GOETHE IN SOCIETY
1774
The publication of _Götz von Berlichingen_ in the spring of 1773, we
have seen, had made Goethe known to the literary world of Germany, and
a figure of prime interest to its leading representatives. Hitherto,
nevertheless, with the exception of Herder, he had come into personal
contact with no men of outstanding note who might hold intercourse
with him on anything like equal terms. In the summer of 1774, however,
when _Clavigo_ and _Werther_ were on the eve of publication, he was
brought into contact with three men, all of whom had already achieved
reputation in their respective spheres; and all of whom had visions as
distinct from each other as they were distinct from Goethe's own. As
it happens, we have records of their intercourse from the hands of
three of the four, and, taken together, they present a picture of the
youthful Goethe which leaves little to be desired in its fidelity, in
its definiteness, in its vividness of colour. During the greater part
of two months (from the last week in June till the middle of August)
he comes before us in all the splendour of his youthful genius, with
all his wild humours, his audacities, his overflowing vitality.
The first of these three notabilities who came in Goethe's way was one
of whom he himself said, "that the world had never seen his like, and
will not see his like again." He was Johann Kaspar Lavater, born in
Zurich in 1741, and thus eight years older than Goethe. Lavater had
early drawn the attention of the world to himself. In his sixteenth
year he had published a volume of poems (_Schweizerlieder_) which
attained a wide circulation, and a later work (_Aussichten in die
Ewigkeit_) found such acceptance from its vein of mystical piety that
he was hailed as a religious teacher who had given a new savour to the
Christian life. At the time when he crossed Goethe's path he was
engaged on the work on Physiognomy with which his name is chiefly
associated, and it was partly with the object of collecting the
materials for that work that he was now visiting Germany. But the
personality of Lavater was more remarkable than his writings. By his
combination of the saint and the man of the world he made a unique
impression on all who met him, on Goethe notably among others. That
his religious feelings were sincere his lifelong preoccupation with
the character of Christ as the great exemplar of humanity may be
taken as sufficient proof. To impress the world with the conception he
had formed of the person of Christ was the mission of his life, and it
was in the carrying out of this mission that his remarkable
characteristics came into play. With a face and expression which
suggested the Apostle John, he exhibited in society a tact and address
which, at this period at least, did not compromise his religious
professions. Next to his interest in the Founder of Christianity was
his interest in human character, and his divination of the working of
men's minds was such that, according to Goethe, it produced an uneasy
feeling to be in his presence. Be it added that Lavater was in full
sympathy with the leaders of the _Sturm und Drang_ as emancipators
from dead formalism, and the champions of natural feeling as opposed
to cold intelligence. Such was the remarkable person with whom Goethe
was thrown into contact during a few notable weeks, and who has
recorded his impressions of him with the insight of a discerner of
spirits. As time was to show, they were divided in their essential
modes of thought and feeling by as wide a gulf as can separate man
from man, and in later years Lavater's compromises with the world in
the prosecution of his mission drew from Goethe more stinging comments
than he has used in the case of almost any other person.[176] In the
passages of his Autobiography, where he records his first intercourse
with Lavater, though his tone is distinctly critical, of bitterness
there is no trace, and there is the frankest testimony to Lavater's
personal fascination and the stimulating interest of his mind and
character.
[Footnote 176: In one of his _Xenien_ Goethe speaks thus of Lavater:--
"Schade, dass die Natur nur einen Menschen aus dir schuf,
Denn zum würdigen Mann war und zum Schelmen der Stoff."]
