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99 Autobiographical and Biographical Testimonies  Excerpts from a Letter by Friedrich von Hardenberg to Finance Minister von Oppel in Dresden, Weissenfels, end of January 1800 . . . I now come to the end of your letter, where you urge me to make public some details of my personal circumstances. Your amiable goodness of spirit encourages me to let you know something of the story of my last years. May your friendly interest in my personality allow you to receive this as evidence of my complete trust, and it would please me greatly if you were to approve of my actions. My uncle, who is a member of the German Order, bestowed much attention on me since my childhood , and he maintains a special interest in my education.1 My father since his youth stood in the closest relationship with this man who was in every respect a worthy individual. His relationship to his brother was more like that of a son to a father than as one brother to another. My uncle’s character is one of unshakable integrity and of the strictest adherence to fundamental principles. His intellect bears the cultured stamp of an old-fashioned man of the world, but so, too, his narrowmindedness . Good fortune spoiled him—he never felt the pinch of material needs; therefore, he never learned to bear the limitations of basic necessities and never learned how the heart and mind can compensate for the thousand comforts of the good life. He grew up in the greater world and lived continuously in its circles. Lacking imagination, accustomed to judging the needs of the heart from the perspective of clever reason and inclined to submit to the pretensions of outer appearance and glamour, he lost over the course of his life a sense for [the heart’s] demands and sacrificed his opinion and family to his inclinations. From childhood on he gave me opportunities to satisfy my vanity and promised that brilliant success would follow from my lively nature. He flattered me with the most pleasing hopes of playing a role in the world, and he certainly would have warmly supported such a choice of direction in life. Despite my father’s submissive attitude to my uncle and despite my father’s similarity to him in many casts of mind, he differed quite markedly from my uncle insofar as he taught us by precept and by example to scorn outward appearance. Through his example and exhortation he taught us to disdain superficial brilliance. He encouraged us to be diligent and moderate and expressed pleasure when we followed the inclination of our hearts without regard for the opinion of the world. He commended to us the benefits of a quiet, domestic estate and urged us often never to make decisions or act solely on the basis of interest and ambition. My uncle put great emphasis on the prerogatives of station and birth, my father smiled at both. I went to school filled with the vain hopes of my uncle and enflamed with a desire to enter the greater world. I hoped to find my way to this Eldorado by means of a rich marriage, and I thought that it wasn’t really necessary to make a thorough study of jurisprudence. Luckily, from my earliest years I had an inextinguishable attraction to the literary arts, and this had occasioned already many conflicts with my worldly ambitions. My uncle often ridiculed the arts and humanities, and although I was careful not to show my true colors, secretly I remained loyal to these disciplines. In Jena I became well acquainted with outstanding scholars and acquired a love for the muses, all the more so as the fashion of democracy at that time made me revolt against the old beliefs of the aristocracy . Philosophy interested me, but I was far too flighty to bring this interest farther than to acquire a facility with philosophical terminology . I went to Leipzig and successfully situated myself in a charming society which led me back to my earlier attitudes and wishes and enlivened my sense of vanity. My heart awoke there with a lively passion for a young woman, whom you well know. Madame Jourdan in Berlin helped me to find a middle way out of this dilemma, namely to a career as a soldier. The prejudices of the world hindered me somewhat from this match, and yet I could lead a free and poetic life. First, however, I quarreled with my uncle. My beloved distanced...

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