Life of Johann Wolfgang Goethe. James Sime
of his countrymen in vague and indiscriminate abuse of the great French people, to whose civilization he owed some of the best impulses of his life.
In 1761, after more than two years of almost constant irritation, Goethe’s father got rid of his troublesome guest, but the French did not quit Frankfort until the end of the following year, when the Seven Years’ War was about to close. Goethe’s father celebrated the conclusion of the Treaty of Hubertusburg by presenting his wife with a gold snuff-box, on the lid of which, set with diamonds, was an allegorical picture of Peace. Goethe had often to go to the goldsmith to urge him to make progress with this piece of work, and he took full advantage of the chance of having long talks with a craftsman who had much to tell him that was full of interest. This was thoroughly characteristic of Goethe, who found almost any subject attractive when he could get information about it from some one practically familiar with its details.
Lessons had been sadly interrupted during Thorane’s stay in the house. After his departure they were resumed with double vigour. Goethe had already a good knowledge of Latin, Italian, and French, and some knowledge of Greek. To these languages he now added English, and he also made considerable progress in Hebrew. For the exercises he had to write for his father he often chose the form of dialogue; and one elaborate exercise he designed as a series of letters, the various correspondents writing from different parts of the world and in different languages. It was in connection with these letters that he began the study of Hebrew, as one of the correspondents wrote in Jew-German, for a thorough mastery of which a knowledge of Hebrew seemed to be necessary.
In his twelfth year Goethe was confirmed. Even before this time he had had, in a childlike way, many a serious reflection about the supreme subjects of human thought and interest. The earthquake at Lisbon in 1755 had led him, child as he was, to ask how such disasters were to be reconciled with God’s infinite love. Shortly afterwards he took to his room a red lacquered music-stand, which he used as an altar, piling on it various objects representative of nature, and placing on the top a fine porcelain dish, in which were some pastiles that emitted, in burning, a sweet fragrance. These pastiles he lighted by means of a burning-glass which caught the rays of the rising sun; and so he sought to express reverence for aspects of the Divine essence which, he thought, were not sufficiently recognized in the ordinary religious services. He was a great reader of the Bible, and was especially attracted by the early chapters of the Book of Genesis, which transported him into an ideal world full of grave and strangely picturesque figures. The tales of this part of the Bible acquired for him, of course, fresh significance and beauty, when he was able to read them in the original Hebrew.
In 1764, when Joseph II. was elected and crowned King of the Romans, Goethe had an opportunity of seeing, at Frankfort, some of the splendid ceremonies connected with a coronation. He was then in his fifteenth year, and already he was passing through an experience which had opened a new world of joy and longing. He had fallen violently in love with a pretty girl called Gretchen, who was two or three years older than himself, and did not belong to his own class of society. On the evening of coronation-day, when the town was brilliantly illuminated, they strolled through the streets together, and on parting from him at the door of her mother’s house she honoured him for the first and last time by kissing his forehead.
Goethe had made the acquaintance of Gretchen through some comrades of his, with whom he would certainly not have been allowed to consort had his father known of his association with them. One of them, with Goethe’s aid, secured employment in a public office; and in this position he was guilty of some offence which exposed him to severe penalties. When the affair came to be investigated, Goethe’s name was mentioned in connection with it, and to his dismay, on the morning after the coronation, he had to make a clean breast of all that had been going on, including the story of his love for Gretchen. This put an end to his first romance, and for days he remained in his room, overwhelmed with grief and shame.
His, however, was too elastic a spirit to be long incapable of rebound. A friend in whom he had confidence came to his help, and with this wise counsellor he turned from thoughts of love to the study of ancient philosophy. The two together took long walks in the surrounding country, where Goethe drew sketches of scenery, which had the good fortune to please his father. And so his wounded pride and affection were quickly healed, although the incident had made so deep an impression upon him that half a century afterwards, when he wrote his autobiography, he could not recall it without a certain bitterness.
By this time Goethe’s father had decided that he was to enter the legal profession, and had begun to prepare him for future work by reading with him various law books. Goethe offered no objection, but he was already dimly conscious of some of the impulses which were to bring him to the front rank among the great names of the world; and he resolved that during his university career his energies should be devoted not to law, but to literature. In 1765, shortly after his sixteenth birthday, he said farewell to his family, and started for Leipsic, where he was to study.
He was now a handsome and vigorous youth, with comparatively wide intellectual interests; and his good looks, high spirits, and lively talk made him a universal favourite. His childhood and boyhood had been as happy as those of any great poet have ever been, and all the circumstances of his life had been favourable to natural mental growth. He had given ample evidence of quick perception, eager curiosity, and a remarkable power of penetrating to the secrets of subjects that interested him; and his great creative faculty had at least made preliminary efforts to reveal itself. Even in early boyhood he had so large a share of his mother’s gift of story-telling that groups of companions delighted to gather around him to hear his entrancing tales. He had also written many verses, the themes chosen for two of his more ambitious productions being Christ’s descent into hell and the story of Joseph and his brethren. Just before he quitted Frankfort he almost completed “Belshazzar,” a tragedy written in imitation of Klopstock’s “Solomon.” In composing this tragedy he was stimulated by a wish for the approval of some unknown beauty, whose sway over him had succeeded that of Gretchen. Never, perhaps, was there a poet more susceptible than Goethe to feminine influence, and the thorough comprehension of this deeply significant fact is essential to any true appreciation of his genius and character.
CHAPTER II.
AT Leipsic Goethe settled in two pleasant rooms in a house near the university, overlooking a court through which people were constantly passing to and fro. He happened to arrive at the time of the autumn fair, and he had an opportunity of seeing many foreigners whose appearance interested him. Leipsic, which, as the centre of the book trade, was relatively more important then than it is now, made a most agreeable impression on him, and he looked forward with delight to the years he was to spend there. He was especially charmed with the free and pleasant manners of the people, which presented a striking contrast to the somewhat formal and rigid rules of social intercourse at Frankfort.
A few days after his arrival he was admitted a student at the university. He was obliged to join some law classes, but he also heard lectures by Ernesti on Cicero’s “De Oratore,” and by Gellert on rhetoric and German literature. At first he attended his classes with exemplary diligence, but he soon made up his mind that they could not be of much service to him. The professors of law had little to say that he had not already learned at Frankfort, or that he could not readily master without their aid. Gellert’s lectures seemed to him pedantic and commonplace, and even Ernesti, a scholar of high distinction, did not help him to penetrate to the spirit, or to feel more deeply the charm, of Latin literature. During the whole time of his residence at Leipsic he continued, of course, to attend the university, but his relation to it was more nominal than real, and exercised little influence on his intellectual development.
He was received in a friendly way by Böhme, the professor of history, whose wife, a cultivated and pleasant woman, liked to talk with him. She offended him a little, however, by laughing rather too freely at some of his Frankfort modes of expression, and by disparaging the writings of his favourite poets. Every day he dined at the house of one of the medical professors, where he met chiefly students of medicine and natural science. When the novelty of his position