Life of Johann Wolfgang Goethe

With Frau von Stein’s husband, who held the office of master of the horse, Goethe was on the best of terms. He was a sensible, practical person, who did not interfere with his wife’s friendships; and the idea that there was any reason why he should be jealous of Goethe seems never to have entered his mind. Goethe’s letters to her were often enclosed in letters to her husband. Her children always welcomed Goethe with cries of delight. In this respect they were not different from other children; it was one of his characteristics that young people invariably felt, by a kind of instinct, that he was their friend.

While attending the University of Leipsic, he had been much impressed by the singing of a young public singer called Corona Schröter, and during a short visit to Leipsic in 1776, all his old enthusiasm for her was revived. The result was that she was asked to come to Weimar as a singer in the chamber concerts of the Duchess Dowager. She accepted the invitation, and spent at Weimar the greater part of the rest of her life. She was very handsome, and not only a good singer, but an admirable actress. Goethe was thrown much into her society, and liked her so well that she necessarily has a place in his biography. She was not, however, one of the women who left their mark deeply on his inward life and on his poetry.

A profound change passed over Goethe’s character during the early years of his residence at Weimar. This change was partly a natural evolution, partly the result of deliberate and long-continued effort. He became painfully conscious of the fact that in the past he had allowed himself to be swayed too much by momentary impulses, that he had cherished wild desires which had no real relation to the facts of existence, that his happiness had been at the mercy of passing moods, some of the darkest of which had sprung from too intense a concentration of thought on his own feelings. It became his fixed purpose that all this should come to an end, that he should acquire firm control over himself, and that his powers should be disciplined to work steadily for lofty but clearly-defined and attainable ends. “A calm glance back on my past life,” he wrote in his diary on the 7th of August, 1779, “on the confusion, restlessness, lust after knowledge, of youth, how it roams about everywhere to find something satisfying. How, especially, I found delight in mysteries—in dark, imaginary relations. How, when occupied with anything scientific, I only half attacked it, and soon let it pass; how a sort of humble self-complacency goes through all I then wrote. With how little insight I moved round and round in human and divine things. How there was as little of action as of thought and poetry directed to an aim; how many days were wasted in time-destroying sentiment and shadow-passions; how little good came to me therefrom; and how, now that the half of life is past, there is no way back, but I simply stand here as one who has saved himself from the water, and whom the sun begins beneficently to dry. The time I have spent in the rush of the world, since October, ’75, I do not yet trust myself to review. God help further and give lights, so that we may not stand so much in our own way; cause us to do from morning to night what is fitting; and give us clear ideas of the consequences of things, so that one may not be like men who complain all day of headache and dose themselves for headache, and every evening take too much wine! May the idea of purity, extending itself even to the morsel I take into my mouth, become ever more luminous in me!” On the 13th of May, 1780, he wrote: “In my present surroundings, I have little, hardly any, hindrance outside of myself. In myself there is still much. Human frailties are thorough tapeworms; one tears away a piece, but the stock remains where it was. I will yet, however, be master. No one save he who wholly renounces self is worthy to rule, or can rule.”

How sternly he disciplined himself, and with what magnificent success, we may see from the manner in which he discharged his duties at Weimar. It must have been hard for a poet of quick sensibilities to grapple with the difficulties of business, yet he shrank from no obligation, however severe the demands it might make on his temper and patience. The sittings of the Privy Council he attended with strict regularity, and he made a point of mastering every important document submitted to it, so that his judgment might be of real service to the State. He devoted especial attention to questions connected with finance, and so wisely did he deal with them, seeking to secure at once economy and efficiency, that he excited the astonishment and admiration of those who had doubted the fitness of a poet for the practical work of life.

It was not only in the Council that Goethe had to do difficult service. He was intrusted by the Duke with many special duties, all of which he fulfilled with scrupulous care. He had frequently, for instance, to carry on negotiations with the Estates of the two duchies, Weimar and Eisenach, both of which were subject to the Duke; and in the exercise of this delicate function he displayed unfailing firmness and tact. It was the Duke’s desire that the disused mines of Ilmenau should be reopened, and in connection with this scheme Goethe worked earnestly, studying the principles of mining, consulting with men who had a right to an opinion on the subject, and finally seeing that the undertaking was organized in accordance with the most advanced methods. He was made responsible for public works, and in this position had much to say as to the plans for the new Schloss and for the laying out of the Park in which his garden-house was situated. The University of Jena, which was the common property of the Saxon Duchies, he missed no opportunity of benefiting; and he did what he could for popular education in Weimar. The small military force of the duchy, consisting of six hundred men, was put under his care, so far as administration was concerned; and he not only brought it to a high state of efficiency, but made it less burdensome to the people by reforming the system according to which the troops were levied. He insisted that the soldiers should be treated by their officers with more consideration than was in those days thought to be safe or proper, and for soldiers’ daughters he established a school of spinning and embroidery, which he placed under the charge of Seidel, whom he knew he could trust. As he had to ride about a great deal in attending to military matters, it was considered that no one could so well manage everything connected with public highways; and this duty also he readily undertook. It became his business, too, to look after the demesne lands, and here one is glad to think he had the aid of a thoroughly competent Englishman, George Batty, for whose energy, skill, and good sense Goethe had profound respect. This part of his work was congenial to his tastes, but we find him on one occasion complaining bitterly that those in high places consumed in a day more than could be produced in the same time by the labours of all the toilers on the estates under his charge.

In discharging the various duties imposed upon him, Goethe became the soul of the entire administrative system, and diffused through all its branches much of his own vigour and thoroughness. As he did his own work honestly, he would take no dishonest work from others; and this came to be well understood by every one who had to carry out his orders. For a long time he was not unhappy in his labours. “The pressure of affairs,” he wrote in 1779, “is very good for the mind; when it has disburdened itself, it plays more freely and enjoys life. There is nothing more miserable than a comfortable man without work.” Again: “Many a time I feel as if I ought, like Polycrates, to throw my most precious jewel into the water. In everything I undertake I have luck.”

During these years Goethe disciplined the body not less strictly than the mind. He slept on a straw mattrass, and drank only half the quantity of wine to which he had formerly accustomed himself. Riding, walking, fencing, and other forms of physical exercise he delighted in; and—what must then have been thought an extraordinary eccentricity—he took cold baths regularly in winter as well as in summer. The result of all this was that he enjoyed better health than at any previous period of his life.

