"But since such connections, the more innocent they are, afford the
less variety in the long run, I was seized with that wicked
distemper which seduces us to derive amusement from the torment of
a beloved one, and to domineer over a girl's devotedness with
wanton and tyrannical caprice. By unfounded and absurd fits of
jealousy I destroyed our most delightful days, both for myself and
her. She endured it for a time with incredible patience, which I
was cruel enough to try to its utmost. But to my shame and despair,
I was at last forced to remark that her heart was alienated from
me, and that I might now have good ground for the madness in which
I had indulged without necessity and without cause. There were
terrible scenes between us, in which I gained nothing; and I then
first felt that I had truly loved her, and could not bear to lose
her. My passion grew and assumed all the forms of which it is
capable under the circumstances; nay, I at last took up the _role_
which the girl had hitherto played. I sought everything possible in
order to be agreeable to her, even to procure her pleasure by means
of others; for I could not renounce the hope of winning her again.
But it was too late. I had lost her really; and the frenzy with
which I revenged my fault upon myself, by assaulting in various
frantic ways my physical nature, in order to inflict some hurt on
my moral nature, contributed very much to the bodily maladies under
which I lost some of the best years of my life: indeed, I should
perchance have been completely ruined by this loss, had not my
poetic talent here shown itself particularly helpful with its
healing power."
His next adventure was with the daughters of his dancing-master, both of
whom seemed inclined to draw unwarranted conclusions from the freedom of
his intercourse with them. The closing scene of this little drama must
be given in Goethe's own words:--
"Emilia was silent, and had sat down by her sister, who became
constantly more and more excited in her discourse, and let certain
private matters slip out which it was not exactly proper for me to
know. Emilia, on the other hand, who was trying to pacify her
sister, made me a sign from behind to withdraw; but as jealousy and
suspicion see with a thousand eyes, Lucinda seemed to have noticed
this also. She sprang up and advanced to me, but not with
vehemence. She stood before me and seemed to be thinking of
something. Then she said, 'I know that I have lost you; I make no
further pretensions to you. But neither shall you have him,
sister.' So saying, she took a thorough hold of my head, thrusting
both her hands into my locks and pressing my face to hers, and
kissed me repeatedly on the mouth. 'Now,' cried she, 'fear my
curse! Woe upon woe, for ever and ever, to her who kisses these
lips for the first time after me! Dare to have anything more to do
with him! I know Heaven hears me this time. And you, sir, hasten
now, hasten away as fast as you can.' I flew down the stairs, with
a firm determination never again to enter the house."
This conclusion, though doubtless very trying to an ardent young man who
enjoyed the adoration of women, seems to have been an eminently wise one
under the circumstances, and we believe the resolve was faithfully kept.
The dramatic Lucinda appears no more in his reminiscences.
Quite different was the next occupant of his heart. Frederika was the
daughter of a country clergyman whom Goethe was taken to visit by his
friend Weyland. The hospitality and agreeableness of the family had been
highly praised by this friend, also the beauty and charms of the
daughters. And indeed this Frederika does seem to have been a most
beautiful and charming girl. Goethe constantly compares the family to
that of the Vicar of Wakefield, and the daughters to Olivia and Sophia.
The affection which Goethe conceived for this beautiful and innocent
maiden was one of the strongest and most enduring of his life, and even
on into old age he was fond of talking of her and their youthful
romance. Why he ever left Frederika at all has never been made clear,
for it is plain that at last he truly loved,--the other passions being
mere boyish episodes, soon forgotten, while this one exerted a lasting
influence upon his life. He writes:--
"Frederika's answer to my farewell letter rent my heart. It was the
same hand, the same tone of thought, the same feeling, which had
formed itself for me and by me. I now for the first time felt the
loss which she suffered, and saw no means to supply it, or even to
alleviate it. She was completely present to me; I always felt that
she was wanting to me; and what was worst of all, I could not
forgive myself for my own misfortune. Gretchen had been taken away
from me, Annette had left me; now for the first time I was guilty.
I had wounded the most lovely heart to its very depths; and the
period of a gloomy repentance, with the absence of a refreshing
love to which I had grown accustomed, was most agonizing, nay,
insupportable."
Even after eight years he revisits Frederika, with much of the old
feeling still alive, although he had in the mean time had at least two
new loves. One of these was the Charlotte immortalized in "Werther." She
was already engaged when he made her acquaintance, but this did not
preclude the possibility of his devoting himself assiduously to her, and
her betrothed seems to have laid no obstacles in the way. She was
married in due time, and read "Werther" after its publication, not
seeming to object to the part she is there made to play. She retained
her friendship for Goethe throughout life; and to her husband the poet
wrote many, many years after: "God bless you, dear Kustner, and tell
Lottie that I often believe I can forget her, but then I have a relapse,
and it is worse with me than ever."
Immediately following his infatuation with Lottie came the connection
with Lili, which reconciled him to Lottie's marriage. It was of Lottie
that he said, in the language of "The New Heloise," "And sitting at the
feet of his beloved, he will break hemp; and he will wish to break hemp
to-day, to-morrow, and the day after,--nay, for his whole life." Whether
he would have been as willing to break hemp with Lili we are not told;
but he wrote a great deal of poetry addressed to her,--more perhaps than
to any of his other loves,--much of which he reproduces in the
"Autobiography."
