LENZ

He had been sent to Strasburg with some Livonian gentlemen, and a more unfortunate choice of a Mentor could not have been made. The elder baron went back for a time to his native country, and left behind him a lady to whom he was tenderly attached. In order to keep at a distance the second brother, who was paying court to the same lady, as well as other lovers, and to preserve the precious heart for his absent friend, Lenz determined either to feign that he had fallen in love with the beauty, or if you please, actually to do so. He carried through this plan with the most obstinate adherence to the ideal he had formed of her, without being aware that he, as well as the others, only served her for jest and pastime. So much the better for him! For him, too, it was nothing but a game which could only be kept up by her meeting him in the same spirit, now attracting him, now repelling him, now encouraging him, and now slighting him. We may be sure that if he had become aware of the way the affair sometimes went on, he would, with great delight, have congratulated himself on the discovery.

As for the rest he, like his pupils, lived mostly with officers of the garrison, and thus the strange notions he afterwards brought out in his comedy Die Soldaten (The Soldiers) probably originated. At any rate, this early acquaintance with military men had on him the peculiar effect, that he forthwith fancied himself a great judge of military matters. And yet from time to time he really studied the subject in detail with such effect, that some years afterward he prepared a long memorial to the French Minister of War, from which he promised himself the best results. The faults of the department were tolerably well pointed out, but on the other hand, the remedies were ridiculous and impracticable. However, he cherished a conviction that he should by this means gain great influence at court, and was anything but grateful to those of his friends who, partly by reasoning, and partly by active opposition, compelled him to suppress, and afterwards to burn, this fantastic work, after it had been fair-copied, put under cover with a letter, and formally addressed.

First of all by word of mouth, and afterwards by letter, ne had confided to me all the mazes of his tortuous movements with regard to the lady above mentioned. The poetry which he could infuse into the commonest incidents often astonished

me, so that I urged him to employ his ta.ents in turning the essence of this long-winded adventure to account, and to make a little romance out of it. But that was not in his line; he could only succeed when he poured himself out for ever upon details, and span an endless thread without any purpose. Perhaps it will be possible at a future time, to deduce from these premises some account of his life up to the time that he became a lunatic. At present I confine myself to what is immediately connected with the subject in hand.

Hardly had Götz von Berlichingen appeared when Lenz sent me a prolix essay written on small draught paper, such as he commonly used, without leaving the least margin, either at the top, the bottom, or the sides. It was entitled, Ueber unsere Ehe, (On our Marriage,) and were it still in existence, might enlighten us much more now than it then did me, when I was as yet in the dark as to him and his character. The leading purpose of this long manuscript was to compare my talent with his own: now he seemed to make himself inferio to me, now to represent himself as my equal; but it was al done with such humorous and neat turns of expression that I gladly received the view he intended to convey, and all the more so as I did, in fact, rate very high the gifts ne possessed, and was always urging him to concentrate himself out of his aimless rambling, and to use his natural capacities with some artistical control. I replied in the most friendly way to this confidential communication, and as he had encouraged the greatest intimacy between us, (as the whimsical title indicates,) from that time forward I made known to him everything I had either finished or designed. In return he successively sent me his manuscripts: Der Hofmeister, (Private Tutor.) Der neue Menozu, (The New Menoza,) Die Soldaten, (The Soldiers,) the imitations of Plautus, and the translation from the English which I have before spoken of as forming the supplement to his remarks on the theatre.

While reading the latter, I was somewhat struck to find him in a laconic preface speaking in such a way as to convey the idea that this essay, which contained a vehement attack upon the regular theatre, had, many years before, been read to a society of the friends of literature at a time, in short, wher. Götz was not yet written. That there should have been among Lenz's acquaintances at Strasburg a literary circle of which Ĭ

was ignorant seemed somewhat problematical; however I let it pass, and soon procured publishers for this and his other writings, without having the least suspicion that he had se lected me as the chief object of his fanciful hatred, and as the mark of an odd and whimsical persecution.

In passing, I will, for the sake of the sequel, just mention a good fellow, who, though of no extraordinary gifts, was yet one of our number. He was called Wagner, and was first a member of our Strasburg society and then of that at Frankfort a man not without spirit, talent, and education. He appeared to be a striving sort of person, and was therefore welcome. He, too, attached himself to me, and as I made nc secret of my plans, I shewed to him as well as others my sketch of the Faust, especially the catastrophe of Gretchen. He caught up the idea and used it for a tragedy, Die Kindesmorderin, (The Infanticide.) It was the first time that any one had stolen from me any of my plans. It vexed me, though I bore him no ill will on that account. Since then I have often enough suffered such robberies and anticipations of my thoughts, and with my dilatoriness and habit of gossipping about the many things that I was ever planning and imagining, I had no right to complain.

