The Story of My Life
GA 28
Chapter VII
[ 1 ] I wrote down the ideas of the Theory of Cognition in Goethe's World-Conception at a time when Fate had led me into a family which made possible for me many happy hours within its circle, and a fortunate chapter of my life. Among my friends there had for a long time been one whom I had come to hold very dear because of his gay and sunny disposition, his accurate observations upon life and men, and his whole manner, so open and loyal. He introduced me and other mutual friends into his home. There we met, in addition to this friend, two daughters of the family, his sisters, and a man whom we soon had to recognize as the fiancé of the elder daughter. [ 2 ] In the background of this family there hovered something we were never able to see. This was the father of the brother and sisters. He was there, and yet not there. We learned from the most various sources something about the man who was to us unknown. According to what we were told, he must have been somewhat unusual. At first the brother and sisters never spoke of their father, even though he must have been in the next room. Then they began, at first very gradually, to make one or another remark about him. Every word showed a feeling of genuine reverence. One felt that in this man they honoured a very important person. But one also felt that they dreaded lest by chance we should happen to see him.
[ 3 ] Our conversations in the family circle were generally of a literary character, and, in order to refer to this thing or that, many a book would be brought by the brother or sisters from the father's library. And the circumstances brought it about that I became acquainted, little by little, with much which the man in the next room read, although I never had an opportunity to see him.
[ 4 ] At last I could no longer do otherwise than inquire about much that concerned the unknown man. And thus, from the talk of the brother and sisters – which held back much, and yet revealed much – there gradually arose in my mind an image of a noteworthy personality. I loved the man, who to me also seemed an important person. I came finally to reverence in him a man whom the hard experiences of life had brought to the pass of dealing thenceforward only with the world within himself, and of foregoing all human intercourse.
[ 5 ] One day we visitors were told that the man was ill, and soon afterward the news of his death had to be conveyed to us. The brother and sisters entrusted to me the funeral address. I said what my heart impelled me to say regarding the personality whom I had come to know only through descriptions. It was a funeral at which only the family, the fiancé of one daughter, and my friends were present. The brother and sisters said to me that I had given a true picture of their father in my funeral address. And from the way they spoke, and from their tears, I could not but feel that this was their real conviction. Moreover, I knew that the man stood as near me in the spirit as if I had had much intercourse with him.
Between the younger daughter and me there gradually came about a beautiful friendship. She really had in her something of the primal type of the German maiden. She bore in her soul nothing acquired from her education, but expressed in her life an original and charming naturalness together with a noble reserve, and this reserve of hers caused a like reserve in me. We loved each other, and both of us were fully aware of this; but neither of us could overcome the fear of saying that we loved each other. Thus the love lived between the words we spoke to each other, and not in the words themselves. I felt the relationship as to our souls was of the most universal kind; but it found no possibility of taking a single step beyond what is of the soul.
[ 6 ] I was happy in this friendship; I felt my girl friend like something of the sun in my life. Yet this life later bore us far apart. In place of hours of happy companionship there then remained only a short-lived correspondence, followed by the melancholy memory of a beautiful period of my past life – a memory, however, which has through all my later life arisen again and again from the depths of my soul.
[ 7 ] It was at that same time that I once went to Schröer. He was altogether filled with an impression which he had just received. He had become acquainted with the poems of Marie Eugenie delle Grazie. Before him there lay a little volume of her poems, an epic Herman, a drama Saul, and a story Die Zigeunerin.1The Gipsy. Schröer spoke enthusiastically of these poetical writings. “And all these have been written by a young person before completing her sixteenth year!” he said. Then he added that Robert Zimmermann had said that she was the only genius he had known in his life.
[ 8 ] Schröer's enthusiasm now led me also to read the productions one after another. I wrote an article about the poet. This brought me the great pleasure of being permitted to call upon her. During this call I had the opportunity of a conversation with the poet which has often come to mind during my life. She had already begun to work upon an undertaking in the grand style, her epic Robespierre. She discussed the basic ideas of this composition. Already there was present in her conversation an undertone of pessimism. I felt in regard to her as if she meant to represent in such a personality as Robespierre the tragedy in all idealism. Ideals arise in the human heart, but they have no power over the horrible destructive action of nature, empty of all ideals, who utters against all ideals her pitiless cry: “Thou art mere illusion, a fantasm of my own, which I again and again hurl back into nothingness.”
[ 9 ] This was her conviction. The poet then spoke to me of a further poetic plan, a Satanid. She would represent the antitype of God as the Primal Being which is the Power revealing itself to man in terrible, ruinous nature, empty of the ideal. She spoke with genuine inspiration of the Power from the abyss of being, dominant over all being. I went away from the poet profoundly shocked. The greatness with which she had spoken remained impressed upon me; the content of her ideas was the opposite of everything which stood before my mind as a view of the world. But I was never inclined to withhold my interest or my admiration from that which seemed to me great, even when it repelled me utterly by its content. Indeed, I said to myself, such opposites in the world must somewhere find their reconciliation. And this enabled me to follow what repelled me just as if it lay in the same direction as the conception held by my own mind.
[ 10 ] Shortly after this I was invited again to the home of delle Grazie. She was to read her Robespierre before a number of persons, among whom were Schröer and his wife and also a woman friend of his family. We listened to scenes of lofty poetic rhythm, but with a pessimistic undertone of a richly coloured naturalism: life painted in its most terrible aspects. Great human beings, inwardly deceived by Fate, rose to the surface, or sank below in the grip of tragedy. This was my impression. Schröer became indignant. For him art ought not to plunge beneath such abysses of the “terrible.” The women withdrew. They had experienced a sort of convulsion. I could not agree with Schröer, for he seemed to me to be wholly filled with the feeling that poetry can never be made out of what is terrible in the experience of the human soul, even though this terrible experience is nobly endured. Delle Grazie soon after published a poem in which Nature is celebrated as the highest Power, but in such a way that she mocks at all ideals, which she calls into existence only in order to delude man, and which she hurls back into nothingness when this delusion has been accomplished.
[ 11 ] In relation to this composition I wrote a paper entitled Die Natur und unsere Ideale,2Nature and Our Ideals. which I did not publish but had privately printed in a small number of copies. In this I discussed the apparent correctness of delle Grazie's view. I said that a view which does not shut out the hostility manifested by nature against human ideals is of a higher order than a “superficial optimism” which blinds itself to the abysses of existence. But I also said in regard to this matter that the free inner being of man creates for itself that which gives meaning and content to life, and that this being could not fully unfold itself if a prodigal nature bestowed upon it from without that which ought to arise within.
[ 12 ] Because of this paper I had a painful experience. When Schröer had received it, he wrote me that, if I thought in such a way about pessimism, we had never understood one another, and that anyone who spoke in such a way about nature as I had done in the paper showed thereby that he could not have taken in a sufficiently profound sense Goethe's words: “Know thyself, and live at peace with the world.”
[ 13 ] I was cut to the heart when I received these lines from the person to whom I felt the most devoted attachment. Schröer could be passionately aroused when he became aware of a sin against the harmony manifesting itself in art in the form of beauty. He turned against delle Grazie when he was forced to observe this sin against his conception. And he considered the admiration which I felt for the poet as a falling away both from him and also from Goethe. He failed to see in my paper what I said regarding the human spirit overcoming from within itself the obstacles of nature; he was offended because I said that external nature could not be the creator of true inner satisfaction for man. I wished to set forth the meaninglessness of pessimism in spite of its correctness within certain limits; Schröer saw in every concession to pessimism something which he called “the slag from burned-out spirits.”
[ 14 ] In the home of Marie Eugenie delle Grazie I passed some of the happy hours of my life. Saturday evening she always received visitors. Those who came were persons of divers spiritual tendencies. The poet formed the centre of the group. She read aloud from her poems; she spoke in the spirit of her world-conception in very positive language. She cast the light of these ideas upon human life. It was by no means the light of the sun. Always in truth only the pale light of the moon-threatening, overcast skies. But from human dwellings there arose flames of fire into the dusky air as if carrying the sorrows and illusions in which men are consumed. All this, nevertheless, humanly gripping, always fascinating, the bitterness enveloped in the magic power of a wholly spiritualized personality.
[ 15 ] At delle Grazie's side was Laurenz Müllner, a Catholic priest, teacher of the poet, and later her discreet and noble friend. He was at that time professor of Christian philosophy in the theological faculty of the University. The impression he made, not only by his face but in his whole figure, was that of one whose development had been mental and ascetic. A sceptic in philosophy, thoroughly grounded in all aspects of philosophy, in conceptions of art and literature. He wrote for the Catholic clerical journal, Vaterland, stimulating articles upon artistic and literary subjects. The poet's pessimistic view of the world and of life fell always from his lips also.
[ 16 ] Both united in a positive antipathy to Goethe; on the other hand, their interest was directed to Shakespeare and the later poets, children of the sorrowful burden of life, and of the naturalistic confusions of human nature. Dostoievsky they loved warmly; Leopold von Sacher-Masoch they looked upon as a brilliant writer who shrank back from no truth in order to represent that which is growing up in the morass of modern life as all too human and worthy of destruction. In Laurenz Müllner the antipathy to Goethe took on something of the colour of Catholic theology. He praised Baumgarten's monograph, which characterized Goethe as the antithesis of that which is deserving of human endeavour. In delle Grazie there was something like a profound personal antipathy to Goethe.
[ 17 ] About the two were gathered professors of the theological faculty, Catholic priests of the very finest scholarship. First among them all was the priest of the Cistercian Order of the Holy Cross, Wilhelm Neumann. Müllner justly esteemed him because of his comprehensive scholarship. He said to me once, when in the absence of Neumann I was speaking with enthusiastic admiration of his broad and comprehensive scholarship: “Yes, indeed, Professor Neumann knows the whole world and three villages besides.” I liked to accompany the learned man when we went away from delle Grazie's at the same time. I had many a conversation with this “ideal” of a scientific man who was at the same time a “true son of his Church.” I would here mention only two of these. One was in regard to the person of Christ. I expressed my view to the effect that Jesus of Nazareth, by reason of supramundane influence, had received the Christ into himself, and that Christ as a spiritual Being has lived in human evolution since the Mystery of Golgotha. This conversation remained deeply imprinted in my mind; ever and again it has arisen in memory. For it was profoundly significant for me. There were really three persons engaged in that discussion: Professor Neumann and I, and a third, unseen person, the personification of Catholic dogmatic theology, visible to spiritual perception as he walked behind the professor, always beckoning with his finger threateningly, and always tapping Professor Neumann on the shoulder as a reminder whenever the subtle logic of the scholar led him too far in agreement with me. It was noteworthy how often the first clause of the latter's sentences would be reversed in the second clause. There I was face to face with the Catholic way of life in one of its best representatives. It was through him that I learned to esteem it, but also to know it through and through.