His manner necessarily changed to some extent in accordance with the change in his character. He was still occasionally capable of the frank and genial outbursts of feeling that had so often delighted his comrades in the days of “Sturm und Drang,” but, upon the whole, he became more calm, sedate, and reserved. This did not mean that there was any diminution of the kindly impulses of his character. Every one who knew him well was aware that the fine spirit of humanity that had welled up so freely in his nature in the early part of his life never, as years went on, lost its original depth and freshness. In the winter of 1777 he went to the Harz mountains, and one of his objects in undertaking the journey was to see whether he could not help a young man who, although a perfect stranger to him, had ventured to tell him, by letter, of troubles that made life intolerable. An unfortunate man who, although also a stranger, appealed to Goethe, received an appointment at Ilmenau, where Goethe not only gave him material aid, but with constant kindness and sympathy encouraged him to maintain his own self-respect by doing valuable work. “Goethe,” wrote Merck, while visiting his old friend, “directs everything, and every one is pleased with him, for he serves many and hurts none. Who can resist the unselfishness of the man?”

In 1778 Goethe spent some days with the Duke in Berlin, and in the autumn of the following year they went together to Switzerland. On the way to Switzerland Goethe rode out from Strasburg to Sesenheim, and spent a night in the parsonage. He was touched by the frank and kindly way in which Frederika Brion received him, and, as he said good-bye, felt with relief that in future he might think of her with an easier mind. In Strasburg he visited Frau von Türckheim, who was no other than Lili, now the wife of a rich banker, and a mother. At Emmendingen he stood by the grave of his sister, who, to his great sorrow, had died in 1777. “Aunt Fahlmer” had become Schlosser’s wife, and it made a strange impression on Goethe to see her in his sister’s place. At Frankfort the party were hospitably received by his mother. His father, now an old man, was less genial, for he had never quite recovered from the disappointment caused by Goethe’s choice of a career at Weimar. Goethe did not again see his father, who died in 1782.

A few days before he started for Switzerland Goethe had been made a “Geheimerath,” and in 1782 he became President of the Chamber of Finance. In the same year he received a patent of nobility, so that he was from this time Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Any pleasure he may have derived from this honour was due to the fact that it did away with some inconveniences arising from the etiquette of the petty German Courts.

In 1783, being jaded by overwork, he restored himself to fresh vigour by a second visit to the Harz mountains. This tour was made doubly pleasant by the fact that he had with him Frau von Stein’s son Fritz, a clever boy for whom he had a warm affection. With Frau von Stein’s sanction, Goethe had taken Fritz to live with him, and it was a constant delight to him to have the boy’s companionship, to direct his education, and to watch the gradual unfolding of his mind and character.

During this period Goethe entered upon the scientific investigations which were to occupy many of the best hours of his life. Almost from boyhood he had had a strong inclination for the study of science. At Leipsic he attended lectures on physics and medicine, and at Strasburg, as we have seen, he gave some attention to various branches of biology. Now he devoted himself to science with an enthusiasm not less fervent than that with which he had devoted himself to literature. He began with mineralogy, to which he was led by his labours in connection with the Ilmenau mines, and mineralogy soon made it necessary for him to turn his thoughts to geology. Afterwards he occupied himself chiefly with osteology and botany. For his investigations in all these subjects he had considerable advantages. The collections at the University of Jena were of course at his disposal, and the scientific professors were only too glad to have a chance of giving him what aid they could. In botany he was able to carry on long series of researches in his garden, and in the forests of the duchy, which he had frequently to visit as an administrator. He took up the study of science in a serious spirit, and, as the results proved, he had a high capacity for it. He was a careful and most exact observer, and his imagination, so far from standing in his way, was the power to which he owed the greatest and most fertile of his ideas.

It was in osteology that he made his first important discovery. In the study of this branch of anatomy he was interested mainly in the points of comparison between the human skeleton and the skeletons of other vertebrates. It was generally held that the intermaxillary bone, which is found in the upper jaw of some animals, is wanting in man, and this was regarded as a proof of the doctrine that the physical nature of man is vitally distinguished from that of other living creatures. On March 27, 1784, while examining various bones with his friend Professor Loder, of the University of Jena, Goethe was greatly surprised to discover what he believed to be the intermaxillary bone in a human jaw. He lost no time in comparing it with the various forms assumed by the bone in different species of animals, and the more widely the comparison was extended the more sure he became that he was right. The results of his researches he set forth in an essay, illustrated by drawings. This essay, which is a model of lucid statement, was translated into Latin, and submitted to several men of science. It was not, however, published until about thirty years afterwards.

Goethe’s discovery of the intermaxillary bone in a human jaw finally disposed of the notion that it is possible to draw a sharp line of distinction between the physical nature of man and that of other vertebrates. And it led Goethe to the theory that all organic beings of the same class are formed in accordance with ideal types or patterns, which Nature modifies indefinitely to suit varying conditions. This conception marked an epoch in the history of scientific thought, for by fastening attention on the fact that organic beings of the same class, however widely their organs may seem to differ from one another, have a fundamental agreement in structure, it directly prepared the way for the discovery of the law of evolution, in which this fact is taken up and explained.

It was impossible for Goethe, while occupied so much with science and public affairs, to devote his best energies to imaginative creation. He did not, however, wholly neglect literature. In 1776 he planned a great prose drama, “Iphigenie,” and in 1779 it was written to his dictation. The play was represented with brilliant success at the Weimar Court, Corona Schröter taking the part of the heroine, and Goethe himself that of Orestes. It is wholly different, both in conception and execution, from his earlier dramas. It contains no violent outbursts of passionate feeling; the diction is measured and dignified; and the utmost pains are taken to secure that the various parts shall each have the place that properly belongs to them in the general scheme. It has often been said that the change in Goethe’s method, from the frank, glowing style of the works by which he established his fame, to the consciously artistic style of his mature writings, was wholly due to the impressions derived during his visit to Italy. In reality, as the prose “Iphigenie” shows, it began long before he went to Italy; and no doubt we must to some extent associate it with the change which passed over his character as a whole. Goethe’s aim was, above all things, to master himself, to have every element of his nature under control; and it was inevitable that the strenuous efforts he made to attain this object should leave their mark on his art as well as on his practical life.

