CHAPTER V.

THE CHILD IS FATHER TO THE MAN.

As in the soft round lineaments of childhood we trace the features which after years will develop into more decided forms, so in the moral lineaments of the Child may be traced the characteristics of the Man. But an apparent solution of continuity takes place in the transition period, and the Youth is in many respects unlike what he has been in childhood, and what he will be in maturity. In youth, when the passions begin to stir, the character is made to swerve from the orbit previously traced. Passion rules the hour. Thus we often see the prudent child turn out an extravagant youth; but he crystallises once more into prudence, as he hardens with age.

This was certainly the case with Goethe, who, if he had died young, like Shelley or Keats, would have left a name among the most genial, not to say extravagant of poets; but, who, living to the age of eighty-two, had fifty years of crystallisation to acquire a definite figure which perplexes critics. In his childhood, scanty as the details are which enable us to reconstruct it, we see the main features of the man.

Seldom has a boy
The multiplied

And. first of his manysidedness. exhibited such variety of tendencies. activity of his life is prefigured in the varied tendencies of his childhood. We see him as an orderly, somewhat formal, inquisitive, reasoning, deliberative child, a precocious learner, an omnivorous reader, and a vigorous logician who thinks for himself; so independent, that

at six years of age he doubts the beneficence of the Creator, and at seven, doubts the competence and justice of the world's judgment. He is inventive, poetical, proud, loving, volatile, with a mind open to all influences, swayed by every gust, and yet, while thus swayed as to the direction of his activity, master over that activity. The most diverse characters, the most antagonistic opinions interest him. He is very studious: no bookworm more so; alternately busy with languages, mythology, antiquities, law, philosophy, poetry, and religion; yet he joins in all festive scenes, gets familiar with life in various forms, and stays out late o' nights. He is also troubled by melancholy, dreamy moods forcing him ever and anon into solitude.

Among the dominant characteristics, however, are seriousness, formality, rationality. He is by no means a naughty boy. He gives his parents no tremulous anxiety as to "what will become of him." He seems very much master of himself. It is this which in later years perplexed his critics, who could not reconcile this appearance of self-mastery, this absence of expressed enthusiasm, with their conceptions of a poet. Assuredly he had enthusiasm, if ever man had it: at least, if enthusiasm (being "full of the God") means. being filled with a sublime idea, and by its light working steadily. He had little of the other kind of enthusiasm that insurrection of the feelings carrying away upon their triumphant shoulders the Reason which has no longer power to guide them. And hence it is that whereas the quality which first strikes us in most poets is Emotion, with its caprices, infirmities, and generous errors; the first quality which strikes us in Goethe the Child and Man, but not the Youth — is Intellect, with its clearness and calmness. He has also a provoking immunity from error. I say provoking, for we all gladly overlook the errors of enthusiasm : some, because these errors appeal to compassion; and

some, because these errors establish a community of impulse between the sinner and ourselves, forming, as it were, broken edges which show us where to look for support scars which tell of wounds we have escaped. But we are pitiless to the cold prudence which shames our weakness and asks no alms from our charity. Why do we all preach Prudence, and secretly dislike it? Perhaps, because we dimly feel that life without its generous errors might want its lasting enjoyments; and thus the very mistakes which arise from an imprudent, unreflecting career are absolved by that instinct which suggests other aims for existence beyond prudential aims. This is one reason why the erring lives of Genius command such deathless sympathy.

Having indicated so much, I may now ask those who are distressed by the calm, self-sustaining superiority of Goethe in old age, whether, on deeper reflection, they cannot reconcile it with their conceptions of the poet's nature? We admire Rationality, but we sympathise with Sensibility. Our dislike of the one arises from its supposed incompatibility with the other. But if a man unites the mastery of Will and Intellect to the profoundest sensibility of Emotion, shall we not say of him that he has in living synthesis vindicated both what we preach and what we love? That Goethe united these will be abundantly shown in this biography. In the chapters about to follow we shall see him wild, restless, aimless, erring, and extravagant enough to satisfy the most ardent admirer of the vagabond nature of genius: the Child and the Man will at times be scarcely traceable in the Youth.

One trait must not be passed over, namely, his want of patience, which, while it prevented his ever thoroughly mastering the technique of any one subject, lay at the bottom of his multiplied activity in directions so opposed to each other. He was excessively impressible, caught the impulse from every surrounding

influence, and was thus never constant to one thing, because his susceptibility was connected with an impatience which soon made him weary. There are men

who learn many languages, and never thoroughly master the grammar of one. Of these was Goethe. Easily excited to throw his energy in a new direction, he had not the patience which begins at the beginning and rises gradually, slowly into assured mastery. Like an eagle he swooped down upon his prey; he could not watch for it, with cat-like patience. It is to this impatience we must attribute the fact of so many works being left fragments, so many composed by snatches during long intervals. "Prometheus," "Mahomet," "Die Natürliche Tochter," "Elpenor," "Achilleis," "Nausikäa," remain fragments. "Faust," "Egmont," "Tasso," "Iphigenia," "Meister," were many years in hand. Whatever could be done in a few days — while the impulse lasted was done; longer works were spread over a series of years.