Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/794

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758 ARNIM the service, and in 1637 was arrested by the Swedes on account of an alleged former secret understanding with Wallenstein. In Novem- ber 1638, he escaped from Stockholm to Ham- burg and raised at his own expense and with the consent of the imperial and Saxon authori- ties an army of 16,000 men against Sweden, but died before it could engage in active operations. ARNIM, Karl Otto Lndwig von, a German au- thor, born in Berlin, Aug. 1, 1779, died there, Feb. 9, 1861. His books of travel in France, Italy, Spain, Russia, and the East (Berlin, 6 vols., 1838-'50) are much valued. ARNIffl. I. Ludwig Aehlm (Joachim) von, a German poet, one of the leaders of the " ro- mantic school " in German literature, born in Berlin, Jan. 26, 1781, died at his estate Wie- persdorf, near Dahme, Jan. 21, 1831. He de- voted himself in his youth to scientific studies, but even in these his researches were of a fantastic nature, and showed the tendency of his mind, which soon exhibited much of its singular originality in the earliest of his liter- ary works, Ariel's Offenbarungen (Gottingen, 1804). Soon after the publication of this book he travelled in Germany, studying the habits of the common people, and tracing to their sources the current folk songs and legends. Of the almost forgotten beauties found among these popular ballads and tales he made ex- cellent use in several of his works which ap- peared soon after the principal portions of Des Knaben Wunderhorn (3 vols., Heidelberg, 1806-'8; 2d ed., 1819); Wintergarten, eine Sammlung von Novellen (Berlin, 1809) ; Ar- muth, Reichthum, Schutd und Busse der Grafin Dolores (2 vols., Berlin, 1810) ; Halle und Jerusalem, Studentenspiel und Pilger- abenteuer (Heidelberg, 1811); and the Schau- buhne (Berlin, 1813). In 1811 he married Elisabeth Brentano, afterward celebrated as Bettina von Arnim. During the years of Na- poleon's rule in Germany, Von Arnim was among the patriots who strove most energeti- cally to arouse his countrymen against the conqueror's despotism. The years of the war brought financial trouble upon him, and he wrote but little for a considerable time. That difficulty over, he again appeared in literature and published several works, of which Die Kronenwachter, oder BerihoWs erstes und zwei- tes Leben, was the chief. His complete works were published by Grimm, in 19 volumes (Ber- lin, 1839-'46). II. Elisabeth yon, best known as BETTINA, wife of the preceding, and sister of the poet Clemens Brentano, born in Frank- fort-on-the-Main, April 4, 1785, died in Berlin, Jan. 20, 1859. Her education was little guided by her friends, and its entire freedom from con- ventional rules probably exaggerated the ec- centricities which she began at an early age to display. A part of her youth was spent m a convent, a part in Offenbach and Marburg but Frankfort was her favorite home. She fortned a friendship with a canoness, Fraulein Gunde- rode, who exerted over her naturally fantastic ARNO habits of thought a most unhealthy influence ; the two friends acknowledged only a singularly fanciful worship of nature, and natural im- pulses, laws, and methods of life; a dreamy brooding over this and the " tyranny " of con- ventionalities soon grew into almost a mental disease. Fraulein Gunderode committed sui- cide on account of an unhappy passion for the philologist Creuzer, and this event still further affected Bettina's morbid current of thought. Soon after her friend's death she entered into correspondence with Goethe, for whom she contracted a fantastic love. The poet, now nearly 60 years of age, treated this as a child's whim, and, without encouraging, still did not repel it, though he in no way returned her feeling. The outgrowth of their singular cor- respondence was Bettina von Arnim's book Goethe's Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde (3 vols., Berlin, 1835), a record since proved to be so full of falsifications, distortions, and affectations as to be worth little save as a record of its au- thor's egotism and eccentricity. (See Lewes's " Life of Goethe.") She herself translated the work into English. After her marriage to Achim von Arnim in 1811, she lived in Ber- lin, where her mind took a healthier tone from her active charity and from the absence of her former surroundings. In 1840 portions of her correspondence with her old friend the can- oness were published under the title Die Gun- derode (partly translated into English by Mar- garet Fuller). Her house was a well known ren- dezvous of the most famous literary characters of the day, among whom she was known only as " Bettina " even in her old age. Her note- worthy works besides those mentioned above were : Dies Buck gehort dem Kdnige (2 vols., Berlin, 1848) ; Ilius Pamphilius und die Am- brosia (2 vols., 1848) ; Gesprache mit Damonen (1852). In analyzing Bettina's character, it is difficult to determine how much of her eccen- tricity is attributable to her actual peculiarities, and how much to a morbid egotism and affec- tation, largely influenced by the opinions of the unsettled and disorganized time in which she lived. III. Gisela yon, daughter of the pre- ceding, and wife of Hermann Grimm, has be- come known as a writer by her Dramatische Werke, published two years before her mother's death (2 vols., Bonn, 1857). ARNO, a river of Tuscany, rises on the S. slope of Monte Falterona in the Apennines, 6 m. N. of Prato Vecchio, flows S. to the neighborhood of Arezzo, where it is joined by the Chianassa and the Chiana, thence N. W. to Pontassieve, where it receives the Sieve, thence follows a westerly course through Florence and Pisa to 7 m. below the latter city, where it flows into the Mediterranean through a channel cut for it in 1603; length 150 m. It is navigable for small vessels from the sea to Florence, but further is liable to be obstructed by floods and droughts. To guard against the former, it has been embanked for the greater part of its course. The valley