 Europe was full of enthusiasm. I shall never forget 
 those days. 
 
 Meanwhile the Philosophy of Nature was the 
 great theme of scientific men, and was awakening 
 universal attention and interest. Hardly any publi- 
 cation of a philosophical character has been seized 
 upon so greedily as the first number of Schelling's 
 Journal of Speculative Physics. Out of this pub- 
 lication, and one of my own, which came out at the 
 same time, there arose a great contest, in which 
 Schlegel, Schelling, and I were involved. I was 
 most harshly attacked, and was ev^n charged with 
 the betrayal of confidence. I will not revive the 
 memory of the contest, nor rake over the dead em- 
 bers of those times, but I was deeply pained at the 
 whole affixir. 
 
 Whoever knows my relations to the literature of 
 Germany for the past forty years, knows how, at 
 various times, even down to the present, I have 
 been the subject of very bitter and envious attacks. 
 I took a resolution at the beginning, to wliich I 
 have always been true, that I would answer no at- 
 tacks which were made upon my views as a whole, 
 or upon the stand-point from which I proceeded. I 
 am very sensitive, and when I read those attacks, 
 they would almost make me sick. I would throw 
 ofi" fiery, unsparing replies, and believe that I had 
 annihilated my assailant ; but this warfiire never 
 went beyond my chamber; it never reached the 
 press or the post-oflUce. I saw clearer and clearer 
 that attacks which proceeded from a want of under- 
 standing my 2)Osition can never be answered ; that a 
 
STEFFENS'S MANNER WITH OPPONENTS. 93 
 
 defensive attitude is always an unfavorable one, and 
 that if a man will lay the foundation of new posi- 
 tive ideas, the most feasible way is to go on with 
 the quiet developing of them, and the complete 
 ignoring of all attacks which grow out of not 
 understanding him. All just and worthy replies 
 were of great value to me. I quietly made use of 
 them. Sometimes, when I felt myself personally 
 wounded, but where the assailant was a man of 
 large reputation, I have been untrue to my resolu- 
 tion, but I have always repented it afterwards. My 
 position in literature was, therefore, always offen- 
 sive rather than defensive ; my indifference to en- 
 vious attacks grew, and, in order to escape the disa- 
 greeable feeling which the first moment of reading 
 a malicious charge produces, I resorted to a very 
 simple but effective method, — not to read them 
 at all. As the tone of parties grew worse and worse 
 in the German literature, this method became more 
 and more a necessity. The rough, unsparing, but 
 praise wealthy criticism of thorough scholars, such as 
 Fichte, Schelling, and Schleiermacher, the bright 
 and cutting wit which appears in Schlegel and 
 Tieck, have disappeared, and their place has been 
 assumed by a savage rudeness and sly innuendoes. 
 I confess I used to take a kind of mischievous plea- 
 sure when I thought of some opponent sitting down 
 to write an attack on me. He knew my sore side, 
 and what would wound me the deepest. "Ah, that 
 will sting him," he thinks, as he writes something 
 very sharp, and rubs his hands together. Poor fel- 
 low ! I never felt it. And, as even the worst side 
 
94 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 of literature yet brings some profit, tliis style of in- 
 sinuating, these pleasant flings, have been a source 
 of a moment's merriment to the youth and the 
 intellectual ladies who busy themselves with the 
 scientific journals. But what harm did it all do? 
 Praise and blame are both equally harmless. Who- 
 ever has a work to do which absorbs the energies 
 of his whole being, is spending his happiest days. 
 He can build on in peace, and cherish the thought 
 that he is doing a work which shall not perish ; he 
 knows that not merely the passing day, but that 
 history has, through him, gained new ideas; if his 
 work is to him something precious and sacred, he 
 cannot only bear attacks with indifierence, but can 
 even be patient with his weaknesses, while he seeks 
 to battle with and overcome them. I must confess 
 that the attacks of adversaries have been in no way 
 injurious to the development of my conceptions, and 
 have in no w^ay hindered my giving to the future 
 what shall be of permanent worth. I hold it for 
 true that the power of the censor over journals and 
 the ephemeral forms of literature is of little avail. I 
 once called it a kind of perpetual slaughtering of 
 the babes of Bethlehem to kill the Saviour, Avhora 
 yet all miss. I asked the censors to strike out no 
 lines in the writings of those Avho attacked me, were 
 the assaults ever so bitter. I told them that they 
 did not afiect me at all. And in general, I may say, 
 what in science can be destroyed by personal at- 
 tacks is not worth saving. The diamond must be 
 tried by the hammer, and I did not wish to make 
 any cherished dream of mine a law to the world 
 
REFLECTIONS ON ART. 96 
 
 without its truth being well proved. I have dwelt 
 thus fully upon my manner of dealing with my op- 
 ponents, because it has been my method through 
 my whole life. I have never been able to compre- 
 hend why a man should take any course but the 
 most careful doing of his own work. I can well 
 understand how one can feel himself drawn to labor 
 on year after year alone, as my friend Schelling did, 
 beyond all the clamor of men. My social disposi- 
 tion denied that privilege to me. 
 
 Meanwhile the scope of men's sympathies was 
 ever widening, and reaching out to all departments 
 of science, and to all the forms of poetry. That 
 difference between ancient and modern times, be- 
 tween the classic eras and the eras of romance, 
 which lies at the foundation of every criticism of 
 works of mind or art, has received a sharp delinea- 
 tion at the hands of Frederick Schlegel, in his work 
 on the Poetry of the Greeks and Komans, and is 
 now generally recognized. In this task of discrim- 
 ination between two great historical epochs lay a 
 vast mass of observations to be gone through, and 
 to men's minds the results have been made more or 
 less clear, according to the time and patience which 
 they had given to the subject. For myself, the differ- 
 ence of which I speak lay predominantly in the 
 strong development of personality which charac- 
 terizes modern times, and which pervades modern 
 poetry ; and this view grew clearer and stronger in 
 my eyes as I began to regard it as one of the results 
 of Christianity. I saw that in it lay one of the prin- 
 ciples on which history should rest, and that it was 
 
96 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 but a confirmation of the great work of my life, the 
 harmonizing of the effects which nature exerts upon 
 character, individual and national, with those which 
 all the other agencies bring into the same field. 
 
 I found that the further my reading extended back 
 into the poetry of the middle ages, the stronger ray 
 interest grew. To the great services which Tieck 
 has rendered to the world may be added this, that 
 it is mainly through his efforts that general atten- 
 tion has been called to the rich treasures of the old 
 German literature. It is well known what a great 
 interest was awakened by Goethe's treatise on Ger- 
 man Art, wherein he drags Strasburg Minster out 
 from the rubbish which had covered it, and reveals 
 its true beauty. This treatise, and his Goetz von 
 Berlichingen, had rescued the race from the settled 
 self-complacency which reigned, and set it to in- 
 quiring what treasures of art and taste were known 
 to a past age which we had always been in the habit 
 of regarding as destitute of both. Since Bodmer's 
 time, the JSTibelungen-Lied and other works of the 
 oldest German poetry had been subjected to pro- 
 tracted study and profound inquiries, but a general 
 interest in them had not been awakened, nor was 
 there a thorough appreciation of their excellences. 
 With Tieck I was not yet on terms of close inti- 
 macy ; and upon this subject he had not then pub- 
 lished much ; still from him had already gone forth 
 that interest in the old German writers which 
 was afterwards to gain so strong a hold on the pub- 
 lic mind. I now began to hear of the wondrous old 
 poetry, of an epic which in tragic power and in 
 
DISCOVERY OF THE VOLTAIC PILE. 97 
 
 artistic skill would rival the productions of ancient 
 classic times. It gave me intense pleasure as the 
 new world opened before me, and I found, too, that 
 the oldest and most renowned of these poems 
 I pointed to my own native land, and displayed kin- 
 ship with the ancient Scandinavian songs of gods 
 and heroes. What I learned was certainly frag- 
 mentary. But this new world stood before me and 
 beckoned to me as from afar. It lay like a rich 
 treasure in my view, and absorbed my whole na- 
 ture in efforts to make it mine. 
 
 And while poetry and art were enlisting my inter- 
 est more and more, while Bonaparte's return from 
 Egypt, his victory at Marengo, his power widening 
 more and more at Paris, made him the great and 
 towering object of his time ; in that epoch of fer- 
 mentation, of excitement, that epoch which could 
 be compared with the most celebrated of antiquity, 
 I lived in my little circle of kindred spirits, sharing 
 with them a common life, and uniting in all their 
 sympathies. All the new combinations of men and 
 their enterprises did not reach me. I looked upon 
 them, indeed, but with no eager interest ; for while 
 among things past German poetry engaged me, 
 among things present it was enough to observe the 
 flashing career of ISTaiDoleon. 
 
 But not mining, nor metaphysics, nor literature 
 alone engrossed my entire attention while I was at 
 Freiberg. The important discovery of the pile of 
 Volta, and so of galvanism, was made during that 
 time, and stirred the whole scientific world. I had 
 received quite a large sum of Aoney from Den- 
 
98 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 mark; enough to enable me to procure a battery of 
 not insignificant size. There is always something 
 affecting in entering upon a newly-opened and mys- 
 terious department of science. It made a deep 
 impression on me, and the more so because these 
 wonderful revelations could not in any way be at- 
 tributed to accident. It was interesting to see from 
 how slight an origin so vast a discovery proceeded, 
 and to view result after result follow in regular 
 succession. The pile of Volta has become to one 
 department of science what Kepler's laws have be- 
 come to another. 
 
 I experimented from morning to evening with 
 my battery. Some little discoveries which I made, 
 and which now seem of little moment, delighted me 
 beyond measure. I was the first to analyze ammo- 
 nia ; and it seems singular, as I look back to the soi- 
 entific journals of those times, to find that I also 
 was the first to kindle phosphorus with the battery. 
 Everybody in Freiberg was interested in what I was 
 doing. Werner and Charpentier came in to see the 
 wonderful thing. At some hours of the day my 
 room was crowded with students. The ladies, even, 
 honored me with their presence. This new source 
 of interest engrossed me for a long time, but at 
 length it, too, lost its charms. 
 
 But I turned to still another work of magnitude 
 and of importance ; for in Freiberg I wrote and pub- 
 lished my papers^ on the Natural History of the 
 Interior of the Earth. 
 
 ^ Beitrage zuif inneren Naturgeschichte der Erde. 
 
STEFFEXS'S FIRST BOOK. 99 
 
 What I tried to develop in this work was the 
 ground-thought of my whole life. Years before I 
 had begun to dream of it by night, and to turn it 
 over and over by day. Even when a student of 
 Spinoza, the concej^tion of a hidden unity running 
 through all living things had charmed me. As I 
 grew older, the conception strengthened, and the 
 hope arose within me of giving the study of physics 
 greater value and interest. For this thought I was 
 indebted to Schelling. But I could not content 
 myself with the mere abstract thought. From my 
 childliood up, nature has spoken to me as if it were 
 a Jiving thing. I could even read in it what seemed 
 to be a deep process of thought. It seemed to be 
 trying to speak out not only what the Creator 
 thought, but what he wished to do with his thought. 
 In the system of Spinoza, God has his true greatness 
 granted to him. Schelling, too, had placed God at 
 the head of the universe. I questioned all the facts 
 of experimental science to enlarge my knowledge 
 of the Creator. I sought to know whether all those 
 things which from my childhood up had wrought so 
 powerfully upon me did really bear the traces of a 
 divine mind. That was the hope which led me on, 
 and I never gave up the search. I felt deeply, most 
 deeply indebted to Schelling ; but yet it was plain 
 that my book was, to some degree, a new contribu- 
 tion to science ; that it developed a new, rich, and 
 unworked vein of thought. And for it I felt that I 
 was indebted to another great teacher, to Werner 
 himself If Schelling gave me the grand thought, 
 the conception of the Eternal, the One who embraces 
 
100 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 all things in his thought, Werner awoke in me the 
 hope of introducing this conception into the study 
 of nature as a working force, one which should dis- 
 play the existence not of mere passive being, but of 
 will and of purpose to do. This would give rise to 
 a new view of history in its relations to God, and 
 of what I called the natural history of the inte- 
 rior of the earth. It is weak language to say that 
 through the influence of physical conditions human 
 actions assume their character. Man is wholly a 
 pi'oduct from the hands of nature. Only in his being 
 this wholly — not partly, but wholly — do we confess 
 that in him nature centres all her mysteries. And 
 so it became plain to me that natural science is 
 bringing a new element into history, which is to 
 become the basis of all knowledge of our race. His- 
 tory and nature must be in perfect concord, for they 
 are really one. Nature's highest and completest 
 manifestations are in the deeds of history. My 
 book was undertaken rather in youthful zeal than 
 in cool judgment, and yet I sought to make the best 
 I could, and to keep to my main thought. I tried 
 to impart a unity to all being, which had not before 
 been granted, and thus to give science a greater 
 value both for the present and the future. Not so 
 much to reduce some phenomena into harmony with 
 special hypotheses, but to unite all phenomena, and 
 from this union to find the traces of a Divine Mind 
 ruling over and unfolding all, in His own good time, 
 — this was the object of my book. 
 
 Men had already begun to feel that science ought 
 to be made less dry, and that to accomplish this it 
 
RECEPTION OF STEFFENS'S BOOK. 101 
 
 must be more closely linked to life. Schelling was 
 calling forth more activity of mind than had been 
 witnessed since the most flourishing days of Greek 
 philosophy. And ray work was published just at 
 the time when men's minds were in their full glow, 
 and I well remember that it made a strong impres- 
 sion. It was confessed that I was not a novice in 
 science. A general wish prevailed that I might be 
 the means of giving a wider range to speculation, 
 and that our most eminent naturalists might both 
 continue their observations with as much rigidness 
 as ever, and yet with a higher aim. 
 
 I will not go into detail as to the contents of the 
 book. Enough to say, that its main thought has 
 been confirmed by one with whom my name may 
 not be brought into comparison, the immortal Cu- 
 vier. Science has made so much progress since my 
 work was published, that many of my minor posi- 
 tions are now overthrown ; yet the main points 
 stand, and will stiand. My views have been further 
 developed, but not set aside ; and in the present 
 state of science I recognize them, enlarged and re- 
 stated, indeed, but still in essence there. 
 
 The impression which the book produced had a 
 reflex influence upon me. For the first time in my 
 life my fond dreams had had a fulfilment, and a 
 work of mine had been given to the inspection of 
 the great world. Schelling recognized my views as 
 embodying what was essential to his philosophy. 
 The influence which my production had upon his 
 second article in the Journal of Speculative Phys- 
 ics he did not seek to deny, — he himself confessed 
 
102 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 it. Every one who was devoting himself to the 
 study of nature hailed my work as instituting a 
 new epoch in its development. Young enthusiasts 
 expressed themselves in regard to its extravagant 
 tone, and even the strongest opponents spoke out 
 their pity that a young man, who was so thoroughly 
 the master of the experimental sciences, should give 
 himself over to the vague fancies of speculation. It 
 was interesting to see the two extremes of criticism 
 in contrast — that of the exaggerating praise in the 
 Saltzburg Medical Gazette, and that of undeviating 
 blame in the General German Repository. Freisle- 
 ben regarded the book as a mere geognostical com- 
 mentary on Werner's treatise on the slate and chalk 
 formations. I had thought, in my innocence, that it 
 was something more than this. Frederick Schlegel 
 found fault with the want of a blending of experi- 
 mental results with philosophical hypotheses. And 
 when I saw that his want of scientific knowledge 
 denied him the power of combining two things so 
 different, it is easy to see that in my sight such a 
 uniting of the experimental with the speculative as 
 should reconcile all antagonisms, and give perfect- 
 ness to my work, was a result that was not only a 
 worthy goal for my humble faculties, but even for 
 the highest efforts of the most exalted minds. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 FREDERICK SCHLEGEL — WIT AND WITTY MEN — GOETHE*S COM- 
 PREHENSIVENESS — NOVALIS — STEFFENS'S HUMILIATION — HIS 
 ACQUAINTANCE WITH TIECK — EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY — 
 RETURN TO DENMARK — LEAVING GERMANY — COPENHAGEN — 
 KIND RECEPTION — GOETHE'S INVITATION — STEFFENS COMMEN- 
 CES A COURSE OF LECTURES — HIS MARRIAGE — MARRIED LIFE 
 AND DESPERATE CIRCUJISTANCES — BETTER PROSPECTS. 
 
 While at Freiberg I took a foot journey to Jena, 
 where I became acquainted with Frederick Schlegel, 
 who was then staying with his brother. He was in 
 every respect a remarkable man, slender in figure, 
 his features regular, fair, and in the highest degree 
 expressive. He had a very quiet manner, I might 
 call it almost phlegmatic. When he sat in his chair, 
 sunk in meditation, and was developing a great 
 thought, he used to embrace his forehead with his 
 thumb and fore finger, and then draw them grad- 
 ually together till they met just above his delicately- 
 formed nose ; then, as he* became still- more deeply 
 absorbed in his revery, his finger would pass down 
 to the end of his nose, till at last it lay directly along 
 its back, j^ointing into the air. He spoke slowly 
 and thoughtfully. I united myself to him in very 
 close ties. Although I felt that our views were 
 very unlike, yet I forgot that every moment ; for it 
 is very singular how near people come together in 
 
 103 
 
104 THE STORY OF MY CAREEn. 
 
 results which they have reached in the most differ- 
 ent ways. Schlegel lived wholly in history. He 
 had no eye for natural beauty; indeed, the ability to 
 enjoy landscapes was wanting to both the brothers. 
 Such a deficiency in two so gifted men was very 
 surprising to me ; it was unaccountable. It is well 
 known that in Lessing and William Humboldt 
 there Avas wholly wanting an ear for music. 
 
 There could hardly be a man more capable of 
 wielding a strong personal influence than Frederick 
 Schlegel. He grasped every subject which was pre- 
 sented to him in its whole length and breadth. He 
 could even pass at once into the comprehension of 
 my ideas on natural philosophy ; but all his writings 
 show that he was unable to gain a full insight into 
 the workings of nature. His wit was inexhaustible 
 and happy ; and he belonged to those who under- 
 stand what wit really is. 
 
 It is well known that wit and acuteness are often 
 brought into contrast, and that it is generally in- 
 sisted that they mutually exclude each other. The 
 man devoid of wit, who, because he is accustomed 
 to call himself sharp-sighted, is inclined to give the 
 preference to keenness, believes that a witty man 
 cannot be acute; and yet it must be confessed that 
 both faculties, where they exist in a sound and ac- 
 tive state, presuppose each other. Whoever grasps 
 in an instant all the relations of a subject and mas- 
 ters them at once, he has wit. This immediate 
 grasping is necessary ; it must come without a mo- 
 ment's pause. It is not the seeing of dim analogies, 
 not the conceiving of things in their unity, that 
 
KEENNESS AND WIT. 105 
 
 makes wit. Wit must see all this without delay ; 
 to be wit, it must be immediate. Wit is the child 
 of the moment. The difference between wit and 
 sharp-sightedness lies in the time which is needed 
 to grasp all the relations of a subject. Wit pounces 
 upon them and startles you into laughter; acute- 
 ness takes them with quickness, indeed, but not as 
 in a twinkUng. Wit reads to you as by the light- 
 ning's flash ; acuteness by the full glory of day. 
 Wit is keenness liighly animated and intensified. 
 
 I learned what I know of this subject, and which 
 I have rather hinted at in the last paragraph than 
 fully expanded, from Frederick Schlegel, who was 
 an excellent judge of the quality of wit. I often 
 observed in the course of my experience of life that 
 the most sharp-sighted men are the wittiest men ; 
 and that the wit which is deepest, and therefore 
 only ajDpreciated by the few, is that which comes 
 from the keenest view. This was true of Shak- 
 speare; and so of the men whom I knew, — Goethe, 
 the Schlegels, Tieck, Schleiermacher, Wolf, were 
 equally distinguished by acumen and wit. Their 
 wit implied their acumen. Who discriminated with 
 so keen an eye as Talleyrand, and who was wittier 
 than he ? 
 
 Frederick Schlegel could take the highest delight 
 in true wit, even if it was stinging him through. 
 Flatness was in the last degree distasteful to him. 
 He used to say that you can judge best of the grasp 
 and depth of a man's mind by seeing what kind 
 of wit pleases him. Kant, he said, showed in his 
 Anthropology that he knew the nature of genuine 
 
106 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 wit. And, indeed, not merely in that treatise, but 
 in his whole writings, wit abounds. 
 
 Wit is very nearly allied to j^oetry. And poetry 
 was almost identified by Schlegel with religion, and 
 put in its place. That was only too apparent. That 
 is why irony had such a value with him ; irony 
 being poetry and wit in combination, figurative wit. 
 That serious way of looking at things as they are, 
 that characterized Schelling, seemed to the unsettled 
 spirit of Schlegel ^ as too severe a matter ; he would 
 not confront threatening realities. 
 
 It needs but to throw a glance over the vast scope 
 and great value of the efforts put forth in all direc- 
 tions to comprehend the fact that no century was 
 ever ushered in with more promise than the nine- 
 teenth. What seemed to be going forward in the 
 course of a peaceful development, could not resist 
 the sway of this new activity. All men who were 
 working in the interest of science formed a close 
 alliance, for they saw that, though their paths were 
 different, their goal was one. 
 
 In a period so rich Goethe was seen in his true 
 light. The poet had an interest in every new scien- 
 tific development. If Wolf in Halle opened a new 
 way in the treatment of the classic authors, and 
 founded a deeper school of criticism ; if he laid his 
 hand upon th^ old Greek Epic and dissected Ho- 
 mer, the poet of Weimar stood by with warmest 
 
 1 It may here be mentioned that Frederick Schlegel i8 the author of 
 the well-known witticism that all cats are black in the dark. Origin- 
 ally it was an ironical attack on Schelling's doctrine of absolute 
 identity. — Trans. 
 
GOETHE'S COMPREHENSIVENESS. 107 
 
 approval. If Gries busied himself with the Italian 
 writers, and A. W. Schlegel and Tieck with Shak- 
 speare, Cervantes and Calderon, they only advanced 
 and widened the studies of the all-comprehending 
 Goethe. If the Grimms disclosed with enthusiasm 
 the depths of the old German and Scandinavian lit- 
 erature, it was Goethe who first grasped the worth 
 of their discoveries, and followed with eager interest 
 the opening path which led to the discovery of new 
 treasures in the past. And investigations, too, whose 
 value was concealed from the most active spirits 
 around him, early claimed his attention. As truly 
 as he belonged to the world of poets, did he belong 
 to the ranks of men who consecrate themselves to 
 science. But the tie which unites all scientific in- 
 quirers, and gives them all a common quality, the 
 philosophy of nature, drew him the most strongly ; 
 and he could not deny the worth of any science, 
 even if its details had not been mastered by him. 
 The spirit first called out by Schelling caught even 
 those who meant to ignore it, and a new manner of 
 speech crept into all the sciences, and it became ap- 
 parent to all that those which seemed to lie remote 
 from each other had an inner connection, and that a 
 close and vital one. So infinitely rich was that time 
 that the present seemed linked as never before to 
 future and to past ; it seemed as if no epoch in his- 
 tory was so full of hope. And I, stimulated on all 
 sides, found myself excited to the most varied, most 
 living activity. Many things were hidden from my 
 knowledge, much I could see in the misty distance ; 
 but the vital forces which were moving around me 
 
108 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 gave me a feeling of kinship to those engaged in the 
 most diverse studies of nature. 
 
 In Jena I also became acquainted with Novalis. 
 I had heard much said about him. There was 
 scarcely a man whose acquaintance I was more de- 
 sirous to make. I met him first at the house of 
 Frederick Schlegel, in whose arms he died a few 
 years after. His appearance was rather too sleek to 
 be very promising ; his clothing was very simple, 
 and his presence was not suggestive of a man of 
 great eminence. He was tall, spare, and had a hec- 
 tic flush that boded no good. His countenance was 
 dark. His thin lips, sometimes, indeed, ironically 
 smiling, but generally retaining a serious, earnest 
 expression, indicated the greatest sweetness and 
 friendliness of nature. But above all was the lam- 
 bent glow of his deep, spiritual eye. He was wholly 
 a poet. All existence was to him mythic. Every- 
 thing around him seemed to look out from a more 
 ethereal atmosphere than ours. He cannot, indeed, 
 be called a mystic in the common acceptation of the 
 word, for such look from the world in which they 
 find themselves placed, into another and more mys- 
 terious world where new activities are at work. But 
 to Novalis this other mysterious world was home, 
 and from it he looked out upon our more common 
 habitation. And this mythical element which pre- 
 vailed in him gave him an intuitive insight into the 
 relations of science, of metajohysics, of the fine arts, 
 and even into the character of the most gifted men. 
 And so the charm of his language and the harmony 
 of his style were not things acquired, they were born 
 
NOVALIS. 109 
 
 ■with him ; and so, too, he could turn with equal ease 
 to science and to poetry, and into his tales he could 
 so weave the subtlest and the deepest thoughts 
 that the story would seem incomplete without the 
 philosophy, and the philosophy incomplete without 
 the story. Such productions as the Lehrlinge zu 
 Sais, and Heinrich von Osterdingen, must have pro- 
 duced a profound impression, for the same spirit 
 seemed to be native to them which it is the work of 
 philosophy to impart after long effort has been made 
 to reach it. Novalis used to express himself with 
 the greatest freedom on all subjects, and he himself 
 insisted that philosophy should have a method of 
 investigation, out o/* which rather than by means of 
 which he should instruct others ; and in saying that 
 he was simply showing what was habitual with him- 
 self. 
 
 In large gatherings or in the company of stran- 
 gers he sometimes sat perfectly silent, lost in his 
 thoughts. His sensibilities were so acute that he 
 could detect the presence of natures not in unison 
 with his; but where he found kindred spirits, he 
 gave himself up to the hour, spoke freely and at 
 length, and appeared \qvj excited and happy. 
 
 I saw him in Jena only a few days, but met him 
 afterwards in Freiberg, where he visited at the min- 
 eralogist Charpentier's, to whose daughter he was 
 betrothed. He took a deep interest in the ideas 
 which were then filling my mind. My view of 
 nature seemed to him of great value, and to prom- 
 ise much for the future. What I read of his, what 
 I saw in him, what I experienced with him, was to 
 
110 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 the course of my life what the accompaniment is to 
 a melody, or rather like an echo from distant moun- 
 tains, which gave back to me in louder and distincter 
 utterance what I scarcely ventured to speak. 
 
 I have since then fallen in with men who seemed 
 to be entirely governed by him ; men who were 
 severely practical, naturalists and experimental in- 
 quirers who prized highly what is deep and myste- 
 rious in life, and who believed that in his writings 
 they had found the solution of the problem of ex- 
 istence. The blending of religion and jjoetry in the 
 writings of Novalis was to them the utterance of 
 an oracle, and in those writings they profess to have 
 found the same strengthening and comfort which 
 Christians find in the Bible. 
 
 In truth, Novalis was religious in the deepest 
 sense. It is well known that from his pen have 
 come hymns which belong to the noblest that the 
 church of Christ possesses. He had, as is well 
 known, a strong leaning towards Catholicism, and 
 he has done more, perhaps, than any other to lead 
 youth to that form of faith. ISTotwith standing the 
 publication of his defence of the Jesuits, I feel per- 
 suaded that he was a firm believer in man's moral 
 freedom, and in salvation through grace, the grand 
 'principle of the Protestant church. 
 
 No other one has ever been to me in things re- 
 ligious Avhat Novalis was. The deep and earnest 
 faith which had been brought home to me in my 
 childhood began to revive again while I was with 
 him, and entered into all my inquiries, taking the 
 
ST£FF£XS'S HUMILIATION. Ill 
 
 first place there, and demanding to be made the 
 basis of all my work in life. 
 
 Before I go on to speak of the eminent men whom 
 it has been my privilege to know, I have one or two 
 confessions to make to the reader. It was about the 
 time of which I am now writing that I discovered 
 that passions which I despised in others I was in 
 no wise free from. On a geological torn- I hap- 
 pened to come to Carlsbad. Games of hazard were 
 strictly forbidden there, yet they were played in se- 
 cret, and in some way, which I do not now remem- 
 ber, I found myself one evening in the gambling- 
 room. I saw men at the faro-table who evidently 
 belonged to the better class. The varying passions 
 of the. players interested me, yet I thought that.if I 
 were in their place I could command myself as they 
 could not. I will play a little, I thought, afld when 
 I gain or lose a few pieces I will stop. Those fierce 
 passions which I saw displayed around me I cer- 
 tainly could not have. So I began, as everybody 
 does, with the smallest sum. I was successful. I 
 doubled it ; fortunate again. I still increased, and 
 still had the winning side ; and so I played till far 
 into the night, and gained a not inconsiderable sum. 
 I can remain here a number of days, I thought. 
 The next eveninoj found me asrain at the faro-table. 
 My fortune remained true to me, and I stayed three 
 weeks there, and was constantly successful. I did 
 not have great and bewildering strokes of fortune, 
 but still my gains were constantly growing, and 
 every addition to them delighted me. There is 
 something bewitching in the game. The intricate 
 
112 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 combinations set the whole imagination in activity. 
 We dream that behind the arbitrary cast some mys- 
 terious power is at work, which once enlisted on our 
 side will always remain true to us. The great sums 
 of money which lie upon the open table and pass to 
 and fro, make us forget the value which we else- 
 where, in common life, put upon it. A gold piece 
 there is nothing. We seen;L to be masters of gi- 
 gantic fortunes, and we act as if we were dealing 
 with the fabulous treasures which we conjure up in 
 our dreams. It is a strange, dark, fearful figure, the 
 goddess of the gambling-table, which at first makes 
 us shudder, and seduces us away and holds us fast. 
 
 At other places I was accustomed to meet with 
 mei>, as my associates, who were wholly busied with 
 intellectual pursuits. Among these men were some 
 of the noblest spirits of the age. A dim remem- 
 brance of this followed me, and at last it became a 
 constant torment ; but it called me to myself I 
 asked myself, Who are my companions now? Pseu- 
 do-ofiicers, needy adventurers, were the ones who 
 had found in me a friend. I thought with a shud- 
 der on the blaze appearance, the indifference which 
 they expressed about anything noble or holy, the 
 dreadful levity with which they looked upon every- 
 thing which I valued, — and yet I had been living 
 for three weeks in the society of these men. IIow 
 common they seemed to me now! How shameful I 
 felt in my degradation. Tears started from my eyes. 
 I leaped up at once, — it was in tlie night, — ordered 
 a post-chaise, and hurried from the place, and from 
 that time to this I have not been within a gambling- 
 
STEFFEXS'S HU MIL I ATI OX. IIB 
 
 room. In flight was my only security, but I was 
 happily saved just in time. 
 
 But I was not yet out of trouble. I still had the 
 money which I had gained, but it was my curse. At 
 Kostritz I stopped at an inn where was tarrying a 
 company of strolling actors. There were not many 
 guests, and so I became quite intimate with them. 
 My money went freely for wine and costly enter- 
 tainments. My usual sense seemed to hare been 
 taken from me, and one day I descended to the 
 step of proposing to join them as a fellow-actor. 
 They were delighted, and applauded my resolution 
 to the echo. I remained with them for days, utterly 
 insensible to the meanness of my company, till at 
 last the happy thought occurred to me that by and 
 by the name of Dr. Steffens, the strolling actor, 
 would get to Denmark, and be even heard in Co- 
 penhagen. I tried to fancy the emotions which such 
 an event would awaken, and I was a second time 
 shamed into sense asrain. Meantime I had whistled 
 my money all awaj\ I was ready to start on my 
 journeys again, a wiser if a poorer man. 
 
 I allude to this humbling of my confidence in 
 myself, merely to paint anew the moral of a tale 
 which win be repeated to the end of time, namely, 
 that no youth of spirit is safe in tampering with 
 tools which thousands of men as wise and strong as 
 he have turned to their own destruction. And now 
 I go on with the story of my life. 
 
 I returned to Dresden, where I met Tieck, the 
 poet, novelist, and sculptor, and became acquainted 
 with his family. He was then living in Dresden. 
 
114 TUE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 Tieck was of my age, twenty-eiglit years. He was 
 tall, spare, and handsome, while his eyes were of 
 wonderful clearness and power. In all his move- 
 ments there was grace and delicacy; his manner of 
 speaking exactly corresponded to his bearing. He 
 wrote hardly more beautifully than he spoke. It is 
 not alone the clearness with which he grasps every 
 subject which he handles that charms us, it is the 
 harmonious roundness of his style which has such 
 irresistible fascination. In talking, his manner was 
 to carefully grasp his theme, and then to develop it 
 on every side, yet with a restrained enthusiasm, 
 through which his language caught a warmth which 
 seemed to come rather from the subject of conver- 
 sation than from the man who talked. He himself 
 has told me that when, in the higher circles, he has 
 been compelled to listen to a depreciation of what is 
 noblest in poetry, — when, for example, he has heard 
 scorn thrown on the chief excellences in Goethe, — 
 he has felt himself as one transformed. Such indig- 
 nation was fired in him that he would turn pale ; 
 but he had such command of himself that in cir- 
 cumstances where I should have answered in heat, 
 he could keep perfect silence. And such was the 
 effect of this in Tieck, that I have seen his most 
 bitter enemies entirely disarmed by his significant 
 silence. And I venture to assert, gentle and ap- 
 proachable as he was to all, he has, by his bearing 
 when in society, exercised even a stronger influence 
 than by his writings. What he was to me, during 
 an intimacy continued for many years, and under 
 
CHARACTER OF TIECK. 115 
 
 the most varied circumstances, and in spite of broad 
 differences of opinion, I cannot easily express. 
 
 Tieck was remarkable for his talent in mimicry. 
 Had he been trained for the stage, he would have 
 been the greatest actor of his time ; and even in his 
 old age, when, chained to his chair by the gout, he 
 read a play to a few friends, it was so real, that 
 what we might see at the theatre appeared frigid 
 and dull, while the true genius of the drama seemed 
 to be before us. 
 
 I have seen him, on the birthday of his wife, 
 extemporize a play, and take every part himself, 
 assuming characters as far apart as a man and an 
 ourang-outang, and while his audience was con- 
 vulsed with laughter, he was true to his plot and 
 to all the minutiae of expression and of feature. I 
 could scarcely credit my eyes at so remarkable a 
 display of histrionic talent. 
 
 Frederick Schlegel was then in Dresden, and for 
 months I lived in daily intercourse with him and 
 with Tieck. How rich that season was to me it is 
 hard to say, for the influence of a man like Schlegel 
 cannot be measured as an abstract thing ; it is not 
 merely a communicable quality, it works powerfully 
 upon the whole nature. We do not feel ourselves 
 fettered by his presence, but rather quickened by 
 it; our brightest thoughts are then stimulated into 
 being, and the more powerful the mind which is ex- 
 erting this influence over us, the more free seems to 
 be the motion of our own mind. In the comj3anion- 
 ship of Schlegel and Tieck I began to understand 
 the fine arts. I learned how to trace the primitive 
 
116 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 conception in the elaborate and finished work, the 
 simple in the complex and modish, the nature of 
 true art in the perversions of the schools. The 
 great political epochs of the Italians, the Spanish, 
 the English, and the Germans, were brought near to 
 me. I was even transferred to their midst. I en- 
 joyed the past as if it were the present, and every 
 day brought me new delights. 
 
