worth, and by which others were induced also to think themselves
somebody, has produced very great and beautiful results, both in public
and private, But this consciousness, honourable as it is, called a
peculiar evil down for themselves, for those around them, and for their
time. If, judging from their intellectual effects, both these men may
without hesitation be called great, with respect to the world they
remained but small, and considered in comparison with a more stirring
life, their external position was nought. The day is long, and so is
the night: one cannot be always writing poetry, or doing, or giving;
their time could not be filled up like that of people of the world, and
men of rank and wealth; they therefore set too high a value on their
particular limited situations, attached an importance to their daily
affairs which they should only have allowed themselves amongst each
other, and took more than reasonable delight in their own jokes, which,
though they made the moment agreeable, could be of no consequence in
the end. They received praise and honour from others, as they deserved;
they gave it back, with measure indeed, but always too profusely; and
because they felt that their friendship was worth much, they were
pleased to express it repeatedly, and in this spared neither paper nor
ink. Thus arose those correspondences, at the deficiency of which in
solid contents the modern world wonders, nor can it be blamed, when
it hardly sees the possibility of eminent men delighting themselves
in such an interchange of nothing, or when it expresses the wish that
such leaves might have remained unprinted. But we may suffer these few
volumes always to stand along with so many others upon our bookshelves,
if we have learned from them the fact that even the most eminent man
lives only by the day, and enjoys but a sorry entertainment, when he
throws himself too much back upon himself, and neglects to grasp into
the fulness of the external world, where alone he can find nourishment
for his growth, and at the same time a standard for its measurement.
The activity of these men was in its finest bloom, when we young folks
began also to bestir ourselves in our own circle, and with my younger
friends, if not with older persons too. I was pretty much in the way
of falling into this sort of mutual flattery, forbearance, raising and
supporting. In my immediate sphere, whatever I produced could always be
reckoned good. Ladies, friends, and patrons will not consider bad that
which is undertaken and written out of affection for them. From such
obligations at last arises the expression of an empty satisfaction with
each other, in the phrases of which a character is easily lost, if it
is not from time to time steeled to higher excellence.
And thus I had the happiness to say that, by means of an unexpected
acquaintance, all the self-complacency, love of the looking-glass,
vanity, pride, and haughtiness that might have been resting or working
within me, were exposed to a very severe trial, which was unique in its
kind, by no means in accordance with the time, and therefore so much
the more searching and more sorely felt.
[Side-note: Herder.]
For the most important event, one that was to have the weightiest
consequences for me, was my acquaintance with HERDER, and the nearer
connexion with him which sprung from it. He accompanied the travels of
the Prince of Holstein-Eutin, who was in a melancholy state of mind,
and had come with him to Strasburg. Our society, as soon as it knew of
his arrival, was seized with a great longing to approach him, and this
good fortune happened to me first, quite unexpectedly and by chance.
I had gone to the Ghost tavern to inquire after some distinguished
stranger or other. Just at the bottom of the staircase I found a man
who was on the point of ascending, and whom I might have taken for a
clergyman. His powdered hair was put up in a queue, his black clothes
likewise distinguished him, but still more a long black silk mantle,
the skirts of which he had gathered up and stuck into his pocket. This
somewhat striking, but yet, on the whole, polite and pleasing figure,
of which I had already been told, left me not the least doubt that he
was the celebrated newcomer, and my address was to convince him at once
that I knew him. He asked my name, which could be of no consequence
to him; but my frankness seemed to please him, since he returned it
with great friendliness, and as we mounted the stairs, showed himself
ready immediately for animated communication. I have forgotten whom
we visited then; it is sufficient to say, that at parting I begged
permission to wait on him at his own residence, which he granted me
kindly enough. I did not neglect to avail myself repeatedly of this
favour, and was more and more attracted by him. He had somewhat of
softness in his manner, which was very suitable and becoming, without
being exactly easy. A round face, an imposing forehead, a somewhat
puggish nose, a mouth somewhat prominent, but highly characteristic,
pleasing, and amiable; a pair of coal-black eyes under black eye-brows,
which did not fail of their effect, although one of them used to be red
and inflamed. By various questions he tried to make himself acquainted
with me and my situation, and his power of attraction operated on me
with growing strength. I was, generally speaking, of a very confiding
disposition, and with him especially I had no secrets. It was not long,
however, before the repelling pulse of his nature began to appear, and
placed me in no small uneasiness. I related to him many things of my
youthful occupations and taste, and among others, of a collection of
seals, which I had principally gotten together through the assistance
of our family friend, who had an extensive correspondence. I had
arranged them according to the _State Calendar_, and by this means had
become well acquainted with the whole of the potentates, the greater
and lesser mightinesses and powers, even down to the nobility under
them. These heraldic insignia had often, and in particular at the
ceremonies of the coronation, been of use to my memory. I spoke of
these things with some complacency; but he was of another opinion, and
not only stripped the subject of all interest, but also contrived to
make it ridiculous and nearly disgusting.
