At Leipsic Goethe settled in two pleasant rooms in a house near the university, overlooking a court through which people were constantly passing to and fro. He happened to arrive at the time of the autumn fair, and he had an opportunity of seeing many foreigners whose appearance interested him. Leipsic, which, as the centre of the book trade, was relatively more important then than it is now, made a most agreeable impression on him, and he looked forward with delight to the years he was to spend there. He was especially charmed with the free and pleasant manners of the people, which presented a striking contrast to the somewhat formal and rigid rules of social intercourse at Frankfort.
A few days after his arrival he was admitted a student at the university. He was obliged to join some law classes, but he also heard lectures by Ernesti on Cicero’s “De Oratore,” and by Gellert on rhetoric and German literature. At first he attended his classes with exemplary diligence, but he soon made up his mind that they could not be of much service to him. The professors of law had little to say that he had not already learned at Frankfort, or that he could not readily master without their aid. Gellert’s lectures seemed to him pedantic and commonplace, and even Ernesti, a scholar of high distinction, did not help him to penetrate to the spirit, or to feel more deeply the charm, of Latin literature. During the whole time of his residence at Leipsic he continued, of course, to attend the university, but his relation to it was more nominal than real, and exercised little influence on his intellectual development.
He was received in a friendly way by Böhme, the professor of history, whose wife, a cultivated and pleasant woman, liked to talk with him. She offended him a little, however, by laughing rather too freely at some of his Frankfort modes of expression, and by disparaging the writings of his favourite poets. Every day he dined at the house of one of the medical professors, where he met chiefly students of medicine and natural science. When the novelty of his position at Leipsic wore off, he began to miss the pleasures to which he had been accustomed at home, and, above all, he longed for some friend to whom he might confide his inmost thoughts and aspirations. Gradually he fell into a dejected and forlorn state of mind, and so keenly did he suffer that in the spring of 1766 one of his Frankfort friends, Horn, who came to study law at Leipsic, could not find in him a trace of his old liveliness and good humour. The presence of Horn, who remained for some years one of his most intimate comrades, did much to revive Goethe; and soon afterwards the process was completed by another friend, Schlosser, who took Leipsic on his way from Frankfort to Treptow, where he was to act as private secretary to Duke Frederick Eugene of Würtemberg. Schlosser, who ultimately married Goethe’s sister, was a man of vigorous and independent character, somewhat stern in manner, but essentially kind and sympathetic, and he quickly succeeded in restoring Goethe to all his former cheerfulness and self-confidence.
Schlosser put up at the house of a vintner called Schönkopf, who, his wife having come from Frankfort, always welcomed visitors from her native place. Goethe was so much pleased with the company at Schönkopf’s table that he determined to dine and sup there daily, and this resolution he acted upon during the remainder of his time at Leipsic. Schönkopf had a pretty, coquettish daughter, Anne Catharine, and, needless to say, she no sooner saw the susceptible Goethe than she made a conquest of him. Like Gretchen, she was his senior by two or three years, but that, he felt, only made her the more worthy to be loved. Annette, as he usually called her, accepted his devotion with pleasure, and was sincerely fond of him; but, having a shrewd suspicion that she could never be his wife, she gave him no marks of favour that she was not equally ready to give to other admirers. Many a time Goethe was thrown into a fever of jealousy by her kindness to his rivals, but she had only to smile on him to exalt him to a heaven of enchantment and delight. Upon the whole, his relation to Annette, which went on for years, seems to have brought him more misery than happiness. It was impossible for him to claim her love as exclusively his own, yet he could not bear to think of it as a treasure that might pass into the possession of some one else.
He had not the good fortune to meet at Schönkopf’s any one who could be of vital intellectual service to him, but he enjoyed familiar intercourse there with many agreeable people—among others, Behrisch, a scholar who acted as tutor to a young Count. Goethe liked him as a loyal friend and intelligent critic. Gradually Goethe extended the circle of his acquaintance, until he had almost as many friends in Leipsic as in Frankfort. It was especially pleasant for him to visit at the house of Breitkopf, a printer, who had two sons about Goethe’s own age, one of them an admirable pianist and clever composer. Goethe was often present at musical parties in this hospitable house, and he himself took part in them, for he could not only sing, but play the flute. Afterwards he acquired some skill as a player on the cello.