Relations between the two had begun a year before their actual
meeting. Lavater had read Goethe's _Letter of the Pastor_, and his
interest in its general line of thought led him to open a
correspondence with its author. The reading of _Götz_, a copy of which
Goethe sent to him, convinced him that a portent had appeared in the
literary world. "I rejoice with trembling," he wrote to Herder; "among
all writers I know no greater genius." Before they met, indeed,
Lavater was already dominated by a force that brought home to him a
sense of his own weakness to which he gave artless expression. In some
lines he addressed to Goethe he takes the tone of a humble disciple,
and prays that out of his fulness he would communicate ardour to his
feelings and light to his intelligence. Yet in Lavater's eyes Goethe
was a brand to be plucked from the burning, and, born proselytiser as
he was, he even made the attempt to convert Goethe to his own views of
ultimate salvation. In response to his appeal Goethe wrote a letter
which should have convinced Lavater that he was dealing with a son of
Adam with the ineradicable instincts of the natural man.[177] "Thank
you, dear brother," he wrote, "for your ardour regarding your
brother's eternal happiness. Believe me, the time will come when we
shall understand each other. You hold converse with me as with an
unbeliever--one who insists on understanding, on having proofs, who
has not been schooled by experience. And the contrary of all this is
my real feeling. Am I not more resigned in the matter of understanding
and proving than yourself? Perhaps I am foolish in not giving you the
pleasure of expressing myself in your language, and in not showing to
you by laying bare my deepest experiences that I am a man and
therefore cannot feel otherwise than other men, and that all the
apparent contradiction between us is only strife of words which arises
from the fact that I realise things under other combinations than you,
and that in expressing their relativity I must call them by other
names; and this has from the beginning been the source of all
controversies, and will be to the end. And you will be for ever
plaguing me with evidences! And to what end? Do I require evidence
that I exist? evidence that I feel? I treasure, cherish, and revere
only such evidences as prove to me that thousands, or even one, have
felt that which strengthens and consoles me. And, therefore, the word
of man is for me the word of God, whether by parsons or prostitutes
it has been brought together, enrolled in the canon, or flung as
fragments to the winds. And with my innermost soul I fall as a brother
on the neck of Moses! Prophet! Evangelist! Apostle! Spinoza or
Machiavelli! But to each I am permitted to say: 'Dear friend, it is
with you as it is with me; in the particular you feel yourself grand
and mighty, but the whole goes as little into your head as into
mine.'"
[Footnote 177: The letter is addressed to Heinrich Pfenninger, an
engraver in Zurich, who engraved some of the plates in Lavater's book
on Physiognomy.--_Werke, Briefe_, Band ii. pp. 155-6.]
On June 23rd Lavater arrived in Frankfort, where during four days he
was entertained as a guest in the Goethe household. The news of his
coming had created a lively interest in all sections of the community,
and during his stay he was besieged by admiring crowds, especially of
women, who insisted even on seeing the bedchamber where the prophet
slept. "The pious souls," was Merck's sardonic comment, "wished to see
where they had laid the Lord"; but even Merck came under the prophet's
spell. The meeting of Lavater and Goethe was characteristic of the
time. "_Bist's?_" was Lavater's first exclamation. "_Ich bin's_," was
the reply; and they fell upon each other's necks. On Lavater's
indicating "by some singular exclamations" that Goethe was not exactly
what he expected, Goethe replied in the tone of banter which he
maintained throughout their personal intercourse, that he was as God
and nature had made him, and they must be content with their work.
"All spirit (_Geist_) and truth,"[178] is Lavater's comment on
Goethe's conversation at the close of their first day's meeting.
[Footnote 178: Biedermann, _op. cit._ i. 33.]
The following days were taken up with excursions and social gatherings
in which Lavater was the central figure, entrancing his hearers by his
social graces and his apostolic unction. In the Fräulein von
Klettenberg he found a kindred soul, and Goethe listened, as he tells
us, with profit as they discoursed on the high themes in which they
had a common interest. If he derived profit, it was not of a nature
that Lavater and the Fräulein would have desired. With the religious
opinions of neither was he in sympathy, and when they rejected his
own, he says, he would badger them with paradoxes and exaggerations,
and, if they became impatient, would leave them with a jest. What is
noteworthy in Lavater's record, indeed, is Goethe's communicativeness
and spontaneity in all that concerned himself. "So soon as we enter
society," is one of his remarks recorded by Lavater, "we take the key
out of our hearts and put it in our pockets. Those who allow it to
remain there are blockheads."[179]
[Footnote 179: _Ib._ p. 34.]
During his stay in Frankfort Lavater was so constantly surrounded by
his admirers that Goethe saw comparatively little of him. On June 28th
Lavater left for Ems, and it is a testimony to their mutual attraction
that Goethe accompanied him. The day's journey seems to have left an
abiding impression on Goethe's memory, as he makes special reference
to it in his record of Lavater's visit; and, as it happens, Lavater
noted in his Diary the principal topics of their conversation.
