came with his family. Here arose at once new affinities; for while the
two ladies approached each other, Merck had come into closer contact
with Herr von Laroche as a connoisseur of the world and of business,
as a well-informed and travelled man. The boy associated himself with
the boys, and the daughters, of whom the eldest soon particularly
attracted me, fell to my share. It is a very pleasant sensation when a
new passion begins to stir in us, before the old one is quite extinct.
Thus, when the sun is setting, one often likes to see the moon rise on
the opposite side, and one takes delight in the double lustre of the
two heavenly luminaries.
There was now no lack of rich entertainment either in or out of the
house. We wandered about the spot, and ascended Ehrenbreitstein on
this side of the river, and the _Carthaus_ on the other. The city, the
Moselle-bridge, the ferry which took us over the Rhine, all gave us the
most varied delight. The new castle was not yet built; we were taken
to the place where it was to stand, and allowed to see the preparatory
sketches.
Nevertheless, amid those cheerful circumstances was internally
developed that element of unsociableness which, both in cultivated and
uncultivated circles, ordinarily shows its malign effects. Merck, at
once cold and restless, had not long listened to that correspondence
before he uttered aloud many waggish notions concerning the things
which were the subjects of discourse, as well as the persons and
their circumstances, while he revealed to me in secret the oddest
things, which really were concealed under them. Political secrets were
never touched on, nor indeed anything that could have had a definite
connexion; he only made me attentive to persons who, without remarkable
talents, contrive, by a certain tact, to obtain personal influence,
and, by an acquaintance with many, try to make something out of
themselves; and from this time forwards I had opportunity to observe
several men of the sort. Since such persons usually change their place,
and, as travellers come, now here, now there, they have the advantage
of novelty, which should neither be envied nor spoiled; for this is a
mere customary matter, which every traveller has often experienced to
his benefit, and every resident to his detriment.
Be that as it may, it is enough that from that time forward we
cherished an uneasy, nay, envious attention to people of the sort, who
went about on their own account, cast anchor in every city, and sought
to gain an influence at least in some families. I have represented
a tender and soft specimen of these guild-brethren in "Pater Brey,"
another of more aptness and bluntness in a carnival play to be
hereafter published, which bears the title, _Satyros, or the deified
Wood-devil._ This I have done, if not with fairness, at least with good
humour.
However, the strange elements of our little society still worked quite
tolerably one upon another; we were partly united by our own manner
and style of breeding, and partly restrained by the peculiar conduct
of our hostess, who, being but lightly touched by that which passed
around her, always resigned herself to certain ideal notions, and while
she understood how to utter them in a friendly and benevolent way,
contrived to soften everything sharp that might arise in the company,
and to smooth down all that was uneven.
Merck had sounded a retreat just at the right time, so that the party
separated on the best of terms. I went with him and his in a yacht,
which was returning up the Rhine towards Mayence; and although this
vessel went very slowly of itself, we nevertheless besought the captain
not to hurry himself. Thus we enjoyed at leisure the infinitely various
objects, which, in the most splendid weather, seem to increase in
beauty every hour, and both in greatness and agreeableness ever to
change anew; and I only wish that, while I utter the names, Rheinfels
and St. Goar, Bacharach, Bingen, Ellfeld, and Biberich, every one of my
readers may be able to recall these spots to memory.
We had sketched industriously, and had thus at least gained a deeper
impression of the thousandfold changes of those splendid shores.
At the same time, by being so much longer together, by a familiar
communication on so many sorts of things, our connexion became so
much the more intimate, that Merck gained a great influence over
me, and I, as a good companion, became indispensable to him for a
comfortable existence. My eye, sharpened by nature, again turned to the
contemplation of art, for which the beautiful Frankfort collections
afforded me the best opportunity, both in paintings and engravings,
and I have been much indebted to the kindness of MM. Ettling and
Ehrenreich, but especially to the excellent Nothnagel. To see nature in
art became with me a passion, which, in its highest moments, must have
appeared to others, passionate amateurs as they might be, almost like
madness: and how could such an inclination be better fostered than by a
constant observation of the excellent works of the Netherlanders? That
I might make myself practically acquainted with these things, Nothnagel
gave me a little room, where I found every thing that was requisite for
oil painting, and painted after nature some simple subjects of still
life, one of which, a tortoise-shell knife-handle, inlaid with silver,
so astonished my master, who had last visited me an hour before, that
he maintained one of his subordinate artists must have been with me
during the time.
[Side-note: Reviving Taste for Art.]
Had I patiently gone on practising myself on such objects catching
their light and the peculiarities of their surface, I might have
formed a sort of practical skill, and made a way for something higher.
