object; it was insufferable to me that this poet gave me nothing of himself. Many years had he my reverence certainly my earnest study, before I could comprehend his individuality. I was not yet fit to comprehend nature at first hand.' The enthusiasm for Shakespeare naturally incited Goethe to dramatic composition, and, besides Götz and Faust before-mentioned, we find in his Note-book the commencement of a drama on Julius Cæsar. Three forms rise up from out the many influences of Strasburg into distinct and memorable importance: Frederika; Herder; the Cathedral. An exquisite woman, a noble thinker, and a splendid monument, were his guides into the regions of Passion, Poetry, and Art. Herder's influence was permanent; that of the Cathedral was soon lost in others. Yet at first it was great enough to make him write the little tractate on German architecture D. M. Erwini à Steinbach; the enthusiasm of which was so incomprehensible to him in after years, that he was with difficulty persuaded to reprint the tractate among his works. Do we not see here as in so many other traits - how different the youth is from the child and man? How thoroughly he had mastered the principles upon which the Strasburg Cathedral was raised may be seen in one simple anecdote. He was considering the cathedral in company with friends, when some one remarked 'what a pity it was not finished, and that there was only one tower.' Upon which Goethe answered, that it was no less disagreeable to him to see that very tower itself unfinished; that the four volutes leave off much too abruptly; that it was evident there should have been four light spires upon them, with a higher one in the centre where the clumsy cross now stands.' Some one, turning round to him, asked him who told him that? The tower itself,' he answered; 'I have studied it so long, so attentively, and with so much love, that it has at last confessed to me its open secret.' Whereupon his questioner informed him that the tower had spoken truly, and offered to show him the original sketches, which still existed among the archives. And now he was to leave Strasburg—to leave Frederika. Much as her presence had troubled him of late, in her absence he only thought of her fascinations. He had not ceased to love her, though he already felt she never would be his. He went to say adieu. Those were painful days, of which I remember nothing. When I held out my hand to her from my horse, the tears were in her eyes, and I felt sad at heart. As I rode along the footpath to Drusenheim a strange phantasy took hold of me. I saw in my mind's eye my own figure riding towards me, attired in a dress I had never worn pike gray with silver lace. I shook off this phantasy, but eight years afterwards I found myself on the very road, going to visit Frederika, and that too in the very dress which I had seen myself in, in this phantasm, although my wearing it was quite accidental.' The reader will probably be somewhat sceptical respecting the dress, and will suppose that this prophetic detail was transferred from the fact to the vision by the imagination of later years.* And so farewell Frederika, bright and exquisite vision of a poet's youth! We love you, pity you, and think how differently we should have treated you! We make pilgrimages to Sesenheim as to Vaucluse, and write legibly our names in the Visitor's Album, to testify so much. And we read, not without emotion, narratives such as that * The correspondence with the Frau von Stein contains a letter written by him a day or two after this visit, but, singularly enough, no mention of this coincidence. of the worthy philologist Näke, who in 1822 made the first pilgrimage,* thinking, as he went, of this enchanting Frederika (and somewhat also of a private Frederika of his own), examined every rood of the ground, dined meditatively at the inn (with a passing reflection that the bill was larger than he anticipated), took coffee with the pastor's successor; and, with a sentiment touching in a snuffy philologist, bore away a sprig of the jessamine which in days gone by had been tended by the white hands of Frederika, and placed it in his pocket-book as an imperishable souvenir. * Die Wahlfahrt nach Sesenheim. 12* BOOK THE THIRD. STÜRM UND DRANG. 1771 to 1775. 'Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille, 'Trunken müssen wir alle seyn: Jugend ist Trunkenheit ohne Wein.' They say best men are moulded out of faults, And, for the most, become much more the better For being a little bad.' — Shakespeare. |