NOTES
NOTES
NOTE [1]
“Friedrich Max von Klinger,” says Professor Hilty, “was born in 1752, at Frankfort. His family were poor, and after he had with difficulty pursued his studies at the University of Giessen, he became at first a play-writer for a travelling company. He then served during the Bavarian War of Succession in a corps of volunteers. Later he became reader and travelling companion to the Czarevitch Paul of Russia, afterwards the Emperor. He was made Director of the corps of cadets of the nobility, as well as of the Emperor’s pages, and of the girls’ school for the nobility. Under Alexander I. he was also made Curator of the University of Dorpat. In all these relations of life, which were as difficult as can be imagined, in his contact with actors, crown-princes, Czars, noble pages and women of the court, diplomats and professors—who, taken together, are certainly not of the classes most easy to deal with—and living at a court thoroughly degraded and beset by self-seekers of the lowest kind as was the court of Catherine II., von Klinger preserved his candid character and moral courage and gained the high respect of his contemporaries. In Goethe’s Wahrheit und Dichtung, he mentions von Klinger as follows: ‘This maintenance of a sterling character is the more creditable when it occurs in the midst of worldly and business life and when a way of conduct which might appear to many curt and abrupt, being judiciously followed, accomplishes its ends. Such was his character. Without subservience (which, indeed, has never been a quality of the natives of Frankfort) he attained to the most important positions, was able to maintain himself there and to continue his services with the highest approval and gratitude of his noble patrons. Through all this, he never forgot either his old friends or the paths which he had come.’ In the later years of his life, Goethe renewed the study of von Klinger’s writings, ‘which recalled to me his unwearied activity and his remarkable character.’”
NOTE [2]
Dante, Purgatorio, xxvii, 126, 131.
NOTE [3]
Jakob Böhme, from a supplement to his works (Historische Uebersicht).
NOTE [4]
Dante, Purgatorio, xxvii, 115.