By far the most eminent man with whom Goethe came into direct contact at Leipsic was Oeser, the director of the academy of drawing, painting, and architecture. Oeser was a native of Presburg, in Hungary, and had all the energy and enthusiasm so often possessed by his countrymen. His own artistic achievements were not of permanent importance, but he had an extraordinary power of exciting interest in art, and of stimulating to high effort all who came within the range of his influence. Long before this time, at Dresden, he had been intimate with Winckelmann, who had learned from him the doctrine that the qualities which give enduring charm to works of art are simplicity and calm. Goethe, who had a longing to master artistic methods, became his pupil, and he never forgot that he owed to this wise and genial teacher the germs of his most fertile ideas about art, and the first effective encouragement he had ever received to do full justice to his own powers. At Oeser’s home in Leipsic, and at his house in the country, he was always a welcome guest. Oeser had two daughters, one of whom was married. The other, Frederika, about Goethe’s age, lived with her father. Handsome, sprightly, and clever, she became one of Goethe’s best friends.
Oeser was not his only instructor in art. Stock, the engraver, lived with his wife and two young daughters (afterwards the wives of intimate friends of Schiller), at the top of the house in which was the home of the Breitkopfs. From him Goethe took lessons in etching, at which he worked with great enthusiasm and perseverance. He also amused himself by carving boards for bookbinding. There seemed to be hardly any limit to Goethe’s activity. Even he could not hope to excel in all his many undertakings, but in everything he tried he gained enough of insight to enable him to distinguish sharply between good products and bad, and to appreciate and enjoy those wrought on true and enduring principles.
All good pictures accessible at Leipsic he made himself familiar with, and in 1767 he took a short holiday for the purpose of studying the picture gallery at Dresden. He stayed at the house of a worthy, humorous shoemaker, with whom he had much friendly talk. At the gallery the pictures of all the great schools interested him, but those of the Dutch school, from their fidelity to fact, appealed to him most strongly. Day after day he resumed his study of the masterpieces he loved, and so deeply did they influence his mind that, when he returned to the actual world, he could not help seeing things as if they formed part of a picture. His friend, the shoemaker, seemed to him like a figure that had stepped out of a canvas by Ostade.
Powerfully as Goethe was fascinated by art, literature remained the real mistress of his affections. The Latin classics he read with growing pleasure, but he also constantly felt around him for new impressions and impulses, and by a kind of happy instinct he was led to the writers who were best fitted to nourish his genius. At Frankfort he had read Wieland’s translation of Shakespeare, and now Dodd’s “Beauties of Shakespeare” came in his way. His study of this selection did not yet disclose to him Shakespeare’s real significance, but it prepared him for deeper comprehension at a later stage. Wieland, having left far behind him the Pietistic fervour with which he began his career, was now tricking out in all sorts of forms, both of verse and prose, his easy Epicurean philosophy. Goethe read eagerly every one of his later writings; and, so far as style was concerned, he learned much from Wieland, who, with all his faults, knew how to present his ideas, such as they were, with lightness, delicacy, and grace. In 1766 Lessing’s “Laocoon” was published, and Goethe has described with what delight he and all the younger men of his day received this masterpiece of a great and serious spirit. As if by a flash of lightning, it revealed the broad lines of distinction that separate the arts from one another. It showed, too, that it is only by keeping strictly within its natural limits that each art can attain its highest objects, and that of all the arts poetry is necessarily the deepest, the most far-reaching, and the grandest. All this was new to Goethe, and spurred him to think out for himself the fundamental problems of critical thought. Not less enthusiastically did he welcome Lessing’s “Minna von Barnhelm,” which still remains the most exquisitely finished play of its kind in the German language. It impressed Goethe, because Lessing, unlike other German dramatists, had selected his motives directly from the life of his own time, but had conceived them with an imaginative force and subtlety that made them perennially interesting. In the spring of 1768 Lessing spent a month at Leipsic, but unfortunately Goethe did not see him. About the same time Goethe was shocked by the tidings of the murder of Winckelmann, for whom he had the deepest reverence, and whose writings on ancient art must be counted among the most potent of the influences that enriched and developed his intellectual life.
