A FEW WORDS FOR BETTINA.
There seems a very general belief among sensible people that we have had enough of the Germans. What with barons, and princes, and geheimraths, and consistorialraths, and poets, and philosophers, burying their profundity in tobacco smoke, and other "reek" more impervious still, we certainly have had enough in book and essay, for the last few years, of the German Man. And, latterly, the German women have come in for their share. If the men have been puffed and praised till their very names are ridiculous and offensive, it is not so with the gracious and high-born ladies. All the old dowagers that flourish a goose-quill make a simultaneous assault on the unfortunate "frau," or "fraulein;" pedantic old bachelors are horrified at the wildness of some of the female Godwin's observations, and fall to, in the general mélée, tugging and tearing at the miserable damsel till not a shred is left to cover her; and starched old maids, who have been wondering for twenty years if Woman can etherealize society, rejoice to see the punishment of such a presuming minx, and encourage the performers with all their might. The attack may be very spirited, and the culprit properly trounced in most cases—so we are contented to leave the fantastic and philosophic heroines—so bepraised by their countrymen—to the tender mercies of our Amazons at home; but we couch the lance, in Maga's lists, on behalf of one whose name is known very widely, but whose character is little understood, and constitute ourselves champion à l'outrance of Bettina Brentano. Yes, we are in love—over head and ears—with Bettina Brentano. But we must guard ourselves a little in making this confession. It is towards the nice, clever, black-eyed, light-figured little houri of that name, in the pleasant years 1807-8-9, and 10, that we own the soft impeachment, or rather make proud profession of our feelings. With regard to the present bearer of the denomination, who has gone, in despite of our affection, and married a man of the name of Arnini, we confess we are utterly indifferent to her; and shall maintain till our dying day, that the authoress of the Letters to Goethe died in the early part of the year 1811, universally lamented, and giving promise of a mind, when matured and steadied, such as no petticoated genius—not De Staël herself—has equalled. Such letters, so full of wild fancies, poetical descriptions, and burning declarations, were never written by man to woman, or woman to man, before or since. They could not be written by woman to man—they were written by a child to Goethe. And this is the key to the wonders of the correspondence. Don't let people talk nonsense about the improprieties of her behaviour—and shake their foolish heads, and lift their puritanic eyes up to heaven: her conduct, we grant them, would have been very improper in them; but in Bettina Brentano it was beautiful, graceful, and as free from impropriety as the morning and evening walks of Paul and Virginia. Perhaps we may condescend on some of the particulars dwelt on in the accusation—but perhaps we may not—for the people who see errors and grossnesses in the language or behaviour of Bettina, blush "celestial rosy red" at the Apollo and the Venus. Let them get trousers and petticoats for the god and goddess, and leave poor Bettina alone.
There lived in Frankfort, in the summer of 1807, a little girl of fourteen or fifteen years of age, very small in stature, and so light and dancing in her movements that she might have passed for an attendant of Queen Titania; but in her deep black eyes there was a sort of light that the fairies have not yet arrived at—and her voice was musical—and her lips were rosy; and every where she was known as the cleverest little girl that ever was seen, either in fairyland or Frankfort, or any where else. She was of a sweet, affectionate, trusting nature, and entered with a romantic tenderness into an alliance with a wild, half-insane enthusiast, several years older than herself—the sister Günderode, a canoness of a convent on the Rhine. The lay-sister talked and reasoned herself into the persuasion that she would be happier out of the world than in it; so, instead of marrying the surgeon or other respectable inhabitant of the free city, and having a large family to provide for, which would have put more sensible thoughts into her head, she stabbed herself one fine day on the bank of the river—and Bettina had no longer a friend.
But there dwelt in the same town a majestic woman—strong-minded, tender-hearted—and with talent enough to compensate for the stupidity of all the other old women (male and female) in Frankfort; and her name was Madame Goethe, and she was seventy-five years old, and lived in an old house by herself. Bettina went to her, with her head sunk in grief, and her heart yearning for somebody to make a friend of, and sat down on a stool at the old lady's feet, and said, "I have lost my Günderode, will you be my friend in her stead?" And the old lady was delighted, and kissed her; and Bettina sat at her feet, day after day, from that time forth; and they were the two tenderest friends in Germany. And a pleasant thing it would be to have been a mouse in the wall to hear such conversation as was carried on by the two.
