Christian Friedrich von Wieland

“ The security of landed property gave confidence to everyone; the untrammelled life of nature attracted everyone; and as man, born a social being, can often fancy to himself the sweet deceit that he lives better, easier, happier in isolation, so Wieland also, who had already been vouchsafed the highest literary leisure, seemed to look about him for an abode more quiet in which to cultivate the Muses; and when he found opportunity and strength to obtain an estate in the very vicinity of Weimar, he formed the resolution there to pass the remainder of his life. ”

“ Surely thou wast more than man, while I am sunk below the beasts.
Did I place a right construction on the conduct of Wieland? Was the error that misled him so easily rectified? Were views so vivid and faith so strenuous thus liable to fading and to change? Was there not reason to doubt the accuracy of my perceptions? With images like these was my mind thronged, till the deportment of my brother called away my attention.
I saw his lips move and his eyes cast up to heaven. Then would he listen and look back, as if in expectation of some one's appearance. ”

“ The same form remains; but the wise and benevolent Wieland is no more. A fury that is rapacious of blood, that lifts his strength almost above that of mortals, that bends all his energies to the destruction of whatever was once dear to him, possesses him wholly.
"You must not enter his dungeon; his eyes will no sooner be fixed upon you, than an exertion of his force will be made. ”

“ He dwelt on the privileges of wealth and rank, and drew from the servile condition of one class, an argument in favor of his scheme, since the revenue and power annexed to a German principality afford so large a field for benevolence. The evil flowing from this power, in malignant hands, was proportioned to the good that would arise from the virtuous use of it. Hence, Wieland, in forbearing to claim his own, withheld all the positive felicity that would accrue to his vassals from his success, and hazarded all the misery that would redound from a less enlightened proprietor. ”

“ Wieland was transformed at once into the man OF SORROWS!
He reflected not that credit should be as reasonably denied to the last, as to any former intimation; that one might as justly be ascribed to erring or diseased senses as the other. He saw not that this discovery in no degree affected the integrity of his conduct; that his motives had lost none of their claims to the homage of mankind; that the preference of supreme good, and the boundless energy of duty, were undiminished in his bosom.
It is not for me to pursue him through the ghastly changes of his countenance. ”

“ And yet if he knew his master, he must have easily guessed at the effect of such tidings. In pity to me he was silent."
"Clara, forgive me; to you, this behaviour is mysterious. I will explain as well as I am able. But say not a word to Catharine. Her strength of mind is inferior to your's. She will, besides, have more reason to be startled. She is Wieland's angel."
Pleyel proceeded to inform me, for the first time, of the scheme which he had pressed, with so much earnestness, on my brother. ”

“ The power which the principal person is said to possess can scarcely be denied to be real. It must be acknowledged to be extremely rare; but no fact, equally uncommon, is supported by the same strength of historical evidence.
Some readers may think the conduct of the younger Wieland impossible. In support of its possibility the writer must appeal to physicians, and to men conversant with the latent springs and occasional perversions of the human mind. ”

“ Wieland was still refractory. He expatiated on the perils of wealth and power, on the sacredness of conjugal and parental duties, and the happiness of mediocrity.
"No wonder that the time passed, unperceived, away. Our whole souls were engaged in this cause. Several times we came to the foot of the rock; as soon as we perceived it, we changed our course, but never failed to terminate our circuitous and devious ramble at this spot. At length your brother observed, 'We seem to be led hither by a kind of fatality. Since we are so near, let us ascend and rest ourselves a while. ”

“ Here it was that I believed I saw antiquity again living and fresh. Every thing that is plastic in Wieland's genius here showed itself in its highest perfection; and when that Phanias-Timon, condemned to an unhappy insipidity, finally reconciles himself to his mistress and to the world, one can well, with him, live through the misanthropical epoch. For the rest, we readily conceded to these works a cheerful aversion from those exalted sentiments, which, by reason of their easy misapplication to life, are often open to the suspicion of dreaminess. ”

