hilosopher of the third stage of eroticism, as the chaplain Andreas was
the theorist of the second. The third stage gained its first footing
amongst the German romanticists. Women were largely instrumental in
achieving its victory. I will not go into detail but will confine myself
to mentioning in passing the names of Jean Paul, Henrietta Herz,
Brentano, Sophy Mereau, Dorothy Vest, Schelling, Friedrich Gentz. W. von
Humboldt records a conversation which he had in the year of the
Revolution with Schiller. The latter unhesitatingly professed his faith
in the unity of love. "It (the blending of love and sensuality) is
always possible and always there." But Humboldt was diffident, unable
fully to grasp the new conception. "I said that it would sever the most
beautiful, most delicate relationships, that it was too heterogeneous to
admit of coherence; but my principal argument was that in the majority
of cases it was out of the question...."

There is a document from the year 1779 which contains in its entirety
the modern conception of harmonious love, together with its ecstatic
apotheosis, the love-death, a document which puts the later theorising
romanticists and _Lucinda_ completely in the shade. I am referring to
the only one of Gottfried August Buerger's letters to Molly, which has
been preserved. It contains the following passages: "I cannot describe
to you in words how ardently I embrace you in the spirit. There is in me
such a tumult of life that frequently after an outburst my spirit and
soul are left in such weariness that I seem to be on the point of death.
Every brief calm begets more violent storms. Often in the black darkness
of a stormy, rainy midnight, I long to hasten to you, throw myself into
your arms, sink with you into the infinite ocean of delight and--die. Oh
Love! oh Love! what a strange and wonderful power art thou to hold body
and soul in such unbreakable bonds!... I let my imagination roam through
the whole world, yea, through all the heavens and the Heaven of heavens,
and examine every delight and compare it to you, but by the Eternal God!
there is nothing I desire so ardently as to hold you, sweetest and
heavenliest of all women, in my arms. If I could win you by walking
round the earth, naked and barefoot, through thorns and thistles, over
rocks and snow and ice, and, on the point of death, with the last spark
of life, sink into your arms and draw new life and happiness from your
loving bosom, I s