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GOETHE IN AGE. 
 
 From the bust by Ranch about 1820. 
 
THE 
 
 LIFE AND GENIUS 
 
 OF 
 
 GOETHE 
 
 LECTURES AT THE CONCORD SCHOOL 
 OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 F. B. SANBORN 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 TICKNOR AND COMPANY 
 
 1886 
 
Copyright, 1885, 
 By Ticknor and Company. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 CSnibftaita 1P«2b: 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 
 
 -. I 
 

 CONTENTS. 
 
 PORTRAITS. 
 
 Goethe in Age. From Raucli's Bust . . . Frontispiece. 
 Goethe IN Youth Tofacep.l 
 
 Page 
 Introduction. — The Goethe Society and the Goethe 
 Archives. — Bibliography of Goethe's Works, of 
 Works on Goethe, and of Papers on Goethe — 
 
 The Concord School V 
 
 I. Goethe's Youth. Prof. H. S. White .... 1 
 
 II. Goethe's Self-Culture. John Alhee .... 37 
 
 III. Goethe's Titanism. Thomas Davidson .... 68 
 
 IV. Goethe and Schiller. Rev. G. A. Bartol . . 107 
 
 V. Goethe's Marchen. Rev. F. H. Hedge . . . 135 
 
 VI. Goethe's Relation to English Literature. 
 
 F. B. Sanborn 157 
 
 VII. Goethe as a Playwright. TFilliam Ordivay 
 
 Partridge 189 
 
 VIII. Das Ewig-Weibliche. Mrs. E. D. Cheney , . 218 
 
 IX. The Elective Affinities. S. H. Emery, Jr. . 251 
 
 X. Child Life as portrayed by Goethe. Mrs. 
 
 Caroline K. Sherman 290 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 XI. History op the Faust Poem. Denton J. Snider 313 
 
 XII. Goethk's "Women. Mrs. Julia Ward Howe . . 345 
 
 XIII. Goethe's Faust. W. T. Harris 368 
 
 INDEX 447 
 
 -^. 
 
INTEODUCTION. 
 
 The Lectures on Goethe here printed are not the 
 whole of those delivered at the School of Philosophy 
 in July, 1885 ; for several of the lecturers have either 
 published their essays elsewhere, or withhold them 
 for other uses. Much also tha^t was said in the con- 
 versations which followed the Lectures, and which 
 threw light on the text as here printed, is necessarily 
 omitted ; although the lecturers, in revising their 
 manuscripts, have sometimes included remarks that 
 were thus made. Mr. Alcott, the founder of the 
 School, although several times present during these 
 sessions, (as he had not been since 1882,) was unable 
 to make his comments in the conversations ; and 
 therefore some passages from his Diaries have been 
 inserted in the lecture of Mr. Sanborn. On the 
 other hand, Mr. Snider and other lecturers have 
 omitted, in revision, some of the comments made in 
 the spoken lectures. 
 
 Professor Hewett, of Cornell University, whose 
 lecture on " Goethe in Weimar," expanded, wiU form 
 part of a series on the " Homes of the German Poets " 
 
Vi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 in Harper's Magazine, and is not available for this 
 volume, has kindly furnished for this Introduction an 
 account of the newly discovered Goethe manuscripts 
 which were mentioned in his lecture. It is based on 
 the reports of Professor Geiger and Dr. Brahm, and 
 is as follows. 
 
 THE GOETHE SOCIETY AND THE GOETHE 
 ARCHIVES. 
 
 Walther von Goethe, Chamberlain of the Grand Duke of 
 Saxe-Weimar, and the last descendant of the poet, died in 
 Leipzig, April 15, 1885. By his will he bequeathed the 
 Goethe house, its art and scientific collections, to the Grand 
 Duke ; its literary treasures were left to the Grand Duchess 
 Sophie, a princess of the house of Orange, whose intelligence 
 and interest in literature make her a worthy successor of the 
 Duchess Amalia. On the 9th of June a call was issued, in- 
 viting all friends of Goethe literature to unite in the formation 
 of a Goethe Society in Weimar. The meeting was held on 
 June 20 and 21, in the guild house of the Crossbowmen, an 
 organization of which the poet was a member. More than one 
 hundred eminent scholars and university professors assembled 
 from all parts of Germany and Austria to do honor to the poet. 
 The Goethe archives, which had been so long the object of 
 ardent interest to all scholars, had at last been opened, and 
 the results of the investigation were to be made known. The 
 Society was constituted with a long list of active members, 
 including the Empress of Germany, the granddaughter of Carl 
 August, the Princes and the Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weimar, 
 the Princes of Reuss-Gera, of Meiningen, and of Saxony ; the 
 Ministers Von Gossler of Berlin, Von Gerber of Dresden, and 
 numerous foreign scholars of Naples, Rome, Athens, and 
 America. The Grand Duke Carl Alexander of Saxe-Weimar 
 
INTRODUCTION. VU 
 
 accepted the office of patron of the society. Dr. Simson, Presi- 
 dent of the Imperial Court of Leipzig, formerly President of 
 the German Parliament, was chosen the first President. The 
 Executive Committee consists of Professor W. Scherer of Berlin, 
 First Vice-President ; General-Intendant Von Loen of Weimar, 
 Second Vice-President ; Professor Kuno Fischer of Heidelberg ; 
 Paul Heyse, the novelist, of Munich ; Von Loeper of Berlin ; 
 Von Beaulieu-Marconnay of Dresden; Eumelin, Chancellor 
 of the University of Tubingen, of Stuttgart ; Professor Erich 
 Schmidt of Vienna; Eggeling, Curator of the University of 
 Jena; and Ruland of "Weimar. A business board was also 
 selected. Herr Commerzienrath Moritz was appointed Treas- 
 urer of the Society. 
 
 The objects of the organization are to promote a knowledge 
 of the whole domain of Goethe's intellectual activity and in- 
 fluence, and to promote special investigations in Goethe liter- 
 ature. Annual meetings will be held for the presentation of 
 papers and interchange of views. The Goethe Jahrbuch will 
 become the organ of the society, in which will be published 
 much of the fresh material discovered in the archives. The 
 volume for 1886 will contain the letters of Goethe to his sister 
 Cornelia, and to Behrisch in Dessau ; also, the hitherto un- 
 published letters of the Frau Rath (Goethe's mother) to the 
 Duchess Amalia, from the state archives, the arrangement of 
 which has been entrusted to Archivrath Burkhardt. A sub- 
 sequent volume will contain the letters of Goethe from Italy 
 to the Frau von Stein, and also his correspondence with his 
 wife. The Society will establish a Goethe museum and library, 
 with facilities for investigation, and seek to complete the 
 Goethe archives. 
 
 The Grand Duchess has determined to inaugurate two 
 monumental works : (1.) A complete life of Goethe, based on 
 his diaries and the additional material contained among his 
 papers. This has been undertaken by that most eminent 
 Goethe scholar, Privy-Councillor von Loeper. (2.) A new 
 authentic edition of his works, based upon the collation of all 
 
VUl INTRODUCTION. 
 
 existing manuscripts, whicli will devolve upon Yon Loeper, 
 Scherer, and Erich Schmidt, the last of whom has resigned 
 his professorship in the University of Vienna to accept the 
 Directorship of the Goethe Archives. 
 
 At a later session of the Society, Herr von Loeper and Pro- 
 fessor Scherer presented the results of their examination of the 
 archives. Six cases were fiUed with the manuscripts. One 
 contained accounts of domestic expenses, the bills of butchers 
 and bakers, preserved with that order which was character- 
 istic of the poet ; a second contained careful notes, from the 
 highest authorities, together with the results of his own obser- 
 vations in science ; two other cases contained manuscripts of 
 his works, journals, and letters. Von Loeper gave a general 
 view of the contents of two cases out of the six, which he had 
 been able to examine. The material may be divided into 
 three parts : (1.) Manuscripts of Goethe's works ; (2.) Letters ; 
 and (3.) Diaries. 
 
 I. The existing manuscripts, while not presenting new and 
 complete works, reveal the methods of study of the poet, the 
 vast field of his intellectual activit}^, and the origin, growth, 
 and connection of his various writings. They begin with the 
 unique copy of the " Hollenfahrt Jesu Christi," written in 
 1765, and published in "Die Sichtbaren" in 1766, and end 
 with his last great work, the Second Part of Faust, in 1831, 
 thus coveiing a period of sixty-six years. Many manuscripts 
 most eagerly anticijoated were not found, among them the 
 original of Faust. Count Friedrich Stolberg, in describing a 
 visit to Weimar in 1775, speaks of a glorious afternoon when 
 Goethe read " his half-completed Faust, a noble poem," to 
 the Duchesses and himself. This manuscript, which Goethe 
 carried with him to Italy, would settle many questions in 
 Faust criticism. The preliminary sketch of " Wilhelm Meis- 
 ter," spoken of by Herder, and its earlier form, as well as 
 the first version of " Tasso," are missing. Among the treasures 
 revealed, however, from the pre-Weimar days, are a fine manu- 
 script of " Der Ewige Jude " ; the first manuscript of " Gotz von 
 
INTRODUCTION. ix 
 
 Berlicbingen"; a hitherto unknown collection of dialogues, 
 in one of which Frau Aja plays a part (October 14, 1774); 
 and a volume of youthful poems, parts of which are known 
 through copies in the possession of the Herders and Frau von 
 Stein ; also, three versions of the " Mitschuldigen " (probably 
 later revisions), and several manuscripts of "Prometheus," 
 one copied by Lenz, and one by the Fraulein von Gochhausen. 
 Belonging to the period of his residence in "Weimar are copies 
 of his minor dramatic works, among them three manuscripts 
 of the " Triumph der Emptindsamkeit." 
 
 From the period of Goethe's residence in Italy there are 
 versions of the " Iphigenie " in prose and in iambics, " Tasso," 
 and the " Roman Elegies " complete, in his own autograph. 
 Of later date are three autograph manuscripts of the " Vene- 
 tian Epigrams," with many hitherto unpublished ; some of 
 these are of an erotic nature, others were directed against 
 Lavater, and still others were anti-clerical in spii-it. A manu- 
 script of the " Grosskophta " as an opera was also found, and 
 " Elpenor " in two versions. Of the period of Goethe's con- 
 nection with Schiller, there is the manuscript of " Hermann 
 und Dorothea," copied probably by A. W. Schlegel, with cor- 
 rections by Goethe. There are also numerous smaller works 
 and fragments, — among the latter the beginning of a tragedy 
 in five acts, called " Das Madchen von Oberkirch," in which 
 Goethe treats the phenomena of the French Revolution. He 
 located the action in the Alsatian village of Oberkirch, with 
 the surroundings of which he was familiar. There is also 
 a beautiful manuscript of that ambitious fragment, the 
 "Achilleis," in which Goethe, filled with the spirit of his 
 Homeric studies, undertook a classical epic, in continuation 
 of the Iliad, but stopped with the first canto. A plan, how- 
 ever, has been found, embracing the action of the six books 
 originally contemplated. Goethe's enthusiasm for Homer is 
 further shown by essays in the translation of various passages 
 in hexameters, and even a critical interpretation of an obscvu'e 
 passage. 
 
X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 His productivity is shown by the vast materials accumulated 
 in his later studies. Among these are poems and collectanea 
 for the " Divan," all in autograph, and nearly all supplied with 
 dates. These exhibit various readings and rejected passages, 
 and are of great value in the interpretation and historical 
 criticism of the verses as they stand. He even attempted a 
 " Historisches Volksbuch" (1808). Numberless minor poems 
 and fragments were found, occasionally recreations of the 
 charming evenings of the literary "circles," but more often 
 the records of more serious work. Among them are additional 
 Zahme Xenien, invectives, political stanzas, attacks on persons. 
 Erotica, etc. There is an attack upon Wolfgang Menzel, 
 whose bitter hostility could not always leave Goethe unmoved. 
 He is called a " Potenzierter Merkel." There is also an addi- 
 tion to the poem, " Es ist ein Schuss gefallen," with references 
 to Friedrich Schlegel, and Miiller, the romanticist and pub- 
 licist, who followed his friend to the Roman communion. 
 
 Professor Scherer, in his investigations, gave esjDecial atten- 
 tion to the manuscripts of " Faust." He found, what cannot 
 be a surprise, from Goethe's own expressions, that the poet him- 
 self had attempted an adaptation of the First Part to the stage. 
 His plan for its representation included in the first act the 
 Dedication, Prelude, and Prologue in Heaven. Music was 
 introduced skilfully and effectively in many passages ; as in 
 the abridged monologue, and in the scene of Faust's covenant 
 with the evil spirit, when the choir of spirits is heard contend- 
 ing with one another, " He will sign," " He will not sign," 
 singing in chorus, until Mephistopheles cries, 
 
 "Bliit ist ein ganz besonder Saft." 
 
 Goethe's taste for the opera, and his estimate of the capacity of 
 music to heighten dramatic effect, are shown by this treatment. 
 This scheme or arrangement is often styled in the manuscript 
 " melodrama." As early as 1810, Goethe considered the pre- 
 sentation of " Faust " on the stage, and requested Zelter to 
 write the music for the Easter Song and the Slumber Song of 
 
INTRODUCTION. xi 
 
 the Spirits, " Schwindet ihr dunkeln Wolbungen droben"; 
 but the musician declined, and Goethe dropped the matter for 
 the time. Later, he was very angry at the proposed production 
 of "Faust" in Weimar in 1828, before consultation with him, 
 " as though he were no longer alive, and without asking what 
 view he might have in the manner of its presentation." For 
 the Helena scenes there is the most abundant material, and 
 there is a manuscript, " Helena im Mittelalter, ein satyrisches- 
 Drama," which later bears the odd title, " Satyr-Drama, eine 
 Episode zu Faust." The inference is drawn from this, that 
 Goethe's earliest work on the "Helena" continued, in the 
 ancient metres, until the appearance of " Faust." The results 
 of this examination are in no respect complete or final. 
 
 II. The second division includes the letters to and from 
 Goethe. These cover an extended period, — from his student 
 days in Leipzig to his late Weimar days. New and unexpected 
 materials are here presented. Of high value in determining 
 the history of Goethe's life, and his relations to his family, 
 are his letters to his sister Cornelia. Strehlke, in his cata- 
 logue of Goethe's letters, recently completed, says, " No 
 single letter of Goethe to his sister or his father is known " ; 
 but here we have a welcome collection of letters to his 
 sister, the companion of his first triu.mph, whose loss he 
 so greatly mourned. There are also letters to Behrisch in 
 Dessau, the friend of his university days in Leipzig, from 
 whom he parted with so much regret. There are also three 
 letters written while an advocate in Frankfort, and thirty- 
 eight letters to the Minister von Fritsch. The series of letters 
 which will attract most attention are those to his wife, covering 
 twenty-five years in an unbroken succession, from 1792 to her 
 death in 1816. They are described as evincing a "constant 
 ardor and sincerity of feeling, and to afford an irrefutable view 
 of Goethe's domestic happiness. He communicates to her all 
 the interests of his life, his poetic undertakings, visits, and 
 moods, and shows a faithful interest in her domestic duties. 
 He is always the kind, loving, attentive husband. Amid the 
 
xii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 excitements of Ms campaign in France, he longs for his home, 
 and, for his highest happiness, wishes his dear one with him 
 in Verdun." There are a hundred and eighty letters from 
 Goethe's mother, in one collection, and additional letters in- 
 corporated in the current correspondence of each year ; also, 
 numerous letters, mostly notes, from Frau von Stein, serving 
 to show tlie character of their later intercourse. There are 
 letters of Frau von Grotthus, Frau von Eybenberg, Amalie von 
 Imhof, and F. Gaspers, and single remembrances from Lotte 
 Buff (1798) and Lili Schouemann (1801). 
 
 Goethe's letters from the Grand Duke Carl August are pre- 
 served intact in the collection, and show how unsatisfactory 
 the present edition is. This correspondence, edited by Dr. 
 Vogel, was published in 1863 in an incomplete form. It had 
 been withheld, owing to two expressions of Goethe, — one in 
 a letter of November 17, 1787, from Eome : " Burn, I pray 
 you, my letters at once, that they may be read by no one ; 
 with this hope I can write more freely." Before his departure 
 for Switzerland in 1797, he said: "I have burned all the 
 letters sent to me since 1772, from a positive disinclination to 
 the publication of the silent march of friendly intercourse." 
 His views afterward changed, and he published parts of his 
 correspondence covering this period. The letters preserved in 
 the Goethe archives show that the destruction of his corre- 
 spondence was not so general as his language would imply. 
 Of particular interest at the present time is the discovery of 
 Carlyle's letters to the poet, and copies of Goethe's letters in 
 reply. 
 
 The Schiller correspondence suffered from the arbitrary and 
 capricious suppressions of its editors, and the fourth edition 
 was necessary to give it in substantial correctness. Even in 
 its present form there is much to be desired. Goethe himself 
 says that letters are the most valuable memorial of a man. 
 His correspondence grew with his fame ; his interest extended 
 to the most varied branches of literature, art, antiquities, and 
 science ; and letters from scholars, poets, and artists multiplied 
 
(( 
 
 ^$^^'^ 
 
 TTNIVK 
 INTRODUCTION- xiii 
 
 during the later period of his life. They present his relations 
 to individuals, the growth of his opinions, his judgments of 
 men and things, and the inception and progress of his works. 
 Political events in Europe do not escape him. Discoveries, 
 facts, and theories are mirrored in his all-reflecting mind ; the 
 vi^orks of contemporary and past writers are estimated ; and 
 thus his letters become a contribution to a knowledge of the 
 literary history of his time. 
 
 III. The third division contains Goethe's diaries. These 
 begin in 1776, before the first year of his residence in Weimar 
 had passed, and extend to the 16th of March, 1832, but six 
 days before his death. They present a rich material for estimat- 
 ing the poet's life, the existence of which was entirely unsus- 
 pected. Meagre and inaccurate extracts from certain portions 
 had appeared, limited in range and time ; but the originals are 
 presented here entire. There is, however, a blank between, 
 the years 1782 and 1796, interrupted by two brief beginnings 
 in 1791 and 1793. These journals are at first short, condensed 
 notices, which increase in fulness and richness of contents as 
 his life advances. From 1817 they average nearly four vol- 
 umes a year. Important events are recorded with great ac- 
 curacy. Days like those which followed Schiller's death 
 contain no entry. These diaries furnish means for determin- 
 ing the dates of Goethe's works, since little that the poet wrote 
 went at once to the press. Many works were for years under 
 his hand ; they were begun, discontinued, resumed, modified, 
 and completed, and their final form dilfered greatly from the 
 original plan. 
 
 The art collections are extensive, and of great interest. 
 They contain plaster casts; original drawings of the old mas- 
 ters, Netherlaud art being especially represented; and even 
 sketches of early Italian painters ; many drawings of personal 
 friends, such as Tischbein, Meyer, Hackert, Kraaz, Angelica 
 KaufmanU, and Kniep ; a rich collection of majolicas; Italian 
 medals, two thousand in number, some of which are unique ; 
 numerous plaques, two hundred Italian and German bronzes. 
 
XIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 antiques, and a large number of engravings. To these general 
 art collections have been added, by gift of the heirs at law 
 (the families of Count Henckel von Donnersmark and the 
 Vulpius family), the personal memorials of the poet, consist- 
 ing of portraits, busts, medallions, and casts of the same. 
 Among these are portraits of Goethe by Angelica Kaufmann 
 and Tischbein, and also a graceful portrait, probably repre- 
 senting Christiane. 
 
 Two portraits of Goethe are given in our volume ; 
 one representing him in youth, before the publication 
 of any except his earliest works ; the other engraved 
 from Eauch's bust, which was made in August, 1820, 
 when Goethe was seventy-one. Both are interesting, 
 and neither is much known in America, although 
 reduced copies of the bust are common. 
 
 A partial bibliography of works relating to Goethe's 
 youth will be found at the close of Professor White's 
 lecture. We add here a more general, but still very 
 incomplete bibliography, compiled by Mr. John Ed- 
 mauds of the Philadelphia Mercantile Library, for the 
 benefit of the frequenters of that institution. 
 
INTRODUCTION. XV 
 
 EEADING NOTES GN" GOETHE. 
 
 The following notes and references will be found per- 
 tinent, and will be useful to any who may wish to pursue 
 a course of reading on these subjects : — 
 
 A. — Works of Goethe. 
 
 Autobiography ; or, Truth and Poetry, from my Life, edited by P. 
 
 Godwin. New York, 1846-47. 2 v. 
 Bride of Corinth, with Anster's Faust. 
 
 Campaign in France, translated by R. Fairie. London, 1858. 
 Same, in his Miscellaneous Travels, pp. 71-247. 
 Correspondence between Schiller and Goethe from 1794-1805, edited 
 
 by L. D. Schmitz. London, 1877. 2 v. 
 Dramatic "Works ; comprising Faust, Iphigenia in Tauris, Torquato 
 
 Tasso, Egmont, and Gotz von Berlichingen. London, 1851. 
 Egmont ; a Tragedy in Five Acts. Boston, 1841. 
 Elective Affinities. Boston, 1872. 
 Same, in Novels and Tales. Reviewed in Revue des Deux Mondes, 
 
 C. 863. 
 Eleonora, with a Poetic Epistle from Werter to Charlotte. London, 
 
 1787. 
 Essays on Art, translated by S. G. "Ward. New York, 1862. 
 Faust, eine Tragbdie. Stuttgart, 1867. 
 Faustus, a Dramatic Mystery ; the Bride of Corinth, the iirst "Wal- 
 
 purgis Night, translated and illustrated with Notes by J. Anster. 
 
 London, 1835. 
 Faust ; a Tragedy in Two Parts, translated by J. Birch, with en- 
 gravings by Brain after Retsch. London, 1839. 
 Same, translated, with Notes, by C. T. Brooks. [Part I. only.] 
 
 Boston, 1856. 
 Same, translated by L. Filmore. London, 1847. 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Same, translated into Verse by J. Galvan. Dublin, 1860. 
 
 Same, translated, with Notes, by A. Hayward. Boston, 1859. 
 Part I. " Previous to Taylor's translation Hayward's prose ren- 
 dering was the leading ■work consulted by scholars on account 
 of its full notes and lengthy introduction." — Literary World, 
 XII. 273. 
 
 Same, translated by T. Martin. Edinburgh, 1865. Reviewed in 
 North British Review. XLIV. 50. 
 
 Same, translated in Rime by C. Kegan Paul. London, 1873. Ke- 
 viewed in Revue des Deux Mondes, CXLIII. 921. 
 
 Same, translated into the Original Metres by Bayard Taylor. Bos- 
 ton, 1871. 2 V. Has a Preface and extended Notes. " Bayard 
 Taylor's notes and comments are exhaustive, and imist be con- 
 sulted by any student of the subject who wishes to go to the 
 bottom of disputed points. His translations are quoted even by 
 the latest and best German commentators in proof of the meaning 
 of doubtful passages." — Lilcrary World, XII. 273. 
 
 Same. The Text, with English Notes, Essays, and Verse Transla- 
 tions, by E. J. Turner. London, 1882. The First Part only. 
 
 Same. Shelley's Translations of the Prologue in Heaven and of 
 the May-day Night scene, may be found in his Poetical Works. 
 London, 1877. IV. 284. 
 
 Same. The Liberal. London, 1822. I. 121. 
 
 Boyesen's Goethe and Schiller has a full and elaborate Commentary 
 on the two parts of Faust, pp. 151-285. 
 
 The original Faust-Legend may be found in Roscoe's German Novel- 
 ists, I. 256. 
 
 Faust and Marguerite. V. 35. 
 
 German Emigrants in his Novels and Tales. 
 
 Good "Women in Ms Novels and Tales. 
 
 Gotz of Berlichingen, with the Iron Hand, an Historical Drama. 
 Dublin, 1799. 
 
 Gbtz von Berlichingen in Ms Dramatic Works. 
 
 Herman and Dorothea, translated by Ellen Frothingham. Illus- 
 trated. Boston, 1870. 
 
 Same, translated into English Hexameters, with an lutroductoiy 
 Essay. London, 1849. 
 
 Same, translated by T. C. Porter. New York, 1854. 
 
INTRODUCTION. xvii 
 
 Ipliigenia in Tauris, translated by W. Taylor, in his Historic Sur- 
 vey of German Poetry. Loudon, 1830. III. 249. 
 
 Same in his Dramatic Works. 
 
 Margaret Fuller in her Life Without, p. 51, gives a sketch of this 
 Drama, with Extracts. 
 
 Letters from Switzerland, in his Miscellaneous Travels, pp. 1-67. 
 
 Letters to Leipzig Friends, edited by 0. Jahn, translated by K. 
 Slater. London, 1866. 
 
 Meister's Travels ; or. The Eenuuciants, a Novel. Boston, 1851. 
 
 Memoirs wntten by himself. New York, 1824. 
 
 The same as the Autobiography above, but another transla- 
 tion, and contains only fifteen of the twenty books. It contains 
 biographical notices of the principal persons mentioned in the 
 memoirs. "A most wretched and unfaithful translation." — 
 Quartcrhj Review. 
 
 Minor Poetry, a Selection from his Songs, Ballads, and other lesser 
 Poems, translated by W. G. Thomas. Philadelphia, 1859. 
 
 Miscellaneous Travels ; comprising Letters from Switzerland, the 
 Campaign in France, the Siege of Mainz, and a Tour on the 
 Ehine. London, 1882. 
 
 Novels and Tales : Elective Affinities, Sorrows of Werther, German 
 Emigrants, Good Women. London, 1854. 
 
 Poems and Ballads, translated by Aytoun and Martin. New York, 
 1859. 
 
 Poems, translated in the Original Metres by Paul Dyi-sen. New 
 York, 1878. 
 
 Poems and Translations from the German, by C. R. Lambert. 
 London, 1850. pp. 81-98. 
 
 Peynard the Fox. London, 1845. 
 
 Sammtliche Werke. Stuttgart, 1850. 30 v. in 18. 
 
 Schriften. Eeutlinger, 1784. 2 v. 
 
 Select Minor Poems, translated by J. S. Dwight. 
 
 Select Poems, in Baskerville's Poetry of Germany. New Yci'k, 
 1857. Contains a number of Goethe's Poems in the original, 
 with English verse translations on the opposite page. 
 
 Selections from Dramas, translated, with Introduction, by A. Swan- 
 wick. Loudon, 1843. 
 
 Siege of Mainz, in his Miscellaneous Travels, pp. 251-287. 
 
 h 
 
xviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 * 
 
 Son-ows of Werter, translated by "W. Bender. London, 1801, 
 
 Stella : a Drama in Five Acts, translated by Benjamin Thompson. 
 German Theatre, V. 6. London, 1801. 
 
 Torquato Tasso, in his Dramatic Works. 
 
 A Tour on the Ehine, etc., in his Miscellaneous Travels, pp. 291- 
 424. 
 
 Truth aud Poetry, same as the Autobiography above. 
 
 The First Walpurgis Night. (The English version by "W. Bar- 
 tholomew.) Compiled by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Bos- 
 ton [no date]. 
 
 Werther, Trad. nouv. et Notice biog. et litt. de L. Enault. Paris, 
 1855. 
 
 West-Easterly Divan, translated, with Introduction and Notes, by 
 J. Weiss. Boston, 1877. Reviewed in Blackwood, CXXXII. 
 742. 
 
 Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship. London, 1873. Eeviewed by 
 D. A. Wasson in Atlantic Monthly, p. 16. 
 
 B. — Works on Goethe. 
 
 De Stael, Madame. Goethe and his Dramas in her Germany. 
 \ London, 1814. I. 265, II. 138. 
 
 Taylor, W. Review of Goethe's Works in his Historic Survey 
 
 of German Poetry. London, 1830. III. 242-379. Contains a 
 
 V Translation of Iphigenia entire, and large portions of other works. 
 
 Carlyle, T. Death of Goethe, in his Criticisms and Miscellaneous 
 Essays. London, 1872. IV. 42. 
 
 . Goethe in his Criticisms and Miscellaneous Essays. Lon- 
 don, 1872. I. 172. 
 
 . Goethe's Works and Character, in his Criticisms and Mis- 
 
 cellaneous Essays. Boston, 1838. I. 220. 
 — , Goethe's Helena, in his Criticisms and Miscellaneous Essays. 
 
 Boston, 1838. I. 162. 
 — . Same. London, 1872. I. 126. 
 — . Goethe's Works, in his Criticisms and Miscellaneous Essays. 
 
 London, 1872. IV. 132. 
 
 — . Life of SchiUer. New York, 1846. Describes the friend- 
 ship between Goethe and Schiller, pp. Ill, 273. 
 
INTRODUCTION. XIX 
 
 Eckermann, J. P. Conversations with Goethe in the Last Years of 
 his Life, translated by S. M. Fuller [Ossoli]. Boston, 1839. 
 
 Menzel, "W. Goethe, in his German Literature, translated by C. C. 
 Felton. Boston, 1840. III. 1. 
 
 Austin, S. Characteristics of Goethe, frora the German of Falk, 
 von Miiller, &c., with Notes. Paris, 1841. 2 v. 
 
 Retsch, M. Illustrations of Goethe's Faust. London, 1843. 
 
 Characteristics of Men of Genius. Goethe. London, 1846. 
 
 Jefl'rey, Francis. Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, mi his Contributions 
 to the Edinburgh Review. Paris, 1846. p. 104. 
 
 Ulrici, H. Goethe in Relation to Shakespeare, in his Shakespeare's 
 Dramatic Art. London, 1846. p. 512. 
 
 Longfellow, H. W. Goethe, m Ais Hyperion. Boston, 1849. p. 155. 
 
 Moschzisker, F. A. Goethe, in his Guide to German Literature. 
 London, 1850. II. 95-170. 
 
 Emerson, R. W. Goethe, or the "Writer, in his Representative Men. 
 Boston, 1851. p. 209. 
 
 Doring, H. J. W. von Goethe's Biographic. Jena, 1853. 
 
 Bancroft, G. The Age of Schiller and Goethe, in his Literary and 
 Historical Miscellanies, p. 167. New York, 1855. Contains 
 translations of several of Goethe's poems, p. 231. 
 
 Lewes, G. H. The Life and Works of Goethe, with Sketches of his 
 Age and Contemporaries. London, 1875. 2 v. 
 
 , Same. Boston, 1856. 2 v. 
 
 "Mr. Lewes's main work was done a long time ago, when com- 
 paratively few of Goethe's letters were printed. And the re- 
 vision mentioned in the Preface of 1875 was not a thorough, 
 adequate revision." — T. W. Lystcr. 
 
 Masson, David. Shakespeare and Goethe, and The Three Devils, 
 Luther's, Milton's, and Goethe's, in his Essays, Biographical and 
 Critical. Cambridge, 1856. pp. 453. 
 
 . The Three Devils. London, 1874. pp. 1-124. 
 
 Godwin, Parke. Goethe, in his Out of the Past, p. 341. New 
 York, 1870. 
 
 Taillandier, Saint-Rene. Goethe, in Nouvelle Biographic Generale. 
 Paris, 1857. XXI. 27. 
 
 Metcalfe, Frederick. Goethe, in his History of German Literature. 
 London, 1858. pp. 431-453. 
 
XX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Arnim, Bettine von. Goethe's Correspondence with a Child. 
 Boston, 1859. For a review of this work, by M. E. "VV. Sher- 
 wood, see Atlantic Monthly, XXXI. 216. 
 >/ Ossoli, Margaret Fuller. Goethe, in her Life Without and Life 
 Within. Boston [1859]. p. 23. 
 
 De Quincey, T. Goethe, in his Biographical Essays. Boston, 1860. 
 p. 227. 
 
 Heine, W. The Romantic School. New York, 1882. The chap- 
 ter on " German Literature to the Death of Goethe," treats largely 
 of Goethe and his relations to Herder, Lessing, the Schlegels, 
 and others. 
 
 StefFens, H. Story of My Career. Boston, 1863. This book was 
 subsequently issued as " German University Life." 
 
 Merivale, Herman. Voltaire, Rousseau, and Goethe, in his His- 
 torical Studies. London, 1865. p. 130. 
 
 Caro, E. La PhUosophie de Goethe. Revue des Deux Mondes. 
 Paris, 1865-66. LIX., LX. 147, 301, LXI. 623, LXII. 386. 
 
 Belaui, W. C. R. Goethe und sein Liebeleben. Historischer No- 
 vellenkreis. Leipzig, 1866. 3 v. 
 
 Calvert, G. H. Weimar, in his Fii'st Year in Europe. Boston, 
 1866. pp. 165-198. 
 
 . Goethe : His Life and Works. An Essay. Boston, 1872. 
 
 pp. 276. 
 
 . Goethe, in his Coleridge, Shelley, and Goethe. Boston, 
 
 1880. p. 261. 
 
 Conway, M. D. A Hunt after Devils, in Harper's Magazine, 
 March, 1869. XXXVIIL 540. Contains notices of places and 
 incidents connected with Faust and with Goethe's house. 
 
 Robinson, H. Crabb. Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence. 
 Boston, 1869. 2 v. 
 
 Blaze de Bury, H. Madame de Stein et Goethe. Revue des Deux 
 Mondes. Paris, 1870. LXXXVI. 900. 
 
 Konewka, Paul. Elustrations of Goethe's Faust. Boston, 1871. 
 Twelve silhouette designs with Taylor's translations. 
 
 Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, K. Goethe and Mendelssohn (1821-1831), 
 translated, with additions, by M. E. von Glehn. London, 1872. 
 
 Mezieres, A. Une Page de la Vie de Goethe. Ses Affinites Elec- 
 tives. Revue des Deux Mondes. Paris, 1872. 
 
INTRODUCTION. xxi 
 
 Gostwick, James, and R. Harrison. Outlines of German Literature. 
 
 London, 1873. pp. 221-299, 440. 
 Helmboltz, H. On Goethe's Scientific Researches, in Ids Popular 
 
 Lectures on Scientific Subjects. 1st ed. London, 1873. pp. 
 
 33-59. 
 . Ueber Goethe's naturwissenschaftliche Arbeiten, in Ms 
 
 Populiire wissenschaftliche Vortrage. Braunschweig, 1876. pp. 
 
 33-53. 
 Phelps, Almira L. Life and Writings of Goethe, in her Reviews 
 
 and Essays. Philadelphia, 1873. p. 180. 
 Lazarus, Emma. Alide : an Episode of Goethe's Life. Phila- 
 delphia, 1874. 
 Huttonj__R^_H._ Goethe and His Influence, in Ms Essays in Liter- 
 ary Criticism. Philadeljjhia, 1876. pp. 1-97. 
 Sime, James. Lessing. Boston, 1877. 2 v. Exhibits the literary 
 
 relation of Goethe and Lessing, with the latter's criticisms on 
 
 Goethe's Works. 
 Hayward, A. Goethe, in Foreign Classics for English Readers. 
 
 Philadelpliia [London, 1878]. 
 Ai-nold, M. A French Critic on Goethe, in Ms Mixed Essays. 
 
 New York, 1879. p. 274. 
 Barine, Arvide. La Legende de Faust. Revue des Deux Mondes. 
 
 Paris, 1879. CXLII. 921. 
 Boyesen, H. H. Goethe and Schiller : their Lives and Works, 
 
 including a Commentary on Faust. New York, 1879. 
 Browning, Oscar. Goethe, in Encyclopaedia Britannica. 9th ed. ' 
 
 London, 1879. X. 721. Contains an extended list of German 
 
 authorities on Goethe. 
 Taylor, Bayard. Goethe, and Goethe's Faust, in Ms Studies in 
 
 German Literature. New York, 1879. pp. 304-387. 
 Goethe, Catherine E. (Goethe's mother). Correspondence with 
 
 Goethe, Lavater, Wieland et al., translated, with Biographical 
 
 Sketches and Notes, by Alfred S. Gibbs. New York, 1880. 
 
 pp. 263. 
 Grimm, H. Life and Times of Goethe, translated by S. H. Adams. 
 
 Boston, 1880. pp. 559. 
 Japp, Alexander H. Goethe, in his German Life and Literature. 
 
 Loudon [1881]. pp. 269-379. 
 
xxii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Stevens, Abel. Madame de Stael : a Study of her Life and Times. 
 
 New York, 1881. The second volume contains notices of Weimar 
 
 and its literary celebrities. 
 •^ Blackie, J. S. Wisdom of Goethe. Edinburgh, 1883. pp. 246. 
 Diintzer, H. Life of Goethe, translated by T. W. Lyster. New 
 
 York [Loudon], 1884. pp. 796. 
 Lewes, M. A. Three Months in Weimar, in Jier Essays and Leaves 
 
 from a Note-Book, by George Eliot. New York, 1884. p. 226. 
 
 Gives an account of Goethe's life and associations at Weimar. 
 Nevinson, H. Herder and His Times. London, 1884. 
 r Seeley, J. K. Goethe, in Contemporary Eeview. August, October, 
 
 November, 1884. XLVI. 166, 488, 653. 
 
 C. — Papers on Goethe, in The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 
 (D. Appleton & Co., New York.) 
 
 Goethe's Theory of Colors, by W. T. Harris. I. 63. 
 
 Goethe's Faust, Letters on, by H. C. Brockmeyer. I. 178, II. 114. 
 
 Rosenkranz, Johann Karl Friedrich. On the Second Part of Faust. 
 
 Translated by D. J. Snider. I. 65. 
 . On the Social Romances. Translated by T. Davidson. 
 
 II. 120, 215. 
 . On the Wilhelm Meister. Translated by T. Davidson. IV. 
 
 145. 
 . On the Composition of the Social Romances. Translated 
 
 by D. J. Snider. IV. 268. 
 . On Goethe's Maerchen. Translated by Anna C. Brackett. 
 
 V. 219. 
 . On the Faust. Translated by Anna C. Brackett. IX. 48, 
 
 225, 401. 
 — . On Faust and Margaret. Translated by Anna C. Brackett. 
 
 X. 37. 
 — . On the Second Part of Faust. Translated by Anna C. 
 
 Brackett. XI. 113. 
 Goethe's Essay on Da Vinci's Last Supper. I. 243. 
 Goethe's Essay on the Laokoon (tr.). II. 208. 
 Goethe and German Fiction, F. G. Fairfield. IX. 303. 
 Goethe's Song of the Spirit over the Water, F. R. Marvin. X. 215. 
 Goethe's Das Marchen, by Gertrude Garrigues. XVII. 383. 
 
INTRODUCTION. xxiii 
 
 The Lectures actually delivered at the School of 
 Philosophy in the summer of 1885 were those in the 
 following list, in the order indicated by the dates. 
 
 CONCORD SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 SEVENTH SESSION. 
 
 LECTURES AND SUBJECTS, 1885. 
 
 I. Goetlie's Genius and Work. 
 
 July 16. Goethe s Self-Culture. By Mr. John Albee, of New 
 
 Castle, N. H. 
 " 18. Goethe and his " 3fdhrch€n." By Eev. Dr. F. H. 
 
 Hedge, of Cambridge, Mass. 
 " 24. Goethe's Relation to Kant and Spinoza in Philosophy. By 
 
 Dr. F. L. SoLDAN, of St. Louis. 
 " 20. Goethe s Faust. By Professor Harris. 
 " 21. Goethe's Youth. By Professor H. S. White, of Cornell 
 
 University. 
 " 17. The "Ewig-Weibliche." By Mrs. E. D. Cheney, of 
 
 ~ Boston. 
 
 " 22. Goethe's Faust. By Mr. D. J. Snider, of Cincinnati. 
 " 20. Goethe's Relation to English Literature. By Mr. F. B. 
 
 Sanborn. 
 " 28. Goethe as a Man of Science. A Conversation conducted 
 
 by Mr. Snider and Professor Harris. 
 " 27. The Novellettes in "Wilhelm Meister." By Professor 
 
 Harris. 
 *' 28. "Wilhelm Meister" as a Whole. By Mr. D. J. Snider. 
 " 18. Goethe and Schiller. By Rev. Dr. Bartol, of Boston. 
 Aug. 1. The Women of Goethe. By Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, of 
 
 Boston. 
 July 22. The Elective Affinities. By Mr. S. H. Emery, Jr., of 
 
 Concord, Mass. 
 
XXIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 July 25. Goetlie's Titanism. By Professor Thomas Davidson, of 
 
 Orange, N. J. 
 " 23. Goethe at Weimar. By Professor W. T. Hewett, of 
 
 Corne]l University. 
 " 21. Child-Life as portrayed in GocflvJs Works. By Mrs. 
 
 Caroline K. Sherman, of Chicago. 
 " 27. Goethe as Playivright. By Mr. William 0. Partridge, 
 
 of Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 " 29. The Style of Goethe. By Mr. C. W. Ernst, of Boston. 
 
 II. A Symposium : Is Pantheism the Legitimate Outcome 
 of Modem Science ? 
 
 Lectures by Eev. Dr. A. P. Peabody (July 29) and Mr. John 
 FiSKE (July 29) of Cambridge, Professor Harris (July 30), Dr. 
 G. H. HowisoN of California (July 31), Dr. P. E. Abbott (July 
 31) of Cambridge, and Dr. Montgomery of Texas (July 31). 
 
 Readings from Thoreau, July 24, by Mr. H. G. 0. Blake, of 
 "Worcester. 
 
 The Lectures on Pantlieism appeared in the " Jour- 
 nal of Speculative Philosophy" for October, 1885, 
 except Mr. Fiske's on " The Idea of God," which has 
 been published as a separate volume by Houghton, 
 Mifflin, and Company, who publislied in the same 
 way, in 1884, Mr. Fiske's Lecture on " The Destiny 
 of Man." The Lectures of 1884, on "The Genius 
 and Character of Emerson," were published in a vol- 
 ume by J. Ft. Osgood and Company, and are now sold 
 by Ticknor and Company, who publish the present 
 volume ; and members of the School are requested 
 to order the volumes of the publishers, and not of 
 the Faculty of the School. 
 
 The Eighth Session of the School will open on 
 Wednesday, July 14, 1886, and will continue two 
 
INTRODUCTION. xxv 
 
 weeks. The lectures and conversations of the first 
 week (July 14-21) will be on Dante and his Divine 
 Comedy ; those of the second week (July 22-29), on 
 Plato and his Infiuenee in Philosophy. The Lecturers 
 will be mainly the same as in 1885, but with some 
 omissions and important additions. It is intended 
 to publish a volume of the Lectures on Dante in 
 1886. 
 
 R B. S. 
 CoNCOED, December 1, 1885. 
 
j.tSE L/g^^ 
 
 Of 
 
 '/j:?;^ 
 
-.-^.^.x't^^,.,> \l% 
 
 GOETHE IN YOUTH. 
 
U university)) 
 
 THE LIFE AND GENIUS OF 
 GOETHE. 
 
 I. 
 
 GOETHE'S YOUTH. 
 
 By HORATIO S. WHITE. 
 
 It will readily be observed that Goethe's life may 
 be divided into distinct periods, each defined by 
 some change in his outward relations, and each 
 characterized by some change in his inner develop- 
 ment. The great divisions which would naturally 
 be made are : his youth before the removal to Wei- 
 mar ; the decade in that Thuringiau capital preced- 
 ing his departure for Italy, — a journey which forms 
 the uiost significant epoch in his life ; the period of 
 mature manhood following, which was passed in the 
 society of Schiller ; and, finally, the long and fruitful 
 old age during the first third of the present century. 
 Leaving to others the task of tracing Goethe's later 
 achievements in diverse fields, — where his tireless 
 energy and his perennial vigor of spirit display him 
 as the master of prose, the incomparable poet, the 
 
 1 
 
2 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 literary despot, the histrionic magnate, the faithful 
 prime-minister, the profound investigator and gifted 
 discoverer, and the unwearied sage, — it shall be my 
 attempt to depict him in his early youth, and in 
 that perhaps most fascinating time of his young 
 manhood embracing the dawning consciousness of 
 varied powers which came to him at Strassburg, the 
 stimulating intercourse with Herder, the impulse 
 toward the study of Greek and English literature, 
 the fleeting fervor for Gothic architecture, the sad 
 but lovely idyl of Sessenheim, the tempestuous ardor 
 of the Wetzlar entanglement, and the first flush of 
 creative genius breaking forth in " Gotz," in "Wer- 
 ther," in his matchless lyrics, and in the beginnings 
 of " Faust." 
 
 For the study of this period we have ample sources. 
 It is but a few years since a work appeared under 
 the title, " Der junge Goethe," edited by Professor 
 Bernays of Munich, and comprising the correspond- 
 ence and literary proceeds of the first twenty-five 
 years of Goethe's life. The editor had consulted the 
 original manuscripts and first editions, and had in 
 most cases carefully restored the early orthography, 
 which had been modernized in the later revisions. 
 All the spice and raciness of Goethe's youthful style, 
 the strongly flavored South-German vernacular, the 
 erratic spelling and still more erratic j)unctuation, 
 have been preserved in their primitive freshness. 
 Specially valuable is the series of letters in which 
 his whole outward and inner life is mirrored witli 
 
GOETHE'S YOUTH. 3 
 
 all the warmth of unreserve which marked the episto- 
 lary literature of the last century. 
 
 To this useful work let us add Goethe's Autobi- 
 ography, covering precisely the same period, but 
 composed at a much later date. 
 
 " The question whether one should write his own 
 biography," says Goethe, " is quite malapropos. I 
 consider him who does so to be the most courteous 
 of men." 
 
 In his Autobiography he reports that throughout 
 his life he could not refrain from embodying in a 
 written form his personal experiences, whether to 
 relieve his soul, or to establish his conceptions of 
 external things. " Everything which has hitherto 
 been known as mine," he concludes, " forms there- 
 fore a great fragmentary confession, to make which 
 complete this trifling work is a daring attempt." 
 
 To Eckermann he said, in 1824 : " The most im- 
 portant part of the individual's life is his develop- 
 ment, which in my case is comprised in the detailed 
 account of ' Wahrheit und Dichtung.' " And in 1831 
 he declared that the particular facts narrated in his 
 Autobiography served merely to confirm a general 
 reflection, a higher truth. 
 
 It is interesting to note, from a comparison between 
 that work and the original sources, that, apart from 
 some unessential inaccuracies and inconsistencies, 
 Goethe's memory retained a trustworthy impression 
 of his early experiences. It is true that discrepan- 
 cies of detail have often crept into the relation ; that 
 
4 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 events may have been described in a manner some- 
 what different from that of their actual occurrence ; 
 that a character may have been idealized, and the 
 outlines softened and harmonized to accord with the 
 poet's purpose. But with all this, the portrayal of 
 his youthful days must be considered thoroughly 
 faithful to the inner meaning of his life. 
 
 Other contemporary accounts of Goethe's early 
 career exist, together with a vast mass of commen- 
 tary ; but these two sources are sufficient to present 
 him to us both as he unconsciously depicted him- 
 self at the time, and as he afterwards consciously 
 depicted himself to the world. 
 
 It may be appropriate at this point to recall the 
 principal features of Goethe's earlier years. We find 
 in them an exceptional concurrence of fortunate cir- 
 cumstances. Born into an advantageous environ- 
 ment, an independent citizen of a free municipality, 
 endowed with great natural gifts, possessed of va- 
 ried accomplishments and acquirements, with com- 
 fortable if not affluent means, coming into contact 
 with many of the illustrious people of his day, and 
 viewing many of the notable events of that period, 
 his life assumes more than an individual interest, 
 and becomes important and significant as typifying 
 and illustrating his times. The Lisbon earthquake 
 touches his young heart, and forces him to question 
 the goodness of the Creator ; tlie French occupy 
 Frankfort, and he is initiated into the political 
 quarrels of tlie Seven Years' War ; in his rambles 
 
GOETHE'S YOUTH. 5 
 
 among the common people at their labors and their 
 pastimes in that curious old town, he imbibes the 
 spirit of their walk and conversation, which is after- 
 wards reflected with fidelity in the popular scenes 
 of his dramas ; the coronation of Joseph the Second 
 unrolls before his eyes the pageantry of the pom- 
 pous but hollow Empire ; as a student at Leipzig he 
 skims round the circle of knowledge, and chants, 
 
 "Da steh' ich nun, ich armer Thor, 
 Und bin so klug als wie zuvor." 
 
 The Dresden Gallery attracts and charms him with 
 its pictorial treasures ; in Frankfort the gentle and 
 devout mystic, Fraulein von Klettenberg, pursues 
 with him studies in alchemy, and imbues him with 
 the doctrines of pietism; and in 1770 he arrives at 
 Strassburg, in season to behold the daughter of Maria 
 Theresia crossing the Ehine on her triumphal and 
 fateful journey toward the French capital. 
 
 Let us here note a few characteristic passages from 
 his earlier letters. Writing in 1764, at the age of 
 fourteen, he describes himself as follows : — 
 
 " One of my chief defects is, that I am somewhat 
 impulsive. You know of course the choleric tempera- 
 ment ; on the other hand, no one forgets an affront more 
 readily than I. Furthermore, I am quite accustomed to 
 be imperious ; but when I have nothing to say, I can let 
 things go. However, I am quite willing to submit to 
 authority when it is exercised as should be expected. 
 One thing more, I am very impatient, and do not like to 
 remain long in uncertainty." 
 
6 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 To a home friend he writes from Leipzig, in 1765, 
 describing his college life : — 
 
 " What am I studying 1 Is it worth while asking ? 
 Institutiones imperiales. Historiam juris. Pandectas, and 
 a private course on the first seven and last seven titles 
 of the Codex. For one does not need any more, the rest 
 one forgets anyway. No, your obedient servant ! That 
 we will let well alone. — Next week the courses in philos- 
 ophy and mathematics begin. 
 
 " Gottsched I have not yet seen. He has married 
 again. You know it though. She is nineteen and he is 
 sixty-five. She is four shoes tall and he seven. She is 
 as thin as a herring and he as stout as a sack of feathers. 
 — I 'm cutting a great figure here, but am no dandy yet, 
 nor shall I become so. I have to be rather clever in 
 order to get time to study. To parties, concerts, the 
 theatre, at banquets, suppers, excursions, no end ! Ah, 
 it's a precious time, but a precious business too! It 
 costs ! The deuce, but my purse feels it. 
 
 " Stop ! save us ! hold on ! Don't you see them flying 1 
 There go two Louis d'or marching off. Help ! There 
 goes another. Heavens ! a couple more. Dimes with us 
 are like cents with you. But yet one may live very 
 cheaply here. I hope to get through the year on three 
 hundred thalers — what do I say 1 — with two hundred 
 thalers, N. B. Not counting in what has already gone 
 to the dogs." 
 
 At the end of his Leipzig course he writes back, 
 in 1768, a giateful letter to Oeser, one of his in- 
 structors : — 
 
GOETHE'S YOUTH. 7 
 
 " What do I not owe you, dearest Professor, that you 
 have shown me the way to the true and beautiful, that 
 you have rendered my heart susceptible to all that is 
 stimulating? The taste which I have for what is beauti- 
 ful, my knowledge, my insight, — do I not possess them 
 all through you*? How true and clear the strange, almost 
 unintelligible saying has become to me, that the work- 
 shop of the great artist develops the budding philosopher, 
 the budding poet, more than the auditorium of the sage 
 and the critic ! Teaching does much, but encouragement 
 does everything. Who among all my teachers has ever 
 deemed me worthy of encouragement save you 1 Either 
 all blame or all praise, and nothing can so destroy one's 
 capacity. Encouragement after blame is sun after rain, 
 fruitful growth. 
 
 " You have taught me to be humble without being cast 
 down, and to be proud without presumption. I could 
 find no end of saying what you have taught me ; pardon 
 my grateful heart this apostrophe ; I have that in com- 
 mon with all tragic heroes, that my passion would fain 
 pour forth in tirades, and woe to the one who gets in the 
 way of my lava ! " 
 
 These earlier years yielded an abundance of literary 
 composition, the remnants of which reveal not indis- 
 tinctly the coming lyric poet, while the two little 
 comedies of that date betray the influence upon their 
 composer of the lighter French dramatists, and per- 
 haps of Wieland, with whose writings he was then 
 quite captivated. One may also detect reflections in 
 thin disguise of Goethe's juvenile affaires dc cceu?', 
 the confession of which has already begun. 
 
8 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 To Strassburg he comes at twenty. Of deep im- 
 port was his sojourn in the quaint Alsatian city. It 
 gave him the Cathedral, Herder, and Friederike. 
 
 At Leipzig Goethe had been led to regard the term 
 Gothic as the Greeks did Barbarian. An ignorant 
 but declared enemy to that style of architecture, he 
 is now confronted in silent reproach by the mighty 
 and impressive minster. His conversion is as sudden 
 and complete as that of Saul of Tarsus ; and in the 
 rhapsodic essay, " Von Deutscher Baukunst," a memo- 
 rial to the noble architect, Erwin von Steinbach, is 
 contained his recantation. He bursts forth : — 
 
 "With what an unexpected sensation did its aspect 
 surprise me ! My soul was filled by an impression of 
 grandeur and completeness, which, consisting of a thou- 
 sand harmonious details, I was able indeed to taste and 
 enjoy, without recognizing or explaining it. They say it 
 is so with the joys of heaven ; and how often have I re- 
 turned to partake of this joy of heaven upon earth, to 
 comprehend the giant spirit of our elder brothers in their 
 works ! How often has my eye, wearied by its searching 
 inspection, been refreshed in cheerful repose by the even- 
 ing twilight, when the countless parts melted into entire 
 masses, and these, simple and grand, stood before my 
 soul ! Then was revealed to me in gentle premonitions 
 the genius of the great master. And how freshly it 
 dawned u}X)n me in the vaporous splendor of the morn- 
 ing ! How rejoiced I was to behold the great, harmonious 
 masses enlivened into numberless minute details, as in 
 works of eternal nature, down to the slightest fibre, every- 
 
GOETHE'S YOUTH. 9 
 
 thing form, and everything adapted to the whole ! how 
 the firmly founded monstrous structure rises lightly into 
 air ! how like network all, and yet for eternity ! " 
 
 If these early and entliusiastic impressions gradu- 
 ally faded, and well-nigh were extinguished by the 
 stay in Italy, at the end of Goethe's life they were 
 once more revived, less ardent, but with greater clear- 
 ness, and again through the influence of his study of 
 another worthy and imposing structure, the Cathedral 
 at Cologne. 
 
 Before meeting Herder in Strassburg, Goethe had 
 not come into contact with a mind of the first order. 
 Herder was five years older, had already gained repu- 
 tation as a writer, and had recently returned to Ger- 
 many from an extended tour in France and Holland. 
 He writes to his Eiga friends, that, whereas before 
 he had been frothy, vain, erratic, and whimsical, they 
 would now find him more manly, ripe, developed, 
 cosmopolitan, more of a Briton, and perchance thrice 
 as ardent, instead of frivolous, Frenchy, and unstable. 
 His relation to Goethe was similar to Goethe's rela- 
 tions with Schiller at the first meeting in 1788, after 
 the Italian journey. Said Schiller, in describing to 
 Korner this interview : " Goethe is so far ahead of 
 me, less perhaps in years than in experience of life 
 and in self-development, that we shall never come 
 together while en route." Goethe felt toward Herder 
 the same modesty of immaturity ; nor did Herder, to 
 whom his young admirer seemed then but a wald 
 fledgling, seek to spare his sensibilities. Mercilessly 
 
10 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 caustic, lashing Goethe's foibles and conceits, estab- 
 lishing no such relations of mutual admiration and 
 mutual palliation as then existed among many promi- 
 nent German litterateurs, yet holding him by force of 
 lofty character and a reach and range which Goethe 
 fully acknowledged, a moral pedagogue of the finest 
 type, and already a literary critic and historian of 
 independent and original stamp, his was an influence 
 to correct, to guide, and to inspire his fervid young 
 follower. It is Herder, then, who expounds to Goethe 
 the bearings of modern literature, who rails at the 
 weaknesses of the contemporary native authors, who, 
 fresh from Paris, yet sated with French materialism^ 
 turns away from Voltaire and the philosophers, 
 although for a time singling out Rousseau alone as 
 the apostle of the day, and aids Goethe to check and 
 overcome his own early tendencies, who introduces 
 him to Swift, to Goldsmith, to Ossian, and to Shake- 
 speare anew, who teaches him to know the Greeks, 
 to appreciate the Hebrew bards, and to realize that 
 poetry is not the possession of a learned caste, but 
 the heritage of all mankind. 
 
 In that initial year of their acquaintance Goethe 
 thus addresses his new correspondent : — 
 
 " I am compelled to write to you in the midst of my 
 first sensations. Away with mantle and collar ! Your spicy 
 letter is worth three years of every-daj experience. There 
 is uo answer to it, and who could answer it 1 My whole 
 self is thrilled, — that you may imagine, man, — and the 
 vibration is still too great for my pen to move steadily. — 
 
GOETHE'S YOUTH. 11 
 
 Herder, Herder, abide to me what you are to me.' If I 
 am destined to be your planet, I will be so, will be so 
 gladly, will be so loyally. A friendly moon to the earth. 
 But this — feel it absolutely — that I should rather be 
 Mercury, the least, the smallest rather among seven, re- 
 volving with you around one sun, than the first among 
 five turning about Saturn. 
 
 " Adieu, dear man ! I will not let you go. I will not 
 leave you. Jacob wrestled with the angel of the Lord. 
 Even if I should grow weary at it ! " 
 
 The later relations of Herder and Goethe at "Wei- 
 mar are beyond the scope of this paper, but we may 
 recall that it was the latter's influence which secured 
 for Herder his summons to the principal ecclesiastical 
 position in the Duchy, and that, if their subsequent 
 association was not always of the most cordial de- 
 scription, the fault or the misfortune must be laid 
 chiefly at the door of the Herders. 
 
 Before leaving Strassburg, a word on Friederike. 
 The well-known incidents of the story may be briefly 
 narrated.1 A young man, fresh from the perusal of a 
 literature of poetry and sentiment, wanders away on 
 horseback with a student friend over the smiling 
 meadows. In the picturesque little village of Sessen- 
 heim he is presented to a pastor's family, whose sit- 
 uation to his quick imagination soon reproduces, with 
 strange parallelism, the environment of the Wakefield 
 group in Goldsmith's " Vicar," a work which Herder 
 
 ' Cf. "A Pilgrimage to Sesenheim," Lippincott's Magazine, 
 February, 1884. 
 
12 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 was introducing to Strassburg circles. Eeceived with 
 full rural cordiality, he lingers and returns, and re- 
 turns and lingers, until a fair lieart is fatally his own. 
 The end of his academic course is the end of the idyl. 
 The world demands him, and to the world he yields 
 himself; and a summer of perilous sweetness has sad- 
 dened one joyous life, and left in anotlier a lasting 
 sting of remorse. Traces of this remorse one may 
 find in the long deferred confession which Goethe's 
 narrative contains, — a narrative which the aged poet 
 could not dictate without signs of deep emotion. He 
 depicts his conscious feeling that a withdrawal would 
 be indefensible, his inability to break away from the 
 beloved object even when he had in purpose re- 
 nounced her, the pain of the final parting, and the 
 heart-rending answer of Friederike to a farewell in 
 writing. " Here for the first time," he continues, " I 
 was guilty, I had keenly wounded a most beautiful 
 soul ; and the period which followed was an almost 
 unendurable time of gloomy repentance." He seeks 
 for aid in poetry, and acknowledges that the two 
 Marys in " Gotz " and " Clavigo," and the sorry roles 
 which their lovers play, are the results of his remorse- 
 ful contemplations. In the Gretchen of " Faust," too, 
 one may recognize traits of the unaffected village 
 maiden; and some of the most irresistible of Goethe's 
 earlier poems were directly inspired by his acquaint- 
 ance with Friederike Brion. What a gust of stormy 
 fervor sweeps through the stanzas of " Willkommen 
 und Abschied " ! 
 
GOETHE'S YOUTH. 13 
 
 " Es scUug mein Herz ; gescliwind zu Pferde, 
 
 Und fort, wild, wie ein Held zur Schlacht! 
 Der Abend wiegte schon die Erde, 
 
 Und an den Bergen hieng die Nacht; 
 Schon stund im Nebelkleid die Eiche, 
 
 Wie ein gethiirmter Eiese, da, 
 Wo Finsterniss aus dem Gestrauche 
 
 Mit hundert schwarzen Angen sah. 
 
 "Der Mend von seinem Wolkenhligel, 
 
 Schien schlafrig aus dem Duft hervor; 
 Die Winde schwangen leise Fliigel, 
 
 Umsausten schauerlich mein Olir ; 
 Die Nacht schuf tausend Ungeheuer — 
 
 Doch tausendfacher war mein Muth; 
 Mein Geist war ein verzehrend Feuer, 
 
 Mein ganzes Herz zerfloss in Gluth." 
 
 And again in the glad " Mayfest," where every line 
 is a joyous heart-beat : — 
 
 "Wie herrlich leuchtet 
 Mir die Natur ! 
 Wie glanzt die Sonne ! 
 Wie lacht die Flur ! 
 
 " Es dringen Bliiten 
 Aus jedem Zweig, 
 Und tausend Stimmen 
 Aus dem Gestrauch. 
 
 " Und Freud' und Wonne 
 Aus jeder Brust. 
 O Erd ! Sonne ! 
 Gluck ! Lust ! " 
 
 But Sessenheim was not enough ; for this way- 
 wardness of Goethe ceased not with maturer years. 
 That the poet has been his own accuser cannot ren- 
 
14 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 der one's censure less severe. For this censure is 
 undoubtedly induced by the feeling that, if a great 
 genius should not need to be governed by the same 
 laws perhaps as the ordinary mortal, this must hap- 
 pen by reason of his rising superior to those laws, 
 not by his falling subject to their jurisdiction and 
 then claiming exemption by a special act of grace. 
 Such censors feel that Goethe's life, despite its 
 great intellectual sweep, does not mirror a moral 
 career correspondingly pure and lofty. To guard 
 an artless maiden against the involuntary devia- 
 tions of her unshielded heart, to observe not merely 
 the visible and outward, but the invisible spiritual 
 sanctities of betrothal and wedlock, to despise not, 
 even in externals, the righteous formalities of the 
 marriage tie, — this much, at least, may be de- 
 manded of that man before whom we are to bow 
 the head. It is this fine "sense of conduct," to bor- 
 row a happy phrase of Matthew Arnold, the lack 
 of which many severe Western Puritans deplore in 
 the author of "Stella," and such a lack to them 
 fatally mars Goethe's character.^ Whether this lack 
 arose from the constitution of society in Goethe's 
 day, or was an innate defect of his own, we shall 
 leave for others to decide. Yet a faithful chronicler 
 of Goethe's early years may not write, as the English 
 Laureate of his friend, 
 
 "A passion pure in suowy bloom 
 Through all the years of April blood." 
 
 1 Cf. Das Goethe-Jahrbuch, 1884, p. 237, " Goethe in Amerika." 
 
GOETHE'S YOUTH. 15 
 
 Nor in spite of Goethe's ardent human praise of 
 woman, and the many exquisite feminine portraits 
 wliich he has drawn, do we find that reverential and 
 ethereal adoration in thought and act of which types 
 are not wanting in modern literature and life. While 
 conceding, then, the wide sweep of his sympathies 
 and of his intellectual powers, it must not be consid- 
 ered unjust to Goethe to deny him, hot moral emi- 
 nence, but that moral pre-eminence which is the mark 
 of the finest spiritual organizations. 
 
 The four years, from 1771 to 1775, between Goe- 
 the's departure from Strassburg and his arrival in 
 Weimar, were filled with varied experiences and . 
 with the most active literary productivity. It was 
 a whirl of journey upon journey, of friendship added 
 to friendship, of love affair and tender attachment. 
 On one side, Schlosser, Merck, Gotter, Kestner, the 
 Stolbergs, Leuchsenring, Lavater, Basedow, Klop- 
 stock, the Jacobis, Knebel, and the Weimar princes ; 
 and' on the other, Lotte, La Eoche and Maximiliane, 
 Fraulein von Klettenberg, Anna Monch, the Countess 
 Stolberg, and Lilli von Schbnemann ; while the 
 restless youth ycleped the Wanderer went roaming 
 through the woody solitudes about his native place ; 
 or visited the courts at Wetzlar to pursue anything but 
 law ; or strayed up and down the Main and Ehine and 
 Lahn, or through the pleasant South-German cities, or 
 into Switzerland and over the St. Gothard ; and again 
 from Frankfort setting out for Italy, but turning 
 back at Heidelberg, and onward at last to Weimar. 
 
16 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 P>^ 
 
 Equally nomadic, too, his intellectual career. Os- 
 tensibly trained for the legal profession, his studies 
 had spread over a far wider field. His note-books 
 at the University disclose an interest in medicine, 
 chemistry, anatomy, physics, philosophy, and general 
 literature. Nor were music and art neglected. " To 
 regard things carefully, to store them up in memory, 
 to give good heed and let no day pass without col- 
 lecting something, this," writes Goethe from Strass- 
 burg, " is what we now have to do." And again : 
 (^Jurisprudence begins to please me. After all, it is 
 like Merseburg beer, — the first sip, you shudder, but 
 after a week you cannot do without it^J And chem- 
 istry still remains my secret mistress." 
 
 His first months in Frankfort give him a distaste 
 for the practice of the law, as well as a prejudice 
 against the aristocratic philistinism of the place. He 
 institutes a Shakespeare celebration, and pronounces 
 an ecstatic oration. 
 
 " The first page which I read in him," he exclaims, 
 " made me his own for all my life, and when I had finished 
 the first piece I stood as one horn blind, to whom a mi- 
 raculous touch has in a moment restored his vision. I 
 recognized, I felt most keenly, that my existence was in- 
 finitely broadened. All was new and unknown to me, 
 and the unaccustomed radiance pained my sight. I 
 doubted not a moment to renounce the regular theatre. 
 Unity of place seemed to me so oppressively confining, 
 unity of action and time burdensome fetters for our im- 
 agination ! — And now that I saw how much the men of 
 
GOETHE'S YOUTH. 17 
 
 rules in their prison pen had wronged me, my heart 
 would have burst if I had not declared war against them, 
 and daily sought to storm their towers." 
 
 It was his " Gotz von Berlichingen " wliicli led 
 the assault. No cold and stately hero from classic 
 antiquity, but a valiant mediseval German knight, 
 bluff and honest, fuming and fighting, and dying 
 bravely. 
 
 Goethe waits for Herder's judgment. "Shake- 
 speare has quite ruined you," exclaims impatiently 
 Herder. "Enough," cries Goethe. "It must be 
 melted down, freed from dross, furnished with nobler 
 material, and be recast. Then shall it appear before 
 you again." It is done, and with the several draughts 
 before us we can watch the work and note the change. 
 At last, a fresh, vigorous drama, or series of spirited 
 dramatic tableaux and staccato dialogue, distin- 
 guished by no unity of design nor historic accuracy, 
 but, with all its ragged edges, a healthful, breezy, 
 patriotic outburst. 
 
 In 1772 the "Frankfurt Gelehrte Anzeigen," a 
 semiweekly journal, was founded by friends of Goe- 
 the, and created a great sensation. He, as well as 
 Herder, becomes at once a collaborator, and a remark- 
 able series of critical reviews is issued. Pungent, 
 racy, epigrammatic, slashing away at all pretence 
 however dignified, dealing fearless censure and whole- 
 souled praise, — we need no acquaintance with the 
 writings examined to appreciate and enjoy the clear 
 view, the bubbling extravagance, the lusty blows, 
 
 2 
 
18 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 the wit, and withal the sound judgment which is 
 displayed. 
 
 Snatches only can we quote, from the collections of 
 Bernays and of Scherer, for our space forbids longer 
 and perhaps more significant passages. 
 
 On a work entitled " Letters regarding the most 
 important Truths of Eevelation," he comments : — 
 
 " These letters are directed principally against the 
 haughty sages of our century who see in God something 
 else than the penal judge of degraded humanity, who 
 believe that the creature of his hand is no monster, that 
 in the sight of God this world is something more than 
 the antechamber of the future state, and who peradven- 
 ture even presume to hope that he will not punish to all 
 eternity. We pass by the attacks upon the foes of reve- 
 lation, which often are blows in the air ; the argumenta- 
 tion regarding the history of mankind at the time of the 
 Redeemer, and the many accumulated proofs of Chris- 
 tianity of which one can no more demand than from a 
 bundle of rods that they should all be of equal strength. 
 But we ask all fanatics on both sides to consider whether 
 it be seemly to maintain in a spirit of persecution that 
 what it is claimed is regarded by God as good or evil on 
 our part is good or evil in his Sight too, or whether that 
 which is refracted in our sight into two colors may not 
 flow back to him in one ray of light. In this we all agree, 
 that man should do that which we all call good, whether 
 his spirit be a muddy pool or a mirror of beautiful nature, 
 whether he has strength to journey along his way, or is 
 sick and needs a crutch. Strength and crutch come from 
 one hand. In that we agree, and that is enough ! " 
 
GOETHE'S YOUTH. 19 
 
 The following notices illustrate what may be 
 called the summary process : — 
 
 " Address to his Royal Highness, the Grand-diihe Paul 
 Petrowitsch. Petersburg, 1772. — Alexander used to take 
 a poet along with him, to whom he would give on contract 
 a coin for every good verse and a cuff for every poor one. 
 We trust that this poetic spokesman made other condi- 
 tious for himself, and we admire the patience and vigi- 
 lance of the young Duke, if he heard the address through 
 without falling asleep." 
 
 " The Brother. By a Lady. 2 vols. — We desire that 
 this brother may remain the only son of his fither ; for 
 the work is beneath criticism." 
 
 " The Praise of Fashion,, an Address delivered and 
 printed ct la Mode. 1772. . . . And also written ct la 
 mode ; that is, as badly as possible." 
 
 " Wolf Krage, a Tragedy, hy Johannes Ewald, from 
 the Danish. 1772. — Night, high treason and fratricide, 
 abomination and death, and gloom, horrors, pains of love 
 and pains of dissolution, so that with a devout ' Heaven 
 preserve us ! ' we began to think about going home 
 betimes ! " 
 
 ^^ Lyric Poems hy Blum. Berlin, 1772. . . . We wish the 
 composer a first-rate girl, days of leisure, and the pure 
 poetic spirit, without the spirit of authorship. The best of 
 poets degenerates when he has the public in mind while 
 composing, and when filled more with a desire for fame, 
 especially newspaper fame, than with his subject." 
 
 " Enlightened Times ; or a Contemplation of the Pres- 
 ent Condition of the Sciences and Prevailing Customs in 
 
20 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 Germany. Ziillichau, 1772. — A tedious academic discus- 
 sion. The composer, who is probably quite young, at least 
 quite inexperienced, knows the world only from the four 
 faculties, and must have heard somewhere that we live 
 in enlightened times. Now this vexes him, and so he 
 proves that the philosophei's are not enlightened because 
 some still defend the best world ; nor the doctors, be- 
 cause so many men die ; nor the lawyers, because there 
 are so many laws without lawsuits, and lawsuits without 
 laws ; nor the theologians, because they are so obstinate, 
 and because one falls asleep so often when they preach ; 
 nor the humanists, because they do not pursue Latin 
 and Greek with sufficient earnestness, make Hebrew so 
 hard, write so many verses, and the like. Enlightened 
 times ! If the fellow had only written about the man in 
 the moon, or the polar bear ! That was his calling ! 
 Any one who presumes to consider our times enlightened 
 again, must read this whole work as a penalty ; and he 
 who considers them enlightened because he lives in them 
 himself, must leai*n it all by heart." 
 
 And finally one more extract, from a review of a 
 work entitled, " A Characterization of the most 
 refined European Nationalities. In Two Parts." 
 Leipzig. 
 
 " Character of refined nations ! Throw the coin into 
 the crucible if you wish to learn its worth. From the 
 stamp you will never find it out to all eternity. What 
 then is the character of a polished nation? What else 
 can it be than the reflection of the religion and the civic 
 constitution in which a nation is set ; drapery, regarding ^ 
 
i^^.^; 
 
 L^ 
 
 GOETHE'S YOUTH. 21 
 
 which the most that one can say is how it may fit the 
 nation. Perchance a philosophic observer might have 
 produced a tolerable characterization. But the composer 
 complacently made the grand tour through England, 
 France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and the IS^etherlands, 
 looked into his PufFendorf, talked with fine ladies and 
 gentlemen, and took his book and wrote. Unfortunately 
 there is nothing in all the world more devious than fine 
 ladies and gentlemen, and so his portrayals were also out 
 of focus ; the Englishman he always defends against the 
 Frenchman ; the Frenchman he always contrasts with the 
 Englishman ; the former is simply frivolous, the latter 
 simply strong, the Italian pompous and sedate, the Ger- 
 man guzzling and counting up his ancestors. Everything 
 by hearsay, on the surface, an abstract of ' good society.' 
 "And this he calls a characterization! What differ- 
 ent judgments he would often have passed if he had con- 
 descended to view the man in the midst of his family, 
 the peasant on his farm, the mother among her children, 
 the journeyman in his workshop, the honest burgher by 
 his tankard of beer, and the scholar and merchant in his 
 club or cafe ! But it did not even occur to him that 
 there were any people there ; or if it did occur to him, 
 how was he to have the patience, the time, the conde- 
 scension ] To him all Europe was a fine French drama, 
 or, what amounts to pretty much the same thing, a 
 puppet play ! He peeped in, and peeped out again, and 
 voila tout ! " 
 
 An important and perhaps somewhat neglected 
 phase of Goethe's earlier years is his attitude in 
 juatters of religion. We sometimes hear him called 
 
22 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 " the great Pagan," a shallow echo of the reaction- 
 ary romanticists and the strict ecclesiastics of sixty 
 or seventy years ago. But the paganism of Goe- 
 the, as Heine cleverly says, is marvellously modern- 
 ized ; and if the middle period of his life betrays a 
 drift toward classic heathendom, his youth, like his 
 old age, bears the stamp of strong religious views, and 
 a faith which in these days would simply be termed 
 liberal. His home training introduced him to cate- 
 chism and dogma, and he was encouraged to report 
 the sermons heard. The New Testament he learned 
 to read in Greek, and the Old Testament in Hebrew. 
 Stealthy hours were devoted to memorizing Klop- 
 stock's "Messias," — a work which evidently inspired 
 one of his earliest efforts, the poem on Christ's de- 
 scent into hell, — and a Biblical epic in prose was 
 partly accomplished. Much in the religious life of 
 his day, and some peculiarities of the official repre- 
 sentatives of the Church, did not appeal to his na- 
 ture, nor did he seem to possess what are called 
 "settled convictions"; but he honored the sacra- 
 ments, and for many years pursued an independent 
 and sober study of the Scriptures. 
 
 A previous quotation has given the tendency of 
 his thought regarding the truths of revelation. In a 
 criticism of the history of Count Struensee's conver- 
 sion, he remarks further : — 
 
 " Of the worth of a conversion, God alone may judge ; 
 God alone can know how great the step must be which 
 
GOETHE'S YOUTH. 23 
 
 the soul has to take here in order yonder to draw near 
 to a communion with him, to the abode of perfection, 
 and to the intercourse and friendship of higher beings. 
 Thousands of open and secret foes of rehgion exist, thou- 
 sands who wouki have loved Christ as their friend if he 
 had been depicted to them as a friend, and not as a sullen 
 tyrant, ever ready to crush with the thunderbolt where 
 the highest perfection is not found." 
 
 Goethe's youthful standpoint is still more clearly 
 indicated in a short publication, dating from 1771, in 
 the form of a letter from an aged pastor to liis new 
 colleague. Some people, he writes, find no pleasure 
 in beinc: Christians unless all the heathen are to be 
 roasted forever ; but for his part he hurries over that 
 doctrine as over red-hot iron. He has grown old in 
 contemplating tlie ways of the Lord, and finds that 
 God and Love are synonymous. He has no ground 
 for doubting any one's salvation ; it is enough to 
 believe in Divine Love revealed in Christ. Contro- 
 versy he avoids ;' it is easier to hold an eel by the 
 tail than a sophist with reasons ; the divine nature 
 of the Bible cannot be proven if it be not felt; 
 Augsburg and Dordrecht make as little essential dif- 
 ference in the religion of man as France and Ger- 
 many in bis nature ; the confession of faith was a 
 formula necessary in order to establish something, 
 but leaves him his Bible ; if one creed comes nearer 
 the Word of God than another, so much the better 
 for its confessors ; to force opinions upon one is cruel, 
 but to require that one must feel what one cannot 
 
24 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 is tyrannous nonsense. Luther labored to free us 
 from spiritual bondage, yet the Eomish Church has 
 preserved much of divine truth ; suffer it to be, and 
 give it your blessing ! 
 
 In a word, the essence of Goethe's creed was 
 toleration. 
 
 It was during this early period that Goethe be- 
 came at least partially familiar with the writings 
 of Spinoza. Herman Grimm ranks the latter witli 
 Homer, Shakespeare, and Eaphael as one of the four 
 great minds wliich had a lasting effect upon Goe- 
 the, regarding them as representatives of Greece and 
 Eome, with all the treasures which those names im- 
 ply and include, and of the Germanic and Hebrew 
 tradition. Goethe acknowledges to Eckermann, in 
 1831, how well adapted to his own youthful necessi- 
 ties were the views of the great Jewish thinker, in 
 whom he found himself Unable to distinguish be- 
 tween what he brought to Spinoza's "Ethics" and 
 what he took away, it was yet enough for Goethe 
 that he there discovered tliat which calmed his emo- 
 tions, — a grand and open survey of the sensuous and 
 the moral world. But it was the boundless disinter- 
 estedness of the contemplations of Spinoza which 
 specially attracted him, as well as the lesson of re- 
 nunciation, the distinction between knowledge and 
 faith, and the thought of the unity of creation. To 
 these contemplations Goethe repeatedly recurred in 
 later years, and in his old age the " Ethics " was still 
 by his side. 
 
GOETHE'S YOUTH. 25 
 
 If we seek for traces of pantheistic views in 
 Goethe's writings, we are at first embarrassed by the 
 necessity of defining the term Pantheism itself. Ac- 
 cording to a recent English historian of this sub- 
 ject, (C. E. Plumptre,) Pantheism, in the generally 
 accepted meaning of the word, is the name given to 
 that system of speculation which identifies the uni- 
 verse with God. This explanation presents a good 
 working definition, allowing the author to trace the 
 presence of pantheistic ideas in various philosophic 
 systems from ancient times. But much depends 
 upon the manner of the identification ; and in his 
 summary and conclusion Mr. Plumptre becomes more 
 precise, and describes the form of pantheism which 
 he has been discussing as that which, discarding 
 anthropomorphism on the one hand, and naked ma- 
 terialism on the other, conceives God to be a Power, 
 Eternal, Infinite, disclosing itself alike through every 
 form and phenomenon of nature. It does not iden- 
 tify God with perishable matter ; but rather con- 
 ceives him to be related to matter somewhat as the 
 soul is to the body. More concise is the definition 
 of Dr. Hedge : " God, the creative and ruling power 
 of the universe, distinguished by reason alone from 
 the universe itself." In this sense Goethe, who was 
 the last remove from an atheist, viewing the Finite 
 only as the " living garment " of the Infinite, will be 
 found fully in harmony with the spirit of Tennyson 
 in his profound and beautiful poem styled "The 
 Higher Pantheism." 
 
26 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 A discussion of the many proofs of this view 
 
 which Goethe's works afford, would carry us far into 
 
 Goethe's manhood and old age. One illustration 
 
 only may perhaps be permitted, from the "Proce- 
 
 mion," in 1816 : — 
 
 " Was wiir' ein Gott, der nur von aussen stiesse, 
 Im Kreis das All am Finger laufen liesse, 
 Ihm zieint's die Welt im Innem zu bewegen, 
 Natur in sicli, sicli in Natur zu liegen, 
 So dass, was in ihm lebt und webt und ist, 
 Nie seine Kraft, nie seinen Geist vennisst." 
 
 The ante-Weimar days witness only the beginnings 
 of Goethe's growing interest in Spinoza's ethical and 
 pantheistic theories, and of the irreconcilable con- 
 flict thereby induced between Jacobi and himself ; but 
 we are able to pick out from his letters and reviews 
 of that period, from " Werther," and from those por- 
 tions of "Faust" which evidence an early origin, 
 fragmentary but significant passages which bear wit- 
 ness to this interest. It was his unfinished drama 
 of " Prometheus," indeed, which, containing seeds of 
 Spinozism, incidentally occasioned the famous col- 
 loquy between Lessing and Jacobi upon Spinoza, 
 rousing an extended controversy regarding Lessing's 
 opinions ; — a controversy from which the serious 
 study of Spinoza, and the important philosophic 
 conclusions which proceeded from that study, are 
 considered to date. 
 
 We have reserved till now any mention of the 
 work which Goethe is said to have rated next to 
 "Faust," — "Die Leiden des jungen Werthers." 
 
GOETHE'S YOUTH. 27 
 
 Shakespeare has been quoted by Doctor Bartol as 
 describing the phenomenon of sleep-walking in Lady 
 Macbeth better than any modern physiologist; and 
 recently a prominent German professor of psychiatry 
 has gravely analyzed Goethe's work as an accurate 
 pathological study of a diseased mind. Werther in- 
 deed was an illustration, somewhat over-wrought, of 
 his time. He is the super-sensitive soul, whom the 
 rough world only bruises instead of bracing. Dis- 
 appointment in love, combined with a social affront 
 which cripples his ambition, proves too heavy a bur- 
 den, and he turns his back upon the world and seeks 
 in suicide an escape. The weak side of Werther — 
 the unhealthy sentimentality in place of healthy sen- 
 timent — is specially repugnant to the present age, 
 which is schooled to control, if not to conceal, its emo- 
 tions ; and although the pure and powerful fancy, the 
 righteous wrath against social shams, the warm affec- 
 tion for nature, are fascinating traits in the work to 
 this day, no sound mind can peruse the narration 
 without a continuing inward remonstrance and im- 
 patience. This feeling, however, extends not so 
 much to Werther as a creation as to Werther as a 
 character. But it was precisely because Wertherism 
 was then so common a psychological phenomenon 
 that the work gained so enormous a success. The 
 mirror was held up to human nature, and the distorted 
 likeness was at once recognized. The personal expe- 
 riences upon which the story was based are now com- 
 mon property, and it will scarcely be necessary to 
 
28 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 describe in detail the framework of society in which 
 the story is set. The Storm and Stress period forms 
 the background, a period whose leading characteristics 
 indeed are peculiar to no special time or place. In 
 its limited application to the last third of the eigh- 
 teenth century in Germany, the movement which 
 this phrase describes was a general revolt against 
 conventionality and the restraints of oppressive 
 authority, both in society and in letters. Herder 
 and Goethe are the leaders in literature, the for- 
 mer as a pioneer in criticism, the latter as the 
 embodiment of the poetic spirit. Goethe feels the 
 far-reaching, penetrating agitation, and through his 
 soul quiver and thrill the subtle and potent forces 
 which are at work to fashion the coming era. He 
 gathers up the tangled threads of life, and weaves 
 them into a brilliant tapestry of song and tale and 
 drama, which faithfully depict the universal fortunes 
 of mankind. So Goethe required first experience 
 before he might poetically create. But not solely in 
 order to create. He was receptive, ardent, impres- 
 sionable, blending warmth of heart with strength of 
 intellect. To the younger Goethe, as well as to the 
 elder Goethe, sweet human intercourse, encourage- 
 ment, and sympathy were needful. Solitude, save for 
 brief intervals, he could not suffer. He knew little 
 of those heights of loneliness on which the impatient 
 soul of Lessing was so often forced to dwell. For 
 even if his mental outlook was far wider than the 
 glance of most of his associates could comprise, even 
 
GOETHE'S YOUTH. 29 
 
 if he had often to endure bitter criticism and personal 
 hostilities, his motives and his aims alike misunder- 
 stood, he was also assured of ample appreciation, aid, 
 and applause. 
 
 Thus he rounds out his first quarter of a century. 
 The principal features of his youthful prime we have 
 here endeavored briefly to sketch, indicating the vari- 
 ous influences which shaped or modified his course, 
 and outlining his multifarious mental activity. We 
 have found him in his youth already a perfect lyric 
 poet; for all that follows, — the luxuriant elegiacs, the 
 fresh and natural ballads, the splendid harmonies of 
 " Gott und Welt," the tender, melancholy yearning of 
 Mignon, the melodious Oriental imageries, the elabo- 
 rate elegies of Marienbad, the numberless variations of 
 the Faust stanza, — is but a differing manifestation of 
 the same spirit ; we find him already penning a warm 
 and vigorous prose, which, pruned and perfected, is to 
 become the standard of modern German ; we find him 
 as the author of "Gotz" already vying with Klopstock 
 in arousing a national sentiment in the German mind 
 by restoring to his countrymen a consciousness of 
 their manly past; as an essayist and reviewer, we find 
 him already laboring to rebuke vain wordiness and 
 false or artificial canons of taste, to unfetter the judg- 
 ment and to awaken a catholic sympathy ; already in 
 "Werther" . 
 
 " He took the suffering human race, 
 He read each wound, each weakness clear. 
 And struck his finger on the place, 
 And said, Thou ailest here and here." 
 
30 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 And finally his masterpiece of " Faust " is growing 
 under his touch and gaining some of its rarest pas- 
 sages. Thus endowed with this potent promise of 
 his brilliant past, we leave him at Weimar, on the 
 threshold of his long and beneficent career in that 
 his final home. 
 
 APPENDIX TO "GOETHE'S YOUTH." 
 
 In order to convey some idea of the peculiarities 
 of Goethe's youthful style, the exact text of the 
 letter from which the extract on page 6 has been 
 translated is here given : — 
 
 An Joh. Jacob Riese in Frankfurt, 
 
 Leipzig 20. Oktober 1764. 
 Moigens um 6. 
 Riese, guten Tag ! 
 
 den 21. Abends um 5. 
 Riese, guten Abend ! 
 
 Gestevn hatte ich mich kaum liingesetzt um euch eine 
 Stunde zu widmen, Als schnell ein Brief von Horn kam 
 und mich von meinem angefangnen Elate hinweg riss. 
 Heute werde ich auch nicht langer bey euch bleiben. 
 Ich geh in die Coramoedie. "VVir haben sie recht schou 
 hier. Aber dennoch ! Ich binn unschliissig ! Soil ich 
 bey euch bleiben 1 Soil ich in die Commodie gehnl — 
 Ich weiss nicht ! Geschwind ! Ich will wiirfeln. Ja 
 ich habe keiue Wiirfel ! — Ich gehe ! Lebt wohl ! — 
 
GOETHE'S YOUTH. 31 
 
 Doch halte ! nein ! ich will da bleiben. Morgen kann 
 ich wieder nicht da muss ich ins Colleg, und Besuchen 
 und Abends zu Gaste. Da will ich also jetzt schreiben. 
 Meldet inir was ihr fiir ein Leben lebt? Ob ihr mauch- 
 mahl an mich denkt. Was ihr fiir Professor habt. &, 
 cetera und zwar ein langes & cetera. Ich lebe hier, wie 
 — wie — ich weiss selbst nicht recht wie. Doch so 
 ohngefahr 
 
 So wie ein Yogel, der auf einera Ast 
 
 Im schonsten Wald, sich, Freilieit athmend wiegt. 
 
 Der ungestort die saiifte Luft geniesst. 
 
 Mit seinen Fitticlien von Baum zu Baum 
 
 von Bussch zu Bussch sich singend hinzuschwingen. 
 
 Genug stellt euch ein Vbgelein, auf einem griinen 
 Aestelein in alien seinen Freuden fiir, so leb ich. Heut 
 hab ich angefangen Collegia zu horen. 
 
 Was fur 1 — 1st es der Miihe wehrt zu fragen 1 Institu- 
 tiones imperiales. Historiam iuris. Pandectas und ein 
 privatissimum iiber die 7 ersten und 7 letzten Titel des 
 Codicis. Denn mehr braucht man nicht, das iibrige 
 vergisst sich doch. Nein gehorsamer Diener ! das lies- 
 sen wir schon unterwege. — Im Ernste ich habe heute 
 zwei CoUegen gehort, die Staatengeschichte bey Professor 
 Bohmer, und bei Ernesti iiber Cicerons Gesprache vom 
 Redner. Nicht wahr das ging an. Die andere Woche 
 geht Collegium philosophicum et mathematicum an. — 
 
 Gottscheden hab ich noch nicht gesehen. Er hat 
 wieder geheurathet. Eine Jfr. Obristleutnantin. Ihr 
 wisst es doch, Sie ist 19 und er 65 Jahr. Sie ist 4 
 Schue gross und er 7. Sie ist mager wie ein Haring und 
 er dick wie ein Federsack. — Ich mache hier grosse 
 Figur ! — Aber noch zur Zeit bin ich kein Stutzer. Ich 
 
32 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 werd es auch niclit. — Ich brauche Kunst um fleissig zu 
 
 sein. In Gesellschaften, Concert, Comoedie, bei Gaste- 
 
 reyen, Abendessen, Spazierfahrten so viel es nm diese 
 
 Zeit angeht. Ha ! das geht kostlich. Aber auch kost- 
 
 lich, kostspielig. Zum Henker das fiihlt mein Beutel. 
 