 Those were all golden moments. I had now been 
 a long time in Germany, and had traversed it in all 
 directions. The ease with which I made acquaint- 
 ances, and the readiness with which I sympathized 
 with their joys and troubles, had made the circle of 
 ray friendships very large. In Dresden, hardly a 
 day passed in which I did not meet with some old 
 acquaintance, with whom I could talk over past 
 times and enjoy a cheerful hour in the present. 
 I learned during these delightful months what a 
 charm there is in living a life of perfect freedom 
 from care, and yet a life rich in adventure, where I 
 could explore any department of knowledge that 
 I wished, and could link myself to every good and 
 noble object. And at the close of the year, when I 
 looked back upon it, it seemed to belong among the 
 choicest that I had lived. It had another value, 
 too, besides those which I have already mentioned. 
 Reich ardt's daughter, then seventeen years of age, 
 came to Dresden, to visit her aunt, Tieck's wife. 
 To what this acquaintance led will be seen in the 
 sequel. 
 
 I had dedicated my collection of papers to Goethe. 
 On account of this I had to endure a great deal 
 
EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. 117 
 
 from Frederick Schlegel. The Delphian Temple of 
 Pligher Poesy, to which I had consecrated my book, 
 gave him occasion for a great deal of ridicule. As 
 there was much said in it of the essential oneness of 
 all metals, he insisted that I ought to have subscribed 
 myself as minister extraordinary of metallics, and 
 privy counsellor of the metals. But Goethe took 
 a warm interest in my production. He wrote me a 
 long letter, and what interested me especially in it 
 was, his telling me that he had tried the experi- 
 ment with a French naturalist, whether he were 
 able to follow the whole course of my observa- 
 tions, and to bring the metals of which I spoke 
 into important relations with each other, and into 
 real unity, Goethe was convinced that the French- 
 man would make nothing of it. The gift of tracing 
 such things he insisted was wholly wanting to the 
 French mind, and he foresaw exactly what kind of 
 a reception writings such as mine would receive in 
 France ; and not in France alone, but among all 
 those naturalists of Germany whose method is only 
 experimental. And I have experienced all my life 
 what he distinctly foresaw, and if some view of mine 
 has gained acceptance in one quarter or another, yet 
 the spirit which lay at the base of all my results has 
 not been appreciated. Yet my great admiration of 
 natural science, my iAterest in their discoveries, my 
 joy at their progress, have always been great. I 
 have known enough to bear always in mind that 
 natural science can stand on its own foundation. 
 I have been separated from empirical naturalists 
 through the diversity of our principles of research, 
 
118 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 yet the object studied is the same to us both, and 
 many ties still connect us in our inquiries. Often 
 have I had occasion to say in my arguments with 
 distinguished physicists, who confessed that they 
 could not understand tlie drift of my thoughts, that 
 I enjoyed a double advantage, in that the enjoy- 
 ment of their discoveries was not denied to me, and 
 their progress a source of joy to me, while from 
 their results a pleasure was granted to me which 
 was not even granted to those who had gained 
 them. I never underrated their results, but as they 
 were purely the issues of exiDcriments, they who 
 gained them could not always see in them the 
 workings of great and universal laws. 
 
 And now it was time for me to be thinkino: of 
 home. I had an account to render in Denmark for 
 the months spent in Germany. It was, indeed, hard 
 to leave a land which I had learned to love so much, 
 and turn away from friends who had become so dear 
 to me. But just then, while I was thinking of my 
 journey homeward, I received an invitation to ac- 
 cept a professorship of mineralogy in Ireland. It 
 was procured for me through the agency of Mitchel, 
 a fellow-student at Freiberg. It was a very attrac- 
 tive offer ; the salary seemed very large to me, and 
 Ireland was as yet an unexplored field. But my 
 want of English was in my e^es a good reason for 
 not accepting the offer. I read it, indeed, with 
 ease, but I have never mastered its pronunciation. 
 Mitchel insisted, however, that three months in an 
 English family would remedy that defect. 
 
 This unexpected invitation was, of course, taken 
 
LEAVIXG GERMAXT. 119 
 
 into most careful consideration. But at last my 
 affection to my native land prevailed, and I came to 
 the conclusion that I owed my service to her. I 
 refused the invitation, and so changed the whole 
 future of my life. 
 
 So I turned my steps towards the home of my 
 childhood. What my career there would be could 
 not clearly be foretold. I hoped to give philosophi- 
 cal lectures in Copenhagen. I had intended, when 
 I left Denmark, to extend my travels to Italy, 
 France, and England, and yet I had confined my- 
 self to Jena, Weimar, Freiberg, and Dresden. In 
 this limited region, I had met the objects of my 
 highest admiration ; here my thoughts had found 
 rich soil from which to grow. I could not think 
 without sadness of leaving a country which had 
 become so full of interest to me. Even the lan- 
 guage, the repository of pure thoughts, had an end- 
 less charm to me, and a wonderful harmony. No 
 other tongue seemed to me to speak out so well 
 the emotions of the soul, no other to present the 
 most sharply-defined thoughts, the most lofty poet- 
 ry. Yet, sad as was the leaving of Germany, the 
 thought of home was cheering. I was wholly a 
 Dane. The great purpose of my life was to be use- 
 ful to my country. And so I turnect my back upon 
 beautiful Dresden, bade adieu to my many friends, 
 and started northward, going by Jena and Halle. 
 At Jena, I found Schelling and Hegel united in a 
 common task, and on terms of close intimacy, and I 
 could not part without tears from the one of these 
 two men whose genius had summoned me to Ger- 
 
120 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 many, and had given a new direction to my life. 
 Schelling, too, was sensibly moved. At Halle I 
 was taken into Reichardt's family as an intimate 
 friend, and there was betrothed to the daughter, 
 with the understanding that in one year I should 
 return and claim her as my wife. After a few happy 
 days at Halle, I again set my steps towards home ; 
 reached Lubeck, and took the packet for Copen- 
 hagen. 
 
 Few men have enjoyed a happier youth than I. 
 I was now in ray thirtieth year, and if I deduct two 
 vsad twelvemonths, the rest had flown by in un- 
 broken quiet. I do not remember that ever in all 
 that time I had one anxious thought about the 
 future. The present was rich in happiness, and I 
 did not despise the joys of the hour. I was com- 
 pletely my own master, independent in the full 
 sense of the word. Every one who met me was 
 friendly. I stood in no man's way, and few had 
 occasion to look on me with envy. I expected, in- 
 deed, sooner or later, to have my share of trouble ; 
 but of the calamities which at length drove me 
 from my native land, no glimpse yet appeared. I 
 went home at a very critical time in the history 
 of Denmark. It was just after the English inva- 
 sion, and the attack on Copenhagen. The whole 
 city, at the time I arrived, was just becoming tran- 
 quil after the intense excitement of the battle, and 
 I, who expected to entertain rather than to be en- 
 tertained, was glad to listen day after day to stories 
 of the Danish valor, and the various occurrences 
 incident to so startling: an event. All that I had 
 
STEFFENS'S KIND RECEPTION. 121 
 
 seen sunk into insignificance compared with what 
 had been witnessed at home. But by and by 
 the excitement wore away, and common interests 
 crowded forward again and claimed attention. 
 
 The events which had taken place in my life while 
 in Germany, exercised an influence upon my pros- 
 pects at home. Count Schimmelmann received me 
 with the same cordiality which he had showed me 
 before my departure. It was a great advantage to 
 enjoy the favor of a man who had such control of the 
 finances of the kingdom, and who was so enlight- 
 ened a scholar and so constant a patron of science. 
 I told him of my call to Ireland, and of my refusal 
 to accept it, and he thereupon granted me a pen- 
 sion ample for my support as long as I was unmar- 
 ried, with the promise that it should be more than 
 doubled after my marriage. He allowed me also to 
 select my own department of labor. I then showed 
 him what was the course which I had marked out 
 for myself It was merely to give public lectures 
 on philosophy and on geognosy. My object was to 
 make these subjects as attractive as possible, and to 
 attach my hearers to myself, and especially such as 
 would hereafter be government officials or ministers 
 in the desolate villages of Norway. I thought that 
 I should thus be opening resources to them which 
 should give them a never-failing subject of interest 
 in the scenes of their future labors. 
 
 The plan pleased the Count, who praised its sim- 
 plicity. And after this my relations with him grew 
 more intimate, and had I depended upon him alone 
 I should never have left Denmark. 
 
122 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 If I was made happy by the kindness of Schim- 
 melmann, my joy was not lessened by a letter 
 which I soon received from Goethe. It was the 
 intention of the literary circle to which I was so 
 closely bound, to establish a Review at Jena, to 
 which Goethe, Schleiermacher, Tieck, Schlegel, and 
 Schelling, should be the chief contributors. It was 
 to be based on the metaphysical system of the last ' 
 named, and was to be mainly devoted to a connect- 
 ing of Schelling's philosophy with the literature of 
 the day. And Goethe's object in writing to me was 
 to propose that I should contribute a critical sum- 
 mary of that philosophy to the first number of the 
 Review. I confess that I was equally sui-prised and 
 gratified at the invitation. Unquestionably it was 
 extended through Schelling's influence, and that 
 was a touching proof of the confidence which he 
 had in my mastery of his system ; but, despite all 
 this, I had to decline the request. The fall was 
 approaching, and it was necessary for me to give 
 my whole time to the prejDaration of my course of 
 lectures. I was going to do my own work in Co- 
 penhagen well, and the preparing of an article which 
 should be worthy of the subject would demand time 
 which I could not give. 
 
 But there soon began to appear a disagreeable 
 side to my life. If I could look to Count Schim- 
 melmann for countenance and support, there was 
 another high ofiicial from whom I expected nothing 
 but opposition. This was the Duke of Augusten- 
 burg, brother of the king. He was wholly in the 
 interest of the conservative party ; he looked with 
 
^A^ ANNOYANCE. 123 
 
 special distrust at the new philosophy of Germany, 
 and spoke of it with great contempt. A reaction- 
 ary Review at Berlin, Nicolai's, noticed for its hos- 
 tility to the Weimar and Jena school, attacked me 
 in a violent and abusive way, not only charging me 
 with adopting a foolish philosophical system, but, 
 what was more painful to my feelings, with taking 
 money which the Danish government granted to 
 me for geognostical studies, and applying it to 
 uses so variant from this as the sustaining of tran- 
 scendental philosophers. Nicolai's Review was read 
 at Copenhagen, and the article was shown to the 
 Duke of Augustenburg. He summoned me to him, 
 and showed me very plainly that I need hereafter 
 expect no help from him. In his eyes it was a 
 serious matter that I had been attacked by Nicolai. 
 And I could not persuade him that it was solely 
 provoked by the hostility of the publisher, not to 
 myself, but to Schelling and Goethe. 
 
 The summer wore away. I worked hard at my 
 lectures, and went much into society, yet I hardly 
 knew that I was the subject of much town talk. 
 There was then a general dislike to everything Ger- 
 man. I was often spoken of as the German doctor. 
 Once a Dane came to me and asked me why I had 
 not published my geognostical work in my mother 
 tongue. I replied by asking him if he would be re- 
 sponsible for the cost of publication in Danish. 
 
 I soon found that tlie conservatives were hard at 
 work against me. Charges were brought that I was 
 trying to supersede older men, and supplant their 
 systems by my own. " We have Prof Riisbrigh," 
 
124 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 they said, " .and what more can we ask?" The most 
 foolish allecfations were made about me. It was 
 currently reported that I had asserted that I could 
 not think in Danish. As I walked along the streets 
 I could hear people whisper, " There goes the young 
 man who, after he has been two years in Germany, 
 can't think in his mother tongue." I laughed at all 
 this, until at last a note came from Count Schira- 
 melmann cautioning me on being guarded in my 
 expressions, and telling me that he had heard the 
 rumor above mentioned. 
 
 I must confess that a certain sense of pride which 
 I felt may have exhibited itself in ray bearing, and 
 may have stirred up people to circulate such unjust 
 reports and feel ill-will. I remember that a rich 
 gentleman came to me one day, and asked me to 
 give him instruction in the German philosophy. I 
 knew the man well, and was aware that he was en- 
 tirely unable to comprehend a single philosophical 
 idea. When he had made the proposal, I said, " Be- 
 fore we come to any arrangement I must inform you 
 of the plan which I have adopted with regard to 
 compensation. The sum which I receive depends 
 entirely upon the aptitude of the learner, and the 
 advantage which he receives from my instructions, 
 with this important consideration, that the money 
 received is in inverse ratio to the good conferred. 
 The more he learns, the less I receive. Whoever 
 entirely follows my thoughts, and grasps the whole 
 subject, will not owe me anything; but the man who 
 has the misfortune not to understand a word, can- 
 not adequately pay me for my trouble." Of course 
 
STEFFEN'S'S LECTURES AT COPENEAGENx 125 
 
 he took umbrage, and did not renew the proposal ; 
 and it may be readily imagined that my trifling 
 added him to the number of my opponents. 
 
 My lectures began in October, 1803. They were 
 open to the public, of course. I was in high spirits. 
 "What had been in my youth the secret of ray own 
 soul, cherished, but never expressed, the subject 
 which fascinated me while it yet repelled me, was 
 now to be brought by me to the minds of men, and 
 to become the theme of my daily instructions. I 
 knew the strength of my adversaries. I was confi- 
 dent of my own powers, but I did not stop to ask 
 whether the contest which was before me was worth 
 the pains of the battle. I felt no downcast fear as 
 to the issue. I knew, indeed, that, supported by a 
 band of young adherents, I must encounter the most 
 resolute opposition, not only from the court, from all 
 the conservative elements of society, but the more I 
 thought of this, the more I was stimulated to go on. 
 I regretted heartily my many little hasty speeches 
 which had given offence to those who would have 
 been my friends, and I could not fail to see the 
 threatening aspect of my whole future. I saw that 
 there was no bond of connection between my scien- 
 tific systems and those of my friends. They dealt 
 alone with the conditioned, I with the free and un- 
 conditioned, and there could be no tie between us. 
 And I could not help feeling that the views which 
 I held were of great worth. My lectures were not 
 to be mere dealings with abstractions, — they con- 
 cerned life, immortality, and God, — and I could not 
 refrain from prayer in my own room before I went 
 
1-6 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 before the public assembly. It was the first prayer, 
 I suppose, which I had offered since the days of my 
 childhood. I had talked much about Christianity, 
 but this prayer went deeper than my talk, even to 
 the root of religion. I carried the influence of my 
 prayer to the lecture-room. Faith, unconquerable 
 and serene, became the basis of all my wisdom, and 
 did not desert me. 
 
 My lodgings were directly across the street from 
 the lecture-room, and as I looked out I could see an 
 excited crowd. Two of my friends came in to go 
 over with me, and I saw that they were nervously 
 anxious. We crossed the street ; the doorway of 
 the hall was full ; we could scarcely effect an en- 
 trance. At last way was made, and I passed into 
 the hall, which was crowded with men. Even the 
 windows were all occupied. As I stepped upon the 
 stage there was perfect silence. In an instant I 
 felt free from embarrassment, and no tremulousness 
 could be detected in my speech. I did not venture 
 to speak without manuscript. Nevertheless, I was 
 carried away by my interest in the subject, and such 
 was my earnestness and the glow of my manner 
 that I do not wonder that I gained applause for elo- 
 quence. It is plain that my audience was pleased. 
 Day after day the hall was thronged, and people 
 went an hour before the time to secure good scats. 
 And it was not students alone who attended my 
 lectures. Professors, savans, officials of high posi- 
 tion, were there. The interest which the public 
 took in them was unprecedented ; they were the 
 talk of the town. But I was too much in earnest 
 
STEFF£NS'S LECTURES AT COPENHAGEN. 127 
 
 with my work to be foolishly elated. It seemed to 
 be a serious thing to influence a community as I 
 was doing, and I looked upon it in a most serious 
 light. 
 
 My popularity was increased by a little circum- 
 stance which occurred soon after the lectures com- 
 menced. On the fifth or the sixth day I accidentally 
 left my manuscript at home, and did not discover 
 its absence till I was on the platform. I disliked 
 to send for it, and ventured to proceed without it, 
 stating the carcumstance to my audience, and beg- 
 ging their indulgence. I saw that I had only stim- 
 ulated their curiosity, and that they expected a slow 
 and stumbling performance. But the subject lay so 
 clear in my mind that I found that I could commu- 
 nicate my thoughts better extempore than by read- 
 ing from manuscript. My audience were equally 
 surprised and delighted. I was so pleased with my 
 success that I determined to give up my manuscript 
 forever. Yet this whole occurrence was wrested by 
 my adversaries to my disadvantage. They had the 
 malice to assert that the thing was premeditated ; 
 that I had committed my lectoire to memory, and 
 then recited it by heart. 
 
 Meanwhile the crowds at my lectures grew larger 
 and larorer. It bes^an to be rumored that I should 
 be forbidden to speak in public, and my audience 
 was in daily expectation of seeing some high official 
 rise during my speaking and impose silence upon 
 me. But my adversaries did not take that course. 
 They worked with more subtlety and strove to 
 undermine my reputation. And in this they sue- 
 
128 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 ceeded. I looked to Count Reventlow for assistance 
 in procuring a field for my geognostic investigations. 
 He was the avowed enemy of all speculative philos- 
 ophy, and was unwilling to believe that a man could 
 be a metaphysician and a practical man at the same 
 time. And so, with my opponents urging him on 
 against me, it is plain that the future must have 
 begun to wear a somewhat gloomy aspect. 
 
 But the fall and the winter wore away, and I 
 went on with my lectures. The hall continued to 
 be well filled, although of course tbe excitement 
 witnessed at the outset could not be kept up. The 
 opposition of my enemies grew, meanwhile, and 
 Schimmelmann was the only minister upon whom 
 I could rely. Gradually the year wore round, and 
 the time grew near for me to return to Halle and 
 claim my bride. 
 
 At length I went to Giebichenstein. I was re- 
 ceived with a great welcome. I spent a part of my 
 time with Reil in Halle, and the rest of the time, 
 how happy it may be imagined, in Reich ardt's fam- 
 ily. I was married the fourth of September, 1803. 
 We remained at my new home for a week ai:er the 
 wedding. The parents saw their daughter leave 
 them for her northern home with many tears ; we 
 took our leave and started for Berlin. We tarried 
 there at the house of my wife's brother. How dif- 
 ferent did Berlin seem to me now from what it did 
 before. Tieck was not there, but I made the ac- 
 quaintance of his sister. I met the elder Schlegel 
 there. I there became acquainted with Schleierma- 
 cher. The few days spent in the city were of great 
 
MARRIED LIFE AT COPENHAGEN. 129 
 
 interest, and they awakened fresh memories of the 
 many happy days which I had spent in Germany. 
 
 At length we arrived at Copenhagen, and the first 
 days coukl not be agreeable to a lady who, like my 
 wife, had hardly known what care was. She could 
 speak Danish hardly at all, and I was obliged to 
 leave her at the hotel all day, while I was busy in 
 arranging all the details of our house. I used often 
 to return and find her in tears. My fiiends came in 
 to see us, but, as they could not talk German, their 
 visits were only an annoyance to my wife. 
 
 Nevertheless, time went by. We got accustomed 
 to our lot, and were soon invited into very agree- 
 able society. The Countess Schimmelmann, and 
 many of the first ladies of Copenhagen, received 
 my wife very kindly, and often invited us to their 
 homes. Many things were made very agreeable to 
 us, and it may seem as if our life in Denmark must 
 have been very pleasant. But it was far from it. 
 The furnishing of my house had plunged me into 
 embarrassing debts. I had thus far in life lived 
 without any perplexity regarding money, and when 
 I found myself in momentary trouble there was 
 always some way out soon found. But now my 
 embarrassments were serious, for I had not alone 
 myself to care for, — the welfare of another one was 
 in my keeping. Even now, in my old age, I am not 
 familiar with all the details of business, and the care 
 of money is something I know nothing about. And 
 80, in Copenhagen, the future towered gloomily be- 
 fore me. I was saddled with debts, and with all the 
 thrift that I could exercise my income did not prove 
 
130 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 sufficient to meet my current expenses. I tried to 
 hide my cares from my wife as much as I could, but 
 she could not help seeing the posture of my affairs. 
 
 Meanwhile my enemies continued their attacks, 
 and even went so far as to assert that a young man 
 had been made insane in consequence of my teach- 
 ing. It was plain that sooner or later my lectures 
 would be proscribed, and my strongest friends be 
 compelled to give up my cause. This gave me new 
 anxieties. I could see no means of warding off the 
 attacks of my enemies. I could not live down op- 
 position. I should starve before I had done it. 
 What I said was ])erverted by malice, and what I 
 did was caricnture-'^l. Those were, indeed, trying 
 days. 
 
 All at once the day broke. In March, 1804, I 
 received a letter from Dr. Reil, of Halle, which 
 awakened new hopes. He stated that it was the 
 intention of the Prussian government to promote 
 the interests of the university there by calling 
 thither eminent and rising young men from abroad, 
 and he asked whether it would be agreeable to ac- 
 cept the post of Professor ordinarius of Natural Phi- 
 losophy, Physiology, and Mineralogy. "Upon that 
 hint I spake." I told him in reply what the whole 
 condition of my circumstances was, and that much 
 as I loved my country and wished to serve her, she 
 had thrust me moodily away and would not accept 
 my service. I told him how much I loved Ger- 
 many, and how glad beyond measure my wife would 
 be to have me accept such a call. In truth, we were 
 both in an ecstasy of delight. I had not known till 
 
SECOND RECEPTION BY GOETHE, 131 
 
 then how much my heart was drawn to Germany. 
 And bitter as was the thought of being driven 
 from my own country, the prospect of such a life as 
 awaited me was enough to make it tolerable. My 
 wife had not told me before how much her heart 
 had yearned for home. And now it seemed that 
 she was to live within cannon-shot of her father's 
 door. Reil forwarded money enough to pay the 
 most pressing bills, and we prepared for the jour- 
 ney. I wished to be in Halle by September, in 
 order to have ample time to prepare my lectures. 
 And thus closed that strange episode of life in Co- 
 penhagen. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 RETURN TO HALLE — COMMENCES HOUSEKEEPING — DARK PROS- 
 PECTS — SCHLEIERMACHER — LIFE AS PROFESSOR AT HALLE—' 
 FICHTE — JOHANNES VON MCLLER — ALEX. VON HUMBOLDT — 
 POLITICAL ASPECTS — WARLIKE APPEARANCES — EXCITED FEEL- 
 ING IN HALLE — THE SEIZING OF THE CITY BY THE FRENCH 
 — NAPOLEON AT HALLE — THE UNIVERSITY BROKEN UP BY 
 NAPOLEON — SAD DAYS — UNSETTLED LIFE FROM 180G TO 1808. 
 
 Notwithstanding all my exultant delight over 
 my future, I could not leave my own country, when 
 the hour of parting came, without many sorrows. 
 For her sake I had given up the flattering call to 
 Ireland, and had gone home with the fullest inten- 
 tion of devoting my whole energies to the good of 
 my native land. I was now, as it were, an exile. I 
 should have to give up my sweet mother tongue, 
 and only speak in foreign accents. I was full of 
 sadness, and it was not till the j^acket had brought 
 us almost to the German shore that my spirits re- 
 vived. But they did revive, partly by way of reac- 
 tion, partly in consequence of my "wife's joy. And 
 when I came to Ilamburq; the German lano:uao:e 
 seemed so homelike that that trouble passed by, 
 and I felt quite happy again. At Kiel I met Ilens- 
 ler, so well known to the readers of Niebuhr's Life. 
 At Hamburg I visited Madame Sieveking, the Eliz- 
 abeth Fry of Germany. The whole North was then 
 
 132 
 
COMMENCES HOUSEKEEPING IN HALLE. 133 
 
 in possession of the French, and it was wonderful 
 in what apathy the people lived under this for- 
 eign power. The course of Napoleon was then 
 unchecked. He had almost witliout opposition 
 gained possession of the northern duchies. But at 
 Berlin we found no fear of his progress. I could 
 see no good reason for such security, but as the peo- 
 ple felt no alarm, mine soon passed away. 
 
 In September, 1804, a year after my wedding, I 
 restored the much-loved daughter to the arms of 
 her parents. It was a happy day to all. I at once 
 busied myself in making arrangements for house- 
 keeping, but I soon fell into trouble again. My 
 father-in-law had hired a house far too large for our 
 necessities, and the whole outlay had to be pro- 
 portioned to the splendor of the mansion. I had 
 almost no library, and rich as was that of the uni- 
 versity in old books, it was not supplied with those 
 works which were indispensable to me. I had no 
 mineral cabinet, and the one which belonged to the 
 university was worthless. It would be necessary for 
 me to procure one. To add to my perplexities I 
 found that the sum which had been advanced to 
 ms at Copenhagen to settle my most urgent debts 
 there would be deducted from my salary, and leave 
 me without resources for my first three months. 
 And to add to all, rivalries and jealousies arose 
 among the professors, and I found that as a for- 
 eigner, and a Dane at that, and as an advocate of 
 the new transcendental philosophy, I had the same 
 battle to fight in Halle which I had already fought 
 in Copenhagen. The men who held to empirical 
 
134 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 science, and looked no further, began to circulate 
 the vilest rumors about me. It was asserted that 
 my wife and I had become Catholics. A public 
 journal had me in its columns as an atheist. Sto- 
 ries passed around regarding the looseness of my 
 life. It was said that I was in the daily use of large 
 potions of opium and lived in constant intoxica- 
 tion. One professor expressed to my wife his sor- 
 row over my mercurial temperament, and his fear 
 that I should come to an early death from over- 
 excitement. I had a slight inflammation of the 
 throat and had to call in a physician. He asked me 
 if I did not have a trembling of my hands every 
 morning till I had taken a good dose of schnapps. 
 I was so angry that I asked him whether he had any 
 desire to know what these trembling hands could 
 do. It was very plain that trouble was before me, 
 and that discomforts were to be found at Halle as 
 well as everywhere else. 
 
 There were five philosophical professors in the 
 university. They were all men of some note, and 
 stood together in compact unity to resist the young 
 advocate of Schelling's philosophy. All but one 
 were avowed followers of Kant. They carried their 
 opposition so far as to warn the young men against 
 me. To add to my perplexities was the knowledge 
 that I had not yet advanced far enough to trace the 
 relations between physics and Schelling's metaphys- 
 ics. I, indeed, believed that I had in the latter an 
 ars inve?iiendi, which would exercise a real influ- 
 ence in the development of physical science, and in 
 the treatment of all its departments. I did not yet 
 
OPPOSITION IX HALLE. 135 
 
 clearly see that Schelling's system and the experi- 
 mental system were so wholly outside of each other 
 that they must expand in completely different ways ; 
 that they would give rise to two entirely variant 
 sciences ; that the endeavor to interfuse experi- 
 mental philosophy with what was called the nature 
 philosophy would only be destruction to the for- 
 mer. Schelling's transcendental system in contrast 
 with the Kantian or Baconian is thoroughly ideal, 
 and that for this reason, that its reality lies in the 
 All. The influence which it exerts over every em- 
 pirical science is, therefore, hard to trace to details. 
 This is, moreover, true, also, of history. All em- 
 piricism proceeds from the visible, the granted, the 
 connections and the relations of conditioned forms ; 
 and where she directs herself to the discovery of 
 universal laws she never transcends the limits of 
 sense, and the worth of her discoveries depends 
 upon the clearness with which she views her field 
 of search. What lies beyond it has no value to the 
 empirical philosopher. And if I could not yet see 
 that Schelling's system of transcendental philoso- 
 phy, which deals with the unseen and the uncondi- 
 tioned, was wholly outside of the empirical system, 
 how should I be able to make myself understood in 
 my lectures ? I saw that I should become the object 
 of the strongest opposition. And yet my confidence 
 was so strong that I did not fear the combined an- 
 tagonism of all the forces which might be brought 
 against me. 
 
 And there was, indeed, a bright side. During the 
 two years which I had spent in Denmark, Schelling's 
 
136 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 system had gained many adherents, and awakened 
 much interest among the young men of the univer- 
 sity. It was plain to the acutest observers that 
 with the new century was to dawn a new day in 
 science. Another spirit was abroad, and opposition 
 to the men of the future by the men of the past 
 would be vain. There were also two privat do- 
 cents in the college who were adherents to the new 
 system. They soon were called away from Halle, 
 but they supported my views at the first. Schel- 
 ling in Jena was my firm friend, and I could rely on 
 his full support. Wolf, the great, the eminent phi- 
 lologist, was then the chief light of Halle. He 
 warmly espoused my views. Reil, who procured 
 me the call to Halle, was true from first to last. 
 Mickel, the anatomist, and Spengler, the well-known 
 historian of medicine, were constant friends ; and 
 great numbers of the young men were only stimu- 
 lated by the opposition made to me to become my 
 most enthusiastic j^upils. ^ 
 
 I ought here to speak of a man, the making of 
 whose acquaintance formed an epoch in my life. I 
 allude to Schleiermacher, who was called to Halle 
 as professor extraordinary at the same time with 
 myself, or a few weeks later. Schleiermacher, as is 
 well known, was small in stature, and somewhat de- 
 formed, yet not so much as to be very apparent. 
 He was quick in all his movements, and his counte- 
 nance was very expressive. A certain sharpness in 
 his eye might to some be a little repulsive. He 
 seemed to look you through. He was some years 
 older than I. His face was long, his features sharply 
 
SCHLEIERMA CHER. 137 
 
 drawn, the lips firmly pressed together, the chin 
 protruding, the eye keen and fiery, the countenance 
 composed, serious, and thoughtful. I saw him in 
 the most varied circumstances, — in deep meditation, 
 playful, jocose, mild, and indignant, moved with joy 
 and with pain ; but in all there was a constant un- 
 derlying calmness, greater and more able to control 
 his spirit than the passing gush of feeling. And yet 
 there was nothing impassive in this calmness. A 
 touch of irony played over his features, real sym- 
 pathy with man never deserted him, and a child's 
 goodness and sweetness were always his. His con- 
 stant thoughtfiilness had wonderfully mastered his 
 natural temper and tone. While he was in the 
 most mirthfid conversation, nothing escaped him. 
 He saw everything that transpired around him, he 
 heard everything, even the low talk of others. Art 
 has wonderfully perpetuated his face. Ranch's bust 
 of him is one of the master-triumphs of skill, and 
 whoever has lived as intimately with him as I, is 
 almost startled when he looks upon it. It often 
 seems to me as if he were there, in my presence, as 
 if he were just on the point of opening those lips 
 and uttering some weighty word. 
 
 We opened ourselves unreservedly to one another, 
 and I have never exj^erienced more decisively that 
 an unrestrained intimacy with others favors, rather 
 than hinders, a correct knowledge of ourselves. As 
 Goethe, Schelling, and Tieck had won upon me 
 before, so now did Schleiermacher. What people 
 called Spinozaism was just what drew me most 
 strongly to him, because he did not appear to me to 
 
138 THE STORY OF JFY CAREER. 
 
 be cast in a rigid mould, but to be the very spring 
 of the most unconstrained freedom. His Critique 
 of Morals had been pubHshed about a year. It is 
 true, his style was dialectically negative, but yet 
 there was plainly in the man the reality of positive 
 and comprehensive truth which should lose all ne- 
 gation in a loftier statement. It is generally known, 
 through the agency of my friend Twesten, how 
 deeply he entered into my views of natural science, 
 at least so far as these were capable of being gener- 
 alized into the broadest expression. We lived uni- 
 ted" by the closest ties ; we communicated to each 
 other our views, our thoughts, even our fancies. 
 Schleiermacher, as well as myself, lived in Rei- 
 ch ardt's family ; our walks, our parties of pleasure, 
 our associates were common ; our best hearers, those 
 who were in earnest, attended the lectures of us 
 both. Ilis ethical lectures and mine on philosophy 
 appeared to our hearers to be most intimately uni- 
 ted; they seemed to be complementary to each 
 other. We also made a mutual exchange of what 
 we knew. Schleiermacher listened to my lectures 
 on physics, and opened Greek philosophy to me, and 
 taught me to appreciate Plato. It is, of course, not 
 my object here, where I am merely exhibiting my 
 personal relations to him, to decide the place which 
 he is to occupy as the one who has opened a new 
 future to theological inquiries ; the knowledge is 
 wantins: to me to do that, even if this were a suita- 
 ble place for it. But I can hardly realize vividly 
 enough, nor paint forcibly enough, what I owe to 
 my intimate acquaintance with him and to his wri- 
 
SCHL EIERMA CHER. 139 
 
 tings, — how deeply they have both affected my 
 character. 
 
 The more deeply, earnestly, religiously Schleier- 
 macher looked upon life and science, the more 
 decided he became in rejecting, not only in his 
 scientific lectures, but also in life, everything that 
 seemed to him foolish and worthless. He even 
 loved to trifle at times with conventional forms. 
 Many stories about him were current in the city, 
 and perhaps went further. People used to talk 
 about the professor of theology going out to botan- 
 ize, in a short, green jacket, light trowsers, and a tin 
 box thrown over his shoulder. 
 
 Schleiermacher had not only the post of a profes- 
 sor, but he was preacher to the university also. An 
 old church was fitted up for the use of the students, 
 and when the widowed queen died, it was Schleier- 
 macher's duty to preach the funeral sermon. It 
 was in March. A delightful spring day enticed us 
 both, accompanied by a common friend, to walk out 
 to Petersberg on the evening before the solemn 
 burial service should be held. We spent the night 
 in a hut in the little villac^e of Ostrow. That nieht 
 will never be forgotten by me. We never drew so 
 near each other as then. Schleiermacher never dis- 
 played himself to me more exalted or more pure. 
 That night stili comes back to me as one of the 
 marked periods of my life, — I might almost say it 
 seems hallowed. The day closed glorious and beau- 
 tiful; the landscape stretched away, made fair by the 
 new activities of spring. The whole scene was like 
 a vast natural temple ; the magnificence gave wings 
 
140 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 to every thought, it penetrated us through and 
 through, and, as the spring quickens the earth, so 
 did this prospect quicken our spirits. I have a wit- 
 ness of the deep impression which this night made 
 upon Schleiermacher, in a letter to his friend, Lady 
 Herz. It was the reflection of his own purity, in 
 which I stood, as it were, illumined. His deep spirit- 
 uality was more apparent to me than ever before. 
 The Saviour was with us then, as he had promised 
 to be when two or three were gatliered together in 
 his name. It was plain to me that a positive reli- 
 gious character has been his from his childhood 
 among the Moravians up, and that what he called 
 in a technical way sensibility, was, when lifted up 
 into the Christian consciousness, touched with the 
 eternal love of God ; and it grieved me sorely that 
 the faith of so eminent a philosopher was so misun- 
 derstood. This sensibility of his was what faith is 
 to love, what thought is to feeling, the second the 
 cherishing guardian of the first. 
 