In 1777 Goethe began “Wilhelm Meister;” and, stimulated by Frau von Stein, whom the work greatly interested, he returned to it again and again during the following eight years. He also wrote a part of a prose play, “Torquato Tasso,” and various minor prose dramatic pieces, intended for the amusement of the Court, before which they were represented. To this period, too, belong various powerful poems, one of the most remarkable of which is the “Harzreise im Winter” (“The Harz Journey in Winter”), presenting his thoughts and feelings on the day when he climbed to the top of the Brocken in the winter of 1777. In another poem of this time, “Ilmenau,” written in 1783 as a birthday-gift for the Duke, Goethe showed how high and sacred, as he conceived them, were the duties owed by a ruler to his subjects. A third poem, “Die Geheimnisse” (“The Secrets”), begun in 1784, is unfortunately only a splendid fragment. If completed, it would have given form to all that Goethe had thought about the relations of the great religious movements of the world to man’s deepest spiritual needs.

While he was slowly working out a new ideal, both in his character and in his art, the intellectual movement in Germany, of which he had been considered the chief representative, retained all its original characteristics. In 1781 Schiller began his career with his wild play, “The Robbers;” and other young writers, with little of his power, found it easy to imitate his extravagance. To Goethe the prevailing tone of the literature of the time—although he himself was in some degree responsible for it—became deeply repugnant, and he turned from it with more and more dislike, finding refuge in the calmer realms of philosophy and science. Even his friend Jacobi contrived to displease him. Jacobi’s “Woldemar” appeared in 1779, and its sentimentalism—reproducing the sentimentalism of “Werther”—seemed to Goethe so ridiculous that one day, in the Park at the Duchess Dowager’s residence at Ettersburg, he climbed a tree and nailed the book to a branch as a warning to literary evil-doers. Unfortunately Jacobi heard of this mad prank, and took serious offence. After some time, however, Goethe wrote to him in a tone of such sincere, although indirect, apology that Jacobi understood at once that less had been intended than he had thought. In 1784 he came to see Goethe at Weimar, and their friendship was never again interrupted.

When Goethe had been about ten years at Weimar, he began to feel that some change of life was absolutely essential. He had worked hard, steadily, and loyally in the fulfilment of difficult duties, and longed for a time of relief, during which his mind might expand freely and be enriched by fresh impressions. From early boyhood he had often wished to visit Italy, and this yearning was now revived with almost painful intensity. At last he decided that, at whatever cost, his desire should be gratified. Late in July, 1786, he went, as he had repeatedly gone in previous summers, to Carlsbad, where he met Frau von Stein, Herder and his wife, and the Duke; and a little more than a month afterwards he started on his travels. He had accompanied Frau von Stein a part of the way back to Weimar, but even to her he had said nothing about his approaching journey. Nor, in writing to the Duke for leave of absence, did he speak of his destination. He had a kind of superstitious feeling that if the secret were let out his scheme might be thwarted.

Simultaneously with the return of his desire for Italy Goethe was conscious of a reawakening of his poetic genius. He began to think seriously of his unfinished plans, and to dream of new achievements. Finally he arranged with Göschen, a Leipsic bookseller (the grandfather of Mr. Göschen, the English statesmen), for the publication of a collected edition of his writings in eight volumes. The contents of four of these volumes he prepared for the press before quitting Carlsbad.

CHAPTER VI.

During his visit to Italy he wrote a large number of letters, most of which were addressed to Frau von Stein. Long afterwards he issued some of them, carefully edited, as one of the supplements of his autobiography, giving them the general title, “Italienische Reise” (“Italian Journey”). These letters have all the freshness of immediate impressions, yet we find in them only so much detail as is necessary to give brightness and animation to his pictures of the central elements of interest that meet him on his way. In every letter we feel the influence of a deep enthusiasm, but it is an enthusiasm that never distorts his vision or injures the noble simplicity and purity of his style.

He entered Italy from the Tyrol, and the first important town at which he stopped was Verona. From Verona he went to Vicenza, and so, through Padua, to Venice. At Venice he remained three weeks, allowing its splendours to impress themselves deeply on his imagination. He then went to Bologna, which he ever afterwards associated with the charm of Raphael’s St. Agatha. In his thoughts about Italy it had always been Rome of which he had chiefly dreamed, and now his longing to be there became so overwhelming that he hurried over what remained of the journey, staying only three hours at Florence. In view of the joy that was to come he was scarcely conscious of the inconveniences of travel. “If I am dragged to Rome on Ixion’s wheel,” he wrote, “I will not complain.”

On October 29, 1786, he drove into Rome through the Porta del Popolo. “Yes,” he wrote a day or two afterwards, “I have at last arrived at the capital of the world!... All the dreams of my youth are now realized. The first engravings I remember—my father had hung the views of Rome in an entrance-hall—I see now in reality, and all the things I have long known from paintings and drawings, from copper-plates and wood-cuts, from plaster casts and cork models, stand together before me. Wherever I go, I find an acquaintance in a new world; it is all as I had conceived it, and all new. The like I may say of my observations, of my ideas. I have had no new thoughts, have found nothing quite strange, but the old thoughts have been so defined, they have become so thoroughly alive, they have been brought into such harmonious relation to one another, that they may pass for new. When Pygmalion’s Elise, whom he had formed absolutely in accordance with his wishes, and to whom he had given as much truth and reality as were within the scope of art, at last came to him, and said, ‘It is I,’ how different was the living woman from the sculptured stone!”

