During the next period of Goethe’s life, extending from 1794 to
1805--that is, from his forty-fifth to his fifty-sixth year--the central
facts are those relating to his friendship with Schiller.
Schiller, who was ten years younger than Goethe, came to Weimar from
Dresden in 1787, when Goethe was in Italy. He was then twenty-eight
years of age, and was known chiefly as the author of “The Robbers” and
“Don Carlos.” He had passed through many a harsh and stern experience,
but retained in all their freshness the high, ideal impulses of his
early youth. Of the many striking figures who arose in Germany during
the second half of the eighteenth century, Schiller, not as a writer
only but as a man, was one of the noblest. It was his destiny to have to
endure much physical pain, but his sufferings were never allowed to
embitter his spirit or to depress his courage. He marched steadily
forward on his chosen path, keeping always before himself the loftiest
aims, and kindling in other minds something of his own generous passion
for truth, humanity, and freedom.
Dramatic work having been anything but profitable in a material sense,
Schiller began, soon after his arrival at Weimar, to write his book on
the revolt of the Netherlands, hoping that as an historian he might
secure the independence that was necessary to enable him to do justice
to his powers as a poet. He had the warmest admiration for Goethe’s
genius, and looked forward eagerly to his return.
The two poets met for the first time in the summer of 1788, at
Rudolstadt, in the house of Frau von Lengefeld, whose daughter Charlotte
afterwards became Schiller’s wife. Goethe, who had no means of knowing
that Schiller’s ideas had been in some respects gradually approaching
his own, thought of him simply as one of the vehement “Sturm und Drang”
writers. On this occasion, therefore, their talk did not pass beyond the
limits of ordinary politeness, and Schiller obtained the impression that
they were so different from one another that friendship between them
would be impossible. Nevertheless, he thought much about Goethe, and
sometimes could not help rather enviously contrasting Goethe’s
prosperity with his own crushing difficulties.
In 1789 Schiller settled in Jena as a professor of history, having
obtained this appointment through Goethe’s influence. Early in the
following year he married Charlotte von Lengefeld, his union with whom
may have brought him repeatedly into contact with Goethe, who was an old
friend of Charlotte’s family. We know of one meeting between them in the
autumn of 1790, when Goethe called at Schiller’s house. They talked of
the philosophy of Kant; and Schiller, in writing about the conversation
to his friend Körner, spoke of Goethe as being, in his opinion, too much
occupied with the laws of the outward world. He recognized, however,
Goethe’s great way of thinking, and his effort to detect the meaning of
individual facts by combining them in a whole.
Broken in health, Schiller went with his wife, in 1793, to Würtemberg,
in the hope that he might benefit by his native air. While staying at
Stuttgart, he made arrangements with the publisher Cotta for the issue
of a literary periodical, the _Horen_ (“The Hours”); and after his
return to Jena, in 1794, he wrote to Goethe, asking him to become a
contributor. Goethe cordially undertook to give what help he could.
Shortly afterwards they both happened to attend a meeting of a
scientific society at Jena, and as they walked together towards
Schiller’s house they had an interesting discussion about the true
method of science. In the course of this conversation Goethe was for the
first time attracted by Schiller; and he was drawn towards him still
more strongly by a later talk, in which he found that they did not
essentially differ from one another in their ideas about art.
In September of the same year Goethe invited Schiller to visit him, that
they might come to an understanding about the nature of the work to be
done for the _Horen_. Schiller gladly promised to spend a fortnight in
Goethe’s house, and it was during this visit that the deep and solid
bases of their friendship were laid. Each gave his heart to the other
without reserve, and to the end of Schiller’s life nothing was permitted
to stand in the way of their mutual love and confidence. Goethe often
went to Jena, where he had rooms in the old Schloss, and Schiller was
never happier than when he had an opportunity of spending some time at
Weimar. On every occasion when they met, each seemed to find some new
quality to intensify his admiration for the other’s thought and
character.
