The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Chapter XXI

[ 1 ] I became acquainted with the owner of a bookshop through the liberal politician I mentioned earlier. This bookshop had once seen better days than the ones it experienced during my time in Weimar. This was still the case under the father of the young man I got to know as the owner. It was important for me that this bookshop published a newspaper that brought clear articles about contemporary intellectual life and reviews of the poetic, scientific and artistic publications that appeared. This journal was also in decline. It had lost its circulation. But it gave me the opportunity to write about many things that were within my intellectual horizon at the time, or that were entering it. Although the numerous essays and book reviews that I wrote were only read by a few people, I was pleased to have a paper that printed what I wanted. There was a stimulus there that later became fruitful when I published the "Magazin für Literatur", which obliged me to think and feel intensively about contemporary intellectual life.

[ 2 ] So Weimar became the place for me to which I often had to return in later life. For the narrowness in which I was forced to live in Vienna expanded; and I experienced spiritual and human things that later became apparent in their consequences.

[ 3 ] Of all things, however, the most significant were the relationships that were forged with people. Time and again, when in later years I brought Weimar and my life there to mind, I would cast my spiritual gaze on a house that had become particularly dear to me.

[ 4 ] I got to know the actor Neuffer while he was still working at the Weimar Theater. I initially appreciated his serious, strict approach to his profession. He allowed nothing dilettantish to pass in his judgment of stagecraft. That was pleasant, because one is not always aware that the art of acting has to fulfill objective-artistic preconditions in a similar way to music, for example.

[ 5 ] Neuffer married the sister of the pianist and composer Bernhard Stavenhagen. I was introduced to his house. At the same time, we became friends in the home of Mrs. Neuffer's parents and Bernhard Stavenhagen. Mrs. Neuffer is a woman who radiates an atmosphere of spirituality over everything around her. Her opinions, rooted in the depths of the soul, shone beautifully on everything that was said in a casual way when one was in the house. She delivered what she had to say thoughtfully, yet gracefully. And every moment I spent with the Neuffers, I had the feeling that Mrs. Neuffer strives for truth in all aspects of life in a rare way.

[ 6 ] I could see from various incidents that they liked me there. I would like to pick out one thing.

[ 7 ] One Christmas Eve, Mr. Neuffer came to see me and, as I wasn't at home, left a note saying that I absolutely had to come to him for Christmas presents. - It wasn't easy, because I always had to attend several such festivities in Weimar. But I made it possible. And so, in addition to the presents for the children, I found a special Christmas present for myself, the value of which can only be determined by its history.

[ 8 ] One day, I was taken to a sculptor's studio. A sculptor wanted to show me his work. I wasn't really interested in what I saw. Only one single bust, lying forlornly in a corner, caught my attention. It was a bust of a hedgehog. The studio, which belonged to the apartment of an elderly lady who was very well respected in Weimar, contained all kinds of sculptures. Sculptors always rented the room for short periods of time; many things were left in it that a tenant didn't want to take with them. But there were also things in there that had been lying there unnoticed for ages, like that hay bust.

[ 9 ] The interest I had shown in this bust always led to me talking about it here and there. And so it was once at the Neuffer house; and I must have added a quiet hint that I would like to have the bust in my possession.

[ 10 ] And the next Christmas Eve it was given to me as a present at Neuffer. - The next lunchtime, to which I was invited, Neuffer told me how he had obtained the bust.

[ 11 ] He first went to the lady who owned the studio. He told her that someone had seen the bust in her studio and that it would be particularly valuable to him if he could acquire it. The lady said that yes, such things had been in her house since time immemorial, but she knew nothing about whether there was a "Hegel" there. However, she was quite willing to show Neuffer around so that he could have a look. - Everything was "searched", not the most hidden corner was left unconsidered; the Hegel bust was nowhere to be found. Neuffer was quite sad, because the thought of making me happy with the hay bust was deeply satisfying for him. - He was already standing at the door with the lady. The maid came in. She could just hear Neuffer's words: "Yes, it's a pity we didn't find the Hegel bust." "Hegel," the girl interjected, "is that perhaps the head with the broken tip of the nose that lies under my bed in the servants' quarters?" - The final act of the expedition was arranged immediately Neuffer was actually able to acquire the bust; there was just enough time before Christmas to add the missing tip of the nose.