While at Rome, Goethe realized with new vividness all that the mighty city had been to the world in the remote ages when on her had been imposed the task of guiding it to higher destinies. And he worked hard to think himself back into the Rome of ancient times. This, he confesses in one of his letters, was no easy task. “It is a sour and sad undertaking,” he writes, “to pick out the old Rome from the new.... One comes upon traces of a splendour and of a destruction, both of which go beyond our conceptions. What the barbarians allowed to stand, the architects of modern Rome have laid waste.” Gradually, however, a living idea of the ancient city was formed in his mind. “Roman antiquities,” he wrote about two months after his arrival, “begin to delight me. History, inscriptions, medals, of which I might otherwise have known nothing, all crowd in on me. As it happened to me in natural history, so it happens here; for in this place the entire history of the world centres, and I count as a second birthday, the day of a real new birth, that on which I entered Rome.” With regard to the significance of the remains of ancient art in Rome, Winckelmann had introduced a wholly new order of ideas, and Goethe owed much to him in the appreciation of the Apollo Belvedere and all the other masterpieces of sculpture he had now an opportunity of studying. He was astonished to find how little he had learned from plaster casts. The breath of life, it seemed to him, was to be felt only in the original marble figures. The fascination exerted by ancient statues led him to renew, but in a higher way, the studies of the human body which he had formerly carried on through anatomy. “In our medico-surgical anatomy,” he says, “all that is aimed at is a knowledge of the part, and for this a wretched muscle is enough. But in Rome the parts are worth nothing if they do not at the same time present a noble, beautiful form.”

The art of the Renascence, as represented in Rome, stirred in Goethe an interest not less profound than that awakened by ancient sculpture. Long before, when as a young student he visited Dresden, the pictures which had appealed to him most strongly were those of the Dutch school. Now he felt the power of the ideal art of Italy in her great period. He was fascinated by the Loggie of Raphael, at the Vatican, but even they seemed of slight importance in comparison with the masterpieces of Michael Angelo in the Sixtine Chapel. “I could,” he says, writing of these sublime conceptions, “only gaze and stand amazed. The inward sureness and manliness of the master, his greatness, go beyond all expression.”

He did not fail, of course, to make pilgrimages to the great churches, and in one of his letters he describes how, after a visit to the Sixtine Chapel, he went with his friend Tischbein to St. Peter’s, “which received the most beautiful light from the cheerful sky, and appeared in all its parts bright and clear.” “As men who had come to enjoy what we were to see, we delighted in its greatness and splendour, without allowing ourselves, this time, to be misled by a taste too fastidious and intelligent. We suppressed every unfavourable judgment, and delighted in what was delightful.”

Anxious that nothing should stand in the way of his full enjoyment of “the capital of the world,” Goethe avoided as far as possible all association with “the great.” He had, however, several friends with whom he had pleasant intercourse. The most intimate of them was Tischbein, a good German artist, whom he had known for several years. Goethe occupied two rooms in Tischbein’s house, and obtained from him much help in the study both of ancient and of modern art. Another of his friends at Rome was Meyer, a Swiss artist, who delighted him as much by the charm of his personal character as by his artistic skill and knowledge. Goethe was also greatly attracted by Moritz, a writer who had made some reputation as the author of a book of travels in England, and was now collecting materials for a like book on Italy. Angelica Kaufmann, who had settled in Rome after her departure from London, welcomed Goethe cordially to her home, and he soon held her in high esteem. With these and other friends he spent many happy hours, and his delight in the new world opened to him in Rome was, if possible, deepened and intensified by their sympathy.

From the time when Goethe had taken lessons in drawing from Oeser at Leipsic he had never lost the wish to become a skilful artist; and at Weimar he had displayed considerable aptitude for portraiture. Now, when he had so many opportunities of indulging his taste, he took great pains to improve himself in drawing, painting, and modelling. For some time he even debated with himself whether he ought not to become an artist by profession. He did not long, however, remain in doubt. Although, with Tischbein’s help, he made good progress, he was obliged to admit that nature had denied to him the capacity of achieving, in art, work that in any way corresponded to his lofty ideal of what such work should be.

He had brought with him from Weimar many writings which he proposed either to complete or to re-cast for the new edition of his works. The first task undertaken was the transformation of “Iphigenie” from a prose to a poetical drama, and he had worked at it more or less steadily at all the places at which he had stopped before reaching Rome. It had also frequently occupied his thoughts while he travelled from one point of his journey to another. At Bologna, while he stood before Raphael’s St Agatha, his conception of the character of Iphigenie assumed a new and higher form. “I remarked the figure well,” he afterwards wrote; “in mind I shall read my ‘Iphigenie’ to her, and my heroine shall say nothing that the saint might not utter.” In Rome the writing of “Iphigenie” formed from day to day, until the work was completed, the central interest around which all his other occupations grouped themselves. On the 12th of December the drama received its last touches, and it was soon afterwards read to a group of his friends. They had expected that the play would resemble “Goetz von Berlichingen,” and Goethe saw only too plainly that it disappointed them. Angelica Kaufmann alone had something like an adequate idea of its importance.

About this time Goethe received a friendly letter from the Duke of Weimar extending his leave of absence indefinitely. He resolved to profit to the utmost by the opportunity thus provided for him, and on the 22nd of February, 1787, he started with Tischbein for Naples. As they approached the city, he was powerfully impressed by the view of Vesuvius, from which great masses of smoke were issuing. The liveliness and good humour of the people of Naples enchanted him, and he found inexhaustible sources of delight in the beauty of the town itself, in the bright southern sky, and in all the splendours of nature that constantly presented themselves in new aspects both on land and sea. Twice he climbed Vesuvius, and on both occasions he described his experiences in letters that bring the scene before us almost with the vividness of reality. As in Rome, so in Naples he made himself familiar with every treasure of ancient and modern art that was accessible to him, and his conception of the old Roman world was at once enlarged and made more definite by visits to Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Pæstum. “I have seen much and thought still more,” he wrote on the 17th of March; “the world opens itself more and more; even the things I have long known become now for the first time my own.” In the same letter, however, he says: “Many a time I think of Rousseau and his hypochondriacal misery, and yet it becomes intelligible to me how so fine an organization might be thrown off its balance. Did I not take such an interest in natural things, and did I not see that in the apparent confusion a hundred observations are capable of being compared and classified, as a land surveyor corrects many single measurements by one line drawn through them, I should often consider myself mad.”

On the 29th of March, 1787, accompanied by Kniep, a German artist settled at Naples, Goethe embarked for Sicily. Sixteen days he remained at Palermo, where art and nature combined to give him a happiness that seems to have been absolutely unalloyed. He then made for Alcamo and Segesta, visited Girgenti and Catania, climbed a part of Mount Etna, and finally arrived at Messina, whence he returned by sea to Naples. His letters, written for Frau von Stein, in the form of a diary, reproduce with astonishing power, yet with perfect simplicity, the impressions produced upon him during his visit to Sicily. He studied closely the remains of Greek architecture, and at the same time carried on his scientific investigations, which had occupied him at every favourable opportunity from the day of his arrival in Italy. These investigations had become more attractive to him than ever, for he had now a clear conception of the main outlines of his great discovery of the metamorphosis of plants.