Goethe and Schiller took the purest delight in one another’s
achievements, and neither of them was ever tired of stimulating the
other to bring forth the noblest fruits of his genius. The tendency of
Schiller, who was hardly less a philosopher than a poet, was to give his
ideas, even in poetry, an abstract expression. Through contact with
Goethe he was led, almost unconsciously, to present his conceptions in
more imaginative forms. His style became more direct, lucid, and
animated, and deeper appreciation of the real world around him imparted
fresh life and colour to his pictures of purely ideal realms. Goethe,
whose genius was of an incomparably higher order, and responded to a
wider range of influences, had nothing, so far as art was concerned, to
learn from Schiller. Nevertheless, he owed to Schiller, as he himself
was always eager to acknowledge, a deep debt of gratitude. From the time
when he had finished “Tasso” and the “Roman Elegies,” he had produced
nothing that was worthy to rank with his best work. He had occupied
himself chiefly with ministerial business and physical science, and
seemed almost to have lost the impulse to visit the imaginative world in
which he had for a while moved so freely and so happily. His power of
poetic creation was, however, only slumbering; and by his intercourse
with Schiller it was awakened to splendid activity. Schiller’s
enthusiasm called forth in him what Goethe himself called “a second
youth,” “a new spring.”
The _Horen_, which began to appear in 1795, excited much antagonism, and
Schiller was excessively annoyed by the attacks directed against it.
Goethe did not let himself be disturbed by hostile judgments, but
towards the end of the year he proposed that they should amuse
themselves by making their opponents the subjects of a series of
epigrams, each epigram consisting of a distich. This suggestion
delighted Schiller, and they lost no time in giving effect to it. The
scheme widened as they went on, being made to include not only writers
who had directly assailed them, but others whose methods and tendencies
they disliked. They also seized the opportunity to do honour to various
great writers, such as Lessing and Kant. A vast collection of epigrams
soon accumulated, some by Goethe, some by Schiller, and some the work of
both poets. They were called “Xenien” (“Xenia,” hospitable gifts: a
title borrowed from Martial), and published in the “Musenalmanach,” a
yearly volume of poems, edited by Schiller. These epigrams, many of
which are bright and keen, fluttered the dovecots of criticism, and
caused Goethe and Schiller, whose names were always henceforth closely
associated, to be held in wholesome dread by pedants and literary
impostors.
The first important work completed by Goethe after the beginning of his
friendship with Schiller was “Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre” (“Wilhelm
Meister’s Apprenticeship”). In 1793 he had taken in hand the task of
revising the part he had written before his sojourn in Italy, but it is
doubtful whether he would have gone on with it but for Schiller’s
influence. Schiller was intensely interested in the book, and often
talked about it with Goethe, who sought his advice as to the best way of
rounding it off. Encouraged by his friend’s enthusiasm, Goethe carried
on his labours steadily until it was finished in 1796.
In “Werther,” Goethe’s first romance, he deals only with one great
crisis in the history of his hero. “Wilhelm Meister,” on the contrary,
is a picture of the entire course of a young man’s life. Meister is the
son of a merchant, and at the point where the tale begins he is
associated with his father in business. He has a touch of poetry, and
longs for a freer, more exciting, more interesting career, in which he
may find scope for the development of his individuality. He is
profoundly interested in the drama, and this feeling is deepened by his
relation with Marianne, a beautiful actress whom he passionately loves.
At last he decides to escape with Marianne from his commonplace
surroundings, and to become an actor; and all his arrangements are made,
when he is led, by some incidents which he misinterprets, to believe
that the girl to whom he has been devoted is unfaithful to him. Shocked
by this supposed discovery, he abandons her, and in a dejected mood
continues to go through his ordinary duties. But by and by, when
travelling to execute some business commissions, he meets several actors
and actresses, and his old love for the stage is revived. A theatrical
company is formed; the director receives from Meister enough money for
the necessary expenses; and the players are invited by a count to give
performances at his country house. Here Meister becomes acquainted with
the works of Shakespeare, and his ideas about the drama are transformed.
He is excited, too, by a romantic relation with the young and beautiful
countess. When the players, after the fulfilment of their engagement,
are leaving the castle, he is attacked by bandits, and, as he lies
wounded and apparently dying, help is brought to him by “the Amazon,” a
woman who makes a deep impression upon him. She suddenly appears, and as
suddenly disappears, and he hardly knows, when he thinks of her, whether
she is real or only a figure in a dream.