I was, however, prevented by the fault of all dilettantes--that of
beginning with what is most difficult, and ever wishing to perform
the impossible, and I soon involved myself in greater undertakings,
in which I stuck fast, both because they were beyond my technical
capabilities, and because I could not always maintain pure and
operative that loving attention and patient industry, by which even the
beginner accomplishes something.
At the same time, I was once more carried into a higher sphere, by
finding an opportunity of purchasing some fine plaster casts of antique
heads. The Italians, who visit the fairs, often brought with them
good specimens of the kind, and sold them cheap, after they had taken
moulds of them. In this manner I set up for myself a little museum, as
I gradually brought together the heads of the Laocoön, his sons, and
Niobe's daughters. I also bought miniature copies of the most important
works of antiquity from the estate of a deceased friend of art, and
thus sought once more to revive, as much as possible, the great
impression which I had received at Mannheim.
While I now sought to cultivate, foster, and maintain all the talent,
taste, or other inclination that might live in me, I applied a good
part of the day, according to my father's wish, in the duties of
an advocate, for the practice of which I chanced to find the best
opportunity. After the death of my grandfather, my uncle Textor had
come into the council, and consigned to me the little offices to which
I was equal; while the brothers Schlosser did the same. I made myself
acquainted with the documents; my father also read them with much
pleasure, as by means of his son, he again saw himself in an activity
of which he had been long deprived. We talked the matters over, and
with great facility; I then made the necessary statements. We had
at hand an excellent copyist, on whom one could rely for all legal
formalities; and this occupation was the more agreeable to me as it
brought me closer to my father, who, being perfectly satisfied with my
conduct in this respect, readily looked with an eye of indulgence on
all my other pursuits, in the ardent expectation that I should now soon
gather in a harvest of fame as an author.
Because now, in every epoch, all things are connected together, since
the ruling views and opinions are ramified in the most various manner,
so in the science of law those maxims were gradually pursued, according
to which religion and morals were treated. Among the attorneys, as
the younger people, and then among the judges, as the elder, a spirit
of humanity was diffused, and all vied with each other in being as
humane as possible, even in legal affairs. Prisons were improved,
crimes excused, punishments lightened, legitimations rendered easy,
separations and unequal marriages encouraged, and one of our eminent
lawyers gained for himself the highest fame, when he contrived, by hard
fighting, to gain for the son of an executioner an entrance into the
college of surgeons. In vain did guilds and corporations oppose; one
dam after another was broken through. The toleration of the religious
parties towards each other was not merely taught, but practised, and
the civil constitution was threatened with a still greater influence,
when the effort was made to recommend to that good-humoured age, with
understanding, acuteness, and power, toleration toward the Jews.
Those new subjects for legal treatment, which lay without the law and
tradition, and only laid claim to a fair examination, to a kindly
sympathy, required at the same time a more natural and animated style.
Here for us, the youngest, was opened a cheerful field, in which we
bustled about with delight, and I still recollect that an imperial
councillor's agent, in a case of the sort, sent me a very polite letter
of commendation. The French _plaidoyés_ served us for patterns and for
stimulants.
We were thus on the way to become better orators than jurists, a fact
to which George Schlosser once called my attention, blaming me while
doing so. I told him that I had read to my clients a controversial
paper written with much energy in their favour, at which they had shown
the greatest satisfaction. Upon this he replied to me, "In this case
you have shown yourself more an author than an advocate. We must never
ask how such a writing may please the client, but how it may please the
judge."
[Side-note: State of the German stage.]
As the occupations to which one devotes one's day are never so serious
and pressing that one cannot find time enough in the evening to go
to the play, thus was it also with me, who, in the want of a really
good stage, did not cease thinking of the German theatre, in order to
discover how one might cooperate upon it with any degree of activity.
Its condition in the second half of the last century is sufficiently
known, and every one who wishes to be instructed about it finds
assistance at hand everywhere. On this account I only intend to insert
here a few general remarks.
The success of the stage rested more upon the personality of the actors
than upon the value of the pieces. This was especially the case with
pieces half or wholly extemporized, when everything depended on the
humour and talent of the comic actors. The matter of such pieces must
be taken out of the commonest life, in conformity with the people
before whom they are acted. From this immediate application arises the
greatest applause, which these plays have always gained. They were
always at home in South Germany, where they are retained to the present
day; and the change of persons alone renders it necessary to give,
from time to time, some change to the character of the comic masks.