Travelling in a private carriage during the long summer day, they had
an opportunity for abundant talk such as did not occur again. One
theme on which Goethe spoke with enthusiasm, it is interesting to
note, was Spinoza and his writings, but, as his talk is reported by
Lavater, there was no hint in it of the profound change which the
study of Spinoza had effected in him. It was to the man and not the
thinker that he paid his reverential tribute--to the purity,
simplicity, and high wisdom of his life. But Goethe's own literary
preoccupations appear to have been the chief subject of their talk. He
spoke of a play on Julius Cæsar on which he was engaged, and which
remained one of his many abortive ambitions; he read passages from
_Der Ewige Jude_, "a singular thing in doggerel verse," Lavater calls
it; recited a romance translated from the Scots dialect; and narrated
for Lavater's benefit the whole story of the Iliad, reading passages
of the poem from a Latin translation. The memorable day was not to be
repeated. At Ems, as at Frankfort, Lavater was taken possession of by
a throng of worshippers, and the state of his own affairs at home
afforded Goethe an excuse for leaving him.
By a curious coincidence, shortly after Goethe's return, there arrived
another prophet in Frankfort--also, like Lavater, out on a mission of
his own. This was Johann Bernhard Basedow, whose character and career
had made him one of the remarkable figures of his time in Germany.
Born in Hamburg in 1723, the son of a peruke-maker there, in conduct
and opinions he had been at odds with society from the beginning. In
middle age he had come under the influence of Rousseau, and
thenceforth he made it his mission by word and deed to realise
Rousseau's ideals in education. He had expounded his theories in
voluminous publications which had attracted wide attention, and the
object of his present travels was to collect funds to establish a
school at Dessau in which his educational views should be carried into
effect.[180] Goethe, as he himself tells us, had as little sympathy
with the gospel of Basedow as with that of Lavater, but, always
attracted to originals, Basedow's personality amused and interested
him. What gave point to his curiosity was the piquancy of the contrast
between the two prophets. Lavater was all grace, purity, and
refinement; "in his presence one shrank like a maiden from hurting his
feelings." In appearance, voice, manner, on the other hand, Basedow
was the incarnation of a hectoring bully, as regardless of others'
feelings as he was impermeable in his own. His personal habits, also,
were a further trial, as he drank more than was good for him and lived
in an atmosphere of vile tobacco smoke. Such was the singular mortal
whose society Goethe deliberately sought and cultivated during the
next few weeks as opportunity offered.
[Footnote 180: The school was actually founded in 1774, but
subsequently, owing to quarrels with his colleagues, Basedow had to
leave it. It was closed in 1793.]
After spending some days in Frankfort, Basedow, on July 12th, set out
to join Lavater at Ems, whether at Goethe's suggestion or of his own
accord we are not told. Goethe had seen enough of Basedow to make him
wish to see more of him, and, moreover, it would be a piquant
experience to see the two incongruous apostles together. "Such a
splendid opportunity, if not of enlightenment, at least of mental
discipline," he says, "I could not, in short, let slip." Accordingly,
leaving some pressing business in the hands of his father and friends,
he followed Basedow to Ems on July 15th. Ems, then as now, was a gay
watering-place crowded with guests of all conditions, and therefore an
excellent field for the two proselytisers. Goethe did not spend his
days in the company of the two lights; while they were plying their
mission, he threw himself into the distractions of the town, as usual
making himself a conspicuous figure by his overflowing spirits and his
practical jokes. Only at night, when he did not happen to have a
dancing partner, did he snatch a moment to pay a visit to Basedow,
whom he found in a close, unventilated room, enveloped in tobacco
smoke, and dictating endlessly to his secretary from his couch; for it
was one of Basedow's peculiarities that he never went to bed. On one
occasion Goethe had an excellent opportunity of observing the
contrasted characters of the two prophets. The three had gone to
Nassau to visit the Frau von Stein, mother of the statesman, and a
numerous company had been brought together to meet them. All three had
the opportunity of displaying their special gifts; Lavater his skill
in physiognomy, Goethe the gift he had inherited from his mother of
story-telling to children; but in the end Basedow asserted himself in
his most characteristic style. With a power of reasoning and a
passionate eloquence, to which both Goethe and Lavater bear witness,
he proclaimed the conditions of the regeneration of society--the
improved education of youth and the necessity for the rich to open
their purses for its accomplishment. Then, his wanton spirit as usual
getting the better of him, he turned the torrent of his eloquence in
another direction. A thorough-going rationalist, his pet aversion was
the dogma of the Trinity, and on that dogma he now directed his
batteries, with the effect of horrifying his audience, most of whom
had come to be edified by the pious exhortations of Lavater. Lavater
mildly expostulated; Goethe endeavoured by jesting interruptions to
change the subject, and the ladies to break up the company. All their
efforts were in vain, and the apostle of Rousseau had the
satisfaction of completely unbosoming himself and at the same time
forfeiting some contributions to his educational scheme. As they drove
back to Ems, Goethe took a humorous revenge. The heat of a July day
and his recent vocal exertions had made the prophet thirsty, and as
they passed a tavern he ordered the driver to pull up. Goethe
imperiously countermanded the order, to the wrath of Basedow, which
Goethe turned aside, however, with one of his ever-ready quips.