 Halt ! rettet ! haltet auf ! Siehst du sie nicht mebr flie- 
 
 gen ? Da marschierten 2 Louisdor. Helft ! da giug eine. 
 
 Himmel ! schon wieder ein paar. Groschen die sind hier, 
 
 wie Kreuzer bei eucli draussen im Reiche. — Aber den- 
 
 noch kann bier einer sehr woblfeil leben. Die Messe ist 
 
 herum. Und ich werde recht menageus leben. Da hofFe 
 
 ich des Jahrs mit 300 Rthr. was sage ich niit 200 Rthr. 
 
 auszukommen. NB. das nicht mitgerechnet, was schon 
 
 zum Henker ist. Ich habe kostbaaren Tissch. Merkt 
 
 einmahl unser Kiichenzettel. Hiiner, Gansse, Truthah- 
 
 nen, Endten, Rebhiiner, Schnepfen, Feldhiiner, Forellen, 
 
 Hassen, Wildpret, Hechte, Fasanen, Austern u. s. w. Das 
 
 erscheinet Taglich. nichts von anderm groben Fleisch 
 
 ut sunt Rind, Kalber, Hamel u. s. w. das weiss ich nicht 
 
 mehr wie es schmeckt. Und die Herrlichkeiten nicht 
 
 teuer, gar nicht teuer. — Ich sehe, dass mein Blat bald 
 
 voll ist und es stehen noch keine verse darauf, ich habe 
 
 deren machen woUen. Auf ein andermahl. Sagt Keh- 
 
 ren dass ich ihm schreiben werde. Ich hore von Horn, 
 
 dass ihr euch ob absentiam puellarum forma elegantium 
 
 beklagt. Lasst euch von ihm das Urteil sagen dass ich 
 
 liber euch fallete. 
 
 Goethe. 
 
 In a letter to bis friend Schon born, consul in 
 Algeria, occurs a noteworthy passage in turbulent 
 praise of Herder: — 
 
GOETHE'S YOUTH. 33 
 
 Frankfurt am 8, Jun. [1774.] 
 
 Herder hat ein Werk drucken lassen : Aelteste Ur- 
 Jcunde des Menschengeschlechts. Ich hielt meinen Brief 
 inne um Ihnen auch Ihr Theil iibers Meer zu schicken, 
 noch. aber bin ichs nicht im Stande, es ist ein so mystisch 
 weitstrahlsinniges Gauze, eine in der Fiille verschlungener 
 Geaste lebende und rollende Welt, dass weder eine Zeich- 
 nung nach verjUngtem Maasstab einigen Ausdruck der 
 Eiesengestalt nachaffen, oder eine treue Silhouette einzel- 
 ner Theile melodisch sympathetischen Klang in der Seele 
 anschlagen kann. Er ist in die Tiefen seiner Empfindung 
 hinabgestiegen, hat drinn alle die hohe heilige Kraft der 
 simpeln Natur aufgewiihlt und fuhrt sie nun in dammern- 
 dem, wetterleuchtendem hier und da morgenfreundlich 
 lachelnden, Orphischen Gesang vom Aufgang herauf iiber 
 die weite Welt, nachdem er vorher die Lasterbrut der 
 neuern Geister, De- und Atheisten, Philologen, Textver- 
 besserer, Orieutalisten etc. mit Feuer und Schwefel und 
 Fluthsturm ausgetilget ! 
 
 Appended is a sliort bibliography of works relating 
 to Goethe's youth. 
 
 General Subject. 
 
 Der junge Goethe. Seine Briefe und Dichtungen von 
 1764-1776. Mit einer Einleitung von Michael Bernays. 
 3 Theile. Leipzig, 1875. 
 
 Goethe's Dichtung und Wahrheit. Mit Einleitung 
 und Anmerkungen von G. von Loeper. 4 Theile. Berlin, 
 1879. 
 
 3 
 
34 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 Briefe uud Aufsatze von Goethe aus den Jahren 1766 
 bis 1786. Zum erstenmal herausgegeben durch A. Scholl. 
 Weimar, 1846. 
 
 Deutschlauds politische, materielle und sociale Zii- 
 stande im Achtzehnten Jahrhundert. Von Karl Bieder- 
 mann. 2 Bde. Leipzig, 1854-1880. 
 
 Geschichte der deutschen Literatur im achtzehn- 
 ten Jahrhundert. Von Hermann Hettner. 3 BUcher. 
 Zweite Auflage. Braunschweig, 1872. 
 
 Goethe. Vorlesungen gehalten an der Kgl. Universifat 
 zu Berlin von Herman Grimm. Zweite durchgesehene 
 Auflage. Berlin, 1880. [Translated by Sarah Holland 
 Adams. Boston : Little, Brown, & Co., 1881.] 
 
 Goethe's Leben von H. Diintzer. Leipzig, 1880. [Trans- 
 lated by T. W. Lyster. Macmillau, London, 1883, and 
 Estes and Lauriat, Boston.] 
 
 Goethe in den Jahren 1771 bis 1775. Von Bernhard 
 Eudolf Abeken. Zweite Auflage. Hannover, 1865. 
 
 Werther und seine Zeit. Zur Goethe-Literatur. Von 
 J. W. AppeU. Neue Ausgabe. Leipzig, 1865. 
 
 Aus Goethes Frlihzeit. Von Wilhelm Scherer. [Quel- 
 len uud Forschungen xxxiv.] Strassburg, 1879. 
 
 Goethe's Werther und seine Zeit. Eine psychiatrisch- 
 litterarische Studie von Prof. Dr. Ludwig Wille. Basel, 
 1877. 
 
 Herder. 
 
 Herder nach seinem Leben und seinen Werken darge- 
 stellt von R. Haym. 1. Bd. Berlin, 1877. 
 
 Herders Lebensbild. Sein chronologisch-geordneter 
 Briefwechsel. Herausgegeben von seinem Sohne. 3 Bde. 
 Erlangen, 1846. 
 
GOETHE'S YOUTH. 35 
 
 Aus Herders Nachlass. 3 Bde. Frankfurt am Main, 
 1857-1858. 
 
 Herder. By Karl Hillebrand. IST. A. Review, July and 
 October, 1872, April, 1873. Vol. CXV. pp. 104-138, 
 235-287, 389-424. (Eeprinted in part as Monograph 
 IV. Bangor, Me.) 
 
 Friederilce Brion. 
 
 Der junge Goethe. (Letters and Poems in Vol. T.) 
 Dichtung und Wahrheit. (Books 10, 11, and 12.) 
 Friederike Brion von Sessenheim. Geschichtliche Mit- 
 theilungen von Phil. Ferd. Lucius, Pfarrer in Sessen- 
 heim. Strassburg, 1877. 
 
 Friederike Brion von Sesenheim. (1752-1813.) Eine 
 chronologisch bearbeitete Biographic nach neuem Mate- 
 rial aus dem Lenz-Nachlasse. Von P. Th. Falck. Ber- 
 lin, 1884. 
 
 Deutsche Rundschau, I^ovember, 1878, pp. 218-226 : 
 Wallfahrt nach Sesenheim. Von Heinrich Kruse. 
 
 Goethe's Youthful Reviews. 
 
 Der junge Goethe. A^ol. IT. pp. 405-504. 
 
 Studien iiber Goethe von Professor Wilhelm Scherer in 
 Berlin. Der junge Goethe als Journalist. [In the 
 Deutsche Rundschau, October, 1878, pp. 62-74.] 
 
 Goethe's Religious Vieivs. 
 
 "Der junge Goethe" and "Dichtung und Wahrheit," 
 2yassim. 
 
 ■ [For the later period, see his works in general. ISTote 
 specially Sarah Austin's " Characteristics of Goethe : from 
 
36 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 the German of Falk, von Miiller, etc.," (3 vols^ London, 
 1849,) Vol. I. pp. 65-103. Also, " Gesprache mit Goethe 
 m den letzten Jahren seines Lebens. Von J. P. Ecker- 
 mann. Sechste Auflage. (Edited by Diintzer.) In drei 
 Theilen." (Leipzig, 1885.) IL 30, 100-101, 200 ; IIL 
 253-258. In John's translation, pp. 54-55 (passage 
 suppi§s:s^^by traiislatpr), 411-412, 524-525, 566-570.] 
 
 Goethe's Stellung^m Christenthnm. Von Julian 
 Schmidt. (In the Goethe-Jahrbuch, IL, 1881, pp. 49- 
 64.) 
 
 Der Gang der Kirche in Lebensbildern dargestellt von 
 K. Fr. Aug. Kahnis. Leipzig, 1881. (pp. 410-426: 
 Goethe und das Christenthnm.) 
 
 Goethes religiose Entwickelung bis zum Jahre 1775. 
 Von E. Fr. A. Jobst. (Programm.) Stettin, 1877. 
 
 Spinoza and Pantheism. 
 
 Benedicti de Spinoza Opera quae supersunt omnia. 3 
 vols, and supplementary vol. (1862). Lipsise, 1843. 
 
 [Spinoza's Works are translated into English in the 
 Bohn series.] 
 
 Spinoza's Ethic. Translated by W. H. White. Lon- 
 don, 1883. 
 
 Spinoza, his Life and Philosophy. By Frederick Pol- 
 lock. London, 1880. 
 
 Ways of the Spirit, and other Essays. By F. H. 
 Hedge. Boston, 1877. [pp. 252-284 : Pantheism.] 
 
 General Sketch of the History of Pantheism. By C. E. 
 Plumptre. 2 vols. London, 1881. 
 
 SchoU, (w. supra,) pp. 193-229. 
 
GOETHE'S SELF-CULTURE. 37 
 
 II. 
 
 GOETHE'S SELF-CULTURE. 
 
 By JOHN ALBEE. 
 
 The theory of education at present is to offer an 
 all-embracing outline of studies, from which every 
 talent may select, may specialize itself, and receive 
 its appropriate training. Universal culture, that is, 
 knowing or affecting a variety of intellectual inter- 
 ests, is not now much encouraged, and is seldom mar- 
 ketable. Even the phrases, " a great scholar," " a 
 learned man," have ceased to carry their ancient sig- 
 nificance. And the opponents of classical studies 
 would say it is well it is so ; for the terms meant an 
 acquaintance with Greek and Latin and the contents 
 of libraries merely. Scholar, learned man, do not 
 well describe the modern proficient, their successor, 
 whose claim and place can be exactly defined when 
 one inquires, " What does he know ? " This was 
 sometimes a difficult question to answer in the case 
 of the former class, when one praised them and pro- 
 voked curiosity and inquiry. The answer was as 
 vague and general as the supposed accomplishments. 
 Universal culture we no longer encourage in the indi- 
 vidual ; in the accumulation of studies, in their clear 
 
38 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 demarkations and the demand for thoroughness, there 
 is required a more or less close following of par- 
 ticular lines. Universal culture must now be con- 
 fined in meaning to the possibilities, or opportunities, 
 embraced within the plans and under the teachers 
 everywhere offered, and to their distributed results. 
 The education now most insisted upon is that which 
 qualifies a man to maintain himself by his usefulness 
 to others, — to possess and to be able to apply that 
 knowledge which has its practical value and its equiv- 
 alent money value, like any other commodity. | You 
 may know too little to be wanted anywhere by any- 
 body ; and you may know too much to meet the 
 wants of sagacious employers. , 
 
 The bounds of knowledge — to sum up what has 
 been said and to make clearer what follows — have 
 been so extended, and the demand for application is 
 so strenuous, that only by devotion to one single de- 
 partment can a man hope for any degree of complete- 
 ness or usefulness. 
 
 At the same time, this accomplishment in one 
 thing, with its professional or private application, 
 gives to its disciple a limited development which 
 is not in harmony with the highest philosophical or 
 spiritual revelations of the being and aim of man. 
 For man is a unit, a whole, in himself, whatsoever 
 component place he may consent to fill temporarily 
 and with a detached portion of his being. He wishes 
 to know all, grasps at all. He can learn all ; but he 
 can teach, can communicate, only a part. Now aU 
 
GOETHE'S SELF-CULTURE. 39 
 
 that which cannot be taught, but which every earnest, 
 striving spirit wishes to know and succeeds in know- 
 ing through his own power and will, and in his own 
 way, that is, as his genius guides him, I call self- 
 culture. And inasmuch as I speak of Goethe's self- 
 culture, I am anxious that my definition should be 
 considered, in a peculiar manner, as applicable to 
 him, for it has grown out of a study of his life and 
 activities. I hope it is capable of generalization, and 
 useful to every one who has taken his education, his 
 cultivation, into his own hands ; but it is beyond 
 the scope of this paper to make applications and 
 draw the obvious moral. It is simply the way 
 which one man, already by natural endowment great, 
 found to supplement a usual education, such as was 
 available in his youth, to pass from known and dis- 
 covered ground to original, and to satisfy the impulse 
 of his genius. Nor do I wish to lower or confuse the 
 definition of self-culture, by connecting it in any 
 manner with the history or experience of those com- 
 monly called self-educated men, of whom we have 
 enough and hear enough ; men who struggle up out 
 of the masses, and who are sufficiently honored and 
 wondered at for their striving and their triumph. 
 Self-culture as now to be considered must be held up 
 and measured upon the Goethean plan ; and as the 
 sermon ever and anon comes back to its text and the 
 sons to its refrain, so must we to the definition, which 
 is to be the clue in studying one chief characteristic 
 of Goethe: all that which cannot be taught, but 
 
40 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 which every earnest, striving spirit wishes to know 
 and succeeds in knowing through his own power and 
 will and in his own way, — that is, as his genius 
 guides him, — is self-culture ; and Goethe is the 
 eminent and peculiar example of it, and of its most 
 extraordinary results. 
 
 It is hard to keep hold of Goethe as a whole, he 
 turns himself in so many different directions. And 
 who is competent to estimate a man who was poet, 
 novelist, art critic, translator, editor, lawyer and coun- 
 cillor of state, dramatist, stage manager and actor, 
 the most voluminous correspondent we know of, — 
 over nine thousand letters known to be now procura- 
 ble, and one half of them already published, — besides 
 his special scientific pursuits in botany, mineralogy, 
 anatomy, and optics ? To some of these departments 
 he added valuable contributions ; in some he made 
 original discoveries, and his literary work has. become 
 already the property of mankind. All the while, 
 as we read his life as known to the persons among 
 whom he moved, his diaries and letters, we are struck 
 with the attention and time bestowed on private and 
 official concerns, which could leave no profitable re- 
 sults, and which would seem to interfere with the 
 concentration requisite for enduring performances. 
 But for the explanation of the amount and quality 
 of his literary legacy, we must study his character- 
 istic literary methods ; and in addition, remember 
 his fortunate circumstances and his long life, pro- 
 ductive to the end. 
 
GOETHE'S SELF-CULTURE. 41 
 
 It is claimed, and it is a valid claim, that Goe- 
 the's life and work make an epoch in world history. 
 Whether we know it or not, we now see through his 
 eyes when we come to certain points in our studies 
 and experiences. And although unable, and indeed 
 incompetent, as most men are, to follow and appre- 
 ciate the whole range of his contributions, yet any 
 interested and careful reader can feel everywhere 
 the Goethean characteristic in his style and method ; 
 and, more than all, in the comprehensive sweep of 
 his mind, which looks out upon things in a large, 
 infinite way, gathering as it labors on vast materials, ' 
 overflowing in almost every instance the receptacle 
 he had planned for them. He was almost too great 
 and active a man to be a writer ; it is condescension 
 in him to write. After the Frankfort period, he 
 needed urging to prepare anything for print. He 
 was indebted to his friends, and esj)ecially to Schiller, 
 for stimulation in this direction. He loved to accu- 
 mulate, to sketch out plans, to read to friends an 
 incompleted design, and then put it away for more 
 light. Thus all his work seems a means to some 
 other end, — a preparation, — an exploring expedition, 
 returning with abundant results, but how to be finally 
 distributed and arranged, somewhat in doubt; and 
 in fact it is lucky if anything more than a roof is 
 erected over them. Much appears to be unfinished, 
 fragmentary, all sorts of things interjected between 
 the covers of his books ; and this not from want of 
 good structural idea, but either because of some 
 
42 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 difficulty in keeping within its limits, or because he 
 found no conventional literaiy form quite adapted to 
 his peculiar genius. So he overflows in all his longer 
 works ; yet in his shorter is perfectly restrained and 
 unified. 
 
 It was especially hard for Goethe to bring any of 
 his more important books to end, because his accu- 
 mulations were so large and continuous, and because 
 he filled his writing with his life, which flowed on, 
 and could only be complete by the arrest of life. 
 It must also be remembered that he waited upon 
 his moods, and was not independent of physical 
 aids and hindrances. He used wine and love as 
 stimulants, but not tobacco. He consulted the ba- 
 rometer to know the weather in his brain ; and he 
 knew what seasons, sleep, diet, change, and music 
 could do for the mind. However, there comes a time 
 when we can no more rely upon these charming 
 coadjutors. The problem came to the aged Goethe 
 how to complete works which for the most part had 
 been thrown off in periods when his genius was sus- 
 ceptible to outward influences, responding involun- 
 tarily and warmly. His solution was that by which 
 most men are obliged to labor from beginning to end, 
 namely, to finish what needed finishing by energy 
 and resolution, no longer waiting upon Muse and 
 season. Still we must say that in much of Goethe's 
 work there were additions rather than completions, 
 and it marks a characteristic trait, the cause of which 
 we have already indicated. The Second Part of 
 
GOETHE'S SELF-CULTURE. 43 
 
 " Faust " is a completion, but not a dramatic comple- 
 tion ; it is a religious reinvestment of the whole con- 
 ception. The Second Part of "Wilhelm Meister" 
 follows vaguely and in a lower atmosj)here the same 
 lines ; nothing is brought to an issue after the manner 
 of ordinary fiction. In Goethe was the extraordinary 
 sense of the progressive character of all that concerns 
 human life ; it appears as merely succession oftenest ; 
 and in either case the highest art must deal with it 
 as without limitations. No end is conceivable to it, 
 but only transitions. Thus while Goethe lived the 
 period could be, and generally was, changed into a 
 semicolon ; whatsoever conclusion, it was provisional ; 
 ceaseless self-culture added chapter after chapter, 
 rewrote, inserted missing leaves, and gave to the god 
 Terminus feet and arms. There should be a dash at 
 the end of most of his writings, to signify that he 
 was interrupted, or was waiting for more light, a 
 new experience, a fresh impulse. This intellectual 
 exuberance was in part the fruit of a habit of self- 
 culture, which accompanied step by step the writings 
 given to the public. 
 
 The creative power in him seems to have been 
 exactly commensurate with the opportunities of self- 
 culture ; and in the latter we must include, besides 
 various studies, all kinds of personal contacts, expe- 
 riences, and employments. These came forth again 
 as images, characters, or generalizations, in poetry or 
 prose, and tantalize us at once with their likeness 
 and unlikeness to their originals. And it may be 
 
44 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 noticed in passing that he appears to reveal most of 
 the germs out of which grew his literary works. It 
 is true he was a little fond of mystification con- 
 cerning them, and himself, doubtless, as we all do, 
 connected the image created independently in the 
 mind with some material, actual counterpart sub- 
 sequently. This, otherwise, is to give to what we 
 call real existences, facts, or even experiences, too 
 much credit. These have no creative power; the 
 mind, the imagination, create them. We may admit 
 only this : that the relation of Goethe's creations to 
 their originals, or beginnings, is similar to the genesis 
 of life. There is a cell of some sort ; it little resem- 
 bles the final form of independent being, which at 
 any other stage than this is perishable. 
 
 Goethe was a realist in a certain distinguishing 
 sense ; that is, there must be for him firm realities, 
 but such as were intimately interwoven with his own 
 life. He hated the vague, the subjective, and that 
 which attempted to make something out of nothing. 
 He strove for such a universal expression as could 
 not be literally interpreted, but so flexible as to have 
 in it a manifold adaptation. In some degree, favored 
 by the German intellectual tendency to minute and 
 critical study of masterpieces, he achieved in a short 
 space that which time and chance have given his 
 compeers. Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare, — the pos- 
 sibility of many meanings and many applications. 
 He founded himself upon the internal real ; so that 
 his realism differs greatly from that which among some 
 
GOETHE'S SELF-CULTURE. 45 
 
 writers is practised and championed in our time. 
 They claim to give us pictures of life as it is, still 
 callino: their work fiction. Nothinjr that does actu- 
 ally, literally exist, is worthy of portraiture. "The 
 spirit of the real is the true ideal " ; and this alone 
 is all that man recognizes and cherishes forever. 
 
 Tliere is, however, a deeper objection than this to 
 the surface realism of our present literary art. In 
 the moral world, as in the natural, we shall not go 
 far wrong, if we seek for truth and reality in the 
 direct opposite of what appears. The apparent is 
 something adjusted to the measure of the senses. 
 Although Goethe laid strong hold of this apparent, 
 there was for once a man who turned it, not half or 
 quarter, but clear round, and saw the other, the real 
 spirit, or ideal face. 
 
 He turned the plant clear round, and discovered 
 its secret, the law of its life. And as ever appear- 
 ances are confusing, while the reality is simple and 
 satisfying, so now botany, which, wlien one looks 
 into a text-book or upon a garden of flowers, is the 
 most bewildering of studies, becomes by Goethe's 
 discovery as clear and beautiful as a remembered sin- 
 gle line of perfect poetry. In fact it is poetic ; and 
 it distinguishes nearly all of his scientific investiga- 
 tion that it is resolved into poetry. He is the first 
 modern man who has well succeeded in workincj this 
 transformation ; thus restoring for us the manner of 
 the most ancient natural philosophers, who rendered 
 everything in verse. It seems to have been his 
 
46 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 aim in natural science to satisfy the desire for a 
 productive thought, — one that should be a further 
 means of self-cultivation. His investigations in oste- 
 ology resulted in nearly the same law as in botany, — 
 a simple principle on which the structure of animals 
 and plants is built up alike. What is its value ? 
 Chieilv to the imagination in man. There is no final 
 good in scientific discoveries unless they furnish us 
 something beyond the useful ; this also lias its value, 
 but not the entire. As Goethe himself said, " What- 
 ever is useful is only a part of what is significant." 
 When a simple, pregnant generalization, like Goethe's 
 in botany, is given us, we are not hindered by default 
 of technical knowledge from the highest possible per- 
 ception of the central idea in the plant world. We 
 no more stand before the simplest flower ashamed of 
 our ignorance because we cannot call it by name ; or 
 when we can, satisfied with our knowledge. But 
 there is now freedom for the imagination, and an 
 invitation to reflection. Then truly pansies will be 
 for thoughts ; and the " flower in the crannied wall " 
 will answer, not what God and man is, but as much 
 as it knows about itself. And though some flowers 
 recommend themselves by their beauty or rarity, and 
 others by their commonness, and some even because 
 they are fashionable, all of them, when we are ac- 
 quainted with the law of their inward being, help us 
 to draw nearer to the spiritual symbols and resem- 
 blances which connect each province of nature with 
 every other, and all with man. 
 
GOETHE'S SELF-CULTURE. 47 
 
 Goethe teaches us after a method, and to a point 
 where we can teach ouVselves. In every direction to 
 which he turned his mind, this is one of his chief 
 merits, that he takes you where you can go alone if 
 you will. This makes him for adults, for poets and 
 writers especially, the most helpful master that has 
 ever lived. . How lie becomes so is easy to see ; it 
 is because he is trying to teach himself; in short, 
 we come again upon his self-culture as the fruit- 
 ful source of his achievements and influence. His 
 studies and investigations were private, unprofes- 
 sional, with no worldly or ulterior aim. What he 
 puts into the mouth of Makaria in " Wilhelm Meis- 
 ter's Travels " expresses his habit very nearly : " We 
 do not want to establish anything, or to produce any 
 outward effect, but only to enlighten ourselves." 
 When therefore Goethe, a man of ample acquire- 
 ments and genius, sits down to study something that 
 he wishes to know, and gives us not only the results, 
 but the steps and the method of his effort, he be- 
 comes a great teacher. 
 
 Yet we do not wish to follow any master too far ; 
 he is the best who leads us from himself to self- 
 reliance. A man needs many, to whose influence he 
 can surrender himself, and recover himself again and 
 again. In Goethe's self-cultivation it is striking how 
 often he meets with persons and objects, and gives 
 himself up to them until he has learned all they 
 have to impart which can help him, or discovers 
 his own false tendency or position. Then he aban- 
 
48 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 dons them without regret or apology. Witliont re- 
 gret, except the poetic, insjDiriiig regrets of his love 
 affairs, which cannot be omitted from the account of 
 the sources and circumstances of his inward culture. 
 In these there were usually two productive phases 
 or periods ; one while elevated by passion, the other 
 when tormented by remorse. It is said by H. Grimm 
 that Margaret grew out of the latter. But usually 
 he had no time or taste for repenting himself of any- 
 thing that had happened. In his self-complacent 
 way he foresaw compensation, and was not afflicted 
 to know all sides of himself, the weak, tlie strong, the 
 excellent, and the evil. He confessed that his striv- 
 ing to become an artist was a mistake, but added 
 that mistakes also give us insight. This calm, quite 
 superhuman characteristic has prejudiced many good 
 people against Goethe ; tliey think that he sacrificed 
 everybody to his own selfish purposes. The French 
 call love the egoism of two ; but some say Goethe's 
 love was still no more than that of one, — self-love, 
 in short. 
 
 One of the essential contrasts between Goethe and 
 most literary creators — let us say, for instance, our 
 own Shakespeare — is that Goethe found his mate- 
 rial, his suggestions, his impulse, in his own expe- 
 riences ; while Shakespeare and his contemporaries, 
 and also the greater Greek poets, take what has hap- 
 pened to others as the primary motive of their work. 
 Goethe embodies states of feeling, workings of the 
 intellect ; consequently they have not that chai-ac- 
 
GOETHE'S SELF-CULTURE. 49 
 
 teristic or historical consistency which is common 
 among other creators. I venture to call their con- 
 sistency ideal ; and I would refer its manifestations 
 more to the personality of Goethe than to that of the 
 characters themselves, which in most works of the 
 imagination are made effective by sliarply drawn 
 limitations. I do not know a character of Goethe's 
 that stands for much more than his mouthpiece ; that 
 one thinks of as a person, as in the creations of 
 many even inferior novelists and dramatists. In 
 truth, one may say, — or perhaps here it is better to 
 inquire whether nearly all the most famous char- 
 acters of poets and dramatists have not something 
 vague and impersonal about them ; while it is left to 
 the inferior to come before us with their impressive, 
 although very limited personality. The great are 
 great without being peculiar, and indeed by contrasts 
 to it ; they fill a great place, symbolize the total 
 conception, and must be drawn with a few and the' 
 simplest lines ; while about them move all manner 
 of subordinates, of narrower yet more striking idio- 
 syncrasies. It is these latter we make ourselves free 
 with ; they pass into proverb, yes, into language, and 
 have the honor to become nouns and adjectives. 
 
 Goethe wrote in the modern temple, where all the 
 Muses were real women. He transformed them back 
 to their ancient estate. This his temple was of glass, 
 so that the transformation could be seen, the original 
 clay be detected after it was winged. Doubtless 
 other poets, liis predecessors and compeers, also drew 
 
50 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 mucli out of their own lives, fashioning their crea- 
 tions out of real, present images ; but it is concealed 
 from us by our meagre information concerning their 
 personal history and character. In Goethe's case all 
 is open, all is revealed, by his own disclosures and 
 innumerable testimonies. We know the avidity of 
 the public concerning everything which connects 
 personal affairs with a poem or story, — its liability to 
 mistake, and its haste to censure ; and as the world 
 is full of literalists, as well as of those who conceive 
 of all as if existing in the present and among them- 
 selves, forgetful that every age " determines and fash- 
 ions both the willing and unwilling," they hear of 
 Goethe's relations to his time, to its persons, ideas 
 on religion and politics, with some scruples of con- 
 science ; their most serious charge being that he 
 immolated, and then dissected, living, loving human 
 beings for the purposes of literary art. It should be 
 remembered that, so far as Goethe's own confessions 
 are summoned against him, they cannot be fully ad- 
 mitted ; for he did not confess himself in print until 
 the matter which entered into it had become poetry 
 in its first stage. He used it over and over, and 
 gave it endless additions and transformations. In 
 truth, the literal experience, the actual fact, do not 
 exist for a moment, or but just a moment, in his 
 mind. 
 
 In his first attempt at verse, when he was in love 
 with Gretchen, he says he first " mystified himself." 
 You cannot detect him writing anywhere except sym- 
 
GOETHE'S SELF-CULTURE. 51 
 
 bolically. Thus, in working the chief miracle given 
 man to perform in his earthly life, the changing 
 the water which he draws out of the common reser- 
 voirs into the wine of song and story, Goethe had a 
 wonderful, almost supernatural power. In tracing 
 back this gift, it becomes clear that it grew out of 
 bis genius for self-culture. We can observe that it 
 had a twofold or reciprocal character, not uncommon 
 to all men, but in the highest degree to him ; namely, 
 being taught by his own faculties, unconsciously at 
 first, and then in return consciously and earnestly 
 teaching them. It may be said, that when a man 
 arrives at the latter stage, he is free ; he, by the same 
 means, liberates others; he becomes a self-deter- 
 mined being, and can wholly exterminate what is 
 obstructive in himself, and perfect what is productive 
 and best. This consciousness becomes distinct grad- 
 ually ; and the interesting point in Goethe's intellect- 
 ual history is to observe its development. 
 
 But now what shall we say on behaK of those 
 lovely, and, as some think, wronged ladies, sacrificed 
 to make the images of Gretchen, OttiUe, Iphigenia, 
 Sulieka, who now seem to have an independent 
 being ? Were Friederika, Lottie Buff, Lillie Schone- 
 man. Von Stein, and the others, but the rough stone 
 in which sleeps the statue ? or did they breathe, 
 suffer, feel the chisel and polisher of the artist ? And 
 which endured most, they or Goethe himself ? It is 
 permitted to women to heal themselves by sensible 
 attachments and marriage, which all seem to have 
 
52 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 done, with one exception ; while he poetized his woes. 
 It is too much to expect of every man that he shall 
 commit suicide to show that he was in earnest in 
 love. Yet I know of no other course that would 
 thoroughly satisfy the world of Goethe's sincerity 
 and unhappiness. Must we, however, exercise our- 
 selves in passing some kind of judgment in the 
 business ? For this present, all such controversies 
 must be renounced ; and once for all let us summa- 
 rize the sujDposed defects of Goethe's nature, which, 
 as comprehensive and yet condensed as we can make 
 them, are religious, domestic, and political. 
 
 In conclusion of this element in Goethe's manner 
 of self-culture, that is, the embodiment in imaginary 
 forms and relations of not only actual people and 
 events, but as well his various internal moods, reflec- 
 tions, and tendencies, I will add, that it grew into a 
 habit with him to want to know, first of all, in regard 
 to the productions of other writers, and even scientific 
 labors, out of what kind of personal character and 
 experience they had been evoked. In this, as critic 
 and student, is to be observed his leaning toward the 
 historical and objective method. One might sup- 
 pose, after all that has been divulged respecting his 
 own way of drawing from his experience and circum- 
 stances, that it might properly be called the sub- 
 jective method, and that he would use approvingly, 
 in describing others, the same term. I shall not 
 insist on the distinctions in the use of these terms 
 by Goethe which I have endeavored to find ; but I 
 
Niv; 
 
 P^.ro"^*^53 
 
 GOETHE'S SELF-CUL 
 
 have made the attempt in order to read his critical 
 works especially, and maxims scattered all through 
 his other writino^s, with better understanding In 
 tlie first place, then, there are two essentials to all 
 intellectual efforts and products. These two essen- 
 tials may be called by several terms ; as, broadly, 
 nature and art ; or, specifically, reality and imagi- 
 nation, truth and symbol, yourself and the world. 
 These cannot be separated ; the objective method 
 does not separate them ; but the subjective metliod 
 undertakes to exclude, sometimes one, sometimes the 
 other. To this must be added that he often em- 
 ployed the term subjective in speaking of egotists, 
 mannerists, and dilettauts. 
 
 The terms dilcttant and dilettanteis7n grew up 
 alongside of this enlargement of the meaning of art 
 and artist, and were the necessary negative or anti- 
 thetical expressions. The looser meaning of dilet- 
 tant is one wdio amuses himself, or cultivates not too 
 seriously any art, or science, or literature, and does 
 not pretend to success or excellence. He is judged 
 in proportion to his intention, and we give our ap- 
 plause graciously, because it is not demanded of our 
 head, but our heart, in return for a casual pleasure, 
 or because there has been displayed to us some 
 unexpected natural, though untrained talent. 
 
 But if the effort be serious, yet a failure ; if it 
 make a demand to which we do not, cannot yield, 
 then, in the usage of Goethe, Schiller, and their 
 friends, the effort is dilettanteism, and the agent is a 
 
54 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 dilettant. In short, when one undertakes to gain 
 tlie height, as Goethe said, through admiration of it, 
 but not the steps to it ; or feels himself from any 
 impulse, inward or outward, disposed to something 
 for which he has, perhaps, a little, but no effective 
 talent ; there is the delineation of numberless indi- 
 viduals who pretend much, who even labor industri- 
 ously, yet with no praiseworthy results. However, 
 we must not apply these significant words empiri- 
 cally, or too harshly. We have had many single 
 gifts, precious and enduring, from men of this class; 
 and we cannot forget the contributions of many 
 imtrained observers of nature. 
 
 It is inevitable that Goethe must believe in recov- 
 ery after never so many false steps and tendencies. 
 Being men out of the earth, going through the world 
 for a brief period, looking forward constantly, and in 
 the crises of life upward, it is necessary we sliould 
 make our mistakes help us. In the " Annals " of 
 Goethe, which are a sort of epitome and continuation 
 of the " Autobiography," he declares that he meant in 
 " Wilhelm Meister " to delineate the career of a dilet- 
 tant, whose "false steps may at last conduct to an 
 invaluable good." 
 
 One word more of his manner of coming to conclu- 
 sions respecting the work of other minds. We have 
 recently here, in last year's study of Emerson, been led 
 through various special points of view to one agreeing 
 opinion, — that character was the source of his activi- 
 ties, and that it is reflected in them with few reser- 
 
GOETHE'S SELF-CULTURE. 65 
 
 vations and no pretensions. Always, when we can 
 find no clue to the private life of the great men of 
 the past, we attempt to construct it out of their times, 
 their contemporaries, and the whole personal environ- 
 ment, as far as we can reproduce it. It was this 
 objective spirit in Goethe that made him wish to 
 come into the closest relations with all that interested 
 him, — men, women, and nature. If there was known 
 to him good fruit anywhere, he was not satisfied with 
 eating, but wished also to see the tree that bore it, — 
 its root, its climate, and the soil out of which it had 
 grown. In this way a book became to him some- 
 tliing more than a dry fagot of sticks from the still 
 living tree ; it became an expression of life, and con- 
 tributed something to his own living and reflecting 
 nature. Thus he absorbed the large circle of extraor- 
 dinary persons whom at first he took pains to know, 
 and who at length took equal pains to make them- 
 selves known to him, and to communicate whatever 
 they were able. His own account of what we here 
 but hint at must be given, that it may become more 
 clear to the reader: — 
 
 " From the standpoint where God and nature had been 
 pleased to place me, and where, next, I did not neglect 
 to exert my faculties according to my circumstances, I 
 looked all about me to mark where great tendencies were 
 in operation and lastingly prevailed. I, for my part, by 
 study, by performances of my own, by collections and 
 experiments, endeavored to reach forth towards those 
 tendencies, and, faithfully toiling upwards, to the level of 
 
56 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 the achievements I could not myself have accomplished ; 
 in all simplicity, innocent of all feeling of rivalry or envy, 
 •with perfectly fresh and vital sense, I pi-esumed to appro- 
 priate to myself what was offered to the century by its 
 best minds. My way, therefore, ran parallel with very 
 many beautiful undertakings, till it would next turn 
 towards others. The new accordingly was never foreign 
 to me, nor was I ever in danger either of adopting it in a 
 state of unpreparedness, or, by reason of old-fashioned 
 prejudice, rejecting it." 
 
 On such a text as this confession offers, one might 
 gather together all the articles and story of his self- 
 cultivation. On one point we must here add some- 
 thing, so that we may keep in «iind that results were 
 never wanting to complete the full measure of this 
 absorbent genius, to show that the productive kept an 
 equal pace with the receptive effort. The stream of 
 influences flowing to Goethe received in their passage 
 the most earnest inspection ; he took up all that were 
 allied in any manner with his nature, and bodied 
 them forth again in suitable forms, enlianced by art 
 and the fulness of a thus multiplied life. Often he 
 personified a tendency or feeling. This design, which 
 belongs more strictly to confessed allegory, ends in 
 Goethe rather tamely, so far as we look for character- 
 drawing. The symbolical man has a too diversified 
 nature, as well as field of action. I say man, for it is 
 the men in his books that generally fail to live in our 
 memory as independent beings. It is quite different 
 with his women ; they are simple or sensuous ; some 
 
GOETHE'S SELF-CULTURE. 57 
 
 have the elusive feminine charm wliich no poet 
 before has known how to depict so well; some are 
 the women of men's imagination, who all in his 
 writings turned out so well ; others are downright 
 saints, whose spiritual introspections are graphically 
 portrayed. To all these representative types he gave 
 such human forms as well satisfy our love of the 
 beautiful, within artistic limits. Let us listen to his 
 own opinion of his women characters for a moment, 
 in order to mark the difference between his creative 
 method and that of the writers who draw from the 
 life, and beg of us to be pleased to recognize our 
 acquaintance in their gilded frames : — 
 
 "My idea of women is not abstracted from the phe- 
 nomena of actual life, but has been born within me, God 
 knows how. The female characters which I have drawn 
 have therefore all turned out well ; they are all better 
 than could be found in reality." 
 
 Mark here the logic of the ideal method, — " there- 
 fore all turned out well." Of his men it may be said 
 that they are all also parts of himself, but from a very 
 different realm than his women. In them there is 
 more objective treatment, and yet they are not so 
 distinct. But in all and each may be seen how well 
 he had resolved all his materials into his own life 
 before reproduction. 
 
 Man is an imitative animal, is the received axiom 
 and basis of all art. This unconscious impulse ac- 
 companies, nay, is commonly the means of setting 
 free, of delimiting, what is nature's particular gift to 
 
58 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 each man. Too often, we are aware, it is the finished 
 production, the feeling raised in us by it, that we 
 would at once imitate. The deep -seeing Goethe very 
 early found that not this was the true path of self- 
 cultivation, and a substantial, abiding fountain of 
 literary activity ; but that it might be attained with 
 fortunate circumstances, by study of all previous 
 conditions, and the life and art out of which great 
 masters and their work had sprung, and upon which 
 they had impressed themselves in return. So from 
 early life he began to grasp and to imitate, not the 
 finished works themselves, which would have re- 
 sulted only in something less than his models and 
 ended in disgust, but the foundations and elementary 
 conditions of a rich, self-developing, and continuous 
 mental activity. This was why he was so recep- 
 tive; and being so became many-sided without the 
 usual fatality of accomplishing nothing to justify the 
 name. He was, in truth, both actively and passively 
 many-sided. 
 
 But now it should be noted with what certainty 
 he drew back from influences and studies when they 
 threatened to absorb and restrict him. It seems as 
 though he looked upon them all as but preparatory ; 
 a means of cultivation, not an end in themselves. 
 And his peculiar genius led him on to know many 
 things up to a certain limit, rather than the one 
 which always flatters the specialist that it is with- 
 out limit, because it has obtained possession of him 
 rather more than he has of it. What was this limit 
 
GOETHE'S SELF-CULTURE. 59 
 
 which Goethe observed ? Spinoza had shown him 
 the boundary of investigation in respect to divine 
 things ; which, it has been often said, had a power- 
 ful and soothing influence upon his reflections. 
 Whether it was that early impress, or a native ten- 
 dency, the limit of the surrender of his mind and 
 interest was reached when the method, the lioio, of 
 nature had been reached, and when the next step 
 would involve a recourse to metaphysics to resolve 
 the wherefore. 
 
 In a similar manner, in all which he denominated 
 Art he stopped short at the vague, the inexpressible, 
 and the subjective. Even the romantic he thought 
 no adequate expression, because it confused the moral 
 and artistic sense. He must work where there was 
 reality, freedom, such as the Greek outline denotes ; 
 and upon that which was not already a shadowy and 
 uncertain symbol, but so universal and inevitable 
 that it could be symbolized in a thousand pleasing 
 and instructive ways. Many a time he abandons 
 himself to a mood ; seldom to the formal choice of 
 poetic theme ; and he believes that the occasional 
 poem, the fruit of the former, is our best modern 
 poetry, while the latter labors in a vacuum. He 
 yields to personal influences, intellectual and passion- 
 ate, until they become noxious and are likely to sub- 
 merge his individuality. And he follows the study 
 of natural sciences as far as the human senses, un- 
 aided by microscope, scalpel, laboratory, and prism, 
 can penetrate. Artificial contrivances introduce arti- 
 
60 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 ficial relations. But the chief objection, from the 
 standpoint of Goethe's self-culture (which would co- 
 ordinate the visible world with man), to the techni- 
 cal and mechanical methods of investigation, is again 
 this, to which I have already alluded; namely, that 
 in science and in philosophy we should not attempt 
 to search the inaccessible, the great mystery, but 
 keep ourselves on the hither side, wliere we can labor 
 fearlessly and to some purpose. This, one may well 
 say, is a poet's doctrine ; since it gives up one world 
 to his sharpest outward senses, and consecrates the 
 other to the imagination. In Germany more than 
 anywhere else, in Goethe's time, such a belief ap- 
 peared as the natural reaction from the innumerable 
 attempts of philosophers and theologians to formulate 
 systems which should explain by ratiocination what, 
 having been long accepted by faith, was beginning 
 to be shaken by those inquiries that we now stand 
 in the full stream of. A great deal in " Faust " has 
 a symbolic or ironical reference to the current dis- 
 cussions. These discussions were bold and vehe- 
 ment, and went so near the verge of profanity that 
 a man of Goethe's sense of proportion reacted against 
 them. Fichte's conclusion of one of his lectures, 
 whether true or false, hits off the height of the fash- 
 ion of philosophical agitation : " To-morrow, gentle- 
 men, I shall create God." 
 
 I have said that Goethe disliked all mechanical 
 contrivances for extending the reach of the five hu- 
 man senses. It is well known how much he inter- 
 
GOETHE'S SELF-CULTURE. 61 
 
 ested himself iu the theory of colors. He came in 
 the course of his investigations more near to beiug 
 moved off his usual calm balance than by any other 
 affair of his life. His theory was not accepted, and 
 still is not, save by a few men. Yet who would 
 know Goethe must know it ; for even in its supposed 
 errors is more clearly shown than in his accepted 
 scientific observations the longiug for, the immense 
 faith in, the unity of Nature and the simplicity of her 
 operations. In optics, as in other pursuits, he would 
 have no aids but the natural eye ; and his cliief dis- 
 trust in Newton's theory of colors came from that 
 philosopher's use of the prism in experiments. There 
 is here a curious coincidence in sentiment between 
 Goethe and Keats, which seems to reveal the poetic 
 temperament the same iu two otherwise infinitely 
 different natures. 
 
 One day, at a merry meeting of poets and artists in 
 London, Keats proposed the toast, " Confusion to the 
 memory of Newton." Charles Lamb refused to drink 
 until it had been explained. " Because," said Keats, 
 " he destroyed the poetry of the rainbow by reducing 
 it to a prism." 
 
 Nature, as if to reward the poet who would toler- 
 ate no mediatory artifices for access to her mysteries, 
 endowed him with a natural second-sight. Still he 
 must deliver what he saw by symbol. Thus were 
 both nature and art satisfied. 
 
 The unity of Nature was an early vision, and the 
 last supreme certainty of his old age. This, being 
 
62 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 well established in him, became an active, efficient 
 idea. The apparent manifold parts and diverse man- 
 ifestations of Nature being but adaptations of her- 
 self to external mutual conditions, every one was the 
 symbol of the other ; and the typical form was that 
 which self-culture and art should bend themselves to 
 produce. 
 
 We left behind one Goethean characteristic, of 
 which some mention should be made. This was his 
 special studies as a means of self-culture, rather than 
 for the purpose of becoming a specialist. Just as he 
 released himself from personal influences wdien he 
 found them like to be overpowering or barren, so in 
 studies he stopped at the point where it would be 
 necessary for going on with one to give up all the 
 others. Had his inclination been other, he would 
 have become a learned professor, or a great author- 
 ity in minerals, anatomy, and botany ; or a poet and 
 only a poet. But he never could lose himself in 
 anything. Perhaps one of the reasons of this, besides 
 the motive of self-culture, was, that though a poet 
 and much else, he was also a critic. Indeed, the chief 
 limitation of Goethe's temperament is, that reflection 
 interferes too much and too often with spontaneity. 
 As he grew older, he became more and more di- 
 dactic and Orphic. The early fruitage and flowers 
 had been plucked ; he now began to harvest the 
 seed-corn. There is something in the oracular wis- 
 dom of his maturity which resembles the poetic 
 efi'ect, but we miss the morning-red. The daemonic 
 
GOETHE'S SELF-CULTURE. 63 
 
 influences of his youth are in abeyance ; they are 
 in his cabinets now, strung upon wires. They are 
 moved at length by determination and energy, and 
 help him to complete his untinislied works, where 
 they reappear disembodied and passionless. The 
 apotheosis of that which had lived in him, all glow- 
 ing, sensitive, creative, took place. 
 
 Although much given- to symbolizing throughout 
 all periods of his life, and to a reliance upon moods 
 and circumstances, as well as a secret leaning toward 
 poetic superstitions, presentiments and omens, in 
 general he held firmly to realities, and insisted that 
 divining-rods could only be found on the tree of 
 knowledge. As the closing result of these two 
 tendencies he became in prose didactic ; and in 
 poetry, there being for him not much else left to 
 undertake, he attempts to reveil symbols in a deeper 
 mystery. In this he still adhered to his life-long 
 habit of leaving one world to action and reflection, 
 the other to invention and imagination. In the 
 former, his treatment and subjects are various and 
 suggestive ; in the latter, there are plentiful master- 
 pieces, ample invitations to study. We can make 
 personal applications here and there. Yes, it is 
 plain that Goethe foresaw the needs of this genera- 
 tion, and left some sealed, almost personal messages. 
 These are, I dare say, such as most would vouch 
 Goethe never intended. But a reader who finds no 
 more in any book than the writer intended is a poor 
 reader, or he is reading a poor book. A good book 
 
64 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 is the author plus the reader. I say this by way of 
 preparation for the inevitable questionings which 
 must arise in the coming week as to whether Goethe 
 intended all that we shall hear from our speakers in 
 their interpretations. We shall hear profitably what 
 each one finds in which we can all agree. For the 
 rest, the unconscious element, that is in every great 
 work of man's mind, it lies before us like a friendly, 
 rich banquet, where tliere is enougli for all and 
 somethiug for every taste. This utfcouscious ele- 
 ment is no doubt an extensive portion of Goethe, 
 and especially fascinating as it appears in every sort 
 of figurative form. Never believe that in Goethe 
 you are getting your truth without poetry. The 
 naked truth is verily naked, and had better remain 
 in the bottom of its traditional well. Give to it its 
 relations, its adaptations, put it into action and 
 thought, and as it is a liberating, divine thing, it 
 clothes itself in joyful, beautiful forms, and becomes 
 poetry. The higher the truth, the more poetic; and 
 all men prefer illumination, the opening of the in- 
 tellectual and spiritual sense, to any other light. 
 For it takes them out of their limitations, which 
 higher truth challenges as facts. These a low, 
 earth-dwelling understanding has erected into in- 
 stitutions, social, religious, political, which our study 
 of Goethe may expose and help us to resist. 
 
 The sacred treasure, the accumulation of a long 
 life of activity, upon which Goethe turned constantly 
 reflection and imagination in due proportions and 
 
GOETHE'S SELF-CULTURE. 65 
 
 with an infallible discrimination, has been handed on 
 to us in various vessels; some translucent, always 
 visible ; some to be seen only in the night, like the 
 castle of Avallon, by the light of certain stars, reck- 
 oned lucky in the horoscope of the beholder, under 
 which his vision is clearer in some seasons and 
 epochs of life than at others. To speak without 
 metaphor, if we live, experience, suffer, love, and 
 think, we come in succession to pages of Goethe 
 where, having once been dark, we now find he has 
 left a lamp burning for us ; like a friendly host, 
 who divined better than ourselves the hour of our 
 arrival. 
 
 As we have said, the unity of nature was Goethe's 
 constant perception ; every seeming diversity but 
 adaptation, in whose processes are all the semblances 
 of motive, cunning contrivance, sympathy, sex, moth- 
 erly forethought, as in the cotyledonous leaf, love of 
 beauty and final purpose. It appears to me he took 
 a lesson here ; yielding himself, like a plant, to the 
 external conditions of man's world. But then he 
 reversed the operation, and made all conform to an 
 inward sliaping mind. Herein we come to that 
 which distinguishes man from plants and animals, 
 and also, it must be said, man from man ; one liv- 
 ing wholly in the external, and forever guided and 
 moulded by it ; another receiving it, but reacting 
 upon it, and impressing his own inward being in 
 typical forms that draw us from the fashion that 
 
 passeth away to the permanent and true. 
 
 6 
 
66 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 Self-culture, therefore, by means of the external 
 surrender and the internal shaping, is a good part 
 of the philosophy and religion of Goethe. To sepa- 
 rate them is a sin in literary ethics, and is to want 
 the philosophical substructure of all creative liter- 
 ary art. 
 
 It was in delineating these two aspects of man's 
 nature and destiny, morally considered, that he found 
 man's greatest good and worst evil. Meister blun- 
 ders, Faust sins, in the endeavor to satisfy themselves 
 with the external world, — to conquer, to possess it. 
 All along they are not sinners, but exceedingly desir- 
 ous of wisdom by means of self-cultivation ; but they 
 have taken wrong roads. This, then, their bungling 
 was their error. And as in Faust we have a new 
 sort of devil, so in Meister we have a new kind of 
 sinner ; both much needed to instruct and convict the 
 modern world, hotly in pursuit of every means, cul- 
 ture included, to possess itself of external advantages, 
 to live more splendidly on the surface, to feel, like 
 the fly on the wheel, that they cause all the move- 
 ment and the dust. Our age had outgrown the inter- 
 pretations of the good parish priest ; Satan did not 
 embody for us any wickedness with which we were 
 practically acquainted, and most vulgar sins were 
 provided for by the law. We needed a more subtle, 
 refined, and familiar devil to affright us, and a cor- 
 rected catalogue of those errors in which we were 
 involved, scarcely however knowing it, because long • 
 without prophets. Goethe came, and having first 
 
GOETHE'S SELF-CULTURE. 67 
 
 taught and saved himself, in a manner demanded by 
 modern life, he then left us the method and the 
 useful precepts. 
 
 When we use the words sin and devil, the implica- 
 tion is too often of some outward act or some incar- 
 nation of it ; when we find it in French, we suspect a 
 woman not far off. In Goethe it is a little nearer ; it 
 has many marks, many metonymic names ; but false 
 tendencies and vague, and impatience, negation, ego- 
 tism are some of them. The great human effort and 
 act is renunciation ; the final issue, reconciliation. 
 For these self-culture in its broadest meaning is the 
 instrument and preparation, and its purpose justifies 
 its means. 
 
 Whenever the nations of the North, and especially 
 the Teutonic, have reached certain stages in civiliza- 
 tion, they have been bowed down under the feeling 
 that there was something wrong in the universe, 
 which it was their mission to set right. Goethe was 
 born into a chaotic time, when this feeling was at 
 its height throughout Europe. He was endowed by 
 nature with a higlily organized being, susceptible to 
 every impression, to such a degree that he cherished 
 superstitions in regard to it. As great care is taken 
 that those who can suffer shall, he felt to the full 
 the maladies of his age. He wrought his own cure 
 first, by self-culture, there being no outward helps ; 
 then he turned to the relief of others, and became 
 the great intellectual and spiritual physician of man- 
 kind. 
 
68 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 III. 
 
 GOETHE'S TITANISM. 
 
 By THOMAS DAVIDSON. 
 
 Two things become clear to men as they advance 
 in spiritual life : first, that there is no rest for the 
 soul anywhere save in the Absolute and Infinite ; and, 
 second, that this rest can be attained only by the per- 
 sistent and heroic efforts of the soul itself. Althou2;h 
 the facts corresponding to these truths are eternal, 
 although the life of the soul, unconscious as well as 
 conscious, is a striving toward the Absolute and Infi- 
 nite through infinite evolution, the truths themselves 
 come but slowly and late into consciousness, and the 
 former comes much earlier than the latter. Indeed, 
 the former has been impressed by all the great world- 
 religions, as well as by some of the great world-phi- 
 losophies, whereas the latter is in many quarters, 
 even of the civilized world, counted little less than 
 blasphemy. Looking merely at the Western world, 
 we find that, in the religion of ancient Greece, the 
 greatest impiety of which a man could be guilty was 
 v/3pL<;, or insubordination ; that is, any intent or en- 
 deavor to place himself on an equality with the gods. 
 This we find forcibly illustrated, not only in the , 
 
GOETHE'S TITANISM. 69 
 
 myths regarding the Titans, but also in those related 
 of Tantalus, Ixion, Niobe, etc. To the Greeks, as to 
 the Hebrews, the divine powers are jealous, standing 
 upon their rights and claiming unquestioning obe- 
 dience, after the manner of Oriental despots. The 
 heaven, as Aristotle hints, is always a copy of the 
 earth, and men's gods are never very much better 
 than themselves. No doubt, both in Greece and in 
 Judeea, there were men who had a nobler and truer 
 conception of the Divine Power, and this conception 
 finally attained currency in that powerful movement 
 called, after its chief promoter, Christianity. Jesus, 
 " being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to 
 be equal with God ; " or, as the revised version has it, 
 " being in the form of God, counted it not a prize to 
 be on an equality with God." More clearly expressed, 
 this means that Jesus, though essentially deiform, held 
 that equality with God was not a thing to be obtained 
 by robbery. 
 
 It was a great step for men to have come to recog- 
 nize that they were deiform, and still a greater step 
 to have realized that that form could be actualized, 
 and that they might be perfect, even as the Father 
 which is in heaven is perfect. This view is by no 
 means peculiar to Christianity. We find it repeat- 
 edly stated by heathen philosophers in the clearest 
 terms. Hierokles, the Pythagorean, for example, tells 
 us that " each ought to become, first a man, and then 
 a god." It is true that the Hellenic view, having its 
 root in polytheism, is not identical with the Christian 
 
70 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 view, whicli is founded in monotheism ; but the two 
 agree in this important respect, that they recognize the 
 end of spiritual life to be the attainment of the Abso- 
 lute. The most fundamental difference between the 
 two views is this : that, while the philosophic Greeks 
 held the way to the Absolute to be through the exer- 
 cise of the speculative or theoretic virtues, the Chris- 
 tian Fathers placed it in the practical virtues, which 
 the Greeks held to be merely the conditions of arriv- 
 ing at manhood. In later Christianity, which is quite 
 as much Hellenic as Hebrew, the two views were 
 united. The motto of the greatest of all the monastic 
 orders, the Benedictine, which, roughly speaking, was 
 founded in the year 500, is, Om et labora, " Pray and 
 labor," — in other words, combine the practical with 
 the contemplative life. As lias recently been pointed 
 out in an admirable way by the Bishop of Foggia, St. 
 Benedict combined in himself the practical wisdom 
 of the Eonian (he was the son of a Eoman patrician) 
 and the contemplative spirit of the Christian monk. 
 
 But, besides the above-mentioned difference be- 
 tween the Hellenic and Hebrew views, there was 
 another, hardly less pregnant in its effects. In the 
 Hellenic view, man was destined to attain divinity, 
 if at all, through his own efforts, through self-purifi- 
 cation and devotion to that contemplation which, as 
 Aristotle says, "we sometimes enjoy, God always." 
 In the Hebrew view, on the contrary, man was to be 
 raised to perfection equal to that of the Father, in 
 large measure by grace, tliat is, by a free transient 
 
GOETHE'S TITANISM. 71 
 
 act on the part of the Divine itself. The doctrine of 
 special grace is an ahiding portion of the Christian 
 creed. Christians, therefore, following the example 
 of Jesus, were expected to empty themselves and 
 wait till God filled them and exalted them, while the 
 Greeks were expected in all ways to strive and help 
 themselves. As a natural consequence, the charac- 
 teristic Christian virtue is Oriental self-abasement or 
 humility, whereas the characteristic Hellenic virtue 
 is self-respect or personal dignity. While the Chris- 
 tian claims nothing for himself, hut looks for every- 
 thing as a free gift from God, powerful and pitiful, 
 against whom he has no rights, the Greek, conscious 
 of his own potential divinity, makes infinite claims, 
 and labors in every way to make these good. 
 
 The success of Christianity and the downfall of 
 Hellenism mean that the world accepted the Chris- 
 tian view and rejected the Hellenic. It has done this 
 in large measure, at least in theory, for some eighteen 
 hundred years. Still not altogether even in theory, 
 and very imperfectly in practice. Though the Hel- 
 lenic spirit slumbers, it does not die. 
 
 " The vine-wreathed god, 
 Eising, a stifled question from the silence, 
 Fronts the pierced Image, with the crown of thorns." 
 
 At no time has this spirit been entirely inactive; 
 but its mightiest revolt took place in the sixteenth 
 century, in what is known as the Pagan Eenaissance, 
 which again was closely connected with the Protes- 
 tant Eeformation. In the former there is an asser- 
 
72 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 tion of the rights of the natural, as over against the 
 spiritual ; iu the latter, an assertion of the rights of 
 human reason, as over against faith ; in both, a revolt 
 against the spirit of historical Christianity. In the 
 last three hundred years, Hellenism has been making 
 rapid strides. Freedom is the order of the day, just 
 as submission was in former times, and there can 
 be but little doubt that this tendency will go on 
 increasing. 
 
 And it is right and well that this should be so. 
 In spite of all its great worthiness, in spite of its 
 unexampled success, in spite of its manifold adapta- 
 tion to human weaknesses and needs, the Christian 
 ideal is not a perfect one. It is essentially one- 
 sided, and needs to be supplemented by the Hellenic 
 ideal, which contains elements both of manliness 
 and truth which the Christian ideal lacks. It is in 
 every way more manly for the deiforra human being 
 to work out his own perfection by his own free efforts, 
 than to place himself in the position of a dependent 
 mendicant and accept it from another. Moreover, 
 such perfection, even if desirable, is not possible ; 
 for perfection is not something that can be imparted 
 or received ; it is something that must be worked 
 out through a long series of free acts, and these no 
 being, not even a god, can perform for another. 
 
 That the Christian Fathers should have adopted 
 a view at variance with this, only shows that they 
 understood the nature of spirit and of spiritual 
 things much less perfectly than the contemporary 
 
GOETHE'S TITANISM. 7B 
 
 Pagan philosophers. This difference becomes very- 
 apparent, when we compare the Christian concep- 
 tion of God with the Liter Hellenic philosophical one. 
 The Christian conception is still mythological to a 
 considerable extent. According to this, God is still 
 only a large man, with all the finite attributes and 
 passions of man, an individual among individuals, a 
 being who loves and hates, plans and repents. The 
 Greek conception, on the other hand, is profound and 
 philosophical. According to this, God is above all 
 individuality, being its essential correlate and condi- 
 tion. None of the attributes of individuality apply to 
 him. He is neither one nor many, although he is the 
 essential condition of both. He performs no tran- 
 sient acts, inasmuch as time does not exist for him. 
 He is nowhere, and yet everywhere, because space 
 does not exist for him. He is without variation. 
 In a word, he is ; he is that which is. He is not a 
 reality, since all reality is of necessity finite and 
 capable of performing transient acts iu time and 
 space. That is what we mean by reality. He is the 
 pure Ideal, of which the attributes are Absoluteness 
 and Infinity. In the material world he appears as 
 space, the prime condition of all corporeal existence ; 
 in the intellectual world he objectifies himself as be- 
 ing, the condition of all thought ; in tlie moral world 
 he diffuses himself as pure love, or as the good, the 
 condition of all morality, heroism, and self-sacrifice. 
 The sensible manifestation of God was recognized by 
 the early Aryans, when they made Dyaus, that is 
 
74 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 Zeus or Jupiter, their chief god ; for Dyaus is merely 
 the open sky, which these early thinkers confounded 
 with pure space. The intellectual objectification of 
 God as Being we find first in the Vedas and in the 
 Mosaic records. In the former we read : " He who 
 established the six worlds, — is he that One which 
 exists in the form of unborn Being ? " In the latter, 
 God is made to speak of himself as / am that I am, 
 or as / am that am. It is not until after the rise of 
 Christianity that we find the clear statement made 
 that God is Love ; but centuries before that, as early 
 at least as Aristotle, we find what is virtually the 
 same thing, the affirmation that God is the highest 
 good, that is, the object of the highest love. 
 
 We thus find that all the three modes in which 
 the Divine Being reveals itself — the real, the ideal, 
 and the moral — have successively and at long in- 
 tervals of time been discovered, and even stated with 
 almost philosophical precision. Unfortunately, this 
 philosophic statement has never attained currency, 
 but has always been reduced to terms of the imagi- 
 nation. The Infinite has been made finite ; the 
 Absolute, relative ; the Ideal, real ; the Eternal, 
 transient. Dyaus became Jupiter; / am that am, 
 Jehovah ; Love, the angry divinity of Christianity. 
 The truth is, the philosophic conception of the Spir- 
 itual and the Divine cannot be made intelligible to 
 the popular mind, which thinks almost entirely in 
 terms of the imagination. Since, however, even 
 the popular mind craves, and, for moral reasons, 
 
GOETHE'S TITANISM. 75 
 
 requires, some notions of divinity, an attempt is 
 made to accommodate the philosophic conception of 
 it to the imagination. These fanciful conceptions of 
 the Deity after a time recoil from the people upon 
 philosophers themselves, and turn these into theolo- 
 gians, who employ all their efforts in order to make 
 the popular notions of divinity acceptable to pure 
 reason or thought. This is the real source of all 
 that is mythic in religion, as well as of all that is 
 purely dogmatic. It is, consequently, the source of 
 all those systems of religious thought which arise 
 from time to time and become popular in the world ; 
 for example. Buddhism, Christianity, Mohamme- 
 danism. Such systems, though essentially unphilo- 
 sophical, and necessarily containing much that is 
 erroneous, are in many ways of very great value. 
 Indeed, it may be said that practically they are of 
 more value than the pure truth would be. The error 
 contained in them is like the nitrogen in the atmos- 
 phere, which prevents the oxygen from destroying 
 the human frame by too rapid combustion. But, 
 after all, no religious system whose god or gods are 
 to any degree conceived in terms of the limiting 
 imagination can be perpetual. The error involved 
 will, sooner or later, make itself felt, in thought by 
 contradiction, and in life by disorganization, and 
 then will follow something in the form of a revolt, 
 both in thought and life. The revolt in thought will 
 come from philosophers. — not necessarily from pro- 
 pounders of systems, but from men intimately ac- 
 
76 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 quainted with the aspirations and intellectual needs 
 of their time, probably from poets or literary men. 
 The revolt in life will come either from men who 
 have suffered deeply from the institutions among 
 which they were born, like Eousseau, or from men in 
 whom the "enthusiasm of humanity" is an over- 
 powering passion, like the inspired founders of the 
 great religions. 
 
 It is this revolt against established conceptions of 
 the divine and the institutions founded thereon that 
 we call Tita7iism. But, inasmuch as new conceptions 
 of God are practically new gods, Titanism always 
 seems a revolt against God himself, a violence, an 
 impiety, whereas it frequently turns out to be the 
 very opposite. When such a revolt is crushed, the 
 revolters are spoken of as atheists and traitors ; when 
 it succeeds, they may be counted as prophets and 
 religious heroes. As John Harrington puts it, 
 
 " Treason doth never prosper : what 's the reason ? 
 For when it prospers, none dare call it treason." 
 
 All revolts against the established order of things 
 are due to one form or another of radicalism, — some 
 attempt to secure a more perfect expression of the 
 fundamental being or nature of things. This is just 
 as true of those great religious reformations that have 
 ended in giving to mankind a nobler and truer con- 
 ception of the divine, and in bringing this conception 
 to bear upon human life, as of those wild revolu- 
 tions that seek to overturn law and order in favor of 
 anarchy and license. There are, indeed, two entirely 
 
GOETHE'S TITANISM. 11 
 
 distinct forms of Titanism, just as there were two 
 orders among the mythical Titans themselves. The 
 Titans are simply personifications of the brute forces 
 of nature and the fundamental forces of spirit. The 
 former of these always tend to revolution and an- 
 archy ; the latter, even in their revolt against order, 
 to a hiuher order. The former in man we call the 
 lusts of the flesh ; the latter we call the aspirations 
 of the spirit after the Divine, the Infinite, the Abso- 
 lute. Aristotle {De Anima, B. IV. 2 ; 415^ 1) says 
 that "all thinos reach out toward the eternal and 
 the divine, and it is for the sake thereof that they do 
 all that they do according to nature." Whatever 
 acts, then, do not tend toward the Divine may be said 
 to be unnatural ; whatever acts do so tend, to be 
 natural. All nature, as such, tends to the highest 
 order, to the Divine. At the bottom of all revolu- 
 tions lies a conception of man as a material being ; 
 at the bottom of all reformations, a conception of man 
 as a spiritual being, striving to realize the Divine in 
 himself. 
 
 Having thus distinguished the two fundamental 
 forms of Titanism, we may now ask, Under which of 
 tlie two must we class Goethe's Titanism, — under 
 that of Kronos, who rose up in rebellion against his 
 own nobler offspring, Zeus, in order to restore tlie 
 world to an older and less spiritual condition, or to 
 that of Prometheus, who rebelled against Zeus, in 
 favor of something more spiritual than even his do- 
 minion ? One may answer this question without 
 
78 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 hesitation. The Titaiiism of Goethe is for the most 
 part the Titanism of Prometheus. And it is so in 
 a very marked and striking way. One can hardly 
 read Goethe's best works without being continually 
 reminded of Prometheus. The similarity did not 
 escape Goethe's own notice. Prometheus was a 
 favorite figure with him, and there is perhaps no 
 portion of his writings in which his own true charac- 
 ter comes out more clearly than in the powerful 
 fragment bearing the name of the great Titan. In 
 this we find Prometheus, after having served Zeus for 
 many years, engaged in open, outspoken rebellion 
 against him, and yet enjoying the special favor of 
 Zeus's daughter, Athena, the pei-sonification of wis- 
 dom. In a conversation with her the Titan says : 
 
 *' Hast thou not seen me oft, 
 In self-elected servitude, 
 The burden bear, which they 
 In solemn earnest on my shoulders laid ? 
 Have I the labor not completed, 
 Each daily task at their behest, 
 Because I thought that 
 They saw what has been, and what shall be. 
 Within the present. 
 
 And that their guidance, their command, 
 Was first, primeval and 
 Unself-regarding Wisdom ? " 
 
 Prometheus has found the limitations of the gods in 
 whom he has been taught to believe. They know 
 no more about the past and the future from the 
 present than he does ; they are blind leaders of the 
 blind, and their blindness is due to the fact that 
 
GOETHE'S TITANISM. 79 
 
 they are selfish, looking for their own enjoyment, 
 instead of being universally diffused to bless. Pro- 
 metheus has been able to discover these limitations 
 of the reisninsr sods, because he has won the love of 
 a younger and nobler divinity, — the eivig-weihliclie 
 Athena. A declaration of this love on tlie part of 
 Athena, coupled with an expression of respect for 
 her father, — 
 
 " Ich ehre meinen Vater, 
 Uud liebe dich, Prometheus," — 
 
 draws from the Titan these remarkable words : — 
 
 " And thou art to my spirit 
 "What it is to itself. 
 Even from the first 
 
 Thy words have been celestial light to me. 
 Ever, as if my soul spake unto itself, 
 It opened wide. 
 
 And harmonies, born with it at its birth, 
 Rang forth, from out itself, within it. 
 And a Divinity 
 Spoke when I seemed to speak. 
 And when I thought Divinity did speak, 
 I spoke myself. 
 And so with tliee and me. 
 So one, so intimate, 
 Endless my love to thee ! " 
 
 Here we find expressed in its most intense and 
 naked form the Titanism of Goethe. It is a revolt 
 against the outward gods of tradition and dogma, 
 the individual gods of the current religion, in favor 
 of the God in his own heart, the God whose kingdom 
 of heaven is within him, who is not distinguishable 
 
80 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 from his own inmost being, who is at once wisdom 
 and love and the desire to be utterly diffused in 
 creation and blessedness. When Athena blames his 
 hatred for the gods, and reminds him that they have 
 power, and wisdom, and love, Prometheus replies : 
 
 "AH that belongs not 
 Unto them alone : 
 I too endure like them. 
 Eternal are we all ! — 
 Of my beginning memory have I none. 
 To end I have no call. 
 Nor see I any end. 
 Thus am I eternal, for I am. 
 And wisdom ! — 
 
 (Directhig Athena's attention to his statues.) 
 
 Look upon this brow ! 
 
 Has not any finger 
 
 Fully moulded it ? 
 
 And all this bosom's might 
 
 Bares itself to meet 
 
 The universal danger round about. 
 
 {Looking at a female statue. ) 
 
 And thou, Pandora, 
 
 Thou sacred vessel of all gifts 
 
 That are delicious 
 
 Under the broad heaven. 
 
 Upon the infinite earth, 
 
 All that e'er thrilled me with emotion sweet. 
 
 That in the shadow's coolness 
 
 Poured refreshing on me, 
 
 All spring delight that ever the sun's love. 
 
 All tenderness that e'er 
 
 The sea's warm wave 
 
 Around my bosom poured. 
 
GOETHE'S TITANISM. 81 
 
 All that I e'er of pure celestial glow 
 Have tasted, or of joy of si)irit-rest — 
 This all, all — my Pandora ! " 
 
 Prometheus feels that lie has within himself all the 
 divine attributes that he knows of, or can conceive, 
 — power, wisdom, love. In only one thing does ho 
 seem inferior to Zeus, in that he has not the power 
 to give life to his creations. Zeus has offered to ani- 
 mate them for him, if he will bow down and worship 
 him ; but Prometheus contemptuously refuses any 
 such condition, and Athena, that is, the divinity 
 within him, hastens to assure him that Zeus, what- 
 ever he may pretend, has not the giving or the taking 
 away of life in his power. That belongs to a higher 
 power, whom Athena calls Fate. She will herself 
 guide Prometheus to the spring of life, and his crea- 
 tions shall live through him. Prometheus replies : 
 
 " Through thee, my goddess. 
 Shall they live and feel them free. 
 Live ! Their joy shall be tliy thanks." 
 
 Let US linger a moment upon this word Fate, which 
 the inner Wisdom declares to be higher than tlie 
 gods, to be the source of life, and to impart that life 
 through the Titanic spirit. The thought expressed by 
 the word is a very profound one, and one that has oc- 
 cupied the attention of the greatest thinkers and poets. 
 Among the Greeks it had many names, corresponding 
 to different aspects of it, Molpa, Alcra, JJeTTpojfievqj 
 Eifiap/xevT], Kijp, ^AvdyKT) or Necessity. In their 
 minds it generally lay, as a dim, illimitable, inscru- 
 
 6 
 
82 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 table background, behind the brilliant array of their 
 numerous gods, as something superior to the gods 
 and against which they had no power. This thought 
 occurs in several passages of the Homeric poems 
 (II. XVIII. 117, XIX. 417, &c.), but is perhaps most 
 clearly expressed in a passage from the third book of 
 the Odyssey (236-238) : 
 
 " The gods themselves have not the power to save 
 Whom most they cherish from tlie common doom, 
 When cruel Fate brings on the last long sleep." 
 
 It is hardly necessary to say that the same thought 
 permeates and dominates the whole of J^schylus's 
 tragedy of " Prometheus." Prometheus, "the high-spir- 
 ited son of right-counselled Justice," is more humane 
 than Zeus himself, and farther-seeing. The conception 
 of divinity embodied in Zeus does not satisfy him. 
 Before bis mind floats a higher conception, and he 
 has learnt from his mother, Justice, that this higher 
 conception shall one day be realized, and Zeus hurled 
 from his throne by one " who will find a flame might- 
 ier than the thunderbolt." What is this but another 
 way of saying that Prometheus rebels against tlie 
 external god of the popular fancy in favor of that 
 God whom justice proclaims in his heart ? He knows 
 and feels that he is rooted in a power deeper and 
 mightier than Zeus, a fate by whose eternal decree 
 he lives and must live forever. He boasts, "What 
 should I fear, who am fated not to die ? " The result 
 is that Zeus is finally compelled to release him from 
 his cruel torment, and to rise to the height of tliat 
 
GOETHE'S TITANISM. 83 
 
 ideal which Prometheus had conceived. That inscru- 
 table fate whose mouthpiece is Justice is greater 
 than any god conceived or conceivable in the image 
 of man. The same thought tve might easily find, 
 more or less clearly expressed, in many passages from 
 the other Greek poets. We find, indeed, in some of 
 them, and still more frequently in the philosopliers, 
 that the impersonal Fate is identified with the highest 
 god, that is, with Zeus ; but this does not alter the 
 character of that fate. When Zeus becomes identified 
 with Fate, he loses his capricious, tyrannical attri- 
 butes, and becomes that which no imagination can 
 conceive and no tongue adequately express, — in a 
 word, he becomes the Absolute and Eternal. For, 
 after all, the Greek conception of Fate or Necessity 
 is, at bottom, a rude conception of the Absolute. Tlie 
 Greeks, as we have already said, were far on their 
 way to a true conception of the Divine under all 
 its forms, extension, being, and love, — when popu- 
 lar Christianity, with its Oriental, mythological con- 
 cepts, took possession of the world and once more 
 imposed upon it a mythical Deity, conceived in the 
 image of man. 
 
 In proportion as Christianity found its way among 
 philosophers and thinkers, the notion of God fostered 
 by it became less and less mythical and more and 
 more philosophical, and, indeed, it would not be diffi- 
 cult to find among the writers of the two great ages 
 of ecclesiastical thought — that of the Fathers and 
 that of the Schoolmen — expressions for the Divine 
 
84 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 as philosophical as any that occur in Plotinus or Por- 
 phyry. In no case, of course, is the expression ade- 
 quate ; for every expression for the Divine must, to a 
 large extent, be negative. 
 
 The attempt to conceive God philosophically is 
 especially marked in the works attributed to Diony- 
 sius the Areopagite, — the first bishop of Athens and 
 the patron saint of Paris, — works which in reality 
 were produced about the end of the fourth century of 
 our era, under strong Neo-Platonic influences. Here 
 we are told, for example, that "the supra-essential 
 One limits the existing one and all number, and is 
 itself the cause and principle of the one and of num- 
 ber, and at the same time the number and the order 
 of all that exists. Hence the Deity, who is exalted 
 above all things, is praised as a monad and as a triad, 
 but is unknown to us or to any one, whether as 
 monad or as triad ; in order to praise the supra-unified 
 in him, and his divine creative power, we apply to 
 him, not only the triadic and monadic names, but we 
 call him the Nameless One, the Super-essential, to 
 indicate that he transcends the category of being." 
 "We might find similar expressions in Augustine and 
 other influential waiters of the patristic period. Sim- 
 ilarly, in that most famous of all mediaeval theologi- 
 cal manuals, the " Sentences " of Peter the Lombard, 
 we find it said : " The Trinity is a supreme thing 
 and common to all that enjoy it, if, indeed, it can be 
 called a thing and not rather the cause of all things, 
 or if, indeed, it can be called so much as a cause." 
 
GOETHE'S TITANISM. 85 
 
 Similar expressions might be found scattered tlirougli 
 the schoohnen, down as late as the time of Suarez, 
 who was contemporary with Descartes. 
 
 Dante, whose conception of God was eminently 
 philosophic, tells us that Holy Writ, in condescension 
 to our powers, 
 
 *' Doth hands and feet 
 Ascribe to God, still meaning something else." 
 
 Although Catholic thought, being trammelled by 
 mythical dogmas, could hardly ever have arrived at a 
 perfectly consistent philosophical conception of God, 
 it had made very considerable advances in that direc- 
 tion, when the event of Protestantism once more im- 
 posed upon a large j)ortion of the world an intensified 
 mythical concept of the Divine. The popular god of 
 Catholicism, or rather the god of popular Catholicism, 
 a very different being from the god of philosophic 
 Catholicism, became the supreme god of Protestantism. 
 We all know, probably but too well, the conception of 
 God ordinarily held in Protestant churches, and how 
 little it differs from the old Greek popular concep- 
 tion of Zeus. We all know, too, to what an amount 
 of narrowness, bigotry, intolerance, uncharitableness, 
 misunderstanding, oppression, and spiritual pride and 
 deadness it has given rise. We know how compatible 
 it is with almost every form of selfishness and every 
 form of economical and political abuse. The Calvin- 
 istic form of this conception has been stated, with a 
 scathing force that can hardly be excelled, by Burns, 
 in his famous " Holy Willie's Prayer," which begins : 
 
86 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 " Thou, wha in the heavens dost dwell, 
 Wha as it pleases best Tliysel' 
 Sends ane to heaven and ten to hell, 
 
 A' for thy glory, 
 An' no for ony guid or ill 
 
 They 've done afore thee." 
 
 Burns too was a Titan, and despised this monstrous 
 God with all his heart. 
 
 It was not merely against the cruel and blasphe- 
 mous conception of God entertained by Calvin that 
 Goethe's Titanic scorn was directed, but against the 
 entire Protestant conception of him, and against 
 everything that followed naturally from that concep- 
 tion. The words which he puts into the mouth of 
 Prometheus, as he sits forming men in his workshop, 
 after having refused all offers of a compromise with 
 Zeus, no doubt accurately express his own feelings 
 with reference to the Protestant conception of God. 
 He says : 
 
 *' While I was yet a child, 
 Not knowing out or in, 
 I turned my straying eye 
 Sunwards, as if above me were 
 An ear to hear my plaint, 
 A heart like mine 
 To pity the heavily-laden. 
 
 " Who helped me 
 Against the Titans' arrogance ? 
 Who rescued me from death, 
 From slavery ? 
 
 Hast thou not all achieved thyself, 
 Heart of sacred glow ? 
 
GOETHE'S TITANISM. 87 
 
 And, young and good, didst glow, 
 Poor dupe, with gratitude 
 To him who sleeps above ? 
 
 " I honor thee ? Wherefore ? 
 
 Hast thou e'er soothed the anguish 
 
 Of the heavily-laden ? 
 
 Hast ever wiped away the tears 
 . Of the grief-oppressed ? 
 
 Have I not been forged into a man 
 
 By almighty Time 
 
 And by eternal Fate, 
 
 My lords and thine ? 
 
 " And didst thou fancy 
 I should hate life 
 Aud flee to deserts 
 Because all blossom-dreams 
 Did not bear fruit ? 
 Here sit I and mould men 
 After mine own image, 
 A race to be like me, 
 To suS"er and to weep, 
 To enjoy and to be glad. 
 And pay no heed to thee. 
 Like me." 
 
 This poem was written in 1773, two years after 
 the heroic radical "Gotz von Berlichingen," and 
 one year before the still more radical " Werther," in 
 which the worst part of Goethe's Titanic tendencies 
 culminated. " Prometheus " gives us Titanism in 
 the classic world ; " Gotz," Titanism in the mediaeval 
 world; "AVerther," Titanism in the modern world, 
 or rather in the seething world of the eighteenth 
 century, previous to tlie French Eevolution. Of tlje 
 
88 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 three works, " Prometheus " is tlie one that repre- 
 sents best the spirit of Goethe's own Titanism, that 
 Titanism which remained with him through life. 
 The hero of " Gotz " comes to an untimely and dis- 
 appointed end, to a death of admitted defeat, through 
 the pressure of outward circumstances. The hero 
 of " Werther " does still worse, for he puts an end to 
 his own life. Prometheus alone remains Titanic to 
 the last, defying, and with impunity defying, all ex- 
 ternal circumstances, strong in the strength of that 
 divinity which glows with a holy flame in his own 
 heart. And, indeed, from the point of view of po- 
 etic justice, this is as it should be. The Titanism 
 which strugi^les for individual freedom throusfh mere 
 physical courage and strength, without due regard to 
 existiuCT institutions and moral conditions, must neces- 
 sarily suffer defeat. Independence for an individual 
 baron would be a retrogression toward barbarism and 
 anarchy. On the other hand, that Titanism which 
 seeks personal satisfaction in passive sentiment, how- 
 ever refined, instead of in rational activity, must not 
 only necessarily fail, but must end by making life 
 worthless to the person who attempts it. He needs 
 no outward circumstances to destroy him : the out- 
 raged god within him will be quite sufficient for 
 that. Prometheus, whose delight is in creative ac- 
 tivity, in loving obedience to the Divinity within him, 
 can alone safely and defiantly carry out his Titan- 
 ism to the end. Naught can touch him who himself 
 gives up all. 
 
GOETHE'S TITANISM. 89 
 
 It is a significant enough fact that the drama of 
 " Prometheus " was never completed, much as the 
 central figure was a favorite with Goethe. And the 
 reason of this is curious. Goethe himself some- 
 where tells us that his different works represent 
 stages in his own culture, and that the completion of 
 each work .marked the completion of the stage. No 
 doubt his individual Titanism ended with " Gotz," 
 and his sentimental Titanism, in large measure at 
 least, with " Werther." But his Promethean Titanism 
 never ended, until the last day of his life. It was 
 an abiding fact in his life, indeed perhaps the most 
 important fact in it, the source of all other important 
 facts. P>ut Goethe, whose spiritual progress was very 
 rapid in those years, could not but soon come to see 
 that the conflict between Prometlieus and Zeus, the 
 envious thunderer, could in no adequate way express 
 the depth and extent of his own Titanism. Zeus 
 could not be made to do duty as the conservative 
 Philistine God of Protestantism, and Prometheus 
 could not be made to represent all the forms of oppo- 
 sition which had to be directed against that God. 
 
 So Goethe, after writing two brief acts (and part of 
 a third) of his " Prometheus," abandoned it, and in 
 the following year set to work upon another theme, 
 in which he must have felt that liis own Titanism 
 could be much better embodied, — a theme drawn from 
 the annals of Protestantism itself, — the story of 
 Faust. This theme had several advantages over the 
 other, besides modernness and adaption to Goethe's 
 
90 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 own state of mind. It enabled him to show the 
 ffradual grrowth of the true Titauism, out of the 
 many forms of false Titanism, to develop its posi- 
 tive and beneficent side, instead of its negative and 
 defiant side, and to depict the nature of its ultimate 
 triumph. 
 
 In " Prometheus " the narrow jealous Zeus, the god 
 of popular fancy, still reigns supreme, while the Infi- 
 nite God " whose throne is in nien's hearts " occupies 
 an unrecognized position of patient defiance, mould- 
 ing men after his own image. In "Faust," on the 
 contrary, the inner, the Infinite God is already su- 
 preme lord of heaven and earth, seated in power 
 among the cherubim and seraphim, while Zeus, or 
 the god of narrow selfishness, is relegated to a small 
 sphere in the affairs of human kind. He is, in fact, 
 "der kleine Gott der Welt," the little god of the 
 world, or rather of worldliness, who, as Mephistophe- 
 les says, "always remains of the same fashion, and 
 is as queer as on the first day." To be sure he has 
 a glimmer of heaven's light, — even Zeus had that; 
 but he uses it only to be more beastly than every 
 other beast. The Supreme God, on the contrary, 
 the Lord, so far from being jealous of any one, can 
 afford to tolerate the very devil, and even finds a 
 use for him. His amenity is so great as to surprise 
 that dignitary, who remarks, at the end of his inter- 
 view with him, that 
 
 " It is r^uite handsome in so great a lord 
 To speak so kindly witli the devil himself." 
 
GOETHE'S TITANISM. 91 
 
 The dethroned divinity, the god of worldliness, 
 does not appear anywhere in the poem as a distinct 
 person, nor indeed does the Supreme Divinity, ex- 
 cept in the Prologue. The Deity, who reveals him- 
 self in the conscience, and the little god of the world, 
 who for the most part directs human institutions, 
 alike appear only as tendencies working silently. The 
 former shows his power by continually preventing 
 Faust from yielding to the allurements of Mephis- 
 topheles, the latter appears in the form of official re- 
 ligion, which finds its most striking embodiment in 
 the Astrologer at the imperial court. This dignitary 
 is ready at once to enter into close alliance with 
 Mephistopheles, even when the latter plays the part 
 of court fool, so much so, that, when asked how 
 things look in heaven, — " Wie sieht's am Himmel 
 aus?" — he replies in a mock-serious, meaningless 
 speech whispered into his ear by Mephistopheles. 
 
 The difference between the relative positions of the 
 great and the little deity in " Prometheus " and in 
 " Faust " really marks the difference between the rela- 
 tive positions of conscience and human law in ancient 
 and modern times. In ancient times, the laws of the 
 state and of society, both written and unwritten, were 
 held to be superior to the individual conscience, 
 whose exercise in opposition to them, as in the case 
 of Sokrates, could be regarded only as v^pi<;, inso- 
 lence, or insubordination. In modern times, on the 
 contrary, it is universally held that conscience, when 
 sane, has a higher claim than any human decree. 
 
92 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 It was doubtless this fact among others that made 
 Goethe select Faust, rather than Prometheus, as 
 the representative of his own Titanism, It must be 
 remarked, too, that Faust's consciousness of the Su- 
 preme Divinity is at first very slight compared with 
 that of Prometheus. He appears in all his splendor 
 to the latter from the first, in the person of Athena, 
 and draws forth his most ardent love and conse- 
 quent activity. Faust is hardly conscious of him at 
 all, except as a vague feeling that somehow directs 
 him in the midst of his dark strivings. The Lord 
 says to Mephistopheles, speaking of Faust : 
 
 " Though but confusedly he serves me now, 
 Yet will I soon conduct him into clearness." • 
 
 Goethe's Titanism, then, is Prometheanism, only 
 with the relative position of the two deities, the great 
 and the little, changed, and the vision of the former 
 dimmed in the soul. Whereas Prometheus lives to 
 obey the Supreme God, whom he knows and loves, 
 and is, therefore, supremely happy in his defiance, 
 Faust toils on in darkness, seeking the vision of this 
 hiuhest God, whom he finds at last, when he reaches 
 the philanthropic position {^iX.dvOpcc'jro^ t/ootto?, as 
 ^.schylus says) of Prometheus. Though Faust is by 
 no means Goethe, yet Faust's problems are those 
 which most profoundly occupied the mind of Goethe. 
 Goethe's life, with all its activities, in so far as they 
 had his own approval, was a Titanic struggle against 
 the god of the world, under the inspiration of the 
 God whom he felt in his own soul, and whom he 
 
GOETHE'S TITAN ISM. 93 
 
 recognized as speaking out of the very de^jths of 
 being, with the voice of Fate and Justice, which in 
 tlie last result are one. The conception of this God 
 which we find in Prometheus is not materially 
 altered in Faust, except that in the latter more 
 emphasis is placed upon the fact that the wisdom 
 which speaks with authority in the human heart and 
 intellect is also Lord of the universe. Further we 
 cannot go ; at least, further Goethe could not go. 
 He deprecated all attempts to define God as a person, 
 or as anything else. When Margaret asks Faust 
 concerning his belief in God, the latter replies : 
 
 " My darling, who dare say, 
 I believe in God ? 
 Mayst question priest or sage, 
 And their answer seems to be 
 But mockery of the asker." 
 
 And when Margaret persists with 
 
 " Then you do not believe ? " 
 
 Faust replies in the much admired speech, of which 
 I shall quote only a part : 
 
 " Mishear me not, thou gracious countenance ! 
 Who dare name him, 
 And who confess 
 I believe in him ? 
 Who can feel 
 And have the courage 
 To say, I believe not in him ? 
 
 "Doth not all crowd 
 Into thy head and heart. 
 And pulse in everlasting mystery 
 
94 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 Invisible, visible, beside thee ? 
 
 Fill full thy heart therewith, in all its bulk, 
 
 And when in feeling thou art wholly blest, 
 
 Then name it what thou wilt, 
 
 Say bliss ! heart ! love ! God ! 
 
 I have no name 
 
 For it ! Feeling is all ; 
 
 Name is sound and smoke, ' 
 
 Beclouding heaven's glow." 
 