He forms a connection with a regular theatre, and, when acting the part
of Hamlet, is so startled by the Ghost (the mystery of whose appearance
is explained in the course of the story) that he produces a powerful
effect by the truth of his representation. He has not, however, the
capacity of becoming a great player, the reason being--as one of the
characters tells him--that, no matter what part he assumes, it is always
his own personality that he represents. He does not possess the faculty
of giving living form to the thoughts and feelings of a type of mind
different from his own. One of the actresses of the company, Aurelia,
excites his sympathy by her settled melancholy, which is due to the fact
that she has been deserted by Lothario, a lover, of high station, whom
she is unable to forget. Before her death she intrusts a letter to
Meister, asking him to place it, when all is over, in Lothario’s hands.
In fulfilment of this mission, Meister quits the stage; and by Lothario,
who has many great qualities, he is introduced to a circle widely
different from anything he has yet seen. He finds that there is a secret
society by which, unknown to himself, he has been closely watched and in
some measure guided. This society, of which Lothario is one of the
leading members, has been formed for the cultivation of all that is
highest and noblest in humanity; and Meister, his “Lehrjahre” over, is
admitted into it with much pomp and ceremony. He learns the truth about
his first love, Marianne, and at the same time hears that she is dead.
He then wins the affections of a woman who appeals rather to his
intellect than to his feeling; but he is afterwards brought into contact
with “The Amazon,” who had passed before him so strangely and
beneficently, and the tale ends with the description of the somewhat
complicated circumstances which lead to their betrothal.
Meister does not convey the impression of having profited very largely
by his “Lehrjahre.” About this, Goethe appears to have given himself
little trouble. His object was to present a series of striking pictures
of life, and this purpose he accomplished with brilliant power. The
execution is, however, very unequal. The last part lacks the life,
vigour, and movement of the earlier scenes, and all that relates to the
secret society is strained and unnatural. In this part Goethe appears to
have been misled by Schiller, who insisted that the problems suggested
in the course of the narrative should be worked out and solved. The
elements of the original conception were not knit together closely
enough for this rigorous treatment.
In the books dealing with Meister’s connection with the drama Goethe
displays to perfection his matchless power of giving charm, through
sheer force of style, even to scenes and incidents that are not in
themselves very impressive. The characters, too, have astonishing
vitality. We are told little about them, and their motives are never
elaborately analysed. They are simply made to act before us, and we thus
learn to know them, each in his and her own clearly marked
individuality, as if we had met them in real life. Meister himself, with
his wavering impulses and vague strivings after an ideal existence, is
revealed with absolute truth to nature, and, although he never wins (nor
is intended to win) our full respect, we are compelled, almost in spite
of ourselves, to follow him with interest from stage to stage of his
career. The most important character, however, is not Meister, but
Mignon, one of the strangest, most pathetic figures in the world’s
literature. Transported in childhood from “the land where the citrons
blossom” to the cold North, she is never at home in the scenes in which
we find her. Calm, gentle, self-possessed, she conceals a burning
passion that in the end consumes her life; yet she is of so ethereal a
nature that she seems to glide through the world as one who in no way
belongs to it. A more truly poetic conception never took form in a
romance; and Mignon alone, even if “Wilhelm Meister” had contained no
other element of interest, would have sufficed to make the book
immortal. In relation to her the hero is seen at his best, and it is she
who gives the work such unity as it possesses--a unity of spirit rather
than of form. The songs sung by Mignon and by the Harper (another highly
poetic figure, marked out from the beginning, like Mignon, for a tragic
doom) are among Goethe’s lyrical masterpieces, remarkable equally for
the depth of their meaning and the purity, sweetness, and grace of their
expression. In almost startling contrast to Mignon is the gay, bright,
coquettish Philline--the type of feminine Bohemianism; a character
thoroughly self-consistent and full of bounding life until we hear about
her in the unfortunate concluding scenes, when things are told of her
that tend to make her utterly unintelligible.
