THE YOUTH OF GOETHE BY P. HUME BROWN, LL. D. , F. B. A. LONDONJOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1913 TO THE VISCOUNT HALDANE OF CLOAN, LORD CHANCELLOR OF GREAT BRITAIN. MY DEAR CHANCELLOR, --AS THE "ONLY BEGETTER" OF THIS BOOK, IT SEEMSALMOST OBLIGATORY THAT IT SHOULD BE ASSOCIATED WITH YOUR NAME. THE AUTHOR. _GOETHE'S BIOGRAPHIE. _ "Anfangs ist es ein Punkt der leise zum Kreise sich öffnet, Aber, wachsend, umfasst dieser am Ende die Welt. " FRIEDRICH HEBBEL. "In the beginning a point that soft to the circle expandeth, But the circle at length, growing, enclaspeth the world. " CONTENTS CHAPTER I EARLY YEARS IN FRANKFORT 1749--1765 PAGE GOETHE'S BIRTHPLACE AND ITS INFLUENCE ON HIM 1PERIOD OF HIS BIRTH 4HIS FATHER 6HIS MOTHER 8HIS SISTER 10FAMILY FRIENDS 11HIS EDUCATION 12RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES 14THE _SEVEN YEARS' WAR_ 18FRENCH OCCUPATION OF FRANKFORT 19GOETHE'S FIRST LOVE 21DESTINED FOR THE STUDY OF LAW 23THE BOY THE FATHER OF THE MAN 25HIS CHARACTER AND EARLY TASTES 27 CHAPTER II STUDENT IN LEIPZIG OCTOBER, 1765--SEPTEMBER, 1768 GOES TO LEIPZIG 29HIS WILD LIFE THERE 29SOCIETY OF LEIPZIG 31HIS IRREGULAR STUDIES 33ADOPTS LEIPZIG FASHIONS 35FEMININE INFLUENCES 36DANDYISM 37FALLS IN LOVE WITH KÄTHCHEN SCHÖNKOPF 38FRIENDSHIP WITH BEHRISCH 39HIS RELATIONS TO KÄTHCHEN 40MISCELLANEOUS INTERESTS 44FRIENDSHIP WITH OESER 46STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE 48POEMS OF THE PERIOD 49_DIE LAUNE DES VERLIEBTEN_ 51_DIE MITSCHULDIGEN_ 52INSPIRATION 54 CHAPTER III AT HOME IN FRANKFORT SEPTEMBER, 1768--APRIL, 1770 RETURNS TO FRANKFORT 57HIS BROKEN HEALTH 58RELATIONS TO HIS FATHER 58HIS SISTER 60INTEREST IN RELIGION 61FRIENDSHIP WITH FRÄULEIN VON KLETTENBERG 62A MYSTERIOUS MEDICINE 63EVOLVES A RELIGIOUS CREED 65INFLUENCE OF FRÄULEIN VON KLETTENBERG 66INTEREST IN LITERATURE AND ART 67LESSING AND WIELAND 70RIPENING POWERS 71 CHAPTER IV GOETHE IN STRASSBURG APRIL, 1770--AUGUST, 1771 SETTLEMENT IN STRASSBURG 75INFLUENCES OF STRASSBURG 75CHANGE IN HIS RELIGIOUS FEELINGS 76MANNER OF LIFE IN STRASSBURG 78FRIENDSHIP WITH DR. SALZMANN 79RELATIONS TO JUNG STILLING 83COMES UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF HERDER 84YOUNG'S _CONJECTURES ON ORIGINAL COMPOSITION_ 90ITS INFLUENCE ON GOETHE'S GENIUS 93FRIEDERIKE BRION 95HIS RELATIONS TO HER 96PARTING FROM HER 101MISCELLANEOUS STUDIES 102SELF-DISCIPLINE 103POEMS ADDRESSED TO FRIEDERIKE 105 CHAPTER V FRANKFORT--_GÖTZ VON BERLICHINGEN_ AUGUST, 1771--DECEMBER, 1771 GOETHE'S RETURN TO FRANKFORT 108CREATIVE PRODUCTIVENESS OF THE PERIOD 108POET OR ARTIST? 111MENTAL CONFLICT 112EPOCHS IN HIS LAST FRANKFORT YEARS 113HIS SISTER CORNELIA 116GROWING DISTASTE FOR FRANKFORT 117DEPRESSION 119WORSHIP OF SHAKESPEARE 120_GÖTZ VON BERLICHINGEN_ 121ITS INFLUENCE ON EUROPEAN LITERATURE 131 CHAPTER VI INFLUENCE OF MERCK AND THE DARMSTADT CIRCLE 1772 FRIENDSHIP WITH MERCK 133CHARACTER OF MERCK 133HIS INFLUENCE ON GOETHE 135THE DARMSTADT CIRCLE 136ITS INFLUENCE ON GOETHE 136CAROLINE FLACHSLAND AND GOETHE 137POEMS OF GOETHE INSPIRED BY THE DARMSTADT CIRCLE 138_WANDERERS STURMLIED_ 139_DER WANDERER_ 141 CHAPTER VII WETZLAR AND CHARLOTTE BUFF MAY--SEPTEMBER, 1772 DEPARTURE FROM WETZLAR 143WETZLAR AND ITS SOCIETY 144LOTTE BUFF 147GOETHE'S RELATIONS TO HER 147KESTNER, LOTTE'S BETROTHED 148GOETHE, KESTNER, AND LOTTE 149DEPARTURE FROM WETZLAR 150KESTNER'S CHARACTERISATION OF GOETHE 151 CHAPTER VIII AFTER WETZLAR 1772--1773 SUICIDE OF JERUSALEM 154GOETHE VISITS THE FAMILY VON LA ROCHE 155FRAU VON LA ROCHE 155MAXIMILIANE VON LA ROCHE 157UNREST 158LETTERS TO KESTNER 159ESTRANGEMENT FROM HIS FATHER 161SOLITUDE 162 CHAPTER IX SATIRICAL DRAMAS AND FRAGMENTS POET OR ARTIST? 163LITERARY ACTIVITY 164_FRANKFURTER GELEHRTEN ANZEIGEN_ 165_LETTER OF THE PASTOR_ 166_TWO BIBLICAL QUESTIONS_ 167RECASTS _GÖTZ VON BERLICHINGEN_ 167SATIRICAL PLAYS 169_PROMETHEUS_ 175_MAHOMET_ 181_ADLER UND TAUBE_ 183_KÜNSTLERS ERDEWALLEN_ 184 CHAPTER X _WERTHER_--_CLAVIGO_ 1774 GOETHE'S NEED OF EXTERNAL STIMULUS 185GOETHE AND THE BRENTANOS 186ORIGIN OF _WERTHER_ 187ENGLISH INFLUENCE ON _WERTHER_ 188PUBLICATION OF _WERTHER_ 189GOETHE AND WERTHER 190SECOND PART OF _WERTHER_ 191WERTHER AND GOETHE 193INFLUENCE OF _WERTHER_ 196THE KESTNERS AND _WERTHER_ 198WERTHERISM 199_CLAVIGO_ 200DRAMATISED FROM BEAUMARCHAIS 200ORIGIN OF _CLAVIGO_ 202ITS PLOT 202CONSTRUCTED ON CLASSICAL MODELS 205_CLAVIGO_ AND GOETHE 206 CHAPTER XI GOETHE AND SPINOZA--_DER EWIGE JUDE_ 1773--1774 GOETHE'S DEBT TO SPINOZA 209MISDATES SPINOZA'S INFLUENCE 210_DER EWIGE JUDE_ 212ORIGINAL PLAN OF IT 213AS IT WAS ACTUALLY WRITTEN 216ITS DIVISIONS 216ITS CHARACTERISTICS 216UNPUBLISHED TILL AFTER GOETHE'S DEATH 218 CHAPTER XII GOETHE IN SOCIETY 1774 JOHANN KASPAR LAVATER 220HIS CHARACTER 220HIS INTEREST IN GOETHE 222VISITS FRANKFORT 224HIS INTERCOURSE WITH GOETHE 225JOHANN BERNHARD BASEDOW 227HIS CHARACTER AND CAREER 227HIS VISIT TO FRANKFORT 228GOETHE, LAVATER, AND BASEDOW AT EMS 228THEIR VOYAGE DOWN THE RHINE 230JUNG STILLING 231SCENE AT ELBERFELDT 232FRITZ JACOBI 233GOETHE MAKES HIS ACQUAINTANCE 233THEIR INTERCOURSE 234JACOBI'S ESTIMATE OF GOETHE 237KLOPSTOCK 238GOETHE'S ADMIRATION OF HIM 238THEIR MEETING IN FRANKFORT 239_AN SCHWAGER KRONOS_ 240BOIE AND WERTHES ON GOETHE 241MAJOR VON KNEBEL AND GOETHE 242GOETHE AND THE PRINCES OF WEIMAR 243VON KNEBEL ON GOETHE 244DEATH OF FRÄULEIN VON KLETTENBERG 245 CHAPTER XIII LILI SCHÖNEMANN 1775 THE SCHÖNEMANN FAMILY 247GOETHE'S INTRODUCTION TO LILI SCHÖNEMANN 248HIS SUBSEQUENT MEMORY OF HER 249LILI COMPARED WITH HIS PREVIOUS LOVES 250GOETHE'S SONGS ADDRESSED TO HER 251COUNTESS STOLBERG 253GOETHE'S RELATIONS TO HER 253_ERWIN UND ELMIRE_ 255_STELLA_ 257_CLAUDINE VON VILLA BELLA_ 263A DISTRACTED LOVER 266BETROTHED TO LILI 268SHRINKS FROM MARRIAGE 269COUNTS STOLBERG IN FRANKFORT 270GOETHE STARTS WITH THEM FOR SWITZERLAND 271VISITS HIS SISTER AT EMMENDINGEN 273WITH LAVATER IN ZURICH 275ACCOMPANIES PASSAVANT TO ST. GOTHARD 276LYRICS TO LILI 276RETURN TO FRANKFORT 278 CHAPTER XIV LAST MONTHS IN FRANKFORT--THE _URFAUST_ 1775 RELATIONS TO LILI ON HIS RETURN 279A CRISIS IN THEIR RELATIONS 281MISCELLANEOUS INTERESTS 282ESTIMATES OF GOETHE BY SULZER AND ZIMMERMANN 283INVITATION TO WEIMAR 284PROPOSED JOURNEY TO ITALY 285A DELAYED MESSENGER 286DEPARTS FOR WEIMAR 287_EGMONT_ AND THE _URFAUST_ 287THE _URFAUST_ 288CHARACTERISTICS 293 PREFACE "Generally speaking, " Goethe has himself said, "the most importantperiod in the life of an individual is that of his development--theperiod which, in my case, breaks off with the detailed narrative of_Dichtung und Wahrheit_. " In reality, as we know, there is no completebreach at any point in the lives of either nations or individuals. Butif in the life of Goethe we are to fix upon a dividing point, it ishis departure from Frankfort and his permanent settlement in Weimar inhis twenty-seventh year. Considered externally, that change of hissurroundings is the most obvious event in his career, and for theworld at large marks its division into two well-defined periods. Inrelation to his inner development his removal from Frankfort to Weimarmay also be regarded as the most important fact in his life. From thedate of his settlement in Weimar he was subjected to influences whichequally affected his character and his genius; had he continued tomake his home in Frankfort, it is probable that, both as man andliterary artist, he would have developed characteristics essentiallydifferent from those by which the world knows him. There were laterexperiences--notably his Italian journey and his intercourse withSchiller--which profoundly influenced him, but none of theseexperiences penetrated his being so permanently as the atmosphere ofWeimar, which he daily breathed for more than half a century. As Goethe himself has said, the first twenty-six years of his life areessentially the period of his "development. " During that period we seehim as he came from Nature's hand. His words, his actions have then astamp of spontaneity which they gradually lost with advancing years asthe result of his social and official relations in Weimar. He has toldus that it was one of the painful conditions of his position therethat it made impossible that frank and cordial relation with otherswhich it was his nature to seek, and from which he had previouslyderived encouragement and stimulus; as a State official, he adds, hecould be on easy terms with nobody without running the risk of apetition for some favour which he might or might not be able toconfer. For the portrayal of the youthful Goethe materials are evensuperabundant; of no other genius of the same order, indeed, have we arecord comparable in fulness of detail for the same period of life. And it is this abundance of information and the extraordinaryindividuality to whom it relates that give specific interest to anystudy of Goethe's youth. From month to month, even at times from dayto day, we can trace the growth of his character, of his opinions, ofhis genius. And the testimonies of his contemporaries are unanimous asto the unique impression he made upon them. "He will always remain tome one of the most extraordinary apparitions of my life, " wrote one;and he expressed the opinion of all who had the discernment toappreciate originality of gifts and character. What they found uniquein him was inspiration, passion, a zest of life, at a pressure thatforeshadowed either a remarkable career or (at times his own dread)disaster. It was said of Goethe in his latest years that the world would come tobelieve that there had been, not one, but many Goethes; and, as wefollow him through the various stages of his youth, we receive thesame impression. It results from this manifoldness of his nature thathe defies every attempt to formulate his characteristics at any periodof his life. In the present study of him the object has been to lethis own words and actions speak for themselves; any conclusions thatmay be suggested, the reader will thus have it in his own power tocheck. After Goethe's own writings, the works to which I have been chieflyindebted are _Goethes Gespräche, Gesamtausgabe von Freiherrn v. Biedermann_, Leipzig, 1909-11 (5 vols. ), in which are collectedreferences to Goethe by his contemporaries; and _Der junge Goethe:Neue Ausgabe in sechs Bänden, besorgt von Max Morris_, Leipzig, 1910-12, containing the literary and artistic productions of Goetheprevious to his settlement in Weimar. The references throughout are tothe Weimar edition of Goethe's works. Except where otherwiseindicated, the author is responsible for the translations, both inprose and verse. I have cordially to express my gratitude to Dr. G. Schaaffs, Lecturerin German in the University of St. Andrews, and to Mr. Frank C. Nicholson, Librarian in the University of Edinburgh, for the troublethey took in revising my proofs. P. H. B. Edinburgh. THE YOUTH OF GOETHE CHAPTER I EARLY YEARS IN FRANKFORT 1749--1765 In his seventy-fifth year Goethe remarked to his secretary, Eckermann, that he had always been regarded as one of fortune's chiefestfavourites, and he admitted the general truth of the impression, though with significant reserves. "In truth, " he added, "there hasbeen nothing but toil and trouble, and I can affirm that throughout myseventy-five years I have not had a month's real freedom fromcare. "[1] Goethe's biographers are generally agreed that his goodfortune began with his birth, and that the circumstances of hischildhood and boyhood were eminently favourable for his futuredevelopment. Yet Goethe himself apparently did not, in his reserves, make an exception even in favour of these early years; and, as weshall see, we have other evidence from his own hand that these yearswere not years of unmingled happiness and of entirely auspiciousaugury. [Footnote 1: _Gespräche mit Eckermann_, January 27th, 1824. ] In one circumstance, at least, Goethe appears to have consideredhimself well treated by destiny. From the vivid and sympatheticdescription he has given of his native city of Frankfort-on-the-Mainwe may infer that he considered himself fortunate in the place of hisbirth. [2] It is concurrent testimony that, at the date of Goethe'sbirth, no German city could have offered greater advantages for theearly discipline of one who was to be Germany's national poet. Itssituation was central, standing as it did on the border line betweenNorth and South Germany. No German city had a more impressive historicpast, the memorials of which were visible in imposing architecturalremains, in customs, and institutions. It was in Frankfort that forgenerations the German Emperors had received their crowns; and thespectacle of one of these ceremonies remained a vivid memory inGoethe's mind throughout his long life. For the man Goethe the actualpresent counted for more than the most venerable past;[3] and, as aboy, he saw in Frankfort not only the reminders of formergenerations, but the bustling activities of a modern society. Thespring and autumn fairs brought traders from all parts of Germany andfrom the neighbouring countries; and ships from every part of theglobe deposited their miscellaneous cargoes on the banks of the riverMain. In the town itself there were sights fitted to stir youthfulimagination; and the surrounding country presented a prospect ofrichness and variety in striking contrast to the tame environs ofGoethe's future home in Weimar. Dr. Arnold used to say that he knewfrom his pupils' essays whether they had seen London or the sea, because the sight of either of these objects seemed to suggest a newmeasure of things. Frankfort, with its 30, 000 inhabitants, with itspast memories and its bustling present, was at least on a sufficientscale to suggest the conception of a great society developing its lifeunder modern conditions. For Goethe, who was to pass most of his daysin a town of some 7, 000 inhabitants, and to whom no form of humanactivity was indifferent, it was a fortunate destiny that he did not, like Herder, pass his most receptive years in a petty village remotefrom the movements of the great world. [4] In these years he was ableto accumulate a store of observations and experiences which laid asolid foundation for all his future thinking. [Footnote 2: In 1792, on the occasion of his being offered the honourof _Rathsherr_ (town-councillor) in Frankfort, he wrote to his motherthat "it was an honour, not only in the eyes of Europe, but of thewhole world, to have been a citizen of Frankfort. " (Goethe to hismother, December 24th, 1792). So, in 1824, he told Bettina von Arnimthat, had he had the choice of his birthplace, he would have chosenFrankfort. As we shall see, Goethe did not always speak so favourablyof Frankfort. ] [Footnote 3: Die Abgeschiednen betracht' ich gern, Stünd' ihr Verdienst auch noch so fern; Doch mit den edlen lebendigen Neuen Mag ich wetteifernd mich lieber freuen. ] [Footnote 4: In his later years Goethe preferred life in a small town. "Zwar ist es meiner Natur gemäss, an einem kleinen Orte zu leben. "(Goethe to Zelter, December 16th, 1804. )] If Goethe was fortunate in the place of his birth, was he equallyfortunate in its date (1749)? He has himself given the most explicitof answers to the question. In a remarkable paper, written at the ageof forty-six, he has described the conditions under which he and hiscontemporaries produced their works in the different departments ofliterature. The paper had been called forth by a violent and coarseattack, which he described as _literarischer Sansculottismus_, on thewriters of the period, and with a testiness unusual with him he tookup their defence. Under what conditions, he asks, do classical writersappear? Only, he answers, when they are members of a great nation andwhen great events are moving that nation at a period in its historywhen a high state of culture has been reached by the body of itspeople. Only then can the writer be adequately inspired and find tohis hand the materials requisite to the production of works ofpermanent value. But, at the epoch when he and his contemporariesentered on their career, none of these conditions existed. There wasno German nation, there was no standard of taste, no educated publicopinion, no recognised models for imitation; and in thesecircumstances Goethe finds the explanation of the shortcomings of thegeneration of writers to which he belonged. On the truth of these conclusions Goethe's adventures as a literaryartist are the all-sufficient commentary. From first to last he wasin search of adequate literary forms and of worthy subjects; and, ashe himself admits, he not unfrequently went astray in the quest. Onhis own word, therefore, we may take it that under other conditions hemight have produced more perfect works than he has actually given us. Yet the world has had its compensations from those hamperingconditions under which his creative powers were exercised. In the veryattempt to grope his way to the most expressive forms of artisticpresentation all the resources of his mind found their fullest play. It is in the variety of his literary product, unparalleled in the caseof any other poet, that lies its inexhaustible interest; between _Götzvon Berlichingen_ and the Second Part of _Faust_ what a range ofthemes and forms does he present for his readers' appreciation! And tothe anarchy of taste and judgment that prevailed when Goethe began hisliterary career we in great measure owe another product of hismanifold activities. He has been denied a place in the very first rankof poets, but by the best judges he is regarded as the greatest masterof literary and artistic criticism. But, had he found fixed andacknowledged standards in German national literature and art, therewould have been less occasion for his searching scrutiny of theprinciples which determine all art and literature. As it was, he wasled from the first to direct his thoughts to the consideration ofthese principles; and the result is a body of reflections, markingevery stage of his own development, on life, literature, and art, which, in the opinion of critics like Edmond Scherer and MatthewArnold, gave him his highest claim to the consideration of posterity. As human lot goes, Goethe was fortunate in his home and his homerelations, though in the case of both there were disadvantages whichleft their mark on him throughout his later life. He was born in themiddle-class, the position which, according to Schiller, is mostfavourable for viewing mankind as a whole, and, therefore, advantageous for a poet who, like Goethe, was open to universalimpressions. Though his maternal grandfather was chief magistrate ofFrankfort, and his father was an Imperial Councillor, the family didnot belong to the _élite_ of the city; Goethe, brilliant youth ofgenius though he was, was not regarded as an eligible match for thedaughter of a Frankfort banker. It was the father who was thedominating figure in the home life of the family; and the relationsbetween father and son emphasise the fact that the early influencesunder which the son grew up left something to be desired. Theirpermanent mutual attitude was misunderstanding, resulting fromimperfect sympathy. "If"--so wrote Goethe in his sixty-fourth yearregarding his father and himself--"if, on his part as well as on theson's, a suggestion of mutual understanding had entered into ourrelationship, much might have been spared to us both. But that was notto be!" It is with dutiful respect but with no touch of filialaffection that Goethe has drawn his father's portrait in _Dichtung undWahrheit_. As the father is there depicted, he is the embodiment ofGoethe's own definition of a Philistine--one naturally incapable ofentering into the views of other people. [5] Yet Goethe might have hada worse parent; for, according to his lights, the father spared nopains to make his son an ornament of his generation. Strictlyconscientious, methodical, with a genuine love of art and letters, hedid his best to furnish his son with every accomplishment requisite todistinction in the walk of life for which he destined him--theprofession of law, in which he had himself failed through the defectsof his temperament. Directly and indirectly, he himself took in handhis son's instruction, but without appreciation or consideration ofthe affinities of a mind with precociously developed instincts. Thenatural result of the father's pedantic solicitude was that his soncame to see in him the schoolmaster rather than the parent. Knowledgein abundance was conveyed, but of the moulding influence of parentalsympathy there was none. What dubious consequences followed from theserelations of father and son we shall afterwards see. [Footnote 5: To Chancellor von Müller Goethe said: "Mein Vater war eintüchtiger Mann, aber freilich fehlte ihm Gewandtheit und Beweglichkeitdes Geistes. "] Goethe's mother has found a place in German hearts which is partly dueto the portrait which her son has drawn of her, but still more to theimpression conveyed by her own recorded sayings and correspondence. Goethe's tone, when he speaks of his father, is always cool andcritical; of his mother, on the other hand, he speaks with thefeelings of a grateful son, conscious of the deep debt he owed toher. [6] His relations to her in his later years have exposed him tosevere animadversion, but their mutual relations in these early yearspresent the most attractive chapter in the record of his private life. Married at the age of seventeen to a husband approaching forty, themother, as she herself said, stood rather as an elder sister than as aparent to her children. And her own character made this relation anatural one. An overflowing vitality, a lively and never-failinginterest in all the details of daily life, and a temperamentresponsive to every call, kept her perennially young, and fitted herto be the companion of her children rather than the sober helpmate ofsuch a husband as Herr Goethe. [7] How, by her faculty ofstory-telling, she ministered to the side of her son's nature which hehad inherited from herself Goethe has related with gratefulappreciation. But he owed her a larger debt. It was her spiritpervading the household that brought such happiness into his earlyhome life as fell to his lot. A commonplace mother and a prosaicfather would have created an atmosphere which, in the case of a childwith Goethe's impressionable nature, would permanently have affectedhis outlook on life. For the future poet, the mother was the admirablenurse; she fed his fancy with her own; she taught him the art ofmaking the most of life--a lesson which he never forgot; and she gavehim her own sane and cheerful view of the uncontrollable element inhuman destiny. For the future man, however, we may doubt whether shewas the best of mothers. Her education was meagre--a defect which herconscientious husband did his best to amend; and all hercharacteristics were fitted rather to evoke affection than to inspirerespect. Though her son always speaks of her with tender regard, histone is that of an elder brother to a sister rather than of a son to aparent. She was herself conscious of her incompetence to discharge allthe responsibilities of a mother which the character of the fathermade specially onerous. "We were young together, " she said of herselfand her son, and she confessed frankly that "she could educate nochild. " Thus between an unsympathetic father and a mother incapable ofinfluencing the deeper springs of character, Goethe passed throughchildhood and boyhood without the discipline of temper and will whichonly the home can give. And the lack of this discipline is traceablein all his actions till he had reached middle life. Wayward andimpulsive by nature, he yielded to every motive, whether prompted bythe intellect or the heart, with an abandonment which struck hisfriends as the leading trait of his character. "Goethe, " wrote one ofthem, "only follows his last notion, without troubling himself as toconsequences, " and of himself, when he was past his thirtieth year, hesaid that he was "as much a child as ever. " [Footnote 6: Writing to her grandchild, Goethe's mother says: "Deinlieber Vater hat mir nie Kummer oder Verdruss verursacht. "] [Footnote 7: When the son of Frau von Stein was about to visit her, Goethe wrote: "Da sie nicht so ernsthaft ist wie ich, so wirst du dichbesser bei ihr befinden. "] There was another member of the family of whom Goethe speaks with evenwarmer feeling than of his mother. This was his sister Cornelia, ayear younger than himself, and destined to an unhappy marriage and anearly death. Of the many portraits he has drawn in his Autobiography, none is touched with a tenderer hand and with subtler sympathy thanthat of Cornelia. Goethe does not imply that she permanentlyinfluenced his future development; for such influence she possessedneither the force of mind nor of character. [8] But to her even morethan to the mother he came to owe such home happiness as he enjoyed inthe hours of freedom from the father's pedagogic discipline. She washis companion alike in his daily school tasks and his self-soughtpleasures--the confidant and sharer of all his boyish troubles. To noother person throughout his long life did Goethe ever stand inrelations which give such a favourable impression of his heart as hisrelation with Cornelia. The memory of her was the dearest which heretained of his early days; and the words in which he recalls her inhis old age prove that she was an abiding memory to the end. [Footnote 8: Goethe's letters addressed to Cornelia from Leipzig, whenhe was in his eighteenth year, are in the tone at once of anaffectionate brother and of a schoolmaster. Their subsequent relationsto each other will appear in the sequel. ] It was an advantage on which Goethe lays special stress that, outsidehis somewhat cramping home circle, he had a more or less intimateacquaintance with a number of persons, who by their differentcharacters and accomplishments made lasting impressions on hisyouthful mind. The impressions must have been deep, since, writing inadvanced age, he describes their personal appearance and theirdifferent idiosyncrasies with a minuteness which is at the same time aremarkable testimony to his precocious powers of observation. What isinteresting in these intimacies as throwing light on Goethe's earlycharacteristics is, that all these persons were of mature age, and allof them more or less eccentric in their habits and ways of thinking. "Even in God I discover defects, " was the remark of one of them to hisyouthful listener--to whom he had been communicating his views on theworld in general. In the company of these elders, with such or kindredopinions, Goethe was early familiarised with the variability of humanjudgments on fundamental questions. And he laid the experience toheart, for on no point in the conduct of life does he insist withgreater emphasis than the folly of expecting others to think asourselves. The method of Goethe's education was not such as to compensate for thelack of moral discipline which has already been noted. With theexception of a brief interval, he received instruction at home, eitherdirectly from his father or from tutors under his superintendence. Thus he missed both the steady drill of school life and the influenceof companions of his own age which might have made him more of a boyand less of a premature man. [9] It is Goethe's own expressed opinionthat the object of education should be to foster tastes rather than tocommunicate knowledge. In this object, at least, his own education wasperfectly successful; for the tastes which he acquired under hisfather's roof remained with him to the end. What strikes us in hiscourse of study is its desultoriness and its comprehensiveness. At onetime and another he gained an acquaintance with English, French, Italian, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. He read widely in history, secularand sacred, and in the later stage of his early studies he took up lawat the express desire of his father. It was the aim of his father'sscheme of education that accomplishments should form an essential partof it. So his son was taught music, drawing, dancing, riding, andfencing. But there was another side to Goethe's early training which, in his case, deserves to be specially emphasised. A strikingcharacteristic of Goethe's writings is the knowledge they display ofthe whole range of the manual arts, and this knowledge he owed to thecircumstances of his home. His father, a virtuoso with the means ofgratifying his tastes, freely employed artists of all kinds to executedesigns of his own conception; and, as part of his son's education, entrusted him with the superintendence of his commissions. Thus, inaccordance with modern ideas, were combined in Goethe's training thepractical and the theoretical--a combination which is thedistinguishing characteristic of his productive activity. Generallyconsidered, we see that the course of his studies was such as in anycircumstances he would himself have probably followed. Under noconditions would Goethe have been content to restrict himself to anarrow field of study and to give the necessary application for itscomplete mastery. As it was, the multiplicity of his studies suppliedthe foundation for the manifold productivity of his maturer years. Inno branch of knowledge was he ever a complete master; he devoted alarge part of his life to the study of Greek and Roman antiquity, yethe never acquired a scholar's knowledge either of Greek or Romanliterature. [10] If on these subjects he has contributed many valuablereflections, it was due to the insight of genius which apprehends whatpasses the range of ordinary vision. [Footnote 9: It was doubtless due to the absence of strict drill inhis youth that Goethe, as he himself tells us, never acquired the artof punctuating his own writings. ] [Footnote 10: Goethe said of himself that he had no "grammaticalvein. "] A striking fact in Goethe's account of his early years is the emphasishe lays on the religious side of his education. Judging from thelength at which he treats the subject, indeed, we are bound to assumethat in his own estimation religion was the most important element inhis early training, and in the case of one who came eventually to beknown as the "great Pagan" the fact is remarkable. Had he sat down towrite the narrative of these years at an earlier period of hislife--after his return, say, from his Italian journey--we may conceivethat in his then anti-Christian spirit he would have put these earlyreligious experiences in a somewhat different light, and would hardlyhave assigned to them the same importance. But when he actuallyaddressed himself to tell the story of his development, he had passedout of his anti-Christian phase, and was fully convinced of theimportance of religion in human culture. Regarding this portion of hisAutobiography, as regarding others, we may have our doubts as to howfar his record is coloured by his opinions when he wrote it. Yet, after every reserve, there can be no question that religion engagedboth his intellect and his emotions as a boy; and the fact isconclusive that religious instincts were not left out of hisnature. [11] [Footnote 11: With reference to what he says of his Biblical studieshe wrote as follows to a correspondent (January 30th, 1812)[Transcriber's Note: corrected error "1912"]: "Dass Sie meineasiatischen Weltanfänge so freundlich aufnehmen, ist mir von grossemWert. Es schlingt sich die daher für mich gewonnene Kultur durch meinganzes Leben.... "] There was nothing in the influence of his home that was speciallyfitted to awaken religious feeling or to occasion abnormal spiritualexperiences. In religion as in everything else the father was aformalist, and such religious views as he held were those of the_Aufklärung_, for which all forms of spiritual emotion were the follyof unreason. Religion was a permanent and sustaining influence in thelife of Goethe's mother, but her religion consisted simply in acheerful acquiescence in the decrees of Providence. Of the soul'strials and sorrows, as they are recorded in the annals of thereligious life, her nature was incapable, and she was always perfectlyat ease in Zion. By his mother, therefore, the son could not be deeplymoved to concern regarding his spiritual welfare, nor to make religionthe all-engrossing subject of his thoughts and affections. There wasone friend of the family, indeed, the Fräulein von Klettenberg (the_Schöne Seele_ of _Wilhelm Meister_), in whom Goethe saw the exemplarof the religious life in its more ecstatic manifestations, but herspecial influence on him belongs to a later date. In accordance withthe family rule he regularly attended church, but the homilies towhich he listened were not of a nature to quicken his religiousfeelings, while the doctrinal instruction he received at home he hashimself described as "nothing but a dry kind of morality. " Against onearticle of the creed taught him--the doctrine of original andinherited sin--all his instincts rebelled; and the antipathy was socompact with all his later thinking that we may readily believe thatit manifested itself thus early. If we may accept his own account ofhis youthful religious experiences, he was already on the way to that_Ur-religion_, which was his maturest profession of faith, and whichhe held to be the faith of select minds in all stages of humanhistory. Now, as at all periods of his life, it was the beneficentpowers in nature that most deeply impressed him, and he records how incrude childish fashion he secretly reared an altar to these powers, though an unlucky accident in the oblation prevented him fromrepeating his act of worship. Like other children, he was quick to see the inconsistency of thecreed he was taught with the actual facts of experience. One event inhis childhood, the earthquake of Lisbon, especially struck him as aconfounding commentary on the accepted belief in the goodness of God;and the impression was deepened when in the following summer a violentthunder-storm played havoc with some of the most treasured books inhis father's library. In all his soul's troubles, however, Goethe, according to his own account, found refuge in a world wherequestionings of the ways of Providence had never found an entrance. Inthe Old Testament, and specially in the Book of Genesis, with itspicture of patriarchal life, he found a world which by engaging hisfeelings and imagination worked with tranquilising effect (_stilleWirkung_) on his spirit, distracted by his miscellaneous studies andhis varied interests. Of all the elements that entered into his earlyculture, indeed, Goethe gives the first place to the Bible. "To it, almost alone, " he expressly says, "did I owe my moral education. " Tothe Bible as an incomparable presentment of the national life anddevelopment of a people, and the most precious of possessions forhuman culture, Goethe bore undeviating testimony at every period ofhis life. It need hardly be said that his attitude towards the Biblewas divided by an impassable gulf from the attitude of traditionalChristianity. For Goethe it was a purely human production, thefortunate birth of a time and a race which in the nature of things cannever be paralleled. What the Churches have found in it was not forhim its inherent virtue. Even in his youth it was in its picturesquepresentation of a primitive life that he found what satisfied theneeds of his nature. The spiritual aspirations of the Psalms, themoral indignation of the prophets, found no response in him either inyouth or manhood. His ideal of life was never that of the saints, butit was an ideal, as his record of his early religious experienceshows, which had its roots in the nature which had been allotted him. To certain events in his early life Goethe assigned a decisiveinfluence on his future development. To the gift of a set of puppetsby his grandmother he attributes his first awakened interest in thedrama; and the extraordinary detail with which Wilhelm Meisterdescribes his youthful absorption in the play of his puppets provesthat in his Autobiography Goethe does not lay undue stress on thesignificance of the gift. To another event which occurred when he wasentering his seventh year, he ascribes the origin of an attitude ofmind which in his own opinion he did not overcome till his lateryears. In 1756 broke out the Seven Years' War, in the course of whichthere was a cleavage in German public opinion that disturbed the peaceof families and set the nearest relatives at bitter feud. Such was thecase in the Goethe circle--the father passionately sympathising withFrederick; the maternal grandfather, Textor, the chief magistrate ofFrankfort, as passionately taking the side of Maria Theresa. In thiscase the son's sympathies were those of his father, and in boyishfashion he made a hero of the king of Prussia, though, as he himselfis careful to tell us, Prussia and its interests were nothing to him. It was to the pain he felt when his hero was defamed by the supportersof Austria that he traced that contempt of public opinion which henotes as a characteristic of the greater part of his manhood, yet wemay doubt if any external event was needed to develop in him thisspecial turn of mind. As his whole manner of thinking proves, it wasneither in his character nor his genius to make a popular appeal likea Burns or a Schiller. [12] In his old age Goethe said of himself thathe was conscious of an innate feeling of aristocracy which made himregard himself as the peer of princes; and we need no furtherexplanation of his contempt of public opinion. Yet if the worship ofheroes has the moulding influence which Carlyle ascribed to it, inGoethe's youthful admiration of Frederick this influence could not bewanting. To the end Frederick appeared to him one of those "demonic"personalities, who from time to time cross the world's stage, andwhose action is as incalculable as the phenomena of the natural world. "When such an one passes to his rest, how gladly would we be silent, "were his memorable words when the news of Frederick's death reachedhim during his Italian travels, and the remark proves how deeply andpermanently Frederick's career had impressed him. [Footnote 12: His remark to Eckermann (1828) is well known: "MeineSachen können nicht populär werden; wer daran denkt und dafür strebt, ist in einem Irrthum. "] More easily realised is the direct influence on Goethe's youthfuldevelopment of another event of his boyhood. As a result of the SevenYears' War, 7, 000 French troops took possession of Frankfort in thebeginning of 1759, and occupied it for more than three years. In theways of a foreign soldiery at free quarters the Frankforters saw astrange contrast to their own decorous habits of life, but the Frenchoccupation was brought more directly home to the Goethe household. Tothe disgust and indignation of the father, to whom as a worshipper ofFrederick the French were objects of detestation, their chief officer, Count Thoranc, quartered in his own house. Goethe has told in detailthe history of this invasion of the quiet household--the never-failingcourtesy and considerateness of Thoranc, the abiding ill-humour of thefather, the reconciling offices of the mother, exercised in vain toeffect a mutual understanding between her husband and his unwelcomeguest. As for Goethe himself, devoted to Frederick though he was, thepresence of the French introduced him to a new world into which heentered with boyish delight. With the insatiable curiosity which washis characteristic throughout life, he threw himself into thepleasures and avocations of the novel society. Thoranc was aconnoisseur in art, and gave frequent commissions to the artists ofthe town; and Goethe, already interested in art through his father'scollections, found his opportunity in these tastes of Thoranc, who wasstruck by the boy's precocity and even took hints from hissuggestions. A theatre set up by the French was another source of pleasure andstimulus. The sight of the pieces that were acted prompted him tocompose pieces of his own and led him to the study of the Frenchclassical drama. In the _coulisses_, to which he was admitted byspecial favour, he observed the ways of actors--an experience whichsupplied the materials for the portraiture of the actor's life in_Wilhelm Meister_. A remark which he makes in connection with theFrench theatre is a significant commentary on his respective relationsto his father and mother, and indicates the atmosphere of evasionwhich permanently pervaded the household. It was against the will ofhis father, but with the connivance of his mother, that he paid hisvisits to the theatre and cultivated the society of the actors, and itwas only by the consideration that his son's knowledge of French wasthus improved that the practical father was reconciled to thedelinquency. The direct results of his intercourse with the Frenchsoldiery on Goethe's development were at once abiding and of highimportance. It extended his knowledge of men and the world, and, morespecifically, it gave him that interest in French culture and thatinsight into the French mind which he possessed in a degree beyond anyof his contemporaries. But the most notable experience of these early years under hisfather's roof still remains to be mentioned. When he was in hisfourteenth year, Goethe fell in love--the first of the many similarexperiences which were to form the successive crises of his futurelife. There can be little doubt that in his narrative of this hisfirst love there is to the full as much "poetry" as "truth"; but therealso can be as little doubt that all the circumstances attending itmade his first love a turning-point in his life. It is a peculiarityof all Goethe's love adventures that between him and the successiveobjects of his affections there was always some bar which made aregular union impossible or undesirable. So it was in the case of thegirl whom he calls Gretchen, and of whom we know nothing except whathe chose to tell us. He made her acquaintance through his associationwith a set of youths of questionable character whom we are surprisedto find as the chosen companions of the son of an Imperial Councillor. Of all Goethe's loves this was the one that was accompanied by theleast pleasant complications and the most painful of disillusions. Through his intercourse with Gretchen's intimates he was led torecommend one of them for a municipal post in Frankfort--a post whichhe did not hold long before he was found guilty of embezzlement anddefalcation. The discovery was disastrous to Goethe's relations withGretchen, and the disaster involved an experience of conflictingemotions which produced a crisis in his inner life. He had been rudelyawakened to mistrust of mankind, and it was an awakening which, as hehas himself emphasised, influenced all his thinking and feeling formany years to come. He had lived in a dream of phantasy and passion, and he learned to the shock of his whole nature that the object of hisdreams had never at any moment regarded him otherwise than as aninteresting boy whose talents and connections made him a desirableacquaintance. In the strained and morbid condition of his body andmind, which was the result of his disillusion, we see an experiencewhich was often to be repeated in his maturer years, and which pointsto elements in his nature which were ever ready to pass beyond hiscontrol. As in the case of all his subsequent experiences of the samenature, he finally regained self-mastery, but a revolution had beenaccomplished in him as the result of the struggle. His boyhood was atan end, and it is with the consciousness of awakened manhood that henow looks out upon life. More than once in his future career a similartransformation was to be repeated--a great passion followed by a newdirection of his activities, involving a saving breach with the past. Goethe's father had determined from the beginning that his only sonshould follow the profession of law, in which, as we have seen, he hadhimself failed owing to his peculiarities of mind and temper. In thisdetermination there was no consideration of the predilections of hisson, and in this fact lay the permanent cause of their estrangement. The father's choice of a university for his son was anotherillustration of their divergent sympathies and interests. Left to hisown choice, the son would have preferred the university of Göttingenas his place of study, but his father ruled that Leipzig, his ownuniversity, was the proper school for the future civilian. Inconnection with his departure for Leipzig Goethe makes two confessionswhich are a striking commentary on the conditions of his home life inFrankfort. He left Frankfort, he tells us, with joy as intense as thatof a prisoner who has broken through his gaol window, and findshimself a free man. And this repugnance to his native city, as a placewhere he could not expand freely, remained an abiding feeling withhim. The burgher life of Frankfort, he wrote to his mother during hisfirst years at Weimar, was intolerable to him, and to have made hispermanent home there would have been fatal to the fulfilment of everyideal that gave life its value. His other confession is a still moresignificant illustration of the vital lack of sympathy between fatherand son. He left Frankfort, he says, with the deliberate intention offollowing his own predilections and of disregarding the express wishof his father that he should apply himself specifically to the studyof law. Only his sister Cornelia was made the confidant of his secretintention, and apparently no attempt was made to effect even acompromise between the aims of the father and those of the son. Plainand direct dealing was a marked characteristic of Goethe at everyperiod of his life; that he should thus have deceived his father in amatter that lay nearest his heart is therefore the final proof thatfather and son were separated by a gulf which could not be bridged. Asit was, in the course of life which Goethe was to follow in Leipzig wemay detect a certain defiant heedlessness which points to an uneasyconsciousness of duty ignored. We have it on Goethe's own word that with his departure for Leipzigbegins that self-directed development which he was to pursue with theundeviating purpose and the wonderful result which make him the uniquefigure he is in the history of the human spirit. What, we may inquire, as he is now at the commencement of this career unparalleled, so faras our knowledge goes, in the case of any other of the world'sgreatest spirits--what were the specific characteristics, visible inhim from the first, which gave the pledge and promise of thisastonishing career? In his case, we can say with certainty, was fullyverified the adage, that the boy is father of the man. Alike ininternal and external traits we note in him as a boy characteristicswhich were equally marked in the mature man. In his demeanour, hehimself tells us, there was a certain stiff dignity which excited theridicule of his companions. It was in his nature even as a boy, healso tells us, to assume airs of command: one of his own acquaintanceand of his own years said of him, "We were all his lacqueys. " Here wehave in anticipation the aged Goethe whose Jove-like presence putHeine out of countenance; the god "cold, monosyllabic, " of Jean Paul. But behind the stiff demeanour, in youth as in age, there was themercurial temperament, the _etwas unendlich Rührendes_, which made hima problem at all periods of his life even to those who knew him mostintimately. He has himself noted his youthful reputation foreccentricity, "his lively, impetuous, and excitable temper"; and thiswas the side of him that most impressed his associates till he waspast middle age. In boyhood, also, as even in his latest years, he wassubject to bursts of violence in which he lost all self-control. Whenattacked by three of his schoolmates, he fell upon them with the furyof a wild beast, and mastered all three. On the loss of Gretchen he"wept and raved, " and, as the result of his morbid sensibility, hisconstitution, always abnormally influenced by his emotions, wasseriously impaired. Here we have the _Weiblichkeit_, the femininestrain in his nature, which was noted by Schiller, and which explainsthe shrinking from all forms of pain which he inherited from hismother. More than once these emotional elements in his nature were to bringhim near to moral shipwreck, and it was doubtless the consciousness ofsuch a possibility in his own case that explains his haunting interestin the character and career of Byron. But underneath his "chameleon"temperament (the expression is his own[13]) there was a solidfoundation, the lack of which was the ruin of Byron. Goethe hashimself told us what this saving element in him was. It was astrenuousness and seriousness implanted in him by nature (_von derNatur in mich gelegter Ernst_), which, he says, "exerted its influence[on him] at an early age, and showed itself more distinctly in afteryears. " This side of his complex nature did not escape the notice evenof his youthful contemporaries. "Goethe, " wrote one of them fromLeipzig, "is as great a philosopher as ever. " Here again we see in theboy the father of the man. Increasingly, as the years went on, hisinnate tendency to reflection asserted itself, till at length in hislatest period it so completely dominated him that the sage proved toomuch for the artist. [Footnote 13: So Weislingen (in _Götz von Berlichingen_), whom Goethemeant to be a double of himself, says: "_Ich bin ein Chamaeleon_. "] If the character of the boy foreshadowed that of the man, so did thetendencies of his genius the lines they were afterwards to follow. "Turn a man whither he will, " he remarks in his Autobiography, "hewill always return to the path marked out for him by nature, " and hisown development signally illustrates the truth of the remark. From hisearliest youth, he tells us, he had "a passion for investigatingnatural things"; and towards middle life his interest in physicalscience became so absorbing as for many years to stifle his creativefaculty. But in the retrospect of his life as a whole he had no doubtas to the supreme bent of his genius. The "laurel crown of the poet"was the goal of his youthful ambition, and the last bequest he made toposterity was the Second Part of _Faust_. Among the miscellaneousintellectual interests of his boyhood poetry evidently held the chiefplace, and, partly out of his own inspiration and partly at thesuggestion of others, he diligently tried his hand at different formsof poetical composition. Yet, if we may judge from his most notableboyish piece--_Poetische Gedanken über die Höllenfahrt JesuChristi_--there have been more "timely-happy spirits" than Goethe. Not, indeed, as we shall see, till his twentieth year, the age when, according to Kant, the lyric poet is in fullest possession of hisgenius, does his verse attain the distinctiveness of original creativepower. [14] [Footnote 14: All Goethe's boyish productions that have been preservedwill be found in _Der junge Goethe, Neue Ausgabe in sechs Bändenbesorgt von Max Morris_, Leipzig, 1909. ] CHAPTER II STUDENT IN LEIPZIG OCTOBER, 1765--SEPTEMBER, 1768 As we follow the life of Byron, it has been said, we seem to hear thegallop of horses, [15] and we are conscious of a similar tumult as wefollow the career of Goethe from the day he entered Leipzig till theclose of the "mad Weimar times, " when he was approaching his thirtiethyear. _Jugend ist Trunkenheit ohne Wein_, he says in his_West-Ostlicher Divan_, and, when he wrote the words, he may well havehad specially in view the three whirling years he spent in Leipzig. "If one did not play some mad pranks in youth, " he said on anotheroccasion, "what would one have to think of in old age?" Assuredlyduring these Leipzig years Goethe played a sufficient number of pranksto supply him with materials for edifying retrospection. [Footnote 15: X. Doudan, _Mélanges et Lettres_, i. 524. ] Our difficulty in connection with these three years is to seize theessential lineaments in a character so full of contradictions that iteludes us at every turn, and has presented to each of his manybiographers a problem which each has sought to solve after his ownfashion. Of materials for forming our conclusions there is certainlyno lack. In his Autobiography he has related in detail, even totediousness, the events and experiences of his life in Leipzig. Contemporary testimony, also, we have in abundance. We have theletters of friends who freely wrote their impressions of him, and fromhis own hand we have poems which record the passing feelings of thehour; we have two plays which reveal moods and experiences more orless permanent; and above all we have a considerable number of his ownletters addressed to his sister and different friends, all of which, it may be said, appear to give genuine expression to the promptings ofthe moment. The materials for forming our judgment, therefore, areeven superabundant, but in their very multiplicity lies ourdifficulty. The narrative in the Autobiography doubtless gives acorrect general outline of his life in Leipzig and of its main resultsfor his general development, but its cool, detached tone leaves atotally inadequate impression of the froward youth, torn todistraction by conflicting passions and conflicting ideals. With thecontemporary testimonies our difficulties are of another kind. Thetestimonies of his friends regarding his personal traits are oftencontradictory, and equally so are his own self-revelations. On one andthe same day he writes a letter which exhibits him as the helplessvictim of his emotions, and another which shows him quite at his easeand master of himself. And he himself has warned us against taking hiswild words too seriously. In a letter to his sister (September 27th, 1766), he expressly says: "As for my melancholy, it is not so deep asI have pictured it; there are occasionally poetical licences in mydescriptions which exaggerate the facts. "[16] [Footnote 16: _Werke, Briefe_, Band i. , 68-9. ] Fortunately or unfortunately, the town of Leipzig, which his fatherhad chosen for his first free contact with life, was of all Germantowns the one where he could see life in its greatest variety. "Inaccursed Leipzig, " he wrote after his three years' experience of itsdistractions, "one burns out as quickly as a bad torch. " Even theexternal appearance of the town was such as to suggest another worldfrom that of Frankfort. In Frankfort the past overshadowed thepresent; while Leipzig, Goethe himself wrote, recording his firstimpressions of the place, "evoked no memories of bygone times. " And ifthe exterior of the town suggested a new world, its social andintellectual atmosphere intensified the impression. "Leipzig is theplace for me, " says Frosch in the Auerbach Cellar Scene in _Faust_;"it is a little Paris, and gives its folks a finish. "[17] Theprevailing tone of Leipzig society was, in point of fact, deliberatelyimitated from the pattern set to Europe by the Court of France. Incontrast to the old-fashioned formality of Frankfort, the Leipzigeraimed at a graceful _insouciance_ in social intercourse and light, cynical banter in the interchange of his ideas on every subject, trifling or serious. In such a society all free, spontaneousexpression of emotions or opinions was a mark of rusticity, as Goethewas not long in discovering. The true Leipziger was, of course, aGallio in religion, and Goethe, who, on leaving his father's house, had resolved to cut all connection with the Church, found nodifficulty in carrying out his intention during his residence in thelittle Paris. But, so far as Goethe was concerned, the most notablecircumstance connected with Leipzig was that it had long been theliterary centre of Germany. There the most eminent representatives ofliterature had made their residence, and thence had gone forth thedominant influences which had given the rule to all forms of literaryproduction--poetry and criticism alike. At the time when Goethe tookup his residence in the town the two most prominent German men ofletters, Gellert and Gottsched (the latter dubbed the "Saxon Swan" byFrederick the Great) were its most distinguished ornaments, thoughthe rising generation was beginning to question both the intrinsicmerit of their productions and the principles of taste which they hadproclaimed. What these principles were and how Goethe stood related tothem we shall presently see. [Footnote 17: On the occasion of a visit he paid to Leipzig in 1783, Goethe says: "Die Leipziger sind als eine kleine, moralische Republikanzusehn. Jeder steht für sich, hat einige Freunde und geht in seinemWesen