Kloocke to 13 or 14 December 1803 (Kloocke, op. cit., p. 54), has been preserved in
the Niedersächsisches Staatsarchiv in Wolfenbüttel, MS 298 N 628.
- Staël, Correspondance générale, V/1, pp. 212–14. On intellectual life in Weimar at
this period, see W.H.Bruford, Culture and Society in Classical Weimar 1775–1806,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962.
- Staël, Correspondance générale, V/1, pp. 184–5, letter of 6 January 1804.
- In order to reduce the number of notes given here on this period 1804–7, the reader
is referred generally to the appropriate date entry in Constant, Œuvres, pp. 259–674.
- Constant, Œuvres, p. 264.
- Constant, Œuvres, p. 259.
- Constant, Œuvres, p. 261.
- Constant, Œuvres, p. 268.
- Constant, Œuvres, pp. 268–9. Constant seems to be thinking of Goethe’s comment
to the effect that if people commit suicide like the hero of his novel Werther, it is
their affair, not his.
- Constant, Œuvres, p. 273.
- Quoted in Elizabeth W.Schermerhorn, Benjamin Constant, his Private Life and his
Contribution to the Cause of Liberal Government in France 1767–1830, Boston and
New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1924, pp. 210–11. The passage, written in 1822, is
quoted in the original German in Kurt Kloocke, op. cit., p. 121. Later in the passage
Goethe continues:
If it was not possible for [Constant] to consider and treat correctly my
method and manner, my nature and my art; still the way in which he
endeavoured to make them honestly his own, in order to bring them
closer to his own conceptions, was of the greatest assistance even to
me, because he set before me whatever undeveloped ideas, cloudy
conceptions, inexpressible principles and impracticable designs had
been allowed to remain in my exposition.
(Elizabeth W.Schermerhorn, op. cit., p. 210)
64.
Constant, Œuvres, p. 278, entry for 17 March 1804: ‘Wrote to Madame Schardt to
say goodbye to her. Sad and tender reply. It’s another pathetic little infatuation with
me that I didn’t want, and a time will come when I shall not be the object of them
any more.’
- Constant, Œuvres, pp. 278–9, entry for 17 March 1804: ‘Wilhelm Tell. It’s a badly
put together magic lantern show with much less poetic beauty in it than there is in
Schiller’s other plays.’
- On the way to Weimar Constant read and was moved by the story of Ann Hurle, a
22-year-old Englishwoman who had been hanged in London for fraud on 8 February
1804 (Constant, Œuvres, p. 296, entry for 20 April 1804). Constant’s memorable
description of the silent, uncomplaining Ann has a nightmare—indeed one is
tempted to say fantasy—quality to it and is tinged with disapproval: she should have
struggled harder to hold onto life. We see Constant at once deeply troubled and
fascinated by the combination of three elements: women, suffering and death, and
List of abbreviations 299