“ In the career of my tempestuous thoughts, rent into pieces, as my mind was, by accumulating horrors, Carwin was unseen and unsuspected. I partook of Wieland's credulity, shook with his amazement, and panted with his awe.
Silence took place for a moment; so much as allowed the attention to recover its post. Then new sounds were uttered from above.
"Man of errors! cease to cherish thy delusion: not heaven or hell, but thy senses have misled thee to commit these acts. Shake off thy phrenzy, and ascend into rational and human. Be lunatic no longer." ”

“ Presently the faculties of Wieland, which, for a time, were chained up, were seized with restlessness and trembling. He broke silence. The stoutest heart would have been appalled by the tone in which he spoke. He addressed himself to Carwin.
"Why art thou here? Who detains thee? Go and learn better. I will meet thee, but it must be at the bar of thy Maker. There shall I bear witness against thee."
Perceiving that Carwin did not obey, he continued; "Dost thou wish me to complete the catalogue by thy death? Thy life is a worthless thing. ”

“ I come to repair the evil of which my rashness was the cause, and to prevent more evil. I come to confess my errors."
"Wretch!" I cried when my suffocating emotions would permit me to speak, "the ghosts of my sister and her children, do they not rise to accuse thee? Who was it that blasted the intellects of Wieland? Who was it that urged him to fury, and guided him to murder? Who, but thou and the devil, with whom thou art confederated?"
At these words a new spirit pervaded his countenance. His eyes once more appealed to heaven. "If I have memory, if I have being, I am innocent. ”

“ There are none but Wieland, Pleyel, and myself, who are able to relate certain facts."
"Spare yourself the pain," said he. "All that Wieland and Pleyel can communicate, I know already. If any thing of moment has fallen within your own exclusive knowledge, and the relation be not too arduous for your present strength, I confess I am desirous of hearing it. Perhaps you allude to one by the name of Carwin. I will anticipate your curiosity by saying, that since these disasters, no one has seen or heard of him. His agency is, therefore, a mystery still unsolved." ”

“ The Wielands are a cultivated German family. Wieland’s father has died mysteriously by what is explained as self- or spontaneous combustion, and the son has inherited a melancholy and superstitious mind, which develops into fanaticism. The family hear strange voices giving commands or warnings or telling of events beyond the reach of human knowledge. A mysterious man, Carwin, appears, with such powers of pleasing that he becomes very intimate with the family. At length Wieland, at the command of what he takes to be a heavenly voice, sacrifices to God his wife and children. ”

“ Cotemporary with Klopstock and Lessing, and, from his works and influence, deserving of being mentioned next to them, was Wieland, born in 1733 in Biborach, a town of Swabia. Wieland commenced writing at the age of seventeen, and finished at that of eighty, during which extended period he addicted himself to almost every department of authorship. He is the first German who translated Shakspeare. As the author of Oberon, his name is familiar to English readers. This is much the best work of Wieland, more remarkable for grace and sprightliness than force or originality. ”

“ Wieland "revives himself" by taking his former mistress, Sophie von la Roche, into his house, and Schiller invites Frau von Kalb to accompany him to Paris.
We thus understand how it was that Jean Paul, when in Weimar, and under the influence of Frau von Kalb's personality, exclaimed: "This much is certain; the heart of the world is beating with a more spiritual and greater revolution than the political, and one quite as destructive."
What revolution? The emancipation of feeling from the conventions of society ”

“ I led the way to the chamber; she looked round her; she lifted the curtain of the bed; she saw nothing.
"At length, she fixed inquiring eyes upon me. The light now enabled her to discover in my visage what darkness had hitherto concealed. Her cares were now transferred from my sister to myself, and she said in a tremulous voice, "Wieland! you are not well: What ails you? Can I do nothing for you?"
"That accents and looks so winning should disarm me of my resolution, was to be expected. My thoughts were thrown anew into anarchy. ”