fort. "] Into this world Goethe was launched when he had just turned hissixteenth year--"a little, odd, coddled boy, " and, as he elsewheredescribes himself, with a tendency to morbid fancies. If he had cometo Leipzig with the resolve to fulfil his father's intentions, hiscourse was clearly marked out for him. He would diligently sit at thefeet of the professors of law in the university, and at the end ofthree years he would return to Frankfort with the attainmentsrequisite to make him a future ornament of the legal profession. But, as we have seen, he had other schemes in his head than the coursewhich his father had prescribed for him, and, if we are to accept hisown later testimony, in forming these schemes he was but following thedeepest instincts of his nature. "Anything, " he exclaimed to hissecretary Riemer, when he was approaching his sixtieth year, "anythingbut an enforced profession! That is contrary to all my instincts. Sofar as I can, and so long as the humour lasts, I will carry out in aplayful fashion what comes in my way. So I unconsciously trifled in myyouth; so will I consciously continue to do to the end. "[18] The stephe now took is a curious illustration of the solemn self-importancewhich was one of his characteristics as a youth. To the professor ofhistory and law of all people he chose to announce his intention ofstudying _belles lettres_ instead of jurisprudence. The professorsensibly pointed out to him the folly and impropriety of his conductin view of his father's wishes; and his counsels, seconded by thefriendly advice of his wife, Frau Böhme, turned the youthful aspirantfrom his purpose for a time. On his own testimony he now became amodel student, and was "as happy as a bird in a wood. " He heardlectures on German history from Böhme, though history was distastefulto him at every period of his life; lectures on literature from thepopular Gellert, on style from Professor Clodius, and on physics, logic, and philosophy from other professors. [Footnote 18: _Gespräche mit Riemer_, Anfang 1807. ] But alike by temperament and previous training, Goethe was indisposedto profit by professorial prelections, however admirable. He hadbrought with him to the university a store of miscellaneousinformation which deprived them of the novelty they might have for theaverage listener. "Application, " he says, moreover, "was not mytalent, since nothing gave me any pleasure except what came to me ofitself. " So it was that by the close of his first semester hisattendance at lectures became a jest, and the professors the butt ofhis wit. It was characteristic that he found the prelections onphilosophy and logic specially tedious and distasteful. Of God and theworld he thought he knew as much as his teacher, and the scholasticanalysis of the processes of thought seemed to him only the deadeningof the faculties which he had received from nature. Of these drearyhours in the lecture-rooms the biting comments of Faust andMephistopheles on university studies in general are the livelyreminiscence. But while he was putting in a perfunctory attendance at lectures, hiseducation was proceeding in another school--the school which, as inhis after years he so insistently testified, affords the only realdiscipline for life--the world of real men and women. [19] And thelessons of this school he took in with a zest that well illustrateswhat he called his "chameleon" nature. Within a year the "little, odd, coddled boy" who had left his father's house was transformed into afashionable Leipzig youth who went even beyond his models. Hishome-made suit, which had passed muster in Frankfort, but whichexcited ridicule in Leipzig, was exchanged for a costume which went tothe other extreme of dandyism. His inner man underwent a correspondingtransformation, and, as was so often to be the case with him, it was awoman who was the efficacious instrument of the change. We have justseen how Frau Böhme seconded her husband's attempts to dissuade himfrom abandoning his legal studies, but her good offices did not endthere. A woman of cultivated mind and considerable literaryattainments, she evidently saw the promise of the raw Frankfort youth, and, with a feminine tact, to which Goethe bore grateful testimony, she set herself to correct his manners and his tastes. He had broughtwith him his Frankfort habits of speech, and these under protest hewas forced to give up for the modish forms of the smooth-speakingLeipzigers. [20] Before Frau Böhme took him in hand, he assures us, hewas not an ill-mannered lad, but she impressed on him the need ofcultivating the external graces of social intercourse and even ofacquiring a certain skill in the fashionable games of the day--anaccomplishment, however, which he never succeeded in attaining. Moreimportant for his future development was Frau Böhme's influence on hisliterary tastes. As was his habit among his friends, he would declaimto her passages from his favourite poets, and she, "an enemy to allthat was trivial, feeble, and commonplace, " would unsparingly pointout their essential inanity. When he ventured to recite his ownpoetical attempts, her criticism was equally unsparing. The disciplinewas sharp, but for the "coddled" boy, who had been regarded at homeas a youthful prodigy, it was entirely wholesome. Yet, if we may judgefrom a description of him some ten months after his arrival inLeipzig, the chastening does not appear to have lessened his buoyantself-confidence. The description is from the hand of a comrade of hisown in Frankfort, Horn by name, the son of a former chief magistrateof the city. Horn, like Goethe, had come to study in Leipzig, and onhis arrival there, 1766, he thus (August, 1766) records hisimpressions of Goethe to a common friend: "If you only saw him, youwould be either furious with rage or burst with laughing. It is beyondme to understand how anyone can change so quickly. Besides beingarrogant, he is also a dandy, and his clothes, though fine, are insuch ridiculous taste that they attract the attention of the wholeuniversity. [21] But he does not mind that a bit, and it is useless totell him of his follies.... He has acquired a gait which is simplyintolerable. Could you only see him!" Such was Horn's first impressionof his former comrade, but it is right to say that a few months laterhe could tell the same correspondent that they had not lost a friendin Goethe, who had still the same good heart and was as much aphilosopher and a moralist as ever. [Footnote 19: Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille, Sich ein Character in dem Strom der Welt. ] [Footnote 20: In point of fact Goethe retained to the end theintonation and the idioms of his native speech. ] [Footnote 21: In his Autobiography Goethe states as the reason for hiscasting off the home-made suit he had brought with him from Frankfort, that a person entering the Leipzig theatre in similar costume excitedthe ridicule of the audience. ] In his second letter Horn gives a singular reason for the preposterousairs which Goethe had lately put on. Goethe, wrote Horn, had fallen inlove with a girl "beneath him in rank, " and his antics were assumed todisguise the fact from his friends who might report it to his father. Goethe's relations to this girl were to be his liveliest experience inLeipzig, and an experience frequently to be repeated at differentperiods of his life. Like his other adventures of the same nature, itwas to supply him with a fund of emotions and reflections which at afuture day were to serve him as literary capital. The tale of hispassion, if passion it was, is, therefore, an essential part of hisbiography, both as a man and a literary artist. The girl in question was Käthchen (or, as Goethe calls her in hisAutobiography, Ännchen) Schönkopf, the daughter of a wineseller andlodging-house keeper in Leipzig, whose wife, we are informed, belongedto a "patrician" family in Frankfort. As described by Horn, she was"well-grown though not tall, with a round, pleasant face, though notparticularly pretty, and with an open, gentle, and engaging air"; andin a letter to his sister Goethe gives the further information thatshe had a "good heart, not bewildered with too much reading, " and thather spelling was dubious. And it may be noted in passing that Goetheapparently had a preference for women who were not sophisticated withletters, as was notably shown in the case of the woman whom heeventually made his wife. It was on April 26th, 1766, that he first made the declaration of hispassion, so that, when Horn wrote, we are to suppose that its coursewas in full tide. [22] But now, as always, Goethe had room for twoobjects in his affections. On October 1st, 1766, he wrote letters totwo friends, in the second of which he expressed his passion forKäthchen, and in the first an equally ardent emotion for anothermaiden who had crossed his path in Frankfort. [23] Goethe's confidantthroughout his relations with Käthchen was one of those peculiarpersons whom we meet with in following his career. He was oneBehrisch, now residing in Leipzig in the capacity of tutor to a youngGerman count. In his Autobiography Goethe has given a large place toBehrisch, who, as there depicted, comes before us as an accomplishedman of the world, something of a _roué_, and a humorist in the oldEnglish sense of the word. He never appeared without his periwig, invariably wore a suit of grey, and was never seen in public withouthis sword, hat under arm. Of a caustic wit, of considerable literaryattainments, and approaching his thirtieth year, he had evidently aninfluence on Goethe which was not wholly for good. He took a genuineinterest in Goethe's literary efforts, gave him good advice on pointsof style, and dissuaded him from hasty publication. On the other hand, it was under his influence that Goethe began to assume the tone andairs of a Don Juan, which are an unpleasant characteristic of hisrecently published correspondence with Behrisch. It is in thiscorrespondence that we have the record of Goethe's dallyings withKäthchen, and, take it as we may, the record is as vivid a presentmentas we could wish of a nature as complex in its emotions as it wassteadfast in its central bent. [Footnote 22: _Werke, Briefe_, Band i. 159. ] [Footnote 23: _Ib. _ pp. 60-3. ] The letters to Behrisch begin in October, 1766, and present Goethe inthe light of a happy lover. There is an assiduous rival, but hisaddresses are coldly received. [24] In an ecstasy of delight, after afour hours' _tête-a-tête_ with Käthchen, he treats Behrisch to somelines of English verse which may be produced here as exhibiting thestate of his feelings and the extent of his acquaintance with theEnglish language:-- What pleasure, God! of like a flame to born, A virteous fire, that ne'er to vice kan turn. What volupty! when trembling in my arms, The bosom of my maid my bosom warmeth! Perpetual kisses of her lips o'erflow, In holy embrace mighty virtue show. [Footnote 24: _Ib. _ pp. 61-2. ] In letters written to his sister Cornelia about the same date, however, we see another side of his life in Leipzig. He has beenexcluded from the society in which he was formerly received, and heassigns as reasons that he is following the counsels of his father inrefusing to engage in play, and that he cannot avoid showing a senseof his superiority in taste which gives offence. But, as we learn thatBehrisch was also excluded from the same society, and that he wasdismissed from the charge of his pupils on the ground of his looselife, we may infer that Goethe does not state all the reasons for hisown social ostracism. [25] [Footnote 25: _Ib. _ pp. 81-2. ] So things stood with him in October, 1766, and it is not till thefollowing May that we hear of him again through his correspondence. Ina letter to Cornelia written in that month he excuses himself for hislong neglect of her. He has been busy, he has been ill, and the springhas come late. In this letter he writes of Käthchen as follows: "Amongmy acquaintances who are alive (he has just mentioned the death ofFrau Böhme) the little Schönkopf does not deserve to be forgotten. Sheis a very good girl, with an uprightness of heart joined to agreeable_naïveté_, though her education has been more severe than good. Shelooks after my linen and other things when it is necessary, for sheknows all about these matters, and is pleased to give me the benefitof her knowledge; and I like her well for that. Am I not a bit of ascamp, seeing I am in love with all these girls? Who could resist themwhen they are good; for as for beauty, that does not touch me; and, indeed, all my acquaintances are more good than beautiful. "[26] Thisis not the tone of an ardent lover speaking of his mistress, and it isevident that Cornelia was not the confidant of his real relations toKäthchen, which, indeed, would have been as distasteful to her as totheir father. In another letter, addressed to her in the followingAugust, he is not more frank. There he tells her that Annette is nowhis muse, and that, as Herodotus names the books of his History afterthe nine muses, so he has given the name of Annette to a collection oftwelve poetical pieces, magnificently copied in manuscript. [27] But, he significantly adds, Annette had no more to do with his poetry thanthe Muses had to do with the History of Herodotus. [28] To what extentthis statement expressed the truth we shall presently see. [Footnote 26: _Ib. _ p. 86. The passage is in French. ] [Footnote 27: This was the work of Behrisch, who was a virtuoso incalligraphy. ] [Footnote 28: _Werke, Briefe_, i. 96-7. ] In October, 1767, Goethe resumed his correspondence with Behrisch, andit is in this part of it that we have the fullest revelation of hisstate of mind during the last year of his residence in Leipzig. Withthe exception of occasional digressions these letters are solelyconcerned with his relations to Käthchen, and their outpouringsafterwards received their faithful echo in the incoherences ofWerther. Here is the beginning of a letter to Behrisch (October 13th), in which he described his feelings as evoked by the appearance of tworivals for the favours of Käthchen. "Another night like this, Behrisch, and, in spite of all my sins, I shan't have to go to hell. You may have slept peacefully, but a jealous lover, who has drunk asmuch champagne as is necessary to put his blood in a pleasant heat andto inflame his imagination to the highest point! At first I could notsleep, I tossed about in my bed, sprang up, raved; then I grew wearyand fell asleep. " And he proceeds to relate a wild dream in whichKäthchen was the distracting image; and he concludes: "There you haveAnnette. She is a cursed lass!"[29] Yet on the same day or the dayfollowing he could thus describe his mode of life in a letter to hissister: "It is very philosophical, " he writes; "I have given upconcerts, comedies, riding and driving, and have abandoned allsocieties of young folks who might lead me into more company. Thiswill be of great advantage to my purse. "[30] Very different is thepicture of his mode of life in his subsequent letters to Behrisch atthe same period. If we are to take him literally, it was the life of averitable Don Juan who had learned all the lessons of his instructor. "Do you recognise me in this tone, Behrisch?" he writes; "it is thetone of a conquering young lord.... It is comic. Aber ohne zu schwörenich unterstehe mich schon ein Mädgen zu verf--wie Teufel soll ich'snennen. Enough, Monsieur, all this is but what you might have expectedfrom the aptest and most diligent of your scholars. "[31] That allthis was not mere bravado is distinctly suggested even in _Dichtungund Wahrheit_, where the wild doings of Leipzig are so decorouslydraped. [Footnote 29: _Ib. _ p. 105. ] [Footnote 30: _Ib. _ p. 116. ] [Footnote 31: _Ib. _ p. 133. ] Goethe knew from the first that he could never make Käthchen his wife, and that sooner or later his lovemaking must come to an end. The endcame in the spring of 1768 after two years' philandering which had notbeen all happiness. In a letter to Behrisch he thus relates the_dénouement_: "Oh, Behrisch, " he writes, "I have begun to live! CouldI but tell you the whole story! I cannot; it would cost me too much. Enough--we have separated, we are happy.... Behrisch, we are living inthe pleasantest, friendliest intercourse.... We began with love and weend with friendship. "[32] Goethe makes one of his characters say thatestranged lovers, if they only manage things well, may still remainfriends, and the remark was prompted by more than one experience ofhis own. [Footnote 32: _Ib. _ pp. 158-9. ] When he was past his seventieth year, Goethe made a remark to hisfriend, Chancellor von Müller, which is applicable to every period ofhis life: "In the hundred things which interest me, " he said, "thereis always one which, as chief planet, holds the central place, andmeanwhile the remaining Quodlibet of my life circles round it inmany-changing phases, till each and all succeed in reaching thecentre. " Even in these distracted Leipzig years the mental processthus described is clearly visible. Neither Goethe's loves nor hisother dissipations ever permanently dulled the intellectual side ofhis nature. While he was writing morbid letters to Behrisch, he wasdirecting the studies of his sister with all the seriousness of ayouthful pedagogue. Though he neglected the lectures of hisprofessors, he was assimilating knowledge on every subject thatappealed to his natural instincts. In truth, all the manifoldactivities of his later years were foreshadowed during his sojourn inLeipzig, as, indeed, they had already been foreshadowed during hisboyhood in Frankfort. As in Frankfort, he took in knowledge equally from men, books, andthings. [33] In the house of a Leipzig citizen, a physician andbotanist, he met a society of medical men, and he records how hisattention was directed to an entirely new field through listening totheir conversation. Now, apparently for the first time, he heard thenames of Haller, Buffon, and Linnæus, the last of whom he, in lateryears, named with Spinoza and Shakespeare as one of the chief mouldingforces of his life. Through the influence and example of other men heintermittently practised etching, drawing, and engraving--all arts inwhich he retained a lifelong interest. But among all the persons inLeipzig who influenced him Goethe gave the first place to FriedrichOeser, director of the academy of drawing in the city. Oeser was aboutfifty years of age, jovial in disposition, and an experienced man ofthe world. Though as an artist he is now held in little regard, hisreputation was great in his own day, [34] and he had a reflected gloryin being the friend of Winckelmann, who was reputed to have profitedby his teaching in art. Under the inspiration of Oeser Goethe'sinterest in the plastic arts in general, which had received its firstimpulse at home, became a permanent preoccupation for the remainder ofhis life. He took regular lessons in drawing from Oeser, madeacquaintance with all the collections, public and private, to be foundin Leipzig, and even made a secret visit to the galleries in Dresden, where, he tells us, he gave his exclusive attention to the works ofthe great Dutch masters. As was always his habit, Goethe generouslyacknowledged his obligations to Oeser. "Who among all my teachers, except yourself, " he afterwards wrote on his return to Frankfort, "ever thought me worthy of encouragement? They either heaped all blameor all praise upon me, and nothing can be so destructive of talent.... You know what I was when I came to you, and what when I left you: thedifference is your work ... You have taught me to be modest withoutself-depreciation, and to be proud without presumption. "[35] Andelsewhere he declares that the great lesson he had learned from Oeserwas that the ideal of beauty is to be found in "simplicity andrepose. " But the main interest of Goethe's intercourse with Oeser inconnection with his general development is that it strengthened anillusion from which he did not succeed in freeing himself till nearhis fortieth year--the illusion that nature had given him equally thegifts of the painter and the poet. Many hours of the best years of hislife were to be spent in laboriously practising an art in which he wasdoomed to mediocrity; and it must remain a riddle that one, who likeGoethe was so curiously studious of his own self-development, shouldso long and so blindly have misunderstood his own gifts. [36] [Footnote 33: "Das Bedürfnis meiner Natur zwingt mich zu einervermannigfaltigten Thätigkeit, " he wrote of himself in histhirty-second year. ] [Footnote 34: When, in his thirty-sixth year, Goethe renewed hisacquaintance with Oeser, he wrote of him to Frau von Stein: "C'estcomme si cet homme ne devroit pas mourir, tant ses talents paroissenttoujours aller en s'augmentant. "] [Footnote 35: _Werke, Briefe_, Band i. 179. ] [Footnote 36: In later years he consoled himself with the reflectionthat the time he had spent on the technicalities of art was not whollylost, as he had thus acquired powers of observation which werevaluable to him both as a poet and as a man of science. ] It may partly explain his addiction to art that the poeticalproductions which he had brought from Frankfort, and which had beenapplauded by the circle of his friends there, did not meet with theapproval of the critics in Leipzig. We have seen how sharply FrauBöhme commented on their shortcomings, but he was speciallydisheartened by the severe criticism passed on one of his poems byClodius, the professor of literature. "I am cured of the folly ofthinking myself a poet, "[37] he wrote to his sister about a year afterhis arrival in Leipzig. Some six months later he writes to her in amore hopeful spirit: "Since I am wholly without pride, I may trust myinner conviction, which tells me that I possess some of the qualitiesrequired in a poet, and that by diligence I may even become one. "[38]In his Autobiography and elsewhere Goethe has spoken at length of thedisadvantages under which youthful geniuses laboured at the periodwhen he began his literary career. [39] As Germany then existed, therewas no national feeling to inspire great themes, no standard of taste, and no worthy models for imitation. There was, indeed, no lack ofliterature on all subjects; Kant speaks sarcastically of "the delugeof books with which our part of the world is inundated every year. "But the fatal defects of the poetry then produced was triviality andthe "wateriness" of its style. Yet it was during the years that Goethespent in Leipzig that there appeared a succession of works which marka new departure in German literature. In 1766 Herder, who wassubsequently to exercise such a profound influence over Goethe, published his _Fragments on Modern German Literature_; in the sameyear appeared Lessing's _Laokoon_, which, in Goethe's own words, transported himself and his contemporaries "out of the region ofpitifully contracted views into the domain of emancipated thought";and in 1767 Lessing's _Minna von Barnhelm_, Germany's "first nationaldrama. " Greatly as Goethe was impressed by both of these works ofLessing, however, he was not mature enough to profit by them[40]; and, in point of fact, all the work, poems and plays, which he producedduring his Leipzig period, is solely inspired by the French modelswhich had so long dominated German literature. [Footnote 37: _Werke, Briefe_, Band i. 67. ] [Footnote 38: _Ib. _ p. 88. ] [Footnote 39: Notably in his paper, entitled _LiterarischerSansculottismus_. See above, p. 4. Regarding Lessing he made thisremark to Eckermann (February 7th, 1827): "Bedauert doch denausserordentlichen Menschen, dass er in einer so erbärmlichen Zeitleben musste, die ihm keine bessern Stoffe gab, als in seinen Stückenverarbeitet sind!"] [Footnote 40: "Lessing war der höchste Verstand, und nur ein ebensogrosser konnte von ihm wahrhaft lernen. Dem Halbvermögen war ergefährlich. " (To Eckermann, January 18th, 1825. )] Considering his other manifold preoccupations, the amount of Goethe'sliterary output during his three years in Leipzig is sufficientevidence that his poetic instincts remained the dominant impulses ofhis nature. He sprinkled his letters to his friends with poems inGerman, French, and English, and he composed twenty lyrics which weresubsequently published in the autumn of 1769 under the title of _NeueLieder_[41]; and two plays, entitled _Die Laune des Verliebten_ and_Die Mitschuldigen_. The biographic interest of all these productionsis the light which they throw on the transformation which Goethe hadundergone during his residence in Leipzig. In the poems he had writtenin Frankfort religion had been the predominant theme; in his Leipzigeffusions it was love, and love in a sufficiently Anacreontic sense. Regarding the poetic merit of the _Neue Lieder_ German critics are forthe most part at one. With hardly an exception the love lyrics aremere imitations of French models; their style is as artificial astheir feeling; and they give little promise of the work that was tocome from the same hand a few years later. As the expression of one ofhis lover's moods, one of them, reckoned the best in the collection, may here be given. It is entitled _Die schöne Nacht_. [Footnote 41: Nine of these _Lieder_ Goethe thought worthy of apermanent place in his collected works. ] DIE SCHÖNE NACHT. Nun verlass' ich diese Hütte, Meiner Liebsten Aufenthalt; Wandle mit verhülltem Schritte Durch den öden, finstern Wald. Luna bricht durch Busch und Eichen, Zephyr meldet ihren Lauf; Und die Birken streun mit Neigen Ihr den süssten Weihrauch auf. Wie ergötz' ich mich im Kühlen Dieser schönen Sommernacht! O wie still ist hier zu fühlen Was die Seele glücklich macht! Lässt sich kaum die Wonne fassen, Und doch wollt' ich, Himmel! dir Tausend solcher Nächte lassen, Gäb' mein Mädchen Eine mir. THE BEAUTIFUL NIGHT. Now I leave the cot behind me Where my love hath her abode; And I wander with veiled footsteps Through the drear and darksome wood. Luna's rays pierce oak and thicket Zephyr heraldeth her way; And for her its sweetest incense Sheddeth every birchen spray. How I revel in the coolness Of this beauteous summer night! Ah! how peaceful here the feeling Of what makes the soul's delight, Bliss wellnigh past comprehending! Yet, O Heaven, I would to thee Thousand nights like this surrender, Gave my maiden one to me. But it is in the two plays produced during this period that Goethemost fully reveals both his literary ideals and the essential traitsof his own character. The first of the two, _Die Laune des Verliebten_("The Lover's Caprices"), is based on his own relations to KäthchenSchönkopf, and is cast in the form of a pastoral drama, written inAlexandrines after the fashion of the time. [42] The theme is a satireon his own wayward conduct towards Käthchen, as he has depicted it inhis Autobiography. The plot is of the simplest kind. Two pairs oflovers, Egle and Lamon, and Amine and Eridon, the first pair happy intheir loves, the second unhappy, make up the characters of the piece. The leading part is taken by Egle, who is distressed at the misery ofher friend Amine, occasioned by the jealous humours of her loverEridon. Complications there are none, and the sole interest of theplay consists in the vivacity of the dialogues and in the archmischief with which Egle eventually shames Eridon out of his foolishjealousy of his maiden, who is only too fondly devoted to him. Whatstrikes us in the whole performance is that Goethe, if he was somadly in love with Käthchen as his letters to Behrisch represent him, should have been capable of writing it. From its playful humour andentirely objective treatment it might have been written by agood-natured onlooker amused at the spectacle of two young peopletrifling with feelings which neither could take seriously. [Footnote 42: This play was based on an earlier attempt made inFrankfort. ] Equally objective is Goethe's handling of the very different theme ofthe other play, _Die Mitschuldigen_ ("The Accomplices"), [43] and inthis case the objectivity is still more remarkable in a youth who hadnot yet attained his twentieth year. This second piece belongs to theclass of low comedy, and is as simple in construction as itscompanion. The scene is laid in an inn, and the characters are four innumber: the Host, whose leading trait is insatiable curiosity; hisdaughter Sophia, represented as of easy virtue; Söller, her husband, agraceless scamp; and Alcestes, a former lover of Sophia, and for thetime a guest in the inn. In the central scene of the play there comein succession to Alcestes' room in the course of one night Söller, whosteals Alcestes' gold; the Host, to possess himself of a letter withthe contents of which he has a burning curiosity to become acquainted;and Sophia by appointment with Alcestes. As father and daughter havecaught sight of each other on their respective errands, each suspectsthe other of being the thief, and in a sorry scene the father, on thecondition of being permitted to read the letter, which turns out to bea trivial note, informs Alcestes that Sophia is the delinquent. Finally, Söller, under the threat of a prick from Alcestes' sword, confesses to the theft, and the piece ends with a mutual agreement tocondone each other's delinquencies. [44] The play is not withouthumour, and the different characters are vivaciously presented, butthe blindest admirers of the master may well regret, as they mostlyhave regretted, that such a work should have come from his hands. Themost charitable construction we can put on the graceless production isthat Goethe, out of his abnormal impressionability, for the time beingdeliberately assumed the tone of cynical indifference with which hehad become familiar in his intercourse with his friend Behrisch. [Footnote 43: The exact time and place of its composition isuncertain, but Goethe's own testimony seems to indicate that it wasmainly written in Leipzig, in 1769. It was first published in 1787, with some modifications, which affect only the form. ] [Footnote 44: With a fatuity into which he occasionally fell, Goethein _Dichtung und Wahrheit_ remarks that his two plays are anillustration of that most Christian text, "Let him who is without sinamong you cast the first stone. "] In direct connection with the shorter poems which Goethe wrote inLeipzig, there is a passage in his Autobiography which has perhapsbeen more frequently quoted than any other, and which, according as weinterpret it, must materially influence our judgment at once on hischaracter and his genius. The passage is as follows: "And thus beganthat tendency of which, all my life through, I was never able to breakmyself; the tendency to transmute into a picture or a poem whatevergave me either pleasure or pain, or otherwise preoccupied me, and thusto arrive at a judgment regarding it, with the object at once ofrectifying my ideas of things external to me and of calming my ownfeelings. This gift was in truth perhaps necessary to no one more thanto me, whose temperament was continually tossing him from one extremeto another. All my productions proceeding from this tendency that havebecome known to the world are only fragments of a great confessionwhich it is the bold attempt of this book to complete. " From the context of this passage it is to be inferred that the habitwhich Goethe describes applied only to the occasional short poemswhich he threw off at the different periods of his life. But are we toinfer that the account here given of Goethe's occasional poems appliesto the passionate lyrics which a few years later he was to pour forthin such abundance? To a very different purport is another passage inthe Autobiography, which is at the same time a striking commentary onWordsworth's remark that Goethe's poetry was "not inevitable enough. ""I had come, " he there says, "to look upon my indwelling poetic talentaltogether as a force of nature; the more so as I had always beencompelled to regard outward nature as its proper object. The exerciseof this poetic faculty might indeed be excited and determined bycircumstances; but its most joyful and richest action wasspontaneous--even involuntary. In my nightly vigils the same thinghappened; so that I often wished, like one of my predecessors, to havea leathern jerkin made, and to get accustomed to writing in the dark, so as to be able to fix on paper all such unpremeditated effusions. Ithad so often happened to me that, after composing some snatch ofpoetry in my head, I could not recall it, that I would now hurry to mydesk and, without once breaking off, write off the poem from beginningto end, not even taking time to straighten the paper, if it laycrosswise, so that the verses often slanted across the page. In such amood I preferred to get hold of a lead pencil, because I could writemost readily with it; whereas the scratching and spluttering of a penwould sometimes wake me from a poetic dream, confuse me, and so stiflesome trifling production in its birth. "[45] [Footnote 45: The translation of this passage is by Miss Minna SteeleSmith. --_Poetry and Truth from My Own Life_ (London, 1908. )] Poetry produced as here described may certainly be regarded as part ofthe poet's "confession, " but in the circumstances of its origin it isa world apart from the poetry composed in the fashion described in thepassage preceding. The poet here does not coolly say to himself: "Goto, I will make a poem to relieve my feelings"; he sings, to quoteGoethe's own expression, "as the bird sings, " out of the sheerfulness of his heart, which insists on immediate expression. [46] Trueit is that Goethe, like all other poets, frequently wrote under noimmediate pressure of inspiration, but to affirm this of the highestefforts of his genius is at once to contradict his own testimony andto misinterpret the conditions under which genius produces itsresults. [Footnote 46: In a letter to W. Von Rumohr (September 28th, 1807), Goethe calls "unaufhaltsame Natur, unüberwindliche Neigung, drängendeLeidenschaft" the "Haupterfordernisse der wahren Poesie. " In two ofhis _Zahme Xenien_ Goethe has expressed his opinion on the necessityof inspiration in poetic production:-- Ja das ist das rechte Gleis, Dass man nicht weiss, Was man denkt, Wenn man denkt: Alles ist als wie geschenkt. All unser redlichstes Bemühn Glückt nur im unbewussten Momente. Wie möchte denn die Rose blühn, Wenn sie der Sonne Herrlichkeit erkennte!] CHAPTER III AT HOME IN FRANKFORT SEPTEMBER, 1768--APRIL, 1770 On August 28th, 1768, Goethe left Leipzig after a residence of nearlythree years. He had gone to Leipzig in the spirit of a prisonerreleased from his gaol; he left it in the spirit of one returning todurance. In his Autobiography he has described the depressingconditions under which he re-entered his father's house. In body andmind he had found that in "accursed Leipzig one burns out as quicklyas a bad torch. " In body he was a broken man. One night in thebeginning of August he had been seized with a violent hemorrhage, andfor some weeks his life hung by a thread. In his Autobiography heassigns various reasons for his illness. As the result of an accidenton his journey from Frankfort to Leipzig he had strained the ligamentsof his chest, and the mischief was aggravated by a subsequent fallfrom his horse; he had suffered from the fumes of the acids he hadinhaled in the process of etching; he had ruined his digestion bydrinking coffee and heavy beer; and, in accordance with the preceptsof Rousseau, he had adopted a _régime_ which proved too severe for hisenfeebled constitution. So he wrote in his old age, but hiscontemporary letters leave us in little doubt regarding the cause ofhis breakdown. He had, in fact, during the latter part of his sojournin Leipzig lived the life of the average German student of his day. Hehad fought a duel, and had been wounded in the arm; he had drunk morethan was good for him, and we have seen that he had followed othercourses not conducive to his bodily health. His mental condition was equally unsatisfactory. There was not afriend, he tells us, whom at one time or another he had not annoyed byhis caprice, or offended by his "morbid spirit of contradiction" andsullen avoidance of intercourse. All through his life Goethe seems tohave tried his friends by his variable humours, [47] but it was seldomthat he completely alienated them, and he gratefully records how inhis present stricken condition they rallied to his side, and put himto shame by their assiduous attentions. One of these friends, Langerby name, who had succeeded Behrisch as tutor to the young Count, hespecially mentions as helping to give a new turn to his thoughts. Langer was religiously disposed, and found in Goethe, now in a mood toreceive them, a sympathetic listener to his theological views. UnderLanger's influence he resumed his youthful study of the Bible--not inthe Old Testament, however, but in the New, which he read, he tellsus, with "emotion and enthusiasm. " It was the beginning of a new phasein his life which was to last for about a year and a half, a phase inwhich religion, if we are to accept the testimony of hisAutobiography, held the uppermost place in his thoughts. [Footnote 47: When approaching his eightieth year, Goethe remarked toChancellor von Müller (March 6th, 1828): "Wer mit mir umgehen will, muss zuweilen auch meine Grobianslaune zugeben, ertragen, wie einesandern Schwachheit oder Steckenpferd. "] It was with the feelings of "a shipwrecked seaman, " he tells us, thathe found himself again under his father's roof, though hecharacteristically adds that "he had nothing specially to reproachhimself with. " The atmosphere he found at home was not such as to puthim in better spirits. Father, mother and daughter had been living inmutual misunderstanding during the whole period of the son's absencein Leipzig. Cornelia had been made the sole victim of her father'spedagogic discipline which had been partially alleviated when it wasshared with her brother, and she had come to regard her over-anxiousparent with a hardness which Goethe describes as having somethingdreadful (_fürchterliches_) in it. The arrival of Goethe could notimprove the existing relations in the household. As in the time beforehis going to Leipzig, Cornelia drew to him as the only member of thefamily who sympathetically understood her, and she remained asobdurate as ever in her sullen attitude towards her father. BetweenGoethe himself and his father their former estrangement continued, andwe are given to understand that during the year and a half he nowspent under the paternal roof there was no cordial understandingregarding the son's pursuits and his future career. [48] Dissatisfiedwith his son, as from his point of view he had every reason to be, Herr Goethe nevertheless cherished a secret pride in his genius. Witha paternal pride, which is even touching in the circumstances, hecarefully framed the drawings executed by his son, and collected andstitched together his letters from Leipzig. [Footnote 48: Referring to the time he now spent in Frankfort, Goethesays in _Dichtung und Wahrheit_: "Mit dem Vater selbst konnte sichkein angenehmes Verhältniss knüpfen. "] As in the case of his Leipzig period, Goethe's reminiscent account ofhis present sojourn in Frankfort gives a somewhat different impressionof his main interests from that conveyed by his contemporary letters. If we accept the testimony of his Autobiography, his attention wasmainly turned to religion and to chemical and cabbalistical studies;from his correspondence, on the other hand, it would appear that histhoughts at least occasionally ran on subjects that had little to dowith his spiritual welfare. At the same time, the apparent discrepancyneed not imply self-contradiction. The correspondents to whom hisletters were addressed were not persons specially interested inreligion or chemistry or the cabbala, and, of all men, Goethe wasleast likely to be obsessed by any set of ideas to the exclusion ofall others. There can be little doubt, indeed, that during his yearand a half in Frankfort religion was a more predominant interest inhis life than at any other period; and the fact is sufficientlyexplained by the circumstances in which he then found himself. Fromthe condition both of his mind and body he was disposed toself-searching. Regret for the past was foreign to his nature; in hismature judgment, indeed, such a feeling was resolutely to be checkedin the interest of healthy self-development. Yet in the retrospect ofhis Leipzig days it seems to have crossed his mind that he might havespent them more wisely. "O that I could recall the last two years anda half, "[49] he wrote to Käthchen Schönkopf, and he warns a malecorrespondent in Leipzig to "beware of dissoluteness. "[50] And thestate of his health during the greater part of this time in Frankfortwas such as to strengthen this mood. Immediately after his return fromLeipzig he was threatened with pulmonary disease, and the state of hisdigestion became such as to alarm himself and his friends. On December7th he was attacked by a violent internal pain, and for some daysthere were the gravest fears for his life. After two months'confinement to his room there was a partial recovery, but it was nottill the spring of 1770 that his health was completely restored. [Footnote 49: _Werke, Briefe_, Band i. 215. ] [Footnote 50: _Ib. _ p. 217. ] But the truth is that Goethe's temporary preoccupation with religionis only another illustration of his "chameleon" temperament. In gayLeipzig he had promptly taken on the ways of a man about town; now inFrankfort he found himself in a very different society, and he aspromptly entered into the spirit of it. The circle of which he nowbecame a member was a company of religious persons, mostly women, friends or acquaintances of his mother. Its most prominent member wasthat Fräulein von Klettenberg, already mentioned, a woman of highrank, culture, and refinement. To moral beauty of character in man orwoman, Goethe, at all periods of his life, was peculiarlysensitive, [51] and in the Fräulein he saw a woman who combined at oncethe most winning graces of her sex and the virtues of a saint. Forwomen of all ages and all types Goethe had always a singularattraction, and, though the Fräulein must have discerned that he couldnever be a son or brother in the spirit, she was profoundly interestedin the wayward youth in whom she saw a brand that deserved to beplucked from the burning. [Footnote 51: _Cf. _ his beautiful characterisation of Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland, in whom he found the embodiment at once of theChristian graces and of _reine Menschlichkeit_. ] With a kind of half consent Goethe entered into the spirit of thepious circle; he even attended communion in spite of his unhappymemories of that sacrament, and was present at a Synod of the HerrnhutCommunity to which Fräulein von Klettenberg belonged. Bound up withthe Fräulein's religion was a curious interest in the occult powers ofnature from the point of view of their relation to the human body. Itis with evident irony that Goethe relates how in his own case theefficacy of these occult powers was tried. Among the members of thereligious community was a mysterious physician who was credited withpossessing certain medicines of peculiar virtue. He was believed tohave in store one drug--a powerful salt--which he reserved only forthe most dangerous cases, and regarding which, though they had neverseen the result of its operation, the community spoke with batedbreath. At the vehement request of his mother the mysterious medicinewas administered to Goethe at the crisis of his malady, at the hour ofmidnight, and with all due solemnity. From that moment his illnesstook a favourable turn, and he steadily progressed towards recovery. "I need not say, " is his comment, "how greatly this resultstrengthened and heightened our faith in our physician and our effortsto share such a treasure. " Partly, therefore, out of his owninsatiable curiosity and partly out of sympathy with his new friends, Goethe now betook himself to occult studies, and, in imitation of theFräulein von Klettenberg, had a room fitted up with the necessarychemical apparatus. It was the first practical commencement of thosescientific studies which were subsequently to occupy such a large partof his life. Along with his chemical experiments went the study ofsuch visionaries in science as Paracelsus, Van Helmont, and others, but also of the great Boerhaave, whose _Institutes of Medicine andAphorisms_, containing all that was then known of medical theory, he"gladly stamped on his mind and memory. " To what extent are we to infer that Goethe really shared the religiousviews of the circle of pious persons with whom he was now living indaily contact? His own account we can only regard as half jesting, half serious. He would never have spiritual peace, Fräulein vonKlettenberg told him till he had a "reconciled God. " Goethe'srejoinder was that it should be put the other way. Considering hisrecent sufferings and his own good intentions, it was God who was inarrears to him and who had something to be forgiven. The Fräuleincharitably condoned the blasphemy, but she and her fellow-believerswere assuredly in the right when they denied the blasphemer the nameof _Christian_. Yet, as has been said, Goethe in his own way wasseriously in search of a faith that would satisfy both his intellectand his heart, and he even attempted to construct one. A book thatfell into his hands, Gottfried Arnold's _Impartial History of theChurch and of Heretics_, [52] prompted the attempt. From this book, hetells us, he received a favourable impression of heretics, and theimpression was comforting to one who, like himself, was looked on as aheretic by all his friends. Moreover, he had often heard it said thatin the long run every man must have his own religion; why, therefore, should he not essay to think out a creed that would at least satisfyhimself? In brief outline he has described the system which he evolvedfrom his miscellaneous historical and scientific studies. It is, as hehimself says, a strange composite of Neo-Platonism, and of hermetical, mystical, and cabbalistical speculations, all leading by a necessarylogic to the dogmas of Redemption and the Incarnation--a conclusionwhich at least points to the fact that for Goethe at this timeChristianity was a religion specifically predestined for man'ssalvation. "We all become mystics in old age, " is a remark of his ownat that period of life; and the conclusion of the Second Part ofFaust, as well as other indications, proves that the remark was atleast true of himself. But, as has often been pointed out, not only inold age, but at every period of his life, there was a mystic strain inhim which was only kept in check by what was the strongest instinct ofhis nature--the instinct that demanded the direct vision of theconcrete fact as the only condition on which he could build "thepyramid of his life. " [Footnote 52: Probably Goethe had this book in his mind when he wrotethe sarcastic epigram:-- "Es ist die ganze Kirchengeschichte Mischmasch von Irrthum und von Gewalt. "] Goethe's experience derived from his intercourse with Fräulein vonKlettenberg and her friends undoubtedly enriched his own nature andenlarged his conceptions of the content of human life, of its possiblemotives and ideals. It was not a circle into which his own affinitieswould have led him, but being in it, he, as was his invariable habit, drew from it to the full all that it could give for his ownbuilding-up. And in enriching his own nature and widening his outlook, the experience enlarged the scope of his creative productiveness. Butfor his intercourse with these pious enthusiasts the Confessions of aBeautiful Soul would not have found a place in _Wilhelm Meister_, andfrom the general picture of human life and its activities which it isthe object of that book to present, there would have been lacking oneconception of life and its responsibilities, not the least interestingin the history of the human spirit. Most specific and important of allhis gains from his association with the Frankfort community, however, was that from it directly emerged what is universally regarded as hisgreatest creative effort--the First Part of Faust. The conception ofthat work was closely associated with the chemical experiments andcabbalistic studies suggested by his intercourse with Fräulein vonKlettenberg and her circle, and not only suggested but carried out onthe foundation that had thus been laid. [53] [Footnote 53: Yet at a later date he would seem to have regarded hismystical studies as among the errors of his youth. In his _Tagebuch_, under date August 7th, 1779, he writes as follows, and the passage maybe taken as a commentary on the whole period of his life with which weare dealing: "Stiller Rückblick auf's Leben auf die VerworrenheitBetriebsamkeit, Wissbegierde der Jugend, wie sie überallherumschweift, um etwas Befriedigendes zu finden. Wie ich besonders in[Transcriber's Note: corrected error "im"] Geheimnissen, dunklenimaginativen Verhältissen eine Wollust gefunden habe. "] As has been said, Goethe's contemporary letters addressed fromFrankfort to his friends bring a different side of his life before usfrom that presented in the Autobiography. From these letters we gatherthat he was by no means wholly engrossed in religious or mysticalstudies. "During this winter, " he wrote to his friend Oeser, about twomonths after his arrival in Frankfort, "the company of the muses andcorrespondence with friends will bring pleasure into a sickly, solitary life, which for a youth of twenty years would otherwise besomething of a martyrdom. "[54] In spite of the affectionate solicitudeof Fräulein von Klettenberg and other friends, he found Frankfort adepressing place after gay Leipzig. "I could go mad when I think ofLeipzig, " wrote his sprightly friend Horn, who had also tasted thepleasures of that place; and Goethe shared his opinion. Both alsoagreed that the girls of Frankfort were vastly inferior creatures tothose of Leipzig. "I came here, " Goethe wrote in a poetical epistle tothe daughter of Oeser, "and found the girls a little--one does notquite like to speak it out--as they always were; enough, none has asyet touched my heart. "[55] It would appear, nevertheless, that he didfind certain Frankfort girls to his taste. "I get along tolerablyhere, " he wrote to another correspondent. "I am contented and quiet; Ihave half-a-dozen angels of girls whom I often see, though I have lostmy heart to none of them. They are pleasant creatures, and make mylife uncommonly agreeable. He who has seen no Leipzig might be verywell off here. "[56] His life in Frankfort was, in short, what hehimself called it, an exile (_Verbannung_). [Footnote 54: _Werke, Briefe_, Band i. 179, November 7th, 1768. ] [Footnote 55: _Ib. _ p. 173. ] [Footnote 56: _Ib. _ p. 217. ] Among his correspondents was Käthchen Schönkopf with whom, as we haveseen, he had come to what he thought a satisfactory arrangement beforeleaving Leipzig. In this correspondence it is the Leipzig student, notthe associate of the Fräulein von Klettenberg, who is before us. Thereis the same waywardness, there are the same irresponsible sallieswhich made him such a difficult lover. If we are to take himseriously, he still suffered from the pangs of rejected love andregretted that his former relations to Käthchen had not continued. "Alover to whom his love will not listen, " he writes, "is by manydegrees not so unfortunate as one who has been cast off; the formerstill retains hope and has at least no fear of being hated; the other, yes, the other, who has once experienced what it is to be cast out ofa heart which once was his, gladly avoids thinking, not to sayspeaking, of it. "[57] When this passage was written (June, 1769) hehad received the news that Käthchen was betrothed to another. In afinal letter addressed to her (January 23rd, 1770) occur thesecharacteristic words: "You are still the same loveable girl, and youwill also be a loveable wife. And I, I shall remain Goethe. You knowwhat that means. When I mention my name, I mention all; and you knowthat, as long as I have known you, I have lived only as part ofyou. "[58] So closed a relation of which it is difficult to say howmuch there was in it of genuine passion, how much of artificialsentiment. Serious intention in it there was none; from the firstGoethe perfectly realised the fact that he could never make Käthchenhis wife. [59] [Footnote 57: _Ib. _ p. 211. ] [Footnote 58: _Ib. _ p. 224. ] [Footnote 59: Goethe saw Käthchen as a married woman in Leipzig in1776, when he wrote to the lady who then held his affections (Frau vonStein): "Mais ce n'est plus Julie. "] As at Leipzig, his other distractions did not divert him from hisinterests in art and literature. When the state of his healthpermitted, he assiduously practised drawing and etching. "Now asformerly, " he wrote to Oeser, "art is almost my chief occupation. " Buthe also found time for wide excursions into the fields of generalliterature. Before leaving Leipzig he had exchanged with Langer "wholebaskets-full" of German poets and critics for Greek authors, and these(though his knowledge of Greek remained to the end elementary) hemust have read in a fashion. Latin authors he read were Cicero, Quintilian, Seneca, and Pliny. Among the moderns Shakespeare andMolière already held the place in his estimation which they alwaysretained. Shakespeare he as yet knew only from the selections inDodd's _Beauties_ and Wieland's translation, but he already felt hisgreatness, and, as we have seen, names him with Wieland and Oeser asone of his masters. "Voltaire, " he wrote to Oeser, "has been able todo no harm to Shakespeare; no lesser spirit will prevail over agreater one. "[60] The German writers who now stood highest in hisesteem were Lessing and Wieland. Lessing's æsthetic teaching heaccepted with some reserves, but this did not abate the admirationwhich he retained for him at every period of his life. "Lessing!Lessing!" he wrote in the same letter to Oeser; "if he were notLessing, I might say something. Write against him I may not; he is aconqueror.... He is a mental phenomenon, and, truly, such apparitionsare rare in Germany. "[61] That Goethe, at this period, should have hadsuch an unbounded admiration for Wieland is an interesting commentaryon his pietistic leanings; for Wieland was now in his full paganphase, so distasteful to moral Germany, as Goethe himself indicates. "I have already been annoyed on Wieland's account, " he writes--"Ithink with justice. Wieland has often the misfortune to bemisunderstood; frequently, perhaps, the fault is his own, but asfrequently it is not. " At a later day Goethe clearly saw and marked inWieland that lack of "high seriousness" on which he himself came tolay such stress as all-important in literature and life, but in themeantime he freely acknowledged what Wieland had been to him. [62]"After him (Oeser) and Shakespeare, " he wrote in the letter justquoted, "Wieland is still the only one whom I can hold as my truemaster; others had shown me where I had gone astray; they showed mehow to do better. " [Footnote 60: _Werke, Briefe_, Band i. 205. ] [Footnote 61: _Ib. _ p. 230. ] [Footnote 62: Goethe has this entry in his _Tagebuch_ (April 2nd, 1780): "Wieland sieht ganz unglaublich alles, was man machen will, macht, und was hangt und langt in einer Schrift. "] What is noteworthy in the serious passages of Goethe's Frankfortletters is the advance in maturity and self-knowledge which theyreveal when compared with those written from Leipzig. Penetrativeremarks on men and things, such as give its value to his latercorrespondence, now begin to fall from his pen by the way. Heconsciously takes the measure of his own powers, and forms clearjudgments on the literary and artistic tastes of the time. The poemswhich he had written in Leipzig now seemed to him "trifling, cold, dry, and superficial, " and, as in Leipzig he had made a holocaust ofhis boyish poems, so he made a second holocaust of those produced inLeipzig. In a long letter addressed (February 13th, 1769) toFriederike Oeser he thus expounds the artistic ideals at which he hadthen arrived: "A great scholar is seldom a great philosopher, and hewho has laboriously thumbed the pages of many books regards withcontempt the simple, easy book of nature; and yet nothing is trueexcept what is simple--certainly a sorry recommendation for truewisdom. Let him who goes the way of simplicity go it in quiet. Modestyand