Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad, Vol. 2 (of 3): With Tales and Miscellanies Now First CollectedJameson, Mrs. (Anna)
History
Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad, Vol. 2 (of 3): With Tales and Miscellanies Now First Collected
Jameson, Mrs. (Anna)
Germany -- Description and travel
While he spoke I could not help looking at his head, which is
wonderfully fine; the noble breadth and amplitude of his brow, and his
quiet, but penetrating eye, with an expression of latent humour hovering
round his lips, formed altogether a striking physiognomy. The numerous
prints and portraits of Tieck which are scattered over Germany are very
defective as resemblances. They have a heavy look; they give the weight
and power of his head, but nothing of the _finesse_ which lurks in
the lower part of his face. His manner is courteous, and his voice
particularly sweet and winning. He is apparently fond of the society of
women; or the women are fond of his society, for in the evening his room
is generally crowded with fair worshippers. Yet Tieck, like Goethe, is
accused of entertaining some unworthy sentiments with regard to the sex;
and is also said, like Goethe, not to have upheld us in his writings,
as the true philosopher, to say nothing of the true poet, ought to have
done. It is a fact upon which I shall take an opportunity of enlarging,
that almost all the greatest men who have lived in the world, whether
poets, philosophers, artists, or statesmen, have derived their mental
and physical organization, more from the mother's than the father's
side; and the same is true, unhappily, of those who have been in an
extraordinary degree perverted. And does not this lead us to some awful
considerations on the importance of the moral and physical well-being
of women, and their present condition in society, as a branch of
legislation and politics, which must ere long be modified? Let our lords
and masters reflect, that if an extensive influence for good or for evil
be not denied to us, an influence commencing not only with, but before
the birth of their children, it is time that the manifold mischiefs
and miseries lurking in the bosom of society, and of which woman is at
once the wretched instrument and more wretched victim, be looked to.
Sometimes I am induced to think that Tieck is misinterpreted or libelled
by those who pretend to take the tone from his writings and opinions: it
is evident that he delights in being surrounded by a crowd of admiring
women, therefore he must in his heart honour and reverence us as being
morally equal with man,--for who could suspect the great Tieck of that
paltry coxcombry which can be gratified by the adulation of inferior
beings?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account