"Heart, my heart, oh, what hath changed thee?
What doth weigh on thee so sore?
What hath thus from me estranged thee,
That I know thee now no more?
Gone is all which once seemed dearest,
Gone the care which once was nearest,
Gone thy toils and tranquil bliss!
Ah! how could'st thou come to this?
"Does that bloom, so fresh and youthful,
That divine and lovely form,
That sweet look, so good and truthful,
Bind thee with unbounded charm?
If I swear no more to see her,
If I man myself to flee her,
Soon I find my efforts vain,
Back to her I'm led again."
But even this love affair, which went as far as a betrothal, came to
nothing,--Goethe drawing back at the last through a pretended or real
fear that he could not support the lady in the style she had been
accustomed to; though it is more reasonable to believe that his usual
repugnance to marriage overcame all the fervor of his love, and made him
feel a real relief when the whole affair was over. This was just
previous to his removal to Weimar at the invitation of Carl August, and
it was there that the remainder of his life-drama was enacted.
Soon after his arrival there he made the acquaintance of the Frau Von
Stein. She was the wife of the Master of Horse at Weimar, and Goethe,
who had now passed thirty years of age, for the first time loved a
mature woman. She was the mother of seven children and was thirty-three
years old. With moral deficiencies which were securely covered up, she
was a thoroughly charming woman, and retained her charm even to old age.
She was said to have remarked when asked if she would be presented to
Goethe, "With all my heart. I have heard as much about him as I ever did
about Heaven, and I feel a deal more curiosity about him." She
completely ensnared his heart, and held it in undisputed sway for more
than ten years; which, considering his proverbial inconstancy, speaks
very highly for her charms.
The connection was well known and perfectly understood at Weimar, and
appears to have caused no scandal. The love on Goethe's part seemed to
have begun even before seeing her; as it is recorded that at Pyrmont he
first saw her portrait, and was three nights sleepless in consequence.
And when he came to see her, instead of a raw girl such as he had
hitherto fancied, he found an elegant woman of the world, whose culture
and experience had a singular fascination for him, tired as he was of
immaturity and overfondness. She sang well, played well, sketched well,
talked well, and showed her appreciation of the poet, not like a gushing
girl, but with the delicate tact of a woman of the world. Some years
after her first acquaintance with Goethe, Schiller thus writes to his
friend Koerner:--
"She is really a genuinely interesting person, and I quite
understand what has attached Goethe to her. Beautiful she can never
have been, but her countenance has a soft earnestness and a quite
peculiar openness. A healthy understanding, truth, and feeling lie
in her nature. She has more than a thousand letters from Goethe,
and from Italy he writes her every week. They say the connection is
perfectly pure and blameless."
Even before he went away from Weimar at all, the letters were incessant,
often trivial, and sometimes made up of homely details of eating and
drinking, but loving always. The reader who remembers Charlotte cutting
bread and butter will not be shocked at the poet eloquently begging his
true love to send him a sausage. All the years of his life in the
Gartenhaus are intimately associated with her. The whole spot speaks of
her. She was doubtless the grand passion of his life. But even this wore
itself out, and after his absence in Italy he never seemed to feel the
full ardor of his former love. He returned to Weimar still grateful to
her for the happiness she had given, still feeling for her a sincere
affection, but retaining little of the passion which for ten years she
had inspired. The feeling seemed to have died a natural death. It is not
recorded that she had ever really shared his fervor, but she greatly
resented his defection, and considered him ungrateful and disloyal to
the end.
It was about this time that he first made the acquaintance of Christine
Vulpius, who afterwards became his wife. She was the daughter of one of
those men whose drunkenness slowly but surely brings a whole family to
want. She was at this time very young. He thought her beautiful, and,
although uneducated, she had a quick wit, a lively spirit, a loving
heart, and great aptitude for domestic duties. She had no social
position, and is often spoken of as his servant. Although never really
occupying that position, her standing was not much above that plane. She
fascinated Goethe as so many young faces had done before, and it seemed
to be a thraldom of the mind as well as of the senses. There are few
poems in any language which approach the passionate gratitude of those
in which he recalls the happiness she gave him.
George Henry Lewes in his life of the poet has this passage, which will
be read with peculiar interest, considering his own relations with the
highest genius of her day, George Eliot. He says:--
"Why did he not marry her at once? His dread of marriage has
already been shown; and to this abstract dread must be added the
great disparity of station,--a disparity so great that it not only
made the liaison scandalous, but made Christine herself reject the
offer of marriage. There are persons now living who have heard her
declare that it was her own fault that the marriage was so long
delayed. And certain it is that when she bore him a child, he took
her, with her mother and sister, to live in his house, and always
regarded the connection as marriage. But, however he may have
regarded it, public opinion has not forgiven this defiance of its
social laws. The world blamed him loudly; even his admirers cannot
think of the connection without pain. But let us be just. While no
one can refrain from deploring that Goethe, so eminently needing a
pure domestic life, should not have found a wife whom he could
avow, no one who knows the circumstances can refrain from
confessing that there is also a bright light to this dark episode."