 It was past midnight, and between nine and ten 
 o'clock tlie next day Schleiermacher must be in the 
 pulpit. The subject must be treated with a great 
 deal of delicacy. After a few hours' sleep we awoke, 
 and yet some eio-ht miles to walk. Durinor the ninlit 
 it had frozen. The warm days which liad gone be- 
 fore had melted the snow, and so the road, when 
 frozen again, was uneven. Schleiermacher, an ex- 
 cellent pedestrian, kept ahead of us, and sped along 
 over the roughness. We could scarcely keep up. 
 We noticed how deeply sunk in thought he was, 
 despite the bad walking, and we did not disturb 
 
SCHLEIERMACHEB. 141 
 
 him. When I came home, I had hardly time to put 
 myself in readiness before the time for church ar- 
 rived. When I appeared among my brothers there 
 was a general movement. "Ah," said they, "now 
 you have come, we may hope at last to see Schlei- 
 ermacher." His excursion of the day before had 
 transpired and made the round of the city, and it 
 was even known that we had passed the night in a 
 hut. Early in the morning the)'' had sent to his 
 lodgings, and as lie had not returned an hour before 
 the time to commence the funeral service, and the 
 church bells had all begun to ring, they began to 
 think, and some, perhaps, to hope, that he would 
 not come. I kept my peace and let the professors 
 talk. 
 
 Schleiermacher ascended to the jDulpit. Every 
 one who has heard him remembers the imposing 
 earnestness of his manner while officiating in the 
 sacred desk. His sermon displayed that careful 
 arrangement which always was a distinguishing 
 mark with him. His very calmness and unimpas- 
 sioned air made a deep impression, and every one 
 left the church with a new conviction of the noth- 
 ingness of all earthly relations, even the highest, 
 when brought into conflict with the purposes of God. 
 All my brother professors applauded and wondered 
 at the discourse. The fact that he who had pro- 
 nounced such an elaborate, clear, finished, and judi- 
 cious funeral oration, had passed the hours previous 
 in a rustic merry-making, appeared to them unpar- 
 alleled. I do not think that the rumor of his night 
 in the hut at Ostrow made any abiding impression. 
 
142 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 How readily I live those clays over again, and see 
 myself in the scenes of my former activity. The 
 students who attended Schleiermacher's lectures 
 and my own, or rather those of them who became 
 strongly attached to us, used to meet us once a 
 week at tea, alternating between him and me. The 
 conversation on such occasions was thorough and 
 dee]), though unrestrained. A circle was formed, of 
 which I still think with deep interest. It would not 
 be wrong for me to say that this circle embraced all 
 those men whose minds had been roused to a hiojh 
 activity by Wolf, Reil, Schleiermacher, and, I might 
 add, myself. We did not form what could be called 
 a school in any narrow sense, but an insight into the 
 lofty nature of speculative ideas gave interest to all 
 that we did or attempted. Every one, theologian, 
 physician, philologist, strove to grasp life and science 
 in its higher meaning. The professors were not one- 
 sided men, but they were filled with the same ear- 
 nestness which prevailed among the students. Our 
 opponents appeared to fear that an overstrained 
 excitement, and an absence of all careful and rigid 
 investigation, characterized us, and repressed thor- 
 ough inquiry with us. This fear showed itself 
 wholly ungrounded. In Halle, all the extravagan- 
 ces of a merely arbitrary system of physical science 
 disappeared. Real investigation, and that we had, 
 won the palm, and I cannot recall a single student 
 of those days who can be reckoned among the mere 
 visionaries of physics. There was formed not only 
 a strong corps of professed scholars in all depart- 
 ments but also trained practical men, who should 
 
LIFE AS PROFESSOR AT HALLE. 143 
 
 be qualified for high public posts. Among these 
 men were found Yarnhagen von Ense, the diplo- 
 matist and author, I^eander, the theologian, Bekker 
 and Bockh, the philologists. 
 
 The subjects on which I lectured were natural 
 philosophy, physiology, mineralogy, geognosy, and 
 ^n the last half year, being specially requested by my 
 l^upils, physics as an empirical science. These last 
 lectures demanded a considerable outlay, although, 
 through the kindness of a friend, I was provided 
 with an air-pump and an electrical machine. My 
 whole situation was more favorable than ever be- 
 fore, although soon after my arrival I saw that I 
 should have to economize. I left the roomy house 
 which my fither-in-law had hired for me, and took 
 a smaller one. I dismissed my servant, and lived in 
 great seclusion, because all company could be met at 
 my father-in-law's, at Giebichenstein. I lived wholly 
 for my studies, my lectures, and the students who 
 attached themselves to me. 
 
 Yet my relations to the students were not favora- 
 ble throucrhout. The mass of them were unculti- 
 vated and rough, and my antipathy to the wild 
 student life was so strong that I could hardly con- 
 ceal it. Once in a while I was saluted with a vivat, 
 but the pereat generally was my portion. 
 
 Yet, however severely we may judge the German 
 universities and the students of those days, it is 
 not to be denied that a good element was there, a 
 sensibility to true science, always ready to break out 
 of the roughest natures. Wolf's, Reil's, Schleier- 
 macher's r.nd my ov>'ii students, formed a circle that 
 
144 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 knew how to appreciate worth, and liad it been al- 
 lowed to Halle University to enjoy many more years 
 of peace, there would have come from its halls many 
 a man ready to play an important part in the history 
 of his times. 
 
 I was living in perfect contentment; the fairest 
 prospects were before me ; my activities were en-, 
 tirely absorbed, and their circle was daily widening ; 
 my situation, my family, my friends, my auditors, all 
 were as I could wish ; and for the first time in my 
 life I could feel free from a weighty pressure of care 
 about my outward circumstances. But the soil out 
 of which such promising fruit sprung was shallow, 
 and I did not know it. True, I thought much of the 
 condition of Prussia. But I could not see it with 
 the eyes of one born in the kingdom. Yet the 
 future loomed up before dark and threatening, and 
 I contemplated it only with foreboding. 
 
 In January, 180G, Clara was born, the only child 
 which God gave to me. She was sickly, but yet she 
 lived and thrived. In the spring of the same year 
 I went to Berlin with Schleiermacher and his sister. 
 The season was charming, and Berlin charged with 
 animation. Political affairs were then very threat- 
 ening, and the nearer a decision came, the more 
 clearly could it be read that men demanded vigor- 
 ous measures. 
 
 Humboldt, having returned from America a year 
 before, was now in Berlin. Two houses of equal 
 size stood in Frederick Street, surrounded with 
 trees. In one of them lived Humboldt, in the other 
 Johannes Midler, the historian. In the great house, 
 
FICHTE.^ JOHANNES MULLER. 145 
 
 now known as the Frederick William Institute, I 
 sought Fichte ; went up one flight of stairs, met a 
 well-dressed gentleman, and asked if Fichte did not 
 live there. " The man is a stranger to me," he re- 
 plied ; and I confess I looked at him with astonish- 
 ment. That Fichte lived in that house was certain, 
 and at length I found him, when I had tried at 
 another staircase. But that any one who lived 
 under the same roof with the philosopher should 
 not know even the name of Fichte, then in the 
 very bloom of his reputation, one of the most dis- 
 tinguished men in Germany, seemed to me, I con- 
 fess, rather strange ; it made me feel that I was in a 
 great city. 
 
 The eminent scholars of Berlin were the first 
 objects of my inquiries. I regarded it as a specially 
 favorable circumstance that I could make the ac- 
 quaintance of Johannes Muller, the historian. I 
 was familiar with his history of Switzerland, and 
 had read it with deep interest. The thoroughness 
 of his investigations had called forth my admira- 
 tion, while the spirit which prevailed in bis whole 
 method excited my wonder. Musical composers 
 sometimes complain of Goethe's songs that their 
 very excellences preclude the possibility of adapt- 
 ing them to the most fitting music. The very 
 jDoetry, they say, contains too much harmony, and 
 fetters the freedom of the composer. So the pow- 
 erful dramatic style of Muller seemed to preclude a 
 more artistic expression, even when he was merely 
 stating the rude facts of history. In private he was 
 
 10 
 
146 THE STORY OF MY CAREF.R. 
 
 an iustructive companion, and my acquaintance with 
 him was highly favorable to my own studies. 
 
 But the meeting with Alexander von Humboldt 
 was the chief advantage of my stay in Berlin. I had 
 long admired the extraordinary talents of that man. 
 His botanical investigations; his geognostical studies, 
 calling attention to the uniformity in the strata of 
 the older mountain chains (a view which, although 
 ])artial when first propounded, must be, neverthe- 
 less, regarded as giving a different aspect to the 
 modern science of geognosy) ; his extended wri- 
 tings upon the irritated nerves of Jinimals, leading 
 directly to Volta's discovery of galvanism; his eudio- 
 metrical inquiries, which, though leading to incor- 
 rect results at first, have yet added much to our 
 knowledge ; — all these labors, and that unwearied 
 mind, which easily solved the most difficult prob- 
 lems of his time, which recognized their historical 
 value, revealed to me in him the greatest genius of 
 the age. Some random expressions of younger nat- 
 uralists had prejudiced me against him. Whether 
 they, men not at all eminent, were known to him, I 
 cannot say — to this hour I am ignorant; but as it is 
 so much a part of my nature to admire in others 
 talents which I do not possess, the prejudice that I 
 entertained against Humboldt troubled me much. 
 Still, that soon passed away. I saw him almost every 
 day. His conversation was in the highest degree 
 instructive ; the inexhaustible extent of his obser- 
 vations, which, running out into every department 
 of science, comprehended all the features of a prom- 
 inent though comparatively unknown and inncces- 
 
 I 
 
ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 147 
 
 sible continent, and which seemed to impose the 
 necessity of studying the whole earth in the same 
 close and critical method, produced an overpow- 
 ering impression upon me. I saw before me the 
 creator of physical geography, the man who, in 
 combining and arranging the vast array of facts 
 which his industry had accumulated, was widening 
 the science which he himself had called into being. 
 There never has been a scholar who has had such 
 good reason to shrink back in view of the immense 
 masses of material which he had to harmonize and 
 group as Humboldt. Everything which he learned 
 was his forever, and could be summoned from his 
 memory in an instant ; old memoranda and the most 
 varied facts all were at his immediate command. 
 
 I made my home at the house of my friend and 
 publisher, Reimer, very far from Humboldt's lodg- 
 ings. I recall one occasion when Humboldt and I 
 left an evening jDarty held at some distance from 
 both of our homes.- He came with me to Reimer's 
 house in Cook Street (Kochstrasse) ; then I went 
 with him to his lodgings ; he back again to mine ; 
 and thus a good part of the night was consumed, 
 when he implored me not to go back with him, as I 
 had intended to do. If I had had the good fortune 
 to make this acquaintance in more settled times it 
 would have ripened into a close friendship ; as it 
 was, it made an epoch in my life. 
 
 The hospitality of the Berliners is noted. A man 
 in any way distingnished, who comes among them, 
 need not want the opportunity to enter their best 
 society. Almost daily I dined in the company of 
 
148 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 Humboldt, Johannes Muller, Fichte, and Bartholdy ; 
 often, too, I spent the evening in their society. I 
 recall with the most pleasing recollections Madame 
 Herz, the distinscuished friend of Schleiermacher, re- 
 markable for her spirit, culture, imposing and almost 
 regal beauty, and her amiability. 
 
 That Schleiermacher was seldom missing in these 
 social gatherings, when his duties and his very ex- 
 tended relations with society would allow, may be 
 readily inferred. 
 
 Thus I had no lack of what might minister to my 
 mental activity ; but this was stimulated in yet new 
 and more decisive ways. The political relations of 
 those remarkable times have been so fully illustrated 
 by others, that what appeared to a foreign scholar, 
 who lived only for his studies and troubled himself 
 little about politics, could only be that which all 
 the world knew, and therefore now of little worth. 
 But those were really times of immense imjDortance, 
 times big with great events in -store, the dawn of 
 kindling hopes, which, though for a little period to 
 be obscured, should by and by gleam out again, and 
 smile gratefully down on a disciplined and purified 
 nation. 
 
 In the circles amid which I moved the national 
 enthusiasm was deeply felt, and spoke itself out from 
 the purest sources. I, a stranger, and only partially 
 acquainted with the affairs of the country, looked 
 at the future with many fears, which, however, were 
 not shared by my friends. Whether Prussia would 
 succeed in struggling through the next few years 
 was not clear to me, and the present was so full of 
 
POLITICAL ASPECTS. 149 
 
 enjoyment that no very deep and settled nnxieties 
 could take possession of me. My hatred to France, 
 its government, and its ambitious project of crush- 
 ing out all German nationality, was great and freely 
 outspoken. I did not try to conceal it, and disclosed 
 it not alone in my ordinary conversation, but also 
 in my public lectures. My effort was to communi- 
 cate my own feeling and to thus aid in arousing a 
 spirit of resistance to the French invader. Still the 
 apathy was wonderful, both among the students at 
 Halle, and among my literary friends at Berlin. 
 Thev would not believe that there was dansrer till 
 it was close upon them. 
 
 But the summer sped away in Halle, and after a 
 time it appeared that the very region which was our 
 home would be the theatre of war. We had sup- 
 loosed that if Napoleon should attack Prussia he 
 would begin at the Rhine, and the people generally 
 supposed that even if there were open hostilities 
 they would not disturb the ordinary business of 
 life — everything Avould go on as usual. Least of 
 all could we think that a university would be inter- 
 fered with and its studies suspended. The number 
 of ray hearers had enlarged. I was lecturing this 
 summer for the first time on experimental physics. 
 Schleiermacher's pupils and my own were closely 
 bound together, and it really seemed as if the enthu- 
 siasm about our instructions, so far from being re- 
 pressed by the warlike prospects, was only increased 
 in consequence of the more intense mental activity 
 of every one. As the fall drew near, a division of 
 the Prussian army was quartered at Halle. They 
 
160 THE STORY OF MY CARE Eli. 
 
 were altogether too blustering and self-confident for 
 my taste ; and the tallc of the officers was really dis- 
 gusting. Instead of respecting*, not to say fearing, 
 that wonderful military genius, before whom all ob- 
 stacles had been as mist before the sun, they talked 
 loudly about the Seven Years' War, and evidently 
 thought that the name of the dead and immortal 
 Frederick was to vanquish the living Napoleon. 
 
 Meanwhile rumors came in of the approach of the 
 great enemy, and a stillness, depressing our spirits 
 and increasing our anxiety, rested upon all the in- 
 habitants of Halle. It was now plain that we should 
 see fearful sights in a few days. It was a sad feel- 
 ing, that of utter impotence, which filled the minds 
 of those who could not bear arms. Could we but 
 take part in our own deliverance, it would at any 
 rate ease our minds. But this we could not do ; we 
 were as children, and our protection was intrusted 
 to these boastful, over-confident soldiers, who were 
 quartered in our houses. 
 
 Nearer and nearer approached the foe, and more 
 intense grew the feeling of the whole town. The 
 tidings of the reverses at Jena and at Anerstadt 
 came in and increased our fears. At length we 
 could hear the distant cannonade, and see the 
 clouds of flying dust. The day of our trouble was 
 just at hand. 
 
 The little house to which I had removed from the 
 larger one which I hnd occupied before, was a cor- 
 ner tenement, on the Parade, opposite the univer- 
 sity library. I could look over the old ruin of 
 Moritzburg and the village of Passendorf, to the 
 
EXCITED FEELING IX HALLE. 151 
 
 hills on the south-west, which bounded the horizon. 
 All summer long I lived in daily expectation of an 
 attack on the part of the troops who were pressing 
 over those hills and encamping on the plains at 
 their base. On the mornins; of the sixteenth of 
 October, I believed that I heard firing in the dis- 
 tance. I hurried to the window, looked over to 
 the level ground beyond the Long Bridge which 
 crosses the Saale, and saw near Passendorf a con- 
 fusion which convinced me that skirmishino- was 
 going on there. The intense excitement in which 
 we had passed the last few days had, however, in- 
 duced a kind of quietness, or nervous exhaustion, 
 which was very favorable. My wife had just weaned 
 our child, and had gained so much in strength and 
 vigor, that, although the enemy were pi-essing on, 
 she seemed moved more by curiosity than fear. 
 
 Very early came Schleierniacher, accompanied by 
 his sister, the most intimate confidant of my wife. 
 They sought our house because of the fine view 
 which it commanded. But we very soon saw that 
 we should improve our position for observation 
 were we to go to the garden by the Freemasons' 
 Hall. So, mounting to a part of the wall where 
 the descent to the Saale was very steep, we could 
 overlook the whole scene. Several servants and 
 professors were standing there, and the Prussian 
 troops were raj^idly passing the Long Bridge. We 
 could see the onset, the firing on both sides, the 
 plunging charges of the cavalry, but all seemed inde- 
 cisive to an unskilled observer, who could only fol- 
 low the separate movements. So strangely blinded 
 
152 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 by Prnssinn prestige, and so confident in Prussian 
 valor, were tlie most, that victory on the French 
 side seemed impossible. "The poor French," said 
 a brother professor at my side, "I almost pity them; 
 they are worn out, it is plain ; poor fellows, a sad 
 fate awaits them falling into the hands of our vic- 
 torious soldiers." 
 
 But this hallucination did not last long. The 
 enemy pressed on in yet greater numbers, while 
 our troops were flying before them. Soon all were in 
 motion among us, and, full of fear, every one hurried 
 to his home. My house, situated in a remote and 
 not much frequented part of the city, was regarded 
 by us all as unsafe, and we resolved to spend the 
 time of greatest danger in Schleiermacher's house, 
 in the middle of the city. We hastened our steps 
 to rescue our child from our own home. We made 
 the briefest possible stay in our house, but it was 
 only too long. Mr. Gass, the friend referred to 
 above, took Schleiermacher's sister in charge, Schlei- 
 ermacher my wife, and I my child. We had to 
 traverse the whole length of Great Ulriclj's Street. 
 We could hear the shots in the city, but in the 
 streets there was perfect stillness. No one was to 
 be seen, the houses were all locked ; in only one 
 place did I observe any one, and that was a man 
 tearing down a sign which would be likely to draw 
 the enemy to his store. When we came to the well- 
 known turn in Great Ulrich's Street, just before it 
 opens into the Market Place, we saw at a glance 
 the dano^er which confronted us. The fliofht of the 
 Prussian army was directly across the city; the 
 
ATTACK ON HALLE BY THE FRENCH. 153 
 
 whole Market Place was filled with cannon and 
 with aramimition wagons, and in the streets which 
 led from the Market Place down to the river we 
 could hear the incessant firing. Our course was 
 directly across this retreating mass. How we came 
 through I cannot tell. We were so intent upon self- 
 preservation that we observed nothing else. Enough 
 that we stemmed the current safely. We were near 
 the Merkur Street, where Schleiermacher lived. But 
 just as I turned a corner which would hide the 
 Market Place from further view, I glanced a mo- 
 ment at the scene of rout which we had just trav- 
 ersed, and to my apiazement it was utterly empty. 
 Troops and wagons had disappeared as by magic. 
 By the time we had fiirly entered one of the side 
 streets the French came up. The shots whistled 
 through the air close by us, and Bernadotte's ad- 
 vance guard rode by at full speed along one of the 
 great streets in full view. They paid no attention 
 to us ; the retreating Prussian army was their sole 
 object of i^ursuit. We reached the house ; in the 
 street all was empty and still ; the door opened and 
 received us, was closed and locked again, and for a 
 little while we were safe. 
 
 Yet not long. The street lay too near to the 
 course of the pursuing array, and parties of cavalry 
 and infantry distributed themselves for purposes of 
 plunder. This movement took us all by surprise. 
 The street is small, and we saw that a party had 
 effected an entrance into the house oi:)posite. An 
 instant after three or four thundered at our door. 
 They called out to us that they would be satisfied 
 
154 TUE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 with Ji glass or two of wine if we would puss it out. 
 In our folly we resolved to give it to them, and, as 
 I opened the window to reach it to an officei", h€ 
 held his pistol to my head and threatened to blow 
 ray brains out if the door was not opened. So we 
 had to yield, and in a moment they rushed in. I 
 had to give up my watch, but happily I had no 
 money with me. They took Schleiermacher's linen 
 and his ready money, and were in a little while 
 oiF for plunder elsewhere. Then we had peace, and 
 could think a little. 
 
 It was plain that city and university were in the 
 hands of the enemy. The whole course of our life 
 would now be changed. All that we had resolved 
 in the past would be of no account in the future. 
 Still, the great peril in which we yet were j^re- 
 vented us from thinking of anything but the duty 
 and care of the present. The pursuit was over, 
 people began to appear one by one in the streets, 
 the enemy were no longer to be seen, and I ven- 
 tured in the afternoon to go to my house to dis- 
 cover what had been done there. I went along the 
 streets near the river. A few persons were ventur- 
 ing out, but not beyond their immediate neighbor- 
 hood. Here and there were small groups talking in 
 an undertone. Reports of dreadful doings in the 
 suburbs got round, and in the streets lay the bodies 
 of slain Prussians, yet in full uniform. No one had 
 entered my dweUing. I could now save my money 
 and conceal my valuables. That night I did not 
 spend with Schleiermacher, but with another friend. 
 We were in the full power of the enemy. 
 
SEIZURE OF HALLE BY THE FRENCH. 155 
 
 The first part of our night was a sad one. We 
 fancied a reign of horror, and saw in our vision the 
 destruction of everything hallowed by sacred asso- 
 ciations. The people in the nearest neighborhood 
 seemed separated from us by an unfathomable abyss, 
 and rumors of unspeakable cruelties floated in upon 
 us from hour to hour. We were in momentary ex- 
 pectation that the torch would be applied to the 
 city, and that the rule of license and rapine would 
 begin. But with the advancing hours our fears left 
 us ; we became merry at length, and at last we 
 slept. 
 
 The night passed away, and we learned how 
 groundless our fears had been. Bernadotte's troops 
 took possession of the city, and it is but simple jus- 
 tice to record that they were kept in perfect disci- 
 pline. A proclamation was soon published that the 
 studies of the university would not be interfered 
 with, and that no troops would be quartered with 
 the professors. The treasury of the institution 
 would not be touched, all excesses on the part of 
 his troops would be repressed, and all the rights of 
 the citizens would be respected. I hastened to nail 
 this i^roclamation to my door. 
 
 But in a few days we found new cause for alarm. 
 Troops were constantly passing through the city. 
 We heard that JSTapoleon would soon be jDresent in 
 person. It was said that he was fired with rage at 
 our university. In truth, we had much to fear. The 
 students were intensely excited, and we heard that 
 they were insisting upon the right of the whole 
 sidewalk, driving even the officers into the street, 
 
166 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 and they were purposing to constitute themselves a 
 body-guard for tlie protection of their teachers. I 
 went with Schleiermacher to tlie Prorector j^Iaas, to 
 ask him to summon a council to decide upon suita- 
 ble measures of action. But I heard with amaze- 
 ment that he regarded the step as dangerous ; the 
 enemy, he thought, would consider us engaged in a 
 conspiracy. Personally, this man was not at all im- 
 posing ; he was slim and small, had no servants, and 
 it was said was compelled to clean the boots of the 
 soldiers who were quartered with him. Few of 
 the professors ventured beyond their dwellings, few 
 spoke together except in brief words, while the 
 students paraded the streets, often shouting as they 
 went. 
 
 Napoleon came. He took possession of the house 
 of Professor Mickel, one of the most attractive in 
 the city, and standing on Great Berlin Square. His 
 guard, wlien drawn up in parade, made an imposing 
 appearance. Napoleon inspected them personally, 
 and made a speech to them in praise of their con- 
 duct during the taking of the city. That he was 
 full of bitterness against the Prussians, we knew 
 well. Halle was the first Prussian city which he 
 had taken, and while his troops were following the 
 enemy, he determined to rest in Halle. I was 
 still with my family in Schleiermacher's house. A 
 member of Napoleon's bureau of war was quartered 
 there, who naturally took the best chambers, so that 
 Schleiermacher, with his sister and liis friend Gass, 
 as well as myself with my wife and child, were mis- 
 erably lodged. We did not undress ourselves for 
 
NAPOLEON AT HALLE. 167 
 
 days. The officer quartered upon us was polite, ex- 
 cessively so. He often sought to draw us into con- 
 versation, but as we were always reserved he at last 
 had the audacity to ask Schlciermacher to indite a 
 paper addressed to the Prussian court, which should 
 display the great advantages which would follow 
 the victorious march of Napoleon. That Schleier- 
 macher should listen to such a request without 
 breaking out into ungovernable rage surprised rae, 
 indeed. It may well be thought that those were 
 times of humiliation. The official remained, how- 
 ever, polite as ever. Once he talked unreservedly 
 of the unbridled ambition of the emperor. It was, 
 he maintained, his object to restore the old Roman 
 empire of the middle ages, and should he succeed 
 in this he would be able in a short time to advance 
 the welfare of the nations which he should conquer, 
 for a lasting peace must ensue. The culture of 
 France would be a universal bond of union, and 
 there would be no power which would dare disturb 
 the reign of peace that would follow. An unmeas- 
 ured bitterness, an almost irrepressible hate, sprung 
 ujD in our hearts as we heard these words in our 
 own lanfTuaoje from a man of German birth. We 
 left the house but little, we shunned, so far as we 
 could, the sight of our detested foes. Napoleon re- 
 mained, if I mistake not, three days in Halle. On 
 the second day lie rode with his generals and mar- 
 shals through the street where I was staying. The 
 official who was quartered upon us urged us to wit- 
 ness the splendid array. After repeated requests 
 Schleiermacher and I cast a hasty glance down 
 
158 THE STOltY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 upon the street. This did not enable us to dis- 
 criminate the separate personages. I saw distinctly 
 only the flinciful uniform of Murat. Napoleon I 
 never saw. 
 
 But the more all external help faded away from 
 sight, the more threatening the appearance which 
 circumstances assumed, the greater became my con- 
 fidence, despite all probabilities, that what was truly 
 
 . good in Germany could not be suffered to perish, 
 and the surer mounted my conviction that He who 
 had guided the course of history would not permit 
 all the precious results of ages to be trodden out of 
 sight in an instant. I ventured to speak out what 
 I felt, and this conviction remained with me as my 
 consolation so long as the French possessed the 
 country. The conviction that I should live to wit- 
 ness Napoleon's downfall never left me. 
 
 On one of the days during which Napoleon re- 
 mained at Halle, a student rushed into Schleierma- 
 cher's house in the greatest excitement and alarm. 
 My wife, who was sustained by remarkable courage 
 and heroism, rallied him for his fears. It was some 
 time before he could control himself enough to 
 speak. My wife still laughed at him for a bold Ger- 
 man youth. At last he became composed enough 
 to inform us of the cause of his alarm. 
 
 A deputation of three professors, of whom the 
 distincruished educator Niemever was one, had been 
 selected to wait upon Napoleon. While they were 
 with the emperor a number of the students gath- 
 ered upon the square, and when the professors came 
 
 W'rom the imperial presence, one of them made a 
 
NAPOLEON AT HALLE. 159 
 
 brief address to the students, which they loudly ap- 
 plauded. But to the French the purport of the 
 speech and occasion of applause were equally un- 
 known. Added to this, when Napoleon was taking 
 his daily ride 'through the streets, a number of stu- 
 dents thronged around him without giving any salu- 
 tation. This uncourteous way of German burschen 
 must have been provoking to him, and was, doubt- 
 less, considered intentional. One student, whom 
 Napoleon addressed, replied with a simple Monsieur. 
 On this, people began to fear that the emperor's 
 hostility to the university would be made fully man- 
 ifest. The report passed around that a number of 
 the students were in arms against him ; but in truth 
 there was no foundation for such a rumor. Two 
 young noblemen, who, doubtless, hesitated between 
 military service and the continuance of their studies, 
 did, indeed, join the army. Napoleon might reason- 
 ably think that so large a number of young men 
 from the best families might be able to stir up much 
 rebellious feeling after he had j^assed on. Unac- 
 quainted with the methods of conducting German 
 universities, he supposed that the students lived in 
 commons, and wondered that they were so freely 
 allowed to roam at large. Thus understanding 
 affairs, he dismissed the university, and ordered the 
 students to depart at once to their homes. That 
 this threw the students into trouble was natural ; 
 but what they especially feared, and what had so 
 alarmed the one who fled to our house, was the 
 thought that Napoleon's plan was to follow them 
 oiit upon the roads and dispatch them unarmed. 
 
160 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 The whole of the great house occupied in part by 
 Schleiermacher was crowded with soldiers. To- 
 wards morning, during an unquiet sleep, we per- 
 ceived an unusual stir, a tramping on the stairs, loud 
 words of command in the court, and the tread of 
 horses. When we were fairly awake the city was 
 empty. We, the teachers, remained in the deserted 
 town, our profession made worthless, our " occupa- 
 tion gone." A few of the older students ventured 
 to remain. 
 
 In the city all was apparently peaceful. The 
 council of professors met, and we learned that the 
 funds of the university had not been sj^ared. A 
 document had arrived from Dessau statinor that we 
 were in disgrace with the emperor. Scholars, it 
 stated, ought not to trouble themselves with poli- 
 tics ; their business was to cultivate and diffuse the 
 sciences ; the professors at Halle had mistaken their 
 calling, and the emperor had resolved to break up 
 the university. That every one w\as dismayed, may 
 be guessed. The council of professors was thrown 
 into trepidation and unable to act. I ^vas myself 
 filled with the thought that so eminent a body of 
 men ought in all this time of trouble to preserve 
 unsullied dignity of deportment. There were, of 
 course, some unworthy words put forth. It was 
 urged by a few that we try to justify ourselves with 
 Napoleon, and convince him that we never cher- 
 ished hostile feelings towards him. Such an expres- 
 sion would have been with me a deliberate lie. For 
 our feelings towards Napoleon, before the capture 
 of the city, I said, we have no account to give. All 
 
HALLE UNIVERSITY DISBANDED. 161 
 
 that we could plead was, that since we came under 
 Lis power we had done what we could to promote 
 a patient subjection on the part of the students, and 
 merit no reproaches from our conquerors. 
 
 The position of Schleiermacher and myself was 
 bad enough. Our sal^vy was due the first of No- 
 vember, and that which had been received was 
 already fully spent. We had, indeed, received from 
 the students themselves a large sum in advance for 
 the lectures which were just to commence. I had 
 in my possession about four hundred dollars. I had 
 not, of course, expected to be in any want of money, 
 :ind was relying on the usual receipt of my salary. 
 But with the departure of the students I was com- 
 pelled to return the money which they had paid 
 me in advance for my lectures, and it was fortunate 
 for me that I had made no encroachment upon it. 
 After adjusting all my accounts I found that I had 
 seven dollars left. Schleiermacher had no more 
 than I. It was impossible to receive any from dis- 
 tant friends. An army was between them and us, 
 and all communication was cut off. 
 
 We resolved to unite the little capital which was 
 at our command, and to keep house in common. 
 Schleiermacher removed into my little tenement. 
 My wife and child and Schleiermacher's sister occu- 
 pied one small chamber, he and I another, and we 
 all worked and studied in one room. In a corner 
 of that room Schleiermacher wrote his Commentary 
 on the first Epistle of Paul to Timothy. We lived 
 
 most sparingly, saw very ^qw visitors, almost never 
 11 
 
162 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 left the house, and when our money was gone I sold 
 my silver. 
 
 Yet, though troubled in these ways, we had some 
 sources of comfort left us. We had great and un- 
 shaken faith in the future, and believed that wo 
 should live to see the restorf^tion of our land. We 
 used soon to gather in at our tea some friends and 
 the few students who had had the courage to re- 
 main in Halle. Fortunately we had laid in a large 
 store of sugar and tea before the enemy came. The 
 evenings we then spent together I shall never forget. 
 
 News of all kinds poured in upon us. Napoleon 
 Was marching on in conquest, and we were soon 
 horrified to learn that even Magdeburg offered but 
 little resistance. In our own place we were often 
 amused to hear of the extreme fear into which even 
 the professors would sometimes fall. Yet I confess it 
 was natural, and we, too, shared in it. Some of the 
 captured powder-wagons stood on the square direct- 
 ly in front of my house, and a considerable amount 
 was scattered upon the ground. The foolhardiness 
 of the French soldiers was amazing. Their iron- 
 heeled shoes would often strike fire upon the pave- 
 ment, and they carelessly smoked as they walked 
 among the powder-wagons. Remonstrance with 
 them would have done no good, and we lived in 
 continual teiTor. 
 
 Schleiermacher and I considered ourselves for- 
 tunate to secure passes which would allow us to 
 travel. They were procured with some difficulty. 
 We had to be measured like recruits, and wore 
 marks as suspected ; but it was a happy freedom 
 
TWO YEARS OF UNSETTLED LIFE. 163 
 
 which would permit us even this license when we 
 might be disposed to use it. 
 
 But let it not be thought that our studies did not 
 go on. Our investigations were mostly of a specula- 
 tive kind. There were times when the condition of 
 the country and our own straits wholly faded from 
 our minds. Of course my relations with Schleier- 
 macher became most intimate. At last communi- 
 cation was opened with Berlin and Copenhagen. 
 Money came in from friends and publishers, and our 
 immediate necessities were supplied. Then came 
 the task of deciding upon the future. Schleierma- 
 cher resolved to remain in Halle yet a little longer, 
 because the perfect seclusion and the slight cost of 
 living favored him in his scientific investigations. I 
 felt that I must look elsewhere. My Danish friends 
 recommended me to those in power there, and I 
 was assured of a competent support if I should re- 
 turn thither. Then came the real difiiculty of decid- 
 ing. I never had felt so strongly bound to Prussia 
 and to my brother professors as now. Trouble had 
 drawn us together, and the adversities of the land 
 had warmed my heart towards her. Had I had 
 means I should probably have remained. But I 
 was without resources, and so was compelled to ac- 
 cept the offer of Danish friends, and to bid adieu j;o 
 Halle and Schleiermacher. 
 