In “Wilhelm Meister” Goethe gives us much dramatic criticism. It has, of
course, no vital relation to the story, but it is penetrating and
suggestive, and the famous criticism of “Hamlet” marked an era in the
modern appreciation of Shakespeare’s methods. “The Confessions of a Fair
Soul,” of which the sixth book consists, have no connection whatever
with the romance except that Meister is described as reading them. Yet
who would wish that this exquisite study had been excluded? The original
of the “Schöne Seele” was Goethe’s friend Fräulein von Klettenberg. In
presenting the history of her inward life, he penetrates to the very
depths of a spirit purified, calmed, and ennobled by mystic
contemplation of the invisible world.
The next great work completed during this period was “Hermann und
Dorothea,” an idyllic poem in hexameters. The idea of using classic
forms in the treatment of a domestic theme was suggested to Goethe by
Voss’s “Luise,” an idyll in hexameters, which he had read again and
again with warm interest. “Hermann und Dorothea” consists of nine
cantos, each of which is headed with the name of one of the Muses. The
first five cantos (originally four) were written in nine days in the
autumn of 1796, when Goethe spent some weeks at Jena. The work was
resumed from time to time, and finished in the following year.
Nothing could be simpler than the tale told in this poem. Hermann is the
son of an innkeeper in a Rhenish town. A band of emigrants, driven from
their homes by stress of war in the period of the French Revolution,
happen to come to the neighbourhood in the course of their wanderings,
and Hermann’s good mother sends him to them with a supply of clothing
and provisions. Among them he sees Dorothea, who at once wins his heart.
On his return he finds his father and mother in conversation with the
pastor and the druggist; and the pastor, a man of insight, perceives at
a glance, from Hermann’s heightened colour and sparkling eyes, that
something has happened to excite and gladden him. He relates what has
happened, and his father suspects that he loves Dorothea. The old man
has always wished that his son should marry a maiden of a prosperous
family, and angrily declares that he will never receive as a daughter a
common peasant girl. Hermann sorrowfully leaves the room, and is soon
followed by his mother, who finds him seated in deep dejection under a
pear-tree which, crowning vine-clad slopes behind the inn, serves as a
landmark far over the country. He opens his heart to her, and she
consoles him, and gives him hope that his father’s resistance may be
overcome. It is finally arranged that the pastor and the druggist shall
go and see Dorothea, and form an opinion of her fitness to be Hermann’s
wife, and that Hermann shall drive with them to the place where the
emigrants have for the time taken up their abode. The pastor and the
druggist are captivated by Dorothea, and return to the inn to
communicate their impressions. Hermann remains behind to woo the maiden
he loves. He is, however, deterred by seeing that she wears an
engagement ring, and simply asks whether she will come with him and help
his mother in her housewifely duties. She supposes that he wishes to
engage her as a servant, and, on this understanding, frankly accepts his
offer. Then they walk back together, and by the time they reach the
pear-tree the landscape is lighted by the full moon, while heavy masses
of clouds, betokening the approach of a storm, gather over the sky. They
enter the house together, and after an animated scene, during which
Dorothea--while thunder is heard to crash--tells her history, all is
brought to a satisfactory end by the happy union of the lovers.
The substance of this story is contained in an old pamphlet describing
the adventures of a group of Protestant exiles who were expelled from
the archbishopric of Salzburg in 1731. The tale, however, owes its
charm, not to the bare facts of which it consists, but to the life
breathed into them by Goethe’s art. In old age he said that “Hermann und
Dorothea” was the only one of his greater poems which he could still
read with pleasure, and it is certainly as near perfection as any of his
creations. The central figure is Dorothea, and we readily understand her
sway over Hermann, for she combines strength with tenderness, and acts
nobly, not from a sense of duty merely, but because she is impelled by
the instincts of a true and generous spirit. There is a striking
fitness between her vigorous, handsome form and her frank and wholesome
character; and we feel that of such stuff the women are made who keep a
nation’s life sound and pure. Hermann, who has not, like Dorothea, been
disciplined by hard experience, is less independent, but he has
qualities which, when he is fully matured, will give his character the
firmness of outline possessed by that of the wife he has won. Already he
has courage to be true to his own choice, and he awakens our sympathy by
the depth and ardour of his love. His mother’s gentleness is finely
contrasted with the rough, worldly, but not essentially unkind
disposition of his father; and the wise, good pastor, and the gossiping,
self-important druggist help to bring out one another’s peculiarities by
the differences of their modes of thought and feeling. Goethe never
pauses to call our attention to this or that element of the tale; all is
stir and movement, and the imagination is excited to form for itself a
series of graphic pictures and to combine them into a living whole. The
story advances so simply and naturally that it carries us on with
growing interest to the end, and its significance is deepened by the
vast world-movement of which we are continually reminded by the presence
of the emigrants. The antique form of the poem is in perfect keeping
with the theme as Goethe conceives it. His hexameters flow lightly and
freely, and aid rather than hamper the harmonious development of his
ideas.
