The Story of Goethe's Life; (Abridged from His Life and Works of Goethe)
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pi In tl)e $re&$ : BY THE SAME AUTHOR, PROBLEMS OF LIFE AND MIND. y THE STORY OF GOETHE'S LIFE. t 1 THE STORY OF GOETHE'S LIFE. BY GEORGE HENRY LEWES. (Abridged from his "Life and Works of Goethe.") .0 l^l II BOSTON : JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co. 1873. University Press: Welch, Bigelow, & Co., Cambridge. MICROFILMED BY UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY MASTER.NEGATIVE NO.: <*#*>** **.f <> PREFACE. It has been represented to me, by my friend the publisher, that there are many readers who may feel considerable inter- est in the story of a great poet's life and aims, though they are not greatly attracted by criticisms and details in relation to works written in a foreign language and but partially acces- sible through translations. In compliance with this sugges- tion, I have detached from my Life of Goethe a continuous narrative, which will present the outward events of an ever- memorable career, and indicate the leading characteristics of an immortal genius. The present volume is in no sense intended to replace the original Biography, which will probably continue to have the greater interest for readers whose tastes and acquirements lie in the direction of German literature. The Priory, November, 1872. 1* tt CONTENTS. Page Preface vii BOOK THE FIRST. 1749 to 1765. Chapter I. Parentage 11 II. The Precocious Child 19 III. Various Studies 34 IV. The Child is Father to the Man .... 42 BOOK THE SECOND. 1765 to 1771. I. The Leipsic Student 46 II. Art Studies 53 III. Return Home 58 IV. Strasburg 61 V. Herder and Frederika 74 BOOK THE THIRD. 1771 to 1775. I. Dr. Goethe's Return 92 II. Wetzlar 102 III. Preparations for Werther 115 IV. The Literary Lion 140 V. Lili 147 x CONTENTS. BOOK THE FOURTH. 1775 to 1779. I. Weimar in the Eighteenth Century . .156 II. The First Wild Weeks at Weimar .... 177 III. The Frau von Stein 192 IV. Private Theatricals 199 V. Many-colored Threads 206 VI. The Real Philanthropist 214 BOOK THE FIFTH. 1779 to 1793. I. New Birth 231 II. Preparations for Italy 247 III. Italy 255 IV. Return Home 262 V. Christiane Vulpius 269 VI. The Poet as a Man of Science .... 275 VII. The Campaign in France 319 BOOK THE SIXTH. 1794 to 1805. I. Goethe and Schiller 323 .,11. The Romantic Schooi 338 III. Schiller's Last Years 344 BOOK THE SEVENTH. 1805 to 1832. I. The Battle of Jena 355 II. Goethe's Wife 360 III. Bettina and Napoleon 364 IV. Politics and Religion 376 V. The Activity of Age 386 VI. The Closing Scenes 395 THE STORY OF GOETHE'S LIFE. BOOK THE FIRST. 1749 TO I765. CHAPTER I. PARENTAGE. Quintus Curtius tells us that, in certain seasons, Bactria was darkened by whirlwinds of dust, which completely- covered and concealed the roads. Left thus without their usual landmarks, the wanderers awaited the rising of the stars, " To light them on their dim and perilous way." May we not say the same of Literature? From time to time its pathways are so obscured beneath the rubbish of the age, that many a footsore pilgrim seeks in vain the hidden route. In such times it may be well to imitate the Bactri- ans : ceasing to look upon the confusions of the day, and turning our gaze upon the great Immortals who have gone before, we may seek guidance from their light. In all ages the of fruitful in lessons biographies great men have been ; in all ages they have been powerful stimulants to a noble ambition in all have been as armories j ages they regarded wherein are gathered the weapons with which great battles have been won. 12 7ZK STORY OF GOETHE'S LIFE. [book t. There may be some among my readers who will dispute Goethe's claim to greatness. They will admit that he was a rf great poet, but deny that he was a great man. In deny- will ing it, they set forth the qualities which constitute their ideal of greatness, and finding him deficient in some of these qualities, will dispute his claim. But in awarding him that title, I do not mean to that he was an ideal I imply man ; do not present him as the exemplar of all greatness. JNo man can be such an exemplar. Humanity reveals itself in \S fragments. One man is the embodiment of one kind of another excellence, of another. Achilles wins the victory, and Homer immortalizes it : we bestow the laurel crown on both. In virtue of a genius such as modern times have only seen equalled once or twice, Goethe deserves the epithet of great. Nor is it in virtue of genius alone that he deserves the title. Merck said of him that what he lived was more beautiful than what he