 My life for the next two year§ was one of great 
 distress, of great anxieties, and of great privations. 
 I had no income, and was obliged to live upon the 
 hospitalities of friends in Kiel, Hamburg, Copenha- 
 gen, and Liibeck. I had, indeed, an offer, through 
 
1C4 THE STORY OF MY CAllKER. 
 
 the kindness of Count Scbimmelinann, to take an 
 office in the finance department of Denmark, but 
 I could not consent to give up my profession, my 
 studies, and my hopes of usefuhiess in science. So, 
 against the strongest protestations of my friends, I 
 refused the invitation. The whole future of Prussia 
 seemed uncertain, but I could not help thinking that 
 I should be able before many years to resume the 
 current of my labors in that country, and still rank 
 myself as a citizen by adoption. Meanwhile my 
 circumstances were almost desperate. Had I been 
 alone I could have borne it better; but, with a wife 
 and child dependent upon me, the uncertainties of 
 the future and the needs of the present made my 
 situation deplorable. The kindness of friends did 
 not, indeed, allow us to suifer ; but the sense of de- 
 pendence was galling in the extreme. At last, how- 
 ever, the joyful tidings came that the university at 
 Halle would be reopened. I was then at Lubeck. 
 It was like passing from life to death. It is true I 
 was no longer to be a Prussian. Halle lay in the 
 new kingdom of Westphalia, and I should be a sub- 
 ject of the upstart King Jerome. StiM, I should be 
 at work, and that was my consolation. And if I 
 had wished to still be a Dane, and live in ray native 
 laijd, there was no longer security there, for Den- 
 mark had at last been drawn into the entangle- 
 ments of European politics, and was then just on 
 the verge of war. So we prepared to go back to 
 the old home at Halle. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 RETURNS TO HALLE — DISCOtTRAGING REOPENING OF THE UNl- 
 VERSITi' — PATRIOTISM OF THE PROFESSORS — KING JEROME 
 BONAPARTE'S VISIT TO HALLE — INTERVIEW WITH JOHANNES 
 VON MCLLER — SHATTERED CONDITION OF GER3IANY — GALL, 
 THE FOUNDER OF PHRENOLOGY — GOETHE AND GALL — GALL'3 
 PHRENOLOGICAL LECTURE AT HALLE — SCHELLING — ACHIM VON 
 ARNIM — WILLIAM GRIMM, THE PHILOLOGIST — FOUNDING OF 
 THE UNIVERSITY AT BERLIN — STEFFENS'S VIEWS OF NATURAL 
 SCIENCE — LAST TRIALS AT HALLE. 
 
 The feeling of pain with which I always returned 
 to the scene of my labors after every long absence, 
 to seat myself again among my books and papers, 
 came over me with greater intenseness than ever as 
 I journeyed back to Halle. It was like going to 
 inspect the ruins of a great conflagration, and try 
 to find some mementos of the lost mansion. And 
 what I anticipated I found. The whole appearance 
 of the part of the city where I lived was changed. 
 Schleiermacher had remained some time in my house 
 before leaving Halle, and finding everything in the 
 order in which he left it made us feel his absence 
 deeply. Wolf had left Halle and gone to Berlin, 
 where all things portended the founding of a new 
 university. Prussia, it was seen, would take her 
 true place sooner through her intellect than through 
 her arms. It was plain that the combined efforts of 
 
 165 
 
166 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 William von Humboldt, Niebuhr, Schleiermachor, 
 and Count Dohna, would make Berlin one of the 
 central lights of science and learning. 
 
 The opening of the university after so long an 
 interruption was indeed discouraging. There was 
 no general rejoicing over the recommencing of our 
 duties, and when the lectures began there was a 
 great difference discernible between the old flour- 
 ishing times and this new and troubled epoch. The 
 number of students who had assembled was ex- 
 tremely small, scarcely three hundred in all, — not a 
 quarter part of the old number. All trace of the 
 past life and activity in study had vanished, and I 
 felt every day more and more clearly that my life 
 was running to waste. The number of those who 
 attended my lectures was at the outset only six or 
 seven ; they could all be assembled in my little 
 study at home ; and, moreover, it was impossible 
 for me now to deal with the speculative j^hilosophy. 
 I had no listeners at all enrolled for my proposed 
 course on experimental physics and mineralogy, and 
 so had the most perfect leisure for carrying on my 
 own studies. I afterwards learned what the opinion 
 of my hearers was with regard to my style of lec- 
 turing in those sad days. I had, they said, an ex- 
 traordinary gift of persuading, so that while I was 
 lecturing I brought home my special views with 
 great power ; but the whole impression which I pro- 
 duced was like a cloud of smoke ; and if one should 
 compare what he heard from me with the cold, 
 clear, shortly-defined teachings of the other profes- 
 sors, mine lost all their force. 
 
REOPENING OF HALLE UNIVERSITY. 167 
 
 At the commencement of the second half year 
 after the reopening, it was resolved to commem- 
 orate the event with solemn ceremonies. It is well 
 known that at that time Halle had no university 
 building, properly so called. A great, old edifice, 
 belonging to the city, with lofty, desolate halls, con- 
 nected by dark passageways, had been rented to 
 the university for the lectures to be given in. The 
 solemnities, which were to take place in this old 
 structure, diflered not at all from the customary 
 tedious affairs, the staple of which consists of long 
 Latin orations. But the rector perpetuus of the 
 university, Niemeyer, determined to give the affair 
 an unusual touch of antiquity. The parti-colored 
 caps and gowns of deceased professors had been 
 kept with great care, and we were directed to ap- 
 pear in the old costume. We looked, when arrayed, 
 like embodied ghosts ; the whole affair made a fear- 
 ful impression on my mind. It seemed as if we were 
 wearing the shrouds of the dead. 
 
 It may, perhaps, be supposed that the patriotism 
 of the professors was extinct ; such, however, was 
 by no means the case. There was, j^erhaps, no city 
 in the new kingdom of Westphalia which was so 
 attached to the old Prussian government as Halle. 
 And it may readily be supposed that the defection 
 of the great historian, Johannes von Miiller, justly 
 regarded as one of the mightiest minds of Germany, 
 could not be looked upon with very favorable eyes 
 by us. Miiller was now the director-in-chief of all 
 the universities of Westphalia. Overcome by the 
 sad aspect of affairs, he had sought an interview 
 
168 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 with the Emperor Napoleon, and, after taking a pro- 
 fessorship of Tubingen, he was called by the new 
 government to assume the direction of all the sci- 
 entific institutions of the kingdom of Westphalia. 
 That his place, with all the honor which it conferred, 
 must have been beset with extreme annoyances to 
 him, in connection with his manner of attaining it, 
 may readily be supposed, and we learned, indeed, 
 that jMuUer was by no means forward in doing all 
 that was expected of him by the government. 
 
 The new King Jerome resolved to honor the uni- 
 versity of Halle with a visit. He was accompanied 
 by a large number of generals and courtiers, and 
 amonsc them was Johannes von Miiller. I at first 
 resolved not to appear with the other professors at 
 the public presentation to the king, but I could not 
 resist the desire to see the man who had been lifted 
 by his brother out of a very ordinary rank ia life, 
 compelled to put away his wife and marry a prin- 
 cess, and then, without any show of personal merit 
 or power, become a king. The whole corps of pro- 
 fessors and of city officials were assembled at Nie- 
 meyer's. The .gateway through which Jerome must 
 pass as he entered the city was strewn with flowers, 
 and beautiful girls stood there to welcome him with 
 songs. I confess all this excited my indignation. 
 For the reception of a true and tteloved king this 
 would have been all right; but for an upstart — but 
 what could we do ? 
 
 While we stood crowded together, awaiting the 
 arrival of the royal guest, our talk was curiously 
 varied. Many of the professors expressed them- 
 
JEROME BONAPARTE VISITS HALLE. 169 
 
 selves dryly enough. I held my peace, ashamed of 
 being seen in such a company for such a purpose. 
 My bitterness of feeling was seen, for I took no 
 pains to conceal it. One professor, Rudiger, an im- 
 mensely tall and awkward man, who had some little 
 wit, made us all laugh by saying that the new coat- 
 of-arms of Plalle would be exhibited to-day. I knew 
 nothing of a new coat-of-arms for Halle, and I asked 
 him what the desi2:n was. "An ass treadinor on 
 roses," he answered. 
 
 The king came. It was some time before he had 
 taken his place in the audience-room and was ready 
 to receive us. In the iflidst of his suite stood Je- 
 rome, a truly unkingly figure, an insignificant physi- 
 ognomy, youthful features, his eyes dull, his bearing 
 ungracious. In a brief speech he assured us that 
 the interests of science were dear to him, and that 
 he should cherish the university. 
 
 One fiq;ure which I saw amonoj the courtiers I 
 could not look upon but with sorrow; it v/as Johan- 
 nes von Miiller. He was stoutly and broadly built, 
 not very easy in his bearing, indeed, but his features 
 were both expressive and handsome. I could not 
 help seeing that he shrunk from my eye. Clothed 
 in the stiff and richly-gilded uniform of an ofiicial, 
 he looked like a servant at a hotel, and I only missed 
 the porter's staff to distinguish him from that func- 
 tionary. 
 
 After the audience was over I called on Miiller. 
 More than three years had now passed since I made 
 his acquaintance under very different circumstances 
 from the present, and now we were brought face to 
 
170 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 face again. Both of us had been subject to the 
 same hostile power, with no hope of deliverance ; 
 in that our fortunes seemed to be alike — alike in 
 boundless misfortune. That that was no real reason 
 for the difference in our present situation was per- 
 fectly apparent; — that he should be my highest direc- 
 tor in scientific affliirs, and that I should be in terms 
 of subjection to him. We talked on the v^iant 
 deeds of the past and the fears of the present. All 
 hope had passed from him, he had wholly given up, 
 and did not conceal it. After I had spent a half 
 hour with him he sorrow&lly reached me his hand ; 
 tears stood in his eyes. ^'You must go," he said; 
 "too long conversation between us will be suspi- 
 cious." That was the man who had preserved and 
 given expression to the great attempts of Germany 
 in a mighty past ! Such an interview was to me 
 •*ery painful. It was hard, indeed, to have the 
 honor which I had cherished for him now turned 
 into pity. 
 
 Rarely broken' in upon by such occurrences as 
 this, my life ran on in great quietness. That mental 
 activity which had j^ervaded professors and students 
 alike before the war had almost entirely vanished, 
 and I was compelled to lead a hermit's existence, 
 and live in the communion of my own thoughts. 
 Xot only was the number of hearers much reduced, 
 but the exchange of writing and letters on scien- 
 tific subjects almost ceased. A cloud rested on the 
 whole land. I had begun to love Germany, and to 
 conceive of it, not as an aggregation of states, but as 
 a unit, and I cared as little to see its soul robbed of 
 
GALL, THE FOUNDER OF PHRENOLOGY. 171 
 
 its body, as I did to see a body when deprived of its 
 soul. And when one of my friends tried to comfort 
 me regarding the shattered condition of Germany 
 by saying that political matters have no connection 
 with scientific matters, and that science does not 
 depend upon the boundaries of nations, I only felt 
 how deeply and alone I was sunk in my grief over 
 the broken and distracted land. 
 
 We received a visit in Halle from the then re- 
 nowned phrenologist, Gall. He had just been deliv- 
 ering lectures in Berlin, where he had created a 
 great sensation, and had found both defenders and 
 opponents. Gall was a man of singular character, 
 and his teachinsrs on the form of the skull and the 
 influence which it exerts upon the talents, and, in- 
 deed, the whole mental constitution, was, as is well 
 known, grounded on his view of the brain as a con- 
 tinuance of the spinal marrow, and thus of great 
 scientific value. Gall belonged to the number of 
 those men who believe they find great certainty in 
 one-sided observations and in the combination of 
 their results. I have scarcely ever met a man less 
 troubled with doubts of any kind than he. He 
 seemed to have no suspicion of the possibility of 
 such doubts, and so he proceeded with a confidence 
 which was wonderful. Wherever he came, not only 
 that body of men crowded around him, who, troubled 
 with problems which they could not solve, sought an 
 easy solution, but also the most distinguished men. 
 It is hard to convey an adequate idea of the sensa- 
 tion which he produced. To have at constant com- 
 mand such a convenient and unerring test of the 
 
172 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 talents and inclinations of men as the protuberances 
 of the skull furnish, was, indeed, very attractive. 
 Models of heads, numbered according to Gall's the- 
 ory, such as those of great and loved authors, began 
 to be found in every house, and even had a place 
 on the toilet-tables of ladies. Instead of reading 
 the works of a writer, or of listening to the melo- 
 dies of a musical composer, in order to judge of the 
 talents of either, people were inclined to make the 
 acquaintance of candidates for popular honors in 
 order to examine their heads, and decide from the 
 protuberances of the skull whether to praise their 
 works or condemn them. The mothers felt of the 
 heads of their children to see whether a future thief 
 or a murderer were among them. Happily, the 
 means of deciding were not strongly marked enough 
 for the popular apprehension. Over the organs of 
 murder-loving and thievery the hand of the mother 
 slipped lightly and did not discover them. On the 
 other hand, her loving pressure had no difficulty in 
 discerning the tokens of future greatness, and her 
 gentle fingers passed at once to the eminences on 
 whose heights she espied the promise of the coming, 
 scholar, artist, lawgiver, or hero. Now-a-days we 
 find few of the phrenological models which were 
 once so much in vogue ; they must be looked for 
 among the old-fashioned and dusty furniture in our 
 garrets. And phrenologists are no longer to be 
 found, excepting as a kind of sect in England, 
 largely in Scotland, and scarcely at all in France. 
 
 Gall first made his appearance as a lecturer in a 
 large hall, and surrounded by the skulls of men and 
 
GGHTHE AXD GALL THE PHREN^OLOQIST. 173 
 
 beasts. Every word displayed his perfect confidence 
 in the truth of his theory, and he expressed himself 
 with all the ease of conversation. The whole array 
 was imposing, and liis comparing the skulls of men 
 with those of beasts was somewhat novel and strik- 
 ing. He compared the crania of notorious thieves 
 with those of mngpies and of ravens ; those of mur- 
 derers with those of Jigers and lions. A glimmering 
 of truth was to be seen even in his erroneous views, 
 and that which satisfied the superficial and light- 
 minded was just what roused and disturbed deeper 
 spirits. 
 
 Goethe came over from Weimar merely to hear 
 Gall. He had often, when in Halle, been a hearer 
 of my lectures, but unseen by me. While I was at 
 my desk, Goethe would enter an adjoining room, 
 and, seating himself close by the door, follow me 
 without my knowing it. I learned this fact from 
 Wolf, the great philologist. 
 
 I w^anted to see Goethe as Gall's hearer. The 
 attitude and countenance of a listener in a pub- 
 lic assembly have always been interesting to me. 
 Goethe sat amid the auditory in a truly imposing 
 manner. Even his still attention had somethino: 
 commanding in it, and the tranquillity of his un- 
 changed features could not conceal the interest he 
 felt in the subject of the lecture. At his right sat 
 Wolf, at his left, Reichardt. Gall proceeded with 
 his exposition of the organs indicating various tal- 
 ents, and in his free way of expressing himself he 
 did not hesitate to select examples among his hear- 
 ers to illustrate his theory. He spoke first of such 
 
174 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 skulls as have no specially-marked protuberances, 
 but which, developed on all sides alike, indicate a 
 perfectly-balanced character ; and a rich illustration 
 of this, he said, was seen in the head of the great 
 poet, who honored the lecture with his presence. 
 Everybody looked at Goethe. He remained un- 
 moved ; a slight expression of irritation struggled 
 across his countenance, but it at once settled into a 
 slight, ironical smile, which, however, did not affect 
 the calm and imposing tranquillity of his features. 
 He next came to the musical faculty or organ of 
 harmony. Now it was the turn of my father-in-law. 
 The protuberance which indicates "this organ lies 
 close by the temples. In very truth, Reichardt was 
 wonderfully developed just at that point ; and after 
 Gall had called attention to his skulls and his copper- 
 plates, he turned it to Reichardt. Now, my father- 
 in-law was completely bald^ and with his crown 
 covered with pomade and i^owxler, it really seemed 
 like a skull got ready for the entertainment. At 
 last he came to Wolf The organ of language lies 
 just above the eyes and close by the nose, and it is 
 a fact that Wolf was remarkably full just at that 
 point. But Wolf wore glasses ; so, when Gall be- 
 gan to speak of the organ of language. Wolf knew 
 that he was to be served as Goethe and Reichardt 
 had been before him. I was convulsed to see the 
 veteran philologian meet the wishes of Gall. He 
 quietly took off his glasses, turned his head in all 
 directions, and looked very much as though his 
 neck was a pivot on which a skull was turned by 
 an automaton, instead of being held in the hand of 
 
WILLIAM GRIMM, THE PHILOLOGIST. 175 
 
 the lecturer. The confirmation which Gall's theory- 
 received in those three eminent men had great in- 
 fluence on all the spectators. But after he had 
 gone I delivered a few lectures on the subject, in 
 which I showed the other sides which oppose Gall's 
 theory, and which he had passed over without any 
 mention. And, although the feeling of conviction 
 which Gall produced soon passed away, his lectures 
 had this one good effect, that they stimulated my 
 friend, the great anatomist Reil, to enter upon that 
 elaborate study of the brain which has added to his 
 fame. 
 
 Among the young men whose acquaintance en- 
 riched my Halle life, were the two brothers Grimm, 
 who were no less remarkable for their sincere, ear- 
 nest, and disciplined character, than they were for 
 their persistent devotion to study. William Grimm 
 had long been employing himself in Cassel with 
 translating old Danish poems. A trouble with the 
 heart had brought him to Halle to consult Reil. He 
 had a room in the same house in which I had a ten- 
 ement, and for a year I saw him almost daily. He 
 was then at work on Danish songs, and it was al- 
 ways a pleasure to me when I could be of any help 
 to him. His employment had in it something very 
 attractive to me, and it was delightful to get glimp- 
 ses into a study so far removed from my own, and at 
 the same time to become acquainted with a man of 
 so thorough scholarship and so kindly ways. Bren- 
 tano was in Halle at the same time with Grimm, 
 and of course the older German poetry was largely 
 talked over among us. 
 
176 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 Otherwise my life in Ilalle was now very soli- 
 tary. I lived, indeed, in the closest intimacy with 
 my friend Blanc, and through his means became 
 well acquainted with Rieniiacker, a somewhat dis- 
 tinguished preacher of the Calvinistic or reformed 
 church. Thus I was drawn during my stay in Halle 
 entirely to the Calvinists, and was completely cut 
 off from near relations with the Lutherans, the 
 prevailing party there. Altliough Christianity was 
 always growing more and more weighty in my 
 eyes, yet I cared little for those differences which 
 merely spring from clashing dogmas. I partook of 
 the Lord's Supper in the Calvinistic church, and 
 enjoyed it, interpreting it to myself after my own 
 way. I mention these things because this indiffer- 
 ence to matters of theology was one step, and a 
 necessary one, in the development of my mind. 
 The recollections of youth and childhood had then 
 a secret power over me ; there passed over my soul 
 a certain real though transitory unrest which would 
 not be stilled, for I could not help remembering that 
 there lived in Lutheran Denmark friends and rela- 
 tives of mine, and in the best informed classes too, 
 wdio would have been scarcely more shocked to 
 learn that I had become a Catholic, than that I had 
 partaken the Lord's Supper in a Calvinistic church. 
 
 I must here speak of Schelling, and the manner in 
 which he first attracted the attention of the general 
 public, — a task not always accomplished by a pliilos- 
 opher. The larger the number of his followers be- 
 came, the more apparent became his efforts to lay a 
 deeper foundation for metaphysical speculation than 
 
SCHELLJNO. Ill 
 
 had ever been done. He is distinguished from al- 
 most all other philosophers, I may say, in this, that 
 when he had proclaimed his profoimdest results, and 
 had exercised an influence upon his age which never 
 could perish, he did not publish a system, complete 
 in itself, and which should remain in the fixed form 
 that its author should give it through all time ; a 
 system like those which are educed by some in 
 studying the philosophy of history, who find that 
 their work when concluded is already on the way to 
 ruin. Schelling was in the truest sense a philoso- 
 pher, just for this reason, that while following the 
 trains of his own thought, and battling with adver- 
 saries on all sides, he had his hardest contest with 
 his own self. The treatise on the nature of Human 
 Freedom, which appeared in 1809, must have sur- 
 prised those who had supposed that the logical 
 formularies on which philosophy had hitherto rested 
 were to be its eternal foundations. To me this 
 treatise seemed all the more weighty, and drew me 
 nearer to Schelling, because his view of history, as 
 embracing the connection of man with his surround- 
 ings, had seemed to me the sublimest theme that 
 speculation could reach. That this conception lay 
 at the basis of my first production, Frederick Schle- 
 gel had shown shortly before the appearance of 
 Schelling's treatise. That the relation of man with 
 his surroundings must be an intimate one, must have 
 been clear to one who looked at the world with the 
 comprehensive view which I took, and who had 
 studied, as I had done, the whole course of histori- 
 cal development. And so, when Schelling's treatise 
 
 12 
 
178 THE STOIiY OF MY CAREKR. 
 
 appeared, I felt that I had found a great ally, and 
 that the idea which had become so precious to mo 
 would now become speedily adopted by all, and 
 give a new impetus to the whole study of man. 
 
 Among the friends whom I gained about this time 
 was Achim von Arnim, wdio, before the war and 
 in the fairest time of my life, made a long tarry at 
 Giebichenstein, and lived in the closest intimacy 
 with Reichardt and his family. He had a noble 
 and truly marked figure ; he spoke little, always ap- 
 peared quiet, even reserved, and yet his mildness was 
 so attractive as to draw forth universal confidence. 
 He had at first devoted himself passionately to the 
 study of physics, and in Gilbert's Annals are some 
 treatises by him which called forth much attention. 
 When I knew him he had wholly given up these 
 studies, but he took some interest in new discov- 
 eries. He had become wholly a poet. 
 
 In poetical literature there was a general charac- 
 ter widely difierent from that which prevailed in 
 philosophical literature. In the latter it could not 
 be denied that Kant had laid the foundation of a 
 new school ; that the discovery that all visible ob- 
 jects move according to established laws around the 
 unchanging sun of the consciousness, was to phi- 
 losophy what the theory of Coj^ernicus was to as- 
 tronomy. Still, Kant was crowded out of sight by 
 later men, and the Kantians, as they called them- 
 nelves, played a subordinate part in the subsequent 
 developments of philosophy. It was necessarily so ; 
 io\\ although Kant's system did not cease to be the 
 
FOUXDING OF UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN. 179 
 
 basis for those which came after, yet it seeined fixed 
 and ill-adapted to the wideuiDg wants of men. 
 
 In poetry it was different. That Goethe had 
 inaugurated a new epoch, was generally confessed ; 
 the opposition, which wanted to adhere to the 
 contracted views of the past, was put down by 
 the Schlegels and Tieck, and regarded as of lit- 
 tle authority. All young jDoets crowded around 
 Goethe ; and as it was a necessity of the times for 
 those who would be philosophers to praise Kant, 
 60 was it of those who would be poets to extol 
 Goethe. There was thus formed a kind of genius- 
 worship which assumecL for itself a narrow exclusive- 
 ness, and which succeeded in layinix the foundation 
 for that unshaken European celebrity which Goethe's 
 mighty spirit had accorded to it with wonderful 
 unanimity in a time when no talents, however splen- 
 did, seemed likely to receive any recognition. 
 
 The founding of the university of Berlin is in 
 point of fact one of the most important movements 
 in the history of modern Germani^. If we compare 
 the mamitude of the work with the orio-inal in- 
 tention of government concerning it, we must be 
 amazed. The government would have regarded 
 Ilalle as a favorable model to follow, and to attain 
 to the liberal endowment of Halle would have been 
 viewed as all that the public needs demanded. It 
 would have rejected at once the thought of endow- 
 ing a university adequate to meet the wants of the 
 age. And yet, just at the time when the country 
 seemed half ruined, when all resources seemed cut 
 oflj when one of the richest provinces was in the 
 
180 THE STOIiY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 hands of the enemy, and a sorrowful future seemed 
 to await the whole land, an effort was put forth 
 which, even after ten years of perfect peace, would 
 have seemed incredible. And how was the grand 
 result broudit about ? Bv the conviction that Prus- 
 sia was called in this time of her humiliation to es- 
 tablish a central point of influence which should 
 be felt through all departments of life and service 
 throughout Germany. 
 
 In fact the tone of feeling in Berlin during this 
 sad time was wonderful. The capital was occupied 
 by hostile troops, the king held himself near the 
 Russian frontier, and yet, while the city and the 
 land w^ere outwardly conquered, only a fragment of 
 the people felt subdued in spirit. The enemy had 
 taken the fortresses, routed the army, and made us 
 almost weaponless ; but there were forces rallying, 
 unseen by our foes, which would take the place 
 of those we had lost, and there were victories 
 daily gained which were never publicly recorded. 
 Our victors could ngt see whither the currents were 
 tending. Men like Schleiermacher, who could dis- 
 cern the spirit of the times, were joined in close 
 alliance, and the whole temper of the country was 
 roused. Never before were king and people in such 
 intimate sympathy. The army itself eagerly looked 
 forward to the time when it should retrieve its dis- 
 grace. When the war began every one was taken 
 by surprise, the army was made powerless by the 
 sudden attack, the fortresses opened their gates be- 
 fore they were fairly invested ; but now on the 
 distant eastern frontier the surprise was past, the 
 
THE GERMAN CHARACTER. 181 
 
 courage of the army revived, and the bravery dis- 
 played at Dantzig and Graiidenz ought to have 
 taught the enemy that the old German spirit had re- 
 turned. From this time every Prussian felt inwardly 
 strong. 
 
 At that critical epoch Fichte stepped forward, 
 and with wonderful courao^e uttered words of free- 
 dom under the very eyes of our victors. Schleier- 
 macher, too, gave strength to the growing German 
 feeling, and added the sanctions of religion to the 
 struggle for hearth and altar. Both of these men 
 spoke to the heart of the nation. It will always be 
 hard to gain Germans over to any superficial scheme 
 which looks only to the present hour. The French 
 are different. The Frenchman undertakes the work 
 of* the hour without any harassing doubts. He has 
 no concern with past or future ; all that he has to 
 do with is the work just before him. For the ac- 
 complishment of that, everything is laid under con- 
 tribution. The German cannot look at things in 
 this way ; many a doubt perplexes him, and the 
 favorable moment is past before he is ready to act. 
 His whole life is penetrated with speculation, reach- 
 ing out backwards and forwards, and uniting all 
 circumstances in a chain of cause and effect. Every 
 deed is in itself but a link in this chain. The little 
 facts of daily life do not absorb him ; he glances 
 at them and lets them fly. And yet his spirit is 
 always active ; events are woven together and their 
 issues upon ages to come are made apparent. So 
 Germany was called upon to lead in the Reforma- 
 tion, and so this war of freedom from the French 
 
182 TEE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 yoke was made by far-reaching German minds the 
 means of giving our nation a character which will 
 unfold itself for generations to come. 
 
 All hope resting upon Prussian prowess had dis- 
 appeared. Every one looked with confidence to the 
 founding of the new university at Berlin. That city 
 had before been by no means a central light in liter- 
 ature and science. The French superficiality intro- 
 duced by Voltaire had first got possession, and this 
 was at last driven out by the genuine German feel- 
 ing pervading even the uneducated classes. Still, a 
 kind of half-German, half-French Academy existed 
 there, conferring little credit upon the city, and 
 unable to effect any perfect result. And yet this 
 city, little thought of by Germans, possessed by ene- 
 mies, — this wasted city was suddenly to be trans- 
 formed into the centre of the brightest hopes for 
 Germany. 
 
 The founding of the university was a grand event. 
 The most varied voices were heard in consultation 
 about it, and William von Humboldt conducted all 
 the plans. The counsels of such men as Wolf, 
 Schleiermacher, and Reil, were ijiuch valued. All 
 the arrangements were planned upon the most lib- 
 eral scale ; the most eminent scholars were invited 
 to its chairs, and invitations thither were eagerly 
 sought. Only in relation to speculative philosophy 
 were there serious doubts. At the outset it was 
 the deliberate purpose to establish a philosophical 
 chaos; a great contrast with what was afterwards 
 determined by the authorities. The value of specu- 
 lation in its relation to German culture was granted, 
 
STEFFEXS'S NATURAL SCIENCE. 18JJ 
 
 but not openly confessed. Natural history seemed 
 to be a department which would be particularly 
 neglected. There seemed to be a great inclination 
 to adopt the atomic theory as the basis of researcli 
 in philosophical inquiries, merely because it had met 
 w^th great favor in England and France. Thero 
 was a strong inclination to accept Kant's views, 
 and to adapt them to an empirical construction of 
 natural sciences. William von Humboldt thought, 
 however, that no philosophical system existed which 
 demanded recognition. With regard to men, his 
 view was that it was best for youth of promise to 
 pass through the rank of tutor (jrrivat docent), and 
 rise to eminence as they should merit it. One pro- 
 fessor of philosophy would certainly be needed, and 
 for that post Fichte was already in Berlin; and, was 
 another needed, Schleiermacher, besides being a 
 theologian, was very deeply read in philosophy. 
 
 I will not deny that I cherished very ardent hopea 
 of being transferred to Berlin. I saw myself situa- 
 ted in a field from which selections would most 
 probably be made, and it was a long time before I 
 surrendered my hopes. I did not fully realize what 
 stood in my way. The serious view which I took 
 of natural science as a unit, independent and com- 
 prehensive, the foundation of a thorough insight 
 into nature, was regarded as mere folly. This was 
 the most cherished thought of my life, yet I found 
 myself standing alone in it ; they who were called 
 philosophers lived in abstractions wholly sundered 
 from nature ; while naturahsts went to the opposite 
 extreme of rejecting everything which could not be 
 
184 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 brought under the cognizance of the senses. But in 
 my view nature does not admit of that dialectical 
 play which has within late years found such sport 
 in historical studies. I believe that natural science 
 has in every age had some special idea within itself, 
 growing out of the exigencies of the times. As men 
 knew more of nature, natural science went on ex- 
 panding and gaining a comprehensiveness, linking 
 several branches together, and showing the law of 
 unity within them all. And I am fully persuaded 
 that a sound system of natural science will be the 
 basis of all knowledge ; but its development is the 
 work of time, not of any one man. In this convic- 
 tion I stand, almost alone to-day, as I stood almost 
 alone then. 
 
 The struggle which I had to meet was, however, no 
 open one, in which I might, perhaps, win some honor. 
 It was hidden from public view, and I was power- 
 less. Schleiermacher, who had great influence in the 
 affairs of the Berlin university, wrote to me often. 
 My call thither seemed sometimes just at hand. 
 Suddenly everything changed. I was charged with 
 forging ray facts, and with so misstating them as 
 to lead my hearers into error. I answered tliese 
 charges through the agency of a friend by saying 
 that attacks of this kind had no value unless they 
 were open; and if, being oj^enly assailed, I should 
 be found guilty, I entreated not to be spared. I 
 stated that my published works had been for years 
 before the world without being attacked by any 
 naturalist. I admitted that the philosophy of na- 
 ture regarded facts from a different stand-point from 
 
STEFFENS'S NATURAL SCIENCE. 185 
 
 the science of natural history. The founding of 
 that philosophy as a province of thought must be 
 the work of time. What seemed to be a perversion 
 of facts was only the result of taking a stand-point 
 of observation different from theirs. And even if 
 there should be an elSfort put forth to nip in the bud 
 the science of nature which I was seeking to estab- 
 lish, yet its influence would not be lost ; it had 
 already gained ground enough to maintain and per- 
 petuate itself And of this science as I compre- 
 hended it, I could say in the woi'ds of Gamaliel, 
 "If this be of God it will endure; if not, it will not 
 be able to stand." I felt in my heart persuaded that 
 natural science had reached a point where its com- 
 prehensive character would be seen, that it was the 
 true development of our age. I called attention to 
 the fact that the naturalists of Berlin formed already 
 quite a school, and that their names might be joined 
 with the savans of London and Paris. My own 
 work, I stated, would be to forego any mere empiri- 
 cism, any claims to great discoveries, and all re- 
 searches which demanded exceedingly protracted 
 investii^ations. I would still remain an humble 
 .learner in this field, and only make use of those 
 facts whose existence should be confessed by all. 
 
 But all these statements and explanations proved 
 unavailing. The general distrust in my scientific 
 accuracy was too deeply seated to be moved. 
 
 But this was not all. A man whose name was 
 commonly regarded as a pillar in science, although 
 among naturalists his claims were seriously doubted, 
 was pointed out as my opponent. In a letter from 
 
136 THE STORY OF MY C A REE It. 
 
 Schleicrmacher, I read, "You are, as I hear, openly 
 attacked by Goethe. You must be roused up to 
 meet him as openly. However much you owe to 
 him, however much you honor liim, you must not 
 spare him." The positiveness with which Schleier- 
 macher wrote surprised me. I had just received a 
 friendly letter from Goethe, and in the second vol- 
 ume of his work on Light he had spoken with favor 
 of me. 
 
 The death of my children, the growing pecuniary 
 embarrassments which oppressed me, my constrained 
 position as a teacher, tended constantly to dampen 
 what hope still remained to me. Danger of every 
 kind seemed to surround me. Professor Sternberg, 
 of Marburg, was shot, and I might be made in like 
 way a victim to the machinations of my enemies. 
 Just then, too, Reil went to Berlin, and with him 
 vanished my last prop. Nothing seemed to remain 
 for me at Halle. 
 
 I then made a visit to Berlin. Reil and Schleier- 
 macher joined in my behalf, and asserted that they 
 could not spare me ; that my views of nature must 
 be the basis of all their teachings. But even* this 
 decisive step was unavailing. They then privately 
 stepped in to remove the pecuniary embarrassments 
 which stood in my way. They promised to support 
 mo out of their own income till my efforts should 
 induce the conviction that their services wonld be 
 unnecessary. Still, the enmity of my opponents was 
 too formidable, and nothing could be done in my 
 behalf Yet the zealous friendship of these two 
 men w;is very cheering to me, — one of them the 
 
FRIEXDS IN ADVERSITY. 187 
 
 most subtle of dialecticians, the other the most 
 patient and thorough of naturalists, — and I gained 
 a confidence for the future which was of cjreat ser- 
 vice in those times of trouble. How could I 
 despair when two such men stood up to sustain 
 and help me ? 
 
.CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CALL TO BRESLAU — TRIP TO JENA AND BERLIN — NAPOLEON'S 
 RECEPTION AT WEIMAR — GOETHE — DINNER AT GOETHE'S — HIS 
 ONSLAUGHT AT DINNER — SCHLEIERMACHER AS PROFESSOR AT 
 BERLIN — THE FACULTY AT BERLIN — BOECKH, BEKKER, NIE- 
 BUHR — GATHERING* OF BERLIN SAVANS — ARRIVAL AT BRES- 
 LAU — STEFFENS'S LOVE OF GERMANY — COMMENCEMENT OF 
 PROFESSORSHIP AT BRESLAU. 
 
 And here commenced a nisw epoch in my life. 
 Von Schuckmann, the minister of state, who con- 
 trolled the aifairs of all the Prussian universities 
 after Count Dohna withdrew from that post, deter- 
 mined to revive the languishing university at Frank- 
 fort on the Oder, to transfer it to Breslau, and to 
 join it with the Theological Seminary in that city. 
 Silesia, the richest province in the kingdom, with a 
 million and a half of inhabitants, was without a uni- 
 versity, and there was evidently no need for one at 
 Breslau in addition to that at Frankfort. Schuck- 
 mann's desig^n was to transfer the Frankfort stu- 
 dents .to Breslau, as a nucleus, to give the older 
 professors an emeritus rank, to retain the younger, 
 and to call able men from abroad. The university 
 of Frankfort, being old, was rich ; and its funds 
 would be very serviceable in commencing at Breslau 
 on the scale which he wished. Bredow undertook 
 the duty of carrying out the details of the plan, and 
 
 188 
 
CALL TO BRESLAU. 189 
 
 worked with great zeal. He came to Halle evi- 
 dently with the design of securing able men for the 
 professorial chair. I was then lecturing on physics, 
 and was engaged chiefly in galvanic experiments. 
 Bredow attended one of my lectures, and then invit- 
 ed me to his room and asked me if I should like to 
 be called to Breslau. The reader can conceive my 
 joy. A quite attractive salary was proposed ; the 
 thing was soon settled, and in a few weeks I received 
 my formal call. 
 