 This speech has been very much admired, as em- 
 bodying the highest conception of divinity possible 
 for man. I think it is the highest conception of di- 
 vinity to which Goethe ever attained, and the one 
 under the influence of which he played the Titan 
 against the God of popular tradition and worldliness. 
 But it is by no means the highest conception of God, 
 and its limitations mark Goethe's own limitations, 
 and the defects in his Titanism. Two elements, and 
 perhaps the most important of all, are omitted, — 
 truth and right, — in one word, holiness. The God of 
 Faust, who is in the main the God of Goethe, is not 
 a moral God, and Emerson was entirely right when 
 he maintained that Goethe was incapable of a sur- 
 render to the moral sentiment. The simple fact is, 
 that the moral sentiment, pure and simple, found 
 no utterance in Goethe's heart, and hence could not 
 appear in his God, who was but the bearer of the 
 utterances that were found there. 
 
 It may perhaps be objected, that it is unfair to 
 attribute to Goethe a conception of God put into the 
 mouth of Faust at a time when that hero was still 
 
GOETHE'S TITANISM. 95 
 
 far from God ; and this would be correct, if it could 
 be shown that Goethe ever attained to any higher 
 conception. Such, however, I have not been able to 
 find in his works or in his life. Faust himself at- 
 tains to no riper conception, even in heaven. We 
 find many instances in which Goethe shows his 
 comprehension of the divine nature, by declaring it 
 to be in things, and not outside of them, and by 
 refusing to define it in the imperfect forms of speech. 
 In a short series of poems called " Gott und Welt," 
 he writes : 
 
 " What were a god that pushed but from without. 
 And let the world about his finger spin ? 
 God must be one who moves the world within, 
 Nature in Him, Himself in Nature holding, 
 So that what in Him lives and moves and is 
 May never miss His power. His spirit never." 
 
 And again : 
 
 "a^ 
 
 " There is a universe within the soul, 
 And hence all nations laudably permit 
 Each man to call the best he knoweth God, 
 Yea, his God, to deliver to Him earth 
 And heaven, to fear, and, if he can, to love Him." 
 
 In "Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre," in speaking 
 of the three forms of reverence, (1) for that which is 
 above us, (2) for that which is below us, (3) for 
 that which is on a level with us, he says : — 
 
 " These three produce together the true religion. 
 From these three reverences springs the highest rever- 
 ence, reverence for oneself, and this again is the source 
 
96 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 of the other three. Hence man arrives at the highest of 
 which he is capable, by being allowed to consider himself 
 the best that God and Nature have produced." 
 
 In 1813, writing to Jacobi, he says : — 
 
 " I, for my part, with the manifold tendencies of my 
 nature, do not find one aspect of the Divine enough. As 
 a poet, I am a polytheist ; as an investigator of nature, 
 I am a pantheist, and both in the same degree. If I 
 require a personal god for my personality as a moral 
 being, that also has been provided for in my mental con- 
 stitution." 
 
 This last is perhaps the most explicit declaration 
 we have of Goethe's theological belief, and it is a 
 most important one, as showing the character of the 
 Divinity under whose inspiration he played the Titan 
 against the popular Divinity of his time. This Di- 
 vinity is conceived as above number, equally capable 
 of being conceived as one and as many, as occasion 
 may require. In so far as he is a person, he is identical 
 with Goethe's own personality, the very inmost core 
 and essence of that. The notion of an individual, per- 
 sonal God, existing outside of him, Goethe rejected 
 with the utmost scorn, and in so doing returned to 
 the philosophic position of developed Hellenism, — 
 to the position of the Neo-Platouists, — as opposed to 
 the mythical view of Christianity, and especially of 
 Protestantism. 
 
 It has often been said that Goethe was a Pagan. 
 Even his biographer Diintzer gives him this appella- 
 
GOETHE'S riTANISM. 97 
 
 tion. This is not only correct, but it is correct in a 
 deeper sense than is generally known. We have seen 
 that the three forms under which the Divine has been 
 conceived are space (or extension), being, and love. 
 These appear in Christian theology in the mythical 
 forms of the Father, who is being, the Son, who is 
 space, the condition of creation, and the Holy Ghost, 
 who is love, the source of all action in the world, as 
 even Empedokles saw. The aspect of the Divinity 
 which most struck the Hebrews, and which, conse- 
 quently, is uppermost in Christ's teacliing, is that of 
 being, or of the Father. Now, it is just this aspect of 
 him that is the ground of morality ; for morality has 
 its foundation, not in extension or in love, but in the 
 very depths of being. Even love itself has a moral 
 significance only in so far as it is distributed in 
 accordance with the recognized exigencies of being. 
 For this reason the Hebrews were pre-eminently a 
 moral people, a people ready to bow before the author- 
 ity of the Divine, a people, when at their best, obe- 
 dient even unto death, for the sake of the right. Job 
 can say (I quote from the revised version) : " Behold, 
 He will slay me ; I have no hope ; nevertheless, I 
 will maintain my ways before Him. This also shall 
 be my salvation." (xiii. 15, 16.) Now it was just the 
 moral aspect of Divinity that was wanting in Helle- 
 nism. The Neo-Platonists were careful to say that 
 God was above being {eireKeiva rov ovto^), and hence 
 above the good. In saying this, they thought they 
 
 were honoring Him ; but in truth they were losing 
 
 7 
 
 t 
 
98 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 the moral aspect of Hira ; for the ground of all mo- 
 rality is being. The immoral is simply that which 
 contravenes the essential laws of being, that which 
 strives to be and cannot. 
 
 This failure to recognize God as being and as the 
 ground of morality was the essential weakness of 
 Hellenism from first to last, although, as one might 
 have expected, it was formulated only when that sys- 
 tem was near its close. Movements formulate them- 
 selves only at their close. Goethe then, in being a 
 Pagan, as he was, failed to see the moral aspect of the 
 Divine. He saw it as omnipresence and as love, 
 but not as authority. His highest god was not the 
 absolute right and good ; it was rather the beautiful. 
 Nay, it was not even the highest kind of beauty, that 
 which moulds a life 
 
 *' In loveliness of perfect deeds 
 More strong than all poetic thought." 
 
 It was rather the half-sensuous beauty which is capa- 
 ble of being expressed in symmetry and rhythm, the 
 two forms in which harmony displays itself in space 
 and time. Calm, serenity, balance, freedom from strife, 
 from Sturm und Drang, — these were the attributes 
 of that perfection which Goethe aimed at, and which 
 therefore was his God. The still, adamantine strength 
 which speaks out the truth witliout thought of conse- 
 quences to self, that courts strife as the life of the 
 world, that is so strong as to be ready to accept suf- 
 fering unflinchingly, which seeks satisfaction in ser- 
 vice and self-diffusion, — this was not Goethe's ideal. 
 
GOETHE'S TITANISM. 99 
 
 Goethe was an artist, his spirit and temperament were 
 those of the artist, not those of the martyr. Like an 
 artist, he labored for finish, for completion, which has 
 a term ; not for perfection, which stretches away into 
 the eternal. He saw what was in process around 
 him and divined a good deal more ; but that which 
 lay behind tlie process he did not see. He saw evo- 
 lution, but caught no glimpse of that which evolves. 
 In one word, he lacked what Parmenides called faith, 
 the vision of the eternal, of that which is, of God. 
 He could see some of God's relations, — those to art, 
 nature, and his own personality, — but God himself 
 he could not see. Hence in Goethe there is none of 
 the martyr spirit. The thought of dying to make men 
 holy, or even to make them free, could never enter 
 into his calculations. He wished to make his own 
 life a complete poem, finished and harmonious in 
 this world, and it was for the sake of this harmony 
 that he demanded renunciation of the discordant ele- 
 ments. The utter renunciation of self, of the natu- 
 ral self, in order to find a self that is above nature, 
 above process, individual, yet infinite and perfect as 
 the Father which is in heaven is perfect, was a state 
 of mind he could not rise to. He could not, in a 
 word, combine Christianity with Hellenism, which is 
 the problem of our time, but remained essentially 
 Hellenic. The god in whose name he titanized was 
 still an imperfect god, a duality, not a trinity. 
 
 The reason why Goethe failed to find the highest 
 God, when men like Dante, that mightiest of the mod- 
 
100 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 ern Titans, succeeded, is not hard to discover. It lay 
 partly in his own temperament, which was sensuous 
 and made heavy demands. It lay partly in his edu- 
 cation, which did not go far to curb that temperament 
 and subject it to divine law. But it lay also in the 
 philosophical atmosphere of his time, in the clouds of 
 Spinozism and Kantianism that went to darken the 
 atmosphere. Say what it may to the contrary, modern 
 philosophy from Descartes to Spencer is atheistic in 
 the deepest sense. It is essentially a philosophy of 
 process, not of being, — of genealogy, not of ontology. 
 Now God, essential being, is just that which lies out- 
 side of all process, that transcends all evolution, that 
 imparts all movement, but does not itself move. We 
 may call other things God, — the process of events, 
 the current that makes for righteousness ; but in do- 
 ing so we are idolaters, setting up the idols of our 
 imagination for God. And the idols of the imagina- 
 tion are far worse gods than the graven images of 
 men's hands. When the pure intellect and its object, 
 essential being, are banished from philosophy, God 
 and the true ground of moral being will soon be ban- 
 ished from life, and false gods, or no god, will soon 
 take His place. 
 
 But, besides the three causes mentioned as pre- 
 venting Goethe from attaining to the highest con- 
 sciousness of Divinity, there was still a fourth, — the 
 direction of his studies, which was toward nature 
 and the emotional or sensuous side of spirit. Goethe 
 rather despised logic and metaphysics, the sciences 
 
GOETHE'S TITANISM. 101 
 
 of pure spirit, but these sciences had their revenge, 
 as they never fail to do, and as his own Mephis- 
 topheles, as conceived in his youth, knew that they 
 did. 
 
 " Only despise intelligence and science, 
 The highest powers accorded unto man ! 
 In things of glamour and of magic let 
 Thyself be hoodwinked by the spirit of lies, — 
 Then have I thee at once without condition." 
 
 Of course, no one would think of saying that Goethe 
 fell a prey to Mephistopheles, or that he w^as a bad 
 man. On the contrary, Goethe was a good man, in 
 very many senses a great man : he was a Titan, 
 trying to steal divine fire to better human lives, and 
 in a large degree succeeding. But, after all, it was 
 not the purest fire that he stole, but a fire dimmed 
 with the smoke of sweet incense. 
 
 Let us now try to sum up the character of Goethe's 
 Titanism, and to show wherein it was manly and be- 
 neficent, and where it fell short of the highest. Its 
 greatness consisted mainly in this, that it warred 
 against the external enslaving god of tradition and 
 conventionality, with all his belongings in the shape 
 of human institutions, and did so in the name of the 
 internal, freeing God whose kingdom is within us, 
 whose being is our being, who exists in every human 
 soul, making us one with the Father and capable of 
 being perfect as he is perfect. Its shortcomings 
 were all due to the fact that Goethe was unable to 
 conceive this inner God in his full majesty of ab- 
 solute insight, love, and diffusive power. And this 
 
102 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 inability again was certainly due to the fact, that in 
 Goethe himself the inner God was not revealed in all 
 his majesty. Only the pure in heart see God, and 
 this for the reason that the heart is the eye where- 
 with God is seen. 
 
 But though this is strictly true, it must be admitted 
 that Goetlie struggled manfully during his long life 
 V to remove the film from his eye, and obtain a clearer 
 and ever clearer view of the Divine. If he did not 
 at any time entirely succeed, tliat was his misfortune, 
 in the garb indeed of fortune, rather than his fault. 
 
 And this leads me to say a word of the different 
 stages of Goethe's Titanism, which I have inten- 
 tionally left to the end. It is generally said that it 
 was confined to the early part of his life, and practi- 
 cally ended with his visit to Italy. Now in a certain 
 superficial sense this is true, but only in a superficial 
 sense. It was considerably transformed before he 
 started for Italy ; but it did not altogether cease at 
 any period of his life, though it tended ever more and 
 more to become a compromise. The " little god of the 
 world," under the influence of the great God, has be- 
 come much wiser since the days when Zeus sent Pro- 
 metheus to the limits of the world, to be riveted to a 
 rock and to have his liver torn by vultures. He now 
 not unfrequeutly takes the new Prometheuses into 
 his service, and makes them privy-councillors, thus 
 rendering them in large measure innocuous and ob- 
 taining from them much good for themselves. To 
 drop metaphor, Goethe's persistent good fortune, in 
 
GOETHE'S TITANISM. 103 
 
 the course of time, tamed and soothed his Titanism 
 and ever made him more desirous of finding a recon- 
 ciliation between the world-spirit and the supreme in- 
 ward God. This tendency assumed tbe form almost 
 of homage to the world-spirit in the later part of 
 Goethe's life, especially during that reactionary period 
 which followed the excesses of the French Eevolu- 
 tion, when men, wearied with Titanic struggling and 
 in a measure cheated of its results, turned back with 
 a kind of pathetic fondness to the obsolete systems 
 of the past, seeking for rest anywhere, even in a mon- 
 astery. It would be wrong to say that Goethe at 
 any time proved a traitor to the highest God, and 
 did homage only to Baal ; but that he was deeply 
 affected by the reactionary spirit that prevailed dur- 
 ing the last decade of his life, there can be no doubt. 
 More and more he became averse to Titanic revolu- 
 tion, more and more in favor of quiet evolution. 
 He disliked the volcanic theory even in geology, and 
 said that the Protestant Eeformation had disturbed 
 quiet evolution {stortc ruhigc Bildung). This ten- 
 dency becomes apparent more or less in all that he 
 wrote after Schiller's death, but especially in the clos- 
 ing scene of the Second Part of " Faust." Here, in 
 the summing up of his greatest work, a work begun 
 in the Promethean spirit, some sixty years before, he 
 altogether abandons the Titanic position, and seems 
 to revert to the submissive attitude of Eoman Cathol- 
 icism. Faust reaches heaven, not by his own efforts, 
 and by bringing the reigning Divinity to terms, but 
 
 \^ 
 
104 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 by the help of good angels, conceived as the Middle 
 Age conceived them, and by the levitating power of 
 the purified spirit whom he had once wronged. He 
 not merely effects a reconciliation with the popular 
 God, but he makes entire submission to him, allow- 
 ing himself to be carried to heaven, like a media3val 
 saint from the cloister. No doubt Goethe allowed 
 Faust, as a man of the sixteenth century, to do things 
 which he himself would not have done; but there 
 can be no doubt that, as Goethe became an old man, 
 his early Titanism tended to lose itself in compromise 
 and even submission. " The wise indifference of the 
 wise " unfortunately often takes this direction. 
 ■ But, after all, this tendency in Goethe's case is not 
 a matter for surprise. His Titanism had not at 
 any time been of that kind which imparts perfect 
 satisfaction to the Titan, and can therefore endure for- 
 ever. In that Titanism there was always an artistic 
 and somewhat sensuous element of self. He could 
 never entirely surrender himself to the God within 
 him, in utter self-forgetful ness, careless of happiness. 
 He is said to have asserted, with some pathos, toward 
 the end of his long and marvellously fortunate life, 
 that he had never, in all that life, known more than 
 an hour's happiness. This shows what he had been 
 seeking for, shows the defect in his Titanism, shows 
 why it ended in compromise and submission. It 
 shows also why his literary work is, after all, so frag- 
 mentary, and why many of his contemporaries con- 
 demned him as a renegade to progress and humanity. 
 
GOETHE'S TITANISM. 105 
 
 Had Goethe, in the days of his early Titanism, seen 
 God, the inner God, as authority, as being, and not 
 merely as omnipresence and love, the case would 
 have been different. No compromise would have 
 been needed, the want of happiness would not have 
 been felt, his works would have had the glorious 
 unity of the " Divina Commedia," and he would have 
 been recognized as the uncompromising Titan, the 
 manifestation of Very God. 
 
 The truth is, Goethe wavered between the Chris- 
 tian spirit and the later Hellenic spirit, without ever 
 being able to unite them, for the reason that he never 
 seized either in its purity. This union is the great 
 problem of our time. To reject the outer god of 
 mythology, and all his works, — to cling .to the inner 
 God, who is the very life of our life, the self of our 
 self, — to crush out mercilessly the little temporal self 
 in ourselves, in order that the great, the eternal, the 
 divine self may be free to manifest itself, — that is 
 our task ; a task to be performed titanically by our- 
 selves and by none other. There is no salvation any- 
 where but in our deepest selves, no light anywhere 
 but in the hidden shrines which we call our own souls. 
 No outer God, with the best of wills, can save us ; 
 for salvation means being strong in and through our- 
 selves. It is a poor charity that pampers weakness, 
 instead of making strong, that tries to make depend- 
 ents, suppliants, and thralls, instead of free, pure 
 men and women, obedient only to the laws of that 
 kingdom of heaven which is within them, and striv- 
 
106 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 ing to be perfect, as the Father which is in that 
 heaven is perfect. 
 
 That Goethe did not attain to this point of view 
 is a matter to be regretted, but not one for which we 
 can afford to blame the great poet. For many a long 
 year he struggled manfully, with all the power that 
 was in him, against the aggressive blandishments of 
 good fortune, which continually reinforced the smaller 
 self in him, and, though he did not altogether conquer 
 in the end, he has left much work that will go far to 
 help others to conquer. For such help, and such help 
 alone, one man can give to another. He can point 
 out the whither and the why of a religious life, and 
 make it clear that there is no ultimate blessedness 
 save in that uncompromising Titanism which fights 
 in the name of the inner God of truth and love and 
 right, — above all, of right. 
 
GOETHE AND SCHILLER. 107 
 
 IV. 
 GOETHE AND SCHILLER. 
 
 By CYRUS A. BAETOL, D. D. 
 
 '« Words are good, but they are not the best. The best is not to 
 be explained by words. The spirit in which we act is the highest 
 matter. Action can be understood and again represented by the 
 spirit alone. No one knows what he is doing while he acts aright, 
 but of what is wrong we are always conscious." — Wilhelm Meisters 
 Indenture. 
 
 The authorities of the Concord School of Philoso- 
 phy demand of me to measure the incommensurable, 
 to compare a literary accident with an intellectual 
 necessity, to make an equation of an event with an 
 element. To group and paint on one canvas two 
 so imlike characters and incomparable minds were a 
 rash attempt, which yet must share its presumption 
 between the assignors of such a trust and the incom- 
 petent assignee, however unduly bold the latter may 
 be in handling it, giving less his reasons than impres- 
 sions leading to the conclusion that the genius of the 
 two foremost German poets is too diverse for any 
 common scale. Goethe's superiority is not in degree, 
 but in kind. They lie together; so do Chamouni 
 and Mont Blanc. Schiller might have been or not, 
 
108 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 Goethe must have been. He was a necessity. He 
 was hewn out of the rock he proceeded to hew from. 
 He re-created the language his tongue lisped in the 
 cradle. He reconstituted the nation of which he was 
 born. To take out Goethe were to take out Germany 
 from modern history. Napoleon, who said he found 
 but two men in Italy, found but this one in Germany, 
 and bluntly said to him, " You are a man," as he said 
 to his military staff, " There is a man." But how 
 little Napoleon dreamed that the man he nodded tliis 
 compliment to would by his thinking and writing so 
 unite his divided and distracted country as to be the 
 prophet of Bismarck and Moltke, and, as the Jews 
 fancied of their Elias, reappear after a generation, and 
 in turn overcome the empire Bonaparte transmitted 
 to his dynasty, at Sedan and the gates of Paris, with- 
 in full sight of the conqueror's tomb ! Goethe was 
 denounced as no patriot because he did not personally 
 withstand the invader, but declared him too strong 
 to resist. He was blamed that he did not seize the 
 trumpet and throw away the harp. He replied, that 
 military songs might be composed by Korner amid 
 the neighing of horses, but not by himself sitting in 
 a room, " When I was in love, I wrote love-songs ; 
 why should I write songs of hatred when I did not 
 hate ? " His contribution to freedom was his thought, 
 and every word from his pen, though no summons to 
 arms. That in aught beside the doctrinary devotion 
 to native soil, which is so cheap on the Danube or the 
 Merrimack, Schiller surpassed him, does not appear. 
 
GOETHE AND SCHILLER. 109 
 
 In the purely intellectual realm, they are to be rather 
 contrasted tlian compared. Schiller's poetry is reg- 
 ular, often magnificent in its bursts ; Goethe's is 
 inspired from the universal law and order, as much 
 part of nature and human nature as the landscape is 
 of the world. Schiller has a fine plot, with able and 
 admirable' execution. He produced pieces adapted to 
 the stage. He has more personal ambition and ingeni- 
 ous contrivance to compass, by managing the public, 
 his literary ends ; knows how to play the game, and 
 instructs Goethe in it, when they become a sort of 
 business firm and a literary coalition against common 
 foes ; but a deeper than any aim at popularity, or 
 wish to win or please had the elder companion, — too 
 great to be a compeer, above being rewarded, and 
 scorning to be bribed or pre-empted ; witness to the 
 truth of things, advocate of the universe, with but from 
 his Creator a retaining fee. Schiller's verse is clear 
 and sweet, and shows a rare constructive gift. He 
 excels in the speeches he puts into his heroes' and 
 heroines' mouths. He is quotable in many a splendid 
 passage. His printed oratory is superb. But decla- 
 mation is for the hour, and its platform does not 
 abide. Eloquence, below the supreme pattern, cannot 
 endure the test of pewter types. It is an effervescing 
 glass, to be drunk at the moment. It is manna, tliat 
 will not stand over to the next day. 
 
 It is not lack of reflection that sets Schiller in the 
 second rank. Eather his philosophy entangles and 
 drowns his Muse. Nor is a basis of fact in his 
 
110 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 compositions the want. He is historical, as for a 
 singer he is metaphysical, to excess. He is not the 
 warbler that Goethe is, and has not the pitch. 
 Goethe is as the bobolink that flies and sings at 
 once, its transporting music subsiding into a short 
 chirp as he lights on a bough, or fence, or swaying 
 stem in the field. No master, ancient or modern, 
 more triumphantly than Goethe has cloven the at- 
 mosphere of our common breath with lyrical airs. 
 Of the transcendent bards, Homer, Dante, Shake- 
 speare, he is the last. Homer — be it said without 
 offence to the traditional father of song — begins to 
 look gray with the world's longevity and the an- 
 tiquity of letters and religious myths. Dante is 
 supra-mundane, vexed with Italian feuds, provincial 
 in his scope. He loves Beatrice and other divine 
 creatures, with the Supreme Head ; but he hates 
 many men and spirits, for whom he fashions his 
 dread converging circles of the pit. He makes his 
 Inferno his masterpiece. He spends himself on that, 
 — and more on the Purgatory than the Paradise ; 
 writes the sentence "No hope," as the frontispiece 
 of hell, and throws the earth into eclipse with the 
 awful shadows of other spheres. Shakespeare and 
 Goethe are the two great poets for the modern mind, 
 for humanity, for the hour that is coming and that 
 now is. Goethe posts the books up to date ; insists 
 that everything shall be natural, real, and true, pres- 
 ent to the faith and experience of mankind. Milton 
 treats us to stately and sonorous lines, that march in 
 
GOETHE AND SCHILLER. Ill 
 
 perfect step. They are as an army at whose even 
 and solid tread the earth trembles, while banners 
 flaunt and sounds of drum and trumpet pierce the 
 air. But his manner is more than his theme. He 
 surfeits us with fabulous celestial doings, fancied dia- 
 bolical rebellions, extra-terrestrial battles, and feux 
 d'artijice, pyrotechnics, however by the tragedy they 
 illustrate made sublime, yet shot off to accompany a 
 theology that no longer can fit our condition or con- 
 tent our moral sense. The Satan he shows issuing 
 from the far-off under- world portals for his travels, 
 w^th brave equipment, to compass the ruin of a dis- 
 tant planet, precursor of all Alexander-like con- 
 querors, Goethe with a drop of ink depicts in the 
 shape of a poodle, starting up in a study or a street, 
 let in or out at the corner of a diagram, dressed and 
 talking like a gentleman, up to all the tricks of trade, 
 plausible and persuasive as any huckster or broker, 
 a dealer in jewelry, ready to enter a maiden's cham- 
 ber, captivate a duenna, spur to a quarrel, and lay 
 down on any counter the coin for the price of a 
 human soul. He lives next door, and is at our own 
 and our neighbor's service. We suspect his lodg- 
 ing in our breast. Ever since Goethe wrote, in all 
 lands we say of any cunning man-shaped devil 
 he is a perfect Mephistopheles. Demons, angels, 
 or mortals Goethe makes familiar spirits, domes- 
 ticates and plants them on the earth. Natural or 
 supernatural, they are always real ; and many of 
 Schiller's characters beside them are as stuffed fig- 
 
112 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 ures of tradition, or paper silhouettes cut by meta- 
 physical scissors. 
 
 Goethe's gold brightens, Schiller's lacquer taruislies 
 and fades, with use. Why are the moth and rust at 
 work on compositions which the school-girls thirty 
 years ago were mad over, Don Carlos, Marie Stuart, 
 the Bobbers, and William Tell, while Wilhelm Meis- 
 ter. Elective Affinities, Hermann and Dorothea, mul- 
 tiply their constituents and strengtlien their hold, and, 
 as readers appreciate, are insured against accident ? 
 Schiller has fared better than Goethe on the play- 
 house boards ; but the world is the stage on which 
 Goethe's men and women are players of his dra- 
 matis personce, the scene being life, and society the 
 panorama unrolled. Goethe knew good work, and 
 therefore did it. He said, I thought I should have 
 done some things differently from Shakespeare, but 
 soon learned what a poor sinner I Avas, and that he 
 is Nature's prophet : and Goethe is the same : Faust 
 and Hamlet coequal in date, although, in the Second 
 Part of Faust, Helena can never be popular even 
 among scholars. 
 
 The women are alike good from the English and 
 the German draughtsman, however honestly either 
 acquired his skill. ^Margaret and Mignon are not 
 copies of Ophelia or Desdemona, and their colors are 
 as fast. Shakespeare did not, perhaps could not in 
 his lordly age, glorify like his successor a humble 
 peasant lot. Both were close to nature, witnesses . 
 faithful and true; and Goethe is the chief example 
 
GOETUE AND SCHILLER. 113 
 
 in history of critical and creative faculty combined. 
 Art, he says, consists not in making beautiful descrip- 
 tions, but in describing beautiful things. Without 
 being intimately present for a long time with a spe- 
 cial object, he adds, the artist cannot succeed. With 
 Schiller rhetoric prevails over reality. He is a per- 
 former whose expression is sacrified to his technique. 
 " The Song of the Bell " is a fine poem ;/ Wallenstein 
 and Thekla are noble characterizations, but fashioned 
 by conventional rules. The author lacks the artless 
 graces, knows too much. Goethe, with all his skill 
 and information, obeys the genius he does not pre- 
 tend to understand or guide. " I prefer," he says, 
 " that the power which works in and through me 
 should be hidden from me. I have never thought 
 about thought. I have metaphysics enough to last 
 me for life." Nature to him is God's anteroom and 
 audience-chamber. He does not try or expect to 
 reach the Sovereign Presence by climbing up some 
 other way, or presume at the King's shoulder to dic- 
 tate or suggest, but humbly pores over his hand- 
 writing to peruse or spell it out. He is as physical, 
 as much of a naturalist, including the soul, in his 
 poetry as in his science. When Schiller complains 
 that a lecturer had shown Nature not in her unity, 
 but in specimens and bits, Goethe eagerly expounds 
 to him that unity in the metamorphosis of plants, 
 each portion as a transformed leaf. Schiller replies, 
 that this is not an observation but an idea. Goethe 
 rejoins, that he is glad to have eyes to behold such 
 
 8 
 
114 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 ideas in nature. He says, " When I look, I see all 
 there is." So he saw the topmost vertebra expanding 
 into the skull, and the seven colors as mixtures of 
 lio'ht and shade. Schiller did not consider that we 
 can see, with eyes, only what the frauie of nature 
 tends to. Newton does not see the fall, as an ap- 
 ple, of the sphere : Kepler does not see the planetary 
 approximations, nor Darwin the animal evolutions : 
 they see indications and draw conclusions which 
 the facts and motions require. Nature refuses to 
 be caught in the very act. Goethe saw the live 
 robe of God which the earth-spirit weaves ; and 
 he held all the bright and dark yarn in some extra 
 pair of hands. He portrays man, the living, moving 
 body of the race ; not, like our Emerson, the indi- 
 vidual mind or the Holy Ghost alone. Emerson 
 spins a thread, Goethe weaves a web. Emerson 
 snatches a trumpet from some angel's grasp, Goethe 
 greets us with an orchestral symphony. Emerson 
 fetches the top-stone of a monument or pinnacle of 
 a temple before the structures are reared and ready ; 
 Goethe builds from the ground with vast and com- 
 plete design. Emerson arrives a pilgrim and stran- 
 ger after long sojourn in a foreign land, angelic visitor 
 from some heavenly sphere, and, shrewd though he 
 be, gets but half-acquainted with this world; Goe- 
 the is native to the soil, and knows every earthly 
 mother's son and daughter by heart. None higher in 
 aim than Emerson, more a prince among the fine 
 spirits that have lighted up this earth with a celes- 
 
GOETHE AND SCHILCER:- 115 
 
 tial gleam: none more true to his call, which was 
 not, like that of Shakespeare and Goethe, to set forth 
 this human membership which we are. He is a solo- 
 ist at the concert, his performance slenderly related 
 to the choir. He imperfectly appreciates the func- 
 tions of church or state. He gazes at Goethe as an 
 antelope, gazelle, or camelopard might at Behemoth 
 or the sreat Pan. He is the zenith which from a 
 scornful altitude surveyed the nadir and the poles. 
 Yet Emerson draws from Goethe. 
 
 " And e'en the grass shall plot and plan 
 What it will do when it is man, " 
 
 comes after Goethe's encouragement to the Proteus 
 Delphis in " Helena," — 
 
 " Through myriad forms of being wending, 
 To be a man in time thou 'It rise." 
 
 So hard it is to be original. The last shall be first 
 and* the first last. Emerson and Darwin are antici- 
 pated, exceeded, and included by Goethe. The most 
 generous of admirers, Emerson notes the merits of his 
 senior contemporary without justice to his supreme 
 human representative claim. 
 
 "Faust," the crowning product of the nineteenth 
 century, is to his dainty mind a disagreeable book, as 
 if a poem, epic or dramatic, could be made of the leav- 
 ings when all the sad and dark passages of the world- 
 tale should have been erased; the critic not seeing 
 that it is only against the facts or materials of the 
 tragedy that his objection holds. He complains that 
 
116 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 Goethe neither surrenders himself to the torrent of 
 inspiration nor devotes himself to the absolute truth ; 
 cares for art for the sake of culture, and is not even 
 an artist because not incorporating all the matter 
 of his pages in artistic form ; the censure from other 
 quarters being that Goethe is artist too much with 
 determination of blood to the head at the cost of the 
 heart. Puritan clashes with cosmopolitan. Emerson 
 writes to Carlyle, " Goethe can never be dear to me " ; 
 and, in his " Eepresentative Men," that he can never 
 be dear to mankind. Sterling wrote to Carlyle that 
 Goethe is not to be loved, and Carlyle cries back, 
 " Who has the right to love him ? " " Goethe was a 
 wicked man," exclaimed a lady lecturer ; and a bad man 
 he was long before pronounced to be by a Cambridge 
 orator, who describes him as inwardly felicitating him- 
 self on the rich accession to his artistic domain from 
 discreditably precious experiences, and deriving mate- 
 rial for poetry from sufferings wantonly caused. That 
 moral worth is essential to intellectual success was the 
 orator's point, which he declared he would not give 
 up for a hundred Goethes, — as if the earth had not 
 labored in bringing forth one ; and that it was too 
 soon to conclude that Goethe as a man of letters does 
 succeed ; that the love and enthusiasm of the German 
 heart ran to Schiller, the true, earnest, whole-souled 
 man with his great, glowing, outpoured heart. Forty- 
 one years are gone since this conscientious prevision, 
 and time as yet gives no backing to the seer, who did 
 not foresee. Time cannot be so cheaply subsidized 
 
GOETHE AND SCHILLER. 117 
 
 and suborned. Time seems to be of the opinion, that 
 a man may have faults or defects, or commit immo- 
 ralities, as Moses and David and Solomon did, and as 
 in some way and measure all men, the harsh judges 
 included, do or may have done, and yet not be reck- 
 oned as refuse for the dunghill; but repent and be 
 pardoned, even be exalted, like him who slew the 
 Egyptian in a passion, or like the Hebrew Psalmist, 
 or his son, with his bitter-sweet proverbs for part of 
 the canon ; or like St. Augustine, head father of tlie 
 Church, when a boy ; or, to take illustrations from our 
 own day, like some platform speaker, Christian profes- 
 sor, or occupant of a presidential chair. The condon- 
 ings of history make a strange chapter when mixed 
 with the decrees of the moral sense. To say that 
 Goethe gloated over the sin, while he gathered up the 
 lesson, is a calumny. Sin would play all of us a 
 worse trick than it does, if we learned nothing from it. 
 Shall we revile Peter for turning with beautiful petri- 
 faction his inconsistencies into a rock, or Paul for 
 making fuel of his persecutions to kindle his devotions 
 to super-heat? When we assail David for his fifty- 
 first penitential Psalm, issue of his adultery, it will be 
 in season to attack Goethe for the pathetic strains that 
 accompany or follow his unhappy slips of like sort. 
 Stones will not be so plenty and at hand if the iimo- 
 cent, who are never known to throw them, are com- 
 missioned to cast the first. " That," said the visitor, 
 pointing to a picture on the wall, " is a St. Cecilia." 
 "No," replied the lady, "a Magdalen." "Pardon 
 
118 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 me, my eyes are so poor," he answered, " I cannot 
 tell a sinner from a saint." An ill opinion of human 
 virtue exaggerates, both in individuals and the com- 
 munity, the sum of sexual vice, till a malaria of sus- 
 picion confounds the general virtue, and covers like a 
 baleful fog the laud. Goethe, born with immense 
 susceptibility, bred in an atmosphere which French 
 license and German sentiment mixed for his breath, 
 and becoming like a city set on a hill, erred too often 
 and conspicuously to be hid. History must mark him, 
 not as treacherous or insincere in his affections, but 
 volatile, inconstant, lacking that consecration whose 
 mutuality between two persons, man and woman, is 
 the right, duty, and glory of both. But it demoralizes 
 society to decide that the unmarried may not have 
 friendships as pure as they are dear. 
 
 Great men are too scarce to be thrown away, even 
 for grievous faults. Consult proportion in what you 
 judge. Measure the mountain, as well as the rift in 
 its side. We accept vast benefits from and for them 
 own our debt to Webster, Hamilton, as factors and 
 benefactors ; and to Samuel Johnson, mournfully con- 
 fessing, "Ah! T have not lived as I ought." Schiller's 
 record appears to be free from this particular blot, to 
 which, by his cleaner or less passionate constitution, 
 he was not exposed. But how his loyal wife be- 
 friended Goethe, and promoted confidence in the two 
 identified homes ! But Schiller's early pen left some 
 stains ; and he had sins, of as deep a dye as his 
 friend's, in the jealousy which made him say of 
 
GOETHE AND SCHILLER. 119 
 
 Goethe, "This man stands in my way"; in the am- 
 bition which proposed his own honor for his object, 
 as well as, if not more than, the common good, and 
 the indirection with which he sometimes brought his 
 purposes to pass, — in contrast with Goethe's sim- 
 plicity, royal generosity, and the modesty with which 
 he accepted criticism of his own writings for more 
 than- it was worth. His ability at such a multiple 
 distribution as he made of his own heart is a flaw- 
 The two parts of God's image whose sundering is 
 sex tend, run, fly together, and collisions occur. The 
 ever-womanly draweth us on ; the ever-manly too, 
 what woman will not add? But desertion of another, 
 even for the sake of one's own supposed destiny, is 
 a crime ; and doubtless there are eyes fine enough to 
 see where Goethe's work suffered for his mistake. 
 
 Among the appreciators of Goethe, why such 
 warmth in Thomas Carlyle, a man so pure, so slow to 
 praise and quick to blame ? Was it that he found in 
 Goethe, for once, no sham, but a veracity without par- 
 allel in the literary guild, — words like those nails in 
 the Bible by the Master of assemblies fixed, fastened, 
 driven in a sure place, written on an iron leaf, — and 
 an originality unmatched in this age ? We can find 
 a touch of Carlyle and of Emerson in Wordsworth, in 
 Thomas Browne, and in Montaigne. But, says Dr. 
 Hedge, Goethe lighted his torch at the sun. Perhaps 
 Carlyle, resembling Goethe in his truthful testimony, 
 admired also what he wanted himself, and never quite 
 attained, the serenity of the great author, as if he sat 
 
120 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 in the star Sirius with a pen reaching to the eartli, — 
 from the subjects he was identified with so wondrously 
 remote ! But he was wicked ? No, such an altitude 
 as his is impossible for a bad man ! Satan, the Devil 
 or evil one, is restless, goeth up and down, seeking 
 whom he may devour. Says Miss Shepherd, author 
 of " Counterparts," — " Show me poetry of a bad man, 
 and I will show you wherein it is not poetry." • Tlie 
 impartial, disinterested justice with which such au- 
 thors as Shakespeare and Goethe enter into the char- 
 acters they depict, or without comment impale, like 
 Izaak Walton loving the bait he fished with, is 
 goodness. 
 
 We are preached to or at by essayists, as well as 
 from the pulpit ; but open the books of these poets, 
 and we are in the midst of people, a swarm of our 
 fellows, as kindly dealt with as by Him that made 
 them, as equitably treated as all will be at the last 
 bar on the judgment-day. Inordinate passion turns 
 to poison with the ingredient of a lie. political 
 or clerical fornicator, beware of that ! A Cato or 
 Brutus, stern patriot, severe moralist, professed phi- 
 lanthropist, Goethe is not. " As for wind and sun, 
 and the good of the human race, let Heaven take 
 care of them to-day as it did yesterday." But good 
 he pre-eminently is. His heart, said Jung Stilling, 
 which few knew, was as great as his head, which all 
 knew ; and his wisdom born of the lieart amazes us 
 as a new Book of Proverbs. His "Ajjothegms" was 
 the one volume Emerson took on his journey. When 
 
GOETHE AND SCniLLER. ' 121 
 
 the creation was finished, God said, It is all good. 
 So says Goethe. He accepts the situation, and he is 
 master of it. He does not quarrel with the world, 
 that sits at his easel, more than Stuart or Eeynolds 
 with their models. He is an optimist, and would let 
 all people into heaven, with the goats not on the 
 left hand. . Had he not thought it worth his while to 
 draw, as the Lord did to shape, goat or sheep? He 
 delights in Spinoza's pantheism. He is not a re- 
 former. He fancies things and folks to-morrow will 
 be very much as to-day. He copies for approval 
 into his journal the Latin motto of Thraseas, " Who 
 hates vice hates mankind," and subjoins a maxim of 
 his own. Our vices and our virtues grow from one 
 and the same root. Whatever else he may or may 
 not be, he is not malignant. He comprehends, and 
 does not exclude. Schiller is vehement and diplo- 
 matic. Herder is morose. Goethe may be stiff, but 
 never loses his grand benign balance, only exceptions 
 to his theory of colors irritated him a little in his old 
 age. Let "The Sorrows of Werther" and "Gotz of 
 Berlichingen " attest that his calmness, what carpers 
 call coldness, was acquired ! Vesuvius has overflowed, 
 with whatever vineyards the sleeping volcano may 
 clothe its sides. Only inward harmony could beget 
 songs classic as Pindar and simple as Burns, — some 
 dear image being with him in the fairest spot. 
 
 " Dearest Lili, if I did not love thee, 
 How transporting were a scene like this ! 
 Yet my Lili, if I did not love thee, 
 What were any bliss ? 
 
122 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 " Alas ! the gentle bloom of spring no longer 
 Cheereth my poor heart ; 
 There is only spring and love and nature, 
 Angel, where thou art." 
 
 Some other heart was always in his breast, though 
 those looking on knew it not, and from his love 
 for the prototype of Ottilie he bears the arrow long 
 sticking: in his own heart. Whatever the trausgres- 
 siona in whose shame the so-called victims, whose 
 victim he was, partake, and however excelled he was 
 by Schiller in the home-integrity, which is a corner- 
 stone of the commonwealth, Goethe's temper was 
 goodness to every creature that breathes, from an 
 instinctive piety with which the child of seven 
 rears an altar to the Deity, as before he is eight he 
 writes German, French, Italian, Latin, and Greek. 
 His disgust is loud at the horrible tapestry, from the 
 history of Jason, Medea, and Creusa, with which, as 
 an unwilling portent of her fate, the French artists 
 salute the young queen, on her way to Paris, Marie 
 Antoinette. He is no coward. To cure himself of 
 sensitiveness to painful sights and of a tendency to 
 giddiness, he ascends the dizzy cathedral-top, wit- 
 nesses hideous surgical operations, as Dickens got 
 over sea-sickness by a score of resolute crossings of 
 the British Channel. He ploughs on foot through the 
 snows to the Furca, and seeks the smell of powder, 
 feels the cannon fever mid flying balls on the battle- 
 field. To call him dissolute is not to describe such a 
 man. He is religious, believes in God and immor- 
 
GOETHE AND SCHILLER. 123 
 
 tality, reveres the Bible, bows before Christ, refuses, 
 chief scientific genius as he was of his time, to admit 
 a scientific basis for religion, it being its own ; a nat- 
 uralist, he sees in nature more than can be reduced to 
 natural laws, even an infinite beauty and unspeakable 
 charm. He repents where he has been misled, and, in 
 " Elective Affinities," deposits sad experiences, he says, 
 as in a burial-urn. He judges that the sentiment of 
 faith concerns us more than the object on which it is 
 fixed. 
 
 In his account of Fraulein von Klettenberg, he 
 gives us a record of private worship equalled no- 
 where out of Holy Writ, although he imagines some- 
 what self-conscious in such homage as she renders ; 
 and he playfully assures her he considers the Deity 
 in arrears with him, and is called a foolish fellow 
 for his presumption by her purified lips. In all 
 his immersion in the Kantian philosophy, in which 
 Goethe also wades and dredges, Schiller discovers no 
 more of the substance of God than was revealed to 
 the flitting fancy of his envied rival unawares, who 
 found the proof of Heaven, a belief which was its 
 own evidence, in the action of his soul. If he was 
 for a while the pleasing sinner he calls Philina, he 
 was no sour saint. He puts into Faust's mouth a 
 doxology, ascription to the Most High which no 
 hymn-book can vie with, expounds a threefold 
 reverence in a way to instruct every theologist; and, 
 making prayer justify itself, dispenses beforehand 
 with Mr. Tyndall's hospital-gauge. Do the next 
 
124 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 duty, renounce, worship sorrow, are his lessons. The 
 priests cannot keep his offerings out of their contri- 
 bution-box, however they bluster their condemnation 
 on his head as they carry it round. His mental 
 hospitality in cordially accepting, after Schiller's 
 half-honest aversion and backbiting coquetry and his 
 own Olympian vows, the inferior man of letters to 
 his friendly glowing embrace, to receive from him not 
 very important encouragement and advice, is dem- 
 onstration of radical magnanimity. When Schiller, 
 ten years his junior, is sick, he is troubled, anxiously 
 inquires, divines from the silence of those around 
 him that the end has come, says Schiller is dead, 
 covers his face with his hands, and laments an irre- 
 parable loss. In the delirium preceding his own death 
 he sees a bit of paper on the floor, and asks why so 
 careless as to leave Schiller's letters in that fashion 
 lying round loose, — his affection, as the living wave 
 ebbed in his bosom, showing its unsounded depth. 
 
 In England the man who has rated Schiller high- 
 est and studied Goethe most is Thomas Carlyle. It is 
 like the praise of Sir Hubert Stanley when he makes 
 Goethe of modern literature the head. Schiller was 
 but the Mercury to that Jupiter, with whom Carlyle 
 might be in some sense and measure a competitor 
 had he become as peaceful and sunny as he was 
 strong ; could he have spoken the Yea of liis own 
 " Sartor Eesartus " and left behind him the everlasting 
 No, to learn the power of ideas as well as of will, 
 and to perceive how mighty Goethe was, not in tak- 
 
GOETHE AND SCHILLER. 126 
 
 ing a partisan side in whatever affair was in question, 
 but in thinking it all out and with glad content; not 
 wishing to be brilliant, doing justice in his portraits 
 to things and persons the most dull and common- 
 place, but genuine in every way, because he dis- 
 cerned how the repetition of forms and phrases ossifies 
 the organs of intelligence. Goethe was a son of the 
 morning ; he wrought as the elements, he changed 
 the climate and emancipated the human mind. Car- 
 lyle wielded the hammer of Vulcan, struck Cyclo- 
 pean blows, and heated, to fashion anew and better, 
 the old metal of the earth's annals. Standing round 
 the strong and sweating craftsman, we feel like boys 
 in whose faces fly the sparks and cinders from the 
 blacksmith's forge. But, as he looks up, his honor 
 for the unfallen German Lucifer is not less trust- 
 worthy by reason of the limits of his own position. 
 He especially delights in the easy and airy style in 
 which by his superior the miracle is done. But let 
 me give specimens, such as translation of German 
 into English allows. Take Miguon's death-song, in 
 her gala attire, as she declines to be undressed. 
 
 " Such let me seem till such I be, — 
 Take not my snow-white dress away ! 
 Soon from this dusk of earth I flee 
 Up to the glittering lands of day. 
 
 *' There first a little space I rest, 
 Then wake so glad to scenes so kind ; 
 In earthly robes no longer drest, 
 This band, this girdle, left behind. 
 
126 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 " And those calm shining sons of morn, 
 They ask not who is maid or boy; 
 No robe, no gannents, there are worn, 
 Our body pure from sin's alloy. 
 
 " Through little life not much I toiled, 
 Yet anguish long this heart has wrung ; 
 Untimely woe my blossom spoiled, 
 Make me again forever young." 
 
 Lyncens, charged by Faust with neglect of warder 
 duty when Helena arrives, explains his dereliction : — 
 
 " Let me kneel and gaze upon her. 
 Let me live or let me die. 
 Pledged to serve with truth and honor 
 The god-given dame am I. 
 
 to" 
 
 *' "Watching for the morning, gazing 
 Eastward for its rising, lo I 
 In the south, my vision dazing. 
 Rose the sun, a wondrous show. 
 
 *' Neither earth nor heaven -ward turning, 
 Depth nor height my vision drew; 
 Thitherward I gazed, still yearning 
 Her the peerless one to view. 
 
 *' Eyesight keen to me is granted. 
 Like to lynx on highest tree ; 
 From the dream which me enchanted 
 Hard I strnggletl to be free. 
 
 *' Could I the delusion banish ? 
 Turret, tower, barred gateway, see ! 
 V<apors rise and vapors vanish, — • 
 Forward steps this deity. 
 
GOETHE AND SCHILLER. 127 
 
 •' Eye and heart to her I tender, 
 I inhale her gentle light ; 
 Blinding all, such beauty's splendor 
 Blinded my poor senses quite. 
 
 ** I forgot the warder's duty, 
 I forgot the entrusted horn ; 
 Threaten to destroy me, — Beavity 
 Tameth anger, tameth scorn." 
 
 Let me add the " Chorus of Nymphs " : — 
 
 " He draweth near ! 
 
 In mighty Pan 
 
 The all we scan 
 
 Of this world-sphere. 
 All ye of gayest mood advance, 
 And him surround in sportive dance. 
 For, since he earnest is and kind, 
 Joy everywhere he fain would find. 
 E'en 'neath the blue o'erarching sky 
 He watcheth still with wakeful eye ; 
 Purling to him the brooklet flows. 
 And zephyrs lull him to repose ; 
 And when he slumbers at midday, 
 Stii-s not a leaf upon the spray. 
 Health-breathing plants, with balsams rare. 
 Pervade the still and silent air. 
 The nymph no more gay vigil keeps. 
 And where she standeth, there she sleeps. 
 But if, at unexpected hour, 
 His voice resounds with mighty power. 
 Like thunder or the roaring sea. 
 Then knoweth none where he may flee. 
 Panic the valiant host assails. 
 The hero in the tumult quails. 
 Then honor to whom honor is due. 
 And hail to him who leads us unto you." 
 
128 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 In a different strain, like Tennyson before the time, 
 is " Peneios surrounded by Waters and Nympbs " : — 
 
 " Sedgy whispers, gently flow, 
 Sister reeds, breathe faint and low; 
 Willows, lightly rustle ye. 
 Lisp each trembling poplar tree." 
 
 Goethe knew himself. He could measure himself. 
 When some of the Romanticists preferred Tieck, he 
 said, " I speak freely, I did not make myself; it is of no 
 more use to compare Tieck with me than if I should 
 compare myself with Shakespeare." This latter com- 
 parison, however, with a greater nature than his, some 
 scholars in Germany make ; and consider Faust a 
 more commanding peak to observe human life from 
 than Lear, Othello, or Macbeth. 
 
 Goethe, like Thackeray and Victor Hugo, tried 
 sketching as well as writing, as Michael Angelo was 
 painter, sculptor, architect, and poet, and Leonardo 
 da Vinci could turn his hand to any art, painter, 
 sculptor, architect, engineer. But there is a law 
 against coveting. Eare is success in more than one 
 calling. The Apostle Paul would not go beyond his 
 own into another man's line of things. God and 
 Nature grudge us any perfection. It might be too 
 much for hope of progress without end were there a 
 man who did not lack, and need eternity to mend. 
 
 Schiller is the poet of a section and season ; Goe- 
 the, of ages and the world. In personal relations, 
 not intellectual merits, they meet. The putting their 
 names together in a lecture, for one theme, reminds 
 
GOETHE AND SCHILLER. 129 
 
 me of the Soothsayer's talk with Antony in Shake- 
 speare's play. 
 
 " Ant. Say to me, 
 Whose fortunes shall rise higher, Cajsar's or mine ? 
 
 " Sooth. Csesar's. 
 Therefore, Antony, stay not by his side. 
 Thy demon, tliat 's thy spirit which keeps thee, is 
 Noble-, courageous, high, unmatchable, 
 Where Cssar's is not ; but near him thy angel 
 Becomes afeared as being o'erpowered; therefore 
 Make space enough between you." 
 
 I see Schiller in his customary pacing about in his 
 composing-room through the night, rousing himself to 
 his stint with some stirring of exercise as he spouts 
 a passage and resorts from time to time to the stim- 
 ulating draughts at his side ; and I find cause for 
 whatever may be strained or unnatural in the literary 
 result. Goethe is started from healthy slumber by 
 the Musagetes, which he celebrates, the flies that bring 
 the Muse as they buzz and sting. Schiller thunders 
 and lightens, Goethe brings music and light. Michael 
 in the " Prologue in Heaven " describes the swift de- 
 structive storms, and adds, as if to hint Goethe's 
 
 genius, 
 
 " But, Lord, thy messengers revere 
 The mild procession of thy day." 
 
 If they think not, Landor tells us, the gods stride and 
 thunder in vain. "We have declaimers and decorators 
 enough ! Goethe is a continental upheaver, a world- 
 force ; not by reason of his knowledge alone ; but, to 
 adopt Horatio Greenough's title for one of his marbles, 
 
 9 
 
130 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 by the genius of love. Supreme in self-love he has 
 been called. A man working so hard for near fourscore 
 years, he felt entitled to another body. Is the Creator 
 selfish, living in what he creates, losing himself in his 
 works, making the smallest creature large enough to 
 eclipse Himself, wearing a veil which he cannot, like 
 Moses, put off, — making all nature glow with the 
 presence no burning bush can bound, and conscious 
 only in his children's souls ? I stand with some 
 awe before the likeness realized by a human author 
 with the Divine, when I see that he exists, as no 
 egoist can, in Ms offspring, and that the least and 
 lowliest of them is as dear to him as any duke or 
 pope. 
 
 Ideality is neighbor to Benevolence on the phreno- 
 logical chart. So we speak of the good Homer, be- 
 cause by a sympathetic imagination he gives all his 
 gods and men, goddesses and women, a fair chance, 
 which from poets alone the latter as yet have had ; 
 and from no poet more than Goethe, not better even 
 from Shakespeare. Witli what just spacing his pen- 
 cil draws ! We have a sense of room in all his 
 work, as when we read in the Book of Genesis of the 
 succession of days and dividing of the firmament, — 
 and what an observer he is of the sphere he projects, 
 never getting himself into his own object-glass as a 
 mote or blur! Yet he surveyed himself apart as a 
 natural curiosity. The guests are many, the entertain- 
 ment great, the host unseen; and the keeper of this 
 vast inn for the weary foot-sore humanity of yet to 
 
GOETHE AND SCHILLER. 131 
 
 be reckoned generations is not evil, but good ; but of 
 being a perfect model of righteousness he comes short. 
 We have heard much of what is called the artistic 
 temperament as explaining, if not excusing, fretful- 
 ness and self-indulgence as besetting sins. Char- 
 lotte Cushman said to me, in palliation of an artist's 
 errors, " Artists do not take the moral point of 
 view." But certainly she did. Washington Allston 
 needed no cloak of charity. We read no list of ex- 
 ceptions for bards or actors in the law from Sinai, or 
 the larger code of good news. The moral constitution 
 cannot be nullified. God is no respecter of persons. 
 Gifts enhance obligations. 
 
 Goethe is one of the magi or wise men. He says, 
 only by knowing others can one know himself But 
 only by loving others as he did, can we know them. 
 The best knowledge goes with loyal love. Cover him, 
 as Othello begged of Emilia, Gratiano, Lodovico, and 
 Cassio to be protected ! 
 
 " Speak of me as I am ; nothing extenuate, 
 Nor set down aught in malice : then must you speak 
 Of one that loved not wisely but too well." 
 
 Must we not say not well enough ? Could Johann 
 Wolfgang Goethe, the youth, have cast his own horo- 
 scope, or could he have known to what a Brocken of 
 witch and will-o'-the-wisp certain paths would lead, 
 and could he have seen his own image magnified on 
 the screen of time, he might not have had always the 
 same choice of things on which, in his demeanor, the 
 light should fall. 
 
132 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 In his drama or broad farce of " Mitschuldigen," the 
 Fellow Culprits, all sinners in divers ways, of whom 
 was he thinking for his characters hut the race of 
 mankind, of us all who pass sentence on him ? Says 
 Lear to Gloster, " Change places, and, handy dandy, 
 which is the justice, which is the thief ? " 
 
 " Compound for sins we are inclined to, 
 By damning those we have no mind to." 
 
 The just disclosed letters of Goethe are said to pre- 
 sent his social loyalty in a more favorable light. On 
 the sliding-scale of iniquity we can never for indi- 
 viduals anticipate the ultimate decisions. A certain 
 act, word, spirit, we may condemn : the actor, speaker, 
 person, we dare not doom. As the poet Burns tells 
 us, we can know what is done, not how much is 
 resisted. 
 
 Goethe and Schiller : yes, but Goethe has Schiller 
 in tow. The association is not intrinsic, but acci- 
 dental. Schiller is behind Goethe, not as one of two 
 racers, runners, or regatta yachts ; he is inferior in 
 kind, as a ruby is to a diamond, or a garnet to a pearl. 
 Schiller moulds, Goethe makes. Schiller composes, 
 Goethe crystallizes. Goethe is a projectile like a 
 planet, Schiller a spent ball, or rather like the swiftly 
 spinning top that begins to waver on the floor. Goe- 
 the is one of a handful whom God and Nature hold 
 for immortal fame; Schiller is among the thousand 
 lesser luminaries. Goethe was self-luminous and con- 
 scious, like Caesar or Bonaparte, of an end he was 
 born for; Schiller was brilliant, adventurous, and con- 
 
GOETHE AND SCHILLER. 133 
 
 trived to carry his points. Goethe had the poise as 
 well as brightness of the sun, Schiller shone more by 
 reflected light. Goethe was a reporter or private 
 secretary of the King, and without an intention utters 
 no word. He is the granite, Schiller the secondary, 
 yielding, friable trap-rock. 
 
 When Daniel Webster was urged to make a special 
 effort, he said, " I will not strain myself to kill a fly ; 
 I reason not from worlds to atoms, but from atoms to 
 worlds." The mark of greatness is ease, because then 
 not the man, but the supreme power in him, is at 
 work. The best work is unconscious, as the shell- 
 fish carves and paints its house. It is the Divine 
 Wisdom rather than energy that Goethe represents : 
 so there is less grandeur of motion and of rising to 
 the sublimer heights than in Shakespeare's Muse. 
 He is, in the way of rushing strength, outstripped by 
 Homer and Dante too. Yet his like their scripture 
 bears being translated into every tongue. He sees, 
 and helps us to see, more than he stirs and inspires. 
 But his name seems chosen to announce his nature, 
 and somewhat of the Deity is revealed when his 
 instrument is handled and played. His eyes shed 
 serene light over all. His works are an illustrated 
 edition of the world. 
 
 Schiller is one of the great poets below the first 
 rank. Put with Goethe, he is like some hill fair and 
 noble by itself, but dwarfed by the neighboring height 
 by which it is overtopped. As a singer, even by Heine 
 he is surpassed. He is of a youthful quality, which 
 
134 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 recommends him to young Germany and America 
 more than to the old in either land ; and I am con- 
 tent that youth should, if it please, put what it may 
 consider as any detraction from him to the score of 
 the prejudice of age. Schiller is ardent : with a tran- 
 quil fervor, Goethe is warm, but instructive above all. 
 If I may use the figure, drawn perhaps from a grape- 
 laden wain, " his paths drop fatness." His pithy say- 
 ings are not protruded with any conscious superiority, 
 but fall without conceit and almost unawares by the 
 way, in the large handling of his themes. Accused of 
 egoism, as an author he is eminently free from that 
 fault, which clings rather to writers of the oracular, 
 transcendental, or radical school. The prophet or 
 renewer of the time and the race must, however inno- 
 cently, yet be loftily sensible of his momentary mis- 
 sion, as he towers an object of attack from the world 
 he assails. But the dramatist, which such a man as 
 Goethe is, alike in his verse and his prose, finds no 
 room to scold or scream at what he portrays. He 
 paints a Madonna, like Correggio, or a scene of dicers 
 and drunkards, after the coarse style of some Dutch 
 artist, with impartial concern. He leaves sinner and 
 saint in the hand of that other Author who creates 
 or permits both to exist. 
 
GOETHE'S MARC HEN. 135 
 
 V. 
 
 GOETHE'S MARCHEN. 
 
 By FREDERIC H. HEDGE, D. D. 
 
 In the summer of 1795, Goethe composed for 
 Schiller's new magazine, " Die Horen," a prose poem 
 known in German literature as " Das Miirchen," The 
 Tale; as if it were the only one, or the one which 
 more than any other deserves that appellation. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that the author himself 
 claimed this pre-eminence for his production. The 
 definite article must be taken in connection with 
 what precedes it in the " Unterhaltungen Deutscher 
 Ausfrewanderten"; it was that tale which the Abbe 
 had promised for the evening's entertainment of the 
 company. 
 
 Goethe gave this essay to the public as a riddle 
 which would probably be unintelligible at the time, 
 but which might perhaps find an interpreter after 
 many days, when the hints contained in it should be 
 verified. Since its first appearance commentators 
 have exercised their ingenuity upon it, perceiving it 
 to be allegorical, but until recently without success. 
 They made the mistake of looking too far and too 
 deep for the interpretation. Carlyle who, in 1832, 
 
136 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 published a translation of it in " Fraser's Magazine," 
 and who pronounces it " one of the notablest per- 
 formances produced for the last thousand years," 
 says, "So much however I will stake my whole 
 money capital and literary character upon, that here 
 is a wonderful Emblem of Universal History set 
 forth," etc. 
 
 But Goethe was not the man to concern himself 
 with such wide generalities. He preferred to deal 
 with what is present and palpable, and the inferences 
 to be deduced therefrom. 
 
 Dr. Hermann Baumgart, in 1875, under the title, 
 "Goethe's Miirchen, ein politisch-nationales Glau- 
 bens-bekenntniss des Dichter's," wrote a commentary 
 on " The Tale," which gives what is probably the true 
 explanation. If it does not solve every difficulty, 
 it solves more difficulties and throws more light 
 on the poem than any previous interpretation had 
 done. I follow his lead in the exposition which I 
 now offer. 
 
 " The Tale " is a prophetic vision of the destinies 
 of Germany, an allegorical foreshowing at the close of 
 the eighteenth century of what Germany was yet to 
 become, and has in great part already become. A 
 position is predicted for her like that which she 
 occupied from the time of Charles the Great to the 
 time of Charles V., a period during which the Holy 
 Eoman Empire of Germany was the leading secular 
 power in Western Europe. 
 
GOETHE'S MARCHEN. 137 
 
 That time had gone by. From the middle of the 
 sixteenth century until near the middle of the nine- 
 teenth, Germany declined, and at the date of this 
 writing (1795) had nearly reached lier darkest day. 
 Disintegrated, torn by conflicting interests, pecked 
 by petty rival princes, despairing of her own future, 
 it seemed impossible that she should ever again be- 
 come a power among the nations. 
 
 Goethe felt this, he felt it as profoundly as any 
 German of his day. He has been accused of want of 
 patriotism, and incurred much censure for that alleged 
 defect. He certainly did not manifest his patriotism 
 by loud declamation. During the War of Liberation 
 he made no sign. Under the reign of the Holy Alli- 
 ance he did not side with the hotheads, compeers of 
 Sand, who placed themselves in open opposition to the 
 government. He could not echo their cry. They 
 were revolutionists, he was an evolutionist; and 
 they hated him, they maligned him, they invented 
 all manner of scandal against him. They accused 
 him of abusing the affections of women for literary 
 purposes. They even affected to depreciate his ge- 
 nius. Borne pronounced him a model of all that is 
 bad. Menzel wrote : " Mark my words ; in twenty, 
 or, at the longest, thirty years, he will not have an 
 admirer left ; no one will read him." Well, near 
 sixty years have elapsed, and here we are, on the 
 other side of the globe, devoting these summer days 
 to the reverent consideration of the man and his 
 works. 
 
138 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 But in the thirties and forties of this century 
 those slanders had crossed the sea, and found ready 
 acceptance on this side. There was nothing too bad 
 to be said of Goethe ; lie was publicly held up for 
 reprobation and scorn. It was as much as one's 
 reputation was worth to speak well of him. 
 
 Goethe, I say, was charged with want of patriot- 
 ism. He was no screamer ; but he felt profoundly 
 his country's woes, and he characteristically went 
 into himself and studied the situation. The result 
 was this wonderful composition, " Das Marchen." 
 
 He perceived that Germany must die to be born 
 again. She did die, and is born again. He had the 
 sagacity to foresee the dissolution of the Holy Ro- 
 man Empire, an event which took place eleven years 
 later, in 1806. The Empire is figured by the com- 
 posite statue of the fourth King in the subterranean 
 Temple, which crumbles to pieces when that Temple, 
 representing Germany's past, emerges and stands 
 above ground by the Eiver. The resurrection of the 
 Temple and its stand by the Eiver is the denoue- 
 ment of the Tale. And that signifies, allegorically, 
 the rehabilitation of Germany. 
 
 The agents that are to bring about this consumma- 
 tion are the spread of liberal ideas, signified by the 
 gold of the Will-o'-wisps ; Literature, signified by tlie 
 Serpent; Science, signified by the Old Man with 
 the Lamp ; and the Church, or Eeligion, signified by 
 his wife. The Genius of Germany is figured by the 
 beautiful Youth, the disconsolate Prhice, who dies of 
 
GOETHE'S MARC HEN. 139 
 
 devotion to the Fair Lily. The Lily herself repre- 
 sents the Ideal. 
 
 Having premised thus much, I now proceed to 
 unfold the Tale, with accompanying comments, omit- 
 ting, however, some of the details, and presenting only 
 the organic moments of the fable. 
 
 In the middle of a dark night (the dark period of 
 German history) the ferryman asleep in his hut by 
 the side of a swollen river is awakened by tlie cry of 
 parties demanding to be ferried across the stream. 
 
 Here let us pause a moment. The Hut, according 
 to Baumgart, is the provisional State (Nothstaat), 
 the government for the time being. The Ferryman 
 then is the state functionary who regulates and 
 controls civil intercourse. The Ptiver represents that 
 intercourse, tlie flow of current events, swollen by 
 the French Revolution. Now a river is separation 
 and communication in one. The Rhine, which sep- 
 arates Germany from France, is also a medium of 
 communication between the two. What is it, then, 
 that the Elver in the Marchen separates and medi- 
 ates ? This is a difficult question. No interpreta- 
 tion tallies exactly with all the particulars of tlie 
 allegory. The most satisfactory is that of a separa- 
 tion and a means of communication between State 
 and people, between official, established tradition and 
 popular life. 
 
 To return to the story. The Ferryman, roused from 
 his slumbers, opens the door of the hut, and sees two 
 Will-o'- wisps who are impatient to be put across. 
 
140 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 These are the bearers of the new ideas which 
 proved so stimulating to the German mind, giving 
 rise to what is known in German literature as the 
 Aufkldrung (enlightenment). Why called Will-o'- 
 wisps ? They come from France, and the poet means 
 by their flashes and vivacity, as contrasted with Ger- 
 man gravity, to indicate their French origin. 
 
 They cause the Ferryman much trouble by their 
 activity. They shake gold into his boat (that is, 
 talk philosophy, the philosophy of the French Ency- 
 cloptedists) ; he fears that some of it might fall into 
 the stream, and then there would be mischief; the 
 stream would rise in terrible waves and enQulf him. 
 
 The new ideas were very radical, and, if allowed 
 to circulate freely in social converse, might cause a 
 revolution. 
 
 He bids them take back their gold. " We cannot 
 take back what we have once given forth." 
 
 The word once spoken cannot be unspoken. 
 
 When they reach the opposite shore, he demands 
 his fare. They reply that he who will not take 
 gold for pay must go unpaid. He demands fruits 
 of the earth (that is, practical service), which they 
 despise. They attempt to depart, but find it impos- 
 sible to move. 
 
 Philosophy without practical ability can make no 
 headway in real life. 
 
 He finally releases them, on their promise to bring- 
 to the Eiver three cabbages, three artichokes, and 
 three onions. 
 
GOETHE'S MARC HEN. 141 
 
 I am not aware that there is any particular signifi- 
 cance in tlie several kinds of vegetables here speci- 
 fied. The general meaning is, that whoever would 
 work effectually in his time must satisfy the necessi- 
 ties of the time, must pay his toll to the State with 
 contributions of practical utility. 
 
 The ferryman then rows down the stream, gathers 
 up the gold that has fallen into the boat, goes 
 ashore and buries it in an out of the way place in 
 the cleft of a rock, then rows back to his hut. 
 
 Now in the rock cleft into which the gold had been 
 cast dwelt the Green Serpent. The Serpent is sup- 
 posed to represent German Literature, which until 
 then had kept itself aloof from the world, had wan- 
 dered as it were in a wilderness. But the time was 
 now come when it was to receive new light and be 
 quickened with new impulse. 
 
 She hears the chink of the falling gold pieces, darts 
 upon thein, and eagerly devours them. They melt in 
 her interior, and she becomes self-luminous, — a thing 
 that she had always been hoping for, but had never 
 until then attained. 
 
 Proud of her new lustre she sallies forth to discover 
 if possible whence the gold which came to her had 
 been derived. She encounters the Will-o'-wisps, and 
 claims relationship with them. 
 
 " Well, yes," they allow, " you are a kind of cousin, 
 but you are in the horizontal line ; we are vertical. 
 See here." They shoot up to their utmost height. 
 " Pardon us, good lady, but what other family can 
 
142 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 boast of anything like that? No Will-o'-wisp ever 
 sits or lies down." The Serpent is somewhat abashed 
 by the comparison. She knows very well that al- 
 though, when at rest, she can lift her head pretty 
 high, she must bend to earth again to make any 
 progress. She inquires if they can tell her where 
 the gold came from which dropped in the cave where 
 she resides. They are amused at the question, and 
 immediately shake from themselves a shower of gold 
 pieces, which she greedily devours. "Much good 
 may it do you, madam." 
 
 In return for this service they desire to be shown 
 the way to the abode of the Fair Lily, to whom they 
 would pay their respects. 
 
 The Fair Lily represents Ideal Beauty. 
 
 The Serpent is sorry to inform them that the Lily 
 dwells on the other side of the river. " On the 
 other side ! " they exclaim, " and we let ourselves be 
 ferried across to this side, last night, in the storm ! 
 But perhaps the Ferryman may be still within call, 
 and be willing to take us back." " No," she says, 
 " he can bring passengers from the other side to this, 
 but is not permitted to take any one back." 
 
 The interpretation here is doubtful. It may mean, 
 that, while a jealous government is willing to as- 
 sist in the deportation of questionable characters, 
 it will have nothing to do with them on its own 
 ground. 
 
 But besides the government ferry there are other 
 means of getting across. The Serpent herself, by 
 
GOETHE'S MARCHEN. 143 
 
 making a bridge of her body, can take them across at 
 hidi noon. 
 
 Literature in its supreme achievements, its me- 
 ridian power, becomes a vehicle of ideas which defies 
 political embargo. 
 
 But Will-o'-wisps do not travel at noonday. An- 
 other passage is possible at morning and evening 
 twilight by means of the shadow of tlie Great Giant. 
 The Giant's body is powerless, but its shadow is 
 mighty, and, when the sun is low, stretches across 
 the River. 
 
 Here all commentators seem to agree in one inter- 
 pretation. Says Carlyle, " Can any mortal head, not 
 a wigblock, doubt that the Giant of this poem is 
 Superstition ? " This is loosely expressed. Unques- 
 tionably superstition, in the way of fable or fore- 
 boding, stretches far into the unknown. But it 
 is a shaclovj according to the Tale, which possesses 
 this power. Now, to make a shadow two things 
 are needed, — light, and a body which intercepts the 
 liglit. The body in this case is popular ignorance; 
 that is the real giant. Superstition is that giant's 
 shadow, strongest and longest, of course, when the 
 sun is low. 
 
 Thus instructed, the Will-o'-wisps take their leave, 
 and the Serpent returns to her cave. 
 
 Now follows the scene in the subterranean Temple, 
 the Temple of the Four Kings, — by which we are to 
 understand historic Germany, the Germany of old 
 time. The Serpent has discovered this temple, and, 
 
144 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 having become luminous, is able to see what it con- 
 tains. There are the statues of four kings. The 
 hrst is of gold, the second of silver, the third of 
 lironze, the fourth a compound of several metals. 
 The first King, vrho wears a plain mantle and no 
 ornament but a garland of oak leaves, represents the 
 rule of Wisdom and acknowledoed worth. Tlie sec- 
 ond, who sits and is highly decorated, — robe, crown, 
 sceptre, adorned with precious stones, — represents 
 the rule of Appearance (Schein), majesty supported 
 by prestige and tradition. The third, also sitting, 
 represents government by Force. The fourth, tlie 
 composite figure in a standing posture, represents the 
 Holy Roman Empire of Germany. The Serpent has 
 been discoursing with the Gold King, when the wall 
 opens and enters an old man of middle stature in 
 peasant's dress, cariying a lamp with a still fiame 
 pleasing to look upon, which illumines the whole 
 temple without casting any shadow. This lamp 
 possesses the strange property of changing stones 
 into gold, wood into silver, dead animals into pre- 
 cious stones, and of annihilating metals. But to 
 exercise this power it must shine alone ; if another 
 light appears beside it, it only diffuses a clear radi- 
 ance, by which all living things are refreshed. 
 
 The bearer of this lamp is supposed by Baumgart 
 to represent Science ( Wisscnschaft), but it seems to 
 me that his function includes practical wisdom as 
 well. What is signified by the marvellous pro]ierties 
 of the lamp nmst be left to each reader to conjecture. 
 
GOETHE'S MlRCHEN. 145 
 
 "Why do you come," asks the Gold King of the 
 Man with the lamp, " seeing we already have liglit ? " 
 " You know that I cannot enlighten what is wholly 
 dark," is the reply. 
 
 Wisdom does not concern itself with what is un- 
 searchable, with matters transcending human ken. 
 
 " Will my kingdom end ? " asks the Silver King. 
 " Late or never." The Brazen King asks, " When shall 
 I arise?" The answer is, "Soon." "With whom sliall 
 I combine ?" " With your elder brothers." " What 
 will the youngest do ? " inquired the King. " He will 
 sit down," replied the Man with the lamp. "I am 
 not tired," growled the fourth King, 
 
 The Empire, even at that date, was still tenacious 
 of its sway. 
 
 Again the Gold King asks of the Man with the lamp, 
 " How many secrets kno west thou ? " " Three," replied 
 the man. " Which is the most important ? " asks the 
 Silver King. " The open secret," the man replies. 
 
 It sometimes happens that a truth, or conviction, 
 is, as we say, " in the air," before the word which for- 
 mulates it has been spoken ; it is an open secret. 
 Thus, in the closing months of 1860, " Secession " was 
 in the air ; it was our open secret. 
 
 " Wilt thou open it to us also ? " asks the Brazen 
 King. " When I know the fourth," replied the Man. 
 "I know the fourth," said the Serpent, and whispered 
 something in the ear of the Man with the lamp. He 
 cried with a loud voice, " The time is at hand." The 
 temple resounded, the statues rang with the cry; and 
 
 10 
 
146 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 immediately the Man with the lamp vanished to the 
 west, the Serpent to the east. 
 
 Here ends the first act of this prophetic drama. 
 Tlie Man with the lamp returns to his cottage, where 
 the Old Woman, his wife, greets him with loud lamen- 
 tations. " Scarcely were you gone," she whimpers, 
 " when two impetuous travellers called ; they were 
 dressed in flames, and seemed quite respectable. One 
 might have taken them for Will-o'-wisps. But they 
 soon began to flatter me and made impertinent ad- 
 vances." " Pooh! they were only chaffing you. Con- 
 sidering your age, my dear, they could n't have meant 
 anything serious." " My age indeed ! always my age ! 
 How old am I then ? But I know one thing. Just 
 look at these w^alls ! See the bare stones ! They have 
 licked off all the gold ; and when they had done it, 
 they dropped gold pieces about. Our dear pug swal- 
 lowed some of them, and see there, the poor creature 
 lies dead." 
 
 The Old Woman represents the Church, the ac- 
 cepted, traditional religion. There is a beautiful fitness 
 in this symbolism. Science and religion, knowledge 
 and faith, are mutually complemental in human life. 
 The little pug may mean some pet dogma of the 
 Church ; Baumgart suggests belief in the supernatural, 
 to which modern enlightenment (the gold of the Will- 
 o'-wisps) proves fatal. The little pug dies ; but a doc- 
 trine wliich perishes, which becomes obsolete as popu- 
 lar belief, may become historically precious as myth. 
 
GOETHE'S MARC HEN. 147 
 
 This is what is meant when it is said, farther on, that 
 the old man with his lamp changes the pug to an 
 onyx. Moreover, when such myth is embraced by 
 poetry, it acquires a new, transfigured, immortal life. 
 Thus the gods of Greece still live, and li-ve forever, in 
 Homer's song. In this sense, with this aim, the Man 
 with the lamp sends the onyx pug to the Fair Lily, 
 whose touch causes dead things to live. 
 
 The Old Woman had incautiously promised the 
 Will-o'- wisps — in order, we may suppose, to get rid 
 of them — to pay their debt to the Eiver, of three 
 cabbages, three artichokes, and three onions. 
 
 But why did they visit her cottage at all, and why 
 so intent on the obsolete gold on its walls ? The 
 answer is, modern culture knows full well that the 
 Church is the depositary of many precious truths, 
 which, though no longer current in the form in which 
 they were once clothed, approve and justify them- 
 selves when restated and given to the world in a new 
 form. So they, the New Lights, say in effect to the 
 Church, " Old Lady, you are somewhat out of date ; if 
 you mean to keep your place and vindicate your right 
 to be, you must throw yourself into the life of the 
 time, you must contribute something useful to forward 
 that life. It is through you that the new philosophy 
 must discharge its debt to the Eiver " (that is, to the 
 life of the time). 
 
 The Man with the lamp approves and seconds the 
 commission intrusted to his wife by the Will-o'- wisps, 
 and at dawn of day loads her with the cabbages, the 
 
148 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 artichokes, and the onions destined for the Eiver, to 
 which he adds the onyx as a present to the Fair Lily. 
 The first part of her mission is a failure. On her way 
 to the ferry she encounters the Shadow of the blunder- 
 ing Giant stretching across the plain. The Shadow 
 unceremoniously puts its black fingers into her basket, 
 takes out three vegetables, one of each kind, and 
 thrusts them into the mouth of the Giant, who greed- 
 ily devours them. 
 
 Some freak of popular ignorance intercepts and 
 impairs the practical benefit which the new cul- 
 ture, through the Church, had hoped to confer on 
 the age. 
 
 The Ferryman refuses to accept the imperfect offer- 
 ing as full satisfaction of the Will-o'-wisps' debt, and 
 only consents at last to receive it provisionally, if 
 the Old Woman will swear to make the number good 
 within twenty-four hours. She is required to dip her 
 hand in the stream and take the oath. She dips and 
 swears. But when she withdraws her hand, behold ! 
 it has turned black ; and, what is worse, has grown 
 smaller, and seems likely to disappear altogether. 
 
 The apparent dignity of the Church is impaired by 
 contact with vulgar life. 
 
 " woe ! " she cries. " My beautiful hand, which 
 I have taken so much pains with and have always 
 kept so nice ! What will become of me ? " The 
 Ferryman tries to comfort her with the assurance 
 that, although the hand might become invisible, she 
 would be able to use it all the same. " But," says 
 
GOETHE'S MARCHEN. 149 
 
 she, " I would rather not be able to use it than not 
 have it seen." 
 
 Here is a stroke of satire on the part of the poet, 
 implying that the Church cares more for the show of 
 authority than for the substance. 
 
 Sad and sullen the Old Woman takes up her bas- 
 ket and bends her steps toward the abode of the Fair 
 Lily. On the way she overtakes a pilgrim more 
 disconsolate than herself; a beautiful youth, with 
 noble features, abundant brown locks, his breast 
 covered with glittering mail, a purple cloak depend- 
 ing from his shoulders. His naked feet paced the 
 hot sand ; profound grief appeared to render him 
 insensible to external impressions. The Old Woman 
 endeavors to open a conversation with him, but 
 receives no encouragement. She desists with the 
 apology, " You walk too slow for me, sir. I must 
 liurry on, for I have to cross the Eiver on the Green 
 Serpent, that I may take this present from my hus- 
 band to the Fair Lily." " You are going to the Fair 
 Lily," he cried ; " then our roads are the same. But 
 what is this present you are bringing her ? " She 
 showed him the onyx pug. " Happy beast ! " he ex- 
 claimed ; " thou wilt be touched by her hands, thou 
 wilt be made alive by her ; wliereas the living are 
 forced to stand aloof from her lest they experience a 
 mournful doom. Look at me," he continued, " how 
 sad my condition ! This mail which I have worn 
 with honor in war, this purple which I have sought 
 to merit by wise conduct, are all that is left me by 
 
150 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 fate, — the one a useless burden, the other an un- 
 meaning decoration. Crown, sceptre, and sword are 
 gone ; I am in all other respects as naked and needy 
 as any son of earth. So unblest is the influence of 
 her beautiful blue eyes ; they deprive all living be- 
 ings of their strength, and those who are not killed 
 by the touch of her hand find themselves turned 
 into walking shadows." 
 
 This is finely conceived. The Youth, the Prince 
 who has lost sceptre and sword, represents the 
 Genius of Germany, once so stalwart and capable 
 in action, now (at the time of Goethe's writing) 
 enervated and become a melancholy dreamer from 
 excessive devotion to the Lily, that is, excessive 
 Idealism ; whereby 
 
 " Enterprises of great pith and moment 
 
 their currents turn awry, 
 
 And lose the name of action." 
 
 Such was Germany in those days. And even later, 
 Freiligrath compared her to Hamlet, in whom 
 
 " The native hue of resolution 
 Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." 
 
 The travellers cross the bridge which the Serpent 
 makes for them. The Serpent herself straightens 
 out her bow and accompanies them. On the way 
 the Will-o'- wisps, invisible in broad day, are heard 
 whispering a request to the Serpent that she would 
 introduce them to the Lily in the evening, as soon as 
 they should be any way presentable. The Lily 
 
GOETHE'S MARCHEN. 151 
 
 receives her visitors graciously, but with an air of 
 deep dejection. She imparts to the Old Woman her 
 recent affliction. While her pet Canary-bird was 
 warbling its morning hymn, a Hawk appeared in the 
 air and threatened to pounce upon it. The fright- 
 ened creature sought refuge in its mistress's bosom, 
 and, like all. living things, was killed by her touch. 
 
 The Hawk represents the newly awakened, impa- 
 tient spirit of German Patriotism, which scared into 
 silence the lighter lyrics of the time. 
 
 The Old Woman presents the onyx pug, and the 
 Lily is delighted with the gift. Her touch gives it 
 life. She plays with it, caresses it. The melancholy 
 youth who stands by and looks on is maddened with 
 jealousy at the sight. " Must a nasty little beast be 
 so fondled, and receive her kiss on its black snout, 
 while I, her adorer, am kept at a distance ?" At 
 last he can bear it no longer, and resolves to perish 
 in her arms. He rushes towards her ; she, knowing 
 the consequence, instinctively puts out her arms to 
 ward him off, and thereby hastens the catastrophe. 
 The youth falls lifeless at her feet. 
 
 Here ends the second act. The Genius of Ger- 
 many is apparently extinct. Can it be revived? 
 The third and final act foreshows its revival, — the 
 political rehabilitation of Germany. I am compelled 
 by want of time to omit, in what follows, many of 
 the accessories, such as the female attendants of 
 the Lily, the mirror, the last desperate freaks of the 
 
152 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 Giant, etc., and to keep myself to the main thread 
 of the story. 
 
 The first object now, on the part of those inter- 
 ested, is to prevent corruption, which would make 
 resuscitation impossible. So the Serpent forms with 
 her body a cordon around the lifeless form of the 
 Youth to protect it. " Who will fetch the Man with 
 the lamp ? " she cries, fearing every moment that the 
 sun will set and dissolution penetrate the magic 
 circle, causing the body of the Youth to fall in 
 pieces. At length she espies the Hawk in the air, 
 and hails the auspicious omen. 
 
 Patriotism still lives. 
 
 Shortly after, the Man with the lamp appears. 
 " Whether I can help," he says, " I know not. The 
 individual by himself cannot do much, but only he 
 who, at the proper moment, combines with many." 
 
 All who have their country's salvation at heart 
 must join their forces in time of need. 
 
 Night comes on. The Old Man glances at the stars 
 and says, " We are here at the propitious hour ; let 
 each do his duty and perform his part." The Serpent 
 then began to stir ; she loosened her enfolding circle, 
 and slid in large volumes toward the Eiver. The 
 Will-o'-wisps followed. The Old Man and his Wife 
 seized the basket, lifted into it the body of the Youth, 
 and laid the Canary-bird upon his breast. The basket 
 rose of itself into the air, and hovered over tlie Old 
 Woman's head. She followed the Will-o'-wisps. The 
 Fair Lily with the pug in her arms followed the Wo- 
 
GOETHE'S MlRCHEN. 153 
 
 man, and the Man with the lamp closed the procession. 
 The Serpent bridged the River for them, and then 
 drew her circle again around the basket containing 
 the body of the Youth. The Old Man stoops down to 
 her and asks, " What are you going to do ? " " Sacri- 
 fice myself," she answers, " rather than be sacrificed." 
 The Man . bids the Lily touch the Serpent with one 
 hand and the body of the Youth with the other. She 
 does so, and behold ! the Youth comes to life again, 
 but not to full consciousness. Then the Ser^jent 
 bursts asunder. Her form breaks into thousands 
 upon thousands of glittering jewels. These the Man 
 with the lamp gathers up and casts into the stream, 
 where they afterward form a solid and permanent 
 bridge. The Old Man now leads the party to the 
 cave. They stand before the Temple barred with 
 golden lock and bolt. The Will-o'-wisps at the bid- 
 ding of the Old Man melt bolt and lock with their 
 flames, and the company are in the presence of the 
 four Kings. " Whence come ye ? " asks the Gold 
 King. "From the world," is the reply. "Whither 
 go ye ? " asked the Silver King. " Into the world." 
 " What would ye with us ? " asked the Brazen King. 
 " Accompany you," said the Old Man. " Who will 
 govern the world ? " asked the Composite King. " He 
 who stands on his feet," is the answer. " That am I," 
 said the King. " We shall see," said the Old Man, 
 " for the time is come." 
 
 Then the ground beneath them began to tremble ; 
 the Temple was in motion. For a few moments a fine 
 
154 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 shower seemed to drizzle from above. " We are now 
 beneath the Eiver," said the Old Man. The Temple 
 mounts upward. Suddenly a crash is heard ; planks 
 and beams come through tlie opening of the dome. 
 It is the old Ferryman's hut, which the Temple in its 
 ascent had detached from the ground. It descends 
 and covers the Old Man and the Youth. The wo- 
 men, who find themselves excluded, beat against the 
 door of the hut, which is locked. After a while the 
 door and walls begin to ring with a metallic sound. 
 The flame of the Old Man's lamp has converted the 
 wood into silver. The very form has changed ; the 
 hut has become a smaller temple, or, if you will, a 
 shrine, within the larger. 
 
 Observe the significance of this feature of the Tale. 
 The hut, as was said, represents the existing govern- 
 ment. New Germany is not to be the outcome of a 
 violent revolution forcibly abolishing the old, but a 
 natural growth receiving the old into itself, assimilat- 
 ing and embodying it in a new constitution. 
 
 When the Youth came forth from the transformed 
 hut, it was in company with a man clad in a white 
 robe, bearing a silver oar in his hand. This was the 
 old Ferryman, now to become a functionary in the 
 new State. 
 
 As soon as the rising sun illumined the cupola of 
 the Temple, the Old Man, standing between the Youth 
 and the Maiden (the Lily), said witli a loud voice, 
 " There are three that reign on earth. Wisdom, Show, 
 Force." When the first was named, up rose the Gold 
 
GOETHE'S MARC II EN. 155 
 
 King ; with the second, the Silver. The Brazen King 
 was rising slowly at the sound of the third, when the 
 Composite King (the Holy Koman Empire) suddenly 
 collapsed into a shapeless heap. The Man with the 
 lamp now led the still half-conscious Youth to the 
 Brazen King, at whose feet lay a sword. The Youth 
 girded himself with it. "The sword on the left," 
 said the mighty King, " the right hand free." They 
 then went to the Silver King, who gave the Youth 
 his sceptre, saying, "Feed the sheep." They came 
 to the Gold King, who, with a look that conveyed a 
 paternal blessing, crowned the Youth's head with a 
 garland of oak leaves, and said, " Acknowledge the 
 Highest." 
 
 The Youth now awoke to full consciousness ; his 
 eyes shone with an unutterable spirit, and his first 
 word was, " Lily." He clasped the fair maiden, whose 
 cheeks glowed with an inextinguishable red, and, turn- 
 ing to the Old Man, said, with a glance at the three 
 sacred figures, " Glorious and safe is the kingdom of 
 our fathers; but you forgot the fourth power, that 
 which earliest, most universal, and surest of all, rules 
 the world, — the power of Love." " Love," said the 
 Old Man, smiling, "does not rule, but educates. 
 And that is better." 
 
 And so the Temple stands by the Paver. The 
 Old Woman, having at the bidding of her husband 
 bathed in its waves, conies forth rejuvenated and beau- 
 tified. The Old Man himself looks younger. 
 
 Husband and wife, Science and Eeligion, renew 
 
156 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 their nuptial vows, and pledge their troth for in- 
 definite time. 
 
 The prophecy is accomplished. What Genius pre- 
 dicted ninety years ago has become fact. The Tem- 
 ple stands by the Eiver, the bridge is firm and wide. 
 The Genius of Germany is no longer a sighing, sickly 
 youth, pining after the unattainable, but, having mar- 
 ried his ideal, is now embodied in the mighty Chan- 
 cellor whose state-craft founded the new Empire, and 
 whose word is a power among the nations. 
 
GOETHE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE. 157 
 
 VI. 
 
 GOETHE'S RELATION TO ENGLISH 
 LITERATURE. 
 
 By F. B. SANBORN. 
 