From this his spirit of contradiction I had much to endure; for he
had resolved, partly because he wished to separate from the prince,
partly on account of a complaint in his eye, to remain in Strasburg.
This complaint is one of the most inconvenient and unpleasant, and
the more troublesome since it can be cured only by a painful, highly
irritating and uncertain operation. The tear-bag is closed below, so
that the moisture contained in it cannot flow off to the nose, and so
much the less as the adjacent bone is deficient in the aperture by
which this secretion should naturally take place. The bottom of the
tear-bag must therefore be cut open, and the bone bored through, when a
horse-hair is drawn through the lachrymal point, then down through the
opened bag, and the new canal thus put into connexion with it, and this
hair is moved backwards and forwards every day, in order to restore
the communication between the two parts;--all which cannot be done or
attained, if an incision is not first made externally in that place.
Herder was now separated from the prince, was moved into lodgings
of his own, and resolved to have himself operated upon by Lobstein.
Here those exercises by which I had sought to blunt my sensibility
did me good service; I was able to be present at the operation, and
to be serviceable and helpful in many ways to so worthy a man. I
found here every reason to admire his great firmness and endurance:
for neither during the numerous surgical operations, nor at the
oft-repeated painful dressings, did he show himself in any degree
irritable, and of all of us he seemed to be the one who suffered
least. But in the intervals, indeed, we had to endure the changes of
his temper in many ways. I say _we_ for besides myself, a pleasant
Russian, named PEGLOW, was mostly with him. This man had been an early
acquaintance of Herder's in Riga, and though no longer a youth, was
trying to perfect himself in surgery under Lobstein's guidance. Herder
could be charmingly prepossessing and brilliant, but he could just
as easily turn an ill-humoured side foremost. All men, indeed, have
this attraction and repulsion, according to their nature, some more,
some less, some in longer, some in shorter pulsations; few can really
control their peculiarities in this respect, many in appearance. As for
Herder, the preponderance of his contradictory, bitter, biting humour
was certainly derived from his disease and the sufferings arising from
it. This case often occurs in life; one does not sufficiently take
into consideration the moral effect of sickly conditions, and one
therefore judges many characters very unjustly, because it is assumed
that all men are healthy, and required of them that they shall conduct
themselves accordingly.
[Side-note: Herder.]