circumspection are the essential characteristics of him who wouldtread this path, and every step will bring its reward. I have to thankyour dear father for these conceptions; he it was who prepared my mindto receive them; time will give its blessing to my diligence which maycomplete the work he began. "[63] In point of fact, partly owing to thedepressing conditions in which he found himself, and partly, it maybe, out of his own deliberate purpose, Goethe produced no work ofimportance during the year and a half he spent in Frankfort. It was aperiod of incubation, and the stimulus to production was to come tohim in another environment. [Footnote 63: _Werke, Briefe_, Band i. 200. ] In the spring of 1770 Goethe recovered his normal health and spirits, and, in accordance with his father's wish, he proceeded to Strassburgto complete his legal studies. He left home with as intense a feelingof relief as he had left it on the previous occasion. Between him andhis father there had been growing estrangement, and the estrangementhad ended in an open quarrel when he ventured to criticise thearchitecture of the paternal house, which had been constructed underhis father's own directions. Thwarted though the father had been inhis hopes of his son, however, he was not turned from his purpose ofaffording him every opportunity of laying a broad foundation ofgeneral culture. It was his express wish that Wolfgang, aftercompleting his studies in Strassburg, should travel in France andspend some time in Paris. CHAPTER IV GOETHE IN STRASSBURG APRIL, 1770--AUGUST, 1771 Goethe was in his twenty-first year when he entered Strassburg in thebeginning of April, 1770. From his maturer age and the chasteningexperience of the preceding eighteen months, therefore, it was to beexpected that his management of his life in his new home would be morein accordance with his father's wishes than his wild ways in Leipzig. In sending his son to Strassburg it was the father's intention that heshould complete those legal studies of which he had made a jest inLeipzig, and qualify himself for the profession by which he was tomake his future living. During his residence of some sixteen months inStrassburg Goethe did actually fulfil his father's wish, and returnedto Frankfort as a full-fledged Licenciate of Laws, but as little as atLeipzig did the interests which engrossed him suggest future eminencein his profession. What again strikes us is the rapidity with which he caught the tone ofhis new surroundings. In Strassburg he found a society whose ways ofliving and thinking were equally different from those of Frankfort andof Leipzig. Strassburg had not the bounded intellectual horizon whichmade him feel himself an alien in his native town, nor, on the otherhand, did it offer the opportunities for frivolous distraction whichhe found in the "little Paris. " Strassburg had been a French town fora hundred years, but there was no town in Germany more intenselyGerman in its sympathies and aspirations. The officials and the upperclasses in the town spoke French and were French in their tastes andhabits, but the great majority of its citizens clung to their nationaltraditions with the tenacity of the conquered. It is Goethe's owntestimony that his residence in Strassburg precisely at this period ofhis life was a decisive circumstance for his future development. Atthe moment of his arrival, he had not yet completely broken withFrench models, and he would even appear to have had vague dreams thathe would eventually choose the French language as his literarymedium. [64] Ever responsive to the intellectual and spiritualatmosphere in which he found himself, however, the intensely Germansympathies of his Strassburg circle definitely turned him from acareer which would have cut off his genius from its profoundestsources. [Footnote 64: So we are led to infer from what he says in Part iii. , Book ii. Of _Dichtung und Wahrheit_. ] His decisive rejection of French for German ideals was the governingfact of his sojourn in Strassburg, but he had other experiences therewhich show that he was the same variable being of the Leipzig days. His first letters from his new home would seem to show that he hadbrought with him something of the pious sentiments he had acquiredfrom his association with Fräulein von Klettenberg, though hisexpression of them has a singular savour. About a fortnight after hisarrival in Strassburg he writes as follows to one Limprecht, atheological student whose acquaintance he had made in Leipzig: "I amnow again _Studiosus_, and, thank God, have now as much health as Ineed, and spirits in superabundance. As I was, so am I still; onlythat I stand better with our Lord God and with his dear Son JesusChrist. It follows that I am a somewhat wiser man; and have learned byexperience the meaning of the saying, 'The fear of the Lord is thebeginning of wisdom. ' To be sure, we first sing Hosanna to him whocometh yonder; well and good! even that is joy and happiness; the Kingmust first enter before he ascends his throne. " A week later he writesagain to the same correspondent in a similar strain[65]: "I am adifferent man, very different: for that I thank my Saviour; and I amthankful also that I am not what I pass for. "[66] [Footnote 65: _Werke, Briefe_, Band i. 232. ] [Footnote 66: _Ib. _ p. 234. ] Two months later (July 28th) he appears to be in the same pious frameof mind. "I still live somewhat at random, " he writes to anothercorrespondent, "and I thank God for it; and often, when I dare, Ithank His Son also that I am in circumstances which seem to enjointhis random mode of life.... Reflections are very light wares, butprayer is a profitable business; a single welling-up of the heart toHim whom we call _a_ God till we can name Him _our_ God, and we areoverwhelmed by the multitude of our mercies. "[67] [Footnote 67: _Ib. _ pp. 240, 241. ] This mood, we cannot help feeling, sits ill on Goethe; pious as arehis expressions, they have not the ring of the genuine believer. Yetit would be unjust to charge him with deliberate hypocrisy. The truthis that at this time, and indeed throughout all his sojourn inStrassburg, he was in a state of nervous irritability of which bothhimself and his friends were aware. [68] Other expressions in lettersof the same date reveal a variability of moods, the only explanationof which is that he had not fully recovered from the depressed mentalcondition consequent on his long illness in Frankfort. But hisunnatural mood of piety did not long withstand the new influences towhich he was now subjected, and it is in a letter to Fräulein vonKlettenberg herself, written towards the end of August, that heintimates his growing distaste for the religious set to whom she hadintroduced him in Strassburg. After telling her that he had been toHoly Communion "to remind him of the sufferings and death of ourLord, " he proceeds: "My intercourse with the religious people here isnot quite hearty, though at first I did turn very heartily to them;but it seems as if it were not to be. They are so deadly dull whenthey begin that my natural vivacity cannot endure it. " He goes on tosay that he has made the acquaintance of one who is of a different wayof thinking from these people--one "who from the coolness of bloodwith which he has always regarded the world thinks he has discoveredthat we are put in this world for the special purpose of being usefulin it; that we are capable of making ourselves so; that religion is ofsome help in this; and that the most useful man is the best. "[69] [Footnote 68: Lerse, one of Goethe's friends in Strassburg, said: "Dageriet Goethe oft in hohe Verzückung, sprach Worte der Prophezeiungund machte Lerse Besorgnisse, er werde überschnappen. " (Goethe's_Gespräche_. Gesamtausgabe von Freiherrn v. Biedermann, Leipzig, 1909, i. P. 19. )] [Footnote 69: _Werke, Briefe_, Band i. Pp. 245-7. ] The acquaintance to whom Goethe thus refers was the most importantperson in the circle with which he was mainly associated during hisresidence in Strassburg. It was a circle widely different in tastesand ways of thinking from that which he had left at Frankfort. Boardedin one house, the persons who composed it, about ten in number, dailymet at a common table. Of different ages, and mostly medical students, their talk, as Goethe tells us, mainly turned on their professionalstudies. The talk of medical students is not favourable to thecultivation of a mystical piety, and it need not surprise us that afew weeks in this atmosphere were sufficient to give Goethe a growingdistaste for those religious sentiments which in his case were only amorbid distortion of his natural instincts. Yet during theseStrassburg days there is no trace in him of that anti-Christianattitude of mind which was to be one of his later phases. Hedecisively dissociated himself from the Herrnhut society, and heceased to speak in their language, but, as we have seen, he was stilldisposed to assign to religion a due place in the lives of reasonablemen. In the president of the common table, Dr. Salzmann, the acquaintanceto whom he referred, Goethe found one who by his personal characterand general views of life appealed to what was deepest in his ownnature. Salzmann's belief that "the most useful man is the best, " maybe said, indeed, to sum up Goethe's own maturest conviction regardingthe conduct of life. In his relations to Salzmann, therefore, so faras Goethe's ethical and religious ideals are concerned, we have theclearest light thrown on his Strassburg period. As described by Goethehimself, Salzmann was a man of the world, characterised by a tact, good sense, and personal dignity which gave him an undisputedascendancy over the miscellaneous company which met at the commontable. From another member of the circle[70] we have this additionaltribute to Salzmann's high character: "His place (at table) was theuppermost, and that would have been his natural place, even had he satbehind the door. His modesty does not permit me to pass a panegyric onhim.... Let my readers imagine a philosophy, based at once on feelingand a thorough grasp of principles, conjoined with the most genuineChristianity, and he will have an idea of a Salzmann. " Goethe and he, the same writer adds, were "the most cordial friends (_Herzensfreunde_). "In Leipzig the cynical _roué_ Behrisch had been Goethe's mentor; inStrassburg his mentor was Salzmann, and the fact emphasises all thedifference between Goethe's Leipzig and Strassburg days. That he choseSalzmann as his chiefest friend and confidant at a period whenself-control was still far from his reach, is the proof that _desLebens ernstes Führen_--the strenuous conduct of life--was in reality, as he himself claimed, an imperative instinct of his nature. Certainlyhe did not regulate his life in Strassburg in accordance with themaxim of his self-chosen counsellor, yet we may conjecture that butfor Salzmann's restraining influence he would have gone further andfaster than he actually did. In the extremity of what was to be hismost passionate experience in Strassburg, it was to Salzmann that hepoured forth all the tumult of his passion, and the very act of layingbare his heart to such a counsellor was a suggestion of the necessityof a certain measure of self-control. In connection with Goethe'srelations to Salzmann we have also to note what is true of hisrelations to everyone at whose feet he chose for the time to sit. Whena youth of eighteen he had written to Behrisch, a man of thirty, onterms of perfect equality. He was now a little over twenty, andSalzmann was approaching fifty and a man of the stamp we have seen, yet in Goethe's letters to him there is no trace of the modestdiffidence with which a youth usually addresses his seniors. A forwardself-confidence, which some found objectionable, was in fact acharacteristic of his youth and early manhood which is noticed by morethan one observer. He entered a room, we are told, with a bold andconfident air; and we have it from another witness that he was _d'unesuffisance insupportable_. [71] Be it remarked, however, that there isequal testimony to the overpowering charm of his bearing andconversation--a charm due, as we learn, to a spontaneity of feelingand exuberance of youthful spirits which broke through all conventionsand gave the tone to every company in which he found himself. [Footnote 70: Jung Stilling. ] [Footnote 71: Biedermann, _op. Cit. _, i. Pp. 15, 19. At an earlierperiod Goethe was thus described: "Er mag 15 oder 16 Jahr alt sein, imübrigen hat er mehr ein gutes Plappermaul als Gründlichkeit. " _Ib. _ p. 6. ] Goethe's relations to another member of the circle, who joined itsomewhat later, show him in his most attractive light. This was JohannHeinrich Jung, better known as Jung Stilling, now about thirty yearsof age. Stilling was another of those originals who crossed Goethe'spath at different periods, and to whom he was at all times speciallyattracted. Stilling had had a remarkable career; he had beensuccessively charcoal-burner, tailor, schoolmaster, and private tutor, and he had come to Strassburg to qualify himself for the practice ofmedicine. What attracted Goethe to him was a type of mind andcharacter at every point dissimilar from his own. With a simplemystical piety, which led him to believe that he was a special childof Providence, Stilling combined an intelligence and a zeal forknowledge which gave his words and his actions an individual stamp. Itis from Stilling that we have the most vivid description of Goethe inthese Strassburg days. As he sat with a friend at the common table forthe first time, they saw a youth enter who, by his "large bright eyes, magnificent forehead, handsome person, and confident air, " arrestedtheir attention. [72] "That must be a fine fellow, " remarkedStilling's friend, but both agreed that they might look for troublewith him, as he seemed _ein wilder Kamerad_. They were mistaken, andGoethe was to prove one of Stilling's warmest friends. Stillinghimself relates how, when one at the table directed a gibe at him, itwas Goethe who rebuked the railer. When Stilling was in despair at thenews of the illness of his betrothed, it was to Goethe he flew forcomfort, and he found him a friend in need. At a later date Goethepublished Stilling's Autobiography without his knowledge, andpresented him with the copyright. It was with the lively recollectionof these and other acts of friendship that Stilling wrote the wordswhich are the finest tribute ever paid to Goethe: "Goethe's heart, which few knew, was as great as his intellect, which all knew. "[73] [Footnote 72: Goethe's personal appearance made such a remarkableimpression on all who met him that it deserves to be more minutelydescribed. In stature he was slightly over the middle height, thoughthe poise of his head, both in youth and age, gave the impression ofgreater tallness. Till past his thirtieth year he was notably slenderin figure, a defect in symmetry being the observable shortness of thelegs, and he walked with swift, elastic step. The foot was elegantlyshaped, but the hand was that of the descendant of ancestors who hadbeen engaged in manual labour. The head was of oval form, the chinsmall and feminine, the height of the forehead remarkable. The face, which (in youth) gave the impression of smallness, was brown incomplexion; the nose was delicately formed and slightly curved; thehair brown, abundant, and usually dishevelled. The feature whichstruck all who met him for the first time was the eyes, which werebrown in colour, large, and widely-opened, with the white conspicuous, and piercingly bright. --An exhaustive study of the portraits and bustsof Goethe will be found in _Goethes Kopf und Gestalt von Karl Bauer_, Berlin, 1908. ] [Footnote 73: Stilling elsewhere says: "Schade, dass so wenige diesenvortrefflichen Menschen seinem Herzen nach kennen!" Others usedsimilar expressions regarding Goethe's mind and heart. ] Neither in Frankfort, nor in Leipzig, nor in Strassburg had Goethe asyet met the man in whom he could recognise his intellectual peer. Inthe beginning of September, 1770, however, there came to Strassburgone who, for the first time, impressed him with a sense ofinferiority. This was Johann Gottfried Herder, who, some five yearsGoethe's senior, had a career behind him widely different from that ofthe fortunate son of the Imperial Councillor of Frankfort. Born ofpoor parents, he had had to fight his way at every step to thedistinction which he had already attained. He had studied under Kantat Königsberg, had been successively assistant teacher, assistantpastor, and private tutor. In this last capacity he had travelled inFrance, and visited Paris, where he had made the acquaintance, amongothers, of Diderot and D'Alembert. In Hamburg he had for several weeksbeen in intercourse with Lessing, whom Goethe in a moment of capricehad neglected to visit in Leipzig. Already, moreover, he had producedwork in literary criticism which by its suggestiveness and originalityhad attracted much attention, and notably among the youth of Germany. In hard-won experience, in extent of knowledge and range of ideas, therefore, Herder, as Goethe himself speedily saw and acknowledged, was far ahead of him along those very paths where he himself wasambitious of distinction. The association of Herder and Goethe in these Strassburg days is oneof the interesting chapters in European literary history. Goethehimself bears emphatic testimony to Herder's determining influence atonce on his mind and character. "The most significant event of thattime, he tells us, "and one which was to have the weightiestconsequences for me, was my acquaintance with Herder and the closerbond that resulted from it. " Bond there was between them, but it wasnot the bond of genuine friendship. No two men, indeed, could be moreessentially antipathetic by nature than Herder and Goethe. Theirantagonism was clearly apparent during their intercourse inStrassburg, and in the end, after many years of uneasy relations, their alienation became complete. Be it said that the traits in Herderwhich estranged Goethe from him were equally recognised and felt byothers. Naturally querulous, splenetic, and inconsiderate of others'feelings, the adverse circumstances of his early life had made himsomething of a Timon among his fellows. [74] His favourite author wasSwift, and from this preference and from the peculiarities of his owntemper he was known among his acquaintances as the "Dean. " But therewere sides to his nature which certainly did not exist in the"terrible" Dean. Herder was an enthusiast for his own ideas, and theseideas were of a quality and range that marked him as one of thepioneers of his time. Religion as a primary instinct in man and theprincipal factor in his development was Herder's lifelong andpredominant interest. He identified himself with Christianity, but itwas a Christianity understood by him in the most liberal sense, aChristianity free from dogma, a spirit rather than a creed. Askindred to religion, poetry in his conception was inseparable from itin the essential being of man--poetry not as expressed in conventionalforms but as the breath of the human spirit, and one of the mostprecious gifts for the purifying and elevation of humanity. Theseconceptions he owed, not to Kant, to whom he had listened inKönigsberg, but to a less systematic teacher, J. G. Hamann, whoseeccentric character and visionary speculations had gained for him thedesignation of the "Magus of the North. " Goethe came to be acquaintedwith the writings of Hamann, and had a genuine admiration of him as aseer struggling with visions to which he was unable to give adequateutterance. [75] It was in his conversations with Herder, however, thathe was introduced to those deeper conceptions of man and hispossibilities which implied a complete emancipation from themechanical philosophy which he had hitherto been endeavouring to findin a mystical religion. [Footnote 74: R. Haym, Herder's biographer, says of him: "Einenunbedingt erfreulichen, harmonischen Eindruck kann dieser Mann, derselbst von den 'gräulichen Dissonanzen' redet, in die Äussererungenzuweilen ausklingen möchten, auch auf den günstigst gestimmtenBetrachter nimmermehr machen. " (_Herder nach seinem Leben und seinenWerken_, Berlin, 1887, i. P. 396. )] [Footnote 75: Goethe attached so much importance to many of Hamann'sutterances that, as late as 1806, he had thoughts of bringing out anedition of Hamann's works. ] During the six months that Herder resided in Strassburg he was undertreatment for a serious ailment of his eyes, and Goethe was assiduousin his attendance on him, often remaining with him for whole days. Their intercourse was not an unmixed pleasure for either. Herder'smordant humour and spirit of contradiction were a daily trial toGoethe's temper, and he describes his feelings of alternatingattraction and repulsion as a wholly new experience in his life. Herder, who had known Diderot and D'Alembert and Lessing, appears, indeed, to have treated Goethe as an undisciplined boy, spoilt byflattery, with no serious purpose in life, inconsequent andirresponsible. [76] Nor does he seem to have been specially impressedby any promise in the youth who was so completely to eclipse him inthe eyes of the world. In his letters from Strassburg he does not evenmention Goethe's name; and, when he subsequently referred to him, itwas in terms he might have applied to any clever and confident youth. "Goethe, " he wrote, "is at bottom a good fellow, only somewhatsuperficial and sparrow-like, [77] faults with which I constantly taxedhim. " If Herder's moods frequently jarred on Goethe, it is evidentthat the experience was mutual. The physical and mental restlessness, which is suggested by the epithet "sparrow-like, " and which was notedby others as characteristic of Goethe at this period, could not failto irritate one like Herder, naturally grave, sobered by hardexperience, and then suffering from a painful and serious ailment. Equally distasteful to Herder were Goethe's explosive outbursts ingeneral conversation and his liking for practical jokes at the expenseof his friends. To Herder as to everyone else Goethe aired hisopinions with the "frank confidingness" which he notes as a trait ofhis own character, and which gave Herder frequent opportunities forscathing criticism. Herder gibed at his youthful tastes--at hiscollection of seals, at his elegantly-bound volumes which stood unreadon his shelves, at his enthusiasms for Italian art, for the writingsof the Cabbalists, for the poetry of Ovid. [78] [Footnote 76: Herder thought that Goethe was lacking in enthusiasm. ] [Footnote 77: Elsewhere Herder calls Goethe a _Specht_, awood-pecker. ] [Footnote 78: Writing to a correspondent in 1780, Goethe says: "Herderfährt fort, sich und andern das Leben sauer zu machen. "] At bottom, as Herder said, Goethe was a "good fellow, " slow to takeoffence, and as little vindictive as is possible to human nature. Thiseasy temper doubtless stood him in good stead under the fire ofHerder's sarcasms, but he himself specifies another reason for hisdocility which is equally characteristic: he endured all Herder'ssatirical spleen because he had learned to attach a high value toeverything that contributed to his own culture. According to his ownaccount, he owed a double debt to Herder--a determining influence onhis character, and an equally determining influence on hisintellectual development. Till he met Herder he had been treated as ayouthful genius, as a "conquering lord, " whose eccentricities wereonly a proof of his originality. Very different was the measure hereceived from Herder, who showed no mercy for "whatever ofself-complacency, egotism, vanity, pride and presumption was latent oractive" in him. Herder, he says elsewhere, "exercised such ablighting influence on me that I began to doubt my own powers. "Whether or not Goethe learned from Herder the lesson of modestyregarding his own gifts, it is the truth that of all the sons ofgenius none has been freer than Goethe was in his maturer years fromevery form of vanity and self-consciousness. It is on his intellectual debt to Herder, however, that Goethe dwellsmost emphatically in his account of their personal intercourse. Dailyand even hourly, he says, Herder's conversation was a summons to newpoints of view. Poetry was the subject in which both had a commoninterest, and from Herder Goethe learned to regard poetry "in anothersense" from that in which he had hitherto regarded it. He had hithertoregarded poetry as an accomplishment; Herder taught him that it was agift of nature, of the essence of humanity, "the mother-speech of thehuman race. " This expression was Hamann's, who had been inspired toutter it out of his revulsion against French literature and his studyof the literature of England. From England, indeed, came thoseconceptions of the nature and function of poetry which, as expoundedand exemplified in the writings of Hamann, Herder, Goethe, and others, were to effect a revolution in German literature. In a literarymanifesto, written by an Englishman, but apparently better known inGermany than in England, German historians of their own literaturehave found the main impulse that gave occasion to this revolution. This manifesto was a pamphlet written by Edward Young, the author of_Night Thoughts_, entitled _Conjectures on Original Composition, in aLetter addressed to the Author of Sir Charles Grandison_. Thedithyrambic style of the Letter manifestly exercised a powerfulinfluence on the prose of Herder and Goethe--prose charged withperfervid feeling, and hitherto unknown in German literature. Young'smain contention is that in literature genius must make rules foritself, and that imitation is suicidal. "Genius, " he says, "can set usright in composition, without the rules of the learned; as consciencesets us right in life, without the laws of the land. " He lays it downas a maxim that "the less we copy the renowned ancients, we shallresemble them the more. " The two golden rules in composition as inethics are: know thyself and reverence thyself. Such were the"conjectures on original composition, " expounded to him by Herderwhich led Goethe to regard poetry in "another sense" from that inwhich he had hitherto understood it. And in confirmation of his viewsHerder directed him to the exemplars where he would find theirillustration--to the Bible, to Homer and Pindar, to Shakespeare andOssian, and, above all, to the primitive poetry of all peoples. As we shall see, Goethe laid these counsels even too faithfully toheart; the first composition[79] in which he attempted to realise themdrew upon him Herder's characteristic censure. And it is in thisconnection that we have to note the reserves which Goethe makes in theacknowledgment of his debt to Herder, "Had Herder been more methodicalin his mental habit, " he says, "he would have afforded the mostvaluable guidance for the permanent direction of my culture; but hewas more disposed to probe and to stimulate than to give guidance andleading. " So it was, as Goethe adds elsewhere, that the result ofHerder's influence on him was a mental confusion and tumult, plainlyvisible in another of his early writings, [80] where "quite simplethoughts and observations are veiled in a dust-cloud of unusual wordsand phrases. " [Footnote 79: _Götz von Berlichingen. _] [Footnote 80: Von deutcher Baukunst. ] The homage which Goethe pays to Herder in the retrospect of hisStrassburg days is equally emphasised in his contemporary letters. "Herder, Herder, " he writes in one place, "remain to me what you are. If I am destined to be your planet I will be it; be it willingly, faithfully. "[81] Yet we may doubt whether Herder's influence was, intruth, so determining a factor in his life as Goethe himselfrepresents it. Herder, he tells us, first taught him a wiseself-distrust, but we have seen that one of the lessons he professesto have learned from Oeser was "to be modest without self-depreciation, and to be proud without presumption. " Before he saw Herder, also, hehad already divined the greatness of Shakespeare and the futility ofVoltaire's criticisms of him. Herder's ideas regarding the humanspirit and its possibilities were in the air, and, had the two mennever met, the probability is that Goethe's development would not havebeen different from what it actually was. Herder's general views werealready incipient in him; and what Herder did was to deepen andintensify them. [82] Nevertheless the collision for the first time witha mind that revealed to him his own immaturity was for Goethe, as forevery youth, a formative influence of the highest import and an epochin his mental history. Yet in his association with Herder one fact hasto be noted: Goethe was not subjugated by him. He frankly recognisedHerder's superiority to himself in knowledge and experience, but heretained his mental independence. In his letters to Herder, as inthose to Salzmann, he writes in terms of equality. In such words asthe following, for example, we have not the attitude of theunquestioning disciple to his master. "Pray let us try to see eachother oftener. You feel how you would embrace one who could be to youwhat you are to me. Don't let us be frightened like weaklings becausewe must often disagree: should our passions collide, can we notendure the collision?"[83] Might we not infer from this passage thatnot Herder but Goethe was the dominating spirit in theirintercourse?[84] [Footnote 81: _Werke, Briefe_, Band i. P. 264. He adds that he wouldprefer to be Mercury, the least of the seven planets that revolveround the sun, than first among the five that revolve round Saturn. ] [Footnote 82: Herder himself says of his influence on Goethe: "Ichglaube ihm, ohne Lobrednerei, einige gute Eindrücke gegeben zu haben, die einmal wirksam werden können. "--Haym, _op. Cit. _ i. 392. ] [Footnote 83: _Ib. _ Band ii. P. 18. ] [Footnote 84: Schiller, in a letter to C. G. Körner, the father of thepoet, writes (July, 1787): "He [Herder] said that Goethe had greatlyinfluenced his intellectual development. "] Goethe found another source of inspiration in Strassburg besidesHerder, and one which, as he describes it both in his Autobiographyand in a contemporary effusion, moved him even more powerfully. Hisfirst act on his arrival in Strassburg, he tells us, was to visit itscathedral whose towers had caught his eye long before he reached thetown. He had been taught by his old master Oeser, who only representedthe general opinion of the time in Germany, that Gothic architecturewas the product of a barbarous age and could be regarded only withamazed disgust by every person of educated taste. But Goethe'smystical studies and religious experiences in Frankfort had not lefthim what he was in his Leipzig days, and had given him an insight intomovements of the human spirit which did not come within the cognizanceof Oeser. It was with predisposed sympathy, therefore, that he lookedfor the first time on a specimen of Gothic architecture in its mostaugust form. His first impression was of "a wholly peculiar kind";and, without seeking to analyse the impression, "he surrenderedhimself to its silent working. " Thenceforward, during his stay inStrassburg, the cathedral exercised a fascination upon him that evokeda new world of thought and feeling. It was his delight to ascend itstower at sunset and gaze on the rich landscape of Alsace, whose beautymade him bless the fate that had placed him for a time amid suchsurroundings. He studied its structure with such minute care that hecorrectly divined the additions to the great tower which the originalarchitect had contemplated, but which he had been unable to carry out. Goethe has himself indicated how the impressions he received from thecathedral influenced his first literary productions which bore thestamp of his individuality. It formed a fitting background, he says, for such poetical creations as _Götz von Berlichingen_ and _Faust_. Tothe cathedral and its suggestions, even more than to Herder, perhaps, we should trace the inspiration that produced these works--the formerof which met with Herder's questioning approval. To the full force ofthat inspiration Goethe gave direct expression in a composition whichis the most characteristic product of his Strassburg period--a shortessay, entitled _Of German Architecture_. Probably sketched inStrassburg, it was not published till his return to Frankfort. Itsrhapsodical style, as well as the conceptions of art and nature whichit embodies, directly recall Young's _Conjectures on OriginalComposition_. Like Young he proclaims that genius is a law to itself, that all imitation and subservience to rule is disastrous toimaginative production. "Principles, " he declares, "are even moreinjurious to genius than examples. " The burden of the Essay is theglorification of the genius of the architect of Strassburg cathedral, and of Gothic architecture in general, which, Goethe maintained, should be correctly designated "German" architecture, as having hadits origin on German soil. With this youthful sally of Goethe, timewas to deal with its unkindest irony. Later research has proved thatGothic architecture is of French and not of German origin, and Goethehimself did not remain faithful to his youthful enthusiasm. On his wayhome from Strassburg, he relates, the sight of some specimens ofancient art in Mannheim "shook his faith in northern architecture, "and the impression he thus received was to become a permanentconviction. It was in the art of classical antiquity that he was tofind the expression of his maturest ideal; when in later years hisattention was temporarily turned to Gothic architecture, it was withlittle of his youthful enthusiasm that he admitted its claim to ourregard. "I cannot go on long without a passion, " Goethe wrote in histwenty-third year, and we have no difficulty in believing him. InStrassburg he lived through a passion which was to be the occasion ofhis giving the first clear proof to the world that he was to be amongits original poets. On the 14th of October, 1770, more than fivemonths after his arrival in Strassburg, he wrote these words to acorrespondent: "I have never so vividly experienced what it is to becontent with one's heart disengaged as now here in Strassburg. "[85] Inthe same letter in which these words occur he casually mentions thathe has just spent a few days in the country with some pleasant people. These pleasant people were a pastor Brion and his family living atSesenheim, an Alsace village some twenty miles from Strassburg. Thesefew days spent with the Brion family were to be the beginning of ahistory which, as Goethe relates it in his Autobiography, has thecharacter of an idyll, but, when stripped of the poetic haze which hehas thrown around it, is not far from tragedy. He himself is our soleauthority for its incidents, and he chose so to tell them that theexact truth of the whole history can never be known. [86] [Footnote 85: _Ib. _ Band i. P. 250. ] [Footnote 86: Subsequent investigation has proved that Goethe hascommitted several errors of fact in his narrative. For example, herelates that on his first visit to the Sesenheim family he was vividlyreminded of the family of the Vicar of Wakefield. In point of fact, hewas introduced to Goldsmith's work by Herder, who came to Strassburgsubsequent to Goethe's first visit to Sesenheim. ] The day following the writing of the letter just quoted, Goethe wroteanother letter which proves that his heart was no longer "disengaged. "This letter is, in fact, a declaration of love to the youngestdaughter of the Sesenheim pastor, Friederike--name of pleasantestsuggestions in the long list of Goethe's loves. The letter, it may besaid, does not strike us as a happy introduction to the relations thatwere to follow; it would not have been written had Friederike been thedaughter of a house of the same social standing as his own. Allthrough his relations to the Sesenheim family, indeed, there is anunpleasant suggestion that it is the son of the Imperial Councillorwho is indulging a passion which he is fully aware must one day end ina more or less bitter parting. "Dear new Friend, " he begins, "Such Ido not hesitate to call you, for, if in other circumstances I have notmuch insight into the language of the eyes, at the first glance I sawin yours the hope of this friendship; and for our hearts I wouldswear. How should you, tender and good as I know you to be, not be alittle partial to me in return?"[87] In this strain the lettercontinues, and with a skill of approach that reminds us of his boastto his former confidant Behrisch. [Footnote 87: _Ib. _ p. 251. ] Goethe's relations with Friederike lasted till the end of June, 1771--a period of some ten months. Of this period the first half wouldseem to have been passed by both in idyllic oblivion of consequences;during the second there came painful awakening to realities on thepart of one of the lovers. As they lived in his memory, those firstmonths that Goethe spent in intercourse with the Sesenheim circle werea long dream of happiness; and nowhere in his Autobiography is he soobviously moved by his recollection of the past. [88] The picture hehas drawn of that time is, indeed, an idyll in every sense. We havethe setting of a primitive home in a country Arcadian in itsbountifulness and beauty; in the centre of this home is the father, whose simple piety is in perfect keeping with his office and hissurroundings; and the home is brightened by the presence of twodaughters, [89] the one of whom, Friederike, appears as a vision ofrustic grace and modest maidenhood. In the midst of this circle movesthe richly-gifted youth, laying under a spell father, daughters, andall who come within the magnetism of his presence. In no othersituation, indeed, are the attractive sides of Goethe's character sostrikingly manifest as in his intercourse with the Sesenheim familyand the friendly group attached to them. It is without a touch ofegotism that he brings himself before us in all the buoyant spirits, the quickness of sympathy, the diversity of interests, the splendourof his gifts, which made Wieland speak of him as "a veritable ruler ofspirits. " He humours the good father by drawing a plan for a newparsonage and painting his coach, he charms the daughters by hisvarious accomplishments, and the neighbours who came about theparsonage are carried away by his frolicsome humour. "When Goethecame among us girls when we were at work in the barn, " related one whohad seen him, "his jests and droll stories almost made workimpossible. "[90] [Footnote 88: It is recorded that his voice trembled as he dictatedthe passages referring to Sesenheim and Friederike. ] [Footnote 89: In reality, there were four daughters, but Goethe omitsmention of the other two in order to make more striking theresemblance between the family of the Vicar of Wakefield and that ofSesenheim. ] [Footnote 90: Biedermann, _op. Cit. _ i. Pp. 16-17. ] The beginning of disillusion came on the occasion of a visit made bythe two sisters to Strassburg. In a world that was alien to herFriederike lost something of the charm which was derived from herperfect fitness to her native surroundings, and it was brought home toGoethe that there must be a rude awakening from the dream of the lastfew months. In May, 1771, he paid a visit to Sesenheim which lastedseveral weeks, and the picture we have of his state of mind during hisvisit shows that he felt that the time of reckoning had come. His mindwas already clear that he and Friederike must separate, but he wasfully conscious that he was playing a sorry part. Exaggerated languagewas such an inveterate habit with him at this period of his life thatit is difficult to know with what exactness his words express his realfeelings. [91] That he was unhappy, however, we cannot doubt, make whatreserves we may for rhetorical excesses of style. Here are a fewpassages from letters addressed to his friend Salzmann during his stayat Sesenheim: "It rains without and within, and the hateful eveningwinds rustle among the vine leaves before my window, and my _animulavagula_ is like yonder weather-cock on the church tower. " "For thehonour of God I am not leaving this place just at present.... I am nowcertainly in tolerably good health; my cough, as the result oftreatment and exercise, is pretty nearly gone, and I hope it will soongo altogether. Things about me, however, are not very bright; thelittle one [Friederike] continues sadly ill, and that makes everythinglook out of joint--not to speak of _conscia mens_, unfortunately not_recti_, which I carry about with me. " "It is now about time that Ishould return [to Strassburg]; I will and will, but what availswilling in the presence of the faces I see around me? The state of myheart is strange, and my health is as variable as usual in the world, which it is long since I have seen so beautiful. The most delightfulcountry, people who love me, a round of pleasures! Are not the dreamsof thy childhood all fulfilled?--I often ask myself when my eye feedson this circumambient bliss. Are not these the fairy gardens afterwhich thy heart yearned? They are! They are! I feel it, dear friend;and feel that we are not a whit the happier when our desires arerealised. The make-weight! the make-weight! with which Fate balancesevery bliss that we enjoy. Dear friend, there needs much courage notto lose courage in this world of ours. "[92] [Footnote 91: In the recently discovered manuscript of _WilhelmMeisters Theatralische Sendung_ occurs this passage, evidentlyself-descriptive: "Als Knabe hatte er zu grossen prächtigen Worten undSprüchen eine ausserordentliche Liebe, er schmückte seine Seele damitaus wie mit einem köstlichen Kleide, und freute sich darüber, als wennsie zu ihm selbst gehörten kindlisch über diesen äussern Schmuck. "] [Footnote 92: _Werke, Briefe_, Band i. P. 258 _ff. _] The day of parting came at the end of June; on August 6th he passedthe tests necessary for the Licentiate of Laws, and at the end of thatmonth he left Strassburg for home. He left Friederike, he tells us, ata moment when their parting almost cost her her life[93]; did he doher a greater wrong than his own narrative would imply? We cannottell; but one thing is certain, from the first he never intendedmarriage. That he had pangs of self-reproach for the part he hadplayed, his words above quoted may be taken as sufficient evidence, but alike from temperament and deliberate consideration of the factsof life he was incapable of the contrition that troubles human natureto its depths. [94] Yet in our judgment of him it is well to rememberthe ideas then current in Germany regarding the relations between loveand marriage. In his seventy-fourth year Goethe himself said: "Love issomething ideal, marriage is something real; and never with impunitydo we exchange the ideal for the real. " The severest of moralists, Kant, was of the same opinion. "The word _conjugium_ itself, " he says, "implies that two married people are yoked together, and to be thusyoked cannot be called bliss. " And to the same purport Wilhelm vonHumboldt, one of the finest spirits of his time, declared that"marriage was no bond of souls. " It was in a world where such opinionswere entertained by men of the highest character and intelligence thatGoethe made his irresponsible addresses to the successive objects ofhis passion. [Footnote 93: Friederike died in 1815. She was still alive when Goethewas writing the story of their love. ] [Footnote 94: Nichts taugt Ungeduld, Noch weniger Reue; Jene vermehrt die Schuld, Diese schafft neue. ] The distractions of Strassburg, no more than the distractions ofLeipzig, diverted Goethe from what were his ruling instincts from thebeginning--to know life and to be master of himself. As in Leipzig, his professional studies in Strassburg held little place in histhoughts; his law degree, he tells us, he regarded as a matter of"secondary importance. " The subject he chose as his thesis--theobligation of magistrates to impose a State religion binding on alltheir subjects--was of a nature that had no living interest for him atany period of his life, and he wrote the thesis "only to satisfy hisfather. " If his law studies were neglected, however, it was almostwith feverish passion that he coursed through other fields ofknowledge. In the _Ephemerides_--a diary he kept in Strassburg and inwhich he noted his random thoughts and the books that happened to beengaging him--we can see the range of his reading and the scope of hisinterests. Occultism, metaphysics, science in many departments, literature ancient and modern, all in turn absorbed his attention andsuggest a mental state impatient of the limits of the humanfaculties--the state of mind which he was afterwards so marvellouslyto reproduce in his _Faust_. [95] Inspired by the conversation of themedical students who met at the common table, as well as by his ownnatural bent, he attended the university lectures on chemistry andanatomy, and thus laid a solid foundation for his subsequent originalinvestigations in these sciences. Extensive travels in the surroundingcountry were among the chief pleasures of his sojourn in Strassburg, and these travels, as was the case with him always, were voyages ofdiscovery. Architecture, machinery, works of engineering, Romanantiquities, the native ballads of the district--on all he turned anequally curious eye, and with such vivid impressions that theyremained in his memory after the lapse of half a lifetime. [Footnote 95: "I, too, " Goethe wrote in _Dichtung und Wahrheit_, "hadtrodden the path of knowledge, and had early been led to see thevanity of it. "] In Goethe the instinct for self-mastery was as remarkable as hisinstinct for knowledge. As the result of his illness in Frankfort, hisorgans of sense were in a state of morbid susceptibility which "puthim out of harmony with himself, with objects around him, and evenwith the elements. " It throws a curious light on the nature of the manthat amid all the preoccupations of his mind and heart in Strassburghe could deliberately turn his thoughts to the cure of his jarrednerves. Loud sounds disturbed him, and to deaden the sensitiveness ofhis ears he attended the evening tatoo; to cure himself of a tendencyto giddiness he practised climbing the cathedral; partly to ridhimself of a repugnance to repulsive sights he attended clinicallectures; and by a similar course of discipline he so completelydelivered himself from "night fears" that he afterwards found itdifficult to realise them even in imagination. In his old age Goethe said of himself: "I have that in me which, if Iallowed it to go unchecked, would ruin both myself and those aboutme. " Was it, as Goethe would have us believe, by sheer purposive willthat he kept this dangerous element in him under check and savedhimself at critical moments from disaster? When we regard his life asa whole, the actual facts hardly justify such a conclusion. Nature hadgiven him two safeguards which, without any effort of will on his ownpart, assured him deliverance where the risk of wreckage wasgreatest--a consuming desire to _know_ which grew with every year ofhis life, and a versatility of temperament which necessitatedever-renewed sensations equally of the mind and heart. Of the workingof these two elements in him we have already had illustration; theywill receive further illustration as we proceed. It would be within the truth to say that the period of Goethe'ssojourn in Strassburg was the most memorable epoch of his life. Duringthe eighteen months he spent there he received an intellectualstimulus from which we may date his dedication to the unique careerbefore him, in which self-culture, the passion for knowledge, and theimpulse to produce were all commensurate ends. Moreover, as hasalready been said, it was in Strassburg that his genius found itsfirst adequate expression. And, what is worth noting in the case ofone who was to range over so many fields, it was in lyric poetry thathis genius first expressed itself. The problem with Goethe is todiscover which among his various gifts was nature's special dowry tohim. What, at least, is true is that at different periods of his lifehe produced numbers of lyrics which the world has recognised as amongthe most perfect things of their kind. And among these perfect thingsare the few songs and other pieces inspired by Friederike Brion. Doubtless his genius would have flowered had he never seen Friederike, but it was among the many kind offices that fortune did him that hefound the theme for his muse in one whose simple charm, while itexcited his passion, at the same time chastened and purified it, andcompelled a truthful simplicity of expression in keeping with her ownnature. It was to Friederike that Goethe owed the pure inspirationwhich gives his verses to her a quality rare in lyric poetry, but tothe writing of them there went all the forces that were then workingin him. In these verses we have the conclusive proof that he now bothunderstood and felt poetry "in another sense" from that in which hehad hitherto understood and felt it. Through them we feel the breathof another air than that which he had breathed when he strained hisinvention to make poetic compliments to Käthchen Schönkopf. In theintensity and directness of passion which they express we may traceall the new poetic influences which he had come under inStrassburg--Shakespeare, Ossian, the popular ballad, the inspirationof Herder. What is remarkable in these early lyrics, however, is thatthough they vibrate with the emotion of the poet, the emotion is understrict restraint and never passes into the watery effusiveness whichis the inherent sin of so much German lyrical poetry. That "brevityand precision" which was the ideal he now put before him he hadattained at one bound, and in none of his later work did he exemplifyit in greater perfection. As his countrymen have frequently pointedout, these firstfruits of Goethe's genius mark a new departure inlyrical poetry. In them we have the direct simplicity of the bestlyrics of the past, but combined with this simplicity a depth ofintrospection and a fusion of nature with human feeling which is a newcontent in the imaginative presentation of human experience. Inconnection with Goethe's Leipzig period we gave a specimen of the bestwork he was then capable of producing; when we place beside it such apoem as the following, we are reminded of the saying of Emerson that"the soul's advances are not made by gradation ... But rather byascension of state. " WILKOMMEN UND ABSCHIED. Es schlug mein Herz; geschwind zu Pferde, Und fort, wild, wie ein Held zur Schlacht! Der Abend wiegte schon die Erde, Und an den Bergen hing die Nacht; Schon stund im Nebelkleid die Eiche, Wie ein getürmter Riese da, Wo Finsternis aus dem Gesträuche Mit hundert schwarzen Augen sah. Der Mond von einem Wolkenhügel Sah kläglich aus dem Duft hervor; Die Winde schwangen leise Flügel, Umsausten schauerlich mein Ohr; Die Nacht schuf tausend Ungeheuer; Doch frisch und fröhlich war mein Mut; In meinen Adern welches Feuer! In meinem Herzen welche Glut! Dich sah ich, und die milde Freude Floss aus dem süssen Blick auf mich, Ganz war mein Herz an deiner Seite, Und jeder Athemzug für dich. Ein rosenfarbnes Frühlingswetter Umgab das liebliche Gesicht, Und Zärtlichkeit für mich, ihr Götter! Ich hofft' es, ich verdient' es nicht. Doch ach, schon mit der Morgensonne Verengt der Abschied mir das Herz: In deinen Küssen, welche Wonne, In deinem Auge, welcher Schmerz! Ich ging, du standst und sahst zur Erden, Und sahst mir nach mit nassem Blick; Und doch, welch Glück geliebt zu werden! Und lieben, Götter, welch ein Glück! WELCOME AND PARTING. Throbbed high my breast! To horse, to horse! Raptured as hero for the fight; Soft lay the earth in eve's embrace, And on the mountain brooded night. The oak, a dim-discovered shape, Did, like a towering giant, rise-- There whence from forth the thicket glared Black darkness with its myriad eyes. From out a pile of cloud the moon Peered sadly through the misty veil; Softly the breezes waved their wings; Sighed in my ears with plaintive wail. Night shaped a thousand monstrous forms; Yet fresh and frolicsome my breast; And what a fire burned in my veins, And what a glow my heart possessed! I saw thee: in thine eye's soft gaze A tender, calm delight I knew; All motions of my heart were thine. And thine was every breath I drew. The freshest, richest hues of Spring Enhaloëd thy lovely face, -- And tenderest thoughts for me!