 In that triangulation and speculative mensura- 
 tion of the greatest German intellect which we liave 
 this year attempted, I have been assigned to a single 
 field, " Goethe's Relation to English Literature." If 
 this were understood to mean the influence upon 
 Goethe's own work of the antecedent literature of 
 England, one could almost treat this theme as the 
 old writer did when describing Iceland. One of his 
 chapters contained this and nothing more: "Chap- 
 ter VI. Concerning Serpents in Iceland. There are,, 
 no serpents in Iceland." _^ " 
 
 When Handel, the great German musician, went 
 to Ireland about 1722, he carried a letter of introduc- 
 tion from some of his English Tory friends to Dean 
 Swift, then living near Dublin. As soon as the 
 Dean heard he was a German musician, he declined 
 to see Handel ; but when his servant added that the 
 bearer of the letter was " a great genius," Swift cried 
 out, " What ! a genius and a German ! show him up 
 
158 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 this instant." Such was the reputation which the 
 intellectual character of the Germans inspired in 
 Great Britain thirty years before Goethe was born ; 
 and such it continued through much of the lifetime 
 of Frederic the Great, who made Germany so respect- 
 able in matters of war and state- craft. That singular 
 and useful tyrant, whose life Carlyle has so brilliantly 
 related, had the greatest contempt for his country's lit- 
 erature, which he would not read, and for its clumsy 
 language, which he did not know how to spell. He 
 had contracted this prejudice in his youth, before 
 Goethe was born, and he continued in it after Goe- 
 the, who even more than Handel was "a German 
 and a genius," had begun to publish his youthful 
 works. Goethe was born at Frankfort, outside of 
 Frederic's dominions, in 1749; he published his first 
 important work, the play of "Gotz von Berlich- 
 ingen," in 1773, and about this time Frederic wrote 
 an " Essay on German Literature," ^ in which he 
 said : — 
 
 "To convince yourself of the little taste which prevails 
 in Germany, you need only go to our theatres ; there you 
 will see the abominable works of Shakespeare exhibited, 
 in German translations, while the whole audience almost 
 die with delight, as they listen to ridiculous farces, 
 worthy of American barbarians. Shakespeare perhaps 
 may be pardoned his caprices, because the birth of an art 
 is never its point of perfection ; but here we have a ' Gotz 
 
 1 This Essay was communicated by Frederic to D'Alembert in 
 January, 1781. 
 
GOETHE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE. 159 
 
 von Berlichingen ' making his appearance, — a detestable 
 imitation of these wretched English productions. The 
 pit applauds, and enthusiastically demands a repetition 
 of such disgusting dulness." 
 
 Even in 1777, when " The Woes of Young Wer- 
 ther " had cajitivated Europe, and " Faust " and 
 " Ipliigenia " were begun by Goethe, who was then 
 twenty-eight years old, and at the height of liis 
 poetic creativeness, neither Frederic nor the old Vol- 
 taire, who constantly wrote letters complimenting 
 each otlier, valued this rising star in the least degree. 
 Frederic wrote to Voltaire, December 17, 1777 : "As 
 to works of the imagination, I am convinced that we 
 must get along with Homer, Virgil, Tasso, Voltaire, 
 and Ariosto ; for the human mind seems to be wither- 
 ing in all countries, and no longer produces either 
 fruit or flowers." Of these poets thus named the 
 Prussian King preferred Voltaire, to whom he had 
 written two years before : " You are the rival of 
 Ariosto. We do not know much about Homer's life, 
 but Virgil was nothing more than a poet. Eacine did 
 not write prose well, and Milton was but the slave 
 of his country's tyrant. You alone have united tal- 
 ents so various." 
 
 Yet the great Frederic, with all this blindness to 
 the genius that was before his aged eyes, did finally 
 predict the triumph of German literature, which Goe- 
 the and Schiller were to create. In one of his papers, 
 which first saw the light after his death, in 1786, 
 appear these prophetic words : — 
 
160 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETUE. 
 
 " We shall have our classic authors ; our neighbors 
 will study German, and it will be spoken in the courts 
 of princes. Our language, polished and improved, may 
 haply, in the books of great writers, extend over all 
 Europe. These summer days of German literature ■ap- 
 proach. I foretell them, but shall not see thera. Age 
 deprives me of this hope ; like Moses, I have a view of 
 the promised land, but may not enter it." 
 
 Frederic was, of course, as ignorant of Schiller's 
 genius as of Goethe's. In 1781, tlie year that Schiller 
 brought out his popular play, " The Eobbers," which 
 still keeps the stage after a hundred years, the old 
 King sent to D'Alembert, in Paris, his " Essay on Ger- 
 man Literature," already cited, and in his accompany- 
 ing letter said : " Our language does not deserve to 
 be studied till good authors have first rendered it fa- 
 mous ; and of these we are entirely destitute. They 
 will perhaps appear when I am walking in the Ely- 
 sian fields, where I intend to offer to Virgil the 
 idyls of a German named Gesner, and the fables of 
 Gellert." 
 
 But to return. Goethe, unlike Schiller, but in this 
 like Milton, whom he did not much read, drew more 
 from the Greek fountain than from Shakespeare's 
 "well of English undefiled"; and his " Iphigenia," like 
 ]\Iilton's " Samson," follows closely in the steps of 
 Greek tragedy, while his "Faust" in no way resem- 
 bles the " Dr. Faustus " of Marlowe, who was Shake- 
 speare's only brother in English traged3% but has a 
 rich Gothic exuberance of its own in the first part. 
 
GOETHE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE. 161 
 
 and a broad philosophic conspectus, broken by strains 
 of lyric melody, in its long-delayed and confusing 
 conclusion. In fact, the form of Goethe's " Faust " 
 is no less original, I might say individual, than his 
 conception of Satan, who, as Mephistopheles, sets at 
 defiance every preconceived type of the Evil One. 
 
 Doubtless there has been no such poetical genius 
 since Shakespeare as this German dramatist and poet, 
 who is also novelist, art critic, man of science, and 
 philosopher. But his versatility, and the whole strain 
 of his genius, are not in the English manner, nor bred 
 in any English school. That inward vision of thought 
 and nature, — that profound conception of the world's 
 symbolism, — which is so wonderful in Shakespeare, 
 and in other English poets exists in a less degree, is 
 coupled in Goethe's case with a plodding, patient, 
 almost pedantic research into the laws and methods, 
 and even the smallest details, of nature and of 
 thought. Having flown to his height of imagination 
 on the wings of poesy, Goethe must needs build a 
 stairway therefrom downward to the merest, most 
 beggarly elements; so that he and others shall go up 
 and down as they please, counting every step of the 
 way. Moreover, while Shakespeare and other great 
 poets content themselves with setting forth tlie ideal, 
 — flashing it out perhaps for a single moment upon 
 our mind's eye, — Goethe insists on realizing his ideal k ]J^ 
 in every form and institution of society. In this 
 respect he resembles Plato more than any of the mod- 
 erns ; yet be does not resemble Bacon, that English 
 
 11 
 
 I 
 
162 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 truncated Plato, except in some of those superficial 
 points of similarity which do not touch the real 
 character of the two men. Goethe, like Bacon, " took 
 all knowledge to be his province " ; like Bacon, he 
 delighted in state and splendor, in the completion of 
 his theory until it- should fill out and touch at every 
 point the circumference of man's world ; but then in 
 that poet's eye which, with fine frenzy, 
 
 "Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven," 
 
 Goethe excelled the English Chancellor even more 
 than he did in that terrestrial prudence or fortune 
 which so handsomely convoyed him through life, 
 while Bacon fell into disgrace and belittled himself 
 by complaints and entreaties. Indeed, the good for- 
 tune of Goethe was something almost appalling, and 
 must have often made him think of Polycrates and his 
 ring ; it went beyond the felicity of Shakespeare's life, 
 which consisted partly in his obscurity ; while Goe- 
 the was at once conspicuous and safe, — admired, and 
 not ruined by admiration. Goethe suffered spiritually 
 from this good fortune, and I must say that, when 
 compared with the best English and American au- 
 thors, the finest aroma of our literature — which pro- 
 ceeds from a magnanimous and adventurous character, 
 displayed now in love, now in war, now in the heroism 
 of private life or in the sanctities of religion — is per- 
 petually wanting in Goethe. I do not speak now of 
 Shakespeare, in whom this magnanimity had its wid- 
 est and highest range, but of lesser poets and prose 
 
GOETHE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE. 1G3 
 
 writers, who sometimes in very humble spheres of lit- 
 erature display the same winning quality. It is this 
 which gives immortality to Sidney's youthful essays in 
 verse and prose, — which makes Herbert memorable, 
 Marvell more than a wit, and poor Dryden respect- 
 able even in his degradations ; this gleams in Donne 
 and Jeremy Taylor, in Gray and Dr. Johnson ; in 
 Wordsworth, Shelley, and Byron ; in Burns and 
 Carlyle among the Scotch, and among Americans 
 in Thoreau and Emerson, in Walt Whitman, and 
 others of less note. It is by virtue of an untam- 
 able energy that English literature is capable of 
 rising so high, and sinking so low, and is incapable 
 of that measured and deliberate excellence of wliich "^ 
 the books of Plato and of Goethe are perhaps tlie 
 best examples. 
 
 In the writings of Goethe, not less than in his life, 
 we see the limitations wliich egoism imposes, and 
 which not his great genius even could remove. 
 "A man," said Cromwell to the French Ambassador, 
 "never rises so hio-h as when he knows not whither '^ 
 he is going." Although Goethe would fain fol- 
 low his intuitions, and yield himself to the impulse 
 of the moment, his very intuitions had prudence 
 and self-love in them, so firndy implanted that 
 he could never escape from worldly considerations. 
 But the old belief of mankind is wisest, which 
 declares that the poet's inspiration is greater than 
 any worldly prudence, and that the oracles are 
 sincere. 
 
164 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 Goethe's relation to German literature was some- 
 thing different from Shakespeare's relation to our 
 own, of which he is the head and front, but which 
 he did not create, nor did he sustain it in his own 
 time. Without Shakespeare there would still have 
 been an important and universal Enolish literature, 
 though it would be far less significant and poetic 
 than it is. Without Goethe, not only would the 
 literature of his fatherland be less poetic and less 
 significant, but it would not have extended so 
 swiftly over Europe, and led to that rapid exten- 
 sion of German philosophy, and German science also, 
 which our century, now closing, has seen and prof- 
 ited by. Goethe lived to be nearly as old as Voltaire, 
 dying in 1832, at the age of eighty-two; and his 
 period of authorship covered more than sixty of those 
 years. His greatest woi-k, " Faust," was only com- 
 pleted in its present form a short time before his 
 death ; his next greatest book, " Wilhelm Meister," 
 was in fact left unfinished, although he had been at 
 work on it for thirty years. Besides these books, 
 which are everywhere known, he published more 
 than forty other volumes; while his letters and con- 
 versations, printed since his death, and his manu- 
 scripts at Weimar, soon to be published, will make 
 twenty or thirty volumes more. Hardly any author, 
 even in Germany, has written so much ; and no Ger- 
 man author — not even Luther, whose books are the 
 foundation of German prose literature — is now so 
 indispensable to those who would know what Ger- 
 
(JOETIIE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE 1G5 
 
 many has thought, or what modern culture is and has 
 been for a hundred years past. He is the greatest 
 poet, though not the best dramatist, of Germany ; 
 and he is one of the few great prose- writers in a lan- 
 guage that does not readily lend itself, as the French 
 does, to graceful prose, or, as the English does, to 
 vigorous arid picturesque prose. 
 
 When Goethe began to study and to write, — and it 
 is hard to say which came hrst with him, — the litera- 
 tures that lay before hira as models were the Greek, 
 the Latin, the French, the Italian, and the English ; 
 in later years, he tasted something of the Oriental 
 thouszht and literature. Of all these we should hold 
 that English literature was the greatest, when Shake- 
 speare is taken into account, — as he was, and very 
 fully, by Goethe, — yet the Greek, the Latin, and espe- 
 cially the French, exercised apparently a more potent 
 sway over the young poet's mind, and were better 
 known to him. For it is difficult to find in Goethe's 
 fifty volumes any serious traces of English influence 
 from the literary side, although he read and admired 
 Shakespeare and Marlowe, knew something of Bacon, 
 Newton, and Milton, praised Goldsmith, and extended 
 a respectful patronage towards Byron. But it is im- 
 possible to say that English literature impressed him 
 and moulded his own work as did the classical litera- 
 ture, tlie Oriental, or even the French and Italian. In 
 this respect, as in so many others, he presents a con- 
 trast to Schiller, who was deeply influenced in his 
 dramatic forms of expression by Shakespeare, as he 
 
 »^ 
 
166 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 was by Kant iu his philosophic theories and rules 
 of criticism.^ 
 
 If ever men are self-forgetful, it is when they are 
 in love, — at least for a brief period of that passion, — 
 and it is the magnanimity thence proceeding which 
 gives worth and dignity to characters otherwise friv- 
 olous or brutal, like those of Antony and Cleopatra, 
 who, like Othello, " loved not wisely but too well." 
 Goethe, as Dr. Bartol has said, loved not well enough, 
 but too wisely ; he lacked that magnanimity which 
 men and women much less gifted have displayed iu 
 their affection, though himself magnanimous in the 
 other relations of life. And I must accuse him of 
 another great fault, which he never learned of the 
 English poets ; he would " kiss and tell." Shake- 
 speare has so well disguised his affairs of the heart, 
 that it will always remain a question, not only whom 
 he loved, but whether it was love or friendship of 
 which he wrote so wonderfully; but Goethe has 
 related what he should not about Gretchen, and 
 
 1 It should be remembered that Kant, the greatest of all the Ger- 
 man philosophical writers, was an older contemporary of Schiller and 
 of Goethe, having been born at Konigsberg in 1724, a quarter-century 
 before Goethe, and dying there in 1804, the year before Schiller's 
 premature death. There was another person of the same name at 
 Konigsberg earlier, whom Frederick the Great praised (in 1739) for 
 his eloquence, and his graceful use of the awkward German lan- 
 guage, saying : "I confess I never heard better German, more beau- 
 tiful phrases, nor a style more flowing and embellished. M. Kant 
 is, past dispute, the first man in the kingdom for uttering nonsense 
 with dignity." See Frederic's letter to Jordan, August 3, 1739. 
 
GOETHE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE. 167 
 
 Annette, and Emilia, and Liicinda, and Frederica, and 
 Heaven knows how many more. To be sure, he has 
 given them an immortaUty thereby, and by ideal- 
 izing them in his plays, and novels, and poems ; but 
 even there we feel that he has taken an unfair ad- 
 vantage of these fair ones, by drawing their pictures 
 for the world to see, when they were turning their 
 faces toward him alone. Whether these love affairs 
 were innocent or not, — and I am disposed to give 
 them always the most favorable construction, — there 
 is here a betrayal of confidence, against which one of 
 the minor English poets of Shakespeare's time had 
 warned him. Donne says : — 
 
 " If, as I have, you also do 
 Virtue in woman see, 
 And dare love that, and sa)' so too, 
 And forget the He and She, — 
 
 "And if this love, though placed so, 
 From profane men you hide, 
 Who will no faith on this bestow, 
 Or, if they do, deride, — 
 
 " Then you have done a braver thing 
 Than all the Worthies did, 
 And a braver thence will spring, 
 Which is, to keep that hid." 
 
 Goethe was born of a wealthy burgher family in 
 Frankfort, ten years before Schiller ; and they both 
 grew to manhood at a time when England, through 
 Pitt and his son, had much to say and do in the 
 
168 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 affairs of Germany. Yet the connection of the two 
 countries in literary matters was of the slightest. 
 
 " Pathless the gulf of feeling yawns," — 
 
 and the great abyss that is fixed between the senti- 
 yments and daily opinions of Germany and England 
 was quite as wide when England had a German king 
 as it is to-day. France was nearer spiritually, as 
 well as geographically, and we find the young Goethe 
 far more affected by Erench than by English books. 
 He read Shakespeare early, and felt his vast powers ; 
 he also read Richardson and Goldsmith, and found 
 pleasure, perhaps inspiration, in " The Vicar of Wake- 
 field " ; but the daily influence of Erench thought 
 and the Erench style did more to modify the strong 
 native impulses of Goethe than any impressions that 
 came to him from England. No sooner did he begin 
 to become known in England however, than he ex- 
 erted an influence of his own on English literature, 
 which has been growing stronger ever since, and has 
 had some remarkable results, — chiefly by indirect 
 radiation through Carlyle, Emerson, Matthew Arnold, 
 and a host of lesser writers or translators. The first 
 and most eminent of his translators, until Carlyle 
 appeared, was "Walter Scott, who, in 1799, published 
 in Edinburgh a version of " Gotz von Berlichingen," 
 which Goethe himself had published twenty-six 
 years before. In itself this play is of little value, 
 as compared with the later works of Goethe ; but 
 it has a peculiar significance, as the first of those 
 
GOETHE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE. 169 
 
 feudal romances which, forty years afterwards, in the 
 hands of Scott, became such an important part of 
 European literature. 
 
 The real work of Goethe, indeed, was not to vary 
 the existing forms of literature, however much he 
 might do this, but to inspire in all literature a deep 
 conviction of the unity of Nature and the absolute 
 activity of spirit. Tliis, once done, is nothing less 
 than regeneration of the inner life of literature, which 
 may thenceforth take any form, old or new, and yet 
 be true to the inworking spirit. Carlyle seems to 
 have been the first of British writers to seize this 
 perception of Goethe's mission, and he was certainly 
 the first to enforce and insist upon it in ways that 
 soon wrought an actual, if incipient, revival in the 
 English-speaking world of letters. With him was soon 
 associated our own Emerson, who, arriving at the 
 same insight, not through Goethe's illumination, but 
 by his own, nevertheless found his inward light ex- 
 tended and clarified by the writings of both Goethe 
 and Carlyle. The period of Goethe's death (March, 
 1832) may be taken as the time when Carlyle and 
 Emerson distinctly perceived that they stood at the 
 opening of a new era ; and it was not long after- 
 wards, when they met at Craigenputtock, that they 
 also became aware of the unity existing between 
 them upon vital issues, and that they were appointed 
 to carry forward Goethe's work in their own lands, 
 and with reinforcement of each other. What Car- 
 lyle thought at Goethe's death he has left on record, 
 
 ^ 
 
170 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 and we may "be sure that in essentials Emerson 
 would have said the same things. Carlyle wrote in 
 "The New Monthly Magazine" for 1832 : — 
 
 " So then our Greatest has departed. That melody 
 of life, with its cunning tones, which took captive ear and 
 heart, has gone silent: the heavenly force that dwelt 
 here, victorious over so much, is here no longer; thus 
 far, not farther, shall the wise man, by speech and by 
 act, utter himself forth. . . . Goethe, it is commonly said, 
 made a now era in literatui'e ; a Poetic Era began with 
 him, the end or ulterior tendencies of which are yet no- 
 wise generally visible. This common saying is a true one ; 
 and true with a far deeper meaning than, to the most, it 
 conveys. ... It begins now to be everywhere surmised 
 that the real force, which in this world all things must 
 obey, is Insight, Spiritual Vision and Determination. 
 The Thought is parent of the Deed, nay, is living soul 
 of it, and last and continual, as well as first mover of it ; 
 is the foundation, beginning, and essence, therefore, of 
 Man's whole existence here below. The true sovereign 
 of the world, who moulds the world, like soft wax, accord- 
 ing to his pleasure, is he who lovingly sees into the world ; 
 the inspired thinker, whom in these days we name Poet. 
 The true sovereign is the Wise Man." 
 
 't5' 
 
 Some years later, Emerson added his testimony as 
 follows : — 
 
 " The Greeks said, Alexander went as far as Chaos ; 
 Goethe went, only the other day, as far ; and one step 
 farther he hazarded and brought himself back. He has 
 clothed our modern existence with pogtry. Amid little- 
 
GOETHE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE. 171 
 
 ness and detail, he detected the genius of life, the old 
 cunning Proteus, nestling close beside us, and showed 
 that the dulness and prose we ascribe to the age was 
 only another of his masks. 
 
 * His very flight is presence in disguise.' 
 
 Goethe, the head and body of the German nation, does 
 not speak from talent, but the truth shines thi-ough ; he 
 is very wise, though his talent often veils his wisdom. 
 However excellent his sentence is, he has somewhat better 
 in view. The old Eternal Genius who built the world has_ 
 confided himself more to this man than to any other.Jj 
 
 Emerson is not always to be construed literally, 
 any more than other poets are, — and he did not mean 
 to say that Goethe was nearer to the old Eternal 
 Genius than Shakespeare had been. His portrait of 
 these two men, side by side, was given to the world 
 later, (in 1867,) in those remarkable verses called 
 " Solution," in which he guesses the riddle of the 
 Muse who asks, — 
 
 " Have you eyes to find the five 
 Which five hundred did survive ? " 
 
 Yes, says Emerson, the five great writers are Homer, 
 Dante, Shakespeare, Swedenborg, and Goethe ; and 
 thus he portrays the English and the German poet : — 
 
 " Seethed in mists of Penmanmaur, 
 Taught by Plinlimmon's Druid power, 
 England's genius filled all measure 
 Of heart and soul, of strength and pleasure. 
 Gave to the mind its emperor, 
 And life was larger than before ; 
 
172 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 Nor sequent centuries could hit 
 Orbit and sum of Shakespeare's wit. 
 The men who lived with him became 
 Poets, for the air was fame. 
 
 "In newer days of war and trade, 
 Romance forgot and faith decayed, 
 When Science armed and guided war, 
 And clerks the Janus-gates unbar, — 
 When France, where poet never grew, 
 Halved and dealt the globe anew, — 
 Goethe, raised o'er joy and strife, 
 Drew the firm lines of Fate and Life, 
 And brought Olympian M'isdom down 
 To court and mart, to gown and town ; 
 Stooping, his finger wrote in clay 
 The open secret of to-day." 
 
 Among the friends of Emerson, while he was study- 
 ing Goethe, none was more intimate than Mr. Alcott, 
 whose diaries preserve much that was common to the 
 thoudit of the two friends. I will therefore read 
 from the diaries of 1847 and later years some of his 
 comments on Goethe as he read him from time to 
 time. Mr. Alcott writes (date uncertain) : — 
 
 "Life is but a Werther's Sorrows to many, with an 
 end as tragical ; nor can it be otherwise till we come 
 forth from our woes to speak peace to the wallers. The 
 chaos about us is but the confusion within us ; first place 
 ourself, and all things then take place around us. Hith- 
 erto, for the most part, men have been bad economists 
 of life, and si^endthrifts of themselves. Few have de- 
 served the epithet ' illustrious,' — and yet life itself 
 
GOETHE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE. 173 
 
 might be a lustre so dazzling that to have hidden its 
 flame were almost to quench it." 
 
 (1847.) " Goethe has treated the strife of the worst for 
 the best, in nature, more cunningly than either of his pre- 
 decessors, Moses or the author of the ITzzian Job. And 
 for this old-world fable he was better fitted than any one 
 of his time. He has an eye for subtleties. He is a dis- 
 cerner of spirits, a draughtsman of guile. His faith in 
 nature was so entire that it held all fine gifts at his ser- 
 vice, nor could he, fortified and equipped as was his genius, 
 but render faithful copies of what he so clearly saw \ 
 and learned to portray. * The demons sat to him,' and ' 
 we have before us the world he knew so well, and also the 
 one in which almost all are conversant. For this demon 
 of the temptation is as old as man, and thus far the catas- 
 trophe has been disastrous to individuals in conflict with 
 multitudes. None has come off victorious with his life ; 
 the world-spirit, Mephistopheles, bribing even the Faust, 
 or the will, proffering the present delights for the future 
 pains as at first." 
 
 (1851.) ''Dipped here and there into 'Faust' (Anna 
 Swanwick's translation), and am admitted more intimately 
 than by Hayward's or Anster's version into the subtleties 
 of the modern Satan, the world-spirit of the nineteenth 
 century. Our devil has partaken of the cosmopolitan v^ 
 culture; he, too, is a scholar and a gentleman, scarcely 
 distinguishable in a crowd from any mortal else, — his 
 complexion sallower by a shade, perhaps, and, if surveyed 
 closely, some show of hoofs in his boots. . . . Faust's 
 dealings with him are infinitely suggestive and profitable, 
 and inclusive of the whole range of guile. ' The demon 
 
174 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 sat gladly,' — the portrait is sketched by a master, and 
 is exhaustive of the subject. Goethe knew too much to 
 paint well anything else ; and this, his masterpiece, re- 
 mains as the last likeness, finished up to the latest dates. 
 Yet he lived too early to sketch this Western democratic 
 shape, some fifty or more years later. Apropos of him, 
 just now and here in this Western hemisphere every- 
 body is putting down the dark Webster as the latest and 
 best devil, concrete and astir in space perhaps, — certainly 
 in these American parts, — clearly responsible for the sins 
 of cities, North and South, — a Satan of national type and 
 symmetry. 'T is a great pity that Goethe should have 
 come too soon. Head, shoulders, all, all of AYebster 
 should have gone into the picture, and this legal, logical, 
 constitutional Mephistopheles of the States had justice 
 done him by his master. . . . Perhaps Goethe is the most 
 remarkable instance in literature of an intellect hold- 
 ing its eye quite coincident with the plane of things, — 
 endowed likewise with an aptitude to seize at the nick of 
 time every aspect of the demonic forces, as these emerged 
 from their hidings in I^ature. But he was held, by con- 
 sequence, to the mundane plane and the fatal moment, — 
 an intellectual describer, but never a partaker at heart of 
 what he saw and sketched so inimitablv. His aloofness 
 from life and from the spirit of permanence ; his inability 
 to identify himself with the heart and whole of things, 
 the soul of souls ; the duplicity of his genius, one may 
 say, left him the sport of a cunning which partook, at 
 once, of the fate that drives, and of the freedom that 
 controls life's motions. We feel that this eye, mighty as 
 it is and miraculous, escapes not the spell that holds it 
 fixedly on the features he is portraying. There is never 
 
 i 
 
GOETHE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE. 175 
 
 the elevation of lid and fluency of light, telling of rap- 
 tures and of the world's saints, seen and felt, — the sure 
 sign of victories won from nature and one's self. Goethe 
 was cunning, but he was never wisely wise. Too noble 
 for mere prudence, he was coeval with fate; but never 
 magnanimous and Fate's victor ; and as the Fates made, 
 so they slew him too, but by incantations soft, siren-like, 
 and prolonged, melodizing his muse, and intimating (al- 
 most persuading us the while) his claim to a perpetuity 
 of genius which was not theirs to give. All he was his 
 Faust has taken and celebrates. Faust is admitted 
 to heaven as Goethe to mortality, without the fee of a 
 divinity which alone opens honestly the gates. So the 
 clandestine wins by defeats, from the beginning of evil till 
 its ending here." 
 
 'O 
 
 (1851.) "There is adequate justification for Goethe's 
 treatment of Evil in his great poem, about which so much 
 has been said and written, — most of this quite wide of its 
 drift and province. It is one of the auspicious signs of 
 these latter times that men are beginning to canvass and 
 account for everything that turns up in the world. !Noth- 
 ing remains unquestioned ; the popular inquiry is, * Who 
 are you ? what are you here for ] Account for your ex- 
 istence, — show us, on penalty of forfeiting it, what right 
 you have to be, — and away with you, if you cannot do 
 it ! ' Even the Devil, his place and functions in the 
 world, are under discussion, and he too will have to 
 show what he is here for, or quit forthwith. That is a 
 question altogether new, first raised on its proper grounds 
 and poetically argued by Goethe in the ' Faust.' But 
 now the thinkers everywhere are fast hold of it ; and it 
 
176 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 must render up its secret, so long hidden from the faith 
 of men. Modern judgments seem to be far more tolerant 
 of the Devil than at any former period of the world ; his 
 claims are fairly admitted, and his right to be here and 
 take part in mundane affairs is unquestionable. Toler- 
 ance is taking place of the old prejudices, and it is be- 
 coming quite evident that his presence is indispensable. 
 The most enlightened minds go still further, entering 
 fearlesslv into the darker counsels of Providence, and re- 
 lieving the old superstitions by some sensible and even 
 religious reasons for his existence and place in nature. 
 Say what we will to the contrary, — and it is creditable to 
 the heart of man that it does doubt the final necessity of 
 his existence and functions, and proves these only tran- 
 sient and mediatorial, — the Devil is felt to be avast ben- 
 efit to the present multitude, who could not get on at all 
 without him. The Lord needs and so suffers an agent 
 for the administrative ends of mortality, — a whipper 
 in and secretary. The Devil is a friend in the guise of 
 an enemy. We need him to measure our strength and 
 weakness, to prove our virtue. Life, for the most part, 
 is a contest, a devil's duel, with seconds few or many 
 to provoke and stand sponsor for us, to each according 
 to his mettle and provocation. An imp or two, if no 
 more, is pitted against every one of us, — is one of us, 
 if we knew it. To some there are seven of them, we 
 read, and our merits and demerits are measured pre- 
 cisely by our management of the enemy, whether one 
 or many." 
 
 In these remarks of Mr. Alcott reference is con- 
 stantly made to that dramatic poem of Goethe's which 
 
GOETHE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE. 177 
 
 he had just been reading, " Faust," in which the Sa- 
 tanic element is shown as constantly present in a 
 modern and realistic guise. Shakespeare, except in 
 his " Othello," has hardly treated this theme at all ; 
 nor is there much common ground in the subjects 
 chosen by these two great poets. Goethe was above 
 all things wise, and in nothing does his wisdom ap- 
 pear more striking than in his estimate of Shake- 
 speare as far above himself, and in his fixed resolve 
 not to imitate one so unlike. He might almost 
 have used in this connection the pregnant query of 
 Emerson, " Why should I forego my own excellence 
 to come short of Shakespeare's ? " He had gifts of his 
 own, many and great ones, — but not those of Shake- 
 speare, whose nature was in so many points the op- 
 posite of his own. Ben Jonson could not measure 
 Shakespeare, but he saw him, and in some particulars 
 has well described him, in terms that could never be 
 applied to Goethe : — 
 
 " The players have often mentioned it as an honor to 
 Shakespeare," says Jonson in his Discoveries, "that he 
 never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, Would 
 he had blotted a thousand ! which they thought a malevo- 
 lent speech, who chose that circumstance to commend 
 their friend by, wherein he most faulted. He was indeed 
 honest, and of an open and free nature ; had an excellent 
 fantasy, brave notions, and gentle expressions ; wherein 
 he flowed with that facility, that sometimes it was neces- 
 sary he should be stopped. His wit was in his own 
 power : would the rule of it had been so too." 
 
 12 
 
178 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 It could never be said of Goethe that he had not 
 the rule of his own wit in his own power; for no 
 man of genius was ever so deliberate and methodical. 
 Jonson adds, — with that tone of patronage which the 
 intervening centuries have made so amusing to us, — 
 " But Shakespeare redeemed his vices with his vir- 
 tues. There was ever more in him to be praised than 
 to be pardoned." This mild encomium is increasingly 
 true of Goethe, as we witlidraw more and more from 
 the immediate conditions of his life, and judge him by 
 the standards of genius and of benefit to mankind^. 
 Tested by these, Goethe must be greatly praised, 
 and his influence on English literature, whether in- 
 
 \ direct or direct, has been every way salutary. For 
 
 ' Goethe, even w^here he is pedantic, is profound ; wher- 
 ever he deals in small and trivial concerns, there is 
 something just and wholesome in his method, and 
 
 \ though he may check and discountenance spontaneity, 
 this can do little harm to our literature, which is 
 spontaneous rather than profound, except in those 
 rare examples like Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Words- 
 
 \worth, where it is both profound and spontaneous. 
 
 I do not find that Goethe had any knowledge of 
 Chaucer ; yet of all English authors this ancient 
 poet was the nearest to Goethe's serene and tolerant 
 temper, and he rose too, as Goethe did in Germany, 
 from a dead level of mediocrity in his own age, to 
 the very heights of humor and insight. There is a 
 just judgment on this good old poet by Sir Philip Sid- 
 ney which deserves to be quoted, — written in 1581, 
 
GOETHE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE. 179 
 
 and found in his " Defence of Poesy." " Chancer," 
 says Sidney, "undoubtedly did excellently in his 
 Troilus and Cressida ; of whom, truly, I know not 
 whether to marvel more, either that he, in that mistyl 
 time, could see so clearly, or that we, in this clear/ 
 age, go so stumblingly after him." 
 
 One was soon to come who would no longer stum- 
 ble in following Chaucer, but would overtake and 
 pass him by, so that even Shakespeare's contem- 
 poraries would have no doubt what his rank was. 
 An obscure poet of that period, of whom we know 
 almost as little as of Shakespeare himself, William 
 Basse by name, commemorated Shakespeare's death 
 in 1616 by this elegy, which is one of the best, though 
 seldom quoted : — 
 
 *' Eenowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh 
 To learned Chaucer ; and, rare Beaumont, lie 
 A little nearer Spenser, to make room 
 For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb. 
 But if precedency in death doth bar 
 A fourth place in your sacred sepulchre, 
 Under this sable marble of thine own, 
 Sleep, rare tragedian, Shakespeare ! sleep alone : 
 Thy unmolested peace in unshared cave 
 Possess as lord, not tenant of thy grave. 
 That unto us and others it may be 
 Honor hereafter to be laid by thee." 
 
 Here the elegist recognizes, what time has fully 
 attested, that Shakespeare is the lord paramount bf 
 English literature, holding a rank higher than Beau- 
 mont's, or Spenser's, or Chaucer's. A similar rank 
 must be given, and has long been joyfully conceded. 
 
180 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 to Goethe, among German writers. I do not agree 
 with Dr. Bartol in the comparison which he drew 
 between Schiller and Goethe, so disparaging to the 
 former ; but it is in accord with that severe Scripture 
 which says, "To him that hath shall be given, and 
 from him that hath not shall be taken away." In the 
 higher meaning of poetic greatness, Schiller " hath 
 not," and therefore must surrender some part of his 
 recent or present renown to the more masculine and 
 original Goethe. In one respect, however, and an 
 important one, he will always be superior to his 
 friend, — in his recognition of that wholesome sexual 
 morality which Goethe at all times considered too 
 lightly, and in his youth and middle life so habitu- 
 ally transgressed. It will be long before English and 
 American literature becomes accustomed to the tone of 
 Goethe on this subject, — a coarse and worldly habit 
 of mind, which came to him partly by nature, and 
 partly from the Trench, Latin, and Greek books which 
 he read in his youth far more than he read the better 
 Eno-lish or German authors. Indeed, there were few 
 good German authors before Goethe and accessible 
 to him; while Ovid and Catullus and Martial and 
 the Greek poets, were open to him, and the amusing 
 literature of France was in every German house- 
 hold where books were read at all. Goethe brings it 
 almost as an accusation against Herder at Strassburg, 
 that he made him think less favorably of Ovid than 
 Goethe had been accustomed; but the "Eomau Ele- 
 gies," written at the age of thirty-eight, show that Ovid 
 
GOETHE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE. 181 
 
 was then his model much more than Herder. He had 
 studied the more profound classical poets with profit, 
 and his most perfect drama, so far as form and lan- 
 guage go, — the " Iphigenia in Tauris," — is the best 
 result of this part of his education. It would be 
 impossible to find in English literature so vivid a 
 reproduction of the antique spirit, reinforced by the 
 veracity of the Teuton, as this drama exhibits. Mil- 
 ton's " Samson," which in some points may be com- 
 pared with it, is so strongly Hebraized that it little 
 resembles in spirit the Greek dramas on which its 
 form was modelled ; while the " Prometheus " of Shel- 
 ley, the "Atalanta" of Swinburne, and the pseudo- 
 classical poems of Landor and of Browning, almost 
 wholly lack the calm dignity of Goethe's " Iphigenia." 
 As those who have preceded me have made little men- ^ 
 tion of this drama, I will quote a single passage in 
 the earliest American translation, that of Dr. Froth- 
 ingham of Boston, made some fifty years ago^ when (. 
 Goethe was almost an unknown name in America. 
 
 SONG OF THE PARC^ IN "IPHIGENIA." 
 
 Iphigenia {soliloquizing). 
 
 "Within my ears resounds that ancient song, — 
 
 Forgotten was it, and forgotten gladlj"-, — 
 
 Song of the Parcre, which they shuddering sang 
 
 "When Tantalus fell from his golden seat. 
 
 They suffered with their noble friend, — indignant 
 
 Their bosom was, and terrible their song. 
 
 To me and to my sisters in our youth 
 
 The nurse would sing it, — and I marked it well. 
 
182 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 THE SONG. 
 
 •' The gods be your terror, 
 Ye children of men ! 
 They hold the dominion 
 In hands everlasting, 
 All free to exert it 
 As listeth their will. 
 
 " Let him fear them doubly 
 Whome'er they Ve exalted! 
 On crags and on cloud-piles 
 The altars are planted 
 Around the gold tables. 
 
 " Dissension arises; 
 Then tumble the feasters 
 Keviled and dishonored 
 In gulfs of deep midnight; 
 And look ever vainly 
 In fetters of darkness 
 For judgment that 's just. 
 
 " But They remain seated 
 At feasts never failing 
 Around the gold tables. 
 They stride at a footstep 
 From mountain to mountain; 
 Through jaws of abysses 
 Steams toward them the breathing 
 Of suffocate Titans 
 Like offerings of incense, — 
 A light-rising vapor. 
 
 " They turn — the proud masters — 
 From whole generations 
 The eye of their blessing, — 
 Nor will in the children 
 
GOETHE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE. 183 
 
 The once well-beloved 
 Still eloquent features 
 Of ancestors see." 
 
 So sang the dark sisters ! 
 The old exile heareth 
 That terrible music 
 In caverns of darkness, — 
 Eemembereth his children, 
 And shaketh his head. 
 
 The Greek doctrine of divine vengeance and of 
 irresistible destiny here set forth, (but which is beau- 
 tifully softened in the play by the devotion and truth- 
 fulness of Iphigenia,) has scarcely found an entrance 
 into English literature, where tragedy assumes a char- 
 acter more personal. The deepest sufferings of Shake- 
 speare's heroes grow out of their own acts, and~are 
 not the result of foreordained or inherited guilt, as we 
 may see in " King Lear " and " Othello." Goethe also 
 gives this personal turn to all the tragedy which he 
 brings forward ;/bur'liisr *^rphigenia,"" with its deep "^ 
 realization of the antique tragic motives, may serve 
 as a connecting link between ancient and modern 
 tragedy. And so strong in his mind was the ancient 
 form of presentation, that he adopted it to some extent 
 in his next important work, his " Tasso," — which was 
 mainly written in Rome, in 1786-88, as the "Iphi- 
 genia " was finished and privately brought out there. 
 His " Ecjmont," on the other hand, the most dramatic 
 of his plays, but far from the best, has nothing of the 
 antique about it ; and still less has the first part of 
 
184 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 " Faust," which, though dramatic in form, is rather a 
 succession of declamations, spectacles, and songs, than 
 a drama, strictly speaking. This fits it for operatic 
 representation, in which it is most successfully and 
 constantly given to the public. In itself, as a closet 
 drama, or what Mr. Snider calls a " literary Bible," it 
 is extremely foreign to the English and American 
 mind, and there is nothing really akin to it in our 
 literature, notwithstanding Marlowe's " Dr. Faustus " 
 and the octogenarian Philip Bailey's "Festus," — 
 which was " Faust " emasculated, trimmed and scented 
 and sent forth on a harmless round among the circu- 
 lating libraries, forty years ago. 
 
 Mr. Snider has so well set forth the origin and 
 spirit of the Faust legend, and this exposition has 
 been so well supplemented by Mr. Davidson, that I 
 need only call attention to the manner in which it 
 burst forth in English literature, — a single flash and 
 explosion of flame and smoke from the Titanic cave 
 of Christopher Marlowe's genius. This man — who, 
 if he had lived, might have disputed Shakespeare's 
 pre-eminence in dramatic poetry, as he was in fact 
 Shakespeare's teacher and coadjutor during their hot 
 youth in London — seems to have caught at the 
 Faust myth almost as soon as it appeared anywhere 
 in Europe in a printed form — though it had circu- 
 lated from mouth to mouth at universities and among 
 the people for more than half a century, when, in 
 1587, there appeared at Frankfort the "History of 
 Dr. Johann Faust, the far-famed [weitbeschreiter] Sor- 
 
GOETHE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE. 185 
 
 cerer and Black- Artist [ScJitvarzkilnstler]." From 
 an English translation of this book, made in 1592, 
 Marlowe is supposed to have taken his play, "The 
 Tragical History of Dr. Faustus," which must have 
 been written in 1592-93, for in June, 1593, Marlowe 
 was killed in a tavern brawl. This fact and Mar- 
 lowe's own character, which was that of an unbe- 
 liever and sensualist, gives a peculiar significance to 
 his version of the Faust myth, which Goethe had 
 thoughts of translating into German. Crabbe Eob- 
 inson, when visiting Goethe in 1829, read to the old 
 poet for the first time Milton's " Samson," and men- 
 tioned Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus." ^Goethe did not 
 admire Milton so much as Byron, but of Marlowe's 
 play he said, bursting out into an exclamation of 
 _j)raise, " How greatly is it all planned ! " ^ The Diary 
 of Crabbe Ptobinson, and the remarks and letters of 
 Goethe after the visits of this indefatigable English- 
 man in 1829, give some anecdotes and remarks 
 which will show how imperfect was Goethe's knowl- 
 edge of English authors. Eobinson says : — 
 
 " I took an opportunity to mention Milton, and found 
 Goethe unacquainted with ' Samson Agonistes.' I read 
 to him the first part, to the end of the scene with Da- 
 lila. He fully conceived the spirit of it, though he did 
 
 1 It is curious that Meissner in his recent book, ' ' English Actors 
 of Shakespeare's Time in Austria," not only proves that Marlowe's 
 " Dr. Faustus " in a German version was played at Griitz in 1608, 
 but offers evidence to show that it was played in Frankfort in the 
 autumn of 1592. 
 
186 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 not praise Milton with the warmth with which he eulo- 
 gized Byron, of w hom he said t hat ^ the li ke^would never, 
 come again ; he was inimitable.' Even Ariosto was not so 
 'daring~as~Byron in the 'Vision of Judgment.' Goethe 
 preferred to all the other serious poems of Byron the 
 ' Heaven and Earth,' though it seemed almost satire 
 when he exclaimed, 'A bishop might have written it.' 
 He added : ' Byron should have lived to execute his voca- 
 tion, — to dramatize the Old Testament. What a subject 
 iinder his hands would the Tower of Babel have been ! 
 Byron was indebted for the profound views he took of 
 the Bible to the ennui he suffered from it at school.' . . , 
 It was with reference to the poems of the Old Testa- 
 ment that Goethe praised the views which Byron took of 
 Nature ; they were equally profound and poetical. ' He 
 had not, like me, devoted a long life to the study of 
 Nature, and yet in all his works I found but two or 
 three passages I could have wished to alter.' " Eobinson 
 objected to the then common comparison of Manfred 
 to Faust, and said, "Faust had nothing left but to 
 sell his soul to the Devil, when he had exhausted all 
 the resources of science in vain ; but Manfred's was a 
 poor reason, — his passion for Astarte." Goethe smiled 
 and said, " That is true." But then he fell back on the 
 indomitable spirit of Manfred. Even at the last he was 
 not conquered. And the impudence of Byron's satire he 
 felt and enjoyed. Robinson pointed out " The Deformed 
 Transformed " as really an imitation of " Faust," and 
 Goethe especially praised that piece. Byron's verses on 
 George IV., he said, were the sublime of hatred. 
 
 Returning to Milton, Goethe said to Robinson, as after- 
 wards to Zelter, " Samson's confession of his guilt is in a 
 
GOETHE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE. 187 
 
 better spirit than anything in Byron. There is fine logic 
 in all the speeches. Dalila's vindication of herself is 
 capital ; he has pnt her in the right." To one of Sam- 
 son's speeches he cried out, " the parson ! " He thanked 
 Robinson for making him acquainted with the " Samson," 
 saying, " It gives me a higher opinion of Milton than I 
 had before ; it lets me more into the nature of his inind 
 than any other of his works." To Zelter he wrote that 
 " in Samson we acquire knowledge of a predecessor of 
 Lord Byron who is as grand and comprehensive as Byron 
 himself; but then the successor is as vast and wildly 
 varied as the other appears simple and stately." Again 
 he said, that " he never before met with so perfect an 
 imitation of the antique in style and spirit " as in the 
 " Samson." He told Eobinson that Schiller's rendering 
 of the witch-scenes in Macbeth was "detestable," — "but 
 that was his way. You must let every man have his 
 own character.." 
 
 I do not find. _tliat Goethe had mucli to say of 
 Xandor , the man of England who most resembled 
 him in some traits, and who valued liiglily and early, 
 for an Englishman, the greatness of Goethe. In 
 1819, Southey wrote to Landor that a contributor 
 to the county paper had spoken of Landor in " The 
 Westmoreland Gazette " as the English poet who 
 most resembled Goethe ; adding, " I do not know 
 enough of Goethe to judge how far this assertion 
 may be right." Considering that Southey was the 
 poet-laureate of England, and Goethe then seventy 
 years old, the remark indicates how far apart were 
 
188 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 English and German literature when Carlyle began 
 to write. Landor did not read the " Iphigenia " till 
 after Goethe's death, when he praised and criticised 
 it. In 1837 he said of Goethe : " He was the wisest 
 man of his time, as he was the most poetical. Drops 
 hang from every work of Goethe's (that I have seen) 
 of the very purest brightness, such as will never dry 
 up nor fall. I admire much of his poetry and all his 
 prose." 
 
 It is a pity that these two men could not have 
 known each other, living as they did for half a cen- 
 tury within a few hundred miles, and both engaged 
 in the lonely pursuits of thought and imagination. 
 They were not too much alike to have quarrelled, — 
 except as Landor quarrelled with everybody, — while 
 Goethe would have met that pettish trait by his 
 wise habit of quarrelling Mdth nobody. . The English- 
 man, true to his national character, had more mag- 
 nanimity, but ill-regulated ; the German had more 
 wisdom, and deserved better than Landor that clos- 
 ing epigram which the Englishman wrote on him- 
 self, — styling it "The Dying Speech of an Old 
 Philosopher " : — 
 
 " I strove witli none, for none was worth my strife ; 
 Nature I loved, and next to Nature Art. 
 I warmed both, hands against tlie fire of life, — 
 It sinks, and I am ready to depart." 
 
GOETHE AS A PLAYWRIGHT. 189 
 
 VII. 
 
 GOETHE AS A PLAYWRIGHT. 
 
 By WILLIAM OEDWAY PARTRIDGE. 
 
 We may affirm without arrogance that we of the 
 present day are better informed with regard to the 
 highest artistic effects of the drama and the use of 
 technical methods than were Lessing, Schiller, and 
 Goethe. These are the words of Gustav Freitag, a 
 German writer standing in all but the first rank of 
 literary men and dramatists, and in the very foremost 
 rank of dramatic critics. In writing a criticism upon 
 the work of a man of Goethe's eminence, some part 
 of which, at least, must be unfavorable, one is fain to 
 take refuge under the shield of so great a critic, and 
 thus avoid all possible charge of arrogance. Not 
 only as a shield, however, have I quoted the above 
 passage; it is of great significance as pointing out 
 the two distinguishing characteristics of the suc- 
 cessful playwright : (1.) A clear conception of high- 
 est artistic effects ; (2.) The power to apply the best 
 technical methods for the production of these. 
 
 We must here make a careful distinction between 
 a playwright and a playwriter. And in the present 
 
190 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 paper we wish especially to insist upon this dis- 
 tinction. It is not our intention to criticise Goethe 
 as a writer of plays, or his plays as mere literary 
 productions, or wliat are called closet dramas ; but to 
 consider him strictly as a playwright, and his plays as 
 productions intended for representation on the stage. 
 The dramatic value of a play is its effectiveness upon 
 the stage. Whatever other merits a play may have, 
 psychological, philosophical, or ethical, if it is not 
 effective upon the stage, it lacks the first essential of 
 a good drama. A psychological, philosophical, or etlii- 
 cal discussion may be cast in the form of dialogue, or 
 even of a drama ; as, for example, the Dialogues of 
 Plato, but these are not dramas in the proper sense. 
 In order to arrive at clearness in this matter, we 
 must first inquire what kind of effectiveness we have 
 a right to expect from the drama, and, secondly, 
 through what technical methods this effectiveness 
 may be best attained. Of course we must not expect 
 from the drama every kind of effectiveness, as, for 
 instance, the effect of a philosophical argument, ser- 
 mon, or oratorio ; we must not look for the effect 
 produced by an intoxicating draught as ISTiagara. 
 
 First, then, let us consider what constitutes dra- 
 matic effectiveness. The question might be answered 
 by one word, viz. the term " drama," which properly 
 means action, so that a drama without action is a 
 contradiction in terms. The essential element, then, 
 in dramatic effectiveness is action. It must, however, 
 be action of a peculiar kind, — in a word, it must 
 
GOETHE AS A PLAYWRIGHT. 191 
 
 be motivated action, and the motive must at once be 
 rational and apparent to the spectators. This Goe- 
 the himself believed, and has admirably expressed 
 in words put into tlie mouth of Wilhelm Meister 
 with regard to Sliakespeare's characters : " These 
 very mysterious and composite creatures of nature 
 act before us in his plays, as if they were clocks with 
 cases and dial-plates of crystal ; they show in their 
 determination the lapse of the hours, and at the 
 same time we can recognize the wheels and springs 
 that drive them." 
 
 The drama, tlien, in its true sense, is an action, a 
 rounded and complete action, whose various parts 
 or moments are evolved and connected by intelligible 
 motives. 
 
 These motives may have two sources, that is, they 
 may be either in the characters or in the exigencies 
 of the action itself. For example, the fortunate ter- 
 mination of " Iphigenie " finds its motive in the per- 
 fect sincerity of Iphigenie's character. In " Egmont " 
 also, as well as in " Gotz," the hero's fate is plainly 
 due to defects in his own character. On the other 
 hand, the task imposed upon Hamlet of putting his 
 uncle to death plairdy arises from the exigency of 
 circumstances, — the moral demands of his time, — 
 and can in no wise be laid to the charge of Hamlet's 
 character. It may here be remarked, that the ancient 
 differs from the modern drama, in the source from 
 which it mainly draws its motives. The ancient 
 dramatists looked for their motives chiefly in the 
 
192 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 exigences of circumstances, which to them were bj- 
 nonymous with necessity, destiny, or Fate, whence the 
 majority of ancient plays are Fate-dramas, Modern 
 dramatists, on the other hand, — and pre-eminently 
 Goethe, — seek their motives chiefly in character, 
 whence most good modern plays are, to a very large 
 extent, character-dramas. This difference accounts, 
 in some measure, for the superior effectiveness of the 
 ancient drama, inasmuch as motives originating in 
 external circumstances are far more easy to represent 
 than those drawn from character. Probahly the 
 highest type of drama is that in which the motives 
 are drawn equally from circumstances (not necessa- 
 rily conceived as Fate) and from character. This bal- 
 ance of motives we find in Shakespeare's best plays, 
 for example, " Hamlet " and " Eomeo and Juliet." In 
 a word, we may say that the prime and fundamental 
 condition of dramatic effect, as such, is perfect mo- 
 tivation. A series of brilliant scenes, however 
 effective otherwise, are not dramatic. In this the 
 drama differs from history, that in the former the 
 events are connected by perfect motivation ; in 
 the latter, merely by time and imperfect, often non- 
 apparent motivation. 
 
 AlthouG:h motivation is the first essential of dra- 
 matic effect, it is not, by itself alone, sufficient to in- 
 sure that effect. Other and secondary conditions are 
 requisite. In the first place, the motives must be of 
 a particular kind, since all motives are not dramatic 
 motives. True dramatic motives are such as an au- 
 
GOETHE AS A PLAYWRIGHT. 193 
 
 dience feel to be human and rational, — such as men 
 like themselves in similar circumstances would act 
 upon. Consequently, all motives that affect only ec- 
 centric or exceptionally good or wicked characters, 
 must be used sparingly, if at all. The same is true of 
 all motives of a miraculous, revolting, or fantastic kind. 
 What is regarded as miraculous, revolting, or fantastic, 
 is not the same in all ages or among all peoples ; for 
 which reason every dramatist must keep very stead- 
 ily in view his own time and public. For example, 
 some things that the Greeks forbade to be represented 
 on the stage as revolting, such as assassination, mur- 
 der, and suicide, we permit, and applaud. The stab- 
 bing of Csesar, the suicide of Brutus, the death of 
 Eomeo and Juliet, of Gretchen, etc., are examples of 
 this. 
 
 In the second place, dramatic motives, in order to 
 be effective, must produce certain results. 
 
 (1) They must produce passion and action, and not 
 merely dialogue, however philosophical, beautiful, or 
 moral it mav be. 
 
 (2) The motivated action must be so arranged and 
 rounded as to arouse a steadily increasing sympathy, 
 expectation, and anxiety — or, as Aristotle puts it, 
 pity and fear — on the part of the audience, and then 
 to satisfy these emotions. 
 
 (3) The ultimate result of the whole action must 
 be to solemnize the mind by revealing to it the work- 
 ings of the human heart and the moral order of the 
 universe, and to send an audience forth refreshed, 
 
 13 
 
194 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 strengthened, and inspired for the duties of life, — 
 in a word, it must result in what Aristotle calls 
 Purification. 
 
 Having thus stated, in general terms, the true ar- 
 tistic effect of the drama, we come next to consider 
 by what technical methods these results are to be 
 obtained. Inasmuch as the first condition of artistic 
 effectiveness in the drama is complete and thorough 
 motivation, our first inquiry must relate to the mode 
 in which this may be reached. It is evident that 
 this will in large measure depend upon the "choice of 
 subject, the fact being that it is much easier to find 
 motives for certain lines of action than for others. 
 Indeed, however this choice may be influenced by 
 fashion or by the intellectual and aesthetic idiosyncra- 
 sies of the author, the subject must always be one 
 capable of being transformed into a dramatic idea, — 
 that unital and initial germ from which the whole 
 drama is developed. There is hardly any point in 
 which the genius of an artist is more apparent, than 
 in this ability to see what subjects are capable of be- 
 ing permeated with the living, causative, formative 
 dramatic idea. 
 
 And this is especially true of the dramatist. The 
 question of what is really dramatic has been much 
 agitated, but one may affirm that dramatic, and more 
 especially tragic subjects, are those containing the 
 elements of some great moral collision, taking place 
 in a sphere of life in which the characters nmst be 
 supposed capable of expressing this collision in speech 
 
GOETHE AS A PLAYWRIGHT. 195 
 
 and action. This collision itself must be of a kind 
 to give ample opportunity for the display of passion 
 and action. This regulation effectively excludes all 
 subjects containing collisions which are fought out 
 within the breast of the individual, or in philosophical 
 and moral discussion with others. Moral collisions 
 that lead to no outward action, but only to mono- 
 logues or conversations, are essentially undramatic. 
 It would follow, of course, that a subject could not 
 be chosen from among a people of a low degree of 
 culture, or a people whose lives are not dramatic. 
 Granting now that the subject is properly chosen, the 
 conditions specified being fulfilled, the question arises 
 how the subject is to be developed so as to produce 
 these dramatic effects, we have mentioned above; 
 viz. (1.) abundant display of action and passion in 
 the character ; (2.) the excitement of a steadily in- 
 creasing sympathy on the part of the audience, and 
 the satisfaction of the same ; (3.) the moral inspira- 
 tion and physical refreshment that come from the 
 clear presentation and solution of moral problems. 
 To exhaust this question is not easy, and, in a brief 
 lecture like this, only the more prominent means for 
 producing effectiveness can even be mentioned. 
 
 In the first place, then, care must be taken to con- 
 centrate interest, and this can be done only by pre- 
 serving the unity of action, which action must not be 
 understood to mean a single event, but a connected se- 
 ries of events, or, as Aristotle says, a praxis. In every 
 drama the action must be strictly one, — undivided. It 
 
196 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 must then revolve about a single character, or a single 
 group of characters, involved in the conception of the 
 subject. What is true of the drama is true of every 
 other art. A picture, for example, must have a sin- 
 gle point of interest, about which everything else is 
 grouped. It follows from this, that those accessory 
 characters and groups which are necessary to the de- 
 velopment of the plot, and as foils to the principal 
 characters, must be subordinated, and not receive 
 any prominence beyond what they derive from their 
 relation to these characters. Any attempt to give 
 them prominence on their own account would only 
 distract attention, scatter interest, dilute sympathy, 
 cause confusion, and diminish effectiveness. 
 
 We must here note that the unity of the actions 
 so essential to the effectiveness of a drama, does not 
 depend solely upon the unity or oneness of the char- 
 acters, or central group. Actions belonging even to a 
 single character do not necessarily form a dramatic 
 unity. A drama is never a biography, nor a series of 
 adventures or episodes. In other words, a mere his- 
 toric or personal connection between events is utterly 
 different from that relation which produces dramatic 
 unity. A dramatic action, therefore, is one which not 
 only has its centre in a single character, but must be 
 a single action in the sense that all its parts are con- 
 nected as cause and effect, and every event must tend 
 to advance or relieve the progress of the action. And 
 not only so, but the action must have a natural begin- 
 ning in a deed or juncture forming the collision of the 
 
GOETHE AS A PLAYWRIGHT. 197 
 
 piece ; and an ending, in which the problem involved 
 in the collision is naturally solved. Naturally solved, 
 I repeat, because there are unnatural solutions, and 
 these are essentially undramatic. A natural solution 
 is one whose elements are found in the action and 
 characters of the piece itself. An unnatural solution 
 is one violently introduced from without, in the 
 shape of miracle, chance, or some catastrophe of 
 nature. Each of these is a Deus ex inachina, or, as 
 the Italians say, a salto^mortalej which is forever 
 interdicted in art as nullifying its true purpose. 
 Other unities have, at certain times, been insisted 
 upon, especially those of time and place ; but these 
 are unessential, and have almost universallv been 
 discarded. 
 
 In the second place, it is not only necessary to con- 
 centrate and sustain interest, but to arouse it properly. 
 And this can be done only by putting the audience 
 in possession of facts sufficient to enable them to un- 
 derstand the nature of the collision involved, and the 
 relation of the different characters to it. This Aris- 
 totle happily calls the heai<;, or tying of the knot. 
 This must be done in the opening scenes of a play, 
 which in a certain sense must always be introductory. 
 Any attempt to put the audience in possession of the 
 necessary facts by means of a prologue, — though 
 favored and practised by some dramatists, such as 
 Euripides, Seneca, and Alfieri, — is inartistic, and be- 
 speaks incapacity on the part of the dramatist. A 
 prologue hardly becomes more artistic even when it 
 
198 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 takes the form of a mere explanatory dialogue, in 
 no way advancing the action of the play. The open- 
 ing of a piece which puts the audience in possession 
 of the necessary facts will, by a good artist, be so 
 arranged as to be brief, and a part of the action of the 
 play, for only in this way can it arouse the highest 
 interest. 
 
 In the third place, the interest, once aroused, must 
 be steadily sustained ; which means, not that it must 
 be kept uniformly at the same degree of intensitj^, 
 but that it must gradually increase until it reaches 
 its climax and satisfaction in the solution of the 
 piece. In a word, we may say that the interest 
 must be compound interest. At the same time, care 
 must be taken to retard the interest until the climax 
 can be fairly reached. This is perhaps the most dif- 
 ficult task imposed upon tlie playwright, inasmuch 
 as it involves a profound knowledge of psychology 
 and an immense power of grading and directing all 
 the parts of his play to a single end. With this in 
 view he must carefully avoid introducing anything, 
 however tempting, not bearing directly upon the 
 action of the play, and also the placing of less inter- 
 esting scenes after more interesting ones ; or in any 
 way introducing mere explanatory matter without 
 action. For this reason, long messages interrupting 
 the action of the play, and similar things, should be 
 avoided. A play in which scenes can be omitted 
 or transposed, without affecting the interest of the 
 piece, is by that fact alone a poor play, and argues an 
 
GOETHE AS A PLAYWRIGHT. 199 
 
 inferior playwright. Perhaps the worst of all possible 
 plays is one consisting of a series of scenes in which 
 the action does not advance, or the characters are not 
 brought into any different relation to each other at 
 the end from that which tliey occupied at the begin- 
 ning. Such plays are the "Hecuba" of Euripides, 
 and the " Brunhilde," written some years ago for the 
 actress Janauschek. 
 
 In the fourth place, the interest, having been 
 aroused and sustained throughout the play, must in 
 the end secure complete satisfaction. Such satis- 
 faction we are wont to call poetic justice. By this 
 we mean that every one of the principal characters 
 must at the conclusion of the piece meet with the just 
 reward of his deeds ; thus impressing that most pro- 
 found of all moral truths, often so dimly visible in 
 our actual lives, namely, that there is an inexorable 
 moral law ruling in the world, and giving to each man 
 the exact reward of his deeds. Only in this way can 
 a play produce that exhilaration and moral inspira- 
 tion which are the ultimate tests of the value of a 
 drama. But although a play, like every true work 
 of art, ought to produce a moral effect, the artist's 
 intention to produce this effect should never be appar- 
 ent. In other words, a drama ought not, either in 
 whole or in part, to be a sermon or moral lecture. 
 
 The moral effect, on the contrary, ought to be ap- 
 parent in the very construction and action of the 
 play, and to be deduced therefrom by a spontaneous 
 action under the influence of emotion on the part of 
 
200 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 the audience. We ought no more to look for a ser- 
 mon in a play, than we do in the Venus of Melos or 
 the Hermes of Praxiteles. True works of art, like 
 lofty characters, exercise their influence, not through 
 what they do or say, but through what they are. As 
 Schiller puts it, " There is nobility even in the moral 
 world. Common natures pay with what they do, — 
 noble natures with what they are." 
 
 Such then are some of the principal and essential 
 conditions of dramatic effectiveness : (1) choice of sub- 
 ject, noble and capable of being developed and mo- 
 tivated into scenes of action and passion, — in other 
 words, into a dramatic unity ; (2) absolute unity and 
 probability of action ; (3) interest artistically enlisted, 
 sustained, and satisfied, at last, by poetic justice. In 
 order to deal with Goethe as upright judges, and not 
 arbitrarily as tyrants, we have now only to apply 
 the principles laid down, in all their rigor, to his dra- 
 matic productions, — or, at least, to such of them as 
 may be supposed in any way to determine his position 
 as a playwright. 
 
 In doing so, we shall deal mainly with those plays 
 which may be regarded as marking stages in his 
 dramatic development, — " Gotz von Berlichingen," 
 " Egmont," " Torquato Tasso," " Iphigenie," and 
 " Faust." Although Goethe had previously written 
 some smaller pieces for special occasions, his career 
 as a serious playwright begins with " Gotz von Ber- 
 lichingen." This play, of which the first draft was 
 written in six weeks, in the year 1771, was con- 
 
GOETHE AS A PLAYWRIGHT. 201 
 
 ceived under the influence of a powerful enthusiasm 
 due to the reading of Shakespeare. Witli respect to 
 the effect of this first acquaintance with the work of 
 the English dramatist, Goethe himself says, speaking- 
 through the lips of Wilhelm Meister : — 
 
 " I cannot recollect that any book, any man, any inci- 
 dent of my life, has produced such effects on me 
 
 They seem as if they were performances of some celestial 
 Genius, descending among men to make them, by the 
 mildest instructions, acquainted with themselves. They 
 are no fictions ! you would think, while reading them, 
 you stood before the unclosed awful books of Fate, while 
 the whirlwind of most impassioned life was howhng 
 through the leaves, and tossing them fiercely to and fro. 
 The strength and tenderness, the power and peacefulness 
 of this man, have so astonished and transported me, that 
 I long vehemently for the time when I shall have it in 
 my power to read further." 
 
 It was in this frame of mind that Goethe wrote 
 " Gotz," drawing his theme from the autobiography 
 of the old national hero of the Iron Hand, a theme 
 capable of being treated in the manner of Shake- 
 speare. He wrote under the influence of an imita- 
 tive enthusiasm, and not in accordance with any 
 theory of dramatic art. Indeed, at that time he had 
 not arrived at any such theory. This fact accounts 
 in great measure for the merits and the defects of the 
 work. Tlie defects are very great ; but it has real 
 merits, and, indeed, from a purely dramatic point 
 of view, this piece, though the earliest, is unques- 
 
202 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 tionably the most popular and effective of Goethe's 
 plays. 
 
 Nor is this fact difiiciilt to explain. Shakespeare's 
 influence upon Goethe had been of a most healthy 
 and stimulating kind. It had roused the spontaneity 
 of his genius, which was naturally great, and supplied 
 him with admirable models, without subjecting him 
 to any esthetic rules or theories. And this last neg- 
 ative advantage was perhaps as valuable as the other 
 two positive ones. For so strong in all Germans is 
 the tendency to work according to rules addressed 
 to the understanding, — and so fatal is this tendeucy 
 to all German artists, even those of high genius, — 
 that Goethe could hardly have failed to be injured 
 in his work by any such restrictions. 
 
 This indeed, we shall see, actually took place with 
 much damage to Goethe's dramatic work, after he 
 became interested in dramatic theory. Not only will 
 theory never make an artist, but it may even damage 
 one, especially if he be a German. 
 
 " Gotz von Berlichingen," in spite of its popularity 
 and its extraordinary value in the history of German 
 literature, will not stand the test of vigorous dra- 
 matic criticism. The subject, indeed, is well chosen, 
 being one in which the unity of action might easily 
 have been preserved, strict motivation introduced, 
 and abundant opportunities offered for scenes of 
 action and passion. 
 
 But unfortunately Goethe was unable to permeate 
 this subject with a dramatic idea, and hence the 
 
GOETHE AS A PLAYWRIGHT. 203 
 
 work remains a series of interesting but disconnected 
 scenes, which do not form in any sense a dramatic 
 unity. The interest is scattered and broken into 
 fragments, with neither proper gradation, climax, nor 
 satisfactory solution. Much crude historical matter, 
 connected, as historical matter usually is, by mere 
 chronological succession, instead of dramatic motiva- 
 tion, remains to burden the play. The result is, that 
 the catastrophe does not follow necessarily from the 
 conditions of the piece, and leaves the demands of 
 poetic justice unsatisfied. Gotz, it is true, is a tragic 
 character, and this for two reasons. The former of 
 these is his thoughtless, incautious, and fond con- 
 fidence in Weislingen, a man who had abundantly 
 proved himself fit for a place in the lowest circle of 
 Dante's Inferno. The latter was his failure to see 
 that his efforts were directed against the natural ad- 
 vance of civilization, and in favor of an obsolete 
 feudalism. At the same time, these defects are not 
 sufficient to reconcile us to the hero's dying as a 
 coward might, with a feeling that his whole heroic 
 life had been worse than vain. This inartistic end- 
 ing is the more to be regretted, inasmuch as it 
 might easily have been avoided. The fault is due in 
 part to Goethe's following too closely the facts of 
 history, in defiance of the aesthetic law which de- 
 mands poetic justice ; that is, a recognition of a man's 
 virtues as well as of his defects. But it was due 
 perhaps even more to the circumstance, that, when 
 Gotz was written, the author was in revolt against 
 
204 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 the German political system, just as Schiller was in 
 revolt against the social system when he wrote " The 
 Eobbers," and wished to excite popular indignation 
 against that system by making Gotz appear as a 
 martyr to it. This purpose to excite indignation 
 must be set down as inartistic, as all tendentious 
 purpose in art is. 
 
 In spite of all these great defects, the play has a 
 certain amount of confused effectiveness, both in the 
 action, and in the characters. Notwithstanding 
 Gotz's lamentable ending, he and his little group of 
 associates remain inspiring characters ; and this is so 
 true, that the play has always, perhaps more than any 
 other of Goethe's works, been a favorite upon the 
 stage. This is certainly only in a small degree due 
 to its artistic merits, since the interest which it ex- 
 cites is not, strictly speaking, a dramatic interest ; 
 nevertheless, the general tone of the play is so healthy, 
 and its action so full of varied life, that the ultimate 
 effect is in a large degree inspiring and exhilarating. 
 As early as 1799, the drama of " Gotz von Berlich- 
 ingen" was thought worthy of a translation into 
 English by so great an artist as Sir Walter Scott. 
 It ought perhaps to be remarked that Goethe wrote 
 three, if not four, editions of " Gotz," and that only 
 the third was really intended for the stage. 
 
 " Gotz von Berlichingen " can claim two great mer- 
 its. It was the first truly national German play, and 
 it was also the play in which was first fully realized 
 what Lessing and others had so earnestly striven for 
 
GOETHE AS A PLAYWRIGHT. 205 
 
 without completely achieving, — a breach with tradi- 
 tional rules, and the complete liberation of the German 
 stage from the artificial and conventional drama of 
 France, which had so baneful an influence on the lit- 
 erature and morals of Germany. The work has thus 
 the merit of marking a most important epoch in 
 German literature. 
 
 There must have been considerable outcry on the 
 part of the critics against this departure from dramatic 
 rules and precepts,^ and this must have come, in part 
 at least, from critics whom Goethe felt bound to re- 
 spect ; for we find him writing to his friend Kestner : 
 "I am now engaged upon a drama for the boards, 
 in order that the fellows may see that, if I please, I 
 can observe rules and portray morality and sentimen- 
 tality." To what drama Goethe here refers we can- 
 not say with certainty. It may have been " Faust," 
 the idea of which was fermenting in his mind at this 
 time. Be this as it may, the first draft of " Faust " 
 which, in the main, was written shortly after " Gotz," 
 though not published till many years later (1790), 
 corresponds accurately with Goethe's description, inas- 
 much as it follows dramatic rules perhaps more than 
 his other dramas, and deals with morality and senti- 
 mentality. And although "Faust," as a completed 
 work, did not appear till sixty years later, we may 
 here insert what has to be said concerning its dra- 
 matic properties. Paradoxical as it may seem, 
 "Faust" is a drama to which the standard of dra- 
 1 See the scoff of Frederic the Great, cited on page 158. 
 
206 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 matic criticism should not be applied, if we do not 
 wish to make it appear a failure, as, indeed, Vischer 
 and other eminent critics have shown it to be. In- 
 deed, as a whole, it does not belong to the class of 
 acting plays, but to that of literary and philosophical 
 dramas. The dramatic idea in itself, though well and 
 profoundly chosen, is far too vast for a single drama, 
 and almost even for a trilogy. Moreover, many of 
 the scenes are almost incapable of being presented 
 on the stage, such as the two Walpurgisndchte and 
 the Prologues. It is true that the whole is now an- 
 nually played at "Weimar, but under circumstances 
 altogether exceptional, and such as are hardly possi- 
 ble on any ordinary stage. Moreover, the dramatic 
 unity is frequently violated, the scenes being often 
 bound together, not by dramatic motivation, but by 
 the personal identity of Faust. In fact, it is largely 
 a series of episodes in the life of an individual, Faust ; 
 and according to Aristotle, the episodic drama is the 
 worst of all. The only part that lies within the 
 sphere of strictly dramatic criticism is the original 
 fragment, published in 1790, founded on popular le- 
 gend and embodying Faust's relation to Gretchen. 
 This part will stand the severest dramatic criticism. 
 The subject is well chosen, and capable of being thor- 
 oughly permeated by the dramatic idea. It also 
 affords excellent motives for scenes of action and pas- 
 sion. It rises naturally to a climax, and descends as 
 naturally to the catastrophe, which satisfies all the 
 claims of poetic justice. The interest is sustained 
 
GOETHE AS A PLAYWRIGHT. 207 
 
 throughout, and the final effect is, in the highest de- 
 gree, solemnizing and purifying. It cannot be other- 
 wise than a matter of regret that Goethe did not 
 complete his " Faust " in accordance with his original 
 conception ; for the additions which, after his meta- 
 physical and critical studies, he made even to the 
 first part, not to speak of the second, essentially in- 
 jured the unity of the action, and considerably im- 
 paired its effectiveness for the stage. 
 
 The other three plays of Goethe which we purpose 
 to criticise as typical productions are "Egmont," 
 " Iphigenie," and " Tasso." These dramas were writ- 
 ten nearly at the same time, — between 1777 and 
 1789, when Goethe was in the full possession of his 
 powers. They may therefore be considered his high- 
 est dramatic efforts. First came " Egmont," 1777 to 
 1785. The subject is an event in the rebellion of 
 the Netherlands against Spanish domination, and 
 therefore may be considered a Tiaiional subject. In- 
 deed, it is said that the play was intended as a com- 
 panion to " Gotz." Here, for the first time, we see 
 the baneful effects of Goethe's attempt to apply dra- 
 matic rules in a comprehensive way, and the result 
 as a whole is a mechanical production, devoid of 
 dramatic unity. 
 
 This criticism may appear unjust, especially as the 
 play has held the stage for so many years, and pos- 
 sesses a certain effectiveness. But, after all, this ef- 
 fectiveness is not truly dramatic, being due, in great 
 part, to a few graceful love scenes scattered through 
 
208 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 it, and in some degree also to a certain historic and 
 political interest, which has no artistic bearing. The 
 chief effectiveness is derived, not from the dramatic 
 idea, which is political, but from a series of domestic 
 scenes utterly foreign to his idea. For the funda- 
 mental idea, or collision, is this : A nobleman finds 
 himself placed between duty to his conquered and 
 rebelling countrymen, and fealty to their conqueror, 
 under whom he has accepted service. Being of a 
 generous, brave, tender, reckless, and unrefiective 
 character, fond of pleasure and popularity, he coun- 
 tenances his countrymen in their seditious practices, 
 thereby giving offence to the conquerors, from whom, 
 nevertheless, he has not sufficient patriotism or fore- 
 sight, as Orange had, to disconnect himself 
 
 This tragic weakness brings about his destruction. 
 To such a political idea, the domestic scenes between 
 Egmont and Clarchen are plainly alien, and, as a 
 matter of fact, they have no bearing upon the action 
 of the play, and in no way tend to relieve or develop 
 it. Indeed, the only case when she in any way en- 
 ters into the main action of the drama is after the 
 catastrophe is certain, when her ghost appears as a 
 Deics ex macJmia in the garb of Freedom, from a 
 supernatural M'orld, whose introduction is not justi- 
 fied by the plan of the play. It is a rule of dramatic 
 art, that the miraculous and supernatural should not 
 be introduced into a play unless they have been sug- 
 gested as credible agents early in the plot, as they are 
 in the case of the witches in " Macbeth," the ghost 
 
GOETHE AS A PLAYWRIGHT. 209 
 
 iu "Hamlet," and others. Indeed, the introduction 
 of Cliirchen in the winding up of " Egmont " is 
 inartistic, being unmotivated, and, as Schiller said, 
 operatic. 
 
 Beside the weakness of the termination, the play 
 has other glaring defects. Many of the scenes are too 
 prolix, and so loosely connected that they not only 
 could be, but actually are, transposed when the play 
 is represented ; which shows that the interest is not 
 properly graded. A number of the scenes consist of 
 mere padding of talk : indeed, Goethe might, with- 
 out impropriety, have called those scenes, in which 
 the citizens so fortuitously meet to gossip, the 
 choric part, and assigned to his play a chorus of 
 ISTetherlanders. There is no binding and loosing in 
 the play, and of course no Peripeteia. On the whole, 
 then, in spite of its popularity, from the standard of 
 just dramatic criticism the play must be regarded as 
 a failure. 
 
 In passing from " Egmont " to " Iphigenie," we 
 suddenly enter a new world. " Iphigenie " is almost 
 in every respect a complete contrast to the play we 
 have just considered. Here Goethe was dealing with 
 a subject which had already been dramatized by 
 two great playwrights, Euripides and Eacine. 
 
 The main incidents of the play, therefore, were 
 already given in the title, " Iphigenie in Tauris," and 
 a new motivation alone remained to be supplied. 
 This, it must be admitted, Goethe has accomplished 
 with admirable taste and success. In fact, the mo- 
 
 li 
 
210 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 tivation is so entirely bis own, that he has given us 
 one of the best of character-dramas, instead of a fate- 
 drama. The dramatic unity is preserved through- 
 out : the tying and untying of the knot, although 
 classically simple, are managed in a masterly way. 
 Strangely enough, although the characters are in 
 large measure foils to each other, they are all noble 
 and dignified. The character of Iphigenie, combin- 
 ing princess and priestess, is perhaps the purest 
 and stateliest that Goethe or any dramatist ever con- 
 ceived. One lingers before it with ever-increasing 
 delight, as he does before the Venus of Melos, or 
 the Immaculate Conception of Murillo. One espe- 
 cial feature of the "Iphigenie" is the limpid flow 
 of its stately language, which has, perhaps, never 
 been excelled. To use the words of Keats, it reads 
 ^ like the large utterance of the early gods. 
 ^-^^j^\r^ f Though entirely modern and un-Greek in tone and 
 \^ sentiment, in form it is as perfect and self-contained 
 as the Parthenon of Iktinos ; and, like the Parthenon, 
 its effect is calculated for an audience of highly de- 
 veloped taste. The play contains little external action 
 or violent expression of passion to attract a popular 
 audience. Its strength lies mainly in its psychologi- 
 cal truthfulness, which in the hands of highly culti- 
 vated actors can be made very impressive. Although 
 exception might be taken to a few features of the 
 play, such as the Euripidean prologue, and the some- 
 what too epigrammatic and philosophical character 
 of the dialogue, " Iphigenie " must be regarded as the 
 
GOETHE AS A PLAYWRIGHT. 211 
 
 most finished of Goetlie's dramatic efforts ; and this 
 is clearly shown by its ultimate effect, which leaves 
 the mind in the attitude of solemnity, purity, and 
 lofty courage. 
 
 From " Iphigenie " we pass to the last of Goethe's 
 typical plays, " Torquato Tasso," finished in 1789. 
 In the choice and development of this subject, Goethe 
 had to depend upon his own resources ; and, when 
 we compare the play with " Iphigenie," we see at 
 once how much he owed in the latter to his Greek 
 predecessor, especially in the matter of incident. 
 " Tasso " is almost purely a character-drama, and is 
 well motivated from beginning to end. Nevertheless, 
 the result in the two cases is very different. What in 
 " Iphigenie " was pure, living classical stateliness, has 
 here become rigidity, coldness, formality. Instead 
 of a Parthenon of lucent Pentelic marble, we now 
 enter the ice palace of a Prussian autocrat. The car- 
 dinal defects of this play are largely due to a false 
 choice of subject, which does not lend itself to dra- 
 matic development. An almost sure test of a good 
 play is that its dramatic idea, or collision, can be fully 
 stated in a few words. " Macbeth," " Hamlet," 
 " Iphigenie," may be cited as examples of this. 
 
 In " Tasso," on the contrary, it is extremely diffi- 
 cult to state, even in a prolix way, the dramatic idea. 
 The truth is, Goethe took an incident from the life 
 of an historic character, and was unable to lift it out 
 of its historic wording into the refinement of a living 
 dramatic idea. A plebeian poet of passionate tern- 
 
212 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 perament finds patronage and high favor at the court 
 of a powerful prince. In the moment of his highest 
 triumph, he is brought face to face with another fa- 
 vorite of the court, — a nobleman of practical and 
 diplomatic turn of mind. In the conflict which 
 follows between the two natures, the one-sidedness 
 of each is brought out. A dispute arises, which has 
 to be settled by the prince according to a purely 
 conventional and unjust standard; bringing disgrace 
 upon the poet, who was really blameless, and acquit- 
 ting the culpable nobleman. Partly under the in- 
 fluence of the prince, the nobleman is induced to 
 admit his wrong, and sue for reconciliation, which he 
 ultimately effects, and draws from the poet an enthu- 
 siastic acknowledgment of his superiority. This story, 
 though long, does not really state the entire plot of 
 the play, for it does not include the very important 
 roles played by the two heroines. But this fact only 
 bears out the statement that the idea is undramatic. 
 And indeed these rdles are almost unrelated to the 
 main collision, — so much so that at the end the rela- 
 tion between Tasso and the Princess is left entirely 
 unsolved. The same inferior and fragmentary art 
 to which we called attention in " Egmont " reappears 
 here. The effectiveness of the play when represented 
 is due in large measure to a few delicately constructed 
 and tender love scenes, which have no real relation to 
 the dramatic idea. In the arts of the playwriglit and 
 the novelist, love scenes are too frequently the refuge 
 of the destitute. 
 
GOETHE AS A PLAYWRIGHT. 213 
 
 They are the refuge of the destitute, because they 
 are sure to interest a large public, whatever the char- 
 acter of the work may be in which they appear. In 
 introducing such scenes Goethe shows that he was a 
 true German himself, and knew the character of his 
 countrymen. In a similar manner, a French painter 
 who cannot attract attention by legitimate means 
 will frequently resort to the introduction of nude 
 figures, sure that under any circumstances this will 
 appeal to something in his countrymen, if not to 
 their artistic sense. To sum up the dramatic charac- 
 teristics of the play, we must say that, although con- 
 forming in many ways to the rules of art, as a 
 drama it is a distinct failure, and was so consid- 
 ered even by Goethe's contemporaries ; and at the 
 present day the play has almost disappeared from 
 the stage. 
 
 This ends our consideration of the acknowledged 
 typical dramas of Goethe. If time permitted, other 
 minor dramas might have been considered with 
 interest, but the general result would not thereby be 
 materially affected. What, then, we may ask, is that 
 result ? Is it such as to justify us in affirming that 
 Goethe was a great playwright ? Without detracting 
 from Goethe's greatness in other directions, and in- 
 deed heartily acknowledging it, we must, in accord- 
 ance with the verdict of rational criticism, answer 
 the question in the negative. And in order to jus- 
 tify this answer, we have only to generalize what we 
 have already stated in particular. Goethe's short- 
 
214 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 comings as a playwright may be said to be four in 
 number : — 
 
 1. A fundamental lack of the dramatic sense, — 
 which in great measure prevented him from recogniz- 
 ing what subjects were capable of being transformed 
 into dramatic ideas, and so becoming dramatically 
 effective. 
 
 2. A fundamental lack of constructive power, — 
 which prevented him from producing works distin- 
 guished by organic unity ; thus leaving his dramas, 
 either a series of almost disconnected scenes, like 
 " Gotz " and " Egmont," with an operatic termination 
 like the latter, or united only by an abstract notion, 
 not arising out of the dramatic idea, but essential to 
 it, as in " Tasso " and in " Faust." 
 
 3. The lack of passionate expression and vigorous 
 action, leading him to dwell upon descriptions of 
 characters and scenes, rather than upon living ac- 
 tions and stirring events. 
 
 4. His inability to deal with the legitimate rules 
 of dramatic art, — at one time leading him to set 
 them aside altogether, at another time allowing him 
 to be completely overmastered by them. 
 
 Of these cardinal defects some may be attrib- 
 uted to Goethe's nationality, wliile one, at least, 
 namely, the lack of constructive power, must be 
 ascribed to Goethe himself. As compared with the 
 other leading nations of Europe, the Germans may 
 be said to be an uudramatic people, deficient in 
 passionate expression, overflowing energy, and above 
 
GOETHE AS A PLAYWRIGHT. 215 
 
 all in the keen dramatic sense of the ludicrous and 
 incongruous, — which is the salt of active life and 
 which is incompatible with their phlegmatic tempera- 
 ment and extreme sentimentality. That these na- 
 tional drawbacks were not necessarily fatal to a great 
 dramatic genius, when relieved by a strong con- 
 structive ability, was shown in the case of Schiller, 
 and in a lower degree by Lessing and Iffland ; all of 
 whom, though inferior to Goethe in other respects, 
 are superior to him as playwrights. Goethe's failure 
 as a playwright, therefore, was due in large measure 
 to his lack of constructive power, — that is, of the 
 ability to hold many things together and reduce 
 them to a living organism permeated by a dramatic 
 current. This defect appears not only in Goethe's 
 dramatic books, but also in his works, — notably in 
 " Meister," — and may account for his failure in the 
 plastic and graphic arts. As a poet Goethe was 
 essentially epic and lyric, but not dramatic. Ger- 
 many owes him her best modern epic, namely, 
 " Hermann and Dorothea," and a large number of the 
 best lyrics in the language. And, in confirmation 
 of this, it is a curious fact that Goethe's most 
 perfect drama, " Iphigenie," is, like the Greek plays 
 which he imitated, a combination of epic and lyric 
 elements. 
 
 If we were to look into the facts and habits of 
 Goethe's life for an explanation of his failure as a 
 playwright, we might perhaps find it in three things : 
 (1) his tendency to allow a long interval to elapse 
 
216 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 between his first conception of a piece and its execu- 
 tion and completion, his views respecting life and 
 art changing materially in the mean while ; (2) his 
 exceptional good fortune, which left him untouched 
 by many forms of human experience; (3) his ever- 
 increasing withdrawal from the world of human 
 strife and suffering, which is pre-eminently the dra- 
 matic world. The first of these facts accounts for 
 much that is fragmentary and inorganic in " Faust," 
 while the second furnishes a sufficient reason for 
 Goethe's inferiority as a playwright to the poor, 
 much-tried Schiller, who during the most of his brief 
 life was deep in the world's hardships and sufferings. 
 It remains forever true, that " we learn in suffering 
 what we teach in song." 
 
 But if, in a technical sense, we cannot speak highly 
 of Goethe as a playwright, we must not fail to ac- 
 knowledge his other great merits in connection with 
 the drama, and his abundant efforts to raise it from 
 coarseness, conventionality, and thraldom to French 
 ideas, and to make it an integral part of the national 
 literature of Germany. 
 
 By his long-continued personal efforts in connec- 
 tion with the stage at Weimar, he raised the standard 
 of acting in Germany, and by his admirable and 
 sympathetic criticisms he elevated the standard of 
 dramatic taste ; and last, but not least, by introducing 
 Shakespeare to the notice of his countrymen, he 
 gave a lasting impulse for good to German literary 
 effort and life. 
 
GOETHE AS A PLAYWRIGHT. 217 
 
 Besides all these great merits, his failure as a play- 
 wright — insist upon it as we may and as we have a 
 right to do — seems but a spot on the face of the 
 sun, which we mention oftener in order to excuse 
 something in ourselves, than to detract from the 
 life-giving fulness of that luminary. 
 
218 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 VIII. 
 DAS EWIG-WEIBLICHE. 
 
 By Mrs. E. D. CHENEY. 
 
 Alles Vergangliche 
 1st niir ein Gleiclmiss ; 
 Das Unzulangliche 
 Hier wird's Ereigniss ; 
 Das Unbeschreibliche 
 Hier ist es gethan, 
 Das Ewig-Weibliche 
 Zielit uus hinan.i 
 
 Faust, dose of the Second Part. . 
 
 These words are the ripened fruit of the whole 
 study, thought, love, and life of the greatest poet and 
 
 1 Translations: — 
 
 All that is changeable The Indescribable 
 
 Is but a fable : Here it is done, 
 
 Lo, the intangible The Ever Womanly 
 
 Reached here and stable ! Beckons us on. 
 More than we humanly 
 
 Dreamed, here is done, 
 
 "While the Aye Womanly All things transitory 
 
 Wafteth us on. But as symbols are sent ; 
 
 J. S. DwiGHT. Earth's insufficiency 
 
 Here grows to event. 
 The Indescribable 
 
 All that doth pass away Here it is done, — 
 
 Is but a fable ; The Womau-Soul leadeth us 
 
 All that eludes is made Upward and on ! 
 
 Here true and stable. Bayabd Taylob. 
 
DAS EWIG-WEIBLICHE. 219 
 
 thinker of our century; of one who did not alone 
 receive and repeat traditions of the past, — deeply as 
 he studied their meaning, — but who fully accepted 
 the scientific method of investigation, and dared to 
 confront every question that suggested itself to his 
 mind. They are not the expression of youthful fancy, 
 nor the impulse of early passion. AVe may almost 
 say they are the last important utterance of his mind, 
 the climax of all his thought, all his experience. 
 They are the final summing up in his thought of 
 human life. Sin is forgiven, the meaning of this 
 world's experience as symbol of eternity is declared, 
 all that the human heart has longed for is promised, 
 and the whole closes with the words that seem to 
 include everything, — 
 
 " Das Ewig-Weibliche 
 Zielit uns hinan." 
 
 What a promise of continued life and fresh creation 
 is there in these words ! what aboundincf love, what 
 infinite hope ! They are the closing words of the 
 great drama of " Faust." 
 
 Faust was the burden of Goethe's life, — a task 
 long delayed, but never relinquished ; and in the 
 final Chorus into which the whole grand symphony is 
 resolved, as the simple Hymn of Joy concludes Beet- 
 hoven's glorious Ninth, occurs a noble fugue, and the 
 same thought is repeated in differing form, as Faust 
 is released from his slavery to evil and welcomed into 
 new life. As in the First Part of " Faust" the Chorus 
 of Angels and of Women first awaken human love and 
 
220 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 sympathy, so in the Second they again minister to 
 him ; and it is finally the same Margaret who asks to 
 teach the soul escaping from sense and s,m} and it is 
 the Mater Gloriosa who points out the path : 
 
 ' ' Komm hebe dich zu hohren Spharen ! 
 Wenn er dich ahnet, folgt er nacli." ^ 
 
 And finally the Chorus Mysticus sums up the mean- 
 ing of the drama in the pregnant lines : 
 
 "Alles Vergangliche, 
 1st nur ein Gleicliniss ; 
 Das Unzulaiigliche 
 Hier wird's Ereigniss ; 
 Das Unbeschreibliche 
 Hier ist es getlian, 
 Das Ewig-Weibliche 
 Zieht uns liinan." 
 