During the whole time of this cure I visited Herder morning and
evening; I even remained whole days with him, and in a short time
accustomed myself so much the more to his chiding and fault-finding,
as I daily learned to appreciate his beautiful and great qualities,
his extensive knowledge, and his profound views. The influence of this
good-natured blusterer was great and important. He was five years
older than myself, which in younger days makes a great difference
to begin with; and as I acknowledged him for what he was, and tried
to value that which he had already produced, he necessarily gained
a great superiority over me. But the situation was not comfortable;
for older persons, with whom I had associated hitherto, had sought
to form me with indulgence, perhaps had even spoiled me by their
lenity; but from Herder, behave as one might, one could never expect
approval. As now, on the one side, my great affection and reverence
for him, and on the other, the discontent which he excited in me,
were continually at strife with each other, there arose within me an
inward struggle, the first of its kind which I had experienced in my
life. Since his conversations were at all times important, whether he
asked, answered, or communicated his opinions in any other manner, he
could not but advance me daily, nay hourly, to new views. At Leipzig,
I had accustomed myself to a narrow and circumscribed existence, and
my general knowledge of German literature could not be extended by my
situation in Frankfort; nay, those mystico-religio-chemical occupations
had led me into obscure regions, and what had been passing for some
years back in the wide literary world, had for the most part remained
unknown to me. Now I was at once made acquainted by Herder with all the
new aspiration, and all the tendencies which it seemed to be taking. He
had already made himself sufficiently known, and by his _Fragments_,
his _Kritische Wälder_ (_Critical Woods_), and other works, had
immediately placed himself by the side of the most eminent men who had
for a long time drawn towards them the eyes of their country. What an
agitation there must have been in such a mind--what a fermentation
there must have been in such a nature--can neither be conceived nor
described. But great was certainly the concealed effort, as will be
easily admitted, when one reflects for how many years afterwards and
how much he has done and produced.
We had not lived together long in this manner when he confided to me
that he meant to be a competitor for the prize which was offered, at
Berlin, for the best treatise on the origin of language. His work was
already nearly completed, and, as he wrote a very neat hand, he could
soon communicate to me, in parts, a legible manuscript. I had never
reflected on such subjects, for I was yet too deeply involved in the
midst of things to have thought about their beginning and end. The
question, too, seemed to me in some measure an idle one; for if God
had created man as man, language was just as innate in him as walking
erect; he must have just as well perceived that he could sing with
his throat, and modify the tones in various ways with tongue, palate,
and lips, as he must have remarked that he could walk and take hold
of things. If man was of divine origin, so was also language itself;
and if man, considered in the circle of nature, was a natural being,
language was likewise natural. These two things, like soul and body,
I could never separate. Süssmilch, with a realism crude yet somewhat
fantastically devised, had declared himself for the divine origin, that
is, that God had played the schoolmaster to the first men. Herder's
treatise went to show that man as man could and must have attained to
language by his own powers. I read the treatise with much pleasure, and
it was of special aid in strengthening my mind; only I did not stand
high enough either in knowledge or thought to form a solid judgment
upon it. I therefore gave the author my applause, adding only a few
remarks which flowed from my way of viewing the subject. But one was
received just like the other; there was scolding and blaming, whether
one agreed with him conditionally or unconditionally. The fat surgeon
had less patience than I; he humorously declined the communication of
this prize-essay, and affirmed that he was not prepared to meditate on
such abstract topics. He urged us in preference to a game of ombre,
which we commonly played together in the evening.
[Side-note: Herder's Sarcasms.]
During so troublesome and painful a cure, Herder lost nothing of his
vivacity; but it became less and less amiable. He could not write a
note to ask for anything, that would not be spiced with some scoff or
other. Once, for instance, he wrote to me thus:--
"If those letters of Brutus thou hast in thy Cicero's letters,
Thou, whom consolers of schools, deck'd out in magnificent bindings,
Soothe from their well plan'd shelves--yet more by the outside than
inside,
Thou, who from gods art descended, or Goths, or from origin filthy,[1]
Goethe, send them to me."
It was not polite, indeed, that he should allow himself this jest on my
name; for a man's name is not like a mantle, which merely hangs about
him, and which, perchance, may be safely twitched and pulled; but is a
perfectly fitting garment, which has grown over and over him like his
very skin, at which one cannot scratch and scrape without wounding the
man himself.
