himself in me. I had made his acquaintance only a short time before,
and first discovered his good feeling towards me during my misfortune;
I felt the value of this favour the more warmly, as no one is apt to
seek a closer connexion with invalids. He spared nothing to give me
pleasure, to draw me away from musing on my situation, to hold up to my
view and promise me recovery and a wholesome activity in the nearest
future. How often have I been delighted, in the progress of life, to
hear how this excellent man has in the weightiest affairs shown himself
useful, and indeed a blessing to his native city.
Here, too, it was that friend HORN uninterruptedly brought into action
his love and attention. The whole Breitkopf household, the Stock
family, and many others, treated me like a near relative; and thus,
through the good-will of so many friendly persons, the feeling of my
situation was soothed in the tenderest manner.
[Side-note: Langer.]
I must here, however, make particular mention of a man, with whom
I first became acquainted at this time, and whose instructive
conversation so far blinded me to the miserable state in which I was,
that I actually forgot it. This was LANGER, afterwards librarian at
Wolfenbüttel. Eminently learned and instructed, he was delighted at
my voracious hunger after knowledge, which, with the irritability of
sickness, now broke out into a perfect fever. He tried to calm me
by perspicuous summaries, and I have been very much indebted to his
acquaintance, short as it was, since he understood how to guide me in
various ways, and made me attentive whither I had to direct myself at
the present moment. I found myself the more obliged to this important
man, as my intercourse exposed him to some danger: for when, after
Behrisch, he got the situation of tutor to the young Count Lindenau,
the father made it an express condition with the new Mentor that he
should have no intercourse with me. Curious to become acquainted with
such a dangerous subject, he frequently found means of meeting me
indirectly. I soon gained his affection, and he, more prudent than
Behrisch, called for me by night; we went walking together, conversed
on interesting things, and at last I accompanied him to the very door
of his mistress; for even this externally severe, earnest, scientific
man had not kept free from the toils of a very amiable lady.
German literature, and with it my own poetical undertakings, had
already for some time become strange to me, and as is usually the
result in such an auto-didactic circular course, I turned back towards
the beloved ancients who still constantly, like distant blue mountains,
distinct in their outlines and masses, but indiscernible in their parts
and internal relations, bounded the horizon of my intellectual wishes.
I made an exchange with Langer, in which I at last played the part of
Glaucus and Diomedes; I gave up to him whole baskets of German poets
and critics, and received in return a number of Greek authors, the
reading of whom was to give me recreation, even during the most tedious
convalescence.
The confidence which new friends repose in each other usually developes
itself by degrees. Common occupation and tastes are the first things
in which a mutual harmony shows itself; then the mutual communication
generally extends over past and present passions, especially over love
affairs; but it is a lower depth which opens itself, if the connexion
is to be perfected; the religious sentiments, the affairs of the heart
which relate to the imperishable, are the things which both establish
the foundation and adorn the summit of a friendship.
The Christian religion was wavering between its own historically
positive base and a pure deism, which, grounded on morality, was in its
turn to lay the foundation of ethics. The diversity of characters and
modes of thought here showed itself in infinite gradations, especially
when a leading difference was brought into play by the question arising
as to how great a share the reason, and how great a share the feelings
could and should bear a part in such convictions. The most lively and
ingenious men showed themselves, in this instance, like butterflies,
who, quite regardless of their caterpillar state, throw away the
chrysalis veil in which they have grown up to their organic perfection.
Others, more honestly and modestly minded, might be compared to the
flowers, which, although they unfold themselves to the most beautiful
bloom, yet do not tear themselves from the root, from the mother stalk,
nay, rather through this family connexion first bring the desired fruit
to maturity. Of this latter class was Langer; for, although a learned
man, and eminently versed in books, he would yet give the Bible a
peculiar pre-eminence over the other writings which have come down to
us, and regard it as a document from which alone we could prove our
moral and spiritual pedigree. He belonged to those who cannot conceive
an immediate connexion with the great God of the universe; a mediation,
therefore, was necessary for him, an analogy to which he thought he
could find everywhere, in earthly and heavenly things. His discourse,
which was pleasing and consistent, easily found a hearing with a young
man who, separated from worldly things by an annoying illness, found it
highly desirable to turn the activity of his mind towards the heavenly.
Grounded as I was in the Bible, all that was wanted was merely the
faith to explain as divine that which I had hitherto esteemed in human
fashion.--a belief, the easier for me, since I had made my first
acquaintance with that book as a divine one. To a sufferer, to one who
felt himself delicate, nay, weak, the gospel was therefore welcome,
and even though Langer, with all his faith, was at the same time a
very sensible man, and firmly maintained that one should not let the
feelings prevail, should not let oneself be led astray into mysticism,
I could not have managed to occupy myself with the New Testament
without feeling and enthusiasm.