Another time we discussed the question of repeated earth lives. The professor then listened to me, spoke of all sorts of literature in which something on this subject could be found; he often nodded his head lightly, but had no inclination to enter into the merits of a question which seemed to him very fanciful. So this conversation also became of great import to me. The uncomfortableness with which Neumann felt the answers he did not utter in response to my statements was deeply impressed upon my memory.
[ 18 ] Besides these, the Saturday evening callers were the historian of the Church and other theologians, and in addition I met now and then the philosopher Adolf Stöhr, Goswine von Berlepsch, the emotionally moving story-teller Emilie Mataja (who bore the pen-name of Emil Marriot, the poet and writer Fritz Lemmermayer, and the composer Stross. Fritz Lemmermayer, with whom I was later on terms of intimate friendship, I came to know at one of delle Grazie's afternoons. A highly noteworthy man. Whatever interested him he expressed with inwardly measured dignity. In his outward appearance he resembled equally the musician Rubinstein and the actor Lewinsky. With Hebbel he developed almost a cult. He had definite views on art and life born out of the sagacious understanding of the heart, and these were unusually fixed. He had written the interesting and profound romance, Der Alchemist,3The Alchemist. and much besides that was characterized by beauty and depth. He knew how to consider the least things in life from the view-point of the most vital. I recall how I once saw him in his charming little room in a side-street in Vienna together with other friends. He had planned his meal: two soft-boiled eggs, to be cooked in an instantaneous boiler, together with bread. He remarked with much emphasis while the water was heating to boil the eggs for us: “This will be delicious!” In a later phase of my life I shall again have occasion to speak of him.
[ 19 ] Alfred Stross, the composer, was a gifted man, but one tinged with a profound pessimism. When he took his seat at the piano in delle Grazie's home and played his études, one had the feeling: Anton Bruckner's music reduced to airy tones which would fain flee this earthly existence. Stross was little understood; Fritz Lemmermayer was inexpressibly devoted to him.
[ 20 ] Both Lemmermayer and Stross were intimate friends of Robert Hamerling. Through them I was led later into a brief correspondence with Hamerling, to which I shall refer again. Stross finally died of a serious illness in spiritual darkness.
[ 21 ] The sculptor Hans Brandstadter I also met at delle Grazie's. [ 22 ] Even though unseen, there hovered over all this group of friends, through frequent wonderful descriptions of him almost like hymns of praise, the historian of theology Werner. Delle Grazie loved him more than anyone else. Never once did he appear on a Saturday evening when I was able to be present. But his admirer showed us the picture of the biographer of Thomas Aquinas from ever new angles, the picture of the good, lovable scholar who remained naïve even to extreme old age. One imagined a man so selfless, so absorbed in the matter about which he spoke as a historian, so exact, that one said, “If only there were many such historians!”
[ 23 ] A veritable fascination ruled over these Saturday evening gatherings. After it had grown dark, a lamp was lighted under a shade of some red fabric, and we sat in a circular space of light which made the whole company festive. Then delle Grazie would frequently become extraordinarily talkative – especially when those living at a distance had gone – and one was permitted to hear many a word that sounded like sighs from the depths in the after-pangs of grievous days of fate. But one listened also to genuine humour over the personalities of life, and tones of indignation over the corruption in the press and elsewhere. Between-whiles there were the sarcastic, often caustic, remarks of Müllner on all sorts of philosophical, artistic, and other themes. [ 24 ] Delle Grazie's house was a place in which pessimism revealed itself in direct and vital force, a place of anti-Goetheanism. Everyone listened whenever I spoke of Goethe; but Laurenz Müllner held the opinion that I ascribed to Goethe things which really had little to do with the actual minister of the Grand-duke Karl August. Nevertheless for me every visit at this house – and I knew that I was welcomed there – was something for which I am inexpressibly grateful; I felt that I was in a spiritual atmosphere which was of genuine benefit to me. For this purpose I did not require agreement in ideas; I required earnest and striving humanity susceptible to the spiritual. [ 25 ] I was now between this house, which I frequented with much pleasure, and my teacher and fatherly friend Karl Julius Schröer, who, after the first visit, never again appeared at delle Grazie's. My emotional life, drawn in both directions by sincere love and esteem, was actually torn in two. [ 26 ] But it was just at this time that those thoughts first came to maturity in me which later formed the volume Die Philosophie der Freiheit.4The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity. In the unpublished paper about delle Grazie mentioned above, Nature and Our Ideals, there lie the germs of the later book in the following sentences: “Our ideals are no longer so superficial as to be satisfied with a reality often so flat and so empty. Yet I cannot believe that there is no means whereby to rise above the profound pessimism which comes from this knowledge. This elevation comes to me when I look into our inner world, when I enter more intimately into the nature of our ideal world. This is a self-contained world, complete in itself, which can neither win anything nor lose anything by reason of the transitoriness of the external. Do not our ideals, if these are really living individualities, possess an existence for themselves independently of the kindness or unkindness of nature? Even though the lovely rose may for ever be shattered by the pitiless gusts of the wind, it has fulfilled its mission, for it has rejoiced hundreds of human eyes; if to-morrow it should please murderous nature to destroy the whole starry sky, yet for thousands of years men have gazed up reverently toward it, and this is enough. Not the existence in time, no, but the inner being of things, constitutes their completion. The ideals of our spirits are a world for themselves, which must also live for themselves, and which can gain nothing from the co-operation of a good nature. What a pitiable creature man would be if he could not gain satisfaction within his own ideal world, but must first to this end have the co-operation of nature! What divine freedom remains to us if nature guides and guards us like helpless children tied to leading strings? No, she must deny us everything, in order that, when happiness comes to us, this shall all be the result of our free selves. Let nature destroy every day what we shape in order that we may every day experience anew the joy of creation! We would fain owe nothing to nature; everything to ourselves.
[ 27 ] “This freedom, one may say, is only a dream! While we think that we are free, we obey the iron necessity of nature. The loftiest thoughts that we conceive are merely the fruit of the blind power of nature within us. But we surely should finally admit that a being who knows himself cannot be unfree! ... We see the web of law ruling over things, and this it is which constitutes necessity. In our knowledge we possess the power to separate the natural laws from things; and must we ourselves be nevertheless without a will, slaves to these same laws?”
These thoughts I did not evolve out of a spirit of controversy; but I was forced to set forth what my perception of the spiritual world said to me in opposition to a view of life which I had to consider as being at the opposite pole from my own, but which I none the less profoundly reverenced because it was revealed to me from the depths of true and earnest souls.
[ 28 ] At the very time during which I enjoyed such stimulating experiences at the home of delle Grazie, I had the privilege of entering also a circle of the younger Austrian poets. Every week we had a free expression and mutual sharing together of whatever one or the other had produced. The most varied characters met in this gathering. Every view of life and every temperament was represented, from the optimistic, naïve painter of life to the leaden-weighted pessimist. Fritz Lemmermayer was the soul of the group. There was present something of the storm which the Hart brothers, Karl Henckel, and others had loosed in the German Empire against “the old” in the spiritual life of the time. But all this was tinged with Austrian “amiability.” Much was said about how the time had come in which new tones must sound forth in all spheres of life; but this was done with that disapproval of radicalism which is characteristic of the Austrian.
[ 29 ] One of the youngest of this circle was Joseph Kitir. He devoted his effort to a form of lyric to which he had been inspired by Martin Greif. He did not wish to bring subjective feelings to expression; he wished to set forth an event or situation objectively, and yet as if this had been observed, not with the senses, but with the feelings. He did not wish to say that he was enchanted; but rather he would paint the enchanting event, and its enchantment should act upon hearer or reader without the poet's statement. Kitir did really beautiful things in this way. His soul was naïve. A little while after this he bound himself more closely to me. [ 30 ] In this circle I now heard an Austro-German poet spoken of with great enthusiasm, and I afterward became familiar with some of his poems. These made a deep impression upon me. I endeavoured to meet the poet. I asked Fritz Lemmermayer, who knew him well, and also some others whether the poet could not be invited to our gatherings.
But I was told that he could not be dragged there with a four-horse team. He was a recluse, they said, and would not mingle with people. But I was deeply desirous of knowing him. Then one evening the whole company went out and roamed over to the place where the “knowing ones” could find him. It was a little wine-shop in a street parallel to Kärtnerstrasse. There he sat in one corner, his glass of red wine – not a small one – before him. He sat as if he had sat there for an indefinitely long time, and would continue to sit indefinitely long. Already a rather old gentleman, but with shining, youthful eyes, and a countenance which showed the poet and idealist in the most delicate and most speaking lines. At first he did not see us enter. For it was clear that in the nobly shaped head a poem was taking form. Fritz Lemmermayer had first to take him by the arm; then he turned his face in our direction and looked at us. We had disturbed him. His perplexed glance could not conceal this; but he showed it in the most amiable fashion. We took our places around him. There was not space enough for so many to sit in the cramped little room. It was now remarkable how the man who had been described as a “recluse” showed himself in a very short while as enthusiastically talkative. We all had the feeling that with what our minds were then exchanging in conversation we could not remain in the dull closeness of that room. And there was now not much difficulty in bringing the “recluse” with us to another Lokal. Except for him and one other acquaintance of his who had for a long time mingled with our circle, we were all young; yet it soon became evident that we had never been so young as on this evening when the old gentleman was with us, for he was really the youngest of us all.
[ 31 ] I was completely captivated by the charm of this personality. It was at once clear to me that this man must have produced much that was more significant than what he had published, and I pressed him with questions regarding this. He answered almost timidly: “Yes, I have besides at home some cosmic things.” I succeeded in persuading him to promise that he would bring these the next evening that we could see him.
[ 32 ] It was thus that I became acquainted with Fercher von Steinwand. A poet from the Karntnerland, pithy, full of ideas, idealistic in his sentiments. He was the child of poor people, and had passed his youth amid great hardships. The distinguished anatomist Hyrtl came to know his worth, and made possible for him the sort of existence in which he could live wholly in his poems, thoughts, and conceptions. For a considerable time the world knew very little of him. After the appearance of his first poem, Gräfin Seelenbrand, Robert Hamerling brought him into full recognition.