 Let us pause to note that Goethe gives to his ex- 
 pression in this last verse the abstract form ; he uses 
 the neuter article and noun, — Das Ewig- Weibliche. 
 It is not the masculine or feminine personified. The 
 whole drama has been drawing out the most abstract 
 ideas into expression in its varied and motley groups, 
 and in the previous verse. Doctor Marianus has 
 raised the feminine personality to its very utmost 
 expression, — Jungfrau (maiden), Mutter (mother), 
 Konigin (queen), Gottin (goddess). But the mystic 
 
 1 Vouchsafe to me that I instruct him : 
 Still dazzles him the Day's new glare. 
 
 2 Rise thou; to higher spheres conduct him, 
 Who, feeling thee, shall follow there. 
 
DAS EWIG-WEIBLICHE. 221 
 
 Chorus goes a step further, and carries the thought 
 out of personalities again into the supreme abstract 
 idea of womanhood. This seems intentional on the 
 poet's part. Faust has learned at last the meaning 
 of mortal life, the value of human relations, but this 
 is not the end. AVhat has glorified and blessed it all 
 becomes now immortal and infinite : it is no single 
 loved one, but the Eternally Womanly which is hence- 
 forth to lead him upward and on. 
 
 We are tempted to ask. Did Goethe know what a 
 great sentence he had penned ? Did he mean all 
 that can be extracted from this line ? Every great 
 poetic word is a flower which folds up in itself and 
 brings to ripeness precious seed innumerable, and 
 capable of producing even fairer flowers and richer 
 fruit, and this was a flower of genius, full of infinite, 
 inexhaustible meaning. Goethe himself says of the 
 Second Part of Faust: "If it contains many prob- 
 lems, (inasmuch as, like the history of man, the last- 
 solved problem ever produces a new one to solve,) it 
 will nevertheless please those who understand by a 
 gesture, a wink, a slight indication. They will find 
 in it more than I could give." 
 
 Doubtless this line sounded for years in Goethe's 
 soul as a prophecy and inspiration, not as a rigid for- 
 mula ; but that he spoke it with full sense of its deep 
 meaning and truth is plain from the place which he 
 has given it, and the relation it bears to all his 
 thought. It is not an isolated statement. It is not 
 the dramatic utterance of an individual mind, it is the 
 
222 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 word of the mystic chorus which sums up the whole 
 drama of life, Goethe might have used the more gen- 
 eral term ; he might have sung the Divine Humanity 
 which is expressed in Christian thought. Why does 
 he find his true expression in " Das Ewig-Weibliche " ? 
 Why does he use this word, which implies difference 
 of sex, and the eternally directing function of one 
 aspect of the eternal thought, instead of employing a 
 phrase that would express the whole ? 
 
 Goethe's habitual thought was as far as possible 
 from any Indian idea of reabsorption in Divinity and 
 the loss of personality. He recognized that when a 
 life was achieved, it became a living force,^ although 
 he questioned whether every apparent human life ac- 
 complished this purpose.- It is not, therefore, from 
 any thought of the extinction of personality as the 
 final consummation of life is approached, that Goethe 
 uses this abstract term, but to express the essential 
 nature of the power which he thus invokes. It is 
 
 1 In a letter to Zelter, Goethe says : •' Let us continue our work 
 until one of us, before or after the other, returns to ether at the 
 summons of the World Spirit ! Then may the Eternal not refuse to 
 us new activities, analoECOus to those wherein we have been tested! 
 If He shall also add memory and a continued sense of the Right 
 and the Good, in his fatherly kindness, we shall then surely all the 
 sooner take hold of the wheels which drive the cosmic machin- 
 ery." — Bayard Taylor's notes, p. 532. 
 
 2 He said to Eckermann : "I do not doubt our permanent ex- 
 istence, for Nature cannot do without the entelechie. But we are 
 not all immortal in the same fashion, and in order to manifest one's 
 self in the future life as a great entelechie one must also become 
 one." — Taylor, p. 516. 
 
DAS EWIG-WEIBLICHE. 223 
 
 not the feminine in its manifestation, but in its origi- 
 nal character. 
 
 In our effort to develop the meaning of this line, 
 let us trace out, so far as brief limits will allow, 
 Goethe's thought of Woman. In many an old mytho- 
 logic story, Woman is the tempter, the embodiment 
 of the material side of life, — that which prevents the 
 soul from finding its true relation to the Divine. Can 
 it be that this is the reversal of the truth ? that it is 
 by the influence of the womanly that man alone can 
 be saved from being cut off from the Eternal, the 
 Universal, the Divine, — from the only damnation 
 possible, the breaking of the bond which binds all 
 together ? The light in which Woman is regarded is 
 always significant of the philosophy and character of 
 a people, and whether she is revered and honored as | 
 helper and sanctifier, or courted as a pleasure, or de- ' 
 spised as an inferior, shows the quality of the soul. 
 To man's feeling for Woman might well be applied 
 Wordsworth's thoughtful lines: 
 
 " Who feels contempt for any living thing 
 Has faculties which he has never used, 
 And thought with him is in its infancy." 
 
 I find nowhere in Goethe's writings an expression 
 of contempt for Woman as such. If there are any 
 seeming exceptions, they are simply dramatic utter- 
 ances, appropriate to the coarse or frivolous persons 
 who utter them. But he does not shrink from as thor- 
 ough analysis and as realistic treatment of women as 
 of every other subject. He depicts women as he has 
 
224 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 seen and known tliera, studying them in all classes 
 and conditions. We find the holy Saint, whose life 
 is in rapt communion with God, — Mignon, who has 
 wandered from some far-off land, an unbidden guest, 
 and finds herself lost in this strange world, where 
 even love fails lier as a guide, — the stately Iphigenie, 
 the practical Theresa, the commonplace Frau Melina, 
 the unimpassioned Charlotte, — Lotte, the good sister, 
 — the flippant Phillina, and Margaret, the child of 
 Nature, — all are women, and he recognizes them as 
 souls following out the law of their own natures, and 
 influencing those with whom they are connected by 
 force of character and will. They are not women 
 alone, they are living wholes. He always recognizes 
 the value of Woman's own life in relation with, but 
 not simply as supplementary to, that of man. When 
 he glorifies the household, it is not merely as a place 
 for man to rest from past labors, and fit himself for 
 new ones, but it is as the kingdom of the most pre- 
 cious life, to which all other service should be subor- 
 dinate ; — to rule here is to rule at the centre. That 
 a woman's life should be fully wrought out from her 
 own centre of being, is just as important as that a 
 man's should be, — as is shown in Theresa, in Natalia, 
 and in the whole tenor of his thought. 
 
 How earnestly he sought to understand Woman's 
 life from her own stand-point, and not as men look 
 at it, is shown by his interest in " The Confessions of 
 a Fair Saint," which is introduced, seemingly some- 
 what irrelevantly, into his " Wilhelm Meister," though 
 
DAS EWIG-WEIBLICHE. 225 
 
 she is. found to have deeply influenced the other char- 
 acters. It is a genuine experience of a woman's soul, 
 of which a mystical religious feeling has taken posses- 
 sion, without driving out the natural thoughts and 
 feelings of her sex. As such, he gives it without 
 comment, as he might a scientific discovery. She is 
 a striking instance of a most womanly woman find- 
 ing ultimate satisfaction in spiritual life, without its 
 full expression in human relations. 
 
 In an early article of Goethe's, puhlished in 1772, 
 when he was but twenty-three years old, appears his 
 thought of the profound influence of Woman. It is a 
 notice of the poems of a Polish Jew, who seems to 
 have been a young and fickle lover. He says : " 
 Genius ! be it publicly known that neither shallow- 
 ness nor weakness is the cause of his fickleness. Let 
 him but find a maiden who is worthy of him." 
 Goethe then describes the maiden full of charms and 
 home graces : — 
 
 " Should these two find each other, they at once divine 
 what an embodiment of Hiss each has secured in the 
 other, and that they never can be parted. Then let him 
 stammer — foreshadowing, hoping, enjoying — what none 
 with words liave ever spoken out, none with tears, none 
 with the long lingering look and the soul in it. Truth 
 and living beauty will then be in his songs, not the glit- 
 tering-baubles floating in so many Genuan melodies." 
 
 Lotte, in " The Sorrows of Werther," is one of those 
 wonderful creations of genius whom you cannot ana- 
 lyze more than a beloved child. Grimm says : — 
 
 15 
 
226 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 " Up to the time of her appeai-ance, Klopstock's Fanny 
 had been the highest ideal of womanhood in Germany ; 
 but Lotte at once won all hearts. After the appearance 
 of Werther, young girls named Lotte refused to be called 
 so any longer, feeling themselves unworthy to bear the 
 name. . . . Lotte is the most simple and lovely German 
 maiden, of whom nothing special is to be said. She en- 
 joys dancing, she loves poetry, she can he enthusiastic; 
 but she only needs to hear the slightest noise in the 
 house, and she leaps down from the heavens into her 
 wonted sphere, and is nothing but a housewife." 
 
 How sanitary must have been the influence which 
 made this the ideal of German girls ! 
 
 In Goethe's own life the influence of Woman pre- 
 dominates. His " Wahrheit und Diclitung aus mei- 
 nem Leben, " the review of his own development, 
 dwells upon his relations of love and friendship to 
 various women, far more than upon matters of states- 
 manship or learning. He was truly born of his 
 mother's nature. Her traits are reproduced in him, 
 while from his rich, pedantic father came the formal- 
 ity, the net- work of convention, the shell of worldly 
 environment, which surrounded and obscured his life. 
 Grimm says : " Goethe's father can be set aside : we 
 do not need him to understand Goethe. But his 
 mother is inseparable from him ;, she forms a part of 
 his being ; she understood him from the beginning, 
 she divined him." Educated with his sister, a noble 
 type of the intellectual woman, says Grimm, "he 
 was from youth better acquainted with women than 
 
DAS EWIG-WEIBLICHE. 227 
 
 with men." But in spite, or more truly in conse- 
 quence, of this strong influence from genuine women, 
 Goethe was decidedly a masculine man. The femi- 
 nine by its polarity developed the full force of his 
 character. The calmness and self-poise, the absence 
 of self-devotion in his nature, the joy in pursuit 
 rather than fruitful delight in possession of the de- 
 sired object, the centripetal force which made all 
 things serve him, — intellectual traits which led to 
 the false appearance of moral selfishness and coldness 
 in affection, — mark this development of the masculine. 
 But they never prevented him from recognizing the 
 great truth of that relation whose leadings he steadily 
 followed through all his life and thought, until he ex- 
 pressed it in the immortal line, — 
 
 " Das Ewig-Weibliche 
 Zieht uns hinan." 
 
 It is for the truth of relation that w^e come into 
 mortal existence, — not to know ourselves, not to 
 save ourselves, not to be ourselves except in rela- 
 tion, — so that the individual is bound again to the 
 universal. The relation of Man to Woman is typi- 
 cal of this great law. As light and darkness show 
 forth each other, so Man and Woman are fully re- 
 vealed only in their relation to each other. Through- 
 out the universe, only relation is creative. Goethe 
 sees that not identity, but union in difference, is 
 the attitude of Man and Woman. When Man and 
 Woman see each other, they begin to apprehend the 
 Universe. 
 
228 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 "When I saw thee, all other things 
 
 Appeared to me more bright ; 
 I looked not on thee, but on them 
 
 In thy reflected liglit ; 
 Nor knew if it were they or thou 
 
 That filled me with delight." 
 
 Then each learns that its own self is not complete, 
 can only be perfected by fitting itself to others, accept- 
 in;^ the welfare of others as more its own than its 
 own personality, — 
 
 " When each the other loves, and loves himself no more." 
 
 This is love and piety ; and the Masculine and Fem- 
 inine, however embodied, do ever this service to each 
 other. As a noble woman thus serves man, so says 
 
 Dante, — 
 
 " The like in lady doth a man of worth." 
 
 Separation is the first step which makes creation, 
 development, life, possible, — not one, but two. We 
 must conceive of two before we can have relation, 
 however we may still see that the two are one. How 
 constantly this thought of relation runs through all 
 Goethe's study and life ' " Nothing is fair or good 
 alone." It must be judged by all. Grimm says, 
 " Goethe was persuaded that all phenomena stand in 
 mutual relation, and therefore nothing can be demon- 
 strated by the study of isolated parts," 
 
 " Truly doth Nature all things tell, 
 Nature hath neither shell nor kernel, 
 Whole everywhere, at each point thou canst learn all ; 
 Only examine thine own heart 
 Whether thou shell or kernel art." 
 
DAS EWIG-WEIBLICHE. 229 
 
 " Wouldst thou truly study Nature, 
 Seek the whole in every feature. 
 
 Newton taught the doctrine of a definite number 
 of independent colors ; but with Goethe color is the 
 relation between light and darkness ; white is the 
 color of light, and black of darkness. All its beauty 
 and -variety come from the fact that light is never 
 wholly lost, darkness never wholly escaped. It is 
 a grand generalization, if it has not yet been corrobo- 
 rated by analysis. So too, in his great biological dis- 
 covery, he cannot accept an independent creation 
 of leaf, flower, and seed. They stand in relation to 
 each other not alone by mutual utility, but by devel- 
 opment and the possibility of exchange of function 
 and reconversion into each other. 
 
 "All in their forms are kindred, and yet no one like another ; 
 So this wonderful choir points to a half-hidden law." 
 
 How deeply he felt the spiritual significance of 
 this law, as running through all spheres of being, is 
 shown by the poem which he addresses to his be- 
 loved one, in which he carries up the analogy from 
 the plant to friendship and love. After a description 
 of the flow^er, as scientifically true as it is poetic, he 
 concludes : 
 
 " 0, bethink thou then too, how, out of the germ of acquaintance, 
 Day by day between us mutual interest grew; 
 How in the depth of our hearts Friendship revealed its full power, 
 And how Love came last, bringing the blossoms and fruits. 
 Think what manifold hues and shapes, now this, now another, 
 Nature in quiet unfolds, and to our feelings imparts. 
 Now enjoy thyself fully to-day! for holy affection 
 
230 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 Strives for its highest fruits> strives for congenial tastes, 
 Simila,r views of all things, that, through harmonious insight, 
 Firmly united, the pair thus the true heaven may find." 
 
 So the naturalist is prepared for the great mystery 
 of sex, which we recognize to be neither identity nor 
 unlikeness ; for the sexes are like stamen and pistil, 
 different modifications of the same type, and so per- 
 petually varying that it is impossible to make any 
 statement of distinguishing characteristics, which will 
 be invariably true. We trace analogous polarity 
 even in the inorganic world ; yet although one may 
 fancifully claim the sharp acid or the inert base as 
 dimly representing one or the other sex, no one will 
 seriously claim that this distinction is clearly recog- 
 nizable, for the characteristic function of creation is 
 not found. In the vegetable world, where the func- 
 tion is in many cases performed by the whole organ- 
 ism, it is difficult to trace any clear lines ; but as we 
 find more developed specimens, the functions of parts 
 become more distinct ; the root will no longer perform 
 the duty of the leaf, nor the leaf that of the flower. 
 In the more complex classes of both the vegetable 
 and animal world, we separate the sexes broadly by 
 the functions of reproduction ; and these are gener- 
 ally accompanied by secondary characteristics, in 
 many cases so strongly marked as at once to indicate 
 sex. But throughout these kingdoms, these second- 
 ary characteristics are very changeable. The females 
 excel in size in the lower orders, and either sex in 
 brilliancy and depth of color according to their sur- 
 
DAS EWIG-WEIBLICHE. 231 
 
 roundings. Among fishes the male often builds the 
 nest and cares for the young, — iu some cases even 
 on his own body. The female is capable of as great 
 violence as the male, and the male, under stress of 
 circumstances, can be as devoted and tender as the 
 mother. In the animal world sex is less differen- 
 tiated in the lowest forms of life ; but the analogy 
 does not hold in the spiritual world. In the highest 
 types of human life, we always find a blending of 
 the characteristics of the sexes. The illustrations are 
 almost too numerous for selection. 
 
 Jesus, Buddha, Fenelon, Diirer, Charles Lamb, — 
 even Michel Angelo and Dante, — blend strong femi- 
 nine traits with their masculine powers ; and no less 
 in Deborah and Zenobia, in Joan of Arc, Isabella of 
 Castile, Elizabeth Frye, Lucretia Mott, and Margaret 
 Fuller, do we find their full womanliness reinforced 
 by powers commonly esteemed masculine. In our 
 own immediate circle we can easily trace out the 
 same law ; we find the boy-girl and the girl-boy in 
 almost every family. The father of the Fair Saint 
 "often with suppressed joy called her his misfash- 
 ioued son." Coleridge expresses the greatest scorn 
 for the man who recognizes no sex in soul ; but the 
 difference is so subtile that it has never been M'ell 
 stated in words. And yet so rooted in thought is 
 this distinction that the most religious souls have felt 
 the necessity of recognizing it as existing within the 
 bosom of Divinity itself. Theodore Parker would 
 not accept Coleridge's dictum, because he knew that 
 
232 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 in a semi-barbarous civilization, such as ours still is, 
 it became the pretext for a claim of sovereignty, and 
 a power of oppression ; but he felt the necessity of 
 expressing the thought in the beautiful formula with 
 which he was wont to begin his prayer : " God ! our 
 father and our mother both." So the apostle of the 
 Brahmo Somaj, — the most original and sincere re- 
 ligious movement of our day, though it be still vague 
 and undefined, like its Indian predecessors, — recog- 
 nizes this truth, and the Divine Maternity is one of 
 the leading doctrines of its faith. In fact, this idea, 
 mystically expressed in so many old mythologies, is 
 to be the guiding star of the better civilization yet to 
 come. George Sand says, in one of her letters, " There 
 is but one sex " ; yet in spite of her masculine name 
 the eioig-wdhliche is revealed not only in the moth- 
 erly heart, but in the longing for human love and 
 the infinite tenderness for humanity expressed in all 
 her work. 
 
 How easy to accept, but how impossible to carry 
 out, the distinction of sex in the spiritual life ! In 
 externals, in the- realm of form, it is easy enough to 
 make divisions, but in any finer sense it can only be 
 felt, no analysis has ever been keen enough to detect 
 it. In intellectual life this is shown by the con- 
 stantly repeated occurrence of the fact that woman's 
 mental work has been wholly accepted as that of 
 man. Three of the greatest novelists of our time, 
 George Sand, George Eliot, and Currer Bell, while 
 known only by the products of their genius, found 
 
DAS EWIG-WEIBLICHE. 233 
 
 no eyes keen enough to detect their feminine traits. 
 Thackeray, an eminently masculine man, was sure 
 George Eliot was of his sex. Dickens was the first 
 to detect her secret. The acute critics of Jena de- 
 clared " Agnes von Lilien," written by Caroline von 
 Lengefeld, to be an anonymous work of Goethe, the 
 master mind of Germany. In our own society Charles 
 Egbert Craddock found no recognition as a woman 
 till she appeared in person to her astonished pub- 
 lishers. Had the same outward reasons existed to 
 lead Edgar Poe, or Charles Lamb, or Dickens, to mas- 
 querade under a woman's name, we might have found 
 the caprice and unregulated fancy of woman in " The 
 Eaven," the tender sensibility and beauty of her sex 
 in " The Essays of Elia," and the warm humanity, the 
 morbid sentimentality, and the utter incapacity of 
 woman to represent the passion of love, in " Oliver 
 Twist" and "Little Dorrit." 
 
 Hermann Grimm, in his " Essay on Goethe and 
 Suleika," tells a remarkable and pleasing instance of 
 such an interchange of thought between Goethe and 
 his young beloved friend, Marianne von Willemer. 
 Grimm quoted as one of Goethe's finest poems the 
 song, 
 
 " Acli, urn deine feuchten Schwingen 
 West, wie sehr ich dich beneide," 
 
 and found to his amazement that it was written 
 by the lady ; and he says, " The Divan from which 
 this poem was taken was almost carried on like a 
 duet between them." Yet who has distinguished 
 
234 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 the masculine and feminine voices in the various 
 lines ? 
 
 Open any book in physiology, and it is set down 
 for you in broad characters, " Man is strong, reason- 
 able, governed by his judgment; Woman is weak, 
 emotional, swayed by her feelings." But take this 
 formula with you as your chart in active life, and you 
 will soon find it a delusive cheat. Witness the ex- 
 citement of the Stock Exchange, and the ease with 
 which a cyclone of confidence draws all men into its 
 fatal grasp, or a sudden blast of doubt scatters the 
 trust of the whole business community. Even the 
 British House of Commons, the most carefully chosen 
 and perhaps the sanest body of men in the world, 
 goes into wild delirium at the defeat of a liberal 
 ministry. After thirty years' experience in various 
 reformatory and benevolent works where men and 
 women took part together, I have never been able 
 to trace a dividing line, on one side of which M'ere 
 the men guided by judgment, and on the other the 
 women swayed by feeling. Goethe's men are very 
 men, and his women always women, yet he has given 
 us almost every shade of character in womanly form. 
 
 In "Elective Affinities," Ottilie is so absolutely 
 feminine, according to the recognized type, that she 
 is unfit for human life ; like Ophelia, she has no self- 
 directing power, and is crushed by the world about 
 her, as the simple pressure of the common air breaks 
 the fragile glass, exhausted of its resisting medium. 
 In her exquisite purity and loveliness sin cannot 
 
DAS EWIG-WEIBLICHE. 235 
 
 touch her, yet she is incapable of virtue, and can 
 only fly from the battle which she is unable to win. 
 Charlotte, too, is womanly, in her calm sense, her 
 cold unselfishness, ready to resign all her rights, 
 all her happiness, to another's wishes, or a sense of 
 duty ; but by that very want of self-assertion, inca- 
 pable of strengthening others, and holding them to 
 good by the bond of justice. And what has Edward 
 of the Masculine but that self-centring thought which 
 in its good and evil is characteristic of man ? The 
 puzzle of the book is in his unfitness to mate with 
 the lovely girl. Sweetness of temper, a crystalline 
 frankness of manner, refinement of deportment, and 
 capacity for intellectual enjoyment, make him a de- 
 lightful companion. His early attraction to Char- 
 lotte is renewed w^hen both are freed from outward 
 constraint, and can look forward to a life of intellect- 
 ual companionship and aesthetic enjoyment. How 
 devoid of passion the relation is, becomes evident 
 from Charlotte's having planned his marriage with 
 Ottilie. But Charlotte is very wise in her own 
 domain, and she knew well the danger of destroying 
 this happy balance of friendship. Without jealousy 
 on her part, it is his friend's introduction into the 
 home which she opposes, not Ottilie's. She is the 
 self-restrained, reasonable being ; he is the rash and 
 self-willed one, who will let nothing stand between 
 him and his desire. And it is this warmth of de- 
 sire alone which redeems his nature : he does rec- 
 ognize that the beloved one is more than himself; 
 
236 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 and this alone makes it comprehensible that Goethe 
 can recognize an eternal union for them. " So lie 
 the lovers, sleeping side by side. Peace hovers above 
 their resting-place. Fair angel faces gaze down upon 
 them from the vaulted ceiling, and what a happy 
 moment that will be when one day they wake again 
 together." He has blindly loved, but he has rec- 
 ognized Love, and 
 
 " Das Ewig-Weibliche 
 Zieht ihn hinan." 
 
 Tasso is more poetic and lovely than Edward, but 
 is he not equally self-centred ? His life is not 
 wrecked on sensual desire, but on the morbid sensi- 
 tiveness of his soul, which never enters into the life 
 of others, into the generous activity of the Duke, or 
 calm wisdom of Antonio, but measures everything 
 by himself His love was as narrow as the learning 
 of Faust. He had not learned the secret of relation. 
 The Princess sees his need : — 
 
 " Willst du genau erfahren was sich ziemt 
 So frage nur bei edlen Frauen an." ^ 
 
 She will have him find, in a love that gives itself 
 wholly up, the freedom that he needs. Antonio also 
 sees his need of relation, but bids him seek it in 
 active life : 
 
 " Der Menscli erkennt sich nur im IMensclien ; nur 
 Das Leben lehret jedem was er sey." 2 
 
 1 Do you wish to learn truly what is becoming, 
 Ask it only of noble women. 
 
 2 Man knows himself only in Men ; only Life 
 Teaches every one what he is. 
 
DAS EWIG-WEIBLICEE. 237 
 
 " Wilhelra Meister " is the study of the development 
 of a human mind. What a part does Woman play in 
 it ! Goethe seems striving to find the true type of 
 Woman to call forth the noblest in man. How lov- 
 ing, fresh, and natural is poor Mariana ! Wilh elm's 
 boyish affection rashly indulged, and as he believes 
 betrayed, is never forgotten, and only through this 
 love is the joy of paternity known. The wise men 
 say, " The child is thine, and in our opinion the 
 mother was not unworthy of thee." He never fully 
 loves again, but is ever seeking for this lost Eden 
 of unconscious trusting affection. His feeling for 
 Mariana was loving, fresh, and genuine, but regard- 
 less of law and duty to others. It was like his pas- 
 sion for the stage : when the illusion passed, much 
 of the truth and poetry went also, yet it left behind 
 remorse never silenced, and regret never satisfied. 
 How striking is the tenacity of this feeling, and the 
 facility with which a fancied resemblance makes 
 him believe that a fateful past can be recalled ! Vary- 
 ing impulses play over him, yet there is an evident 
 progress in the development of his ideal. He enjoys 
 only superficially the toying of Philliua, sensuous 
 and graceful as it is. She only " pressed to the door 
 of his heart, but never entered." He meets with fa- 
 therly care the unearthly love of Mignon ; he longs to 
 bring into his life the strong practical good-sense of 
 Theresa ; he is fascinated by the beauty of the Count- 
 ess, the spiritual grace of Natalia, — but they are only 
 shadows of things to come, which never come. He 
 
238 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 is ever a scholar, trying all phases of life. He 
 has never become a Man, and so has never found 
 his true relation to Woman. Yet keeping his ideal 
 high and pure, we still watch for his 'unfolding, 
 sure that the Eternally Womanly is leading him up. 
 
 In Macaria, who appears only towards the conclu- 
 sion of " Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre," (if there 
 be a conclusion to a work so wandering.) we have a 
 type of woman whose influence approaches that of 
 " das Ewig-Weibliche." She has nothing of the 
 attributes of passion, the sensuousness of sex; but 
 by her unselfish wisdom, by the power which she 
 has gained from suffering and thought, to look 
 clearly upon human affairs in their largest relations, 
 she becomes confessor and counsellor to all within 
 her range, — always leading them to be true to them- 
 selves, while in her "light do they see light." This 
 function belongs to the post-maternal period of life, 
 and has ever been recognized in the Virgin becom- 
 ing the Seeress. Macaria's mystical relations to 
 heavenly bodies indicate the universal reach of her 
 influence and central source of her inspirations. 
 
 The deep sense of the overpowering sanctity and 
 importance of the relation of Man to Woman appears 
 in many of the minor dramas, I might perhaps say in 
 all of them. Goethe places it in every light. Eugenia, 
 in " Die Naturliche Tochter," finds herself suddenly 
 placed in an exceptional position. She will be raised 
 above the multitude by rank and power. She grasps 
 at the outward signs of it, to find it slipping from 
 
DAS EWIG-WEIBLICHE. 239 
 
 her grasp. She has been false to the relation of the 
 individual to the whole, and the whole, represented 
 by the Church and the State, threatens to crush her. 
 How can she be saved ? Only by the acceptance of 
 the marriage relation, whose sanctity and power are 
 set forth by the simple burgher : 
 
 " Im Hause wo der Gatte sicher waltet, 
 Da wohiit allein der Friede, den vergebens 
 In weiten du, da draussen suchen magst." ^ 
 
 And again : 
 
 " Als Gatte kann ich mit dem Konig rechnen." ^ 
 
 He too recognizes the function of the wife : 
 
 " So fuhrt ein edles Weib ihn leicht ans Ziel. 
 Hiuauf zur hochsten Frauen kelir er sich. " ^ 
 
 The marriage which can save is of the heart and 
 soul, as the monk expresses it : 
 
 *' Den Wunsch der Liebe, die zum All das Eine, 
 Zum Ewigen das Gegenwartige 
 Das Flucbtige zum Daiiernden erhebt, 
 Deu zu eifiillen ist sein gottlich Amt." * 
 
 ^ In the house where the husband surely directs, 
 There alone dwells peace, which in vain in the distance 
 Thou out there in the woi'ld mayst seek. 
 
 2 As husband can I reckon with the king. 
 
 8 So does a noble wife easily lead him to the goal. 
 Up to the highest women does he strive, 
 
 * The wish of Love, which raises one to the All, the present to 
 the Eternal, the fleeting to the Everlasting, that to fulfil is her 
 godlike office. 
 
240 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 In the Old Harper's history we have the uncon- 
 scious violation of a natural law, bringing intense 
 tragedy, but not destruction of inward purity. In 
 " Die Geschwister " we have the sweet regard of a 
 sister unconsciously intensified by the difference of 
 sex, and changed into happy love when the true rela- 
 tion is revealed. In " Die Wette," a pretty little com- 
 edy, the lighter characteristics of the two sexes are 
 very pleasantly painted, and the lesson of mutual for- 
 bearance and concession gently taught. 
 
 In " Clavigo," Goethe reproduces in tragic form 
 what was not so tragic, his love for Frederika; and 
 here is the same thouglit which ever haunted him, — 
 it is the womanly which tests man. Clavigo had 
 failed to stand this test, had been untrue to love, and 
 only tragedy is possible. Eepentance does not help. 
 The young, romantic heart does not accept any salving 
 of sores, any of nature's processes of filling up chasms 
 with new growth. Eepentance cannot heal this sin, 
 for no reparation is possible ; relation is broken, faith 
 is destroyed. Even in the moment of hoped for 
 reunion, Marie recognizes that the old tie cannot be 
 restored. Clavigo has passed into another mood : 
 the opportunity is gone. Death alone, resolving the 
 mortal back into the immortal, can restore this rela- 
 tion, and only when the Eternally Womanly leads 
 him upward can he leave sin behind ? So also in 
 " Stella," Fernando has placed himself in the conflict 
 between passionate love and recognized self-imposed 
 duty. He has dared to play with tliis greatest of 
 
DAS EWIG-WEIBLICHE. 241 
 
 human relations, and he is overwhelmed by the forces 
 he has set in motion. For this wrong no earthly rep- 
 aration is possible ; property may be restored, slander 
 may be refuted, anger may be atoned for, but this 
 wrong cannot be righted. No unselfishness, no mag- 
 nanimity, on the part of his victims, avails aught : 
 each would sacrifice to the other, but neither can give 
 what she cannot hold, and only Death, which dissolves 
 all earthly ties, can make new life possible. In the 
 novellettes in "Wilhelm Meister," Goethe seems to 
 put this relation of love and marriage in ever}'- possi- 
 ble light : they are like the changes of a kaleidoscope, 
 beautiful but fleeting. He seems to warn against his 
 own besetting sin of mistaking the transient for the 
 permanent. With this intense feeling of the mission 
 of love and the sanctity of marriage, Goethe himself 
 never had a full and perfect relation to a woman. 
 The force of his being was expended in those transi- 
 tory affections which, as Tennyson says, 
 
 " Are but embassies of love 
 To tamper with the feelings, ere he found 
 Empire for life." 
 
 With Frau von Stein his intellectual yearning for 
 
 s)^mpathy found full satisfaction, and his Christiane 
 
 gave him for a time the homelike content, more often 
 
 known in the cottager's hut than in the palace, which 
 
 he had never had before. But the tragedy of his life, 
 
 so often referred to as a wonderfully fortunate one, 
 
 was just here. He never found the true family life, 
 
 and, as husband and father, shared little of the joy 
 
 16 
 
242 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 which makes so many humble lives infinitely blessed. 
 Is it for this reason that he has never been able to 
 paint a successful, happy love, but in the simplicity 
 of peasant life in " Hermann und Dorothea," or " Die 
 Geschwister," or in the dim perspective of history in 
 Gotz and his faithful wife ? 
 
 In his own life, domestic love took on a very quiet 
 and humble form. How his heart must have longed 
 for this life, — he who was so sensitive to tenderness, 
 and had such a thirst for human relation ! Where 
 shall we find a more concise and comprehensive ex- 
 pression of family love and life as representing the 
 eternal mysteries of creation, than in the words of the 
 Chorus after the birth of Euphorion ? 
 
 " Love in human wise to liless us 
 In a noble pair must be ; 
 But divinely to possess us 
 
 It must form a precious Three." 
 
 And the all-sufficiency of Love is told in simplest 
 
 words : 
 
 "All we seek has therefore found us, 
 I am thiue and thou art mine ; 
 So we stand as Love hath bound us, 
 Other fortune we resign." 
 
 In the family is the most perfect expression of the 
 Eternal Trinity, that great mystic doctrine running 
 through many religions, which has been so dwarfed 
 and narrowed by being made individual and dogmatic. 
 But it runs as the simplest, plainest law through 
 mechanics and chemistry, as well as biology and met- 
 
BAS EWIG-WEIBLICHE. 243 
 
 aphysics, — the One, the Two, the resulting Third, — 
 the union of differences in likeness producing a new- 
 creation. Goethe saw this, and if he fails to paint it 
 fully, it is because he had not known it in his own 
 experience. 
 
 In the First Part of "Faust," the great work in 
 which Goethe sought to read the riddle of life, fail- 
 ing, as all will fail till life is fully accomplished, das 
 Weihliclie is the moving power. Faust is the unre- 
 lated man, devoted to knowledge only for himself. 
 He exhausts every source of learning and thought, 
 only to find himself wholly unfed and unsatisfied, and 
 is ready to grant any terms on which he may secure 
 a consciousness of life and joy. He makes the hasty 
 compact to buy what a true faith would have given 
 him. Woman by her beauty first calls him out of 
 himself, and he seeks union with others. In the First 
 Part he asks only his personal gratification, and he 
 cannot enter into true relation with others, for he has 
 not found himself He is the sport of unformed de- 
 sires, he does not recognize the necessity or beauty 
 of law. The Devil is his guide, the incarnate spirit 
 that denies. How can he lead him to true love ? 
 It is the simplest feeling of attraction to a person, 
 not any ideal relation to the universal, which leads 
 him on. 
 
 Heedlessly he breaks the highest law of love, 
 which bids us seek not our own good, but the welfare 
 of the beloved ; and the human law which should rep- 
 resent the inward principle revenges itself upon him. 
 
244 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 How ? Not by direct infliction of outward punish- 
 ment, but through the misery of the beloved one. 
 Woman's misery, man's degradation, is the result of 
 the broken law of love. The redeemer buys with his 
 own sacrifice the redemption he works for others. 
 Faust is still free to follow his selfish course ; but 
 never again unconsciously : the gadfly of conscience 
 is aroused, which will not cease to sting hira till he is 
 elevated into true life. Yet in spite of his selfishness 
 and sin he has loved ; he has recognized that self is 
 not all ; he has known the highest human relation ; 
 he has acknowledged the existence of somethinof 
 not himself, yet to which he is eternally bound. So 
 he is led out of abstraction into personality. Even 
 through sin, still more through suffering, he has 
 learned the lesson of relation to others, which in the 
 Second Part is to be worked out, not in the simplicity 
 of individual love, but on the broad scale of Human- 
 ity. Through all the wild masquerading of its many 
 scenes, we find him learning this lesson. He seeks 
 to become a benefactor to mankind, but at first how 
 wildly, — with the help of the Devil ! The scheme 
 of spreading universal happiness by producing an 
 abundance of paper money, devised by Mephistophe- 
 les and since followed by his successors, while it is 
 undoubtedly a satire on South Sea and other wild 
 financial schemes, may also fitly represent that selfish 
 benevolence which finds pleasure in beholding the 
 transient enjoyment of those around us, whether it 
 is based on good or evil. The women see the char- 
 
DAS EWIG-WEIBLICHE. 245 
 
 lataiiry of the great mask, and mock at the false 
 magician who is — nothing ; not even feeling when 
 one pinches him. Here in homely form is a hint 
 of the quality of Woman which is expressed in the 
 last line. The Womanly tests life by a more delicate 
 analysis than masculine logic supplies. Woman con- 
 siders things in their relations. This is the quality 
 of judgment which we recognize as specially wo- 
 manly, and which has been manifested on a large 
 scale by queens and empresses, as in every-day life 
 in the management of a household and the control 
 of children. 
 
 The mystical charm with which Goethe loved to 
 surround the feminine, while keeping its peculiar 
 function ever in mind, is shown by his introduction 
 of the Mothers in " Faust." This passage has been 
 the despair of commentators. An obscure phrase in 
 Plutarch, calling the Goddesses " the Mothers," seems 
 to have excited his imagination, and he uses this term 
 as the most powerful and suggestive of names, with- 
 out feeling called upon to offer any explanation of it. 
 Yet it has a power for Faust, and a terror even for 
 Mephistopheles, who may well feel it to be utterly 
 outside of his realm. The various metaphysical anal- 
 yses of this phrase seem very wide of the mark ; it 
 is the all-including comprehensiveness of the expres- 
 sion which gives it a charm and terror. As the little 
 child believes that the mother can answer all ques- 
 tions and satisfy all wants, is it strange that man 
 should come back to a longing for the motherlj 
 
246 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 power? Goethe has said, " Express thyself, and 't will 
 a riddle be," — this simplest of all words is full of 
 mystery and terror. Why should Faust be appalled 
 at their very name ? Wliat is the meaning of the 
 key which is to lead him to them ? Is the key the 
 childlike trust which Faust has lost, and which would 
 make motherhood an attraction, and not a terror ? 
 When we can carry our desires into the presence 
 of the Divine Motherhood, they must have become 
 righteous and holy. Faust goes to the mothers to 
 grant the fulfilment of his longing for beauty and 
 love. 
 
 Here his escape from the power of Mephistophe- 
 les seems to begin. It has already become another 
 love than that to which Mephistopheles first led 
 him. It is not he in his individual being who is 
 wedded to a beautiful maiden. It is the spirit of his 
 country, German thought, which seeks after Greek 
 beauty, and from this union is born the modern poet. 
 This love does not become tragic in its results, like 
 his attraction to Margaret ; it is indeed only an image 
 of love, but it truly represents it as not for themselves 
 alone, but for the whole of Humanity. 
 
 If we take Helena in the literary sense for Classic 
 culture, while Faust represents the German, may not 
 the appeal to the Mothers represent that return to 
 the old primitive thought, the universal source, which 
 always accompanies every new radical movement in 
 thought ? We must relate our special movement to 
 the universal, and the new must strike its roots deep 
 
i 
 
 
 1 UNIVEESIT ^ 
 
 DAS EWIG-WEIBLICEE. ^^-"^^^-247 
 
 into the old. It seems hopeless to attempt to fathom 
 the precise meaning with which Goethe uses this 
 phrase, yet it is certain that it meant a great deal to 
 him, and that when interpreted by his own voice and 
 manner it strongly impressed others. Eckermann 
 writes : — 
 
 " To-day, as a supplement to the dinner, Goethe gave 
 me a great enjoymeut by reading to me the scene where 
 Faust goes to the Mothers. The new, unsuspected char- 
 acter of the subject, together with the tone and manner in 
 which Goethe recited the scene, took hold of me with won- 
 derful power, so that I found myself at once in the condi- 
 tion of Faust, who feels a shudder creep over him when 
 Mephistopheles makes the communication. I had heard 
 and clearly comprehended the description, but so much of 
 it remained enigmatical to me that I felt myself forced to 
 beg Goethe to enlighten me a little. He however, accord- 
 ing to his usual habit, assumed a mysterious air, looking 
 at me with wide-open eyes, and repeating the words, — 
 ' The Mothers ! Mothers ! It sounds so strange.' " 
 
 This Second Part of " Faust " seems at first like 
 a wild chaos. In it are the riches of a hundred 
 dramas, but it is not crystallized into clearness and 
 symmetry. It was Goethe's study of life, and he 
 could not marshal it all into line, as a lesser man 
 might do his lesser riches. Yet there is one simple 
 thought running through it aU, and, as he expresses 
 it in the last grand verse, we see it is the plainest 
 religious truth, — that which enters into every faith, 
 which underlies the beautiful in art, the ideal in 
 
248 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 philosophy, the essence of morality, the meaning of 
 life. It is the sense of the relation of the individual 
 to the universal. We never think, never can think, 
 of the feminine alone. It is not what separates her 
 from others, but what gives the power of union, which 
 makes her feminine, and so creative. And the mas- 
 culine knows itself only in its relation to the femi- 
 nine. So it is that the eternally feminine " draws us 
 by sweet leadings " of beauty to love, to union, to 
 new creation. But in using these words, we must 
 remember that these human forms which we live 
 among, and which flit past us like the changing 
 phantoms in Goethe's half-mocking drama, are but 
 shadows and types. Sex, as we see it gradually 
 evolved out of the chemical relations of the mineral 
 world, the fertilization of flowers, the wooing of the 
 oriole and the bobolink in the spring-time, the chiv- 
 alry of the cock, and the fierce jealousy of the tiger, 
 to its beautiful outcome in the highest human rela- 
 tion, which is the never-wearying theme of romance 
 and poetry, is a shadowing forth of the duality in 
 the original spirit out of which comes the creative 
 energy manifested in the universe. As we have 
 seen, this double strand is woven in and out through- 
 out nature, and in trying to trace it we are con- 
 stantly bewildered by finding its place and attitude 
 changing. We cry, " Lo here ! and, Lo there ! " but 
 like the kingdom of God, it is within us and found 
 everywhere. If it represents duality, it equally rep- 
 resents unity and universality, and we may as well 
 
BAS EWIG-WEIBLICHE. 249 
 
 divide the rainbow by arbitrary lines, as seek to put 
 asunder those differing phases of His creative agency 
 which God has so closely joined together. Yet the 
 difference of sexes is as expressive and necessary 
 as their unity, and their functions cannot be con- 
 founded. Mythology has made woman the repre- 
 sentative of attraction to evil, because it had not 
 learned that life is good ; but Goethe's inspired Muse, 
 who knew that secret, and held the Faust to be 
 redeemed who had at last found it good, taught that 
 woman leads indeed through varied and dangerous 
 paths, but still leads to life ; and it is a grand accept- 
 ance of life, and its experience and its teachings, 
 which bids him close his great drama with a recog- 
 nition of this truth, — Das Ewig Wcibliche zieht uns 
 liiiian. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 As the various reports of the School have made it 
 apparent that the doctrine of this lecture was misun- 
 derstood, I have added the following Synopsis : — 
 
 There is, even in the Divine Nature, as we are 
 forced to conceive it, a polarity, or power of differen- 
 tiation which is eternal, — eivig. 
 
 This polarity running through all nature, even the 
 inanimate and inorganic, appears as sex, — suggested 
 in the vegetable kingdom, and slowly evolved in the 
 
250 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 animal world, taking its most complete form in the 
 Human Being. 
 
 Its distinctive characteristics appear as impulse 
 and attraction. Its function is creation, and while 
 the masculine is stimulating and life-giving, the 
 feminine is receptive and productive. 
 
 This central difference, complicated with all the 
 circumstances of existence, produces many secondary 
 characteristics illustrative of sex ; but these secondary 
 characteristics are in the process of evolution un- 
 stable and interchangeable. These principles, though 
 separated in our ultimate thought, are constantly 
 blended in manifestation. Nature works to produce 
 embryo wholes, and not ever-widening monstrosities. 
 Hence, while our ideal of das mannliche and das weih- 
 liche may be sharply defined as force and attraction, 
 or centrifugal and centripetal, or Justice and Mercy, 
 its manifestation in persons is rarely distinct ; but by 
 the double descent the two are blended in every 
 individual, and in the highest natures the most 
 perfectly. 
 
 The office of mortal life is to develop the spiritual 
 nature by the constant manifestation, action, and 
 reaction of these principles on each other, so as to 
 attain the widest universality, and the most perfect 
 unity. They play an equal part in the great drama 
 of Life ; but as the feminine represents attraction, 
 this is the leading principle which draws us upward 
 and on. 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 251 
 
 IX. 
 THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 
 
 By S. H. emery, Jr. 
 
 This special creation of the great artist, whose 
 genius and work are the principal theme of this ses- 
 sion of the Summer School of Philosophy, belongs to 
 that particular form of art which is named " The 
 Xovel." Perhaps it is the only work of our author 
 which can properly be so classified. Goethe himself 
 seems to have been in doubt about the appropriate- 
 ness of the title to this work, for he is reported by 
 Eckermann as saying, with reference to the sketch 
 of the Child and the Lion, called " A Tale " in Dr. 
 Hedfje's edition of Goethe's "Works : — 
 
 " I '11 tell you what, we will call it ' The Novel ' ; for 
 what is a novel but a peculiar and as yet unheard-of 
 eveut ] This is the proper meaning of this name ; and 
 much which in Germany passes as a novel is no novel at 
 all, but a mere narrative, or whatever else you like to 
 call it. In that original sense of an unheard-of event, 
 even the ' Elective Affinities ' may be called a novel." 
 
 Goethe's definition of the novel does not distin- 
 cruish it from the romance, nor from short tales and 
 
252 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 sketches, such as the work the name for which he 
 was considering. A brief consideration of the place 
 of the novel in the system of art is not impertinent 
 here. 
 
 The novel, as a work of art, belongs to the domain 
 of Poetry, and therefore, so far as the material it 
 uses is concerned, is capable of the most complete 
 expression of the highest ideal in art. It has the 
 external characteristics of the prose form, but is 
 essentially poetic. Goethe says that the "Elective 
 Affinities " is a poetic production. The fundamental 
 art element in poetry is not the rhyme, the rhythm, 
 or the harmony of the verse, but the image. The 
 true is therein represented in an image ; not an 
 actually existent, external, spatial image, but an 
 internal form of the imagination, — "images preserved 
 in the spirit and recalled by it " ; this makes the 
 presentation artistic. Art manifests the whole in 
 the part. This fundamental element of art is the 
 basis of the novel in point of form. 
 
 In point of content, it belongs to that phase of art 
 which is called by Hegel " Eomantic Art." It por- 
 trays the individual working out the problem of his 
 spiritual development, — either, on the one side, sub- 
 jective passions, caprices, desires, even good but mis- 
 taken intentions, on the other side the universal 
 and eternal verities, into harmony with which the 
 individual must come ; or, with equal validity, on 
 the one side the universal and eternal as realized in 
 the individual spirit, on the other side, the exter- 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 253 
 
 nally capricious and accidental: but in either case 
 it portrays a struggle for spiritual harmony. 
 
 The novel proper is of modern English origin, 
 dating from about the beginning of the eighteenth 
 century. It is distinguished from the romance, 
 which is a narrative of wonders, strange, improba- 
 ble events ; while the novel accommodates itself, for 
 the most part, to ordinary society and the ordinary 
 course of human affairs, seeking to draw attention to, 
 and excite our intei-est in, the collisions of the sub- 
 jective with the objective. A writer in the Encyclo- 
 paedia Britannica mentions as a fact that the rise of 
 the novel is coincident with the decline of the drama, 
 and attributes both to the change in the spirit of the 
 age. Goethe in "Meister" expresses the true dis- 
 tinction between the novel and the drama in point 
 of content and method. He says : — 
 
 "In the novel as well as in the drama, it is human 
 nature and human action that we see. . . . But in the 
 novel it is chiefly sentiments and events that are exhibited ; 
 in the drama it is character and deeds. The novel must 
 go slowly forward, and the sentiments of the hero, by 
 one means or another, must restrain the tendency of 
 the whole to unfold itself and to conclude. The drama, 
 on the other hand, must hasten, and the character of 
 the hero must press forward to the end ; it does not re- 
 strain, but is restrained." 
 
 There can be no doubt that for the modern English 
 mind the novel is a more effective form of art than 
 the drama ; perhaps because the novel, as being 
 
254 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 nearer to the verge of art, is better adapted to a 
 prosaic age and nation. The wider range of incident 
 and more minute analysis of character are more in 
 accordance with the disposition and taste of a highly- 
 civilized people, than the strong situations and pow- 
 erful effects which are necessary to the drama. The 
 picture of life presented is also more true to the 
 present reality, and therefore takes hold of the in- 
 terest more readily. 
 
 The " Elective Affinities " has then a special in- 
 terest, as an example of a form of art more distinct- 
 ively peculiar than any other to our time, and to 
 the English consciousness. I have said, also, that 
 it is perhaps the only work of our author which is, 
 strictly speaking, a novel, as we ordinarily under- 
 stand the term. The novel proper falls between the 
 romance and the disquisition, and the "Elective 
 Affinities" seems to occupy this middle ground more 
 consistently tlian any other work of Goethe. It has 
 variety of place, time, action, and persons, to distin- 
 guish it from a sketch or tale ; it presents a picture 
 of life, which seems true to the ordinary conditions 
 of the place and time wherein the scene is laid ; its 
 incidents are for the most part commonplace, rather 
 than romantic, in the sense of startling, wonderful, 
 unreal ; and its story does not impress the reader as 
 a merely artificial and external thread, on which the 
 author has strung disquisitions upon every imagina- 
 ble subject. On the contrary the story furnishes, as 
 in a novel it should, the necessary field for the col- 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 255 
 
 lisions sought to be portrayed. A critic has said of 
 Goethe's novels generally : — 
 
 " They are iugenious speculations on painting, agri- 
 culture, landscape-gardening, etc., connected by a thread 
 of mystical naiTative, and introducing us to a set of be- 
 ings without the least trace of reality about them, who 
 all appear to be playing some theatrical part in a dreamy 
 representation of life, which seems to have no intelligible 
 object." 
 
 But this criticism is entirely inappropriate to the 
 " Elective Affinities," though that has episodical pas- 
 sages, which might be called " ingenious speculations " 
 on gardening, architecture, painting, chemistry, and 
 other subjects ; and it doubtless in a deep way justi- 
 fies Goethe's statement that it is a novel because it is 
 a before unheard-of event. The critic proceeds to 
 say: — 
 
 " A novel which does not explain its purpose without 
 a commentary seems to violate the essential laws of such 
 compositions ; but a novel in regard to the object of 
 which no two commentators agree, is an anomaly in 
 litei'ature." 
 
 If this criticism were to be accepted as final, it 
 would dispose of the claim of the " Elective Affinities " 
 to be considered a novel, for there has certainlv been a 
 wide disagreement among the commentators as to its 
 purpose ; but it very naturally occurs to one that this 
 result may rather be the fault of the commentators 
 than of the novel. It must have been surprising to 
 
256 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 Goethe, for he seems to have doubted whether he had 
 not made his meaning too plain, to the detriment of 
 his art. Soret reports him as saying, — 
 
 " The only production of greater extent, in which I am 
 conscious of having labored to set forth a pervading idea 
 is probably my 'Elective Affinities.' This novel has thus 
 become comprehensible to the understanding ; but I will 
 not say that it is therefore better. I am rather of the 
 opinion, that the more incommensurable and the more 
 incomprehensible to the understanding a poetic produc- 
 tion is, so much the better it is." 
 
 You will notice that Goetlie's conception of tlie 
 proper aim of the artist in this regard differs funda- 
 mentally from that of his critic ; hence, it is not sur- 
 prising that the critic should not have been pleased 
 with the results. 
 
 With these preliminary general observations we 
 will proceed to an examination of the " sentiments 
 and events " which Goethe has portrayed in tlie 
 "Elective Affinities," reserving our consideration of 
 the special content of this novel for the conclusion. 
 We have it on the authority of Goethe, that the novel 
 was written with a conscious pervading purpose, and 
 we must try to ascertain what the purpose was, or 
 better, perhaps, what has really been done ; for the 
 purpose in and of itself might be accidental and 
 temporary. 
 
 The title "Elective Affinities" Goethe justifies, 
 early in the work, in a conversation between Edward, 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 257 
 
 Charlotte, aud the Captain, in the course of which it 
 is explained that " elective affinity " is the technical 
 scientific term applied to those instances of chemical 
 action where, on the presentation to a compound sub- 
 stance of a third, one of the elements of the com- 
 pound will leave its combination and combine with 
 the third, thus exhibiting a natural election between 
 the two possible combinations. The most important 
 and remarkable cases of this action are where the 
 separation and uniting are both double ; that is, where 
 two compounds, on being brought together, each di- 
 vide and reunite with change of partners. This is 
 chemically analogous to what sometimes happens in 
 human society, when the casual introduction of a 
 third person utterly destroys a connection, apparently 
 indissoluble, between two, through presenting oppor- 
 tunity for a new and naturally more urgent combina- 
 tion; but Charlotte warns us that man is placed 
 many steps above chemical elements, and that he 
 will do well to consider carefully the validity of the 
 analogy as applied to himself. The incidents of the 
 novel exhibit the workings of a double elective affin- 
 ity in the human sphere : hence the name. The scene 
 of the story is the estate of a German nobleman, and 
 the time probably contemporaneous with the writing. 
 Neither year nor real location is anywhere mentioned. 
 Solger wrote, in a letter to Tieck, an elaborate crit- 
 icism of the "Elective Affinities," which interested 
 and pleased Goethe, who says, " It would not be easy 
 to say anything better about that novel." In the 
 
 17 
 
258 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 course of this critical survey Solger said, " The facts 
 of the ' Elective Affinities ' had their oerm in the na- 
 ture of all the characters." We will therefore con- 
 sider the principal cliaracters before examining the 
 incidents. They interest us, not only in themselves, 
 but as general types. 
 
 Edward was the only, and consequently spoiled, 
 child of wealthy parents, from whom large posses- 
 sions had descended to hira. In early life he had 
 met and loved Charlotte, who loved him. He mar- 
 ried, however, through the persuasion of his parents 
 and while dissatisfied with Charlotte's reserve, a 
 wealthy lady far older than himself, who petted and 
 indulged him in every wa}^ and, dying, left him free, 
 in the prime of life, to return to Charlotte, whom he 
 married ; and he is introduced at the beginning of 
 the story as living with Charlotte alone, soon after 
 their marriage, at his ancestral castle. He is appar- 
 ently " equal to all contingencies and changes, with 
 desires never excessive, but multiple and various ; 
 free-hearted, generous, brave, at times even noble " ; 
 he has had lai-ge experience of life, at court, in the 
 army, and in travelling, but has never been thwarted, 
 and has not learned self-restraint. His return to 
 Charlotte was due to a sort of romantic remembrance 
 of their early love, and to a desire to settle down qui- 
 etly to a delicious leisure with a pleasant companion, 
 rather than to a strong, absorbing passion. He is 
 of good disposition, and has not fallen into vices, but 
 he has little constancy or perseverance; even his 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 259 
 
 flute-playing is not good, because, although he would 
 for a little while prosecute it with industry, he would 
 soon tire of the effort. His favorite method of decis- 
 ion as to courses of action, where decision is difficult, 
 is to submit the matter to chance. He is amiable 
 and considerate, but impulsive, ardent, and youthful ; 
 without substantial character, settled convictions, or 
 high purposes. He is in danger of becoming a 
 drunkard when things go against him. He has never 
 learned to forego his immediate desire, is vehement 
 and obstinate, and thinks life valueless unless he can 
 have what, at the moment, seems to him a necessity 
 of his nature. Hence, he is essentially extravagant, 
 sacrificing always the distant to the near. He pre- 
 fers death to disappointment in love. Goethe says, 
 speaking of Solger's criticism of Edward : — 
 
 " I do not quarrel with him because he cannot endure 
 Edward. I myself cannot endure him, but was obliged 
 to make him such a man in order to bring out my fact. 
 He is, besides, very true to natui-e ; for you find many 
 people in the higher ranks with whom, quite like him, 
 obstinacy takes the place of character." 
 
 Charlotte is a quite opposite character. She is a 
 prudent, wise, fore-looking person. Her instincts are 
 conservative and tenacious of institutional require- 
 ments, and she recognizes that the family is woman's 
 special institution. She is domestic, careful, and eco- 
 nomical ; she keeps the accounts and pays the bills. 
 Perhaps she is more excitable and quicker to feel 
 
260 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 even than Edward, but with power of self-restraint, 
 and always ready to subordinate her feelings to her 
 judgment. She does not willingly allow herself to 
 be surprised into emotion. With tact and self-pos- 
 session to see and do the right thing in any emer- 
 gency she unites self-sacrifice, so that she is willing 
 to do what she believes to be right, at whatever cost to 
 herself; with fortitude also, so that she can insist 
 upon the present suffering of those she loves, for their 
 ultimate best good, even in spite of their shrinking, 
 added to the pain of her own heart. She is a con- 
 stant and reserved, not a passionate and effusive, 
 lover. One can believe that when she gave her hand, 
 after Edward's first marriage, without any special mo- 
 tive, to an excellent man, whom she could respect 
 if she could not love, she did it, not because she 
 had forgotten Edward, but because she thought it 
 unwise to sacrifice her life to a hopeless passion. It 
 would seem that she should have been a devoted 
 mother, yet she is not ; and possibly Goethe means 
 thereby to intimate that maternal love and devotion 
 are dependent upon supreme love for the father, which 
 was lacking in Charlotte's case. However this may 
 be, Charlotte is a conscientious mother, but not 
 passionately fond of her children. Her chief weak- 
 ness lies in allowing herself to be over-persuaded 
 against her instincts and judgment. When Edward 
 returned to her, and urged marriage, she hesitated : 
 she felt that it was not prudent ; that during the 
 interval of their separation she had outgrown him. 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 261 
 
 though they were of about the same age, and that 
 the love of their youth had changed to friendship ; 
 yet his urgent solicitation overcame her doubts. So 
 too when Edward impulsively proposed the introduc- 
 tion of a third person into their home, she said, " My 
 feeling is against this plan ; I have an instinct which 
 tells me no good will come of it " ; yet she yielded. 
 From these two concessions arise the complications 
 of the story. 
 
 The Captain is a man of affliirs, reserved, laconic, 
 sedate, accomplished, and self-restrained. Up to the 
 time when Edward invites him to the castle, he has 
 found no situation in life which he considers worthy 
 of his own ability and accomplishments ; and al- 
 though he is not wealthy, finding strict economy and 
 occasional assistance from his friend Edward neces- 
 sary to the maintenance of his accustomed style of 
 living, he will not accept offered positions which seem 
 to him not suitable to enlist all his energies, in direc- 
 tions where he can accomplish substantial, perma- 
 nent benefit to the world. He is orderly, methodical, 
 industrious, persistent, laborious, tireless, and consci- 
 entious in his work ; never willing to leave undone 
 what he has begun, or to surrender a position into 
 incompetent hands, — despising a man who wishes 
 to insure that he shall be appreciated and missed 
 through the failure of those who have displaced him. 
 His passions are substantially under his control, and 
 we are not surprised to find him urging upon Edward 
 the claims of institutions and society as paramount 
 
262 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 to individual inclination, by all the arguments of a 
 mature, self-poised man of the world, though success 
 would destroy the Captain's own hopes. 
 
 Ottilie is the most interesting and the most attract- 
 ive character in the novel. She is introduced to us 
 as a young girl at school, and Goethe describes her 
 character as it appears to the Mother Superior, who 
 does not love her, and to the Assistant, who does. 
 She is an orphan, has been adopted by Charlotte, 
 who is her aunt and was her mother's most intimate 
 friend, and has been placed at the school with Luci- 
 ana, the daughter of Cliarlotte. The Lady Superior 
 says of Ottilie, " She is always unassuming, always 
 ready to oblige others ; but it is not pleasant to see 
 her so timid, so almost servile." Slie thinks her too 
 abstemious as to personal comfort and adornment, 
 in her eating, drinking, and dressing ; but says, 
 " She keeps her things very nice and clean," The 
 Lady Superior's suggestion as to Ottilie's haljit of 
 abstinence from proper food is obviously intended 
 to prevent the misapprehension that Ottilie, at the 
 crisis of her life, wilfully committed suicide by star- 
 vation. 
 
 At the school examination Ottilie utterly fails, and 
 the Assistant tells us why. She is very slow to learn, 
 and cannot learn at all by rote. Everything must 
 come to her by slow, successive steps, and with the 
 logical connection perfectly explicit and fully seized. 
 She learns like one who is to educate, and her pro- 
 gress, though slow, is sure. I)Ut brilliancy at au 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 263 
 
 examination is not possible to her. She is inevitably 
 behind her companions in superficial acquisition, and 
 besides, when she is asked a question about what she 
 does know, she seems to know nothing; even her 
 handwriting exhibits this slowness and stiffness, 
 though it is not without character. The Assistant 
 excuses the examiners for their lack of appreciation 
 of Ottilie, for it is their function to appraise accom- 
 plishments, not capabilities ; yet he is sure that she 
 has been born for the good and happiness of others, 
 and assuredly also for her own, and that the fruits of 
 her labors will develop th,emselves sooner or later 
 into a beautiful life. 
 
 Goethe brings the saintliness of Ottilie into prom- 
 inence by the Assistant's description of a saintly 
 gesture, which is habitual to her; and he tells us 
 that when, in the Young Architect's tableau, she ap- 
 peared as the Mother of God, " she excelled all that 
 any painter has represented." We find that Ottilie 
 is beautiful in person, affectionate, and appreciative ; 
 that she has that exceedingly agreeable faculty of en- 
 tertaining one by her listening ; that in the domestic 
 sphere she is very quick to learn and very skilful in 
 directive power, knowing how to direct, and able also 
 to set right herself anything undone or wrongly done ; 
 very methodical she is too, dividing her day and 
 assigning to each division its own labors. The whole 
 management of the household is soon given up to her ; 
 even Charlotte's child is her especial care. She is a 
 delightful companion for both women and men, and 
 
264 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 at Charlotte's request makes for herself most tasteful 
 dresses. Goethe says she becomes thus more and 
 more a delight to all who behold her, for human 
 beauty appeals both to the outward and to the in- 
 ward sense, and " whoever looks upon it is charmed 
 against the breath of evil and feels in harmony with 
 himself and with the world." She is exceedingly 
 and increasingly anxious to be of service, — half a 
 word is enough for her here ; " with her calm attentive- 
 ness, and her easy, unexcited activity, she is always 
 the same ; sitting, rising up, going, coming, fetching, 
 carrying, returning to her place again, all in the most 
 perfect repose," — constant change, constant agreeable 
 movement, yet always a calm placidity. Her desire 
 to serve is excessive and needs restraint, appearing 
 servile to one not appreciating its motive, as it did to 
 the Lady Superior. She alone, of all the characters, 
 unless perhaps the Young Architect, seems to have 
 religious sentiment ; she feels the pervading presence 
 of God, sees His hand in her aflflictions, and asks His 
 aid and comfort. Her artistic talent is quite remark- 
 able, though it does not rise to genius. She has the 
 clairvoyant temperament, can see her lover by second- 
 sight, and feels buried treasures. She is so attractive 
 to men that in any company she is the centre of 
 attraction. The Captain, the Count, and the Baron 
 all seek her society, and the Assistant and the Young 
 Architect, besides Edward, are her lovers. Yet their 
 love is unsought, and is a surprise to her. There is 
 no trace of the coquette in her character. Goethe 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES, 265 
 
 indicates the universality of her fascination by mak- 
 ing her so attractive to such different men. 
 
 Ottilie's love is so unselfish that she could sur- 
 render Edward willingly, if his best good demanded 
 the sacrifice, while Edward's love is intensely selfish. 
 It seems as if Goethe gave to Ottilie every character- 
 istic of body> mind, and spirit which he considered 
 desirable in a woman. When Ottilie died, all the 
 people followed, or rather crowded around, her bier ; 
 men, women, boys, and especially the girls who had 
 been her pupils, — there was not one among them 
 all unmoved. Even her lifeless body had the saintly 
 virtue of healing, so that he who touched it was re- 
 stored to health, and great crowds made pilgrimages 
 to her tomb as to the shrine of a saint. 
 
 Lewes says of Ottilie's Diary, that it gives us, in- 
 stead of the impassioned feelings of a young girl, the 
 thoughts of an old man. Goethe himself says that 
 the larger proportion of the sentences could not have 
 arisen from her own reflection, but m^^st have been 
 copied from something which took her fancy. There 
 are parts of the Diary, however, which are evidently 
 intended as revelations of Ottilie's own feelings, and 
 these exhibit the patient waiting which is charac- 
 teristic of her. There are no passionate longings for 
 immediate possession of her lover; she is content 
 to look forward to lying side by side with him in the 
 grave. The impetuous, vehement Bettine writes to 
 Goethe, in regard to Ottilie : " It is not maidenly for 
 her to leave her lover, and not to wait from him the 
 
266 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 unfolding of her fate ; it is not womanly that she 
 does not consider his fate alone." It were evident 
 enough without this criticism that Bettine is not the 
 original of Ottilie. It lies in Ottilie's nature that 
 her very innocence should expose her to the fatal 
 entanglement of a love impossible of realization on 
 earth. With her deep, undemonstrative nature, her 
 surrender to the guidance of others, her desire to do 
 right, her little self-reliance, but great capacity si- 
 lently to endure, she is sure, if she love unwisely, to 
 die for love. One feels her fascination, and can pardon 
 her mistake. 
 
 The four characters already considered are the 
 principal persons of the story ; their sentiments are 
 the theme, and the events are important only as they 
 affect these persons. The other characters, though 
 subordinate, are very interesting, and worthy of seri- 
 ous study, but we must at this time dismiss them 
 hurriedly. 
 
 Mittler is a unique creation, and one would sup- 
 pose hardly to be met with in real life ; yet Goethe 
 says of this character, that " a person whom he had 
 never seen or known in his life had supposed the 
 character of Mittler to be meant for himself" He 
 adds, " There must be some truth in this character, 
 and it must have existed more than once in the 
 world." He is, as his name indicates, a mediator, (his 
 only business in life being to settle disputes,) and 
 he serves two important purposes. Into his mouth 
 Goethe puts his own views of the marriage relation, 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 267 
 
 in some of its aspects, and, through Mittler's inability 
 to give any real assistance when it is most needed, 
 Goethe exhibits the insufficiency of external media- 
 tion for the solution of internal problems. 
 
 The Assistant is a laborious, pains-taking teacher, 
 who loves Ottilie, not with vehement passion, but 
 with deep-seated regard, based on association and 
 careful observation of her character. He thinks she 
 would make an excellent teacher's wife. He can wait 
 however, and does wait forever, without apparently 
 being much the worse for it. He would undoubtedly 
 have made Ottilie a good husband, but would hardly 
 have satisfied any heart-hunger. His great gift is to 
 talk well, and to treat in his conversation of men 
 and human relations, particularly in reference to the 
 cultivation of young people. He is absorbed in his 
 vocation, and Goethe attributes to him many pro- 
 found observations on teaching. 
 
 The Young Architect, though a subordinate charac- 
 ter in the incidents of the story, is placed by Solger 
 "high above all; because while all the other persons 
 of the novel show themselves loving and weak, he 
 alone remains strong and free ; and the beauty of his 
 nature consists not so much in this, that he does 
 not fall into the errors of the other characters, but in 
 this, that the poet has made him so noble that he 
 cannot fall into them." Goethe, commenting on this, 
 says to Eckermann, " that is really very fine " ; and 
 Eckermann responds, "I have felt the importance 
 and amiability of the Architect's character ; but I 
 
268 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 never remarked that he was so very excellent, just 
 because by his very nature he could not fall into those 
 bewilderments of love." To which Goethe replies, 
 " No wonder, for I myself never thought of it when I 
 was creating him. Yet Solger is right ; this certainly 
 is his character." So Goethe bears testimony to that 
 unconscious element in the creative activity of the 
 artist by which he "builded better than he knew." It 
 is true, therefore, that it is much wiser to seek the 
 content of the created work of art in the work itself, 
 than to search the memoirs of the artist for his pur- 
 pose, though that may have human interest also. It is 
 the function of the Young Architect to restore. He 
 has a great collection of imitations of and designs from 
 old monuments and vases, and of outlines and figures 
 traced from original ancient pictures. The character 
 of the collection indicates that purity, reverence, tran- 
 quillity, are the prominent characteristics of the col- 
 lector. The fantastic and sentimental in art are not 
 in accordance with his taste, but he delights in repro- 
 ducing the placid, innocent, satisfied, pious happiness 
 of the saints. In this spirit he restores the church 
 and chapel; but as he is only a dilettante in painting, 
 he makes no attempt at originality, and he is so sus- 
 ceptible to the influence of his companionship with 
 Ottilie, that aU the faces he paints resemble her. To 
 him Ottilie is the saint; in her the right thing is 
 innate. His devotion is so deep and true, that one 
 feels his love ought to have been requited. Certainly, 
 of Ottilie's lovers he was far the most worthy of her 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 269 
 
 love. But Solger's estimate of his nobility, wliich 
 protects him from the errors of the other characters, 
 seems justified. When his work is done, he departs, 
 lingering to be sure till he forces himself away, feeling 
 that he can endure his disappointment better at a 
 distance ; yet he goes with only a half-melancholy 
 feeling, bravely resolving, one can believe, to conquer 
 what cannot be satisfied. He returns to stand, " in 
 the vigor of youth and grace, with his arms drooping 
 and his hands clasped piteously together, motionless, 
 with head and eye inclined over Ottilie's inanimate 
 body," and to think of " the rare, sweet, lovely virtues 
 whose peaceful workings the thirsty world had wel- 
 comed, while it had them, with gladness and joy, and 
 now was sorrowing for them with unavailing desire " ; 
 but as he sees " his beautiful friend floating before 
 him in the new life of a higher world," his tears cease 
 flowing, his sorrow grows lighter, and, reverentially 
 taking his leave of Ottilie, he rides away into the 
 night, we hope, consoled. 
 
 Luciana, the daughter of Charlotte and the excel- 
 lent njan whom she " respected, if she did not love," 
 is a foil to Ottilie. Ottilie is modest, retiring, un- 
 assuming, undemonstrative, considerate, and helpful. 
 Luciana is bold, brilliant, superficial, pushing, utterly 
 reckless of the feelings of others, utilizing all persons 
 and things for the gratification of her caprices, born 
 to command, but not to command gracefully. Wher- 
 ever Luciana comes, she turns everything topsy-turvy; 
 yet notwithstanding the arbitrariness of her caprices, 
 
270 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 she lias a certain skill for winning people to herself 
 when she thinks it worth while, by making each 
 believe himself the most favored by her ; and she has 
 many admirers, even adorers. She has no success 
 with the Young Architect, however. She is satirical, 
 wilful, and thoroughly selfish, though with occasional 
 capriciously benevolent impulses ; and her feelings 
 toward Ottilie have a genuine bitterness. Luciana is 
 an essentially unlovely and distasteful character, even 
 though the Lady Superior regards her as a little di- 
 vinity, and one wonders how the combination of Char- 
 lotte and the excellent man produced such result ; yet 
 Charlotte with a parent's hope believes that the dis- 
 cipline of life may make her amiable and charming. 
 
 Nanny interests us as enabling the author to ex- 
 hibit the attractiveness of Ottilie in the relation of 
 mistress and servant. Nanny is a wild, wayward, 
 lively little village girl, who seems to have no capa- 
 city for work at home, but devotes herself body and 
 soul to Ottilie, and in her service is active, cheerful, 
 never-tiring. Nanny's devotion does not always re- 
 strain her covetonsness and greediness; but she is 
 driven distracted by the thought that she had killed 
 her mistress by concealing the fact that, at Ottilie's 
 command, she had eaten the food prepared for Ottilie, 
 remembering with remorse that she had enjoyed the 
 eating. The touch of Ottilie's lifeless hand worked 
 a miracle in Nanny's soul, as well as on her brokeii 
 body ; for we find her, after, addressing the Young 
 Architect in his sorrow with such truthfulness and 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 271 
 
 power, such kiuduess and such confidence, as to aston- 
 ish and comfort him. 
 
 The Count and Baroness are distinctively " society- 
 people," and while recognizing the validity of mar- 
 riage, and respecting it in their own case as a social 
 and legal requirement, they have no deep conviction 
 of its rationality. Curiously enough, Goethe makes 
 them instruments to separate the Captain from Char- 
 lotte, and Ottilie from Edward, though the latter 
 scheme does not work out as the Baroness intended. 
 
 The Earl and his friend have only an episodical 
 connection with the story ; but here, as always, the 
 more carefully we examine the episode, the more 
 thoroughly we feel its real artistic connection with 
 the main work. 
 
 We will next examine the events in which these 
 characters are involved, confining ourselves, how- 
 ever, for the sake of brevity, to the two principal 
 threads. The story opens with a picture of domestic 
 contentment, Charlotte and Edward, having been 
 married a few months, have settled down to a coun- 
 try life by themselves, in a beautiful home, with 
 ample wealth, spending their days industriously in 
 the improvement of the estate, and their evenings in 
 pleasant conversation, writing, reading, playing duets 
 for flute and piano, and arranging and completing 
 Edward's old journal, — perfect domestic tranquillity. 
 But even Adam and Eve, who had had no experi- 
 ence of anythmg else, and had no social world over 
 
272 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 against them, found a garden life irksome; while 
 these persons have spent their youth at court, have 
 been accustomed to gay society, have many ties which 
 connect them with the social world, and are still in 
 the prime of life. They have experienced also a 
 youthful, mutual attachment ; each has made a mar- 
 riage of convenience, and they have now united them- 
 selves in a marriage of friendship. From what we 
 have seen of the two characters, we know that Char- 
 lotte could spend her life contentedly under her pres- 
 ent circumstances, but that Edward will soon become 
 discontented, will desire a change, and will be entirely 
 carried away by the first strong passion wliich change 
 of circumstances may give occasion to. This tranquil 
 life is only the point of departure, therefore Goethe 
 provides for its destruction in the very first chapter ; 
 indeed, Edward has the invitation to the Captain in 
 mind as he lays down his gardening tools in the 
 opening paragraph. Edward proposes inviting their 
 old friend the Captain to visit them. Charlotte op- 
 poses to his excellent practical reasons for the change 
 her feeling that the introduction of a third person 
 will break up their scheme of life disastrously. She 
 feels, what Edward does not, that a marriage of friend- 
 ship is not secure, and is sure that the intervention 
 of a third person is a matter of very great moment. 
 However, she yields at last to Edward's vehemence 
 and obstinacy, concealed by the warmth and sweetness 
 with which he urges his scheme, and is even finally 
 over-persuaded by him into solving her difficulty 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 273 
 
 about Ottilie by sending for her as well. Edward's 
 crowning argument is, that it would be selfish in 
 them to decline to help those who have the closest 
 claim upon their affection, lest some danger should 
 come to themselves. And so the foundation is laid 
 for the collisions of the story. We notice, however, 
 that Edward does not intend any harm ; he has seen 
 Ottilie, but has hardly noticed her, and wonders that 
 Cliarlotte can think her particularly attractive. 
 
 The limits of a single paper will not permit me to 
 stay upon the details of the story. I must content 
 myself with the slightest outline, assuming that you 
 are already familiar with the details, or will become 
 so if your interest is excited. The first part of the 
 work is devoted to portraying with consummate art the 
 rise and development of the passion of love between 
 Edward and Ottilie, the Captain and Charlotte. Love 
 scenes, of the ordinary English novel variety, are 
 scarcely to be found at all in this novel. They are 
 managed with great delicacy for the most part, and 
 the growth of passion is indicated mainly by slight 
 artistic touches, rather than by broad delineation. 
 In each of the personages the sentiment takes form 
 and is dealt with as tlie character of the individual 
 determines. Edward begins to fall in love with Ot- 
 tilie the first evening after her arrival, and yields 
 himself wliolly to his passion, with utter disregard of 
 every other consideration ; yet even he, as a lover, 
 finds himself in his beloved, and can make sacrifices 
 
 for her. Ottilie's love is as pure and innocent as the 
 
 18 
 
274 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 unfortunate circumstances will permit. She began 
 to love Edward (Charlotte contriving to bring them 
 together) before his marriage to Charlotte ; but Ed- 
 ward, with characteristic obstinacy and singleness of 
 view, was at that time so intent upon securing Char- 
 lotte that he did not notice Ottilie. So it was his 
 own wilfulness, not an external fate, which placed 
 the insuperable barrier between them. Ottilie is 
 persuaded by Edward that Charlotte desires a sepa- 
 ration that she may marry the Captain, and, accus- 
 tomed to rely upon the judgment of others, does not 
 reflect farther, but allows her whole soul to become 
 devoted to her love. Goethe says that, " led by the 
 sense of her own innocence along the road to the 
 happiness for which she longed, she only lived for 
 Edward ; and, strengthened by her love for him in all 
 good, more light and happy in her work for his sake, 
 and more frank and open toward others, she found 
 herself in a heaven upon earth." Our author very 
 carefully preserves Ottilie from any wilful, deliberate 
 transgression of the laws of God or man. 
 
 Charlotte and the Captain are drawn together by 
 similarity of tastes and occupation, and by mutual 
 respect and esteem. Between them there is at no 
 time violent passion, but only sincere regard. They 
 co-operate in renunciation and separation, and each 
 strives heartily to reinstate the divided family ; but 
 Edward's headlong impetuosity renders all their efforts 
 futile. He insists upon a separation from Charlotte, 
 refuses to allow Ottilie to be sent away, abandons his 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 275 
 
 home ; and when he learns that Charlotte is about to 
 become a mother, instead of being recalled to duty 
 and family, he is overcome by despair, joins the army, 
 and, recklessly fighting, seeks to solve by death the 
 difficulties of his situation, or to find in his escape an 
 assurance that fate favors his love. Charlotte recov- 
 ers her spirits and cheerfulness, and does all she can 
 to help Ottilie, providing full employment for her, 
 and advising her wisely and considerately. Ottilie 
 enters as best she may into the various activities sug- 
 gested by Charlotte, teaching the village girls, and 
 superintending the house and gardens ; but does not 
 succeed in overcoming her passion. " She had first 
 found in Edward what life and happiness meant, and 
 in her present position she feels an infinite and dreary 
 chasm of which before she could have formed no con- 
 ception." So, at the end of the first part of the story, 
 all the tranquillity is destroyed, the family is divided, 
 and the chief personages are out of true relation to 
 each other and to the world. Goethe's universal pan- 
 acea, activity and diversion, seems inadequate here. 
 In the second part a solution is sought. We shall see 
 how it is effected. 
 
 We will pass over the discussion about burial- 
 places, which would alone furnish suggestion for an 
 entire essay, as well as also the restoration of the 
 chapel, the social whirlpool stirred up by Luciana, 
 and other very important episodes, which have not 
 however essential bearing upon the principal content 
 of the story. The evident devotion of the Young 
 
276 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 Architect, the prudent desire of the Assistant, and 
 the round of gay entertainments devis6d by Luciana, 
 make no change in Ottilie's absorbing passion. The 
 Assistant iinds her, " in respect of a freer carriage, of 
 an easier manner of speaking, of a higher insight into 
 the things of the world, altered much for the better." 
 But " it seemed to her as if nothing in the world were 
 disconnected, so long as she thought of the one person 
 whom she loved; and she could not conceive how, 
 without him, anything could be connected at all." 
 She is docile, and does her part everywhere, but with- 
 out essential change. The child of Charlotte and 
 Edward, the heir to the estate, is born, and Ottilie, 
 devoting herself to it for Edward's sake, begins to 
 realize the ethical requirements of the family. She 
 sees how desirable and necessary it is that the child 
 should grow up under the eyes of the father and 
 mother, "and renew and strengthen the union between 
 them." It becomes clear to her that her love, if it 
 would perfect itself, must become wholly unselfish ; 
 and there are moments in which she believes that she 
 has already attained this elevation, and thinks herself 
 able to resign Edward and never see him again, if she 
 can only know that he is happy : " the one only deter- 
 mination she forms for herself is never to belong to 
 another," Charlotte has so far succeeded in her re- 
 nunciation that she begins to plan the marriage of the 
 Captain with Ottilie. So it seems as if the family 
 were to triumph, and all were to be set right by the 
 coming of the child upon the scene. 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 211 
 
 But Edward, who has survived the perils of the 
 war, reappears, and neither his own sense of duty nor 
 the arguments of the Captain (now the Major) restrain 
 him. He listens to what the Major says about his 
 duty to his wife, to his family, to his own position, 
 and to the world, but they are all naught to his love. 
 He is still determined upon separation from Charlotte. 
 He says fate has brought them into their present sit- 
 uation, and the only solution is by a reconstruction of 
 their relations. He will not quite promise to recon- 
 sider, even if it can be shown that Ottilie can be 
 happy without him ; but no other consideration will 
 have any effect upon him. The most the Major can 
 secure is a slight delay, and he is finally prevailed 
 upon to assent to Edward's plan. Edward goes to 
 Ottilie, tells her that the Major has undertaken to 
 persuade Charlotte, and begs and implores her acqui- 
 escence, but is met by a reference to the child, and 
 a firm determination to abide Charlotte's decision, 
 though he succeeds in getting fresh assurance of her 
 love. 
 
 Here interposes an accident which destroys all hope 
 of solution by means of the child. Goethe makes 
 the agitation produced in Ottilie by Edward's impet- 
 uosity cause the child's death. Charlotte sees in this 
 the determination of destiny, and consents to the sep- 
 aration. She believes that the good of Edward and 
 Ottilie requires the sacrifice at her hands. To the 
 Major's urging of his own suit, she says, " Do not ask 
 me now ! I will tell you another time. We have 
 
278 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 not deserved to be miserable ; but neither can we say 
 we have deserved to be happy together." The Major 
 and Edward are both inclined to regard the death of 
 the child as " a convenient accident." Now, however, 
 when all has conspired apparently to free Ottilie from 
 restraint, she comes to full consciousness of her mis- 
 take. She says, " I will never be Edward's wife. In 
 a terrible manner God has opened my eyes to see the 
 sin in which I was entangled. I will atone for it, and 
 let no one think to move me from my purpose." 
 
 But our personages are not to escape from their 
 entanglement easily. Though Ottilie by her repent- 
 ance and resolution feels herself freed from the bur- 
 den of her fault and her misfortune, and has forgiven 
 herself, yet the self-forgiveness is conditioned solely 
 on the fullest renunciation persisted in for all time 
 to come; and her own weakness, which she cannot 
 wholly conquer, and Edward's pertinacity, make a 
 tranquil life of renunciation impossible. Only the 
 death of the lovers can bring peace, Ottilie deter- 
 mines to return to the school, never willingly to see 
 Edward again, and to devote herself to God; but 
 Edward compels an interview and destroys her plans, 
 though she remains firm in her renunciation, and sub- 
 dues him by the saintly attitude which the Assistant 
 noticed as so characteristic of her when she would 
 not be further urged. She returns to the castle, as 
 does Edward also. The Major too and Mittler come 
 frequently. They endeavor to resume their old rela- 
 tion outwardly, without bitterness or cross purposes. 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 279 
 
 but with the new relations in some way taken up into 
 it ; but Ottilie neither speaks nor eats, and gradually 
 fades away, till Mittler's rude, though unintentional, 
 portrayal of her sin agaiust the bond of marriage 
 destroys her life. Edward lived on mechanically ; he 
 seemed to have no tears left, and to be incapable of 
 any further suffering ; his power of taking interest in 
 what was going on diminished every day ; sometimes 
 he would follow Ottilie's example, and neither speak 
 nor eat; then his restlessness would overcome him, 
 and he would desire to eat, and would begin to 
 speak again; then he would bewail his inability to 
 follow in Ottilie's footsteps, and say, " Genius is re- 
 quired for everything, even for martyrdom, as well 
 as the rest." 
 
 At last they found him dead ; Charlotte feared that 
 he had committed suicide, but the circumstances of 
 his death prove that he died naturally. He died with 
 his memorials of Ottilie spread out before him, and, 
 falling asleep " with his thoughts on one so saintly, 
 might well be called blessed." Charlotte gives him 
 his place by Ottilie's side. The novel concludes : 
 " So lie the lovers, sleeping side by side. Peace hov- 
 ers above their resting-place. Fair angel faces gaze 
 down upon them from the vaulted ceiling, and what a 
 happy moment that will be when one day they wake 
 again together ! " * 
 
 This meagre sketch of the incidents omits innu- 
 merable artistic touches with which the artist charms 
 
280 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 the reader, and the limits of this essay forbid my 
 calling attention to them. I have intended only to 
 present what is necessary for a consideration of the 
 ethical content of the work ; incidentally observing 
 also how the characters ground the facts. It is evi- 
 dent that the passion of Edward and Ottilia, and its 
 collision with the family, are the main tlieme of the 
 novel. Everything else is incidental thereto. The 
 principal element of the content of this novel is 
 therefore love, and more especially that love of man 
 for woman, and woman for man, on which the family 
 is founded. As it is the special function of art to 
 excite in the beholder o, feeling of the true, and as it 
 accomplishes its purpose by reducing the true to a 
 form which appeals to the feeling, it is evident that 
 it will use spirit in its internality mainly on the side 
 of sentiment. Love as the paramount sentiment in 
 some form — as religious love, parental or filial love, 
 or love in which the difference of sex is an important 
 factor — is therefore a favorite element of the content 
 of works of Eomantic Art. This is especially true 
 of novels, so that it has been said that no novel could 
 possibly be successful without at least one pair of 
 lovers ; and the artist usually considers that number 
 insufficient. Goethe in the "Elective Affinities" fur- 
 nishes several pairs. 
 
 In the devotion of one person to another of the 
 opposite sex, the deepest thinkers have seen a mani- 
 festation of the highest phase of love. The utter sur- 
 render of self to find and know one's self for the first 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 281 
 
 time in another manifests tlie infinity of personality. 
 Tiie infinite character of love appears in that the true 
 lover exists only in his beloved. It is evident that 
 the collisions, in real life, of a sentiment so absorb- 
 ing, with domestic, civil, and political relations, and 
 with itself as manifested in different individuals, with 
 duty, honor, and fidelity, furnish abundant material 
 for the imagination of the artist. Then there appear 
 an indefinite variety of grades of manifestation of the 
 sentiment, from the shallowest and most sensuous 
 passionate desire to the highest and truest devotion, 
 determined by the temperament and character of the 
 lover. No two of the lovers in the " Elective Affini- 
 ties" exhibit the passion in the same form. There 
 is also an inherent imperfection in the sentiment 
 itself, in that the loved object is a special individual. 
 Baron Bunsen, dying, recognized and repudiated this 
 limitation, when he said to his wife, " We shall meet 
 again, for I have loved the eternal in you " ; but ordi- 
 narily we love the special and particular. Hegel has 
 expressed with his accustomed vigor and completeness 
 the limitation of the special phase of love which is 
 the principal element of the content of the work we 
 are considering ; and he furnishes the key to the ethi- 
 cal validity of Goethe's treatment of the situation, in 
 the consideration of love, under the general heading 
 of Chivalry in his " Aesthetik." ^ The obstinacy with 
 which the lover insists that only the one particular 
 individual he has selected can possibly meet the 
 
 1 Hegel's Philosopliy of Art, Bryant, p. 136 ct seq. 
 
282 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 requirements of his nature, lays the foundation for 
 distressing collisions. In this novel the principal col- 
 lision is with the monogamic family which God and 
 man have instituted as the fundamental secular insti- 
 tution. The institution has its limitations. The true 
 family should have for its foundation true love, and 
 then no collision of the kind here portrayed would 
 be possible ; but there are marriages of convenience, 
 marriages of vanity and ambition, and marriages of 
 friendship, and none of these are secure against love. 
 Goethe has given us four instances of marriages of 
 convenience ; namely, the first marriages of Charlotte 
 and Edward, which were entered into at the solicita- 
 tion of family and friends ; and (we may assume) the 
 respective marriages of the Count and Baroness. 
 The first two continued peacefully to their natural 
 termination, not through any inherent validity, how- 
 ever, but because no occasion for collision occurred. 
 The second two were not so fortunate, but Goethe is 
 careful of the legal bond. The Count and Baroness 
 must wait, however unwillingly, till the death of the 
 Countess sets the Count free. Luciaua's marriage 
 with the Baron is a marriage of vanity and ambition, 
 and we can readily see that trouble between Luciana 
 and the Baron is very sure to arise. The marriage 
 of Charlotte and Edward is a marriage of friendship. 
 Their early love was a mere childish affection, and 
 the respect and esteem which had succeeded are not 
 the ideal foundation of marriage. Hence it is not 
 inartistic to present a collision between this marriage 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 283 
 
 and true love, as it would have been had true love 
 existed between Charlotte and Edward. 
 
