was too
impetuous, impulsive, and masculine for him. Schiller and Wieland and
Schlegel liked her better, and understood her better. Her great works
had not then been written, and she had reputation chiefly for her high
social position and social qualities. Possibly her exceeding vivacity
and wit seemed superficial,--as witty French people then seemed to both
Germans and English. Doubtless there were critics and philosophers in
Germany who were not capable of appreciating a person who aspired to
penetrate all the secrets of art, philosophy, religion, and science then
known who tried to master everything, and who talked eloquently on
everything,--and that person a woman, and a Frenchwoman. Goethe was
indeed an exception to most German critics, for he was an artist, as few
Germans have been in the use of language, and he, like Humboldt, had
universal knowledge; yet he did not like Madame de Stael,--not from
envy: he had too much self-consciousness to be envious of any man, still
less a woman. Envy does not exist between the sexes: a musician may be
jealous of a musician; a poet, of a poet; a theologian, of a theologian;
and it is said, a physician has been known to be jealous of a physician.
I think it is probable that the gifted Frenchwoman overwhelmed the great
German with her prodigality of wit, sarcasm, and sentiment, for he was
inclined to coldness and taciturnity.

Madame de Stael speaks respectfully of the great men she met at Weimar;
but I do not think she worshipped them, since she did not fully
understand them,--especially Fichte, whom she ridiculed, as well as
other obscure though profound writers, who disdained style and art in
writing, for which she was afterwards so distinguished. I believe
nine-tenths of German literature is wasted on Europeans for lack of
clearness and directness of style; although the involved obscurities
which are common to German philosophers and critics and historians alike
do not seem to derogate from their literary fame at home, and have even
found imitators in England, like Coleridge and Carlyle. Nevertheless,
obscurity and affectation are eternal blots on literary genius, since
they are irreconcilable with art, which alone gives perpetuity to
learning,--as illustrated by the classic authors of antiquity, and such
men as Pascal, Rousseau, and Macaulay in our times,--although the
pedants have always disdained those who write clearly and luminously,
and lost reverence for genius the mo