The strangely-assorted trio were not yet tired of each other's
company, for, when on July 18th Lavater left Ems, both Goethe and
Basedow accompanied him. Their way lay down the Lahn and the Rhine,
and on the voyage Basedow and Goethe conducted themselves like German
students on holiday--the former discoursing on grammar and smoking
everlastingly, the latter improvising doggerel verses and the
beautiful lines beginning: _Hoch auf dem alten Turme steht_. On
landing at Coblenz the behaviour of the pair was so outrageous that
all three were apparently taken by the crowd for lunatics. At Coblenz
they dined, and the dinner has its place in literature, for both in
his Autobiography and in some sarcastic lines (_Diné zu Coblenz_)
Goethe has commemorated it. He sat between Lavater and Basedow, and
during the meal the former expounded the Revelation of St. John to a
country pastor, and the latter exerted himself to prove to a stolid
dancing-master that baptism was an anachronism.
On the 20th they continued their voyage down the Rhine as far as
Bonn--Goethe still in the same madcap humour. Lavater gives us a
picture of him at one moment on the voyage--with gray hat, adorned
with a bunch of flowers, with a brown silk necktie and gray collar,
gnawing a _Butterbrot_ like a wolf. From Bonn they drove to Cologne,
Goethe on the way inscribing in an album the concluding lines of the
_Diné zu Coblenz_:--
Und, wie nach Emmaus, weiter ging's
[Transcriber's Note: corrected error "Emaus"]
Mit Geist und Feuerschritten,
Prophete rechts, Prophete links,
Das Weltkind in der Mitten.
At Cologne they parted for the day, Lavater proceeding to Mülheim[181]
and Goethe to Düsseldorf. On the 21st Goethe was at Elberfeld, where
his former friend Jung Stilling was settled as a physician. Stilling
has related how Goethe made him aware of his presence. A message came
to him that a stranger, who had been taken ill at an inn, wished to
see him. He found the stranger in bed with head covered, and when at
his request he leant over to feel his pulse, the patient flung his
arms round his neck. On the evening of the same day there was a social
gathering at the house of a pious merchant in the town in honour of
Lavater, who had come to Elberfeld and was the merchant's guest. As
described by Stilling, the guests, chiefly consisting of persons of
the pietist persuasion, were as remarkable for their appearance as for
their opinions, and the artist who accompanied Lavater in his travels
busily sketched their heads throughout the evening. Goethe was in his
wildest mood, dancing round the table in a manner familiar to those
who knew him, but which led the strangers present to doubt his sanity.
It was apparently during the same evening that there occurred an
incident which, as recorded by Lavater, shows us another side of
Goethe. Among the guests was one Hasenkamp, a pietistic illuminist,
who suddenly, when the company was in the full flow of amicable
conversation, turned to Goethe and asked him if he were the Herr
Goethe, the author of _Werther_. "Yes," was the answer. "Then I feel
bound in my conscience to express to you my abhorrence of that
infamous book. Be it God's will to amend your perverted heart!" The
company did not know what to expect next, when Goethe quietly replied:
"I quite understand that from your point of view you could not judge
otherwise, and I honour you for your candour in thus taking me to
task. Pray for me!"[182]
[Footnote 181: Basedow remained for a time at Mülheim. As we shall
see, he and Goethe met again later in the month.]
[Footnote 182: As _Werther_ was not published till the autumn of 1774,
there must be some confusion in Lavater's narrative.]