After that night we never needed again to go for the “recluse.” He appeared almost regularly on our evenings. I was extremely glad when on one of these evenings he brought along one of his “cosmic things.” It was the Chor der Urtriebe 5The Chorus of Primal Instincts. and the Chor der Urträume,6The Chorus of Primal Dreams. poems in which feelings live in swinging rhythm which seem as if they penetrated into the very creative forces of the world. There hover ideas as if actual beings in splendid euphony, forming themselves into pictures of the Powers which in the beginning created the world. I consider the fact that I came to know Fercher von Steinwand as one of the most important events of my youth; for his personality acted like that of a sage who reveals his wisdom in genuine poetry.
[ 33 ] I had struggled with the riddle of man's repeated earth lives. Many a perception in this direction had come to me when I came close to men who in the habit of their lives, in the impress of their personalities revealed clearly the signs of a content within their beings which one would not expect to find in what they had inherited through birth or acquired afterward through experience. But in the play of countenance, in every gesture of Fercher, I saw the essence of a soul which could only have been formed in the time from the beginning of the Christian evolution, while Greek paganism was still influencing this evolution. One does not arrive at such a view when one thinks only of those expressions of a personality which press immediately upon one's attention; it is aroused in one rather by the intuitively perceived marks of the individuality which seem to accompany such direct expressions but which in reality deepen these expressions immeasurably. Moreover, one does not attain to this view when one seeks for it, but only when the strong impression remains active in retrospect, and becomes like the memory of an experience in which that which is essential in the external life falls away and the usually “unessential” begins to speak a deeply significant language. Whoever observes men in order to solve the riddle of their previous earth-lives will certainly not reach his goal. Such observation one must feel to be an offence which does injury to the one observed, for one can hope for the present disclosure of the long past of a man only through the dispensation of fate coming from the outer spiritual world.
[ 34 ] It was in the very time of my life which I am now describing that I succeeded in attaining to these definite views of the repeated earth-lives of man. Before this time I was not far from the conceptions, but they had not yet come out of indeterminate lines to sharply defined impressions. Theories, however, in regard to such things as repeated earth-lives, I did not form in my own thoughts; I took them into my understanding out of literature or other sources of information as something illuminating, but I did not theorize about them. And now, since I was conscious within myself of real perception in this region, I was in a position to have the conversation mentioned above with Professor Neumann. A man is not to be blamed if he becomes convinced of the truth of repeated earth-lives and other insights which can be attained only in supersensible ways; for a complete conviction in this region is possible also to the sound and unprejudiced human understanding, even though the man has not yet attained to actual perception. Only the way of theorizing in this region was not my own way.
[ 35 ] During the time when concrete perceptions were more and more forming within me in regard to repeated earth-lives, I became acquainted with the theosophical movement, which had been initiated by H. P. Blavatsky. Sinnett's Esoteric Buddhism came into my hands through a friend to whom I had spoken in regard to these things. This book, the first from the theosophical movement with which I became familiar, made upon me no impression whatever. And I was glad that I had not read this book before I had experienced perception out of the life of my own soul. For the content of the book was repellent to me, and my antipathy against this way of representing the supersensible might well have prevented me from going farther at once upon the road which had been pointed out to me.
Chapter VII
[ 1 ] Die Ideen einer «Erkenntnistheorie der Goethe'schen Weltanschauung» schrieb ich in einer Zeit nieder, in der mich das Schicksal in eine Familie einführte, die mich viele schöne Stunden und einen glücklichen Lebensabschnitt in ihrem Kreise verleben ließ. Unter meinen Freunden war seit längerer Zeit einer, den ich wegen seines frischen sonnigen Wesens, wegen seiner treffsicheren Bemerkungen über Leben und Menschen, und wegen seiner ganzen offenen, treuen Art sehr lieb gewonnen hatte. Er führte mich mit anderen gemeinsamen Freunden in sein Haus ein. Dort trafen wir außer dem Freunde noch zwei Töchter des Hauses, seine Schwestern, und einen Mann, in dem wir bald den Bräutigam der älteren Tochter anzuerkennen hatten.
[ 2 ] Im Hintergrunde dieser Familie schwebte etwas Unbekanntes, das wir nie zu sehen bekamen. Es war der Vater der Geschwister. Er war da und auch nicht da. Wir bekamen von den verschiedensten Seiten etwas über den uns Unbekannten zu hören. Er mußte, nach den Reden, die wir vernahmen, etwas Sonderbares sein. Die Geschwister sprachen anfangs gar nicht über den Vater, der doch im nächsten Zimmer sein mußte. Erst allmählich kam es dazu, daß sie die eine oder die andere Bemerkung über ihn machten. Jedes Wort war eingegeben von echter Ehrfurcht. Man fühlte, daß sie in ihm einen bedeutenden Menschen verehrten. Aber man empfand auch, daß sie eine große Scheu davor hatten, wir könnten ihn doch durch einen Zufall zu Gesicht bekommen.
[ 3 ] Unsere Gespräche im Kreise der Familie hatten zumeist literarischen Inhalt. Da wurde denn, um an dies oder jenes anzuknüpfen, von den Geschwistern manches Buch aus der Bibliothek des Vaters herbeigeholt. Und die Umstände brachten es mit sich, daß ich nach und nach mit Vielem bekannt wurde, was der Mann im nächsten Zimmer las, wogegen ich ihn selbst nie zu sehen bekam.
[ 4 ] Ich konnte zuletzt nicht mehr anders, als nach vielem zu fragen, was sich auf den Unbekannten bezog. Und so entstand vor meiner Seele allmählich aus den zwar zurückhaltenden, aber doch so vieles verratenden Reden der Geschwister ein Bild der merkwürdigen Persönlichkeit. Ich liebte den Mann, der auch mir als ein bedeutender erschien. Ich verehtte zuletzt in ihm einen Menschen, den das Leben durch schwere Erfahrungen dazu gebracht hatte, sich nur mehr mit der Welt in seinem Innern zu beschäftigen und allen Verkehr mit Menschen zu meiden.
[ 5 ] Eines Tages wurde uns Besuchern gesagt, daß der Mann krank sei, und bald darauf mußte man uns seinen Tod berichten. Die Geschwister übertrugen mir die Grabrede. Ich sprach, was mir das Herz eingab über die Persönlichkeit, die ich nur auf die geschilderte Art kennen gelernt hatte. Es war ein Begräbnis, bei dem nur die Familie, der Bräutigam der einen Tochter und meine Freunde anwesend waren. Die Geschwister sagten mir, daß ich ein treues Bild ihres Vaters in meiner Grabrede gegeben habe. Und an ihrer Art zu sprechen, an ihren Tränen konnte ich empfinden, daß dies wirklich ihre Überzeugung war. Und ich wußte ja auch, daß mir der Mann geistig so nahe stand, als ob ich viel mit ihm verkehrt hätte. Zwischen der jüngeren Tochter und mir entstand allmählich ein schönes Freundschaftsverhältnis. Sie hatte wirklich etwas von dem Urbild eines deutschen Mädchens an sich. Sie trug nichts von angelernter Bildung in ihrer Seele, sondern lebte eine ursprüngliche, anmutige Natürlichkeit mit edler Zurückhaltung dar. Und diese ihre Zurückhaltung löste eine gleiche in mir aus. Wir liebten einander und wußten beide das wohl ganz deutlich; aber konnten auch beide nicht die Scheu davor überwinden, uns zu sagen, daß wir uns liebten. Und so lebte die Liebe zwischen den Worten, die wir miteinander sprachen, nicht in denselben. Das Verhältnis war seelisch nach meinem Gefühle das innigste; aber es fand nicht die Möglichkeit, auch nur einen Schritt über das Seelische hinaus zu tun.
[ 6 ] Ich war froh in dieser Freundschaft; ich fühlte die Freundin als Sonnenhaftes im Leben. Doch dieses Leben hat uns später auseinandergeführt. Von Stunden freudigen Zusammenseins blieb dann noch ein kurzer Briefwechsel, dann noch wehmütiges Gedenken an einen schön verlebten Lebensabschnitt. Ein Gedenken, das aber durch das ganze folgende Leben immer wieder aus den Tiefen meiner Seele herauftauchte.
[ 7 ] In derselben Zeit war es, daß ich einmal zu Schröer kam. Er war ganz erfüllt von einem Eindruck, den er eben erhalten hatte. Er war mit den Dichtungen Marie Eugenie delle Grazies bekannt geworden. Es lagen von ihr damals vor: ein Bändchen Gedichte, ein Epos «Herman», ein Drama «Saul» und eine Erzählung «Die Zigeunerin». Schröer sprach mit Enthusiasmus von diesen Dichtungen. «Und das alles hat eine junge Persönlichkeit vor Vollendung ihres sechzehnten Jahres geschrieben», sagte er. Er fügte hinzu: Robert Zimmermann habe gesagt, das sei das einzige wirkliche Genie, das er in seinem Leben kennen gelernt habe.
[ 8 ] Schröers Enthusiasmus führte mich dazu, die Dichtungen in einem Zuge nun auch zu lesen. Ich schrieb ein Feuilleton über die Dichterin. Das brachte mir die große Freude, sie besuchen zu können. Bei diesem Besuche konnte ich ein Gespräch mit der Dichterin haben, das mir oft im Leben vor der Seele gestanden hat. Sie hatte sich damals bereits an eine Aufgabe größten Stiles gemacht, an ihr Epos «Robespierre». Sie sprach über die Grundideen dieser Dichtung. Schon damals tönte durch ihre Reden eine pessimistische Grundstimmung durch. Mir erschien ihre Empfindung so, als ob sie in einer Persönlichkeit wie Robespierre die Tragik alles Idealismus darstellen wollte. Ideale entstehen in der Menschenbrust; aber sie haben keine Macht gegenüber dem ideenlosen, grausamen, zerstörenden Wirken der Natur, die allem Idealen ihr unerbittliches «du bist nur Illusion, ein Scheingeschöpf von mir, das ich immer wieder ins Nichts zurückwerfe» entgegenschreit.