--my hope! But, undeserved, ye Powers of Grace! But, ah! too soon, with morning's dawn, The hour of parting cramps my heart; Then, in thy kisses, O what bliss! And in thine eye, what poignant smart! I went; thou stood'st and downward gazed, Gazed after me with tearful eyes; Yet, to be loved, what blessedness, And, oh! to love, ye Gods, what bliss! CHAPTER V FRANKFORT--_GÖTZ VON BERLICHINGEN_ AUGUST, 1771--DECEMBER, 1771 Goethe returned to Frankfort at the end of August, 1771, and, with theexception of two memorable intervals, he remained there till November, 1775, when he left it, never again to make it his permanent home. Thisperiod of four years and two months is in creative productivenessunparalleled in his own career, and is probably without a parallel inliterary history. During these years he produced _Götz vonBerlichingen_ and _Werther_, both of which works, whatever theirmerits or demerits, are at least landmarks, not only in the history ofGerman, but of European literature. To the same period belong theoriginal scenes of _Faust_, in which he displayed a richness ofimagination with a spontaneity of passion, of thought and of feeling, to which he never attained in the subsequent additions he made to thepoem. In these scenes are already clearly defined the two figures, Faust and Mephistopheles, which have their place in the world'sgallery of imaginative creations beside Ulysses and Don Quixote, Hamlet and Falstaff; and there, too, in all her essential lineaments, we have Gretchen, the most moving of all the births of a poet's mindand heart. And, besides these three works of universal interest, therebelong to the same period a series of productions--plays, lyrics, essays--which, though at a lower level of inspiration, were sufficientto mark their author as an original genius with a compass of thoughtand imagination hitherto unexampled in the literature of his country. Had Goethe died at the age of twenty-six, he would have left behindhim a legacy which would have assured him a place with the greatcreative minds of all time. This extraordinary productiveness of itself implies an intellectualand spiritual ferment which receives further illustration from thepoet's letters written during the same period. In these letters wehave the expression of a mind distracted by contending emotions andconflicting aims, now in sanguine hope, now paralysed with a sense ofimpotence to adjust itself to the inexorable conditions under whichlife had to be lived. Moods of thinking and feeling follow each otherwith a rapidity of contrast which are bewildering to the reader andhardly permit him to draw any certain inference as to the real importof what is written. In one effusion we have lachrymose sentiment whichsuggests morbid self-relaxation; in another, a bitter cynicism equallysuggestive of ill-regulated emotions. We have moods of piety andmoods in which the mental attitude towards all human aspirations canonly be described as Mephistophelian. Goethe himself was well aware of a congenital morbid strain in himwhich all through his life demanded careful control if he were toavert bodily and mental collapse. And at no period of his life didexternal conditions and inward experiences combine to put hisself-control to a severer test than during these last years inFrankfort. Frankfort itself, as we shall see, had become moredistasteful to him than ever, and his abiding feeling towards it, nowas subsequently, was that he could not breathe freely in itsatmosphere. On his return from Strassburg his father received him withgreater cordiality than on his return from Leipzig, but the lack ofreal sympathy between them remained, and was undoubtedly one of thepermanent sources of Goethe's discontent with his native town. With nointerest in his nominal profession, he had at the same time no clearconception of the function to which his genius called him. Throughoutthese years in Frankfort he continued uncertain whether Nature meanthim for a poet or an artist, and we receive the impression that hisambition was to be artist rather than poet. From the varied literaryforms in which he expressed himself, also, we are led to infer that inthe domain of literature he was still only feeling his way. If the diversity of his gifts thus distracted him, his emotionalexperiences, it will appear, were not more favourable to a settled aimand purpose. One paroxysm of passion succeeded another, with theresult that he was eventually, in self-preservation, driven to make acomplete breach with his past, and to seek deliverance in a new set ofconditions under which he might attain the self-control after which hehad hitherto vainly striven. This prolonged conflict with himself wasdoubtless primarily due to his own inherited temperament, but it wasalso in large measure owing to the character of the society and of thetime in which the period of his youth was passed. Had he been bornhalf a century earlier--that is to say, in a time when the currentspeculation was bound up with a mechanical philosophy, and when thelimits of emotion were conditioned by strict conventionalstandards--he might have been a youth of eccentric humours, but themorbid fancies and wandering affections that consumed him could nothave come within his experience. But by the time when he began tothink and feel, Rousseau had written and opened the flood-gates of theemotions, and Sterne had shown how accepted conventions might appearin the light of a capricious wit and fancy which probed the surface ofthings. In Goethe's letters, which are the most direct revelation ofhis mental and moral condition during the period, the influence ofRousseau and Sterne is visible on every page, and the fact has to beremembered in drawing any conclusions as to the real state of hismind from his language to his various correspondents. The fashion ofgiving exaggerated expression to every emotion was, in fact, theconvention of the day, and we find it in all the correspondence, bothof the men and women of the time. That it was in large degree forcedand artificial and must be interpreted with due reserves, will appearin the case of Goethe himself. There are three critical epochs during these Frankfort years, eachmarked by a central event which resulted in new developments ofGoethe's character and genius. In the period between his return toFrankfort in August, 1771, and May, 1772, was written the first draftof _Götz von Berlichingen_, the eventual publication of which made himthe most famous author in Germany. During these months the memories ofStrassburg are fresh in his mind, and the recollection of Friederikeand the teaching of Herder are his chief sources of inspiration. InMay, 1772, he went to Wetzlar, where, during a residence of threemonths, he passed through another emotional experience which, twoyears later, found expression in _Werther_, of still more resoundingnotoriety than _Götz_. The opening of 1775 saw him entangled in a newaffair of the heart of another nature than those which had precededit, and resulting in a mental turmoil that drove him to seekdeliverance in a new field of life and action. There were otherincidents and other experiences that moved him less or more duringthis period of his career, but it is in connection with these threecentral events that his character and his genius are presented intheir fullest light, and are best known to the world. We have it on Goethe's own testimony that, on his return fromStrassburg to Frankfort, he was healthier in body and more composed inmind than on his return from Leipzig two years before. Still, he adds, he was conscious of a sense of tension in his nature which impliedthat his mind had not completely recovered its normal balance. So hewrites in his Autobiography, and his contemporary letters fully bearout his memories of the period. He certainly returned from Strassburgwith a more satisfactory record than from Leipzig. He had actuallycompleted the necessary legal studies, and was now Licentiate of Laws. His _Disputation_ had won the approval of his father, who was evenprepared to go to the expense of publishing it. In his son's purelyliterary efforts during his Strassburg sojourn, also, he showed anundisguised pleasure, and he would evidently have been quite contentto have seen him combine eminence in his profession with distinctionin literature. When Goethe, therefore, immediately on his arrival inthe paternal home, took the necessary steps to qualify himself forlegal practice, it seemed that the father's ambition for his waywardson was at length about to be realised. [96] But the apparentreconciliation of their respective aims was based on no cordialunderstanding, and the son, it is evident, made no special effort toadapt himself to his father's idiosyncrasies. An incident he himselfrelates curiously illustrates his careless disregard of theconventions of the family home. On his way from Strassburg he pickedup a boy-harper who had interested him, and seriously thought ofmaking him a member of the household. The reconciling mother realisedthe absurdity of lodging in the mansion of an Imperial Rath astrolling musician, who would have to earn his living by daily visitsto the taverns of the town, and she met her son's good-humoured whimby finding a home for the boy in more fitting quarters. These nobleBohemian humours of his son, which, as we shall see, displayedthemselves in other unconventional habits, were not likely topropitiate a father who, as we are told, "leading a contented lifeamid his ancient hobbies and pursuits, was comfortably at ease, likeone who has carried out his plans in spite of all hindrances anddelays. " In point of fact, as during Goethe's former sojourn at home, his estrangement from his father increased from year to year, and hecame to speak of him with a bitterness which proves that, for a timeat least, any kindly feeling that existed between them was effaced. [Footnote 96: In point of fact, only two legal cases passed throughGoethe's hands during the first seven months after his return. Duringthe later period of his stay in Frankfort he was more busily engagedwith law. ] Again, as after his return from Leipzig, it was his sister Corneliawho made home in any degree tolerable for the brother whom she aloneof the family was sufficiently sympathetic and sufficiently instructedfully to understand. She had gathered round her a circle of attractiveand educated women, of whom she was the dominating spirit, and inwhose company her brother, always appreciative of feminine society, now found a congenial atmosphere. Associated with the circle werecertain men with kindred interests, among whom Goethe specially namesthe two brothers Schlosser as esteemed counsellors. [97] Both wereaccomplished men of the world, the one a jurist, the other engaged inthe public service; and both were keenly interested in literature. Itwas a peculiarity of Goethe, even into advanced life, that he seemsalways to have required a mentor, whose counsels, however, he might ormight not choose to follow. At this time it was the elder of these twobrothers who played this part, and Goethe testifies that he receivedfrom him the sagest of advice, which, however, he was prevented fromfollowing by "a thousand varying distractions, moods, and passions. " [Footnote 97: The younger brother, Georg, subsequently marriedCornelia. ] What these distractions were is vividly revealed in his correspondenceof the time. First, his whole being was in disaccord with the social, religious, and intellectual atmosphere of Frankfort; he felt himselfcribbed, cabined, and confined in all the aspirations of his nature;and the future seemed to offer no prospect of more favouringconditions. Two months after his return he communicates to his friendSalzmann in Strassburg his sense of oppression in his presentsurroundings. Arduous intellectual effort is necessary to him, hewrites, "for it is dreary to live in a place where one's wholeactivity must simmer within itself.... For the rest, everything aroundme is dead.... Frankfort remains the nest it was--_nidus_, if youwill. Good enough for hatching birds; to use another figure, _spelunca_, a wretched hole. God help us out of this misery. Amen. "[98] [Footnote 98: _Werke, Briefe_, Band 2, pp. 7-8. ] In himself, also, there was a turmoil of thoughts and emotions which, apart from depressing surroundings, was sufficient to occasionalternating moods of exaltation and despair. The upbraiding memory ofFriederike pursued him, and we may take it that in his Autobiographyhe faithfully records his continued self-reproach for his abruptdesertion of her. "Friederike's reply to a written adieu lacerated myheart. It was the same hand, the same mind, the same feeling that hadbeen educed in her to me and through me. For the first time I nowrealised the loss she suffered, and saw no way of redressing or evenof alleviating it. Her whole being was before me; I continually feltthe want of her; and, which is worse, I could not forgive myself myown unhappiness. " We may ascribe it either to delicacy of feeling orto the consideration that their further intercourse was undesirable, that he ceased to communicate directly with her. A drawing by his ownhand, which he thought would give her pleasure, he sends to herthrough Salzmann, who is requested to accompany it with or without anote, as he thinks best. Through the same hands he sends to her a play(_Götz von Berlichingen_), in which a lover plays a sorry part, andadds the comment that "Friederike will find herself to some extentconsoled if the faithless one is poisoned. " But the profoundest source of his unrest was neither thedistastefulness of Frankfort society nor his remorse for his conductto Friederike. It was his concern with his own life and what he was tomake of it. It is this concern that gives interest to his letters ofthe period which otherwise possess little intrinsic value, either insubstance or form. What we find in them, and what is hardly to befound elsewhere, is a mirror of one of the world's greatest spirits inthe process of attaining self-knowledge and self-mastery in thedirection of powers which are not yet fully revealed to him. At times, it appears to him as if the task were hopeless of establishing anyharmony between his own nature and the nature of things. Now he isfilled with an exhilarating confidence in his own gifts and in hisdestiny to bring them to full fruition; now he seems to be paralysedwith a sense of impotence in which we see all the perils attending hispeculiar temperament. In his letters to his Strassburg friend Salzmannwe have the frankest communications regarding his alternating moods ofdepression and hopefulness. "What I am doing, " he writes immediatelyafter his settlement in Frankfort, "is of no account. So much theworse. As usual, more planned than done, and for that very reasonnothing much will come of me. "[99] To a different purport are hiswords in a later note (November 28th) to the same correspondent: "Insearching for your letter of October 5th, I came upon a multitude ofothers requiring answers. Dear man, my friends must pardon me, my_nisus_ forwards is so strong that I can seldom force myself to takebreath, and cast a look backwards. "[100] In the opening of the year, 1772 (February 3rd), he is in the same sanguine temper: "Prospectsdaily widen out before me, and obstacles give way, so that I mayconfidently lay the blame on my own feet if I do not move on. "[101] [Footnote 99: _Ib. _ p. 6. ] [Footnote 100: _Ib. _ p. 8. ] [Footnote 101: _Ib. _ p. 14. ] The "_nisus_ forwards, " of which he speaks, had no connection with theworldly ambition for success in his profession. What was consuming himwas the double desire of mastering himself and at the same time ofgiving expression to the seething ideas and emotions which renderedthat self-mastery so hard of attainment. From the moment of his returnto Frankfort we see all the seeds fructifying which had taken root inhim during his residence in Strassburg. He sends to Herder the balladshe had collected in Alsace, and sends him, also, translations fromwhat he considered the original of the adored Ossian. But theovermastering influence in him at this time was the genius ofShakespeare, as it had been interpreted for him by Herder. Goethe'sunbounded admiration for Shakespeare had already found expression inthe rhapsody composed in Strassburg to which reference has been made, and to the circle of men and women who had gathered round his sister, he communicated his enthusiasm. Their enthusiasm took a form perfectlyin keeping with the spirit of the time. Shakespeare's birthdayoccurred on October 14th, [102] and it was resolved that, at once as atribute to their divinity and a challenge to all his gainsayers, theauspicious day should be celebrated with due rites. At Cornelia'sinstance, Herder, as high-priest of the object of their worship, wasinvited to honour the occasion. If he could not be present in body, hewas at least to be present in spirit, and he was to send his essay onShakespeare that it might form part of the day's liturgy. So under theroof of the precise Imperial Rath, to whom Klopstock's use of unrhymedverse in his _Messias_ was an unpardonable innovation in Germanliterature, the memory of the "drunken barbarian, " as with Voltaire hemust have regarded him, was celebrated--whether in his presence ornot, his son does not record. [103] [Footnote 102: So it was then thought, but the exact date isuncertain. ] [Footnote 103: The toast of the evening--"The Will of all Wills"--wasgiven by Goethe, who thereupon delivered the panegyric on Shakespearewhich he had composed in Strassburg. This toast was followed by one tothe health of Herder. ] But Goethe was about to pay more serious homage to the Master, as hethen understood him. On November 28th, he informed Salzmann that hewas engaged on a work which was absorbing him to the forgetfulness ofHomer, Shakespeare, and everything else. He was dramatising thehistory of "one of the noblest of Germans, " rescuing from oblivion thememory of "an honest man. " The "noblest of Germans" was Gottfried vonBerlichingen (1482-1562), one of those "knights of the cows, " whosepredatory propensities were the terror of Germany throughout theMiddle Ages, and who appears to have been neither better nor worsethan the rest of his class. While still in Strassburg, Goethe hadnoted Gottfried as an appropriate subject for dramatic treatment, but, as he records in his Autobiography, it was immediately after hisreturn to Frankfort that he first put his hand to the work. Stimulatedto his task by his sister Cornelia, in the course of six weeks he hadcompleted the play which, on its publication two years later, was tomake him the most famous author in Germany. Goethe's choice of Götz as a theme on which to try his powers is arevelation of the motives that were now compelling him. Of the natureof these motives he has himself given somewhat conflicting accounts. He tells his contemporary correspondents that the play was written torelieve his own bosom of its perilous stuff; to enable him "to forgetthe sun, moon, and dear stars, " and, again, that its primary objectwas to do justice to the memory of a great man. Writing in old age, heassigns still another motive as mainly prompting him to the productionof the play: it was written, he says, with the express object ofimproving the German stage, of rescuing it from the pitiful conditioninto which it had fallen during the first half of the eighteenthcentury. What is entirely obvious, however, is that Shakespeare is thebeginning and end of the inspiration of the _Geschichte Gottfriedensvon Berlichingen mit der eisernen Hand_, as the play in its originalform was entitled. In its conception and in its details Shakespeare iseverywhere suggested, though it may be noted that the comic elementwith which Shakespeare flavours his tragedies is absent from _Götz_. But for Shakespeare the play could not have taken the shape in whichwe have it. Given the model, however, Goethe had to infuse it withmotives which would have a living interest for his own time. One ofthese motives was the admiration of great men which Goethe shared withthe generation to which he belonged. During this Frankfort period hewas successively attracted by such contrasted types of heroes asJulius Cæsar, Socrates, and Mahomet as appropriate central figures fordramatic representation. "It is a pleasure to behold a great man, " oneof the characters in _Götz_ is made to say; and, if Goethe had anydeterminate aim when he took his theme in hand, it was to present thespectacle of a hero for admiration and inspiration. As it was, deeperinstincts of his nature asserted themselves as he proceeded with hiswork, and Götz is overshadowed by other characters in the drama inwhom the poet himself, by his own admission, came to find a morecongenial interest. The play exists in three forms--the first draft being recast forpublication in 1773, which second version was adapted for the Weimartheatre in collaboration with Schiller in 1804. It is generallyadmitted that in its first form we have the fullest manifestation ofits author's genius, and equally the fullest expression of theoriginal inspiration that led to its production. Like Shakespeare hehad a book for his text--the Memoirs of Gottfried, written by himself;and like Shakespeare he took large liberties with his original--nofewer than six characters in the play, two of whom are of the firstimportance, being of Goethe's own invention. The plot may be brieflytold. Adelbert von Weislingen, a Knight of the Empire, had been theearly friend of Gottfried, but under the influence of the Bishop ofBamberg and others he had taken a line which led him into directconflict with Gottfried. While the latter, identifying himself withthe lesser German nobles, was for supporting the power of the Emperor, Weislingen had identified himself with the princes whose object was tocripple it. Gottfried seizes Weislingen while on his way to the Bishopof Bamberg, and bears him off to his castle at Jaxthausen. Thecontrasted characters of the two chief personages in the play are nowbrought before us--Gottfried the rough soldier, honest, resolute, andWeislingen, more of a courtier than a soldier, weak and unstable. Overborne by the stronger nature of Gottfried, Weislingen agrees tobreak his alliance with the Bishop, and, as a pledge for his futureconduct, betroths himself to Gottfried's sister Marie, who, weaklydevout, is a counterpart to Gottfried's wife Elizabeth, who isdepicted as a Spartan mother. [104] To square accounts with the Bishop, Weislingen finds it necessary to proceed to Bamberg, and the secondact tells the tale of his second apostacy. At Bamberg he comes underthe spell of an enchantress in the shape of a beautiful woman, Adelheid von Walldorf, a widow, whose physical charms are representedas irresistible. Weislingen becomes her creature, forswears his bondwith Gottfried, and rejoins the ranks of his enemies--news whichGottfried is reluctantly brought to credit. In the third act we findGottfried in a coil of troubles. He has robbed a band of merchants ontheir way from the Frankfort Fair, and, at the prompting ofWeislingen, the Emperor puts him under the ban of the Empire, anddispatches an armed force against him. Beaten in the field andbesieged in his own castle, he is at length forced to surrender. Inthe fourth act he is a prisoner in Heilbronn, but is rescued by Franzvon Sickingen, a knight of the same stamp and with the same politicalsympathies as himself. Sickingen, who is on friendly terms with theEmperor, does him the still further service of securing his relieffrom the ban, whereupon Gottfried settles down to a peaceful life inhis own castle, and to relieve its monotony betakes himself to theuncongenial task of writing his own memoirs. In the fifth act we supwith horrors. The peasants rise in rebellion and wreak frightfulvengeance on their oppressors. In the hope of controlling them, Gottfried, at their own request, puts himself at their head, but findshimself powerless to check their excesses, and on their defeat he isagain taken prisoner. But the main interest of the last act isconcentrated in Adelheid, who now reveals all the depths of hersensual nature and her unscrupulous ambition. Weislingen she hasdiscovered to be a despicable creature, and she attaches herself toSickingen, in whom she finds a man after her own heart, able tosatisfy all the cravings of her nature. She poisons Weislingen, whodies as he has lived, the victim of weakness rather than ofwickedness. Her crimes are known to the judges of the Vehmgericht, whoin their mysterious tribunal adjudge her to death, which is effectedin a curious scene by one of their agents. The drama closes with thedeath of Gottfried in prison, baffled in his dearest schemes, blastedin reputation, and with gloomy forebodings for the future of hiscountry. [Footnote 104: In the characters of Marie and Elizabeth we have traitsof Friederike and of Goethe's mother. ] Such is an outline of the production in which Goethe made his firstappeal to his countrymen at large, [105] and which is in such singularcontrast to the ideals of his maturity. That it was not the inevitablebirth of his whole heart and mind is proved by the fact that he neverrepeated the experiment. Neither the incidents nor the hero of thepiece, indeed, were of a nature to elicit the full play of his genius. Goethe had not, like Scott, an inborn interest in the scenes of thecamp and the field, and could not, like Scott, take a special delightin describing them for their own sake. To the portrayal of a characterlike Gottfried Scott could give his whole heart, but Goethe requiredcharacters of a subtler type to enlist his full sympathies and to givescope to his full powers. Goethe himself has told us how, as heproceeded in the writing of the play, his interest in his herogradually flagged. In depicting the charms of Adelheid, he says, hefell in love with her himself, and his interest in her fate graduallyovermastered him. In truth, it is in scenes where Gottfried is not theprincipal actor that any originality in the play is to be found, forin these scenes Goethe was drawing from his own experience andrecording emotions that had distracted himself. In the unstableWeislingen he represents a weakness of his own nature of which he washimself well aware. "You are a chameleon, " Adelheid tells Weislingen;and, as we have seen, Goethe so described himself. It is, therefore, in the relations of Weislingen to Marie and Adelheid that we must lookfor the spontaneous expression of the poet's genius, working onmaterial drawn from self-introspection. In Weislingen's hasty wooingand equally hasty desertion of Marie we have an exaggeratedpresentment of Goethe's own conduct to Friederike, to which objectionmay be taken on the score of delicacy, though he himself suggests thatit is to be regarded as a public confession of his self-reproach. Indepicting Marie and Weislingen he had Friederike and himself beforehim to restrain his imagination within the limits of nature and truth. In the case of Adelheid he had no model before him, and the result isthat, with youthful exaggeration, he has made her a beautiful monsterwith no redeeming touch, and, therefore, of little human interest. Such a character was essentially alien to Goethe's own nature, and soare the melodramatic scenes which depict her desperate attempts toescape from her toils and the proceedings of the avenging tribunalthat had marked her for judgment. [Footnote 105: As we have seen, the Leipzig book of verses did notattract general attention. ] As in the case of all Goethe's longer productions, critical opinionhas been divided from the beginning regarding the intrinsic merits of_Götz_. In the opinion of critics like Edmond Scherer it is a crudeimitation of Shakespeare with little promise of its author's futureachievement, while other critics, like Lewes, regard it as a "work ofdaring power, of vigour, of originality. " On one point Goethe himselfand all his critics are agreed: the play as a whole is only asuccession of scenes, loosely strung together, with no innerdevelopment leading up to a determinate end. In his later life Goethecharacterised Shakespeare's plays as "highly interesting tales, onlytold by more persons than one. " Whatever truth there may be in thisjudgment in the case of Shakespeare, it exactly describes _Götz_. Itis as a tale, a narrative, and not as a drama, that it is to be readif it is to be enjoyed without the sense of artistic failure. Theanachronisms with which the piece abounds, and which Hegel causticallynoted, have been a further stumbling-block to the critics. [106] Inthe second scene of the first Act, Luther is introduced for no otherpurpose than to expound ideas which come strangely from his mouth, but which were effervescing in the minds of Goethe and hiscontemporaries--the ideas which they had learned from Rousseauregarding the excellence of the natural man. Similarly, in the scenefollowing, educational problems are discussed which sound oddly in thecastle of a mediæval baron, but which were awakening interest inGoethe's own day. In the supreme moments of his career--on theoccasion of the surrender of his castle and in his lasthour--Gottfried is made to utter the word _freedom_ as the watchwordof his aspirations, but in so doing he is expressing Goethe's ownpassionate protest against the conventions of his age in religion, inphilosophy, and art, and not a sentiment in keeping with the class ofwhich he is a type. [Footnote 106: Lessing strongly disapproved of _Götz_ as flouting thedoctrines laid down in his _Dramaturgie_. When his brother announcedto him that _Götz_ had been played with great applause in Berlin, hiscold comment was that no doubt the chief credit was due to thedecorator. ] These blemishes in the play as a work of art are apparent, yet it maybe said that it was mainly owing to these very blemishes that the"beautiful monster, " as Wieland called it, took contemporaries bystorm and retains its freshness of interest after the lapse of acentury and a half. The successive scenes are, indeed, without organicconnection, but each scene by itself has the vivacity and directnessof improvisation. Nor do the anachronisms to which criticism mayobject really mar the interest of the work. Rather they constituteits most characteristic elements, proceeding as they do from thepoet's own deepest intellectual interests, and, therefore, from hismost spontaneous inspiration. But the most conclusive testimony to the essential power of the playis the effect it produced not only in German but in Europeanliterature. Its publication in its altered form in 1773 had the effectof a bomb on the literary public of Germany. It sent a shudder ofhorror through the sticklers for the rules of the classical dramawhich it ignored with such contemptuous indifference; a shudder ofdelight through the band of effervescing youths who shared Goethe'srevolutionary ideals, and to whom _Götz_ was a manifesto and achallenge to all traditional conventions in literature and life. Itwas the immediate parent of that truly German growth--the literatureof _Sturm und Drang_, whose exponents, says Kant, thought that theycould not more effectively show that they were budding geniuses thanby flinging all rules to the winds, and that one appears to betteradvantage on a spavined hack than on a trained steed. The literatureof _Sturm und Drang_ was a passing phenomenon, but the influence of_Götz_ did not end with its abortive life. But for _Götz_ Schiller'searly productions would have been differently inspired; and to _Götz_also was due much of the inspiration of the subsequent German RomanticSchool, though many of its developments were abhorrent to Goethe'snature both in youth and maturity. It emancipated the drama fromconventional shackles, but it did more: it extended the range ofnational thought, sentiment, and emotion, and for good and evilintroduced new elements into German literature which have maintainedtheir place there since its first portentous appearance. And Germancritics are unanimous in assigning another result to the publicationof _Götz_: in its style as in its form it set convention at naught, and thus marks an epoch in the development of German literarylanguage. Not since Luther, "whose words were battles, " had Germanbeen written so direct from the heart and with such elemental force asmakes words living things. It has been a commonplace remark that 1773, the year of thepublication of _Götz_, corresponds in European literature to 1789 inEuropean political history. The remark may be exaggerated, but, if awork is to be named which marks the advent of what is covered by thevague name of romanticism, _Götz_ may fairly claim the honour. It hadprecursors of more or less importance in other countries, but, by thenature of its subject, by its audacious disregard of reigning models, and by its resounding notoriety, it gave the signal for a freshreconstruction of art and life. It gave the decisive impulse to thewriter who is the European representative of the romantic movement, and whose genius specifically fitted him to work the vein which wasopened in _Götz_--a task to which Goethe himself was not called. In1799 Scott published his translation of _Götz_, [107] and followed itup by his series of romantic poems in which the influence of Goethe'swork was the main inspiration. But it was in his prose romances, dealing with the Middle Ages, that he found the appropriate form forhis inspiration--a form which ensured a popular appeal, impossible inthe case of the severer form of the drama. In the enchanter's swaywhich Scott exercised over Europe during the greater part of thenineteenth century, the memories of _Götz_ were not the least potentof his spells. [Footnote 107: Two of the scenes in _Götz_ were imitated by Scott inhis own work--the Vehmgericht scene in _Anne of Geierstein_ and thedescription of the siege of Torquilstone by Rebecca to the woundedIvanhoe. Scott also borrowed from _Egmont_. ] CHAPTER VI INFLUENCE OF MERCK AND THE DARMSTADT CIRCLE 1772 Specially associated with _Götz von Berlichingen_, but associated alsowith Goethe's general development at this time, was another of thosementors whose counsel and stimulus were necessary to him at allperiods of his life. This was Johann Heinrich Merck, the son of anapothecary in Darmstadt and now Paymaster of the Forces there. OfMerck Goethe says that "he had the greatest influence on my life, " andhe makes him the subject of one of his elaborate character sketches inhis Autobiography. To men of original nature, however discordant withhis own, Goethe was always attracted. We have seen him in more or lessclose relations with Behrisch, Jung Stilling, and Herder, from all ofwhom he was divided by dissonances which made a perfect mutualunderstanding impossible. So it was in the case of Merck, as Goethe'sreferences to him in his Autobiography and elsewhere clearly imply. InMerck there was apparently a mixture of conflicting elements whichmade him a mystery to his friends, and his suicide at the age of fiftypoints to something morbid in his nature. Of his real goodness ofheart and of his genuine admiration for what he considered worthy ofit, his own reported sayings and the testimony of others leave us inno doubt. Recording his impression of Goethe after a few interviews, he wrote: "I begin to have a real affection for Goethe. He is a manafter my own heart, as I have found few. " On the other hand, therewere traits in him which Goethe did not scruple to callMephistophelian--an opinion shared even by Goethe's mother, whosenature it was to see the best side of men and things. His variablehumour and caustic tongue made him at once a terror and an attractionin whatever society he moved, and it is evident from the tone ofGoethe's reminiscences of him that his intercourse with Merck was amixed pleasure. But, as we have seen, it was an abiding principle ofGoethe to be repelled by no one who had something to give him, andMerck possessed qualities and accomplishments which were of the firstimportance to him in the phase through which he was now passing. Merckwas keenly interested in literature, especially in English literature, and had all Goethe's enthusiasm for Shakespeare. Though his ownoriginal productions were of mediocre quality, he had an insight intothe character and genius of others which Goethe fully recognised andto which he acknowledges his special obligation. His general attitudein criticism was "negative and destructive, " but this attitude wasentirely wholesome for Goethe at a period when instinct and passiontended to overbear his judgment. With admirable penetration he saw howGoethe during these Frankfort years occasionally wasted his powers inattempts which were unworthy of his gifts and alien to his realnature. It was in reference to these futile tendencies that Merck gavehim counsel in words which subsequent critics have recognised as themost adequate definition of the essential characteristic of Goethe'sgenius as a poet. "Your endeavour, your unswerving aim, " he wrote, "isto give poetic form to the real. Others seek to realise the so-calledpoetic, the imaginative; and the result is nothing but stupidnonsense. " Like subsequent critics, also, Merck saw the superiority ofthe first draft of _Götz_ to the second, but when the latter wascompleted, he played a friend's part. "It is rubbish and of noaccount, " was his characteristic remark; "however, let the thing beprinted";[108] and published it was, Merck bearing the cost ofprinting and Goethe supplying the paper. [Footnote 108: Eckermann, _Gespräche mit Goethe_, November 9th, 1824. ] It was towards the close of 1771 that Goethe had made Merck'sacquaintance[109] on the occasion of a visit Merck had paid toFrankfort; and in March of the following year, in company with theyounger Schlosser, they renewed their intercourse in Darmstadt, whereMerck was settled. The visit lasted a few days, and was of someimportance, as it introduced Goethe to a society of which he was tosee much during the remainder of his stay in Frankfort, and which, according to his own testimony, "invigorated and widened his powers. "It was a society in which we are surprised to find the MephistophelianMerck the leading and most admired member. It consisted of a group ofmen and women associated with the Court at Darmstadt, whose bond ofunion was the cult of sensibility as the rising generation of Germanyhad learned it from Rousseau, Richardson, and Sterne. They went by thename of the _Gemeinschaft der Heiligen_, and the fervours of thecommunity were at least those of genuine votaries. So far as Goethe isconcerned, it was in three of the priestesses, one of them CarolineFlachsland, the betrothed of Herder, that he found the attraction ofthe society. For the youth who two years later was to give classicexpression to the cult of sensibility in his _Werther_, hisintercourse with these ladies of Darmstadt was an appropriateschooling. For their sensibilities were boundless, and they did notshrink from giving them expression. Caroline relates to her futurehusband how one night in the woods she fell on her knees at sight ofthe moon and arranged some glow-worms in her hair so that their lovesmight not be disturbed. On one occasion when Merck and Goethe met twoof the coterie, one of them embraced Merck with kisses and the otherfell upon his breast. Goethe was not a youth to be indifferent to suchfavours, and the attentions of Caroline were such as to disquietHerder and to occasion an estrangement between the two friends whichlasted for nearly two years. [Footnote 109: It was Schlosser who had made Goethe and Merckacquainted. Herder, to whom Merck was known, had been a previousintermediary. ] From the effusive Caroline herself we learn the impression Goethe madeon the precious circle. "A few days ago" (in the beginning of March, 1772), she writes to Herder, "I made the acquaintance of your friendGoethe and Herr Schlosser.... Goethe is such a good-hearted, livelycreature, without any parade of learning, and has made such a to-dowith Merck's children that my heart has quite gone out to him.... Thesecond afternoon we spent in a pleasant stroll and over a bowl ofpunch in our house. We were not sentimental, but very merry, andGoethe and I danced a minuette to the piano. Thereafter he recited anexcellent ballad of yours [the Scottish ballad _Edward_, translated byHerder]. " On the occasion of a later visit (April) of Goethe toDarmstadt, she again writes to Herder: "Our Goethe has come on footfrom Frankfort[110] on a visit to Merck. We have been together everyday, and once, when we had gone together into the wood, we were soakedto the skin. We took refuge under a tree, and Goethe sang a littlesong, 'Under the Greenwood Tree, ' which you translated fromShakespeare. Our common plight made us very confidential. He readaloud to us some of the best scenes from his _Gottfried vonBerlichingen_.... Goethe is choke-full of songs. One about a hut builtout of the ruins of a temple is excellent. [111] ... The poor fellowtold my sister and myself a day ago that he had already been once inlove, but that the girl had played with him for a whole year and thendeserted him. [112] He believed, however, that she really loved him, but another had appeared on the scene, and he was made a goose of. " [Footnote 110: A six hours' walk. ] [Footnote 111: The poem, entitled _Der Wanderer_, noted below. ] [Footnote 112: The girl meant was no doubt Käthchen Schönkopf. ] Under the inspiration of these caressing attentions Goethe's musecould not be silent, and in the course of the spring and autumn hethrew off a succession of pieces which are the classical expression ofthe sentimentalism of the period. To the three ladies-in-chief, underthe pseudonyms of Urania, Lila, and Psyche (Caroline Flachsland), hesuccessively addressed odes in which he gave them back their ownemotions with interest. Their inspiration is sufficiently suggested bythese lines which conclude the lines entitled _Elysium, an Uranien_:-- Seligkeit! Seligkeit! Eines Kusses Gefühl. In all the three poems we have another illustration of Goethe'ssusceptibility to immediate influences. Under the inspiration ofFriederike's simplicity he had written lyrics which were as pure inform as direct in feeling. Now we have him indulging in a vein ofartificial sentiment, which, it might have been supposed, he had forever left behind as the result of his schooling in Strassburg. In two pieces belonging to the same period, however, is revealed infullest measure the true self of the poet, with all the emotional andintellectual preoccupations which he had brought with him fromStrassburg. Of the one, _Wanderers Sturmlied_, he has given in hisAutobiography an account which is fully borne out by the character ofthe poem itself. It was composed, he tells us, in a terrific storm onone of his restless journeys between Frankfort and Darmstadt, and at atime when the memory of Friederike was still haunting him. OfFriederike, however, there is no direct suggestion in the poem; fromfirst to last it is a pæan of the _Sturm und Drang_, composed in aform directly imitated from Pindar, whom he had been ardently studyingsince his return to Frankfort. The theme is the glorification ofgenius--genius in its upwelling and original force as manifest inPindar, not as in poets like Anacreon and Theocritus. He who is inpossession of this genius is armed against all the powers of natureand fate, and his end can only be crowned with victory. Goethe himselfcalls the poem a _Halbunsinn_, and one of his most sympatheticcritics--Viktor Hehn--admits that to follow its drift requires somelabour and some creative phantasy on the part of the reader. [113] Butit is not its poetical merit that gives the poem its chief interest;it is to be taken, as it was meant, as a profession of the poet'sliterary faith at the period when it was written, and as such it is ahistoric document of the _Sturm und Drang_--at once an illustrationand an exposition of its motives and ideals. "All this, " is Goethe'smature comment on this and other productions of the same period, "wasdeeply and genuinely felt, but often expressed in a one-sided andunbalanced way. " [Footnote 113: _Über Goethe's Gedichte_ (1911), p. 157. ] Of far higher poetic value is the second poem, _Der Wanderer_, [114] inwhich Matthew Arnold found "the power of Greek radiance" which Goethecould give to his handling of nature. The scene of the poem is insouthern Italy, near Cumæ. The Wanderer, wearied by his travel underthe noonday sun, comes upon a woman by the wayside whom he asks wherehe may quench his thirst. She conducts him through the neighbouringthicket, when an architrave, half-buried in the moss, and bearing aneffaced inscription, catches his eye. They reach the woman's hut, which he finds to have been constructed from the stones of a ruinedtemple. Asleep in the hut is the woman's infant son, whom she leavesin the arms of the Wanderer, while she goes to fetch water from thespring. She presses on him a piece of bread, the only food she has tooffer, and invites him to remain till the return of her husband to theevening meal. He refuses her hospitality, and resumes his journey toCumæ, his destination. Such is the outline of the poem, which is inthe form of a dialogue, in the irregular measure common to the odesabove mentioned. But in the _Wanderer_ there is nothing dithyrambic;rather its characteristic is a reflective repose, which is in strangecontrast to the tumultuous outpouring of the _Wanderers Sturmlied_, and which might induce us to assign its production to a later day inGoethe's life, to the period of his sojourn in Italy, when years hadsomewhat chastened him, and when he was under the spell of theartistic remains of classical antiquity. Of the finest inspiration isthe contrast between the remarks of the peasant woman wholly engrossedin the immediate needs of the day, and the speculations of theWanderer as he comes upon the ruins that time has wrought upon thechoicest works of man's hand. Here we are far from all vapid andartificial sentiment; we have philosophical meditation proceeding fromthe profoundest source of the pathos of human life, the transitorinessof man and his works. Completely in accord with the philosophy of hisripest years, however, the poet finds no ground for melancholy regretsin the spectacle of nature triumphing over man's handiwork. Even inher work of corrosion she provides for the welfare of her children; ina home reared out of a ruined temple happy human lives are spent. Andit is in the spirit of the broadest humanity--a spirit that marks himoff from the sentimentalists of the Darmstadt circle--that he regardsthe "ruins of time. " [Footnote 114: On account of his constant travels between Frankfortand Darmstadt, Goethe was known among his friends as the _Wanderer_. The poem was written in the autumn, during Goethe's residence inWetzlar. ] Natur! du ewig keimende, Schaffst jeden zum Genuss des Lebens, Hast deine Kinder alle mütterlich Mit Erbteil ausgestattet, einer Hütte. Nature! eternal engenderer, Thou bring'st forth thy children for the joy of living, With care all maternal thou providest Each with his portion, with his cottage. In reading this poem we feel the force of the words of the youngerSchlosser in which he records his impression of Goethe at the momentwhen both first made the acquaintance of the Darmstadt society. "Ishall be accompanied (to Darmstadt), " he wrote, "by a young friend ofthe highest promise who, through his strenuous endeavours to purifyhis soul, without unnerving it, is to me worthy of specialhonour. "[115] The purification had indeed begun, but Goethe had topass through many fires before the purification was complete. One suchfire was immediately awaiting him. [Footnote 115: Biedermann, _op. Cit. _ i. 19-20. ] CHAPTER VII WETZLAR AND CHARLOTTE BUFF MAY--SEPTEMBER, 1772 During the summer and autumn of 1772 Goethe found himself in a societyand surroundings which were in curious contrast to those of Darmstadt;and the next four months were to supply him with an experience which, wrought into one book of transcendent literary effect, was to make hisname known, literally, to the ends of the earth, [116] and which may beregarded as the most remarkable episode in his long life. It was as"the author of _Werther_" that he was known to the reading world, until after his death the publication of the completed _Faust_gradually effaced the conception of Goethe as the master-sentimentalistof European literature. [Footnote 116: Werther, as Goethe reminds us in one of his Venetianepigrams, was known in China:-- Doch was fördert es mich, dass auch sogar der Chinese Malet mit ängstlicher Hand Werthern und Lotten auf Glas?] It was mainly as a temporary escape from the tedium of Frankfort that, towards the end of May, 1772, Goethe proceeded to Wetzlar, a littletown on the Lahn, a confluent of the Rhine. His settlement in Wetzlarhad the semblance of a serious professional purpose, since Wetzlar wasthe historic legal capital of the Holy Roman Empire, and the seat ofthe Imperial Court of Justice. If he had any such serious purpose, hisexperience of the place speedily dispelled it. The place itself hefound distasteful; a "little, ill-built town, " he calls it, though themodern visitor finds it not unattractive, with its climbing, tortuousstreets, reminiscent of the Middle Age, and with its impressivecathedral, one of the most interesting specimens of mediævalarchitecture to be found in Germany, and still unfinished in Goethe'sday. Instead of the spectacle of an august tribunal administeringprompt and even justice, what he saw was a multitude of corruptofficials, deluded litigants, and endless delays of law. Wetzlar, infact, he gives us to understand, destroyed any respect he may everhave had alike for judges and the law they professed to administer. Heduly enrolled himself as a "Praktikant, "[117] but, as was the casewith the majority of that class who haunted the town, his legalactivity was confined to this step. "Solitary, depressed, aimless, " sohe described himself to his friends during his first weeks inWetzlar. [118] Disgusted with law, he found refuge in the study ofliterature. In a long and rhapsodical letter to Herder he depicts theintellectual and spiritual experiences through which he was nowpassing. The Greeks were his one preoccupation. Homer, Xenophon, Plato, Theocritus, and Anacreon he had read in turn, but it was inPindar he was now revelling, and from Pindar he was learning thelesson that only in laying firm hold of one's subject is the essenceof all mastery. A sentence of Herder to the effect that "thought andfeeling create the expression" had rejoiced his heart as expressinghis own deepest experience. Herder had said of _Götz_ that its authorhad been spoilt by Shakespeare, and he modestly accepted the censure. _Götz_, he admits, had been _thought_, not _felt_, and he would bedepressed by his failure, were he not occasionally conscious that someday he would do better things. [119] [Footnote 117: The _Praktikanten_ were voluntary attendants on theImperial Court, had little or no dependence on the authorities, andlived on their own resources. ] [Footnote 118: Caroline Flachsland to Herder, May 25th, 1772. ] [Footnote 119: Goethe to Herder, _Werke, Briefe_, Band ii. 15. ] As in Strassburg, it was at a _table d'hôte_[120] that Goethe made theacquaintance of the youths who, like himself, were idling away theirtime in Wetzlar. To relieve the tedium of the place[121] they hadformed a fantastic society on a feudal model, with a Grand-master, Chancellor, and all the other subordinate officials--the point of thejest being that each associate bore the name and played the part ofhis office and title. For frolic of all kinds Goethe was ever ready;his taste for practical joking, indeed, as we shall see, occasionallyled him to play questionable pranks. Under the name of Götz vonBerlichingen he became a member of the brotherhood, and, according tohis own account, he contributed to the gaiety of the proceedings. Among the company, however, there were a few serious persons withtastes kindred to his own, and he specially names F. W. Gotter, Secretary of the Gotha Legation at Wetzlar, as one who, like Salzmannand Schlosser, impressed him by his character and talent. In Englishliterature they had a common interest, and, as a poem which bothadmired, they each made a translation of Goldsmith's _DesertedVillage_--Gotter, according to Goethe, being the more successful inthe attempt. Gotter was thus still another of those grave counsellorswhom Goethe had the good fortune to discover and attach to himselfamid the distracting frivolities of every society he frequented. [122] [Footnote 120: In the _Kronprinz_, the principal hotel in the town. ] [Footnote 121: Goethe's own lodging (still shown) was in the_Gewandsgasse_, a narrow, dirty street, whence sun or moon could beseen at no season of the year. ] [Footnote 122: In his contemporary letters, Goethe does not alwaysspeak of Gotter so favourably as he does in his Autobiography. ] "What happened to me in Wetzlar, " Goethe writes in his Autobiography, "is of no great significance. " But posterity has thought differently, and, if we are to judge by the consequences of what, happened to himin Wetzlar, both for himself and for the world, posterity isright. [123] Be it said also, that contemporary testimony at firsthand leaves us in no doubt that, but for his Wetzlar experience, oneof the most remarkable phases in Goethe's development would not havefound expression, and one resounding note in European literature wouldhave been unheard. [Footnote 123: An exhaustive account of Goethe's sojourn in Wetzlarwill be found in W. Herbst's _Goethe in Wetzlar_, 1772. _Vier Monateaus des Dichters Jugendleben_, Gotha, 1881. ] In Leipzig and Strassburg Goethe had found objects to engage hisaffections, and he was not to be without a similar experience inWetzlar. During his first weeks there he had seen no maiden tointerest him, and the fact may explain his dissatisfaction during thatperiod. After leaving in succession the circles of Sesenheim, Frankfort, and Darmstadt, he tells us, he felt a void in his heartwhich he could not fill. An accident at length came to fill the void. On June 9th (the date is carefully recorded) he met a girl at a ballin a neighbouring village (Garbenheim), who "made a complete conquestof him. "[124] Her name was Charlotte Buff, the second daughter of anofficial of the Teutonic Order--a widower with twelve children. Charlotte, or Lotte, as he calls her, was of a different type from anyof his previous loves, so that she possessed all the freshness ofnovelty. Though only nineteen, she had taken upon her the care of thenumerous household, and discharged her duties with a motherly tact andgood sense which excited general admiration. Over Lotte's personalappearance Goethe is not rapturous as in the case of Friederike; hesimply says that she had a light and graceful figure, and in the samecool tone remarks that she was one of those women who do not inspireardent passion, but who give general pleasure. So he chose to say inthe retrospect, but neither his contemporary words nor actions permitus to believe that his feeling to Lotte was merely a calm regard. Inthe case of Lotte his situation was materially different from what ithad been in the case of Friederike. He had no rival in his relationsto Friederike; in his relations to Lotte he had one. Shortly aftertheir first meeting he learned that Lotte was already betrothed, though the fact was not known to the world. The successful wooer wasJohann Christian Kestner, a native of Hanover, and a Secretary ofLegation settled in Wetzlar. Kestner was at every point the antithesisof his intruding rival. He was calm, deliberate, unimaginative, yetconspicuously a man of insight and character, with a fund of goodsense and good temper, on which the situation made a large draft. "Kestner must be a very good man, " was the frequent remark of Merck'swife in view of the relations of the three parties to each other, andKestner's own words prove it. It is in his Letters and Diary that wehave the closest glimpse of all three, and all that he says ofhimself, of Lotte, and of Goethe, shows a tact and good feeling thatinspire esteem. [Footnote 124: This is the expression of Kestner, Lotte's betrothed. ] After their first meeting at the ball, according to Goethe's owntestimony, he became Lotte's constant attendant. "Soon he could notendure her absence. " In her home he made himself the idol of thechildren; in the beautiful surrounding country they were inseparablecompanions--Kestner, when his avocations permitted, occasionallyjoining them. "So through the splendid summer, " he records, "theylived a true German idyll. " But the testimony of Kestner shows thatthe idyll was not without its discords. Goethe, he says, "with all hisphilosophy and his natural pride, had not such self-control as whollyto restrain his inclination.... His peace of mind suffered, " and"there were various notable scenes, " though Lotte showed herself amodel of discretion. The situation was, in fact, an impossible one, and Goethe came to see it. Several times he made the effort to breakhis bonds and flee, but it was not till the beginning of Septemberthat he took the decisive step. Equally from his own and Kestner'saccount of the circumstances of his flight we receive the impressionthat his relation to Lotte was such as to make their furtherintercourse undesirable. The night before he went, according toKestner, all three were together in Lotte's home, and theirconversation, suggested by Lotte, turned upon the dead and thepossibility of holding intercourse with them. Whichever of the threeshould die first, it was agreed, should, if possible, communicate withthe survivors. All through the evening Goethe was in deep dejection, knowing, as he did, that it would be the last they would spendtogether. The following morning he left Wetzlar without intimating hisintention to any of his friends--a proceeding which his grand-aunt, resident in the town, characterised as "very ill-bred, " declaring thatshe would let the Frau Goethe know how her son had behaved. [125] Inthree brief parting notes he addressed to Kestner and Lotte we havethe expression of the mental tumult which his passion for Lotte hadproduced in him. On his return home, after the last evening he spentwith them, he wrote as follows to Kestner: "He is gone, Kestner; bythe time you receive this note, he is gone. Give Lotte the enclosednote. I was quite calm, but your conversation has torn me todistraction. At this moment I can say nothing more than farewell. HadI remained a moment longer with you, I could not have restrainedmyself. Now I am alone, and to-morrow I go. Oh, my poor head!" In thelines enclosed for Lotte he has this outburst with reference to theevening's conversation: "When I ventured to say all I felt, it was ofthe present world I was thinking, of your hand which I kissed for thelast time. " [Footnote 125: Such abrupt departures were characteristic of Goethe. We shall find him taking similar unceremonious leave of another of hisloves. Goethe, wrote Frau von Stein to her son (May, 1812), "kann dasAbschied nehmen nicht leiden, er ging ohne Abschied neulich von mir. "] From this record of the Wetzlar episode, directly reproducing therelations of all the persons concerned, it is clear that Lotte was forGoethe more than the pleasant companion he represents her in hisAutobiography. If his own words and those of Kestner have any meaning, his feeling towards her amounted to a passion which only the singularself-control of her and Kestner prevented from breaking bounds. Strange as it may appear, neither Lotte nor Kestner regarded one whosepresence was a menace to their own peace with other feelings thanesteem, and apparently even affection. He parted from Lotte, he says, "with a clearer conscience" than from Friederike, and the statement isat least borne out by what we know of the sequel to the "splendididyll. " As we shall see, he continued to remain on the most cordialterms with the two lovers, and, though with mingled feelings, he gavethem his best blessing on the day which saw them united as husband andwife. In what has been said of Goethe's relations to Lotte Buff it is theemotional side of his nature that has been before us, but from thehand of the judicious Kestner we have a portrait of the whole manwhich leaves nothing to be desired in its completeness and insight. Kestner's description of his first meeting with his formidable rivalreminds us of the "conquering lord" whose self-assurance evokedHerder's stinging