Penelope Fitzgerald (born 17 December, 1916; died 28 April, 2000), in a photograph of made in 1999 by Jillian Edelstein, in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London (© Jillian Edelstein / Camera Press)
Novalis (Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg, or ‘Fritz’) as a young boy:
‘Fritz had been born a dreamy, seemingly backward little boy. After a serious illness when he was nine years old, he became intelligent and in the same year was dispatched to Neudietendorf. “But in what has he fallen short?” demanded the Freiherr, when only a few months later he was requested by the Prediger, on behalf of the Elders, to take his son away. The Prediger, who was very unwilling to condemn any child absolutely, explained that Fritz perpetually asked questions, but was unwilling to receive answers. Let us take — said the Prediger — the “children’s catechism”. In the course of this the instructor asks, “What are you?”
A I am a human being
Q Do you feel it when I take hold of you?
A I feel it well.
Q What is this, is it not flesh?
A Yes, that is flesh.
Q All this flesh, which you have is called the body. What is it called?
A The body.
Q How do you know when people have died?
A They cannot speak, they cannot move anymore.
Q Do you know why not?
A I do not know why not.
“Could he not answer these questions?” cried the Freiherr.
“It may be that he could, but the answers he gave in fact were not correct. A child of not quite ten years old, he insists that the body is not flesh, but the same stuff as the soul.” ‘
Novalis studies with Fichte in Jena:
‘…he attended on his very first morning in Jena a lecture by Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Fichte was speaking of the philosophy of Kant, which, fortunately, he had been able to improve upon greatly. Kant believed in the external world. Even though it is only known to us through our senses and our own experience, still, it is there. This, Fichte was saying, was nothing but an old man’s weakness. We are all free to imagine what the world is like, and since we probably all imagine it differently, there is no reason at all to believe in the fixed reality of things.
Before Fichte’s gooseberry eyes the students, who had the worst reputation for unruliness in Germany, cowered, transformed into frightened schoolboys. “Gentlemen! Withdraw into yourselves! Withdraw into your own mind!” Arrogant and drunken in their free time, they waited, submissive. Each unhooked the little penny inkwell on a spike from behind a lapel of his jacket. Some straightened up, some bowed themselves over, closing their eyes. A few trembled with eagerness. “Gentlemen, let your thought be the wall.” All were intend. “Have you thought the wall?” asked Fichte. “Now, then, gentlemen, let your thought be that that thought the wall.”
Fichte was the son of a linen-weaver, and in politics a Jacobin. His voice carried without effort. “The gentleman in the fourth seat from the left at the back, who has the air of being in discomfort …”
A wretched youth rose to his feet.
“Herr Professor, that is because the chairs in the lecture-rooms of Jena are made for those with short legs.”
“My appointment as Professor will not be confirmed until next May. You are permitted to ask one question.”
“Why …?”
“Speak up!”
“Why do we imagine that the wall is as we see it, and not as something other?”
Fichte replied, “We create the world not out of our imagination, but out of our sense of duty. We need the world so that we may have the greatest possible number of opportunities to do our duty. That is what justifies philosophy, and German philosophy in particular.” ‘
—from The Blue Flower (1995)