On the 6th of June he was once more in Rome. It was his intention to return to Weimar soon, but Rome exercised so irresistible a power over him that nearly a year passed before he could bring himself to leave it. All that he had seen before his departure for Naples he studied again and again, and almost daily he found objects of interest that had been overlooked. During this time his idea of Rome and of its greatest possessions became so full, accurate, and vivid that it was never in the faintest degree blurred by the events of his later life.

He looked forward with the deepest interest to the great ceremonies of the Roman Church during Passion Week, and they seem to have given him a wholly new conception of the service art may be made to render to religion. Writing of a Mass in the Sixtine Chapel, attended by the Pope and the Cardinals, he says he does not wonder that strangers are often unable to contain themselves in the presence of a spectacle at once so great and so simple. The ceremonies in the Sixtine Chapel on the morning of Easter Day filled him with admiration, and appeared to him a striking proof of the fact that at Rome the Church had penetrated deeply into the spirit of “the Christian traditions.”

In his literary work his progress was less rapid than he had expected. He was able, however, to achieve some important results. Among his papers was an unfinished prose drama, “Egmont,” which dated from about the time when he had written “Stella.” He had often thought of completing it at Weimar, but had never accomplished his purpose. Now he gave the play its final form, partly re-casting it; but re-writing it, as originally planned, in prose. He also improved the less important works, “Erwin and Elmire” and “Claudine von Villa Bella.”

Another of his papers, frayed at the edges and grey with age, was “Faust,” in the form in which he had taken it from Frankfort to Weimar. It was hard for him, after so long an interval, to take up this work at the point at which he had left it. On the 1st of March, 1788, however, he wrote that he had “found the thread again,” and that “the plan for ‘Faust’ was made.” At Rome he wrote “Die Hexenküche” (“The Witches’ Kitchen”), one of the most striking scenes in “Faust,” a scene at which, no doubt, his imagination worked all the more freely from the strange contrast it presented to the actual world in the midst of which it was conceived. In this scene there is one slight indication of the difficulty he must have experienced in carrying on the work in the spirit in which it had been begun. Faust in the first monologue says he has had pupils for ten years. This means that he cannot be much more than thirty years old. In the “Hexenküche” he is presented as a man over fifty, for he speaks of the possibility of his youth being renewed by thirty years being struck out of his life. Goethe never detected this curious contradiction.

At last it became necessary for him to drag himself away from the city he now knew and loved so well. On the evening of the 21st of April, 1788, he strolled with some friends along the Corso in the moonlight, and visited for the last time the Capitol and the Colosseum. Next day he was travelling towards the North. On the way he spent some time at Florence and Milan, and on the 18th of June he re-entered Weimar.

CHAPTER VII.

He knew well that if he allowed himself again to be absorbed by business he would necessarily be turned aside from his true destiny. This he had, in effect, communicated to the Duke in letters from Italy; and as the Duke not only had a sincere love for Goethe, but felt that he himself was now fitted to undertake, in reality as well as in name, the supreme control of affairs, he was willing to assent to any arrangement his friend might propose. It was therefore decided that Goethe should be relieved of most of the duties he had discharged before going to Italy. He retained, however, the position of a Minister of State, and continued for some years to take an active part in the direction of the Ilmenau mines, a work in which he was genuinely interested. To him was also intrusted the authority which belonged to the Duchy of Weimar in the government of the University of Jena.

Goethe had returned with the full intention of maintaining his friendship with Frau von Stein. It was, however, impossible that their old relations should be renewed. Her sympathy could not now be to him what it had been, for during nearly two years he had accustomed himself to live without the relief that had formerly come from confidential talk with her about his inmost thoughts and cares. Moreover, while he had come back with a world of new ideas in his mind, she had no interests with which he had not long been familiar; and as she was now a delicate woman of forty-four, it was improbable that she would be accessible to fresh influences. With a woman’s instinct, Frau von Stein at once detected the change in Goethe, of which he himself was only half conscious; and she could not help showing that she resented it. He, on the other hand, was repelled by her coldness. Thus misunderstandings at once sprang up, and both knew that they could never be wholly removed.

A few weeks after his arrival at Weimar, Goethe was walking one day in the Park when he was approached by a girl of about twenty-three, of a humble position in life. Her name was Christiane Vulpius. She had brought with her a petition from her brother, who, after studying at Jena, had betaken himself to literature, and thought that Goethe might be willing to help him. Goethe read the paper, but was far more interested in the messenger than in the message. Christiane, although not tall, had a good figure and a fresh pretty face, with an honest, frank, lively expression in her fine blue eyes. Goethe was charmed with her, and the result was that she became his wife. At this stage their hands were not formally joined in a church, but from the beginning he never thought of their union as other than a true marriage. Much idle gossip has been printed to Christiane’s disadvantage—for the most part an echo of the tittle-tattle of the Weimar Court, the ladies of which could not bear to think of Goethe as the husband of a woman who did not belong to their own class. In reality she was a good and most loyal wife, and retained to the last the warm love of her husband, who was never happier than in her presence. When he was from home he sent her long letters, all of which she kept as her most sacred possessions. He talked to her freely about his great botanical discovery, and did not find that the subject was beyond her intelligence; and when he intrusted her with important private business, she displayed, in attending to it, decision, good sense, and good feeling. She ruled his household, too, as he liked it to be ruled, firmly, yet with kindness and discretion. His mother received Christiane cordially as her “dear daughter.”

For some time Goethe and Christiane lived in seclusion in his house in the Park, but their union could not long be kept secret. When it became known, Frau von Stein was furious. She was about to visit the Rhenish baths, and before starting she addressed to him a letter so bitter in its tone that he could not answer it for some weeks. For the time the break between them was complete. Afterwards they became good friends again, but never, of course, on the old intimate terms. Frau von Stein had the sympathy of all the Court ladies, with, however, one notable exception, the Duchess, who understood Goethe too well to speak of him harshly or uncharitably.