[ 9 ] Das war ihre Überzeugung. Die Dichterin sprach dann zu mir von einem weiteren dichterischen Plan, einer «Satanide». Sie wollte das Gegenbild Gottes als das Urwesen darstellen, das in der grausamen, ideenlosen, zermalmenden Natur die für den Menschen sich offenbarende Macht ist. Sie sprach mit wahrer Genialität von dieser aus dem Abgrund des Seins herauf dieses Sein beherrschenden Gewalt. Ich ging tief erschüttert von der Dichterin weg. Die Größe, mit der sie gesprochen hatte, stand vor mir; der Inhalt ihrer Ideen war das Gegenbild alles dessen, was mir als Anschauung von der Welt vor dem Geiste stand. Aber ich war niemals geneigt, dem, was mir als groß erschien, meine Bewunderung und mein Interesse zu versagen, auch wenn es mir inhaltlich ganz widerstrebte. Ja, ich sagte mir: solche Gegensätze in der Welt müssen irgendwo doch ihre Harmonie finden. Und das machte mir möglich, verständnisvoll dem Widerstrebenden so zu folgen, als ob es in der Richtung meiner eigenen Seelenverfassung läge.
[ 10 ] Kurz darauf wurde ich eingeladen zu delle Grazie. Sie sollte vor einer Anzahl von Persönlichkeiten, zu denen auch Schröer und seine Frau, sowie eine Freundin des Schröer'schen Hauses gehörten, aus ihrem «Robespierre» vorlesen. Wir hörten Szenen von hohem dichterischem Schwung, aber in pessimistischem Grundton, von farbenreichem Naturalismus; das Leben von seinen erschütterndsten Seiten gemalt. Vom Schicksal innerlich betrogene Menschengrößen tauchten auf und sanken hinunter in ergreifender Tragik. Das war mein Eindruck. Schröer wurde unwillig. Für ihn durfte die Kunst nicht in solche Untiefen des «Schrecklichen» hinuntersteigen. Die Damen entfernten sich. Sie hatten eine Art von Krämpfen bekommen. Ich konnte mit Schröer nicht übereinstimmen. Denn er schien mir von dem Gefühle ganz durchdrungen, daß zur Dichtung niemals werden dürfe, was schreckliches Erlebnis in der Seele eines Menschen ist, auch wenn dieses Schreckliche ehrlich erlebt ist. Bald darnach erschien von delle Grazie ein Gedicht, in dem die Natur als höchste Macht besungen wird, aber so, daß sie Hohn spricht allem Idealen, das sie nur ins Dasein ruft, um den Menschen zu betören, und das sie ins Nichts zurückwirft, wenn die Betörung erreicht ist.
[ 11 ] Ich schrieb in Anknüpfung an dieses Gedicht einen Aufsatz «Die Natur und unsere Ideale», den ich nicht veröffentlichte, sondern in einer geringen Anzahl von Exemplaren drucken ließ. Darin sprach ich von dem Scheine der Berechtigung, welche die Anschauung delle Grazies hat. Ich sagte, daß mir eine Anschauung, die sich nicht verschließt vor dem Feindlichen, das in der Natur gegenüber den menschlichen Idealen liegt, höher stehe als ein «flacher Optimismus», der für die Abgründe des Seins keinen Blick hat. Aber ich sprach auch davon, daß die innere freie Wesenheit des Menschen aus sich erschafft, was dem Leben Sinn und Inhalt gibt, und daß diese Wesenheit sich nicht voll entfalten könnte, wenn ihr von außen, durch eine glückspendende Natur zukäme, was im Innern entstehen soll.
[ 12 ] Durch diesen Aufsatz erlebte ich einen großen Schmerz. Als ihn Schröer empfangen hatte, schrieb er mir, daß, wenn ich so über den Pessimismus denke, wir uns nie verstanden hätten. Und wer von der Natur so spreche wie ich in diesem Aufsatze, der zeige damit, daß er Goethes Worte «Erkenne dich und leb' mit der Welt in Frieden» nicht tief genug nehmen könne.
[ 13 ] Ich war im tiefsten meiner Seele betroffen, als ich diese Zeilen von der Persönlichkeit empfing, an die ich mit stärkster Anhänglichkeit hingegeben war. Schröer konnte in leidenschaftliche Erregung kommen, wenn er eine Versündigung gegen die als Schönheit wirkende Harmonie in der Kunst wahrnahm. Er wandte sich von delle Grazie ab, als er diese Versündigung nach seiner Auffassung bemerken mußte. Und er betrachtete bei mir die Bewunderung, die ich für die Dichterin behielt, als einen Abfall von ihm und von Goethe zugleich. Er sah in meinem Aufsatze nicht, was ich von dem aus dem eigenen Innern die Hemmnisse der Natur überwindenden Menschengeiste sagte; er war davon verletzt, daß ich von der natürlichen Außenwelt behauptete, sie könne nicht die Schöpferin der wahren inneren Befriedigung des Menschen sein. Ich wollte die Bedeutungslosigkeit des Pessimismus trotz seiner Berechtigung innerhalb gewisser Grenzen darstellen; Schröer sah in jeder Hinneigung zum Pessimismus etwas, was er «die Schlacke ausgebrannter Geister» nannte.
[ 14 ] Im Hause Marie Eugenie delle Grazies verlebte ich schöne Stunden meines Lebens. Sie hatte jeden Sonnabend Besuchsabend. Es waren Persönlichkeiten vieler Geistesrichtungen, die sich da einfanden. Die Dichterin bildete den Mittelpunkt. Sie las aus ihren Dichtungen vor; sie sprach im Geiste ihrer Weltauffassung mit entschiedener Wortgeberde; sie beleuchtete mit den Ideen dieser Auffassung das Menschenleben. Es war keine Sonnenbeleuchtung. Eigentlich immer Mondendüsterkeit. Drohender Wolkenhimmel. Aber aus den Wohnungen der Menschen stiegen in die Düsternis Feuerflammen hinauf, wie die Leidenschaften und Illusionen tragend, in denen sich die Menschen verzehren. Alles aber auch menschlich ergreifend, stets fesselnd, das Bittere von dem edlen Zauber einer ganz durchgeistigten Persönlichkeit umflossen.
[ 15 ] An delle Grazies Seite erschien Laurenz Müllner, katholischer Priester, der Lehrer der Dichterin und spätere vorsorgliche edle Freund. Er war damals Professor für christliche Philosophie an der theologischen Fakultät der Universität. Er hatte nicht nur das Gesicht, sondern die ganze Gestalt im Ausdrucke des Ergebnisses einer Seelisch-asketisch verbrachten geistigen Entwickelung. Ein Skeptiker in philosophischen Dingen, gründlich durchgebildet nach allen Seiten der Philosophie, der Kunstanschauung, der Literatur. Er schrieb für das katholisch-klerikale Tagblatt «Vaterland» anregende Artikel über Künstlerisches und Literarisches. Die pessimistische Welt- und Lebensauffassung der Dichterin sprach stets auch aus seinem Munde.
[ 16 ] Die Beiden vereinigte eine heftige Abneigung gegen Goethe; dagegen war ihr Interesse Shakespeare und den neueren aus der leidensvollen Schwere des Lebens, oder den naturalistischen Verirrungen der Menschennatur geborenen Dichtern zugewendet. Dostojewskij hatte ihre ganze Liebe; Leopold v. Sacher-Masoch sahen sie als einen glänzenden, vor keiner Wahrheit zurückschreckenden Darsteller dessen an, was im modernen Sumpfleben als zerstörenswurdiges Allzumenschliches hervorsproßt. Bei Laurenz Müllner hatte die Goetheabneigung etwas von der Farbe des katholischen Theologen. Er pries Baumgartners Goethe-Monographie, die Goethe als den Widerpart des Menschlich-Erstrebenswerten charakterisiert. Bei delle Grazie war etwas wie eine tiefe persönliche Antipathie gegen Goethe vorhanden.
[ 17 ] Um die beiden sammelten sich Professoren der theologischen Fakultät, katholische Priester von der allerfeinsten Gelehrsamkeit. Da war vor allem immer intensiv anregend der Heiligenkreuzer Gisterzienser Ordenspriester Wilhelm Neumann. Müllner verehrte ihn mit Recht wegen seiner umfassenden Gelehrsamkeit. Er sagte mir, als ich einmal in Abwesenheit Neumanns von dessen weitausschauendem Wissen mit enthusiastischer Bewunderung sprach: ja, der Professor Neumann kennt die ganze Welt und noch drei Dörfer. Ich schloß mich gerne dem gelehrten Manne an, wenn wir von dem Besuche bei delle Grazie weggingen. Ich hatte so viele Gespräche mit diesem «Ideal» eines wissenschaftlichen Mannes, aber zugleich «treuen Sohnes seiner Kirche». Ich möchte nur zweier hier Erwähnung tun. Das eine war über die Wesenheit Christi. Ich sprach meine Anschauung darüber aus, wie Jesus von Nazareth durch außerirdischen Einfluß den Christus in sich aufgenommen habe und wie Christus als eine geistige Wesenheit seit dem Mysterium von Golgatha mit der Menschheitsentwickelung lebt. Dies Gespräch blieb tief in meiner Seele eingepragt; es tauchte immer wieder aus ihr auf. Denn es war für mich tief bedeutsam. Es unterredeten sich damals eigentlich drei. Professor Neumann und ich und ein dritter Unsichtbarer, die Personifikation der katholischen Dogmatik, die sich wie drohend, dem geistigen Auge sichtbar, hinter Professor Neumann, diesen begleitend, zeigte, und die stets ihm verweisend auf die Schulter klopfte, wenn die feinsinnige Logik des Gelehrten mir zu weit zustimmte. Es war bei diesem merkwürdig, wie der Vordersatz gar oft im Nachsatze in sein Gegenteil umschlug. Ich stand damals der katholischen Lebensart in einem ihrer besten Vertreter gegenüber; ich habe sie achtend, aber auch wirklich gründlich gerade durch ihn kennen gelernt. Ein andres Mal sprachen wir über die wiederholten Erdenleben. Da hörte mich der Professor an, sprach von allerlei Literatur, in der man darüber etwas finden könne; er schüttelte oft leise den Kopf, hatte aber wohl gar nicht die Absicht, auf das Inhaltliche des ihm absonderlich scheinenden Themas einzugehen. Und dennoch ist mir auch dieses Gespräch wichtig geworden. Die Unbehaglichkeit Neumanns, mit der er seine nicht ausgesprochenen Urteile gegenüber meinen Aussagen empfanden hat, ist mir tief in das Gedächtnis eingeschrieben geblieben.
