The Friendships of Women

by William Rounseville Alger

In that sequestered valley, how quietly, with what blessed joy and peace, their lives kept the even tenor of their way Standing beside their grave, in the shadow of the old church, while the little Welsh river ran whispering by, and thinking how the eyes and hearts in which so long and happy a love had burned, were now fallen to atoms, and literally mixed in the dust below, as once they morally mixed in life above, I felt, What a pity that those thus blessed cannot live forever! Then I thought, No, it is better as it is. They were happy. They drained the best cup existence can offer. When the world was becoming an infirmary, and the song of the grasshopper a burden, it was meet that they should sleep. Those only are to be pitied who die without the experience of affection.

This attempt to revive the story and brighten the urn of the Ladies of Llangollen may suggest that friendship lies within the province of women as much as within the province of men; that there are pairs of feminine friends as worthy of fame as any of the masculine couples set by classic literature in the empyrean of humanity; that uncommon love clothes the lives of its subjects with the interest of unfading romance; that the true dignity, happiness, and peace of women and of men, too—are to be found rather in the quiet region of personal culture, and the affections, than in the arena of ambitious publicity. Mrs. Thrale and Fanny Burney were every thing to each other for a long time. But, on the marriage of the former with Mr. Piozzi, a breach occurred, which was never repaired. Four years after this coldness, Fanny writes in her diary, "Oh, little does she know how tenderly, at this moment, I could run into her arms, so often opened to receive me with a cordiality I believed inalienable." Two years after that, Mrs. Piozzi writes in her diary, "I met Miss Burney at an assembly last night. She appeared most fondly rejoiced in good time I answered with ease and coldness, but in exceeding good humor; and all ended, as it should do, with perfect indifference." Thirty- one years later still, Fanny enters in her diary this brief record: "I have just lost my once most dear, intimate, and admired friend, Mrs. Thrale Piozzi."

The young Bettine Brentano, several years before her acquaintance with Goethe, was placed temporarily in the house of a female religious order to pursue her studies. There she soon made the acquaintance of a canoness named Günderode, considerably older than herself, though still young, with rare mental endowments and romantic affections. The cultivated intellect, spirituality, and mystic melancholy of Günderode, under her singularly attractive features and calm demeanor, drew the impassioned and redundant Bettine to her by an irresistible bond. Their companionship ripened into romantic friendship. Their letters, collected and published by the survivor, compose one of the most original and stimulative delineations of the inner life of girlhood to be met with in literature. To cold and shallow readers, this correspondence will prove an unknown tongue; but those who can appreciate the reflection of wonderful personalities, and the workings of intense sentiment, will prize it as a unique treasure.

Bettine was electrical, magical, seeming ever to be overcharged with the spirit of nature; Günderode, cloudy, opalescent, suggesting a spirit native of some realm above nature. The interplaying of the two was strangely delightful to them both; and they made day after day rich by hoarding and sharing what life brought, the wealth of their souls. The fresh vitality of Bettine, her rushing inspiration, her dithyrambic love of wild nature, breathed a balsamic breath over her drooping friend, who yet had a more than counterbalancing depth of consciousness to impart in return.

Günderode, keyed too high for common companionship, too deep and tenacious in her moods, of a delicacy preternaturally lofty and far- reaching in its sensitiveness, was solitary, sad, thoughtful, yearning, prescient of an early death; yet, by the whole impression of her being, she gave birth, in those who lovingly looked on her, to the surmise that she was mysteriously self-sufficing and happy. Bettine writes to her, "I begin to believe thy feelings are enthroned beyond clouds which cast their shadows on the earth; while thou, borne on them, art revelling in celestial light." The best way to indicate briefly what this friendship was, will be to quote a selection of the characteristic expressions of it, though such a compilation of fragments does great wrong to a correspondence so compacted of the sparks of love and genius. Let those who find in this relation only the expression of a fantastic sentimentality, weigh what Sarah Austin says, a woman who speaks with the utmost weight of authority which learning, experience, and wisdom can give: "We, in England and France," Mrs. Austin says, "have no measure for the character of a German girl, brought up in comparative solitude, nurtured on poetry and religion, knowing little of the actual world, but holding close converse with the ideal in its grandest forms. She is capable of an enthusiasm we know not of."

