marriage, although friendly, was not precisely the first interest of either member of the wedded pair. The romantic school, with philosophical consistency, believed in applying their principle of waywardness to marriage also, and approved of elective affinities; and accordingly, absolutely without an unkind word, the marriage of the Schlegels was ultimately dissolved by means of a decree of the obliging Duke at Weimar, and Schelling married Caroline in 1803, after several years of friendship and correspondence. Schelling and Caroline remained on the best terms with Augustus Schlegel until Caroline’s death in 1809.
Caroline’s letters to Schelling, between 1799 and 1803, are certainly much more than interesting. The wonderful charm of this herrliche Frau is once for all an irresistible sensation as you read her intimate self-confessions. She is a marvelous compound of the pathetic, the roguish, the wise, the gay, the deeply sad, and the singularly thoughtful. She has seen, felt, suffered, struggled; and she has conquered. She loves power intensely, is a very good hater, and yet, she has also a childlike and playful gentleness that fairly disarms you. When she is deep in trouble, a light or perhaps a bitter laugh is never far away, wherewith she wins again her composure. She is, in her romantic fashion, as high-minded as she is absolutely fearless, — a sort of Penthesilea, only vastly more tender, and with the heart of a bereaved mother, as well as with the temper of a trained warrior. To her husband Schlegel, in Berlin, she writes meanwhile as straightforwardly and lengthily as you please; only to him she has more to say about literary matters. Philosophy she thought of often, and with just the easy swift insight into subtleties which must have enlightened the young Schelling more than once. Only system-making she regarded with indifference. Hence it was, in part, for her admiration that Schelling must have thought out his