Now, in the year 1749, there was born a boy in Frankfort,—a poet, great in soul—the maker of his country's literature—no other than the illustrious Goethe—a son worthy of such a mother as Bettina's friend; and while all Germany and France—the whole civilized world in short—were almost worshipping his matured, perhaps his decaying genius, the noble mother was loud and eloquent in her description of him as a boy—as a youth—as a poet of twenty years old; and the little girl of fifteen sat and listened, till there arose in her heart—or rather in her brain, for it was a stirring of the intellect more than the affections—a feeling of intense admiration, softened under the mother's teaching into something that she herself fancied was love; for which audacious fancy the sagacious old woman gave her some raps over the knuckles—(we are not sure that they were altogether figurative either, but good substantial raps)—enough to make the fingers tingle in a very disagreeable manner indeed. But in spite of raps, whether figurative or not, she went on feeding her fancy with all these glowing accounts; and for a while we have no doubt that she never gave the almanac a thought—nor the baptismal register—nor the fact, known to all arithmeticians, that a person born in 1749 was fifty-eight years old in 1807. Fifty-eight years old, with long white hair. But Bettina had never seen him. She only knew him in his works as a poet, and as a man—or rather as a boy—in the beautiful recollections of his mother. "You don't ask after Wolfgang," says that sensible old matron in one of her letters; "I've always said to you—wait a while till some one else comes, you'll not trouble your head about him any more." But in the mean time she did trouble her head about him to an intolerable extent; and great was her rejoicing when her brother-in-law offered to take her as companion to his wife, in a journey he was forced to make to Berlin, and afterwards to Weimar. The country was at that time the seat of war; camps and positions of many different armies had to be passed through; and as a protection to the ladies they were dressed in men's clothes. Bettina sat on the box the whole time—passed as a little tiger at the inns where they slept—making herself generally useful, harnessing and unharnessing the horses—sleeping all night outside, though the weather was piercingly cold; and finally, after a week of hard travelling, arrived at the city of the sages—the literary capital of Germany. Her first care here was to change her dress, and find out her relation Wieland—from him she got a note to Goethe, and, armed with that, presented herself at his house. This is her account of the meeting in her letter to his mother:—
"The door opened, and there he stood, solemn and still, and looked steadily at me. I stretched my hands to him, I believe—but soon I was unconscious of every thing. Goethe catched me to his breast.—'Poor child, have I frightened you?' These were the first words that made their way to my heart. He led me into his room, and placed me on a sofa opposite him. We were both silent—at last he said, 'You have read in the newspapers that we have lately met with a severe loss, in the death of the Duchess Amelie.' 'Ah! I said, 'I never read the newspapers.' 'Indeed! I thought you took an interest in all that goes on at Weimar.' 'No, no, I take no interest in any thing at Weimar but you; and I have not patience enough to toil through a newspaper.' 'You are an affectionate little girl.' A long pause—I, banished all the while to the horrid sofa, and very fidgety of course. You know how impossible it is for me to sit there and do the pretty behaved. Ah, mother, can a person change his nature all at once? I said plump—'Here, on this sofa, I can't stay,' and sprang up. 'Make yourself comfortable, by all means,' said he. So I flew to him, and put my arms round his neck. He took me on his knee, and pressed me to his heart. All was still. I had not slept for such a time. I had sighed to see him for years. I fell asleep with my head on his breast; and, when I awoke, it was to a new existence;—and that is all at this present writing."
Bettina, we repeat, was fifteen—Goethe was fifty-eight; and this narrative was sent to his mother. We will only add, that Voltaire affected an interesting blush when he thought on the improprieties of the Book of Ruth. So, hold up your head, our bright-eyed, beautiful Bettina, and cheer the heart of the old man eloquent with your affection; and tell him over and over, in your own wild and captivating manner, that you love him, and worship him, and think of him always, and sing his ballads, and read his books—and nobody in their senses will think a bit the worse of you for it—not even your worthy husband, who was five or six and twenty years old when you married him; and, very likely, was nearly as enthusiastic about Wolfgang as yourself. And as to kissing and jumping on people's knees, and hugging close to the heart, these seem equivalent, among the Germans of all ranks and ages, to a good hearty shake of the hand among our more sedately behaved population; and though we think that, under ordinary circumstances, our national customs in those respects are preferable, we are not prepared to say that we should be sorry for the introduction of a little Germanism in our own case, if we were a great poet at the age of fifty-eight, and were acquainted with a lively, happy, charming little genius like Bettina, of fifteen. And that she was all that we have called her—and more—we will now proceed to show, by giving a few translations from her letters; and, if we can find an opportunity of introducing a story or two by the mother, we will not let it pass.—And here let us make a remark, savouring, perhaps, of national vanity—of which failing we have heard our countrymen not unfrequently accused. Our remark is this, that the Frau Rath, as Goethe's mother is called, has many characteristics about her which we have been in the habit of considering Scotch. If we reduced her reported conversations to our native Doric, they would read exactly like the best parts of Scott and Galt—a great deal of shrewdness, mixed with a wild sort of humour, sarcastic and descriptive; but in her, perhaps, elevated by an occasional burst of poetry into something higher than is met with in the Ayrshire Legatees, or even in Cyril Thornton. In saying this, we allude, of course, to none of the tedious "havers" contained in the book dedicated to the King of Prussia, or at least to the anti-biblical parts of them—the old Frau Rath being about the worst commentator it has ever been our fortune to meet.
But let us go back to Bettina. "Morris Bethman tells me," says the Frau Rath, in a letter to her pet, "that the De Staël is going to call on me. She has been in Weimar. I wish you were here, for I must get up my French as well as I can." And the jealousy of the fiery Bettina bursts out at the very thought of any one being at Weimar and visiting Goethe but herself.