In 1796 Goethe wrote “Alexis und Dora,” which serves as a splendid
pendant to the “Roman Elegies;” and in the summer of the following year,
while he was staying at Jena, he began, in friendly rivalry with
Schiller, to compose a series of ballads. Goethe generously yielded the
palm as a ballad-writer to Schiller; and it is true that Schiller’s
ballads, which are among the finest of his works, have a dramatic force
that makes them more akin than Goethe’s to the old popular poems of this
class. But such ballads as “Der Erlkönig” (“The King of the Erls or
Elves”), “Die Braut von Corinth” (“The Bride of Corinth”), and “Der Gott
und Die Bajadere” (“The God and the Bayadere”) have a subtle charm of
expression that was far beyond Schiller’s range.
Goethe’s lyrical poems, too, many of which were written during this
period, have a freshness and a lightness of touch which Schiller himself
felt to be unapproachable. Whatever may be thought of Goethe as a
dramatist or a writer of romance, there never has been, and never can
be, any dispute as to his greatness as a lyrical poet. The secret of the
unfading charm of his lyrics lies chiefly in their truth and
spontaneity. Goethe never sought to express in writings of this kind
what he himself did not feel; but if a strong feeling took possession of
his mind, he could not rest until it found lyrical utterance. And in
passing into form in verse, his feeling lost all that was accidental or
of merely passing interest; its expression became the reflection, not of
one man’s experience only, but of the ever-recurring experience of
humanity. There are few elements of the inward life that Goethe does not
touch in his lyrics, and all that he approaches is within the scope of
his art. The German language, often so harsh and obscure, has in these
perfect products of his genius an exquisite softness, richness, and
transparency. Goethe, who knew well the difficulties it presented,
found in it an organ equally fitted for the lightest play of fancy and
the loftiest flights of the imagination.
In 1797 Goethe visited Switzerland for the third time, and enjoyed
heartily a long holiday with his friend Meyer, who had been in Italy
collecting materials for a work which they thought of writing in common.
This work, in which they proposed to show the relation of Italian art to
the physical features of the country and to its social and political
development, was never begun; but Goethe’s studies for it gave a fresh
impetus to his enthusiasm for art, and for years one of the objects he
had most at heart was to communicate his enthusiasm to an ever widening
circle among the educated classes of Germany. In 1798 he started an art
journal called “Die Propyläen” (the German form of [Greek: ta
propylaia], The Gateway); but the public had little interest in the
questions with which it dealt, and after the appearance of four numbers
the enterprise had to be abandoned. Another result of Goethe’s labours
in connection with art was his masterly book on “Winckelmann und sein
Jahrhundert” (“Winckelmann and his Century”), published in 1805. In this
work, to which contributions were made by Meyer and the great Homeric
scholar Wolf, Goethe offered a magnificent tribute to the memory of the
writer who, by his insight and learning, had opened the way to a true
appreciation of the artistic achievements of the ancient world.
Among other prose writings of this period may be mentioned Goethe’s
translation of the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, a task undertaken
for the _Horen_; and “Rameaus Neffe” (“Rameau’s Nephew”), a translation
of what is, on the whole, the most powerful of Diderot’s works. “Le
Neveu de Rameau” had not yet been printed, and Goethe’s rendering was
made from a manuscript which had come into Schiller’s hands. A more
searching study of the baser possibilities of human nature has never,
perhaps, been written, and Goethe faithfully reproduced it with all its
original force and vividness.