wrote and his all ; life, amid its weaknesses and all its errors, presents a picture of a certain grandeur of soul, which cannot be contemplated unmoved. I shall make no attempt to conceal his faults. Let them be dealt with as harshly as severest justice may dictate, they will not eclipse the central light that shines throughout his life. And without wishing to excuse or to conceal faults which he assuredly had, we must always bear in mind that the faults of a celebrated man are apt to carry an undue emphasis : they are thrown into stronger relief by the very of his fame. never written Faust no r splendor Had Goethe % one would have heard that he was an inconstant lover, and a tepid politician. His glory immortalizes his shame. In the middle of the seventeenth century the little town of Artern, in the Grafschaft of Mansfeld, in Thuringia, num- bered among its scanty inhabitants a farrier, by name Hans Christian Goethe. His son Frederick, being probably of a 1 PARENTAGE. 749- J ^ more meditative turn, selected a more meditative employment than that of shoeing horses : he became a tailor. Having passed an apprenticeship, he commenced his wanderings, in the course of which he reached Frankfurt. Here he soon found " employment, and being, as we learn, a ladies' man," he soon also found a wife. The master tailor, Sebastian Lutz, gave him his daughter on his admission to the citizenship of Frank- furt and to the guild of tailors. This was in 1687. Several vanished in his children were born, and ; 1700 wife, too, van- ished, to be replaced, five years afterwards, by Frau Cornelia the of another Walter she Schellhorn, daughter tailor, Georg ; was then a widow, blooming with six-and-thirty summers, and possessing the solid attractions of a good property, namely, the hotel "Zum Weidenhof," where her new husband laid down the scissors, and donned the landlord's apron. He had two sons by her, and died in 1730, aged seventy-three. Of these two sons, the younger, Johann Caspar, was the father of our poet. Thus we see that Goethe, like Schiller, sprang from the people. He makes no mention of the lucky tailor, nor of the Thuringian farrier, in his autobiography. This silence may be variously interpreted. At first, I im- agined it was aristocratic prudery on the part of von Goethe, minister and nobleman but it is never to ; well put ungen- erous constructions, when others, equally plausible and more are let us Sir honorable, ready \ rather follow the advice of " Arthur Helps, and employ our imagination in the service of charity." We can easily imagine that Goethe was silent about the tailor, because, having never known him, there was none of that affectionate remembrance which encircles the objects of early life, to make this grandfather figure in the autobiog- raphy beside the grandfather Textor, who was known and loved. Probably, also, the tailor was seldom talked of in the parental circle. There is a peculiar and indelible ridicule 77/Z; STORY OF LIFE. i. I4 p GOETHE'S [hook attached to the idea of a tailor .in Germany, which often pre- vents people of much humbler pretensions than Goethe from whispering their connection with such a trade. Goethe does mention this grandfather in the Second Book of his Autobi- ography, and tells us how he was teased by the taunts of boys his humble these respecting parentage j taunts even went so far as to imply that he might possibly have had several grand- fathers and he to ; began speculate on the possibility of some latent aristocracy in his descent. This made him examine with some the curiosity portraits of noblemen, to try and de- tect a likeness. Johann Caspar Goethe received a good education, trav- elled into Italy, became an imperial councillor in Frankfurt, and married, in 1748, Katharina Elizabeth, daughter of Johann Wolfgang Textor, the chief magistrate (Schultheiss)* Goethe's father was a cold, stern, formal, somewhat pedan- tic, but truth-loving, upright-minded man. He hungered for in of a laconic knowledge j and, although general turn, freely imparted all he learned. In his domestic circle his word was law. Not only imperious, but in some respects capricious, he was, nevertheless, greatly respected, if little loved, by wife, children, and friends. He is characterized by Krause as ein geradliniger Frankfurter Reichsbilrger, "a formal Frankfurt citizen," whose habits were as measured as his gait.f From * The family of Textor and Weber exist to this day, and under both names, in the Hohenlohe territory. Karl Julius Weber, the humorous author of Democritus and of the Briefe eines in Deutschland reisenden Deutschen, was a member of it.