 But before I could enter upon my new and iso- 
 lated life at Breslau, and tear myself from a home 
 which had become very dear to me, I could not re- 
 sist the desire to visit ray old friends at Jena, and 
 especially Goethe, who, although not very aged, was 
 now about sixty. Two years before, in the winter of 
 1809, I had with my family visited Fromann, who 
 seemed one of the nearest friends I had at Jena. 
 He and his wife had received us with a most cordial 
 welcome. We spent the last days of the year at 
 his house ; and the few weeks which I spent there I 
 shall not forget. Never did I feel more clearly how 
 tragic an element had been in my life. It was in a 
 great measure through the cheerful and social influ- 
 ence of Fromann's family that my youth had been 
 so indescribably rich in Jena, and his house had 
 been the gathering-place where the great lights of 
 the town had gathered themselves together. Here 
 appeared Goethe ; here I saw the Schlegels, Tieck, 
 and Schelling. It seemed to be the field on which 
 these knightly spirits had celebrated their spiritual 
 tournaments, and had carried oflT their victorious 
 
190 THK STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 palms. The dawn of the new century, announcing 
 a new era for science, here began to gleam ; but that 
 day of promise had passed without its fulfilment. 
 Political changes had disturbed old friendships, and 
 with the loss of our old national feeling of unity, 
 those knightly contests had all ended. And when 
 I came again to Jena, and found myself surrounded 
 by all that was left from those fair days, it was nat- 
 ural that I should give free expression to my feel- 
 ings. In Halle, where I lived among friends, I had 
 been in the habit of uttering my thoughts on the 
 French domination without reserve. But my Jena 
 friends were amazed when I expressed myself with 
 them in ray wonted manner. The position of the 
 Duke of Weimar was certainly an unenviable one. 
 In the days of his flight, when in his absence the 
 duchess had to receive the exasperated Napoleon, 
 she had borne herself in so imposing a way that he 
 was forced to respect and even to reverence her. 
 The duke was suspected by the French Emperor, 
 the duchy was overrun by French spies, and it is 
 plain that it was necessary to suppress every expres- 
 sion which might compromise the Weimar court. I 
 soon saw this, and during my stay in Jena I gov- 
 erned myself accordingly. 
 
 But all the more was I surprised at the power 
 which Goethe exercised over all the judgments of 
 the circle in which I moved. But when it is re- 
 membered how long tliis royal spirit had ruled in 
 Weimar, and been honored as the mightiest in Ger- 
 many; how the intense mental conflicts into which 
 I had been plunged raged most fiercely around him 
 
cor: THE. 191 
 
 without affecting his nature, and then had died 
 away leaving him still unchanged, still standing as 
 the one only beacon left, and only gleaming the 
 more brightly in the decj^ening gloom, it can be 
 understood why he ruled with such unquestioned 
 supremacy all the minds who came under his influ- 
 ence. 
 
 Already, in the opening years of the century, 
 there were some who saw that Goethe's journeys to 
 Italy, particularly the second, formed the turning- 
 point in his development. The sharply-defined indi- 
 viduality, the fearless confidence of his earlier years, 
 then seemed to cease ; to take their place had come 
 a quiet humility which did not betoken such strength 
 and richness of genius as the former qualities had 
 done. The later manifestations of his mind were 
 commonly supposed to be well and truly hit off by 
 Novalis, in his happy saying that Goethe loved less 
 to deal with subjects which were greater than he, 
 than with those which he could perfectly master, 
 and in whose delineation he was most at home. I 
 shared in this judgment of him, indeed, but the 
 results which were drawn from it I could noways 
 perceive were legitimately drawn, and they seemed 
 to me all the more untrue, in view of the entire de- 
 pendence on his judgment which was manifested in 
 the circle around him, and which seemed to grow 
 even when the infirmities of age were creeping 
 upon him and cramping and enfeebling his powers. 
 The earlier writings of Goethe had had a charm for 
 me which the later ones lacked. The great power 
 throni^h which the langnnge of his people seemed 
 
192 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 in his hands transformed into another and a nobler 
 tongue, the strength which, when he began to speak, 
 went forth in an influence which had no Hrnits, the 
 invincible might with which he attacked and over- 
 threw what seemed to him nnworthily idolized, — all 
 these had seemed to me in my early years like 
 trumpet-tones wiiich summoned me, too, to victory. 
 His later works did not fulfil those older expecta- 
 tions. His views then seemed to be in agreement 
 with the times in which he lived. But I afterwards 
 saw that his life, and the works which gave his life 
 its value, were a complete history in themselves, and 
 were unrelated to the great era through which he 
 was passing. There is hardly another author whose 
 life has been so parallel to the manner in which a 
 state develops itself, and where the epochs of youth, 
 manhood and old age have so marked a historical 
 rise and decline, as Goethe. In studying his life, no 
 stage of his development can be passed by. Even 
 the apparently retrograde course of his later years 
 has its significance, if we look at his life as a unit. 
 In his last works there can still be discerned the 
 tokens of the youth mightily struggling to express 
 itself, and in his earliest works can be seen that ear- 
 nest effort to attain perfect symmetry which charac- 
 terized the works of his declining years. And it is 
 because this is developed in it that Eckermann's 
 book has its great value in my eyes; for there 
 Goethe appears as one banished — one who has bid 
 adieu to the Avorks of his life, and who wanders like 
 a majestic old man among the ruins of a great, fallen 
 state. It was not exhaustion which came upon him 
 
GOETHE'S DEVELOPMENT. 193 
 
 in his old age ; it was rather the slow and gi'adual 
 decay of a mind which enclosed, as few minds do, 
 its own liistory within itself. And, therefore, in 
 Goethe we must carefully discriminate between the 
 process of unfolding in his vehement youth and the 
 steps of his matured mind, where, instead of prog- 
 ress, we find a growing tendency to narrowness. 
 The transition from these two sections of his exist- 
 ence contains the secret of his life ; it was what he 
 could not discover, and what at the same time he 
 knew ; it brought into unity what he would do and 
 what he could do, and showed in a manner not to 
 be gainsaid that the former outweighed the latter. 
 It was for him to amass literary treasures no less 
 precious than the art treasures which have come to 
 us from the Greeks; to others, no less perplexed than 
 he with the confused political problems of the time, 
 he left the task of looking forward and determining 
 what was to be done. And when Goethe gave up 
 the future as a thing in which he had no part to 
 perform, his spirit began to display the narrowness 
 which marked his old age ; not that his creative 
 genius was lamed at all, but merely that it with- 
 drew within itself, and became a thing of the past. 
 Even what the passing times, so rich in all the fruits 
 of human speculation, gave him, contributed only 
 to the formation of his own character alone, and 
 "svhat promised a glowing future for the other mighty 
 spirits of the time, was of worth to him only to solve 
 the problem of his own past life. He died in the 
 largest sense full of years. It was his task to watch 
 over and cherish his life to the last, not so much 
 
 13 
 
194 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 for what it should be as for what it had been ; and 
 when his veins -began to stiffen, and his Umbs to bo 
 heavy and clumsy, and his tongue to be slow, when 
 he seemed to walk like an old man among the 
 graves of buried friends, he still retained that noble 
 bearing which showed that he turned to the past to 
 read the undeciphered riddles of the future. His 
 death was in perfect harmony with his life. He had 
 proudly turned away from his times ; in his old age 
 he did not seek to learn of any living man, but 
 haughtily stood alone ; but we, looking upon that 
 fading form, were compelled to listen to its enfee- 
 bled words till they ceased at last in death. 
 
 Goethe came over to Jena, and I saw him for 
 the first time after seven years of separation. His 
 presence had a powerful influence upon me. He ac- 
 companied me to the mineralogical collection, which, 
 under the management of Prof. Lentz, had become 
 valuable. I was then busily employed on my Hand- 
 book of Mineralogy. Goethe was a well-known 
 geognostical dilettant; his repeated journeyings to 
 Carlsbad had drawn him into numerous geological 
 investigations, and our conversation was not con- 
 fined to one direction, but ranged over the whole 
 field of science. We spoke of his optical studies, 
 and of his views on the metamorphosis of bones. 
 Goethe complained bitterly of the manner in which 
 some naturalists had abused his confidence, ])ublish- 
 ing his discoveries, communicated to them by him- 
 self, as if they were their own. This conversation 
 took me back to the old times. Goethe became 
 more amiable and cheerful, and I enjoyed a degree 
 
DINNER AT GOETHE'S. 196 
 
 of happiness which for years I had not experienced. 
 Goethe invited my wife, Fromann's family, and my- 
 self, over from Jena to dine with him. We found 
 at the table besides Goethe's wife only Meyer, Ilie- 
 mer, and the poet Werner. Goethe was very lively; 
 the conversation turned on a number of subjects, 
 and the unconstrained and yet suggestive remarks 
 of our host pleased and exhilarated us all. Ho 
 could make himself a2jreeable even to the ladies. 
 
 At length he turned to Werner, who had had lit- 
 tle part in the conversation thus far. " Now, Wer- 
 ner," said he, in a quiet, but at the same time author- 
 itative way, "have you, nothing with which you 
 can entertain us, — no poems which you can read to 
 us ? " Werner plunged his hand into his pocket, 
 and hastily drew out a mass of crumpled, dirty 
 papers, so that I was amazed, and by no means ap- 
 proved of the request of Goethe, which promised 
 to extinguish all free and interesting conversation. 
 Werner began to repeat a number of sonnets in a 
 shocking manner. At last I was compelled to give 
 some attention to one of them. The subject w^as 
 the beautiful appearance of the full moon as it 
 swam in the clear Italian sky. He compared it to 
 a holy wafer. This stiff simile enraged me, and 
 had on Goethe an unpleasant effect ; he turned to 
 me. "IN'ow, Steffens," asked he, outwardly calm, 
 W'hile he tried to suppress his exasperation, "what 
 say you to that ? " " Mr. Werner," I answered, 
 "had the kindness to read a sonnet to me a few 
 days ago, in which he expressed his regret that he 
 had come to Italy too late, and I now believe that 
 
196 THE STORY OF MY CAREER, 
 
 he was right. I am too much of a naturalist to wish 
 for an exchansie between the moon and a hallowed 
 wafer; the emblem of our faith loses as much in the 
 comparison as the moon." On this Goethe gave up 
 to his feelings, and expressed himself with a warmth 
 which I had never before seen in him. "I hate," 
 said he, "this bald religious sentimentalism ; do not 
 believe that I will show it any quarter. Neither on 
 the stage nor here will I listen to it, in whatever 
 guise it may appear." After he had talked in this 
 strain for some time, and with louder and louder 
 tones, he became quiet. "You have destroyed the 
 pleasure of my dinner," said he, seriously ; you know 
 that such pitiful poetical pretences are an abomina- 
 tion to me ; you have made me forget my duty to 
 the ladies." He now gained complete command of 
 himself, turned with language of apology to his wife 
 and mine, began to talk on indifferent subjects, but 
 rose soon and retired. We then saw that he felt 
 himself deeply wounded, and that he was going to 
 compose his mind in solitude. Werner was like one 
 annihilated. 
 
 Wlien I visited Goethe before, Riemer was not, as 
 now, a member of the family. He was then private 
 tutor to the children of William von Humboldt, 
 and Avas then in Italy. I met him for the first time 
 now at Goethe's table. Shortly after dinner I went 
 where Goethe was, and found him perfectly com- 
 posed, and having seemingly forgotten the affiiir. 
 He entered into cheerful conversation, and showed 
 me some optical phenomena which were interesting 
 him much at that time. When I left him, Riemer 
 
GOETHE'S ONSLAUGHT AT DIXNER. 197 
 
 waited upon me evidently with something on his 
 mind. He began to speak of the affair at the din- 
 ner-table. "What you have seen to-day," said he, 
 "is of such rare occurrence that I scarcely remem- 
 ber ever witnessing anything like it before." I as- 
 sured him that eleven years before, when I saw 
 Goethe often, I had neither w^itnessed such an affair 
 nor did I believe such possible. Riemer went on 
 to say, "You know how everybody busies himself 
 about Goethe ; how all his expressions, and the least 
 things which he does, are caught up, and become 
 themes for discussion in the newspapers. I must 
 ask you to keep what j^assed to-day from getting 
 into print." My first emotion at this request was 
 indignation. "I may not presuppose," said I, "that 
 you know anything about me ; had you been ac- 
 quainted with me, you would have seen that your 
 request was entirely unnecessary ; but this day has 
 been so deeply interesting to me, and it has been 
 such a rare experience to live to witness the majes- 
 tic scorn of the great man of our age over the sickly 
 sentimentalities of the times, that you need not fear 
 ray using it for town gossij). Your request is a nat- 
 ural one, but it was not needed with me." 
 
 Notwithstanding all, the affair got abroad, and 
 was in every one's mouth. A great civil calamity 
 could not have made more uproar in the circles of 
 Jena and Weimar. I could have believed myself 
 taken back to the times of Louis XIY., with 
 Goethe's house the palace of a mighty king whose 
 anger, fraught with the most dire effects, shook all 
 the neighborhood with fear. 
 
198 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 I parted from the great poet then for the hnst 
 time. He was sixty years of age ; he lived yet 
 twenty years, but I never saw him again. He was 
 all calmness when I left him; every trace of the 
 an2:er of that well-remembered hour at dinner had 
 left him, and he was his own serene self again. His 
 unruffled brow was the fit mirror of his untroubled 
 mind. 
 
 On the twenty-third of December, 1809, the cab- 
 inet order which called the university of Berlin into 
 being was signed. On the ninth of September, 
 1810, the real opening occurred. Men of wide rep- 
 utation filled all the faculties. In the theological, 
 Schleiermacher stood before all others. There was 
 no other whose impression upon the character of 
 the whole population of Berlin was like Schleier- 
 macher's ; no one who so thoroughly difiused a 
 national, a religious, and a thoughtful spirit, as he. 
 The city was, so to speak, transformed by him, and 
 in the course of a few years one would look almost 
 in vain for the traces of the superficiality which had 
 60 long ruled there. What gave him his surpassing 
 influence was this : that he was a true Christian, a 
 patriotic citizen, a bold man, pure in soul, and in 
 intellect strong, clear, and decided. Even children 
 thronged to listen to him, and men and women of 
 all classes in life. His resolve to offer himself in 
 the service of his country had a kind of contagious 
 power, and his brave way of not merely waiting for 
 better times, but working to create them, kindled 
 general admiration. His strong, kindling, and al- 
 ways cheerful spirit worked like tinder. For the 
 
THE FACULTY AT BERLIN. 199 
 
 forces which he set in motion were no scattered and 
 feeble powers ; they were the unifying forces set in 
 movement by a mind of the most comprehensive 
 grasj).* Thus working and swaying Berlin, I found 
 my friend as he was entering upon that section of 
 his liff*, the worth of which those who knew him 
 can fully acknowledge. 
 
 Savigny, called from Landshut to Berlin, was at 
 the head of the law faculty. He was even then the 
 founder of a new school, which, despite all attacks, 
 continually grew in power. Reil's name and repu- 
 tation gave eclat to the medical department. Hufe- 
 land, too, was regarded a very valuable acquisition. 
 
 In the philosophical department was Fichte, who, 
 although surrounded by opponents, yet exerted a 
 deep influence. His natural genius, his sharp power 
 of analysis, and his outspoken patriotism, gained 
 him many friends who had no sympathy with his 
 views. But he laid the foundation for a new phi- 
 losophy of life, which, in shifting times like those, 
 was of great value. The confusion into which all 
 religious and scientific and municipal affairs were 
 thrown, led every one to see how great the neces- 
 sity was for a comprehensive intellect to appear 
 which should grasp and master them all. And such 
 a man must be trusted as a guide even if he were 
 not completely understood. And Fichte proved 
 himself able to meet the wants of the times. 
 Through his influence was initiated that series of 
 measures which resulted in the introduction of a 
 system of education similar to that which Pestalozzi 
 had introduced into Switzerland. Fichte did not 
 
200 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 attempt to change the present, but he would form 
 the future. Few then understood the power and 
 skill involved in that movement, as I confess I my- 
 self did not, till events proved of what worth it was 
 to the nation. 
 
 But Fichte's well-known relation to Suhelling, the 
 manner in which he had expressed himself regard- 
 ing me, and the consciousness that my sympathy 
 with nature had no response in him, held me aloof 
 from him. Boeckh and Bekker were called to the 
 chairs of philology in the university. It is well 
 known how much the latter has in his quiet and 
 thorough way advanced his department, and how 
 much the former, who, even when called to Berlin, 
 had attained a wide reputation for deep insight into 
 the modes of living and thinking among the Greeks, 
 has done to restore and further the study of anti- 
 quity. The celebrated Niebuhr, after devoting him- 
 self for some years to the weightiest duties of the 
 state, especially in the financial department, and 
 wielding a great influence in that position, withdrew 
 from those duties, and entered upon those of a pro- 
 fessor. The first lectures in the new university were 
 delivered on the fifteenth of October, 1810. 
 
 Never did an institution of learning enter upon 
 its career more brilliantly than this ; never was the 
 value of a great university more appreciated than 
 here. We are referred with great pride to the 
 founding of Gottingen, a hundred years before, as 
 the most successful cflbrt of the kind, and the 
 founder of Gottingen is indeed immortal. But that 
 work was carried through in times of peace ; the 
 
GATHERINGS OF BERLIN S A VANS. 201 
 
 most eminent scholars were in secure possession 
 of their reputation, and so the choice of professors 
 was an easy one. A rich land easily furnished the 
 needed means, and the king of England, as the ruler 
 of Hanover, stood as the foster-father of the whole 
 undertaking. But in Berlin a university arose with 
 unprecedented quickness at a time when all the sup- 
 ports of the state seemed shattered, and in a time of 
 deepest poverty money flowed forth in ample sup- 
 plies. I never heard a word of criticism on the 
 amounts which were required to found this noble 
 and enduring monument of the wisdom and pat- 
 riotism of the founders of the university of Berlin. 
 
 However various, however antagonistic even, the 
 views of the Berlin professors might be, yet there 
 was in those palmy days a tie of union between 
 them all. How happy Niebuhr felt himself in his 
 intimate companionship with kindred spirits ; how 
 zealously he gave himself to his classic work on 
 Roman History, after a long interruption, every 
 reader of his interesting letters ^ knows. The phi- 
 lologists, under the promptings of Schleiermacher, 
 formed an association of great attractiveness. Their 
 meetings were friendly gatherings, where they busied 
 themselves with some Greek author, and where, it 
 cannot be doubted, great gains were made tg the 
 cause of science. The naturalists, too, had their 
 meetings, whose influence extended over the whole 
 of Europe. 
 
 This painting of the beginning of the university 
 
 > Life and Letters of Niebuhr. New York : Harper and Brothers. 
 
202 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 of Berlin may seem highly colored, but it is entirely 
 impartial. I am writing the history of what I have 
 lived to see, and I cannot deny that I looked with 
 the fondest hopes at the opening of an institution 
 with which I associated but one object of regi-et, 
 and that was that I had no share in it. When I 
 saw Wolf, Horkel, Reil, and Schleiermacher there, I 
 certainly felt like one in exile, and yet my joy was 
 pure, and my hopes for it strong. 
 
 Viewed from the rel.itions under which I received 
 and accepted the call to Breslau, the prospect of 
 going to live in Silesia was by no means agreeable. 
 I had a prejudice against the province ; the Silesians 
 were, in my imagination, a half-enslaved people. 
 The predominance of the Catholic population, too, 
 was not to my liking, and Breslau, in special, was 
 inclined to bigotry in this faith. Nor could I for- 
 get that Frederick the Great tolerated the Jesuits 
 in this jn'ovince after the pope himself had taken 
 away the rights and privileges of this order in many 
 professed Catholic lands. It seemed to me, that in 
 a fit of feeling peculiar to him he had failed to dis- 
 cern that they were among his greatest enemies, 
 and that he had showed them too great leniency. 
 It was, in my eyes, a sign of bad omen that the 
 university was to be established in the building for- 
 merly occupied as the Jesuits' college. 
 
 Besides, the literary reputation of Breslau was 
 not especially attractive, and there was a certain 
 marked provincialism to be detected not only in 
 books, but in reviews, in newspapers, and in conver- 
 sation. There was, also, a narrow family and clique 
 
ARRIVAL AT BRESLAU. 203 
 
 ppii'it everywhere discernible, bat made more par- 
 .tic'iilarly manifest at funerals, birthdays, and mar- 
 riages. But what made my position especially 
 repulsive was, that, having gone into voluntary 
 exile from my own land, and having given my 
 whole heart to the cause and hopes of Germany, I 
 did not feel inclined to go into a district wiiere all 
 broad, national feeling was merged in mere local in- 
 terests. Almost fourteen years I had lived in my 
 adopted country, and I was now wedded to all that 
 concerned its weal. I had watched the rising of 
 that great spirit of philosophical inquiry which the 
 opening of this century witnessed, and the men to 
 whom I was indebted for my own enthusiasm in 
 the cause of learning. Among them I had hoped 
 to live and die ; and it was a hard thought that I 
 must take up my abode in a district which, though 
 German in name, was as outside of the German na- 
 tional life and feeling as if it were still an Austrian 
 province. And yet, when I considered the shattered 
 condition of Germany, its dark and uncertain future, 
 and the ruin of the once-flourishing Halle university, 
 I felt that I could even welcome any new course of 
 life which should take me away from these sad ruins 
 of what had been so great and promising. 
 
 Breslau was at that time in a very disagreeable 
 condition. The dry sumnjer had left only an empty 
 river-bed to the Oder ; the city lay in a parched 
 tract, and, surrounded by its levelled walls, it had 
 the appearance of a place which had been taken and 
 made defenceless. There were then from sixty to 
 seventy thousand inhabitants, though since then 
 
204 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 the number has greatly increased. And yet the 
 city had a certain imposing appearance. The high 
 houses, the huge store-houses, all indicated a place 
 of importance ; churches and old edifices testified 
 to a not insignificant civic history, and the whole 
 aspect of the place may be compared to that of an 
 old man bearing in his face the marks of an active, 
 honored and useful life. 
 
 The people were more friendly and more worthy 
 of notice than I at first supposed, and many features 
 in their character pleased me much. At the time 
 of our removal to Breslau they were in a good deal 
 of excitement ; the professors and the students from 
 Frankfort were pouring in. The former were nearly 
 all strangers to me ; Gass, alone, Schleiermacher's 
 friend, was an old acquaintance. The work which 
 now stood before me was new to me. A university 
 was to be got together out of the most heterogene- 
 ous materials, and, although some of the arrange- 
 ments had already been made, yet it seemed as if 
 mine must be for some time an idle life. As I was 
 to lecture on experimental physics, it may be sup- 
 posed that I should find many deficiencies in my 
 department, and this was really the case. Although 
 the college-building occupied by the Jesuits was 
 delivered over to us, yet its accommodations were 
 only partially ample for our purpose. I had to con- 
 tent myself for some time with an ill-arranged hall, 
 and many of my colleagues did not fare better. My 
 official dwelling was not yet in readiness for me, and 
 I had to hire one for a year. 
 
 At Breslau, I was able to renew my intimacy with 
 
PROFESSORSHIP AT liRESLAU. 205 
 
 Carl von Raumer, whose reputation as a geologist is 
 only equalled by that of his brother as a historian. 
 There arose between the former and the sister of 
 my wife an intimacy which culminated at length in 
 their marriage. Carl von Raumer w^as remarkable 
 for his serious earnestness of purpose. His mind 
 was essentially introspective and religious. My first 
 book, the one already mentioned as written at Frei- 
 berg, had drawn him to Halle, and a friend of his 
 wrote me that that book exercised a decisive influ- 
 ence over his whole life. From Halle he went to 
 Freiberg, and even while Werner's scholar he over- 
 turned and shattered his master's whole theory, 
 which regarded granite as the basis of mountain 
 formations. He and I did not always agree in our 
 views, yet I always respected and admired his genius 
 and his character. 
 
 The university was opened with solemn services. 
 The professors were, I think, not all assembled; those 
 from Frankfort were on the ground, but many of 
 those called from abroad had not arrived. Link had 
 been invited from Rostock as professor of chemistry 
 and botany, and had been charged with the duty 
 of forming a botanical garden. Heindorf had been 
 called from Berlin as philological professor. Rau- 
 mer, the historian, Wachler, Unterholzner, and Pas- 
 sow, were expected. Thus it will be seen that the 
 professorial corps was more than respectable^ and 
 much was exjDected of it. The students began to 
 come in, mainly of course from different parts of Si- 
 lesia. There was an unwonted and shocking preva- 
 lence of that boorishness and outlandishness among 
 
206 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 them that I had ah-eacly seen, 'though in less meas- 
 ure, at Jena. Their different hurschen alliances were 
 numerous, and so there were frequent outbreaks of 
 student outlawry. This died away year by year; 
 still, when I left Breslau, after thirty years of ser- 
 vice, it had not wholly disappeared. They were 
 generally a very ignorant set of young men, and 
 there were plenty among them Avho had never heard 
 even of the existence of Kant, Fichte, and Schel- 
 ling. Some there were who had never heard of 
 Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller. I labored hard to 
 soften the manners, to tame the fierceness, and to 
 deepen the scientific interest of the young men. 
 My brother professors helped in this good work, 
 and we had the happiness of seeing much accom- 
 plished, only it was a slow and gradual process. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 STEFFEXS'S JIILITARY CAREER. — DARK POLITICAL TKOS- 
 PECTS — GENERAL GNEISENAU — PUBLIC EXCITEMENT — STIR IN 
 BRESLAU — SCENE IN STEFFENS'S LECTURE-ROOM — HIS LETTER 
 FROM THE KING — THE PHILOSOPHER BECOMES LIEUTENANT — 
 STEIN — BLCCHER. 
 
 Whilst the university at Breslau was being 
 formed, and while I continued to try to nurture 
 to tlie best of ray power those seeds of national 
 independence which continued, in a cutting atmos- 
 phere, gradually, though by slow degrees, to fruc- 
 tify, the outward circumstances of the people grew 
 darker and darker. Hard as was the outward tyr- 
 anny of the invaders, their indirect influence was 
 still more fearful and destructive. Nothing good 
 could flourish under such a sway. In Breslau we 
 heard much of the excesses during the war, and 
 there were terrible recollections of outrages which 
 had been committed by those troops of Southern 
 Germany which had joined the French army. Thus 
 had German feelings under French influence been 
 turned against their own country, and the fearful 
 time seemed now approaching when a Prussian 
 army might combine with the French for the final 
 subjugation of the land. The heaviest oppression 
 which I had witnessed in Halle seemed a light mis- 
 fortune when compared to this. I foresaw that if 
 
 207 
 
208 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 the Prussians should learn to consider themselves as 
 a part of the French army, and think it an honor to 
 join them in the exultation of victory, the poison 
 would be extended to the whole nation, and patriot- 
 ism disappear wholly from the land. 
 
 I became acquainted with General von Grawert, 
 then at Breslau, engaged in the topographical sur- 
 vey of Prussia, Avhich was an important aid to my 
 means of learning the form as well as structure of 
 the Silesian mountains. His Adjutant-Major von 
 Hiller also became my friend. This truly patriotic- 
 minded officer was painfully alive to his unhappy 
 position, and his grief was extreme to find himself 
 compelled to act against his country's interests. My 
 .conversations with him increased my own fears. It 
 was clear that Austria must arm for Napoleon, now 
 that he was son-in-law to the Austrian emperor ; 
 hence almost every hope of resisting the subjugation 
 of the whole of Germany was extinguished. Yet 
 I could not quite abandon hope ; and our news from 
 Russia of the determination after a lost battle to 
 retire and lay the country waste revived it in the 
 shape that the insanity of boundless ambition might 
 there receive a check. 
 
 If the then state of Prussia was so overwhelm- 
 ing to me in my retired existence, how must those 
 have felt who to the last had cherished a belief in 
 the possibility of a general resistance ! When the 
 gloomy night of German despair was at the darkest, 
 the secret league was still kept up, consisting of the 
 noblest spirits both in Austria and Prussia, and they 
 were connected by a secret confederacy with many 
 
DARK POLITICAL PliCSPECTS. 209 
 
 among the GermaTi-miiKlccl English. Let tlie rulers 
 ■who now swny the destinies of those three countries 
 ever bear tl.r.t Icnguc in mind, so jiowcrless to all 
 npiK'r.rance then, and yet so mighty but a few years 
 later : they will ]>erceivc in that time of cruellest 
 oppression, th.at mouient of impending destruction, 
 end that rapidly succeeding liberation, a prophetic 
 meaning for the guidance of future centuries. 
 
 Though occupied with the absorbing duties and 
 interests of an infant institution, I continued to 
 watch the })olitical state of Prussia with passionate 
 devotion. As the reports strengthened that Prus- 
 sia, Austria, and other German states were likely to 
 combine with France in hostilities against Russia, I 
 longed to know whether such men as Gneisenau, 
 Chasot, Eichhorn, and Schleiermacher, had yet aban- 
 doned their last hope of freedom. Those few might 
 3'et withstand the withering inliuence which para- 
 lyzed so many once undaunted patriots, an influence 
 under which hope drooped and mutual confidence 
 "was changed into mistrust. Too many of the con- 
 federates, once secretly sworn to defend their coun- 
 try, strove amongst themselves, and a subdued peo- 
 ple were armed to fight for the tyrant who oppressed 
 them. But I felt that I had yet work to do. I could 
 try to inliuence the minds of men, and invigorate 
 "their failing spirits ; and in the religious belief in 
 a future but most certain triumph I pursued the 
 struggle, though unaided by the friends of more 
 ];ropitious times. At hist I felt myself alone in the 
 contest. I felt the pressing evils which bore down 
 the boldest hearts as much as they did ; but those 
 
 14 
 
210 THE STORY OF MT CAREER. 
 
 very evils left no time for those around me to un- 
 derstand and value the great principles for which I 
 strove. The sun of life seemed to have set, and mid- 
 night darkness threatened to overwhelm me. 
 
 In my deepest need I was suddenly supported 
 in a most unlooked-for manner. In the last days 
 of 1812, Gneisenau, Chasot, Justus Griincr, Moritz 
 Arndt, and afterwards Blucher, appeared in Bres- 
 lau. In the agitated state of the people these ar- 
 rivals occasioned great astonishment. The police 
 watched their motions suspiciously, though without 
 interference. I was brought into immediate con- 
 nection for the first time with those men whose 
 position and principles marked them as the hope of 
 Germany. They passed much time in my house, 
 when I took every precaution to exclude all other 
 visitors. Sometimes we met at a tavern, and re- 
 mained in close conference till midnight ; a small 
 room behind the public saloon w^as reserved for us. 
 It is easy to suppose that these arrivals in Breslau 
 were the subject of intense interest, and that I ap- 
 peared in a new character by my connection with 
 them. The president of the police said to me once 
 that he knew that I had collected a little Coblentz, 
 referring to the noble refugees who had made them- 
 selves extravagantly conspicuous in that place in 
 the beginning of the revolution. I felt the remark 
 to be a warning, but did not acknowledge the com- 
 parison. 
 
 This was my first personal acquaintance with 
 Gneisenau. His features were handsome, and his 
 tranquil but firm demeanor bespoke the gentleman 
 
GNEISENAU. 211 
 
 and the hero ; his look was clear and open, and I 
 never saw so happy a combination of self-respect 
 and humility, of confidence and modesty. Like 
 other distinguished German heroes, his views were 
 formed more from observation than from books ; 
 but his regard for literary attainments in others was 
 consequently still more to be admired. He never 
 appeared to greater advantage than wdien he ap- 
 pealed for information on points where he was at 
 fault, or frankly confessed any deficiency in knowl- 
 edge. He had not the rapid apprehension, the 
 sparkling wit, or the sarcastic vein which belonged 
 to many commanders of the time, and which made 
 them unpopular in society. 
 
 It seemed in the Prussian army as if the boldness 
 which was ranked by military men as the highest of 
 virtues was equally a merit in matters of the under- 
 standing, and the word of command was held as 
 irresistible in controversy as at the head of a regi- 
 ment. Many in maturer life had sought by force of 
 natural acuteness to repair the deficiencies of early 
 systematic culture. Others had attended the uni- 
 versities, but had suiFered the military ardor of the 
 period to break off their half-completed studies; an 
 imperious tone on subjects which ought to be dis- 
 cussed with inquiring reserve prevailed, especially in 
 the unhappy year 1806. Those times had thrown 
 back every strong mind upon its own resources. 
 Never had men been called on to draw on their 
 own powers to meet the exigencies of the time 
 as the Prussian officers were then. Tlie effort led 
 
212 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 them on to victory, though it taught them overbear- 
 in g: manners. 
 
 I have liad tlie happy lot to be in the society of 
 many remarkable men, but I never regretted hav- 
 ing a conversation interrupted as I have done when 
 "with Gneisenau. I never heard an unmeanino: word 
 from his lips ; even on intellectual subjects there 
 was in his modestly-ex2:)ressed opinions an irresisti- 
 ble weight. Every one felt the depth of his reflect- 
 ing powers, and perceived that when he spoke he 
 thought more of that wherein he believed himself 
 to fail than of the treasures of experience which ho 
 had gathered while assisting the greatest minds of 
 the age to mature sound princi])les whereby to in- 
 fluence the fate of Europe. There was something 
 princely in his look and mode of expression ; when 
 bis manner was most humble he seemed to bow 
 with conscious self-possession ; he was the most 
 chivalrous, the most liberal hero, that I ever saw; 
 whoever had the happy fortune to excite his in- 
 terest might firmly depend on his eflTectual support 
 under every circumstance. I think with gratitude 
 of his benevolent goodness to me from the time 
 that he first entered my dwelling; every remem- 
 brance of him is most mournful, but most dear. 
 He came to me a ^aw days before his sudden and 
 deeply-lamented death, with the dignified, firm car- 
 riage which he preserved even to old age. Never 
 did the cholera seem to me such a cruel scourge as 
 when it seized him for a victim. 
 
 The powerful influence of Arndt's writings in 
 Germany, in 1805 and 1806, is well known. Whilst 
 
PROSPECTS OF GERMANY. 213 
 
 Other fintliors wove .Tsvcd to silence, ho alone avowed 
 his i^rinciples Vvith intrepidity. His loud trumpet 
 of ^x^\\ which sounded its uiii>'htv nlarni throucrh 
 the ])ress, was not silenced throutih those unhnp[)y 
 years of tyranny. Calling for aid, it sounded on 
 when hardly one sign of hopeful effort was appa- 
 rent ; he v/as destined to awake the sleepers, — to 
 ai-m the nation to resistance by words of strength 
 and virtue. From the time "we met he was my true 
 friend. 
 