No longer harassed by incessant business, and enjoying to the full his life with Christiane, Goethe had resumed his literary work with enthusiasm. Its first-fruits were his “Römische Elegien” (“Roman Elegies”), in which he gave utterance to the delight he had experienced at Rome. Side by side with the poet stands a beautiful girl, his love for whom is intimately connected with all the other influences under which his heart expands in the great city. In sketching this figure, Goethe was no doubt thinking chiefly of Christiane, whom in imagination he transported to the land where life had seemed to him so full of glory. In these poems there is an occasional warmth of expression that has sometimes given offence, but, judged simply as works of art, they are as near perfection as anything Goethe ever wrote. The passion expressed in them is deep and ardent, yet the forms and scenes with which it is associated stand out as clearly as a landscape under the bright Italian sky. The “Elegies” would have taken an enduring place in literature if they had had nothing to commend them but the splendour of their diction and melody.

While working at the “Elegies,” Goethe strove to complete his drama, “Torquato Tasso,” a part of which had been written long before in prose. In Italy he had hoped to be able, before returning to Weimar, to clothe the conception of this play in fitting verse. The task, however, was too hard to be accomplished quickly, and even at Weimar he did not bring it to an end until the summer of 1789. “Tasso” was the last of the series of plays either wholly or in part transformed in Italy.

We have seen that even before Goethe went to Italy his conception of the true aim and method of dramatic art had begun to undergo a profound change. In Italy this process of development was completed, partly by the influence of classical literature, but mainly by that of ancient sculpture. Here, following the track marked out by Winckelmann, he had found that the supreme aim of ancient artists was ideal beauty, and that they had sought to attain it by the harmonious combination of parts in a whole, so that the figures created by them should convey in action an impression of noble simplicity, dignity, and calm. This was the ideal he kept steadily before himself in most of the work begun or completed in Rome.

In “Egmont” this new conception could not find full expression, for the outlines of the scheme had been drawn at a time when Goethe worked under wholly different influences. Even in “Egmont,” however, in the form in which he gave it to the world, his new method predominates. Goethe’s Egmont, who differs in many particulars from the Egmont of history, is a man of most genial temper. He is sincerely devoted to the cause of freedom, and makes troops of friends by his frankness, his courage, his inexhaustible generosity. But he lacks the power to read the signs of hostile intention in others, and this defect, which necessarily springs from some of his best qualities, exposes him to deadly peril, and leads ultimately to his ruin. Interwoven with the history of his relations to the public movements of his age is the story of his love for Clärchen. Such a love at such a time would seem wholly unnatural if Egmont were a prudent statesman, conscious of the actual circumstances in which he and his country are placed; but he has no doubt as to the triumph of his cause, for he trusts absolutely the King of Spain and his counsellors, believing their objects to be as honourable as his own. There is no incongruity, therefore, between Egmont’s patriotism and his love, and in such a nature as his, were the conditions favourable, each feeling would purify and ennoble the other. Clärchen is in every respect worthy of him. She is one of the finest of the many fine feminine characters conceived by Goethe. She is capable of heroic action as well as of the tenderest love, and she obeys an irresistible impulse when, having heard of Egmont’s imprisonment, she appeals with passionate fervour to the people for his deliverance. The concluding scene, in which Freedom in the form of Clärchen appears to Egmont in a dream as he lies in prison awaiting execution, produces exactly the impression that Goethe meant it to produce. It softens the effect of the tragic conflicts which have led to Clärchen’s death, and are about to lead to her lover’s, and we are reminded that there are in the world forces for good, the victory of which may be delayed, but cannot in the end be prevented, by individual defeat and sorrow.

Although less interesting than the two central figures, the other characters in this great drama are most vividly presented. William of Orange, the resolute patriot who never allows himself to be diverted from his path by mistaking appearance for reality, contrasts strongly with the heedless Egmont; and Alva, cold, cruel, and treacherous, is a fitting representative of a crushing and inhuman tyranny. The crowds which from time to time give voice to popular feeling play an essential part in the evolution of the tragedy, and are brought before us with extraordinary animation and truth to nature.

In composing the poetical drama, “Iphigenie,” Goethe did not depart very widely from the substance of the original prose version. He gave to the entire conception, however, new dignity and beauty. The central interest attaches to the heroine, than whom there is not in all modern literature a nobler type of womanhood. Hers is a spirit of spotless purity, associated with a high serenity springing from the inward harmony of all the elements of her character. She has infinite tenderness and humanity, with an inflexible will, and a passion for truth and honour. Those who come into contact with her are overcome by a mingled feeling of love and reverence, and all that is best in their spiritual life is evoked by her presence. Iphigenie is only nominally a Greek priestess; in reality, she would have been impossible in a society in which women were supposed to be subordinate to men. In her aims, sympathies, aspirations, she is wholly modern, and it may be that some features of her character were reproduced from the character of Frau von Stein, as it revealed itself to Goethe in the happiest moments of their friendship. Orestes, Pylades, Thoas, are not less dominated by essentially modern motives. It is a striking proof of the power and subtlety of Goethe’s art that there is no conflict between the modern substance and the antique form of this splendid drama. He rigidly excludes every thought and feeling that might conflict with his chosen method. There is no austerity of sentiment, but all is measured and stately, and capable, therefore, of being brought within the scope of a severely restricted scheme.

The development of the tale is not less admirable than the truth of the characters. As in the ancient statues which Goethe so warmly admired, each of the individual parts is in its proper place, and contributes what is demanded of it, and no more, to the idea as a whole. The diction and metre of the drama, always noble and harmonious, accord perfectly with its predominant spirit, and they may be said to have revealed for the first time the high capabilities of the German language as an instrument of dramatic expression. We cannot wonder that “Iphigenie” disappointed readers who expected to find in it volcanic explosions like those of his early writings. It belongs to a different period of Goethe’s development, and must be estimated by altogether different standards.

