She is to me dear and admirable, Bettina only interesting. She is of religious grace, Bettina the fullness of nature.”[1]
Again she writes to him, copying at the same time Günderode’s poem, “Ist Alles stumm und leer.”
‘‘ Günderode is the ideal; Bettina, nature; Günderode throws herself into the river because the world is all too narrow. Bettina lives, and follows out every freakish fancy, till the enchanting child degenerates into an eccentric and undignified old woman. There is a medium somewhere. Philip Sidney found it; others had it found for them by fate.”[2]
Apart from all other aspects of interest, Margaret Fuller’s translation of the first part of these letters is perhaps the best piece of literary work that she ever executed; so difficult was it to catch the airy style of these fanciful German maidens; and so perfectly well did she succeed, preserving withal the separate individualities of the two correspondents. Only one thin pamphlet was published, in 1842, containing about a quarter part of the letters. It appeared without her name; and apparently there was not enough of patronage to lead her on; but, after the death of Bettina von Arnim, the translation was completed by Mrs. Minna Wesselhoeft at the suggestion of Miss Elizabeth P. Peabody, the original publisher, and was printed with Margaret Fuller’s