 In considering the validity of the " Elective Affini- 
 ties " as a work of art, the question arises primarily, 
 Ought the artist to have selected this particular col- 
 lision as a theme ? If it is a truth of human expe- 
 rience, that is surely some justification ; and Goethe 
 says : " Indeed, there is not a line in the ' Elective 
 Affinities ' that is not taken from my own experience, 
 and there is more in it than can be gathered by any 
 one from a first reading. . . . No one can fail to rec- 
 ognize in it a deep, passionate wound, which shrinks 
 from being closed by healing, a heart which dreads 
 to be cured. In it, as in a burial urn, I have de- 
 posited, with deep emotion, many a sad experience. 
 The 3d of October, 1809, set me free from the work, 
 but the feeling it embodies can never quite depart 
 from me." 
 
 In a letter to Bettine he says : " The poet was, at 
 the development of this sad fate, deeply moved. He 
 has borne his share of pains ; chide him not, therefore, 
 that he calls upon his friends for sympathy. Since 
 so much which is sad dies, unmourned, the death of 
 oblivion, the poet has here proposed to himself, in this 
 one-fabled lot, as in a funeral urn, to collect the tears 
 for much that has been neglected." But not all 
 human experiences can properly be portrayed in a 
 novel. I am inclined to think, however, that in these 
 times, when the bond of marriage is lightly assumed 
 and lightly broken, and the passion of love is the 
 
284 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 sport of children, a novel treating this collision ethi- 
 cally is timely and desirable. 
 
 A second question is, Does Goethe portray the col- 
 lision from a true ethical standpoint ? The answers 
 of different commentators to this question have dif- 
 fered toto ccdo. Goethe says, "N"ot many pleasant 
 remarks were vouchsafed me about that novel." The 
 Encyclopaedia Britannica says, " In 1809 he finished 
 the ' Elective Affinities,' a story which is always cited 
 to prove the immoral tendency of his works." Bet- 
 tine vehemently upbraids Goethe for not having done 
 precisely what the accusers of the novel say that he 
 has done ; namely, for not having made love the con- 
 qvieror. In this country it has been considered suffi- 
 cient to prove the immoral tendency of the " Elective 
 Affinities," that a person prominently connected with 
 social movements, accounted disreputable, should have 
 been invited to write the Introduction to one of its 
 editions. It has been taken for granted, that, if it 
 could serve any purpose of such persons, it must neces- 
 sarily be bad ; but the Introduction candidly admits 
 that the work will furnish cold comfort for such as 
 find the restraints of permanent marriage irksome, and 
 that to such its conservatism will prove an unwelcome 
 surprise. When one remembers that the advocates of 
 slavery, polygamy, and drunkenness have long been 
 accustomed to draw their strongest arguments from 
 the Bible, the fact that persons alleged to be impure 
 have commended the " Elective Affinities " is not al- 
 together conclusive of its impurity. The work itself 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 285 
 
 furnishes no warrant whatever for such conclusion. 
 Much of the unintelligent, hostile criticism of the 
 novel is really based on the assumption that Goetlie's 
 own life indicated a loose view of marriage, and that 
 therefore the immoral construction of his work is the 
 true one. But Goethe says, and with direct reference 
 to this novel, " The late Eeinhard of Dresden said he 
 often wondered that I had such severe principles with 
 respect to marriage, while I was so tolerant in every- 
 thing; else." Those who have studied the novel in- 
 telligently and deeply, — e. g. Solger, Eosenkranz, 
 Diintzer, Herman Grimm, and Mrs. C. K. Sherman, — 
 all these thorough students of the work find in it a 
 profoundly moral content. Lewes, with a dispassion- 
 ate and unpartisan liberality, agrees neither with those 
 who find the novel moral, nor with those who find it 
 immoral. He thinks all depends upon how you take 
 it ; and this is superficially true. One may say that 
 the final catastrophe results from the failure of the 
 personages to respect the validity of love (Charlotte 
 takes this view of the death of the child) ; or one may 
 say that the error of falling in love with a person 
 already married can only be atoned by death. 
 
 The ethical content of the work is, in my view, 
 this : the necessary subordination, in the sphere of 
 real life, of subjective passion, even though pure and 
 true, to the objective institution, even though not 
 ideally perfect. Ottilie's love is innocent ; it had its 
 beginning long before the interference of other claims ; 
 it is as deep and true and perfect as the artist could 
 
286 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 make it ; and in itself considered, it is entitled to 
 realization in marriage ; for 
 
 " Love, in human wise to bless us, 
 In a noble pair must be ; 
 But divinely to possess us, 
 It must form a precious Three" 
 
 But, unfortunately for Ottilie, Edward's obstinacy has 
 erected an impassable barrier here. If her love is 
 valid against a marriage of friendship, his is not. He 
 has no right to marry and unmarry at will. The 
 interests of society, and therefore the true interests of 
 the individual, demand permanence for the family. 
 The fact that Charlotte does not love Edward, and that 
 she would be willing to have the marriage dissolved, 
 is not sufficient. It is not a question of subjective 
 inclination. 
 
 It being settled, then, that the existing marriage 
 must not be violated, the effect upon the individuals 
 concerned will depend upon their respective char- 
 acters. The Captain and Charlotte easily restrain 
 and renounce their passion. They are not made for 
 love. Ottilie endeavors to renounce, sincerely and 
 religiously strives to overcome, and perhaps would 
 have succeeded so far as to live on heart-broken, 
 but tranquil, if she could have had help, or even no 
 hindrance, from Edward ; for though her whole being 
 has gone into her love, she has strength of character 
 and patience enough to wait, — for after all it is but 
 waiting. Goethe says, " "What a happy moment that 
 will be when one day they wake again together ! " 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 287 
 
 Death cancelled the marriage bond. It is in the 
 sphere of real life, here in this world, that their love 
 must be subordinated. External marriage, without 
 true spiritual union, is only " till death do us part," — 
 so that Ottilie could look to the future with happy 
 expectation. But how could she ever be happy with 
 Edward ? He is so obstinate, yet so weak, — so self- 
 ish, yet without self-control; but love is self-denying, 
 not self-seeking, and perhaps Ottilie can make a true 
 lover even of Edward, 
 
 Eosenkranz thinks that the Fate element in this 
 novel is of principal importance. He says, " The 
 ' Elective Affinities ' represent to us a tragic fate." 
 This statement is misleading, if understood to mean 
 that the triumph of Fate over man is the main 
 content of the work. Such interpretation would be 
 correct, if this narrow span were all ; but to one who 
 measures justly the capacity and endurance of the 
 human spirit. Fate is a subordinate factor. It is 
 evident from expressions in "Meister," that Goethe 
 views the complications of Fate merely as obstacles 
 which the true spirit must overcome. The Stranger 
 says to Wilhelra : " The fabric of our life is formed 
 of necessity and chance. The reason of man takes 
 its station between them, and may rule them both ; 
 it treats the necessary as the groundwork of its 
 being ; the accidental it can direct, and guide, and 
 employ for its own purposes; and only while this 
 principle of reason stands firm and inexpugnable 
 does man deserve to be named the god of this lower 
 
288 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 world. But woe to hiin who, from his youth, has 
 used himself to search in necessity for something of 
 arbitrary will, — to ascribe to chance a sort of reason, 
 which it is a matter of religion to obey ! Is conduct 
 like this aught else than to renounce one's under- 
 standing, and give unrestricted scope to one's inclina- 
 tions ? " It seems as if Goethe might have had this 
 passage in mind when he created tlie character of 
 Edward, and the circumstances with which he has 
 surrounded him. Whether we consider the outer 
 fate of external events, or the inner fate of tempera- 
 ment and natural disposition, both of which aspects 
 of fate have full play in this novel, yet it is equally 
 true of both that it is the business of the human 
 spirit to overcome fate, and free itself from all deter- 
 mination save the highest self-determination. 
 
 The supposition that the influence of external fate 
 is the principal content of the " Elective Affinities " 
 contradicts Goethe's conception of the true method of 
 a novel ; he makes Serlo and Wilhelm agree, " that 
 in the novel some degree of scope may be allowed to 
 Chance, but that it must always be led and guided 
 by the sentiments of the personages; on the other 
 hand, that Fate, which by means of outward, uncon- 
 nected circumstances carries forward men, without 
 their own concurrence, to an unforeseen catastrophe, 
 can have place only in the drama ; that Chance may 
 produce pathetic situations, but never tragic ones." 
 
 The " Elective Affinities " teaches many valuable 
 lessons as to the conduct of life. I select these : it 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 289 
 
 teaches, that the elective affinity of love cannot he 
 ignored, if one would many happily ; that one must 
 cure his spiritual diseases by the activity of his own 
 soul, neither accusing Tate of his misfortunes, nor 
 seeking relief in the mediation of accident : hut it 
 teaches most explicitly of all, that man, as a rational 
 being, may hot yield, as a chemical element may, to 
 a natural affinity, but must regard his duties and 
 preserve inviolate the institutions of society, — dis- 
 regarding them only at peril of his life. 
 
 19 
 
290 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 X. 
 
 CHILD LIFE AS PORTRAYED BY 
 GOETHE. 
 
 By Mes. CAROLINE K. SHERMAN. 
 
 Every great poem is of necessity an organic unity. 
 Its parts, even to minute details, are dependent each 
 on the other and subservient to the whole, as the 
 whole in its turn is likewise subservient to each of 
 its parts. The poet may claim to sing as the birds 
 sing, admitting no other motive than the relief of his 
 love-laden heart ; he may be conscious of no earnest 
 moral purpose, no avowed intention of putting in 
 rhyme things never yet attempted in prose or verse. 
 Yet, if he be a genuine poet, his song freely expresses 
 the dominant impulse, which gives the key-note, and 
 all the variations but echo and re-echo the main idea. 
 Goethe more thau any other poet has disclaimed the 
 charge of ultimate ends and final purposes in his 
 writings, and still students of Goethe pore over his 
 works, bent on finding the central unifying idea, its 
 manifold form of expression, its artistic development, 
 as also its deep moral significance. And with right 
 they do this ; for the poet, whether working con- 
 sciously or otherwise, in so far as he is a poet, works 
 
CHILD LIFE AS PORTRAYED BY GOETHE. 291 
 
 not from any whim or caprice, but according to the 
 divine harmony within him, bringing the chaotic dis- 
 order of the world of fact into forms of relation and 
 beauty, reducing the distracted many to the Complete 
 One, and finding in that One the harmonious All, 
 an organic whole. 
 
 Still, although recognizing, as we do, the vital 
 unity of each of Goethe's masterpieces, the interde- 
 pendence of all the parts, and their necessary relation 
 to the whole, it is nevertheless altogether possible 
 that many an episode may be thrown in, having no 
 direct bearing on the whole ; that beauty here, as 
 elsewhere, may be " its own excuse for being " ; and 
 that one might as well ask why the blush was on the 
 rose, or the tint on the peach, as to question the 
 significance of the various phases of childhood por- 
 trayed in Goetlie's works. Yet as a Darwin finds 
 utility even in the most delicate beauty, — finds that 
 it renders an all-important service in the development 
 of Better up to Best, so we see that Goethe quite as 
 often passes from the beautiful by way of the true 
 to the useful, as from the useful by way of the true 
 to the beautiful, and that the Child Life which he de- 
 lights to picture is no idle accessory, but has always 
 a distinct bearing on the whole. 
 
 It was but natural that the morning-red of Goe- 
 the's own happy childhood should lend some color 
 to these portraits. Here, as elsewhere, Goethe looked 
 in his own heart and wrote. His childhood was, in 
 many respects, an ideal one, — not extraordinary in 
 
292 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 any abnormal sense : on the contrary, it was normal, 
 as following the highest type, and reaching the flower 
 and perfection of childhood. 
 
 Beautiful in person, endowed with healthful physi- 
 cal senses, the world of illusion was to him a veritable 
 paradise of delights. He had a comprehensive mind, 
 that grasped the things of sense, and easily discovered 
 their order and relation. Prompted by that childish 
 curiosity which later leads to rich scientific investi- 
 gation, study was to the child Goethe but the open- 
 ing of realm beyond realm of new discovery. On 
 the moral side there was neither the hypersensitive 
 conscience that belongs to the child of weak nerves, 
 and whose fate is to die young, nor yet was there 
 a rude indifference to the rights and privileges of 
 others. A strongly affectionate nature and heart- 
 felt sympathy for all about him, no doubt, had a con- 
 trolling influence in a moral direction; while, on the 
 religious side, as a boy Goethe was full of awe and 
 reverence for that Unseen Power, which he recog- 
 nized, not only as the beneficent Creator and wise 
 Preserver, but also as the awful Tliunderer, the grim 
 Destroyer, laying waste the earth by fire and flood. 
 This Unseen Power, even at that early age, con- 
 founded the boy's faith. He found it hard to recon- 
 cile divine goodness with painful facts ; but here, as 
 later in the problem of Paust, a healthful optimism 
 prevailed, and the boy trusted, as the heart of child- 
 hood will trust, that " somehow good will be the final 
 goal of ill " ; and then, with that " familiar grasp of 
 
CHILD LIFE AS PORTRAYED BY GOETHE. 293 
 
 things divine" so becoming in the reverent child, he 
 built an altar to his unknown God, hoping, since the 
 great God did not deign to manifest himself in the 
 flesh, tliat he might at least approach him with 
 sacrificial offerings of beauty, and worship him by 
 means of symbols. Here, too, we see that the sensu- 
 ous child-poet was father of the man. From first to 
 last, Goethe could approach the Infinite with no cold, 
 formal abstractions. In beautiful, sensuous forms he 
 must meet his divinity, make his confession, and 
 breathe his aspirations. From the heautiful to the 
 good, from the good to the beautiful, was Goethe's 
 impulse, or, as Plato has it, " from fair forms to those 
 still fairer, and so on up to the highest Good." This 
 tendency in the child Goethe from the beautiful to 
 the good was nothing individual, peculiar to himself. 
 It is the natural tendency of every healthful child, 
 and when parents and teachers will understand it 
 there will be less need of arbitrary rules and dog- 
 matic precepts. 
 
 Goethe's surroundings as a child were favorable 
 for a normal development. The inflexibility of the 
 overwise father, sternly in earnest for the good of his 
 children, was modified by the joyous sunny temper- 
 ament of the mother. The father appealed to the 
 head, the mother to the heart. If the father was 
 sometimes over-persistent and inexorable in his de- 
 mands, the little mother, as Goethe was pleased to 
 call her, could charm away any ill effect by her glad 
 presence. Not that the father was a hard taskmaster. 
 
294 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 but he had his own views of education, which to him 
 were ideal, and in many respects were so ; only it is 
 so hard sometimes to draw the dividing line between 
 what is ideal and what is mere hobby. Goethe's 
 father occasionally overstepped this boundary, which 
 is pardonable, perhaps, when we remember how excel- 
 lent his plans were in the main, and what a strong 
 influence for good they exerted on the boy, — when 
 we remember, too, that the ideal system of education, 
 which Goethe unfolds in " Wilhelm Meister," existed 
 in crude form in the brain of the elder Goethe. 
 
 How happily Goethe remembered his childhood, — 
 his free play in the world of sense, his first hints of 
 self-consciousness, the gradual unfolding of ethical 
 and spiritual powers, — he has narrated in the auto- 
 biographical sketches, which he calls Truth and Poetry, 
 and which by no means signify Truth and Fiction, 
 but Truth and that kind of Poetry which, as Aristotle 
 says, comes nearer to vital truth than history. What 
 is given in detail in these sketches is again found in 
 lines of exquisite poetry in the Prelude to " Faust," 
 which find an echo in every heart that yet remembers 
 its own glad spring-time : — 
 
 " Then give me back the years again 
 When mine own spirit too was growing, 
 "When my whole being was a vein 
 Of native songs within me flowing ; 
 Then slept the world in misty blue, 
 Each bud the nascent wonder cherished, 
 And all for me the flowerets grew 
 That on each meadow richly flourished: 
 
CHILD LIFE AS PORTRAYED BY GOETHE. 295 
 
 Though I naught had, I had a treasure, 
 The thirst for truth and in illusion pleasure. 
 Give me the free, unshackled pinion, 
 The height of joy, the depth of pain. 
 Strong hate, and stronger love's dominion, 
 0, give me back my youth again! " 
 
 The portraits of child life in Goethe's works that 
 are most familiar are those of Felix and of Mignon in 
 "Wilhelm Meister." This social romance, as we all 
 know, represents the development of the individual 
 as he passes through the various phases of social life, 
 seeking not so much to contradict and subvert these 
 social forms, as was the case with the aggressive Faust, 
 but wisely to appropriate from them that which shall 
 tend to his own advancement. Not revolution, but 
 evolution, is Wilhelm Meister's motto. He finds no 
 fault with the established order of things, — is no rad- 
 ical reformer, who sees the world out of joint, and 
 considers it his duty to set it right. He accepts his 
 environment as it is, with the purpose of wringing from 
 it that which is peculiarly his own, or that which will 
 bring him into most harmonious relations with his 
 conditions. We know through what various degrees 
 of culture Wilheim Meister passed ; — the beneficial 
 influence which commercial pursuits had upon him, 
 leading him to recognize the value of material gain 
 only so far as it was subservient to spiritual needs, 
 and the influence of the dramatic profession, by which 
 he was led from that which seems to that which is. 
 Art showed him his own possibilities and at the same 
 
296 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 time his limitations. Through religion he recognized 
 his position and relation to the universe. We know 
 ■what an important part woman plays in the history 
 of this development. At every stage of the process 
 her power is manifest. She may attract, she may 
 repel ; but either force, attraction or repulsion, has its 
 weight and affects his course. 
 
 It was specially fitting that in this novel, which 
 deals with the development of the individual as such, 
 woman should have had so active a part; for thus 
 far in the world's history her influence has been 
 chiefly with man as an individual. How great that 
 power has been, Goethe is free to admit. If he has 
 delineated women as they are, with their weak little- 
 nesses and frivolities, he has also shown the divine 
 power of woman and the moral order which reigns 
 where woman reigns. " But," says Goethe, " what in 
 us women leave uncultivated, children cultivate when 
 we retain them near us." Wilhelm passes through 
 all the stages of apprenticeship ; yet not until he rec- 
 ognizes and assumes the duties of a parent does his 
 apprenticeship end. Now he is no longer an isolated 
 individual, a mere learner, a passive recipient. He 
 is bound by family ties, and is now conscious of his 
 duties and privileges as a citizen. It is the child 
 Felix, well named the Happy-One, who gives the 
 finishing stroke to his apprenticeship. "Notwith- 
 standing his experience of life, it seemed as if his ob- 
 servation of this child was giving him his first clear 
 insight into human nature. Both the theatre and the 
 
CHILD LIFE AS PORTRAYED BY GOETHE. 297 
 
 world appeared to him as a multitude of thrown dice, 
 upon whose upper surface a higher or a lower numher 
 was marked, and which when added together make up 
 a certain sum. But here in this child one single die 
 was placed before him, upon whose several sides the 
 value and worthlessness of human nature were plainly 
 indicated." 
 
 Felix, as we know, was the son of Wilhelm and 
 Mariana. He is first introduced as a child of three 
 years, bright as the sun. " His clear eyes and open 
 countenance were shaded by the most beautiful golden 
 locks, and his dark, delicate, and softly bending eye- 
 brows adorned a forehead of glittering whiteness, while 
 the ruddy hues of healtli glowed upon his cheeks." 
 Goethe's ideal of healthy, happy childhood. At first 
 the reader supposes him to be the child of the sickly 
 sentimental Aurelia ; but when he called her mother 
 without any tenderness of tone, we at once suspect that 
 this healthful child of nature is not the offspring of 
 the super-emotional woman. Goethe understood the 
 laws of heredity too well for that. Felix bears a close 
 resemblance to his father, in that he is docile and 
 tractable, passive in a receptive sense, yet, like his 
 father, active and ready to appropriate and assimilate 
 that which is peculiarly his own. Felix is no saint. 
 He has the faults of a child. He persists in drink- 
 ing from the decanter, instead of using the glass, and 
 preferred eating from the dish rather than from a plate. 
 He slams the doors, or leaves them open. In other 
 words, he is the winsome, attractive, natural child of 
 
298 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 the Kindergarten, rather than the morbidly good child 
 of the Sunday-school book. His heart is tender and 
 affectionate, but human rather than humane. When 
 the cook cut up some pigeons, he struck at her ; but 
 the favorable impression which this produced on his 
 father was soon destroyed, when he saw him merci- 
 lessly killing frogs and tearing butterflies' wings to 
 pieces, — like the child of our acquaintance, who 
 thought it cruelly wicked to kill robins, but all right 
 to kill sparrows. Felix was also highly delighted 
 when he could sit down in a corner with a book; 
 saying with a serious face, " I must study this learned 
 stuff," though he was ignorant of his letters, and 
 refused to learn them. 
 
 Wisely directed, he will become the well-balanced 
 man. The father sees this, and now the chief anxiety 
 of the man^ who had hitherto lived only for self-de- 
 velopment, is the education of his boy, — his other 
 Ego ; and yet almost the first observation which the 
 father makes, an observation common to all parents, 
 is that the child is educating him rather than he edu- 
 cating the child. For the child's sake he values prop- 
 erty, studies social politics and the various forms of 
 public life. So completely now is his life controlled 
 by the interests of the child, and pedagogics form so 
 important a part of the Journeymanship, that it would 
 seem almost as if the child's development, and not that 
 of the father, were the central idea, — calling to mind 
 the old insolvable problem, " Does the tree exist for 
 the blossom, or the blossom for the tree ? " 
 
CHILD LIFE AS PORTRAYED BY GOETHE. 299 
 
 The harmonious culture of all the faculties is the 
 father's aim for the child. To this end he follows as 
 well as bends the natural inclination. Before giving 
 instruction he waits for the child to ask, " What is 
 it ? " or, as Jean Paul says, is cautious not to give the 
 draught before the child has the thirst. 
 
 With an enthusiasm worthy of Frederick Frobel 
 he enters into the child's interests and sympathies, 
 valuing symbolic culture and industrial training. So 
 far as is possible, he places him in the midst of 
 glad surroundings, well knowing that a happy envi- 
 ronment is to a child what sunshine is to a plant 
 Those good people whom he would have the child 
 imitate must also be glad and happy, since children 
 usually copy those individuals who seem to live 
 most happily. He will have the child educated to 
 live in the Noiv, and find its happiness in the way of 
 culture rather than at some distant end. The happi- 
 ness, however, which Goethe seeks for children, is not 
 simply glad, sensuous animal existence. The child 
 has within him the possibilities of rational and spir- 
 itual being. He can attain complete development, 
 actual happiness, only in the realization of these. 
 Happiness for cliild or man is found only in moral 
 freedom. Selfishness is the fate and fetter of the 
 child, as well as of the adult. Each in his owm way 
 must work out the difficult problem from fate to free- 
 dom. At every step, the child, as well as the father, 
 is called upon to renounce. Never for the sake of 
 renunciation, however. It must be the denial of self 
 only for the higher profession of self. 
 
300 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 In the harmonious culture of all the varied powers 
 of the child, Goethe emphasizes with special stress 
 that which no one brings into the world, and yet 
 that upon which depends everything through which a 
 man becomes a man on every side, — Veneration. The 
 child must reverence that which is ahove him, which 
 is reflected and revealed at first in his parents, teach- 
 ers, and superiors. He must reverence what is heneath 
 him, — that which humbly ministers to his happiness 
 and well-being, as also that which hurts or harms him ; 
 for even this he must recognize as a force, which it 
 well behooves him to treat with respect, and to which 
 he must on many an occasion make terms of peace, 
 and perhaps sacrificial offerings. He must also re- 
 spect himself, not with vain pride and isolated ego- 
 tism, but remembering that he too is one of many, — 
 he, too, is a central point from which good can and 
 ought to emanate. 
 
 These three forms of reverence are one, and the one 
 is three. There cannot be reverence for what is above 
 us without lifting ourselves toward it and so increas- 
 ing our self-respect ; and the humblest is so allied to 
 the highest that in respecting the lowest one does rev- 
 erence to the highest. Goethe had need to lay em- 
 phasis on this one point of veneration, without which 
 there can be no true culture. Without reverence for 
 what is above him, the child may have self-assertion, 
 but never self-respect. Without due regard for that 
 which is beneath him, he "will be at the tender mer- 
 cies of Fate, and never arrive at the only true man- 
 hood, which is self-possession, ethical freedom. 
 
CHILD LIFE AS PORTRAYED BY GOETHE. 301 
 
 Wilhelm Meister finds for Felix a school in which 
 reverence holds as important a place as mathemat- 
 ics, — a school in which all formal outward signs of 
 courtesy and respect rest on deep moral and religious 
 foundations. Men are wont to call this ideal school of 
 Goethe Utopian and visionary, but the dream of one 
 age becomes the possibility of the next. Our chil- 
 dren's children may attend common schools where 
 ethics, and even religion emancipated from dogmatism, 
 will find place in the curriculum. 
 
 While Felix is the glad, happy child, everywhere at 
 home where there is earth, air, and sunshine, Mignon 
 seems no child of earth, but a waif from that Paradiso 
 which is all love, light, and harmony, Felix has 
 native strength. He can make his way from fate to 
 freedom, wrestling, conquering, or renouncing. This 
 world is his element, and as child or man he will 
 wring from it that which is best for him. But Mig- 
 non is nowhere at home. A yearning, an irresistible 
 longing, fills her heart. Her kingdom is not of this 
 world. Hunt for it as much as she may, the home she 
 seeks is laid down on no map. Goethe portrays her 
 as a child of sunny Italy, the offspring of a most un- 
 fortunate union, which a pitiless Fate cruelly brought 
 about in the tenderest guise. Her father was a reli- 
 gious enthusiast, given over to emotions half spiritual, 
 half physical, which for a time exalted him to the 
 seventh heaven and then cast him into an abyss of 
 dejection and misery. Eescued from this unnatural 
 condition by the power of love, he learns when it is 
 
302 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 too late that the object of his love is his own sister. 
 With all the reckless frenzy incident to such a nature, 
 he will hear nothing of renunciation. He looks upon 
 social law as a violence to nature. In the madness of 
 despair he demands that the heart should follow the 
 impulse of unconscious nature rather than the cold 
 formal rules of reason. He refuses to see that he is 
 not living in the free world of his own thoughts, but 
 in a state where laws and regulations are as unchanged 
 as the principles of nature, because they are based 
 upon nature. 
 
 So we see that, while the religious element is the 
 leading trait in his character, it is the form of religion 
 for which he cares, and not its moral content. He 
 will have the emotional part of religion, its ecstasies, 
 its soul intoxications and sweet deliriums, but not its 
 self-abnegations, and triumphs that come only of pain- 
 ful conquests. Fate overtakes him, since he follows 
 inclination rather than duty. He becomes a wretched 
 wanderer, finding consolation for the gloomy vagaries 
 of his brain only in his harp. The mother too was of 
 a religious disposition. She never knew the character 
 of her offence. By a pious fraud she was led to be- 
 lieve that she had sinned against her spiritual nature 
 in engaging herself to a priest. Her misery and re- 
 pentance over this unwilling sin is greater even than 
 her love for her child. Eeligious madness and enthu- 
 siasm happily cheer her soul, and death brings a 
 speedy release. 
 
 These were the parents of Mignon. Deprived of 
 
CHILD LIFE AS PORTRAYED BY GOETHE. 303 
 
 their care, she lived with a worthy family near the sea. 
 "Soon she evinced the greatest fancy for climbing, 
 and to imitate the difficult feats of the rope-dancer 
 seemed to be a mere impulse of her nature. To do 
 this more easily, she changed clothes with the boys 
 who were ber companions, and, although such conduct 
 was considered unbecoming, it was permitted. Her 
 love of wandering often led her far from home, and, 
 though she often went astray and for long periods, she 
 never failed eventually to return. She would then 
 take her seat beneath the pillars of a portico before a 
 large country mansion in the neighborhood, where she 
 was allowed to remain as long as she pleased. She 
 would rest upon the steps, or at times, running through 
 the spacious hall, would linger among the statues." 
 One day she continued absent. She was stolen by a 
 band of strolling players, who knew her value as a 
 rope-dancer. Eescued by Wilheim Meister from their 
 brutal treatment, he became her protector. Her sin- 
 gular nature as well as her origin is a mystery. She 
 frequently remained quite silent for an entire day. 
 Sometimes, however, she answered more readily, but 
 in so strange a way that it left doubtful whether her 
 peculiarity arose from shrewdness or ignorance of 
 the language, as she generally expressed herself in 
 broken German mingled with French and Italian, and 
 yet in no language could she express herself with 
 facility ; and the difficulty seemed to arise from her 
 mode of thought rather than from any defect of speech. 
 Notwithstanding her great wish to learn, her progress 
 
304 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 was slow and laborious. It was the same with her 
 writing, — a task at which she toiled. It was only 
 when she sang and touched the guitar that she ap- 
 peared to have an organ which opened and displayed 
 the emotion of her soul. 
 
 It may be noted, in passing, that Goethe takes a 
 generous pity on those quiet reticent natures who 
 have little gift of language. He is sure to find for 
 them some form of expression that will be a relief to 
 the overburdened heart, and by means of which we 
 may know the rich fulness of their nature. Ottilie, in 
 the " Elective Affinities," is better understood through 
 her diary, and Mignon, who lacks even the ordinary 
 gift of language, finds free expression only in music. 
 Goethe recognized the value of his own ready power 
 of expression, and the words which he puts in the 
 mouth of Tasso were no doubt his own sentiment : 
 
 " Though in their mortal anguish men are dumb, 
 To me a God hath given to tell my grief." 
 
 " The force of Mignon's ripening nature often ren- 
 dered Wilhelm anxious and fearful. The warmth of 
 her disposition toward him seemed to increase daily, 
 and her whole being seemed agitated with a silent 
 restlessness." That love which can brook no rival 
 becomes with her an all-absorbing, though only half- 
 conscious passion. This ungratified love preys on 
 her frail body, and finally destroys it ; but not until 
 Mignon has learned the one lesson which this s;reat- 
 est of novels teaches, — self-renunciation, which is 
 no stoical abnegation, but the surrendering of the 
 
CHILD LIFE AS PORTRAYED BY GOETHE. 305 
 
 demonic, as Emerson calls it, for a celestial love. She 
 becomes 
 
 "Faithful, but not fond, 
 Bound for the just, but not beyond." 
 
 Like Ottilie, she finds sweet consolation in useful 
 activity and willing service. An unerring instinct 
 leads her to comfort the old harper, whom she little 
 dreams to be her own father. She teaches Felix to 
 read, and whenever her heart feels any want she re- 
 solves that Felix shall fill the void. More and more 
 she seems to lose her hold upon earth. Dressed in long 
 wliite attire, and sitting with Felix in her lap, she 
 resembled a departed spirit, while the boy was life 
 itself. It seemed as if heaven and earth were in one 
 embrace. The death which soon follows is hardly 
 death, but rather a glad transition, as if the yearning 
 spirit had now found its native home. 
 
 Goethe has thrown an indescribable charm about 
 this mysterious child, whose deep and impenetrable 
 nature scarcely allows us to conjecture its emotions. 
 Nothing therein is plain and evident save her grate- 
 ful love to her benefactor, and the vague weird notes 
 of her music, which hint far more than they express. 
 " Know'st thou the land ? " is the continuous refrain 
 which she echoes and re-echoes. Her home-sick soul 
 longs for its far-off home, and utters that cry which is 
 the cry of every human soul far off from God, who 
 is our home. 
 
 As in the old Greek tragedies the chorus always 
 gives the word of explanation, so in the chorus M'hich 
 
 20 
 
306 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 celebrates the obsequies of Mignon we have the sig- 
 nificance of this mysterious child, whose being was 
 love and harmony, but who could find no rest or sat- 
 isfaction in the discordant world of sense. "Look 
 forward with the eyes of the spirit," says the chorus. 
 " Let imagination awake, which bears Life, the fairest 
 and highest, to a habitation beyond the stars." And 
 again, " Children, hasten into life ! In the pure robe 
 of beauty, may Love meet you with heavenly counte- 
 nance and the garland of immortality." Wilhelm 
 Meister is brought to realize that he is not only a 
 social and moral being, and capable of development 
 as such, but that he is also a religious being. In his 
 own soul a voice echoes again and again, " Know'st 
 thou the land ? " He may not be able to answer the 
 question, satisfactorily. He certainly knows that he 
 will find no answer in the world of sense, for it 
 is laid down on no maps. He may try to avoid the 
 question, but it will force itself upon him whether he 
 will or not. It will appeal to him in Nature and in 
 all the varied forms of Art, but most of all in music. 
 For there is no speech or language which appeals so 
 directly to the human soul as music. 
 
 Music, when sensuous and coming of a lower strain, 
 appeals to the lower nature with seductive power. 
 It is all absorbing and sense-intoxicating. The vic- 
 tim knows the raptures of ecstasy and the madness 
 of despair. But when music appeals, not from sense 
 to sense, but from soul to soul, it creates an unrest, a 
 dissatisfaction with the things of sense, and leads the 
 
CHILD LIFE AS PORTRAYED BY GOETHE. 307 
 
 soul beyond tliese and beyond the limits of formal 
 reason into the higher realms of insight and faith, — 
 a faith that is beyond reason, not below it. 
 
 Mignon had no language but music, and indeed 
 needed none. Eenouncing the mysterious seductions 
 of sense, she rises 
 
 *' Higher far, 
 Upward into the pure realm 
 
 Where all form 
 In one only form dissolves, " — 
 
 where there is no thought of sex, 
 
 " The angel choir 
 Seek not to know of youth or maid," — 
 
 where there is no seal of silence, and soul answers to 
 soul in its own language. 
 
 In the drama " Gotz with the Iron Hand," we 
 have a picture of Karl, the only child of the great 
 hero. This play is rather a series of pictures 
 than a genuine drama. There is no central point 
 about which the entire interest revolves, and the 
 characters are interesting simply as portraits taken 
 in various positions and placed in contrast with 
 each other as light and shade. Gotz, the hero of 
 the play, is a man and a hero after one's own heart. 
 His veiy presence is a mighty force. He creates 
 about him that enthusiasm of humanity which com- 
 pels his adherents to follow him to death. Like 
 many of the true knights of old, he goes about right- 
 ing the wrong wherever he finds it. As an individual 
 he is without fear or reproach. Like the other knights 
 
308 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 of the fifteenth century, he asserts his liberty and in- 
 dependence, and this liberty, so far as it pertains to 
 himself and his followers, is no selfish, licentious lib- 
 erty. It is liberty to correct tlie wrong and enforce 
 the right according to his own ideas, — the liberty of 
 asserting his moral self He has learned the mean- 
 ing of / in its most exalted sense, but he has not 
 learned the meaning of You. A new era has dawned. 
 Fraternity is now the word, as well as Liberty. The 
 new era is irresistible, and Gotz tenaciously clinging 
 to the relics of the past, obstinately resisting the 
 progress of events, is overtaken by his fate ; for Na- 
 ture punishes ignorance and narrow-mindedness as 
 she punishes criraes. 
 
 The calm, quiet picture of the meek little Karl 
 might seem to have no connection with the bold ego- 
 ism of Gotz, or with the leading idea that men can- 
 not successfully w^age war against the World-Histori- 
 cal Spirit. We see Karl first as begging his aunt for 
 the story of the Good Child. That he should ask for 
 a story of a good child rather than of a bad one, is in- 
 dicative of Karl's quiet, effeminate nature ; for most 
 children prefer the story of the bad child, not because 
 they themselves are bad, but because they like the 
 tragic, and are sure that dramatic collision will hap- 
 pen when the bad antagonizes the good. The aunt 
 requires the boy to tell her the familiar story, and 
 he is taught to repeat it with such literal exactness 
 that the spirit is entirely lost in the verbiage. Later 
 the father comes, and the joy and interest of the boy 
 
CHILD LIFE AS PORTRAYED BY GOETHE. 309 
 
 are manifested by going to the provision cellar with 
 his aunt, rather than to the stable with the hostler. 
 
 " He never will be his father," said the hostler, 
 " else he would have gone with me to the stables." 
 
 When he greets his father, he does not look upon 
 him with proud admiration as a hero. He simply 
 asks, " Have you brought me anything ? " Then he 
 tells his father, " I have learned a great deal." 
 
 " What may that be ? " asks the father. 
 
 " Jaxthausen is a village and a castle on the Jaxt, 
 which has appertained in property and heritage for 
 two hundred years to the lords of Berlichingen." 
 
 " Do you know the lords of Berlichingen ? " asks 
 the father, who sees with contempt that the boy's 
 learninsr is so abstruse that he does not know his 
 own father. " To whom does Jaxthausen belong ? " 
 
 "Jaxthausen is a village and a castle upon the 
 Jaxt—" 
 
 "I did not ask that," returned the father. "I 
 knew every path, pass, and ford about this place be- 
 fore ever I knew the name of the village, castle, or 
 river. Is your mother in the kitchen ? " 
 
 " Yes, papa, they are cooking a lamb and turnips." 
 
 " Do you know that too. Jack Turnspit ? " 
 
 " And my aunt is roasting an apple for me." 
 
 " Can't you eat it raw ? " 
 
 " It tastes better roasted." 
 
 And when he is introduced to Weislingen, the 
 child says, " Be merry, dinner will soon be ready." 
 
 "Happy boy ! " says Weislingen, " that knowest no 
 worse evil than the delay of dinner." 
 
310 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 This picture of the placid, meek boy heightens by 
 contrast the heroic valor of his father. We have said 
 that this play is rather a series of contrasting pictures 
 than a genuine drama. Yet the little scene of Karl 
 with his father has a closer bearing on the leading 
 idea of the play than at first appears. As the father 
 will not come into harmony with the spirit of the 
 times, but clings persistently to a past that is dying 
 or dead, so the son is carelessly indifferent to things 
 and facts about him, and clings to far-off, meaning- 
 less words. The son ignores the Here, as the father 
 ignores the Now. 
 
 Goethe's greatest drama offers little scope to chil- 
 dren ; for, with the first kiss of Faust, Margaret is no 
 longer a child, and Euphorion, the offspring of Faust 
 and Helen, is more of an allegorical character than 
 livino- flesh and blood. Yet in connection with the 
 child Euphorion occurs a passage which without 
 question emphasizes the high estimate that Goethe 
 eventually placed upon the family relation, — 
 
 " Love in human wise to bless us 
 In a noble pair must be, 
 But divinely to possess us, 
 
 It must form a precious three," — 
 
 and the child of this ideal union is significantly 
 named Euphorion, " Bringer of Good." 
 
 It is worthy of notice, that, when Goethe wishes to 
 make a woman specially attractive, he surrounds her 
 with beautiful children. "Nothing," said Goethe, "is 
 more charming than to see a mother with a cliild upon 
 
CHILD LIFE AS PORTRAYED BY GOETHE. 311 
 
 her arm." " Nothing is more revered than a mother 
 among many children." Ottilie is never so beautiful 
 as when holding Edward's child. Charlotte in the 
 midst of her younger brothers and sisters is the finest 
 of the many fine pictures in "Werther." Goethe is 
 said to have borrowed this scene from Eousseau. 
 He borrowed not so much from Eousseau as directly 
 from nature. Because Eousseau had given an equally 
 beautiful picture was no reason why Goethe should 
 not repeat it. As Chaucer was accustomed to say 
 that he took possession of whatever he found directed 
 to G. Chaucer, so no great poet need hesitate over 
 any material at hand, provided he is sure the divine 
 spark is his own. 
 
 Goethe not only develops the characters of his 
 heroines by their contact with children, but he finds 
 their relation to children the readiest way of describ- 
 ing them. With a single stroke of his pen he draws 
 the distinction between Theresa and Natalie when 
 he says, " Theresa trains children, Natalie instructs 
 them." Wliile Goethe ornaments Ottilie, Charlotte, 
 Natalie, and Mignon with children, his weak charac- 
 ters, like the frivolous Philina and the super-senti- 
 mental Aurelia, have no power to attract them, — 
 indeed, children are repelled from them, — but eventu- 
 ally, when Philina develops into a useful woman, 
 worthy of the name, children are drawn to her. 
 
 Goethe has clearly shown that, where women are 
 denied the marriage which the heart prompts, their 
 resort is not, as has been hinted, in marriage with 
 
312 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 another. According to Goethe, their happiness is 
 then found in useful service, especially to children. 
 This is manifestly the case with Ottilie and with 
 Mignon. Not to be crushed with the agony of dis- 
 appointment, and not to realize the full measure of 
 desolation, they spend themselves in useful activity, 
 the noblest form of which is the care and instruction 
 of children ; and it may safely be said that nowhere 
 has the realistic Goethe followed nature more closely 
 than when he makes the instruction of children the 
 happy alternative for those who are denied the perfect 
 expression of love. 
 
 Although the children portrayed by Goethe occupy, 
 of necessity, a subordinate position, they fill, as we 
 have seen, no insignificant parts. As an artist Goethe 
 might have introduced them simply as ornaments, 
 for Beauty's sake alone ; but although Goethe is pre- 
 eminently an artist, he is none the less a rigid moralist 
 and utilitarian of the strictest order. Everywhere in 
 his works children serve a wise economy and earnest 
 moral purpose, — developing the individual, as in 
 " Meister," to a closer sympathy with humanity ; or 
 compelling the individual for their sake to a more 
 refined degree of Morality, as in the " Elective Affini- 
 ties " ; or demanding of society as vveU as the individ- 
 ual that renunciation which recognizes tlie claims of 
 children as paramount to all other considerations, — 
 a renunciation which, in its turn, leads to the higher 
 advancement of society, as well as of the individual. 
 
HISTORY OF THE FAUST POEM. 313 
 
 XI. 
 HISTORY OF THE FAUST POEM. 
 
 By DENTON J. SNIDER. 
 
 The connection between the composition of "Faust" 
 and Goethe's own life has always been felt to be very 
 intimate ; the two run parallel. " Faust " ushers in 
 the spiritual life of the poet, and closes with his 
 bodily life; the work, quiescent for long periods, 
 always starts afresh, gathering and preserving the 
 bloom of many rich poetical epochs. Every true 
 reader wishes to see the poem unfolding out of the 
 life of the poet, and also to behold each portion de- 
 veloping out of the preceding portion, naturally and 
 in due order. A history of the Faust poem, then, 
 is the requirement; which will be, not a mere record 
 of external incidents and facts, but an inner, genetic 
 history of the work in its double relation to the poet 
 and itself. 
 
 Critical opinion is divided concerning the point of 
 time when Goethe first conceived and began to work 
 upon his " Faust." The prevailing view has been 
 that the beginning was made about the year 1772 
 or 1773, when the poet was twenty-three years old. 
 Says Loeper {Einleitung, p. 5) : " The day and hour 
 
314 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 cannot be exactly fixed wlien Goethe, in that most 
 fruitful period of his life as regards dramatic con- 
 ceptions, 1772-76, laid hold of the Faust fable." 
 But Schroer, in the Introduction to his excellent 
 commentary on the poem, has given good reasons 
 for referring its beginning at least as far back as 
 1769. This is also the date assigned by Eckermann 
 and Eiemer, who are supposed to have had documents 
 for making out the chronology of the poet's works 
 now inaccessible. Two citations from Goethe's letters 
 bearing on this point are worth translating. " It is 
 no trifling matter to represent outside of one's self, 
 in the eighty-second year, what one has conceived 
 in his twentieth." (Letter to Zelter, June 1, 1831.) 
 Goethe was twenty years old in 1769. Again, in a 
 letter to Wilhelm von Humboldt, March 17, 1832, 
 written five days before his death, he says : " It is 
 over sixty years since the conception of ' Faust ' lay 
 before me clear, but the succession of its parts less 
 complete." 
 
 The answer to these and similar passages is, that 
 the old Goethe was inaccurate in his memory of the 
 events of his youth. In a general way, however, 
 it may be said that the conception of " Faust " goes 
 back nearly forty years before the complete edition 
 of the First Part, in 1808, and fully sixty years before 
 the completion of the Second Part. Such is the first 
 grand fact of the poem, a fact unique in literature ; 
 in one long human life the work blossoms, unfolds, 
 matures ; this life of the Poet is but his outer setting 
 
HISTORY OF THE FAUST POEM. 315 
 
 in Time, yet it deeply suggests the life of the legend 
 developing through the centuries. 
 
 In the history of the Faust legend we see how 
 the fable of Faust has unfolded with the unfolding 
 of the race, and bears in it the image of the ages. 
 The true mythus is a growth, a never-ceasing devel- 
 opment of an original germ, in which the people have 
 put their own idea, and in this idea the spiritual 
 march of the world mirrors itself; the legend grows 
 with the growth of man, out of the same seedling, 
 to the same altitude. Now Goethe the individual 
 has to go through the same process to be the true 
 singer ; the Faust legend in its primitive germ will 
 sprout within him in early youth, will grow through 
 life, and bear its last fruits in extreme old age. The 
 poet truly lives the life of the legend which he em- 
 bodies in writ; and under its form he has to pass 
 through what his race has passed through. Before 
 he can sing his task to completeness, he must live, 
 in those sixty years of his, ideally sixty centuries of 
 his people at least. In him the Faust legend is no 
 artificial thing, picked up from the outside to make 
 verses about, but it is the germinal dot of his being, 
 which blooms afresh in one individual life, the life 
 of the legend and the race. 
 
 It is then, a matter of importance to trace back 
 to Goethe's childhood the first faint impress of the 
 legend stamped upon his susceptible soul. He had 
 seen a puppet-play on the subject of Faust in Frank- 
 fort when a boy, — probably had seen it often; then, 
 
316 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 we may suppose, the first vague possibility was 
 planted in him. The puppet-play which he saw is 
 not known, but it was probably derived from Mar- 
 lowe's " Doctor Faustus," which, though its original 
 source was the old Frankfort Faust-book of Spiess, 
 had been brought back to Germany by strolling bands 
 of English players, and had shaped the dramatic form 
 of the Faust legend. Thus the great Elizabethan era 
 of dramatic creation throws out a line of descent to 
 the German poem of Goethe. Shakespeare, as we see 
 from several allusions, was also aware of the Faust 
 legend, which, however, had not yet been ripened for 
 him by time ; hence, with true instinct, he chose, as 
 his grand embodiment of the Teutonic mythus, the 
 story of Hamlet the Dane, who is a first-cousin to 
 German Faust, physically and spiritually, and, like 
 Faust, was educated at the Protestant school of 
 Wittenberg. 
 
 JPerhftps'we can point out the very egg that Mar- 
 lowe's drama laid in Goethe's poem, which will hatch 
 it out to a bird of such wonderful plumage and pin- 
 ion. In the soliloquy that begins his play, Marlowe 
 introduces Faust as disgusted with all knowledge, and 
 giving himself up to magic. This is the primitive 
 germ of denial, not by any means carried out to its 
 full development by Marlowe ; but Goethe will pick 
 up the same germ in the first soliloquy of Faust, 
 the form and substance of which are given by Mar- 
 lowe, and let it unfold under the storm and sunshine 
 of his whole life. The Faust of Marlowe is a Protes- 
 
HISTORY OF THE FAUST POEM. 317 
 
 tant Faust, tragic, the Devil gets him ; through the 
 puppet-play the germinal negation of that Protestant 
 Faust, protesting in it against all science and truth, 
 drops into the youthful soul of Goethe, most fertile 
 of all spiritual soils. ' Goethe himself has, perhaps 
 unconsciously, told his own tale ; he has in his 
 " Wilhelm Meister " unfolded the history of a germ 
 laid in a child's soul by seeing a puppet-play ; thence 
 the child gets a tendency or impulse which unfolds 
 into its life, whose record is that novel. 
 
 But a far mightier element was at work in the pe- 
 riod, struggling, fermenting with some new change. 
 There was a Faust spirit in the air of Germany, of all 
 Europe, during Goethe's youth, and it was giving pre- 
 monitions of the great impending Eevolution, social 
 and political. A time kindred in many respects to 
 the Eeformation awoke the sleeping Faust legend 
 out of its peaceful century's slumber, and made it 
 spring up with fresh life in all susceptible German 
 hearts, particularly in those of the young poets. 
 Several of Goethe's immediate circle of friends, Miil- 
 ler, Klinger, Lenz, tried their hand at writing Fausts. 
 The great literary protagonist of new Germany, Les- 
 sing, had planned and partly written a Faust drama ; 
 moreover, he had distinctly declared that the Faust 
 legend offered a true theme for a great national 
 poem. 
 
 The restless spirit of the time, struggling, protest- 
 ing, was loudly calling for its poet, when the young 
 Goethe stepped forth from the nameless ranks of men 
 
318 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 witli a response forever memorable. That first re- 
 sponse was " Gotz " and " Werther," in which produc- 
 tions the literary period of Germany known as " Storm 
 and Stress " culminated in a vast tumultuous overflow 
 of emotion, eternally self-generating and eternally self- 
 destroying. The poet finished them in his Titanic 
 vein ; they had of course to be tragic, indeed self-anni- 
 hilating ; their end must be in the final conclusive pro- 
 test against the world called death. Other poems, like 
 " Prometheus " and " The Wandering Jew," conceived 
 in the same spirit, he could not finish ; in them the 
 protest refuses to protest any longer, and the half- 
 conscious thought seems to rise out of chaos and 
 say : " Dear Poet, the problem in this world is not to 
 die, but to live ; to master fate, not to yield thereto ; 
 and it is thy function to reveal such mastery to mor- 
 tal men," 
 
 In the same Titanic vein he conceived his Faust, 
 whose disgust at knowledge he had himself experi- 
 enced, chiefly in his student life at the University of 
 Leipzig, whereby he had learned, as he declares, the 
 vanity of all human science, at the early age of eigh- 
 teen. He wrote much upon his "Faust" at this 
 stormy period, almost finished it as is supposed, yet 
 did not. Why ? He could not ; he had run against a 
 wall which barred all progress, and which rose higher 
 with advancing years. He first felt the vague in- 
 stinct, then came to the clear insight, that Faust must 
 be redeemed, must pass out of his Titanic protest into 
 reconciliation. This is the wall which stopped him 
 
HISTORY OF THE FAUST POEM. 319 
 
 so many, many years, but which he will at last climb 
 over, when he will reveal the Paradise within. Of 
 " Werther " he says, that he freed himself, by writing 
 it, of his own tragic sentimentality; he slaughtered 
 the sentimental hero of his romance, and thereby saved 
 himself ; through such vicarious offering of his shadow, 
 he escaped the ghost-world. Clearly it will be his 
 duty next time to save his hero as well as himself. 
 
 No sooner had he looked into the depths of the 
 Faust legend, and had struggled to embody it, than 
 he discovered his inability. It was the truest instinct 
 which led him to lay it aside, and to wait for the 
 experience of life. He must grow into the legend 
 as the legend itself grew. This became the method 
 of his life, — to unfold into completeness ; it also be- 
 came the method of his poem ; his own life gave the 
 literary procedure. "Faust" unfolds, step by step, 
 not simply in the mind of its author, but also in its 
 outer artistic form, Goethe had in his soul a vast 
 germ, which could bloom and be fruitful only with 
 time ; the poem, imaging the poet's process, starts 
 with a vast germ laid in Faust's soul ; this germ is 
 what develops through its own law into the existent 
 work, a self-unfolding whole. 
 
 In this sense of mirroring the poet's innermost 
 spiritual development, the poem is a biography; 
 hardly in any other sense. It does not give the 
 events of Goethe's life, it does not give the rise of its 
 own poetical parts in chronological order; "Faust" 
 was written backwards, forwards, and in between, at 
 
320 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 various times of life. It might be called an ideal 
 biography recording in the highest form of art the su- 
 preme moments of the supreme man of the age, which 
 moments appear in the poem in succession, but really 
 are the products of years of waiting and preparation. 
 The mountain peaks, sunlit in the distance, we from 
 the plain see in continuous line ; but there are valleys 
 deep and broad between them. Still the method of 
 the poem is that of a growth, as Goethe's life was a 
 growth. Here the poem and the life fall together, in 
 this deepest fact of spiritual unfolding. 
 
 Not alone in life and art, but also in nature, Goe- 
 the saw the same essential fact. Nature is a self- 
 unfolding too; from a primitive form she develops 
 into a variety of forms; the leaf in the vegetable 
 kingdom is to become flower, fruit, and even tree. 
 " The Metamorphosis of Plants," a treatise by the poet 
 on botany, is a beautiful image of the Faust method, 
 a very Faust drama of plant life, and indeed the pro- 
 cess of Goethe's own development. The poem grew 
 as the flower ; life, with its rain and sunshine, fos- 
 tered it. Yet we must not think that, because it is 
 life, it is not an idea ; the idea is the very essence 
 of life. 
 
 In the history of the composition of the First Part 
 of Faust, there are two distinct periods, which are 
 marked by definite dates : these are the first period, 
 ending with the edition of 1790, and the second pe- 
 riod, ending with the edition of 1808. These two 
 periods are the clear landmarks, most important for 
 
HISTORY OF THE FAUST POEM. 321 
 
 understanding tlie growth of the book, as well as the 
 drift of the discussion upon it ; we shall try to state 
 what was contributed to the work by each of these 
 periods, shunning as far as possible the vast fog-world 
 of conjecture which environs the poem to infinity. 
 
 In 1790 Goethe gathered his Faust efforts of more 
 than twenty years, and printed what he called " Faust, 
 a Frao-ment," containinsr a little less than one half of 
 the present First Part. In it, beside lesser omissions, 
 were two great gaps, the first of which began with the 
 second soliloquy of Faust, and extended to Mephisto's 
 interview with the student, thus constituting the in- 
 tellectual kernel of the poem, — altogether about 1,165 
 lines in the original. Doubtless some portions of 
 this large deficit had been already sketched, — as, for 
 instance, the scene of the Easter festival ; but the 
 whole was too fragmentary to be published even in 
 this Fragment. It will be observed that the omitted 
 section is in the main the unfolding of Mephisto. 
 This deepest transformation of time and human expe- 
 rience the young poet could not manage : it was the 
 first wall that he ran against. Still he saw that the 
 tiling had to be managed ; the grand difficulty was, 
 How ? Wait, patient man ! till the germ blossom 
 and ripen ; wait, and the secret will be told thee in 
 full. Hardly less significant is the second great 
 gap, containing those last scenes in which Mephisto 
 is subjected to Faust, and is made an instrument for 
 the attempted rescue of Margaret, who, nigh to death, 
 is lying in the triple prison of the law, of insanity, 
 
 21 
 
322 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 and of her own conscience. The poet probably knew, 
 in a vague way, that all this had to be done too ; but 
 he could not get clear about the manner of doing it. 
 With time, however, and valiant struggle, this last 
 dark gap will be overarched with a perfect rainbow 
 of poetry. 
 
 Such were the two grand omissions, highly sig- 
 nificant of the poet and his development. But that 
 which was announced in the Fragment of 1790, and 
 announced for all time, was the primitive denial of 
 Faust and the fall of Margaret. These two phases, 
 in their very statement, we feel to be connected by 
 some secret thread; to raise this secret thread into 
 clear daylight is the great poetic problem. The first 
 soliloquy, which was then printed, gives the germ of 
 the whole poem, the original dual forces from which 
 it springs : negation on the one hand, aspiration on 
 the other. Then takes place that prodigious leap to 
 the scenes in which Mephisto appears a full-fledged 
 active person in the world. What connection be- 
 tween that first denial and this sudden fiend, with 
 final outcome of his work in the fate of Margaret ? 
 Such is the chasm over which the bridge is to be 
 built, and the poet must live it into being. From 
 that primal negation as the germ, Mephisto will un- 
 fold ; and Faust, from the dry student and profes- 
 sor, will be transformed into the youthful, passionate 
 lover. 
 
 In this Fragment we can observe two chief expe- 
 riences, that of the university with its unsatisfactory 
 
HISTORY OF THE FAUST POEM. 323 
 
 knowledge, and that of a great breach in the Family ; 
 both lay in the life of the young Goethe. But to 
 show, step by step, how the Family is destroyed by 
 that first negation, is the work of a far longer and 
 deeper experience, which speaks of dire encounters 
 with the Devil himself, whose genesis in this part 
 is the supreme intellectual feat of the book. In 
 the Fragment of 1790 we also find the " Witches' 
 Kitchen," written at Eome in 1787. This scene, in 
 connection with " Auerbach's Cellar," introduces us 
 to the Perverted World, the true realm of Mephisto, 
 and furnishes the immediate motive for Margaret's 
 fall. But this phase of the poem is not complete in 
 the Fragment; the Perverted World is still to receive 
 an addition in "Walpurgis Night." 
 
 The reception given by the public to the Fragment 
 of 1790 was by no means favorable ; it was not at 
 all to be compared to the mighty outburst of enthu- 
 siasm that hailed the appearance of " Werther." 
 Goethe himself, in a half-humorous, half-complaining 
 way, hints the lack of appreciation in the " Prologue 
 on the Stage," prefixed first to the edition of 1808. 
 Olympian Goethe, then, does want some recognition 
 from mortals for his world-compelling work. A 
 slight undertone of disappointment one may hear 
 from him at this time, as he sadly strings his lyre ; 
 but cheer up, mighty heart ! for no man knows 
 better than thou, " What glitters is born for the mo- 
 ment, what is genuine endures for all time." If the 
 general public was cold toward the work, the criti- 
 
324 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 cism of the time was hardly better, and showed no 
 appreciation of the significance of the poem. Indeed, 
 wlieu did it, or how can it ? Loeper has dug out for 
 us some hints of its tendency which are interesting. 
 It hiid hold savagely of small external details ; it 
 declared the language to be " dark, unintelligible," 
 the usual charge of the ready critic against every- 
 thing which he does not take in with his newspaper 
 glance. It declared also, that the great master of 
 German speech wrote bad German. Give us, 
 critic ! some of your good German. And the style 
 was not elegant, being written "in the tone of a 
 street ballad-singer " ; many of its incidents and 
 expressions were " such as only the lowest populace 
 could take delight in." So it is. What of it ? Ima- 
 gine a " Taust," or a " Hamlet," appearing to-day ; 
 then imagine what the Press and Magazine would 
 make of it. Such a lack of recognition is not a 
 matter evitable in the present state of the human 
 mind, — nay, not a matter regrettable, when truly 
 looked into ; it is the fiery discipline which tests 
 the permanent value of the great book, as well as 
 the literary grit of the author. The diurnal writ 
 cannot possibly measure the eternal writ, which is 
 incommensurable, — cannot have any sympathy with 
 it or knowledge of it, — hence can only light the fires 
 of depreciation. 
 
 But under this ephemeral judgment another judg- 
 ment, that of the eternal kind, was forming slowly 
 but surely. Not till the great book takes posses- 
 
HISTORY OF THE FAUST POEM. 325 
 
 sion of great souls, and grows to be a living fibre 
 of tbeir spiritual being, has it reached the tribunal 
 which is to adjudicate its rights ; then it will enter 
 upon its true inheritance, and commence receiving 
 even its canonization. After many years the mighti- 
 est thinkers of philosophic Germany, Schelling and 
 Heoel. besrin to utter the ultimate decision upon 
 this Fragment. Tlie first German critical minds, 
 the two Schlegels, also contribute their part in the 
 mean time ; their school, the modern Eomantic, gives 
 continuous help for its appreciation. The most sym- 
 pathetic and deepest-seeing of all these early views 
 is that of Schelling, which deserves special emphasis 
 at this point. Schelling could have known only the 
 first Fragment when he delivered his lectures on the 
 "Method of Academic Study" at Jena and "Wiirz- 
 burg, 1802-5 ; yet he seems to divine, not merely 
 the completed First Part, but the completed Second 
 Part, in the final redemption and completion of the 
 hero. The great philosopher turns a rapt seer in 
 speaking of the poem, "which as yet must be grasped 
 by anticipation rather than by knowledge," and he at 
 once proclaims it to be " an original work in every 
 respect, only to be compared with itself, and resting 
 on itself" He sees far in advance that " the con- 
 flict must be solved in a higher way," and that Faust, 
 " elevated to higher spheres, will be completed," — the 
 very vision of the end of the Second Part. It looks 
 almost as if the poet had followed the prophecy of 
 the philosopher, or that the latter somehow had got- 
 
326 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 ten a peep into the workshop of the poet. Moreover, 
 Schelling feels the great scientific value of the book, 
 " sufucient to rejuvenate science in this age " ; he 
 seems to feel that the development of the poem rests 
 upon the same foundation as science itself, and ad- 
 vises its study to all "who wish to penetrate into 
 the true sanctuary of Nature." Yet this does not 
 hinder it from being philosophic in the profound- 
 est sense, and he declares that, " if any poem can be 
 called philosophic, this predicate must be applied 
 to Goethe's ' Faust ' alone." Thus the two extreme 
 poles of the great poem are indicated : it has the 
 true development of Nature, and the true idea of 
 Philosophy, in harmony ; moreover, it is poetic in 
 the best sense, yet is philosophic also, revealing " a 
 new kind of Fate," the Fate not merely of the Deed, 
 but also of Knowledge. Thus the mighty twins, 
 Poetry and Philosophy, eternally fighting and claw- 
 incj one another in the brains of lesser critics and 
 poets, unite in one grand symphonious strain before 
 the mind of Schelling, as he casts his look upon 
 Goethe's poetic creation. Such is the broad view 
 of the German philosopher, — quite the universal 
 view, spoken in a few far-glancing prophetic words 
 toward the close of his lectures. Nothing better has 
 been said or can be said upon the poem, and the 
 interpreter has but to fill out in detail the vast out- 
 lines of Schelling's hints, avoiding the merely poetic, 
 or merely jjhilosophic, or merely scientific, or any 
 other merely one-sided method of exposition. 
 
HISTORY OF THE FAUST POEM. 327 
 
 Hegel's profound appreciation of Faust is well 
 known to his readers, but it has to be sought chiefly 
 from books of his which were published after the 
 completed Faust of 1808, and hence need not be cited 
 in this connection. Still, in one of his early works, 
 " The Phenomenology of Spirit," finished to the thun- 
 der of the cannon at the, battle of Jena, he gives a 
 subtle interpretation of the Earth-Spirit in the He- 
 gelian manner, showing that the fragment had pro- 
 duced so strong an impression upon his thought, that 
 he assigned it a place among the historic phases of 
 consciousness. 
 
 Many years have passed since the appearance of 
 the Fragment in 1790 ; but clearly it is creating its 
 world, and rearing its own readers. It has gone 
 deeply into the great spirits of the time and found 
 lodgmen.t there ; assuredly they will take care of it, 
 they will impart to it a share of their own immortal- 
 ity. That which makes the great book immortal is 
 that it lives in the highest souls, those truly immor- 
 tal. "With time it will be preserved against the mil- 
 lions and the ravages of time. In this matter one 
 feels always like speaking to the poet face to face, 
 and addressing him out of the future centuries, not for 
 his sake, as he hears it not, but for the sake of all 
 toilsome unknown workers : — " Take heart, much- 
 tried scribe of the ages ! be not cast down because the 
 phantom of the populace buzzes neglectfully past 
 thee ; it will long be dead when thou art living, nay, 
 it will be chiefly known hereafter for not having 
 
328 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 known thee. Gird up thy loins anew ; a yet greater 
 task is before thee, nothing less than to generate out 
 of the soul of thy time the Devil lurking therein, and 
 to reveal him in body to the sons of men. The 
 greatest task laid upon human scribe is thine; up, 
 and be a-doing, courageous heart ! tliou alone of the 
 milliards of these later centuries canst perform it." 
 
 Thus we may pass from the first period, embracing 
 the Frafjmeut of 1790 ; we now come to the second 
 period of composition, which lies between the Frag- 
 ment of 1790 and the completed First Part of 1808. 
 In this period the two capital additions are the gen- 
 esis of Mephisto, as Evil Principle, oiit of Faust's 
 denial, and the beginning of his subjection to Faust 
 in the attempted rescue of Margaret. The two great 
 gaps which we noted in the Fragment are thus filled, 
 and the poem in its First Part attains completeness 
 after almost forty years of effort. These are doubtless 
 the gaps of which Goethe repeatedly speaks in his 
 correspondence with Schiller, and whose problem, 
 though quiescent for long periods, never fully left him. 
 The genetic hint, scarcely observable in the Fragment, 
 has now unfolded into a conscious purpose, and the 
 idea of final purification and restoration, vague and 
 unclear in the Fragment, breaks forth into the full 
 clearness of knowledge. 
 
 The Perverted World, or Mephisto's realm, also 
 receives its completion in the two scenes of "Wal- 
 purgis Night." We saw in the Fragment the begin- 
 ning and wild progress of this Perverted World in 
 
HISTORY OF THE FAUST POEM. 329 
 
 two other scenes, "Auerbach's Cellar" and "Witches' 
 Kitchen " ; now it is unfolded into correspondence 
 with a total plan. To this period belong the two 
 Prologues, in which the poet indicates a clear con- 
 sciousness of the nature of his theme and of his work. 
 Moreover, in the "Prologue in Heaven," the Lord 
 definitely promises that he will lead the struggling 
 Faust through to light, in which promise we have a 
 glimpse beyond the First Part of " Faust " into the 
 Second Part. 
 
 The reception of the completed First Part was far 
 more favorable than the reception of the Fragment 
 had been. On all sides, there seems to have been a 
 pretty general agreement as to the prodigious signifi- 
 cance of the book. But the way had been prepared. 
 The Fragment during eighteen years had been absorbed 
 into many appreciative spirits, who were not only 
 ready for, but had vaguely anticipated, the completed 
 work. Moreover the scope of Goethe's other activi- 
 ties, — scientific, poetic, literary, — as well as the 
 unity of his genius in all these activities, had begun 
 to dawn generally upon his countrymen. Still there 
 seems to have been nothing like an adequate exposi- 
 tion of it till ten years had passed, when Schubarth's 
 book on "Faust "(1818) opens the long and ever-in- 
 creasing list of commentaries, a list manifestly not 
 to be closed by the present book. The criticism of 
 "Faust" in Germany has been a prolific plant in 
 fruitful soil, with many local turns and variations 
 which no foreigner cares to follow. It has fluctuated 
 
330 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 with tlie spiritual tendencies of the German people, 
 indicating plainly that the great poem always mirrors 
 itself differently at different periods, and must have 
 with the new epoch a new interpretation. The older 
 phase of Faust criticism seems to 'occupy itself more 
 with the thought or idea of the poem, though not 
 neglecting philological, mythological, and other aids. 
 This phase is properly the philosophic, receiving its 
 light from the unparalleled sunburst of German Phi- 
 losophy during the first quarter of the present century. 
 The later phase of Faust criticism seems to concern 
 itself more about the external unity, or rather the want 
 of unity, in the poem ; its metliod is the historic, and 
 shows the reaction against philosophy. Both these 
 phases have their strong and weak sides, both supple- 
 ment pretty well each other's defects. Let not the 
 true-hearted student yield to the cry, that he should 
 throw away the old, and take the new criticism, which 
 is seriously inferior to the old, or philosophic, in depth 
 of insight, while both need much correction in regard 
 to sobriety of judgment. 
 
 The recent criticism of the First Part of " Faust " 
 turns chiefly upon the manner in which the two 
 editions of 1790 and of 1808 are to be viewed. The 
 one set of critics sees in the completed First Part a 
 double and inconsistent plan, two contradictory ideas, 
 held together only by the art of the bookbinder, and 
 not by that of the poet. The additions made in 1808 
 to the Fragment are, it is declared, really a different, 
 nay, an antagonistic poem. Kuno Fischer, who may 
 
HISTORY OF THE FAUST POEM. 831 
 
 be taken as a representative man of this party, says 
 that the two sections of the poem, that of 1790 and 
 that of 1808, "proceed from tendencies fundamentally 
 diverse ; they are in character wholly heterogeneous, 
 and they are so to the extent of complete opposi- 
 tion." Thus our First Part, over whose completion 
 we shouted such a hallelujah of rejoicing, has by 
 the completion really been made incomplete, and old 
 Goethe has been caught playing on the public another 
 of his tricks of mystification. Fischer goes on to 
 state that there is a fundamental difference between 
 the two editions in the conception of both Mephisto 
 and Faust. In the Fragment of 1790 Mephisto is 
 declared not to be the Devil, such as he is in the 
 later work, but a mischievous imp, "an elementar}^ 
 ghost," in the service of the Earth-Spirit. In reply 
 to this view, Oettingen (Vorlesungen ilber Faust, 
 Vol. I. p. 10) points out numerous passages in the 
 Fragment which directly contravene Fischer's as- 
 sumption, showing that Mephisto is regarded in them 
 as the genuine Devil. Still, it cannot be denied that 
 the Devil in lighter moods is fond of his impish joke, 
 harmless enough ; witness the scene in " Auerbach*s 
 Cellar." But this milder phase may well consist 
 with his deepest deviltry. Still further, Fischer 
 states that there is a contradiction in the character 
 of Faust : in the original conception he was a sort of 
 Prometheus in conflict with the established rule of 
 the Gods, a genuine world-stormer, and hence tragic ; 
 but in the later, added part, the idea of purification 
 
332 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 through struggle and suffering was introduced, with 
 final reconciliation of the hero purged of Titanic 
 denial. Again the answer has been made to this 
 argument, that it really proves no inherent contra- 
 diction, but rather the contrary ; Faust does begin as 
 a world-storming Titan, but the whole course of the 
 poem shows him cleansed of his Titauism, and com- 
 ing into harmony with the world-order. Still it 
 continues to be stubbornly maintained that the 
 Fragment has the unity, and the total work has the 
 split from top to bottom. 
 
 It is perhaps characteristic of the intellectual Ger- 
 many of to-day, that this theory of Faust — shaded, 
 to be sure, in manifold colors, from hazy gray to jet- 
 black — is held by the most considerable German 
 critics of the present time, Julian Schmidt, Fried- 
 rich Yischer, Karl Biedermann, etc. It finds its first 
 germ in C. H. Weisse's book (1837), one of the earlier 
 interpretations of "Faust," but the theory there is not 
 at all drawn out to its later consequences. A kind 
 of cult of the fragment of 1790 seems to have arisen 
 in Germany, intimated in the words of Gutzkow : 
 "'Faust' as Fragment is much dearer to all of us, 
 than the completed ' Faust.' " Who are all of us ? 
 Certainly not the whole adoring the Whole, but some 
 fragment worshipping the Fragment. The true and 
 final conclusion of the theory is boldly drawn by 
 Gwinner and others, who maintain that the sole 
 unity is the Fragment, and that the real fragment is 
 the completed Part, while the completed two parts 
 
HISTORY OF THE FAUST POEM. 333 
 
 of " Faust" are but the fragment of a fragment. The 
 course of the poem runs thus : it begins perfect, grows 
 to imperfection, and ends in a kind of self-annihila- 
 tion, doubly discordant and dissevered. The poet, 
 too, in the utter perversity of his nature, calls his 
 complete work a fragment, and his fragment a com- 
 plete Part, and his two fragments, doubly scattered, 
 his complete work. Truly the saying of ancient 
 Hesiod, that the half is more than the entire thing, 
 has now become a reality, nay, a twofold reality, for 
 the fragment is the whole, and the whole is the frag- 
 ment. 
 
 In such manner certain sets of German critics 
 seem to have turned the Faust poem upside down, 
 and are attempting to read the book that way ; while 
 Father Goethe himself is set on his head, and is 
 asked to walk somehow with feet in the air. They 
 call it the layer theory, inasmuch as " Faust " is not 
 taken as a grand architectural work, but a series of 
 stratified scenes, piled like stones one on top of an- 
 other, which the critical mattock can pry apart and 
 scale off into pieces large and small. Of course the 
 divisive process need not and will not stop at any 
 given point short of infinity : if we can split the 
 completed work into two or four portions, why not 
 into a dozen, and so on, according to the endless di- 
 visibility of matter ? Schroer has taken hold of the 
 Margaret episode, the most closely connected part of 
 all "Faust," in this spirit, and has divided it into two 
 distinct portions, with still further subdivision into 
 
334 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 separate pictures, moving one after another in a sort 
 of panoramic fashion. Upon which procedure one 
 observation may be made : anatomy is absolutely 
 necessary for all true critical, as well as physiological 
 science ; but the whole purpose and end of it is, not 
 to leave the scattered parts lying about at random, 
 but to recombine them into the one complete living 
 conception of the bodily or poetic organism. 
 
 It is curious to observe that the discussion on 
 " Faust " seems to be running parallel to that on 
 another great poetical book, the first Literary Bible, 
 old Homer. The unity of both is torn to shreds ; the 
 notion of unity seems the reddest of red rags to the 
 present infuriated critical bull, wildly laying about 
 itself in Germany. It is bent desperately on fighting 
 the fact, on proving by a violent toss of the horns that 
 the fact is not the fact, but some other ghost. The 
 unity of the Iliad was the prime fact of it, with few 
 slight protests, ancient and modern, up to the time of 
 Wolff, — the fact which gave it quite its chief worth, 
 and which preserved it through so many centuries. 
 Yet we have lived to see a German critic arrange the 
 Iliad anew into a number of disparate songs, accord- 
 ing to the principle of discord, and not of unity ; as if 
 the supreme object of criticism were to turn all the 
 harmonies of the earth back into chaos and old night. 
 The next thing will be an edition of " Taust," not in 
 the well-ordered unity in which the poet left it, but 
 dislocated by the lever of the critic, and stratified anew 
 according to his method of its origin. Tear down the 
 
HISTORY OF THE FAUST POEM. 335 
 
 grand Gothic cathedral, pile up the stones in layers ; 
 then we have the thing as it was originally, in the 
 womb of Mother Earth, and our brilliant critical sa- 
 gacity finds its true outcome in the realm of primeval 
 disorder. 
 
 Thus, however, has the critic furnished in himself 
 the best commentary on the poem ; by his denial he 
 has come to exemplify in his own person the denial 
 of Faust ; he is transformed to a Faust denying Faust, 
 through the very excess of study and shrewdness. It 
 is indeed strange. One asks, What can the sceptical 
 understanding not do? The world turns to haze, with- 
 out solidity ; the last book of the ages is getting to 
 be as mythically uncertain as the first ; and Goethe, 
 scarce fifty years in his grave, whom many hundreds 
 of people now living have seen and remember, is be- 
 ginning to be a fable, and to share already the fate of 
 his eldest brother, the Chian bard. 
 
 Such is the one line of Faust criticism, much main- 
 tained in Germany ; yet even there it has valiant 
 opponents, who meet the enemy at every point with 
 huge stones and sharp javelins. This new school may 
 be regarded as a necessary reaction against the ex- 
 cesses of the philosophical school, which was too often 
 inclined to build an air-palace of its own, with little 
 foundation in the poem. It is, however, itself com- 
 mitting excesses which foretell its doom ; Germany 
 will weary of it, as she wearied of the earlier criticism, 
 and will return to seek for the rational idea of the 
 work, the idea which generates it, and is not foisted 
 
336 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 upon it. The facts which the great industry and 
 microscopic aciiteness of the new criticism have 
 brought to light will not be lost, but will be united in 
 a new and deeper synthesis with the thought of the 
 poem. The only sound method is to accept the facts 
 fully and sincerely, then to see tliem in their com- 
 pleteness, which brings them into a connected, indeed 
 creative whole. And the prime fact is, Goethe has 
 left this "Faust" as a unity, arranged according to 
 an idea, not by chance, or by mere chronological se- 
 quence. This guiding idea which orders the poem 
 must always be the main thing for the one who wishes 
 to comprehend, and not merely enjoy, the work. 
 
 Still, as Nature often reveals her secret in her mon- 
 strosities, it is worth while to see the ground of tliis 
 new layer theory. There is a difference between the 
 part of "Faust" which appeared in 1790, and the 
 added part which appeared in 1808. The difference 
 exists, but the deeper fact is the unity which locks 
 together these different parts. In the Fragment the 
 problem is stated; in the completed Faust it is solved. 
 But many cannot see the solution ; many, too, believe 
 that there is no solution ; these must prefer the Frag- 
 ment. Such minds will always divide the First Part 
 of "Faust" into two parts, and select their favorite: 
 individual character and insight at last determine the 
 choice. But the poet had certainly a different view, 
 and if we wish to work in his spirit, we must follow 
 the way he points, and grapple with the work till it 
 yield its secret solvent thought. 
 
HISTORY OF THE FAUST POEM. 337 
 
 If the new criticism must prove unsatisfactory, nay, 
 in its extreme tendency, repugnant, to those who wish 
 to see the poem as Goethe saw it and left it, that same 
 criticism has been very beneficial in turning a strong 
 light upon the essential and most difficult fact in the 
 work, namely, the genesis of Mephisto. It has com- 
 pelled those of us who believe in the Faust poem 
 rather than in the Faust fragment to look into the 
 great book anew, under a keener light, and to find 
 the unity in a deeper sense than it has yet been 
 found. I believe that the poem comes out of these 
 critical fires more fully appreciated, seen in clearer, 
 greater, truer outlines, than was possible without 
 such discipline. 
 
 The genesis of Mephisto, which lies between the 
 first denial and the final compact, may be well called 
 the grand central fact of the poem ; it was, however, 
 the grand obstacle to the poet, — was that which he 
 had to wait for nearly forty years, from youth to the 
 beginning of old age. What was his own development 
 during that time in its cardinal points ? If we can 
 bring them together in our glance, perhaps we may be 
 able to see the spiritual history of the genesis afore- 
 said, or some suggestion thereof Out of what and 
 into what did the poet have to pass, before he could 
 write that wonderful evolution of the modern Devil ? 
 As early as 1769, possibly earlier, he had in him the 
 Denial of Faust seen in the first soliloquy; then or 
 not long afterward he had the full-formed Mephisto 
 in activity with the Student and with Margaret ; what 
 
 22 
 
338 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 connection between the Denial and the Devil ? The 
 young poet feels that the one is the source of the 
 other, that the one must be generated out of the other ; 
 but he possessed no literary form adequate for such a 
 task, nor could he get it from any quarter, — with good 
 reason, for the literature of the world as yet contained 
 no such literary form. Genetic liints do indeed occur 
 in Shakespeare, even in old Homer; but they are 
 sudden flashes, prophecies of the coming form, by no 
 means developed into an explicit procedure. Goethe 
 then not merely must liave the new thought, but must 
 find the new form ; he has to live it into being along 
 with his life. This creation of a new literary form is 
 what makes " Faust " an original poem, and its appear- 
 ance an epoch in the world's literature. 
 
 Such was the difficulty which rose up against the 
 continuation of Faust ; yet the same difficulty lies in 
 the entire period of Goethe's early poetic activity, 
 that period usually called his Titanism. He began 
 a " Prometheus," the world's accepted type of Titanic 
 struggle, but he never could finish it ; he ran against 
 the obstacle which stopped his " Faust." Two other 
 works, "Mahomet" and "The Wandering Jew," con- 
 ceived in the same spirit, had to remain fragments 
 for the same reason. He began a novel, " Wilhelm 
 Meister"; but, with all the external incitement of 
 friends, he could not bring it to an end, because the 
 end lay not in him. He broke with his Titanism, 
 saw that it would bring nothing to a close but itself; 
 still, hke the huge boulders of some mighty prinii- 
 
HISTORY OF THE FAUST POEM. 339 
 
 tive energy, the fragments of these early efforts lie 
 scattered through several portions of his works. Th3 
 fine poem called " Ilmenau " (1783) indicates the tran- 
 sition ; it shows the break with the past, with the 
 period of "Storm and Stress," and also hints the 
 unsettled state of the future. 
 
 Still the poet was growing, growing into this very 
 genetic method. He had begun to study science in 
 his way, to take long deep glances into Nature, the 
 first and last of his teachers. He discovered the inter- 
 maxillary bone in man, riot by scientific induction so 
 much as by poetic intuition, — that vision which be- 
 holds, not the particular thing or fact in isolation, but 
 the total creative process, of which this is but a link. 
 The glance which sees in the particular thing or fact 
 the entire cycle of Nature — sees in the single bone 
 the whole skeleton of the one animal and of all ani- 
 mals — is Goethe's glance, penetrating the genetic 
 procedure of the physical world, and hinting from 
 afar a kindred literary procedure. 
 
 But this last stage has not yet arrived, — indeed, 
 cannot yet arrive ; he makes the transition into Art 
 by a new mighty experience. This is the journey to 
 Italy, the most important epoch of his life, falling 
 almost midway between his birth and death, when 
 he was old enough to understand fully the lesson 
 of the past world, young enough still to be moulded 
 by that lesson. At once the fermentation began to 
 settle, the soul to purify itself, and he reached a new 
 harmonious insight into the world-order, and into the 
 
340 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 expression thereof; he became a new man, looking 
 upon a new world ; all that had been impeded and 
 was incomplete in his life and works now began to 
 move toward freedom and completeness. The influ- 
 ence was a new birth of the whole man : Nature, 
 Life, Art, Poetry, all felt the fresh creative breath of 
 that Italian spring. 
 
 First, the vegetable world revealed itself to him in 
 Italy, he says, in a garden at Palermo, where he fully 
 saw that wonderful metamorphosis in which the leaf 
 generates itself, and in that genetic process purifies 
 itself more and more into higher forms, till at last it 
 completes itself in the total plant. That little book, 
 called " The Metamorphosis of Plants," written after 
 his return from Italy, showing all the stages of the 
 genesis of the plant from the leaf, is still Nature's 
 grand suggestion of the genesis of Mephisto, and re- 
 mains to this day the best guide to a true insight 
 into the genesis of " Faust," — the book itself being 
 a poem, a genetic drama of the plant. In like man- 
 ner he showed the metamorphosis of the vertebral 
 into the cranial bones, and carried the genesis of forms 
 through the animal world. A great, many-sided ac- 
 tivity he unfolded, yet with one thought at bottom ; 
 that thought was genesis, which became his conscious 
 principle ; he saw it everywhere in Nature, looked 
 for it in Art, and in the history of Art, and intended 
 to apply it universally in his great work on Man 
 and Nature, of which, however, but a few outlines 
 remain. 
 
HISTORY OF THE FAUST POEM. 341 
 
 Already in Italy this spiritual metamorphosis be- 
 gan to pass into the literary works which he took 
 with him to that country. "Iphigenie" from a prose 
 drama was transformed into an ideal example of 
 classic beauty, — a veritable symbol of Goethe's own 
 transformation under Italian skies. "Tasso" was 
 also transformed and rewritten in the same classic 
 spirit and measure. A new world had indeed dawned 
 upon him ; or it was rather the transfiguration of the 
 old world into a new existence. 
 
 Of necessity he began to employ his new insight in 
 a higher realm, that of spiritual production, of which 
 the first great literary fruit after his return was the 
 completion of " Meister's Apprenticeship." We have 
 seen how that work lay unfinished before the Italian 
 journey ; no completeness was possible in it then, as 
 there was no completeness in ihe author. But now 
 he sees the way, he will remodel the whole work, and 
 bring it to an end ; Meister too is to reveal the genetic 
 hint, and carry it over into the novel, and therewith 
 into the spiritual world, out of Nature, even into edu- 
 cation. It is, indeed, the principle of human life and 
 character ; the erring man is to be seen going through 
 his process of self-purification, of self-correction of 
 errors, the grand human discipline in the mastery of 
 fate. " In every endowment lies the force to bring it 
 to perfection," says the Abbd, who is the almost in- 
 visible Jupiter Olympius, hovering over this truly 
 modern epic. The nature of Meister unfolds through 
 manifold errors into its true being ; in him we watch 
 
342 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 the genesis of a liiimau soul out of its primordial 
 germ into reality. 
 
 With the completion of the apprenticeship of Meis- 
 ter, the grand obstacle which stopped Goethe so many- 
 years was broken down ; he had entered the para- 
 dise of supreme poetic creation. The great literary 
 deed was done, yet not completely done ; a liter- 
 ary expression had been found for one phase of the 
 new idea applied to life ; but there was still another 
 phase, stronger, deeper, more universal. In Meister 
 the function of error in the grand human discipline is 
 told, turned over and over, and emphasized in a thou- 
 sand varied forms ; but now error is to deepen into 
 denial, the unconscious mistake is to become conscious 
 negation, — in fine, is to become the Devil. There- 
 with rises the new task, vaster, more desperate, more 
 soul-cleaving ; a gigantic task, which the poor mortal 
 may well shun, — to call up and put into body tlie 
 " spirit that denies," the modern Destroyer. The 
 negation of Truth, the intensified embodiment of all 
 error, wandering, waywardness, the conscious Denial 
 burning with a sulphurous torch, indeed, the very 
 Devil, is now to unfold before our eyes into a reality, 
 and to accompany the man through his long earthly 
 career, till he work himself free of his diabolic coun- 
 terpart, purify himself, and ascend to heaven. 
 
 The task has to be done : there is no escape of the 
 true poet from his call. Scarcely had he finished 
 " Meister," when the mightier problem seized hold of 
 him, the final ground and mystery of all creation, the 
 
HISTORY OF THE FAUST POEM. 343 
 
 genesis of evil. Yet this problem, so new, was never- 
 theless his oldest poetic task, had indeed lurked un- 
 derneath all his activity since his twentieth year, had 
 sent him to Nature for lessons, had driven him to Italy 
 for expression and clarification, had made him write 
 " Meister " for training ; this Paust question is really 
 the spiritual, substrate of Goethe's entire productivity, 
 the mother soil out of which shoot up all his works 
 and his life. In 1797-98 the Prologues were written, 
 in which we see him deep in his work ; and we catch, 
 from his correspondence with Schiller, faint indica- 
 tions that the embryonic Mephisto was lustily strug- 
 fflin^T within him. 
 
 But it is not a matter which can be despatched with 
 a few rapid pen-strokes. Still a ten years' struggle, 
 O valiant man ! awaits thee ; untold birth-throes will 
 wrench thy being till thou be delivered of Satan, who 
 will himself, " the old hell-lynx," be made to sweat 
 roundly in the process {ihr haht mich weidlich schwit- 
 zen machen). Let no lack of man's recognition put 
 down the God who now commands the work ; rouse 
 thyself anew ; the years of long preparation are past ; 
 the hair on thy temples has turned gray since the first 
 early conception of thy task, but it lives in thee still ; 
 thou hast travelled all the realms of Nature, Life, Art, 
 in thy toilsome apprenticeship, and written its record ; 
 but now it is done. Thy supreme effort must be 
 made, thy genius is invoking thee to exorcise the 
 Devil out of thy " Faust," and out of thyself into the 
 world, and by thy magic speech to ban him into writ, 
 
344 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 there to stay forever. Then thou art free, but not till 
 more than eighty years have passed over thy head, 
 and the last line he set down ; then thou mayst dis- 
 miss thyself from thy terrestrial task, and say to 
 thine Ariel, "Now to the elements." 
 
GOETHE'S WOMEN. 345 
 
 XII. 
 . GOETHE'S WOMEN. 
 
 By Mrs. JULIA WARD HOWE. 
 
 The topic here set down to my name was assigned 
 me months ago, and appeared at the time one most 
 congenial to my wishes. Goethe's women ! how 
 charming to renew my acquaintance with them ! 
 What a lovely literary pleasure to take up the 
 magical volumes, and to go again through the va- 
 ried narratives in which they play their part ! Vain 
 thought ! I had my Goethe-time long ago, when as 
 a girl I read " Faust," " Gotz von Berlichingen," and 
 others of the plays, and when, a young mother, I 
 quieted a baby with one hand, while the other turned 
 over the pages of "Wilhelm Meister;" and so my 
 Goethe Gallery is seen through a long vista of years. 
 T, too, who once adored the Teuton rule, do so no 
 longer. Heaven forbid that my grandchildren should 
 be fed upon the tonic of " blood and iron " ! Give 
 me American rule, American training, with its lapses 
 even and its faults. For, though Germany did won- 
 derfully take the lead in critical thought during the 
 first half of this century, when the moment came for 
 
346 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 liberal action, she shrank away, and lost the world's 
 leadership, and will never regain it. And how did 
 her Nemesis, Bismarck, obtain the mastery over her 
 daring thought and unrepentant speculation ? Let 
 me grimly parody, in reply, a line of Kobert Brown- 
 
 ing 
 
 "Just for a handful of silver he had us ; 
 Just for a ribbon to stick on our coat." 
 
 Having said thus much, and refusing to bow to a 
 cocked hat, even if worn by a German Prince and set 
 up by a German Emperor, I will look back at the 
 social and literary glories which once illuminated 
 two hemispheres from the narrow heaven of a small 
 German principality. 
 
 Coming, at so late a date, into this Goethe sym- 
 posium, I must fear more than ever to touch upon 
 ground already occupied by those who have preceded 
 me. One who speaks of Goethe's Women must 
 needs speak of the man Goethe, of " Faust," of " Wil- 
 helm Meister," and of much besides. And I avail 
 myself of the title of the theme given me to speak, 
 not only of the women whom Goethe has brought 
 into the world of literature, but also of those who 
 were known and prized by him. From the living 
 gallery of his friends to the marble gallery of his 
 fancies, we may step in true progress. Or might I 
 rather say, that we may find the beautiful forms 
 of his imagination to be as like to those cherished 
 in his affections, as the trees on the bank are to the 
 trees in the river, — only that, like the clear stream, 
 
GOETHE'S WOMEN. 347 
 
 the master's mind adds to their beauties a glory of 
 its own ? 
 