Goethe found it hard to complete “Torquato Tasso,” and the explanation probably is that the subject did not lend itself so readily as the subject of “Iphigenie” to classic treatment. Here he had to present a strange, abnormal type of character, with agitated feelings, the expression of which continually tended to press beyond the limits within which Goethe’s scheme required him to retain it. Tasso, as Goethe presents the character, is a kind of Werther, of a highly excitable temperament, and morbidly sensitive to praise and blame. He reminds us, too, of Rousseau, and it is possible that in working out the conception Goethe may have taken some hints from Rousseau’s “Confessions,” for, as we have seen, he often thought, while in Italy, of “Rousseau and his hypochondriacal misery.” When the play opens, Tasso is living as an honoured guest of the Duke of Ferrara, at the Castle of Belriguardo. He has just finished “La Gerusalemme Liberata,” and in the garden of the castle presents the poem to the duke in the presence of the duke’s sister, the Princess Leonore, and of her foster-sister, Leonore, the Countess of Scandiano. The gift is received with many expressions of delight, and, at a sign from the duke, the princess takes a wreath from a bust of Virgil and crowns the poet with it. He is enchanted, and cannot find words strong enough to utter his gratitude. The conversation is interrupted by the arrival of the duke’s chief minister, Antonio, who has returned from an important mission. He is held in great respect, and is cordially received. After some talk about the work he has accomplished, reference is made to Tasso’s wreath, and Antonio, who is not given to vehement applause, addresses Tasso rather coldly, but takes an opportunity of praising Ariosto. Something in Antonio’s character jars on Tasso’s feeling, and he is bitterly jealous of the high place occupied by the wise and successful statesman. In conversation with the princess, for whom he cherishes a secret passion, he pours forth his discontent. She strives to pacify him, and her efforts are seconded by the duke and Leonore. Tasso, trying to master himself, seeks out Antonio, and offers to become his friend. The offer being received in an ungenial spirit, Tasso feels insulted, speaks to Antonio angrily, and finally draws his sword, demanding that their quarrel shall at once be fought out. At this point the duke comes; and Tasso, who has exposed himself to severe penalties, is ordered, but not harshly, to confine himself to his room. Antonio feels that he has not acted with sufficient consideration, and is eager to do what he can to make amends. The duke, too, and the princess, and Leonore, are all most anxious that Tasso shall be reconciled to Antonio and to himself. Now, however, the young poet is violently excited; he becomes bitterly suspicious, feels sure that he is surrounded by enemies, and that every one is plotting against him. All that is done to restore him to good humour he resents, attributing it to a wish to injure him. In the princess alone he has confidence, and her he shocks, when she is encouraging him to collect himself, by suddenly throwing his arms around her and pressing her to his breast. In the final scene, while the duke, the princess, and Leonore drive away from the castle, Antonio, who now fully realizes that the poet is a man of morbid temper who needs to be tenderly and patiently dealt with, comes to him and addresses him kindly. Tasso indulges in a furious outburst against all the world, by which he is misunderstood, but at the last moment takes Antonio’s hand, and clings to him as a shipwrecked sailor to a rock.

In none of Goethe’s plays does he display finer or more penetrating observation of character. The Tasso of the drama is in some respects very unlike the real Tasso, but that does not prevent him from being a most striking representative of minds which, making self the centre of their thoughts, are thereby led to have a wholly distorted conception of life, and to poison what might be, and ought to be, perennial sources of happiness. The prince, the princess, Leonore, and Antonio resemble one another in being healthy natures, and in acting with an air of distinction; but otherwise each is marked off from the rest by special characteristics, indicated clearly, but with infinite delicacy. As usual in his plays, it is to the feminine characters that Goethe attributes the highest qualities. The princess is one of his greatest creations, combining, as she does, deep feeling with exquisite tact and a noble appreciation of the conditions of inward growth and peace.

The tale in itself is not one of absorbing interest, and the conclusion is hardly satisfactory, since no difficulty is really solved by it. But the scheme is developed with such perfect art that it exercises a strong fascination, which increases from scene to scene. The theme, even when Tasso becomes most vehement, is not once allowed to pass beyond control. With a light but sure touch Goethe moulds every part, securing that there shall not be even a minute detail without an organic relation to the whole. The scene of the action is not forced on our attention, but incidental allusions constantly remind us that all around the castle of Belriguardo are lovely sunny landscapes. The grace and purity of the style are unmatched in German dramatic literature, yet so easily do the lines flow into one another that we are almost tempted to think of them as utterances of nature herself; and in almost every scene there are individual lines or groups of lines concentrating the essence of Goethe’s thought about life. In no other work by Goethe are there so many pregnant sayings fitted at once to guide and console those who are accessible to his influence.

The edition of his works in which these dramas were printed includes also “Faust: A Fragment.” It appeared in the seventh volume, which was published in 1790. This “Fragment” did not contain all the scenes that Goethe had written at Frankfort; it concluded with the scene in the cathedral, where Gretchen is overcome with grief and remorse. On the other hand, it took in a part of Faust’s second dialogue with Mephistopheles (beginning with the line, “Und was der ganzen Menschheit zugetheilt ist”), the short monologue in which Mephistopheles speaks of the inevitable ruin of a mind which despises reason and science, the “Hexenküche” (written in Rome), and “Wald und Höhle.” The dialogue between Mephistopheles and the scholar was much altered, and the whole of the scene in Auerbach’s cellar was presented in verse. The work, therefore, without being vitally changed, was considerably developed, and in the new passages as well as in those re-written there is ample evidence of the advance Goethe had made in the mastery of poetic forms. Moreover, Faust’s dialogue with Mephistopheles, and the monologue of Mephistopheles, show that Goethe had now a deeper appreciation of all that was involved in the conception of Faust turning from his high ideal aims to seek for satisfaction in the pleasures of the senses.

Another, and very different, work was published in this edition—“Die Metamorphose der Pflanzen” (“The Metamorphosis of Plants”). In this famous essay Goethe expounds the theory that the foliar organs of flowering plants are all to be regarded as various forms of the leaf. To this discovery he had been led by prolonged and delicate observation. The idea seems to have dawned upon him before he went to Italy, but it was in Italy, where he had many opportunities of studying plants he had not formerly known, that he became conscious of its full significance. The doctrine has long been accepted by botanists, and it acquired fresh importance when it came to be associated, as it is now associated, with the general law of evolution. Goethe delighted in the conception, not only for its own sake, but because it seemed to him a most striking illustration of the principle that in organic nature all things are created in accordance with enduring types. The doctrine of the metamorphosis of plants had been set forth, thirty years before Goethe’s treatise was written, by K. F. Wolff. Goethe afterwards learned this, and was in no way disturbed by the fact that he had been anticipated. That the theory had suggested itself to two minds working independently gave him hearty pleasure as welcome evidence of its truth.