Among the guests who were present at the same motley gathering was the
third distinguished personage whose acquaintance Goethe made during
these memorable weeks. This was Fritz Jacobi, one of the interesting
figures in the history of German thought, alike by his personal
character and the nature of his speculations. Goethe and he had common
friends before they met, but their relations had been such as to make
their meeting a matter of some delicacy. Goethe had satirised the
poetry of Jacobi's brother Georg, and in his correspondence even
vehemently expressed his dislike to the characters of both brothers as
he had been led to conceive them. Three women--Sophie von la Roche,
Johanna Fahlmer, the aunt of the Jacobis, and Betty Jacobi, their
sister, all of whom Goethe counted among his friends--had endeavoured
to effect a reconciliation between Goethe and the two brothers, but
eventually it was Goethe's own impulsive good nature that led to their
meeting. The Jacobis lived in Düsseldorf, and the morning after his
arrival in the town he called at their house, but found that Fritz had
gone to Pempelfort, a place in the neighbourhood where he had an
estate. Goethe at once set out for Pempelfort, and in a letter to the
wife of Fritz he characteristically describes the circumstances of the
meeting. "It was glorious that you did not happen to be in Düsseldorf
and that I did what my simple heart prompted me. Without introduction,
without being marshalled in, without excuses, just dropping straight
from heaven before Fritz Jacobi! And he and I, and I and he! And,
before a sisterly look had done the preliminaries, we were already
what we were bound to be and could be."[183]
[Footnote 183: _Werke, Briefe_, ii. 180.]
Fritz Jacobi possessed a combination of qualities that were expressly
fitted to impress Goethe at the period when they met. Handsome in
person, and with the polished manners of a man of the world, he
conjoined a practical talent for business with a passionate interest
in all questions touching human destiny. About six years Goethe's
senior, he was, on Goethe's own testimony, far ahead of him in the
domain of philosophical thought. After Herder, Jacobi was indeed the
most stimulating personality Goethe had met. While his intercourse
with Lavater and Basedow had been only a source of entertainment, from
Jacobi he received a stimulus which opened up new depths of thought
and feeling.
Both Goethe and Jacobi have left records of their intercourse, and
both are equally enthusiastic regarding the profit they derived from
it. From the first moment of their meeting there was a spontaneous
interchange of their deepest thoughts and feelings, unique in the
experience of both. In Jacobi's company Goethe became another man from
what he had been in the company of Lavater and Basedow. "I was weary,"
he says, "of my previous follies and wantonness, which, in truth, only
concealed my dissatisfaction that this journey had brought so little
profit to my mind and heart. Now, therefore, my deepest feelings broke
forth with irrepressible force." After a few days spent at Pempelfort,
during which Georg Jacobi joined them, the two brothers accompanied
Goethe to Cologne on his homeward journey. It was during the hours
they were together at Cologne that the conversation of Fritz and
Goethe became most intimate, and these hours remained a moving memory
with both even when in after years divided aims and interests had
estranged them. A visit to the cathedral of Cologne recalled Goethe's
enthusiasm for the cathedral of Strassburg, but its unfinished
condition depressed him with the sense of a great idea unrealised, for
in his own words "an unfinished work is like one destroyed." The
emotions evoked by another spectacle in Düsseldorf, according to
Goethe's own testimony, had the instantaneous effect of his gaining
for life the confidence of both Jacobis. The sight which equally moved
all three was the unchanged interior of the mansion of a citizen of
Cologne named Jabach, who a century before had been distinguished as
an amateur of the fine arts. But what specially impressed them was a
picture by Le Brun representing Jabach and his family in all the
freshness of life, and the consequent reflection that this picture was
the sole memorial that they had ever lived. "This reflection," Georg
Jacobi comments, "made a profound impression on our stranger,"[184]
and the impression must have been abiding, since in no passage of his
Autobiography does he recall more vividly the emotions of a vanished
time.
[Footnote 184: Biedermann, _op. cit._ i. 45.]
The evening of the day they spent in Cologne is noted both by Goethe
and Fritz Jacobi as marking a point in their intellectual development.