criticism. Stretched on his back on the grass undera tree, Goethe was carrying on a conversation with two acquaintanceswho stood by. Kestner's first decided impression was that thestranger was "no ordinary man, " and that he had "genius and a livelyimagination. " His final and complete impression, after Goethe had leftWetzlar, he thus records:-- "He has very many gifts, is a real genius, and a man of character; hehas an extraordinarily lively imagination, and so, for the most part, expresses himself in pictures and similes. He is himself in the habitof saying that he always expresses himself in general terms, can neverexpress himself with precision; when he is older, however, he hopes tothink and express the thought as it is. He is violent in all hisemotions; yet often exercises great self-command. His manner ofthinking is noble; as free as possible from all prejudices, he acts onthe prompting of the moment without troubling whether it may pleaseother people, is in the fashion, or whether convention permits it. Allconstraint is hateful to him. He is fond of children and can occupyhimself much with them. He is _bizarre_; in his conduct and mannerthere are various peculiarities which might make him disagreeable. Butwith children, with women, and many others he is nevertheless afavourite. For the female sex he has great respect. _In principiis_ heis not yet fixed, and is still only endeavouring after a sure system. To say something on this point; he thinks highly of Rousseau, but isnot a blind worshipper of him. He is not what we call orthodox; yetthis is not from pride or caprice or from a desire to play a part. Oncertain important matters, also, he expresses himself only to few, anddoes not willingly disturb others in their ideas. He certainly hatesscepticism, and strives after truth and settled conviction on certainsubjects of the first importance; believes even that he has alreadyattained conviction on the most important; but, so far as I haveobserved, this is not the case. He does not go to church; not even tocommunion, and he prays seldom. For, says he, I am not hypocriteenough for that. At times he seems at rest with regard to certainsubjects; at other times, however, very far from being so. Hereverences the Christian religion, but not as our theologians presentit. He believes in a future life and a better state of existence. Hestrives after truth, and yet attaches more importance to feeling thanto demonstration as the test of it. He has already accomplished much;has many acquirements and much reading, but has thought and reasonedstill more. He has mainly devoted himself to _belles lettres_ and thefine arts, or rather to all branches of knowledge, only not to theso-called bread-winning ones. I wished to describe him, but to do so Ishould run to too great length, for he is one of whom there is a greatdeal to be said. _In one word, he is a very remarkable man. _"[126] [Footnote 126: Kestner's characterisation of Goethe will be found inBiedermann, _op. Cit. _ i. Pp. 21-3. ] CHAPTER VIII AFTER WETZLAR 1772--1773 In _Götz von Berlichingen_ Goethe had given expression to the idealsand emotions he had brought with him from Strassburg; Shakespeare andthe memory of Friederike had been the main impulses to its production. As the result of his experience at Wetzlar, he was filled with a newinspiration, which, though it did not immediately find utterance, lefthim no repose till it was embodied in a work in which the man and theartist in him equally found deliverance. That the conception came tohim shortly after his leaving Wetzlar we have conclusive evidence. Inthe beginning of November, 1772, after his return to Frankfort fromWetzlar, he received the news that a youth named Jerusalem, a casualacquaintance of his own, [127] had committed suicide as the result ofan unhappy love adventure. Instantly, Goethe tells us in hisAutobiography, the plan of _Werther_ shaped itself in his mind; andhis contemporary letters bear out the statement. Immediately onreceiving the news of Jerusalem's death, he wrote to Kestner for adetailed account of all the circumstances, and he made a careful copyof the information with which Kestner supplied him. In point of fact, it was not till after more than a year that _Werther_ came tofruition, but that he was in labour with the portentous birth all itslineaments were to show. [Footnote 127: Goethe had made Jerusalem's acquaintance in Leipzig. Jerusalem called Goethe a _Geck_, a coxcomb, a description which, aswe have seen, was not inapplicable to him in his Leipzig days. Jerusalem was a friend of Lessing, who highly esteemed him, and afterhis death published his MSS. ] But before _Werther_ came to birth, Goethe went through anotherexperience which was to form an essential part of its tissue. Merck, to whom Goethe attributes the chief influence over him during thisFrankfort period, was again the intermediary. Before Goethe leftWetzlar, Merck had arranged that they should meet at Ehrenbreitstein, where he would introduce Goethe to a family resident there. [128] Thefamily was that of Herr von la Roche, a Privy Councillor in theservice of the Elector of Trier, and it consisted of himself, his wifeand two daughters. The head of the house, a matter-of-fact man of theworld, plays no part in Goethe's relations to the family. It was Frauvon la Roche to whom, as a desirable acquaintance, Merck speciallywished to introduce his friend, and the sequel proved that he hadrightly divined their mutual affinities. The cousin of Wieland, withwhom she had had a _liaison_ before her marriage, she was now pastforty, but, according to Goethe's description of her, she possessedall the charm of youth with the dignity and repose of maturity. Whatis evident is, that Goethe saw in her the type of a high-bred womansuch as had not yet crossed his path. In his reminiscence of her, hiswords have a warmth which is in notable contrast to the coldness ofhis portrait of Lotte Buff. "She was a most wonderful woman, " hewrites; "I knew no other to compare with her. Slight and delicatelyformed, rather tall than short, she had contrived even in advancedyears to retain a certain elegance both of form and bearing whichpleasingly combined the manner of a Court lady with that of adignified burgess's wife. "[129] In addition to these graces, Frau vonla Roche had precisely the temperament and the mental qualities thatappealed to Goethe in the emotional phase through which he was nowpassing. She lived in the same world of sentiment as the ladies of theDarmstadt circle, and she had the gift of effusive utterance, as shehad shown in a novel in the manner of Richardson which had brought hersome celebrity. [Footnote 128: In point of fact, Goethe announced himself. Merckarrived after him. ] [Footnote 129: In a letter to Schiller (July 24th, 1799) Goethe givesa much less favourable estimate of Frau von la Roche, whom he had justmet: "Sie gehört zu den nivellierenden Naturen, sie hebt das Gemeineherauf und zieht das Vorzügliche herunter.... "] With Frau von la Roche Goethe established a Platonic relation which heassiduously cultivated during the remainder of his residence inFrankfort, but there was another member of the household to whom hewas attracted by a livelier feeling. This was the elder of the twodaughters, Maximiliane by name, a girl of seventeen, whose charms weresubsequently to be given to the lady of Werther's infatuation. Fromwhat we have seen of Goethe's inflammability, we are prepared for thenaïve remark in which he records his new sensation. "It is a verypleasant sensation, " he says, "when a new passion begins to stir in usbefore the old one is quite extinct. So, as the sun sets, we gladlybehold the moon rise on the opposite horizon, and rejoice in thedouble splendour of the two heavenly lights. " Be it said that theatmosphere of the household was provocative of relaxed feelings. Goethe was not the only guest. Besides Merck there was a youth namedLeuchsenring whose special line of activity had endeared him to a widecircle. Leuchsenring made it his business to enter into correspondencewith susceptible souls whose effusions he carried about with him indispatch-boxes and was in the habit of reading aloud to sympatheticlisteners. The reading of these precious documents was part of theentertainment of the circle in which Goethe now found himself, and heassures us that he enjoyed it. We see, therefore, the world in whichhe was now moving--a world in which those who belonged to it made ittheir first concern to titillate their sensibilities, and squanderedtheir emotions with a profusion and abandonment in whichself-respecting reserve was forgotten. It was a world wide as thepoles apart from that of Sesenheim, where human relations were foundedon natural feeling and only the language of the heart was spoken. Onceagain Goethe had taken on the hue of his surroundings. In Leipzig hehad been what we have seen him; now under the influence of Darmstadthe appears in still another phase--to be by no means the last. From Goethe's connection with the family of von la Roche was to comethe occasion which immediately prompted the production of _Werther_, but more than a year was to elapse before the occasion came, and inthe interval his own mental experiences were to supply him withfurther materials which were to find expression in that work. In hiscorrespondence of the period we have the fullest revelation of theseexperiences, and they leave us with the impression that he spoke onlythe literal truth when he tells us in his Autobiography that, on beingdelivered of _Werther_, he felt as if he had made a generalconfession. The same period, moreover, is signalised by a successionof minor productions which, though they did not attain to thecelebrity of _Götz_ and _Werther_, exhibit a range of intellectualinterests and a play of varied moods which materially enhance ourconceptions of his genius. The circumstances in which Goethe had left Friederike had precludedsubsequent communications with her and her family; in the case of theWetzlar circle there was no such impediment to future epistolaryintercourse. He had left Lotte Buff, as he tells us, with a clearerconscience than he had left Friederike, and on the part of Lotte andKestner there was apparently no feeling that prompted a breach oftheir relations with him. For more than a year he kept up assiduouscommunications with Wetzlar; then his letters became less frequent andfinally ceased when changes in the circumstances of both partieseffaced their mutual interests. While the correspondence was in fullflood, however, Goethe's letters leave us in no doubt as to the realnature of his passion for Lotte; if words mean anything, his memoriesof her were a cause of mental unrest to which other distractions ofthe time gave a morbid direction, and which threatened to end in moralcollapse. A few extracts from his letters to Wetzlar will reveal his state ofmind during the months that immediately followed his return toFrankfort. Within a week after his return we have these hurried linesaddressed to Kestner: "God bless you, dear Kestner, and tell Lottethat I sometimes imagine I could forget her; but then comes therecitative, and I am worse than ever. " In the same month (September)he again addresses Kestner: "I would not desire to have spent my daysbetter than I did at Wetzlar, but God send me no more such days!... This I have just said to Lotte's silhouette. " In the beginning ofNovember he paid a flying visit to Wetzlar, and apparently had reasonto regret it. "Certainly, Kestner, " he wrote the day after he left, "it was time that I should go; yesterday evening, as I sat on thesofa, I had thoughts for which I deserve hanging. " On Christmas Day hewrites still at the same high pitch: "It is still night, dear Kestner, and I have risen to write again by the morning light, which recallspleasant memories of past days.... Immediately on my arrival here Ihad pinned up Lotte's silhouette; while I was in Darmstadt, theyplaced my bed here, and there to my great joy hangs Lotte's picture atits head. " In April, 1773, Kestner and Lotte were married, and Goetheinsisted, against Kestner's wish, on sending the bride hermarriage-ring, which was accompanied by the following note: "May theremembrance of me as of this ring be ever with you in your happiness. Dear Lotte, after a long interval we shall see each other again, youwith the ring on your finger, and me always _yours_. I affix no namenor surname. You know well who writes. " A few days later we have thefollowing words in a letter to Kestner: "To part from Lotte, I do notyet understand how it was possible.... It cost me little, and yet Idon't understand how it was possible. There is the rub. " In the courseof the summer Kestner removed to Hanover, where he had received anofficial appointment, and took his wife with him. The correspondencethen became less frequent, though on both sides it was maintained inthe same friendly spirit. Only for a time, on the publication of_Werther_, as we shall see, was there the shadow of possibleestrangement. "Alienated lovers, " is Goethe's remark, already quoted, "become the best friends, if only they can be properly managed"; andGoethe showed himself an adept in this art of management. While Goethe was pouring forth his confessions to Kestner and Lotte, his circumstances at home were not such as to conduce to calm of mind. Frankfort remained as distasteful to him as ever. "The Frankforters, "he wrote to Kestner, "are an accursed folk; they are so pig-headedthat nothing can be made of them. " With his father his relations hadnot become more cordial after his return from Wetzlar. "Lieber Gott, "he wrote on receiving a letter from his father, "shall I then alsobecome like this when I am old? Shall my soul no longer attach itselfto what is good and amiable? Strange the belief that the older a manbecomes, the freer he becomes from what is worldly and petty. Hebecomes increasingly more worldly and petty. "[130] His father'sinsistence on his attention to legal business was a permanent cause ofmutual misunderstanding. "I let my father do as he pleases; he dailyseeks to enmesh me more and more in the affairs of the town, and Isubmit. "[131] [Footnote 130: Goethe to Kestner, November 10th, 1772. _Werke, Briefe_, Band ii. 35. ] [Footnote 131: To the same, September 15th, 1773. _Ib. _ p. 104. ] In his sister Cornelia, as formerly, he had a sympathetic confidantequally in his affairs of the heart and in his literary and artisticambitions, but in the course of the year 1773 he was deprived of hersoothing and stimulating influence. In October she was betrothed toJ. G. Schlosser, who has already been noted as one of Goethe's sagercounsellors, and the marriage took place on November 1st. "I rejoicein their joy, " he wrote to Sophie von la Roche, "though, at the sametime, it is mostly to my own loss. " Other friends, also, in the courseof the same year, he complains, were departing and leaving him indreary solitude. "My poor existence, " he writes to Kestner, "isbecoming petrified. This summer everyone is going--Merck with theCourt to Berlin, his wife to Switzerland, my sister, and FräuleinFlachsland, you, everybody. And I am alone. If I do not take a wife orhang myself, say that life is right dear to me, or something, if youlike, which does me more honour. "[132] So in May he describes himselfas alone and daily becoming more so; in October as "entirely alone, "and as indescribably rejoiced at the return of Merck towards the closeof the year. [Footnote 132: _Ib. _ pp. 82-3. ] CHAPTER IX SATIRICAL DRAMAS AND FRAGMENTS If, during the year that followed his return from Wetzlar, Goethe wasdistracted by his wandering affections, he was no less divided in mindby his intellectual ambitions. The doubt which had possessed him sinceboyhood as to whether nature meant him for an artist or a poetremained still unsettled for him. In one of the best-known passages ofhis Autobiography he has related how he sought to resolve hisdifficulty. As he wandered down the banks of the Lahn, after he hadtorn himself away from Wetzlar, the beauty of the scenery awoke in himthe artist's desire to transfer it worthily to canvas. The whim thenoccurred to him to let fate decide whether this was the work for whichhe was appointed. He would throw his knife into the river, and, if hesaw it reach the surface, he would take it as a sign that art was hisvocation. Unfortunately the oracle proved dubious. Owing to theintervening bushes he did not see the knife enter the river, but onlythe splash occasioned by its fall. As the result of the uncertaintyof the oracle, he adds, he gave himself less assiduously than hithertoto the study of art. If this were indeed the case, it was only for atime, since the contemporary testimony, both of himself and hisfriends, shows that during the period that immediately followed hisleaving Wetzlar, art received more of his attention than literature. Goethe, wrote Caroline Flachsland to Herder, "still thinks of becominga painter, and we strongly advise him to pursue that end. "[133] "I amnow quite a draughtsman, " he himself wrote to Herder in December ofthe same year; and he tells another correspondent in the autumn of1773 that "the plastic arts occupy him almost entirely. " [Footnote 133: November 27th, 1772. ] Yet, since his return from Strassburg to Frankfort in August, 1771, his literary activity was never wholly intermitted. During theremainder of that year he wrote the first draft of _Götz vonBerlichingen_, and in 1772, mainly under the inspiration of theDarmstadt circle, he produced the poems to which attention has alreadybeen drawn. In that year, also, he shared in an undertaking the mainobject of which was to proclaim those revolutionary ideas inliterature, religion, and life that inspired the movement of the_Sturm und Drang_. In cooperation with Herder, Merck, and Schlosser, his future brother-in-law, and others, he conducted a journal which, under the title of the _Frankfurter Gelehrten Anzeigen_, expoundedthese views to all who chose to read it. Merck, and afterwardsSchlosser, acted as editors during the year that it existed, butGoethe was its principal contributor. In the preliminary announcementto the first issue (January 1st, 1772) it is stated that the reviewsof books will range over science, philosophy, history, _belles-lettres_, and the fine arts, and particularly that no English book worthy ofnotice will escape attention. Of the successive reviews that appeared, only three are certainly known to be by Goethe, though he must havewritten or assisted in writing several others. With his usualcausticity Herder characterised the manner of the two chiefcontributors. "You, " he tells Merck, "are always Socrates-Addison; andGoethe is for the most part a young, arrogant lord, with horriblyscraping cock's heels, and, if I come among you some day, I shall bethe Irish Dean with his whip. " Goethe himself, reviewing these earlyefforts in the light of his maturity, is sufficiently modest regardingtheir intrinsic merit. He had then, he says, neither the knowledge northe discipline requisite for adequate criticism. On the other hand, heclaims to have given evidence in his notices of books of a gift, whichno reader of them can fail to perceive--the gift of instinctiveinsight into the essentials of the subject in hand. In the business ofreviewing, however, he seems to have taken little pleasure. "The dayhas begun festively, " he wrote to Kestner on Christmas, 1772, "but, unfortunately, I must spoil the beautiful hours with reviewing; but Ido so with good heart, as it is for the last issue. "[134] [Footnote 134: Goethe wrote the epilogue to the last number of theReview, of which he says to Kestner, "hat ich das Publikum und denVerleger turlipinirt. "] To the same year, 1772, belong two short productions of Goethe whichdeserve a passing notice as exhibiting his strange blending ofinterests at this period. The one is entitled _Brief des Pastors zu... An den neuen Pastor zu ... _, and professes to have been translatedfrom the French. The Letter is another illustration of his interest inreligion and in the interpretation of the Bible which had begun withhis early reading of the Old Testament, and which his intercourse withthe Fräulein von Klettenberg and Herder had intermittently kept alive. The theological teaching of the Letter is, in point of fact, acompound of the teaching of these two. Its main object is to emphasisethe necessity of toleration in the interest of religion itself, andnowhere was the monition more needed than in Frankfort, where theantipathy between those of the Reformed and the Lutheran communionswas such as even to debar intermarriage. Rationalism and dogmatism areequally reprobated, and the sum of all true religion is found toconsist in the love of God and of our neighbour. The strain ofmystical piety which runs through the whole production doubtlessproceeds from imaginative sympathy and not from personal experience, and is to be regarded only as another illustration of Goethe'sfacility in identifying himself with emotions essentially alien to hisown nature. The other piece, entitled _Zwo wichtige bisher unerörtertebiblische Fragen, zum erstenmal gründlich beantwortet_, professing tobe written by a Swabian pastor, is still more singular. In the firstof the two questions he inquires whether it was the Ten Commandmentsor the prescriptions of ritual that were inscribed on the tables ofstone, and concludes that it was the latter; and in the second hediscusses the nature of the speaking with tongues that followed St. Paul's laying of hands on the newly-baptised Christians, and resolvesthe question in a purely mystical sense. The year 1773 marks an epoch in Goethe's career, and an epoch also inthe literary history of Germany. In that year he made his first appealas a writer to the great German public which was to follow hissuccessive productions with varying degrees of admiration during thenext half-century. Dissatisfied with the first draft of _Götz vonBerlichingen_ as lacking in dramatic unity, in the beginning(February--March) of 1773 he recast the whole play, which in its newform was published in June. [135] As has already been said, the secondform of _Götz_ is generally recognised as inferior to the first, but, such as it was, it made the sensation we have seen. With as much truthas Byron, Goethe might have said that "he woke one morning and foundhimself famous. " In 1772 he could be spoken of by an intelligentperson in Leipzig as "one named Getté, " and even in the circles hefrequented he had hitherto been known simply as a youth ofextraordinary promise from whom great things were to be expected. Henceforth his name was on the tongue of all who were interested inGerman literature, and whatever he was likely to produce in the futurewas certain to command universal interest. [Footnote 135: In its new form _Götz_ was no better adapted for thestage. "Eine angeborne Unart ist schwierig zu meistern, " is Goethe'sown remark on his attempt to make it a good acting play. ] According to Merck, Goethe's head was turned for a time by the successof _Götz_. During the months that followed its publication, at allevents, he was possessed with a wanton humour which spared neitherfriends nor foes, nor the society of which he had apparently caughtthe contagion as completely as any of its members. At a later date, Goethe speaks of his "considerate levity" and his "warmcoolness";[136] and in a succession of pieces which he threw off atthis time we have an interesting commentary on this characterisationof himself. In these pieces we have an old vein reopened. We have seenhow in Leipzig he had burlesqued the professor of literature, Clodius, but in the years that followed his departure from Leipzig--thedepressing period in Frankfort and the period of rapid development inStrassburg--there was neither the occasion nor the prompting topersonal or general satire. Now, however, in the tumult of his ownfeelings and in the follies of the society around him he found themesfor satirical comment which afforded scope for a side of his geniusrarely manifested in his later years. The short satirical dramasproduced at this time on the mere impulse of the moment have inthemselves only a local and temporary interest, but they deriveimportance from the fact that they proceed from the same mentalattitude which was to find its definitive expression in the characterof Mephistopheles--essentially the creation of this period of Goethe'sdevelopment. In these trivial exercises he was practising the craftwhich is so consummately displayed in the original fragments of_Faust_. [Footnote 136: Ich bin wie immer der nachdenkliche Leichtsinn und diewarme Kälte. --Goethe to Sophie von la Roche, September 1st, 1780. ] The first of these sallies--_Das Jahrmarktsfest zu Plundersweilern, Ein Schönbartspiel_--was written in March, 1773, and was sent as abirthday gift to Merck--an appropriate recipient. Written in doggerelverse, which Goethe took over from the shoemaker poet Hans Sachs, thepiece brings before us the motley crowd of persons who frequented thefairs of the time, each vociferating the cheapness and excellence ofhis own wares. The humour of the spectacle, however, is that the_dramatis personæ_ were individuals recognisable by contemporaries intraits which now escape us. Goethe himself appears in the guise of adoctor, Herder as a captain of the gipsies, and his bride, CarolineFlachsland, as a milkmaid. The satire is directed equally against theidiosyncrasies of individuals and against the follies of the time, thesentimentalism which Goethe himself had not escaped, but of which hesaw the inanity, the petty jealousies of authors which had also comewithin his personal experience. A mock tragedy on the subject ofEsther, which forms part of the burlesque, is a malicious parody ofthe French models which he had begun by imitating, but which were nowthe sport of the youths who led the _Sturm und Drang_. The _Jahrmarktsfest_ is a genial explosion of madcap humour. Not soanother succession of scenes produced about the same time. The subjectof them is that Leuchsenring whose acquaintance, we have seen, Goethehad made under the roof of Sophie von la Roche. Since then, apparently, Leuchsenring's proceedings had provoked a repugnance inGoethe which displays itself in a strain of bitterness hardly to befound in any other of his works. It was Leuchsenring's habit toingratiate himself with households where his pseudo-sentiment made himacceptable, and by questionable methods to make mischief between theirmembers, and especially between the two sexes. [137] Goethe had seenthe results of these intrigues in circles with which he wasacquainted, and it was to punish the sinner that he wrote _EinFastnachtspiel, auch wohl zu tragieren nach Ostern, vom Pater Brey demfalschen Propheten_. Pater Brey, the false prophet, is Leuchsenring, and his sugared speech and shifty ways are the main object of thesatire, but other persons are introduced into the piece and exhibitedin lights which are a singular commentary on the taste of the time. The victim on whom Pater Brey plies his arts is Caroline Flachsland, who appears under the name of Leonora, and the injured lover is Herder(Captain Velandrino). [138] The Captain, who has been informed of PaterBrey's philanderings with his betrothed, appears on the scene, isassured of her faithfulness, and in concert with another character inthe piece (Merck) plays a coarse trick on the Pater which makes himthe laughing-stock of the neighbourhood. [Footnote 137: A quarrel had arisen between Merck and Leuchsenring, and Goethe had warmly taken Merck's side. ] [Footnote 138: As we have seen, Herder was jealous of Goethe's ownattentions to Caroline. ] Herder had good reason to resent the licence with which his privateaffairs had been obtruded on the public in _Pater Brey_, [139] but inthe same year Goethe made him the main subject of another productionwhich raises equally our astonishment at the manners of the time andat the wanton audacity of its author. In _Pater Brey_ the prevailingsentimentalism, as veiling dubious motives, had been the theme ofridicule; in _Satyros, oder der vergötterte Waldteufel_, it was theextravagancies of the followers of Rousseau in their idealisation ofthe natural man. According to Kestner, as we have seen, Goethe himselfgreatly admired Rousseau, but was not one of his blind worshippers, and _Satyros_ is a sufficiently cogent proof of the fact. What isastounding is the means he chose to give point to his ridicule. Herderis Satyros, the Waldteufel, [140] who is represented as being humanelyreceived by a hermit (Merck) while suffering from a wounded leg. Satyros requites his host with coarse abuse of himself and hisreligion, flings his crucifix into the neighbouring stream, and stealsa valuable piece of linen cloth. Next by an enchanting melody hecajoles two maidens, Arsinoë and Psyche (Caroline Flachsland), intothe belief that he is a superhuman being, and Psyche is so overcomethat she submits to his embraces. The people of the neighbourhoodflock to him, see in him a new god, and on his persuasion take toeating chestnuts, as the natural food of man--the priest of thecommunity, Hermes, joining in their worship. The hermit appears on thescene, and on his abusing Satyros for the theft of his crucifix, thepeople decide to offer him as a sacrifice to their insulted divinity. By a stratagem of the wife of Hermes, the hermit is rescued and thebestiality of Satyros exposed. In no way disconcerted, Satyros leavesthe throng with flouts at their asinine attachment to theirconventional morality as opposed to the free life inculcated bynature. Goethe's later comment on this remarkable production is thatit was "a document of the godlike insolence of our youth, " andcertainly no document could bring more vividly before us the world inwhich Goethe's genius came to fruition. [141] [Footnote 139: It was published in the autumn of the following year, 1774. ] [Footnote 140: W. Scherer was the first to identify Herder withSatyros. ] [Footnote 141: _Satyros_ was not published till 1814, after Herder'sdeath, but he was aware of its existence. ] Still another piece of the "godlike insolence of youth, " though lessoffensive in its implications, is the farce, _Götter, Helden, undWieland_, written in the autumn of the same year, 1773. At an earlierperiod Wieland had been one of the gods of Goethe's idolatry, butWieland was now the most distinguished champion of those French modelsagainst which Goethe and the youths associated with him had declaredirreconcilable war. Moreover, in a journal recently started byWieland, there had appeared an unfriendly review of _Götz vonBerlichingen_. By the publication of a play, _Alceste_, in which hefoolishly challenged comparison with Euripides' drama of the samename, Wieland gave the enemy his opportunity. On a Sunday afternoon, with a bottle of Burgundy beside him, as he tells us, Goethe tossedoff his skit at one sitting. As a piece of improvisation, it certainlycontains excellent fooling. We are introduced to the lower world, where the four characters in Euripides' play, Admetus, Alcestis, Hercules, and Mercury, as well as its author, are represented as in astate of high indignation at the liberties which Wieland has takenwith them in his _Alcestes_. Summoned before them, Wieland appears inhis nightcap, and has to run the gauntlet of their severalreproaches--the purport of them all being that he has foolishlymisunderstood the Greek world which he had undertaken to portray. Against Goethe's wish the satire was published in the following year, and rapidly ran through four editions, but Wieland had a genteelrevenge. With that _Lebensweisheit_ which Goethe long afterwardsmarked as his characteristic, he published in his review a notice ofthe burlesque, in which it is recommended as "a masterpiece ofpersiflage and of sophistical wit. " "Wieland has turned the tables onme, " was Goethe's own admission; "Ich bin eben prostituiert. "[142] [Footnote 142: Max Morris, _op. Cit. _ iv. 81. ] These successive _jeux d'esprit_ were merely the crackling fireworksof exuberant youth, and were regarded as such by their author himself. At the very time he was writing them, he was planning and sketchingworks, the scope of which reveals the true bent of his genius, and ofthe ideals that were preoccupying him. "My ideals, " he wrote toKestner (September 15th, 1773), "grow daily in beauty and grandeur";and when he penned these words he was engaged on a production which, though it remained a mere fragment, has justly been regarded as one ofthe most striking manifestations of his powers. The subject, the mythof Prometheus, he tells us, attracted him as one in which he couldembody his own deepest experience and the conclusions regarding theindividual life of man to which that experience had led him. In thecrises of his past life, he tells us, he had found that no aid hadbeen forthcoming either from man or any supernal power. "We must treadthe wine-press alone. " Only in one source had he discovered astay and stimulus, which brought him the sense of individualself-subsistence--in the exercise of such creative talent as naturehad bestowed upon him. Of this consciousness, no external power coulddeprive him, and it is this consciousness that is the governing ideaof the fragment, and not the Titanism of the Prometheus of Æschylus. It was, moreover, an idea which permanently accompanied Goethethroughout life, and to which he frequently gave expression in hislater correspondence. [143] [Footnote 143: The following passage from an article in the _HibbertJournal_, by M. Bergson (October, 1911, pp. 42-3), is an interestingcommentary on Goethe's conception: "If, then, in every province thetriumph of life is expressed by creation, might we not think that theultimate reason of human life is a creation which, in distinction fromthat of the artist or man of science, can be pursued at every momentand by all men alike; I mean the creation of self by self, thecontinual enrichment of personality, by elements which it does notdraw from outside, but causes to spring forth from itself?"] As, apart from its intrinsic power, _Prometheus_ has an incidentalinterest in the history of philosophic thought, it may be worth whileto sketch briefly the development it attained. When Prometheus isintroduced to us, he is a rebel against Zeus and the other gods. Hehad rendered them allegiance so long as he believed that "they saw thepast and the future in the present and were animated byself-originated and disinterested wisdom, " but, on the discovery ofhis error, he had renounced their authority, and, as an independentagent, he had fashioned images of human beings, to which, however, hewas powerless to give the breath of life. In the first Scene of thefirst Act, Mercury appears as the messenger of the gods and reasonswith Prometheus on the folly of his contending with their omnipotence. Prometheus denies their omnipotence either over nature or overhimself. "Can they separate me from myself?" he asks, and Mercuryadmits that the gods are subject to a power stronger than theirown--the power of Fate. "Go, then, " is the reply, "I do not servevassals. " After a brief soliloquy, in which Prometheus expresses thepassionate wish that he might impart feeling to his lifeless images, Epimetheus appears as a second representative of the gods. Theiroffer, he tells Prometheus, is reasonable; let him but recognise theirsupremacy, and he will be free of the heights of Olympus, from whichhe would rule the earth. "Yes, " is the reply, "to be their burggrave, and defend their Heaven! My offer is more reasonable; their wish is tobe a partner with me, and my thought is to have nothing toparticipate with them; they cannot rob me of what I have, and whatthey have, let them guard. Here is mine, and here is thine, and so arewe apart. " "But what is thine?" inquires Epimetheus; and the reply is, "The circle which my activity fulfils--_Der Kreis, den meineWirklichkeit erfüllt_. " And here follows one of the passages in thedialogue which, as expressing the pantheistic conception of theuniverse, gave occasion to the quarrel of the philosophers, to bepresently noted. "Thou standest alone, " is the comment of Epimetheuson the claim to independent self-subsistence asserted by Prometheus;"thou standest alone; thy self-will fails to appreciate the bliss ofthe gods--thou, thine, the world and heaven, all feel themselves oneintimate whole. " Repelled like Mercury, Epimetheus departs, andMinerva, in whom Prometheus acknowledges his sole inspirer andinstructress, appears. Minerva, who declares that she honours herfather Zeus and loves Prometheus, repeats the offer of Zeus to animatethe clay images if Prometheus will acknowledge his sovereignty; butwhen Prometheus passionately refuses to accept the offer, she burstsforth: "And they shall live! to fate and not to the gods it pertainsto bestow life and to take it. Come, I conduct thee to the source ofall life, which Jupiter may not close against us. They shall live, andthrough thee!" Of the second Act only two Scenes were written. In the first, Mercury, proclaiming in Olympus that Minerva has given life to the clay imagesof Prometheus, calls on Zeus to destroy the new creatures with histhunder. Zeus calmly replies that they will only increase the numberof his servants, and Mercury, changing his tone, prays that he may besent to "the poor earthborn folk, " to announce the goodness and wisdomof the father of all. "Not yet, " is the reply. "In the newborn raptureof youth they dream that they are like unto the gods. Not till theyneed thee will they listen to thy words. Leave them to their ownlife!" In the second Scene, we see Prometheus in a valley at the baseof Olympus, surrounded by the new race of animated beings engaged inbusiness or pleasure. There follow three brief Scenes which are meantto depict the dawnings of human consciousness and the conditions underwhich life is to be lived. To one he shows how a hut to shelter himmay be constructed with the branches he has lopped with the aid of animplement of stone. In a dispute between two men, one of whom woundsthe other and steals his goat, Prometheus pronounces the judgment thatthe hand of the offender will be against every man, and every man'shand against him. In the third and last Scene we have the mostremarkable passage in the poem. Pandora, Prometheus' favouritecreation, in dismay and bewilderment, describes the strangeexperience she has witnessed in the case of a friend, another maiden, and Prometheus tells her that what she had seen was death. What deathmeant Prometheus explains in the following passage, charged with thesensuous mysticism which was one of the elements of Goethe's ownexperiences when he wrote it:-- Wenn aus dem innerst tiefsten Grunde Du ganz erschüttert alles fühlst, Was Freud' und Schmerzen jemals dir ergossen, [Transcriber's Note: corrected error "and" for "und"] Im Sturm dein Herz erschwillt, In Tränen sich erleichtern will Und seine Glut vermehrt, Und alles klingt an dir und bebt und zittert, Und all die Sinne dir vergehn, Und du dir zu vergehen scheinst Und sinkst, Und alles um dich her versinkt in Nacht, Und du, in inner eigenstem Gefühl, Umfassest eine Welt; Dann stirbt der Mensch. When from thy inmost being's depths Shattered to nought thou feelest all Of joy and woe that e'er to thee hath flowed, In storm thy heart hath swelled, In tears doth find itself relief, And doth its flow increase; When all within thee thrills, and quakes, and quivers, And all thy senses from thee part, And from thyself thou seem'st to part, And sink'st, And all around thee sinketh deep in night, And thou within thy inner very self Encompassest a world; Then dies the man. To these two Acts Goethe subsequently added, as the opening of a thirdAct, a soliloquy of Prometheus, written in the following year. In thissoliloquy Prometheus appears as the sheer Titan, the burden of hisdefiance being that Zeus merits no worship from men to whose miserieshe is deaf, and that such worship as he receives proceeds only fromhuman folly and ignorance. [144] By its protest against the conceptionof the mechanical god who "pushes the universe from without, " and bythe Spinozistic pantheism which it implicitly proclaims, the odedismayed the more timid spirits of the time. To the horror of FritzJacobi, Lessing, to whom he read it in manuscript in 1780, declaredthat its conception of the [Greek: hen kai pan] was his own;[145] andwhen, in 1785, Jacobi published the poem without Goethe's knowledge, acontroversy arose in which Lessing was charged with atheism andpantheism, and which, as Goethe records, cost the life of one of thecombatants, Moses Mendelssohn. [146] Be it said that in his old ageGoethe himself came to regard the sentiments of the soliloquy as_sansculottisch_, and in the time of reaction of the Holy Allianceforbade the publication of the fragment as likely to be received as anevangel by the revolutionary youth of Germany. [147] [Footnote 144: Viktor Hehn pointed out that the drama and the ode areinspired by different motives, and that it was in forgetfulness thatGoethe associated them. --_Über Goethe's Gedichte_, p. 160. Bielschowsky (_Goethe, Sein Leben und Seine Werke_, i. 510) suggeststhat the ode may have been intended as the opening of Act ii. ] [Footnote 145: Sir Frederick Pollock dates "modern Spinozism" fromthis incident. --_Spinoza: His Life and Opinions_ (London, 1880), p. 390. ] [Footnote 146: While writing a defence of his friend Lessing againstthe charge of atheism, Mendelssohn's mental agitation was such that itwas believed to have occasioned his death. ] [Footnote 147: Turgenieff relates that on translating passages from_Satyros_ and _Prometheus_ to Flaubert, Edmond de Goncourt, andDaudet, all three were profoundly impressed by the range and powerdisplayed in them. ] To the same period as _Prometheus_ belongs another fragment, inspiredby an equally grandiose conception, which, like so many others withGoethe, was never to be realised. The theme of the projected drama wasto be the career of Mahomet, and in his Autobiography Goethe hasindicated the leading ideas it was to embody. Contrary to theprevailing opinion, which had received brilliant expression inVoltaire's play on the same subject, Mahomet was to be represented notas an impostor but as a prophet sincerely convinced of the truth ofhis message, and inflamed with a disinterested desire to give hiscountrymen a purer religion--a view of Mahomet, it may be said inpassing, which Goethe's disciple, Carlyle, was among the first toproclaim in this country. [148] The successive actions of the prophetwere to illustrate the influence which character and genius combinedhave exercised on the destiny of men; but they were also to illustratehow the idealist in his contact with actualities is forced, in spiteof himself, to compromise the purity of his original message, and, inconsequence, to deteriorate in his own personal character. [149] Of theprojected drama we have only two scenes, and a lyric in glorificationof Mahomet which was to be sung by two of the characters. In contrastto _Prometheus_, not pantheism but monotheism, and not rebellion butsubmission, were to be the animating creed and motive of theprotagonist. In the first of the two Scenes he addresses in successionthe great heavenly lights, but in their mutability he finds no stay orsolace for mind and heart, and he turns to the creator of them all. "Uplift thee, loving heart, to the creating One! Be thou my Lord, myGod! Thou, all-loving One, Thou who didst create earth, heaven, andme. " In the second Scene we have a dialogue between Mahomet and hisfoster-mother, Fatima, in which he communicates the religiousexperiences which it was to be his mission to proclaim to his people;and the manner in which Fatima receives them indicates thedifficulties he would have to encounter in his _rôle_ as prophet. "Heis changed; his nature is transformed; his understanding has suffered. Better it is that I should restore him to his kinsfolk, than that Ishould draw the responsibility of evil consequences upon myself. " But, as in the case of _Prometheus_, it is in the lyric that was to formpart of the drama that we have the most arresting expression of thepoet's genius--another proof of the fact that at this period it was inthe lyric that Goethe found the most adequate utterance for what wasdeepest in his nature. In a rush of unrhymed, irregular measures itdescribes the course of a river (the Rhine was in the poet's mind)from its source on the mountain summit, its impetuous progress amongthe obstacles that bar its passage, its gradually broadening currentas it sweeps through the plains, undelayed by shady valley or by theflowers that adorn its banks; and finally losing itself in the oceanwith all its tributary streams. [Footnote 148: It is one of the ironies of Goethe's literary careerthat, in his later years, in the period of his reaction against theformlessness that had invaded German literature, he, with the approvalof Schiller, translated Voltaire's _Mahomet_, and staged it inWeimar. ] [Footnote 149: It is this conception, as he himself tells us, thatRenan applied to the life and teaching of Jesus. ] As sung by Ali and Fatima on the death of Mahomet, the ode was anallegory of his life from its beginning to its triumphant close whenhe passed from the present with the consciousness that he had won tohis faith the nation from which he had sprung. But it also undoubtedlyexpressed the aspiration of the poet himself. The ambition to impresshimself on the world, and the consciousness of powers to give effectto his ambition, were indeed the ruling impulses behind all hisdistracted activities. But he was thwarted in his ambition alike byexternal circumstances and by his own temperament, and there cameoccasions when he was disposed to accept failure as his wisest choice. In two poems of this period he gives expression to this mood, and thenecessity for overcoming it. In the one, _Adler und Taube_, a youngeagle is wounded by a fowler, but after three days recovers, thoughwith disabled wings. Two doves alight near the spot, and one of themaddresses soothing words to the crippled king of the birds. "Thou artin sorrow, " he coos; "be of good courage, friend! hast thou not hereall that peaceful bliss requires?... O friend, true happiness iscontent, and everywhere content has enough. " "O wise one, " spoke theeagle, and, moved to deep earnest, sinks more deeply into himself; "Owisdom! thou speakest like a dove. " In the other poem, _KünstlersErdewallen_ ("The Artist's Earthly Pilgrimage"), composed in the formof a dialogue, we have equally a draft from Goethe's own experience. To provide for his family needs, the artist is forced to prostitutehis genius by painting pictures for the vulgar _connoisseur_, and hedesponds at the prospect of a life spent under such conditions, butthe muse whispers consolation: "Thou hast time enough to take delightin thyself, and in every creation which thy brush lovingly depicts. "It was a consolation which at this time and at other periods of hislife Goethe had to take home to himself. CHAPTER X _WERTHER_, _CLAVIGO_ 1774 In his fortieth year Goethe wrote to Wieland: "Without compulsion, there is in my case no hope. "[150] So it was with him at every periodof his life; without some immediate impulse out of his own experienceor from the urgency of friends he was incapable of the sustainedinspiration requisite to the execution of a prolonged artistic whole. We have seen how he dallied with the subject of _Götz vonBerlichingen_, and how it was only at the instance of his sisterCornelia that he concentrated his energies in throwing it intodramatic form. In the case of _Werther_ we have an illustration of thesame characteristic. Shortly after leaving Wetzlar, on hearing thenews of Jerusalem's death, there arose in him a pressing desire toembody his late experience in some imaginative shape; and in thecourse of the following year he actually addressed himself to thetask. But his inspiration flagged, and it was not till the beginningof 1774 that a new experience supplied a fresh impulse constraininghim to complete the "prodigious little work" which was to take hiscontemporaries by storm. [Footnote 150: In his sixty-second year Goethe also said of himself:"Denn gewöhnlich, was ich ausspreche, das tue ich nicht, und was ichverspreche, das halte ich nicht. "] We have it from Goethe's own hand that it was a new and "painfulsituation" that gave him the necessary stimulus to resume his work on_Werther_ and to carry it to a conclusion. We have seen how on leavingWetzlar in the autumn of 1772 he had made the acquaintance of thefamily von la Roche, and how he had been captivated by the elderdaughter, Maximiliane. Since then he had kept up a sentimentalcorrespondence with the mother in which we have occasional referencesto his continued interest in the daughter. "Your Maxe, " he wrote inAugust, 1773, "I cannot do without so long as I live, and I shallalways venture to love her. " This was, of course, in the current styleof the time, but a situation arose which made such amorous triflingdangerous. On January 9th, 1774, the Fräulein von la Roche was marriedto Peter Brentano, a dealer in herrings, oil, and cheese, a widowerwith five children, with whom she settled in Frankfort. Goetheimmediately became an assiduous frequenter of the Brentano household, where he was not unwelcome to the young wife, whose new surroundingswere in unpleasant contrast to those of the home she had left. ButBrentano was not so magnanimous as Kestner, and a fortnight had notpassed before there were "painful scenes" between him and Goethe. Onthe 21st Goethe wrote as follows to the mother of Madame Brentano: "Ifyou knew what passed within me before I avoided the house, you wouldnot think, dear Mama, of luring me back to it again. I have in thesefrightful moments suffered for all the future; I am now at peace, andin peace let me remain. "[151] He had now gone the round of all theexperiences embodied in _Werther_; on February 1st he resumed thediscontinued work, and, writing "almost in a state of somnambulism, "finished it in a few weeks. [Footnote 151: _Werke, Briefe_, ii. 140. ] But besides his own immediate personal experience, there went otherinfluences to the production of _Werther_ which affected alike itsform and its contents. In his Autobiography Goethe has minutelyanalysed these influences, and the most potent of them he traces tothe impression made by English literature on himself and hiscontemporaries. What impressed them as the prevailing note of thatliterature was a melancholy disillusion which regarded life as a sorrybusiness at the best, and Goethe specifies Young, Gray, and Ossian asrepresentative interpreters of this mood. In verses like these, hesays, we have the precise expression of the moral disease which he hasdepicted in _Werther_:-- To griefs congenial prone, More wounds than nature gave he knew; While misery's form his fancy drew In dark ideal hues and horrors not its own![152] [Footnote 152: These lines are by the Earl of Rochester. On readingthe first English translation of _Werther_ (1783), Goethe wrote: "Itgave me much pleasure to read my thoughts in the language of myinstructors. "] If English literature contributed to the tone of feeling in _Werther_, it also, though Goethe does not mention the fact, suggested theliterary form in which it is cast. In the case of his former loves, his emotions had found vent in a succession of lyrics thrown off asoccasion prompted, but his later experiences had been of a morecomplex nature, and demanded a larger canvas for their development. Itwould appear that Goethe's original intention was to adopt thedramatic form which had been so successful in the case of _Götz_, andwe are led to believe that, in accordance with this intention, heactually made a beginning of his work. In the interval between hisdiscontinuing and resuming it, however, he changed his mind; and inthe form in which we have it _Werther_ is mainly composed of lettersaddressed by its central character to an absent friend. There can belittle doubt that the epistolary form was suggested by a book withwhich Goethe was familiar, and which had been received with enthusiasmin Germany as in other continental countries--Richardson's _ClarissaHarlowe_ (1747-8). Richardson's example, moreover, had been followedin another work which had achieved as sensational as success as_Clarissa_--Rousseau's _Nouvelle Héloïse_. In form and substance_Werther_ was as much inspired by Richardson and Rousseau as _Götz_had been by Shakespeare, yet in _Werther_, as in _Götz_, the worldrecognised an original creation which bore a new message to everyheart capable of receiving it. The portentous work was published in the autumn of 1774, but the formin which we now have it belongs to a later date. In the first completeedition of Goethe's Works (1787), _Werther_ appeared with certainmodifications, which did not, however, as in the case of _Götz_, organically affect its original form. [153] Expressions which toGoethe's maturer taste appeared objectionable were altered--notalways, German critics are disposed to think, in the direction ofimprovement; the story of the unfortunate peasant in whose fateWerther saw an image of his own, was introduced; and, in deference tothe feelings of Kestner and Lotte, the characters of the two personsin the book with whom readers identified them were presented in asomewhat more favourable light. [154] [Footnote 153: In making these modifications Goethe was advised byHerder and Wieland. ] [Footnote 154: Though to the satisfaction of neither Kestner norLotte. ] With what degree of similitude Goethe has portrayed himself in thecharacter of Werther must necessarily be matter of opinion, but thathis work was essentially drawn from his own experience the merestoutline of it conclusively shows. Equally in the case of the two partsof which the book is composed we have the presentment of successivephases of emotion through which we know that he had himself passedwhen he sat down to write it. The first part, the substance of whichwas probably drafted in the year 1773, is all but an exact transcriptof Goethe's own experience from the day he settled in Wetzlar till theday he left it. Like Goethe himself, Werther settles in the spring ofthe year in a country town, unattractive like Wetzlar, but also, likeWetzlar, situated in a charming neighbourhood. His first few weeksthere are spent as Goethe spent them--in daydreaming and vaguelongings; finding distraction alternately in sketching, in readingHomer, in intercourse with children and simple people, incontemplations on nature and the life of man, inspired by Spinoza andRousseau. Then befalls the incident which also befell Goethe: he meetsa girl at a ball, and he is overmastered by a passion which changesthe current of his life and paralyses every other motive at itssource. At the first meeting Werther learns that Charlotte isbetrothed, [155] but her betrothed is absent, and, oblivious of thefuture, he for a few weeks lives in a state of intoxicating bliss. Albert, who, like Charlotte, has in the first part all thecharacteristics of his original, at length appears on the scene, andall three are gradually convinced that the situation is intolerable. There are "painful scenes, " such as, according to Kestner, actuallyhappened in Goethe's own case; and after an agonising struggle withhimself Werther succeeds in breaking away from the enchanted spot, thelast conversation between the three turning on the prospect of afuture life--a memory, as we have seen, of an actual talk betweenLotte, Kestner, and Goethe. So ends the first part, which, withunimportant variations, is a close record of the circumstances ofGoethe's own sojourn in Wetzlar. [Footnote 155: It was shortly after his meeting with Lotte Buff thatGoethe learned that she was engaged to Kestner. ] A tragic end to _Werther_ Goethe had before him from its firstconception, as is proved by his eagerness to ascertain the details ofJerusalem's suicide. But to justify dramatically such an end to hishero, certain modifications in the relations of all the threecharacters were rendered necessary, and again his own experiencesuggested the mode of treatment. In the uncomfortable relations thathad arisen between himself and the Brentanos, husband and wife, hefound a situation which would naturally involve a catastrophe in thecase of a character constituted like Werther. When in February, 1774, therefore, he sat down to complete the