From the Letters about Germany (1844)

Summary

We now have monks of atheism who would burn Mr. de Voltaire alive because he is a stubborn deist. I have to admit that I do not like this music, but it also does not frighten me, since I was standing behind the maestro when he composed it, in very confused and ornate symbols, to be sure, so that not everyone could decipher it – I saw how on occasion he would look around anxiously, worried that he would be understood. He was quite fond of me, since he was certain that I would not betray him; at the time, I even considered him servile. Once, when I was displeased by the phrase: “Whatever is, is rational,” he smiled in a strange way and remarked, “It could also be put: whatever is, must be.” He hastily looked around, but soon grew calm since only Heinrich Beer had heard him. I myself did not understand such figures of speech until later. Thus, it was only later that I understood why he had maintained in his philosophy of history that Christianity represented progress because it taught of a God who is dead, whereas the pagan divinities knew nothing of any death. What sort of progress it would be if God had never existed at all! We stood one evening at the window, and I poetized about the stars, the habitations of the blessed.