drawing-room"--and at last "a basket" ["the mitten"]. The Landed
Proprietor declares still laughingly that he will not receive "a
basket." The sisters smile and make their remarks.



CLEMENS BRENTANO

(1778-1842)

The intellectual upheaval in Germany at the beginning of this century
brought a host of remarkable characters upon the literary stage, and
none more gifted, more whimsical, more winning than Clemens Brentano,
the erratic son of a brilliant family. Born September 8th, 1778, at
Ehrenbreitstein, Brentano spent his youth among the stimulating
influences which accompanied the renaissance of German culture. His
grandmother, Sophie de la Roche, had been the close friend of Wieland,
and his mother the youthful companion of Goethe. Clemens, after a vain
attempt to follow in the mercantile footsteps of his father, went to
Jena, where he met the Schlegels; and here his brilliant but unsteady
literary career began.

In 1803 he married the talented Sophie Mareau, but three years later his
happiness was terminated by her death. His next matrimonial venture was,
however, a failure: an elopement in 1808 with the daughter of a
Frankfort banker was quickly followed by a divorce, and he thereafter
led the uncontrolled life of an errant poet. Among his early writings,
published under the pseudonym of 'Marie,' were several satires and
dramas and a novel entitled 'Godwi,' which he himself called "a romance
gone mad." The meeting with Achim von Arnim, who subsequently married