him: it was from his friend, the tax-collector Weisse, requesting him to come immediately to his house. He there placed in Fichte's hands an offer of a tutorship in a private family in Zurich. The sudden revulsion of feeling in the young man could not be concealed, and led to an explanation of his circumstances. The offer was at once accepted, and, aided by this kind friend in the necessary arrangements, he set out for Switzerland in August 1788. His scanty means com pelled him to travel on foot, but his heart was light, and the fresh hopes of youth shone brightly on his path. Disappointment, privation, and bondage, had been his close companions; but these were now left behind him, and he was to find an asylum in Liberty's own mountain-home, — in the land which Tell had consecrated to all future ages as the sacred abode of truth and freedom.
He arrived at Zurich on the 1st of September, and immediately entered upon his office. His employer was a wealthy citizen of Zurich, who having raised himself above many of the narrow prejudices of his class, had resolved to bestow a liberal education upon his children. A boy of ten and a girl of seven years of age were committed to Fichte's care. In the pro secution of his duties he soon found himself hampered by the prejudices of the mother, who became jealous of her children being educated for something more than citizens of Zurich. Although the father, who was a man of considerable intelligence, was fully sensible of the benefits which a higher education must necessarily confer upon his family, yet his partner raised such a determined opposition to his plans, that it required all RESIDENCE AT ZURICH. 17 Fichte's firmness of purpose to maintain his position. These duties occupied him the greater part of the day, but he also engaged in some minor literary pursuits. His philosophical studies were in the meantime laid aside. At the request of a friend who had sketched out the plan of a scriptural epos, he wrote an essay on this form of poetry, with special reference to Klop- stock's Messias. He also translated some of the odes of Horace, and the whole of Sallust, with an intro duction on the style and character of this author. He preached occasionally in Zurich, at Flaach, and at several other places in the neighbourhood, with distinguished success. He likewise drew out a plan for the establishment of a school of oratory in Zurich, which however was never realized.
In the circle of his friends at Zurich were Lavater, Steinbruchel, Hottinger, and particularly the Canons Tobler and Pfenniger. In his letters he speaks also of Achelis, a candidate of theology from Bremen, and Escher, a young poet, as his intimate friends: — the latter died soon after Fichte's departure from Switzer land.
But of all the friendships which he formed here, the most important in its influence upon his future life was that of Hartmann Rahn, whose house was in a manner the centre of the cultivated society of Zurich. Rahn was the brother-in-law of Klopstock, with whom he had formed a close friendship during the poet's visit to Switzerland in 1750, and with whose eldest sister Johanna he was afterwards united. From this marriage with Klopstock's sister sprang, besides several other children, their eldest daughter Johanna Maria, who at a later period became Fichte's wife.
c 2 18 MEMOIR OF FICHTE.
The foundation of her character was deep religious feeling, and an unusual strength and faithfulness of affection. Her mother dying while she was yet young, she devoted herself entirely to her father, and to his comfort sacrificed worldly show and many proffered alliances. As her family occupied a much higher sta tion in point of worldly importance than any to which Fichte could, at that time, reasonably aspire, her en gagement with him was the result of disinterested attachment alone. Fichte's love was worthy of the noble-minded woman who called it forth. It was a devotion of his whole nature, — enthusiastic like his love for his country, dignified like his love of know ledge, but softened by the deepest tenderness of an earnest and passionate soul. But on this subject he must speak for himself. The following are extracts from letters addressed to Johanna Rahn, while he resided at Zurich, or during short occasional absences. They reveal a singularly interesting and instructive picture of the confidential relations subsisting between two minds, in whom the warmest affections and deepest tenderness of which our nature is susceptible were dignified by unaffected respect for each other and ennobled by the purest aspirations of humanity. It is necessary to premise that the termination of his en gagement, at Easter 1790, led to the departure from Zurich which is alluded to in some of these passages. Fichte, tired of the occupation of a tutor, particularly where his views of a generous, comprehensive, and systematic education were thwarted by the caprices and prejudices of others, was desirous of obtaining a situa tion of a higher nature, and Rahn, through his con nexions in Denmark, endeavoured to promote his views.