 That the state and prospects of Germany were 
 the subjects of our continual discussions, may easily 
 be guessed. I then learnt that the secret league still 
 existed in full force. We believed that we could 
 trust England, though I must confess that neither 
 the people nor their parliament seemed to afford 
 that energetic sympathy with the oppressed conti- 
 nental powers which their position seemed to claim. 
 
 Austria seemed outwardly bound to France, but 
 that this alliance would ultimately be more danger- 
 ous to her than the most unequal warfare, was as 
 clearly understood in Vienna as in Berlin. The 
 true-minded but timid Austrians, who feared a total 
 overthrow in a contest with France, could not con- 
 ceal from themselves that the treaty wiih her was a 
 voluntary surrender of their liberties, while they 
 could but seek an honorable fall by their resistance. 
 Who has not learned from history that nations who 
 have nerved themselves to the uttermost point of 
 resistance have found the germ of revived inde- 
 pendence at the very time when its extinction 
 seemed inevitable ? Avhilo a yielding, timid people, 
 
214 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 like .'I hectic patient, fancies itself most secure vvlion 
 death is nearest, and, constantly dehuled, resigns the 
 last sickly hope only with the dying breath. 
 
 Everybody lived at that time in the intense ex- 
 citement which prevails when a promise of being 
 rescued from a wretched position has been observed, 
 and the moment has not yet arrived for active ex- 
 ertion. The twenty-ninth bulletin had aj^peared ; 
 every artful expression in it seemed to endeavor 
 vainly to conceal the news of a total defeat. The 
 vision of a wonderful agitated future rose in every 
 mind with all its hopes and terrors ; it was breathed 
 out at first in tones scarcely audible ; even those 
 w^ho had believed that unbridled ambition would 
 find its check in the land which it had desolated, 
 could not realize the horrible destruction of a victo- 
 rious army — an army which had for fifteen years, 
 with growing might, excited first the admiration, 
 then the terror, and lastly the paralyzed dismay of 
 all the continental nations, and which had at length 
 been overtaked by a fearful judgment, more won- 
 derful than its -conquests. But the strange event 
 was there ; reports no longer to be doubted crowded 
 in upon us ; the distant voice approached ; the por- 
 tentous words sounded clearer and clearer, and at 
 last the loud call to rise was shouted through the 
 land. Then did the flood of feeling burst from 
 hearts where it had been long pent up ; fuller and 
 freer did it flow ; then the long-hidden love to 
 king and country flamed brightly out, and the dull- 
 est minds were animated by the wild enthusiasm. 
 Every one looked for a tremendous crisis, but the 
 
NAPOLEON'S FLIGHT FROM RUSSIA. 215 
 
 moment was not yet come for action, and while rest- 
 ing in breathless expectation, thousands and thou- 
 sands became every hour stronger still to meet it. 
 
 It was said that Napoleon, accompanied only by 
 one of his generals, had fled in a sledge through 
 Silesia, travelling day and night. A postmaster had 
 recoQjnized him in Hainau. In Breslau all was ex- 
 citement, all household duties and affairs were for- 
 gotten, everybody was collected in the streets, and 
 all looked for the leader who was to order them to 
 arm. 
 
 The first thought was for the safety of the king ; 
 it was feared that the remains of the French army 
 might insure their safe retreat from Berlin by seiz- 
 ing his sacred person. Herr B. von L , urged 
 
 by this apprehension, addressed himself immediately 
 to the king, and entreated him to leave Berlin and 
 repair to Breslau, where, on ground not invested by 
 the enemy, surrounded by faithful subjects, he might 
 be safer than in a city actually in possession of the 
 French. Those who surrounded the king, however, 
 feared his taking so dangerous a step. A few days 
 
 after this Herr von L was seized in the night 
 
 by gendarmes, carried off to Berlin, and there im- 
 prisoned, though he was shortly afterwards liberated. 
 
 Though now at the very dawn of the long hoped- 
 for day, I felt myself strangely depressed. Six years, 
 I said to myself, have I been looking for this mo- 
 ment as the most blessed of my life, and here am I, 
 in a city remote from the scene of activity; further 
 south and west the liberators of Germany will as- 
 semble, and I must listen here inactively to accounts 
 
216 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 of stirring events ns to so ranny tales. I was in this 
 (liscoiUented st.'ite of mind wlicn tlie report gained 
 
 ground tlmt B. von L 's ])roj)osal was to bo 
 
 granted ; it was followed by orders to prepare ac- 
 commodation for the king and his snite. And he 
 arrived shortly after witli his children. Ilardcn- 
 berg was with him, and a crowd of officers and 
 generals followed. General v. York's intrejud ac- 
 tion was soon reported, and the war was considered 
 to have commenced, tliough no declaration liad yet 
 been issned. Tlie influx of men, especially young 
 ones, was enormous ; every house was crammed, 
 and the streets were all bustle. Scharnhorst liad 
 come. Gneisenau was expected. One feeling ani- 
 mated all. Business, circumstances, connections, 
 friendship, were thouglit of only to devote them 
 all to the one great object, but that object had still 
 to be viewed only through a mist of ])ainful doubt. 
 The king had not approved of General v. York's 
 open and brilliant demonstration ; it was not im- 
 possible that he might be disgraced for it. The 
 much-respected French ambassador, St. Marsan, ac- 
 companied the king to Breslau. The balance yet 
 hung doubtfully, whether, notwithstanding the ar- 
 dent longings of the whole nation. General v. York 
 jniglit be sacritieed, and common cause made with 
 Napoleon to attack Russia, or whether, allied with 
 Russia, war should be declared against Napoleon. 
 
 Among those assembled in Breslau was Bolken- 
 Btern, who had been sent by Gneisenau to Halle to 
 keep up the interest of our secret correspondence ; 
 ho belonged to Scharnhorst's school, that is, to the 
 
POliLIC EXCITEMENT. 217 
 
 young officers from whom Gneisonau cxpcctccl most 
 in tiiG approMcliiiiu; v/ar. I joined a large group of 
 olliccrs at his lodgings, and learned that the Gazette 
 of the same day would contain the king's nppeal 
 for a voluntary arming. All the youth of Prussia 
 were expecting it, but on looking over a copy we 
 saw there was no allusion to the subject, and this 
 paralyzing silence as to the enemy was discussed 
 with great disapprobation and alarm. In an excite- 
 ment of mixed joy and apprehension I left the 
 meeting. I passed a disturbed, dreamy night, and 
 awoke early to prepare for a lecture on natural phi- 
 losophy, which was to be given at eight. I had, as 
 usual, not communicated to my family what had 
 passed at Bolkenstern's, but an idea j^eized me : 
 " It is for you," I said to myself, " to proclaim the 
 war ; your position permits it, and what the court 
 may afterwards determine will be indifferent to 
 you." I never doubted of the king's determination 
 to join with Russia. That it was utterly impossible 
 to appeal to the youth of Prussia to light for France 
 was perfectly clear, but there might be reasons for 
 keeping the enemy in suspense, though after the 
 king's appeal they were incomprehensible to me. 
 It is possible, I argued, that to preserve this decep- 
 tion my open act may be disapproved or even pun- 
 ished. I might be imprisoned — ruined. All tliis 
 "was unworthy of consideration at a moment of such 
 urgency. 
 
 My class was not large, there was little interest in 
 the university for philosophy, and the agitation of 
 the time had thinned all the lecture-rooms. I was 
 
218 THE STORY OF MY (JAIIEER. 
 
 just established in my new residence, of which the 
 lecture-room nnd my study formed fi wing. I was 
 to give another lecture from eleven till twelve. The 
 first was concluded, and no one had guessed what 
 had occupied my whole mind throughout ; it was 
 that which I had for years striven for and longed 
 for. I turned to my hearers and said, — 
 
 "Gentlemen, I shall give another lecture at eleven 
 o'clock, but I shall choose a theme of all-absorbing 
 importance. The king's command for a general 
 arming has appeared, or will do so to-day ; I shall 
 lecture upon that. Let my intention be generally 
 known. If the other lecture-rooms are deserted, it 
 matters not ; I expect as mnny as this room will 
 hold." 
 
 The excitement in the town was unbounded, and 
 the eagerness' excessive to know in what direction 
 the suddenly called out force was to be used. Thou- 
 sands pouring into the town mixed with the inhab- 
 itants in the crowded streets, amidst troops, ammu- 
 nition wagons, cannon, and loads of arms of every 
 description. The slightest word calculated to throw 
 any light on the state of things was caught up and 
 repeated in every direction. Scarcely had the half 
 of my two hours' interval elapsed before a dense 
 crowd streamed towards my house, and the lecture- 
 room was full to suffocation ; many stood at the 
 windows, in the corridor, and the crowd of those 
 who could not gain admittance extended even far 
 into the street. It was long before I could make my 
 way to my place. I had not yet seen my wife that 
 day ; my father-in-law and his daughter lived a story 
 
PUBLIC EXCITKMEST. 219 
 
 above us, with Yon Raiimer ; my mother-iu-law was 
 with us. The crowd which streamed towards our 
 house amazed them, but I think they must have 
 guessed at my intentions. My wife did not dare to 
 venture forth, but I sent her a tranquilUzing message 
 by a servant, with a promise to explain all to her by 
 and by. I had passed the two hours in great agita- 
 tion : what I had to say — the burden which I had 
 groaned under for five years — shook my whole 
 soul ; I was to be the first who was to cry aloud that 
 the liberation of Germany, yes, of all Europe, was 
 at hand. I sought in vain to arrange my feelings 
 into words, but I fancied that good spirits were 
 whispering help to me, and I longed for the time of 
 lonely suspense to be over. One thought came 
 clearly to my mind — I reproached myself that I 
 had murmured at being banished to a remote prov- 
 ince, and now that very corner had become the 
 splendid centre whence a new era was to emanate, 
 and my voice was to set the elements in motion. 
 Tears guslied into my eyes. A short prayer tran- 
 quillized me, and I stood before the assembly. I 
 know not what I said ; had I been asked at the mo- 
 ment that I ended, I could not have told a word. I 
 had no new cause to proclaim — what I said was 
 but the echo of the thoughts and feelings of every 
 hearer. That after calUng on the youth to rise, I 
 added my determination to take my part and join 
 the ranks, may well be guessed without my telling it. 
 At the close of my speech 1 hastened to tranquil- 
 lize my family ; a few minutes after I was once more 
 alone in my study. It is done at last, I thought, 
 
220 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 and a load was taken from my heart. But new cares 
 now claimed my t]] oughts ; from that liour my 
 wliole ])08ition in life was altered ; arms v/ere now 
 my profession, and how was I to follow it? 1 had 
 taken counsel with nobody, and I felt wholly at a 
 loss. Suddenly a thought struck me : I would go to 
 Scharnhorst — he would guide and help me best. I 
 liad taken my hat, when a deputation from the stu- 
 dents appeared : they begged me to continue my 
 address in a larger hall, and named one which would 
 contain five or six hundred hearers, and I was 
 obliged to assent. I longed to go, but could not 
 get away, the students thronged in so continually. 
 A precious hour had thus elapsed, when Professor 
 Augnsti, then rector of the university, appeared ; he 
 had some important -communication to make to mo 
 in private, and, uneasy as I felt at the request, I was 
 very glad of the excuse to clear my room of stu- 
 dents. I was on the best of terms with Augusti. 
 He said in a solemn way that he came from the 
 chancellor of state ; that St. Marsan, the French 
 ambassador, had hastened to the chancellor directly 
 on hearing of my address. He had inquired what 
 it meant. "We are," said he, "at peace with you, 
 and look upon you as our allies, and now a teacher 
 in the university dares to declare war against us, as 
 if under the sanction of the king." Hardenberg 
 had ansv*'ered, "The feelings of the people, especial- 
 ly ihe youth of Prussia, can be no secret to you ; 
 we could not restrain the meetinG^ — it was over be- 
 fore news of the intention reached us ; the king dis- 
 countenances it. Ask for an ajDology and it shall be 
 
SCHARNHOJIST. 221 
 
 given ; but I cannot conceal that any step taken 
 against the speaker would make him a martyr, and 
 such excitement would follow as would make our 
 j)osition most difficult." 
 
 The chancellor communicated to me through the 
 rector that he had heard of my intention of resum- 
 ing my address on the morrow. He did not desire 
 me to refrain from expressing any of my own opin- 
 ions, but entreated me not to mention Napoleon's 
 name. By a sort of instinct I had avoided doing so 
 in my lirst speech ; I had feared that tiie name 
 might give an air of personal hatred to ray appeal, 
 and rob it of tlie elevated tone of genuine patriot- 
 ism. My friend left mo, and I hastened to Scharn- 
 horst. Colonel von Bayen, now minister of war, 
 one of the most active and intelligent of our confed- 
 eration, was already there. Scharnhorst embraced 
 me, saying with joyful emotion, " StefFens, you do 
 not know what you have done." I desired no 
 greater praise ; I foresaw that I, a quiet, retired man 
 of letters, in the middle age of life, would make but 
 a sorry soldier, but that to the war I must proceed. 
 
 I had only lately become acquainted vv'ith Scharn- 
 liorst ; he was not an officer of the Prussian parade 
 style, but seemed more like a philosopher in uni- 
 form. He spoke like a man of deep thought, fully 
 imbued with his subject, which was always one of 
 real importance, and on which his deliberately ex- 
 pressed sentiments carried an irresistible conviction ; 
 both in argument and action he persevered in his 
 point dispassionately, but with determination. 
 
 It is told of a legate who was sent to Paris by 
 
222 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 the Pope to transact business with Napoleon, that 
 on one occasion he resisted the demands so obsti- 
 nately as to make the Emperor almost despair of 
 carrying his point. Napoleon at last left the room 
 in high displeasure, and having ordered the legate 
 to remain there till his return, shut him in, and did 
 not reappear till evening, by which time he hoped 
 that weariness and hunger would have induced sub- 
 mission. After a slight excuse from the Emperor, 
 and a desire to resume the conference, the priest, 
 without a syllable of apology, went straight forward 
 with his business at the exact point at which it had 
 been suspended. That was exactly the mode in 
 which Scharnhorst always proceeded ; he never 
 flinched in anything he ever undertook against Napo- 
 leon, not even when success seemed almost hopeless. 
 Few were acquainted with the extent of Scharn- 
 horst's powers. Invincible in purpose, untiring in 
 action, all the wisest of our military leaders looked 
 to him as the centre of their movements. To this 
 great man I turned in the most exciting instant of 
 my life for guidance. I told him that I wished to 
 join one of the detachments of the regular army, 
 and I rejoiced to find that he approved. " We can," 
 he said, " place you at once at head-quarters, where 
 you may find work in which your former profession 
 will be useful." He advised me to learn the duties 
 of the service, as, at least in the beginning of the 
 war, it was desirable that I should be much among 
 the young volunteers whose minds I had excited. 
 He also advised me to present a petition to the 
 king, praying to be allowed to join the service in 
 
THE KINO'S ANSWER. 223 
 
 whatever capacity his Majesty might please to ap- 
 point. 
 
 I was now perfectly at ease ; ray sudden impulse 
 had become a well-considered line of conduct. I 
 forwarded my petition, and in a few days received 
 the following gracious answer : — 
 
 "I afford you my entire approbation that you 
 have not only excited the attendants on your lec- 
 tures in the university to rise in their country's de- 
 fence in the present imminent danger, but have also 
 devoted yourself to the same praiseworthy service. 
 To which laudable end I grant you leave of absence 
 from your present duties until circumstances may 
 permit you to return to them ; and I heartily wish 
 that the example which you have set to younger 
 men, of devotion to their country's cause, may be 
 followed to the happy furtherance of the same. 
 
 "Frederick Wilhelm. 
 
 "Breslau, February 16, 1813." 
 
 I passed the days which intervened before I re- 
 ceived the royal answer in most anxious suspense. 
 The lectures were discontinued, and I gave myself 
 up to wild conjectures as to my future destination. 
 I had not confided to my wife the important step 
 which I had taken, and I had told no one but my 
 father-in-law, who fully approved of all that I had 
 done. I was beset with students in great numbers, 
 not only of Breslau, but from Berlin, and in my 
 state of uncertainty their eagerness increased my 
 perplexity. 
 
224 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 On the 20th of February I received his Majesty's 
 letter permitting me to wear officer's imiform and 
 act as an officer, until he should see fit to promote 
 me to the rank of one. 
 
 I had now a distinct occupation. Captain von 
 Bolkenstern, my sincere friend, commanded my 
 company, and as a preliminary I paid a sergeant of 
 the company to teach me my exercise. A rather 
 laughable incident occurred in reference to my dril- 
 ling. As every vacant space was required to exer- 
 cise the volunteers as well as the regular recruits,' 
 the court of my house was sometimes used for the 
 purpose. An old woman who worked occasionally 
 in the family happened to see how the drilling offi- 
 cer sometimes lost his patience with awkward 
 youths, — how he seized the shoulders, pressed in 
 the backs to expand the chest, poked the stomachs, 
 and stuck a doubled fist under the chin to throw 
 the head up. She had heard that I too was learn- 
 ing the exercise, and burst with loud wailings into 
 my wife's presence, lamenting that I should have to 
 undergo such treatment. My lot, however, was by 
 no means so bad ; my sergeant was very polite, 
 though I cannot boast of being a handy recruit. 
 
 I could not, however, devote much time to these 
 useful elements of my military education. I found 
 endless and perplexing business in my office. A 
 register had to be kept of every volunteer, specify- 
 ing every personal particular. Many thousand vol- 
 unteers came to me, and some generals who wanted 
 volunteers to fill their detachments honored mo 
 with visits. I had besides no little trouble with the 
 
VOLUNTEERS AND GOLD LACE. 225 
 
 young men, who all desired to join the guards, and 
 who would with great difficulty*be persuaded to be- 
 long to other corps. 
 
 A subject of dispute arose among those who had 
 attached themselves to me. The young volunteers 
 in other guard battalions had obtained permission to 
 wear silver lace on the collar in the place of the 
 white woollen which was worn by the regular men. 
 The guard-chasseur company wore yellow lace, and 
 the volunteers wished to be allowed to have it in 
 gold. I must confess it was inconceivable to me 
 how in such a moment of national enthusiasm the 
 very weakest amongst the young men could think 
 of such trifles ; but Bolkenstern agreed with me in 
 the propriety of decidely refusing the pretension. I 
 looked upon it as one of the most useful circumstan- 
 ces of the times, that the more educated classes 
 should mix w*ith those beneath them in rank and 
 cultivation. I hoped that the higher influence 
 would gradually improve the whole army, and we 
 determined that the volunteers of the guard-chas- 
 seurs should wear the woollen lace, and in all re- 
 spects throughout the war be on an equality with 
 the common soldier. The press for admission was 
 so great that we did not fear to have our ranks un- 
 filled ; some of the most high-born among the 
 youths supported our views, and many who have 
 since filled exalted stations will remember the dis- 
 pute, and how warmly they declared in favor of our 
 determination. 
 
 The Lutzow coi'ps was being formed at the same 
 time in Breslau, and I was excited to friendly erau- 
 
 15 
 
226 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. '. 
 
 lation with Jahn, who was organizing his body of 
 vohintcers:. His corps was most attractive to tlic 
 youths of ardent disposition ; the very spirit of chiv- 
 ahy seemed to expand amongst them ; they were 
 the poetry of the war, and their voice found noble 
 utterance in Korner's lyre. 
 
 I liad to manage for the clothing of the volun- 
 teers ; the funds for the purpose were supplied by 
 the voluntary subscriptions which poured in from 
 all parts of Prussia. It is well known how bound- 
 less was the emulation to outvie each other in splen- 
 did contributions. The miser offered up his wor- 
 shipped hoard ; those who had not money sold their 
 plate and jewels ; and many an anxious mother was 
 seen to fit out and send to the war the son whom 
 she had scarcely trusted from her sight. Common 
 and pitiful feelings, such as will peep out to disfig- 
 ure society in ordinary times, then scarcely dared 
 to show themselves ; men high in station took their 
 place beside the lowest ; superiors seemed willing to 
 receive commands from those below them, when 
 they, by longer service, were thought more capable ; 
 the difference between giver and receiver seemed to 
 have lost its former meaning ; and truly those who 
 witnessed such displays of national virtue after a 
 whole century of peace-engendered imperious bully- 
 inof, must have seen that which seemed either a mir- 
 acle or a fairy tale. To some of the poorer volun- 
 teers money had been given to provide their own 
 outfits, and it happened sometimes that the small 
 amount had been spent in drinking success to tho 
 common cause. I therefore determined henceforth 
 
VOLUNTEERS PRESENTED TO THE KING. 227 
 
 to give nothing but nniforms and military accoutre- 
 ments. Workmen were employed night and day, 
 and the commander of our battalion, Gen. von Ja- 
 gow, ])roposed to me to equip with utmost speed lii- 
 ty of the finest young men and present them to the 
 king. The suggestion was complied with, though I 
 would rather have avoided the display, in a wonder- 
 fully short time, and we received the royal permis- 
 sion to attend. The king received us in his palace. 
 Amongst the volunteers were the poet Biirde and 
 his three sons, all fine, tall men, who stood far above 
 all the rest. Biirde had been secretary to Count 
 von Haugwitz, and was not unknown to the king. 
 The chief of the battalion alone was present ; I was 
 in civil costume, my uniform not being completed. 
 The king received this first presentation of Prussian 
 volunteers very graciously, and expressed himself to 
 me in terms which I shall never forget. The audi- 
 ence was soon talked of, and as I did not return to 
 my own house immediately, I found my door on my 
 arrival there beset with carriages — it was men of 
 consequence and generals, who came to congratu- 
 late me. 
 
 At length my transformation was to take place, 
 and the process was by no means a pleasant one, 
 bordering on the comic. The grave philosopher 
 was to be chanored into the raw second lieutenant. 
 The little accomplishments which in youth are at- 
 tained almost imperceptibly and are practised with 
 ease were hard of attainment at my more advanced 
 period of life ; even the difference between my right 
 hand and my left required reflection to remember,. 
 
228 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 nnd the perception amvecl always too late. I hoped 
 that time and practice mii^ht remedy this deficiency, 
 but it clunGf to me to tlie last. I bej^an and ended 
 the clumsiest second lieutenant in the whole Prus- 
 sian army. 
 
 Throu,Gjhout all this preparation the alliance with 
 Russia and the war with Napoleon were still unde- 
 clared. At length Baron von Stein arrived in Bres- 
 lau with the news that Scharnhorst had met the 
 Emperor Alexander at Kalish, and had there, on 
 the twenty-seventh of February, concluded a treaty 
 with Russia ; but it was not until the sixteenth of 
 March, almost six weeks after the royal command 
 to take arms, that this treaty was communicated by 
 Hardenberg to St. Marsan. 
 
 The Emperor Alexander's approaching arrival was 
 announced, and the troops were ordered to line the 
 streets for his reception. On this occasion I was on 
 duty for the first time in my country's service. At 
 four in the morning the detachment was paraded 
 and marched to the suburb through which the Em- 
 peror was to enter. He was expected early in the 
 morning ; we waited in vain ; the forenoon passed ; 
 we were all tired and hungry. Couriers brought 
 news at last that the Emperor was still so distant 
 tliat we might leave guard for half an hour. It was 
 almost dark before he arrived. lie was received 
 witii acclamations by the inhabitants; but the en- 
 thusiasm would have been livelier had not every- 
 body been worn out by hunger and impatient wait- 
 inq:. Thus was I introduced to those minor duties 
 
COMMENCEMENT OF ACTIVE SERVICE. 229" 
 
 of the service which are little calculated to excite or 
 support the spirits. 
 
 War was declared in Paris through the ambassa- 
 dor. General von York's demonstration was praised 
 by the king, and became the universal theme of ad- 
 miration. All the youth of Prussia were emulated 
 by his example, when a most discouraging report 
 arose. It was said that the enthusiastic love of lib- 
 erty among the volunteer corps was disapproved in 
 high quarters ; it was considered extremely danger- 
 ous, and was to be restrained. They were not to 
 act against Xapoleon, but to be sent to Poland, 
 where disturbances were expected, to protect the 
 rear of the army. The exasperation may be con- 
 ceived of young minds panting to be led against a 
 hated foe, threatened, instead, to be used as a police 
 force to coerce a people in whose cause they sym- 
 pathized. Such intentions, however, if really formed, 
 were not acted upon. 
 
 Our detachment was sent forward to Lissa. Bolk- 
 enstern and I were quartered in the fort, and my mil- 
 itary life commenced. A grand review took place of 
 the united corps of Bliicher and Wittgenstein ; it 
 was my second public appearance as a Prussian offi- 
 cer. Bolkenstern worked very hard at teaching me 
 to perform a salute. "When you are opposite the 
 king," he said, "you must step forward with the — 
 (I never can remember whether it was the right or 
 the left) — foot and lower your sabre," and many 
 more minute directions which I have forgotten. 
 They were my undoing ; for when the moment 
 came I was absorbed in thinking over my lesson, 
 
.230 THE STORY OF MY CAIiEEIt. 
 
 • 
 
 and my salute was so sad a bungle that Bolken- 
 stern overwhelmed me with reproaches. Happily I 
 had no more .such ceremonies to perform, for, be- 
 sides my inexpertness, my whole equipment was far 
 from being a model of military perfection. The 
 guard-chasseur uniform was very expensive, and 
 consequently the gold epaulette did not grace my 
 shoulder, nor was the schako, adorned with the 
 black eagle, and the rich scarf, ever added. 
 
 The painful parting with my family had jjassed, 
 and we moved on towards the enemy, who came to 
 meet us with a rapidity which, after so disastrous a 
 defeat, was truly admirable. 
 
 Dui-ing our tedious delay in Lissa, and our march 
 through Silesia and the Lausitz towards Dresden, 
 we were enlivened by meeting Tettenborn's divis- 
 ion, advancing towards Hamburg, and Dornberg's 
 towards Liineburg. I found Stein and Moritz Arndt 
 in Dresden, where I remained a few days, relieved 
 from the annoyances of military duty. It was my 
 first personal introduction to the great German. I 
 broke a lance with him, and my weapon was one 
 which I knew better liow to use than those which I 
 had so lately assumed — it was a friendly strife, but 
 an earnest one. 
 
 Stein was a man of deeds, not words, straightfor- 
 ward in action. He grasped and mastered every 
 difficulty at the moment it arose, and he hated or 
 pretended to hate speculation, and attacked me as a 
 theorist. I was dining with him one day when only 
 Moritz Arndt was present. "Your propositions," 
 said he, " are mere subtleties — bare dogmas, calcu- 
 
STEIN. 231 
 
 latcd only to cripple every enterprising deed." "If," 
 said I, "ray speculations bad not taken a practical 
 turn, I should not have the honor to appear bet'orc 
 you equipped as I now aui ; but the desire to realize 
 all tiiat is felt within, or npprehcuded by the senses, 
 not according to outward semblance, but to the true 
 spiritual import, is not the arbitrary whini of this 
 person or of that, it is the moving-spring of the mind 
 of Germany, and through this it is that my friend 
 Schelling has so influenced the national character." 
 "Yes," answered Stein, "I know well that the Ger- 
 man youth are intoxicated with these vain theories; 
 Germans have an unfortunate love for subtle reason- 
 ing, hence they neglect tangible good, and are the 
 prey of every cunning enemy." " Your excellency," 
 I said, " the German youth has risen in vast masses, 
 yet many still hold back, and among those who do 
 60, I will venture to assert, not one of the intoxi- 
 cated theorists is to be found. Who has more 
 effectually incited the people to rouse and arm 
 than our two great masters of speculative philoso- 
 phy, Fichte and Schleiermacher ? Your excellency's 
 time is too precious to be spent on subtleties which 
 seem unpractical, but to .me nothing seems more 
 unpractical than to overlook a principle which you 
 confess has become an element of the national 
 mind."- 
 
 I was almost frightened at my boldness. Stein 
 grumbled rather angrily at first, but said smilingly 
 afterwards, " Well, I am only an unpractical theori- 
 zer myself, wasting time in useless speculations on 
 the views of others." 
 
232 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 Mutual jealousies arose between the regular troops 
 and the volunteers, whose unbridled ardor gave 
 great offence. Many of those brought up in strict 
 military discipline feared that the volunteer spirit 
 would be a self-destructive clement in the army, and 
 held it their duty to keep it in continual check. 
 Major von Z., who after Jagow's departure became 
 chief of our battalion, had been General von York's 
 adjutant during the Russian campaign, and was 
 highly esteemed by him. He was notwithstanding 
 one of those who thousrht the volunteers ouG^ht to 
 be kept under, and he expressed liis conviction not 
 only when I had the honor of being his guest, but 
 openly before the whole detachment. My unfortu- 
 nate awkwardness, which was incomprehensible to 
 him, called forth endless reflections upon useless, 
 clumsy philosophers. On such occasions my posi- 
 tion was not very flattering in the presence of my 
 former disciples, among whom I was now the most 
 stupid of the scholars ; they supported me, howev- 
 er, on every occasion, and never failed to let me feel 
 that they still remembered our former very different 
 relation to each other. 
 
 Once in a village, the name of which has escaped 
 my memory, a general advance was ordered. I 
 was among the flrst who, after a hasty equipment, 
 joined the major at the rendezvous, and was ordered 
 to march with a small party in a certain direction 
 before the village, in order to act as promptly as 
 might be required on tlie approach of the enemy. 
 I received no more particular orders. I ventured to 
 inquire in which direction the enemy's approach 
 
STEFFEyS'S RECONNOITEEINO EXPEDITION. 233; 
 
 might be expected. "That you must find out," said 
 the major, and I undertook the duty with much anxie- 
 ty. I was utterly deficient in military experience, and 
 was, as my friend Schall once called me in a poem, 
 only a natural born soldier. I went with my small 
 party in the appointed direction, judged as well as I 
 could from very uncertain reports of the probable 
 direction of the enemy, and posted two men on an 
 eminence to reconnoitre, and behind them an ad- 
 vanced post, — whether they were too fiir off or too 
 near I was wholly ignorant. The major came to 
 review my position, and a storm then fell upon my 
 unhappy head, which convinced me that I should 
 not be able to continue that line of service. I was 
 treated as the most incomparably stupid of human 
 beings, the reproaches being varied by lively sallies 
 on the uselessness of bookworms ; in the course of 
 these I was made answerable for all the trashy pam- 
 phlets of miserable authors which had been pub- 
 lished since the subjugation of Prussia. "Where 
 did you look for the enemy?" "There," I said, 
 "answering to the reports." "You should have ex- 
 pected them on the other side, — you ought to have 
 known better." A large portion of the detachment 
 were witness of this scene, including a number of 
 my Breslau students. I had, as my rank required, 
 received it all in silence, but later on the same day 
 I waited on the major ; he was more civil than be- 
 fore, and I sought neither to excuse myself nor 
 complain of him, but represented that my posi- 
 tion in regard to many in the detachment made it 
 desirable for me to be appointed elsewhere, and 
 
234 THE STORY OF MT CAREER. 
 
 that, as General Scharnhorst had only intended mo 
 to be in it for a time, my removal would save tlio 
 mnjor the unpleasant duty of correcting me in the 
 presence of my own ])upils. 
 
 It was then late in April, and we w^erc approach- 
 in<-»- Altenburir, where General Blucher had his head- 
 quarters. With Bolkenstern's consent I joined 
 them. Scharnhorst presented me to Blucher, who 
 wished me to remain unattached, and all was ar- 
 ranged, even to my being provided with a horse, 
 w-hich Scharnhorst kindly undertook for me. 
 
 I found Gneisenau as commandant of head-quar- 
 ters, and Colonel von Muffling. The little town of 
 Altenburg was in great excitement. The refugee 
 king of Sweden, under the name of Colonel Gus- 
 tavson, had lately arrived, and occasioned no small 
 perplexity to the Prussian generals. It was very 
 desirable to win over the then crown prince, Berna- 
 dotte, to join us, and it was plain that the exiled 
 king hoped in secret to strengthen his own cause by 
 the aid of Bliicher and his generals, while he natu- 
 rally expected that they would entertain no great 
 partiality for the former French commander. 
 
 In the present important conjuncture, however, 
 his absence was greatly to be desired, and that opin- 
 ion was hardly concealed from him. I saw the thin, 
 slender-looking king, one day, with his long, fair 
 face, and the peculiar features of the ancient royal 
 family strongly marked, standing at the door of a 
 post-house. He wished to depart, and asked for 
 horses ; all were under requisition. It was perhaps 
 right to refuse them without orders, but a stable-boy 
 
DLUCBER. 235 
 
 did so in the most offensive manner, and I had the 
 distress of seeing an anointed king, the descend- 
 ant of Gustavns Vasa and of that Gustavns Adol- 
 phus Avhose memory should be sacred in Germany, 
 ill-lreated by a menial. The king — for he had nev- 
 er ceased to be one in my eyes — made no reply ; 
 he turned away ; and though his history inspired 
 me with more pity than respect, I thought there 
 was something truly royal in his demeanor. I was 
 with Colonel von Gerlach ; we both saluted him as 
 he passed, and he received the compliment as a mat- 
 ter of course, and answered it with most kingly dig- 
 nity. 
 
 Bliicher was quartered at the Hotel Stadt Gotha. 
 When I first joined the table there he was absent, 
 with many of his officers. The Freemasons held a 
 great meeting at Altenl>urg, and Bliicher was the 
 grand-master. His love for speech-making made 
 the society attractive to him, and it is said that ho 
 obtained his remarkable facility in speaking at the 
 Freemasons' lodge. He came to the hotel before 
 the dinner ended, and the conversation seemed to 
 indicate that the war was about to begin in earnest, 
 and that an engagement was expected. News was 
 repeated that the enemy were advancing from vari- 
 ous quarters. Councils of war were held, and I en- 
 joyed the excitement of feeling myself in the very 
 centre of important operations ; my only perplexity 
 ■was to wonder what sort of active service I could 
 possibly perform. 
 
 One thing seemed certain, — thafel was to remain 
 for the vrhole of the war at Bliicher's head-quarters. 
 
236 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 It is most difficult to give a true description of that 
 "wonderful man, whose memory will live as long as 
 tlie records of tlie war itself; he lias been so often 
 sketched that it is hard for many to divest the per- 
 sonal idea of him of many trifles unw^orthy of his 
 greatness. His life, written by our great biogra- 
 pher, Varnhagen von Ense, is universally read, and 
 deserves to be so. 
 