tale of Werther's woes, it wasunder a new inspiration that the characters of Albert and Charlottefashioned themselves in his mind. Not Kestner and Lotte Buff, but theBrentanos, suggested their leading traits as well as the relations ofall parties, which involved the closing tragedy. Albert becomes ajealous and somewhat morose husband, and Charlotte is depicted withthe characteristics of Maxe Brentano rather than of Lotte Buff--with amore susceptible temperament and less self-control. [156] [Footnote 156: Goethe gave the blue eyes of Maxe to Charlotte. LotteBuff's eyes were brown. ] In the opening of the second part the character of Werther is furtherrevealed in a new set of circumstances. Against his own inclinationshe accepts an official appointment under an ambassador at a pettyGerman Court, and his helpless unfitness in this situation for theordinary business of life may be regarded as a commentary on Goethe'sown invincible distaste for the practice of his profession. Wertherfinds the ambassador intolerable; and a public insult to which, as acommoner, he is subjected at a social gathering of petty nobility, drives him to resign his post. After a few months' residence with aprince, whose company in the end he finds uncongenial, he isirresistibly drawn to the scenes of his former happiness and misery. But in the interval an event happens which makes the renewal of oldrelations impossible. Charlotte and Albert have married, and the sightof Albert enjoying the privileges of a husband is a constant reminderof the hopelessness of his passion. Blank despair gradually takespossession of Werther's soul; in the hopeless wail of Ossian he findsthe only adequate expression of his fate. [157] In the commentary whichGoethe introduces to prepare readers for Werther's suicide, hesuggests another motive for the act besides Werther's infatuation forCharlotte, which Napoleon as well as other critics have regarded as amistake in art. In his state of mental and moral paralysis, we aretold, Werther recalled all the misfortunes of his past life, andspecially the mortification he had received during his brief officialexperience. But on the mind of the reader this incidental suggestionof other motives makes little impression; he feels that Werther'shelpless abandonment to his passion for Charlotte is the centralinterest of the author himself, as it is a wholly adequate cause ofthe final catastrophe. [Footnote 157: "Werther, " Goethe remarked to Henry Crabb Robinson, "praised Homer while he retained his senses, and Ossian when he wasgoing mad. "] By the fulness of its revelation of himself and by the impression itmade on the public mind _Werther_ holds a unique place among thelonger productions of Goethe. His own testimony, both at the time whenit was written and in his later years, is conclusive proof of thedegree to which it was a "general confession, " as he himself calls it. "I have lent my emotions to his (Werther's) history, " he wrote shortlyafter the completion of his work; "and so it makes a wonderfulwhole. "[158] In one of the best-known passages of his Autobiography hetells how he morbidly dallied with the idea of suicide, and banishedthe obsession only by convincing himself that he had not the courageto plunge a dagger into his breast. In a remarkable passage, writtenin his sixty-third year to his Berlin friend, Zelter, whose son hadcommitted suicide, he recalls with all seriousness the hypochondriacalpromptings which in his own case might have driven him to the fate ofWerther. "When the _tædium vitæ_ takes possession of a man, " he wrote, "he is to be pitied and not to be blamed. That all the symptoms ofthis wonderful, equally natural and unnatural, disease at one timealso convulsed my inmost being, _Werther_, indeed, leaves no one indoubt. I know right well what resolves and what efforts it cost me atthat time to escape the waves of death, as from many a later shipwreckI painfully rescued myself and with painful struggles recovered myhealth of mind. " At a still later date (1824) Goethe expressed himselfwith equal emphasis to the same purport. "That is a creation(_Werther_), " he told Eckermann, "which I, like the pelican, fed withthe blood of my own heart. There is in it so much that was deepest inmy own experience, so much of my own thoughts and sensations, that, intruth, a romance extending to ten such volumes might be made out ofit. Since its appearance, I have read it only once, and have refrainedfrom doing so again. It is nothing but a succession of rockets. I amuneasy when I look at it, and dread the return of the psychologicalcondition out of which it sprang. " [Footnote 158: _Werke, Briefe_, ii. 156. ] These repeated statements of Goethe, made at wide intervals of hislife, sufficiently prove what a large part of himself went to themaking of _Werther_. Yet Werther was not Goethe. From the fate ofWerther he was saved by two characteristics of which we have seenfrequent evidence in his previous history. It was not in his nature tobe dominated for any lengthened period by a single passion to theexclusion of every other interest. No sooner had he left Wetzlar thanhis heart was open to the charms of Maxe Brentano, and, during themonths that followed, her image and that of Lotte Buff alternatelydistracted his susceptibilities. Byron declared that he was capable ofonly one passion at a time, but Goethe was always capable of at leasttwo. The other characteristic equally distinguishes Goethe fromWerther. "I turn in upon myself, " Werther writes, "and find aworld--but a world of presentiments and of dim desires, not a world ofdefinite outlines and of living force. " Of a "living force" in himselfGoethe was never wholly unconscious; the record of his creativeefforts during the months that followed his leaving Wetzlar aresufficient evidence of the fact. The intellectual side of hisnature--the impulse to know or to create--kept in check the emotional, and proved his safeguard in more crises than the Wertherian periodduring which, by his own testimony, he so narrowly escaped shipwreck. The imprint of Goethe's character and genius which _Werther_ made onthe mind of his contemporaries was never effaced during his lifetime, and was even a source of embarrassment to him in his futuredevelopment. For years after its appearance he found it necessary totravel _incognito_ to avoid being pointed at as "the author of_Werther_"; and in the case of each of his subsequent productions thereading public had a feeling of disappointment that they were notreceiving what they expected from the writer who had once soprofoundly moved them. In truth, probably no book ever given to theworld has made such an instantaneous, profound, and general sensationas _Werther_. The effect of _Götz von Berlichingen_ had as yet beenconfined to Germany; on the publication of _Werther_ its author becamea European figure in the world of letters. In Germany _Werther_ washawked about as a chap-book; within three years three translationsappeared in France, and five years after its publication it wastranslated into English. The dress worn by Werther (borrowed fromEngland), consisting of a blue coat, yellow vest, yellow hose, andtop-boots, became the fashion of the day and was sported even inParis. Opinion in Germany had been divided on _Götz von Berlichingen_, butthe conflicting judgments on that work had turned only on questions ofdramatic propriety. The questions raised by _Werther_, on the otherhand, appeared to many to concern the very foundations of morality andof human responsibility. Suicide, it was indignantly clamoured, wassophistically justified in the person of Werther, and was clothed insuch specious hues as to present it in the light of a natural meansof escape from the troubles of life. On the ground of these supposedsinister implications the sale of _Werther_ was prohibited in Leipzigunder a penalty of ten thalers, a translation of it was forbidden inDenmark, and the Archbishop of Milan ordered it to be publicly burnedin that town. There was, of course, no thought in Goethe's mind ofrecommending suicide by the example of Werther, but he felt thereproach keenly, and indignantly repudiated it. Yet, when a few yearslater, a young woman was found drowned in the Ilm at Weimar with acopy of _Werther_ in her pocket, he was painfully reminded that thebook might be of dangerous consequence to a certain class ofminds. [159] [Footnote 159: The judgment of Lessing, who had no sympathy with theeffeminate sentimentality of the time, was severe. "We cannot, " hesaid, "imagine a Greek or a Roman _Werther_; it was the Christianideal that had made such a character possible. " Goethe, he thought, should have added a cynical chapter (the more cynical the better) toput _Werther's_ character in its true light. As the friend ofJerusalem, Lessing naturally resented the liberty which Goethe hadtaken with him. ] _Werther_ has been described as "the act of a conqueror and ahigh-priest of art, "[160] and of the truth of this description we haveinteresting proof from Goethe's own hand. In _Werther_ he had not onlygiven to the world a likeness of himself; in Albert and Charlotte hehad exhibited two figures who were at once identified as Kestner andLotte, now Kestner's wife. It was not only that domestic privacy wasthus invaded, but the characters assigned to Albert and Charlotte weresuch as could not fail to give just offence to their originals. Yetin the triumph of the artist it seems never to have occurred to Goethethat Kestner and Lotte would resent the licence he had taken withthem. On the eve of the publication of _Werther_ he sent a copy of itto Lotte, informing her at the same time that he had kissed it athousand times before sending it, and praying her not to make itpublic till it was given to the world at the approaching Leipzig fair. It came as a surprise to him, therefore, when he received a letter ofreproach from Kestner, protesting against the injurious presentment ofhimself and his wife in the book. In a first reply, Goethe franklyadmitted his indiscretion, but in a second letter he took a boldertone. "Oh! ye unbelieving ones, I would proclaim ye of little faith, "he wrote. "Could you but realise the thousandth part of what _Werther_is to a thousand hearts, you would not reckon the cost it has been toyou. "[161] Lotte and Kestner, from all we know of them, were bothpersons of sound nature, not unduly sensitive, and, in their hearts, they may not have been displeased at their association with thebrilliant youth of genius on whom the eyes of the world were nowturned. At all events, neither appears to have borne him a permanentgrudge for presenting them to the public in such a dubious light. Though, as has already been said, correspondence between Goethe andthem gradually became more and more intermittent, mutual respect andcordiality remained, and in later years we find Goethe in the capacityof sage adviser to the prudent Kestner. [162] [Footnote 160: By Sainte-Beuve. ] [Footnote 161: _Werke, Briefe_, ii. 207. ] [Footnote 162: The family of Kestner eventually published thecorrespondence of Goethe with their parents. --A. Kestner, _Goethe undWerther, Briefe Goethes, meistens aus seiner Jugendheit, miterläuternden Documenten_ (Stuttgart und Tübingen, 1854). ] The subsequent influence of _Werther_ was at once more powerful andmore enduring than the influence of _Götz von Berlichingen_, andGoethe himself has suggested the reason. The so-called _Werther_"period, " he says, belongs to no special age of the world's culture, but to the life of every free spirit that chafes under obsoletetraditions, obstructed happiness, cramped activity, and unfulfilleddesires. "A sorry business it would be, " he adds, "if once in his lifeevery one did not pass through an epoch when _Werther_ appeared tohave been specially written for him. "[163] The long series ofimitations of Werther--_René_, _Obermann_, _Childe Harold_, _Adolphe_(to mention only the best-known)--bears out Goethe's remark thatWertherism belongs to no particular age of the world, though it mayassume various forms and be expressed in different tones. [164] But inGoethe's little book the name and the thing Wertherism has receivedits "immortal _cachet_. " To the intrinsic power of _Werther_ it is thesupreme tribute that Napoleon, the first European man in the world ofaction, as Goethe was the first in the world of thought, read it seventimes in the course of his life, that he carried it with him as hiscompanion in his Egyptian campaign, and that in his interview withGoethe he made it the principal theme of their conversation. To theliterary youth of Germany, we are told, _Werther_ no longer appeals;but such statements can be based only on conjecture, and we may becertain that in all countries there are still to be found readers towhom the record of Werther's woes seems to have been written forthemselves. [165] [Footnote 163: Eckermann, _op. Cit. _, January 2nd, 1824. ] [Footnote 164: The _accidie_ of the Middle Ages was a form ofWertherism. _Cf. _ Chaucer's _Parson's Tale_. ] [Footnote 165: It may be recalled that _Werther_ was throughout hislife one of R. L. Stevenson's favourite books. See his Letter to Mrs. Sitwell, September 6th, 1873, [Transcriber's Note: corrected error"1773"] and ch. Xix. Of _The Wrecker_. ] By a curious coincidence Goethe had hardly made a "general confession"in the writing of _Werther_ when he was led to make another"confession" in a work of less resounding notoriety, but equallyinteresting as a revelation of himself. In his Autobiography he hasrelated the origin of the piece. In the spring of 1774 there fell intohis hands the recently published _Mémoires_[166] of the Frenchplaywright Beaumarchais, which told a story that reawakened painfulmemories of his own past. Beaumarchais had two sisters in Madrid, onemarried to an architect; the other, named Marie, betrothed to Clavigo, a publicist of rising fame. On Clavigo's promotion to the post ofroyal archivist he throws his betrothed over, and the news of hisfaithlessness brings Beaumarchais to Madrid. In an interview withClavigo he compels him, under the threat of a duel, to write andsubscribe a confession of his unjustifiable treachery. To avertexposure, however, Clavigo offers to renew his engagement to Marie, and Beaumarchais accepts the condition. Clavigo again plays false, andobtains from the authorities an order expelling Beaumarchais fromMadrid. Through the good offices of a retired Minister, however, Beaumarchais succeeds in communicating the whole story to the king, with the result that Clavigo is dismissed from his post. [Footnote 166: _Fragment de mon voyage d'Espagne. --Mémoires deMonsieur Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais_, tome ii. ] We see the points in the narrative of Beaumarchais which must havetouched Goethe to the quick. He also had played the false lover toFriederike Brion, who, however, had no brother like Marie to call himto account. It was characteristic of him that, on reading the_Mémoire_, it at once struck him as affording an appropriate theme fordramatic treatment, and it was further characteristic that he neededan immediate stimulus to incite him to the task. He has told us howthe stimulus came. As a diversion to relieve the monotony of Frankfortsociety, the youths and maidens of Goethe's circle had arranged for atime to play at married couples, and, as it happened, the same maidenfell thrice to Goethe's lot. [167] At one of the meetings of thecouples he read aloud the narrative of Beaumarchais, and his partnersuggested that he should turn it into a play. The suggestion, herelates, supplied the needed stimulus, and a week later the completedplay was read to the reassembled circle. [Footnote 167: Of all the women who came in her son's way, Frau Goethethought that this lady, Anna Sibylla Münch by name, would have madehim the most suitable partner in life. ] The first four Acts of the play, which Goethe entitled _Clavigo_, aresimply the narrative of Beaumarchais cut into scenes, and they containlong passages directly translated from the original--a proceedingwhich Goethe justifies by the example of "our progenitor Shakespeare. "In the first Scene of the first Act we are introduced to Clavigo andCarlos discussing the prospects of the former. Clavigo, who isrepresented as a publicist of genius, with a great career before him, is distracted by the conflict between his ambition and the sense ofhonour and gratitude which should bind him to his betrothed Marie, asickly girl, by position and character unsuited to be the helpmate ofan ambitious man of the world. Unstable and irresolute, he is as clayin the hands of Carlos, who plays the part of the shrewd and cynicaladviser to his friend, in whose genius and brilliant future he hasunbounded confidence. As the result of their talk, Clavigo decideswith some compunction to abandon Marie, and, as his fortunes rise, tofind a more suitable mate. In the second Scene the other characters ofthe play are brought before us--Marie Beaumarchais, her sisterSophie, married to Guilbert, an architect, and Don Buenco, adisappointed lover of Marie. The theme of their conversation is theingratitude and faithlessness of Clavigo, to whom, however, Marie, dying of consumption, still clings with fond idolatry. At the close ofthe Scene Beaumarchais appears, breathing vengeance on Clavigo if hefinds him without justification for his conduct. In the second Act, which consists of only one Scene, Beaumarchais carries out his purposeand compels Clavigo under threat of a duel to write with his own handan abject acknowledgment of his baseness. In consistency with hisfickle nature, however, Clavigo prays Beaumarchais to report to Mariehis unfeigned remorse and his desire to renew their former relations. Beaumarchais agrees to convey the message, and departs under theimpression that he has saved the honour of his sister. In the thirdAct Clavigo and Marie are reconciled, their marriage is arranged, andBeaumarchais destroys the incriminating document. The fourth Actconsists of two Scenes. In the first, Carlos convinces Clavigo of hisfolly in compromising his career by a foolish union, and persuades himto break his pledge, undertaking at the same time to get Beaumarchaisout of the way. The second Scene represents the dismay of the Guilberthousehold on the discovery of Clavigo's renewed treachery, Beaumarchais vowing vengeance on the double-dyed traitor, and Marie ina dying state attended by a hastily-summoned physician. In the fifthAct the play breaks with the narrative of Beaumarchais, which does notsupply material for the necessary tragic conclusion, and is based onan old German ballad, with an evident recollection of the scene ofHamlet and Laertes at the grave of Ophelia. While stealing from hishouse under cover of night, as had been arranged with Carlos, Clavigopasses the Guilberts' door, where he sees three mourners standing withtorches in their hands. On inquiry he learns that Marie Beaumarchaisis dead; and presently the body is brought forth attended by Guilbert, Don Buenco, and Beaumarchais. Then ensues a passionate scene in whichBeaumarchais slays Clavigo, and the Act closes with expressions oftenderness and compunction on the part of all the chief personsconcerned. In a letter to a friend[168] Goethe explained that in writing_Clavigo_ he had blended the character and action of Beaumarchais withcharacters and actions drawn from his own experience; and thisdescription strictly corresponds with the play as we have it. Thoughin the first four Acts, as we have seen, the incidents are directlytaken from Beaumarchais and many passages in them are simplytranslations, the characters of the leading personages--Clavigo, Carlos, Marie, and Beaumarchais--are entirely of Goethe's owncreation. Moreover, in what is original in the dialogues there aretouches everywhere introduced which are not to be found in theoriginal, and which are precisely those that are of special interestfor the student of Goethe. Of the play as a work of art he was himselfcomplacently proud. It was written, as he tells us, with the expressintention of proving to the world that he could produce a piece instrict accordance with the dramatic canons which he had flouted in_Götz von Berlichingen_. [169] "I challenge the most critical knife, "he proudly wrote to the same correspondent, "to separate the directlytranslated passages from the whole without mangling it, withoutinflicting deadly wounds, not to say only on the narrative, but on thestructure, the living organism of the piece. " In _Clavigo_, at least, he has achieved what he failed to achieve in any other in the longseries of his dramatic productions; it proved a successful actingplay, and is still produced with acceptance to the present time. Yetfrom the beginning those who have admired Goethe's genius most haveshaken their heads over _Clavigo_. It was to be expected that theyouthful geniuses of the _Sturm und Drang_ would be wrathful at theapostacy of their protagonist, who in _Götz von Berlichingen_ had setat naught all the traditional rules of the drama. But more discerningcritics, then and since, have expressed their dissatisfaction on othergrounds. There are in _Clavigo_ no elements of greatness such asappear even through the immaturities of _Götz_ and _Werther_. Clavigohimself is so poor a creature as to leave the reader with no otherfeeling for him than contempt; Marie is characterless; and the otherpersons in the play have not sufficient scope to become well-definedfigures. And the last Act, the only original addition to Beaumarchais'narrative, is in a style of cheap melodrama which, coming from thehand of Goethe, can be regarded only as a weak concession to thesentimentalism of the Darmstadt circle. "You must give us no more suchstuff; others can do that, " was Merck's mordant comment on _Clavigo_. Merck's opinion may have been influenced by the fact that in thecynical Carlos there are unpleasing traits of himself, but succeedingadmirers of the Master have for the most part been in agreement withhim. [170] [Footnote 168: To Fritz Jacobi, August 21st, 1774. ] [Footnote 169: In language, as well as in form, _Clavigo_ followedtraditional models. Wieland was naturally gratified by Goethe's returnto those models which he had set at defiance in _Götz_. ] [Footnote 170: In his Autobiography Goethe expresses the opinion thatMerck's advice was not sound, and that he might have done wisely inproducing a succession of plays like _Clavigo_, some of which, likeit, might have retained their place on the stage. ] But if _Clavigo_ is not to be ranked among the greater works ofGoethe, as a biographical document it is even more important than_Werther_. In the Weislingen of _Götz_ he had drawn a portrait ofhimself, and in _Clavigo_ he has drawn a similar portrait at fullerlength. "I have been working at a tragedy, _Clavigo_, " he wrote to acorrespondent, "a modern anecdote dramatised with all possiblesimplicity and sincerity; my hero, an irresolute, half-great, half-little man, the pendant to Weislingen in _Götz_ or ratherWeislingen himself, developed into a leading character. In it, " headds, "there are scenes which I could only indicate in _Götz_ for fearof weakening the main interest. " In _Clavigo_ we have at once a fullerrevelation of himself and of his own personal experience. He is here, in a manner, holding a dialogue with himself regarding his owncharacter and his own past life. In the first Scene of the first Actwe must recognise a vivid presentment of the state of Goethe's ownfeelings at the crisis when he abandoned Friederike. In such a passageas the following Carlos only expresses what must then have passedthrough Goethe's own mind: "And to marry! to marry just when lifeought to come into its first full swing; to settle down to humdrumdomestic life; to limit one's being, when one has not yet done withhalf of one's roving; has not completed half of one's conquests!" Outof Goethe's own heart, also, must have come these words of Clavigo:"She [Marie] has vanished, clean vanished from my heart!... That manis so fickle a being!" What was said of Werther as the counterpart ofGoethe applies, of course, equally in the case of Clavigo. Goethe wasnot at any moment the feeble creature we have in Clavigo, yet inClavigo's inconstancy and ambition, in his womanish susceptibility andthe need of his nature for external stimulus and counsel, we have aportrayal of Goethe of which every trait holds true at all periods ofhis life. In the Maries of _Götz_ and _Clavigo_, both betrayed byfalse lovers, Goethe tells us that we may find a penitent confessionof his own conduct towards Friederike. But assuredly it was not withthe primary intention of making this confession that either play waswritten. Both plays, in truth, are evidence of what is borne out inthe long series of his imaginative productions from _Götz_ to theSecond Part of Faust: their conception, their informing spirit, theiressential tissue come immediately from Goethe's own intellectual andemotional experience. Objective dramatic treatment of persons orevents was incompatible with that passionate interest in the problemsof nature and human life by which he was possessed at every stage ofhis development. CHAPTER XI GOETHE AND SPINOZA--_DER EWIGE JUDE_ 1773-4 If we are to accept Goethe's own statement, during the years1773-4--the distracted period, that is to say, which followed hisexperiences at Wetzlar, and of which _Werther_ and _Clavigo_ are thecharacteristic products--he came under the influence of a thinker whotransformed his conceptions, equally of the conduct of life and ofman's relations to the universe--the Jewish thinker, Benedict Spinoza. The passage in which he expresses his debt to Spinoza is one of thebest known in all his writings, and is, moreover, a _locus classicus_in the histories of speculative philosophy. "After looking around mein vain for a means of disciplining my peculiar nature, I at lastchanced upon the _Ethica_ of this man. To say exactly how much Igained from that work was due to Spinoza or to my own reading of himwould be impossible; enough that I found in him a sedative for mypassions and that he appeared to me to open up a large and freeoutlook on the material and moral world. But what specially attachedme to him was the boundless disinterestedness which shone forth fromevery sentence. That marvellous saying, 'Whoso truly loves God mustnot desire God to love him in return, ' with all the premises on whichit rests and the consequences that flow from it, permeated my wholethinking. To be disinterested in everything, and most of all in loveand friendship, was my highest desire, my maxim, my constant practice;so that that bold saying of mine at a later date, 'If I love Thee, what is that to Thee?' came directly from my heart. "[171] [Footnote 171: Saying of Philine in _Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre_, bk. Iv. Ch. Ix. ] What is surprising is that of this spiritual and intellectualtransformation which Goethe avouches that he underwent there should beso little evidence either in his contemporary correspondence or in theconduct of his own life. In his letters of the period to which herefers he frequently names the authors with whom he happened to beengaged, but Spinoza he mentions only once, and certainly not in termswhich confirm his later testimony. In a letter to a correspondent whohad lent him a work of Spinoza we have these casual words: "May I keepit a little longer? I will only see how far I may follow the fellow(_Menschen_) in his subterranean borings. " Whether he actually carriedout his intention, or what impression the reading of the book madeupon him, we are nowhere told, though, if the impression had been asprofound as his Autobiography suggests, we should naturally haveexpected some hint of it. In his _Prometheus_, indeed, as we haveseen, there are suggestions of Spinozistic pantheism, but these mayeasily have been derived from other sources, and, moreover, in thepassage quoted, the pantheistic conceptions of Spinoza are notspecifically emphasised. We know, also, that in preparing his thesisfor the Doctorate of Laws he had consulted Spinoza's _TractatusTheologico-Politicus_, and the scathing criticism on the perversionsof the teaching of Christ in that treatise may have suggested certainpassages in a poem presently to be noted. [172] Yet, so far as his owncontemporary testimony goes, we are led to conclude that in hisretrospect he has assigned to an earlier period experiences which wereof gradual growth, and which only at a later date were realised withthe vividness he ascribes to them. If we turn to his actual lifeduring the same period, it is equally hard to trace in it the resultsof the tranquillising influence which he ascribes to Spinoza. As wehave seen him, he was in mind distracted by uncertainty regarding thespecial function for which nature intended him; and in his affectionsthe victim of emotions which by their very nature could not receivetheir full gratification. Nor can we say that his relations to hisfather, to Kestner, or Brentano were characterised by that"disinterestedness" which he claims to have attained from his study ofSpinoza. As we shall presently see, Goethe was so far accurate in hisretrospect that at the period before us he was already attracted bythe figure of Spinoza, but it was not till many years later that aclose acquaintance with Spinoza's writings resulted in thatindebtedness to which he gave expression when he said that, withLinnæus and Shakespeare, the Jewish thinker was one of the greatformative influences in his development. [Footnote 172: An entry in his _Ephemerides_, the diary which he keptin his 21st year (see above, p. 102), shows that Spinoza's philosophy, as he conceived it, was then repugnant to him. The passage is asfollows: "Testimonio enim mihi est virorum tantorum sententia, rectaerationi quam convenientissimum fuisse systema emanativum (he isthinking specially of Giordano Bruno); licet nulli subscribere velimsectae, valdeque doleam Spinozismum, teterrimis erroribus ex eodemfonte manantibus, doctrinae huic purissimae, iniquissimum fratremnatum esse. "--Max Morris, _op. Cit. _ ii. 33. ] To the same period to which Goethe assigns his transformation bySpinoza he also assigns the original conception of a work in whichSpinoza was, at least, to find a place. As has been said, there arepassages in the fragments of this poem that were actually writtenwhich may have been suggested by the _Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_of Spinoza, but the general tone and tendency of the fragments areequally remote from the temper and the contemplations of the Spinozawhom the world knows. The dominant note of _Der Ewige Jude_, as thefragments are designated, is, indeed, suggestive, not of Spinoza, but of him who may already have been in embryo in Goethe'smind--Mephistopheles. Mephistophelian is the ironical presentment in_Der Ewige Jude_ of the follies, the delusions of man in his highestaspirations. Near the close of his life it was said of Goethe that the world wouldcome to believe that there had been not one but many Goethes, [173] andthe contrast between the author of _Werther_ and the author of _DerEwige Jude_ is an interesting commentary on the remark. Yet thesubject of the abortive poem, as we have it--the perversions ofChristianity in its historical development--was not a new interest forhim. During his illness after his return from Leipzig he had, as wesaw, assiduously read Arnold's _History of Heretics_, [174] with theresult that he excogitated a religious system for himself. His twocontributions to the short-lived Review also show that religion, doctrinal and historical, was still a living interest for him. Moreover, as was usually the case with all his creative efforts, therewere external promptings to his choice of the subject which is themain theme of the fragments in question. The religious world ofGermany at this period was distracted by the controversies of warringtheologians. There were the rationalists, who would bring allreligion, natural and revealed, to the bar of human reason; there werethe dogmatists, who thought religion could never rest on a securefoundation except it were embodied in an array of definite formulas;and, lastly, there were the pietists, or mystics, for whom religionwas a matter of pious feeling independent of all dogma. In thespectacle of these Christians reprobating each others' creeds Goethesaw a theme for a moral satire which, fragment as it is, takes itsplace with the most powerful efforts of his genius. [Footnote 173: By Felix Mendelssohn. ] [Footnote 174: See above, p. 65. ] Yet, as originally conceived, _Der Ewige Jude_ was apparently to havebeen worked out along other lines. What this original conception was, Goethe tells in some detail in his Autobiography; and, as it is thereexpounded, we see the scope of a poem which, if the power apparent inthe existing fragments had gone to the making of it, would have takenits place with _Faust_ among the great imaginative works of humangenius. The theme of the poem was to be the Wandering Jew, with whoselegend Goethe was familiar from chap-books he had read in childhood. The poem was to open with an account of the circumstances in which thecurse of Cain was incurred by Ahasuerus, the name assigned in thelegend to the Wandering Jew. Ahasuerus was to be represented as ashoemaker of the type of Hans Sachs--a kind of Jewish Socrates whofreely plied his wit in putting searching questions to the casualpassers-by. Recognised as an original, persons of all ranks andopinions, even the Sadducees and Pharisees, would stop by the way andengage in talk with him. He was to be specially interested in Jesus, with whom he was to hold frequent conversations, but whose idealismhis matter-of-fact nature was incapable of understanding. When, in theteeth of his protestations, Jesus pursued his mission and was finallycondemned to death, Ahasuerus would only have hard words for hisfolly. Judas was then to be represented as entering the workshop andexplaining that his act of treachery had been intended to force Jesusto become the national deliverer and declare himself king, but Judasreceives no comfort from Ahasuerus, and straightway takes his ownlife. Then was to follow the scene retailed in the legend--Jesusfainting at Ahasuerus's door on his way to death; Simon the Cyrenianrelieving him of the burden of the Cross; the reproaches of Ahasuerusaddressed to the Saviour for neglecting his counsel; the transfiguredfeatures on the handkerchief of St. Veronica; and the words of theLord dooming his stiff-necked gainsayer to wander to and fro on earthtill his second coming. As the subsequent narrative was to bedeveloped, it was to illustrate the outstanding events in the historyof Christianity--one incident in the experience of the Wanderer markedfor treatment being an interview with Spinoza. In concluding the sketch of the poem as he originally conceived it, Goethe remarks that he found he had neither the knowledge nor theconcentration of purpose necessary for its adequate treatment; and inpoint of fact, in the fragment as it exists there is littlesuggestion of the original conception. The title which Goethe himselfgave it at a later date, _Gedicht der Ankunft des Herrn_, more fitlydescribes it than the title _Der Ewige Jude_. Of the two main sectionsinto which the poem is divided, the first, extending to over seventylines, corresponds most closely to the original conception. In twentyintroductory lines the poet describes how the inspiration to sing thewondrous experiences of the much-travelled man had come to him. Thenote struck in these lines is maintained throughout the remainder ofthe fragment. It is a note of ironic persiflage which is plainlyindicated to the reader. In lack of a better Pegasus, a broomstickwill serve the poet's purpose, and the reader is invited to take orleave the gibberish as he pleases. Then follows a description of theshoemaker, who is represented as half Essene, half Methodist orMoravian, but still more of a Separatist--certainly not the typeoriginally conceived by Goethe as that of the Wandering Jew. Theshoemaker is, in fact, a sectary of Goethe's own time, discontentedwith the religious world around him, and convinced that salvation isonly to be found in his own petty sect. Equally as a picture ofhistorical Christianity in all ages is meant the satirical presentmentof the religious condition of Judæa--of indolent and luxurious churchdignitaries, fanatics looking for signs and wonders, denouncing thesins of their generation, and giving themselves up to the antics ofthe spirit. But it is in the last and longest segment of the poem that its realpower and interest are to be found. Its theme is the second coming ofChrist and his experiences in lands professing his religion. In ascene, compared with which the Prologue in Heaven of Faust isdecorous, God the Father ironically suggests that the Son would findscope for his friendly feeling to the human kind if he were to pay avisit to the earth. Alighting on the mountain where Satan had temptedhim, the Son, filled with tender yearning for the race for whom he haddied, has already anxious forebodings of woe on earth. In a soliloquy, which we may take as the expression of Goethe's own deepest feelings, as it is the expression of his finest poetic gift, he gives utteranceto his boundless love for man, and his compassion for a world wheretruth and error, happiness and misery, are inextricably linked. Continuing his descent, he first visits the Catholic countries wherehe finds that in the multitude of crosses Christ and the Cross areforgotten. Passing into a land where Protestantism is the professedreligion, he sees a similar state of things. He meets by the way acountry parson who has a fat wife and many children, and "does notdisturb himself about God in Heaven. " Next he requests to be conductedto the Oberpfarrer of the neighbourhood, in whom he might expect tofind "a man of God, " and the fragment ends with an account of hisinterview with the Oberpfarrer's cook, Hogarthian in its broad humour, but disquieting even to the reader who may hold with Jean Paul thatthe test of one's faith is the capacity to laugh at its object. Goethe forbade the publication of _Der Ewige Jude_, and we canunderstand his reason for the prohibition. [175] To many persons forwhose religious feelings he had a genuine respect--to his mother amongothers--the poem would have been a cause of offence of which Goethewas not the man to be guilty. Moreover, a continuous work in such avein was alien to Goethe's own genius. As we have them, the fragmentsare but another specimen of that "godlike insolence" which, in hislater years, he found in his satires on Herder, Wieland, and others. [Footnote 175: It was first published in 1836, four years after hisdeath. ] CHAPTER XII GOETHE IN SOCIETY 1774 The publication of _Götz von Berlichingen_ in the spring of 1773, wehave seen, had made Goethe known to the literary world of Germany, anda figure of prime interest to its leading representatives. Hitherto, nevertheless, with the exception of Herder, he had come into personalcontact with no men of outstanding note who might hold intercoursewith him on anything like equal terms. In the summer of 1774, however, when _Clavigo_ and _Werther_ were on the eve of publication, he wasbrought into contact with three men, all of whom had already achievedreputation in their respective spheres; and all of whom had visions asdistinct from each other as they were distinct from Goethe's own. Asit happens, we have records of their intercourse from the hands ofthree of the four, and, taken together, they present a picture of theyouthful Goethe which leaves little to be desired in its fidelity, inits definiteness, in its vividness of colour. During the greater partof two months (from the last week in June till the middle of August)he comes before us in all the splendour of his youthful genius, withall his wild humours, his audacities, his overflowing vitality. The first of these three notabilities who came in Goethe's way was oneof whom he himself said, "that the world had never seen his like, andwill not see his like again. " He was Johann Kaspar Lavater, born inZurich in 1741, and thus eight years older than Goethe. Lavater hadearly drawn the attention of the world to himself. In his sixteenthyear he had published a volume of poems (_Schweizerlieder_) whichattained a wide circulation, and a later work (_Aussichten in dieEwigkeit_) found such acceptance from its vein of mystical piety thathe was hailed as a religious teacher who had given a new savour to theChristian life. At the time when he crossed Goethe's path he wasengaged on the work on Physiognomy with which his name is chieflyassociated, and it was partly with the object of collecting thematerials for that work that he was now visiting Germany. But thepersonality of Lavater was more remarkable than his writings. By hiscombination of the saint and the man of the world he made a uniqueimpression on all who met him, on Goethe notably among others. Thathis religious feelings were sincere his lifelong preoccupation withthe character of Christ as the great exemplar of humanity may betaken as sufficient proof. To impress the world with the conception hehad formed of the person of Christ was the mission of his life, and itwas in the carrying out of this mission that his remarkablecharacteristics came into play. With a face and expression whichsuggested the Apostle John, he exhibited in society a tact and addresswhich, at this period at least, did not compromise his religiousprofessions. Next to his interest in the Founder of Christianity washis interest in human character, and his divination of the working ofmen's minds was such that, according to Goethe, it produced an uneasyfeeling to be in his presence. Be it added that Lavater was in fullsympathy with the leaders of the _Sturm und Drang_ as emancipatorsfrom dead formalism, and the champions of natural feeling as opposedto cold intelligence. Such was the remarkable person with whom Goethewas thrown into contact during a few notable weeks, and who hasrecorded his impressions of him with the insight of a discerner ofspirits. As time was to show, they were divided in their essentialmodes of thought and feeling by as wide a gulf as can separate manfrom man, and in later years Lavater's compromises with the world inthe prosecution of his mission drew from Goethe more stinging commentsthan he has used in the case of almost any other person. [176] In thepassages of his Autobiography, where he records his first intercoursewith Lavater, though his tone is distinctly critical, of bitternessthere is no trace, and there is the frankest testimony to Lavater'spersonal fascination and the stimulating interest of his mind andcharacter. [Footnote 176: In one of his _Xenien_ Goethe speaks thus of Lavater:-- "Schade, dass die Natur nur einen Menschen aus dir schuf, Denn zum würdigen Mann war und zum Schelmen der Stoff. "] Relations between the two had begun a year before their actualmeeting. Lavater had read Goethe's _Letter of the Pastor_, and hisinterest in its general line of thought led him to open acorrespondence with its author. The reading of _Götz_, a copy of whichGoethe sent to him, convinced him that a portent had appeared in theliterary world. "I rejoice with trembling, " he wrote to Herder; "amongall writers I know no greater genius. " Before they met, indeed, Lavater was already dominated by a force that brought home to him asense of his own weakness to which he gave artless expression. In somelines he addressed to Goethe he takes the tone of a humble disciple, and prays that out of his fulness he would communicate ardour to hisfeelings and light to his intelligence. Yet in Lavater's eyes Goethewas a brand to be plucked from the burning, and, born proselytiser ashe was, he even made the attempt to convert Goethe to his own views ofultimate salvation. In response to his appeal Goethe wrote a letterwhich should have convinced Lavater that he was dealing with a son ofAdam with the ineradicable instincts of the natural man. [177] "Thankyou, dear brother, " he wrote, "for your ardour regarding yourbrother's eternal happiness. Believe me, the time will come when weshall understand each other. You hold converse with me as with anunbeliever--one who insists on understanding, on having proofs, whohas not been schooled by experience. And the contrary of all this ismy real feeling. Am I not more resigned in the matter of understandingand proving than yourself? Perhaps I am foolish in not giving you thepleasure of expressing myself in your language, and in not showing toyou by laying bare my deepest experiences that I am a man andtherefore cannot feel otherwise than other men, and that all theapparent contradiction between us is only strife of words which arisesfrom the fact that I realise things under other combinations than you, and that in expressing their relativity I must call them by othernames; and this has from the beginning been the source of allcontroversies, and will be to the end. And you will be for everplaguing me with evidences! And to what end? Do I require evidencethat I exist? evidence that I feel? I treasure, cherish, and revereonly such evidences as prove to me that thousands, or even one, havefelt that which strengthens and consoles me. And, therefore, the wordof man is for me the word of God, whether by parsons or prostitutesit has been brought together, enrolled in the canon, or flung asfragments to the winds. And with my innermost soul I fall as a brotheron the neck of Moses! Prophet! Evangelist! Apostle! Spinoza orMachiavelli! But to each I am permitted to say: 'Dear friend, it iswith you as it is with me; in the particular you feel yourself grandand mighty, but the whole goes as little into your head as intomine. '" [Footnote 177: The letter is addressed to Heinrich Pfenninger, anengraver in Zurich, who engraved some of the plates in Lavater's bookon Physiognomy. --_Werke, Briefe_, Band ii. Pp. 155-6. ] On June 23rd Lavater arrived in Frankfort, where during four days hewas entertained as a guest in the Goethe household. The news of hiscoming had created a lively interest in all sections of the community, and during his stay he was besieged by admiring crowds, especially ofwomen, who insisted even on seeing the bedchamber where the prophetslept. "The pious souls, " was Merck's sardonic comment, "wished to seewhere they had laid the Lord"; but even Merck came under the prophet'sspell. The meeting of Lavater and Goethe was characteristic of thetime. "_Bist's?_" was Lavater's first exclamation. "_Ich bin's_, " wasthe reply; and they fell upon each other's necks. On Lavater'sindicating "by some singular exclamations" that Goethe was not exactlywhat he expected, Goethe replied in the tone of banter which hemaintained throughout their personal intercourse, that he was as Godand nature had made him, and they must be content with their work. "All spirit (_Geist_) and truth, "[178] is Lavater's comment onGoethe's conversation at the close of their first day's meeting. [Footnote 178: Biedermann, _op. Cit. _ i. 33. ] The following days were taken up with excursions and social gatheringsin which Lavater was the central figure, entrancing his hearers by hissocial graces and his apostolic unction. In the Fräulein vonKlettenberg he found a kindred soul, and Goethe listened, as he tellsus, with profit as they discoursed on the high themes in which theyhad a common interest. If he derived profit, it was not of a naturethat Lavater and the Fräulein would have desired. With the religiousopinions of neither was he in sympathy, and when they rejected hisown, he says, he would badger them with paradoxes and exaggerations, and, if they became impatient, would leave them with a jest. What isnoteworthy in Lavater's record, indeed, is Goethe's communicativenessand spontaneity in all that concerned himself. "So soon as we entersociety, " is one of his remarks recorded by Lavater, "we take the keyout of our hearts and put it in our pockets. Those who allow it toremain there are blockheads. "[179] [Footnote 179: _Ib. _ p. 34. ] During his stay in Frankfort Lavater was so constantly surrounded byhis admirers that Goethe saw comparatively little of him. On June 28thLavater left for Ems, and it is a testimony to their mutual attractionthat Goethe accompanied him. The day's journey seems to have left anabiding impression on Goethe's memory, as he makes special referenceto it in his record of Lavater's visit; and, as it happens, Lavaternoted in his Diary the principal topics of their conversation. Travelling in a private carriage during the long summer day, they hadan opportunity for abundant talk such as did not occur again. Onetheme on which Goethe spoke with enthusiasm, it is interesting tonote, was Spinoza and his writings, but, as his talk is reported byLavater, there was no hint in it of the profound change which thestudy of Spinoza had effected in him. It was to the man and not thethinker that he paid his reverential tribute--to the purity, simplicity, and high wisdom of his life. But Goethe's own literarypreoccupations appear to have been the chief subject of their talk. Hespoke of a play on Julius Cæsar on which he was engaged, and whichremained one of his many abortive ambitions; he read passages from_Der Ewige Jude_, "a singular thing in doggerel verse, " Lavater callsit; recited a romance translated from the Scots dialect; and narratedfor Lavater's benefit the whole story of the Iliad, reading passagesof the poem from a Latin translation. The memorable day was not to berepeated. At Ems, as at Frankfort, Lavater was taken possession of bya throng of worshippers, and the state of his own affairs at homeafforded Goethe an excuse for leaving him. By a curious coincidence, shortly after Goethe's return, there arrivedanother prophet in Frankfort--also, like Lavater, out on a mission ofhis own. This was Johann Bernhard Basedow, whose character and careerhad made him one of the remarkable figures of his time in Germany. Born in Hamburg in 1723, the son of a peruke-maker there, in conductand opinions he had been at odds with society from the beginning. Inmiddle age he had come under the influence of Rousseau, andthenceforth he made it his mission by word and deed to realiseRousseau's ideals in education. He had expounded his theories involuminous publications which had attracted wide attention, and theobject of his present travels was to collect funds to establish aschool at Dessau in which his educational views should be carried intoeffect. [180] Goethe, as he himself tells us, had as little sympathywith the gospel of Basedow as with that of Lavater, but, alwaysattracted to originals, Basedow's personality amused and interestedhim. What gave point to his curiosity was the piquancy of the contrastbetween the two prophets. Lavater was all grace, purity, andrefinement; "in his presence one shrank like a maiden from hurting hisfeelings. " In appearance, voice, manner, on the other hand, Basedowwas the incarnation of a hectoring bully, as regardless of others'feelings as he was impermeable in his own. His personal habits, also, were a further trial, as he drank more than was good for him and livedin an atmosphere of vile tobacco smoke. Such was the singular mortalwhose society Goethe deliberately sought and cultivated during thenext few weeks as opportunity offered. [Footnote 180: The school was actually founded in 1774, butsubsequently, owing to quarrels with his colleagues, Basedow had toleave it. It was closed in 1793. ] After spending some days in Frankfort, Basedow, on July 12th, set outto join Lavater at Ems, whether at Goethe's suggestion or of his ownaccord we are not told. Goethe had seen enough of Basedow to make himwish to see more of him, and, moreover, it would be a piquantexperience to see the two incongruous apostles together. "Such asplendid opportunity, if not of enlightenment, at least of mentaldiscipline, " he says, "I could not, in short, let slip. " Accordingly, leaving some pressing business in the hands of his father and friends, he followed Basedow to Ems on July 15th. Ems, then as now, was a gaywatering-place crowded with guests of all conditions, and therefore anexcellent field for the two proselytisers. Goethe did not spend hisdays in the company of the two lights; while they were plying theirmission, he threw himself into the distractions of the town, as usualmaking himself a conspicuous figure by his overflowing spirits and hispractical jokes. Only at night, when he did not happen to have adancing partner, did he snatch a moment to pay a visit to Basedow, whom he found in a close, unventilated room, enveloped in tobaccosmoke, and dictating endlessly to his secretary from his couch; for itwas one of Basedow's peculiarities that he never went to bed. On oneoccasion Goethe had an excellent opportunity of observing thecontrasted characters of the two prophets. The three had gone toNassau to visit the Frau von Stein, mother of the statesman, and anumerous company had been brought together to meet them. All three hadthe opportunity of displaying their special gifts; Lavater his skillin physiognomy, Goethe the gift he had inherited from his mother ofstory-telling to children; but in the end Basedow asserted himself inhis most characteristic style. With a power of reasoning and apassionate eloquence, to which both Goethe and Lavater bear witness, he proclaimed the conditions of the regeneration of society--theimproved education of youth and the necessity for the rich to opentheir purses for its accomplishment. Then, his wanton spirit as usualgetting the better of him, he turned the torrent of his eloquence inanother direction. A thorough-going rationalist, his pet aversion wasthe dogma of the Trinity, and on that dogma he now directed hisbatteries, with the effect of horrifying his audience, most of whomhad come to be edified by the pious exhortations of Lavater. Lavatermildly expostulated; Goethe endeavoured by jesting interruptions tochange the subject, and the ladies to break up the company. All theirefforts were in vain, and the apostle of Rousseau had thesatisfaction of completely unbosoming himself and at the same timeforfeiting some contributions to his educational scheme. As they droveback to Ems, Goethe took a humorous revenge. The heat of a July dayand his recent vocal exertions had made the prophet thirsty, and asthey passed a tavern he ordered the driver to pull up. Goetheimperiously countermanded the order, to the wrath of Basedow, whichGoethe turned aside, however, with one of his ever-ready quips. The strangely-assorted trio were not yet tired of each other'scompany, for, when on July 18th Lavater left Ems, both Goethe andBasedow accompanied him. Their way lay down the Lahn and the Rhine, and on the voyage Basedow and Goethe conducted themselves like Germanstudents on holiday--the former discoursing on grammar and smokingeverlastingly, the latter improvising doggerel verses and thebeautiful lines beginning: _Hoch auf dem alten Turme steht_. Onlanding at Coblenz the behaviour of the pair was so outrageous thatall three were apparently taken by the crowd for lunatics. At Coblenzthey dined, and the dinner has its place in literature, for both inhis Autobiography and in some sarcastic lines (_Diné zu Coblenz_)Goethe has commemorated it. He sat between Lavater and Basedow, andduring the meal the former expounded the Revelation of St. John to acountry pastor, and the latter exerted himself to prove to a stoliddancing-master that baptism was an anachronism. On the 20th they continued their voyage down the Rhine as far asBonn--Goethe still in the same madcap humour. Lavater gives us apicture of him at one moment on the voyage--with gray hat, adornedwith a bunch of flowers, with a brown silk necktie and gray collar, gnawing a _Butterbrot_ like a wolf. From Bonn they drove to Cologne, Goethe on the way inscribing in an album the concluding lines of the_Diné zu Coblenz_:-- Und, wie nach Emmaus, weiter ging's [Transcriber's Note: corrected error "Emaus"] Mit Geist und Feuerschritten, Prophete rechts, Prophete links, Das Weltkind in der Mitten. At Cologne they parted for the day, Lavater proceeding to Mülheim[181]and Goethe to Düsseldorf. On the 21st Goethe was at Elberfeld, wherehis former friend Jung Stilling was settled as a physician. Stillinghas related how Goethe made him aware of his presence. A message cameto him that a stranger, who had been taken ill at an inn, wished tosee him. He found the stranger in bed with head covered, and when athis request he leant over to feel his pulse, the patient flung hisarms round his neck. On the evening of the same day there was a socialgathering at the house of a pious merchant in the town in honour ofLavater, who had come to Elberfeld and was the merchant's guest. Asdescribed by Stilling, the guests, chiefly consisting of persons ofthe pietist persuasion, were as remarkable for their appearance as fortheir opinions, and the artist who accompanied Lavater in his travelsbusily sketched their heads throughout the evening. Goethe was in hiswildest mood, dancing round the table in a manner familiar to thosewho knew him, but which led the strangers present to doubt his sanity. It was apparently during the same evening that there occurred anincident which, as recorded by Lavater, shows us another side ofGoethe. Among the guests was one Hasenkamp, a pietistic illuminist, who suddenly, when the company was in the full flow of amicableconversation, turned to Goethe and asked him if he were the HerrGoethe, the author of _Werther_. "Yes, " was the answer. "Then I feelbound in my conscience to express to you my abhorrence of thatinfamous book. Be it God's will to amend your perverted heart!" Thecompany did not know what to expect next, when Goethe quietly replied:"I quite understand that from your point of view you could not judgeotherwise, and I honour you for your candour in thus taking me totask. Pray for me!"