was here the poet escaped from court. It was here the lover was happy in his love. How modest this Garden-house really is; how far removed from anything like one's preconceptions of it! It is true, that the position is one which many a rich townsman in England would be glad of, as the site for a handsome villa: a pretty orchard and garden on a gentle slope; in front, a good carriage road, running beside a fine meadow, encircled by the stately trees of the park. But the house, a half-pay captain with us would consider a miserable cottage; yet it sufficed for the court favourite and minister. Here the Duke was constantly with him; sitting up, till deep in the night, in earnest discussion; often sleeping on the sofa instead of going home. Here both Duke and Duchess would come and dine with him, in the most simple, unpretending way; the whole banquet in one instance consisting, as we learn from a casual phrase in the Stein correspondence, of "a beer soup and a little cold meat".* There is something very pleasant in noticing these traits of the simplicity which was then practised. The Duke's own hut—the Borkenhaus—has already been described (page 194). The hut, for it was nothing else, in which Goethe lived in the Ilmenau mountains, and the more than bourgeois simplicity of the Garden House, make us aware of one thing among others, namely, that if he sacrificed his genius to a court, it assuredly was not for loaves and fishes, not for luxury and material splendour of any kind. Indeed, such things had no temptation to a man of his simple tastes. "Rich in money," he writes to his beloved, "I shall never become; but, therefore, all the richer in Confidence, Good Name, and Influence over the minds of men." It was his love of Nature which made him so indifferent to luxury. That love gave him simplicity and hardihood. In many things he was unlike his nation: notably in his voluntary exposure to two bright, wholesome things, which to his contemporaries were little less than bugbears—I mean, fresh air and cold water. The nation. which consented to live in the atmosphere of iron stoves, tobacco, and bad breath, and which deemed a pint of water all that man could desire for his ablutions, must have been greatly perplexed at seeing Goethe indulge in fresh air and cold water as enjoyingly as if they were vices. Two anecdotes will bring this contrast into relief. So great was the German reluctance to even a necessary exposure to the inclemencies of open air exercise, that historians inform us "a great propor * Compare also the Briefwechsel zwischen Karl August und Goethe, 1, 27. tion, especially among the learned classes, employed a miserable substitute for exercise in the shape of a machine, by means of which they comfortably took their dose of movement without leaving their rooms."* And Jacobs, in his Personalien, records a fact which, while explaining how the abovenamed absurdity could have gained ground, paints a sad picture of the life of German youth in those days. Describing his boyish days at Gotha, he says: "Our winter pleasures were confined to a not very spacious courtyard, exchanged in summer for a little garden within the walls, which my father hired. We took no walks. Only once a year, when the harvest was ripe, our parents took us out to spend an evening in the fields."† So little had Goethe of this prejudice against fresh air. that when he began the rebuilding of his Gartenhaus, instead of sleeping at an hotel or at the house of a friend, he lived there through all the building period; and we find him writing, "At last I have a window once more, and can make a fire." On the 3rd of May he writes, "Good morning: here is asparagus. How were you yesterday? Philip baked me a cake; and thereupon, wrapped up in my blue cloak, I laid myself on a dry corner of the terrace and slept amid thunder, lightning, and rain, so gloriously that my bed was afterwards quite disagreeable." On the 19th he writes, "Thanks for the breakfast. I send you something in return. Last night I slept on the terrace, wrapped in my blue cloak, awoke three times, at 12, 2, and 4, and each time there was a new splendour in the heavens." There are other traces of this tendency to bivouac, but these will suffice. He bathed, not only in the morning sunlight, but also in the Ilm, when the moonlight shimmered on it. Always in the free air seeking vigour "Tauche mich in die Sonne früh Bad' ab im Monde des Tages Müh'." The Duke shared this love of bathing, which December's cold could not arrest. It was here Goethe learned to swim by the aid of "corks" (which so often served him as an illustration), and no inclemency of the weather could keep him out of the water. The fascination of water luring into its treacherous depths, is wonderfully expressed by him in that ballad, which every one knows, and almost every one tries to translate. I have tried my hand in this version : THE FISHERMAN. The water rushed, the water swelled: And gazed upon his dancing float With tranquil-dreaming eye. * Biedermann: Deutschland's Politische Materielle und Sociale Zustände, i, p. 343. + Quoted by Mrs. Austin: Germany from 1760 to 1814, p. 85. And as he sits, and as he looks, She sang to him, she spake to him: With human wit and human guile Into the killing air? Couldst see how happy fishes live Thyself would plunge into the stream, "Bathe not the lovely sun and moon And with wave-breathing faces rise Lure not the misty heaven-deeps Lures not thine image, mirrored in The water rushed, the water swelled, It clasped his feet, I wis; A thrill