However, the German theatre, in conformity with the serious character
of the nation, soon took a turn towards the moral, which was still more
accelerated by an external cause. For the question arose, among strict
Christians, whether the theatre belonged to those sinful things which
are to be shunned, at all events, or to those indifferent things which
can be good to the good and bad to the bad. Some zealots denied the
latter, and held fast the opinion that no clergyman should ever enter
the theatre. Now the opposite opinion could not be maintained with
energy, unless the theatre was declared to be not only harmless, but
even useful. To be useful, it must be moral; and in this direction it
developed itself in North Germany the more as, by a sort of half-taste,
the comic character[2] was banished, and although intelligent persons
took his part, was forced to retire, having already gone from the
coarseness of the German _hanswurst_ (jack-pudding) into the neatness
and delicacy of the Italian and French harlequins. Even Scapin and
Crispin gradually vanished; the latter I saw played for the last time
by Koch, in his old age.
Richardson's novels had already made the citizen-world attentive to a
more delicate morality. The severe and inevitable consequences of a
feminine _faux pas_ were analysed in a frightful manner in _Clarissa._
Lessing's _Miss Sara Sampson_ treated the same theme: whilst the
_Merchant of London_ exhibited a misguided youth in the most terrible
situation. The French dramas had the same end, but proceeded more
moderately, and contrived to please by some accommodation at the end.
Diderot's _Père de Famille_, the _Honourable Criminal_, the _Vinegar
Dealer_, the _Philosopher without knowing it, Eugenie_, and other
works of the sort, suited that honest feeling of citizen and family
which began more and more to prevail. With us, the _Grateful Son_,
the _Deserter from Parental Love_, and all of their kin, went the
same way. The _Minister, Clementini_, and other pieces by Gehler, the
_German Father of a Family_, by Gemming, all brought agreeably to view
the worth of the middle and even of the lower class, and delighted
the great public. Eckhof by his noble personality, which gave to the
actor's profession a dignity in which it had hitherto been deficient,
elevated to an uncommon degree the leading characters in such pieces,
since, as an honest man, the expression of honesty succeeded with him
to perfection.
While now the German theatre was completely inclining to effeminacy,
Schröder arose as an author and actor, and prompted by the connexion
between Hamburg and England, adapted some English comedies. The
material of these he could only use in the most general way, since
the originals are for the most part formless, and if they begin well
and according to a certain plan, they wander from the mark at last.
The sole concern of their authors seems to be the introduction of the
oddest scenes; and whoever is accustomed to a sustained work of art, at
last unwillingly finds himself driven into the boundless. Besides this,
a wild, immoral, vulgarly dissolute tone so decidedly pervades the
whole, to an intolerable degree, that it must have been difficult to
deprive the plan and the characters of all their bad manners. They are
a coarse and at the same time dangerous food, which can only be enjoyed
and digested by a large and half-corrupted populace at a certain time.
Schröder did more for these things than is usually known; he thoroughly
altered them, assimilated them to the German mind, and softened them
as much as possible. But still a bitter kernel always remains in them,
because the joke often depends on the ill-usage of persons, whether
they deserve it or not. In these performances, which were also widely
spread upon our stage, lay a secret counterpoise to that too delicate
morality; and the action of both kinds of drama against each other
fortunately prevented the monotony into which people would otherwise
have fallen.
[Side-note: Schroeder's Adaptation of English Comedies.]
The German, kind and magnanimous by nature, likes to see no one
ill-treated. But as no man, however well he thinks, is secure that
something may not be put upon him against his inclination, and as,
moreover, comedy in general, if it is to please, always presupposes
or awakens something of malice in the spectator, so, by a natural
path, did people come to a conduct which hitherto had been deemed
unnatural: this consisted in lowering the higher classes, and more or
less attacking them. Satire, whether in prose or verse, had always
avoided touching the court and nobility. Rabener refrained from all
jokes in that direction, and remained in a lower circle. Zachariä
occupies himself much with country noblemen, comically sets forth
their tastes and peculiarities, but this is done without contempt.
Thümmel's _Wilhelmine_, an ingenious little composition, as pleasant
as it is bold, gained great applause, perhaps because the author,
himself a nobleman and courtier, treated his own class unsparingly. But
the boldest step was taken by Lessing, in his _Emilia Galotti_, where
the passions and intrigues of the higher classes are delineated in
a bitter and cutting manner. All these things perfectly corresponded
to the excited spirit of the time; and men of less mind and talent
thought they might do the same, or even more; as indeed Grossmann,
in six unsavoury dishes, served up to the malicious public all the
tidbits of his vulgar kitchen. An honest man, Hofrath Reinhardt, was
the major-domo at this unpleasant board, to the comfort and edification
of all the guests. From this time forward the theatrical villains were
always chosen from the higher ranks; and a person must be a gentleman
of the bedchamber, or at least a private secretary, to be worthy of
such a distinction. But for the most godless examples, the highest
offices and places in the court and civil list were chosen, in which
high society, even the justiciaries, found their place as villains of
the first water.
But as I must fear already that I have been carried beyond the time
which is now the subject in hand, I return back to myself, to mention
the impulse which I felt to occupy myself in my leisure hours with the
theatrical plans which I had once devised.
