The Autobiography of Goethe. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
tales of my future youthful travels, often as they were repeated, I listened to eagerly, the more since they always led to accounts of Italy, and at last to a description of Naples. His otherwise serious and dry manner seemed on these occasions to relax and quicken, and thus a passionate wish awoke in us children to participate in the paradise he described.
Private lessons, which now gradually multiplied, were shared with the children of the neighbours. This learning in common did not advance me; the teachers followed their routine; and the rudeness, sometimes the ill-nature, of my companions, interrupted the brief hours of study with tumult, vexation, and disturbance. Chrestomathies, by which learn learning is made pleasant and varied, had not yet reached us. Cornelius Nepos, so dry to young people, the New Testament which was much too easy, and which by preaching and religious instructions had been rendered even common-place, Cellarius and Pasor could impart no kind of interest; on the other hand, a certain rage for rhyme and versification, a consequence of reading the prevalent German poets, took complete possession of us. Me it had seized much earlier, as I had found it agreeable to pass from the rhetorical to the poetical treatment of subjects.
We boys held a Sunday assembly where each of us was to produce original verses. And here I was struck by something strange, which long caused me uneasiness. My poems, whatever they might be, always seemed to me the best. But I soon remarked, that my competitors who brought forth very lame affairs, were in the same condition, and thought no less of themselves. Nay, what appeared yet more suspicious, a good lad (though in such matters altogether unskilful), whom I liked in other respects, but who had his rhymes made by his tutor, not only regarded these as the best, but was thoroughly persuaded they were his own, as he always maintained in our confidential intercourse. Now, as this illusion and error was obvious to me, the question one day forced itself upon me, whether I myself might not be in the same state, whether those poems were not really better than mine, and whether I might not justly appear to those boys as mad as they to me? This disturbed me much and long; for it was altogether impossible for me to find any external criterion of the truth; I even ceased from producing, until at length I was quieted by my own light temperament, and the feeling of my own powers, and lastly by a trial of skill – started on the spur of the moment by our teachers and parents, who had noted our sport – in which I came off well and won general praise.
No libraries for children had at that time been established. The old had themselves still childish notions, and found it convenient to impart their own education to their successors. Except the Orbis Pictus of Amos Comenius, no book of the sort fell into our hands; but the large folio Bible, with copperplates by Merian, was diligently gone over leaf by leaf: Gottfried's Chronicles, with plates by the same master, taught us the most notable events of Universal History; the Acerra Philologica added thereto all sorts of fables, mythologies and wonders; and, as I soon became familiar with Ovid's Metamorphoses, the first books of which in particular I studied carefully, my young brain was rapidly furnished with a mass of images and events, of significant and wonderful shapes and occurrences, and I never felt time hang upon my hands, as I always occupied myself in working over, repeating, and reproducing these acquisitions.
Popular Works.
A more salutary moral effect than that of these rude and hazardous antiquities, was produced by Fénelon's Telemachus, with which I first became acquainted in Neukirch's translation, and which, imperfectly as it was executed, had a sweet and beneficent influence on my mind. That Robinson Crusoe was added in due time, follows in the nature of things; and it may be imagined that the Island of Falsenberg was not wanting. Lord Anson's Voyage round the Globe combined the dignity of truth with the rich fancies of fable, and while our thoughts accompanied this excellent seaman, we were conducted over all the world, and endeavoured to follow him with our fingers on the globe. But a still richer harvest was to spring up before me, when I lighted on a mass of writings, which, in their present state, it is true, cannot be called excellent, but the contents of which, in a harmless way, bring near to us many a meritorious action of former times.
The publication, or rather the manufacture, of those books which have at a later day become so well known and celebrated under the name Volkschriften, Volksbücher (popular works or books), was carried on in Frankfort. The enormous sales they met with, led to their being almost illegibly printed from stereotypes on horrible blotting-paper. We children were so fortunate as to find these precious remains of the Middle Ages every day on a little table at the door of a dealer in cheap books, and to obtain them at the cost of a couple of kreutzer. The Eulenspiegel, the Four Sons of Haimon, the Emperor Octavian, the Fair Melusina, the Beautiful Magelone, Fortunatus, with the whole race down to the Wandering Jew, were all at our service, as often as we preferred the relish of these works to the taste of sweet things. The greatest benefit of this was, that when we had read through or damaged such a sheet, it could soon be reprocured and swallowed a second time.
As a family pic-nic in summer is vexatiously disturbed by a sudden storm, which transforms a pleasant state of things into the very reverse, so the diseases of childhood fall unexpectedly on the most beautiful season of early life. And thus it happened with me. I had just purchased Fortunatus with his Purse and Wishing-hat, when I was attacked by a restlessness and fever which announced the small-pox. Inoculation was still with us considered very problematical, and although it had already been intelligibly and urgently recommended by popular writers, the German physicians hesitated to perform an operation that seemed to forestall Nature. Speculative Englishmen, therefore, had come to the Continent and inoculated, for a considerable fee, the children of such persons as were opulent and free from prejudices. Still the majority were exposed to the old disease; the infection raged through families, killed and disfigured many children; and few parents dared to avail themselves of a method, the probable efficacy of which had been abundantly confirmed by the result. The evil now invaded our house and attacked me with unusual severity. My whole body was sown over with spots, and my race covered, and for several days I lay blind and in great pain. They tried the only possible alleviation, and promised me heaps of gold if I would keep quiet and not increase the mischief by rubbing and scratching. I controlled myself, while, according to the prevailing prejudice, they kept me as warm as possible, and thus only rendered my suffering more acute. At last, after a woful time, there fell as it were a mask from my face. The blotches had left no visible mark upon the skin, but the features were plainly altered. I myself was satisfied merely with seeing the light of day again, and gradually putting off my spotted skin; but others were pitiless enough to remind me often of my previous condition; especially a very lively aunt, who had formerly regarded me with idolatry, but in after years could seldom look at me without exclaiming – "The deuce, cousin! what a fright he's grown!" Then she would tell me circumstantially how I had once been her delight, and what attention she had excited when she carried me about; and thus I early learned that people very often subject us to a severe atonement for the pleasure which we have afforded them.
Diseases of Childhood.
I neither escaped measles, nor chicken-pox, nor any other of the tormenting demons of childhood; and I was assured each time that it was a great piece of good luck that this malady was now past for ever. But, alas! another again threatened in the back-ground, and advanced. All these things increased my propensity to reflection; and as I had already practised myself in fortitude, in order to remove the torture of impatience, the virtues which I had heard praised in the Stoics appeared to me highly worthy of imitation, and the more so, as something similar was commended by the Christian doctrine of patience.
While on the subject of these family diseases, I will mention a brother about three years younger than myself, who was likewise attacked by that infection, and suffered not a little from it. He was of a tender nature, quiet and capricious, and we were never on the most friendly terms. Besides, he scarcely survived the years of childhood. Among several other children born afterwards, who like him did not live long, I only remember a very pretty and agreeable girl, who also soon passed away; so that, after the lapse of some years, my sister and I remained alone, and were therefore the more deeply and affectionately attached to each other.
These maladies and other unpleasant interruptions were in their consequences doubly grievous; for my father, who seemed to have laid down for himself a certain calendar of education and instruction, was resolved immediately to repair every delay, and imposed double lessons