LETTERS TO JOHANNA RAHN. 19 ILetters to $of)anna " I hasten to answer your questions — ' Whether my friendship for you has not arisen from the want of other female society? ' I think I can answer this question decidedly. I have been acquainted with many women, and held many different relations with them. I be lieve I have experienced, if not all the different degrees, yet all the different kinds, of feeling towards your sex, but I have never felt towards any as I feel towards you. No one else has called forth this perfect confidence, without the remotest suspicion of any dissimulation on your part, or the least desire to conceal anything from you on mine, — this wish to be wholly known to you even as I an*, — this attachment, in which difference of sex lias not the remotest perceptible influence (for farther can no mortal know his own heart), — this true esteem for your spiritual nature, and acquiescence in whatever you resolve upon. Judge, then, whether it be for want of other female society that you have made an impression upon me which no one else has done, and taught me a new mode of feeling. — ' Whether 1 will forget you when distant?' Does man forget a new mode of being and its cause? " " The warm sympathy which appears in all these inquiries, the delightful kindness you have shown me on all occasions, the rapture which I feel when I know that I am not indifferent to such a person, — these, dearest, deserve that I should say nothing to you which is profaned by flattery, and that he whom you consider worthy of your friendship should not debase himself by a false modesty. Your own fair, open soul deserves 20 MEMOIR OF FICHTE.
that I should never seem to doubt its pure expression, and hence I promise, on my side too, perfect openness."
****** " ' Whether there can be love without esteem?' Oh yes, — thou dear, pure one! Love is of many kinds. Rousseau proves that by his reasoning, and still better by his example. ' La pauvre Mamaii' and ' Madame N ' love in very different fashions. But I believe there are many kinds of love which do not appear in Rousseau's life. You are very right in saying that no true and enduring love can exist without cordial esteem; that every other draws regret after it, and is unworthy of any noble human soul.
" One word about pietism. Pietists place religion chiefly in externals; in acts of worship performed me chanically, without aim, as bond service to God; in orthodoxy of opinion, &c. &c.; and they have this among other characteristic marks, that they give them selves more solicitude about others' piety than their own. It is not right to hate these men, — we should hate no one, — but to me they are very contemptible, for their character implies the most deplorable emptiness of the head, and the most sorrowful perversion of the heart. Such my dear friend can never be; she cannot become such, even were it possible — which it is not — that her character were perverted; she can never become such, her nature has too much reality in it. Your trust in Providence, your anticipations of a future life, are wise and Christian. I hope, if I may venture to speak of myself, that no one will take me to be a pietist or stiff formalist, but I know no feelings more thoroughly interwoven with my soul than these are."
LETTERS TO JOHANNA RAHN. 21 " I am once more within these walls, which are only dear to me because they enclose you; and when again left to myself, to my solitude, to, my own thoughts, my soul flies directly to your presence. How is this? It is but three days since I have seen you, and I must often be absent from you for a longer period than that. Dis tance is but distance, and I am equally separated from you in Flaach or in Zurich. — But how comes it that this absence has seemed to me longer than usual, that my heart longs more earnestly to be with you, that I imagine I have not seen you for a week? Have I philosophized falsely of late about distance? Oh that our feelings must still contradict the firmest conclusions of our reason! " " You know doubtless that my peace has been broken by intelligence of the death of a man whom I prized and loved, whose esteem was one of the sweetest en joyments which Zurich has afforded me, and whose friendship I would still seek to deserve; — and you would weep with me if you knew how dear this man was to me.
****** was to me.
****** " Your offer of Friday has touched me deeply; it has convinced me yet more strongly, if that were possible, of your worth. Not because you are willing, for my sake, to deprive yourself of something which may be to you a trifle, as you say it is, — a thousand others could do that, — but that, although you must have remarked something of my way of thinking (' pride' the world calls it), you should yet have made that offer so natu rally and openly, as if your whole heart had told you that I could not misunderstand you; that although I had never accepted aught from any man on earth, yet 22 MEMOIR OF FICHTE.
that I would accept it from you; that we were too closely united to have different opinions about such things as these. Dearest, you have given me a proof of your confidence, your kindness, your — (dare I write it?) — love, than which there could be no greater. Were I not now wholly yours I should be a monster, without head or heart, — without any title to happiness.
" But in order to show myself to you in a just light, you have here my frue thoughts and feelings upon this matter, as I read them myself in my own breast.