 The real women in the first place, and the Mother 
 first of all, — characterized by that substantial value 
 which belongs to a class that neither cringes nor 
 aspires. We must thank the Germans for many 
 words ; and. may go into their language to help our 
 own, just as a child may go into its grandmother's 
 store-closet to commit a theft which his mother 
 would not leave unpunished. The word I have in 
 mind at this time is hiirgcrlich, which, taken strictly, 
 corresponds to bourgeois in French, and to "upper- 
 middle-class" in English. The German term, how- 
 ever, seems to make a stand for itself. The French 
 bourgeois has a little sarcastic tang, which Moliere 
 gave it. " Upper-middle-class " is rather hopelessly 
 suggestive of caste and confusion. But hilrgerlich, 
 hxxr^QTlike, brings to our mind those substantial 
 medieevals who were rich enough to afford a velvet 
 doublet and a gold chain, — who could lend the 
 Court money, but who would not borrow manners 
 from it. So Goethe's mother was hurgcrliche, al- 
 though beloved of princes, not only for her son's, 
 but for her own sake ; with great manners and her 
 gold snuff-box for great days, but with a simple and 
 genuine love of life, its real duties and real values. 
 How naive and kindly is her anxiety that the cakes 
 to be served at her funeral shall be rich and good 
 enough for the occasion ! She does not appreciate 
 the Frau von Stael, and Goethe did not either. Yet 
 
348 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 she is a woman poetical in sentiment and rich in 
 feeling. 
 
 The sister, Cornelia, the dear companion of Goethe's 
 youth, the confidante of his first literary schemes and 
 aspirations, was a young girl whose plainness of per- 
 son made her self-distrustful, but whose character, 
 to those capable of divining it, revealed an inner 
 beauty to which the outer charm would have seemed 
 superfivious. 
 
 The lady-loves, so numerous, — often succeeding 
 each other without an interval between the old 
 love and the new, — how worthy do they for the 
 most part appear in what is known of them ! Each 
 has her individual charm. The first, Frederika 
 Brion, is a blooming rustic. The second, Lotte, is 
 a girl in higher position, gay and sedate by turns, 
 the betrothed of Goethe's friend, who bitterly resents 
 the portraiture of both given to the world in " Wer- 
 ther." The third, fourth, and fifth, Anna, SibyUa, 
 and Maximiliane, are less known to us. The sixth, 
 Lili, is a city belle, the daughter of a wealthy banker, 
 and something of a coquette. She was the inspirer 
 of some of the poet's best-known lyrics, such as, 
 
 " Heart, my heart, what is this feeling 
 That doth weigh on me so sore ? " 
 
 Of her inspiring, too, was the poem entitled "Lili's 
 Menagerie," in which, says Lewes, " he expresses his 
 surly disgust at the familiar faces which surround 
 her," — the Bear of the menagerie being a portrait of 
 
t. LlB/y^^p. 
 
 or THE 
 
 (( IINIVERBITY )l 
 GOETHE'S ^^^fe^C^LlFORNlA.p 
 
 himself. Goethe follows her about to scenes of un- 
 congeuial gayety, in braided coat, gazing at her "amid 
 the glare of chandeliers." In his conversations with 
 Eckermann, he calls her his first, last, and only love, 
 all others in comparison deserving only to be classed 
 as inclinations. When he says of this affection, " It 
 has influenced my style," he pays her the utmost 
 tribute that a literary man can offer to a woman. 
 He loves, but marries not. The first attractions find 
 him precocious in feeling, and mature enough in 
 judgment to distrust himself It costs him bitter 
 tears to forsake his sweethearts. We can imagine that 
 the tears shed by them must have been more bitter, 
 and cannot put out of sight the disadvantage suffered 
 by these young girls, when, after every appearance of 
 serious intention, the brilliant youth flits from them, 
 and leaves them in (to say the least) awkward isola- 
 tion. The fact that he did so leave them reminds 
 me of a humorous device in Ofienbach's " Orphee aux 
 Enfers." Jupiter, wishing to make love to Pluto's 
 fair bride, descends in the form of a monstrous but- 
 terfly, and presently hands forward his card, saying, 
 "Je suis le Baron de Jupiter." The great Goethe, 
 on the contrary, comes like a lord and departs like a 
 butterfly. 
 
 In the judgments which this unedifying course has 
 drawn upon him, Goethe is often blamed as though 
 he had been throughout a free and voluntary agent. 
 This is not a fair reading of the matter. Goethe in 
 his youth was subject to all the complications which 
 
350 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 result from the conflict between temperament and 
 those " circumstances over which we have no control," 
 that would seem to be a convenient invention of 
 modern times. The wishes of his parents — strong 
 and determined people — would naturally be present 
 to his mind in anything of so much moment as a 
 matrimonial alliance. From Frederika he seems to 
 have been parted by a sense of the unfitness of the 
 relation, — responding to the remonstrances of his 
 friend Merck, With Lili he exchanged the kiss of 
 betrothal, and soon after, at the instance especially 
 of his sister, thought better of it, and never saw her 
 more until the heads of both were gray. But now 
 he goes to Court, and beholds the great ladies of the 
 day. One of these, the Frau von Stein, becomes his 
 Muse, and for ten years holds him in her vassalage. 
 The relation between them, though an intimate one, 
 seems to have escaped scandal ; Frau von Stein hav- 
 ing held a position of much respect in the society of 
 the day, and having no doubt preserved through all 
 excitements the strictest sense of the convenances, 
 and of the penalty of their violation. The Frau von 
 Stein is known to have been intellectual in her 
 tastes and elegant in her accomplishments. For 
 the length of time already mentioned she remained 
 a guiding luminary in Goethe's heaven, the con- 
 fidante of his thoughts, his sentiments, and his 
 literary projects. 
 
 In his fortieth year, he met the woman who was 
 destined to be the mother of his only child, and the 
 
GOETHE'S WOMEN. 351 
 
 companion of his later years. This was Christian e 
 Vulpius, a woman of poor descent, inheriting from an 
 unworthy father only the curse of a morbid appetite 
 for intoxicating liquors. Lewes, in his Life of Goethe, 
 finds much to say in explanation of a course of con- 
 duct which cost the great Master much of his social 
 prestige, and robbed him forever of the friendship 
 of Frau von Stein. "Christiane had," says Lewes, 
 "quick mother-wit, a lively spirit, a loving heart, 
 and great aptitude for domestic duties." Madame 
 Schopenhauer describes her as endowed with "golden 
 brown locks, laughing eyes, kiss-provoking lips, a 
 small and gracefully rounded figure," and likens her 
 in appearance to a youthful Bacchus. The " Ro- 
 man Elegies " record Goethe's feeling for her, while 
 the fact that he partly wrote for her his invaluable 
 " Metamorphoses of Plants " shows her to have been 
 possessed of an education sufficient to enable her 
 to share some of his studies. The liaison, whicli 
 must have begun soon after their first acquaint- 
 ance, in 1788, led, eighteen years later, to a mar- 
 riage, at which their son, already eighteen years 
 of age, was present. To this son, born in 1789, 
 the Duke August had stood as godfather, — an act 
 which shows that, although disapproved, the con- 
 nection with Christiane was not ruinous to Goethe's 
 court favor. 
 
 Bettine von Arnim we may mention as a gracious 
 episode of Goethe's later life, — an evening star on the 
 edge of his sunset glory. Like the evening star, she 
 
352 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 shows herself, and presently " fades in the light that 
 she loves." Of great romantic interest in the social 
 history of the time, Bettine does not much avail us 
 in the present connection, for it does not appear that 
 she exerted any influence over Goethe's literary life. 
 One other woman we may name, Friiulein von Le- 
 vezow, whose beauty, spiritual or personal, smote the 
 ancient heart even in extreme old age, and, provok- 
 ing to no unseemly act of folly, called forth the 
 "Elegie aus Marienhad." 
 
 I liave called to mind very briefly some of the 
 women who are known to have had an influence 
 upon Goethe's life, because they are sure to have 
 had some share in the parentage of that ideal 
 family from which his fame in great measure de- 
 rives. I am not able, however, to trace out the 
 traits and features which might make this relation- 
 ship evident. His biographers have already done 
 this, — none better, perhaps, than Lewes. 
 
 If we compare Goethe's method with those most 
 in favor with us to-day, we shall be impressed above 
 all with its generosity. In the line of this com- 
 parison, I first think of the great English masters, 
 Dickens and Thackeray. From them my mind turns 
 to the works of two of my own countrymen, Messrs. 
 Howells and James. All of these writers have sat- 
 irized women. In all of them, to my mind, though 
 not in all to the same extent, the points remarked 
 upon are petty, and the inferred damage to character, 
 to say the least, disproportionate. Literary women 
 
GOETHE'S WOMEN. 353 
 
 sometimes show the same, or even a greater, unchar- 
 ity toward their own sex. An especial example of 
 this I find in the volume called " Modern Women," 
 of which the authorship is attributed to a lady well 
 known in both hemispheres as a writer of fiction. 
 Shall we say that these are truths which wound in 
 the telling, but which should nevertheless be told ? 
 Methinks it is the low interpretation of character 
 and of life that wounds. Good surgery works for 
 mitigation, not for mutilation. Cynical writers take 
 from us our left arm of faith and our ri^ht arm 
 of courage. They take from us the swift feet of 
 sympathy, which would serve humanity, were not 
 humanity represented as not worth serving nor 
 caring for. 
 
 Goethe has shown us in his writings some very 
 poorly behaved women, and has shown them without 
 a word of reprobation. Marianne and Philine, in 
 " Wilhelm Meister," are of this class, — characters 
 which no one would dare to present in English 
 literature so baldly as Goethe has presented them iu 
 the phraseology of his mother tongue. Martha, in 
 " Faust," is vile, and Gretchen trebly criminal. Where 
 is generosity shown in these very literal renderings 
 of women whose life and standard are low ? I find 
 that in these, as in his higher creations, Goethe does 
 not lose sight of the ideal value of human life and 
 character. Philine is redeemed through maternity. 
 We see her at last presented to a noble lady, to 
 whom she avows the commonplace level of her iutel- 
 
 23 
 
354 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 lectual aspirations, but says, on the other hand, " I 
 love my husband and my children," and so passes 
 unreproved. Marianne is a sketch left much in 
 shadow; yet she wins our human sympathy when 
 we dimly see her dying of grief for a lover whom 
 she deserved to lose, but whose loss left her incon- 
 solable. 
 
 But all these melancholy pictures fade before the 
 piteous pathos of Gretchen, — Gretchen, the simple 
 peasant maiden, who knows no harm, and means no 
 harm to any one. On her way from church, to which 
 she went " full of innocence," the Devil sets his snare 
 for her. The handsome gallant, urged forward by the 
 fiend, touches her imagination. " Wer mag der Herr 
 seyn ? " A great gentleman to her, — ay, and in him- 
 self a deeply philosophic man, with an exquisite 
 sense even of the beauty of the innocence against 
 which he sins. Goethe does not spare one horror 
 from the tale of what befalls her. The low, stupid 
 misery in which she cowers in the straw, her dim 
 reason presenting the past to her in an intangible 
 shape, — nothing real to her but her helpless lone- 
 liness, her forsaken condition, and the hangman and 
 gallows waiting for her. This agonizing story is 
 portrayed with the greatest mastership. The guile- 
 less soul of the girl who relates to Faust how she 
 brought up her baby sister, how the little cradle 
 stood ever by her bed, how many a weary hour 
 the little nursling cost her : 
 
 " Doch schmeckt dafiir das Essen, sclimeckt die Kuh." 
 
 I 
 
GOETUES WOMEN. 355 
 
 How touching her catechism of Heinrich, as Faust 
 has taught her to call him ! 
 
 Gretciien. 
 
 Now say how does it stand with thy religion ? 
 Thou art indeed a heartily good man, 
 Only of that, I fear me, thou art careless. 
 
 Faust. 
 
 Let that alone, my child ; thou know'st I love thee, 
 And for my loves will give my life and blood, - 
 Would steal from none his altar and his creed. 
 
 Gretciien. 
 That 's not the right thing yet, one must believe. 
 
 Faust. 
 Must one ? 
 
 Gretchen. 
 
 Thou honorest not the holy sacrament. 
 Dost thou believe in God ? 
 
 Faust. 
 
 Sweet, who dares say, 
 " I believe in God " ? Ask thou the priest, the sage, 
 "^ Their answer seems to mock the questioner. 
 
 And the tragedy of her swoon in the cathedral, and 
 of the bitter thoughts which precede it: — 
 
 "How different, Gretchen, was 't with thee 
 When blameless thou this altar didst approach, 
 From the clasped missal lisping prayers, 
 Half childish play, half God in thy young heart ! 
 How swims thy head ! what misdeeds in thy thought ! " 
 
 In nothing has Goethe shown more power than in 
 this unique portraiture. A peasant girl, as he must 
 
356 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 have known them, led away, destroyed, mined, as he 
 must have seen them, alas ! too often, — the moral of 
 this story needs no pointing. Even Hood's "Think 
 of it, dissolute man," would be an impertinence. To 
 womankind it almost seems to say : " If God so clothe 
 with womanhood the very grass of the field, what 
 should you women be who grow up in honor, safety, 
 and knowledge ? " 
 
 But why should we linger with this poor child 
 in her dismal prison, when we can climb with the 
 master to such heights of noble imagination ? Let us 
 admire, first of all, the breadth of view which includes 
 so simple and forlorn a creature, and her very oppo- 
 site, the woman who sits in her bower to trace 
 out the silver embroidery of the heavens, Macaria 
 the blessed ! We may say that this revelation did 
 not come to the great master all at once. Already 
 in " Gotz," his earliest work, the later performance 
 is foreshadowed. Adellieid, the beautiful, conupt 
 woman, Elizabeth, the strong and simple one, are 
 drawn with mastery, albeit they are only touched in. 
 But the Goethe series would properly begin with 
 Charlotte, a conventional type, if a charming one. 
 She is hilrgerliclie, hourgeoise, of that sort which is as 
 good as anything. No trace in her of the defrauded 
 duchess, of the woman who condescends to live her 
 life, holding her merits and pretensions far above her 
 sphere. She takes her fate as she finds it, is con- 
 scientious in the cutting of bread and butter, intends 
 to make a good wife to lier prosaic husband, and, 
 
GOETHE'S WOMEN. ' 357 
 
 though unavoidably touched by Werther's devotion to 
 her, and for a moment stirred by it from her mental 
 equilibrium, is sure to regain her peace of mind, and 
 to end her days worthily and happily, as is best. In 
 George Sand's handling, the denouement might have 
 been far different. " Werther," like Eousseau's " He- 
 loise," gives one cause to reflect upon the changes 
 which make the great romance of one period appear 
 tame and dull in another. 
 
 In Goethe's greatest drama, "Faust," and in his 
 greatest romance, " Wilhelm Meister," the artist cuts 
 deep down into the quick of simple, natural passion, 
 always with a high handling and intent. He gives 
 us, too, the conventional glimpses of character which 
 society affords, — the actress, who vainly loves Wil- 
 helm's caustic friend,' Jarno ; the lady sketched in 
 as stopping at the inn, and reaching home late on her 
 birthday ; the little family celebration of it, spoiled 
 by the delay, but still more by the jealous anger 
 which steals her soul away ; her faithless lover being 
 present to her mind, while her unloved husband 
 moves before her eyes, scarcely noticed. But before 
 we pass so far, Mignou stays our way, pathetic, like 
 Gretchen, an estray, orphaned by the unspeakable 
 crime of her parents, but with the instincts of a 
 higher race, aspiring heavenward in her loneliness 
 and desolation, her melancholy a sweet, angelic mi- 
 nor, that ends with a rising cadence. The song, 
 " Kennst du das Land ? " is like some magical crys- 
 tal ball, held in the hand, but in which one sees 
 
358 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 visions of things far distant. Mignon gives us all 
 Italy in that one beautiful crystallization, — the 
 blooming thickets, the gleaming fruit, the soft air, 
 the mountain passes, the ancestral halls rich in 
 sculptures. Who can show us so much in so little ? 
 Only a magician, — and he puts his wonder-ball in 
 the hand of a child. 
 
 " Die Schone Seele," the fair soul, is a Protestant 
 saint of a type not unfamiliar in Goethe's time, — not 
 often seen nor much favored in our own day. The 
 absorbing power of religious enthusiasm, divorcing 
 youth and beauty from the gay and busy world, 
 and turning the sweet, pure eyes all to the contem- 
 plation of tilings transcending human sense, — this 
 portraiture is a very strong and perfect one. But 
 religion in our day is not interpreted after this as- 
 cetic fashion. Nature and she embrace with one 
 hand, and aspire with the other. I need not here 
 enlarge upon this fortunate change. The reaction 
 from mediaeval forms of devotion is too well known 
 to need illustration at my hand. Let us, however, 
 think of this, — that Goethe thought this now ob- 
 solete type worth preserving in his glorious work. 
 And let us question whether we cannot have the 
 singleness of heart, the unquestioning conscience, of 
 his Schone Seele, without that technical sundering 
 from social ties and interests which she received as 
 the commandment of Heaven, but against which we of 
 to-day must rebel. Piety of this sort is to-day called 
 Pietism, and stands upon a level with other isms. 
 
GOETHE'S WOMEN. 359 
 
 Casting about in my mind for a schone Seele of our 
 own time, I see before me the thoughtful eyes and 
 spirit-pure face of Elizabeth S tuart Phelps^ Single 
 and devout is she, and somewhat withdrawn from 
 the world, and yet such a Nature-friend that the 
 heaven which she loves to picture is full of human 
 delights, translated out of excess, out of selfishness, 
 out of danger. In it the good are holy, harmless, 
 and heavenly forever, but are human withal, as 
 Christ was human. 
 
 Macaria, darling of the gods, to whom are whis- 
 pered the secrets of the universe, sees in the starry 
 heavens the path and power of each distant lumi- 
 nary, and builds sublimely in her own brain the plan 
 of the Master Architect through whom it all came 
 to be. Having had acquaintance once with an emi- 
 nent astronomer, and knowing, as every one knows, 
 that the study of astronomy involves much laborious 
 calculation, as well as the keenest observation, I 
 asked him what Goethe could have meant by drawing 
 the portrait of a woman who knew all these wonders 
 by intuition. He replied, " There is no understand- 
 ing what a man like Goethe meant by much that he 
 wrote, and this with the rest." But I find something 
 intelligible even in this mystic description. Goethe's 
 feeling of the intuitive power of women was a very 
 strong one. He may have added to it a moment's tri- 
 fling with the somnambulic phenomena which Swe- 
 denborg and other mystics had already introduced to 
 the world. The intuitive power of woman is indeed 
 
360 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 precious to society ; and one of the great fears which 
 accompany the advance of the sex in rationalistic 
 and purely intellectual discipline, is the dread lest 
 in the drill of their new acquisitions they should 
 lose this distinctive and invaluable trait. I need 
 not here take up this matter either, but I will say, 
 as I said before, " Goethe thought this work suggest- 
 ive." We therefore may ponder upon it. 
 
 Two poems of Goethe's, " Der Gott und die Baja- 
 din," and " Die Braut von Corinth," breathe the ful- 
 ness of youthful passion, unrestrained by the critical 
 after-thought which makes the great poet appear 
 even greater in the anatomy of human feeling than 
 in its expression. In both of these poems we feel 
 the reaction against the pietistic and exclusive ethic 
 which must often have appeared to Goethe in the 
 light of a Pharisaic tyranny not to be endured. 
 
 Mahadoh, lord of earth, visits the Dancing-girl, 
 who greets him as a stranger with smiling hospi- 
 tality. Of the god the poet says : 
 
 "If he judge or if he share, 
 Manlike he with man must fare." 
 
 And so the divine visitor sees beneath the painted 
 cheek a gentle nature, and smiles to find, 
 
 '• In deepest perdition, a womanly heart." 
 
 He becomes her guest, her master, her spouse. 
 Wakina: from her dream of wedded bliss, she finds 
 him dead. Those who bear him to his funeral pyre 
 deny her the widow's precious right, to be burned 
 
GOETHE'S WOMEN. 861 
 
 with lier husband ; but she, leaping into the flames, 
 is caught in his embrace, and carried to the region 
 of the Immortals. This story illustrates the passive 
 religion of the Hindoo woman. 
 
 In early Christendom, a youth betrothed to a 
 young girl in Corinth journeys thither from his dis- 
 tant home and claims the hospitality of the house to 
 which he stands thus related. Here, in the deep of 
 night, he is visited by a vampire, the ghost of his be- 
 trothed, who has met death in a convent to which her 
 mother's vows had consigned her on recovery from a 
 dangerous illness. Surprised by the mother, the fatal, 
 horrible visitor touches us by this piteous appeal : 
 
 " Hearken, mother, now my latest prayer. 
 And a sexton send who shall be my friend, 
 And my narrow, wretched home unclose. 
 Bring in flames the loving to repose ! 
 
 When the spark shall show, 
 
 When the ashes glow, 
 To the old-time deities we '11 go." 
 
 "The Erl King" is the only poem of Goethe's 
 which offers itself to my mind as having the same 
 terrific suggestion and horror as are found in this 
 composition. Its horror, however, is mystical and 
 pathetic, condensed from the shadows and chills of 
 evening deepening into night, while the Bride is seen 
 by flashes of vivid lightning whose accompanying 
 thunder shakes, with the primeval forces of ISTature, 
 the foundations of the new, aspiring Faith. 
 
 The climax of Goethe's guneology — you will allow 
 me this word — is reached in the concluding sentence 
 
362 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 of "Faust," — "Das Ewig-AVeibliche zieht uns hinan/' 
 " The Eternal Womanly attracts us, draws us on." 
 The gravity of the nominative here seems to ask a 
 grave interpretation of the verb. Anziehen literally 
 means " to draw on," metaphorically means " to 
 attract." Let us give it the weight of both mean- 
 ings, and interpret it as expressing the attraction 
 which indeed draws or leads us on. This wonderful 
 phrase has been often quoted, and much dwelt upon. 
 As the last word of a mighty life-drama, — a drama 
 whose intense interest holds the world wherever pre- 
 sented to-day, — we are glad to find in it a deep 
 meaning. After the chorus of the angels, and the 
 visitation of the Demon, after daring speculation and 
 more daring sin, after the vanity of imagination, after 
 the substantiality of possession, comes the final voice, 
 " Das Ewig-Weibliche." 
 
 It might seem strange if people of our dimensions 
 should feel it incumbent upon them to apologize for 
 anything that a mighty man like Goethe did or said. 
 Still is it one of the meekeuing reflections belonging 
 to our race, that the greatest of men (could we give 
 one that rank) cannot be rightly judged without the 
 tenderness of human charity, Goethe's unjustifiable 
 treatment of his early loves, his unjustifiable relation 
 with the mother of his boy, — these are matters that 
 call for charitable judgment. And I find the world 
 more bound to charity to-day than heretofore, on 
 account of the improved methods of analysis which 
 belong to our later thought and culture. Phrenology 
 
GOETHE'^ WOMEN. 363 
 
 and the study of heredity enable the analyst of 
 human nature in our time to trace the effects of 
 leading characteristics more fully and subtly than 
 was possible in earlier times, in which divisions were 
 more crude and absolute. 
 
 The power of Goethe's imagination in matters per- 
 sonal to himself is shown in the circumstance that 
 the mere anticipation of a first meeting with Frau 
 von Stein cost him three sleepless nights. What im- 
 possible perfections he expected to find in her, we 
 can hardly conjecture, — prosaic creatures that we 
 are, Avho would not lie awake one night for any pre- 
 sentation that can be imagined ! This vivid ima- 
 gination, we must think, would have been apt to 
 lend its brilliant coloring to the encounters of a first 
 acquaintance. Its ecstasy, though supreme, would 
 necessarily be short-lived. Onward, onward, would 
 this flying steed bear its rider, who is not always its 
 master. So the enchantment of one personage would 
 vanish with the enchantment of the surrounding 
 scene. The scene, the personage, remain : the flying 
 one, whose nature it is to fly, has gone. 
 
 Of his strangely delayed marriage we may conjec- 
 ture that the scandal occasioned by the relation pre- 
 ceding it was much less than would have been, at the 
 time, that of a marriage so unequal and unsuitable. 
 Goethe, the world-man, had, no doubt, respect to this 
 consideration. Years pass on, — years of faithful 
 affection and service on the part of his compan- 
 ion. The power of the hearth and home has grown 
 
364 UFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 supreme with him. Troubles gather around him, — 
 troubles in which Christiane's better qualities have 
 afforded him real comfort and support. He deter- 
 mines to give the dignity of wifehood to the woman 
 around whom have centred the tender and intimate 
 associations of nearly twenty years. Even with these 
 grave reasons behind it, the marriage causes loud and 
 instant blame. Goethe's friends, however, were glad 
 of it, and Christiane's conduct, we are told, confirmed 
 their approbation of the step. 
 
 The modern theory of imagination is that all quick 
 and fine perception is in a great degree dependent 
 upon it. We must think Goethe in this respect 
 most exceptionally gifted. In the wide range of 
 female character which his works unfold to us, this 
 perception of the beautiful impresses me as the trait 
 most characteristic of him. The exquisite tenderness 
 and simplicity of his Gretchen, so unstrained, so true 
 to nature, shows the wonderful sense with which he 
 looked upon the lowliest creatures, Egmont's Clar- 
 chen has the same pathos, though not the same 
 character. Gretchen's sweet soul makes itself felt 
 through the poverty of her speech, which is narrow 
 and all peasant-like. Clarchen is city-bred, and has 
 the gift of expression : — 
 
 "Freudvoll und leidvoll, 
 GedankenvoU seyn ; 
 Himmel hoch jauchzend, 
 Zum Tode betriibt : 
 Gliicklich allein 
 1st die Seele, die liebt." 
 
GOETHE'S WOMEN. 365 
 
 Of this simple womanhood he has also given us a 
 charming picture in that dialogue which brings be- 
 fore us a man of high culture, who, among the ruins 
 of some ancient fane or city, encounters a mother 
 with her infant child. He muses of the past, and of 
 all the great " may have beens." The woman can 
 tell him nothing of all this, has no talisman with 
 which to call up visions of centuries long vanished. 
 But her baby wakes, and she speaks to him the lan- 
 guage of all time : — 
 
 " Hat es gesclilafeu, liebes Herz ! " 
 
 And this brings a ray of purest light serene into the 
 sombre picture. 
 
 Equally at home is he with high dames, — with 
 Leonora of Este, Tasso's beloved, — with the calm, 
 sweet daughter of Agamemnon. 
 
 This sense of beauty, then, clothes the Goethean 
 world with varied glories. It is universal, in shadow 
 as in light. It lifts the depths of human nature into 
 the daylight of God's providence. To its fine inter- 
 pretation, nothing is absolutely common, nothing is 
 hopelessly unclean. Nor is this a mere worship of 
 what may delight the outer senses. The value of the 
 beautiful, in form, in character, and in life, — this 
 deep and steadfast persuasion goes with our poet 
 from his first work to his last. Deeply Christian 
 is this trait, for it is the combination of the three 
 foremost graces of Christianity, Faith, Hope, and 
 Charity. 
 
366 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 An intense sense of the pleasurable accompanied 
 this keen perception of all beauties. The expres- 
 sion of this, here and there, has led many to think of 
 Goethe as an Epicurean, in the least worthy inter- 
 pretation of the term. He belongs, on the contrary, 
 if to the sect at all, to its high philosophic order. 
 This view will, in all probability, have been suffici- 
 ently presented and considered in this philosophic 
 company. I need not dwell upon the love of scien- 
 tific observation and research which eminently phiced 
 him with the great dignitaries of the sect. But of 
 his eudaimonistic temperament itself I have a word 
 to say. 
 
 Pleasure-lovers are of two sorts, the self-engrossed 
 and the benevolent. It is a narrow interpretation, 
 even of enjoyment, which can regard it as a solitary 
 good, in which the welfare of others has properly no 
 part. I cannot for one moment think of Goethe as 
 imprisoned in the fetters of this selfish greed, which 
 grasps what others offer, snatches what they refuse, 
 and exults in what it gathers, while it gives nothing. 
 No, that serene nature must have been a light-diffus- 
 ing one. Where he came, things took on at once a 
 brighter aspect. The dull and trivial small change of 
 society was redeemed in his hands to a genuine cur- 
 rency ; the icicles of form and custom became living 
 gems in his sunshine. He was a great present help 
 and power, and his literary legacies, precious as they 
 are, are poor in comparison with what it would have 
 been to see him, to hear him, to feel his wonderful 
 
GOETHE'S WOMEN. 367 
 
 magnetism for one half-hour. This great soul carried 
 its great life with it, and made a paltry Ducal resi- 
 dence the literary centre of Continental Europe. 
 Kings and conquerors did him homage. He, ren- 
 dering respect and courtesy where they were due, 
 paid homage only to truth. 
 
 The last scene comes. Is it still the Eternal 
 Womanly ? Not to laurel and crown does it call 
 thee, Goethe! not to the princely court, the gay 
 dames, the admiring world. All this thou hast had, 
 as was thy right. Thou hast wrought in thy morn- 
 ing, and noontide, and evening. Night comes now, 
 and brings thee rest. Like a little child on its 
 mother's breast the great man sinks back on the 
 bosom of the infinite love. The Eternal Womanly, 
 the eternally loving, folds him to a slumber which, as 
 we think of it, seems to still for a moment the heart 
 of the world. 
 
368 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 XIII. 
 GOETHE'S FAUST. 
 
 By W. T. HARRIS. 
 
 We have often heard that Shakespeare is to be 
 regarded as the greatest of the world's literary men. 
 Especially since Coleridge and Carlyle made known 
 to us the analyses of the great literary critics and 
 philosophers of Germany, this verdict has been gain- 
 ing universal acceptance among English-speaking 
 nations. The significance of this estimate of Shake- 
 speare is not so easy to discover. Let any young 
 person try to state wherein the great world-poets are 
 so eminent above their fellows, and he may be led to 
 change his opinion many times before he satisfies 
 himself or us with the standard of criticism that he 
 adopts. Is it the music of Shakespeare's verse, or 
 the charm of his metaphor, or the interest of his 
 situations, or the ideal suggestions of his words, or 
 the conformity of his dramatic solutions to the de- 
 sires and aspirations of the heart ? No, it is not any 
 one nor all of these things that would or could de- 
 serve the honor that is paid to Shakespeare, or Dante, 
 or even Homer. 
 
 It is doubtless a great thing — far greater than 
 the items mentioned — to have the poetical insight 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 369 
 
 that can see the spiritual significance of things, and 
 express this by metaphor and personification. In 
 proportion to the insight of the poet, he sees the cor- 
 respondence between the visible and invisible, and 
 invents new modes of expression for truth discerned 
 internally. The great world-poets have this facidty 
 in an eminent degree, but they share it with other 
 great poets. Their place apart from and above the 
 circle of great poets is due to something else than 
 this eminent degree of insight into the spiritual cor- 
 respondences in nature. To this insight they add 
 what may be called an ethical insight, which may 
 be more fully described as an intuitive knowledge 
 of human life in its individual and social aspects. 
 Shakespeare and Homer see in every deed its conse- 
 quences to society, and the retroactive consequences 
 upon the doer. We call such insight a knowledge 
 of human nature, — a knowdedge of life. 
 
 Given a human action, certain effects wiU follow. 
 But this action has also presuppositions, and these 
 the great poet sees as well as the consequences. He 
 not only sees them, but presents them in their com- 
 pleteness. Shakespeare probed human experience 
 to the bottom, and discovered one by one all of its 
 presuppositions, and collected them and exhibited 
 them to the spectator. Inasmuch as there is no 
 isolated man, but each one is a member of society 
 it is requisite to portray the status of society, in 
 order to explain the particular deed of the individual. 
 A common man acts in accordance with use and 
 
 24 
 
370 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 wont, and follows without deviation the beaten track 
 marked out for him by his fellows, — his immediate 
 kinsmen and neighbors. The heroic character, with 
 an eccentric orbit, collides with society and makes a 
 theme for tragedy. In the portrayal of such col- 
 lisions the ethical might of society and the daemonic 
 power of the individual come into clear relief, and 
 furnish us opportunity to study social and ethical 
 laws. For it is only when we feel the universality 
 and necessity of a determination or characteristic 
 that we truly know it. 
 
 While it satisfies the ordinary story-teller to relate 
 the direct particulars of the collision of his hero, and 
 these only, nothing will content Shakespeare but a 
 complete presentation of all the accessories. His 
 drama will so expound the action that we may see 
 the antecedents which have furnished occasion, as 
 well as all the concomitant reactions which accom- 
 pany and follow it. A very small item being given, 
 — by some Geoffrey of Monmouth, Holinshed, or 
 Saxo Grammaticus, — Shakespeare proceeds to dis- 
 cover the world of presuppositions necessary to make 
 that isolated item a piece of living reality. Given 
 the small arc, and he computes the total circle ; given 
 the deed of Hamlet, or Cymbeline, or Macbeth, and 
 forthwith he conjures up all the concrete relations, 
 the Family, Society, and State, — the moral status of 
 the individual, and his ethical interaction with the 
 social condition in which he lives, and the subtle 
 casuistry by which the hero directs his course. 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 371 
 
 An insight into the correspondence between nature 
 and mind is the first requisite of a great poet ; but 
 an equal insight into the ethical relation of the indi- 
 vidual to the social whole is the additional requisite. 
 Without this second insight into human life, the poet 
 cannot belong to the select circle of world-poets. He 
 may "write poetry for poets," — as it is called, — 
 with the former species of insight ; but he cannot be 
 a people's poet unless he sees the mediation of the 
 individual with the institutions of the race. For 
 while the individual acts in his own person, the 
 social whole acts through institutions and through 
 individuals set apart and endowed with representa- 
 tive might. No deed is isolated, all deeds are inter- 
 dependent ; only the totality of conditions enables 
 us to comprehend the puniest act. See the part in 
 the whole, and then you are able to see the reflection 
 of the whole in the part. 
 
 This is not a doctrine of necessity and fatalism, as 
 it might at first seem, but the true doctrine of free- 
 dom and moral responsibility. Freedom demands 
 self-determination, — that the deed shall return upon 
 its author, so that he shall receive its consequences. 
 Now, human society, looked at closely, is an organ- 
 ism for this very purpose. The individual reflects 
 society and is reflected by society. What he deals 
 out to his neighbors comes back to him, in circles of 
 greater or less circumference, according to the degree 
 of generality in which he works. Through society 
 in its industrial, domestic, and social aspects, this 
 
372 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 reflection of his deed upon the doer is of an implicit 
 character; in the State it is explicit; the State 
 letting him go free when his deed does not infringe 
 on the rights of society, but otherwise reflecting back 
 his deed upon him in the inconvenient form of 
 prison bars and hempen cords. 
 
 The deed must be shown in its relations in order 
 to exhibit this reflection ; the fewer relations, the 
 less reflection and the less truth. Shakespeare excels 
 all poets in the portrayal of this reflection of the 
 deed upon the doer. It is not to be expected of a 
 poet that he shall be conscious of his method, or of 
 the logical process involved in the dramatic relations 
 which he places before us. No artist should divide 
 his attention between the abstract and the concrete 
 in this manner. His best work he will accomplish 
 from the instinct of his art. Shakespeare instinct- 
 ively adopted his method of exhaustively reflecting 
 and presenting the elements of a situation, and we 
 doubt not he felt rather than thought that this and 
 that accessory must be uttered and expressed, be- 
 cause it stood out in his creative imagination as 
 essentially belonging to the representation of the 
 deed. 
 
 The correspondence between spiritual being and 
 nature renders possible the expression of what is seen 
 as inward fact. All language has arisen through this 
 first insight of the poet. The second insight of the 
 poet has given us the ethical sentiments, the feeling 
 of the solidarity of the individual with the social 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 373 
 
 whole. Slightly paraphrasing Shakespeare's language 
 in " Troilus and Cressida": "Man, however richly he 
 may be endowed, [" how dearly ever parted,"] liow- 
 ever much he may possess in world's goods or intel- 
 lectual acquirements, cannot make boast to have that 
 which he hath, nor feels what he possesses but by 
 reflection from the recognition of his fellow men ; as 
 when his virtues shining upon others heat them, 
 and they retort that heat again to the first giver." 
 This thought becomes the possession of mankind in 
 an emotional form through the works of the world- 
 poets. 
 
 As Orpheus is fabled to have built Thebes with 
 the sound of his lyre, so each people has its Orpheus 
 who has made a spiritual city for it. Although the 
 great artist does not first think out his subject in a 
 logical or philosophical form, and then proceed to 
 clothe it in marble, in tones, or in rhymes and metre, 
 yet his creative imagination seizes and fixes the 
 shapes and forms which hover before it as typical 
 expressions of his problem of life. For each person 
 finds himself here involved in a " problem of life." 
 Nevertheless, a work of art is not an allegory. It is 
 rather, as Carlyle says, a phantasmagory embody- 
 ing a many-sided meaning. When we analyze it, 
 we may find logic and dialectic in it as well as in 
 other objects, — or just as we find laws in unconscious 
 nature. 
 
 Homer, the first great people's poet of the Western 
 or European world, taught man to recognize in na- 
 
374 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 ture the presence of the human spirit. The motions, 
 sounds, and apparitions of the beings of nature ex- 
 press some desire or meaning of the invisible con- 
 scious beings who form the sphere of reality behind 
 the visible world. But Homer reveals likewise 
 human natur e, both as heroic i ndivid ual and also as 
 representative oi institu tions, — the State and the 
 Family. The glorious Achilles, the type of beautiful 
 and powerful individuality, has to be subordinated 
 to legally constituted authority, — to Agamemnon, 
 who is endowed with the power of the nation : hence 
 the song of Troy. The Family too is sacred as an 
 institution, and the attack upon it by the hero Paris 
 is the occasion of the war. Thus, by presenting to 
 the Greeks the picture of their twofold nature, real- 
 ized in beautiful individuality and in ethical might, 
 Homer made his people conscious of themselves. 
 
 Dante, another great world-poet, has revealed hu- 
 man nature in its twofold aspect of religious life with 
 individual life in conflict with it. The highest insti- 
 tution, the Church, when not corrupted by individuals 
 who represent it temporarily, is the Celestial Paradise. 
 Prom this liighest institution descends to the insti- 
 tutions of the State and the Family a dispensation of 
 authority which gives them religious superiority over 
 the individual. By disregarding these institutions 
 and finding his motives of action in his selfish pas- 
 sions, the individual falls into one or more of the 
 seven mortal sins and finds the Inferno in the ful- 
 ness of selfish gratification. Dante as a poet does 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 375 
 
 not so mucli make the revelation of the beautiful — 
 Homer's function — as of the holy. He does not 
 indicate the correspondences of nature which reveal 
 the soul as finding free expression in matter, but, 
 rather, the correspondences that emblem the struggle 
 of the soul against its material environment, and its 
 victory or defeat. Homer shows us the incarnation 
 of the soul, while Dante shows us its resurrection. 
 Shakespeare is the poet of society, not so much in 
 its national aspect or religious aspect as in its free 
 civil aspect.! 
 
 It is left to the individual in civil society to take 
 the initiative; he makes such combinations as he 
 chooses, in view of his own welfare and the conditions 
 about him. Acting iu this unrestrained manner, the 
 individual may come into collision with either insti- 
 tution, — the State, Church, or Family; or he may 
 collide simply with the normal conditions of free 
 civil activity. These conditions or laws of free civil 
 combination, which rule the sphere of human activity 
 in which the individual procures his food, clothing, 
 shelter, amusement, and culture, are the written and 
 unwritten laws of thrift, economics, morality, and 
 courtesy, which in the aggregate make up social 
 policy and insure success to the individual as his 
 meed. That mankind form a solid unit socially is 
 the presupposition of Shakespeare, and it has become 
 still more a conscious presupposition in an epoch of 
 
 1 " Homer is the poet of the nation ; Shakespeare, the poet of 
 society; Goethe, the poet of the individual." H. C. Brockmeyer. 
 
376 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 telegraphs, daily newspapers, and society novels. In 
 Shakespeare there are no mere lay figures, but each 
 one has a will of his own and a personal interest 
 commensurate with his individuality. The world of 
 Shakespeare, compared with that of Homer or Dante, 
 is one of infinite details. But a unity is found for 
 these details in the principle of reflection. The 
 central event of the drama is reflected in each single 
 movement or phase of movement in the drama. The 
 great impending world-tragedy of the senate-house in 
 Eome is reflected in the fantasy of plebeians, and 
 their rumor reaches Caesar on the fatal morning : 
 
 " Most horrid sights seen by the watch. . . . 
 Graves have yawned, and yielded up their dead ; . . . 
 Fierce fiery warriors fought upon the clouds, . . . 
 Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol." 
 
 The very elements reflect the premonitions in the 
 minds of the people. So, too, around the castle at 
 Inverness on the night of Duncan's murder: 
 
 " The heavens, as troubled with man's act, 
 Threaten his bloody stage. . . . 
 
 On Tuesday last, 
 A falcon, towering in her pride of place. 
 Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed. 
 And Duncan's horses, . . . 
 
 Turned wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out. . . . 
 .... 'T is said they ate each other." 
 
 When seemingly detached and indifferent details 
 reflect the central action of the work of art, its unity 
 is intensified to the highest degree. In Shakespeare 
 we learn that the slightest word or deed of the man is 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 377 
 
 reflected back by the social environment, even when 
 the organized institutions, the State, the Church, the 
 Family, do not take cognizance of it. 
 
 In this line of world-poets comes Goethe as the 
 fourth. His central thought is that of the mediation s. - 
 of the individual for himself. In his writings the 
 great institutions appear in the background of the 
 scene in their substantial might ; but what especially 
 interests Goethe is not the primary and immediate 
 effect of the deeds of the individual, nor yet their 
 secondary effect, the reaction of the institutions 
 against those deeds, but the third phase, that of the 
 formation of character in the individual, through his 
 readjustment of his aims and purposes in view of 
 the effect of his deeds. The_ growth of character 
 through experience is not the direct and conscious A" 
 theme of poetry beTore Goethe. Homer shows us 
 the change of purpose in Achilles by reason of the 
 reaction of his deeds upon himself. Dante shows 
 how the reaction of deeds upon the personality forms 
 an environment which may be of the Inferno, the 
 Purgatory, or the Paradiso. The Purgatory shows 
 growth of character through persistent will-power, 
 but it does not descend from the type and symbol to 
 the concrete every-day life. It constructs an arti- 
 ficial world beyond life, and concentrates the vices 
 and virtues into single types. Shakespeare, on the 
 other hand, deals with the very concrete itself, and 
 furthermore does not exhibit the purgatorial stage, 
 in which character is formed by persistent endeavor. 
 
378 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 He shows the Inferno in its concretest form, — rarely 
 the Paradiso. But while he is farther off than Dante 
 from Goethe, in this matter of the omission of purga- 
 tory he is nearer in the fact that he approaches the 
 problem of the individual in some of his tragedies, 
 and especially in his " Hamlet." In a certain sense 
 " Hamlet " is the prototype of the literature of the 
 present. The problem of the individual is how to 
 adjust himself to his time, or how " to set it right," 
 if he is in advance of his time in any respect. But 
 Shakespeare only states the problem, he does not 
 solve it. He lets accident, weakness, or surplus of 
 will-power and strong passions, lead to error, and 
 then shows how error reacts to deepen temporary 
 aberration into permanent character. The tragic 
 characters tend to insanity through the fixing of 
 their ideas in one channel. That which in their 
 nature was a mere proclivity, easily held in abeyance 
 by the will-power, now becomes an irresistible pas- 
 sion, forced onward by its own results, and they find 
 it easier to go onward than to return. 
 
 Goethe has treated the problem of the individual 
 in two great works of art, — the " Faust " and the 
 " Wilhelm Meister." In " Faust " the individual has 
 measurably attained his culture, but finds himself 
 Y in collision with the world through the fact that he 
 has arrived at agnosticism. The " Meister " traces 
 for us the career of a youth, from the beginning at 
 the bottom of the ladder, up to a point where he 
 becomes clear in regard to his relations to the world. 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 379 
 
 Faust is relatively mature as regards his education 
 or culture. Meister is immature in regard to every- 
 thing. 
 
 Inasmuch as the problem of the individual is not 
 that of the production of the universal, — not the 
 founding of a state, or a church, or any great insti- 
 tution, but rather the adjustment of himself as an 
 individual to the institutions already existing, — it 
 follows that the first occupation to which he is called 
 is that of education, — education, however, in the 
 broadest sense of the word. To adapt the individual 
 to life, to solve his problem, is to educate him into 
 such habits of living that he may contribute his mite 
 to society and receive in return the help of his fellow- 
 men. The individual in each epoch of civilization 
 has his revolt against the subjugation of his indepen- 
 dence. He does not wish to be subordinated, with- 
 out his consent, to an alien might. The process of 
 education reconciles him to the institutions, by con- 
 vincing him that they are necessary for the realiza- 
 tion of his rational self. If they had not been made 
 by others, and handed down from the immemorial 
 past, he would set about making them now. As it 
 is, he builds them anew by giving them his hearty 
 support. Progress of the individual on this line is 
 a continued participation in the civilization of one's 
 age, — a thoroughly positive citizenship. 
 
 But, over against this, there is possible another 
 career of education or culture. Supposing that there 
 is a very deep spirit of independence in the individual, 
 
380 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 he finds a difficulty in the bridge that leads from his 
 own opinions and conceits to the adoption of the 
 conviction of society. He rebels against the re- 
 quired subordination to public opinion, and will not 
 bow to its behests, either as fashion of the com- 
 munity, social usage, law of the state, or mandate of 
 religion. He stands at the threshold, and demands 
 of each that it shall demonstrate to him its necessity 
 as a rational thing before he shall adopt it. He will 
 yield to it if it proves its rational character, but if 
 it is only a conventional affair, a mere fashion, he 
 will have none of it. Now the cases of strong indi- 
 ■ viduality may become so frequent as to be the rule, 
 instead of the exception. Then an age of revolution 
 ensues, and the education of the age lays stress on the 
 self-activity of the individual, and inveighs against 
 authority. The centrifugal power of individuality is 
 increased, and the centripetal power of obedience to 
 established order becomes weakened, until it loses 
 its constraining power. The French Revolution en- 
 sues. Individuality alone is held sacred, and all 
 external authority accursed. Sansculottism is the 
 result. Under the banner of Liberty, Equality, and 
 Fraternity for all, there is a swift descent to abso- 
 lute personal tyranny. Each one finds a limit to his 
 liberty in the liberty of his fellow, and through the 
 collision arises universal distrust. The guillotine is 
 the only remedy. Only dead enemies are safe ene- 
 mies to have. Disciplined by this reign of terror, 
 authority is again restored. Eational authority, it 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 381 
 
 has beea found, must assert itself first as a mere 
 external constraint against the individual, and ini- 
 tiate a process of enlightenment in him. He may 
 learn why he obeys law and duty and fashion, and 
 change his blind obedience into a rational obedience, 
 which is freedom. But at all events he must obey. 
 
 In Goethe's life, extending from 1749 to 1832, the 
 one great event in world history is the French Eevo- 
 lution. Indeed, our American Eevolution, with its 
 Declaration of Independence and its " All men are 
 born free and equal," is in a certain sense a reflection 
 of the European movement. Not only France, but 
 all Europe, had been set aflame in Goethe's youth 
 by Eousseau's work on the Inequality among Men. 
 Their thoughts had been turned in the direction of 
 democracy by his " Contrat Social " and his " ]fimile." 
 The conservators of institutions knew no means of 
 checking the revolution in the popular consciousness. 
 No intellectual bridge could be furnished, over which 
 it could go from pure individualism to an insight 
 into the necessity of institutions for the realization of 
 freedom. Hence, all things were readjusted by revo- 
 lution. In the end, a necessity, which all could see, re- 
 established institutional authority in France. Mean- 
 while the rest of Europe looked on and pondered the 
 problem. The German mind had set itself about the 
 task of discovering a theoretical necessity for the in- 
 stitutions of civilization. Immanuel Kant, startinff 
 from the theoretical foundation of Hume, — which 
 might be regarded as the basis also of Eousseauism, — 
 
382 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 had reduced the problem to its lowest terms, and 
 finally demonstrated the necessity of the postulates 
 of authority, moral and otherwise, for the conduct of 
 human life. Eight years before the destruction of 
 the Bastile, Kant published his theoretical philoso- 
 phy, " A Critique of Pure Eeason," showing the limits 
 of the speculative faculty to grasp the problems of the 
 world. The year before the French Eevolution be- 
 gan, he published the " Critique of the Practical Eea- 
 son," completing his demonstration of the necessity 
 in human nature for the sacrifice of the individual 
 to his higher self, as defined in the moral law and 
 organized into institutions in the form of civilization. 
 Thus, while the historical process went on in France, 
 as an external phenomenon with deafening explo- 
 sions, in the still world of German thought there 
 went on a corresponding theoretical process, which 
 more swiftly reached the positive solution. But there 
 was another solution in progress. In the world of 
 literature a new world-poet had been born, who was 
 to devote his entire life to the same problem, and to 
 leave its solution in great works of art. 
 
 It must not be understood that any of the solutions 
 of this problem of individualism are merely negative. 
 As suggested by Hume, stated by the Encyclopaedists, 
 put into universal literary form by Eousseau, occasion 
 was given for a threefold answer. There was the 
 practical answer, realistic to the last degree, — the 
 answer beginning with the destruction of the Bastile, 
 passing through the Eeign of Terror into its logical 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 383 
 
 consequence, Napoleonism, and closing at Waterloo. 
 There was the theoretic, speculative solution in the 
 Kantian Critiques of the Reason, and besides this 
 the solution of the world-literary man, Goethe. 
 The political answer was not a mere negative one, 
 for it refused to return to its beginning. All Europe 
 read the verdict : No more abstract tyranny for the 
 people. Authority, it is true, there must be; yes, but 
 an authority that expresses the welfare of the social 
 whole, and is reflected in the rational conviction of 
 'each individual. Not-only France came to this bas.is, 
 but all Europe was led to adopt it. The Kantian so- 
 lution in its first aspect is negative: "Man can'^i^t^ 
 know truth theoretically," — the conclusion of the 
 Critiqjie of the Purq Reason. But in the Critique of 
 the Practical Reason the solution is positive. Man 
 in-order to be a social being, or even a rational being^^ 
 must set up above himself the moral law as absolute 
 authority. In this moral, authority root the insti- 
 tutions of civilization : they are its instruments of 
 realization. The literary solution of Goethe is like- 
 wise thoroughly affirmative. Rousseau had given 
 literary form to the problem. In his wonderful prose, 
 the question went home to the consciousness of Eu- 
 rope and Europeans, wherever they were. Goethe 
 put into literary form the answer to this problem, 
 and his answer is reaching the consciousness of the 
 world, by progressive degrees, throughout this cen- 
 tury and the centuries to follow. 
 
 The individual, as we have seen, if he is endowed 
 
384 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 with a strong feeling of independence, may at any 
 time stand on his threshold and challenge the ap- 
 proach of authority. As a mere individual affair, it 
 is not of much significance. But it is possible also 
 to find an entire historical epoch, as we have seen, 
 given to this assertion of the individual against ex- 
 ternal authority. This genesis of individual protest 
 against all authority justifies its treatment by a world- 
 poet as a world-problem. Or, it might be said, the 
 universal nature of the problem avails to give a uni- 
 versal significance to its literary solution and to elevate 
 Goethe into the rank of world-poet. 
 
 We learn that Goethe, at the early age of twenty 
 years, discovered in the popular legend of Faust the 
 vehicle for the literary statement of the problem and 
 its solution. He saw, in short, the problem of the 
 reconciliation of man as individual with man as social 
 whole, and divined the affirmative answer. He tells 
 us himself,^ in his letter to Wilhelm von Hum- 
 boldt, in 1832, that his youthful conception of Faust 
 had been before him for more than sixty years, " the 
 whole series having been from the first clear to me, 
 though not in all their details." " I have always," he 
 writes, " quietly kept my original plan in view, and 
 have worked out singly those scenes which happened 
 to interest me most ; so that there remained gaps in 
 the Second Part, only to be bridged over by investing 
 them with an interest proportioned to the rest." 
 
 ^ Quoted by Hermann Grimm, "Life and Times of Goethe." See 
 English Translation by Sarah Holland Adams, p. 502. 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 385 
 
 Faust as a mythological character embodies the 
 conception of an individual who obtains the service 
 of the intellect for his selfish ends, and sacrifices his 
 future good for present enjoyment. In its different 
 elaborations it had come to express nearly every one 
 of the phases that Goethe afterwards united in his 
 ■work, with the essential exception that there was no 
 other than a tragic denouement for its hero. Using 
 this legend for a vehicle, Goethe, after his manner, 
 connected and subordinated the details into one 
 whole which animated the parts. Every circum- 
 stance had its motive furnished for it. That which '^' 
 lay in it as enigmatic or unconscious, Goethe brought ^ 
 up to light and expressed with fulness. Why should s* 
 Faust sell his soul to the Evil One ? Evidently, 
 thought Goethe, the all-sufficient motive for this is 
 despair of attaining the blessedness of divine life. 
 What does such despair presuppose ? Unsatisfied 
 aspiration, was the reply. The condition of this, 
 again, perennially arose through a species of philo- 
 sophic speculation, which arrived at the conviction 
 that the Universal Power of Nature is not a personal 
 one like man, but something formless and negative 
 to the persistence of all forms. 
 
 In the eighth book of his Autobiography, he tells 
 us of his studies of the alchemists and Hermetic 
 writers. He carried these on in his twentieth year, 
 assisted by his friend, the Fraiilein von Klettenberg. 
 They read the works of Welling, Paracelsus, Basil 
 Valentine, Van Helmont, and Starkey. He traced 
 
 25 
 
386 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 all tliese writings to their source in the Neo-Platonic 
 school of philosophers. Here was a fountain of 
 theosophy. Those thinkers busied themselves with 
 the problem of Nature and the Absolute. The His- 
 tory of the Church and of the Heretics, by Arnold, 
 gave him the necessary clue to the relation which 
 these Neo-Platonic speculations held to the accepted 
 Christian doctrines, and at this early age Goethe had 
 grappled seriously with the profoundest questions 
 that can occupy the mind of man. Nowhere as in 
 the history of heresy do we discover the genuine 
 speculative basis of the Christian dogmas. The 
 heresies arose through an effort on the part of indi- 
 viduals to find the necessary truth of the doctrines 
 of the Church. The real speculative basis of these 
 doctrines was developed by the Church fathers in 
 their controversial treatises directed against those 
 heresies. One familiar with those theological dis- 
 cussions, and especially with the Neo-Platonic and 
 Gnostic speculations, will not be surprised to read, 
 in the eighth book of the " Wahrheit und Dichtung," 
 the statement of the view which Goethe himself had 
 formed.^ Attention is called particularly to his 
 view, of the possible annihilation of the wicked by 
 continued concentration upon themselves, and of the 
 prevention of this by an act of grace. 
 
 The speculations of Gnosticism and Neo-Platonism 
 were little known during the Middle Ages. The 
 contact with the Arabian learning in the tenth and 
 
 1 Page 300 of Bohn's Translation. 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 387 
 
 succeeding centuries, and finally the westward mi- 
 gration of learned Greeks after the fall of Constanti- 
 nople, gave a great impulse to the study of mysticism 
 in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. A mixture 
 of physical, metaphysical, and theological doctrines, 
 expressed in a technique derived from all three 
 sources, constituted this mysticism, often called 
 " Theosophy." The cliemical knowledge involved 
 originated, of course, with the Arabians, and it is 
 important to note that the metaphysics and theology 
 were influenced in their doctrines by the alchemy 
 connected with it. For chemistry reveals to us the 
 mutability of material forms. In the retort, a sub- 
 stance can be compelled to change from one form to 
 another. 
 
 The tendency of the mind is to generalize the 
 facts before it. Hence the alchemist swiftly con- 
 cluded : there is no form that abides, not even the 
 form of consciousness whose shape is to be subject 
 and object of itself. The substance, or true being, is 
 formless. It is an energy, but an energy that acts 
 only in two ways, to produce form or to destroy form. 
 In itself it is in no wise any form whatever. Form 
 belongs only to product or result, — it is natura na- 
 turata, and not natura naturans. What follows from 
 this is evidently the doctrine of Pantheism : God is 
 pure negative Might, and all that has form is finite 
 and perishable. Man, too, is perishable. Moreover, 
 by reason of the fact that consciousness is a form, it 
 cannot appertain to the Absolute. Hence, too, the 
 
388 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 Absolute cannot be known by human reason, because 
 there can be nothing distinguished except by its 
 form, and hence a formless absolute is a pure nothing 
 to the mind. That the legend of Faust is the reflec- 
 tion in the popular mind of this study of alchemy, 
 there is no doubt. Goethe takes this for granted, 
 and accordingly places his Faust in a lofty arched 
 Gothic chamber, surrounded by the appliances of 
 alchemy, a library, and " ancestral lumber." In the 
 very first scene Goethe proceeds to express in the 
 mouth of Faust the agnostic standpoint of Panthe- 
 ism : " I have been through all human learning, and 
 know that nothing can be known." ^ He summons up 
 spirits, the moving principle of nature, or the Macro- 
 cosm which shows all things in the world connected 
 by interdependence. 
 
 We cannot know one thing except through the 
 rest on which it depends. That which possesses 
 form is dependent on the formless. We can pursue 
 the hidden substance from one form to another, but 
 never overtake it in its pure essence. Hence Faust, 
 who aspires to know truth, is in despair. Eecourse 
 to magic only serves to convince him of the hope- 
 lessness of knowing the Absolute. For by magic he 
 has summoned the spirit of the Macrocosm and the 
 Earth Spirit. The former symbolizes his study of 
 
 ^ " In the first sentence of the poem, the fundamental contradic- 
 tion, the theme, or the ' argument,' is stated in its naked abstractness, 
 just as Achilles' wrath is the fii-st sentence of the Iliad." Brock- 
 meyer, Letters on Faust, III. 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 389 
 
 the infinite network of relations which constitutes 
 nature. He cannot press through these relations to 
 reach the Absolute ; or if he does, he encounters pure 
 negation of all form. All form is show alone, — a 
 mere shadowy manifestation of the Absolute. Nor 
 is it any better with the Earth Spirit which rules a 
 part of the Macrocosm, the earth-sphere. The celes- 
 tial and the supercelestial worlds are beyond the 
 sphere of the Earth Spirit. But Faust cannot com- 
 prehend even the earth process. It is too general, 
 too vast, for him. The spirit that lives in " Being's 
 floods and Action's storm " is so general and so form- 
 less that he is both birth and grave of all form. 
 Man cannot hope to know him nor participate in his 
 eternity. Hence aspiration for knowledge is spurned 
 by the Absolute, and there remains only despair. 
 
 Here, therefore, is the matter for the tragedy.^ It 
 lies so deep that it may be regarded as including all 
 
 1 " The denial of the possibility of the manifestation of self-con- 
 scious intelligence in the individual [i. e. the denial that man can 
 know truth] is the denial of the possibility of its realization in the 
 family, society, and the State [i. e. secular institutions], as well as 
 the denial of the actualization of that intelligence in the forms of 
 Art, Religion, and Philosophy. [For there can be no Art or mani- 
 festation of the infinite in the finite, if there is no possibility of recog- 
 nizing it by conscious intelligence. So, too, religion and philosophy 
 would be impossible.] Now if this denial of the possibility of know- 
 ing truth assume the form of a conviction in the consciousness of 
 an individual, a nation, an age, then there results a contradiction 
 which involves in the sweep of its universality the entire spiritual 
 world of man. For it is the self-consciousness of that individual, 
 nation, or age in direct conflict with itself, — not with this or that 
 
390 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 other collisions within it. Most works of art spe- 
 cialize the collision and treat of an attack on the 
 Family, or the State, or some one institution; but 
 the Faust collision strikes at the very nature of insti- 
 tutions, and hence includes all the collisions treated 
 in Art.i 
 
 Hence the collision is so general that it demands 
 two very different dramas for its full treatment. The 
 ordinary drama must deal with individuals, and show 
 them to us in their actions and sufferings. But the 
 individual cannot embody all institutions. Only one 
 of these, the Family, can be presented in its complete 
 circle of individuals. The State and the Church 
 
 particularity of itself, tut with its entire content in the sphere of 
 manifestation, [i. e., as Mr. Brockmeyer has explained the technical 
 use of " manifestation," it includes only the sphere of the individual 
 man, and not the sphere of institutions,] with the receptivity for, 
 the production of, and the aspiration after the Beautiful, the Good, 
 the True, within the individual himself ; in the sphere of realization 
 with the family, with society, and with the State ; and finally in 
 tlie sphere of actuality with art, religion, and philosophy. Now this 
 contradiction is precisely what is presented in the proposition, ' Man 
 cannot know truth.' This was in the history of modern thought 
 the result of Kant's philosophy, which was the philosophy of Ger- 
 many at the time of the conception of Goethe's Faust." Letters on 
 Faust, III. 
 
 1 "This theme, then, is nothing more nor less than the self-con- 
 sciousness in contradiction with itself, in conflict with its own 
 content. Hence, if the poem is to portray this theme, this content 
 in its totality, it must represent it in three spheres : first, manifes- 
 tation, — Faust in conflict with himself ; second, realization, — 
 Faust in conflict with the family. Society, and the State ; thirdly, 
 actualization, — Ya-Mst in conflict with art, religion, and philoso- 
 phy." Letters on Faust, III. 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 391 
 
 cannot be presented except typically, by representative 
 individuals and by allegorical masquerades. Thus 
 we have a First Part of " Faust," in which the in- 
 dividual is shown to us directly as unscrupulous 
 pleasure-seeker, who destroys the Family through the 
 consequences of his deeds, by destroying, one after 
 another, all the individuals of it. Then follows a 
 Second Part, in which the practical conclusion of 
 " Faust " as it is em bodied in the fiend Mephis- ' 
 topheles makes its appearance in the State ; then 
 shows itself in Art and Religion, and is overcome in 
 all these realms. The poet does not state for us the 
 argument in logical terms, but he pictures for us 
 the genesis of Faust's convictions, and their conse- 
 quences when carried out. » 
 
 The work commences with the beautiful Dedica- 
 tion, which expresses Goethe's objective attitude to- 
 wards the great poem on the occasion of his return to 
 it in 1797, after a lapse of twenty-three years. The 
 Prelude on the Stage describes the three attitudes 
 possible towards a work of art. Art may exist solely X. 
 for amusement, in which case the Merry Andrew 
 would be its culminating achievement. To the 
 manager. Art is merely a vocation by which he gets 
 his living, and hence he looks beyond the content 
 to its effect in "drawing a full house." Finally, 
 Art to the poet means the utterance of the highest 
 inspirations, and the picturing of human nature in 
 all its tragic greatness to the astonished spectator. 
 The poet's idea includes amusement and terror, 
 
392 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 pleasure and pain, — and, above all, wisdom, derived 
 from the spectacle of human nature in its entirety. 
 For this includes "the whole circle of creation, 
 and a progress from heaven through the world to 
 hell," and also a counter movement in the opposite 
 direction. 
 
 The Prologue in Heaven gives us, in the style of 
 the old miracle play, a hint of the vast design of 
 "Faust." It takes advantage of this crude form to 
 give us, in the way of an outline, a glimpse of the 
 spiritual geography within which we may locate Faust. 
 How the problem of evil arises in creation, through 
 the very nature itself of the creative process, is sug- 
 gested. Creation should reflect God, but the reflec- 
 tion should take place in imperfect creatures, and 
 hence be an imperfect reflection. The finite individ- 
 ual, to reflect God, must be first endowed with self- 
 activity or free will ; but he may use this selfishly 
 as well as piously. Hence the possibility of tempta- 
 tion by Mephistopheles, — the spirit of negation, ex- 
 clusion, limitation, finitude, or selfishness. God has 
 placed in the finite being a hunger for infinitude, — 
 in short, what is called aspiration. Hence there is 
 progressive development possible. This problem of 
 evil is inherent in any theory of creation. For the 
 finite must by self-activity come into the Divine Im- 
 age. But the possession of freedom to act for itself 
 involves the possibility of selfish actions which mar 
 the Divine Image. The Prologue shows us the com- 
 prehensiveness of the problem of " Faust." Endowed 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 393 
 
 with infinite aspiration, (" the glimmering of heaven's 
 light that he calls reason,") but with finite capacity 
 of intellect and will, man cannot choose but err. He 
 " uses his light to be most brutal of brutes," says 
 Mephistopheles. But the Lord says, in substance : 
 " Man is prone to error because he is struggling to 
 satisfy this aspiration ; in his ignorance and restless- 
 ness he tries one thing after another, but will never 
 be content with any solution that does not satisfy 
 this divine aspiration. Hence it is permitted to the 
 spirit of selfishness to hold out temptations to the 
 individual, offering satisfaction to him in the form of 
 delights of the flesh or gratification of selfish ambition 
 for power." Mephistopheles thinks that he can sat- 
 isfy this divinely created soul with dust of the earth, 
 and so gain permanent acquisition of it. The Lord 
 knows that, though the soul can be diverted from the 
 true way, it never can remain satisfied with the wages 
 of sin. It will grow more and more discontented and 
 restless with its lot. The possession of the glim- 
 mering of heaven's light in the shape of reason will 
 forever prevent any finite pleasure from sating the 
 soul of Faust, and will make it impossible for Me- 
 phistopheles to win his wager. 
 
 We start, in the first scene, with the feeling of 
 despair at the agnosticism which Faust has fallen 
 into. Tlie origin of this (in his studies into alchemy) 
 is shown. He comes upon the idea of a universal 
 principle of relativity in nature, and concludes, like 
 Herbert Spencer in recent times, that he pursues 
 
394 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOEIHE. 
 
 absolute truth in vain.^ He leaves the problem of 
 nature in general, and confines his attention to the 
 earth, and even here is rudely repulsed.^ 
 
 " What am I then capable of comprehending, if I 
 cannot comprehend my earthly environment ? " " You 
 may know only your trade." Infinite subdivision of 
 labor is necessary in order that man, the individual, 
 may find what he can master. The same subdivision 
 of science is necessary in order to get a sufficiently 
 small field of view to enable the individual to be- 
 hold it. How absurd then to call man a Microcosm, 
 
 1 "The conviction that human intelligence is incapable of ab- 
 solute knowledge is one that has been slowly gaining ground as 
 civilization has advanced." Spencer's First Principles, p. 68. 
 
 "^ "Receptivity for and production of the truth are negated by the 
 conviction that man cannot know truth, but on the wings of aspira- 
 tion he sallies forth into the realm of magic, of mysticism, of sub- 
 jectivity. For if reason with its mediation is impotent to create an 
 object for this aspiration, let us see what emotion and imagination 
 without mediation can do for subjective satisfaction. And here all 
 is glory, all is freedom. The imagination seizes the totality of the 
 universe, and revels in ecstatic vision. What a spectacle ! But, 
 alas, a spectacle only ! How am I to know, to comprehend, the 
 fountain of life, the centre of which articulates this totality ? See 
 here another generalization : the practical world as a whole [typified 
 in the Erd-Geist]. Ah ! that is my sphere ; here I have a firm 
 footing ; here I am master ; here I command spirits. Approach 
 and obey your master ! ' Yes, I 'm he ; am Faust thy peer.' 
 'Peer of the spirit thou comprehendest, — not of me.' No, in- 
 deed, Mr. Faust, thou dost not include within thyself the totality 
 of the practical world, but only that part thereof which thou dost 
 comprehend, — only thy vocation, and hark ! ' It knocks ! ' 
 death ! I see 't is my vocation indeed. ' It is my famulus ! ' " 
 Letters on Faust, IV. 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 395 
 
 and boast of his power to know the truth of the 
 universe ! ^ 
 
 The pain of this discovery is brought before us by 
 the ensuing dialogue between Faust the aspiring seer 
 and Faust in his vocation of professor; for Wagner 
 the " famulus " is the type of the latter. Faust 
 storms bitterly against the limitations. He knows 
 the difference between hearsay and direct insight. 
 Wacrner is seekina: the satisfaction of his soul in 
 mere erudition, that collects but does not compre- 
 hend ; that declaims the eloquence of others ; that 
 delights in poring over parchments; that digs in 
 shallow trash, and rejoices to find an earth-worm. 
 Faust has been through that stage of culture, and 
 knows that erudition alone can never satisfy. The 
 teaching of what he does not thoroughly comprehend, 
 or grasp together as a whole, is odious to liim.^ He 
 
 ^ " ' And this too is merely a delusion ; the great mystery of 
 the practical world shrinks to this dimension, — a hread-professor- 
 ship ! ' It would seem so : for no theory of the practical world is 
 possible without the ability to know truth. As individual you may 
 imitate the individual, as the brute his kind, and thus transmit a 
 craft ; but you cannot seize the practical world in transparent forms 
 and present it as an harmonious totality to your fellow man, for that 
 would require that these transparent intellectual forms should pos- 
 sess objective validity, — and this they have not, according to your 
 conviction." Letters on Faust, IV. 
 
 2 " And is this the mode of existence, this the reality, the only 
 reality, to answer the aspiration which sought to seize the universe, 
 to kindle its inmost recesses with the light of intelligence, and thus 
 illumine the patli of life ? Alas ! reason gave us error, — imagina- 
 tion gave us illusion, — and the practical world, the will, a bread- 
 
896 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 perceives on his shelf a vial of poison and takes 
 it down. If the Earth-Spirit scorns him, he in his 
 turn can show his poM^er to rend asunder his body, — 
 the earthly concretion which holds him, or perhaps 
 constitutes him. He can negate life, if he cannot 
 comprehend it : " Now is the time to prove by deeds 
 that human dignity quails not before the heights of 
 the gods." He too can by his own act destroy his 
 own form, like the pantheistic God that is above all 
 form. 
 
 But during his bitter meditations the night has 
 passed and morning has come. Of all the mornings 
 of the year this is Easter morning, the day of the fes- 
 tival celebrating the rising of the Son of Man from 
 the dead. Such a festival celebrates, therefore, the 
 conviction that man survives his finite individuality 
 and is immortal. If that religious belief is true doc- 
 trine, it is evident that the negative doctrine — of 
 the Earth-Spirit and the Absolute Eelativity of the 
 Macrocosm — cannot be true. The Absolute cannot 
 be a formless abstract power that makes and breaks 
 forms like bubbles, but it must be an absolute Per- 
 son, — yes, a divine-human Being, — who draws up 
 beings out of the dust into his image, and preserves 
 their individuality beyond the grave. 
 
 professorship ! Nothing else ? Yes ; a bottle of laudanum ! Let 
 us drink and rest forever ! But hold, is there nothing else really ? 
 No emotional nature ? Hark ! What is that ? Easter bells ! The 
 recollections of my youthful faith in a revelation ! They must be 
 examined. We cannot leave yet." Letters on Faust, IV. 
 
■1A 
 
 HE 
 
 y 
 
 ^ 
 
 GOETHE'S FAUST. C^LfFi'^'*^^ 397 
 
 Faust listens to this announcement of the New 
 Covenant. After the Chorus of Angels announcing 
 the risen Christ, comes the Chorus of Women singing 
 of the tender offices performed on pure finitude, — on 
 a dead body, — and closing with the lament at the 
 removal of the physical remains of the dear one. To 
 this the angels respond with the comforting assurance 
 of the resurrection of the individual loving and loved 
 one. Then the disciples lament their separation from 
 the risen one, and the angels exhort them to bring 
 into reality his presence, by living his life of love and 
 self-sacrifice for others. This is a complete statement 
 of Christian doctrine: (1.) God is divine-human, who 
 sacrifices himself for men ; (2.) Let man, filled with 
 His spirit, live for others, thus making the divine 
 spirit the real spirit of humanity, and thus forming 
 the highest of institutions, the Church ; (3.) Man is 
 immortal as an individual, but by renunciation of his 
 selfish individuality he must be born again as a new 
 and free individuality. 
 
 Faust hears these " heavenly tones," this comfort- 
 ing hymn, which once in other days he had heard 
 with childish faith. Life had then seemed worth liv- 
 ing. How does it happen that this religious doctrine 
 makes life worth living, while the scientific truth has 
 just now led him to suicide ? He will defer suicide 
 until he can examine once again the validity of reli- 
 gion. And so he goes out on Easter morning to see 
 what it is that makes life worth living to his fellow 
 men. 
 
398 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 In the scene before the Gate, he stops to listen to 
 the voices that declare the various objects in which 
 the people can find happiness : the hunter's lodge, 
 the mill, the river tavern, the crowd, pretty girls, 
 strong beer, a pipe of stinging tobacco, jolly rows 
 and squabbles, etc. ' Faust takes note of these objects 
 silently, and listens further to the citizens who dis- 
 cuss town politics, and congratulate themselves on 
 being out of harm's way while their fellow men in 
 Turkey are not ; soldiers, whose trade is destruction 
 of life and property, singing of the conquest of lofty 
 castles and proud women, in the same beautiful metre 
 that the angels had sung at daybreak. Faust ad- 
 vances toward the crowd gathered under the lime 
 trees, and remarks in a learned way on the influence 
 of advancing spring in thawing tlie rivers and re- 
 viving the herbage in the fields. So this day draws 
 out the people from the vocations in which they are 
 buried as in narrow tombs, and they come out and 
 add color to the landscape. It is a sort of sun-myth, 
 apparently, to Faust. He is glad, however, to think 
 of a resurrection from the narrowness of one's voca- 
 tion, on which the speech of the Earth-Spirit had led 
 him to reflect so bitterly. As he approaches, all 
 crowd around him, to show him the greatest lionor 
 as the wise physician who has saved their lives from 
 the pestilence. Wagner by his side congratulates him 
 on his reception, and envies his happiness at being so 
 reverenced. The Wagner element in Faust must have 
 been greatly delighted ; but the doubting spirit of cul- 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 399 
 
 ture in him at once reacts. He sees the other side : 
 " My father and I raged through these vales and 
 mountains worse than any pestilence with our em- 
 pirical remedies ; the patients died, and no one asked 
 who got well ; and now I must live to hear the reck- 
 less murderers praised ! " 
 
 Although he finds no happiness in the recognition 
 of his power over his fellow men, he finds in it a sug- 
 gestion. If I, Faust, cannot know truth, I can see at 
 least what an opportunity for selfish gratification it 
 affords me. If the Earth-Spirit scorns me and sends 
 me back to my vocation, I can certainly use my voca- 
 tion as the means of procuring physical pleasure. To 
 be sure, such a life for the mere sake of living is a 
 dog's life. For if a man uses his highest spiritual pow- 
 ers merely for " getting a living," (meaning by that 
 expression procuring his food, drink, clothing, and 
 shelter by it,) he does not live for the highest ends, ' 
 but makes the highest ends quite subordinate to lower 
 aims. Wagner's view of the object of life seems to 
 be a dog's view, or rather he seems to make his voca- 
 tion into a dog which he keeps for his service and 
 comfort. He accordingly takes home with him to his 
 study the thought of the dog view of life.^ With the 
 
 1 To Wagner it is immaterial whether he knows what he needs, 
 provided he sees the day when the man who has been worse to tlie 
 people than the very pestilence itself receives public honors; but to 
 Faust, to the man really in earnest, — who is not satisfied when he 
 has squared life with life, and obtained zero for a result, or who 
 does not merely live to make a living, but demands a rational end 
 for life, and, in default of that rational end, spurns life itself, — to 
 
400 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 poodle he returns to the study pondering the view of 
 life that proposes to live for the sake of living. He 
 now proceeds to take up the question which had oc- 
 curred to him on hearing the bells on Easter morning : 
 Is a divine revelation possible to a being who cannot 
 know the truth ? 
 
 The verse of St. John's Gospel that reveals the 
 nature of God as divine-human from all eternity is, 
 of course, the special passage to examine. In that 
 
 such a man this whole scene possesses little significance indeed. It 
 possesses, however, some significance, even for him ! For if it is 
 indeed true that man cannot know truth, — that the high aspira- 
 tion of his soul has no object, — then this scene demonstrates, at 
 least, that Faust possesses power over the practical world. If he 
 cannot know this world, he can at least swallow a considerable 
 portion of it, and this scene demonstrates that he can exercise 
 a great deal of choice as to the parts selected: do you see this 
 conviction ? 
 
 " Do you see this conviction ? Do you see this dog ? Consider 
 it well : what is it, think you ? Do you perceive how it encircles us 
 nearer and nearer, — becomes more and more certain, and, if I mis- 
 take not, a luminous emanation of gold, of honor, of power, follows 
 its wake ? It seems to me as if it drew soft magic rings, as future 
 fetters, round our feet ! See, the circles become smaller and 
 smaller, — 't is almost a certainty, — 't is already near: come, come 
 home with us ! The temptation here spread before us by the poet, 
 to consider the dog 'well,' is almost irresistible ; but all we can say 
 in this place is, that if one will look upon what is properly called a 
 vocation in civil society, eliminate from it all higher ends and mo- 
 tives other than the simple one of making a living, — no matter with 
 what pomp and circumstance, — no doubt he will readily recognize 
 the poodle. But we must hasten to the studio to watch further 
 developsnents, for the conflict is not as yet decided. We are still to 
 examine the possibility of a divine revelation to man, who cannot 
 know ti'uth." Letters on Faust, V. 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 401 
 
 verse it is revealed that God becomes a creature, and 
 manifests himself to creatures. The revelation is 
 made in the Greek language with the word Logos. 
 One might say that this word must have meant 
 something to the Greek mind, or else it would not 
 have revealed the Christian idea expressed by it. 
 But, at all events, no one can translate it into his 
 own lancTuafje unless he understands it. The die- 
 tionary meaning of Logos is " word," " reason," etc. 
 Faust tries " word," but at once reflects that a word 
 cannot be a word before it has a meaning, and hence 
 cannot have been " in the beginning." Logos must 
 therefore be translated " meaning," or " sense." But 
 a meaning is not a power, and hence cannot origi- 
 nate anything ; if the meaning were the first, nothing 
 would have followed. An energy is required ; hence 
 Logos must be translated " Power." Further re- 
 flection discovers that nothing begins until a power 
 acts ; hence for "power" must be substituted " deed." 
 There is a real beginning only in a deed. But, alas ! 
 Faust sees tliat he has been enabled to find the right 
 word solely by his intellect. If he cannot understand 
 the sense of the original by rethinking it, he cannot 
 find words into which to translate it. Therefore, if 
 he cannot know truth, he cannot understand a reve- 
 lation of it, and hence there can be no revelation of 
 it to him.^ 
 
 1 " And for this purpose, — our newly acquired conviction that 
 we possess power over the practical world, although not as yet in a 
 perfectly clear form before us, comfortably lodged behind the stove, 
 
 26 
 
402 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 The poodle idea gets restless during this examina- 
 tion. It has become a serious matter. If I cannot 
 know truth, I can by my power of intellect use my 
 fellow men for my pleasure. I can take the world 
 for my oyster. Unscrupulous self-gratification at the 
 expense of my fellow men is fiendish. While to ply 
 one's vocation merely for the sake of making a living 
 is only the idea of a dog, or any other animal, to live 
 and enjoy myself at the expense of the injury of my 
 fellows is demonic. Here is the transmutation of the 
 
 where it properly belongs, — we take down the original text of 
 the New Testament in order to realize its nieanng in our own 
 loved mother tongue. It stands written, ' In the beginning was 
 the Word.' Word ? Word ? Never ! Meaning it ought to be ! 
 Meaning what ? Meaning ? No, it is Power I No, Deed 1 Word, 
 meaning, power, deed, — which is it? Alas ! how am I to know, 
 unless I can know truth ? 'Tis even so, our youthful recollections 
 dissolve in mist, into thin air, and nothing is left us but our newly 
 acquired conviction, the restlessness of which during this examina- 
 tion has undoubtedly not escaped your attention. ' Be quiet, 
 there, behind the stove.' ' See here, poodle, one of us two has to 
 leave this room.' What, then, is the whole content of this con- 
 viction, which, so long as there was the hope of a possibility of a 
 worthy object for our aspirations, seemed so despicable ? What is 
 it that governs the practical world of finite motives, the power that 
 adapts means to ends, regardless of a final, of an infinite end ? Is 
 it not the Understanding ? and although Reason — in its search 
 after the final end, with its perfect system of absolute means, of in- 
 finite motives and interests — begets subjective chimeras, is it not 
 demonstrated that the understanding possesses objective validity ? 
 Nay, look upon this dog well • does it not swell into colossal pro- 
 portions? — is no dog at all, in fact, but the very power that holds 
 absolute sway over the finite and negative, — the understanding 
 itself, — Mephistopheles in proper form. " Letters on Faust, V. 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 403 
 
 dog into a devil. Out of the poodle comes Mepliis- 
 topheles, and Faust forswears all aspirations for divine 
 things, making a compact to renounce them, provided 
 he can be sated with earthly pleasure. 
 
 The exorcism of the demon uses the magic formulse, 
 but with a subtle reference to an underlying kernel 
 of meaning. The spirit is not one of earth {Incubus 
 or Kobold), air {Sylph), fire {Salamander), or water 
 {Undine) ; it does not belong to nature at all, in fact, 
 but to spirit. It is the intellect used simply for itself 
 and against all else, and is therefore "the spirit that 
 denies." The sign that exorcises is the name of the 
 " vilely transpierced " One, — the Divine Being who 
 took upon himself the sins and punishment of others, 
 and gave the infinite exemplar of unselfishness. This 
 renunciation for the sake of others is the test that 
 reveals the character of any form of sinful nature. 
 Mephistopheles believes that all that is ought to be 
 destroyed. In this respect he partakes of the na- 
 ture of the formless god of Pantheism. All forms 
 arise out of Substance by negation, and all return 
 into the formless substance by means of a second 
 negation. 
 
 All form is Maya, or illusion, says the Hindoo. 
 But Mephistopheles is not generally so abstract in his 
 views as he expresses himself on his first appearance 
 to Faust. He usually " opposes his cold devil's fist, 
 clenched in impotent malice against the beneficent 
 creating power," as Faust is made to suggest. While 
 the Creative Word delights in nursing into being the 
 
404 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 myriad farms of nature, and in drawing them up by 
 evolution into liuman beings, His image, with whom 
 to share his blessedness, Mephistopheles, on the con- 
 trary, inspired by a spirit of envy which is the an- 
 tithesis of this divine altruism, wishes to beat back 
 into chaos all that has come into being. He wishes 
 to share with no one else, and hence realizes the 
 ideal of pure selfishness. 
 
 In the compact made with Mephistopheles in the 
 following scene, the stipulations are such that Faust 
 is certain to escape, if he retains any aspiration. If 
 the delights of the senses can please him to satiety, 
 of course he has lost his soul to the Evil One. " If 
 ever I stretch myself in quiet on a bed of ease, if thou 
 canst cheat me with enjoyment, be that day my last. 
 ... If ever I say to the passing moment, ' Stay, for 
 thou art fair,' then mayest thou cast me into chains." 
 But in his quest of happiness that does not turn into 
 pain, he will pass entirely out of the realm of pleas- 
 ures of appetite and passion, and come to those of 
 ambition and power; these he will pass by to the 
 pleasures of culture in art and literature, which he 
 will desert for the final happiness of laboring for 
 the good of his fellow men. Arrived at altruism, he 
 has arrived at what is diametrically opposed to the 
 nature of the demon with whom he has made a com- 
 pact. Mephistopheles must satisfy him, then, by giv- 
 ing him such happiness as heaven affords, — that is 
 to say, the happiness reached through unselfish devo- 
 tion to others. This fiend must serve him, therefore, 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 405 
 
 and assist him in his benevolent undertakings, until 
 he wellnigh destroys his own diabolic character. 
 
 The compact signed, the next question is how to 
 enjoy himself. laust's good impulses would lead "him 
 to share the pain and pleasure of humanity, and thus 
 widen his own life by adding to it the life of the race. 
 But his selfishness, incarnated in Mephistopheles, at 
 once rebukes him, and exhorts him to the use of all 
 as a means of his pleasure.^ He despises all theories, 
 all rellections on the regulative principles of human 
 conduct, and " wishes Faust to give them up. Tlie 
 gibes of Mephistopheles against philosophy and school 
 learning are taken in good faith as Goethe's best wis- 
 dom by many readers. This adoption of the code of 
 
 1 " 'Away with this striving after the impossible ! What though 
 your body is your own, is that which I enjoy less mine ? If I can 
 pay for six brave steeds, are they not mine, with all their power ? 
 I run as if on four and twenty legs, and am held to be of some con- 
 sequence. Away, therefore : leave off your cogitating, — away into 
 the world ! I tell you, a man who speculates is like a brute led by 
 evil genii in circles round and round upon a withered heath, while 
 close at hand smile beauteous pastures green. Just look at this 
 place. Call you this living, — to plague yourself and the poor boys 
 to death with ennui ? Leave that to your good neighbor, the worthy 
 Mr. Bookworm. Why should you worry yourself threshing such 
 straw ? ' The extraordinary good sense of this advice is so apparent, 
 that it cannot be without some immediate effect, which we perceive 
 in the scene where the different studies are reviewed by the aid of 
 its radiance concentrated mto 
 
 ' AH theory, my friend, is gray, 
 But green the golden tree of life,' 
 
 as the focal point. With this final adieu to the past, we congratu- 
 late ourselves upon the ' new career ' ! " Letters on Faust, VL 
 
406 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 the Evil One is itself quite as comical as anything in 
 the wit of Mephistopheles. Goethe of course recog- 
 nized this in its fulness ; for he makes Mephistopheles 
 soliloquize after the departure of Faust : " Only let 
 him despise reason and science, the highest strength 
 that man possesses, and even if he had not contracted 
 himself to the Devil he would notwithstanding go to 
 destruction." 
 
 The scene with the Student emphasizes the Mephis- 
 tophelian view of school education. It satirizes logic 
 and grammar, chemistry and anatomy, philosophy and 
 jurisprudence, theology and medicine, suggesting sens- 
 uality as the proper substitute for earnest pursuit of 
 art and science. That Goethe himself passed through 
 all these stages of Mephistophelic opinion there can 
 be no doubt. He was a Titan when at college in 
 Leipzig. He attacked institutions again and again 
 in his early life. But he outgrew this spirit of revolt 
 by degrees. The French Eevolution is the great out- 
 ward event that had its reflection in the souls of the 
 brilliant youth of that epoch. Goethe records his 
 final verdict on that frame of mind by putting its 
 favorite expressions into the mouth of Mephistopheles. 
 In the passage of his Autobiography above referred to, 
 (Book VIII. p. 300, Bohn's Translation,) we can see 
 how he had surmounted his own speculative doubts 
 of the warranty of civilization by the study of Neo- 
 Platonism and Mysticism, very soon after his return 
 from Leipzig and before he conceived his Faust. It 
 must be supposed, however, that the very general and 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 407 
 
 abstract character of his conviction rendered necessary 
 a lon<T time to leaven the concrete details of his view 
 of life. In the course of his great literary work of 
 art, we are given to understand his final classification 
 of all mental attitudes towards the world. 
 
 All being ready, Faust's companion spreads the 
 mantle ^ with proper care, and they are off on their 
 journey. 
 
 Now the question arises, What shall be the con- 
 tent of the first scene in which this new conviction 
 of Faust is to be realized ? Obvious enough, — the 
 Easter morning, with its crowds of people going gayly 
 forth to enjoy their holiday, will suggest idleness, and 
 " loafing," as it is called, which, however, cannot be 
 endured in solitude. There must be idle company to 
 make idleness palatable. But an idle company are 
 not able to enjoy their leisure purely for itself; they 
 must forget themselves by telling amusing stories. 
 But really artistic talent cannot be displayed without 
 labor; the easiest wit is that lowest species which 
 deals in profanity and obscenity. Hence we have 
 scurrilous songs full of scandal. The choicest morsel 
 for the idler is scandal relating to the established 
 order of things, — the government, the Church, the 
 industries of the community, the morals of those in 
 
 1 " 'What about the immediate start, conveyance, etc. ?' Well, 
 I suppose Faust is not the only one that has travelled on the 
 quality of his cloth ! ' To fly through the air on Mephisto's cloak,' 
 sounds very poetic, but to pass in society upon the strength of ap- 
 pearance is such an every-day occurrence that it is quite prosaic." 
 Letters on Faust, VI. 
 
408 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 power. But this does not suffice to dissipate the 
 ennui of such a company. There is no recourse but 
 to benumb consciousness by strong drink ; this alone 
 is effective, for it loosens the hold of the senses on 
 reality, and substitutes a world of illusion : " False 
 form and word ! change sense and place ! be here, be 
 there ! " Each one sees a beautiful country, with 
 vineyards and grapes close at hand, and when error 
 looses the bandage from their eyes they find them- 
 selves in the attitude of deadly quarrel, with knives 
 drawn. This is truly " a devil's mode of jesting," and 
 it does not seem to possess any attractions for Faust.^ 
 The next scene brings Faust to the Witches' 
 Kitchen, whose contents are represented symboli- 
 
 1 " We witness a peculiar social phenomenon in Auerbach's 
 Cellar, where we have arrived in time to find our hero joining in 
 
 the chorus 
 
 ' We are as happy as cannibals. 
 