 Bllicher might be called a phenomenon (Incor- 
 recte Erscheinung) ; there was a want of keeping in 
 the parts of his character; yet this very eccentricity 
 produced his greatness. In him all that was strange 
 and incompatible in that wonderful war was repre- 
 sented ; therefore it was as easy for his admirers to 
 throw all other heroes in comparison with him into 
 the shade, as for his dispraisers to describe him as a 
 mere phantom. The severe moralist will find much 
 in him to censure, yet he was the very centre of the 
 moral impulse of the war. Compared with Napo- 
 leon, who invented a new system of military tactics, 
 he cannot be called a great commander, yet in that 
 character he won immortal fame. His speech was 
 bold, like a rough, uncultivated soldier, yet some- 
 times it rose to such a pitch of eloquence as had 
 been heard from no miUtary hero of modern times ; 
 he obeyed the impulse of the moment, but the im- 
 pulse was deep as it was quick ; his perception was 
 so vivid that he would see every difficulty in an in- 
 stant and be dashed into despair; a few more in- 
 stants and he would grasp the means of action, and 
 fasten on his object with redoubled energy. That 
 object was Napoleon's downfall. His hatred to the 
 
GERMAN ACTION. 237 
 
 tyrant mingled with tlie conviction tliat he was 
 born to work his ruin, and ho pursued his purpose 
 as if led by an unerring instinct. lie was a striking 
 contrast to Napoleon. Napoleon studied all the 
 phases of the revolution, and worked them out to 
 the uses of his ambition, and he knew how to influ- 
 ence every ripple of the mighty stream which was 
 to wash away the last traces of nationality. Blii- 
 cher stood forth, a mighty nature, bearing the fire of 
 youth in an aged but iron frame, destined to de- 
 nounce the nothin2i;ness of the deepest schemini? 
 w^hich was ever known in history. 
 
 The broken divisions of the beaten French army 
 had to pass through a land inflamed with detesta- 
 tion, in order to join their reinforcements in their 
 own territory. We must not deny the enemy full 
 praise for the admirable tact and determination 
 which they displayed under a calamity great enough 
 to have overpowered an army of heroes. On their 
 retreat a sort of preliminary war took place, which, 
 compared with the great struggle in which all Eu- 
 rope was engaged, might be called an afl[;iir of out- 
 posts. The German legions, combined wdth the 
 Russians, took advantage of the unfortunate position 
 of the French retiring foi'ces, and won successes 
 which, at the time, were important. Dornberg's 
 bold seizure of Liineburg, and Tettenborn's occupa- 
 tion of the French city of Hamburg, were inspirit- 
 ing incidents, raising the hopes of Germany, as did 
 the first great overt act of General von York at 
 Konigsberg. These triumphs had their value, but it 
 was easy to perceive that the advantages could not 
 
238 THE STORY OF MY CAREEIl. 
 
 be snpportecl, and it is too well known how dearly 
 thoy were pnid for in both cities, especially in Ham- 
 burg. In the mean time the masses were collect- 
 ing which were to decide tlie tremendous contest. 
 Fiance lelt that she had to fight for her existence, 
 and the magical word, " the glory of the Great Na- 
 tion," was as yet an unbroken spell. Napoleon was 
 still to the French people their great leader, the 
 conqueror of Europe, and the arming nations were 
 rebels to his sway. Nature had for once joined to 
 withstand him, and had triumphed for a moment ; 
 deprived of her aid, the resisting armies were again 
 but the assemblage of so many easily to be re-con- 
 quered provinces. Holland, Belgium, Italy and the 
 south of Germany still obeyed Napoleon, and trem- 
 bled at the power of his name ; Westphalia was yet 
 nominally Frencli, though she was united in heart 
 to us ; while Austria, though wavering, was still in 
 alliance with France. Many discouraging circum- 
 stances hung over the united enterprise of Russia 
 and Prussia. A mighty impulse, it is true, had 
 called up a Prussian army with a truly wonderful 
 celerity, but the organization Avas by no means com- 
 plete, and time must elapse before any great force 
 could be expected from Russia, distant as that coun- 
 try was, and exhausted by her late resistance. 
 
 This, then, was the state of Europe at the time 
 when the nevv^ French army, issuing fi'om their fron- 
 tier, met the weakened forces returning from their 
 Russian campaign ; wHen a large division under 
 General Wittgenstein, in conjunction with Blucher, 
 prepared to meet the concentrated force of France. 
 
STEFFENS A STAFF OFFICER. 239 
 
 In regard to ray personal position I can only 
 lament that I was as little qualified to. be one of 
 Bluchcr''s staff as I had been for a second lieutenant. 
 I was devoid of teclinical knowledge, and though 
 all were kind to me, each had too many duties of 
 his own to find time to enlighten my unhappy state 
 of ignorance. My records of the campaign will 
 therefore be wholly deficient in military detail, and 
 the reader will be less disappointed if he will per- 
 mit me to call them, not a history of the war, but 
 sketches of my adventures on the road to Paris dur- 
 ing the campaigns of 1813 and 1814. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 BTEFFENS'S MILITAUY CAREER. — MY FIRST SIGHT OF 
 WAR — "MY KIXGDOM FOR A HORSE " — GXEISEXAU'S COURAGE 
 AT GROSS-GoKSCIIEN — SCIIARXIIORST MORTALLY ^VOU^'DED — 
 BATTLi: OF LEIPZIG — STEFFENS'S RESIGNATION AND RETURN 
 TO BRESLAU. 
 
 Blucher had quitted Altenbiirg/and we all ex- 
 pected a general engagement. Late in the evening 
 of the first of May, I sat in lonely expectation in a 
 small cottage. Though mucli excited by the pros- 
 pect of a battle, my spirits were anything but elated, 
 and I must confess that some personal considerations 
 helped to keep them down. I had, it is true, been 
 removed from a painful position, yet my present 
 was unpleasantly dubious. Scharnhorst had not 
 found time to give me any orders, and for the first 
 time in my life I was without the power of inde- 
 pendent action, and yet found myself in a moment 
 of general preparation not only without any ap- 
 ])ointed duty to ]ierform, but doubtful, were I to 
 be employed, whether I should aid or impede the 
 cause. There was something cruelly humiliating 
 in my situation, and the more enthusiastically I 
 had anticipated the approaching contest, which had 
 been the longing desire of so many years, the more 
 wretched did I feel. I was pacing my little room 
 with restless steps, when the sound of a galloping 
 
 240 
 
"MT KINGDOM FOR A HORSE." 241 
 
 horse's feet stopped suddenly at my door. The 
 rider threw himself off, and gave me a letter from 
 Scharnhorst. " Here at last are my orders ; now 
 have I a place and part in the important day." I 
 tore it open, and read as follows : — 
 
 "Dear Steffens: — I am sorry to be obliged to hQ^ 
 you to send me back the horse which I lent you. I 
 lament that you will thus be prevented from appear- 
 ing on the field of battle. It is the animal which I 
 always ride on great occasions; and I fear that you 
 will be obliged to remain in the rear to await, as I 
 trust, the victorious issue of the day." 
 
 I gave up the horse, and now I was in despair. 
 If I were absent fi'om the field I felt that I should 
 be disgraced, and incapable of service for the rest 
 of the campaign. I had heard the name of the vil- 
 lage where the garde-chasseur battalion was posted. 
 I set off, and by walking a mile joined it at last, 
 though, having had some difficulty in finding a 
 guide, it was nearly morning before I reached it. 
 I called up the chief of the battalion, and begged 
 liim to put me in the way of obtaining a horse. I 
 was conducted to a countryman, wiio at first stoutly 
 resisted my demand, but at length produced one. It 
 was a yellow chestnut, old, half-starved cart-horse ; 
 his ribs might be counted, and his hips stood up like 
 the sharp sides of a rock. I climbed up to the mis- 
 erable saddle, evidently the peasant's own manufac- 
 tiu'c, and after much effort the poor animal got its 
 limbs set in motion. It was obstinate, and its mouth 
 16 
 
242 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 was as hard as iron. No Prussian horseman ever 
 cut so strange a figure. The knapsack which the 
 guide had carried was fastened behind, and it was 
 long before I got the chimsy beast into a trot. 
 Which way to look for the field of battle I knew 
 not ; but as the day began to dawn I thought I per- 
 ceived troops in the distance, though I Avas quite 
 ignorant whether they were friend or foe. I rode 
 forward, however, till I reached a large, open, grad- 
 ually sloping field. Here I found a large body of 
 Prussian infantry formed into line. How it took 
 place I cannot tell, but suddenly I found my horse 
 and myself in the very front, hindering the advance. 
 An officer of rank, who must have been greatly as- 
 tonished at the singular apparition, came up with 
 
 angry looks, exclaiming, " What the d are you 
 
 doing here ? " General von York had been pointed 
 out to me in Altenburg. I recognized him Avith 
 dismay, while I made a desperate but for some time 
 unavailing eSbrt to induce my charger to retire from 
 his position. I have but a confused impression of 
 how I got out of the scrape. I only remember the 
 sound of the general's scornful reproof. When I 
 subsequently became well acquainted with him, and 
 related the history of the disaster, he was highly 
 entertained. After many inquiries and much riding 
 backwards and forwards, I found Scharnhorst. He 
 told me to remain near him, and ordered one of his 
 adjutants to mount me on a baggage-horse. It was 
 nearly noon, and the engagement began ; but I had 
 no idea whatever of the position either of our force 
 or the enemy's. Cannonading was heard all round, 
 
BATTLE OF GROSS-GOKSCHEN. 243 
 
 and the enemy seemed to be behind Gross-Gorschen, 
 but I could not perceive them. 
 
 I rode together with Gneisenau and the ofHcers 
 surrounding Bliicher. The enemy stood before the 
 houses of tlie viilnge. A cliarge of cavahy was 
 made on our side, and I suddenly found myself in 
 the midst of a shower of balls. Prince Wilhelm's 
 horse was shot dead under him. The charge was 
 repulsed. Of how I got into the midst of it and how 
 I got out again I can give no account whatever; 
 only two things remained clear on my recollection. 
 One was the sensation caused by the enemy's grape- 
 shot. It seemed to me as if the balls came in thick 
 masses on every side — as if I was in a heavy shower 
 of rain without getting wet. Yet I cannot say that 
 I was exactly overcome w^ith fear ; the impression 
 was more strange and peculiar than alarming. The 
 second object which distinctly impressed me was 
 Prince William. He was then about thirty years 
 of age, liandsome in person, with the undaunted 
 air which belonged to his royal race ; and he was 
 mounted on a splendid charger, which he managed 
 perfectly. Ashe rode, smiling and composed, amidst 
 the shower of balls, he seemed to me like a fair vis- 
 ion which I shall never forget. Gneisenau seemed 
 quite joyfully in his element. Immediately after 
 the attack he gave me a message to General Witt- 
 genstein ; and now began my darker part of the day. 
 I rode forward, and looked about. That the battle 
 was still raging near Gross-Gorschen was proved by 
 the tremendous cannonade of the enemy. I had 
 no idea where to find Wittgenstein. Everything 
 
244 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 round me seemed confused, and as if I was covered 
 with a veil. I felt a tottering, a swimming, which 
 sprang from my inmost soul, and increased every 
 moment. I was plainly seized with a panic — the 
 cannon fever. I found Wittgenstein notwithstand- 
 ing, and delivered my message ; and as I returned I 
 met a detachment of my own volunteers, v>dio as 
 yet had taken no part in the engagement, but ex- 
 pected orders every instant to advance. I described 
 to them under all the excitement of the moment 
 exactly what I had seen and experienced. The 
 young men listened with thirsting curiosity. It is 
 well known how they distinguished themselves that 
 day by their daring valor. When I rejoined Gnci- 
 senau all, was in active engagement, every man 
 knowing his duty and working hard in his appointed 
 place. Nobody of course troubled themselves about 
 me, and the feeling of m^ inability overwhelmed 
 me, whilst I was obliged to stand there a mere 
 useless looker-on. I perceived Scharnhorst carried 
 wounded away. I had lost sight of Gneisenau. I 
 was surrounded by strangers, and I found myself 
 at last alone, with the enemy's balls howling around 
 me. 
 
 There are several sorts of courage, as well as rea- 
 sons for its failure. I was on the battle-field for the 
 first time, not only without any distinct duty, but 
 contrary to the orders of my commanding officer. 
 To the consciousness of this I attribute the uncon- 
 trollable panic which seized me ; yet I never enter- 
 tained an idea of retiring from the scene ; such a 
 possibility did not once occur to me, and I managed 
 
COOLXESS OF GNEISENAU. 245 
 
 to collect my senses so as to observe what passed 
 for the space of two hours. Sometimes the fight in 
 and about Gross-Gorschen came nearer to me, and I 
 saw the Prussian cavalry exposed to the fige from 
 the guns. I saw how their ranks thinned, and how, 
 as here one and there another was unhorsed, with 
 frightful wounds, the rest quietly closed up and 
 filled the spaces. At length I found myself late in 
 the evening again with Gneisenau, and close to the 
 village. He, who must have noticed ray agitation, 
 was himself perfectly calm and cheerful, notwith- 
 standing that the issue of the day was still uncertain. 
 "Steffens," said he, turning to me, "is not that a 
 grand cannonade ? it is to celebrate your birthday." 
 He had passed the last anniversary with me in my 
 house ; that he should remember and joke upon it 
 at such a moment struck me as wonderful. As it 
 became dark I joined Mnjor von Schutz at a bivouac 
 fire, and there heard of the advance of our cavalry, 
 which attempted a charge against the enemy. That 
 charge failed ; and although we maintained posses-, 
 sion of the field from which the enemy had with- 
 drawn, it was determined that we should retire 
 towards Pegau. I rode in the dark by the side of 
 Schutz to the edge of a rather steep declivity by 
 which our troops were marching in slow and perfect 
 order, while other detachments were reposing by 
 the bivouac fires, which lighted up the trees. The 
 impression of such a scene, Avhich afterwards be- 
 came familiar to me, was at first very striking. We 
 reached the little town in the middle of the night ; 
 it was crammed with troops, but we got a tolerable 
 
246 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 lodging, and through intelligent officers who had 
 been in the engagement I got some general insight 
 into the events of the day and their results. This 
 was n»ost welcome ; for hitherto all was mystery 
 and confusion to my understanding. The object 
 of the great contest, as it had engrossed me for so 
 long, again rose clearly to my perception, and I felt 
 convinced that I should not meet a second battle as 
 I had done the first. 
 
 In spite of our retreat we looked on the affair as 
 a success, for the troops had stood bravely against 
 Napoleon, and a most valiant si)irit pervaded the 
 whole army. Satisfied with our position, and recon- 
 ciled with myself, I slept. 
 
 On the third of May I joined BlUcher in Borna, 
 and found the troops in regular march, all in close 
 order, as if going to meet an enemy ; nothing be- 
 trayed the appearance of a retreat. Blticher had 
 received a slight wound, but was in high spirits. 
 Prince William was with him, and remembered that 
 he had seen me early in the fight, and I received 
 compliments vrhich were far from being due to me, 
 and which made me feel ashamed, though I trusted 
 and believed that, had I been in the performance of 
 some active duty, I should have found my courage 
 much more manageable than it had been in my idle 
 position. 
 
 For the first days the retreat was continued over 
 a sandy level. Blucher was in the midst of the 
 troops as they proceeded leisurely. The army was 
 in such perfect order that many considered the re- 
 treat an unnecessaiy disgrace, and as this opinion 
 
BLVCEER'S ADDRESS. 247 
 
 was rather boldly expressed, it came to Blucher's 
 ears, who thought it necessary to address the troops 
 about it. This was my first opportunity of admiring 
 his astonishing eloquence. The substance of the 
 speech is generally known, for it was published to 
 appease the whole army, as well as to tranquillize 
 the people. " You are right," I heard him say, " you 
 .'.re not beaten — you kept the field, and the enemy 
 withdrew ; their loss was greater than yours." And 
 he then explained to them all his motives for not 
 j)ushing on the battle, as well as those for retiring. 
 I heard him repeat the same to various divisions as 
 they came up ; and while I praise the faciUty and 
 noble simplicity of his expression, as well as the 
 l^ower of giving the same meaning in so many 
 various forms, as often as he had to repeat it, I 
 must confess there was something besides the words 
 which gave such effect to the address, and that much 
 was owing to the appearance and manner of the 
 aged but powerful-looking man. 
 
 Early in the morning of the 16th of October I 
 found myself at head-quarters near the village of 
 Lindenthal. The day was bright and mild ; it is re- 
 markable that every engagement in which I have 
 been present has taken place in the finest weather. 
 Behind us lay a wood, before us an extensive plain. 
 The enemy were posted towards Mockern, on which 
 point we were advancing. The battle began, and 
 we were already under a hot fire, when Gneisenau 
 dispatched me to seek out the crown prince of 
 Sweden, who held himself in the rear somewhere 
 near Halle, and entreat him to advance without de- 
 
248 THE STORY OF MY CAItEER. 
 
 Iny with liis Swedes. I liad much trouble in finding 
 liiin ; 110 one knew his exact position, and it was not 
 till night that I made him out at Landsberg, in mis- 
 erable quarters, surrounded by Swedish officers. Ho 
 lay on a mattress spread on the floor of a desolate, 
 nearly empty room ; the dark Gascon face, with the 
 prominent nose and the retiring chin, was sharply 
 relieved against the white bed-clothes and the laced 
 nightcap. Gneisenau had explained to me fully the 
 positions of both armies, and how the enemy, con- 
 sisting of the choicest troops and the Imperial 
 Guard, headed by Napoleon in person, were pressed 
 back by us on Mockern, where the chief contest 
 would take place. The crown prince listened atten- 
 tively whilst I explained all this in my own lan- 
 guage and his adjutant translated it to him. Ho 
 then sat up in bed and made a very long speech, 
 which concluded with a promise to march directly 
 with his troops, and he dismissed me. Only half of 
 Gneisenau's commission, however, was fulfilled. I 
 liad orders to mix among the Swedish soldiers, for 
 he reckoned on ray being able to make some im- 
 pression on them through my native language. An 
 opinion prevailed at head-quarters that. the crown 
 prince had no great liking to take part in a battle 
 which threatened a signal overthrow to his own 
 countrymen, and Gneisenau thought that I might 
 rouse the ardor of the troops. I was to remind 
 them of their great king Gustavus Adolphus, and 
 of his gloi-ious battle of Leipzig, and to urge that 
 on the same field the fote of Germany was now to 
 be decided, under our generals, as it had been then 
 
APPEAL TO THE SWEDES. 249 
 
 under their great Iiero. I held all possible converse 
 during the night with both men and oificers, when 
 I found that the order to march had preceded 
 me. Many werc^lready moving off, but some offi- 
 cers remained indolently looking on when all was 
 ready, waiting for farther orders. Talking with 
 these, I perceived that the war had no national in- 
 terest for the Swedes ; they could not see why they 
 should be pressed into a struggle in which they 
 were quite unconcerned, their country not being in 
 danger ; the sacrifice was too hard upon the poor 
 Swedes ; besides, the small force they could pro- 
 duce would be lost among the mass of nations now 
 armed against Napoleon. I tried to persuade them 
 that the renown of their leader would influence and 
 strengthen the whole allied army. I cannot praise 
 myself for this part of my argument ; I spoke it 
 against my own conviction ; my German feelings 
 gave the proud lie to this acknowledgment of supe- 
 riority in a Frenchman ; indeed, we always held that 
 the victory at Dennewitz was due alone to General 
 Billow. Nor had I much to boast of in the way of 
 impression made upon the Swedes ; the elements of 
 heroism were not in them, and my declamations on 
 the scene of the approaching battle, and the great 
 deeds there performed by their Gustavus Adolphus, 
 did not help the cause much, for it had of late be- 
 come rather the fashion in Sweden to disparage the 
 merits of that hero. 
 
 Towards noon, however, the Swedish troops were 
 all on the march, and as I learned that this was to 
 be a day of rest, I gave my exhausted horse some 
 
250 THE STORY OF MY CAIiEEIt. 
 
 refreshment. It was dusk when I perceived the 
 Prussian troops on a height near Moekcrn. I learnt 
 tlien the issue of the engagement^ which had been 
 the fiercest of the whole campaign. It was usual 
 with Gen. von York to be irresolute before he deter- 
 mined on an attack; once resolved, he ventured every- 
 thinir. The struscs^le before Mockern had been with 
 Napoleon himself and his finest troops ; ho had of- 
 fered battle ; the victory was long doubtful ; all the 
 first engaged fell ; new troops were continually 
 brought up, and the final triumph "was won by the 
 reserve corps. 
 
 I found a party of the small remnant of Von 
 York's division in a state of great depression. Eve- 
 ning prayers were being read ; glorious as had been 
 the victory, the dreadful loss filled every heart with 
 sadness. It was there that, face to face with Napo- 
 leon, the Prussians had thirsted to redeem the shame 
 of former times, and had rushed madly on the ene- 
 my. The account of the battle of Mockern as giv- 
 en from head-quarters was singularly short ; it was 
 contained in a few lines, and the heroism displayed, 
 and the important consequences which promised to 
 result from it, wei'e scarcely noticed. On the sec- 
 ond day, between that and the great battle of Leip- 
 zig, an attack of cavalry took place under General 
 Wassiltschikof, which was duly praised. It was 
 plainly intended to jDass slightly over the Prussian 
 exploits and to bring forward those of the allied 
 Russians as much as possible. I inquired the way 
 to Bliicher's head-quarters, and rode towards it in 
 the dusk over the field. Afler a few steps my horse 
 
FIELD EXPERJEyCES. 251 
 
 reared, I could not tell why ; my servant alighted 
 and found a cor]')se in the way. I had to cross the 
 field of battle, and could scarcely get on, the bodies 
 hiy so thick ; my horse, obliged to face it, left off 
 shying after a time, and I only perceived that I was 
 passing one of the slain by liis quietly turning out 
 of the way. I saw bivouac fires before me, but in 
 the oppression of the scene I had forgotten my di- 
 rection, and I doubted whether they belonged to 
 our own troops or the enemy's; still I rode tow- 
 ards the fires ; living men, whether friends or foes, 
 were welcome. I reached a wide road and recog- 
 nized the Russians. Naked men appeared by the 
 bivouac fires, who looked like giants against the bril- 
 liant light ; they were engaged in a curious process 
 of purification, — they had taken off their shirts to 
 pass them rapidly over the flames. I approached 
 one to inquire where I should find Bliicher; he did 
 not understand, but, cheered by the sound of 
 voices, I rode on. I had passed the Russian fires 
 and had been called to by a guard, whom I answered 
 without taking much notice, when I heard a voice 
 behind me, and understood the question, "Where 
 are you going ? " I turned round and learnt that in 
 a few more steps I should have heard the "qui 
 vive ?'' It was late at night; our horses were quite 
 tired out, myself the same ; so I thankfully accept- 
 ed the invitation of a Russian artillery ofiicer to 
 pass the night in his company. The party were 
 gathered round a gun. Hunger made a slight meal 
 very acceptable, and though we heard skirmishings 
 at the outposts we fell quietly to sleep. 
 
252 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 At early dawn we received a morning salutation 
 from the enemy in the form of some cannon-balls, 
 which flew in high arches over our heads. The ter- 
 rors of the evening, with the wild dreams of the 
 night, vanished before the coming day, and the re- 
 membrance of the great stake which that day was 
 to decide met me in all its power. Soldiers stretched 
 at length round the fires were lying all round me, 
 and as I proceeded I found them collecting more 
 and more into groups, preparing for the expected 
 battle. 
 
 Blucher's head-quarters were in the village of 
 Mockern ; all were yet sleeping when I got there. 
 It would convey a false idea of the scene in Blu- 
 cher's vicinity were it to be supposed that anything 
 like haste or confusion was to be perceived there. 
 Though so great a battle was certain to be fought, 
 thouGfh all felt that on its issue the fate of the whole 
 war depended, there was yet no trace of any such 
 important crisis near the great commander. Every 
 officer rose and dressed himself leisurely and care- 
 fully ; the few washing utensils at command were 
 taken to the wells, and when used by some were in- 
 stantly claimed by the servants of others to be re- 
 plenished. The windows were opened and laid back 
 on the walls, to serve for looking-glasses. Coffee 
 was brought in ; some drank from the cups and 
 some from the saucers. Any little difficulty or acci- 
 dent was seized on to give a cheerful turn to the re- 
 marks, but these were never extended to the great 
 event which was impending ; they spoke on indiffiar- 
 ent subjects, even of gay recollections, and a joke 
 
THE ''NATION'S BATTLE." ^53 
 
 was seized on and passed round with thankful ea- 
 gei-ness. To a superficial observer they might have 
 seemed like men who were preparing to pursue a 
 journey, and were amusing themselves with the lit- 
 tle miseries of an uncomfortable nio;ht's lod^jinc:. 
 
 On that day we did not move out very early. 
 Bliicher had joined himself to General Langeron's 
 division, and we found these preparing to pass the 
 Parthe. On the other side of that river the ground 
 rises ; there a wonderful spectacle presented itself. 
 
 Over the long, distant line of rising ground wo 
 beheld the French army in movement, and it soon 
 covered the whole ran2ce of hills. It was the multi- 
 tude bound to the man who had subdued the conti- 
 nent and ruled it so long by the terror of his name, 
 now led by him to battle. The columns continued 
 to emerge from the eastern horizon ; infantry, caval- 
 ry, and artillery glided along in order, and now and 
 then the arms glanced in the newly-risen sunbeams. 
 The whole army seemed like a mighty vision in a 
 dream ; fresh hosts continued to rise in the east ; 
 still they continued to vanish from our sight far to 
 the west, as the great unbroken mass moved on and 
 on. We stood long in breathless amazement ; then it 
 was that Muffling gave the name to the approaching 
 fight — he called it the great "Nations' battle" (Vdl- 
 kerschlacht) ; the name now belongs to history. "Wo 
 were posted on a plain many miles in extent; troops 
 were round us in every direction. General von 
 York was fighting before Leipzig with the remains 
 of his valiant corps. All around we heard the roar 
 of fierce engagement, but we saw nothing, and re- 
 
254' THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 tnainecl there stationary the greater part of the clay ; 
 while adjutants, who were constantly sent to the 
 different corps, brought us back, every few minutes, 
 reports of the progress of the light from every point. 
 More than 300,000 men were brought by the allies 
 into the field; 170,000 fought against us. Our 
 ground, as I have said, was a large, open plain. 
 Leipzig lay just before us in the distance. It was a 
 strange day to me, passed in such perfect rest in the 
 very centre of a great battle ; but the hours flew 
 rapidly, the constant arrival of news kept us in 
 such intense excitement. We heard that at Mock- 
 ern the enemy had attacked Bliicher's division, con- 
 sidering it justly as the centre point of the groat 
 moral strength of our whole army. Napoleon him- 
 self led on the attack ; he believed that any advan- 
 ta<re trained over the most renowned of his enemies 
 would help to subdue the spirits of the whole host. 
 He then brought a half-dispirited army to meet an 
 immensely superior force, yet his great mind had still 
 power to animate his troops ; he knew the greatness 
 of the stake. His soldiers fought as daringly as if 
 sure of victory. I must pay the homage of admira- 
 tion to a hero who made liis effort for existence with 
 such daring courage. 
 
 This battle also was fought under a brilliant sky. 
 One of the scenes of that eventful day was strik- 
 ing. We discerned a large body of cavalry advance 
 from the enemy's lines in perfect order. There 
 were no troops immediately near the poiyt they ad- 
 vanced upon, and we waited quietly for their com- 
 ing up ; no doubt Bliicher was advised of their in- 
 
BATTLE OF LEIPZIG. 255 
 
 tentions. They proved to be the Saxon cavalry, 
 who had left the enemy and come over to us. They 
 stood looking resolved, but, as I thought, humbled 
 before us. The commander came forward and ap- 
 proached Bliicher, who received him with dignity. 
 The Saxon officer stated that they had long waited 
 for the moment when they might free themselves 
 from the compulsion of bearing arms against their 
 countrymen ; it had come at length. Yet they 
 craved one indulfjence : thev wished not to fisfht in 
 that battle. Their unhappy king was in Leipzig, in 
 a house in the great market-place, which would soon 
 be in our power. Bliicher addressed them briefly, 
 but very kindly, granted their request, and appoint- 
 ed them a position behind the army. I felt for 
 them as they marched by ; I imagined all the dis- 
 tress of their position. But all the events of that 
 day, from the first, when the great host passed be- 
 fore my wondering sight, up to that last scene, 
 seemed like a splendid act in a Shakspearian drama, 
 suddenly grown into a living truth. 
 
 Till now I had taken no part in the active duties 
 of the day. Bliicher, having dispatched all the rest 
 of his staff, turned to me at last. "Mr. Professor," 
 he said, "go instantly to General Langeron, take 
 him orders to storm that village ; he must expect no 
 help by reinforcement, but the enemy must be dis- 
 lodged immediately." I hastened off; there was no 
 doubt of the direction I was to take. Langeron had 
 been long disputing Schonfeld ; he had been several 
 times in possession of it, and the enemy had retaken 
 it as often, and the flames of the burning village 
 
256 THE STORY OF MY CAllEER. 
 
 showed me the way. I found him amongst the out- 
 ermost houses; he was a stern-looking man with a 
 commanding person. The enemy was again master 
 of the greater part of the place. Surrounded by 
 fires, the Russians were still fighting obstinately ; it 
 was a strange, exciting scene, friend and foe in fierce 
 contest, lighted up by the raging flames. I deliv- 
 ered my orders. The general answered despond- 
 ingly, "My men have fought for many hours, their 
 numbers are thinned, they are tired and exhausted. 
 I cannot withstand the enemy without support." I 
 was compelled to tell him that he must expect no 
 aid, and that the orders to take the place were per- 
 emptory. He reflected for one moment, and then 
 gave the word of command for storming. Every 
 man who was not at that moment actually engaged 
 sprang forward from all sides instantly ; tlie storm- 
 ing party rushed onwards with a loud cry ; the en- 
 emy could not stand against it, and, the fortune 
 of the day turning everywhere against them, they 
 abandoned the village to the conquerors. I took 
 part with the general in this attack, and when the 
 villnge was in our power and the enemy in full re- 
 treat, I hastened back with the news to Blucher. 
 At last I had been engaged. I had been a real 
 sharer in the dangers of the day; but my duty had 
 been so circumscribed, the moment of attack was so 
 exciting, the struggle so short and decisive, that I 
 had not been conscious of the danger till it was past. 
 When I returned with the report to Blucher, he was 
 already fally aware of the result ; he had known it, 
 in fact, sooner than Laugeron himself, since from a 
 
DEATH OF A FRIEND. 257 
 
 distance he had been able earlier to distinguish the 
 retreating movement of the enemy. 
 
 I was again at our central position, at that point 
 of rest where we had remained throughout the day. 
 Accounts now came in thicker of the general and 
 glorious result of the contest. Evening was coming 
 on, and we left our post and advanced slowly to- 
 wards Leipzig. Suddenly a loud cry, as from thou- 
 sands of voices, resounded in the air ; news came 
 that our troops were pressing into the suburbs, and 
 that the enemy were still defending themselves des- 
 perately in the streets and gardens. We galloped 
 forward and were soon up with our fighting troops. 
 
 I received orders to join General Wassilschikof, 
 who was appointed, with his cavalry, to pursue the 
 flying enemy. I left the horrible distraction of the 
 general fight and slaughter in the suburbs, and rode, 
 as directed, to Skeuditz. I found that place full of 
 Russian troops which had taken part in the day's 
 conflict, and I was deafened, by certain German- 
 speaking Russian officers, with histories of particular 
 feats and combats. I was told there that a young 
 Dane had fallen fighting valiantly, and learned with 
 surprise and sorrow that his name was Oersted ; he 
 was the third and youngest brother of my celebra- 
 ted countryman. I could not doubt that it was 
 my friend, though I little expected to hear of him 
 among the Russian army. His death was sad news 
 to me. It was a strange transition in my feelings, 
 strained as they had been to the highest pitch by 
 national events of overwhelming interest, and thus 
 suddenly thrown back into the closer and dearer 
 
 17 
 
258 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 circle of private sympathy; thoughts sprang quickly 
 up of quiet days gone by, of rest, and hom#, and 
 friendship, all in painful contrast with the turmoil of 
 the scene around me. 
 
 "We received news of the flight of the enemy. 
 Wassilschikof moved on early next morning from 
 Skeuditz towards Markranstadt, and passed the 
 niorht between the nineteenth and twentieth in the 
 neighborhood of Liitzen. Between that place and 
 Weissenfels we came up with the last of the retiring 
 army, and were then for the first time aware of the 
 almost inconceivable results of the victory of Leip- 
 zig. I there witnessed what quite consoled me for 
 having been obliged to join the Russians, — the 
 extraordinary effectiveness of the Cossacks in har- 
 assing the rear of a flying army. The road to 
 Weissenfels lies over a wide plain. We saw the 
 last of the French troops before us ; though in hasty 
 flight, they kept tolerably good order. It was rather 
 a misty «norning, and there was nothing to be seen 
 between us and the retreating enemy; all at once 
 we perceived Cossacks in every direction, singly, 
 or by twos or threes. In an instant they were joined 
 into a troop, in *&nother they were down upon the 
 enemy. These consisted of the faint and weary, 
 who were not able to keep up with the rest. The 
 Cossacks rushed in between them and the main 
 body, and they were instantaneously surrounded 
 and cut off from it. The rear-guard paused a mo- 
 ment, turned, formed front without advancing, and 
 began a rather brisk fire ; but the distance was 
 too great for it to reach us. The Cossacks and 
 
RETREAT OF THE FRENCH. 259 
 
 their prisoners had disappeared, as if by magic; 
 only here and there we could distino^uish a sinMe 
 Cossack keeping watch upon the enemy. The re- 
 treating guard dared not linger for another fire ; 
 they turned their backs on us again and proceeded. 
 This scene was often repeated — the sudden appear- 
 ance of the Cossacks; the cuttino- off the linijerino- 
 troops ; the guard provoked to defend them, finding 
 by the time they had faced us no object to receive 
 their fire — was acted over and over again ; and in 
 the short distance between Liitzen and Weissenfels 
 General Wassilschikof took in this way two thou- 
 sand prisoners, without any real skirmish taking 
 place. 
 
 The fugitives hurried forward, and when we 
 reached the suburbs of Weissenfels we found the 
 town occupied by the BJiiench ; we saw them in the 
 act of passing the Saale by a bridge of boats. Blii- 
 cher and his staff appeared at this moment. I joined 
 him, and we mounted the heights behind the town, 
 which run parallel with the river. The en6my had 
 just time to withdraw their floating-bridge, and they 
 drew up on the other side of the river opposite 
 to us. 
 
 We gave them a heavy cannonade from our 
 heights. Tlie mist cleared off; the bridge of boats 
 wliicli was constructed on our side soon reached 
 across the stream, and the enemy, who then took to 
 flight in great disorder, could not hinder our troops 
 from landing. This was not the only affair during 
 the pursuit. They were constantly attacked, and 
 fled faster and faster; and, as we followed them 
 
260 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 from Weissenfels to Freiberg, we witnessed fearful 
 traces of the general consternation. I shall never 
 forget the sight. Weapons thrown away to lighten 
 their speed ; guns, ammunition-wagons, carriages 
 of all descriptions, even some handsome travelling 
 equipages, — plainly abandoned because the tired 
 horses could no longer draw them, — remained in 
 close confusion, not only on the road, but in the 
 fields, as far as the eye could reach in the direction 
 of the fliglit. The way was often quite impassable, 
 and we had to make considerable circuits to get on. 
 The enemy themselves had entirely disappeared, at 
 least I saw not one. 
 