" At first — I confess it with deep shame — at first it roused my pride. Fool that I was, I thought for a moment — not longer — that you had misunderstood what I wrote to you lately. Yet even in this moment I was more grieved than hurt: the blow came from your hand. Instantly, however, my better nature awoke; I felt the whole worth of your heart, and I was deeply moved. Had not your father come at this moment, I could not have mastered my emotions: only shame for having, even for a moment, undervalued you and myself, kept them within bounds.
" Yet I cannot accept it: — not that your gift would disgrace me, or could disgrace me. A gift out of mere compassion for my poverty I would abhor, and even hate the giver: — this is perhaps the most neglected part of my character. But the gift of friendship, of a friendship which, like yours, rests upon cordial esteem, cannot proceed from compassion, and is an honour, not a dishonour. But, in truth, I need it not. I have indeed no money by me at present, but I have no unusual disbursements to make, and I shall have LETTERS TO JOHANNA RAHN. 23 enough to meet my very small regular expenses tiU my departure. I seldom come into difficulties when I have no money, — I believe Providence watches over me. I have examples of this which I might term singular, did I not recognise in them the hand of Providence, which condescends even to our meanest wants.
" Upon the whole, gold appears to me a very insigni- cant commodity. I believe that a man with any intellect may always provide for his wants; and for more than this, gold is useless; — hence I have always despised it. Unhappily it is here bound up with a part of the respect which our fellow-men entertain for us, and this has never been a matter of indifference to me. Perhaps I may by and by free myself from this weakness also: it does not contribute to our peace.
" On account of this contempt of money, I have, for four years, never accepted a farthing from my parents, because I have seven sisters, who are all young and in part uneducated, and because I have a father who, were I to allow it, would in his kindness bestow upon me that which belongs of right to his other children. I have not accepted even presents from them upon any pretence; and since then, I have maintained myself very well, and stand more a man aise than before towards my parents, and particularly towards my too kind father.
" However, I promise you — (liow happy do I feel, dear, noble friend, to be permitted to speak thus with you!) — I promise you, that if I should fall into any pecuniary embarrassments (as there is no likelihood that I shall, with my present mode of thinking and my attendant fortune), you shall be the first person 24 MEMOIR OF FICHTE.
to whom I shall apply — to whom I shall have applied since the time I declined assistance from my parents. It is worthy of your kind heart to receive this pro mise, and it is not unworthy of me to give it." ****** " Could anything indemnify me for the loss of some hours of your society, I should be indemnified. I have received the most touching proofs of the attachment of the good old widow, whom I have seen only for the third time, and of her gratitude for a few courtesies which were to me nothing, — absolutely nothing, — had they not cost me two days' absence from you. She wept when I took my leave, though I allowed her to expect that she would see me again before my de parture. I desire to lay aside all vanities: with some, the desire for literary fame, &c., I have in a certain degree succeeded; but the desire to be beloved — beloved by simple true hearts — is no vanity, and I will not lay it aside.
" What a wholly new, joyful, bright existence I have had since I became sure of being yours! — how happy I am that so noble a soul bestows its sym pathy upon me, and such sympathy! — this I can never express. Would that I could, that I might be able to thank you.
" My departure, dearest, draws near, and you have discovered the secret of making the day which formerly seemed to me a day of deliverance, the bitterest in my life. I shall not tell you whether the day is settled or not. If you do not absolutely command it, you shall not know of it. Leave-taking is bitter, very bitter, and even its announcement has always something painful in it. But one of us — and I shall be that one — must LETTERS TO JOHANNA RAHN. 25 bear the consciousness that thenceforth (but only for a time, if God does not require the life of one of us) we see each other no more. Unless you absolutely require it, you shall not know when I am with you for the last time."
****** " Bern or Copenhagen, Lisbon, Madrid or St. Peters burg, are alike to me, so far as I myself am concerned. I believe that I am able to endure all climates tolerably well. The true cold of winter, such as we find in Saxony, is never very oppressive to me On this account I am not afraid of Copenhagen. But I would rather, dearest, be nearer thee. I am deeply moved by your tenderness; I think of you with the warmest gratitude. On this matter I fed with you, even although"! cannot entirely think with you. Letters go to Copenhagen, for example, as securely as to Bern, and create as much pleasure there. Journeying is journeying, be it long or short, and it is already al most indifferent to me whether I shall travel ten or a hundred miles. So my understanding decides, and I cannot refute it, however willingly this deceitful heart would do so.