 Nay, as fiv£ hundred hogs," — 
 
 or, if not our hero, Mephisto for him, — for you will notice that 
 Faust says only, ' Good evening, gentlemen,' and ' I should like 
 to leave now,' during the whole scene, — the very leader of the 
 crowd in wit, song, and wine. Nay, as to the latter, he cannot re- 
 frain from giving them a little touch of his chemical science, which 
 can dispense with the old grape-wine process, and still give perfect 
 satisfaction to his customers, — a fact of some importance, one would 
 suppose, to the landlord. And thus it would appear that our hero 
 is not left to trust entirely to the quality of his cloth for the practi- 
 cal wherewithal. But the little ' Feuer-luft,' which one would at 
 first have been inclined to interpret Fame, resolves itself into ' fire- 
 water,' or rather the art to make this, to work the miracle of the 
 wedding feast at Galilee on the principles of natural science." 
 Letters on Faust, VII. 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 409 
 
 cally, as being too gross, or else too complex and prosy, 
 for literal description. It would seem that the next 
 experiment after the idler's holiday would be the 
 attempt to find happiness in fashionable society. 
 Isolate this phase of life, and make it the supreme 
 object for man, and is it any more than a witches' 
 kitchen ? Its ball-rooms, late suppers, empty talk, 
 and the catering for it with food and drink less 
 adapted to satisfy hunger than to inflame passion, the 
 clothing that does not clothe, the cosmetics and other 
 means to manufacture forms of youth and beauty out of 
 ugliness, — all these seem to be typified. But there is 
 also gaming with dice, lotteries, fortune-telling, and the 
 getting of riches by chance, — which also very accu- 
 rately characterizes the frame of mind which lives for 
 the world of mere fashion and appearance. The same 
 principle carried into literature is satirized by putting 
 it into the mouths of the apes : " We speak and we 
 see ; we hear and we rhyme ; and if we are lucky, 
 and if things fit, 't is thoughts, and we 're thinking." 
 Close in sequence, after games of chance and lotteries, 
 follow peculation and forgeries by aid of the witches* 
 multiplication-table, which can, when necessary, 
 
 " Of one make ten, 
 And two let be, 
 And three make even, — then art thou rich." 
 
 " The high power of science hidden from all comes 
 to him who thinks not," says the witch who presides 
 over the kitchen. Here too Faust sees in the magic 
 mirror of fashion beautiful forms ; but if he approaches 
 
410 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 too near, lie perceives that they are manufactured (by 
 the milliner ?). The potation brewed in this kitchen 
 seems to be a species of philter, a sort of " beggars' 
 broth," which inflames the sensual passions. 
 
 All this pleases Faust no better than the wine 
 cellar. He thinks the fashionable apes and their 
 conversation " the most disgusting I ever saw," and 
 " thoroughly abominates the absurd apparatus, these 
 frantic gestures, and repulsive cheats," and his head 
 splits at the nonsense as of a " hundred idiots declaim- 
 in<i in full chorus." ^ 
 
 Now commences the Margaret episode. From the 
 
 1 The "Letters on Faust" present a different interpretation of 
 this scene ; hut I prefer to follow an interpretation given by their 
 author in an earlier course of lectures. The following remarks also, 
 from Letter VIII., contain hints that point in the direction I have 
 followed : " Owing to the age of the man, and the practical incon- 
 venience he may experience therefrom in his new career, 
 
 ' For idle dalliance too old, 
 Too young to be without desire,' 
 
 he would find it, no doubt, convenient to decrease the one and in- 
 crease the other. For in this new career, the strength and number 
 of his desires are an essential element, especially when there is every 
 prospect of ample means for their gratification. As regards external 
 appearance, that can readily be managed by a judicious use of cos- 
 metics, the tailor's art, and kindred appliances. But the physical 
 desires, the sexual passions, for example, require youth to yield full 
 fruition. Proper culture, however, not to mention aphrodisiacs, will 
 do much, even iu this direction." Other commentators seem to 
 prefer the interpretation given in the " Letters on Faust." A. Wy- 
 sard (London, 1883, The Intellectual and Moral Problem of Goethe s 
 Faust), for example, says : " Mephisto takes him to the Witches' 
 Kitchen, that is to say, to those places of vulgar sin where the mystery 
 of love is prostituted to the service of degrading voluptuousness, " etc. 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 411 
 
 drinking saloon and the life of fashion, the drama pro- 
 ceeds to the institution of the family, realized in the 
 persons of Margaret, her mother, and her brother. 
 Hitherto we have had no tragedy, but only a strug- 
 gle within tlie mind of Faust. His conviction has 
 taken the shape embodied by Mephistopheles, and in 
 a few short, swift scenes we are plunged into a terrible 
 collision with the external world. First in order are 
 the scenes which show us the meeting of Margaret 
 just coming from the cathedral ; then her room and 
 the casket ; the promenade, and Faust in love ; the 
 neighbor's house and the craft of Mephistopheles; 
 the street scene and the resolution taken ; the garden 
 scene and the garden arbor. Then comes the scene 
 called " Forest and Cavern," wherein Goethe has 
 painted a powerful reaction in the soul of Faust. 
 His emotional nature revolts against the evil influence 
 that drags him onwards, and he tries by absence to 
 subdue his lawless passion. Under the temporary 
 influence of a pure love, he finds himself likewise 
 in harmony with creation once more, and he recog- 
 nizes his " brothers in the still wood, the air, the 
 water." 
 
 But Mephistopheles finally overcomes his virtuous 
 scruples by suggesting the picture of Margaret pining 
 away with longing for him, — a picture realized in 
 the next scene, in Margaret's room, where we hear 
 her sing, " My peace is gone," — expressing the fatal 
 attraction which draws her like a night-moth into 
 the flame. 
 
412 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 In Martha's garden we see them after Faust's re- 
 turn. Margaret is anxious in regard to his religion. 
 Faust parries her questions with a series of answers 
 drawn from his pantheistical system of thought, 
 M. " Do yoLi believe in God ? " F. " Who would dare 
 to answer yes or no to such a question ? The world 
 exists, and the heavens ; a vast correlated system of 
 energies is alike revealed and hidden by these phe- 
 nomena, which we see and which we are. For we are 
 products of nature and moved irresistibly by its ulti- 
 mate force. Call this immediate feeling of love, which 
 moves thee and me, God, love, heart, or bliss, — it is 
 all one. I have no name for it. It is the all- 
 embracing and sustaining unity of the universe which 
 takes on these myriad forms, but is above and beyond 
 them all. Feeling is all in all. Hence let us yield 
 to it." Poor Margaret is confused by the technical 
 expressions of philosophy, to which she is not accus- 
 tomed. She admits that it is all fine and good, like 
 the words of the priest, but for all that there is some- 
 thing wrong about it, for it lacks Christianity. She 
 means to express by this her knowledge that the 
 Church condemns it all. She has seen that Faust 
 does not honor the holy sacraments, or at least does 
 not desire any participation in them. Faust thinks 
 himself an " advanced liberal " who is willing that 
 each should have his own belief. The spirit of the 
 Macrocosm is void of all form, and hence is neither 
 personalty nor any physical force, but indifferent to 
 all existing things, and also indifferent to all moral 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 413 
 
 distinctions and religious ordinances. It is in com- 
 plete harmony with the collision which produces the 
 entire movement of the drama that Faust shall put 
 forward these agnostic arguments to overcome the re- 
 ligious scruples of Margaret. A God so transcendent 
 as to be indifferent to all distinctions cannot be known 
 as to his will and purposes ; but through our feeling 
 we may know Him in the form of immediate impulse. 
 " Obey impulse and leave the talk about divine com- 
 mandments to dishonest priests." The conclusion is 
 forthcoming : " You see this vial ? only three drops 
 in your mother's drink will envelop her in a deep 
 but pleasant sleep." 
 
 In view of this obvious interpretation of the scene, 
 we are filled with amazement at the opinion of Mr. 
 Lewes, that " grander, deeper, holier thoughts are not 
 to be found in poetry " ! But what shall we say to 
 those who insist that this passage expresses " Goethe's 
 creed " ? When Goethe called himself a polytheist 
 as poet and artist, a pantheist as a student of nature, 
 and a theist in his moral and spiritual nature, it is 
 easy to understand how these seemingly contradictory 
 predicates are harmonized. As a poet, all nature is 
 personified, and is full of correspondences to the soul. 
 The poet animates and personifies objects direct, and 
 is essentially on the standpoint of Homer and the 
 ancient polytheism. Again, in natural science rela- 
 tivity becomes the chief category, and every object is 
 traced out into some previous condition by its relations 
 and processes. This interrelation points towards an 
 
414 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 ultimate unity of all, indifferent to particular forms, 
 but itself a persistent energy. Here is a pantheistic 
 standpoint. But the necessity of self-activity in the 
 ultimate energy brings before us the duplicate unity 
 which we have in self-conscious being, and so we re- 
 turn from Pantheism to Theism even in the science of 
 nature. Therefore Goethe in his letter to Jacobi ad- 
 mits that he " needs a personal God for his personal 
 nature as a moral and spiritual man." But if any 
 evidence is sought for Goethe's ripest convictions, it 
 must be found in his greatest and maturest work, the 
 " Faust." This scene should convince us that Goethe 
 did not esteem highly any religion founded on the 
 indifferent supreme being of Pantheism.^ 
 
 1 I give in this view substantially Mr. Brockmeyer's interpreta- 
 tion of the significance of Faust's creed, as I remember it in his 
 lectures ; it is not given in his " Letters." The following quotations 
 from the latter are in place here. 
 
 "This young woman, clad in purity and faith, is met at the 
 temple of the living God, at once the primary source and the still 
 existing refuge of the sacredness of the family relation. The severely 
 realistic character of Gretchen, therefore, is determined by the 
 theme ; and the scene where she relates her daily occupations of 
 cooking, washing, sweeping, etc., besides the exquisite motive which 
 the poet employs to transfigure its prosaic commonplace, ought not 
 to be wanting." Letters on Faust, IX. 
 
 " That the family relation is impossible under the conviction of 
 Faust, or that an existing family should be destroyed (the mother 
 poisoned, the child drowned, the brother slain, and the sister stand 
 before the judgment-seat of God as the self- acknowledged author, 
 cause, or whatever name you may give to the connection which she 
 had with these effects), by a man's giving practical eflfect to the con- 
 victions of Faust, is acknowledged and realized by the general con- 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 415 
 
 The scene at the Fountain reflects in a " severely 
 realistic " form the popular ethical sense before which 
 Margaret's conscience now condemns her. The scenes 
 increase in tragic earnestness. At the shrine of the 
 Mater Dolorosa she appeals for rescue from shame 
 and death. In the night scene we see the reflection 
 of the deed of Faust in the consciousness of the 
 brother of Margaret. Valentine attacks the serenaders 
 and is slain. Faust and Mephistopheles flee from the 
 country, and we may suppose they go to scenes of 
 dissipation in the great city where we meet them on 
 Walpurgis Night. The Cathedral scene follows. Is 
 Margaret at the funeral of her murdered brother, or 
 rather, perhaps, of her mother ? The critics find diffi- 
 culties in either case. Valentine in his soliloquy made 
 no allusion to his mother. The fact that the accusing 
 spirit asks, " Pray'st thou for thy mother's soul ? " seems 
 to intimate that it is her funeral. The Dies Irce. is 
 sung as the " Sequence for the Dead" in the Catholic 
 burial service. This fact makes one of the two con- 
 tingencies probable. But it was more poetical to leave 
 this matter a mere suggestion. It increases our horror 
 to remember that, when we saw Margaret coming 
 from the cathedral on a former occasion, she was " so 
 innocent that she had nothing to confess." The evil 
 spirit {Boser Geist), or the accusing spirit, personifying 
 Conscience, suggests the contrast to Margaret : " How 
 
 sciousness of the age, as is abundantly proved by the effect which 
 the part of tlie work under consideration has produced." Letters 
 on Faust, IX. 
 
416 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 different was it with thee," etc. When the organ 
 peals and the Chorus sings, the accusing spirit con- 
 tinues to comment on the verses of the judgment 
 hymn. The first, sixth, and seventh verses are given 
 in the text. The spirit, however, translates the sub- 
 stance of the second (" Horror seizes thee ! "), third 
 (" The trumpet sounds ! the graves tremble ! "), and 
 fourth (" Thy heart from its ashes flames up again in 
 torment "). The fifth verse has the same content as 
 the sixth, and the accuser echoes the sense of both : 
 " Hide thyself ! Sin and shame never remain con- 
 cealed. Air ? Light ? Woe to thee ! " Then at the 
 seventh verse, which brings to a climax the helpless- 
 ness of the siimer, the spirit reminds her that she can 
 claim no advocate on that day when the just are 
 scarcely sure of their defence : " The glorified turn 
 their faces from thee ; the pure ones shudder to offer 
 thee their hands. Woe ! " The situation represented 
 here is subHme and terrible beyond all others in this 
 drama.^ 
 
 Here is the finite before the infinite, the innocent 
 led astray into crime and sin, and brought before the 
 last tribunal. A full consciousness of this judgment 
 takes possession of Margaret while her reason is yet 
 unshaken, though her soul has been tried by suc- 
 cessive shocks. The pathos of the scene reaches its 
 highest point through the fact that the trial and con- 
 demnation are wholly unseen by the world. An ex- 
 
 l Mr. Brockmeyer pronounces it the most tragic scene in all 
 literature, for the reasons stated. 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 417 
 
 ternal trial before her fellow men could not be so 
 terrible as this judgment by her accusing conscience 
 while the holy Chorus announces the eternal edicts. 
 The spectator would cry out at once against any ex- 
 ternal court that condemned so dreadfully the victim 
 of fiendish conspiracy. It is she alone who can im- 
 agine that the spirits of light avert their faces and 
 refuse their helping hands. The closing scene of the 
 Second Part of Faust shows us the counterpart to this 
 scene in the cathedral. 
 
 From this scene before the heavenly judgment we 
 descend in the following to the region of hell. Faust 
 and Mephistopheles have fled from justice, and we 
 are to seek them, — perhaps in Paris at some Jardin 
 Mabille, — certainly this is the type described in the 
 Walpurgis Night. In the celebration on the Brocken 
 are to be found all manner of correspondences with 
 what is infernal in human character. Spiritual jays, 
 owls, mice, fireflies, will-o'-the-wisps, vermin, all as- 
 semble with the witches on the wild desert at the 
 top of the Brocken. It is a realm beyond the border, 
 hence the place of outlaws, the criminal realm. Hu- 
 man savagery celebrates its Witches' Sabbath on this 
 mountain top, lighted up, as is well known, by Mam- 
 mon. For Mammon is wealth used in sensuality and 
 other selfish pleasure. A spiritual storm rages there, 
 the elements all in collision. 
 
 Sitting around dying embers at the outskirts of the 
 crowd, Mephistopheles comes up with the sore-heads. <- 
 These are they who have lived for selfish pleasure, 
 
 27 
 
418 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 and now retain their passions and ambition, but have 
 worn out their capacity for enjoyment. They con- 
 sider themselves most unjustly treated by the world. 
 A general thinks his nation ungrateful for his ser- 
 vices ; a minister thinks that all things go badly 
 since he left the cabinet ; an unsuccessful author 
 complains that people do not read sensible works 
 any longer. Mephistopheles mocks them all : " Since 
 my own cask has run down to the lees, I feel that the 
 world also is near its end." Then Lilith and the ob- 
 scene witches. But in the midst of dissipation Faust 
 thinks of Margaret, and is haunted by the sight of 
 a " pale, fair girl, standing alone and far off." " She 
 drags herself but slowly from the place, and seems to 
 move with fettered feet. I must own she seems to 
 me to resemble poor Margaret. . . . How strangely 
 does a single red line, no thicker than a knife, adorn 
 that lovely neck ! " Taust does not wait for the Inter- 
 mezzo, — a " new performance " that is given on the 
 Brocken. It is the counterpart of the Prelude on the 
 stage, and shows us the Walpurgis Night in literature. 
 The spirit of Mephistopheles is portrayed in its xa- 
 rious literary incarnations. The plot is the quarrel 
 between the two ideals in art typified by Oberon and 
 Titania. Art is either for the revelation of the divine, 
 or for amusement and to make a living. 
 
 Faust learns the fate of Margaret, " long wretch- 
 edly astray on the face of the earth, and now im- 
 prisoned and under sentence of death." A reaction 
 sets in, which Mephistopheles is not able to meet, as 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 419 
 
 before, on the scene of the " Dreary Day." The in- 
 dignant reply of Faust to Mephistopheles's " She is 
 not the first," is annihilating in its force. They pass 
 through the " open field," where the gibbet stands, to 
 the dungeon. Margaret is discovered insane. In her 
 ravings she lives over again the tragic moments of 
 her history, and anticipates in her fantasy the scene 
 of the execution, which forms the climax. But even 
 in the presence of the scaffold she repels all offers of 
 succor from the conspirator against her peace. She 
 exclaims on seeing Mephistopheles : " What rises up 
 from the threshold there ? He ! He ! Send him 
 away ! What does he want in this holy place ? He 
 seeks me." She appeals to the judgment of God 
 against the fiend. To be saved from the gallows and 
 from God's judgment by the interposition of the Evil 
 One is to be lost forever. She prefers the solemn 
 human ceremony that deprives her of life, to the life 
 of an outcast. Goethe expresses this sense of the 
 substantial nature of social life in institutions, as con- 
 trasted with mere individual life, in Margaret's reply 
 to Faust's " Only consent ! the door lies open " : 
 "What avails it flying? They will waylay me! It 
 is so miserable to be obliged to beg one's living, 
 and with a bad conscience too. How wretched to 
 wander in a foreign land, and after all be rearrested ! " 
 The very thought drives her into her ravings again. 
 
 At her refusal to be rescued, Mephistopheles pro- 
 nounces the words, " She is judged," meaning that she 
 has preferred to accept the fate decreed by the court. 
 
420 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 \ 
 
 But a voice from above says, " She is saved." As 
 Faust hastens out of the dungeon, he hears the voice 
 of Margaret calling his name. The voice comes 
 fainter and fainter to his ears as his distance in- 
 creases. He joins Mephistopheles and " disappears." 
 The First Part of Faust thus ends negatively. It is 
 deeply tragic, but not in the usual manner. It is not 
 the hero's death that we see. He does not collide with 
 institutions and go down. His innocent victim is the 
 ^ one who suffers, and the guilty one escapes. In this 
 defect we see the necessity for a Second Part. The 
 old miracle play, like the Don Juan epos, makes the 
 hero meet his doom in hell flames. But Goethe pre- 
 serves Faust in order to treat the theme exhaustively, 
 and finally solve it affirmatively. Thus far we have 
 had a subjective conflict within Faust's mind, and an 
 objective conflict with a single institution, the family. 
 Faust's practical resolution to make the world his 
 oyster has not resulted in happiness. On the con- 
 trary, when Margaret paints the last scene at the 
 block, Faust says, " Oh that I had never been born ! " 
 His emotional nature, the very part of him that 
 hungers for the pleasure of gratification, evidently 
 is not constituted so as to adapt itself to the theory 
 of Mephistopheles. He cannot be made happy by 
 unscrupulous selfishness that heeds not another's 
 pain.i 
 
 1 "As the result of the suhjective collision, we had the conclu- 
 sion, that, if man cannot know truth , he can enjoy sensual pleasure. 
 Taking this for the principle of our action, we entered the world of 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 421 
 
 Many persons affect to admire the first part of 
 Faust who do not find any necessity for the second 
 part. They do not duly consider that the first part 
 by itself is a monstrosity, judged by the standard of 
 works of art. What drama or what novel would al- 
 low its hero to destroy an entire family of innocent 
 people, and yet escape due punishment at the hand 
 of his fellow men ? Even the puppet play was care- 
 ful to punish Faust in the fires of hell ; but Goethe's 
 Faust, in its first part, does not show us the hand of 
 society avenging itself on the true criminal, nor does 
 it, on the other hand, show the conditions of the com- 
 pact with Mephistopheles fulfilled, so that the soul 
 ' of Faust is in danger of forfeiture. 
 
 With all these crimes, Faust has not found his mo- 
 ment of happiness which he can bid " Stay, for thou 
 art fair." Mephistopheles cannot claim him, for he 
 has not gratified him with sensual delight, according 
 to the terms of the bond. Faust's soul has not be- 
 come wholly devilish, because he has wished to save 
 Margaret from her fate, and, failing in that, is plunged 
 in deep remorse. Eeraorse, it is true, is not the pun- 
 ishment required by a work of art. The punishment 
 should come from the hand of society to satisfy the 
 conditions of a drama. But remorse is sufficient in 
 this play to cheat Mephistopheles of his due. Hence, 
 
 reality, and lo! it crumbles under our feet. Not life, not perpetuity 
 of the race, but death, — blank nothingness ; the conclusion reads, 
 ' If man cannot know truth, then he cannot exist.' " Letters on 
 Faust, IX. 
 
422 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 both the external and internal conditions of the play 
 demand the continuation of the drama into another 
 part.^ 
 
 When setting out on the journey Mephistopheles 
 names the destination : ''■ The little world and the 
 great world we will see." The little world contains 
 what may be represented directly in its proper per- 
 sons. All the members of the family may be brouglit 
 before us in the drama ; but we cannot see in like 
 manner all the members of a state or of civil society ; 
 
 1 " The destruction of the family and the preservation of the de- 
 stroyer will hardly pass for a satisfactory solution, either logical or 
 artistic. To regard the poem, however, in this light, would be our 
 own act, and the conse([uent difficulty one of our own creation. For 
 this would" be an attempt to make rather than to read the poem. 
 And whatever merit or demerit might attend the undertaking, it 
 would hardly be fair to attribute either the one or the other to the 
 author of Faust. For in this poem we have for our theme, ' the 
 self-conscious intelligence in conflict with itself, — with its entire 
 content.' Not the content with itself, but the self-conscious intel- 
 ligence on the one side, and its content on the other. Included 
 within this content [as a single phase of it], we have the institution 
 of the family. Hence, the collision presented is one not inherent in 
 this institution, for that involves as its presupposition the valid ex- 
 istence thereof, [i.e. a collision in the family presupposes the family,] 
 but between the family and its negation. It is, therefore, not an in- 
 dependent, but a subordinate collision. . . . Since the family is only 
 a part of this content, the conflict is not exhausted by the destruc- 
 tion of the family, any more than it was exhausted at the end of the 
 subjective collision which resulted in the destruction of the rational 
 vocation of Faust, and delivered him over to the guidance of the 
 understanding with its finite aims, — sensual indulgence. Hence, 
 no solution is presented [in this First Part], or is possible as yet." 
 Letters on Faust, IX. 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 423 
 
 nor can art and religion be presented except in a typi- 
 cal manner to ns. Two different modes of art, there- 
 fore, prevail in the Faust. Objects of universal scope 
 and significance, like nature and humanity as a whole, 
 or like the process of empirical science, the realm of 
 philosophical ideas, or the history of the Christian 
 religion, are represented in types or mythological 
 figures, such as Dante has used in the Terrestrial 
 Paradise, where the elements of the Church and their 
 history are emblematically bodied forth. Thus we 
 have such forms as the Erdgeist, the Macrocosm, the 
 dog, the Homunculus, the Mothers, and the closing- 
 scene in Heaven, all adumbrating what cannot be 
 presented to us immediately, like the family, whose 
 members we may see and hear.^ 
 
 Mephistopheles is the mythological impersonation 
 of unscrupulous selfishness, which sacrifices others for 
 its own greed. It is the human subjective counter- 
 part of the Earth-Spirit, who is conceived to create a 
 world of human beiugs, and endow them with aspira- 
 tions for infinite truth, but who withholds from them 
 all possibility of attainment, — who is, in short, a 
 birth and a grave for all individuals. If man wor- 
 ship such a god, and take him as a model on which 
 to mould his own character, he will of course become a 
 " spirit that denies." He will not feel himself bound 
 to respect any finite particular beings like men, nor 
 
 1 This is an epitome of Brockmeyer's view, given at length in his 
 lectures (unpublished). He holds that presentative art is used 
 chiefly in the First Part, but representative art in the Second Part. 
 
424 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 any being subordinate to him, because such are not 
 respected by the Absolute. He will respect only the 
 great negative powers of nature, over which he can 
 exercise no control, and which therefore resemble in 
 this regard the Absolute. Mephistopheles justifies 
 himself, accordingly, by saying that all things called 
 forth into being out of the void are destined for de- 
 struction again by the same pantheistic energy that 
 created them, and therefore " it were better had they 
 never been created." Like the Earth-Spirit, too, he 
 has reserved the flame for his element. Hence, one 
 might trace out the logical connection between the 
 Earth-Spirit and Mephistopheles, — the former con- 
 ceived as the objective universal process of the world, 
 and the latter as a human character formed in imita- 
 tion of that type as an ideal 
 
 Goethe believed in typical facts (JJrphdnonune) in 
 science, as he tells us himself. The Second Part of 
 Faust deals in artistical devices equivalent to those 
 types in nature. In consequence of this form of rep- 
 resentation, the entire work is an enigma to most 
 readers. Portions of the Margaret episode are vividly 
 clear to all, — as if written with lightning flashes on 
 a thunder-cloud. But it is of far more importance to 
 the literary student to master Goethe's typical forms. 
 They constitute a system of mythology, under which 
 the modern world masquerades, just as truly as the 
 Greek world did under Homer's system of Olympian 
 deities. A long life of keenest observation and re- 
 flection, reinforced by poetic inspiration, is summed 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 425 
 
 up in these new symbols. It is the highest object of 
 intellectual culture to comprehend those vast general 
 processes of the social world which generate these 
 problems of life, of which all art worthy of the name 
 treats. Such phenomena as the French Eevohition 
 and the Napoleonic wars, the American Eepublic, 
 productive industry, the revival of art, modern liter- 
 ature, the scientific spirit, — all these and their like 
 are intimately concerned with Mephistopheles and 
 the victory over him. 
 
 He who aspires to find in literature something 
 higher than mere idle amusement, therefore, will 
 study Faust, and especially its Second Part. Ear- 
 nest study will discover the significance of the vast 
 shadowy forms, and the student will by degrees learn 
 to use those mythologic types, and think out by their 
 aid solutions to the problems of the world. Classic 
 literature has furnished us with mythologic person- 
 ages and events as means of expression for life; but 
 for life as it was in the classic epoch, and for life in 
 all ages only in so far as it is identical with it. The 
 poetical insight discovers the essentials of human 
 life, and expresses them in any age or in any nation. 
 But the temporary environment of those essentials, 
 and the consciousness that characterizes the epoch, 
 require special treatment. Hence, it is necessary 
 for a new world-poet to appear in each epoch, if 
 its prosy elements are to be made poetical, and the 
 age is to have a spectacle of itself in its recognizable 
 features. 
 
426 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 The Second Part of Faust moves in an atmosphere 
 entirely different from that of the First Part. It is 
 serene and full of light, — a truly Celestial Paradise 
 compared with the Inferno of the First Part. The 
 " little world," where the individual can make or 
 mar, is behind us in the journey, and we are arrived 
 at the " great world " of institutions which transcend 
 the individual might and are the joint product of the 
 social whole. 
 
 The first and opening scene portrays for us the in- 
 fluences of nature and the lapse of time, which heal 
 spiritual as well as physical wounds. In the case of 
 spiritual injuries, there must be repentance and re- 
 nunciation, a removal of the cause, just as in the case 
 of physical wounds there must be a removal of the 
 producing causes before the healing process can set 
 in. Tepid winds, the fragrance of flowers, shadow 
 and twilight, night's repose, — these are the elves 
 that draw out the barbs that remorse fixes in the soul. 
 These fiery bitter arrows of self-reproach {cles Vorwurfs 
 gluhend bittre Pfeile) allude to his genuine repentance 
 for the evil he has done. Mephistopheles repents of 
 nothing, and suffers no grief in his mind. But Faust 
 has a human heart besides his evil principles, and 
 suffers for his sins. 
 
 A new day awakes after the beautiful Chorus of the 
 Elves recording the march of the Hours. Ariel an- 
 nounces the approach of the sun, a symbol of the 
 Absolute, and we have an allusion to the baffled pur- 
 suit of pure truth. The full light of the sun cannot 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 427 
 
 be borne, but one may gaze refreshed upon its re- 
 fracted image in the rainbow. So, instead of pure 
 truth, let us look upon its refracted image in the 
 institution of the State, which we shall see in its 
 visible representative. 
 
 In the second scene we behold this Emperor and 
 his court. It is not a State, but the State, — the 
 Holy Eoman Empire, which in the time of Charle- 
 magne included all Western and Central Europe, and 
 under his successors in the Middle Ages included 
 Italy and Germany, but finally was confined to the 
 latter country. It is the true "Monarchy" of Dante, 
 whose universal power shall bring unity of law, and 
 consequently peace, to all the world. It is borne in 
 mind that the coronation of the Emperor took place 
 in Goethe's city, Erankfort, and in his youth he had 
 seen the great festival accompanying it. 
 
 In the Emperor, Goethe has given us a Faust of 
 the type we have seen in the First Part. He wishes 
 to be amused and is not scrupulous as to the means. 
 He is a selfish pleasure-seeker, who has virtually 
 signed a compact with Mephistopheles. Faust has 
 passed beyond this phase of immediate sensuality by 
 the purgatorial influences of sin and remorse, and now 
 has ambition for power, and will soon develop a pas- 
 sion for art. The description of the condition of the 
 Empire, on the verge of ruin, is given through the . 
 mouths of the Chancellor, Commander-in-chief, Treas- 
 urer, and Lord High Steward. Unscrupulous devices 
 of Mephistopheles at once provide means for cele- 
 
428 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 brating the Carnival. This, is prepared under the 
 direction of Faust, who embodies in the masquerade 
 a political phantasmagoria showing the genesis and 
 destruction of the State. In like manner, the classi- 
 cal Walpurgis Night gives the genesis of Greek art 
 out of Egyptian and Syrian art, — a sort of symbolic- 
 classic phantasmagoria, as the " Helena " is called a 
 " Classico-Komantic Phantasmagoria " by Goethe him- 
 self ; the latter shows the genesis of modern or ro- 
 mantic art through the study of the classic art. 
 
 Amusement and play have this significance : man 
 loves to see himself as a social whole. In play the 
 individual enjoys the sense of his potential greatness 
 without the real labor and suffering necessary to pro- 
 duce it. The species, the race, is a giant ; the indi- 
 vidual, by contrast, a puny dwarf. The Carnival as 
 an annual festival has this significance : man delights 
 to see the image of society, and to feign that he as in- 
 dividual is free to assume any station or vocation for 
 himself. The beggar may masquerade as king, the 
 slave as master, the male as female, the high as low, 
 celebrating in this way the fact that each man is in 
 substance all men. It was not a wide departure from 
 the original and traditional purport of the carnival, 
 therefore, for Goethe to employ it, as he does, to 
 adumbrate the genesis and destruction of the highest 
 political institution, and show us civil society, with 
 its many vocations, grounded on the power of civil 
 government. 
 
 In the Carnival scene we see peace and plenty under 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 429 
 
 the masks of the olive branch and the wheat sheaf, 
 beauty and refinement typified by the fancy nosegay 
 and the budding roses. Then the gardeners, the 
 mother and daughter, and the dumb show following 
 it, illustrate the social instinct to veil the natural 
 under the form of the ideal. The drunken man is the 
 consequence of the gratification of mere natural appe- 
 tite : intoxication may realize the carnival at any sea- 
 son of the year. But the natural appetites must be 
 restrained if society is to be, and for this purpose the 
 Graces enter on the scene. These insist on seeing the 
 ideal, in place of the real. They restore freedom and 
 charm to society. The Fates, who follow next, state 
 the limits, laws, and measures that result from the 
 application of the ideal to the real, and hence they are 
 kindred of the Graces. They set up a standard, or 
 norm. But the Graces have counterparts, the Furies. 
 Eeject the Graces, who treat each one as if he em- 
 bodied all human perfection, — and this is the essence 
 of courtesy, — and take note only of human limita- 
 tions and imperfections of individuality, and you 
 will invoke the Furies. Hatred and jealousy, cal- 
 umny and slander, destroy the social bond, and lead 
 on to violence : Tisiphone mixes poison, and sharpens 
 daggers, and sets in motion the infinite progress of 
 the feud and blood revenge. 
 
 Authority is shown to be necessary as the founda- 
 tion of society, and to control the Furies. Its mask 
 now enters as a Colossus, an elephant guided by 
 Prudence sitting on his neck, with two chained fig- 
 
 / 
 
430 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 ures walking on either side, in ■whom we are to recog- 
 nize Fear and Hope, the former signifying mistrust, 
 which suspects evil in one's neighbor, and thus lacks 
 confidence sufficient to combine with its fellow men ; 
 the latter, Hope, in the sense of green trustfulness, 
 which goes to the other extreme, and places all its 
 fortune in the hands of other individuals, and thus 
 reaches the same result, the destruction of society. 
 High aloft rides Victory, dazzling the sight. Zoilo- 
 Thersites, the partisan defamer who works to under- 
 mine civil authority, is chastised by the herald. 
 
 Under the sway of civil order, property becomes 
 secure, and wealth may be accumulated. The car of 
 Plutus (the god of wealth) accordingly enters now, 
 guided by a boy charioteer dressed in the robes of 
 Apollo as leader of the Muses, who tells us that he is 
 Poesy. While Poesy guides the car of Plutus, a taste 
 for the beautiful converts wealth into a blessing for 
 all people. The poet uses wealth in the service of 
 art ; he gilds all prose reality with the gold of his 
 own imagination, so that no one looks upon it any 
 more as a plain ugly fact, but sees it shining M'ith 
 the ideal. Just in this way Walter Scott has gilded 
 the lakes and moorlands of Scotland, or Longfellow 
 and Whittier and Hawthorne have gilded places and 
 scenes in New England. After the boy-Apollo has 
 snapped his fingers, gold and pearls and costliest 
 jewels abound. He uses wealth for pictures, statues, 
 stately temples, scientific museums, parks for health- 
 ful amusement. We learn to see the prose fact trans- 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 431 
 
 figured by associations with human interests, and 
 crowned with an aureola of historic importance. 
 
 The chariot of wealth is drawn by dragons or watch- 
 ful guardians of property, — the police, the civil and 
 criminal judiciary, and the men of the law. In con- 
 trast to the right user of wealth comes the starveling, 
 Mephistopheles masquerading as Avarice, sitting on a 
 chest of gold behind Poesy. He uses wealth to cor- 
 rupt the morals of the people, and, for effeminate 
 luxury or for selfish hoarding purposes, keeps property 
 out of channels of greatest usefulness. 
 
 Poesy now takes leave of Plutus, and extravagance 
 under the influence of Mephistopheles, dissipates the 
 wealth in the form of molten gold, which the crowd 
 struggle to obtain. Wild riot ensues. 
 
 The Emperor comes in under the mask of Pan, as a 
 selfish tyrant, with rough satyrs, gnomes, fauns, giants, 
 and nymphs, typifying selfish courtiers and the hang- 
 ers-on at the licentious court circle that surrounded 
 the central power in the Holy Ptoman Empire, and es- 
 pecially the French king just previous to the Ptevolu- 
 tion. Waste of property on the part of men in power 
 demoralizes the industries of the people. The destruc- 
 tion of the civil authority takes place through the evil 
 influence of the parasites that infest the highest politi- 
 cal power. The whole fabric of the State flames up in 
 one disastrous revolution, in which the Emperor Pan 
 ("L'^tat c'est moi") is consumed in flames, — or ap- 
 pears to be in the representation. The herald laments, 
 and Plutus (the mask of Faust) announces the Carnival 
 closed. 
 
v/ 
 
 432 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 -^ The following scene shows a pleasure garden, in 
 ■which the Emperor thanks Faust for the amusement 
 he has received from the masquerade. To liis great 
 surprise, the ministers enter and report all their for- 
 mer difficulties overcome by the new invention, — 
 the Mephistophehan principle has invented for the 
 use of the State an inconvertible paper money ! ^ 
 
 Goethe had studied the phenomenon of the French 
 "assignats," and seen their wonderful inflation and 
 disastrous collapse. All becomes prosperous at once : 
 commerce being stimulated to the highest degree, 
 agriculture and manufactures flourish. "With plenty 
 of money we must have amusement. The beautiful 
 must be presented by Faust in its highest form, — 
 ^ Greek art. Helen must be brought back and " ma- 
 terialized." Mephistopheles cannot create the beauti- 
 ful, for he engages only to adapt finite means to finite 
 ends ; the beautiful is produced by putting the finite 
 under the form of the infinite, i. e. by making it ap- 
 pear as expressing personal freedom. But Mephis- 
 topheles, as principle of negation, can show how to 
 think abstractly, so he gives a " little key " {Nein, = 
 not, i. e. the negative typifies all abstraction), to Faust, 
 
 1 " Paper money is the money of the understanding ; gold, the 
 money of the reason." Brockmeyer's Lectures on Faust (unxmb- 
 lished). 
 
 This wonderful commentator has not carried out his interpreta- 
 tion beyond the First Part of Faust, except so far as to lay the basis 
 for, and show the necessity of, the two parts, and indicate the 
 two styles of treatment and the two different spheres of life to be 
 treated. 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 433 
 
 and advises him to seek the " Mothers." He cautions 
 liini to hold the key off from his body ; and with good 
 reason, for if one is to understand the mode of think- 
 ing of another people far separated by time, he must 
 free himself from his subjective personal likes and 
 dislikes, and get an objective criterion. The operation 
 of the key he describes : " Sink, then ! I might say 
 also, rise ! it is the same thing : fly that which has 
 come into being, in the unbound spaces of forms." 
 This seems a poetic way of describing philosophic 
 reflection, which abstracts from the conditions of ex- 
 istence in order to reach pure ideas. The " Mothers " 
 are enthroned goddesses, spaceless and timeless like 
 Plato's archetypal ideas. Mephistopheles describes 
 these with much particularity. They are seen by the 
 light of a glowing tripod engaged in creating and 
 transforming finite things, — " the eternal amusement 
 of the eternal intelligence." The patterns of all crea- 
 tures hover round them. Plutarch describes the 
 Platonic ideas as "the causes, forms, and original 
 images of all things which have been and which 
 shall be." Commentators find passages in Plutarch's 
 Morals which may have furnished Goethe the poetic 
 images here used, but it is clear enough that the idea 
 is Platonic, and traces to Plato's Pythagoreanism. 
 While it is interesting to examine minutely the de- 
 tails of this remarkable device by which Faust brings 
 up Helen from the underworld, it is not necessary 
 for the general purposes of comprehending Faust. 
 
 Goethe wishes to embody in a type the method of the 
 
 28 
 
 w 
 
 \ ,■■' 
 
434 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 a priori road to the principles of the Beautiful. No 
 modern can understand the spirit of Greek art with- 
 out such a journey to the "Mothers." The Mephis- 
 tophelian " spirit that denies " cannot accompany 
 Faust on his journey thither, although it has to fur- 
 nish a necessary key, abstraction from one's own en- 
 vironment. Greek art has an environment peculiar 
 to it, and it is necessary to comprehend that in order 
 to see its genesis. 
 
 Faust brings up Paris and Helen to the stage, and 
 exhibits them to the mighty Emperor, — much as 
 Eacine and Corneille produced for the court of Louis 
 XIV. their French-Greek plays. But here we are 
 to learn that the a priori method, although sufficient 
 to accomplish such wonders as these, does not suf- 
 fice for the soul that falls in love with art. Faust 
 touches Paris with his key, and an explosion follows. 
 The " materialized " spirits vanish, and Faust lies 
 senseless on the ground. The danger of this method 
 of producing art is, that, when the artist comes to the 
 concrete, he supplies modern details and environment, 
 and not the antique. He falls out of his part. The 
 Greek art exists for the Greek type of culture, Helen 
 for Paris, and Paris for Helen. If Faust wishes 
 Helen for himself, he must create in himself the 
 Greek type of culture by the slow process of studying 
 its genesis step by step. His a i^riori method may 
 bring him to the spectacle of the beautiful, but it does 
 not give him creative possession of it. French-Greek 
 art is after all not Greek in spirit, althougli it has 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 435 
 
 some external resemblance to it. Eacine and Cor- 
 neille both touched the resuscitated Greek with their 
 magic key. Like Faust, they insisted in putting 
 themselves into the play, or, what is the same thing, 
 making the Greek form of the drama hold modern 
 personages and ways of life. 
 
 \ Faust became unconscious of the modern environ- 
 ment in his absorption with the classic, and took no 
 more interest in the affairs of the Emperor's court. 
 Mephistopheles must seek out a means for the near- 
 est approach to the antique beautiful, and accordingly 
 returns to Wagner, the spirit of analytical investiga- 
 tion and prose erudition. For the substantial resto- 
 ration of the Greek sj)irit, and the contemplation of 
 Greek art in that spirit, in our age, we must have 
 something besides the a priori production of it. 
 There must be excavations, and the collection of 
 
 j fragments, which are to be studied piece by piece, 
 
 I in the manner that erudition and archa3ology have 
 
 I undertaken. 
 
 The Homunculus represents this spirit of speciali- 
 zation : it is confined in a' bottle, and typifies the 
 German archaeologist realized in Winckelmann and 
 his followers, and, less directly, the entire modern 
 spirit of inductive science. 
 
 If sufficiently limited, a field of investigation 
 mapped out may be exhausted by the individual spe- 
 cialist : when he knows it exhaustively, he learns to 
 see the relativity of all its details. Each detail is de- 
 pendent upon and suggests all the others. It thus 
 
V 
 
 V 
 
 436 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 becomes alive, for tlie definition of a living organism 
 is this : each part is both means and end to all the 
 other parts. Sufficiently specialized and narrowed 
 down, the province may be so exhaustively inves- 
 tigated that the living bond of connection may be 
 found, and a living being is produced, — an Honmn- 
 culus in a bottle. Wagner is the sort of scholar who 
 learns to " confine his attention to the dative case," in 
 order that he may not simply rehash erudition already 
 existent, but himself make new contributions to it. 
 We think of Winckelmann patiently measuring the 
 contour of the several features of the face, as he found 
 them in antique statues, and recording the angle which 
 the open eyelids made as a canon by which to iden- 
 tify Venus, Juno, and Diana by this feature alone. 
 The history of modern science abounds in Homun- 
 culi. Cuvier specializes comparative anatomy, and 
 can see the whole animal in a newly discovered fossil 
 bone from the Eocene strata ; Lyell can read its his- 
 tory in a pebble ; Niebuhr can see the actual history 
 adumbrated in a Eoman myth, and, like Lyell, inter- 
 pret it as a sort of drift boulder of humanity, broken 
 off from its connecting strata, and ground into its 
 shape under the glaciers of revolution ; Agassiz could 
 reconstruct the whole fish from one of its scales. 
 
 With Horaunculus to light the way, Faust may 
 find Helen, of a surety. The classical Walpurgis 
 Night shows the process by which Greek art itself 
 was found. It began with traditions from Egypt and 
 Syria, and developed out of their art-forms, half ani- 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 437 
 
 mal, half human, such as the sphinxes, griffins, sirens, 
 centaurs, pygmies, and dactyls. Progressive meta- 
 morphoses separated the human from the animal, and 
 finally reached the sea-nymph, Galatea, as the perfect 
 human form. The artists of Rhodes claim to be the 
 first to represent the high gods in human forms. The 
 Cabiri (or " mighty ones ") of the Phcenicians and 
 Egyptians, sons of Phtha (the Egyptian Vu.lcan), the 
 divine metal-worker, indicate the bronze statues of 
 the gods produced by Phtha (hence called his sons), 
 and mark an imj)ortant transition towards Greek art. 
 The studies into the origin of the earth, rather poetic 
 conjectures than scientific conclusions, divide between 
 a water principle and a fire principle. Thales and 
 Anaxagoras represent these tendencies, and find place 
 in Goethe's poem because they mark the undercurrent 
 of reflection that guides unseen the development of 
 Greek art in its selection of a worthy representation 
 of the divine form. The fire, symbol of spirit, with 
 water, symbol of organic matter, are united in Greek 
 art so that neither preponderates. Homunculus as- 
 pires to free himself from the confinement of his bot- 
 tle, — empiricism strives to return to a vision of the 
 totality. On the appearance of Galatea, shining 
 with the radiance of perfect beauty, he breaks his 
 glass against her chariot, and becomes Eros, or poetic 
 inspiration, which sees the whole in each part. 
 
 In the study of art Eaust arrives at the insight 
 into the formative principle in the divine. Instead 
 of being negative to form, as Pantheism supposes, it is 
 
 >!. 
 
438 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 rather the formative energy that Polytheism presup- 
 poses. Proteus, who is indifferent to all forms and 
 yet ceaselessly incarnating himself, teaches Homun- 
 culus how to escape from his bottle, proving himself 
 to be the principle that initiates forms, and breaks 
 forms only to grow by transformation into higher 
 ones. The poet learns to recognize in all things the 
 one spiritual principle; and this is the reason that 
 he speaks in the language of metaphor and personi- 
 fication, having learned that all things are means of 
 spiritual expression. 
 
 The a priori mode of reaching Greek art gave place 
 to the other method of specialization, which sufficed to 
 bring Greece before us in its actual genesis. But the 
 result of the specialized inquiry conducts us back to 
 the standpoint of immediate insight, typified by Eros, 
 i. e. poetic or artistic insight, which sees all nature a 
 revelation of the spiritual totality, just as a single bone 
 revealed the living animal to Cuvier. 
 
 The " Helena" has the advantage of the wonderful 
 commentary of Thomas Carlyle. Faust finds Helen ; 
 Euphorion is born, adumbrating modern art and lit- 
 erature arising from the union of the Greek and Teu- 
 tonic principles. The Greek sought the representation 
 of free individuality ,' the Teutonic seeks the realiza- 
 tion of freedom in actual life : the union of the two is 
 Romantic art, — the art whose principle is infinite as- 
 piration. But Faust does not find his problem solved 
 I by art, — Classic or Romantic. One great thing he 
 has learned from it, as we have seen, — the Divine 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 439 
 
 reveals itself in forms, and above all in the human 
 form. This points towards a divine-human nature. 
 The Absolute is at least a form-giving principle, and 
 loves to initiate forms and to perfect them. The real 
 essence of the human form, it is true, is not the body, 
 but the soul, — an energy whose characteristic is to be 
 subject and its own object. This principle of form as 
 the essential form therefore transcends physical form, 
 although it finds expression in the latter. Faust leaves 
 art, and struggles up to a more adequate communion 
 with the essential truth, that he has now seen a 
 glimpse of. There is a more intimate acquaintance 
 possible than through art. He can recognize the 
 Divine in his fellow man, and feels the Absolute to 
 be the Spirit of the invisible Church of humanity. 
 
 In the fourth act we see Faust aspiring to become 
 a useful citizen in the secular world. He desires to 
 see the people multiply and be well fed, and, what is 
 more important, " taught and well bred," and above 
 all active in helping each other. 
 
 The Mephistophelian Emperor has lived for a while 
 in luxury by means of his paper money, but the deluge 
 came at last in the shape of revolution. Faust is, 
 however, no longer in the negative mood, but wishes 
 to build up rather than tear down. He assists the 
 Emperor to quell the insurrection. He does not ask 
 in return the gift of a princixDality, but only the shore . 
 of the sea, with the privilege of reclaiming the land 
 covered by the ocean wastes. It is a place for labor 
 rather than a finished product that he wants. He does 
 
440 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 not conceive the Absolute to be a fixed result, like a 
 work of art, nor a mere negative process, like the 
 formless Absolute of Pantheism. He is an Energy., 
 that delights to make that which is bad good, and 
 that which is good better, in the interest of human 
 beings. 
 
 The fifth act shows us Faust engaged in this labor 
 of building dikes and canals, and a busy people set- 
 tling on the newly recovered land, and an ocean com- 
 merce tliriving. 
 
 Here at last Faust has found the moment which 
 seems " fair," and he could live in the thought of it 
 forever without tedium. This, then, is the goal and 
 object of human nature, that condition for which it 
 was intended. To be the builder of a great public 
 benefit gives him a consciousness that is ever gratify- 
 ing. In the service of his fellow men he sees that he 
 can always be happy. He overcomes finally his worst 
 enelny, impatience (he had cursed patience deeper 
 than all on occasion of his compact with Mephistoph- 
 eles) and now renounces magic. He sees in magic 
 the unscrupulous might that looks only to the end 
 desired, and is not duly considerate of the welfare of 
 the human interests which furnish the means. The 
 burning of the cottage of Baucis and Philemon by 
 his agents, under the guidance of Mephistopheles, is 
 represented as teaching him this last lesson. He re- 
 fuses now to recognize his nearly helpless condition, 
 worn out and blind with age and life's cares. He 
 finds refuge from all grief in absorption in his great 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 441 
 
 work. He will set at once about draining a pestilen- 
 tial marsh that still remains by the neighboring hill. 
 Space will be furnished for many millions of human 
 beings, — not to dwell in repose, but daily earning 
 their freedom, and in the constant feeling of their 
 mutual dependence. With this thought, which can 
 bring happiness to him even in the physical pain of 
 deatli, he dies. Mephistopheles has brought him to 
 say to the passing moment, " Stay, for thou art fair," 
 and technically in one sense won his wager ; but in 
 reality he has lost his wager, for he has not found 
 any sensual delights nor selfish delights of any kind 
 that could satisfy Faust. He has found that, not 
 selfishness, but altruism alone, can satisfy human na- 
 ture. The augels,therefore,_win^ Faust's soul. They 
 appear in the clouds and drive away the demons 
 with a shower of roses (symbols of love). The good 
 does not fight with weapons of hate ; but to the de- 
 monic nothing is so repulsive as love and self-sacri- 
 fice for others. 
 
 The closing scene is the noblest culmination of this 
 wonderful drama. It shows us the four great leading 
 ideas of Christianity which have characterized the 
 four epochs of its history. 
 
 _ Pater, Ecs t aticus is the type that prevailed in the 
 first epoch. Then the individual had to renounce 
 not only his animal nature, but also the heathen civ- 
 ilization, and flee to the desert, seeking as a hermit 
 to purify himself within. He sought later, under the 
 lead of St. Benedict, to create artificial desert caves 
 
442 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETHE. 
 
 by building monasteries with high walls, which shut 
 out civilization, although in the midst of it. The 
 monastery improved on the solitary hermit life by 
 forming a Christian community, a Church. Pater 
 Ecstaticus is eager for martyrdom, to purge away 
 the earthly dross that dims his purity, 
 
 Next came, in the thirteenth century, two wonder- 
 ful men, St. Dominic and St. Francis. Both issued 
 forth from the monastery to conquer the world out- 
 side of its walls. It was not sufficient to shut out 
 -> the world; sin must be shut _ out jrom^ jhe world. 
 St. Dominic's movement is typified by Pater Pro-^- 
 fundus. The Dominicans revived learning, and mas- 
 tered the literatures and philosophies of ancient 
 times, and built up the vast structure of Christian 
 theology. They recognized God, not as •hostile to 
 nature and science and literature, but as the Creator 
 of them. Hence, Pater Profundus recognizes " mes- 
 sengers of God's love " in the lightnings and torrents 
 that had been thought the work of the Devil. 
 
 r^ter^ SerajDhicus, typifying the movement of St. 
 7 Francis, who went out to the lowliest people, and 
 repeated Christ's mission to the beggars and outcasts, 
 expresses his tender love for that which is most in 
 need. " Boys with a soul and sense half shut," hav- 
 ing died before they saw the light of this life, are for 
 the angel souls the sweetest gain. They have been 
 deprived of the experience of the earth-life, but the 
 angels will see to it that it is all made up to them 
 by imparting to them their experience. " Use my 
 
GOETHE'S FAUST. 443 
 
 eyes," says the holy father, and " gaze upon the world 
 of human experience." This is the finest touch in 
 Faust. Instead of the cold haughtiness of the Earth- 
 Spirit, who repels human finitude, Goethe has found 
 that God's love is so tender toward individuality 
 that it nurses into being and fulness even the em- 
 bryonic forms that fail to mature in the earth-life. ~ 
 The spirit of Faust is placed in charge of these 
 embryonic souls, who receive him in his "chrysalis 
 state," and proceed to loosen the flakes of earthly 
 nature that encompass him. 
 
 Doctor Marianus (named from Maria, because he 
 proclaims the Virgin) is the complement of Pater 
 Seraphicus in that he utters the doctrine that the 
 highest principle in the universe is God's grace, 
 symbolized under the form of the Holy Virgin, who 
 appears as Mater Gloriosa, surrounded by penitent 
 women, among whom we recognize Margaret. 
 
 It has been suggested, however, by Rosenkranz and 
 others, that Doctor Marianus represents the soul ot 
 Faust after it has grown "fair and great by holy living," 
 as the chorus of blessed boys pronounces him after the 
 earthly flakes are removed. Pater Ecstaticus is repre- 
 sented as "hovering up and down"; Pater Profundus 
 as in the " lower region " ; Pater Seraphicus as in the 
 "middle region"; Doctor Marianus as "in the highest, 
 purest cell." It would seem from this that Doctor 
 Marianus is intended as a fourth in the list of his- 
 torical types. Diintzer informs us that "Doctor" was 
 substituted for " Pater," as first written. The "blessed 
 
444 LIFE AND GENIUS OF GOETUE. 
 
 boys " who welcomed Faust hover about him, and 
 announce that Faust is outgrowing them with mighty- 
 limbs, and that he will return them a rich reward for 
 their assistance ; he will share with them his rich 
 earthly experience. Doctor Marianus exhorts the peni- 
 tents to look up to the tender glance of the Madonna, 
 who has been drawn near to the earth to assist them. 
 This, coming directly after the Mater Gloriosa has 
 assigned Faust for instruction as an immature spirit 
 (" StiU blindeth him the new glare of day ") to Mar- 
 garet, in reply to her petition, proves that Goethe 
 could not have intended to represent him under the 
 title Doctor ]\Iarianus. 
 
 Margaret's prayer to the Mater Gloriosa intention- 
 ^ ally recalls her prayer to the Mater Dolorosa in the 
 First Part. 
 
 A Chorus Mysticus closes the drama, uniting in one 
 statement the doctrines of the Holy Fathers and of 
 the Doctor, and announces the doctrine of divine 
 grace as the supreme principle : " All that is perish- 
 able is but a symbol ; the inadequate grows here to 
 complete reality; the indescribable here is accom- 
 plished ; the Eternal- Womanly draweth us on." 
 
 The womanly element in the Divine Being de- 
 scribes especially the tenderness and graciousness that 
 nurture what is feeble and impotent, and lacking char- 
 acter, into strength and maturity. The infant lacks 
 responsibility, and cannot be treated from the stand- 
 point of justice without destroying him. His deed 
 of caprice must not be returned upon him as on a 
 
Of THe ' \y 
 GOETHE'S FAUST.r.^^^'Q^^\t^. 445 
 
 mature person. His freaks and irrationality are borne 
 patiently by the mother, and his individuality gradu- 
 ally drawn out and developed. Hence, the feminine 
 element in the Divine Nature has especial reference to 
 God's grace, which, according to Goethe, deals with a 
 world of imperfect creatures, and leads them towards "^ 
 their own good through their freedom. 
 
 In the eighth book of the Autobiography, already 
 referred to, Goethe indicates such a view of theology 
 at the age of twenty years as corresponds with the 
 conclusion of this Second Part of Faust. When man 
 had fallen, instead of permitting him to lapse into 
 annihilation, the Elohim chose to initiate a movement 
 of restoration, and to save by an act of divine con- 
 descension what was otherwise lost through perversion 
 of its own freedom. 
 
 It is, if I am not mistaken, the most interesting 
 event in literary history, that Goethe should conduct ^ 
 his hero from pantheistic agnosticism to Christian 
 theism. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 ABSOLUTE, the search after, 388; 
 a formless principle, 389. 
 
 Achilles, as drawn by Homer, 374, 377. 
 
 Adams, Sarah Holland, translation of 
 Grimm, 384. 
 
 .aischylus cited, 82,92. 
 
 Agamemnon , 365, 374. 
 
 Agnosticism of Faust, 393 ; of Herbert 
 Spencer, 394. 
 
 Albee, John, his essay on Goethe, xxiii, 
 39-67. 
 
 Alchemy, of the Arabians, 385, 387; 
 studied by Goethe, 385 ; by Faust, 
 388 ; by Wagner, 395. 
 
 Alcott, A. Bronson,v; his criticism of 
 Goethe, 172-176; reads Faust, 172- 
 175 ; suggests Webster as an American 
 Mephistopheles, 174 ; describes the 
 mission of the Devil, 176. 
 
 Alexander the Great, 170. 
 
 Amalia, Duchess of Weimar, vi. 
 
 American barbarians, 158. 
 
 American literature, 162, 180. 
 
 American Revolution, 381. 
 
 American translations of Goethe men- 
 tioned, 181, 218. 
 
 Annals, of Goethe, 54. 
 
 Anster's version of Faust, 173. 
 
 Apothegms of Goethe, 120. 
 
 Arabian chemistry, 387. 
 
 Architect, the Young, in Elective Affini- 
 ties, 264, 267-269, 270, 276. 
 
 Ariosto, mentioned by Frederick the 
 Great, 159. 
 
 Aristotle, quoted or mentioned, 70, 77, 
 197. 
 
 Arnold's History of Heretics, 386. 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, 14, 168. 
 
 Art in Goethe, 59, 378, 391. 
 Aryans, theology of, 73-74. 
 Assistant, the, in Elective Affinities, 
 
 263, 264, 267. 
 Athena, in Prometheus, 78-81, 92. 
 Athens, Bishop of, 84. 
 August, Karl, Grand Duke, xii. 
 Augustine, St., 117. 
 Austin, Mrs. Sarah, 35. 
 Autobiography of Goethe, 3, 54, 291, 
 
 385. 
 
 BACON, FRANCIS, and Goethe, 102, 
 161. 
 
 Bailey, Philip James, his Festus, 184. 
 
 Bajadere, the, Goethe's poem of, 360. 
 
 Baron de Jupiter, 349. 
 
 Bartol, Dr., his essay on Goethe and 
 Schiller, xxiii, 107-140; quoted, 27, 
 166 ; his criticism discussed, 180. 
 
 Basil, the alchemist, 385. 
 
 Basse, William, (English poet,) quoted, 
 179. 
 
 Baumgart, Dr. Hermann, the best ex- 
 positor of Das Mirchen, 136, 139, 144. 
 
 Beatrice of Dante, 110. 
 
 Benedict, St., 70. 
 
 Bernays, Professor, his Junge Goethe, 2. 
 
 Bettine, letter to, from Goethe, 283 ; 
 mentioned, 351. 
 
 Bibliography of Goethe in general, xiv; 
 of his works, xiv-xvii ; of works on, 
 xviii-xxi; papers on, xxi,xxii; con- 
 cerning Goethe's youth, 33-36; mis- 
 cellaneous, 33, 34; Herder, 34, 35; 
 Friederike Brion, 35; religious views, 
 35, 36 ; Spinoza and Pantheism, 36. 
 
 Bismarck, Prince, 108,346. 
 
448 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Bonaparte, Napoleon, remark to Qoethe, 
 
 108. 
 Botany, Goethe in, 46, 320. 
 Briou, Friederike, 11, 12, 35, 51, 167, 
 
 318, 350. 
 Brockmeyer, Henry C, quoted, 875 ; 
 
 his Letters on Faust, quoted, 388-300, 
 
 394-396, 399-402, 405, 407, 408, 410, 
 
 414,416,420,422,432. 
 Buff, Charlotte, 51. 
 Biirgerlich, 347, 356. 
 Burus, Robert, quoted, 86. 
 Byrou, Lord, read and discussed by 
 
 Goethe, 186, 187. 
 
 CS&kVi, JULIUS, of Shakespeare, 
 quoted, 376. 
 
 Captain, The, in Elective Affinities, 261, 
 262,272,273,277,278,286. 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, 116, 168, 373; his 
 opinion of Goethe, 119, 170; com- 
 pares Goethe and Schiller, 124, 125 ; 
 translates Das Marcheu, 135, 136; 
 quoted, 373 ; his critique on the 
 Helena, 438. 
 
 Charlotte, in Elective Affinities, 257- 
 260, 269-279, 282, 286, 312. 
 
 Charlotte, in Werther, 348, 356. 
 
 Chaucer, mentioned by Sir Philip Sid- 
 ney, 178 ; by Basse, 179 ; quoted, 311. 
 
 Cheney, Mrs. Ednah D., essay on Das 
 Ewig-Weibliche, xxiii, 189-250. 
 
 Child Life in Goethe, 290-312 ; in Meis- 
 ter, 295-307; in Gotz, 307-310; in 
 Faust, 310 ; as portrayed by Goethe, 
 311, 312. 
 
 Chorus in Heaven, 444. 
 
 Church, the Christian, 375, 386. 
 
 Clavigo, Goethe's, 12, 240. 
 
 Coleridge, quoted, 231 ; mentioned, 368. 
 
 Colors, Goethe's Theory of, 61, 229. 
 
 Concord School, Lectures on Goethe at, 
 xxiii; on Pantheism , xxiv ; on Dante 
 and Plato, xxv. 
 
 Corinth, Die Braut von, 360, 361. 
 
 Counterparts (novel), cited, 120. 
 
 Critique of Pure Reason, 382, 383. 
 
 Cromwell, quoted, 163. 
 
 Culture, as understood by Goethe, 40. 
 
 Cushman, Charlotte, 131. 
 
 D'ALEMBERT and Frederic the 
 Great, 158, 160. 
 
 Dante, 44, 85, 99, 374 ; and Goethe, 110, 
 231, 378 ; his Monarchy, 427. 
 
 Darwin, Charles, 114, 115. 
 
 Davidson, Thomas, 184 ; essay on 
 Goethe's Titanism, xxiii, 68-106. 
 
 Descartes, 100. 
 
 Devil, the, 174, 176, 342, 343. 
 
 Dichtung und Wahrheit, 35, 226, 385. 
 
 Dickens, Charles, mentioned, 233 ; his 
 women, 352. 
 
 Dilettanti, defined, 53. 
 
 Divina Commedia, 105, 374, 377. 
 
 Donne, John, quoted, 167. 
 
 Drama, artistic success of a, 190, 191 ; 
 technical success, 194-196 ; the com- 
 plete, 196, 197-200. 
 
 Dwight, J. S., translation of Faust 
 quoted, 218. 
 
 Dyans, 73, 74. 
 
 EARTH-SPIRIT, 388, 389, 394. 
 Easter Morning, in Faust, 396, 407. 
 
 Eckermann, conversations with Goethe, 
 3, 24; letter from Goethe, 222; 
 quoted, 247, 251, 314, 349. 
 
 Education of children, 299. 
 
 Edward in Elective Affinities, 234-236, 
 257, 258-279, 282, 286. 
 
 Egmont of Goethe, 183, 191, 200, 304 ; 
 analysis of, by Mr. Partridge, 207- 
 209 ; quoted, 364. 
 
 Elective Affinities, of Goethe, 112, 123, 
 234-236; essay on, 251-289; title of, 
 251 ; the only true novel of Goethe, 
 254 ; title justified, 256, 257 ; charac- 
 ters of, 257-271 ; plot of, 271-279 ; as 
 a work of art, 283; is not immoral, 
 284 ; fate in, 287, 288 ; lessons of life 
 in, 289. 
 
 Emerson, R. W., 34, 168, 169, 172, 305, 
 307; contrasted with Goethe, 114, 
 115 ; his criticism of Goethe, 115, 116, 
 170, 171, 172. 
 
 Emery, S. H., Jr., essay on Elective 
 Affinities, xxiii, 251-289. 
 
 Encyelopredia Britaunica, quoted, 284 ; 
 the French, 382. 
 
 Erd-Geist, the, 389, 394. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 449 
 
 Erl King, The, 361. 
 
 Erwin of Steinbach, 8. 
 
 Ethics of Spinoza, 24, 36. 
 
 Euphorion, birth of, 242, 310; 438. 
 
 Euripides, 197, 199. 
 
 Evil, treatment of, by Goethe, 175, 385. 
 
 Ewig-Weibliche, Mrs. E. D. Cheney on, 
 
 218-249 ; synopsis of this lecture, 249, 
 
 250; 361,362,367,444. 
 
 FAIR SAINT, the, 358, 359, 385. 
 Family, the institution, 242, 282, 
 374. 
 
 Eaust, (the poem,) yiii, 2, 26, 111, 115, 
 164, 200, 205, 345, 353, 357 ; quoted, 
 93, 94, 125-127, 210-220, 294, 295, 
 355 ; MSS. of, x, xi ; and Marlowe's 
 Dr. Faustus, 160, 184, 315, 316; 
 analysis of, by Mr. Partridge, 205- 
 207 ; by Mrs. Cheney, 243-246 ; sex 
 in, 247, 248 ; T)as Ewig- Wcibliche 
 in, 248; child life in, 310; essay on 
 the form, 313-344 ; conception of, 
 313-320; the poem a biography, 319 , 
 composition of, 320, 321, 328, 329; gaps 
 in, 321, 332 ; publication (1790) of the 
 Fragment, 321-323 ; small apprecia- 
 tion of this, 324 ; criticism on this, 
 324-329 ; publication (1808) of the 
 completion, 326, 328, 329 ; favorable 
 reception of this, 329 ; commentary 
 and criticism on, 329-336 ; parallel 
 criticism on the Iliad, 334 ; evolution 
 and final completion of, 342-344 ; 
 characters in, 353; design of, 392. 
 
 Faust, (the character,) 66, 93, 94, 126, 
 160, 161, 243-246, 378, 400-410 , his 
 talk with Margaret on religion, 412 ; 
 his pantheism, 413, 414, note ; his 
 journey with Mephistopheles, 417- 
 422 ; interpreted by Brockmeyer, 3it0- 
 432 ; his later life, 439-441 ; his death 
 and salvation, 441-444. 
 
 Felix, (the boy,) 295-298, 303-305. 
 
 Female and male in nature, 230 ; in 
 man, 231 ; in spirit, 2.32. 
 
 Festus, (English poem,) 184. 
 
 Fichte, 60. 
 
 Fischer, Euno, critic of Faust, yii, 330- 
 332. 
 
 France, 139 ; "where poet neTer grew," 
 174 ; in Rousseau's time, 381. 
 
 Frankfort, birthplace of Goethe, 4, 167 ; 
 home of Goethe, 15, 16 ; Gelehrte 
 Anzclycn of, 17 ; reviews in, q^uoted, 
 18-23; coronation at, 427. 
 
 Frederic the Great, sneers at Goethe 
 and German literature, 158 ; predicts 
 the future, 160 ; ignorant of Schilior, 
 160; writes to D'Alembert, 158, 16U ; 
 to VoUaine, 159 ; to Jordan, 166. 
 
 Freitag, G., quoted, 189. 
 
 French, the, in Frankfort, 4. 
 
 French literature, 139 ; its influence on 
 Goethe, 165, 381. 
 
 French Revolution, 139, 317, 380-383, 
 425 
 
 Frothingham, Dr. N. L., translation of 
 Iphigenie, 181. 
 
 GELLERT, (German poet,) 160. 
 Genius, the old Eternal, 171. 
 
 George IV., Byron's verses on, 184. 
 
 Germany, Das Marchcn a prophecy of, 
 136 ; narrative of, from the 16th cen- 
 tury to 1795, 136, 137, 138 ; Church 
 of, the Old Woman in Das Mirchen, 
 138, 144-147, 151, 152, 155 ; genius of, 
 the Youth in Das Marchen, 138, 149- 
 156 ; ideal of, the Fair Lily in Das 
 Murchen,138,142, 147-156 ; language 
 of, 158-160 ; literature of, the Ser- 
 pent in Das Marchen, 138, 141, 142, 
 145, 151, 152 ; before Goethe, 158, 
 178 ; after Goethe, 164 ; predicted by 
 Frederick the Great, 160 ; philosophy 
 of, 164. 
 
 Gesner, (German poet,) 160. 
 
 God, defined by Dr. Hedge, 25; early 
 conceptions of, 72-79 ; these affected 
 by Christianity, 82, 83 ; Goethe's 
 ideas of, 97-100, 355. 
 
 Goethe, JoUann Wolfgang von, (born 
 at Frankfort, 1749,), his youth, 1-36 ; 
 Autobiography, 3 , other accounts of 
 his youth, 4 ; early circumstances, 4 ; 
 early - letters quoted, 5 ; at Leipzig, 
 6-8 ; and Ilerdor, 8-10 ; early love 
 affairs, 1.3-15 ; early studies, 16 ; lit- 
 erary attempts, 18-21 ; connected with 
 
 29 
 
450 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 the Gelehrte Anzeigen, 17 ; reviews 
 quoted, 19-21, 225 ; standpoint of his 
 criticism, 23 ; and Spinoza, 24 ; his 
 philosophy, 25-28 ; summary of his 
 first t\7enty-fiTe years, 29 ; letters 
 quoted, 30-33, 314 ; bibliography of 
 his youth, 33-36; his Self-Culture, 
 37-67 ; an eminent example of self- 
 culture, 40 ; characteristics of his 
 style, 41 ; his creative power, 43 ; 
 as a realist, 44 ; and woman, 50- 
 52 ; objective spirit of, 55, 56 ; op- 
 posed to technicality, 59, 60 ; and 
 Keats, 61 ; opposed to specialism, 
 62 ; given to symbolizing, 63 ; his 
 Faust and Meister, 66 ; his Titan- 
 ism, 68-106, 77, 78, 338, 339 ; his 
 Pi'ometheus, 78-81, 86, 87; as com- 
 pared to Gotz, etc., 86, 87, 88-91 ; in 
 Faust, 93, 94 ; in Gott und Welt, 95 ; 
 in Meister, 95, 96 ; his conceptions 
 of God, 96, 97 ; stages of Titanism, 
 102, 103 ; complete Titanism impossi- 
 ble to, 104, 105, 106; and Schiller, 
 107-134; and Napoleon, 108; one of 
 the transcendent bards, 110 ; and 
 Dante, 110 ; and Milton, 111 ; and 
 Emerson, 114, 115; and Carlyle, 116, 
 119, 120; his faults, 110, 119 ; not a 
 Cato, 120 ; compared with Schiller, 
 121-123, 124, 128, 131-134 ; estimated 
 by Carlyle, 124, 125, 170 ; and Shake- 
 speare, 128, 129, 161; one of the Magi, 
 131 ; his Murchen (1795), 135-156 ; 
 patriotism of, 137, 138 ; and English 
 Literature, 157-188 ; and Frederic the 
 Great, 158-160 , and Milton, 160 , and 
 Bacon, 162 ; egoism of, 162 ; and Ger- 
 man literature, 163 ; models of, 165 ; 
 affected by Oriental literature, 165 ; in 
 love, 166 ; his influence on English lit- 
 erature, 168 , his real work in litera- 
 ture, 169 ; eulogized by Emerson, 170- 
 172; by Alcott, 172-176; his knowl- 
 edge of English literature, 178 , the 
 Shakespeare of Germany, 180 ; Iphi- 
 genia his most perfect drama, 181 ; 
 this quoted, 181-183 ; discussed, 183 . 
 his Faust legend, 184, 185 ; and 
 Crabhe Robinson, 185-187 ; discusses 
 Byron, 186, 18V , Milton, 185-187 ; 
 
 and Landor, 187, 188 ; as a Play- 
 wright, 189-217 ; his Gotz, 200-205 ; 
 his Faust, 206, 207; his Egmont, 
 207-209 ; his Iphigenia, 209-211 ; 
 his Tasso, 211-213, 236; his short- 
 comings as a playwright, 213, 214 ; 
 reasons for these, 215, 216 ; his 
 Bii-iy-WeihUche, 218-250 ; the climax 
 of his thought, 219 ; letters quoted, 
 222 ; his thought of woman, 223 ; his 
 different types of woman, 224 ; his 
 Wahrheit und Dichtung, 226 ; a mas- 
 culine man, 227; Elective Affinities, 
 234-236 ; Wilhelm Meister, 237, 238 ; 
 Naturliche Tochter, 238, 239; Cla- 
 vigo, 240 ; his love and marriage, 
 241 ; and domestic love, 242 ; hia 
 Elective Affinities, 251-289 ; a poetic 
 production, 252; on the Novel, 253; 
 the only true novel of, 254 ; novels 
 of, criticised, 255; letter quoted 283; 
 criticism of the Elective Affinities, 284, 
 285 ; his Child Life, 290-312 , child- 
 hood of, 291 ; early religion of, 292, 
 293 ; his parents, 294 ; and mothers, 
 310, 311 ; and woman, 311 ; and chil- 
 dren, 310-312 ; the Faust form of, 313- 
 344 ; his conception of Faust, 313, 314; 
 and Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, 316, 317 ; 
 and the Faust legend, 319 ; iu botany, 
 320 ; his composition of Faust, 320, 
 321, 328, 329 ; and the genetic method, 
 339 ; his physiology, 339 ; and bot- 
 any, 340; literary metamorphosis of, 
 340, 341 ; his completion of Meister, 
 341 ; evolution of Faust, 342-344 ; 
 his women , 345-367 ; his mother, 347; 
 his sister, 348 ; his love affairs, 346- 
 352 ; his female characters, 353, 354- 
 365; his imagination, 363; his mar- 
 riage, 363, 364 ; his sense of beauty, 
 365 ; of the pleasurable, 366 ; light- 
 diffusing, 366 ; last scene of his life, 
 367 ; his study of Gnosticism, 386 , 
 and the alchemists, 385 , unpublished 
 letters of, vii, xi-xiii ; MSS. of, in the 
 Goethe Archives, vii-xi , Diaries of, 
 in the Goethe Archives, viii, xiii, 
 xiv ; Portraits of, xiv ; Ranch's 
 bust of, xiv ; bibliography of, xiv- 
 xxii. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 451 
 
 Goethe, 'WaUher von, last descendant 
 of the poet, vi ; his will, vi. 
 
 Goethe Jahrbuch, vil. 
 
 Goethe Society and the Goethe Archives, 
 vi-xiv ; officers of, vii ; objects of, vii. 
 
 Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, read by 
 Goethe, 168. 
 
 Gospel of John, 400. 
 
 Gott und die Bajadere, Der, 360. 
 
 Gott und Welt, 29, 95. 
 
 Gotfcsched, mentioned by Goethe, 6. 
 
 Gotz von Berlichingen, (1771,) viii, 88, 
 80, 121, 158, leS, 191, 200, 307-310, 
 318, 345, 356 ; despised by Frederic 
 the Great, 159 ; translated by Sir Wal- 
 ter Scott, 168, 204 ; quoted, 309, 310 ; 
 criticised by Mr. Partridge, 200-205 ; 
 child life in, 307-310. 
 
 Greek literature, 160, 165. 
 
 Greeks, their conception of God, 69-72 ; 
 of tragedy, 183. 
 
 Grimm, Dr. Herman, 24, 226, 228, 233, 
 285, 384. 
 
 HAMLET, 112, 316, 378. 
 Handel, 15T, 158. 
 
 Harrington, John, quoted, 76. 
 
 Harris, Prof. W. T., essay on Faust, 
 xxii, 368 ; on Wilhelm Meister, xxiii. 
 
 Hayward's Faust, 173. 
 
 Hebrews, their conception of God, 68- 
 72. 
 
 Hedge, Dr. F. H. , 251 ; essay on Das 
 Marchen, xxii, 135-156. 
 
 Hegel, 252, 281,325,327. 
 
 Heine, (the poet,) 22. 
 
 Helena, 112, 126 ; quoted, 115. 
 
 Herder, 8-10 ; at Strassburg, 9, 180 ; mo- 
 rose, 121 ; criticises Goethe, 180. 
 
 Hermann und Dorothea, 112, 242. 
 
 Hewett, Prof. , v ; his account of the 
 new-found Goethe MSS. , vi-xiv. 
 
 Holy Roman Empire, 136, 137, 138, 144, 
 427. 
 
 Homer, Goethe's enthusiasm for, ix ; 
 Odyssey cited, 82 ; mentioned by 
 Frederick, 157 ; Iliad picked to pieces 
 by German critics, 334; compared 
 with Dante and Shakespeare, 369, 
 373-375. 
 
 Homunculus, in Faust, 423, 425. 
 
 Horen, Die, 135. 
 
 Howe, Mrs. Julia Ward, essay on 
 
 Goethe's women, xxiii, 345-367. 
 Howells, W. D., his women, 352. 
 Humboldt, W. von, Goethe to, 314, 384. 
 Hume, David, 382, 
 
 ICELAND, serpents in, 157. 
 Ignorance, Popular, the Giant in 
 
 Das Marchen, 143-148. 
 Indenture, Meister's, quoted, 107. 
 Inferno of Dante, 110, 377. 
 Iphigenia in Tauris, ix, 181, 191, 200, 
 
 207 ; quoted, 181-183 ; discussed, by 
 
 Mr. Sanborn, 183; analyzed by Mr. 
 
 Partridge, 209, 210, 211 ; Goethe's 
 
 most finished drama, 211. 
 
 JACOBI, 26 ; letter to, from Goethe, 
 96. 
 James, Henry, his women, 352. 
 Job, the Uzzian, 173. 
 Johnson, Samuel, quoted, 187. 
 Jonson, Ben, describes Shakespeare, 177. 
 Jordan, letter to, from Frederick the 
 
 Great, 166. 
 Julius Coesar, quoted, 129, 376. 
 Jung Stilling, quoted, 120. 
 
 KANT, IMMANUEL, 123, 166, 380- 
 383. 
 Kant, (unknown preacher,) 166. 
 Karl, in Gotz, 308-310. 
 Keats and Goethe, anecdote of, 61. 
 Kings, the Four, in Das Marchen, 138, 
 
 143-145, 153-156. 
 Klettenberg, Fraulein von, 5, 123, 358. 
 Klopstock, 22. 
 
 Kouigsberg, Frederic the Great at, 166. 
 Korner, the poet, 9, 108. 
 
 LANDOR, W. S., not known by 
 Goethe, 187, 188 ; epigiam on 
 himself, 188. 
 Leipzig, Goethe at, 6-8. 
 Lenz, 317. 
 
452 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Lessing, 26. 
 
 Levezow, Fr'aulein von, 352. 
 
 Lewes, G. H., biographer of Goethe, 352 ; 
 quoted, 2G5, 348, 351, 352, 413. 
 
 Liberal Ideas ia Germany, Will-o'-the- 
 Wisps in Das Marchen, 138, 140, 142, 
 143. 
 
 Lili (Schonemann), xii, 51, 121, 348, 350. 
 
 Lili's Menagerie, 348. 
 
 Loeper, quoted, 313, 314, 324. 
 
 Love in the English Poets, 167 ; in 
 Goethe's experience, 11, 167,180, 240- 
 243, 348 seq. ; in the Elective Affin- 
 ities, 280-282 ; infinite character of, 
 281 ; in Faust, 411, 414, 418. 
 
 Lynceus, 126. 
 
 MACARIA in Wilhelm Meister, 47, 
 2S8, 350, 359. 
 
 Macbeth, 27. 
 
 Macrocosm, in Faust, 387. 
 
 Marchen, Das, Dr. Hedge's essay on, 
 135-156 ; his introduction, 135-138 ; 
 printed in Die Horen (1795), 135; 
 a riddle, 135 ; Carlyle and Baumgart 
 the chief expositors of, 135, 136 ; 
 shows the patriotism of Goethe, 137, 
 138 ; expounded and commented on 
 by Dr. Hedge, 139-156. 
 
 Margaret, in Faust, 48, 93, 94, 112, 224, 
 354-356, 400-420. 
 
 Mariana, 237, 353. 
 
 Marianus, Doctor, 220, 443. 
 
 Marlowe, Christopher, his Dr. Faustus, 
 164, 184, 185, 316. 
 
 Marriage, in the Elective Affinities, 282 ; 
 ofGoethe, 351, 363. 
 
 Marvell, Andrew, the poet, 163, 
 
 Meissner, quoted, 185. 
 
 Meister, Wilhelm, viii, 107, 112, 163, 
 237, 253, 295, 345, 346, 353, 357, 
 378 ; quoted, 95, 201, 287, 288 ; child 
 life in, 295-307 ; completion of, 341, 
 342. 
 
 Menzel, quoted, 137. 
 
 Mephistopheles, his modem character, 
 111 ; Webster an American Mephis- 
 topheles, 174 ; his paper money, 244 ; 
 genesis of, 337, 838; his spirit of 
 negation, 392 ; his part in the Mar- 
 
 garet episode, 411, 415, 417, 419, 421 ; 
 his journey with Faust, 417-423; his 
 true character, 423 ; his conduct in 
 the Second Part, 426, 431, 435, 410. 
 
 Metaphysics, of Goethe, 113 ; of Schil- 
 ler, 106. 
 
 Microcosm, in Faust, 394. 
 
 Miguon, 224, 237, 301, 303-307, 357, 
 358 ; her death-song quoted, 125, 126 ; 
 her father, 302. 
 
 Milton, compared with Goethe, 110; 
 little read by Goethe, 185 ; discussed 
 by Goethe, 185-187 ; compared with 
 Byron, 187. 
 
 Mittler in Elective Affinities, 266, 267, 
 277-279. 
 
 Modern Women, cited, 358. 
 
 Mothers, The, in Goethe's Faust, 245- 
 247, 347, 433, 434. 
 
 Motivation, in the drama, 190, 191, 
 193, 194. 
 
 Muse, The, 171. 
 
 Music, power of, 306, 307. 
 
 NANNY, in Elective Affinities, 270. 
 Napoleon on Goethe, 108. 
 Naturliche Tochter, 238 ; quoted, 239. 
 Newton, Sir Isaac, 114, 165. 
 Novel, Analysis of the, 251-254. 
 
 OESER, Goethe's letter to, 6, 7. 
 Offenbach, quoted, 349. 
 Ophelia, in Hamlet, 112, 234. 
 Oriental literature, tasted by Goethe, 
 
 165. 
 Orpheus, 873. 
 Othello, 177, 183. 
 Ottilie, in Elective Affinities, 122, 234- 
 
 236, 262-266, 267-271, 273-279, 285- 
 
 286, 304. 
 Ovid, 180. 
 
 PAGANISM of Goethe, 96-99. 
 Pantheism : lectures on, at the 
 Concord School of Philosophy, in 
 1855, xxiii ; explained by C. E. Plump- 
 tre, 25 ; of Goethe, 121, 413 ; of Faust, 
 388. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 45a 
 
 Paradise, of Dante, 110, 377. 
 
 Parker, Theodore, quoted, 231. 
 
 Partridge, W. 0., essay on Goethe's 
 plays, xxiii, 189-217. 
 
 Pater ^staticus, 411 ; Pater Profundus, 
 442; Pater Seraphieus (St. Francis), 
 442 ; with Doctor Mariauus, 443. 
 
 Philina, 123, 224, 237, .353. 
 
 Philosophy, of Descartes, 100 ; of Kant, 
 390; of Schiller, 109,166. 
 
 Pitt, William, (Lord Chatham,) and his 
 son, 167. 
 
 Plato compared with Goethe, 161; 
 quoted, 293; his ideas, 433. 
 
 Playwright, Goethe as, 189; the suc- 
 cessful, 189, 190. 
 
 Plutarch and Plato, 433. 
 
 Plutus, in Faust, 430. 
 
 Polarity in nature, 230. 
 
 Polycrates, the ring of, 162. 
 
 Prometheus, of ^schylus, 82, 92; of 
 Goethe, 78, 81, 88-92. 
 
 Prooemion, quoted, 26. 
 
 Purgatory, of Dante, 110, 377. 
 
 RACINE, mentioned, 159, 434. 
 Religion: of early races, 68-71; 
 of Goethe, 292, 203, 413, 414, 445. 
 
 Riese, Johann Jacob, letter to, from 
 Goethe, 30, 32. 
 
 Robbers, Schiller's, 112, 160. 
 
 Robinson, H. Crabbe, quoted, 185-187 ; 
 and Goethe, 185. 
 
 Roman Elegies of Goethe, 180, 351. 
 
 Rome, Goethe visits, 183. 
 
 Rosenkranz, his criticism on the Elec- 
 tive Affinities, 285 ; quoted, 2S7. 
 
 Roussean's Heloise, 357; his Emile, and 
 Contrat Social, 381; his prose, 10, 383. 
 
 SAMSON AGONISTES, (Milton's, 
 181, 185, 186, 18T. 
 Sanborn, F. B., essay on Goethe, xxiii, 
 157-188 ; quotes Alcott, 172-176 ; 
 Basse, 179; Donne, 167; Emerson, 
 170, 172 ; Frederic the Great, 158. 
 166 ; Thoreau, 168. 
 Satan of Milton, 111 ; of Goethe, 173. 
 Schelling and Faust, 325, 326. 
 
 Schiller (the poet), contrasted with 
 Goethe, 107, 108, 109, 111, 118, 123, 
 124, 128-134 ; remark to Goethe, 113 ; 
 his virtues and vices, 118, 121, 180 ; 
 and Hume, 133; and Frederic the 
 Great, 160. 
 
 Schouborn, letter to, from Goethe, 33. 
 
 School of Philosophy, Concord, Mass., 
 T. ; list of lectures and lecturers at, in 
 1885, xxii-xxiii ; in 1886, xxiv. 
 
 Science, the Old Man with the Lamp in 
 Das Mirchen, 138, 155-147, iu2-155. 
 
 Scientific investigations of Goethe, 46, 
 60, 62, 351. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, translates Gotz von 
 Berlichingen, in 1799, 168, 204. 
 
 Self-Culture defined, 37-40. 
 
 Sessenheim, Goethe at, 2, 13. 
 
 Sex in nature, 230-232 ; in Goethe, 247, 
 248. 
 
 Shakespeare, William, read by Goethe, 
 120, 130, 192, 202; compared with 
 Goethe, 44, 48, 112, 161, 177, 368, 378 ; 
 mentioned by Goethe, 112; quoted, 
 129, 150, 376 ; described by Ben Jon- 
 son, 177 ; eulogized by Basse, 179. 
 
 Sherman, Caroline K., essay on Goethe, 
 xxiii, 290-312 ; mentioned, 285. 
 
 Sidney, Sir Philip, 163, 178. 
 
 Snider, D. J., essay on Faust, xxiii, 
 313-344 ; his exposition of the legend 
 of Faust, 18i. 
 
 Solger criticises the Elective Affinities, 
 259, 267, 268, 269, 285. 
 
 Soret, quoted, 256. 
 
 Spinoza, read by Goethe, 24 ; his Ethics, 
 24-30 ; his pantheism, 121. 
 
 Sterling, John, quoted, 116. 
 
 Stilling, Jung, quoted, 120. 
 Strassburg, Goethe at, 8, 180. 
 
 ri-lANTALUS, 181. 
 
 -L Tasso, of Goethe, viii, 188, 200, 
 
 236 ; analyzed by Mr. Partridge, 211- 
 
 213. 
 Taylor, Bayard, his translation of Faust 
 
 quoted, 218. 
 Tell, William, Schiller's, 112. 
 Tennyson, his "Higher Pantheism," 
 
 25; quoted, 241. 
 
454 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Thackeray, W. M., his women, 352. 
 
 Theresa, 224. 
 
 Thoreau, Henry D., 163. 
 
 Titanism of Goethe, 68-106, 338, 339 ; 
 
 the term explained, 68, 69, 76. 
 Titans, the, 69, 182. 
 
 VENERATION, in education, 300. 
 Vicar of Wakefield, Goldsmith's, 
 read by Goethe, 168. 
 Virgil, mentioned, 159, 160. 
 Voltaire, 10, 159. 
 Vulpius, Christiane, 350, 351. 
 
 WAGNER, in Faust, 359, 395, 
 398. 
 ■Wallenstein,113. 
 Webster, Daniel, 118, 133, 174. 
 
 Weimar, Goethe at, 185; archives at, 
 
 Ti-xiv. 
 Werther, Sorrows of, 27-29, 121, 159, 
 
 172 ; quoted, 29. 
 White, Prof. H. S., his essay on Goethe 
 
 xxii, 1-36. 
 Wjeland, (the poet,) 7. 
 Woman, treated by Goethe, 49-52,166, 
 
 180, 218-250, 345-367; satirists of, 
 
 252. 
 Wordsworth, WiUiam, 119, 163, 178; 
 
 quoted, 223. 
 
 ^OUTH of Goethe, 1-36, 291. 
 
 ZELTER, Goethe to, 186, 187, 222, 
 314. 
 
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