[ 18 ] Noch waren die Kirchenhistoriker und andere Theologen die Sonnabend-Besucher. Außerdem fanden sich ab und zu der Philosoph Adolf Stöhr, Goswine von Berlepsch, die tiefempfindende Erzählerin, Emilie Mataja (die den Schriftstellernamen Emil Marriot trug), der Dichter und Schriftsteller Fritz Lemmermayer und der Komponist Stroß. Fritz Lemmermayer, mit dem ich später eng befreundet wurde, lernte ich an den delle Grazie-Nachmittagen kennen. Ein ganz merkwürdiger Mensch. Er sprach alles, wofür er sich interessierte, mit innerlich gemessener Würde. In seinem Äußeren war er ebenso dem Musiker Rubinstein wie dem Schauspieler Lewinsky ähnlich. Mit Hebbel trieb er fast einen Kultus. Er hatte über Kunst und Leben bestimmte, aus dem klugen Herzenskennen geborene Anschauungen, die außerordentlich fest in ihm saßen. Er hat den interessanten, tiefgründigen Roman «Der Alchymist» geschrieben und manches Schöne und auch Gedankentiefe. Er wußte die kleinsten Dinge des Lebens in den Gesichtspunkt des Wichtigen zu rücken. Ich denke, wie ich ihn einmal in seinem lieben Stübehen in einer Seitengasse in Wien mit anderen Freunden besuchte. Er hatte sich eben selbst seine Mahlzeit bereitet: zwei kernweiche Eier auf einem Schnellsieder; dazu Brot. Mit Emphase sprach er, während das Wasser wallte, uns die Eier zu sieden: «Das wird köstlich sein. » Ich werde noch in einer späteren Lebensphase von ihm zu sprechen haben.
[ 19 ] Alfred Stroß, der Komponist, war ein genialisch, aber tief pessimistisch angelegter Mensch. Wenn er sich bei delle Grazie ans Klavier setzte und seine Etuden spielte, so hatte man das Gefühl: Anton Bruckners Musik verdunstet in Tönen, die dem Erdensein entfliehen wollen. Stroß wurde wenig verstanden; Fritz Lemmermayer liebte ihn ganz unsäglich.
[ 20 ] Beide, Lemmermayer und Stroß, waren mit Robert Hamerling sehr befreundet. Und ich wurde durch sie später zu einem kurzen Briefwechsel mit Hamerling veranlaßt, von dem ich noch sprechen werde. Stroß endete in schwerer Krankheit, geistig umnachtet.
[ 21 ] Auch der Bildhauer Hans Brandstetter fand sich bei delle Grazie ein.
[ 22 ] Doch unsichtbar über dieser ganzen Gesellschaft schwebte oftmals in wunderbarer Schilderung und wie hymnisch angeredet der Theologie-Historiker Werner. Delle Grazie liebte ihn über alles. Er erschien, während ich die Sonnabende besuchen durfte, nie selbst. Aber seine Bewunderin zeigte das Bild des Thomas v. Aquin-Biographen von immer neuen Seiten, das Bild des gütigen, liebevollen, im höchsten Alter naiv gebliebenen Gelehrten. Man hatte einen Menschen vor sich: so selbstlos, so hingegeben dem Stoffe, von dem er als Historiker sprach, so exakt, daß man sich sagte: ach, gäbe es doch recht viele solcher Historiker.
[ 23 ] Es waltete ein wahrer Zauber über diesen Sonnabend-Zusammenkünften. Wenn es dunkel geworden war, dann brannte die mit rotem Stoff umhüllte Deckenlampe, und wir saßen in einem die ganze Gesellschaft feierlich machenden Lichtraume. Dann wurde delle Grazie oft, namentlich wenn die etwas ferner Stehenden weggegangen waren, außerordentlich gesprächig, und man bekam manches Wort zu hören, das wie Lebensseufzer im Nachgefühle schwerer Schicksalstage klang. Man konnte aber auch echten Humor über Verkehrtheiten des Lebens und Töne der Entrüstung über Presse- und andere Korruption hören. Dazwischen kamen die sarkastischen, oft ätzenden Bemerkungen Müllners über allerlei Philosophisches, Künstlerisches und anderes.
[ 24 ] Delle Grazies Haus war eine Stätte, in der der Pessimismus mit unmittelbarer Lebenskraft sich offenbarte, eine Stätte des Anti-Goetheanismus. Man hörte immer an, wenn ich über Goethe sprach; doch war Laurerz Müllner der Ansicht, daß ich Goethe Dinge andichtete, die eigentlich mit dem wirklichen Minister des Großherzogs Karl August nicht viel zu tun haben. Trotzdem war für mich jeder Besuch in diesem Hause - und ich wußte, daß man mich dort gerne sah - etwas, dem ich Unsägliches verdanke; ich fühlte mich da in einer geistigen Atmosphäre, die mir wahrhaft wohltat. Dazu bedurfte es für mich nicht der Übereinstimmung in den Ideen; dazu bedurfte es der strebsamen, für Geistiges empfänglichen Menschlichkeit.
[ 25 ] Ich war nun hineingestellt zwischen dieses Haus, in dem ich so gerne verkehrte, und meinen Lehrer und väterlichen Freund Karl Julius Schröer, der nach den ersten Besuchen niemals wieder bei delle Grazie erschien. Mein Gefühlsleben hatte dadurch, weil es an beiden Seiten mit ehrlicher Liebe und Verehrung beteiligt war, einen wirklichen Riß.
[ 26 ] Aber gerade in dieser Zeit reiften die ersten Gedanken zu meiner später erschienenen «Philosophie der Freiheit» heran. In dem oben gekennzeichneten Sendschreiben an delle Grazie über «Die Natur und unsere Ideale» liegt in den folgenden Sätzen die Urzelle dieses Buches: «Unsere Ideale sind nicht mehr flach genug, um von der oft so schalen, so leeren Wirklichkeit befriedigt zu werden. - Dennoch kann ich nicht glauben, daß es keine Erhebung aus dem tiefen Pessimismus gibt, der aus dieser Erkenntnis hervorgeht. Diese Erhebung wird mir, wenn ich auf die Welt unseres Innern schaue, wenn ich an die Wesenheit unserer idealen Welt näher herantrete. Sie ist eine in sich abgeschlossene, in sich vollkommene Welt, die nichts gewinnen, nichts verlieren kann durch die Vergänglichkeit der Außendinge. Sind unsere Ideale, wenn sie wirklich lebendige Individualitäten sind, nicht Wesenheiten für sich, unabhängig von der Gunst oder Ungunst der Natur? Mag immerhin die liebliche Rose vom unbarmherzigen Windstoße zerblättert werden, sie hat ihre Sendung erfüllt, denn sie hat hundert menschliche Augen erfreut; mag es der mörderischen Natur morgen gefallen, den ganzen Sternenhimmel zu vernichten: durch Jahrtausende haben Menschen verehrungsvoll zu ihm emporgeschaut, und damit ist es genug. Nicht das Zeitendasein, nein, das innere Wesen der Dinge macht sie vollkommen. Die Ideale unseres Geistes sind eine Welt für sich, die sich auch für sich ausleben muß, und die nichts gewinnen kann durch die Mitwirkung einer gütigen Natur. - Welch erbarmungswürdiges Geschöpf wäre der Mensch, wenn er nicht innerhalb seiner eigenen Idealwelt Befriedigung gewinnen könnte, sondern dazu erst der Mitwirkung der Natur bedürfte? Wo bliebe die göttliche Freiheit, wenn die Natur uns, gleich unmündigen Kindern, am Gängelbande führend, hegte und pflegte? Nein, sie muß uns alles versagen, damit, wenn uns Glück wird, dies ganz das Erzeugnis unseres freien Selbstes ist. Zerstöre die Natur täglich, was wir bilden, auf daß wir uns täglich aufs neue des Schaffens freuen können! Wir wollen nichts der Natur, uns selbst alles verdanken!
[ 27 ] Diese Freiheit, könnte man sagen, sie ist doch nur ein Traum! Indem wir uns frei dünken, gehorchen wir der ehernen Notwendigkeit der Natur. Die erhabensten Gedanken, die wir fassen, sind ja nur das Ergebnis der in uns blind waltenden Natur.—O, wir sollten doch endlich zugeben, daß ein Wesen, das sich selbst erkennt, nicht unfrei sein kann!... Wir sehen das Gewebe der Gesetze über den Dingen walten, und das bewirkt die Notwendigkeit. Wir besitzen in unserem Erkennen die Macht, die Gesetzlichkeit der Naturdinge aus ihnen loszulösen und sollten dennoch die willenlosen Sklaven dieser Gesetze sein?» - Diese Gedanken entwickelte ich nicht aus Widerspruchsgeist, sondern es drängte mich, was mir die Anschauung der geistigen Welt sagte, dem entgegenzusetzen, was ich als den andern Pol einer Lebensauffassung gegenüber der meinigen ansehen mußte, den ich aber auch, weil er mir in wahrhaft seelischer Vertiefung sich offenbarte, ganz unsäglich verehrte.
[ 28 ] In derselben Zeit, in der ich so viele Anregungen im Hause delle Grazies erleben durfte, konnte ich auch in einen Kreis junger österreichischer Dichter eintreten. Man traf sich in jeder Woche zu einer freien Aussprache und zur gegenseitigen Mitteilung dessen, was der eine oder der andere hervorgebracht hatte. Die verschiedensten Charaktere versammelten sich da. Vom optimistischen, naiven Lebensdarsteller bis zu dem bleischweren Pessimisten war jede Lebensauffassung und Seelenstimmung vorhanden. Fritz Lemmermayer war die Seele des Kreises. Es war etwas da von dem Ansturm gegen «das Alte» im Geistesleben der Zeit, den im deutschen Reiche «draußen» die Brüder Hart, Karl Henckel und andere entfesselt hatten. Aber es war alles in die österreichische «Liebenswürdigkeit» getaucht. Man sprach viel davon, wie die Zeit gekommen sei, in der neue Töne auf allen Lebensgebieten erklingen müssen; aber man tat es mit der Abneigung gegenüber dem Radikalismus, die dem Österreicher eigen ist.
[ 29 ] Einer der Jüngsten dieses Kreises war Joseph Kitir. Er strebte eine Art Lyrik an, zu der er sich bei Martin Greif die Anregung geholt hatte. Er wollte nicht subjektive Gefühle zum Ausdruck bringen; er wollte einen Vorgang, eine Situation «objektiv» hinstellen, doch so, als ob diese nicht von den Sinnen, sondern vom Gefühle beobachtet werden. Er wollte nicht sagen: er sei entzückt, sondern es sollte der entzückende Vorgang hingemalt werden, und das Entzücken sollte sich bei dem Zuhörer oder Leser einstellen, ohne daß der Dichter es ausspricht. Kitir hat wahrhaft Schönes in dieser Richtung geschaffen. Er war eine naive Natur. Eine kurze Zeit hindurch hat er sich enger an mich angeschlossen.
