CHAPTER III.

WETZLAR.

IN the spring of 1772 he arrived at Wetzlar with Götz in his portfolio, and in his head many wild, unruly thoughts. A passage in the Autobiography amusingly illustrates his conception of the task he had undertaken in choosing to inform the world of his early history. Remember that at Wetzlar he fell in love with Charlotte, and lived through the experience which was fused into Werther, and you will smile as you hear him say: "What occurred to me at Wetzlar is of no great importance, but it may receive a higher interest if the reader will allow me to give a cursory glance at the history of the Imperial Chamber, in order to present to his mind the unfavourable moment at which I arrived." This it is to write autobiography when one has outlived almost the memories of youth, and lost sympathy with many of its agitations. At the time he was in Wetzlar he would have looked strangely on any one who ventured to tell him that the history of the Imperial Chamber was worth a smile from Charlotte; but at the time of writing his meagre account of Wetzlar, he had, perhaps, some difficulty in remembering what Charlotte's smiles were like. The biographer has a difficult task to make any coherent story out of this episode.*

In Wetzlar there were two buildings interesting above all others to us-the Imperial Court of Justice, and Das teutsche Haus. The Imperial Court was a Court of Appeal for the whole empire, a sort of German Chancery. Imagine a German Chancery! In no country does Chancery move with railway speed, and in Germany even the railways are slow. Such a chaotic accumulation of business as this Wetzlar Kammer-Gericht presented, was perhaps never seen before.

*Fortunately, during the very months in which I was rewriting this work, there appeared an invaluable record in the shape of the correspondence between Goethe and Kestner, so often alluded to by literary historians, but so imperfectly known. (Goethe und Werther. Briefe Goethe's, meistens aus seiner Jugendzeit. Herausgegeben von A. Kestner: 1854). This book, which is very much in need of an editor, is one of the richest sources to which access has been had for a right understanding of Goethe's youth; and it completes the series of corroborative evidence by which to control the autobiography.

Twenty thousand cases lay undecided on Goethe's arrival, and there were but seventeen lawyers to dispose of them. About sixty was the utmost they could get through in a year, and every year brought more than double that number to swell the heap. Some cases had lingered through a century and a half, and still remained far from a decision. This was not a place to impress the sincere and eminently practical mind of Goethe with a high idea of Jurisprudence.

Das teutsche Haus was one of the remnants of the ancient institution of the Teutsche Ritter, or Teutonic Order of Knighthood, celebrated in German medieval history. The student is familiar with the black armour and white mantles of these warrior-priests, who fought with the zeal of missionaries and the terrible valour of knights, conquering for themselves a large territory, and still greater influence. But it fared with them as with the knights of other Orders. Their strength lay in their zeal; their zeal abated with success. Years brought them increasing wealth, but the spiritual wealth and glory of their cause departed. They became what all corporations inevitably become; and at the time now written of they were reduced to a level with the knights of Malta. The Order still possessed property in various parts of Germany, and in certain towns there was a sort of steward's house, where rents were collected and the business of the Order transacted; this was uniformly styled das teutsche Haus. There was such a one in Wetzlar; and the Amtmann, or steward, who had superintendence over it, was a certain Herr Buff, on whom the reader is requested to fix his eye, not for any attractiveness of Herr Buff, intrinsically considered, but for the sake of his eldest daughter, Charlotte. She is the heroine of this Wetzlar episode.

Nor was this house the only echo of the ancient Ritterthum in Wetzlar. Goethe, on his arrival, found there another, and more consciously burlesque parody, in the shape of a Round Table and its Knights, bearing such names as St. Amand the Opiniative, Eustace the Prudent, Lubormirsky the Combative, and so forth. It was founded by August Friedrich von Goué, secretary to the Brunswick Embassy, of whom we shall hear more: a wild and whimsical fellow, not without a streak of genius, who drank himself to death. He bore the title of Ritter Coucy, and christened Goethe "Götz von Berlichingen der Redliche-Götz the Honest". In an imitation of Werther which Goué wrote,* a scene introduces this Round Table at one of its banquets at the Tavern ; a knight sings a French song,

* Masuren, oder der junge Werther. Ein Trauerspiel aus dem Illyrischen. 1775.

whereupon Götz exclaims, "Thou, a German Ritter, and singest foreign songs!" Another knight asks Götz, "How far have you advanced with the monument which you are to erect to your ancestor?" Götz replies, "It goes quietly forward. Methinks it will be a slap in the face to pedants and the public."*

Of this Round Table and its buffooneries, Goethe has merely told us that he entered heartily into the fun at first, but soon wearying of it, relapsed into his melancholy fits. "I have made many acquaintances," says Werther, "but have found no society. I know not what there is about me so attractive that people seek my company with so much ardour. They hang about me, though I cannot walk two steps in their path." A description of him, written by Kestner at this period, is very interesting, as it gives us faithfully the impression he produced on his acquaintances before celebrity had thrown its halo round his head, and dazzled the perceptions of his admirers:

"In the spring there came here a certain Goethe, by tradet a Doctor Juris, twenty-three years old, only son of a very rich father; in order this was his father's intention-that he might get some experience in praxi, but according to his own intention, that he might study Homer, Pindar, etc., and whatever else his genius, his manner of thinking, and his heart might suggest to him.