[ 12 ] And so I came to the Hegel bust, which was one of the few things that accompanied me to many places. I always liked to look at this Hegel head (by Wichmann from 1826) when I immersed myself in Hegel's world of thought. And that really happened quite often. The features of the countenance, which are the most human expression of the purest thought, form a much-effective life companion.

[ 13 ] So it was with Neuffers. They were tireless when they wanted to please someone with something that was particularly related to their nature. The children who gradually arrived at the Neuffer home were raised by an exemplary mother. Mrs. Neuffer educated not so much by what she did, but by what she was, by her whole being. I had the pleasure of being godfather to one of her sons. Every visit to this house was a source of inner satisfaction for me. I was still able to make such visits in later years, when I was away from Weimar and occasionally went there to give lectures. Unfortunately, this has not been the case for a long time now. And so I was unable to see the Neuffers during the years in which a painful fate befell them. Because this family is one of those who were tested the most by the world war.

[ 14 ] Mrs. Neuffer's father, the old Stavenhagen, was a charming personality. He had probably previously worked in a practical profession, but then retired. Now he lived entirely in the contents of a library he had acquired. And the way he lived in it presented itself to others in a thoroughly likeable way. There was nothing smug or knowledge-haughty about the dear old gentleman, but rather something that revealed an honest thirst for knowledge in every word.

[ 15 ] So the conditions in Weimar at that time were really still such that souls who felt little satisfied elsewhere found themselves there. It was the same with those who built a permanent home there, but also with those who liked to visit again and again. Many people felt that way: Weimar visits are something different to them than visits to other places.

[ 16 ] I felt this particularly with the Danish poet Rudolf Schmidt. He first came to the performance of his drama "The Transformed King". I became acquainted with him during this visit. But then he appeared on many occasions when Weimar saw visitors from abroad. The beautifully built man with the flowing head of curls was often among these visitors. The way people "are" in Weimar had something attractive for his soul. He was a personality of the sharpest character. In philosophy, he was a follower of Rasmus Nielsen. It was through him, who had started out from Hegel, that Rudolf Schmidt acquired the most beautiful understanding of German idealist philosophy. And if Schmidt's judgments were clearly shaped towards the positive, they were no less so towards the negative. He became biting, satirical, quite scathing when he spoke of Georg Brandes. There was something artistic about the way in which someone revealed a whole, broad, antipathetic range of feelings. These revelations could not have made anything other than an artistic impression on me. Because I had read a lot of Georg Brandes. I was particularly interested in what he had described in an ingenious way from an at least wide circle of observation and knowledge about the intellectual currents of the European peoples. -Everything that Rudolf Schmidt presented was subjectively honest and, because of the character of this poet, really captivating. - I finally came to love Rudolf Schmidt in my heart; I looked forward to the days when he came to Weimar. It was interesting to hear him talk about his Nordic homeland, and to see what important abilities had grown in him from the very source of Nordic feeling. It was no less interesting to talk to him about Goethe, Schiller and Byron. He really spoke differently from Georg Brandes. The latter is everywhere the international personality in his judgment; in Rudolf Schmidt the Dane spoke about everything. But that is precisely why he spoke about many things and in many ways more interestingly than Georg Brandes.

[ 17 ] In my last years in Weimar, I became close friends with Conrad Ansorge and his brother-in-law von Crompton. Conrad Ansorge later developed his great artistry in a brilliant way I have only to speak here of what he was to me in a beautiful friendship at the end of the nineties, and how he stood before me then.