[ 30 ] In diesem Kreise hörte ich nun mit großer Begeisterung von einem deutsch-österreichischen Dichter sprechen und lernte auch zunächst einige seiner Dichtungen kennen. Diese machten auf mich einen starken Eindruck. Ich strebte danach, ihn kennen zu lernen. Ich fragte Fritz Lemmermayer, der ihn gut kannte, und einige andere, ob der Dichter nicht zu unseren Versammlungen eingeladen werden könnte. Aber man sagte mir, der ist nicht herzukriegen, wenn man vier Pferde anspannte. Der sei ein Sonderling und wolle nicht unter Leute gehen. Ich wollte aber durchaus ihn kennen lernen. Da machte sich denn die ganze Gesellschaft eines Abends auf und wanderte nach dem Orte, wo ihn die «Wissenden» finden konnten. Es war eine kleine Weinstube in einer Parallelgasse zur Kärtnerstraße. Da saß er in einer Ecke, sein nicht kleines Glas Rotwein vor sich. Er saß, wie wenn er seit unbegrenzt langer Zeit gesessen hätte und noch unbegrenzte Zeit sitzen bleiben wollte. Ein schon recht alter Herr, aber mit jugendlich leuchtenden Augen und einem Antlitz, das in den feinsten, sprechendsten Zügen den Dichter und Idealisten offenbarte. Er sah uns Eintretende zunächst nicht. Denn durch den edelgeformten Kopf zog sichtlich eine entstehende Dichtung. Fritz Lemmermayer mußte ihn erst am Arm fassen; da wendete er das Gesicht zu uns und blickte uns an. Wir hatten ihn gestört. Das konnte sein betroffener Blick nicht verbergen; aber er offenbarte es auf die allerliebenswürdigste Weise. Wir stellten uns um ihn. Zum Sitzen war für so viele kein Platz in der engen Stube. Es war nun merkwürdig, wie der Mann, der als ein «Sonderling» geschildert worden war, sich nach ganz kurzer Zeit als geistvoll-gesprächig erwies. Wir empfanden alle, mit dem, was sich da zwischen Seelen im Gespräche abspielte, können wir in der dumpfen Enge dieser Stube nicht bleiben. Und es gehörte nun gar nicht viel dazu, um den «Sonderling» mit uns in ein anderes «Lokal» zu bringen. Wir andern außer ihm und einem Bekannten von ihm, der schon lange in unserem Kreise verkehrte, waren alle jung; doch bald zeigte es sich, daß wir noch nie so jung waren, als an diesem Abend, da der alte Herr unter uns war, denn der war eigentlich der allerjüngste.
[ 31 ] Ich war in tiefster Seele ergriffen von dem Zauber dieser Persönlichkeit. Es war mir ohne weiteres klar, daß dieser Mann noch viel Bedeutenderes geschaffen haben müsse, als er veröffentlicht hatte, und ich fragte ihn kühnlich danach. Da antwortete er fast scheu: ja, ich habe zu Hause noch einige kosmische Sachen. Und ich konnte ihn dahin bringen, daß er versprach, diese das nächste Mal, wenn wir ihn sehen dürfen, mitzubringen.
[ 32 ] So lernte ich Fercher von Steinwand kennen. Ein kerniger, ideenvoller, idealistisch fühlender Dichter aus dem Kärntnerland. Er war das Kind armer Leute und hat seine Jugend unter großen Entbehrungen verlebt. Der bedeutende Anatom Hyrtl hat ihn schätzen gelernt und ihm ein Dasein ermöglicht, in dem er ganz seinem Dichten, Denken und Sinnen leben konnte. Die Welt wußte recht lange wenig von ihm. Robert Hamerling brachte ihm von dem Erscheinen seiner ersten Dichtung, der «Gräfin Seelenbrand», an die vollste Anerkennung entgegen. Wir brauchten nunmehr den «Sonderling» nicht mehr zu holen. Er erschien fast regelmäßig an unseren Abenden. Mir wurde die große Freude, daß er an einem derselben seine «kosmischen Sachen» mitbrachte. Es waren der «Chor der Urtriebe» und der «Chor der Urträume», Dichtungen, in denen in schwungvollen Rhythmen Empfindungen leben, die an die Schöpferkräfte der Welt heranzudringen scheinen. Da weben wie wesenhaft Ideen in herrlichem Wohlklang, die als Bilder der Weltkeimesmächte wirken. Ich betrachte die Tatsache, daß ich Fercher von Steinwand habe kennen lernen dürfen, als eine der wichtigen, die in jungen Jahren an mich herangetreten sind. Denn seine Persönlichkeit wirkte wie die eines Weisen, der seine Weisheit in echter Dichtung offenbart.
[ 33 ] Ich hatte gerungen mit dem Rätsel der wiederholten Erdenleben des Menschen. Manche Anschauung in dieser Richtung war mir aufgegangen, wenn ich Menschen nahegetreten war, die in dem Habitus ihres Lebens, in dem Gepräge ihrer Persönlichkeit unschwer die Spuren eines Wesensinhaltes offenbaren, den man nicht in dem suchen darf, was sie durch die Geburt ererbt und seit dieser erfahren haben. Aber in dem Mienenspiel, in jeder Geberde Ferchers zeigte sich mir die Seelenwesenheit, die nur gebildet sein konnte in der Zeit vom Anfange der christlichen Entwickelung, da noch griechisches Heidentum nachwirkte in dieser Entwickelung. Eine solche Anschauung gewinnt man nicht, wenn man über die zunächst sich aufdrängenden Äußerungen einer Persönlichkeit sinnt; man fühlt sie erregt durch die solche Äußerungen scheinbar begleitenden, in Wirklichkeit aber sie unbegrenzt vertiefenden, in die Intuition eintretenden Züge der Individualität. Man gewinnt sie auch nicht, wenn man sie sucht, während man mit der Persönlichkeit zusammen ist, sondern erst dann, wenn der starke Eindruck nachwirkt und wie eine belebte Erinnerung wird, in der das im äußeren Leben Wesentliche sich auslöscht und das sonst «Unwesentliche» beginnt eine ganz deutliche Sprache zu reden. Wer Menschen «beobachtet», um ihre vorangegangenen Erdenleben zu enträtseln, der kommt ganz gewiß nicht zum Ziele. Solche Beobachtung muß man wie eine Beleidigung empfinden, die man den Beobachteten zufügt; dann erst kann man hoffen, daß wie durch eine von der geistigen Außenwelt kommende Schicksalsfügung sich das Langvergangene des Menschen in dem Gegenwärtigen enthüllt.
[ 34 ] Gerade in der hier dargestellten Zeit meines Lebens errang ich mir die bestimmten Anschauungen über die wiederholten Erdenleben des Menschen. Vorher lagen sie mir zwar nicht ferne; aber sie rundeten sich nicht aus den unbestimmten Zügen heraus zu scharfen Eindrücken. Theorien aber über solche Dinge wie wiederholte Erdenleben bildete ich nicht in eigenen Gedanken aus; ich nahm sie zwar in das Verständnis aus der Literatur oder andern Mitteilungen auf als etwas Einleuchtendes; aber ich theoretisierte selbst nicht darüber. Und nur, weil ich mir wirklicher Anschauung auf diesem Gebiete bewußt war, konnte ich das erwähnte Gespräch mit Professor Neumann führen. Es ist ganz gewiß nicht zu tadeln, wenn sich Menschen von den wiederholten Erdenleben und andern nur auf übersinnlichem Wege zu erlangenden Einsichten überzeugen; denn eine vollgeltende Überzeugung auf diesem Gebiete ist auch dem unbefangenen gesunden Menschenverstande möglich, auch dann, wenn der Mensch es nicht zur Anschauung gebracht hat. Nur war der Weg des Theoretisierens auf diesem Gebiete nicht mein Weg.
[ 35 ] In der Zeit, in der sich mir über die wiederholten Erdenleben konkrete Anschauungen immer mehr herausbildeten, lernte ich die theosophische Bewegung kennen, die von H. P. Blavatsky ausgegangen ist. Sinnetts «Esoterischer Buddhismus» kam mir durch einen Freund in die Hände, zu dem ich über diese Dinge sprach. Dieses Buch, das erste, das ich aus der theosophischen Bewegung kennen lernte, machte auf mich gar keinen Eindruck. Und ich war froh darüber, dieses Buch nicht gelesen zu haben, bevor ich Anschauungen aus dem eigenen Seelenleben heraus hatte. Denn sein Inhalt war für mich abstoßend; und die Antipathie gegen diese Art, das Übersinnliche darzustellen, hätte mich wohl verhindert, auf dem Wege, der mir vorgezeichnet war, zunächst weiter fortzuschreiten.
Chapter VII
[ 1 ] I wrote down the ideas of an "epistemology of Goethe's world view" at a time when fate introduced me to a family that allowed me to spend many pleasant hours and a happy period of my life in their circle. For a long time there was one of my friends whom I had grown very fond of because of his fresh, sunny nature, his accurate remarks about life and people, and because of his open, loyal manner. He took me into his house with other mutual friends. There we met, besides the friend, two daughters of the house, his sisters, and a man in whom we were soon to recognize the bridegroom of the elder daughter.
[ 2 ] In the background of this family hovered something unknown that we never got to see. It was the siblings' father. He was there and he wasn't there. We heard something about the stranger from various sides. From what we heard, he must have been something strange. At first the brothers and sisters didn't talk about their father, who must have been in the next room. It was only gradually that they began to make one remark or another about him. Every word was filled with genuine reverence. They felt that they revered an important man in him. But one also sensed that they were very wary of the possibility that we might have seen him by chance.
[ 3 ] Our conversations in the family circle were mostly literary. The siblings would fetch many a book from their father's library in order to make reference to this or that. And circumstances meant that I gradually became acquainted with a lot of what the man in the next room was reading, whereas I never got to see him myself.
[ 4 ] In the end, I could no longer help but ask about many things that related to the stranger. And so a picture of the strange personality gradually emerged in my mind from the reserved but nevertheless revealing speeches of the siblings. I loved the man, who also seemed to me to be an important man. In the end, I admired in him a man whom life's difficult experiences had led to occupy himself only with the world within and to avoid all contact with people.