[182] [Footnote 181: Basedow remained for a time at Mülheim. As we shallsee, he and Goethe met again later in the month. ] [Footnote 182: As _Werther_ was not published till the autumn of 1774, there must be some confusion in Lavater's narrative. ] Among the guests who were present at the same motley gathering was thethird distinguished personage whose acquaintance Goethe made duringthese memorable weeks. This was Fritz Jacobi, one of the interestingfigures in the history of German thought, alike by his personalcharacter and the nature of his speculations. Goethe and he had commonfriends before they met, but their relations had been such as to maketheir meeting a matter of some delicacy. Goethe had satirised thepoetry of Jacobi's brother Georg, and in his correspondence evenvehemently expressed his dislike to the characters of both brothers ashe had been led to conceive them. Three women--Sophie von la Roche, Johanna Fahlmer, the aunt of the Jacobis, and Betty Jacobi, theirsister, all of whom Goethe counted among his friends--had endeavouredto effect a reconciliation between Goethe and the two brothers, buteventually it was Goethe's own impulsive good nature that led to theirmeeting. The Jacobis lived in Düsseldorf, and the morning after hisarrival in the town he called at their house, but found that Fritz hadgone to Pempelfort, a place in the neighbourhood where he had anestate. Goethe at once set out for Pempelfort, and in a letter to thewife of Fritz he characteristically describes the circumstances of themeeting. "It was glorious that you did not happen to be in Düsseldorfand that I did what my simple heart prompted me. Without introduction, without being marshalled in, without excuses, just dropping straightfrom heaven before Fritz Jacobi! And he and I, and I and he! And, before a sisterly look had done the preliminaries, we were alreadywhat we were bound to be and could be. "[183] [Footnote 183: _Werke, Briefe_, ii. 180. ] Fritz Jacobi possessed a combination of qualities that were expresslyfitted to impress Goethe at the period when they met. Handsome inperson, and with the polished manners of a man of the world, heconjoined a practical talent for business with a passionate interestin all questions touching human destiny. About six years Goethe'ssenior, he was, on Goethe's own testimony, far ahead of him in thedomain of philosophical thought. After Herder, Jacobi was indeed themost stimulating personality Goethe had met. While his intercoursewith Lavater and Basedow had been only a source of entertainment, fromJacobi he received a stimulus which opened up new depths of thoughtand feeling. Both Goethe and Jacobi have left records of their intercourse, andboth are equally enthusiastic regarding the profit they derived fromit. From the first moment of their meeting there was a spontaneousinterchange of their deepest thoughts and feelings, unique in theexperience of both. In Jacobi's company Goethe became another man fromwhat he had been in the company of Lavater and Basedow. "I was weary, "he says, "of my previous follies and wantonness, which, in truth, onlyconcealed my dissatisfaction that this journey had brought so littleprofit to my mind and heart. Now, therefore, my deepest feelings brokeforth with irrepressible force. " After a few days spent at Pempelfort, during which Georg Jacobi joined them, the two brothers accompaniedGoethe to Cologne on his homeward journey. It was during the hoursthey were together at Cologne that the conversation of Fritz andGoethe became most intimate, and these hours remained a moving memorywith both even when in after years divided aims and interests hadestranged them. A visit to the cathedral of Cologne recalled Goethe'senthusiasm for the cathedral of Strassburg, but its unfinishedcondition depressed him with the sense of a great idea unrealised, forin his own words "an unfinished work is like one destroyed. " Theemotions evoked by another spectacle in Düsseldorf, according toGoethe's own testimony, had the instantaneous effect of his gainingfor life the confidence of both Jacobis. The sight which equally movedall three was the unchanged interior of the mansion of a citizen ofCologne named Jabach, who a century before had been distinguished asan amateur of the fine arts. But what specially impressed them was apicture by Le Brun representing Jabach and his family in all thefreshness of life, and the consequent reflection that this picture wasthe sole memorial that they had ever lived. "This reflection, " GeorgJacobi comments, "made a profound impression on our stranger, "[184]and the impression must have been abiding, since in no passage of hisAutobiography does he recall more vividly the emotions of a vanishedtime. [Footnote 184: Biedermann, _op. Cit. _ i. 45. ] The evening of the day they spent in Cologne is noted both by Goetheand Fritz Jacobi as marking a point in their intellectual development. The inn in which they were quartered overlooked the Rhine, the murmurof whose moonlit waters was attuned to the sentiments that had beenevoked in the course of the day. In the prospect of their near partingall three were disposed to confidential self-revelations, and theconversation ran on themes regarding which they had all thought andfelt much--on poetry, religion, and philosophy. As usual with him whenhe was in congenial company, Goethe freely declaimed such pieces ofverse as happened at the time to be interesting him--the verses onthis occasion being Scottish ballads and two poems of his own, _DerKönig von Thule_, and _Der untreue Knabe_. In philosophy the talkturned mainly on Spinoza, of whom Goethe spoke "unforgettably. "[185]"What hours! what days, " wrote Fritz immediately after their parting, "thou soughtest me about midnight in the darkness; it was as if a newsoul were born within me. From that moment I could not let theego. "[186] Neither, in the ecstasy of these moments, dreamt that at alater day Spinoza, who was now their strongest bond of union, was tobe the main cause of their estrangement. For Jacobi Spinoza became the"atheist, " to be reprobated as one of the world's false prophets;while for Goethe he remained to the end the man to whom God had beennearest and to whom He had been most fully revealed. [Footnote 185: As Goethe at this time knew little of Spinoza'sphilosophy, it was probably on Spinoza's personal character that heenlarged. On this theme, we have seen, he had discoursed withLavater. ] [Footnote 186: Biedermann, _op. Cit. _ i. 45. ] Shortly after parting with Goethe, Fritz Jacobi communicated hisimpression of him to Wieland in the following words: "The more I thinkof it, the more intensely I realise the impossibility of conveying toone who has not seen or heard Goethe any intelligible notion of thisextraordinary creation of God. As Heinse[187] expressed it, 'Goethe isa genius from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, ' onepossessed, I may add, for whom it is impossible to act from merecaprice. One has only to be with him for an hour to feel the utterabsurdity of desiring him to think and act otherwise than he thinksand acts. By this I don't mean to suggest that he cannot grow inbeauty and goodness, but that in his case such growth must be that ofthe unfolding flower, of the ripening seed, of the tree soaring aloftand crowning itself with foliage. "[188] [Footnote 187: Johann J. W. Heinse, a minor poet of the time, and oneof Goethe's most fervent admirers. ] [Footnote 188: Biedermann, _op. Cit. _ i. 45-6. ] On leaving the Jacobis Goethe proceeded to Ems, where he again metLavater and Basedow. On the day following Lavater went home, andGoethe and Basedow remained till the second week of August. On the13th Goethe was in his father's house, and in a state of exaltationafter his late experiences, to which he gives lively expression in aletter to Fritz Jacobi. "I dream of the moment, dear Fritz, I haveyour letter and hover around you. You have felt what a rapture it isto me to be the object of your love. Oh! the joy of believing that onereceives more from others than one gives. Oh, Love, Love! The povertyof riches--what force works in me when I embrace in him all that iswanting in myself, and yet give to him what I have.... Believe me, wemight henceforth be dumb to each other, and, meeting again after manya day, we should feel as if we had all along been walking hand inhand. "[189] [Footnote 189: _Werke, Briefe_, ii. 182. ] In the first weeks of October Goethe made personal acquaintance with amore distinguished personage than either Lavater or Basedow orJacobi--"the patriarch of German poetry, " Klopstock, the author of the_Messias_. [190] Since his childhood, the name of Klopstock had beenfamiliar to Goethe. To his conservative father, the _Messias_, aswritten in unrhymed verse, was a monstrosity in German literature, andhe refused to give it a place in his library. Surreptitiouslyintroduced into the house, however, Goethe had read it with enthusiasmand committed its most striking passages to memory. And he hadretained his admiration throughout all the successive changes in hisown literary ideals. Like all the youth of his generation, he saw inKlopstock a great original genius to whom German poetry owedemancipation from conventional forms and new elements of thought, feeling, and imagination. Klopstock, on his part, had been interestedin the rising genius whose _Götz von Berlichingen_ had taken the worldby storm, and had signified through a common friend that he would begratified to see other works from his hand. Goethe had responded inthe spirit of a youthful adorer, conscious of the honour which therequest implied. "And why should I not write to Klopstock, " he wrote, "and send him anything of mine, anything in which he can take aninterest? May I not address the living, to whose grave I would make apilgrimage?"[191] [Footnote 190: Klopstock came from Göttingen, where he was the idol ofa band of youthful poets. ] [Footnote 191: _Werke, Briefe_, ii. 182. ] These communications took place in May, and in the beginning ofOctober Goethe received an invitation from Klopstock to meet him atFriedberg. Owing to some delay on his journey, however, Klopstock didnot appear at the time appointed, but, gratified by Goethe's eagernessto meet him, he shortly afterwards came to Frankfort and was for a fewdays a guest in the Goethe household. From Goethe's account of theirintercourse we gather that their intercourse was not whollysatisfactory to either. Klopstock was in his fiftieth year, and hissomewhat self-conscious and pedantic manner did not encourageeffusion. [192] Like certain other poets he affected the tone of a manof the world and deliberately avoided topics relative to his own art. The two themes on which he expanded were riding and skating--of whichlatter pastime he had indeed made himself the laureate. Goethe himselfwas passionately fond of both exercises, but from "the patriarch ofGerman poetry" he might have expected discourse on higher themes. Apparently, however, their relations remained sufficiently cordial, as, when Klopstock took his departure, Goethe accompanied him toMannheim. On his way home in the post-carriage Goethe gave utteranceto his feelings in some rhapsodical lines--_An Schwager Kronos_--(ToTime the Postillion)--which may be regarded as a commentary on hisimpressions of the great man. Written in the unrhymed, irregularmeasure which Klopstock had been the first to employ, and containingphrases directly borrowed from Klopstock, they give passionateexpression to his desire for a life, brief it might be, but a lifealive to the end with the zest of living. It was the sentiment of theyouth of the _Sturm und Drang_, which the chilling impression he hadreceived from Klopstock doubtless evoked with rebounding force duringhis solitary drive home in the post-carriage. [193] [Footnote 192: Merck found in Klopstock "viel Weltkunde undWeltkälte. "] [Footnote 193: Writing to Sophie von la Roche on November 20th, Goethecalls Klopstock "a noble, great man, on whom the peace of God rests, "_Werke, Briefe_ ii. 206. ] In the same month of October Goethe had other visitors lessdistinguished, youths of his own age, who came to pay homage to him astheir acknowledged leader in the literary revolution of which _Götz_had been the manifesto. We have seen the impressions Goethe made uponhis seniors like Lavater and Fritz Jacobi; how he struck his moreyouthful acquaintances is recorded by two of them--both poets of somepromise who had attracted attention by their contempt ofconventionalities. It will be seen that their language shows thatGoethe's own exuberant style in his correspondence of the period wasnot peculiar to himself. The first to come was H. C. Boie, an ardentworshipper of Klopstock, and one of the heroes of the _Sturm undDrang_. "I have had a superlative, delightful day, " Boie records, "awhole day spent alone and uninterrupted with Goethe--Goethe whoseheart is as great and noble as his mind! The day passes mydescription. " The other visitor, F. A. Werthes, who comprehensivelyworshipped both Klopstock and Wieland, leaves Boie behind in theexuberance of his impressions. "This Goethe, " he wrote to FritzJacobi, "of whom from the rising of the sun to the going down thereofand from the going down thereof to its rising I should like to speakand stammer and rhapsodise with you ... This Goethe has, as it were, transcended all the ideals I had ever conceived of the direct feelingand observation of a great genius. Never could I have so wellexplained and sympathised with the feelings of the disciples on theway to Emmaus when they said: 'Did not our heart burn within us whileHe talked with us by the way?' Let us make of him our Lord Christ forevermore, and let me be the least of His disciples. He has spoken somuch and so excellently with me; words of eternal life which, so longas I live, shall be my articles of faith. "[194] Apart from itsrelation to Goethe, it will be seen that Werthes' letter is a documentof the time, bringing before us, as it does, the strained anddistorted sentiment, sufficiently apparent in Goethe himself, butwhich he, almost alone of the youths of his generation, was strongenough to hold in check. [Footnote 194: Biedermann, _op. Cit. _ i. 46. ] In the following month (December) Goethe received still anothervisit--a visit which was directly to lead to the most decisive eventin his life. As he was sitting one evening in his own room, a strangerwas ushered in, whom in the dusk he mistook for Fritz Jacobi. Thestranger was Major von Knebel, who had served in the Prussian army, but was now on a tour with the young princes of Weimar, Carl Augustand Constantin, to the latter of whom he was acting as tutor. Knebelwas keenly interested in literature, was a poet himself, and an ardentadmirer of Goethe. There followed congenial talk which was to be thebeginning of a friendship that, unlike most of Goethe's youthfulfriendships, was to endure into the old age of both. But Knebel hadcome on a special errand; the young princes had expressed the desireto become acquainted with the man who had made merry with theirinstructor Wieland, and whose name was in all men's mouths as theauthor of the recently published _Werther_. Nothing loth, Goetheaccompanied Knebel to the princes, and in the interviews that followedhe displayed all the tact that characterised his subsequentintercourse with the great. Studiously avoiding all reference to hisown productions, he turned the conversation on subjects of publicinterest, on which he spoke with a fulness of knowledge that convincedhis hearers that the author of _Werther_ was not an effeminatesentimentalist. So favourable was the impression he made on theprinces that they expressed a wish that he would follow them to Mainzand spend a few days with them there. The proposal was highlyacceptable to Goethe, but there was a difficulty in the way. The HerrRath was a sturdy republican, and had an ingrained aversion to thenobility as a class. In his opinion, for a commoner to seekintercourse with that class was to compromise his self-respect and toinvite humiliation, and he roundly maintained that in seeking hisson's acquaintance the princes were only laying a train to pay himback for his treatment of Wieland. When the Goethe household wasdivided on important questions, it was their custom to refer to theFräulein von Klettenberg as arbiter. That sainted lady was now on asick-bed, but through the Frau Rath she conveyed her opinion that theinvitation of the princes should be accepted. To Mainz, therefore, Goethe went in company with Knebel, who had remained behind to seemore of him, and his second meeting with the two boys completed hisconquest of them. Any resentment they may have entertained for hisattack on Wieland was removed by his explanation of its origin, and itwas with mutual attraction that both parties separated after a fewdays' cordial intercourse. Thus were established the relations whichwithin a year were to result in Goethe's departure from "accursedFrankfort, " and his permanent settlement at the Court of Weimar. As it happens, we have a record of Knebel's impression of Goetheduring their few days' intercourse, which as a characterisation comesnext in interest to that of Kestner already quoted. "From Wieland, " hewrites, "you will have been able to learn that I have made theacquaintance of Goethe, and that I think somewhat enthusiastically ofhim. I cannot help myself, but I swear to you that all of you, allwho have heads and hearts, would think of him as I do if you came toknow him. He will always remain to me one of the most extraordinaryapparitions of my life. Perhaps the novelty of the impression hasstruck me overmuch, but how can I help it if natural causes producenatural workings in me?... Goethe lives in a state of constant inwardwar and tumult, since on every subject he feels with the extreme ofvehemence. It is a need of his spirit to make enemies with whom he cancontend; moreover, it is not the most contemptible adversaries he willsingle out. He has spoken to me of all those whom he has attacked withspecial and genuinely felt esteem. But the fellow delights in battle;he has the spirit of an athlete. As he is probably the most singularbeing who ever existed, he began as follows one evening in Mainz inquite melancholy tones: 'I am now good friends again witheverybody--with the Jacobis, with Wieland; and this is not as itshould be with me. It is the condition of my being that, as I musthave something which for the time being is for me the ideal of theexcellent, so also I must have an ideal against which I can direct mywrath. '"[195] [Footnote 195: Max Morris, _op. Cit. _ iv. 370-1. About the same dateas Knebel's letter, Goethe wrote to Sophie von la Roche: "Das ist wasVerfluchtes dass ich anfange mich mit niemand mehr misszuverstehen. "In his 49th year Goethe said of himself: "Opposition ist mir immernötig. "] On Goethe's return to Frankfort sad news awaited him; during hisabsence the Fräulein von Klettenberg, whom he had left on hersick-bed, had died. It was the severest personal loss he had yetsustained by death. After his sister she had been the chief confidantof all his troubles, his hopes, and ambitions, and he never left herpresence without feeling that for the time he had been lifted out ofhimself. The relations between Goethe and her, indeed, show him in hismost attractive light. He had never disguised from her the fact thathe could not share the faith by which she lived; he was, as we haveseen, even in the habit of jesting at her most cherished beliefs; butthere was never a shade of alienation between them. "Bid him adieu, "was her last message to him through his mother; "I have held him verydear. "[196] Take it as we may, it is the singular fact that by nonewas Goethe regarded with more affectionate esteem than by the twopious mystics, Jung Stilling and Fräulein von Klettenberg. [Footnote 196: _Ib. _ p. 370. ] CHAPTER XIII LILI SCHÖNEMANN 1775 To the year 1775 belongs the third critical period of Goethe's lastyears in Frankfort. The autumn of 1771 following his return fromStrassburg had been the first of these periods, and was signalised by_Götz von Berlichingen_, the product of his contrition for Friederikeand of the inspiration of Shakespeare. In the summer and autumn of1772 came the Wetzlar episode, which found expression in _Werther_;and in the opening weeks of 1775 begins the third period of crisis, the issue of which was to be his final leave-taking of Frankfort. On an evening near the close of 1774 or at the beginning of 1775, afriend introduced Goethe to a house in Frankfort which during the nextnine months was to be the centre of his thoughts and emotions. Therewas a crowd of guests, but Goethe's attention became fixed on a girlseated at a piano, and playing, as he informs us, with grace andfacility. The house was that of Frau Schönemann, the widow of a richbanker, and the girl who had excited Goethe's interest was her onlydaughter, Anna Elisabeth, known by the pet name of Lili--the name bywhich she is designated in Goethe's own references to her. Themusician having risen, Goethe exchanged a few polite compliments withher, and when he took his leave for the evening, the mother expressedthe wish that he would soon repeat his visit, the daughter at the sametime indicating that his presence would not be disagreeable to her. The houses of the Goethes and the Schönemanns were only some hundredpaces apart, but there had hitherto been no intercourse between thetwo families, and the reason for this isolation is a significant factin the relations between Goethe and Lili that were to follow. TheSchönemanns moved in a social circle which was rigidly closed to theburgher element in the city, and, when Frau Schönemann gave Goethe the_entrée_ to her house, it was because he was an exceptional member ofthe class to which he belonged. In making the acquaintance of theSchönemanns, therefore, he had already to a certain degree compromisedhimself. [197] In his own account of his relations to Lili he does notdisguise the fact that her mother and the friends of the family hardlyconcealed their feeling that the Goethes were not of their order. Inseeking further intercourse with the Schönemanns he was thus puttinghimself in a delicate position, and the fact that he deliberatelychose to do so is proof that his first sight of Lili must have touchedhis inflammable heart. [Footnote 197: In a letter written to Johanna Fahlmer from Weimar(April 10th, 1776) Goethe vehemently expresses his dislike of theSchönemann kin. "I have long hated them, " he says; "from the bottom ofmy heart.... I pity the poor creature [Lili] that she was born intosuch a race. "] During the month of January Goethe became a frequent visitor at theSchönemanns, and there began those relations with Lili which, according to his own later testimony, were to give a new direction tohis life, as being the immediate cause of his leaving Frankfort andsettling in Weimar. If we are to accept his own averment two yearsbefore his death, Lili was the first whom he had really loved, all hisother affairs of the heart being "inclinations of no importance. "[198]So he spoke in the retrospect under the influence of an immediateemotion, but his own contemporary testimony proves that his love forLili was at least not unmingled bliss. Make what reserves we may forthe artificial working up of sentiment which was the fashion of thetime, that testimony presents us with the picture of a lover who hasnot only to contend with obstacles which circumstances put in his way, but with the haunting conviction that his passion was leading himastray and that its gratification involved the surrender of hisdeepest self. As in the case of others of his love passages, hisrelations with Lili evoked a series of literary productions of whichthey are the inspiration and the commentary, and which exhibit newdevelopments of his genius. We have lyrics addressed to her which, though differently inspired from those addressed to Friederike, taketheir place with the choicest he has written; we have plays more orless directly bearing on the situation in which he found himself; and, finally, we have his letters to various correspondents in which everyphase of his passion is recorded at the moment. [Footnote 198: Eckermann, March 5th, 1830. What has been said ofChateaubriand, who made use of a similar expression, may probably besaid with greater truth of Goethe, "Il ment à ses propres souvenirs età son coeur. " In a letter to Frau von Stein (May 24th, 1776) Goethedescribes his relation to Friederike Brion as "das reinste, schönste, wahrste, das ich ausser meiner Schwester je zu einem Weibe gehabt. "] In Lili Schönemann Goethe had a different object from any of hisprevious loves. Käthchen Schönkopf, Friederike, Lotte Buff had allbeen socially his inferiors, and he could play "the conquering lord"with them. Lili, on the other hand, was his superior socially--a factof which her relatives and friends seem to have made him fullyconscious. Moreover, though he was in his twenty-sixth year, and sheonly in her sixteenth, her personal character and her upbringing hadgiven her a maturity beyond that of any of his previous loves. She wasclever and accomplished, and already, as a desirable _partie_, she hada considerable experience of masculine arts. As she is represented inher portraits, the firm poise of her head and her clear-cut featuressuggest the dignity, decision, and self-control of which hersubsequent life was to give proof. [199] [Footnote 199: She is described as a pretty blonde, with blue eyes andfair hair. In a letter (March 30th, 1801) addressed to Lili, then awidow, Goethe writes: "Sie haben in den vergangenen Jahren vielausgestanden und dabei, wie ich weiss, einen entschlossenen Mutbewiesen, der Ihnen Ehre macht. "] The first two lyrics he addressed to Lili reveal all the differencebetween his relations to her and to Friederike. Those addressed toFriederike breathe the confidence of returned affection unalloyed byany disturbing reserves; in the case of his effusions to Lili there isalways a cloud in his heaven which seems to menace a possible storm. In the first of these two lyrics, _Neue Liebe, neues Leben_ ("NewLove, New Life"), there is even a suggestion of regret to find that heis entangled in a new passion. What is noteworthy in connection withall his poems inspired by Lili, however, is that they are completelyfree from the sentimentality of those he had written under theinfluence of the ladies of Darmstadt. Though differing in tone fromthe lyrics addressed to Friederike, they have all their directness, simplicity, and economy of expression. In his Autobiography he tellsus that there could be no doubt that Lili ruled him, and in _NeueLiebe, neues Leben_, he acknowledges the spell she has laid upon himwith a highly-wrought art without previous example in Germanliterature. Herz, mein Herz, was soll das geben? Was bedränget dich so sehr? Welch ein fremdes neues Leben! Ich erkenne dich nicht mehr. Weg ist alles, was du liebtest, Weg, warum du dich betrübtest, Weg dein Fleiss und deine Ruh'-- Ach, wie kamst du nur dazu! Fesselt dich die Jugendblüte, Diese liebliche Gestalt, Dieser Blick voll Treu' und Güte Mit unendlicher Gewalt? Will ich rasch mich ihr entziehen, Mich ermannen, ihr entfliehen, Führet mich im Augenblick Ach, mein Weg zu ihr zurück. Und an diesem Zauberfädchen, Das sich nicht zerreissen lässt, Hält das liebe, lose Mädchen Mich so wider Willen fest; Muss in ihrem Zauberkreise Leben nun auf ihre Weise. Die Veränd'rung, ach, wie gross! Liebe! Liebe, lass mich los! Say, heart of me, what this importeth; What distresseth thee so sore? New and strange all life and living; Thee I recognise no more. Gone is everything thou loved'st; All for which thyself thou troubled'st; Gone thy toil, and gone thy peace; Ah! how cam'st thou in such case? Fetters thee that youthful freshness? Fetters thee that lovely mien? That glance so full of truth and goodness, With an adamantine chain? Vain the hardy wish to tear me From those meshes that ensnare me; For the moment I would flee, Straight my path leads back to thee. By these slender threads enchanted, Which to rend no power avails, That dear wanton maiden holds me Thus relentless in her spells. Thus within her charméd round Must I live as one spellbound; Heart! what mighty change in thee; Love, O love, ah, set me free! In the second lyric, _An Belinden_, he pictures in the same tone ofhalf regret the case in which he finds himself, and the picture has aneloquent commentary in his letters of the time. He who had latelyspent his peaceful evenings in the solitude of his own chamberdreaming of her image had through her been irresistibly drawn into analien and uncongenial world. Is he the same being who now sits at thecard-table amid the glaring lights of a fashionable drawing-room inthe presence of hateful faces? For her, however, he will gladly endurewhat he loathes with his whole soul. Reizender ist mir des Frühlings Blüte Nun nicht auf der Flur; Wo du, Engel, bist, ist Lieb' and Güte, Wo du bist, Natur. Now the blooms of springtide on the meadow Touch no more my heart; Where thou, angel, art, is truth and goodness; Nature, where thou art. So he sang in tones befitting the true lover, but, as it happens, wehave a prose commentary from his own hand which gives perhaps a truerpicture of his real state of mind. Towards the end of January, when hewas already deep in his passion for Lili, he received a letter whichopened a new channel for his emotions. The letter came from ananonymous lady who, as she explained, had been so profoundly moved bythe tale of Werther that she could not resist the impulse to expressher gratitude to its author. The fair unknown, as he was subsequentlyto discover, was no less distinguished a person than an ImperialCountess--the Countess Stolberg, sister of two equally fervid youths, of whom we shall presently hear in connection with Goethe. It wasquite in keeping with the spirit of the time that two persons ofdifferent sexes, who had never seen each other, should proceedmutually to unbosom themselves with a freedom of self-revelationwhich an age, habituated to greater reticence, finds it difficult tounderstand; and there began a correspondence between Goethe and hisadorer in which we have the astonishing spectacle of her becoming theconfidant of all his emotions with regard to another woman, while heis using the language of passion towards herself. [200] Here is theopening sentence of his first letter to her, and it strikes the noteof all that was to follow: "My dear, I will give you no name, for whatare the names--Friend, Sister, Beloved, Bride, Wife, or any word thatis a complex of all these, compared with the direct feeling--withthe---- I cannot write further. Your letter has taken possession of meat a wonderful time. "[201] [Footnote 200: It may be regarded as significant that Goethe makes noreference to the Countess in his Autobiography. ] [Footnote 201: _Werke, Briefe_, ii. 230. ] In his second letter to her, while she was still unknown to him, written about three weeks later (February 13th), he depicts thecondition in which we are to imagine him at the time it was penned. Itwill be seen that it is a prose rendering of the lines _An Belinden_, to which reference has just been made. "If, my dear one, you canpicture to yourself a Goethe who, in a laced coat, and otherwise cladfrom head to foot with finery in tolerable keeping, in the idle glareof sconces and lustres, amid a motley throng of people, is held aprisoner at a card-table by a pair of beautiful eyes; who inalternating distraction is driven from company to concert and fromconcert to ball, and with all the interest of frivolity pays his courtto a pretty blonde, you have the present carnival-Goethe.... But thereis another Goethe--one in grey beaver coat with brown silk necktie andboots--who already divines the approach of spring in the caressingFebruary breezes, to whom his dear wide world will again be shortlyopened up, who, ever living his own life, striving and working, according to the measure of his powers, seeks to express now theinnocent feelings of youth in little poems, and the strong spice oflife in various dramas; now the images of his friends, of hisneighbourhood and his beloved household goods, with chalk upon greypaper; never asking the question how much of what he has done willendure, because in toiling he is always ascending a step higher, because he will spring after no ideal, but, in play or strenuouseffort, will let his feelings spontaneously develop intocapacities. "[202] [Footnote 202: _Ib. _ pp. 233-4. ] The plays to which Goethe refers in this letter form part of hisintellectual and emotional history during the period of his relationsto Lili. In themselves these plays have little merit, and, had theycome from the hand of some minor poet, they would deservedly havepassed into oblivion, but as part of his biography they call for somenotice. The first of them, _Erwin und Elmire_, is a sufficientlytrivial vaudeville, and appears to have been begun in the autumn of1773. [203] He must have retouched it in January--February (1775), however, as it contains distinct suggestions of his experiences withthe Schönemann family. As he himself tells us in his Autobiography, the piece was suggested by Goldsmith's ballad, _Edwin and Angelina_, and both the choice and handling of the subject illustrate his remarkin the foregoing letter regarding the fugitive nature of the variousthings which he threw off at this time. [204] There are fourcharacters, --Olimpia and her daughter Elmire, Bernardo, a friend ofthe family, and Erwin, Elmire's lover. Elmire plays the part ofcapricious coquette with such effect that she drives her despairinglover to hide himself from the world and to retreat to a hermitagewhich he constructs for himself in the neighbouring wilds. Elmire nowrealises her hard-heartedness, and exhibits such symptoms of distressas to waken the concern of her mother and Bernardo. Bernardo, however, is in Erwin's secret, and contrives to bring the two lovers togetherand to effect a happy reconciliation, to the satisfaction of allparties--the mother included. The play was dedicated to Lili in thefollowing lines:-- Den kleinen Strauss, den ich dir binde, Pflückt' ich aus diesem Herzen hier; Nimm ihn gefällig auf, Belinde! Der kleine Strauss, er ist von mir. This posy that I bind for thee I cull'd it from my very heart; This little posy, 'tis from me; Take it, Belinda, in good part. [Footnote 203: _Ib. _ p. 113. ] [Footnote 204: He says of the piece that it cost him "littleexpenditure of mind and feeling. " _Ib. _] There was a sufficient reason for Goethe's praying Lili to take thepiece "in good part. " In the cruel coquette Elmire Lili could not butsee a portrait of herself, and there are expressions in the play whichshe could not but regard as home-thrusts. "To be entertained, to beamused, " says Erwin to Bernardo, "that is all they (the maidens)desire. They value a man who spends an odious evening with them atcards as highly as the man who gives his body and soul for them. " Inanother remark of Erwin's there is a reference to Goethe's ownrelations to Lili and her family which she could not misunderstand. "Iloved her with an enduring love. To that love I gave my whole heart. But because I am poor, I was scorned. And yet I hoped through mydiligence to make as suitable a provision for her as any of thebeplastered wind-bags. " Trivial as the play is, it was acted inFrankfort during Goethe's absence, [205] and at a later date heconsidered it worth his while to recast it in another form. [Footnote 205: Goethe was not known to be the author. In a letter toJohanna Fahlmer, he expresses his curiosity to know if Lili waspresent at its performance. _Erwin und Elmire_, it should be said, contains two of Goethe's most beautiful songs, the one beginning "EinVeilchen auf der Wiese stand, " and the other "Ihr verblühet, süsseRosen. "] _Erwin und Elmire_ was followed by another play, more remarkable fromits contents, but by general agreement of as little importance from aliterary point of view. This was _Stella_, significantly designated inits original form as _A Play for Lovers_. Unlike _Erwin und Elmire_, it was wholly the production of this period--the end of February andthe beginning of March being the probable date of its composition. Though written at the height of his passion for Lili, however, itcontains fewer direct references to his experiences of the moment than_Erwin und Elmire_. Any interest that attaches to _Stella_ lies in thefact of its being a lively presentment of a phase of Goethe's ownexperience and of the world of factitious sentiment which made thatexperience possible. No other of Goethe's youthful productions, indeed, better illustrates the literary emotionalism of the time whenit was written, and some notion of its character and scope isdesirable in view of all his relations to Lili. The drama opens in a posting-house, where two travellers, MadameSommer (Cäcilie) and her daughter Lucie, have alighted. The object oftheir journey is to place Lucie as a companion with a lady living onan estate in the neighbourhood. From the conversation of the motherand daughter we learn that Cäcilie had been deserted by her husband, and was now in such reduced circumstances as to necessitate herdaughter's finding some employment. On inquiring of the postmistressthey gain some information regarding the lady they are in search of. She also had been deserted by one who was her reputed husband, andsince then had spent her days in mournful solitude and good works. Fatigued by her journey, Cäcilie retires to rest, and Lucie, carefully instructed not to reveal the position of herself and hermother, sets out to interview the strange lady. During her absencethere arrives at the posting-house a gentleman in military dress, whopresently falls into a tearful soliloquy, from which we learn that heis no other than Fernando, the husband of Cäcilie, and that thestrange lady is Stella, whom he had also deserted and with whom he nowproposes to renew his former relations. Lucie returns delighted withher visit to Stella, and there ensues a bantering conversation betweenthe father and daughter, both, of course, equally ignorant of theirrelation to each other. So ends the first Act; with the second beginthe embarrassments of the difficult situation. Cäcilie and Lucierepair to Stella, and, after an effusive exchange of memories betweenthe two deserted ones, Stella invites both mother and daughter to maketheir home with her. Unfortunately Stella brings forth the portrait ofher former lover, in whom to her horror Cäcilie recognises herhusband, and Lucie to her surprise recognises the officer at theposting-house--a fact which she makes known to Stella. In an ecstasyof excited expectation Stella dispatches a servant with the order tofetch the long-lost one, and Cäcilie, retiring to the garden, communicates to Lucie the discovery of her father. In the rapidlysucceeding Scenes that follow the three chief persons experiencealternations of agony and bliss which find facile expression in manysighs, tears, and embraces. Fernando and Stella, lost in the presentand oblivious of the past, melt in their new-found bliss, but areinterrupted in their raptures by the announcement that Cäcilie andLucie are preparing to take their departure. At Stella's requestFernando finds Cäcilie, whom he at first does not recognise. Mutualrecognition follows, however, when Fernando vows that he will neveragain leave her, and proposes that he and she and Lucie should makeoff at once. Meanwhile, Stella is pouring forth her bliss over thegrave which, like one of the Darmstadt ladies, she has had dug forherself in her garden. Here she is joined by Fernando, whose alteredmood fills her with a vague dread which is converted into horror when, on the entrance of Cäcilie and Lucie, Fernando acknowledges them ashis wife and daughter. After paroxysms of emotion all the partiesseparate, and Stella prepares to take her flight after a vain attemptto cut Fernando's portrait out of its frame. She is interrupted in herintention of flight by the appearance of Fernando, and there follows adialogue in which we are to look for the drift of the play. Cäcilieinsists on departing and leaving the two lovers to their happiness. "Ifeel, " she says, "that my love for thee is not selfish, is not thepassion of a lover, which would give up all to possess its longed-forobject ... It is the feeling of a wife, who out of love itself cangive up love. " Fernando, however, passionately declares that he willnever abandon her, and Cäcilie makes a happy suggestion that willsolve all difficulties. Was it not recorded of a German Count that hebrought home a maiden from the Holy Land and that she and his wifehappily shared his affections between them? And such is the solutionwhich commends itself to all parties. Fernando impartially embracesboth ladies, and Cäcilie's concluding remark is: "We are thine!"[206] [Footnote 206: In deference to the general opinion that this endingwas immoral, Goethe, in a later form of the play, makes Fernando shoothimself. ] Such is the play which, in a bad English translation that did notmitigate its absurdities, provoked the wit of the _Anti-Jacobin_. [207]In Fernando, the central figure of the play, we are, of course, torecognise Goethe himself, [208] and in no other of his dramas has hepresented a less attractive character. Weislingen, Clavigo, andWerther have all their redeeming qualities, but Fernando is anemotional egotist incapable of any worthy motive, and it is the mostserious blemish in the play, even in view of the factitious world inwhich it moves, that he is made the adored idol of two such differentwomen as Cäcilie and Stella. The situation, as Goethe himself tellsus, was suggested by the relations of Swift to Stella and Vanessa, buthe did not need to go so far afield for a motive. In the world aroundhim he was familiar both with the creed and the practice which theconclusion of the play approves. As we have seen, it was openly heldby enlightened and moral persons that marriage, as being a merecontract, was incompatible with a true union of souls, and that such aunion was only to be found in irresponsible relations. In the case ofhis friend Fritz Jacobi, whose character and talents had all hisadmiration, he had a practical illustration of the creed; for Jacobihad a wife and also a friend (his step-aunt Johanna Fahlmer) in whomhe found a more responsive recipient of his emotions. But it is ratherin Goethe's own character and experience that we are to look for theorigin of _Stella_; it is in truth an analytic presentment of what hehad himself known and felt. As we have seen, one object was incapableof engrossing all his affections; while he was paying court to Lili, his wandering desires went out to the fair correspondent who hadevinced such interest in his troubles and aspirations. It would seemthat he required two types of woman such as he has depicted in_Stella_ to satisfy at once his mind and heart: a Cäcilie who inspiredhim with respect as well as affection, and a Stella whoseself-abandonment left his passions their free course. [Footnote 207: _Stella_ and other German plays are wittily parodied in_The Rovers; or, The Double Arrangement_. ] [Footnote 208: Goethe gives Fernando his own brown eyes and blackhair. ] Nauseous as _Stella_ must appear to the modern reader, it found wideacceptance at the period it was written, though its moral wasgenerally condemned. Herder was enthusiastic in its praise, and on itspublication at the end of January, 1776, it passed through foureditions in a single week. In 1805, with its altered _dénouement_, inwhich the hero shoots himself, it was performed with applause inBerlin, and was afterwards frequently produced. Goethe himselfcontinued to retain a singular affection for the most sicklysentimental of all his literary offspring, and he subsequently sent acopy of his work to Lili, accompanied by some lines which were worthyof a better gift. [209] [Footnote 209: After he had broken with her, and was settled inWeimar. ] Im holden Thal, auf schneebedeckten Höhen War stets dein Bild mir nah! Ich sah's um mich in lichten Wolken wehen; Im Herzen war mir's da. Empfinde hier, wie mit allmächt'gem Triebe Ein Herz das andre zieht, Und dass vergebens Liebe Vor Liebe flieht. In the dear vale, on heights the snow had covered, Still was thine image near; I saw it round me in the bright clouds hover; My heart beheld it there. Here learn to feel with what resistless power One heart the other ties; That vain it is when lover From lover flies. Still another piece belongs to the first months of Goethe's relationsto Lili--_Claudine von Villa Bella_, which appears to have beenwritten intermittently in April and May. Like _Erwin und Elmire_ it isin operatic form--the prose dialogue being diversified with outburstsof song. Entirely trivial as a work of art, it calls for passingnotice only on account of certain characteristics which distinguishit as a product of the period when it was written. The intention ofthe play, Goethe wrote at a later time, was to exhibit "noblesentiments in association with adventurous actions, " and the conductof his hero and heroine is certainly unconventional, if their feelingsare exalted. Claudine is the only daughter of a fond and widowedfather, and her dreamy emotionalism would have made her a welcomemember of the Darmstadt circle of ladies. She is in love with Pedro, but Pedro is not the hero of the piece. That place is assigned to hiseldest brother Crugantino, a scapegrace, with a noble heart, who, finding the ordinary bonds of society too confined for him, has takento highway robbery. "Your burgher life, " he says--and we know that heis here uttering Goethe's own sentiments--"your burgher life is to meintolerable. There, whether I give myself to work or enjoyment, slavery is my lot. Is it not a better choice for one of decent meritto plunge into the world? Pardon me! I don't give a ready ear to theopinion of other people, but pardon me if I let you know mine. I willgrant you that if once one takes to a roving life, no goal and norestraints exist for him; for our heart--ah! it is infinite in itsdesires so long as its strength remains to it. " Crugantino, who withhis band is housed at a wretched inn in the neighbourhood, catchessight of Claudine, is bewitched by her beauty, and resolves to gainpossession of her. On a beautiful moonlight night, attended by onlyone companion, he makes his adventurous attempt. Of the charivari thatfollows it is only necessary to say that Pedro is wounded in ahand-to-hand encounter by his unknown brother Crugantino, and isconveyed to the inn where the band have their quarters. And now comesthe turn of Claudine to show her disregard of conventionalities. Inagonies for her wounded lover, she dons male attire, and in the middleof the night sets out for the inn where he is lying. She encountersCrugantino at the door, and their dialogue is overheard by the woundedPedro who rushes forth to rescue her. A duel ensues between Pedro andCrugantino; the watch appears, and all parties are conveyed to thevillage prison. Here they are found by the distracted father and hisfriend Sebastian, and a general explanation follows--Pedro being madesecure of Claudine, and Crugantino showing himself a repentant sinner. With this fantastic production, which, beginning in an atmosphere ofpure sentiment, ends in broad farce, Goethe was even in middle life sosatisfied that he recast it in verse, and made other alterations whichin the opinion of most critics did not improve the original. [210] [Footnote 210: During his residence in Rome in 1787. He recast _Erwinund Elmire_ at the same time. ] The triviality of these successive performances, so void of the mindand heart displayed in the fragmentary _Prometheus_ and _Der EwigeJude_, have their commentary in his continued relations to LiliSchönemann. They even raise the question whether his passion for herwere really so consuming as in his old age he declared it to havebeen. They at least speak a very different language from that of thesimple lyrics in which he expressed his love for Friederike Brion. Yetwhen we turn to his correspondence, written on the inspiration of themoment, we find all the indications of a genuinely distracted lover. During the month of March we are to believe that he underwent all thepangs of a passionate wooer. Surrounded by numerous admirers, Lili wasdifficult of access, and apparently took some pleasure in remindinghim that he was only one among others. [211] "Oh! if I did not composedramas, " he wrote on the 6th to his confidant the Countess, "I shouldbe shipwrecked. " A few days of unalloyed bliss he did enjoy, and thelength at which he records them in his Autobiography shows that theyremained a vivid memory with him. In the course of the month Lilispent some time with an uncle at Offenbach on the Main, and, joiningher there, Goethe found her all that his heart could wish. "Take thegirl to your heart; it will be good for you both, " he wrote out of hisbliss to his other female confidant, Johanna Fahlmer. [212] [Footnote 211: To this period probably belongs _Lilis Park_, the mostplayfully humorous of Goethe's poems, in which he banters Lili on hercapricious treatment of himself (represented as a bear) as one of hermenagerie--the motley crowd of her suitors. ] [Footnote 212: Certain pranks played by Goethe during his stay inOffenbach show that he was not wholly given up to "lover'smelancholy. " On a moonlight night, robed in a white sheet, and mountedon stilts (a form of exercise to which he was addicted), he wentthrough the town and created a panic among the inhabitants by lookinginto their windows. On another occasion, at a baptism, he secretlydeposited the baby in a dish, and covering it with a towel, placed thedish on a table where the company were assembled. It was only aftersome time that the contents of the dish were revealed. ] On their return to Frankfort, however, his former griefs were renewed, and a new distraction was added to them. "I am delighted that you areso enamoured of my _Stella_, " he writes to Fritz Jacobi on March 21st, immediately after his return; "my heart and mind are now turned insuch entirely different directions that my own flesh and blood isalmost indifferent to me. I can tell you nothing, for what is therethat can be said? I will not even think either of to-morrow or of theday after to-morrow. "[213] The truth is that, as he tells us in hisAutobiography, he was now in an embarrassing position. His relationsto Lili had become such that a decisive step was necessary in theinterests of both. During the last fortnight of March his mood wascertainly not that of a happy lover. To break with Lili was a stepwhich circumstances as well as his own attachment to her made a direalternative. On the other hand, from the bond of marriage, as we know, he shrank with every instinct of his nature. Only a few weeks before, doubtless with his own possible fate in front of him, he had put thesewords in the mouth of Fernando in his _Stella_: "I would be a fool toallow myself to be shackled. That state [marriage] smothers all mypowers; that state robs me of all my spirits, cramps my whole being. Imust forth into the free world. "[214] Goethe did eventually take thedecision of Fernando, but not just yet. On March 25th he wrote toHerder: "It seems as if the twisted threads on which my fate hangs, and which I have so long shaken to and fro in oscillating rotation, would at last unite. "[215] On the 29th, Klopstock, who had come on afew days' visit to Frankfort, found him in "strange agitation. " As sooften happened in Goethe's life, it was an accident that determinedhis wavering purpose. In the beginning of April there came toFrankfort a Mademoiselle Delf, an old friend of the Schönemann family, whom Goethe made acquainted with his father and mother. A person ofstrenuous character, she took it upon her to bring matters to a pointbetween the two households. With the consent of Lili's mother, shebrought Lili one evening to the Goethe house. "Take each other by thehand, " she said in commanding tones; and the two lovers obeyed andembraced. "It was a remarkable decree of the powers that rule us, " isthe characteristic reflection of the aged Goethe, "that in the courseof my singular career I should also experience the feelings of onebetrothed. " [Footnote 213: _Werke, Briefe_, ii. 246. ] [Footnote 214: _Werke, Briefe_, ii. 249. ] [Footnote 215: _Ib. _ p. 255. ] Goethe's feelings as a betrothed were from the first of a minglednature. No sooner had he given his pledge than all the complicationswhich must result from his union with Lili stared him in the face. Even after the betrothal the relations between the two families didnot become more cordial. Not only were they divided by difference ofsocial standing; a deeper ground of mutual antagonism lay in theirreligion. The Schönemanns belonged to the Reformed persuasion, theProtestantism of the higher classes, while the Goethes were Lutheran, as were the majority of the class to which they belonged; andbetween the two denominations there was bitter and permanentestrangement. [216] And there was still another stumbling-block in theway of a probable happy union. Goethe was not earning an independentincome, and, in the event of his marriage, he and his bride would haveto take up their quarters under his parental roof. But, accustomed tothe gay pleasures of a fashionable circle, how would Lili accommodateherself to the homely ways and surroundings of the Goethe household?Moreover, we have it from Goethe himself that Lili was distastefulequally to his father and mother--the former sarcastically speaking ofher as "Die Stadtdame. " Such, he realised, was the future before himas the husband of Lili; and he had no sooner bound himself to her thanhe was reduced to distraction by conflicting desires. In some wordshe wrote to Herder within a fortnight after his betrothal we have aglimpse of his state of mind. "A short time ago, " he wrote, "I wasunder the delusion that I was approaching the haven of domestic blissand a sure footing in the realities of earthly joy and sorrow, but Iam again in unhappy wise cast forth on the wide sea. "[217] He wasalready, in fact, contemplating the desirability of bursting his bond;and an opportunity came to assist him in his resolve. [Footnote 216: Frau Schönemann is recorded to have said that thedifferent religion of the two families was the cause of the matchbeing broken off. ] [Footnote 217: _Werke, Briefe_, ii. 261-2. ] In the second week of May there came to Frankfort three youths whoserank and personal character created a flutter in the Goethe household. Two of them were the brothers of the Countess Stolberg, [218] with whomGoethe had been carrying on his platonic correspondence during theprevious months, and were on their way to a tour in Switzerland. Allwere enthusiastic adherents of the _Sturm und Drang_ movement, andGoethe had long been the object of their distant adoration. They werenot disappointed