The inspiration which went out from Bettina’s magnetic nature was profound.  She had her part in every great movement of her time, from the liberation of Greece to the fight with cholera in Berlin.  During the latter, her devotion to the cause of the suffering poor in Berlin opened her eyes to the miseries of the common people; and she wrote a work full of indignant fervor, ‘Dies Buch gehoert dem Koenig’ (This Book belongs to the King), in consequence of which her welcome at the court of Frederick William IV. grew cool.  A subsequent book, written in a similar vein, was suppressed.  But Bettina’s love of the people, as of every cause in which she was interested, was genuine and not to be quenched; she acted upon the maxim once expressed by Emerson, “Every brave heart must treat society as a child, and never allow it to dictate.”  Emerson greatly admired Bettina, and Louisa M. Alcott relates that she first made acquaintance with the famous ‘Correspondence’ when in her girlhood she was left to browse in Emerson’s library.  Bettina’s influence was most keenly felt by the young, and she had the youth of Germany at her feet.  She died in 1859.

There is in Weimar a picture in which are represented the literary men of the period, grouped as in Raphael’s School of Athens, with Goethe and Schiller occupying the centre.  Upon the broad steps which lead to the elevation where they are standing, is the girlish figure of Bettina bending forward and holding a laurel wreath in her hand.  This is the position which she occupies in the history of German literature.

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DEDICATION:  TO GOETHE

From ‘Goethe’s Correspondence with a Child’

Thou, who knowest love, and the refinement of sentiment, oh how beautiful is everything in thee!  How the streams of life rush through thy sensitive heart, and plunge with force into the cold waves of thy time, then boil and bubble up till mountain and vale flush with the glow of life, and the forests stand with glistening boughs upon the shore of thy being, and all upon which rests thy glance is filled with happiness and life!  O God, how happy were I with thee!  And were I winging my flight far over all times, and far over thee, I would fold my pinions and yield myself wholly to the domination of thine eyes.

Men will never understand thee, and those nearest to thee will most thoroughly disown and betray thee; I look into the future, and I hear them cry, “Stone him!” Now, when thine own inspiration, like a lion, stands beside thee and guards thee, vulgarity ventures not to approach thee.  Thy mother said recently, “The men to-day are all like Gerning, who always says, ’We, the superfluous learned’;” and she speaks truly, for he is superfluous.  Rather be dead than superfluous!  But I am not so, for I am thine, because I recognize thee in all things.  I know that when the clouds lift themselves up before the sun-god, they will soon be depressed by his fiery hand; I know that he endures no shadow except that which his own fame seeks; the rest of consciousness will overshadow thee.  I know, when he descends in the evening, that he will again appear in the morning with golden front.  Thou art eternal, therefore it is good for me to be with thee.