If on account of the great effect which contrasts produce, orators and poets gladly make use of them even at the expense of seeking them out and bringing them from a distance, it must be the more agreeable to the present writer that such a decided contrast presents itself, in his speaking of Klinger after Lenz. They were cotemporaries, and in youth labored together. But Lenz, as a transient meteor, passed but for a moment over the horizon of German literature, and suddenly vanished without leaving any trace behind. Klinger, on the other hand, has maintained his position up to the present time as an author of influence, and an active man of business. Of him I will now speak, as far as it is necessary, without following any farther a comparison, which suggests itself; for it has not been in secret that he has accomplished so much and exercised so great an influence, but both his works and his influence are still remembered, far and near, and are highly esteemed and appreciated.

Klinger's exterior, for I always like best to begin with this, was very prepossessing. Nature had given him a tall,

slender, well-built form, and regular features. He was careful of his appearance, always dressed neatly, and might justly have passed for the smartest member of our little society. His manners were neither forward nor repulsive, and when not agitated by an inward storm, mild and gentle.

In girls, we love what they are, but in young men what they promise to be, and thus I was Klinger's friend as soon as I made his acquaintance. He recommended himself by a pure good nature, and an unmistakeable decision of character won him confidence. From youth upward, everything had tended to incline him to seriousness. Together with a beautiful and excellent sister, he had to provide for a mother, who in her widowhood had need of such children for her support. He had made himself everything that he was, so that no one could find fault with a trait of proud independence which was apparent in his bearing. Strong natural talents, such as are common to all well-endowed men, a facile power of apprehension, an excellent memory, and great fluency of speech, he possessed in a high degree; but he appeared to regard all these as of less value than the firmness and perseverance which were likewise innate with him, and which circumstances had abundantly strengthened.

To a young man of such a character, the works of Rousseau were especially attractive. Emile was his chief text-book, and its sentiments, as they had an unive sal influence over the cultivated world, were peculiarly fruitful with him, and influenced him more than others. For he too was a child of nature,he too had worked his way upwards. What others had been compelled to cast away, he had never possessed; relations of society from which they would have to emancipate themselves, had never fettered him. Thus might he be regarded as one of the purest disciples of that gospel of nature, and in view of his own persevering efforts and his conduct as a man and son, he might well exclaim, "All is good as it comes from the hands of nature!" But the conclusion, "All is corrupted in the hands of man!" was also forced upon him by adverse experience. It was not with himself that he had to struggle, but beyond and out of himself with the conventional world, from whose fetters the Citizen of Geneva designed to set us free. And as from the circumstances of his youth the struggle he had to undergo had often been difficult and painful, he bad

been driven back upon himself too vio.ently to attain a thoroughly serene and joyous development. On the contrary, as he had had to force his way against an opposing world, a trait of bitterness had crept into his character, which he afterwards in some degree fed and cherished, but for the most part strove against and conquered.

His works, as far as I am able to recall them, bespeak a strong understanding, an upright mind, an active imagination, a ready perception of the varieties of human nature, and a characteristic imitation of generic differences. His girls and boys are open and amiable, his youths ardent, his men plain and intelligent, the personages whom he paints in an unfavorable light are not overdrawn; he is not wanting in cheerfulness and good humour, in wit and happy notions; allegories and symbols are at his command; he can entertain and please us, and the enjoyment would be still purer if he did not here and there mar both for himself and us, his gay, pointed jesting by a touch of bitterness. Yet this it is which makes him what he is. The modes of living and of writing become as varied as they are, from the fact that every one wavers theoretically between knowledge and error, and practically between creation and destruction.

Klinger should be classed with those who have formed themselves for the world, out of themselves, out of their own souls and understandings. Because this takes place in and among a greater mass, and because among themselves they use with power and effect, an intelligible language flowing out of universal nature and popular peculiarities, such men always cherish a warm hostility to all forms of the schools, especially if these forms, separated from their living origin, have degenerated into phrases, and have thus lost altogether their first, fresh significance. Such men almost invariably declare war against new opinions, views, and systems, as well as against new events and rising men of importance who announce or produce great changes. They are however not so much to blame on this account; their opposition is not unnatural when they see all that which they are indebted to for their own existence and culture menaced with ruin and in great danger.

In an energetic character this adherence to its own views becomes the more worthy of respect when it has been maintained throughout a life in the world and in business, and when