in their idol, and the first meeting, according toboth Stolbergs, sufficed to establish a general union of hearts. "Goethe, " wrote the elder, "is a delightful fellow. The fulness offervid sensibility streams out of his every word and feature. "[219]During the few days they spent in Frankfort the three scions ofnobility were frequent guests in the Goethe house, and their talk musthave been enlivening if we may judge from the specimen of it recordedby Goethe himself. The conversation had turned on the ill-deeds oftyrants, a favourite theme with the youth of the time, and, heatedwith wine, the three youths expressed a vehement desire for the bloodof all such. The Herr Rath smiled and shook his head, but his helpmatehastily ran to the wine-cellar and produced a bottle of her best, exclaiming, "Here is the true tyrant's blood. Feast on it, but let nomurderous thoughts go forth from my house. " [Footnote 218: The third was Count Haugnitz, of more subdued temperthan his companions. ] [Footnote 219: Biedermann, _op. Cit. _ i. 55. ] In the company of these choice spirits Goethe decided to leaveFrankfort for a time, and with the set resolve, if possible, to effaceall thoughts of Lili. Characteristically he did not take a formalleave of her, a proceeding which was naturally resented both byherself and her relatives. The quartette started on May 14th, and fromthe first they made it appear that they meant to travel as fourgeniuses who set at naught all accepted conventions. [220] Beforedeparting they all procured Werther costume--blue coat, yellowwaistcoat and hose and round grey hat; and in this array theydisported themselves throughout their travels. Darmstadt was theirfirst halting-place, and at the Court there they conducted themselveswith some regard to decorum. Outside its precincts, however, they gavefull rein to their eccentricities, and so scandalised the Darmstadtersby publicly bathing in a pond in the neighbourhood that they found itadvisable to beat a hasty retreat from the town. In Darmstadt Goethehad met his old mentor, Merck, who with his usual caustic franknesstold him that he was making a fool of himself in keeping company withsuch madcaps. [221] At Mannheim, their next stage, the whole partysignalised themselves by smashing the wine-glasses from which they haddrunk to the ladylove of the younger Stolberg. The presence ofdistinguished personages at Carlsruhe, their next stage, kept theirvivacity within bounds so long as they remained there. Just at thismoment the young Duke of Weimar had come to Carlsruhe to betrothhimself to the Princess Luise of Hesse-Darmstadt, and from both Goethereceived a cordial invitation to visit them at Weimar. Anotherdistinguished person then in the town was Klopstock, who receivedGoethe with such undisguised kindness that he was induced to readaloud to him the latest scenes of a work of which we shall hearpresently. [222] At Carlsruhe Goethe parted company from hisfellow-travellers with the intention of visiting his sister atEmmendingen. On May 22nd he was at Strassburg, where he spent severaldays, renewing old acquaintances, especially with his former monitor, Salzmann, but, for reasons we can appreciate, did not present himselfat Sesenheim. [Footnote 220: According to Goethe, Count Haugnitz was the only one ofthe four who showed any sense of propriety. ] [Footnote 221: It was at this time that Merck gave his famousdefinition of Goethe's genius. See above, p. 135. ] [Footnote 222: The _Urfaust_. ] From Strassburg he proceeded to Emmendingen, where he spent the firstweek of June with his sister, whom he had not seen since her marriagewith Schlosser. For various reasons he had looked forward to theirmeeting with painful feelings. He knew that she had been unhappy inher marriage, and must expect to find her naturally depressed tempersoured by her conjugal experience. Their main theme of conversationwas his betrothal to Lili, and it was with a vehemence born of her ownbitter experience that Cornelia urged him to break off a connectionwhich the relations of all immediately concerned too surely forebodedmust end in disaster. The warning of Cornelia, we might have expected, should have been welcome as confirming his own struggling attempts tobreak loose from his bonds, but, if his later memories did not betrayhim, it only laid a heavier load on his heart. His real state of mindat the time we have in a letter to Johanna Fahlmer, written while hewas still with his sister. "I feel, " he wrote, "that the chief aim ofmy journey has failed, and when I return it will be worse for theBear[223] than before. I know well that I am a fool, but for that veryreason I am I. "[224] The parting of the brother and sister--and theparting was to be for ever[225]--must have been with heavy misgivingsfor both. To her brother alone had Cornelia been bound by any tendertie; he alone of her family had understood and sympathised with hersingular temperament, and her greatest happiness had been derived fromfollowing his career of brilliant promise and achievement. It must, therefore, have been with dark forebodings that she saw before him thepossibility of a union which in her eyes must be fatal alike to hispeace of mind and the development of his genius. On his side, also, Goethe must have parted from his sister with the sad conviction thatthe gloom that lay upon her life could never be lifted. She had beenthe one never-failing confidant equally of the troubles of his heartand of his intellectual ambitions, and it was from her that in hispresent distraction he had naturally sought sympathy and counsel. Itis with the tenderest touch that in his reminiscent record of thistheir last meeting he depicts her "problematical" nature, and pays histribute to all that she had been to him. [226] [Footnote 223: Goethe was known as the "Bear" or the "Huron" among hisfriends. ] [Footnote 224: _Werke, Briefe_, ii. 266. ] [Footnote 225: Cornelia died in June, 1777, when Goethe was settled inWeimar. ] [Footnote 226: On Cornelia's death he wrote to his mother: "Mit meinerSchwester ist mir so eine starcke Wurzel die mich an der Erde hieltabgehauen worden, dass die Aeste von oben, die davon Nahrung haben, auch absterben müssen. "] It had been Goethe's original intention to end his travels with thevisit to his sister, but, as their main object was as far off as ever, he decided to rejoin his late companions and to accompany them toSwitzerland. By way of Schaffhausen they proceeded to Zurich, whereGoethe's first act was to seek Lavater. Their talk during his stay inZurich mainly turned on Lavater's great work on Physiognomy, to whichGoethe had continuously contributed by help and counsel, though fromthe first he was sceptical of its scientific value. Their intercoursewas as cordial as it had been in the previous year, and Lavater wassubjugated more than ever by the personality of Goethe. "Who can thinkmore differently than Goethe and I, " he wrote to Wieland, who wasstill suspicious of his youthful adversary, "and yet we are devoted toeach other.... You will be astonished at the man who unites the furyof the lion with the gentleness of the lamb. I have seen no one atonce firmer in purpose and more easily led.... Goethe is the mostlovable, most affable, most charming of fellows. "[227] [Footnote 227: Biedermann, _op. Cit. _ i. 59. Goethe made Lavater thevictim of one of the practical jokes which he was in the habit ofplaying on his friends. Seeing an unfinished sermon of Lavater on hisdesk, he completed it during the absence of Lavater, who, in ignoranceof the addition, preached the whole sermon as his own. --_Ib. _ p. 58. ] In Zurich happened what Merck had foreseen. Goethe had grown tired ofhis over-exuberant fellow-travellers, whose ways, moreover, did notcommend them to the sensitive Lavater. Goethe himself indeed wascapable of wild enough pranks, but behind his wild humours lay everthe "serious striving" which was the regulative force of his nature, and which Lavater had recognised from the beginning of theirintercourse. A lucky accident gave Goethe the opportunity of escapingfrom his late comrades without an open breach. In Zurich he found afriend whom he had looked forward to meeting there. This was a nativeof Frankfort, Passavant by name, who was settled in Switzerland as aReformed pastor. Passavant was a man of intelligence and attractivecharacter, and when he proposed that they should make a tour togetherthrough the smaller Swiss Cantons, Goethe jumped at the suggestion. From Goethe's own narrative of his tour with Passavant we are to inferthat the distracting image of Lili was never absent from his mind, andthat all the glories of the scenery through which they passed wereonly its background seen through the haze of his wanderingimaginations. And the testimony of the prose narrative in hisAutobiography is confirmed by the successive lyrics, prompted by theintrusive image of Lili, which fell from him by the way. In thefollowing lines, composed on the Lake of Zurich on the first morningof their journey, he clothes in poetical form the confession he hadmade to Johanna Fahlmer from Emmendingen:-- Und frische Nahrung, neues Blut Saug' ich aus freier Welt; Wie ist Natur so hold und gut, Die mich am Busen hält! Die Welle wieget unsern Kahn Im Rudertakt hinauf, Und Berge, wolkig himmelan, Begegnen unserm Lauf. Aug', mein Aug', was sinkst du nieder? Goldne Träume, kommt ihr wieder? Weg, du Traum! so Gold du bist; Hier auch Lieb' und Leben ist. Auf der Welle blinken Tausend schwebende Sterne; Weiche Nebel trinken Rings die türmende Ferne; Morgenwind umflügelt Die beschattete Bucht, Und im See bespiegelt Sich die reifende Frucht. Fresh cheer and quickened blood I suck From this wide world and free; How dear is Nature and how good! A mother unto me! Rocked by the wavelets speeds our skiff To the oar's measured beat; Cloudclapt, the heaven-aspiring hills Appear our course to meet. Why sink my eyelids as I gaze? Ye golden dreams of other days, Come ye again? Though ne'er so dear, Begone! Are life and love not here? The o'erhanging stars are twinkling In myriads on the mere; In floating mists enfolded The far heights disappear. The morning breeze is coursing Round the deep-shadowed cove; And in its depths are imaged The ripening fruits above. Looking down on the same lake from its southern ridge, he writes theselines, the concentrated expression of distracted emotions:-- Wenn ich, liebe Lili, dich nicht liebte, Welche Wonne gäb' mir dieser Blick! Und doch, wenn ich, Lili, dich nicht liebte, Fänd' ich hier und fänd' ich dort mein Glück? If I, loved Lili, loved thee not, In this prospect, ah! what bliss; Yet, Lili, if I loved thee not, Where should I find my happiness? In the cloister of the church at Einsiedeln he saw a beautiful goldcrown, and his first thought was how it would become the brows ofLili. On the night of June 21st the two travellers reached the hospicein the pass of St. Gothard--the term of their journey. Next morningthey saw the path that led down to Italy, and, according to Goethe'saccount, Passavant vehemently urged that they should make the descenttogether. For a few moments he was undecided, but the memories of Liliconquered. Drawing forth a golden heart, her gift, which he wore roundhis neck, he kissed it, and his resolution was taken. Hastily turningfrom the tempting path, he began his homeward descent, his companionreluctantly following him. [228] [Footnote 228: According to a tradition in the Passavant family, itwas Goethe, not Passavant, who was so eager to descend intoItaly. --Biedermann, _op. Cit. _ i. 58. ] On July 22nd, after a leisurely journey homewards, he was again inFrankfort, and in a state of mind as undecided as ever regarding hisfuture course. Fortunately or unfortunately for himself and the world, circumstances independent of his own will were to decide between thealternatives that lay before him. CHAPTER XIV LAST MONTHS IN FRANKFORT--THE _URFAUST_ 1775 As he represents it in his Autobiography, this was the situation inwhich Goethe found himself on his return to Frankfort. All hispersonal friends warmly welcomed him back, though his father did notconceal his disappointment that he had not continued his travels intoItaly. As for Lili, she had taken it for granted that the departure ofher betrothed without a word of leave-taking could only imply hisintention to break with her. Yet it was reported to him that in theface of all obstacles to their union she had declared herself ready toleave her past behind her and share his fortunes in America. Theirintercourse was resumed, but they avoided seeing each other alone, asif conscious of some ground of mutual estrangement. "It was anaccursed state, in some ways resembling Hades, the meeting-place ofthe sadly-happy dead. " In view of these relations between Lili andhimself, he further adds, all their common friends were decidedlyopposed to their union. Such is the account which, in his retrospect, Goethe gives of hissituation after his return to Frankfort, but his correspondence at thetime shows that it cannot be accepted as strictly accurate. During thethree remaining months he spent in Frankfort he on four differentoccasions visited Offenbach, where he must often have seen her alone. What his letters indeed prove is that he was characteristicallycontent to let each day bring its own happiness or misery, and toleave events to decide the final issue. On August 1st, a few daysafter his return, he writes to Knebel: "I am here again ... And findmyself a good deal better, quite content with the past and full ofhope for the future. "[229] Two days later he was in Offenbach, andfrom Lili's own room he writes as follows to the Countess: "Oh! that Icould tell you all. Here in the room of the girl who is the cause ofmy misery--without her fault, with the soul of an angel, over whosecheerful days I cast a gloom, I.... In vain that for three months Ihave wandered under the open sky and drunk in a thousand new objectsat every pore. "[230] To Lavater on the following day he writes that hehas been riding with Lili, and adds these words with an N. B. : "Forsome time I have been pious again; my desire is for the Lord, and Ising psalms to him, a vibration of which shall soon reach you. Adieu. I am in a sore state of strain; I might say over-strain. Yet I wishyou were with me, for then it goes well in my surroundings. "[231] Aletter addressed to Merck later in the same month would seem to showthat he had at least no intention of seeking an immediate union withLili. By the end of the year at the latest, he says, he must be off toItaly, and he prays Merck to prevail with his father to grant hisconsent. [Footnote 229: _Werke, Briefe_, ii. 272. ] [Footnote 230: _Ib. _ p. 273. ] [Footnote 231: _Ib. _ pp. 277-8. ] A crisis in the relations between the lovers came on the occasion ofthe Frankfort fair in the second week of September. The fair brought acrowd of males, young, middle-aged, and old, all on more or lessintimate terms with the Schönemann family, and their familiaritieswith Lili were gall and wormwood to Goethe, though he testifies that, as occasion offered, she did not fail to show who lay nearest herheart. Even in his old age the experience of these days recalledunpleasant memories. "But let us turn, " he exclaims, "from thistorture, almost intolerable even in the recollection, to the poemswhich brought some relief to my mind and heart. "[232] A remarkablecontemporary document from his hand proves that his memory did notexaggerate his state of mind at the time. [233] In the form of aDiary, expressly meant for his Countess, he notes day by day thealternating feelings which were distracting him. The Countess hadurged him once for all to break his bonds, and in these words we havehis reply: "I saw Lili after dinner, saw her at the play. I had not aword to say to her, and said nothing! Would I were free! O Gustchen!and yet I tremble for the moment when she could become indifferent tome, and I become hopeless. But I abide true to myself, and let thingsgo as they will. "[234] [Footnote 232: The two poems, _Lilis Park_ and the song beginning "Ihrverblühet, süsse Rosen, " which Goethe refers to this period, werereally written at an earlier date. The latter, we have seen, appearsin _Erwin und Elmire_. ] [Footnote 233: It was at this time that he translated the Song ofSolomon, which he calls "the most glorious collection of love-songsGod ever made. "] [Footnote 234: _Werke, Briefe_, ii. 294. In a letter to the Countess'sbrothers about the same date, Goethe writes: "Gustchen [the Countess]is an angel. The devil that she is an Imperial Countess. "--_Ib. _ p. 298. ] In all this tumultuous effusion we see the side of Goethe's naturewhich he has depicted in Werther, in Clavigo, and Fernando. Yet allthe while he was completely master of his own genius. Throughout allhis alternating raptures and despairs he was assiduously practisingthe arts to which his genius called him. He diligently contributedboth text and drawings to Lavater's _Physiognomy_; he worked at art onhis own account, making a special study of Rembrandt; and, as we shallsee, even at the time when his relations to Lili were at thebreaking-point he was producing poetical work which he never surpassedat any period of his life. From two distinguished contemporaries, bothmen of mature age, who visited him during this time of his intensestpreoccupation with Lili, we have interesting characterisations of himwhich complement the impressions we receive from his ownself-portraiture. The one is from J. G. Sulzer, an author of repute onmatters of art. "This young scholar, " Sulzer writes, "is a realoriginal genius, untrammelled in his manner of thinking, equally inthe sphere of politics and learning.... In intercourse I found himpleasant and amiable.... I am greatly mistaken if this young man inhis ripe years will not turn out a man of integrity. At present he hasnot as yet regarded man and human life from many sides. But hisinsight is keen. "[235] The other writer is J. G. Zimmermann, one of theremarkable men of his time, whose book on _Solitude_, published in1755, had brought him a European reputation. "I have been staying inFrankfort with Monsieur Göthe, " he writes, "one of the mostextraordinary and most powerful geniuses who has ever appeared in thisworld.... Ah! my friend, if you had seen him in his paternal home, ifyou had seen how this great man in the presence of his father andmother is the best conducted and most amiable of sons, you would havefound it difficult not to regard him through the medium of love. "[236] [Footnote 235: Biedermann, _op. Cit. _ i. P. 60. ] [Footnote 236: Max Morris, _op. Cit. _ v. 470. ] On October 12th, 1775, happened an event which was to be the decisiveturning-point in Goethe's life. On that day the young Duke of Weimarand his bride arrived in Frankfort on their way home from Carlsruhe, where they had just celebrated their marriage, and again both warmlyurged him to visit them at Weimar. [237] We have it on Goethe's ownword that he had decided on a second flight from Frankfort as the onlyescape from his unendurable situation, but the invitation of the ducalpair brought his decision to a point. He accepted the invitation, announced his resolve to all his friends, and made the necessarypreparations for his journey. The arrangement was that a gentleman ofthe Duke's suite, then at Carlsruhe, was to call for him on anappointed day and convey him to Weimar. The appointed day came, but norepresentative of the Duke appeared. To avoid the embarrassment ofmeeting friends of whom he had formally taken leave, he kept withindoors, working off his impatience in the composition of a play whichthe world was afterwards to know as _Egmont_. More than another weekpassed, and, weary of his imprisonment, he stole out in the darknessenveloped in a long cloak to avoid recognition by chance friends. Inhis memory there lived one of these night-wanderings when he stoodbeneath Lili's window, heard her sing the song, beginning _Warumziehst du mich unwiderstehlich_, in which, in the first freshness ofhis love, he had described the witchery with which she had bound him, and, the song ended, saw from her moving shadow that she paced up anddown the room, evidently deep in thoughts which he leaves us todivine. Only his fixed resolve to renounce her, he adds in hisnarrative of the incident, prevented him from making his presenceknown to her. [Footnote 237: The Duke had previously passed through Frankfort on hisway to Carlsruhe. On that occasion, also, Goethe had been inintercourse with him. ] There was one member of the Goethe household who was not displeased atthe non-appearance of the ducal representative. The father had fromthe first been strenuously opposed to his son's going to Weimar, andin his opinion the apparent breach of the appointment was only anillustration of what a commoner was to expect in his intercourse withthe great. His own desire was that his son should proceed to Italywith the double object of breaking his connection with Lili, and ofenlarging his experience by an acquaintance with that country and itstreasures. The embarrassing predicament of his son offered theopportunity of realising his desire, and he now proposed to him thathe should at once start for Italy and leave his cares behind him. Inthe circumstances there appeared to be no other alternative, and onOctober 30th Goethe left Frankfort with Italy as his intended goal. Heidelberg was to be his first stage, and on the way thither he beganthe Journal in which he meant to record the narrative of his travels. The two pages he wrote are the intense expression of the mental strainin which he set forth on a journey which was to have such a differentissue from what he dreamt. The parting from Lili was uppermost in histhoughts. "Adieu, Lili, " he wrote, "adieu for the second time! Thefirst time we parted I was full of hope that our lots should one daybe united. [238] Fate has decided that we must play our _rôles_ apart. " [Footnote 238: This, as we have seen, is not consistent with certainof his former statements. --In June of 1776 Lili was betrothed toanother, but, owing to his bankruptcy, marriage did not follow. In1778, however, she was married to a Strassburg banker. Like allGoethe's loves, she retained a kindly memory of him. She is reportedto have said that she regarded herself as owing her best self tohim. --Max Morris, _op. Cit. _ v. 468. ] At Heidelberg he spent a few days in the house of a lady of whom wehave already heard--that Mademoiselle Delf who had so effectuallybrought matters to a point between Goethe and Lili. She was nowconvinced that the betrothal had been a mistake, but, undismayed, shenow suggested to him that there was a lady in Heidelberg who would bea satisfactory substitute for the lost one. One night he had retiredto rest after listening to a protracted exposition of the Fräulein'sprojects for his future, when he was roused by the sound of apostilion's horn. The postilion brought a letter which cleared up themystery of the delayed messenger. Hastily dressing, Goethe ordered apost-chaise, and, amid the vehement expostulations of his hostess, began the first stage of the journey which was to lead him not toItaly but to the Court of Weimar. It was the most momentous hour ofhis life, and, as he took his place in the carriage, he called aloud, in mock heroics, to the excited Fräulein words which he may haverecently written in _Egmont_, and which had even more significance asbearing on his own future than he could have dreamed at the moment:"Child! Child! Forbear! As if goaded by invisible spirits, thesun-steeds of time bear onward the light car of our destiny; andnothing remains for us but, with calm self-possession, firmly to graspthe reins, and now right, now left, to steer the wheels here from theprecipice and there from the rock. Whither he is hasting, who knows?Does anyone consider whence he came?"[239] [Footnote 239: Miss Swanwick's translation. Goethe concludes hisAutobiography with these words. ] With him to Weimar Goethe bore two manuscripts to which, during hislast years in Frankfort, he had, at one time and another, committedhis deepest feelings as a man, his profoundest thoughts as a thinker, and his finest imaginations as a poet. The one contained the firstdraft of the drama which, as we have seen, was written in those daysof torturing suspense preceding his final departure from his paternalhome, and which, subsequently recast, was to take its place among thebest known of his works--the tragedy of _Egmont_. Of far higher momentfor the world, however, was the matter contained in the other of thesemanuscripts. Therein were set down the original portions of a poemwhich was eventually to fructify into one of the great imaginativeproducts of all time--the drama of _Faust_. Beyond all other of Goethe's productions previous to his settling inWeimar, these original scenes of _Faust_ bring before us his deepestand truest self. In all the other longer works of that period, in_Götz_, in _Werther_, in _Clavigo_, and the rest, one side--theemotional side--of his nature had been predominantly represented; butin what he wrote of _Faust_ we have all his mind and heart as he hadthem from nature, and as they had been schooled by time. It is one ofthe fortunate incidents in literary history that we now possess thesefragments in which the genius of Goethe expressed itself with anintensity of imaginative force which he never again exemplified in thesame degree. The original text was unknown till 1887, when ErichSchmidt found it in the possession of a grandnephew of a lady of theCourt of Weimar, [240] who had copied it from the manuscript receivedby her from Goethe. It is uncertain whether the manuscript thusdiscovered exactly corresponds to the manuscript which Goethe tookwith him to Weimar, but the probability is that their contents arevirtually identical. [Footnote 240: Fräulein Luise von Göchhausen. ] As in the case of _Der Ewige Jude_, _Prometheus_, and other fragmentsof the Frankfort period, the successive scenes of the _Urfaust_ werethrown off at different times on the inspiration of the moment, andthe exact date of their production can only be a matter of conjecture. What we do know is that the figure of the legendary Faust had earlyattracted his attention. As a boy he had read at least one of thechap-books which recorded the wondrous history of the scholar who hadsold himself to the devil, and, as a common spectacle in Germany, hemust have seen the puppet-show in which the story of Faust wasdramatised for the people. According to his own statement, it was in1769 that the conception of a poem, based on the Faust legend, firstsuggested itself to him, but it was during the years 1774 and 1775that most of the scenes of the _Urfaust_ were written. Both by himselfand others there are references during these years to his work on_Faust_, and as late as the middle of September, 1775, he tells theCountess Stolberg that, while at Offenbach with Lili, he had composedanother scene. What attracted Goethe to the legend of Faust was that it presented aframework into which he could dramatically work his own life'sexperience, equally in the world of thought and feeling. The storythat depicted a passionate searcher for truth, rebelling against thelimits imposed by the place assigned to man in the nature of things, who at all costs dared to burst these limits in order to enjoy life inall its fulness--this story had a suggestiveness that appealed toGoethe's profoundest consciousness. "I also, " he says in hisAutobiography, "had wandered at large through all the fields ofknowledge, and its futility had early enough been shown to me. In lifealso I had experimented in all manner of ways, and always returnedmore dissatisfied and distracted than ever. " Of this correspondencewhich Goethe recognised between the legendary Faust and his own being, the final proof is that on the basis of the legend he eventuallyconstructed the work in which he embodied all that life had taught himof the conditions under which it has to be lived. When Goethe first put his hand to the _Urfaust_, he had no definiteconception of an artistic whole in which the suggestions of the legendshould be focussed in view of a determinate end. As we have it, the_Urfaust_ consists of twenty-two scenes--those that relate theGretchen tragedy alone having any necessary connection with eachother. All the successive parts, including the Gretchen tragedy, suggest improvisation under a compelling immediate impulse with noreference to what had gone before or what might come after. Apart fromits poetic value, therefore, the _Urfaust_ is the concentratedexpression of what had most intensely engaged Goethe's mind and heartprevious to the period when it was produced. In the _Urfaust_ we have neither the Prologue in the Theatre nor thePrologue in Heaven, but, with the exception of some verbal changes, the opening scene which introduces us to Faust is identical with thatof the poem in its final form. Seated at his desk in a dusty Gothicchamber, furnished with all the apparatus for scientific experiment, Faust reviews his past life, and finds that he has been mocked fromthe beginning. In every department of boasted knowledge he has madehimself a master, but it has brought satisfaction neither to hisintellect nor his heart, and he has turned to magic in the hope thatit would reveal to him the secrets that would make life worth living. As in the completed _Faust_, he opens the book of Nostradamus andfinds the signs of the Macrocosmus and of the Earth-Spirit, by both ofwhich he is baffled in his attempt to enter the _arcana_ of being. In the _Urfaust_, also, we have, with a few verbal alterations, theScene in which Faust communicates to his famulus Wagner his cynicalview of the value of human knowledge. In the _Urfaust_, however, arelacking the Scenes that follow in the completed poem--Faust'ssoliloquy and meditated suicide, the Easter walk, the appearance ofMephistopheles in the shape of a poodle, and the compact that follows. In place of these scenes we have but one, in which Mephistopheles, without previous introduction, is represented as a professor givingadvice to a raw student who has come to consult him as to his futurecourse of conduct and study. Of all the Scenes in the _Urfaust_ thisis the feeblest, and its immaturity, as well as its evident referencesto Goethe's own experiences at Leipzig, suggest that it was theearliest written. This Scene is followed by another reminiscent ofLeipzig--the Scene in Auerbach's cellar, which mainly differs fromthe later form in being written in prose and not in verse--Faust andnot Mephistopheles playing the conjuror in drawing wine from a table. In the completed poem we are next introduced to the Witches' Kitchen, where Faust is rejuvenated, and where he sees Margaret's image in amirror--the reader being thus prepared for the tragedy that is tofollow. In the _Urfaust_ we pass with no connecting link from theScene in Auerbach's Cellar to Faust's meeting with Margaret and thesuccessive Scenes which depict her self-abandonment to Faust and herconsequent misery and ruin. The content of these Scenes is virtuallythe same in both forms--the most important difference being that, while the concluding Prison Scene is in prose in the _Urfaust_, it isin verse in the later form. Of the three songs which Margaret sings, only the first, "There was a King in Thule, " was retouched. In the_Urfaust_ the duel between Valentin and Mephistopheles does not occur, and we have only Valentin's soliloquy on the ruin of his sister; andthe scenes, _Wald und Höhle_, the _Walpurgis Nacht_, the_Walpurgisnachtstraum_, generally condemned by critics as inartisticirrelevancies, are likewise lacking. [241] [Footnote 241: The words "[Sie] ist gerettet" are not in the_Urfaust_. ] The _Urfaust_ is the crowning poetic achievement of the youthfulGoethe, and by general consent, as has already been said, he neveragain achieved a similar intense fusion of thought, feeling, andimagination. Apart from the opening Scenes, which have no dramaticconnection with it, the Gretchen tragedy constitutes an artistic wholewhich by its perfection of detail and overwhelming tragic effect mustever remain one of the marvels of creative genius. Not lessastonishing as a manifestation of Goethe's youthful power is thecreation in all their essential lineaments of the three figures, Faust, Mephistopheles, and Margaret--figures stamped ineffaceably onthe imagination of educated humanity. Be it said also that from the_Urfaust_ mainly come those single lines and passages which are amongthe memorable words recorded in universal literature. Such, to specifyonly a few, are the Song of the Earth-Spirit; the lines commenting onman's vain endeavour to comprehend the past, and on the dreariness ofall theory, [242] contrasted with the freshness and colour of life;Faust's confession of his religious faith, and Margaret's songs. Tohave added in this measure to the intellectual inheritance of the raceassures the testator his rank among the great spirits of all time. [Footnote 242: Grau, theurer Freund, ist alle Theorie, Und grün des Lebens goldner Baum. ] With the _Urfaust_, marking as it does the highest development whichGoethe attained in the years of his youth, this record of these yearsmay fitly close. His characteristics as they present themselves duringthat period are certainly in strange contrast to the conception ofthe matured Goethe which holds general possession of the public mind, at least in this country. In that conception the world was for thelater Goethe "a palace of art, " in which he moved-- "as God holding no form of creed But contemplating all. "[243] [Footnote 243: Tennyson disclaimed having Goethe in his mind when hewrote _The Palace of Art_. ] But such transformations of human character are not in the order ofnature, and, due allowance made for the numbing hand of time, theyouthful Goethe remained essentially the same Goethe to the end. Behind the mask of impassivity which chilled the casually curious whosought him in his last years there was ever that _etwas weibliches_which Schiller noted in him in his middle age. In the critical momentsof life he was in his maturity as in his youth subject to emotionswhich for the time seemed to be beyond his control. On the death ofhis wife his behaviour was that of one distracted. He describedhimself at the age of fifteen as "something of a chameleon, " and, asalready remarked, Felix Mendelssohn, who saw him a year before hisdeath, declared that the world would one day come to believe thatthere had not been one but many Goethes. We have seen that throughoutthe period of his youth some external impulse to production was anecessity of his nature, and so it was to the close. What Behrisch andMerck and his sister Cornelia did for him in these early years, hadto be done for him in later life by similar friends and counsellors. If, like Plato and Dante, he was "a great lover" in his youth, "agreat lover" he remained even into time-stricken age; when past hisseventieth year he was moved by a passion from which, as in youth, hefound deliverance by giving vent to it in passionate verse. It is inthe youthful Goethe, before time and circumstance had dulled thespontaneous play of feeling, that we see the man as he came fromnature's hand, with all his manifold gifts, and with all his sensuousimpulses, tossing him from one object of desire to another, yet everheld in check by the passion that was deepest in him--the passion toknow and to create. * * * * * GARDEN CITY PRESS LIMITED, LETCHWORTH, HERTS. INDEX _Adler und Taube_, poem by Goethe, 183, 184. Æschylus, 175. _An Belinden_, lyric addressed by Goethe to Lili Schönemann, 252. _An Schwager Kronos_, poem by Goethe, 240. Arnold, Gottfried, his _History of the Church and of Heretics_, Goethe's study of it, 64, 65. Arnold, Matthew, 6; quoted, 140. Basedow, Johann Bernhard, his character, 227, 228; his intercourse with Goethe, 228-231. Beaumarchais, his _Mémoires_ suggest Goethe's _Clavigo_, 200, 201. Behrisch, friend of Goethe in Leipzig, his character and influence onGoethe, 39-41, 43, 44. Bergson, quoted, 175 note. Berlichingen, Gottfried von, hero of Goethe's play _Götz von Berlichingen_, 121; his _Memoirs_, _ib. _ Boerhaave, Goethe's study of him, 64. Böhme, Professor of History in Leipzig, Goethe attends his lectures, 34. Böhme, Frau, her influence on Goethe, 34, 36. Boie, H. C. , his description of Goethe, 241. Bonn, 231. Brentano, Peter, married to Maxe von la Roche, 186; Goethe's relations to him, _ib. _; his traits assigned to Albert in _Werther_, 191. Brion, Friederike, Goethe's relations to her, 96-101; his poems inspired by her, 105-108; Goethe's remorse for parting from her, 117, 118; nature of Goethe's love for her, 249 note. Brion, Pastor, father of Friederike Brion, 96. Byron, Lord, resemblance of his career to Goethe's, 26, 27, 29; referred to, 168. Buff, Charlotte (Lotte), loved by Goethe, 147; his relations to her, 147-151; her displeasure with _Werther_, 198. Carl August, Duke of Weimar, his intercourse with Goethe, 242; meets Goethe at Carlsruhe, 272; visits Frankfort and invites Goethe to Weimar, 283-284. Carlsruhe, 272. Carlyle, Thomas, 181. Chateaubriand, 249 note. _Claudine von Villa Bella_, play by Goethe, 263-265. _Clavigo_, play by Goethe: its origin, 200, 201; argument of it, 202-204; its classical form, 205. Clavigo, character of, compared with that of Goethe, 206-208. Clodius, Professor in Leipzig; Goethe attends his lectures, 34. Coblenz, 230. Cologne, 235, 236. Cologne cathedral, 235. Constantin, brother of Carl August, 242. Darmstadt, 272. Darmstadt, Court of, the coterie associated with it, 136, 138; its influence on Goethe, _ib. _ _Das Jahrmarktsfest zu Plundersweilern_, satirical play by Goethe, 169, 170. Daudet, Alphonse, 180 note. Delf, Mademoiselle, effects the betrothal of Goethe and Lili Schönemann, 268; suggests to Goethe a substitute for Lili, 286. _Der Ewige Jude_, poetic fragment by Goethe: its origin, 212-215; account of it, 216-218. _Der König von Thule_, poem by Goethe, 236. _Der Untreue Knabe_, poem by Goethe, 236. _Der Wanderer_, poem by Goethe, 140-142. _Deserted Village_, translated by Goethe, 146. _Die Laune des Verliebten_, play by Goethe: its argument, 51, 52. _Die Mitschuldigen_, play by Goethe: its argument, 52, 53. _Diné zu Coblenz_, poem by Goethe, 230, 231. _Disputation_ of Goethe for the Licentiate of Laws, 114. Dresden, Goethe's secret visit to, 46. Düsseldorf, 231, 235, 236. _Edwin and Angelina_, Goldsmith's ballad, suggested Goethe's _Erwin undElmire_, 256. _Egmont_, play by Goethe, 284; quoted by Goethe on his proceeding to Weimar, 287; manuscript of, taken to Weimar by Goethe, 287. Ehrenbreitstein, 155. Einsiedeln, 278. Elberfeld, 231. _Elysium, an Uranien_, ode by Goethe, 138. Emerson, quoted, 106, 107. Emmendingen, 272. Ems, 225. English literature, its influence on _Werther_, 187, 188. _Ephemerides_, Diary kept by Goethe, 102; quoted, 211 note; referred to, 212. _Erwin und Elmire_, vaudeville by Goethe, 255-257. Euripides, 173. Fahlmer, Johanna, letter of Goethe to, 248 note. Flachsland, Caroline, member of the _Gemeinschaft der Heiligen_, 136; her letters describing Goethe, 137, 138; his ode addressed to her as Psyche, 138; on Goethe's ambition to be a painter, 164; character in _Das Jahrmarktsfest_, 170; in _Pater Brey_, 171; in _Satyros_, 172. Flaubert, 180 note. Frankfort-on-the-Main, Goethe's birthplace, description of: its influence on Goethe, 2, 3; Goethe's return to, 109; Goethe's distaste for, 111. Frankforters, Goethe's description of, 161. _Frankfurter Gelehrten Anzeigen_, journal expounding the aims of the_Sturm und Drang_ movement, 164, 165. Frederick the Great, Goethe's admiration for, 18, 19. French literature, its domination in Germany; imitated by Goethe, 49, 75. French troops in Frankfort, 19-21. Friedberg, 239. _Gedicht der Ankunft des Herrn_, another title for _Der Ewige Jude_, 216. Gellert, Professor, German poet resident in Leipzig, 32; Goethe attends his lectures, 34. _Gemeinschaft der Heiligen_ at the Court of Darmstadt, 136. Göchhausen, Fräulein Luise von, and the manuscript of the _Urfaust_, 288 and note. Goethe, Cornelia, Goethe's sister: her character, her influence on Goethe, Goethe's affection for her, 10, 11; his letters to her from Leipzig, 40, 41; her father's hardness to, 59; her home influence, 116; stimulates Goethe to write _Götz von Berlichingen_, 121; married to J. G. Schlosser, 162; Goethe's last meeting with her, 273-274. Goethe, Elizabeth, Goethe's mother: her character, her relations to her son, 8-10; her religion, 15. Goethe, Johann Kaspar, Goethe's father: his character, not in sympathy with his son, his method of education, 6-7; determines, against his son's will, to send him to University of Leipzig, 23, 24; his severity towards his daughter, Cornelia, 59; estrangement from his son, 60; his pride in his genius, _ib. _; his son's characterisation of him, 161; his republican opinions, 243; objects to his son's intercourse with Carl August, Duke of Weimar, 244; his opposition to his son's going to Weimar, 285; wishes him to go to Italy, _ib. _ Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, his birth in Frankfort-on-the-Main, 4; influence of his birthplace, 2, 3; influence of the period on his development, 4-6; his debt to his father, 6-7; to his mother, 8-10; relations to his sister, 10-11; his education, 14; religious influences, 14-17; influence of the French theatre in Frankfort on him, 20, 21; in love with Gretchen, 22, 23; father resolves to send him to the University of Leipzig, 24; his characteristics as a boy, 25-27; his early devotion to poetry, 28; his stormy career throughout his youth, 29; goes to the University of Leipzig, 31; his studies there, 33-35; influence of Leipzig society on him, 35-38; influence of Frau Böhme on his character and literary tastes, 36; falls in love with Käthchen Schönkopf, 38; friendship with Behrisch, 39, 40; a jealous lover, 43, 44; artistic studies, 45; influence of Friedrich Oeser on his artistic ideals, 46, 47; _Neue Lieder_, 49, 50; _Die Laune des Verliebten_ and _Die Mitschuldigen_, 51-53; his ideas of poetry, 54-57; returns to Frankfort, 57; his unsatisfactory condition of mind and body, 57, 58; estrangement from his father, 60; his interest in religion, 60-67; influence of Fräulein von Klettenberg, 62-64; his dangerous illness, 63, 64; works out a creed of his own, 65, 66; mystical and chemical studies, 66; interests in art and literature, 69-71; departs for the University of Strassburg, 74; influence of Strassburg society, 76, 77; finds a mentor in Dr. Salzmann, 79, 80; acquaintance with Jung Stilling, 81-83; influence of Herder, 83-93; inspired by Strassburg Cathedral, 93-95; his love experiences with Friederike Brion, 95-102; his manifold interests in Strassburg, 102-104; development of his poetic gift, 105; lyrics to Friederike, 105-108; returns to Frankfort, 108; state of mind on his return, 110-113; continued estrangement from his father, 114, 115; his sister Cornelia, 116; makes acquaintance with the brothers Schlosser, _ib. _; his distraction in Frankfort, 118-120; admiration of Shakespeare, 121; writes _Götz von Berlichingen_, 122; makes acquaintance with Merck, 132; comes under the influence of the Darmstadt circle, 136; his poems inspired by that circle, 138; his visit to Wetzlar, 143; his mode of life there, 144; marks the acquaintance of Charlotte Buff, 147; and of Kestner, 148; his subsequent relations to them, 149; characterised by Kestner, 152; returns to Frankfort, 154; conceives _Werther_, 154; makes acquaintance with the family von la Roche, 155; his relations to Frau von la Roche and her daughter, 156; his unrest after his experiences at Wetzlar, 158; his dislike of Frankfort, 161; his solitude, 162; uncertain whether he should devote himself to literature or art, 163; co-editor of the _Frankfurter Gelehrten Anzeigen_, 164; his _Letter of a Pastor_, 166; paper on _Two Biblical Questions_, 167; publishes the second draft of _Götz von Berlichingen_, 167; writes a succession of satirical plays, 169; his fragmentary drama, _Prometheus_, 175; his fragment of a drama on Mahomet, 181; produces _Werther_, 184; his own character compared with that of Werther, 193; his _Clavigo_, 200; Goethe and Spinoza, 209; his fragment, _Der Ewige Jude_, 212; his intercourse with Lavater, 220; with Basedow, 227; with Fritz Jacobi, 233; with Klopstock, 238; characterised by Boie and Werthes, 241-2; makes acquaintance with the Princes of Weimar, 243; characterised by von Knebel, 244-5; falls in love with Lili Schönemann, 247; his songs addressed to her, 251; relations with the Countess Stolberg, 253; his infatuation for Lili, 254; his succession of plays relative to her, 255-265; shrinking from marriage, 267; betrothed to Lili, 268; persuaded of his mistake, 269; sets out for Switzerland with the Counts Stolberg, 270; his travels, 272; visit to his sister, 273; meets Lavater at Zurich, 275; parts company with the Stolbergs, and accompanies Passavant to the pass of St. Gothard, 276; returns to Frankfort, 278; his relations to Lili on his return, 279; invited by the Duke of Weimar to visit Weimar, 284; opposition of his father, 284; decides to go to Italy as the Duke's messenger does not appear, 285; goes to Heidelberg on the way to Italy, 285; appearance of the Duke's messenger decides him to visit Weimar, 286; the _Urfaust_, 287-293; characteristics, 293. Goncourt, Edmond de, 180 note. _Götter, Holden, und Wieland_, satirical play on Wieland by Goethe, 173, 174. Gotter, F. W. , friend of Goethe in Wetzlar, 146. Gottsched, German poet resident in Leipzig, 32. _Götz von Berlichingen_, drama by Goethe, 109, 113; its origin, 121; its plot, 123-126; its characteristics, 126-129; second draft of, 167, 168. Gray, Thomas, 187. Gretchen, Goethe's first love, 22, 23. Hamann, J. G. , the "Magus of the North, " teacher of Herder, 86; Goethe's interest in him, _ib. _ Hanover, 160. Hasenkamp, rebukes Goethe for _Werther_, 232. Haugnitz, Count, travels with Goethe to Switzerland, 270-275. Heidelberg, 285, 286. Hehn, Viktor, quoted, 139, 180 note. Heine, Heinrich, 26. Heinse, J. J. H. , his opinion of Goethe, 237. Herder, his _Fragments on Modern German Literature_, 48; Johann Gottfried, 83-93; his career, character and speculations, 84-86; his admiration of Shakespeare, 120; his opinion of _Götz von Berlichingen_, 145; one of the editors of the _Frankfurter Gelehrten Anzeigen_, 164, 165; as captain of the gipsies in _Das Jahrmarktsfest zu Plundersweilern_, 170; satirised in _Pater Brey_, 171; and in _Satyros_, 172; letters of Goethe to, 268, 270. Herrnhut Community, Goethe attends a synod of, 63; dissociates himself from the community, 79. _Hoch auf dem alten Turme steht_, lines by Goethe, 230. Holy Alliance, 180. Homer, Goethe's study of him, 145. Horn, a friend of Goethe: his description of Goethe in Leipzig, 37; quoted, 38; quoted, 67. Humboldt, Wilhelm von, his opinion of marriage, 101, 102. Jabach, family of, 235. Jacobi, Fritz, his horror at Lessing's approval of Spinoza, 180, 233; his character and attainments, 234; his intercourse with Goethe, 234-238; letter of Goethe to, 267. Jacobi, Georg, 235, 236. Jean Paul, 26. Jerusalem: his suicide prompts Goethe to _Werther_, 154, 155; Lessing's esteem for him, 154 note. Jung, Johann Heinrich. (_See_ Stilling, Jung. ) Kant, Immanuel, quoted, 28; quoted, 48; his opinion of marriage, 101; his judgment on the _Sturm und Drang_ movement, 130. Kestner, Johann Christian, betrothed to Lotte Buff, 148; his character, _ib. _; his relations to Goethe, 149-151; his characterisation of Goethe, 151-153; letters of Goethe to, 159, 160, 174; his displeasure with _Werther_, 198. Klettenberg, Fräulein von, the _Schöne Seele_ of _Wilhelm Meister_, 15; Goethe's intimacy with, 62; her influence on his religious opinions, 63, 64, 66, 67; letter of Goethe to, 77, 78; her intercourse with Lavater, 225; adviser of the Goethe family, 244; her death, 245-246; her affection for Goethe, 246. Klopstock, his _Messias_, 238; admired by Goethe, 239; his visit to Goethe's home, 239, 240; Goethe accompanies him to Mannheim, 240; Goethe's opinion of him, 241 note; visits Frankfort, 268; Goethe meets him at Carlsruhe, 272. Knebel, Major von, his visit to Goethe, 242; his characterisation of him, 244; letter of Goethe to, 280. _Künstlers Erdewallen_, poem by Goethe, 184. La Roche, family, its influence on _Werther_, 158. La Roche, Frau von, Goethe's relations to her 155, 156; letters of Goethe to, 162, 186, 187, 245 note. La Roche, Herr von, 155. La Roche, Maximiliane von, Goethe's relations to her, 157; married to Peter Brentano, 186; her relation to _Werther_, 186, 191. Langer, his influence on Goethe's religious opinions, 58, 59. Lavater, Johann Kaspar, his character, 220; his intercourse with Goethe, 222-232; Goethe's intercourse with him at Zurich, 275 and note, 280; his _Physiognomy_, Goethe's contributions to it, 282. Leipzig, description of, 31, 32; Goethe a student there, 31-56; called "little Paris, " 32. Lessing, his _Laokoon_ and _Minna von Barnhelm_, 49; Goethe's opinion of, 70; his approval of Spinoza's philosophy, 180; his opinion of _Werther_, 197 note. _Letter of the Pastor_ written by Goethe, 166. Leuchsenring, his sentimentalism, 157; his meeting with Goethe, _ib. _; satirised in _Pater Brey_, 171. _Lilis Park_, poem by Goethe addressed to Lili Schönemann, 266 note, 281 note. Limprecht, Goethe's letter to, 76. Lisbon, earthquake of, its influence on Goethe, 16. Luise, Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt, betrothed to Carl August, Duke ofWeimar, 272. _Mahomet_, fragment of a drama by Goethe, 181-183. Mainz, 244, 245. Mannheim, 240, 272. Maria Theresa, 18. Mendelssohn, Moses, his relation to Spinoza, 180. Mephistopheles, 109. Merck, Johann Heinrich, friend of Goethe, 133; his character and influence on Goethe, 133-135; introduces Goethe to the family von la Roche, 155; his visit to Berlin and return, 162; one of the editors of the _Frankfurter Gelehrten Anzeigen_, 164, 165; in _Pater Brey_, 171; in _Satyros_, 172; his mordant comment on _Clavigo_, 206; comes under the spell of Lavater, 224; meeting with Goethe in Mannheim, 272. Milan, Archbishop of, orders _Werther_ to be burned, 197. Mülheim, 231. Müller, Chancellor von, quoted, 44; quoted, 58 note. Münch, Anna Sibylla, suggests _Clavigo_, 201, 202. Napoleon, and _Werther_, 192, 193, 199. Neo-Platonism, 65. _Neue Lieder_, collection of Goethe's poems written in Leipzig, 49. _Neue Liebe, neues Leben_, poem of Goethe addressed to Lili Schönemann, 251. New Testament, Goethe's study, 59. Oeser, Friedrich, director of the academy of drawing in Leipzig: his influence on Goethe, 46, 47; letters of Goethe to him, 67, 69. Offenbach on the Main, 266, and note. Old Testament, Goethe's study of, 16, 17. _Ossian_, 187, 192, and note. _Palace of Art_, Tennyson's, 294. Paracelsus, Goethe's study of him, 64. Passavant, Reformed Pastor, travels with Goethe in Switzerland, 276; tradition in his family regarding Goethe, 278 note. _Pater Brey_, satirical piece by Goethe, 170, 171. Pfenninger, Heinrich, letter of Goethe to, 223, 224. Pindar, Goethe's study of, 139, 145. Plato, Goethe's study of him, 145. _Poetische Gedanken über die Höllenfahrt Jesu Christi_, early poem ofGoethe, 28. Pollock, Sir Frederick, on "modern Spinozism, " 180 note. _Prometheus_, fragment of a play by Goethe, 174-180. Rembrandt, Goethe's study of, 282. Renan, Ernest, 181 note. Richardson, Samuel, 156; his _Clarissa Harlowe_, 188. Riemer, Goethe's secretary, quoted, 33. Robinson, Henry Crabb, quoted, 192 note. Rousseau, 58, 112, 129; Goethe's opinion of him, 152; his _Nouvelle Héloïse_, 188. Rumohr, W. Von, letter of Goethe to him quoted, 56 note. Sachs, Hans, Goethe's imitation of, 169, 214. St. Gothard, pass of, 278. Salzmann, Dr. , Goethe's mentor in Strassburg: his character, 79-81; letters of Goethe to, 99, 100, 119, 121. _Satyros_, satirical play by Goethe, 171-173. Schaffhausen, 275. Scherer, Edmond, 6; his estimate of _Götz von Berlichingen_, 128. Schlosser, J. G. , friend of Goethe, 116; his impressions of Goethe, 142; married to Goethe's sister, 162; one of the editors of the _Frankfurter Gelehrten Anzeigen_, 164, 165. Schmidt, Erich, his discovery of the _Urfaust_, 288. Schönemann, Anna Elisabeth (Lili): Goethe's first meeting with her, 248; beginning of Goethe's attachment to her, 249; Goethe's lyrics addressed to her, 251-253; Goethe's tribute to her in later life, 251 note; Goethe sends his _Stella_ to her, 263; Goethe's strained relations with her, 267-270; poems of Goethe addressed to, 276-278; Goethe's relations to her after his return from Switzerland, 279-286; her subsequent marriage, 286 note. Schönemann family, 247; their social position superior to that of the Goethes, 248; intercourse of Goethe with them, 249. Schönemann, Lili. (_See_ Schönemann, Anna Elisabeth. ) Schönkopf, Käthchen, Goethe's love in Leipzig: her appearance and character, 38; Goethe's philandering with her, 38-44; Goethe's poems addressed to her, 42; Goethe's letters to, 61, 68, 69, 138 note. Scott, Sir Walter, his translation of _Götz von Berlichingen_, 131; his writings influenced by it, 132. Sesenheim, residence of the Brion family: Goethe's visits there, 96-100. _Seven Years' War_, its influence on the Goethe household, 18. Shakespeare, Goethe's debt to, 45, 122. _Song of Solomon_, translated by Goethe, 281 note. Spinoza, Goethe's debt to, 45; his influence on Goethe, 209-212; Goethe and Lavater discuss his writings, 226; discussed by Goethe and Fritz Jacobi, 237. Stein, Frau von, quoted, 150 note. _Stella_, play by Goethe, 257-263; ridiculed in the _Anti-Jacobin_, 261 and note; admired by Herder, 262; its popularity, _ib. _ Sterne, 112. Stevenson, R. L. , his admiration of _Werther_, 200 note. Stilling, Jung, friend of Goethe in Strassburg: his career and character, 81, 82; Goethe's kindness to, 82-83; prank played on him by Goethe, 231; his affection for Goethe, 246. Stolberg, Count Christian, comes to Frankfort and travels with Goetheto Switzerland, 270-275. Stolberg, Count Frederick Leopold, younger brother of Christian, 270-275. Stolberg, Countess, beginning of Goethe's acquaintance with her, 253; his letters to, 254, 255, 266, 280, 282 and note. Strassburg, Goethe's residence in, 74-108; description of its society, 75, 273. Strassburg Cathedral, Goethe's interest in, and its influence on his development, 93-95; Goethe's essay on, 94. _Sturm und Drang_ movement in German literature, inspired by _Götz von Berlichingen_, 130, 139, 140; its aims expounded in the _Frankfurter Gelehrten Anzeigen_, 164, 165. Sulzer, J. G. , his characterisation of Goethe, 283. Swift, his relations to Stella and Vanessa suggest Goethe's _Stella_, 261. Tennyson, 294 and note. Textor, J. W. , Goethe's maternal grandfather, 18. Theatre set up by the French in Frankfort, Goethe's interest in it, 20, 21. Theocritus, Goethe's study of him, 145. Thoranc, Count, commander of French forces in Frankfort, quartered inGoethe's home: his interest in Goethe, 20-21. Turgenieff, 180 note. _Two Biblical Questions_, piece written by Goethe, 167. _Urfaust_, The, 287; account of it, 288-293. Ur-Religion, Goethe's conception of, 16. Van Helmont, Goethe's study of him, 64. _Vicar of Wakefield_, 96 note. Voltaire, his criticism of Shakespeare, 70, 181 and note. _Wanderers Sturmlied_, poem by Goethe, 139, 140. _Werther_, 109; analysis of, 186-200; its influence, 196, 199; public opinion regarding it, 196, 197; prohibited in Leipzig and Denmark, 197; burned at Milan, _ib. _ Werther, how far he resembled Goethe, 193-195. Wertherism, 199. Werthes, F. A. , his description of Goethe, 241. Wetzlar, Goethe's residence there, 143-153; description of, 144; its society, 145; Goethe's flying visit to, 160. Wieland, his translation of Shakespeare, 70; one of Goethe's masters, 70, 71; his description of Goethe, 98; his opinion of _Götz von Berlichingen_, 129; satirised by Goethe, 173, 174; his _Alceste_, _ib. _; letter of Goethe to, 185; his approval of _Clavigo_, 205 note. _Wilhelm Meister_, 21. Winckelmann, influenced by Oeser, 46. _Wilkommen und Abschied_, lyric of Goethe addressed to Friederike Brion, 107, 108. Wordsworth, his remark on Goethe's poetry, 54. Xenophon, Goethe's study of him, 145. Young, Edward, his _Conjectures on Original Composition_: its influenceon German literature, 90, 187. Zelter, friend of Goethe, letter of Goethe to him, 193-194. Zimmermann, J. G. , his characterisation of Goethe, 283. Zurich, 275; lake of, 276.