a glimpse in Plato’s Symposium—­there is much that foreshadows Lucinda.  Let two or three sentences suffice.  “What is uglier than the overloaded femininity, what is more loathesome than the exaggerated masculinity, that rules in our customs, our opinions, and even in our better art?” “Precisely the tyrannical vehemence of the man, the flabby self-surrender of the woman, is in itself an ugly exaggeration.”  “Only the womanhood that is independent, only the manhood that is gentle, is good and beautiful.”

In 1796 Friedrich Schlegel joined his brother at Jena, where Fichte was then expounding his philosophy.  It was a system of radical idealism, teaching that the only reality is the absolute Ego, whose self-assertion thus becomes the fundamental law of the world.  The Fichtean system had not yet been fully worked out in its metaphysical bearings, but the strong and engaging personality of its author gave it, for a little while, immense prestige and influence.  To Friedrich Schlegel it seemed the gospel of a new era sort of French Revolution in philosophy.  Indeed he proclaimed that the three greatest events of the century were the French Revolution, Fichte’s philosophy, and Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister.  This last, which appeared in 1796 and contained obvious elements of autobiography, together with poems and disquisitions on this and that, was admired by him beyond all measure.  He saw in it the exemplar and the program of a wonderful new art which he proposed to call “Romantic Poetry.”

But gray theory would never have begotten Lucinda.  Going to Berlin in 1797, Schlegel made the acquaintance of Dorothea Veit, daughter of Moses Mendelsohn and wife of a Berlin banker.  She was nine years his senior.  A strong attachment grew up between them, and presently the lady was persuaded to leave her husband and become the paramour of Schlegel.  Even after the divorce was obtained Schlegel refused for some time to be married in church, believing that he had a sort of duty to perform in asserting the rights of passion over against social convention.  For several years the pair lived in wild wedlock before they were regularly married.  In 1808 they both joined the Catholic Church, and from that time on nothing more was heard of Friedrich Schlegel’s radicalism.  He came to hold opinions which were for the most part the exact opposite of those he had held in his youth.  The vociferous friend of individual liberty became a reactionary champion of authority.  Of course he grew ashamed of Lucinda and excluded it from his collected works.

Such was the soil in which the naughty book grew.  It was an era of lax ideas regarding the marriage tie.  Wilhelm Schlegel married a divorced woman who was destined in due time to transfer herself without legal formalities to Schelling.  Goethe had set the example by his conscience marriage with Christiane Vulpius.  It remains only to be said that the most of Friedrich Schlegel’s intimates, including his brother Wilhelm, advised against the publication of Lucinda.  But here, as in the matter of his marriage, the author felt that he had a duty to perform:  it was necessary to declare independence of Mrs. Grundy’s tyranny and shock people for their own good.  But the reader of today will feel that the worst shortcomings of the book are not its immoralities, but its sins against art.