[ 5 ] One day we were told by visitors that the man was ill, and soon afterwards we had to report his death. The siblings gave me the eulogy. I said what my heart told me about the person I had only got to know in the way I had described. It was a funeral where only the family, the groom of one daughter and my friends were present. The siblings told me that I had given a faithful picture of their father in my eulogy. And from the way they spoke, from their tears, I could feel that this was really their conviction. And I also knew that the man was so close to me spiritually, as if I had spent a lot of time with him. A beautiful friendship gradually developed between the younger daughter and me. She really had something of the archetype of a German girl about her. She carried nothing of learned education in her soul, but lived an original, graceful naturalness with noble reserve. And this restraint of hers triggered the same in me. We loved each other and both knew it quite clearly; but neither of us could overcome the shyness of saying that we loved each other. And so the love lived between the words we spoke to each other, not in them. The relationship was the most intimate in my feelings, but it did not find the opportunity to take even one step beyond the emotional.
[ 6 ] I was happy in this friendship; I felt that my friend was the sunshine in my life. But this life later led us apart. What remained of the hours of joyful togetherness was a brief exchange of letters, then wistful remembrance of a beautifully spent period of life. A memory that, however, kept surfacing from the depths of my soul throughout the rest of my life.
[ 7 ] I once came to Schröer at the same time. He was completely filled with an impression he had just received. He had become acquainted with the poetry of Marie Eugenie delle Grazie. At that time she had a volume of poems, an epic poem "Herman", a drama "Saul" and a story "The Gypsy Woman". Schröer spoke enthusiastically about these poems. "And all of this was written by a young personality before he was sixteen," he said. He added: Robert Zimmermann had said that this was the only real genius he had met in his life.
[ 8 ] Schröer's enthusiasm led me to read the poems in one go. I wrote a feature article about the poet. This gave me the great pleasure of being able to visit her. During this visit, I was able to have a conversation with the poet that I have often had in my life. At that time, she had already set herself a task of the greatest style, her epic "Robespierre". She spoke about the basic ideas of this poem. Even then, a pessimistic mood could be heard in her speeches. Her sentiment seemed to me as if she wanted to portray the tragedy of all idealism in a personality like Robespierre. Ideals are born in the human breast; but they have no power over the unimaginative, cruel, destructive workings of nature, which screams its relentless "you are only an illusion, a sham creature of mine that I keep throwing back into nothingness" at all ideals.
[ 9 ] That was her conviction. The poet then spoke to me of another poetic plan, a "Satanide". She wanted to portray the antithesis of God as the primal being that is the power revealing itself to man in cruel, unimaginative, crushing nature. She spoke with true genius of this power that dominates this being from the abyss of existence. I walked away from the poet deeply shaken. The greatness with which she had spoken stood before me; the content of her ideas was the antithesis of everything that stood before my mind as a view of the world. But I was never inclined to deny my admiration and interest to what seemed great to me, even if its content was completely contrary to me. Yes, I said to myself: such opposites in the world must find their harmony somewhere. And that made it possible for me to follow what I was resisting with understanding, as if it lay in the direction of my own state of mind.
[ 10 ] Shortly afterwards, I was invited to delle Grazie. She was to read from her "Robespierre" to a number of notables, including Schröer and his wife, as well as a friend of the Schröer household. We heard scenes of great poetic verve, but with a pessimistic undertone, of colorful naturalism; life painted from its most harrowing sides. Great people, betrayed by fate, emerged and sank down in poignant tragedy. That was my impression. Schröer became reluctant. For him, art was not allowed to descend into such depths of the "terrible". The ladies moved away. They had got some kind of cramp. I could not agree with Schröer. For he seemed to me to be completely imbued with the feeling that what is a terrible experience in a person's soul should never be allowed to become poetry, even if this terrible experience is honest. Soon afterwards, delle Grazie published a poem in which nature is praised as the highest power, but in such a way that it makes a mockery of all ideals, which it only calls into existence in order to beguile man, and which it throws back into nothingness when the beguilement has been achieved.
[ 11 ] Following on from this poem, I wrote an essay entitled "Nature and our Ideals", which I did not publish but had printed in a small number of copies. In it I spoke of the appearance of justification which the view of delle Grazies has. I said that a view that does not close its mind to the hostility that lies in nature towards human ideals is more important to me than a "shallow optimism" that has no eye for the abysses of existence. But I also spoke of the fact that man's inner free being creates out of itself what gives life meaning and content, and that this being could not fully develop if it received from outside, through a nature that gives happiness, what should arise within.
[ 12 ] This essay caused me great pain. When Schröer received it, he wrote to me that if I thought about pessimism like that, we would never have understood each other. And anyone who speaks of nature as I do in this essay shows that he cannot take Goethe's words "Know thyself and live in peace with the world" deeply enough.
[ 13 ] I was moved to the depths of my soul when I received these lines from the personality to whom I was devoted with the strongest affection. Schröer could become passionately agitated when he perceived a sin against the harmony in art that appears as beauty. He turned away from delle Grazie when, in his opinion, he noticed this sin. And he regarded the admiration I retained for the poetess as an apostasy from him and from Goethe at the same time. He did not see in my essay what I said about the human spirit overcoming the obstacles of nature from within; he was offended by the fact that I claimed of the natural external world that it could not be the creator of man's true inner satisfaction. I wanted to show the insignificance of pessimism, despite its justification within certain limits; Schröer saw in every inclination towards pessimism what he called "the dross of burnt-out spirits".
[ 14 ] I spent wonderful hours of my life in the house of Marie Eugenie delle Grazies. She had visiting evenings every Saturday. Personalities from many schools of thought gathered there. The poetess was the center of attention. She read from her poems; she spoke in the spirit of her view of the world with decisive eloquence; she illuminated human life with the ideas of this view. It was not sunlight. In fact, it was always moon gloom. Threatening cloudy skies. But flames of fire rose from people's homes into the gloom, carrying the passions and illusions in which people consume themselves. But everything was also humanly gripping, always captivating, the bitterness surrounded by the noble magic of a completely spiritualized personality.
[ 15 ] At delle Grazie's side appeared Laurenz Müllner, a Catholic priest, the poet's teacher and later provident and noble friend. He was then a professor of Christian philosophy at the university's theological faculty. He had not only the face, but the whole figure in the expression of the result of a spiritual development spent in a soul-ascetic way. A skeptic in philosophical matters, thoroughly educated in all aspects of philosophy, art appreciation and literature. He wrote stimulating articles on artistic and literary matters for the Catholic-clerical daily newspaper "Vaterland". The poet's pessimistic view of the world and life always came out of his mouth.
[ 16 ] The two were united by a fierce dislike of Goethe; in contrast, their interest was turned towards Shakespeare and the newer poets born out of the painful gravity of life or the naturalistic aberrations of human nature. Dostoyevsky had all their love; they regarded Leopold v. Sacher-Masoch as a brilliant portrayer, who did not shy away from any truth, of that which in modern swamp life protrudes as the destructive all-too-human. Laurenz Müllner's aversion to Goethe had something of the color of the Catholic theologian. He praised Baumgartner's Goethe monograph, which characterizes Goethe as the antithesis of the humanly desirable. With delle Grazie, there was something like a deep personal antipathy towards Goethe.
[ 17 ] The two were surrounded by professors from the theological faculty, Catholic priests of the finest erudition. Above all, the Heiligenkreuz Cistercian priest Wilhelm Neumann was always intensely inspiring. Müllner rightly revered him for his comprehensive erudition. He told me, when I once spoke of Neumann's far-sighted knowledge with enthusiastic admiration in his absence: "Yes, Professor Neumann knows the whole world and three villages. I gladly joined the learned man when we left the visit to delle Grazie. I had so many conversations with this "ideal" of a scientific man, but at the same time a "faithful son of his church". I would like to mention only two here. One was about the nature of Christ. I expressed my view of how Jesus of Nazareth had received the Christ into himself through extraterrestrial influence and how Christ has lived as a spiritual being with the development of mankind since the Mystery of Golgotha. This conversation remained deeply imprinted in my soul; it emerged from it again and again. For it was deeply significant for me. There were actually three people talking at the time. Professor Neumann and I and a third invisible person, the personification of Catholic dogmatics, who appeared behind Professor Neumann, accompanying him, as if threatening, visible to the mind's eye, and who always tapped him on the shoulder in a reprimanding manner when the scholar's subtle logic agreed with me too much. It was strange how the first sentence often turned into its opposite in the second. At that time I was confronted with the Catholic way of life in one of its best representatives; I got to know it respectfully, but also really thoroughly through him. Another time we talked about repeated lives on earth. The professor listened to me and spoke of all kinds of literature in which one could find something about it; he often shook his head quietly, but probably had no intention of going into the content of the subject, which seemed strange to him. And yet this conversation also became important to me. Neumann's discomfort with his unspoken judgments of my statements remained deeply inscribed in my memory.
[ 18 ] The church historians and other theologians were still the Saturday visitors. Other occasional visitors included the philosopher Adolf Stöhr, Goswine von Berlepsch, the deeply sensitive storyteller Emilie Mataja (who went by the pen name Emil Marriot), the poet and writer Fritz Lemmermayer and the composer Stroß. I got to know Fritz Lemmermayer, with whom I later became close friends, at the delle Grazie afternoons. He was a very strange person. He spoke everything he was interested in with an inwardly measured dignity. In appearance he was as much like the musician Rubinstein as the actor Lewinsky. He had an almost cult-like relationship with Hebbel. He had certain views on art and life, born of an intelligent knowledge of the heart, which were extremely deep-seated in him. He wrote the interesting, profound novel "The Alchymist" and many a beautiful and deep thought. He knew how to put the smallest things in life into the perspective of the important. I remember how I once visited him with other friends in his dear parlor in a side street in Vienna. He had just prepared a meal for himself: two soft-boiled eggs on a pressure cooker, served with bread. While the water was boiling, he said with emphasis: "This will be delicious. " I will still have to speak of him in a later phase of my life.
[ 19 ] Alfred Stroß, the composer, was a man of genius but deeply pessimistic. When he sat down at the piano at delle Grazie and played his Etudes, one had the feeling that Anton Bruckner's music was evaporating in tones that wanted to escape from earthly existence. Stroß was little understood; Fritz Lemmermayer loved him unspeakably.
