ciety. In youth the loss of illusions is generally followed by a cynical misanthropy, or a vehement protest. But Goethe is neither cynical nor indignant. He seems to accept the fact as a thing to be admitted, and quietly striven against, with a view to its amelioration. He seems to think with the younger Pliny, that indulgence is a part of justice, and would cite with approval the favorite maxim of the austere yet humane Thraseas, qui vitia odit homines odit, he who hates vice hates mankind.* For in the Mitschuldigen he presents us with a set of people whose consolation is to exclaim Rogues all!' — and in after years he wrote of this piece, that it was dictated, though unconsciously, by far-sighted tolerance in the appreciation of moral actions, as expressed in the eminently Christian sentence, "Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone.' 6 How great is the anticipation of moral development implied in those words! how little Christians have in practice taken that profound saying to their hearts! and yet how deeply the universal heart affirms the truth of the saying which universal practice denies! Who does not say Amen to the words, and who is not ready to cast the first stone upon any and every offender? Nay, so ready are we to cast stones, that Goethe will not escape for having shown so much moral laxity' (that is one of the adroit phrases with which men whisper away good names); so much indifference' under the mask of tolerance; so great a power of representing life, with so utter an absence of any moral verdict on the scenes presented. * Pliny, lib. viii. 22. Years after the text was written, Schöll published Goethe's note book kept at Strasburg, wherein may be read this very aphorism transcribed. It was just the sort of passage to captivate him. we CHAPTER III. ART STUDIES. FRAU BÖHME died. In her he lost a monitress and friend, who had kept some check on his waywardness, and drawn him into society. The Professor had long since cooled towards him, after giving up all hopes of making him another Heineccius. It was pitiful: another ornament to jurisprudence irrecoverably lost! A youth with such remarkable dispositions, who would not be assiduous in attendance at lecture, and whose amusement during lecture was to sketch caricatures of various law dignitaries in his note book! Indeed, the collegiate aspect of this Leipsic residence is not one promising to professors; but instructed by the result know how much better he was employed, than if he had filled a hundred volumes of note books by diligent attendance at lecture. He studied much in his desultory manner; he studied Molière and Corneille; he began to translate Le Menteur. The theatre was a perpetual attraction; and even the uneasy, unsatisfied condition of his affections, was instructing him in directions whither no professor could lead him. But greater than all was the influence of Shakespeare, whom he first learned a little of through Dodd's Beauties of Shakespeare, a work not much prized in England, where the plays form part of our traditional education, but which must have been a revelation to the Germans, something analogous to what Charles Lamb's Specimens of the Old English Drama was to us. The marvellous strength and beauty of language, the bold and natural imagery of these Beauties, startled the young poets of that day, like the huge fossil remains of some antediluvian fauna; and to gratify the curiosity thus awakened, there came Wieland's prose translation of several plays, which Goethe studied with enthusiasm. There are no materials to fill up the lacune of his narrative here, so that I am forced to leave much indistinct. For instance, he has told us that Käthchen and he were no longer lovers; but we find him writing to her in a friendly and even lover-like tone from Frankfurt, and we know that friendly intercourse still subsisted between them. Of this, however, not a word occurs in the Autobiography. Nor are we accurately informed how he made the acquaintance of the Breitkopf family. Breitkopf was a bookseller in Leipsic, in whose house Literature and Music were highly prized. Bernhard, the eldest son, was an excellent performer, and composed music to Goethe's songs, which were published in 1769, under this title : Neue Lieder in Melodieen gesetzt von Bernhard Theodor Breitkopf. The poet is not named. This Liederbuch contains twenty songs, the majority of which were subsequently reprinted in the poet's works. They are love songs, and contain a love-philosophy more like what is to be found in Catullus, Horace, and Wieland, than what one would expect from a boy, did we not remember how the braggadocio of youth delights in expressing roué sentiments, as if to give itself airs of profound experience. This youth sings with gusto of inconstancy : Da fühl ich die Freuden der Wechselden Lust. He gaily declares that if one mistress leaves you another will love you, and the second is sweeter to kiss than the first: Es küsst sich so süsse der Busen der Zweiten, Another acquaintance, and one more directly influential, was that of Oeser, the director of the Drawing Academy. He had been the friend and teacher of Winckelmann, and his name stood high among connoisseurs. Goethe, who at home had learned a little drawing, joined Oeser's class, where, among other fellow-students, was the Hardenberg who afterwards made such a noise in the Prussian political world. He joined the class, and did his best to acquire by labor the skill which only a talent can acquire. That he made little progress in drawing, we learn from his subsequent confession, no less than from his failure, but tuition had this effect at least, it taught him to use his eyes. In a future chapter* I shall have occasion to enter more fully on this subject. Enough if for the present a sentence or two from his letters tells us the enthusiasm 6 Oeser inspired. 'What do I not owe to you,' he writes to him, 'for having pointed out to me the way of the True and the Beautiful!' and concludes by saying, the undersigned is your work!' Writing to a friend of Oeser's, he says that Oeser stands beside Shakespeare and Wieland in the influence exercised over him. 'His instruction will influence my whole life. He it was who taught me that the Ideal of Beauty is Simplicity and Repose, and thence it follows that no youth can be a master.' Instruction in the theory of Art he gained from Oeser, from Winckelmann, and from the incomparable little book which Lessing at this period carelessly flung upon the *See Book V. ch. v. world—the Laokoon. Its effect upon Goethe can only be appreciated by those who early in life have met with this work, and risen from it with minds widened, strengthened and inspired. It opened a pathway amid confusion, throwing light upon many of the obscurest problems which torment the artist. It awakened in Goethe an intense yearning to see the works of ancient masters; and these beckoned from Dresden. To Dresden he went. But here, in spite of Oeser, Winckelmann, and Lessing, in spite of grand phrases about Art, the invincible tendency of his nature asserted itself, and instead of falling into raptures with the great Italian pictures, he confesses that he took their merits upon trust, and was really charmed by none but the landscape and Dutch painters, whose subjects appealed directly to his experience. He did not feel the greatness of Italian Art; and what he did not feel he would not feign. It is worth noticing that this trip to Dresden was taken in absolute secrecy. As, many years later, he stole away to Italy without letting his friends even suspect his project, so now he left Leipsic for Dresden without a word of intimation. Probably the same motive actuated him in both instances. He went to see, to enjoy, to learn, and did not want to be disturbed by personal influence — by other people's opinions. He On his return he was active enough with drawing. made the acquaintance of an engraver named Stock, and with his usual propensity to try his hand at whatever his friends were doing, he forthwith began to learn engraving. In the Morgenblatt for 1828 there is a detailed account *This Stock had two amiable daughters, one of whom married (1785) Körner, the correspondent of Schiller, and father of the poet. |