subtle, but unsystematic fragments of philosophic creation. They frequently discussed such matters together. Once in conversation, as she writes in 1801 to her husband Schlegel, she and Schelling fell to inventing an appropriate motto in verse for Fichte (the “Sun-clear,” as she calls him, after the title of one of his essays, the “Sun-clear Exposition of the Essence of Recent Philosophy”), whose solemn and devout appeals to his readers to be honorable men for once, and agree with him, were then growing rather wearisome. They hit upon Hamlet’s —
- “Doubt that the stars are fire,
- Doubt that the planets move.”
That had an idealistic sound, and seemed to begin a fitting motto for Fichte. They took these lines, of course, in the current German translation, and then Caroline’s wit wrought out this as the whole motto: —
- “Zweifle an der Sonne Klarheit,
- Zweifle an der Sterne Licht,
- Leser, nur an meiner Wahrheit
- Und an deiner Dummheit nicht.”
I venture, with hesitation, to imitate Caroline in English, but at a long distance, thus: —
- “Doubt that the stars are fire,
- Doubt all the things of sense,
- But, reader, doubt not I am wise,
- And thy poor wits are dense.”
But Caroline had not only the power to criticise Fichte in this fashion; she knew also how to write an excellent contrast between Fichte’s genius and Schelling’s, as follows, in a letter to her young friend himself, who did not marry her until two years later: “It is growing more and more needful now that you produce something eternal, without making so much ado about it. Surely, my dearest friend, you aren’t asking my opinion about Fichte’s power, although you seem to come near it. I have always felt that, with all his incomparable skill in thinking, he