The first reproach, on the contrary, was better founded. I had brought
with me to Strasburg the authors I had obtained, by exchange, from
Langer, with various fine editions from my father's collection besides,
and had set them up on a neat book-case, with the best intentions of
using them. But how should my time, which I split up into an hundred
different activities, suffice for that? Herder, who was most attentive
to books, since he had need of them every moment, perceived my fine
collection at his first visit, but soon saw, too, that I made no use of
them. He, therefore, as the greatest enemy to all false appearances and
ostentation, was accustomed, on occasion, to rally me upon the subject.
Another sarcastic poem occurs to me, which he sent me one evening,
when I had been telling him a great deal about the Dresden gallery.
I had, indeed, not penetrated into the higher meaning of the Italian
school; but Dominico Feti, an excellent artist, although a humorist,
and therefore not of the first rank, had interested me much. Scripture
subjects had to be painted. He confined himself to the New Testament
parables, and was fond of representing them with much originality,
taste, and good-humour. He brought them altogether into every-day life,
and the spirited and _naïve_ details of his compositions, recommended
by a free pencil, had made a vivid impression upon me. At this, my
childish enthusiasm for art, Herder sneered in the following fashion:--
"From sympathy,
The master I like best of all
Dominico Feti they call.
A parable from Scripture he is able
Neatly to turn into a crazy fable
From sympathy:--thou crazy parable!"
I could mention many jokes of the kind, more or less clear or
abstruse, cheerful or bitter. They did not vex me, but made me feel
uncomfortable. Yet since I knew how to value highly everything that
contributed to my own cultivation, and as I had often given up former
opinions and inclinations, I soon accommodated myself, and only sought,
as far as it was possible for me from my point of view, to distinguish
just blame from unjust invectives. And thus no day passed over that had
not been, in the most fruitful manner, instructive to me.
I was made acquainted by him with poetry from quite a different side,
in another light than heretofore, and one, too, which suited me well.
The poetic art of the Hebrews, which he treated ingeniously after
his predecessor Lowth--popular poetry, the traditions of which in
Alsace he urged us to search after; and the oldest records existing
as poetry--all bore witness that poetry in general was a gift to the
world and to nations, and not the private inheritance of a few refined,
cultivated men. I swallowed all this, and the more eager I was in
receiving, the more liberal was he in giving, so that we spent the
most interesting hours together. The other natural studies which I had
begun, I endeavoured to continue, and as one always has time enough,
if one will apply it well, so amongst them all I succeeded in doing
twice or thrice as much as usual. As to the fulness of those few weeks
during which we lived together, I can well say that all which Herder
has gradually produced since, was then announced in the germ, and that
I thereby fell into the fortunate condition that I could completely
attach to something higher, and expand all that I had hitherto thought,
learned, and made my own. Had Herder been methodical, I should have
found the most precious guide for giving a durable tendency to my
cultivation; but he was more inclined to examine and stimulate,
than to lead and conduct. Thus he at first made me acquainted with
Hamann's writings, upon which he set a very great value. But instead
of instructing me as to these, and making the bias and drift of his
extraordinary mind intelligible to me, it generally only served him
for amusement when I behaved strangely enough, in trying to get at
the meaning of such sibylline leaves. However, I could well feel that
something in Hamann's writings appealed to me; and to this I gave
myself up, without knowing whence it came or whither it was leading me.
[Side-note: Herder's Departure.]