At different times, Günderode writes thus: "I have bad many thoughts of thee, dear Bettine. Some nights ago I dreamed thou wast dead: I wept bitterly at it; and the dream left, for a whole day, a mournful echo in my heart." "My mood is often very sad, and I have not power over it." "Thou art my bit of a sun that warms me, while everywhere else frost falls on me." "Thy letter, dear Bettine, I have sipped as wine from the goblet of Lyus." "I am studying the distinguished Spartan women. If I cannot be heroic, and am always ill from hesitation and timidity, I will at least fill my soul with that heroism, and feed it with that vital power, in which I am so sadly deficient." "Thou seemest to me the clay which a god is moulding with his feet; and what I perceive in thee is the fermenting fire, that, by his transcendent contact, he is strongly kneading into thee." "When I read what I have written some time ago, I think I see myself lying in my coffin, staring at my other self in astonishment."

"Clemens's letters make me think and consider, while over thine I only feel; and they are grateful as a breath of air from the Holy Land." "If two are to understand each other, it requires the inspiring influence of a third divine one. And so I accept our mutual existence as a gift of the gods, in which they themselves play the happiest part."

And thus, on the other side, Bettine at various times writes to Günderode: "I wrote down, To-day I saw Günderode: it was a gift of God. To-day, as I read it again, I would gladly do every thing for the love of thee. How much do I think of thee and of thy words, of the black lashes that shaded thy blue eyes as I saw thee for the first time; of thy kindly mien, and thy hand that stroked my hair!" "Thy letter today has drawn a charmed ring around me." "On the castle of the hill, in the night-dew, it was fair to be with thee. Those were the dearest hours of all my life; and, when I return, we will again dwell together there. We will have our beds close together, and talk all night." "Thou and I think in harmony: we have as yet found no third who can think with us, or to whom we have confided what we think." "Thou art the sweet cadence by which my soul is rocked." "What will become of me, if ever I pass out of the light which beams on me from thine eyes? for thou seemest to me an ever-living look, and as if on that my life hung." "I feel a deep longing to be with thee again; for, beautiful as it is here on the Rhine, it is sad to be without an echo in a living breast. Man is nothing but the desire to feel himself in another." "When I dare look up to thee from my childish pursuits, I think I see a bride whose priestly robes do not betray, nor her face express, whether she is sad or joyous in her ecstasy." "Thou lookest deeper into my breast, knowest more of my spiritual fate, than I, because I need only read in thy soul to find myself." "I would possess every thing, wealth and power of beautiful ideas, art and science, only to give it to thee, to gratify my love to thee, and my pride in thy love." "Formerly, I often thought, Why was I born? but, after thou wert with me, I never asked again." "I see thee wandering past the grove where I am at home, just as a sparrow, concealed by dense foliage, watches a solitary swan swimming on the quiet waters, and, hidden, sees how it bends its neck to dip into the flood, drawing circles around it; sacred signs of its isolation from the impure, the reckless, the unspiritual!" "I have been made happy to-day: some one secretly placed in my room a rose- tree with twenty-seven buds; these are just thy years."

Many plaintive presentiments of unknown woe, parting, death, gave a mysterious undertone of sadness to much of the correspondence of these two friends. The forebodings were destined to be more than fulfilled in the tragic reality. Poor Günderode, wrought to madness by a disappointment in love, committed suicide. She drowned herself in a river, where her body was found entangled in the long sedge. Years afterwards, Bettine relates the story in a letter to Goethe, the perusal of which has made many a gentle heart ache. The substance of the tragedy may be briefly told:

"One day," Bettine writes, "Günderode met me with a joyful air, and said, "Yesterday I spoke with a surgeon, who told me it was very easy to make away with one's self. She hastily opened her gown, and pointed to the spot beneath her beautiful breast. Her eyes sparkled with delight. I gazed at her, and felt uneasy. And what shall I do when thou art dead?' I asked. Oh! ere then,' said she, thou wilt not care for me any more; we shall not remain so intimate till then: I will first quarrel with thee.' I turned to the window to hide my tears and my anger. She had gone to the other window, and was silent. I glanced secretly at her: her eye was lifted to heaven; but its ray was broken, as though its whole fire were turned within. After I had observed her awhile, I could no longer control myself: I broke into loud crying, I fell on her neck, I dragged her down to a seat, and sat upon her knee, and wept, and kissed her on her mouth, and tore open her dress, and kissed her on the spot where she had learned to reach the heart. I implored her, with tears of anguish, to have mercy upon me; and fell again on her neck, and kissed her cold and trembling hands. Her lips were convulsed; and she was quite cold, stiff, and deadly pale. Speaking with difficulty, she said slowly, Bettine, do not break my heart.' I wanted to recover myself, and not give her pain. But as, amidst my smiles and tears and sobs, she grew more anxious, and laid herself on the sofa, I jestingly tried to make her believe I had taken all as a joke.