Early in 1790 Goethe was summoned to Venice to meet the Duchess Dowager, who, having travelled for some time in Italy, was now about to return to Weimar. Her coming was long delayed, and, being restless and impatient, he occupied himself in writing a series of rather bitter epigrams. After six weeks’ absence he was delighted to find himself again in Weimar, for now his home was doubly dear to him, a son having been born on Christmas Day of the previous year. The child was baptized by Herder, and received the name Julius August Walther. Afterwards three children were born dead, and a fourth died in infancy. On each of these occasions Goethe suffered poignant grief, and wholly lost his self-control.

His second visit to Venice was made memorable by an important scientific discovery. He was standing with his valet Seidel in the Jews’ cemetery, when Seidel lifted a piece of a sheep’s skull, and handed it to Goethe, pretending that it was the skull of a Jew. As Goethe looked at it, it suddenly occurred to him that the bones of which the skull is composed are not essentially different from vertebræ, but are, in fact, vertebræ transformed. The idea corresponds exactly with his conception of the foliar organs of flowering plants as transformed leaves. Goethe did not mean that in the course of long ages vertebræ had been developed into the bones of the skull, but simply that Nature, in creating these bones, modifies vertebræ to suit special needs. Like his earlier discoveries, however, this theory—which is only another application of his general doctrine of types—becomes thoroughly intelligible only when the facts to which it relates are explained by the law of evolution. It is the supreme merit of Goethe’s contributions to biology that they all pointed in the direction of evolution, and were among the influences that made the recognition of it, sooner or later, inevitable.

About this time Goethe interested himself in the study of Newton’s theory of colours, and, that he might understand it more fully, borrowed some prisms. When the owner asked that they should be returned, he thought he would like to try one of them again before sending them back. The result was that he began to suspect that Newton’s doctrine was not true, and in this suspicion he was confirmed by further research. This subject had an extraordinary fascination for Goethe, and almost to the end of his life he worked at it at intervals, firmly convinced, not only that Newton was wrong, but that he himself had discovered the true scientific significance of colours; and he attributed vast importance to his own doctrine. In old age he even told Eckermann one day that he did not at all pride himself on his poetry, but that his theory of colours did seem to him something to be proud of. Unfortunately, Goethe here dealt with problems for the solution of which he had not been adequately prepared. The subject appeared to him less complicated than it really is, and his conclusions have been unanimously rejected by men of science. His writings about it, however, have a certain interest, not merely because of their lucid style, but because he brings together much curious information relating to the history of opinion on the question, and also because it is hardly less instructive to understand the intellectual influences by which a great man is misled than to understand those by which he is guided to truth.

In 1791 the Duke established a Court Theatre in Weimar, and asked Goethe to undertake the direction of it. Goethe consented, and for many years this was one of the duties to which he devoted most attention. His aim was to provide representations that should appeal to, and delight, a really cultivated taste, and he was almost as anxious that the acting should be maintained at a high level as that the dramas acted should be good. He took immense pains to realize his ideal, and under his control the Weimar Theatre ultimately became famous. All over Germany it was recognized as the theatre in which most was done for the development of a great school of dramatic art.

The Duke, anxious to find some fitting way of expressing to Goethe his gratitude for the services he had rendered, presented him, in 1792, with the house in which he spent the rest of his life. Goethe changed it to suit his own ideas, and made it the handsomest and pleasantest private dwelling in Weimar. In altering it he received much help from his friend Meyer, the Swiss artist whose acquaintance he had made in Rome. Meyer had come to Weimar at Goethe’s urgent request, and for several years lived as a guest in his house. He painted for Goethe a portrait of Christiane with her little boy in her arms in the position of the “Madonna della sedia.” This portrait was always kept under a curtain, and Goethe counted it among the most precious of his treasures.

We must think of Goethe at this time as often directing his attention gravely and anxiously to the progress of events in France, where the movement of thought by which he had been so profoundly influenced in youth had at last led to its logical issues in action. Some of the best of Goethe’s contemporaries in Germany hailed the French Revolution as the beginning of a new and glorious era for humanity. Their rejoicings were not shared by Goethe. He knew well, indeed, the sufferings of the oppressed population, not only of France, but of other countries, his own included; and he was eager that their condition should be improved by just and wise government. But he found it impossible to believe that the end could be attained by violence, and he had no doubt that the tendency of the Revolution would be to check for many a day every great and noble movement in art, literature, and science. He fully recognized, however, that the events he deplored were in the last resort due, not to self-seeking agitators, but to the abuses of a thoroughly corrupt society. Long afterwards he said to Eckermann that if he detested revolutionists, he detested not less strongly the people who made revolutions inevitable; and that this was his feeling from the beginning is distinctly indicated by several of his writings. “Gross-Cophta,” a prose play written in 1791, deals with the story of the diamond necklace, with which the impostor Cagliostro was intimately connected. The play is not artistically important, but it shows how dark a view Goethe took of some elements of the social life of France in the period immediately preceding the Revolution. In “Die Aufgeregten,” an unfinished prose play belonging to the same time, he represents the peasantry of a French estate as rising in revolt against the countess to whom they owe allegiance. The countess, being a woman of enlightened opinions, does not dispute that they have solid grievances, and readily meets them half way. The moral evidently is that if the French nobles as a class had possessed her elevation of character, the peril of violent change might without difficulty have been averted.

In 1792 began the long series of revolutionary wars. The Duke of Weimar served as a general in the Prussian army, and at his request Goethe accompanied him during the campaign in Champagne. Here Goethe realized for the first time the terrible nature of the forces which the Revolution had let loose on the world. During the cannonade of Valmy, anxious to know what the “cannon-fever” was really like, he rode to a spot exposed to the enemy’s fire. On the evening of this memorable day, when the French gained their first success, Goethe wrote in his tent: “From this place, and to-day, begins a new epoch in the history of the world, and you may say that you were there.”

On his return, after an absence of four months, he wrote in hexameters, as a satire on the political follies of the day, his admirable version of the old Low Dutch tale, “Reineke Fuchs.” Next year, 1793, he was again with the Duke, this time before Mainz, which the Prussians were trying to recapture from the French. When the town was given up, Goethe felt that he had had enough, and more than enough, of war, and went back with relief to his home and his studies at Weimar.