[ 18 ] The Ansorges and von Crompton women were sisters. Circumstances meant that our get-togethers took place either in the Cromptons' house or in the "Russischer Hof" hotel.

[ 19 ] Ansorge was an energetic and artistic person. He worked as a pianist and composer. During our acquaintance in Weimar, he composed Nietzschean and Dehmelian poetry. It was always a festive event when the friends, who were gradually drawn into the Ansorge-Crompton circle, were allowed to hear a new composition.

[ 20 ] An editor from Weimar, Paul Böhler, also belonged to this circle. He edited the newspaper "Deutschland", which led a more independent existence alongside the official "Weimarische Zeitung". Many other Weimar friends also appeared in this

[ 21 ] Circles: Fresenius, Heitmüller, also Fritz Koegel et al. When Otto Erich Hartleben appeared in Weimar, he always appeared in it too, when this circle was formed.

[ 22 ] Conrad Ansorge grew out of the Liszt circle. Yes, I am not saying anything that is beside the point when I say that he was one of Liszt's pupils who was artistically most faithful to the master. But it was precisely through Conrad Ansorge that what lived on from Liszt was presented to the soul in the most beautiful way. For with Ansorge, everything musical that came from him stemmed from the source of a completely original, individual humanity. This humanity may have been inspired by Liszt, but the charming thing about it was its originality. I am expressing these things as I experienced them at the time; how I felt about them later or how I feel about them today is not relevant here.

[ 23 ] Through Liszt, Ansorge was once connected to Weimar in earlier times; at the time I am talking about here, he was mentally detached from this connection. And that was the peculiarity of this Ansorge-Crompton circle, that he had a completely different relationship to Weimar than by far most of the personalities that I have been able to describe so far as being close to me.

[ 24 ] These personalities were in Weimar in the way I described in the previous section. This circle strove with its interests out of Weimar. And so it came about that when my Weimar work was finished and I had to think about leaving the city of Goethe, I became friends with people for whom life in Weimar was nothing particularly characteristic. In a certain sense, one lived out of Weimar with these friends.

[ 25 ] Ansorge, who felt that Weimar was a constraint on his artistic development, moved to Berlin at about the same time as I did. Paul Böhler, although editor of the most widely read Weimar newspaper, did not write out of the "Weimar spirit" of the time, but criticized this spirit harshly from a wider perspective. He was the one who always raised his voice when it came to putting into perspective what was inspired by opportunism and small-mindedness. And so it happened that he lost his job at the very time he was in the circle described above.

[ 26 ] Von Crompton was the most amiable personality imaginable. In his house the circle could spend the most beautiful hours. At the center was Mrs. von Crompton, a witty and graceful personality who had a sunny effect on those who were allowed to be around her.

[ 27 ] The whole circle was, so to speak, under the sign of Nietzsche. Nietzsche's view of life was considered to be of the greatest interest; the state of mind that had revealed itself in Nietzsche was considered to be that which represented, so to speak, a flowering of genuine and free humanity. In these two directions, von Crompton in particular was a representative of the Nietzsche connoisseurs of the nineties. My own relationship to Nietzsche did not change within this circle. But since I was the one people asked when they wanted to know something about Nietzsche, they projected the way they held themselves to Nietzsche into my relationship with him.

[ 28 ] But it must be said that it was precisely this circle that looked up to what Nietzsche thought he recognized in an understanding way, that it also tried to live out what lay in Nietzsche's ideals of life in a more understanding way than was done by some other sides, where the "superman turn" and the "beyond good and evil" did not always blossom in the most pleasing way.

[ 29 ] For me, the circle was significant because of the strong, stirring energy that lived in it. On the other hand, I found the most accommodating understanding for everything I thought I could put forward in the circle.

[ 30 ] The evenings in which Ansorge's musical performances shone and conversations about Nietzsche that interested all participants filled hours, in which far-reaching, serious questions about the world and life formed a pleasant conversation, so to speak, were already something that I can look back on with satisfaction as something that embellished my last Weimar time.