 When we reached Freiberg we learnt that Napo- 
 leon had remained there some hours ; it was said 
 that he had been seen at a window, his head resting 
 on his arm in silent despa#. Berthier sat opposite 
 to him in a similar state. Neither spoke, and om- 
 cers who entered were silently ordered, by a wave 
 of the hand, to leave the room. The inhabitants 
 were full of anecdotes to prove the desponding state 
 of the flying foe. 
 
 Under the idea that Napoleon would try to main- 
 tain a position, if only for a short time, at Erfurt, 
 Bliicher abandoned the immediate pursuit in order 
 to cross over by Langensalza towards Eisenach, and 
 so intercept him. Tliis proved a mistake. Napo- 
 leon's loss at Leipzig had been so great that ho 
 could not feel safe till he reached the other side of 
 the Rhine. We made continual marches, tedious 
 from their uniformity. That part of the route be- 
 tween Eisenach and Fulda was remarkable as dis- 
 
PHASES OF MILITARY LIFE. 261 
 
 playing frightful traces of the defeat which the 
 enemy had suiFered. The rapidity of their flight 
 had completely exhausted the greater part of the 
 army. We saw at first single Frenchmen lying 
 among the bushes ; as we proceeded the number 
 of the exhausted, dying sufferers increased, and we 
 found large groups of dead and dying. It was pain- 
 ful to me to observe that they looked upon it as 
 a greater evil to be discovered by us, though we 
 offered them assistance, than to be left to j^erish 
 with hunsjer and exhaustion among^st the under- 
 wood. I confess I wished myself away from the 
 horrid scene ; it was more terrible to me than the 
 violence of the fiercest battle. 
 
 Many letters fell into our hands of French cor- 
 respondence, as well as some from Germans to the 
 French ; they sometimes furnished us with useful 
 intelligence, but oftener related to private histories. 
 Not a few tales of scandal came thus to light ; and 
 we read the tender sorrows of German ladies whose 
 French lovers were compelled to depart to meet 
 the dangers of the war. I felt ashamed at the way 
 these disgraceful liaisons were paraded for the gen- 
 eral amusement. Another booty fell into our hands 
 which entertained us — a great number of West- 
 phalian orders, which had been sent to decorate 
 the brave victors in expected fields of glory. The 
 conquerors had vanished, and the symbols of their 
 triumphs fell to our share ; as for the kingdom of 
 Yv^estphalia, we regarded it as a ghost which was 
 already laid. 
 
 When the Emperor Napoleon abdicated and was 
 
262 THE STORY OF MT CAREER. 
 
 sent to Elba, I petitioned the king to grant me my 
 release from military service ; and as soon as the 
 first credible reports of Napoleon's dethronement 
 became general, I sent for a tailor to make my outer 
 man myself again. I can hardly describe my sense 
 of freedom when I jout off my uniform ; the long- 
 worn dress was hateful to me, however I may have 
 been honored in the right to wear it. All my linen 
 was sent to a swimming-bath in the Seine, and I felt 
 as if I were born again. 
 
 My petition received the following answer : — 
 
 " Since it appears to me that you will now more 
 effectually serve the state by returning to your sci- 
 entific appointment than by continuing longer in 
 your present position in the army, I grant your 
 petition to be released from military service, and 
 together with this discharge I join my assurance 
 that I acknowledge with thanks the patriotic self- 
 sacrifice with which you laudably preceded your 
 fellow-citizens in the hour of danger. 
 
 "Frederick Wilhelm. 
 
 «H. Q., Paris, May 5th, 1814." 
 
 Bliicher with some of his officers was preparing 
 to go to London, and he proposed to me to accom- 
 pany him. I was truly grieved to be obliged to de- 
 cline this most kind offer. My circumstances would 
 not permit the great expense which I must have 
 incurred to have appeared in the midst of mil- 
 itary splendor in that luxurious city. I therefore 
 parted from Bliicher, Gneisenau, and all the kind 
 
JiETDRN TO ACADEMIC LIFE. 263 
 
 friends who surrounded them. As I took leave of 
 them, the events which I had seen in the company 
 of those great men swept before my thoughts in 
 all their historical importance, and I was deeply 
 affected. 
 
 At my request the minister of state had supplied 
 me with a courier passport and sum of money to 
 defray my journey. I might have returned with the 
 army, but my earnest longing to rejoin my family, 
 and resume my quiet academic duties, increased 
 daily, and prompted me to determine on an imme- 
 diate departure. I must not omit to record my last 
 dilemma. My passport had been made out to "The 
 Second Lieutenant and Professor Dr. Steffens." I 
 protested against the arrangement of these titles. I 
 represented that I must stand by my real profession, 
 and not that which I had only provisionally followed. 
 I asked my kind friend who made out the passport 
 whether, supposing the title of second lieutenant to 
 be superior, I could in future designate myself Mr. 
 Second Lieutenant without disparaging my aca- 
 demic office. After much discussion on the point, I 
 made a proposal which would avoid the question of 
 the precedence of my two characters, that instead 
 of Mr. Second Lieutenant and Professor, etc. etc., I 
 should be styled Second Lieutenant Mr. Professor, 
 etc. etc. This was adopted, and the difficulty hap- 
 pily obviated. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 LABORS IN BRESLAU — AVERSION OF NATURALISTS TO METAPHYS- 
 ICS — NEANDER — PLATONIC ATTACHMENTS — J ACOBI — FRANTZ 
 BAADER— STEFFENS'8 PROFESSORIAL LIFE AT BRESLAU — RAHEL, 
 WIFE OF VARNHAGEN VON ENSE — BETTINA VON ARMIN — DE LA 
 MOTTE FOUQUlfc — STEFFENS'S RELIGIOUS FAITH — THEOLOGICAL 
 INQUIRIES— TRANSFER TO BERLIN — CONCLUSION. 
 
 The work which absorbed my chief powers at 
 Breslau, after my return to my professorial duties, 
 was the development of a complete philosophy of 
 nature. Such a science had swam before my mind 
 from my earliest youth, although it had at first been 
 in an undefined form. The defined and scientific form 
 had been given to these vague dreamings by Schel- 
 ling. It were an idle question whether my ideas 
 would have taken shape had it not been for Schel- 
 ling. I hate such questions; they are absurd. How 
 ridiculously would a physiologist appear if he were 
 to base elaborate investigations on the question 
 what the human organization would have been had 
 the heart been placed on the right instead of on the 
 left side. The first steps in my inquiries were my 
 own ; I could not stop in them, and had to follow, 
 lead me where they would. I felt myself, while in 
 Breslau, banished in truth from the scientitic world ; 
 but I was faithful in all my labors, and successful in 
 stimulating young minds. I had gone far enough 
 
 261 
 
LABORS IN BRESLAU. 265 
 
 to see tdat the philosophy of nature is an indepen- 
 dent science, that it must form itself connectedly 
 with and yet separated from every other department 
 of knowledge. My task was not to plunge into all the 
 details of empirical inquiry, much less to feel bound 
 to follow all the departments of experimental sci- 
 ence to their latest discovered results. It has been 
 charged upon me that I considered myself compe- 
 tent to master all these things ; but such a charge is 
 untrue. Yet it is true that I was a patient inquirer 
 into every department of physical science, and that 
 ray interest in what is experimental was so great 
 that when the University of Berlin was established 
 I did hope to be transferred thither. I was forty 
 years old, — just in my prime. I had to wait till I was 
 an old man before I was transferred to the metrop- 
 olis. Let it not be inferred that while the philoso- 
 phy of nature had my whole heart, I did not know 
 what relations I held to exiDcrimental science. 
 
 Naturalists as a class will have nothing to do 
 with metaphysics ; they deny in toto that there is 
 any tendency in empirical science towards specula- 
 tive science, and if they once had youthful dreams 
 which were tinged with philosophical abstractions, 
 they forswear them utterly when they come to en- 
 ter upon their engrossing labors ; their views grad- 
 ually become definite, single, fixed, and the prospect 
 of making new discoveries is so attractive as to 
 wholly absorb them. 
 
 But the abstract philosopher will have just as lit- 
 tle to do with empirical science ; you may often 
 hear him speak depreciatingly of it. The natu- 
 
266 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 ralists may indeed be in search of laws through 
 the pathway of experiment, but a response from the 
 world of law does not come in obedience to their 
 manipulations. Schelling had indeed laid a perma- 
 nent foundation to the new science of the philoso- 
 phy of nature, but he was now silent on this sub- 
 ject, and was pursuing other departments of thought 
 which were more attractive, and in which his great 
 mind could find freer play. Many of the younger 
 scholars were distinguished zoologists, botanists, 
 mineralogists and geologists, and if speculative phi- 
 losophy interested the youth, yet it was in the guise 
 of a completely abstract, formal network, in which 
 man would ensnare nature, not as a living and ani- 
 mating spirit which leaps forth and struggles even to 
 comprehend itself. I cannot say that I ever pledged 
 ray allegiance to Schelling, for he was my master, 
 and ruled me whether I would or not. One cannot 
 speak of pledging loyalty where treason is impossi- 
 ble. 
 
 I knew my own true position well ; it never fell 
 to my lot to be led by any cabal ; I did not believe 
 in such things, and looked at them to overlook 
 them, just as the mathematician does with infinitely 
 small quantities. Not that I took this good-natured 
 view from any want of experience ; on the other 
 hand, it has been formed in defiance of experience. 
 And so, relying on myself alone, rather than upon 
 the help of powerful friends, I was surprised at the 
 manifest tokens of public favor displayed towards 
 me. Often in my old age I have wondered at find- 
 ing myself a professor in a German university. The 
 
NEANDER. 267 
 
 complexity of organization which is found in these 
 institutions is so great as to be completely unintelli- 
 gible to a mere observer, and tends to make one 
 feel that he has passed out of consciousness into a 
 dream. 
 
 Let it not be thought that through this clear 
 knowledge of my own jDosition I was troubled on 
 account of the nature of my employments. I 
 sought in every way to guard myself against self- 
 deception, and to accustom myself to my isolated 
 l^osition in Breslau, for that position had its good 
 side. I had indeed passed the period of my rij^est 
 maturity, but the glow of youth and the inclination 
 to test by experience every subject of my thought 
 would not leave me. If one looks over the whole 
 course of my life he will see that I was less able 
 than many are to withdraw myself from the circle 
 in which I had lived. The present and future con- 
 dition of Germany interested me just as much as 
 my own observations of nature. 
 
 While I was professor at Breslau, a chronic com- 
 plaint in the stomach led me to try the waters of 
 Carlsbad. I spent six weeks at those mineral spings 
 — six weeks which passed, away very quickly and 
 pleasantly. Among the invalids whom I met there, 
 the most eminent was Professor Neander, whom I 
 first knew as one of my audience at Halle. Even 
 when a student there he lived the life of a recluse. 
 He was remarkably reticent, and did not have many 
 acquaintances. I only saw him in the lecture-room, 
 but I knew well that his Tvas one of the best minds 
 among my hearers. The students generally formed 
 
268 THE STORY OF MY CARE Eli. 
 
 very coiTect judgments of one another, and they 
 regarded this reserved, silent, awkward young man 
 with a kind of timid awe ; they knew what he was, 
 and what the world had to expecf of him. I was 
 rejoiced to meet him at Carlsbad. During the time 
 spent at the springs I talked almost exclusively 
 with him, and I shall not forget how rich his con- 
 versation was. He spoke mostly on religious sub- 
 jects, but in a most instructive manner. His disease 
 was not without danger, and he only kept himself 
 in working condition by a most self-denying, simple 
 and rigid life. He was accompanied by a devoted 
 sister. The gentleness and the entire affection of 
 this sister was very touching, and showed itself in 
 the extreme accuracy with which she took care that 
 he should follow the physician's charge regarding 
 the times of drinking the water from the springs. 
 The hours which I spent with Neander at Carlsbad 
 I shall not forget, for I gladly became a pupil of 
 him who had once been mine. Yet I missed there 
 two frequenters of the place, — Goethe was away, 
 Werner was dead. 
 
 On my way from Carlsbad to Breslau, I tarried 
 some time at Munich, which was then as great a 
 centre of intellect as it now is of art. I saw Schel- 
 ling again there, for the first time after fourteen 
 years, and by him I was made acquainted with Sai- 
 ler, the mystic, and with many other men of emi- 
 nence. He brought me also in contact with Jacobi, 
 whom I had long wished to know. In the later 
 years of the last century there had been forming un- 
 der the influence of Lavater, Claudius, and Hamann, 
 
PLATONIC ATTACHMENTS. 269 
 
 a deeper spirit of religious inquiry, combining the 
 mystical with the theological. As a consequence of 
 their efforts there had arisen a circle who gave to 
 their letters anct conversations a certain pi atonic 
 cast of expression. There were ladies of high rank 
 who took a deep interest in this : such were Sophia 
 de Laroche, Goethe's sister, the princess Gallitzin, 
 and Jacobi's sister, Lena. Jacobi himself was the 
 real, living centre of it all. He loved to assemble 
 gifted women around him and stimulate their pow- 
 ers ; and in his romance of Waldemar he tried, in 
 most perfect innocence of intention, to make this 
 new bigamy attractive. A pure platonic marriage 
 was, according to him, a sign of high spiritual de- 
 velopment ; and such was his personal influence, 
 that although his theory of this double marriage, 
 that of the spirit for pure spiritual growth," having 
 no relation to sex, and that of the body for the 
 mere purpose of propagating the race, was never 
 able quite to convince the ladies of its truth, 
 yet he was able to gather around him a platonio 
 academy, not unlike that once assembled at Flor- 
 ence. That in this circle Goethe was rather won- 
 dered at than honored, may be supposed ; that vio- 
 lent controversies sprang up within it, was to be 
 expected. Frederick Stolberg's conversion to Ca- 
 tholicism made a great stir within it, although the 
 reason of his action was very apparent; and Jacobi's 
 style of writing, I may remark, is only intelligible to 
 one who knows that it takes its form from the style 
 of his conversation with those who formed his pla- 
 tonic circle. 
 
270 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 Jacobi was the chief figure in this circle, and he 
 was learned enough to pass for a genuine pliiloso- 
 pher. He attacked the French with amiable gen- 
 tleness for their want of the religious faculty, and 
 this with perfect comprehension of their deficiency, 
 for he had been brought up among them. Hume 
 and Locke were favorites with him, and for the rea- 
 son that, while they did not satisfy him, they gave 
 him free play for all his speculations. Kant was not 
 a favorite with him. Knnt's earnestness, his rigid 
 dialectics, and his clearness, w^ere as unacceptable to 
 Jacobi as the strict method of Spinoza. He indeed 
 thought himself competent to be an opponent of 
 Kant ; and it is not to be denied that Jacobi had a 
 talent at suspecting where truth lay, and of specu- 
 lating upon it, which was his justification in oppos- 
 ing Kant ; and yet what the latter only made more 
 narrow and limited, and kept in a smaller field 
 than before, the former, by his want of clearness of 
 perception, only made more obscure. 
 
 Jacobi was poet enough to give the charm of style 
 to his speculations, and the back-ground of philo- 
 sophic thought was not an unhappy means of dis- 
 playing the finish of his rhetoric. The Letters of 
 Allwill, as well as Waldemar, cannot be compared 
 with any other productions of his time; the mark of »a 
 womanly nature which they bore formed, artisti- 
 cally speaking, the characteristic of his conceptions, 
 and formed an interesting precursor of that genuine 
 womanly power which gave him at a later day bis 
 sweetness, richness, and variety. 
 
 I found Schelling perfectly justified for his sever- 
 
JACOBI. 271 
 
 ity towards Jacobi. He had written of the latter 
 with great power and keenness, but he could not do 
 less. I told Schelling of my relations to Jacobi. 
 "You must visit him," he answered; "it would be 
 wrong to let pass an opportunity to meet a man 
 who has played a grand part on the role of our na- 
 tional literature." So I visited him, and found him 
 with his sister, who lived for him, giving herself 
 wholly to the duty of caring for him. Rigidly as I 
 judged the philosopher and the author, little as I 
 felt drawn to him at any epoch of my life, or could 
 resolve to go with him on his way, yet there was in 
 him an element so genuinely human that I could 
 not overlook it, nor could I forget that it was he 
 who first interested me in speculative philosophy by 
 making me acquainted with Spinoza. I once be- 
 lieved that he who called my attention to Jordauus 
 Brunus, and who himself seemed to penetrate to 
 what was deepest in Leibnitz, had been appointed 
 to exercise a deep influence upon his times. The 
 times had not been all that I expected, or rather 
 they had demanded a mightier man than he to 
 meet their exigencies ; and yet I could not see his 
 sun sadly setting in his old age without a certain 
 tinge of sadness. 
 
 Jacobi was slim and graceful ; in his youth he 
 must have been handsome. He appeared to me 
 more as a finished gentleman than as a scholar; his 
 bearing was high bred, even with a touch of diplo- 
 matic manners ; his features were very expressive, 
 and there was grace in his every motion. His dress 
 was very rich and carefully made up ; it even 
 
272 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 seemed as though he bestowed too much attention 
 to tliis matter, considering his age and his profes- 
 sion. When I entered his room he received me 
 with great cordiahty, and I approached him with 
 an emotion which I could not repress. He called 
 forth, I confess, my pity and my respect ; I could 
 see that there was a man who had known by expe- 
 rience what it is to bear sickness and sorrow. 
 
 Jacobi liad some paper of mine lying before him. 
 It is well known that his habit was of noting down 
 his comments of whatever he read, whether in ap- 
 proval or criticism, and by the abundance of these 
 marginal notes on my production it was plain with 
 what care he had read it. I knew well that he 
 would not be displeased with it, for he was alluded 
 to in the paper in a very kind way. It could not 
 but be grateful to him to be handsomely spoken of 
 by Schelling's warmest friend and closest adherent. 
 But what pleased me in the interview was not so 
 much his spirit as that of his sister, and the affec- 
 tionate manner in which she clung to him. For a 
 long series of years Lena had lived one life with 
 him, had taken part in all his studies, had shared in 
 all his disputations, had changed the still self-com- 
 munion of that retired man into a long conversa- 
 tion, and had even ennobled and exalted her broth- 
 er by her presence. The spectacle of this rare at- 
 tachment was very beautiful. He was trustful and 
 mild ; she devoted, calm, and happy. 
 
 It was my good fortune to make another interest- 
 ing acquaintance in Munich. This was Frantz Ban- 
 der. He stood so aloof from society, so signally iso- 
 
FRANTZ BAADER. 273 
 
 later], that people looked at him with different eyes 
 from those with which they regarded other people. 
 In South Germany there had existed a mystic 
 school for some time. It had, since the advent of 
 Mesmer, espoused magnetism as its pet theory, and 
 its members extended even into Switzerland. They 
 stood, if I mistake not, in intimate relations with 
 the mystics of South France, Saint Martin, and oth- 
 ers, and Frantz Baader had in his youth been closely 
 connected with eminent men of this school. Among 
 all those mystics he w^as the most genial, as well as 
 the most thoroughgoing. He was always publishing 
 little pamphlets, some of them of great interest; the 
 title of one I remember; it was The Lightning Fa- 
 ther of the Liofht. This title itself migjht have served 
 as the motto of all his writings. I had had some 
 correspondence with him before I came to Munich, 
 and had tlfe strongest curiosity to meet him. I had 
 been thought to resemble him in appearance, and 
 this only sharpened my desire to see him. 
 
 So I called upon Frantz Baader. He was just on 
 the point of going out. His figure surprised me, 
 for it was not what I had expected. He was quite 
 slim, very active, and his countenance was that of 
 a man who had apparently seen much of the world. 
 This appearance passed away when I came to know 
 him more fully. He received me with great cordial- 
 ity, and invited me to accompany him on a walk. 
 We soon found topics of conversation. Expressions 
 indicating deep thought were interspersed with 
 dashing witticisms. He talked incessantly; and 
 when a subject of special interest engaged him, he 
 
 18 
 
274 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 would stop in the midst of the mud in the street 
 and deliver, in a high, excited tone, a kind of off- 
 liand lecture. The passers-by seemed to know him, 
 and paid little attention to him. He joked inces- 
 santly, and yet every now and then he would drop 
 a wise remark, so that at last I felt fairly bewitched 
 with his talk. I remember one remark which he 
 made in the midst of this incessant play of fire- 
 works. We were talking of Goethe. "Yes," he 
 said, " this poet is in truth the Lucky Hen of our 
 times, but she has hatched a brood of ducks, which 
 swims securely, while the old hen stands fearfully 
 cackling by the water-side." Afterwards he used 
 to have his witticisms printed in the papers. When 
 I was in Munich in 1837, before I had called upon 
 him, he waited upon me at the hotel. As soon as 
 he had entered my room, before he had hardly 
 greeted my wife and daughter, he plunged his 
 hand into his pocket and pulled out a mass of paper 
 fragments on which his witticisms were printed. I 
 remember only one of them. The cholera had 
 thrown Rome into dismay, and the Pope had with- 
 drawn to St. Angelo. " What will become of the 
 Catholic Church," so ran the witticism, "now that 
 the Pope has excommunicated himself?" Baader's 
 own relation to the church was a very changing one 
 in his later years. 
 
 When I left Munich in 1817 he was thinking of 
 nothing else than the formation of a great ecclesias- 
 tical union. He had outlived then, if I remember 
 rightly, the time when mesmerism was his hobby ; 
 now he was busied with the thought of uniting the 
 
FRANTZ BAADER. 275 
 
 * 
 
 three great churches, the Catholic, Greek, and Pro- 
 testant. The Catholic and Protestant Churches 
 form, lie held, a complete antagonism, which was al- 
 ways becoming more confirmed. The mystic trian- 
 gle would only be formed by the admission of the 
 Greek Church. He thought that he could interest 
 the Russian emperor, Alexander, in his plan. In 
 conjunction with a friend, he resolved to make a 
 journey to Russia to accomplish this undertaking. 
 How little he comj^rehended the scope of his pro- 
 posed work, he very poorly understood, but he 
 learned it at length. He had come to a powerful 
 country, which was entirely new to him, and ex- 
 pected to be able to influence its monarch. Fortu- 
 nately he was persuaded to relinquish his plan and 
 to tui-n back at Riga. He afterwards became a very 
 determined antagonist of the Catholics, and showed 
 in his own experience the truth of his assertion, 
 that in case there were no union between the three 
 great churches of Christendom, the one of south- 
 western Europe would divide against itself. It is 
 singular that the plan of a union, which, if it were 
 a true one, would unite the most conflicting ele- 
 ments of society, should emanate from a man whose 
 disunited nature made him remarkable among the 
 men of his time. He was, taken as a whole, one of 
 the mai'ked men of the age, though he was compre- 
 hended but by a few. He felt that Jacob B<5lnne, 
 the mystic, was the grandest soul which Germany 
 had produced, and that it was his own mission to 
 reveal his greatness to the world, and although few 
 knew Bohme's writings so intimately as he, yet he 
 
276 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 died at last, at a ripe old age, without having writ- 
 ten any adequate exposition of him whom he was 
 glad to hail as his master. 
 
 My life at Breslau was unmarked by great events. 
 In 1821 I was elected rector of the university, and 
 endeavored to discharge faithfully the duties of that 
 post. My time was devoted to the preparation of 
 my lectures, to social gatherings, to the writing of 
 my book on Geology, and the various novels with 
 which I amused myself in my leisure hours, and 
 enlarged the circle of my activities. Tlie latter 
 received much applause, and brought me into inti- 
 mate relations with many eminent personages. Yet 
 my life at Breslau, protracted as it was until 1832, 
 became dull and formal, and during the last seven 
 years of it I felt a strong conviction that my meri- 
 dian day had passed, and that I had entered upon the 
 period of decline. That I, an old man, should write 
 novels, brought upon me a great deal of ridicule ; 
 but they amused me, and I let the world laugh on. 
 I was moderately successful as a lecturer. I had 
 not a large number of students, but among them 
 there were some of promise, .while among the pro- 
 fessors there were a few men of mark and power. 
 After Raumcr had been transferred to Berlin, the 
 department of mineralogy passed over to me, and 
 the charge of the cabinet became a part of my 
 dutie^. So my time was fully occupied. During 
 the vacations I made little tours with my wife and 
 family to the most attractive parts of Germany, 
 and always came back refi-eshed to my labors. I 
 received while at Breslau distinguished honors from 
 
RAHEL VON VAUXHAGEX. 277 
 
 the king of Denmark, who invited me to Berlin to 
 attend him in his visits to the objects of interest 
 in that city while he was the guest of the king of 
 Prussia ; and the young prince, afterwards Freder- 
 ick William the Fourth, showed me much honor on 
 the occasion of his tour through the mountains of 
 Silesia, at Avhich time I was designated as the direc- 
 tor of the royal party in its excursion. 
 
 The great advantage which I gained from my 
 novel-writing was that it threw me into the most 
 intimate relations with some of the most gifted 
 women of my time. I am not easily able to ex- 
 press what I owe to the stimulating powers of some 
 noble minds of this sex ; but it is true that the time 
 of my making their acquaintance was an epoch in 
 my life. I may allude very especially to two, Rahel 
 von Varnhasfen and Bettina von Arnim. With the 
 former I had been for some time acquainted. The 
 most marked of my former hearers, who left Halle 
 in 1806 and went to Berlin, collected themselves 
 around Rahel, and she became the wife of one of 
 them. As an authoress she was always sententious, 
 and she carried this manner into all her conversa- 
 tion. She was invariably occupied Avith the .weight- 
 iest subjects, and, although an authoress, yet still 
 more a "woman. She was never the disciple of 
 any man, although she was a hearer of Fichte's 
 lectures. Great ideas were always thronging in 
 upon her mind ; these were sometimes unexpressed, 
 and sometimes they found utterance in her w-ritings 
 and in her conversation. That which she could find 
 no expression for, she used to personify in two men 
 
278 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 of her time, and all that was akin to life she as- 
 cribed to Goethe, all that was akin to wisdom she 
 ascribed to Fichte. Nor did her adoration of those 
 men spring from an objective ai)preciation of tlie 
 part which they played in the nge, it Avas i-ather 
 the giving of her whole being to them ; she saw 
 herself reflected in them as a true wife sees herself 
 reflected in her husband. She did not come to it 
 by comparing Goethe with other poets, nor Fichte 
 with other philosoi)hers ; her view w^as an entirely 
 independent one; and just as a true wife stands 
 more securely in her own strength when she gives 
 herself exclusively to her husband, so Rahel was 
 the more independent in her own judgment because 
 she measured her thoughts by those two. gigantic 
 standards. 
 
 With Bettina von Arnim my relations were of 
 an entirely different sort. Clemens Brentano, her 
 brother, was one of my first acquaintances in Ger- 
 many. Achan von Arnim, her husband, I had met 
 years before in Halle. There were epochs in my 
 life when my intimacy wuth her was not without 
 value to my mental development. Her rich, pe- 
 culiar, yare, but unbridled fancy charmed me. I 
 yielded myself wholly to it; we wandered together 
 into the most distant regions, and I returned from 
 such excursions as unwillingly as one would awake 
 from a pleasant dream. Thoughts swift as light- 
 ning ran through my mind while under the spell of 
 this delightful enchantment, and a thousand vi.sions 
 were formed which did not wholly pass away when 
 I returned to my colder moods. After she became 
 
STEFFENS'S RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 279 
 
 an authoress I saw less of her, and, indeed, our views 
 of life drew us widely apart. And yet, though ray 
 intimacy with her looks now like a dream, yet it 
 afforded me some of the richest hours of my life. 
 
 Among the gifted writers with whom I became 
 acquainted, I ought not to pass over the wife of de 
 la Motte Fouque. Her husband I had first met after 
 the war. He had the ability to ingratiate himself at 
 once into confidence; and when I first met him at a 
 party, during a conve^'sation on all kinds of subjects, 
 he drew me to a window. One of my expressions 
 had pleased him, and I was not a little surprised to 
 hear him say, " Steffens, that is spoken as it were 
 out of my own soul ; we must know each other bet- 
 ter." He embraced me, and continued to address 
 me with the confidential Thou. Thus, while myself 
 an old man, I had gained a new friend in a manner 
 truly romantic. I have never been able to think 
 without sadness of the declining days of this poet, 
 who gained a not insignificant reputation. His first 
 wife gave me her confidence in all matters of litera- 
 ture. Yet I confess that she passed away before I 
 had fully grasped the range of her capabilities. 
 
 During my last years in Halle, and while I lived 
 in Breslau, my interest in religion made great ad- 
 vances. I had till then felt no inclination to join 
 the church, and, indeed, I was wholly estranged from 
 its interests. Looking at religion as I looked at na- 
 ture, I saw that it must be everything or nothing to 
 me ; but it seemed to me to have come to no posi- 
 tive statement, and seemed little else than a product 
 of esteem among those who are friends. Whoever 
 
280 THE STORY OF MY CARKER. 
 
 had the good fortune to live in intimate rehuions 
 with Schleiermacher, whoever has known the tlior- 
 oughly noble, pure, tranquil, and tranquillizing spirit 
 which he always carried, will understand how one 
 who should associate with him would find it difii- 
 cult to discriminate between his religion and his 
 manliness. Later in life I learned that a reviving 
 of church-spirit was one of the signs of the times. 
 It cannot be denied that when one looks at the re- 
 ligious character of the German nation during the 
 past two centuries, this period of transition seems 
 of special advantage. Bunsen was the pioneer in 
 developing the history of sacred music through 
 the successive steps of the Protestant church. lu 
 liis researches it may easily be seen how our hymns 
 have gradually lost an indefinite tone and have a^- 
 sumed a personal character, as if speaking out the 
 praises and aspirations of the individual heart. This 
 indicates a change of feeling which, beginning with 
 learned men, reached out at last and affected the 
 whole popular heart. 
 
 I need not enter into all the thoughts which en- 
 gaged my attention as I turned seriously to this 
 great topic of religion. The question which most 
 nearly concerned me was, Must I, in order to be- 
 come a Christian in the full sense of the word, neces- 
 sarily become a theologian ? Must I give up the 
 studies to which I seemed to be specially adapted, 
 and enter in my old age upon a course of inquiries 
 tor which I had no natural inclination ? Few men, 
 I think, have contended as earnestly within them- 
 selves as I did while settlincr this battle. A 
 
STEFFENS'S RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 281 
 
 Protestant was I with my whole soul, yet I 
 must confess that Protestantism as it existed then 
 seemed to have called forth a conflict which it had 
 not settled. And so I was given over to all kinds 
 of doubts. Still, I was convinced that religion was 
 not mere speculation, it was not philosophy; this 
 was ideal and subjective; but religion must be objec- 
 tive truth, having the same I'elation to the soul and 
 its wants that nature had to scientific investigations. 
 Like nature, it was a gift of God, and it must be 
 known and become real to the consciousness. 
 
 It is impossible for me to express the value that 
 Schleiermacher was to me in those days ; my rela- 
 tion to him was the most charming feature of my 
 early life. His personal weight of character 'was so 
 great that he had an influence on the superficiality 
 of Berlin greater than any other, and his funeral 
 obsequies were celebrated by the most remarkable 
 display of afiection and reverence that Berlin has 
 ever witnessed. And while we were tosrether he 
 strengthened me beyond measure, and formed the 
 centre of all friendly gatherings. The three Calvin- 
 istic preachers of Halle vrere intimate with Schleier- 
 macher, and so, while I did not fully understand all 
 their statements of doctrine, I was united to them 
 and him in truly Christian sympathy. 
 
 My thoughts were directed to the subject of the- 
 ology and the church during the later years of my 
 career at Breslau, and had a decisive interest over 
 the future of my life. By degrees I became attached to 
 the old Lutheran faith and symbols, and an avowed 
 bupporter of the Lutheran party. I united witii 
 
282 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 their church, and continued in full fellowship with 
 it, and the pamphlets which I put forth in defence 
 of it contribute no slight portion of my published 
 writings. But I met with great opposition, and 
 from none more than from my coadjutors at Bres- 
 lau. There is little need that I should dwell on the 
 bitterness which grew out of this. Enough to say 
 that all ray later years there were saddened by theo- 
 logical asperities, and that at last I longed to be re- 
 moved to some other field of labor, where, in quiet 
 and with an income equal to my moderate wants, I 
 might pass a tranquil old age. I had then nearly 
 reached my sixtieth year. I had passed over twenty 
 years at Breslau, and had many ties which bound 
 me there, but not so many as to offset the bitterness 
 wl^ich sprung from the theological jjosition which I 
 had taken. It was preeminently the time for exag- 
 gerated church feeling. The king, Frederick Wil- 
 liam Third, was devoting much attention to his plan 
 of union ; in fact the formation of a new church on 
 the basis of the united Lutheran and Calvinistic 
 churches was the absorbing subject of his thoughts, 
 and the crown prince Avas scarcely less interested 
 than he. The country was awake with an ecclesias- 
 tical spirit which had hardly been known since the 
 days of the Reformation. 
 
 Under these circumstances, while I had in my 
 earnest advocacy of the Lutheran cause estranged 
 many able and influential men from my interests, 
 the personal favor of the crown prince placed me 
 at once in complete possession of what I desired, 
 and procured me a call to the University of Berlin. 
 
TRANSFER TO BERLIN. 283 
 
 This was in 1832. There was no place which I so 
 much desired as a homo as BerUn. Konigsberg 
 seeraed to be out of the world ; and Bonn, althouirh 
 desirable on many accounts, was not to be compared 
 with the great Prussian capital. And yet my man- 
 ner of thinking was radically unlike that of Berlin ; 
 the empirical school had there complete sway, and 
 Hegel's exact method had no rival. The reception, 
 therefore, given to a disciple of Schelling could not 
 be cordial, and much as I felicitated myself on my 
 transfer, yet I did not expect immediate success? 
 and was not disappointed at not meeting it. The 
 subjects on which T lecture are comparative physi- 
 ology, psychology, geology, the j)hilosophy of re- 
 ligion, those on psychology being the most largely 
 attended. My room har never been thronged, yet I 
 have been gratified in drawing around me not only 
 an unusually large number of foreigners. English- 
 men, Poles, Russians, Greeks, and Americans, but 
 in winning the confidence and attachment of some 
 young men of rare promise. Since ray transf^ to 
 Berlin I have been elected rector of the university, 
 and have sought to administer that trust as impar- 
 tially as at Breslau. On the whole I have passed 
 ten pleasant years here, and my old age is drawing 
 to a tranquil end. It is a great consolation to me 
 that my own king now regards me with so great 
 favor, that my Danish fellow-subjects look upon my 
 career with pride and upon me with honor, and 
 that in my little journeys to Denmark, and to Nor- 
 way and Sweden, I have received attentions which 
 I wish were better deserved. The preparation of 
 
4 
 
 284 THE STORY OF MY CAREER. 
 
 my Autobiography has been one of the recreations 
 of my declining years, for it is not without pleasure 
 that I have gone back into the valley of past years, 
 reviewed the scenes and the hopes of youth and 
 early manhood, and recalled the faces and the char- 
 acters of those whom I have known and loved. 
 Mine has been an eventful life and passed in event- 
 ful days, and I trust that its story has not been a 
 mere recreation to an old man, but to many a reader 
 who loves the social and the scholarly life of Ger- 
 many. - 
 
 THE END. 
 
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