We know not how we should characterize to the reader this
most original work. Bettina, or we should say, the Frau von Arnim,
exhibits her eccentric wisdom under the person of Goethe's Mother,
the Frau Rath, whilst she herself is still a child, who, (1807) sits
upon `the shawl' at the foot of the Frau Rath, and listens devoutly
to the gifted mother of the great poet. Moreover, Bettina does not
conceal that she solely, or at any rate principally, propounds _her_
views from the Frau Rath. And in fact, it could not be otherwise,
since we come to hear the newest philosophical wisdom which makes a
strange enough figure in the mouth of Goethe's mother. If we mistake
not, the intimate intercourse with Bruno Bauer is also an essential
impulse for Frau von Arnim, and we must not therefore wonder if the
Frau Rath loses her way in pure philosophical hypotheses, wherein she
avails herself of the known phrases of the school. It is true, she
quickly recovers herself again, clothes her perceptions in poetical
garb, mounts bravely to the boldest visions, or, (and this oftenest
happens,) becomes a humorist, spices her discourses in Frankfort
dialect by idiomatic expressions, and hits off in her merriest humors
capital sketches.
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