“ Bauer, F. Ueber den Einfluss Laurence Sternes auf Chr. M. Wieland. Programm. Karlsbad. 1898.
Behmer, Karl August. Laurence Sterne und C. M. Wieland. Forschungen zur neueren Literaturgeschichte, No. 9 München, 1899. Ein Beitrag zur Erforschung fremder Einflüsse auf Wielands Dichtungen.
Berlinische Monatsschrift, 1783–1796, edited by Gedike and Biester.
Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften und der freyen Künste. Leipzig, 1757–65. 12 vol. I-IV edited by Nicolai and Mendelssohn, V-XII edited by Chr. Felix Weisse.
J. J. C. Bode’s Literarisches Leben. Nebst dessen Bildniss von Lips. Berlin, 1796. ”

“ With the exception of his fairy epic Oberon (1780) , Wieland’s work has fallen into neglect; he did, however, excellent service to the development of German prose fiction with his psychological novel, Agathon (1766-1767) , which may be regarded as a forerunner of Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister, and with his humorous satire Die Abderiten (1774) . Wieland had a considerable following, both among poets and prose writers; he was particularly looked up to in Austria, towards the end of the 18th century, where the literary movement advanced more slowly than in the north. ”

“ It is well known that the Greek gods and heroes are eminent not for moral but for glorified physical qualities, for which reason they afford such splendid subjects to artists. Now Wieland, in his Alceste, had presented heroes and demi-gods after the modern fashion. Against this we had nothing to say, as every one is at liberty to mould poetic traditions to his own ends and way of thinking. But in the letters on this opera, which he inserted in the Merkur, he appeared to us unduly to exalt this mode of treating them ”

“ Fallen from his lofty and heroic station; now finally restored to the perception of truth; weighed to earth by the recollection of his own deeds; consoled no longer by a consciousness of rectitude, for the loss of offspring and wife—a loss for which he was indebted to his own misguided hand; Wieland was transformed at once into the man OF SORROWS! ”

“ But independently of the peculiar circumstances of those times, it is evident that Christian philosophy can be founded on religion only, and not on any theory, wherein nature occupies the first and highest place—not on any doctrine, which contains the germ of a Pagan worship of nature, renewed under a scientific form. As little can a Christian philosophy rest on the principle of Individualism—a reason which submits not humbly to God and his revelation, but which, all concentrated in itself, aspires to be all-sufficing and all-creative. ”

“ I restored it to order, and seating myself on the bed, again fixed stedfast eyes upon her countenance. I cannot distinctly recollect the ruminations of that moment. I saw confusedly, but forcibly, that every hope was extinguished with the life of CATHARINE. All happiness and dignity must henceforth be banished from the house and name of Wieland: all that remained was to linger out in agonies a short existence; and leave to the world a monument of blasted hopes and changeable fortune. Pleyel was already lost to me ”

“ No: in him we have the foul fiend divested of all his vulgar, Bartlemy Fair attributes; his horns, and tail, and saucer-eyes, and fish-hook nails, are the least part of him; they are the mere accidents of his nature, not his nature itself; we have the devil in the abstract, and are compelled to receive with some consideration the popular and charitable proverb that declares him to be not quite so black as limners have shadowed him.
By the rarest accident I have obtained some account of the birth and childhood of Wieland. ”

“ Alas! it is the fate of Clara Wieland to fall into the hands of a precipitate and inexorable judge.
But what, O man of mischief! is the tendency of thy thoughts? Frustrated in thy first design, thou wilt not forego the immolation of thy victim. To exterminate my reputation was all that remained to thee, and this my guardian has permitted. To dispossess Pleyel of this prejudice may be impossible; but if that be effected, it cannot be supposed that thy wiles are exhausted; thy cunning will discover innumerable avenues to the accomplishment of thy malignant purpose. ”