[ 20 ] Both Lemmermayer and Stroß were great friends of Robert Hamerling. And I was later prompted by them to enter into a brief correspondence with Hamerling, of which I will speak later. Stroß ended up in serious illness, mentally deranged.
[ 21 ] The sculptor Hans Brandstetter also came to delle Grazie.
[ 22 ] Hovering invisibly above all this company, however, was the theologian-historian Werner, who was often described in wonderful terms and addressed as if in hymns. Delle Grazie loved him more than anything. While I was allowed to attend the Saturdays, he never appeared himself. But his admirer showed the image of the biographer of Thomas Aquinas from ever new angles, the image of the kind, loving scholar who remained naive in his old age. You had a man before you: so selfless, so devoted to the material of which he spoke as a historian, so exact that you said to yourself: oh, if only there were many such historians.
[ 23 ] There was a real magic about these Saturday meetings. When it got dark, the ceiling lamp wrapped in red fabric was lit and we sat in a space of light that made the whole company solemn. Then delle Grazie often became extremely talkative, especially when those standing a little further away had left, and you could hear many a word that sounded like a sigh of relief in the aftermath of difficult days. But you could also hear genuine humor about the perversities of life and tones of indignation about press and other corruption. In between came Müllner's sarcastic, often caustic remarks about all kinds of philosophical, artistic and other things.
[ 24 ] Delle Grazie's house was a place where pessimism manifested itself with immediate vitality, a place of anti-Goetheanism. People always listened when I spoke about Goethe, but Laurerz Müllner was of the opinion that I was ascribing things to Goethe that had little to do with the real minister of the Grand Duke Karl August. Nevertheless, every visit to this house - and I knew that they liked to see me there - was something to which I owed an unspeakable debt; I felt that I was in a spiritual atmosphere that was truly beneficial to me. For me, this didn't require agreement on ideas; it required an ambitious humanity that was receptive to the spiritual.
[ 25 ] I was now caught between this house, where I enjoyed spending time, and my teacher and fatherly friend Karl Julius Schröer, who never appeared at delle Grazie again after his first visits. My emotional life had a real rift as a result, because it was involved in both sides with honest love and admiration.
[ 26 ] But it was precisely at this time that the first thoughts for my later published "Philosophy of Freedom" matured. In the above-mentioned letter to delle Grazie on "Nature and our ideals", the following sentences contain the original cell of this book: "Our ideals are no longer shallow enough to be satisfied by reality, which is often so stale, so empty. - Yet I cannot believe that there is no elevation from the deep pessimism that comes from this realization. This elevation comes to me when I look at the world of our inner being, when I approach the essence of our ideal world more closely. It is a self-contained world, perfect in itself, which can gain nothing and lose nothing through the transience of external things. Are our ideals, if they are truly living individualities, not entities in themselves, independent of the favor or disfavor of nature? The lovely rose may be crushed by the merciless gust of wind, but it has fulfilled its mission, for it has delighted a hundred human eyes; it may please murderous nature tomorrow to destroy the whole starry sky: for thousands of years people have looked up to it with veneration, and that is enough. It is not the existence of time, no, it is the inner essence of things that makes them perfect. The ideals of our spirit are a world in themselves, which must also live out for themselves, and which can gain nothing through the cooperation of a benevolent nature. - What a pitiful creature would man be if he could not gain satisfaction within his own ideal world, but first needed the cooperation of nature? Where would divine freedom be if nature nurtured and cared for us, like underage children, leading us by the reins? No, it must deny us everything so that, if we become happy, this is entirely the product of our free self. Let nature destroy daily what we create, so that we can rejoice anew every day in what we create! We want to owe nothing to nature, but everything to ourselves!
[ 27 ] This freedom, you might say, is just a dream! In thinking ourselves free, we obey the iron necessity of nature. The loftiest thoughts that we conceive are only the result of the blind nature that rules within us.—O, we should finally admit that a being that recognizes itself cannot be unfree! We see the web of laws ruling over things, and this causes the necessity. We have the power in our cognition to detach the lawfulness of natural things from them and yet we should be the will-less slaves of these laws?" - I did not develop these thoughts out of a spirit of contradiction, but I was compelled to oppose what the view of the spiritual world told me to what I had to regard as the other pole of a view of life compared to my own, but which I also revered unspeakably because it revealed itself to me in true spiritual depth.
[ 28 ] In the same period in which I was able to experience so much stimulation in the house of delle Grazies, I was also able to join a circle of young Austrian poets. They met every week for a free discussion and to share with each other what one or the other had produced. The most diverse characters gathered there. From the optimistic, naïve life actor to the leaden pessimist, every outlook on life and mood was present. Fritz Lemmermayer was the soul of the circle. There was something of the onslaught against "the old" in the intellectual life of the time, which the Hart brothers, Karl Henckel and others had unleashed "out there" in the German Empire. But everything was immersed in Austrian "amiability". There was a lot of talk about how the time had come when new tones had to be heard in all areas of life; but it was done with the aversion to radicalism that is characteristic of the Austrian.
[ 29 ] One of the youngest members of this circle was Joseph Kitir. He aspired to a kind of lyric poetry, which he had been inspired to write by Martin Greif. He did not want to express subjective feelings; he wanted to portray a process, a situation "objectively", but as if it were not observed by the senses, but by feeling. He did not want to say that he was enraptured, but that the enrapturing process should be painted, and the enrapture should be felt by the listener or reader without the poet expressing it. Kitir created something truly beautiful in this direction. He was a naive nature. For a short while, he became closer to me.
[ 30 ] In this circle, I now heard talk of a German-Austrian poet with great enthusiasm and first became acquainted with some of his poems. These made a strong impression on me. I wanted to get to know him. I asked Fritz Lemmermayer, who knew him well, and a few others whether the poet could be invited to our meetings. But they told me that you couldn't get him here if you hitched up four horses. He was an eccentric and didn't want to go out among people. But I really wanted to get to know him. So the whole party set off one evening and wandered to the place where the "knowing ones" could find him. It was a small wine bar in an alley parallel to Kärtnerstraße. There he sat in a corner, his not-so-small glass of red wine in front of him. He sat as if he had been sitting for an indefinitely long time and wanted to stay seated for an indefinitely long time. A very old gentleman, but with youthful, shining eyes and a face that revealed the poet and idealist in the finest, most expressive features. He didn't see us coming in at first. For a nascent poetry was visibly running through his nobly shaped head. Fritz Lemmermayer first had to take him by the arm; then he turned his face towards us and looked at us. We had disturbed him. His affected look could not conceal this, but he revealed it in the most endearing way. We stood around him. There was no room for so many of us to sit in the narrow room. It was remarkable how the man who had been described as an "eccentric" proved after a very short time to be full of wit and conversation. We all felt that we couldn't stay in the dull confines of this room with what was going on between souls in conversation. And it didn't take much to bring the "eccentric" with us to another "restaurant". Apart from him and an acquaintance of his who had been in our circle for a long time, the rest of us were all young; but it soon became apparent that we had never been so young as we were that evening when the old man was with us, for he was actually the youngest of all.
[ 31 ] I was deeply moved by the magic of this personality. It was readily apparent to me that this man must have created something much more significant than he had published, and I boldly asked him about it. He replied almost shyly: yes, I still have some cosmic things at home. And I managed to get him to promise to bring them with him the next time we were allowed to see him.
[ 32 ] That's how I got to know Fercher von Steinwand. A pithy, imaginative, idealistic poet from Carinthia. He was the child of poor people and spent his youth under great hardship. The eminent anatomist Hyrtl learned to appreciate him and made it possible for him to live an existence in which he could devote himself entirely to his poetry, thoughts and senses. The world knew little of him for a long time. Robert Hamerling gave him the fullest recognition from the publication of his first poem, "Gräfin Seelenbrand". We no longer needed to fetch the "eccentric". He appeared almost regularly at our evenings. I was delighted that he brought his "cosmic things" to one of them. These were the "Chorus of Primal Urges" and the "Chorus of Primal Dreams", poems in which sensations live in lively rhythms that seem to approach the creative forces of the world. Ideas weave there as if in essence, in glorious melodiousness, acting as images of the world's germinal powers. I regard the fact that I was able to get to know Fercher von Steinwand as one of the important ones that came to me at a young age. For his personality was like that of a sage who reveals his wisdom in genuine poetry.
[ 33 ] I had wrestled with the riddle of man's repeated earthly lives. Many a view in this direction had occurred to me when I had come close to people who, in the habitus of their lives, in the character of their personality, easily reveal the traces of a content of being that one must not seek in what they have inherited through birth and experienced since then. But in Fercher's facial expressions, in his every gesture, I saw a soul that could only have been formed at the beginning of Christian development, when Greek paganism was still at work in that development. One does not gain such an insight when one ponders over the initially imposing expressions of a personality; one feels it aroused by the traits of individuality that apparently accompany such expressions, but in reality deepen them indefinitely and enter into intuition. Nor is it gained by seeking it while one is with the personality, but only when the strong impression lingers and becomes like a vivid memory in which what is essential in external life is extinguished and what is otherwise "unessential" begins to speak a very clear language. Anyone who "observes" people in order to unravel their previous lives on earth will certainly not reach their goal. Such observation must be felt as an insult inflicted on the observed; only then can one hope that, as if by a destiny coming from the spiritual outside world, the long past of the human being is revealed in the present.
[ 34 ] I acquired the definite views on the repeated earthly lives of man precisely in the period of my life described here. Before that they were not far from me; but they did not round out from the vague features into sharp impressions. But I did not form theories about such things as repeated earth lives in my own thoughts; I took them into my understanding from literature or other communications as something plausible, but I did not theorize about them myself. And it was only because I was aware of real insight in this area that I was able to have the aforementioned conversation with Professor Neumann. It is certainly not to be blamed if people convince themselves of the repeated earth lives and other insights that can only be attained by supersensible means; for a fully valid conviction in this field is also possible for unbiased common sense, even if the person has not brought it to view. But the way of theorizing in this field was not my way.
[ 35 ] During the time in which I was developing more and more concrete views through repeated earthly lives, I became acquainted with the theosophical movement that originated with H. P. Blavatsky. Sinnett's "Esoteric Buddhism" came into my hands through a friend to whom I spoke about these things. This book, the first I came across from the Theosophical movement, made no impression on me at all. And I was glad that I had not read this book before I had views from my own soul life. Because its content was repulsive to me; and my antipathy towards this way of depicting the supernatural would probably have prevented me from continuing on the path that had been marked out for me.