The inn in which they were quartered overlooked the Rhine, the murmur
of whose moonlit waters was attuned to the sentiments that had been
evoked in the course of the day. In the prospect of their near parting
all three were disposed to confidential self-revelations, and the
conversation ran on themes regarding which they had all thought and
felt much--on poetry, religion, and philosophy. As usual with him when
he was in congenial company, Goethe freely declaimed such pieces of
verse as happened at the time to be interesting him--the verses on
this occasion being Scottish ballads and two poems of his own, _Der
König von Thule_, and _Der untreue Knabe_. In philosophy the talk
turned mainly on Spinoza, of whom Goethe spoke "unforgettably."[185]
"What hours! what days," wrote Fritz immediately after their parting,
"thou soughtest me about midnight in the darkness; it was as if a new
soul were born within me. From that moment I could not let thee
go."[186] Neither, in the ecstasy of these moments, dreamt that at a
later day Spinoza, who was now their strongest bond of union, was to
be the main cause of their estrangement. For Jacobi Spinoza became the
"atheist," to be reprobated as one of the world's false prophets;
while for Goethe he remained to the end the man to whom God had been
nearest and to whom He had been most fully revealed.
[Footnote 185: As Goethe at this time knew little of Spinoza's
philosophy, it was probably on Spinoza's personal character that he
enlarged. On this theme, we have seen, he had discoursed with
Lavater.]
[Footnote 186: Biedermann, _op. cit._ i. 45.]
Shortly after parting with Goethe, Fritz Jacobi communicated his
impression of him to Wieland in the following words: "The more I think
of it, the more intensely I realise the impossibility of conveying to
one who has not seen or heard Goethe any intelligible notion of this
extraordinary creation of God. As Heinse[187] expressed it, 'Goethe is
a genius from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot,' one
possessed, I may add, for whom it is impossible to act from mere
caprice. One has only to be with him for an hour to feel the utter
absurdity of desiring him to think and act otherwise than he thinks
and acts. By this I don't mean to suggest that he cannot grow in
beauty and goodness, but that in his case such growth must be that of
the unfolding flower, of the ripening seed, of the tree soaring aloft
and crowning itself with foliage."[188]
[Footnote 187: Johann J.W. Heinse, a minor poet of the time, and one
of Goethe's most fervent admirers.]
[Footnote 188: Biedermann, _op. cit._ i. 45-6.]
On leaving the Jacobis Goethe proceeded to Ems, where he again met
Lavater and Basedow. On the day following Lavater went home, and
Goethe and Basedow remained till the second week of August. On the
13th Goethe was in his father's house, and in a state of exaltation
after his late experiences, to which he gives lively expression in a
letter to Fritz Jacobi. "I dream of the moment, dear Fritz, I have
your letter and hover around you. You have felt what a rapture it is
to me to be the object of your love. Oh! the joy of believing that one
receives more from others than one gives. Oh, Love, Love! The poverty
of riches--what force works in me when I embrace in him all that is
wanting in myself, and yet give to him what I have.... Believe me, we
might henceforth be dumb to each other, and, meeting again after many
a day, we should feel as if we had all along been walking hand in
hand."[189]
[Footnote 189: _Werke, Briefe_, ii. 182.]
In the first weeks of October Goethe made personal acquaintance with a
more distinguished personage than either Lavater or Basedow or
Jacobi--"the patriarch of German poetry," Klopstock, the author of the
_Messias_.[190] Since his childhood, the name of Klopstock had been
familiar to Goethe. To his conservative father, the _Messias_, as
written in unrhymed verse, was a monstrosity in German literature, and
he refused to give it a place in his library. Surreptitiously
introduced into the house, however, Goethe had read it with enthusiasm
and committed its most striking passages to memory. And he had
retained his admiration throughout all the successive changes in his
own literary ideals. Like all the youth of his generation, he saw in
Klopstock a great original genius to whom German poetry owed
emancipation from conventional forms and new elements of thought,
feeling, and imagination. Klopstock, on his part, had been interested
in the rising genius whose _Götz von Berlichingen_ had taken the world
by storm, and had signified through a common friend that he would be
gratified to see other works from his hand. Goethe had responded in
the spirit of a youthful adorer, conscious of the honour which the
request implied. "And why should I not write to Klopstock," he wrote,
"and send him anything of mine, anything in which he can take an
interest? May I not address the living, to whose grave I would make a
pilgrimage?"[191]
[Footnote 190: Klopstock came from Göttingen, where he was the idol of
a band of youthful poets.]
[Footnote 191: _Werke, Briefe_, ii. 182.]
