of authority. Of course he grew ashamed of _Lucinda_ and excluded it
from his collected works.

Such was the soil in which the naughty book grew. It was an era of lax
ideas regarding the marriage tie. Wilhelm Schlegel married a divorced
woman who was destined in due time to transfer herself without legal
formalities to Schelling. Goethe had set the example by his conscience
marriage with Christiane Vulpius. It remains only to be said that the
most of Friedrich Schlegel's intimates, including his brother Wilhelm,
advised against the publication of _Lucinda_. But here, as in the
matter of his marriage, the author felt that he had a duty to
perform: it was necessary to declare independence of Mrs. Grundy's
tyranny and shock people for their own good. But the reader of today
will feel that the worst shortcomings of the book are not its
immoralities, but its sins against art.

It will be observed that while _Lucinda_ was called by its author a
"novel," it hardly deserves that name. There is no story, no
development of a plot. The book consists of disconnected glimpses in
the form of letters, disquisitions, rhapsodies, conversations, etc.,
each with a more or less suggestive heading. Two of these
sections--one cannot call them chapters--are omitted in the
translation, namely, "Allegory of Impudence" and, "Apprenticeship of
Manhood."




LUCINDA (1799)