five acts! Poor Schiller, subsequently, was glad to write histories and translate memoirs for fifteen or eighteen shillings a sheet of sixteen pages. In Stella I can trace no biographical element, and perhaps the absence of this element makes the weakness of the drama. A poorer production was never owned by a great poet; although there have not been wanting critics to see in this also the broad handling of a master. It is the old story of the Count von Gleichen and his two wives. Fernando has deserted his wife, and formed an attachment to Stella; but the peculiarity of the situation is, that he quitted Cecilia, his wife, from no assignable cause, without even having outlived his love for her. He has indeed every reason to respect and cherish her as the mother of his child, and as a high-principled, virtuous woman; but he flies from her like a coward, flies to one more passionate, because she gives him the transports of passion in exchange for his wife's calm affection. The two women meet, and discover their love for the same man. Here is a fine dramatic collision. On the one side Fernando sees Duty in the shape of a noble, suffering wife, and an engaging daughter; on the other, Passion in the shape of a fascinating mistress. But with this suggestive subject Goethe has done little. He shows us the contemptible weakness of the wavering Fernando, but the subject he has not powerfully wrought out. As I cannot recommend anyone to read this play, the two masterly touches it contains may here be cited. The following is delicately observed : We women believe in men ! In the ardour of passion they deceive themselves, how then can we help being deceived by them? This also is charming: Ferdinand returns to Stella after a long absence, and in their endearments she says: Stella. How we love you! We do not think of the grief you cause us! Fernando (stroking her hair). And has the grief made your hair grey? It is fortunate your hair is so golden. . . nay, none seems to have fallen out! (Takes the comb from her hair, which falls on her shoulders. He then twines the hair round his arm, exclaiming :) Rinaldo once more in the ancient chains! Artists complain of the dearth of subjects; will no one try his hand at that? Originally the dénouement of this "Play for lovers" (as it was called) solved the difficulty by a romantic piece of bigamy. Fernando is about to fly with Cecilia-about to return to his duty, when his wife-compassionating the situation of Stella, if Fernando should leave her-resolves to sacrifice her conjugal claims, and to share him with Stella! The curtain falls as he embraces them both, exclaiming, 'Mine! mine!' This roused vehement opposition. It was said to be a plea in favour of bigamy. The public dimly felt that instead of being a proper solution of the problem, it was on the whole rather ridiculous. Still more unsatisfactory however, if deeply considered, is the dénouement which was added when the play was produced at Weimar, and which now takes the place of the original in his collected works. Therein Fernando, unable to quit Stella, and unable to quit his wife, weeps with both, and blows his brains out. This is an evasion of the difficulty, not a solution. In 1798, a feeble translation of Stella was published in England, and suggested to Canning his admirable caricature, The Rovers, familiar to all readers of the Antijacobin. Among the ludicrous passages of this parody is the famous vow of friendship: "Matilda. A sudden thought strikes me. Let us swear an eternal friendship. "Cecilia. Let us agree to live together." But this is really a very slight variation from the original : Stella. Madame! Da fährt mir ein Gedanke durch den Kopf-Wir wollen einander das seyn, was sie uns hätten werden sollen! Wir wollen beisammen bleiben! -Ihre hand!-Von diesen Augenblick an, lass' ich Sie nicht! Besides Stella, he seemed to have worked at Faust, and to have written the opera of Claudine von Villa Bella, several passages for Lavater's Physiognomy, and many smaller poems. The Stolbergs, with whom the Swiss journey was made, were two ardent admirers of Klopstock, and two specimens of the defiant "genius" class which scorned convention. They hated imaginary tyrants; outraged sober citizens by their reckless recurrence to a supposed state of nature; and astonished sensible citizens by their exaggerated notions of friendship. Merck was pitiless in his sarcasms and warnings. He could not tolerate the idea of Goethe's travelling with these Burschen. But Goethe had too much of kindred devilry in him, breaking out at moments, to object to the wildness. of his companions; though he began to suspect all was not right when, after violating every other convenance, they insisted on bathing in public. Nature having nothing to say against naked youths in the bright sunshine, what business had old Humdrum to cover its. eyes with modest hands, and pretend to be shocked? However, so little prepossessed was Humdrum in favour of the Nude, that stones were showered upon these children of Nature; a criticism which effectively modified their practice, if it failed to alter their views. Drinking the health of Stolberg's mistress, and then dashing the glasses against the wall to prevent their being desecrated by other lips after so solemn a consecration (a process which looked less heroic when item'd in the bill next day), and otherwise demeaning themselves like true children of "genius", they passed a wild and merry time. This journey need not longer detain us. Two visits alone deserve mention. One was to Karl August, who was then in Karlsruhe arranging his marriage with the Princess Luise, and who very pressingly invited the poet to Weimar. The other was to his sister Cornelia, who earnestly set before him all the