"On the whole, I think of it in this way: — the great end of my existence is to acquire every kind of education — (not scientific education, — I find much vanity in that, — but education of character) — which fortune will permit me.
" Looking into the way of Providence in my life, I find that this is the plan of Providence itself with me. I have filled many situations, played many parts, known many men, and many conditions of men, and on the whole I find that by all these occurrences my charac- D 26 MEMOIR OF FICHTE.
ter has become more fixed and decided. At my first entrance into the world, I wanted everything but a susceptible heart. Many qualities in which I was then deficient, I have since acquired; many I still want entirely, and among others that of occasionally accom modating myself to those around me, and bearing with false men, or men wholly opposed to my character, for the sake of accomplishing something great. Without these qualities, I can never employ the powers which Providence has bestowed upon me, as I could with them.
" Does Providence then intend to develope these capacities in me? Is it not possible that for this very purpose I may now be led upon a wider stage? May not my employment at a Court, my project of super intending the studies of a Prince, your father's plan of taking me to Copenhagen, — may not these be hints or ways of Providence towards this end? And shall I, by confining myself to a narrower sphere, one which is not even natural to me, seek to frustrate this plan? I have no talent for bending; for dealing with people who are opposed to me in character, can only succeed with brave, good people, — I am too open; — this seemed to you a reason why I was unfit to go to a Court; to me, on the contrary, it is a reason why I must go there, to have an opportunity of acquiring that wherein I am deficient.
" I know the business of the scholar; I have no new discoveries to make about it. I have very little fitness for being a scholar a metier; I must not only think, I must act: least of all can I think about trifles; and hence it is not exactly my business to become a Swiss professor, — that is, a schoolman.
LETTERS TO JOHANNA RAHN. 27 " So stand my inclinations: — now for my duties.
" May not Providence, — who must know better than I for what I am fit, and where I am wanted, — may not Providence have determined not to lead me into such a sphere? And may not the favour bestowed upon me by you, whose destiny seems to be bound up with my own, be a hint, and your proposal a way, of this Providence? May not my impulse towards the great world be a delusion of sense, of my innate restlessness, which Providence would now fix? This is as possible as the first; and therefore we must just do in this matter what depends upon us, and leave the rest to God's guidance.
" jN^ow I think that the way which you propose cannot have the effect you expect from it. My essays cannot create what is called a ' sensation; ' this is not in them nor in me. Many would not even understand their contents; those who did understand them, would. I believe, consider me as a useful man, but comme il y en a beaucoup. It is quite another thing when one takes an interest in the author, and knows him.
" If you should be able to excite such an interest among your relatives, then indeed something more might be expected. But the matter does not seem pressing. Before all things there must be a professor ship vacant at Bern, and indeed such a one as I could undertake. Then it would be difficult, during my stay here, to make a copy of my essays. And perhaps I shall write something better afterwards, or I may hit upon some arrangement in Leipzic respecting these essays, which can easily be made known in Bern. At all events, you shall know, and every good man who takes any interest in me shall always know, where I 28 MEMOIR OF FICHTE.
am. At the same time I entreat of you, — although I know your good will towards me does not need the request, — both now and after my departure to omit no opportunity which presents itself of doing me any service, and to inform me of it. I believe in a Provi dence, and I watch its signs.
" I have but one passion, one want, one all-engrossing desire, — to work upon those around me. The more I act, the happier I seem to be. Is this too delusion? It may be so, but there is truth at the bottom of it.
" But this is no delusion, that there is a heaven in the love of good hearts, in knowing that I possess their sympathies, — their living, heartfelt, constant, warm sympathies. Since I have known you intimately, this feeling has been mine in all its fulness. Judge with what sentiments I close this letter."
****** " So you desire this bitter leave-taking? Be it so, but under one condition: I must bid you farewell alone. In the presence of any other, even of your excellent father, I should suffer from the reserve of which I complain so much. I depart, since it must be told, to-morrow eight-days. This day week I see you for the last time, for I set out very early on Sunday. Try to arrange that I may see you alone: how it is to be arranged I know not, but I would far rather take no leave of you at all, than take a cold formal one.