After the cure had lasted longer than was reasonable, Lobstein had
begun to hesitate, and to repeat himself in his treatment, so that
the affair would not come to an end; and Peglow, too, had confided
to me in private that a favourable issue was hardly to be expected;
the whole position became gloomy; Herder became impatient and out of
temper, he could not succeed in continuing his activity as heretofore,
and was obliged to restrain himself the more, as they began to lay
the blame of the surgical failure upon his too great mental exertion,
and his uninterrupted, animated, nay, merry intercourse with us. It
is sufficient to say, that after so much trouble and suffering, the
artificial tear-channel would not form itself, and the communication
intended would not take place. It was necessary to let the wound heal
over in order that the disease should not become worse. If, now, during
the operation, one could but admire Herder's firmness under such
pains, his melancholy and even fierce resignation to the idea that he
must bear such a blot about him all his life, had about it something
truly sublime, by which he gained for ever the reverence of those
who saw and loved him. This disease, which disfigured so expressive
a countenance, must have been so much the more afflicting to him, as
he had become acquainted with an excellent lady in Darmstadt, and had
gained her affections. It may have been for this cause principally that
he submitted to the cure, in order, on his return, to appear more free,
more cheerful, and more handsome in the eyes of his half-betrothed, and
to unite himself more certainly and indissolubly with her. However, he
hastened away from Strasburg as soon as possible, and since his stay
had hitherto been as expensive as it was unpleasant, I borrowed a sum
of money for him, which he promised to refund by an appointed day. The
time passed without the arrival of the money. My creditor, indeed, did
not dun me; but I was for several weeks in embarrassment. At last the
letter and the money came, and even here he did not act unlike himself;
for, instead of thanks or an apology, his letter contained nothing but
satirical things in doggerel verse, which would have puzzled, if not
alienated, another; but it did not move me at all, for I had conceived
so great and powerful an idea of his worth that it absorbed everything
of an opposite nature which could have injured it.
One should never speak, publicly at least, of one's own faults, or
those of others, if one does not hope to effect some useful purpose
by it; on this account I will here insert certain remarks which force
themselves upon me.
Gratitude and ingratitude belong to those events which appear every
moment in the moral world, and about which men can never agree
among themselves. I usually distinguish between non-thankfulness,
ingratitude, and aversion from gratitude. The first is innate with
men, nay, created with them; for it arises from a happy volatile
forgetfulness of the repulsive as well as of the delightful, by which
alone the continuation of life is possible. Man needs such an infinite
quantity of previous and concurrent assistances for a tolerable
existence, that if he would always pay to the sun and the earth, to
God and nature, to ancestors and parents, to friends and companions,
the thanks due to them, he would have neither time nor feeling left to
receive and enjoy new benefits. But if the natural man suffers this
volatility to get the control in and over him, a cold indifference
gains more and more the ascendancy, and one at last regards one's
benefactor as a stranger, to whose injury, perhaps, anything may be
undertaken, provided it be advantageous to ourselves. This alone
can properly be called ingratitude, which results from the rudeness
into which the uncultivated nature must necessarily lose itself at
last. Aversion from gratitude, however, the rewarding of a benefit
by ill-natured and sullen conduct, is very rare, and occurs only in
eminent men, such as, with great natural gifts, and a presentiment
of them, being born in a lower rank of society or in a helpless
condition, must, from their youth upwards, force themselves along, step
by step, and receive, at every point, aids and supports, which are
often embittered and repulsive to them through the coarseness of their
benefactors, since that which they receive is earthly, while that
which, on the other hand, they give, is of a higher kind, so that what
is, strictly speaking, a compensation, is out of the question. Lessing,
with the fine knowledge of earthly things which fell to his share in
the best years of his life, has in one place bluntly, but cheerfully
expressed himself. Herder, on the contrary, constantly embittered his
finest days, both for himself and others, because he knew not how to
moderate, by strength of mind in later years, that ill-humour which had
necessarily seized him in youth.
[Side-note: Artificial Gratitude.]
One may well make this demand of oneself: for, to a man's capability of
cultivation, comes, with friendly aid, the light of nature, which is
always active in enlightening him about his condition; and generally,
in many moral points of culture, one should not construe the failings
too severely, nor look about after the most serious and remote means of
correcting them; for certain faults may be easily and even playfully
removed. Thus, for instance, by mere habit, we can excite gratitude in
ourselves, keep it alive, and even make it necessary to us.
In a biographical attempt, it is proper to speak of oneself. I am, by
nature, as little grateful as any man, and on forgetting the benefit
received, the violent feeling of a momentary disagreement could very
easily beguile me into ingratitude.