[11] "Vorzüglich aber und unbedingt wird sich die Zeitschrift Alles verbieten, was sich auf Staatsreligion und politische Verfassung bezieht."
[12] Börne: iii. 536, 572.
[13] Ibid. 573.
[14] "Dieser Mann eines Jahrhunderts, hat eine ungeheure, hindernde Kraft! er ist ein grauer Staar im deutschen Auge.... Seit ich fühle, habe ich Goethe gehasst; seit ich denke, weiss ich warum. (20 November 1830.) Es ist mir als würde mit Goethe die alte deutsche Zeit begraben; ich meine an dem Tage müsse die Freiheit geboren werden."
This man of a century possesses a prodigious obstructive power! he is a cataract on the eye of Germany.... Ever since I could feel, I have hated Goethe; ever since I could think, I have known why. (20 November 1830.) I feel as if the old German era will be buried with Goethe, as if liberty must be born on that day.
[IX]
BÖRNE
It is in the first volumes of the Letters from Paris that Börne reaches his high-water mark as an author. He was not capable of writing books, not even of writing essays and dissertations; for his explosions of emotion or thought there was no form so suitable as that of a letter. And these are real letters, not newspaper-articles, nor even newspaper correspondence, but letters written to a friend, without thought of publication until that friend took the initiative, and asked Börne's permission to make an experimental selection of passages which might be of interest to the general public.
The friend in question was Frau Jeannette Wohl, a lady who plays an important part in Börne's life, though perhaps not so important a part as he plays in hers. For upwards of twenty years, from 1816, when he made her acquaintance, till his death in 1837, he gave her his entire confidence, and rarely took any step without consulting her; and to her, during the same period, his career as an author, his health, his circumstances generally, were of more importance than all else.