In such conversations we spent much time, and he grew so fond of me
as an honest and well-prepared proselyte, that he did not scruple to
sacrifice to me many of the hours destined for his fair one, and even
to run the risk of being betrayed and looked upon unfavourably by his
patron, like Behrisch. I returned his affection in the most grateful
manner; and if what he did for me would have been of value at any time,
I could not but regard it, in my present condition, as worthy of the
highest honour.
[Side-note: Riot at Leipzig.]
But as when the concert of our souls is most spiritually attuned, the
rude shrieking tones of the world usually break in most violently and
boisterously, and the contrast which has gone on exercising a secret
control affects us so much the more sensibly when it comes forward all
at once; thus was I not to be dismissed from the peripatetic school of
my Langer without having first witnessed an event, strange at least
for Leipzig, namely, a tumult which the students excited, and that
on the following pretence. Some young people had quarrelled with the
city soldiers, and the affair had not gone off without violence. Many
of the students combined together to revenge the injuries inflicted.
The soldiers resisted stubbornly, and the advantage was not on the
side of the very discontented academical citizens. It was now said
that respectable persons had commended and rewarded the conquerors for
their valiant resistance, and by this, the youthful feeling of honour
and revenge was mightily excited. It was publicly said that on the
next evening windows would be broken in, and some friends who brought
me word that this was actually taking place, were obliged to carry me
there, for youth and the multitude are always attracted by danger and
tumult. There really began a strange spectacle. The otherwise open
street was lined on one side with men who, quite quiet, without noise
or movement, were waiting to see what would happen. About a dozen young
fellows were walking singly up and down the empty side-walk, with the
greatest apparent composure, but as soon as they came opposite the
marked house, they threw stones at the windows as they passed by, and
this repeatedly as they returned backwards and forwards, as long as
the panes would rattle. Just as quietly as this was done, all at last
dispersed, and the affair had no further consequences.
With such a ringing echo of university exploits, I left Leipzig in the
September of 1768, in a comfortable hired coach, and in the company of
some respectable persons of my acquaintance. In the neighbourhood of
Auerstädt I thought of that previous accident; but I could not forebode
that which many years afterwards would threaten me from thence with
still greater danger; just as little as in Gotha, where we had the
castle shown to us, I could think in the great hall adorned with stucco
figures, that so much favour and affection would befall me on that very
spot.
The nearer I approached my native city, the more I recalled to myself
doubtingly the circumstances, prospects, and hopes with which I had
left home, and it was a very disheartening feeling that I now returned,
as it were, like one shipwrecked. Yet since I had not very much with
which to reproach myself, I contrived to compose myself tolerably well;
however, the welcome was not without emotion. The great vivacity of
my nature, excited and heightened by sickness, caused an impassioned
scene. I might have looked worse than I myself knew, since for a long
time I had not consulted a looking-glass; and who does not become used
to himself? Enough, they silently resolved to communicate many things
to me only by degrees, and before all things to let me have some repose
both bodily and mental.
[Side-note: State of Goethe's Family.]
My sister immediately associated herself with me, and as previously,
from her letters, so I could now more in detail and accurately
understand the circumstances and situation of the family. My father
had, after my departure, concentrated all his didactic taste upon my
sister, and in a house completely shut up, rendered secure by peace,
and even cleared of lodgers, he had cut off from her almost every
means of looking about and recreating herself abroad. She had by turns
to pursue and work at French, Italian, and English, besides which he
compelled her to practise a great part of the day on the harpsichord.
Her writing also could not be neglected, and I had already remarked
that he had directed her correspondence with me, and had let his
doctrines come to me through her pen. My sister was and still continued
to be an undefinable being, the most singular mixture of strength and
weakness, of stubbornness and pliability, which qualities operated
now united, now isolated by will and inclination. Thus she had, in a
manner which seemed to me fearful, turned the hardness of her character
against her father, whom she did not forgive for having hindered or
embittered to her so many innocent joys for these three years, and of
his good and excellent qualities she would not acknowledge even one.