These communications took place in May, and in the beginning of
October Goethe received an invitation from Klopstock to meet him at
Friedberg. Owing to some delay on his journey, however, Klopstock did
not appear at the time appointed, but, gratified by Goethe's eagerness
to meet him, he shortly afterwards came to Frankfort and was for a few
days a guest in the Goethe household. From Goethe's account of their
intercourse we gather that their intercourse was not wholly
satisfactory to either. Klopstock was in his fiftieth year, and his
somewhat self-conscious and pedantic manner did not encourage
effusion.[192] Like certain other poets he affected the tone of a man
of the world and deliberately avoided topics relative to his own art.
The two themes on which he expanded were riding and skating--of which
latter pastime he had indeed made himself the laureate. Goethe himself
was passionately fond of both exercises, but from "the patriarch of
German poetry" he might have expected discourse on higher themes.
Apparently, however, their relations remained sufficiently cordial,
as, when Klopstock took his departure, Goethe accompanied him to
Mannheim. On his way home in the post-carriage Goethe gave utterance
to his feelings in some rhapsodical lines--_An Schwager Kronos_--(To
Time the Postillion)--which may be regarded as a commentary on his
impressions of the great man. Written in the unrhymed, irregular
measure which Klopstock had been the first to employ, and containing
phrases directly borrowed from Klopstock, they give passionate
expression to his desire for a life, brief it might be, but a life
alive to the end with the zest of living. It was the sentiment of the
youth of the _Sturm und Drang_, which the chilling impression he had
received from Klopstock doubtless evoked with rebounding force during
his solitary drive home in the post-carriage.[193]
[Footnote 192: Merck found in Klopstock "viel Weltkunde und
Weltkälte."]
[Footnote 193: Writing to Sophie von la Roche on November 20th, Goethe
calls Klopstock "a noble, great man, on whom the peace of God rests,"
_Werke, Briefe_ ii. 206.]
In the same month of October Goethe had other visitors less
distinguished, youths of his own age, who came to pay homage to him as
their acknowledged leader in the literary revolution of which _Götz_
had been the manifesto. We have seen the impressions Goethe made upon
his seniors like Lavater and Fritz Jacobi; how he struck his more
youthful acquaintances is recorded by two of them--both poets of some
promise who had attracted attention by their contempt of
conventionalities. It will be seen that their language shows that
Goethe's own exuberant style in his correspondence of the period was
not peculiar to himself. The first to come was H.C. Boie, an ardent
worshipper of Klopstock, and one of the heroes of the _Sturm und
Drang_. "I have had a superlative, delightful day," Boie records, "a
whole day spent alone and uninterrupted with Goethe--Goethe whose
heart is as great and noble as his mind! The day passes my
description." The other visitor, F.A. Werthes, who comprehensively
worshipped both Klopstock and Wieland, leaves Boie behind in the
exuberance of his impressions. "This Goethe," he wrote to Fritz
Jacobi, "of whom from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof
and from the going down thereof to its rising I should like to speak
and stammer and rhapsodise with you ... this Goethe has, as it were,
transcended all the ideals I had ever conceived of the direct feeling
and observation of a great genius. Never could I have so well
explained and sympathised with the feelings of the disciples on the
way to Emmaus when they said: 'Did not our heart burn within us while
He talked with us by the way?' Let us make of him our Lord Christ for
evermore, and let me be the least of His disciples. He has spoken so
much and so excellently with me; words of eternal life which, so long
as I live, shall be my articles of faith."[194] Apart from its
relation to Goethe, it will be seen that Werthes' letter is a document
of the time, bringing before us, as it does, the strained and
distorted sentiment, sufficiently apparent in Goethe himself, but
which he, almost alone of the youths of his generation, was strong
enough to hold in check.
[Footnote 194: Biedermann, _op. cit._ i. 46.]