By my lasting interest in Shakspeare's works, I had so expanded
my mind, that the narrow compass of the stage and the short time
allotted to a representation, seemed to me by no means sufficient to
bring forward something important. The life of the gallant Götz von
Berlichingen, written by himself, impelled me into the historic mode
of treatment; and my imagination so much extended itself, that my
dramatic form also went beyond all theatrical bounds, and sought more
and more to approach the living events. I had, as I proceeded, talked
circumstantially on this subject with my sister, who was interested,
heart and soul, in such things, and renewed this conversation so often,
without going to any work, that she at last, growing impatient, and at
the same time wishing me well, urgently entreated me not to be always
casting my words into the air, but, once for all, to set down upon
paper that which must have been so present to my mind. Determined by
this impulse, I began one morning to write, without having made any
previous sketch or plan. I wrote the first scenes, and in the evening
they were read aloud to Cornelia. She gave them much applause, but only
conditionally, since she doubted that I should go on so; nay, she even
expressed a decided unbelief in my perseverance. This only incited me
the more; I wrote on the next day, and also the third. Hope increased
with the daily communications, and from step to step everything gained
more life, while the matter, moreover, had become thoroughly my own.
Thus I kept, without interruption, to my work, which I pursued straight
on, looking neither backwards nor forwards,--neither to the right nor
to the left; and in about six weeks I had the pleasure to see the
manuscript stitched. I communicated it to Merck, who spoke sensibly and
kindly about it. I sent it to Herder, who, on the contrary, expressed
himself unkindly and severely, and did not fail, in some lampoons
written for the occasion, to give me nicknames on account of it. I did
not allow myself to be perplexed by this, but took a clear view of my
object. The die was now cast, and the only question was how to play the
game best. I plainly saw that even here no one would advise me; and,
as after some time I could regard my work as if it had proceeded from
another hand, I indeed perceived that in my attempt to renounce unity
of time and place, I had also infringed upon that higher unity which is
so much the more required. Since, without plan or sketch, I had merely
abandoned myself to my imagination and to an internal impulse, I had
not deviated much at the beginning, and the first acts could fairly
pass for what they were intended to be. In the following acts, however,
and especially towards the end, I was unconsciously carried along by
a wonderful passion. While trying to describe Adelheid as amiable, I
had fallen in love with her myself,--my pen was involuntarily devoted
to her alone,--the interest in her fate gained the preponderance; and
as, apart from this consideration. Götz, towards the end, is without
activity, and afterwards only returns to an unlucky participation in
the _Bauernkrieg_[3] nothing was more natural than that a charming
woman should supplant him in the mind of the author, who, casting
off the fetters of art, thought to try himself in a new field. This
defect, or rather this culpable superfluity, I soon perceived, since
the nature of my poetry always impelled me to unity. I now, instead of
the biography of Götz and German antiquities, kept my own work in mind,
and sought to give it more and more historical and national substance,
and to cancel that which was fabulous or merely proceeded from passion.
In this I indeed sacrificed much, as the inclination of the man had
to yield to the conviction of the artist. Thus, for instance, I
had pleased myself highly by malting Adelheid enter into a terrific
nocturnal gipsy-scene, and perform wonders by her beautiful presence.
A nearer examination banished her; and the love-affair between Franz
and his noble, gracious lady, which was very circumstantially carried
on in the fourth and fifth acts, was much condensed, and could only be
suffered to appear in its chief points.
[Side-note: Goetz von Berlichingen.]
Therefore, without altering anything in the first manuscript, which I
still actually possess in its original shape, I determined to rewrite
the whole, and did this with such activity, that in a few weeks an
entirely new-made piece lay before me. I went to work upon this
all the quicker, the less my intention was ever to have the second
poem printed, as I looked upon this likewise as a mere preparatory
exercise, which in future I should again lay at the foundation of a new
treatment, to be accomplished with greater industry and deliberation.
When I began to lay before Merck many proposals as to the way in which
I should set about this task, he laughed at me, and asked what was the
meaning of this perpetual writing and rewriting? The thing, he said,
by this means, becomes only different, and seldom better; one must see
what effect one thing produces, and then again try something new. "Be
in time at the hedge, if you would dry your linen."[4] he exclaimed,
in the words of the proverb; hesitation and delay only make uncertain
men. On the other hand, I replied to him that it would be unpleasant
to me to offer to a bookseller a work on which I had bestowed so much
affection, and perhaps to receive a refusal as an answer; for how would
they judge of a young, nameless, and also audacious author? As my
dread of the press gradually vanished, I had wished to see printed my
comedy _Die Mitschuldigen_, upon which I set some value, but I found no
publisher inclined in my favour.