[ 31 ] Because everything that took place in this circle stemmed from a direct and serious artistic feeling and wanted to permeate itself with a world view that held on to real people as its center, one could not harbor any unpleasant feelings when it came to light what was objectionable about Weimar at the time. The tone was very different from what I had previously experienced in Olden's circle. There was a lot of irony involved; people saw Weimar as "humanly all too human", just as they would have seen other places if they had been there. In the Ansorge-Crompton circle, there was - I would like to say - more of a serious feeling: how should German cultural development continue if a place like Weimar fulfills so little of its designated tasks?

[ 32 ] In the background of this social intercourse, I wrote my book "Goethe's World View", with which I concluded my Weimar activities. When I ordered a new edition of this book some time ago, I felt that the way in which I formed my thoughts for the book in Weimar at the time echoed the inner organization of the friendly gatherings of the circle described.

[ 33 ] This book has something less impersonal about it than it would have had if it had not resonated in my soul while I was writing it, which had resounded again and again in this circle with enthusiasm, confession and energy about the "essence of personality". It is the only one of my books of which I have this to say. I can describe them all as personally experienced in the truest sense of the word; but not in this way, where one's own personality so strongly experiences the essence of the personalities around it.

[ 34 ] However, this only refers to the general attitude of the book. Goethe's "Weltanschauung", which reveals itself in relation to the field of nature, is presented in the same way as it was in my Goethe writings of the eighties. My views have only been broadened, deepened or strengthened in individual respects by the manuscripts first discovered in the Goethe Archive.

[ 35 ] In everything that I have worked on in connection with Goethe, it was important to me to present the content and direction of his "Weltanschauung" to the world. This was intended to show how the comprehensive and spiritually penetrating nature of Goethe's research and thinking led to individual discoveries in particular areas of nature. It was not important for me to refer to these individual discoveries as such, but rather to the fact that they were blossoms on the plant of a spiritual view of nature.

[ 36 ] To characterize this view of nature as a part of what Goethe gave to the world, I wrote descriptions of this part of Goethe's thought and research work. But I also strove for the same goal through the arrangement of Goethe's essays in the two editions I worked on, the one in "Kürschners Deutscher National-Literatur" and also the Weimar Sophien edition. I never regarded it as a task that could follow for me from Goethe's entire work to illustrate what Goethe achieved as a botanist, as a zoologist, as a geologist, as a color theorist in the way that one judges such an achievement before the forum of current science. - To do something for this also seemed to me inappropriate in the arrangement of the essays for the editions.

[ 37 ] And so the part of Goethe's writings that I edited for the Weimar edition has become nothing other than a document of Goethe's world view as revealed in his research into nature. How this world view casts its particular light in the botanical, geological, etc., should come to the fore. (One has found, for example, that I should have arranged the geological-mineralogical writings differently so that one could see "Goethe's relationship to geology" from the content. One only had to read what I said about the arrangement of Goethe's writings in this field in the introductions to my editions in "Kürschners Deutscher National-Literatur", and one could have no doubt that I would never have accepted the points of view demanded by my critics. They knew this in Weimar when they entrusted me with the editing. For everything that established my points of view had already appeared in Kürschner's edition before they thought of assigning me a work in Weimar. And it was assigned to me with full awareness of these circumstances. I will never deny that what I did in some details when editing the Weimar edition can be described as mistakes made by "experts". These may be corrected. But one should not present the matter as if the shape of the edition did not stem from my principles, but from my ability or inability. In particular, this should not be done from a side which admits that it has no means of understanding what I have presented in relation to Goethe. If it were a question of individual factual errors here or there, I could refer my critics in this respect to much worse things, to the essays I wrote as a high school student. In this account of my life, I have made it clear that even as a child I lived in the spiritual world as something I took for granted, but that I had to work hard to conquer everything that relates to recognizing the outside world. As a result, I was a late developer for this in all areas. And the consequences of this are reflected in the details of my Goethe editions.