Schiller occupied himself for several years, at intervals, with his
great drama “Wallenstein.” The mass of his materials made it hard for
him to see his way to an adequate treatment of the subject; but in 1798,
having discussed his scheme thoroughly with Goethe, he was able to
arrive at a final decision as to its form. The Prelude, “Wallensteins
Lager” (“Wallenstein’s Camp”), in the extraordinary vividness of which
there are unmistakable marks of Goethe’s influence, was represented for
the first time at the Weimar Theatre in October, 1798. “The Piccolomini”
was given early in 1799; and soon afterwards the entire work, including
“Wallenstein’s Death,” was performed, a night being devoted to each of
its three parts. Goethe, as the director of the theatre, worked hard to
secure that full justice should be done to his friend’s masterpiece, and
his disinterested efforts were crowned with what was then considered
unparalleled success.
The effect of this triumph was that Schiller resolved not only to devote
himself almost exclusively to dramatic work, but to transfer his
residence from Jena to Weimar, where he would have the advantage of
being near the theatre, and possess unlimited opportunities of
intercourse with Goethe. Before the end of 1799 this plan was carried
out, and all the benefits Schiller hoped to derive from it were
realized. Goethe and he became, if possible, more intimate friends than
ever, and never tired in their efforts to make the Weimar Theatre a
great centre for the creation of a truly national stage. They were
virtually joint directors, but Goethe retained, of course, supreme
control.
This was the most brilliant period in the history of Weimar, for it was
now the home of four famous writers, Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and
Wieland. Herder died in 1803, and during his last years he became bitter
and morose, so that, to Goethe’s intense regret, he brought to an end
the relations which had formerly been a source of so much happiness to
both. With Wieland, who survived Herder ten years, Goethe remained on
friendly terms to the last.
The great philosophical movement of Germany was now in full progress. It
began with the publication, in 1781, of Kant’s “Critique of Pure
Reason,” and was continued in different directions, first by Fichte,
then by Schelling, and afterwards by Hegel and Schopenhauer. Goethe was
not so fascinated as Schiller by the suggestions which were being
offered by so many fine minds for the solution of the highest problems;
but he was too keenly alive to every kind of intellectual influence to
allow any deep current of contemporary thought to escape his notice. He
read with profound interest the second of Kant’s great works, “The
Critique of Judgment,” and thoroughly mastered Fichte’s system of ideas
as expounded in the “Wissenschaftslehre” (“Theory of Knowledge”). He
was still more strongly attracted by Schilling, in whose philosophy he
found much that accorded with his own conceptions of Nature. Fichte and
Schelling were for several years professors at Jena, and Goethe, to whom
they owed their appointments, had many opportunities of discussing with
them the questions to the study of which they had devoted their lives.
Another important movement, closely connected with the philosophical
ideas of Fichte and Schelling, began at this time to arrest attention.
It was the movement which led to the formation of the Romantic School.
The critical leaders of this school, August and Frederick Schlegel, were
both for a while lecturers at the University of Jena, where they
exercised a powerful influence through their literary journal, _The
Athenæum_. With them, and with Tieck and Novalis, Goethe, always anxious
to encourage young writers who seemed to give indications of genius,
sought to maintain the most friendly relations. He even caused to be
represented on the Weimar stage two rather crude plays, “Ion” and
“Alarcos,” the former by August Schlegel, the latter by Frederick
Schlegel. The writers of the Romantic school ultimately diverged widely
from Goethe’s methods, but all that was really vital in their teaching
had already been embodied in his works, and it was chiefly from him that
they originally derived the best and most fruitful of their impulses.
In the winter of 1803-4 Madame de Staël paid her famous visit to Weimar.
Goethe did not fail to do due honour to so distinguished a guest, but,
like Schiller, he was soon fatigued by her restless curiosity and
endless talk. He interested her the more deeply because she could not
but see that the air of patronage with which she had been disposed to
meet him was wholly out of place. For no other German writer did she
conceive so strong a respect.