In the following month (December) Goethe received still another
visit--a visit which was directly to lead to the most decisive event
in his life. As he was sitting one evening in his own room, a stranger
was ushered in, whom in the dusk he mistook for Fritz Jacobi. The
stranger was Major von Knebel, who had served in the Prussian army,
but was now on a tour with the young princes of Weimar, Carl August
and Constantin, to the latter of whom he was acting as tutor. Knebel
was keenly interested in literature, was a poet himself, and an ardent
admirer of Goethe. There followed congenial talk which was to be the
beginning of a friendship that, unlike most of Goethe's youthful
friendships, was to endure into the old age of both. But Knebel had
come on a special errand; the young princes had expressed the desire
to become acquainted with the man who had made merry with their
instructor Wieland, and whose name was in all men's mouths as the
author of the recently published _Werther_. Nothing loth, Goethe
accompanied Knebel to the princes, and in the interviews that followed
he displayed all the tact that characterised his subsequent
intercourse with the great. Studiously avoiding all reference to his
own productions, he turned the conversation on subjects of public
interest, on which he spoke with a fulness of knowledge that convinced
his hearers that the author of _Werther_ was not an effeminate
sentimentalist. So favourable was the impression he made on the
princes that they expressed a wish that he would follow them to Mainz
and spend a few days with them there. The proposal was highly
acceptable to Goethe, but there was a difficulty in the way. The Herr
Rath was a sturdy republican, and had an ingrained aversion to the
nobility as a class. In his opinion, for a commoner to seek
intercourse with that class was to compromise his self-respect and to
invite humiliation, and he roundly maintained that in seeking his
son's acquaintance the princes were only laying a train to pay him
back for his treatment of Wieland. When the Goethe household was
divided on important questions, it was their custom to refer to the
Fräulein von Klettenberg as arbiter. That sainted lady was now on a
sick-bed, but through the Frau Rath she conveyed her opinion that the
invitation of the princes should be accepted. To Mainz, therefore,
Goethe went in company with Knebel, who had remained behind to see
more of him, and his second meeting with the two boys completed his
conquest of them. Any resentment they may have entertained for his
attack on Wieland was removed by his explanation of its origin, and it
was with mutual attraction that both parties separated after a few
days' cordial intercourse. Thus were established the relations which
within a year were to result in Goethe's departure from "accursed
Frankfort," and his permanent settlement at the Court of Weimar.
As it happens, we have a record of Knebel's impression of Goethe
during their few days' intercourse, which as a characterisation comes
next in interest to that of Kestner already quoted. "From Wieland," he
writes, "you will have been able to learn that I have made the
acquaintance of Goethe, and that I think somewhat enthusiastically of
him. I cannot help myself, but I swear to you that all of you, all
who have heads and hearts, would think of him as I do if you came to
know him. He will always remain to me one of the most extraordinary
apparitions of my life. Perhaps the novelty of the impression has
struck me overmuch, but how can I help it if natural causes produce
natural workings in me?... Goethe lives in a state of constant inward
war and tumult, since on every subject he feels with the extreme of
vehemence. It is a need of his spirit to make enemies with whom he can
contend; moreover, it is not the most contemptible adversaries he will
single out. He has spoken to me of all those whom he has attacked with
special and genuinely felt esteem. But the fellow delights in battle;
he has the spirit of an athlete. As he is probably the most singular
being who ever existed, he began as follows one evening in Mainz in
quite melancholy tones: 'I am now good friends again with
everybody--with the Jacobis, with Wieland; and this is not as it
should be with me. It is the condition of my being that, as I must
have something which for the time being is for me the ideal of the
excellent, so also I must have an ideal against which I can direct my
wrath.'"[195]
[Footnote 195: Max Morris, _op. cit._ iv. 370-1. About the same date
as Knebel's letter, Goethe wrote to Sophie von la Roche: "Das ist was
Verfluchtes dass ich anfange mich mit niemand mehr misszuverstehen."
In his 49th year Goethe said of himself: "Opposition ist mir immer
nötig."]
On Goethe's return to Frankfort sad news awaited him; during his
absence the Fräulein von Klettenberg, whom he had left on her
sick-bed, had died. It was the severest personal loss he had yet
sustained by death. After his sister she had been the chief confidant
of all his troubles, his hopes, and ambitions, and he never left her
presence without feeling that for the time he had been lifted out of
himself. The relations between Goethe and her, indeed, show him in his
most attractive light. He had never disguised from her the fact that
he could not share the faith by which she lived; he was, as we have
seen, even in the habit of jesting at her most cherished beliefs; but
there was never a shade of alienation between them. "Bid him adieu,"
was her last message to him through his mother; "I have held him very
dear."[196] Take it as we may, it is the singular fact that by none
was Goethe regarded with more affectionate esteem than by the two
pious mystics, Jung Stilling and Fräulein von Klettenberg.
[Footnote 196: _Ib._ p. 370.]