"At the very first the beaux esprits here announced him to the public as a colleague, and as a collaborator in the new Frankfurt Gelehrte Zeitung, parenthetically also as a philosopher, and gave themselves trouble to become intimate with him. As I do not belong to this class of people, or rather am not so much in general society, I did not know Goethe until later, and quite by accident. One of the most distinguished of our beaux esprits, the Secretary of Legation Gotter, persuaded me one day to go with him to the village of Garbenheim-a common walk. There I found him on the grass, under a tree, lying on his back, while he talked to some persons standing round him-an epicurean philosopher (von Goué, a great genius), a stoic philosopher (von Kielmansegge), and a hybrid between the two (Dr. König)-and thoroughly enjoyed himself. He was afterwards glad that I had made his acquaintance under such circumstances. Many things were talked of-some of them very interesting. This time, however, I formed no other judgment concerning him than that he was no ordinary man. You know that I

"Ein Stück das Meister und Gesellen auf's Maul schlägt." Cited by APPELL: Werther und seine Zeit, p. 38.

+ Seiner Handthierung nach. The word is old German, and now fallen out of use, although the verb handthieren is still occasionally used.

do not judge hastily. I found at once that he had genius, and a lively imagination; but this was not enough to make me estimate him highly.

"Before I proceed further, I must attempt a description of him, as I have since learned to know him better. He has a great deal of talent, is a true genius and a man of character; possesses an extraordinarily vivid imagination, and hence generally expresses himself in images and similes. He often says, himself, that he always speaks figuratively, and can never express himself literally; but that when he is older he hopes to think and say the thought itself as it really is. He is ardent in all his affections, and yet has often great power over himself. His manner of thinking is noble: he is so free from prejudices that he acts as it seems good to him, without troubling himself whether it will please others, whether it is the fashion, whether conventionalism allows it. All constraint is odious to him.

"He is fond of children, and can occupy himself with them very much. He is bizarre, and there are several things in his manners and outward bearing which might make him disagreeable. But with children, women, and many others, he is nevertheless a favourite. He has a great respect for the female sex. In principiis he is not yet fixed, and is still striving after a sure system. To say something of this, he has a high opinion of Rousseau, but is not a blind worshipper of him. He is not what is called orthodox. Still this is not out of pride or caprice, or for the sake of making himself a rôle. On certain important subjects he opens himself to few, and does not willingly disturb the contentment of others in their own ideas. It is true he hates scepticism, strives after truth and after conviction on certain main points, and even believes that he is already convinced as to the weightiest; but as far as I have observed, he is not yet so. He does not go to church or to the sacrament, and prays seldom. For, says he, I am not hypocrite enough for that. Sometimes he seems in repose with regard to certain subjects, sometimes just the contrary. He venerates the Christian religion, but not in the form in which it is presented by our theologians. He believes in a future life, in a better state of existence. He strives after truth, yet values the feeling of truth more than the demonstration. He has already done much, and has many acquirements, much reading; but he has thought and reasoned still more. He has occupied himself chiefly with the belles lettres and the fine arts, or rather with all sorts of knowledge, except that which wins. bread."

On the margin of this rough draught, Kestner adds: "I wished to describe him, but it would be too long a business, for there is much to be said about him. In one word, he is a very remarkable man."

Further on: "I should never have done, if I attempted to describe him fully."

The Gotter referred to at the opening of this letter was a young man of considerable culture, with whom Goethe became intimate over renewed discussions on art and criticism. "The opinions of the ancients," he says, "on these important topics I had studied by fits and starts for some years. Aristotle, Cicero, Quinctilian, Longinus-none were neglected, but they did not help me, for they presupposed an experience which I needed. They introduced me to a world infinitely rich in works of art; they unfolded the merits of great poets and orators, and convinced me that a vast abundance of objects must lie before us ere we can think upon them-that we must accomplish something, nay fail in something, before we can learn our own capacities and those of others. My knowledge of much that was good in ancient literature was merely that of a schoolboy, and by no means vivid. The most splendid orators, it was apparent, had formed themselves in life, and we could never speak of them as artists without at the same time mentioning their personal peculiarities. With the poets this was perhaps less the case: but everywhere nature and art came in contact only through life. And thus the result of all my investigations was my old resolution to study Nature, and to allow her to guide me in loving imitation."

Properly to appreciate this passage we must recall the almost universal tendency of the Germans to construct poems in conformity with definite rules, making the poet but a development of the critic. Lessing nobly avowed that he owed all his success to his critical sagacity; Schiller, it is notorious, hampered his genius by fixing on his Pegasus the leaden wings of Kant's philosophy; and Klopstock himself erred in too much criticism. Goethe was the last man to disdain the rich experience of centuries, the last man to imagine that ignorance was an advantageous basis for a poet to stand upon, but he was too thoroughly an artist not to perceive the insufficiency of abstract theories in the production of a work of art which should be the expression of real experience.

In conjunction with Gotter he translated Goldsmith's "Deserted Village," though he speaks slightingly of his share in it. Through Gotter's representations he was also persuaded to publish some little