She did all that he commanded and arranged, but in the most unamiable
manner in the world. She did it in the established routine, but nothing
more and nothing less. From love or a desire to please she accommodated
herself to nothing, so that this was one of the first things about
which my mother complained in a private conversation with me. But since
love was as essential to my sister as to any human being, she turned
her affection wholly on me. Her care in nursing and entertaining me
absorbed all her time; her female companions, who were swayed by her
without her intending it, had likewise to contrive all sorts of things
to be pleasing and consolatory to me. She was inventive in cheering me
up, and even developed some germs of comical humour which I had never
known in her, and which became her very well. There soon arose between
us a coterie-language, by which we could converse before all people
without their understanding us, and she often used this gibberish with
great pertness in the presence of our parents.
My father was personally in tolerable comfort. He was in good health,
spent a great part of the day in the instruction of my sister, wrote at
the description of his travels, and was longer in tuning his lute than
in playing on it. He concealed at the same time, as well as he could,
his vexation at finding instead of a stout active son, who ought now
to take his degree and run through the prescribed course of life, an
invalid who seemed to suffer still more in soul than in body. He did
not conceal his wish that they would be expeditious with my cure; but
one was forced to be specially on one's guard in his presence against
hypochondriacal expressions, because he could then become passionate
and bitter.
[Side-note: Fräulein von Klettenberg.]
My mother, by nature very lively and cheerful, spent under these
circumstances very tedious days. Her little housekeeping was soon
provided for. The mind of the good lady, internally never unoccupied,
wished to find an interest in something, and that which was nearest
at hand was religion, which she embraced the more fondly as her most
eminent female friends were cultivated and hearty worshippers of God.
At the head of these stood Fräulein von Klettenberg. She is the same
person from whose conversations and letters arose the "Confessions of
a Beautiful Soul," which are found inserted in "Wilhelm Meister." She
was slenderly formed, of the middle size; a hearty natural demeanour
had been made still more pleasing by the manners of the world and the
court. Her very neat attire reminded of the dress of the Hernhutt
ladies. Her serenity and peace of mind never left her. She looked upon
her sickness as a necessary element of her transient earthly existence;
she suffered with the greatest patience, and, in painless intervals,
was lively and talkative. Her favourite, nay, indeed, perhaps her only
conversation, was on the moral experiences which a man who observes
himself can form in himself; to which was added the religious views
which, in a very graceful manner, nay, with genius, came under her
consideration as natural and supernatural. It scarcely needs more to
recall back to the friends of such representations, that complete
delineation composed from the very depths of her soul. Owing to the
very peculiar course which she had taken from her youth upwards, the
distinguished rank in which she had been born and educated, and the
liveliness and originality of her mind, she did not agree very well
with the other ladies who had set out on the same road to salvation.
Frau Griesbach, the chief of them, seemed too severe, too dry, too
learned; she knew, thought, comprehended more than the others, who
contented themselves with the development of their feelings, and she
was therefore burdensome to them, because every one neither could nor
would carry with her so great an apparatus on the road to bliss. But
for this reason the most of them were indeed somewhat monotonous,
since they confined themselves to a certain terminology which might
well have been compared to that of the later sentimentalists. Fräulein
von Klettenberg led her way between both extremes, and seemed, with
some self-complacency, to see her own reflection in the image of Count
Zinzendorf, whose opinions and actions bore witness to a higher birth
and more distinguished rank. Now she found in me what she needed,
a lively young creature, striving after an unknown happiness, who,
although he could not think himself an extraordinary sinner, yet found
himself in no comfortable condition, and was perfectly healthy neither
in body nor soul. She was delighted with what nature had given me, as
well as with much which I had gained for myself. And if she conceded to
me many advantages, this was by no means humiliating to her: for, in
the first place, she never thought of emulating one of the male sex,
and secondly, she believed that in regard to religious culture she was
very much in advance of me. My disquiet, my impatience, my striving,
my seeking, investigating, musing, and wavering, she interpreted in
her own way, and did not conceal from me her conviction, but assured
me in plain terms that all this proceeded from my having no reconciled
God. Now I had believed from my youth upwards that I stood on very good
terms with my God, nay, I even fancied to myself, according to various
experiences, that He might even be in arrears to me; and I was daring
enough to think that I had something to forgive Him. This presumption
was grounded on my infinite good-will, to which, as it seemed to me,
He should have given better assistance. It may be imagined how often
I and my female friend fell into disputes on this subject, which,
however, always terminated in the friendliest way, and often, like
my conversations with the old rector, with the remark: "that I was a
foolish fellow, for whom many allowances must be made."