went through his yearning heart She spake to him, she sang to him: Resistless was her strain; Half drew him in, half lured him in; He ne'er was seen again. One night, while the moon was calmly shining on our poetical bather, a peasant, returning home, was in the act of climbing over the bars of the floating bridge; Goethe espied him, and moved by that spirit of devilry which so often startled Weimar, he gave utterance to wild sepulchral tones, raised himself half out of water, ducked under, and reappeared howling, to the horror of the aghast peasant, who, hearing such sounds issue from a figure with long floating hair, fled as if a legion of devils were at hand. To this day there remains an ineradicable belief in the existence of the watersprite who howls among the waters of the Ilm, CHAPTER V. PRIVATE THEATRICALS. "LET my present life," writes Goethe to Lavater, January 1777, "continue as long as it will, at any rate I have heartily enjoyed a genuine experience of the variegated throng and press of the world —Sorrow, Hope, Love, Work, Wants, Adventure, Ennui, Impatience, Folly, Joy, the Expected and the Unknown, the Superficial and the Profound—just as the dice threw—with fêtes, dances, sledgings—adorned in silk and spangles—a marvellous ménage! And withal, dear brother, God be praised, in myself and in my real aims in life I am quite happy." "Goethe plays indeed a high game at Weimar," writes Merck, "but lives at Court after his own fashion. The Duke is an excellent man, let them say what they will, and in Goethe's company will become still more so. What you hear is Court scandal and lies. It is true the intimacy between master and servant is very great, but what harm is there in that? Were Goethe a nobleman it would be thought quite right. He is the soul and direction of everything, and all are contented with him, because he serves many and injures no Who can withstand the disinterestedness of this man?" one. He had begun to make his presence felt in the serious department of affairs; not only in educating the Duke who had chosen him as his friend, but also in practical ameliorations. He had induced the Duke to call Herder to Weimar, as Hof Prediger (court chaplain) and General-superintendent; whereat Weimar grumbled, and gossiped, setting afloat stories of Herder having mounted the pulpit in boots and spurs. Not content with these efforts in a higher circle, Goethe sought to improve the condition of the people; and among his plans we note one for the opening of the Ilmenau mines, which for many years had been left untouched. Amusement went hand in hand with business. Among the varied amusements, one, which greatly occupied his time and fancy, deserves a more special notice, because it will give us a glimpse of the court, and will also show us how the poet turned sport into profit. I allude to the private theatricals which were started shortly after his arrival. It should be premised that the theatre was still in ashes from the fire of 1774.* Seyler had carried his troupe of players elsewhere; and Weimar was without its stage. Just at this period private theatricals were even more the rage" than they are in England at present. In Berlin, Dresden, Frankfurt, Augsburg, Nuremberg, and Fulda, were celebrated amateur troupes. In Würtzburg, for a long while, a noble company put on sock and buskin; in Eisenach, Prince and court joined in the sport. Even the Universities, which in earlier times had, from religious scruples, denounced the drama, now forgot their antagonism, and in Vienna, Halle, Göttingen, and Jena, allowed the students to have private stages. The Weimar theatre surpassed them all. It had its poets, its composers, its scene painters, its costumiers. Whoever showed any talent for recitation, singing, or dancing, was pressed into service, and had to work as hard as if his bread depended on it. The almost daily rehearsals of drama, opera, or ballet, occupied and delighted men and women glad to have something to do. The troupe was distinguished: the Duchess Amalia, Karl August, Prince Constantino, Bode, Knebel, Einsiedel, Musæus, Seckendorf, Bertuch, and Goethe; with Corona Schröter, Kotzebue's sister Amalia, and Fräulein Göchhausen. These formed a curious strolling company, wandering from Weimar to all the palaces in the neighbourhood— Ettersburg, Tiefurt, Belvedere, even to Jena, Dornburg, and Ilmenau. Often did Bertuch, as Falk tells us, receive orders to have the sumpter waggon, or travelling kitchen, ready for the early dawn, when the court would start with its wandering troupe. If only a short expedition was intended, three sumpter asses were sufficient. If it was more distant, over hill and dale, far into the distant country, then indeed the night before was a busy one, and all the ducal pots and pans were in requisition. Such boiling and stewing, and roasting! such slaughter of capons, pigeons, and fowls! The ponds of the Ilm were dragged for fish; the woods were robbed of their partridges; the cellars were lightened of their wines. With early dawn rode forth the merry party, full of anticipation, wild with animal spirits. On they went through solitudes, the grand old trees of which were wont only to see the soaring hawk poised above their tops, or the wild-eyed deer bounding past the hut of the charcoal burner. On they went: youth, beauty, gladness, and hope, a goodly train, like that which animated the forest of Ardennes, when "under * On the shade of the theatre before Goethe's arrival and subsequently, see PASQUE: Goethe's Theaterleitung in Weimar, 1863. |