objections to a marriage with Lili. "I made no promises," he says, "although forced to confess that she had convinced me. I left her with that strange feeling in my heart with which passion nourishes itself; for the boy Cupid clings obstinately to the garment of Hope even when she is preparing with long strides to depart." The image of Lili haunted him amid the lovely scenes of Nature: Dearest Lili, if I did not love thee How entrancing were a scene like this! What were any bliss ? It was her image which endeared him to his native land. His father, always desirous he should see Italy, was now doubly anxious he should go there, as the surest means of a separation from Lili. But "Lombardy and Italy," says the poet, "lay before me a strange land; while the dear home of Germany lay behind, full of sweet domesticities, and where-let me confess it-she lived who so long had enchained me, in whom my existence was centred. A little golden heart, which in my happiest hours I had received from her, still hung round my neck. I drew it forth and covered it with kisses." On his return to Frankfurt he learned that Lili's friends had taken advantage of his absence, to try and bring about a separation, arguing, not without justice, that his absence was a proof of lukewarmness. But Lili remained firm; and it was said that she had declared herself willing to go with him to America. A sentence from the Autobiography is worth quoting, as a specimen of that love "so unlike the love to be found in novels", which he declared had given a peculiar tone to his narrative. It is in reference to this willingness of Lili to go to America: "the very thing which should have. animated my hopes depressed them. My fair paternal house, only a few hundred paces from hers, was after all more endurable and attractive than a remote, hazardous spot beyond the seas!" A sentence which recalls Gibbon's antithesis, on his resignation of his early love: "I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son." He was restless and unhappy during these months, for he was not strong enough to give up Lili, nor sufficiently in love to marry her; jealous of those who surrounded her, hurt by her coldness, he was every now and then led captive by her tenderness. There were moments when by-gone days seemed once more restored, and then instantly vanished again. His poem of Lili's Menagerie expresses his surly disgust at the familiar faces which surround her. The Bear of the menagerie is a portrait of himself. Turning to Art for consolation, he began the tragedy of Egmont, which he completed many years afterwards in Italy. It was a work which demanded more repose than could be found in his present condition, and I hasten to the dénouement of an episode, which, amid fluctuations of feeling, steadily advanced to an end that must have been foreseen. The betrothal was cancelled. He was once more free. Free, but not happy. His heart still yearned for her, rather because there lay in his nature a need of loving, than because she was the woman fitted to share his life. He lingered about the house o' nights, wrapped in his mantle, satisfied if he could catch a glimpse of her shadow on the blind, as she moved about the room. One night he heard her singing at the piano. His pulses throbbed, as he distinguished his own song: Wherefore so resistlessly dost draw me the song he had written in the morning of their happiness! Her voice ceased. She rose, and walked up and down the room, little dreaming that her lover was beneath her window. To give decision to his wavering feelings, there came, most opportunely, a visitor to Frankfurt. This was in September. Karl August, with his bride, on his way to Weimar, once more pressed him to spend a few weeks at his court. The rapid inclination which had sprung up between the Prince and the Poet-the desire to see something of the great world-the desire, moreover, to quit Frankfurt, all combined to make him eagerly accept the invitation. His father, indeed, tried to dissuade him; partly because he did not like the intercourse of plain citizens with princes; partly because the recent experience of Voltaire with Frederick the Great seemed to point to an inevitable termination in disgrace, if not evaded by servility. His consent was extorted at last, however, and Goethe quitted for ever the paternal roof. BOOK THE FOURTH. 1775 to 1779. 'Quis novus hic nostris successit sedibus hospes ? Virgil. CHAPTER I. WEIMAR IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. On the 7th of November, 1775, Goethe, aged twenty-six, arrived at the little city on the banks of the Ilm, where his long residence was to confer on an insignificant Duchy the immortal renown of a German Athens. Small indeed is the space occupied on the map by the Duchy of Saxe-Weimar; yet the historian of the German Courts declares, and truly, that after Berlin there is no Court of which the nation is so proud.* Frederick the Great and Wolfgang Goethe have raised these Courts into centres of undying interest. Of Weimar it is necessary we should form a distinct idea, if we would understand the outward life of the poet. Klein ist unter den Fürsten Germaniens freilich der meine, "Small among German princes is mine, poor and narrow his kingdom, limited his power of doing good." Thus sings Goethe in that poem, so honourable to both, wherein he acknowledges his debt to Karl August. The geographical importance of Weimar was, and is, small; but we in England have proud reason to know how great a place in the world can be filled by a nation whose place is trivial on the map. We know, moreover, that the Athens, which it is the pride of Weimar to claim as a patronymic, was but a dot upon * VEHSE: Geschichte der Deutschen Höfe seit der Reformation, vol. XXVIII, p. 3. |