Meanwhile, Schiller, quickened by Goethe’s unfailing sympathy, had been
producing in rapid succession the great plays of his last years--“Mary
Stuart,” “The Maid of Orleans,” “The Bride of Messina,” and “William
Tell.” Goethe had at this period, so far as the drama was concerned, no
corresponding period of activity. In 1800 and 1801 he produced only
translations of Voltaire’s “Mahomet” and “Tancred.” He was working,
however, at an important poetical drama, “Die Natürliche Tochter” (“The
Natural Daughter”). This drama was intended to be the first member of a
trilogy dealing with the ideas on which the French Revolution had been
compelling all the world to reflect. The trilogy was to represent the
overthrow and re-establishment of an ancient monarchy, its overthrow
being due to corrupt government, its re-establishment to the frank
recognition of popular rights. The only part of the scheme he succeeded
in working out was “Die Natürliche Tochter,” in which we are permitted
to see some of the abuses that were to have led to revolution. The facts
on which the idea of the play was based Goethe found in the “Mémoires
historiques de Stéphanie Louise de Bourbon Conti,” published at Paris in
1797. Eugenie, the heroine, is the natural daughter of a duke, the uncle
of the king; and the question on which the interest depends is whether
she shall allow herself to be publicly acknowledged as one in whose
veins there is royal blood, or whether she shall remain, as she has been
educated, in seclusion. Fascinated by the charm of a lofty social
position, she decides to claim the rights which the king, at her
father’s intercession, is willing to confer upon her. Then she becomes a
victim of treachery and violence. Of all Goethe’s plays this is the one
in which he allows the idea of necessity to exercise the most rigid
control over the development of the action. The circumstances being such
as are described, there is no way of escape from the consequences of
Eugenie’s decision; all is ordered in accordance with an inevitable law.
The characters, therefore, have no very distinct individuality. They are
so completely subordinated to the general scheme that only the heroine
receives a special name. The other characters appear simply as the King,
the Duke, the Secretary, and so forth. The play, if we estimate it from
the point of view selected by Goethe, is one of great power; but had he
devoted himself to works of this kind he could never have shown the true
character of his genius. His strength lay in the development, not of
plot, but of character.
From time to time Goethe worked at a scheme very different from “Die
Natürliche Tochter.” Schiller had been greatly impressed by the fragment
of “Faust” published in 1790, and in season and out of season urged and
entreated him to complete it. Goethe himself had a secret consciousness
that this was to be the highest of his achievements, and took advantage
of every favourable mood to return to it. He was in no hurry, however,
to bring the work to an end. All the deepest elements of his life were
being expressed in it, and he could afford to let the harvest ripen
slowly.
Early in 1801 Goethe had a serious illness, and for a good many years
afterwards he was liable to attacks of a painful malady. Schiller also
suffered from bad health, and it was too certain that his life would not
be greatly prolonged. The crisis came in the spring of 1805. Schiller
and Goethe had both been ill, but on the 29th of April Goethe felt well
enough to visit his friend. Schiller was about to go to the play, and
Goethe would not hear of his changing his plan. So they parted, never to
see one another again. While in his place in the theatre Schiller caught
a severe chill, and on the 9th of May he died.
Goethe, who was confined to his room, suspected, when he heard of
Schiller’s condition, that the result would be fatal. “Destiny is
inexorable,” he said, sadly; “man of little moment.” When the tidings of
death were brought to his house, Meyer, who was spending the evening
with him, was called out of the room. He had not courage to give so
dreadful a message, and went away without taking leave. Something in the
manner of the members of his household made Goethe uneasy, but he would
not put his doubts at rest by asking any direct question. “I observe,”
he said to Christiane, “that Schiller must be very ill.” During the
night he was heard to sob loudly. Next morning, again addressing
Christiane, he said, “It is true, is it not, that Schiller was _very_
ill yesterday?” Christiane burst into tears. “He is dead?” asked Goethe,
in a firm voice. Christiane, still crying, at last told him the bitter
truth. “He is dead!” Goethe repeated, and covered his eyes with his
hand. He had never lived through a sadder moment, and for several days
no one dared to mention Schiller’s name in his presence.