I was much troubled with the tumour in my neck, as the physician and
surgeon wished first to disperse this excrescence, afterwards, as they
said, to draw it to a head, and at last thought good to open it; so for
a long time I had to sutler more from inconvenience than pain, although
towards the end of the cure, the continual touching with lunar caustic
and other corrosive substances could not but give me very disagreeable
prospects for every fresh day. The physician and surgeon both belonged
to the Pious Separatists, although both were of highly different
natural characters. The surgeon, a slender, well-built man, of easy
and skilful hand, was unfortunately somewhat hectic, but endured his
condition with truly Christian patience, and did not suffer his disease
to perplex him in his profession. The physician was an inexplicable,
sly-looking, friendly-speaking, and, moreover, abstruse man, who had
gained himself quite a peculiar confidence in the pious circle. Active
and attentive, he was consoling to the sick; but, more than by all
this, he extended his practice by the gift of showing in the background
some mysterious medicines prepared by himself, of which no one could
speak, since, with us, the physicians were strictly prohibited from
making up their own prescriptions. With certain powders, which may have
been some kind of digestive, he was not so reserved; but that powerful
salt, which could only be applied in the greatest danger, was only
mentioned among believers, although no one had yet seen it or traced
its effects. To excite and strengthen our faith in the possibility
of such an universal remedy, the physician, wherever he found any
susceptibility, had recommended certain chemico-alchemical books to
his patients, and given them to understand that by one's own study of
them, one could well attain this treasure for oneself; which was the
more necessary, as the mode of its preparation, both for physical and
especially for moral reasons, could not be well communicated; nay,
that in order to comprehend, produce and use this great work, one must
know the secrets of nature in connexion, since it was not a particular
but an universal remedy, and could indeed be produced under different
forms and shapes. My friend had listened to these enticing words. The
health of the body was too nearly allied to the health of the soul;
and could a greater benefit, a greater mercy be shown towards others,
than by appropriating to oneself a remedy by which so many sufferings
could be assuaged, so many a danger averted? She had already secretly
studied Welling's _Opus mago-cabalisticum_, for which, however, as the
author himself immediately darkens and removes the light he imparts,
she was looking about for a friend who, in this alternation of glare
and gloom, might bear her company. It needed small incitement to
inoculate me also with this disease. I procured the work, which, like
all writings of this kind, could trace its pedigree in a direct line
up to the Neo-Platonic school. My chief labour in this book was most
accurately to notice the dark hints by which the author refers from one
passage to another, and thus promises to reveal what he conceals; and
to mark down on the margin the number of the page where such passages
as should explain each other were to be found. But even thus the book
still remained dark and unintelligible enough; except that one at
last studied oneself into a certain terminology, and, by using it
according to one's own fancy, believed that one was at any rate saying,
if not understanding, something. The before-mentioned work makes
very honourable mention of its predecessors, and we were incited to
investigate those original sources themselves. We turned to the works
of Theophrastus, Paracelsus and Basilius Valentinus; as well as to
those of Helmont, Starkey, and others whose doctrines and directions,
resting more or less on nature and imagination, we endeavoured to
see into and follow out. I was particularly pleased with the _Aurea
Catena Homeri_, in which nature, though perhaps in fantastical
fashion, is represented in a beautiful combination; and thus sometimes
by ourselves, sometimes together, we employed much time on these
singularities, and spent the evenings of a long winter, during which I
was compelled to keep my chamber, very agreeably, since we three, my
mother being included, were more delighted with these secrets than we
could have been at their elucidation.
[Side-note: Alchemical Turn.]
In the meantime a very severe trial was preparing for me; for a
disturbed, and one might even say, for certain moments, destroyed
digestion, excited such symptoms that, in great tribulation, I thought
I should lose my life, and none of the remedies applied would produce
any further effect. In this last extremity, my distressed mother
constrained the embarrassed physician with the greatest vehemence
to come out with his universal medicine; after a long refusal, he
hastened home at the dead of night, and returned with a little glass of
crystallized dry salt, which was dissolved in water, and swallowed by
the patient. It had a decidedly alkaline taste. The salt was scarcely
taken than my situation appeared relieved, and from that moment the
disease took a turn which, by degrees, led to my recovery. I cannot say
how far this strengthened and enhanced our faith in our physician, and
our industry to make ourselves partakers of such a treasure.
My friend, who, without parents or brothers and sisters, lived in a
large, well-situated house, had already before this begun to purchase
herself a little air-furnace, alembics and retorts of moderate size;
and, in accordance with the hints of Welling, and the significant signs
of our physician and master, operated principally on iron, in which the
most healing powers were said to be concealed, if one only knew how to
open it. And as the volatile salt which must be produced made a great
figure in all the writings with which we were acquainted, so, for these
operations, alkalies also were required, which, while they flowed away
into the air, were to unite with these super-terrestrial things, and at
last produce _per se_, a mysterious and excellent neutral salt.