" I thank you heartily for your noble letter of yester- terday, particularly because your narrative confirms me so strongly in a much-cherished principle. God cares for us — He will forsake no honourable man." ****** " And so be convinced that nothing can turn my DEPARTURE FROM ZURICH. 29 thoughts from you. The reasons you have long known. You know my heart; you know yourself; you know that I know you: can you then doubt that I have found the only female soul which I can value, honour, and love? — that I have nothing more to seek from the sex, — that I can find nothing more that is mine?"
Towards the close of March 1790, Fichte left Zurich on his return to his native land, with some letters of recommendation to the Courts of Wirtemberg and Weimar. He was once more thrown upon the world; — his outward prospects as uncertain as when he entered Switzerland two years before. Poverty again compelled him to travel for the most part on foot, but, as before, the,, toil of his journey was lightened by a high sense of honour, an inflexible courage, an un wavering faith; and to these was now added a sweeter guide — a star of milder radiance, which cast a soft but steady light upon the wanderer's way, and pointed him to a happy though distant place of rest. His love was no fleeting passion, no transient sensibility, but united itself with his philosophy and his religion in one ever-flowing fountain of spiritual power. The world might turn coldly away from him, for it knew him not; but he did not stoop to its meanness, because he did not seek its rewards. He had one object before him — the development of his own nature; and there was one who knew him, whose thoughts were with him from afar, whose sympathies were all his own. His labours might be arduous, but they could not now be in vain; for although the destiny of his being did not as yet lie before him in perfect theoretical clearness, yet D 2 30 MEMOIR OF FICHTE.
his integrity of purpose and purity of feeling uncon sciously preserved him from error, while the energy of his will bore him upward and onward over the petty obstructions of life.
He arrived at Stuttgard in the beginning of April, but not finding his recommendations to the Wirtemberg Court of much advantage, he left it after a short stay. On his way to Saxony he visited Weimar. He did not see Herder, who was ill; nor Goethe, who was absent on his Italian tour; nor Schiller, who was at that time commencing his labours as Professor of History at Jena. He returned to Leipzic about the middle of May, his small stock of money exhausted by the ex penses of his journey; and was kindly received by his friend Weisse, through whose recommendation he had obtained the appointment at Zurich. Discovering no prospect of obtaining any preceptorship of a superior kind, he engaged in literary occupations in order to procure a livelihood. He conceived the plan of a monthly literary journal, the principal objects of which should be to expose the dangerous tendencies of the prevalent literature of the day, to show the mutual influence of correct taste and pure morality, and to direct its readers to the best authors, both of past and present times. But such an undertaking was too much opposed to the interests of the booksellers to find favour in their eyes. " I have," he says, " spoken to well-disposed people on this matter, to Weisse and Palmer; they all admit that it is a good and useful idea, and indeed a want of the age, but they all tell me that I shall find no publisher. I have therefore, out of sorrow, communicated my plan to no bookseller, and I must now write, — not pernicious writings.
RESIDENCE AT LEIPZIG. 31 that I will never do, — but something that is neither good nor bad, in order to earn a little money. I am now engaged on a tragedy, a business which of all possible occupations least belongs to me, and of which I shall certainly make nothing; and upon novels, small romantic stories, a kind of reading good for nothing but to kill time; this, however, it seems, is what the booksellers will take and pay for."
So far as his outward existence was concerned, this residence at Leipzic was a period of harassing un certainty too often approaching the verge of misery, — full of troubled schemes and projects which led to no result. lie could obtain no settled occupation, but was driven from one expedient to another to procure the means of subsistence. At one time he gives " a lesson in Gre,ek to a young man between 11 and 12 o'clock," and spends the rest of the day in study and starvation. His tragedy and novel writing could not last long, nor be very tolerable while it did last. In August he writes — " Bernstorff must have received my letter and essay; I gave it into Herr Bonn's own hands, and he promised to take care of it; yet I have no answer. A lady at Weimar had a plan to obtain for me a good situation; it must have failed, for I have not heard from her for two months. Of other prospects which I thought almost certain, I shall be silent. As for authorship, I have been able to do little or no thing, for I am so distracted and tossed about by many schemes and undertakings, that I have had few quiet days In short, Providence either