From the beginning of his residence at Leipsic Goethe was a constant attendant at the play, and he sometimes acted—always with considerable success in comic parts—in private theatricals at Schönkopf’s house. Thinking so much as he did about the drama, he could not but try his hand at dramatic composition; and in the winter of 1767-68 he produced two plays—“Die Laune des Verliebten” (“The Lover’s Humour”) and “Die Mitschuldigen” (“The Accomplices”). The former is essentially a presentation of his own experiences in his relation to Annette Schönkopf. The latter contains an unpleasant picture of facts akin to those which were forced on his attention at Frankfort in connection with the incident that led to his separation from Gretchen. Both are written in rhymed alexandrines, and show that Goethe, like most of his contemporaries, still looked for his models to the French classic drama.
At Leipsic Goethe was known as a young poet much given to biting satire. In his autobiography he gives an account of a visit he paid to Gottsched, who had at one time been in some sort the literary dictator of Germany; and from this amusing narrative we can see with what mocking humour he waited on the old pedant, who found it so hard to realize that his day was past. Clodius, who prided himself on his dignified style, Goethe enraged by producing parodies of his pompous verses. At heart, however, Goethe was too generous to care a great deal about work of this sort; what he liked infinitely better was to give direct poetical expression to his own thoughts and feelings. This he did at Leipsic in a considerable number of lyrics, some of which were set to music by the elder of the two brothers Breitkopf. These lyrics lack the perfect rhythm, the indefinable charm of his later work in this kind, but they have vigour and a certain grace, and show at least something of what ultimately became his astonishing mastery of apt and picturesque diction.
In 1767 Goethe introduced to the Schönkopfs a friend of his, Kanne, a Saxon advocate. Kanne was charmed with Annette, and Goethe was thrown into the depths of despair by seeing that she was not disinclined to respond to his advances. In vain he tried to still his agitation by flying to nature for consolation, and by writing satirical verses on the untrustworthiness of young maidens. He became thoroughly wretched, and his unhappiness, associated with various other causes, among which he himself afterwards included some irregularities in his mode of living, made him seriously ill. At last, one night in July, 1768, he had a severe attack of hemorrhage, and a doctor had to be hastily summoned. For some time it was feared that he might be suffering from disease of the lungs. During his illness he was tenderly cared for by his friends, and when convalescent he was cheered by the bright, wholesome talk of his friend Frederika Oeser, who, when he visited her in the country, laughed at the ridiculous notion of a young fellow thinking of dying of consumption. The process of recovery, however, was slow, and finally he decided to return to Frankfort, and to set off on his birthday, a day which he regarded as a lucky one for the beginning of important undertakings. On the 26th of August he called at the Schönkopfs, and bade adieu to Annette, who agreed to let him write to her once a month. It filled him with sadness to think that this might be their last parting, and on the following evening—he was to leave next day—he could not resist the impulse to go once more to her home. He saw the lamps burning, and hovered about the door-steps, but had not courage to enter.
At Frankfort the invalid was received with infinite sympathy by his mother and sister; and his father, seeing him pale and thin, concealed the bitterness he felt at the disappointment of the hopes that had been so warmly cherished. Goethe was happy to be at home again, amused himself by drawing and etching, sent little gifts to Annette, and wrote in good spirits to Oeser and some of his other Leipsic friends. But before the end of the year he was again prostrated, suffering this time from a different malady. His agonies were frightful, and his mother, driven to despair, took the Bible, and resolved to be guided by the first words on which her eyes should happen to light. Fortunately she came upon the words of Jeremiah, “Thou shalt yet plant vines upon the mountains of Samaria.” She was at once relieved, and ever afterwards this was her favourite “promise.” Goethe quickly recovered, but early in 1769 he had another illness, by which he was confined to his room for a month. It became evident that his constitution had been rudely shaken, and that only time and vigilance could restore him to full strength.
Among his mother’s most intimate friends was a certain Fräulein von Klettenberg, who belonged to the church of the Moravian Brethren. With a noble purity and dignity of character she combined a deep mystic piety. During Goethe’s illness Fräulein von Klettenberg, who showed him great kindness, gained a strong influence over his mind; and there are many indications that at this time he thought often and most earnestly on the profoundest questions relating to human life and destiny. He even worked out for himself an elaborate theological system, in which a place was found for the Trinity, Lucifer, the Elohim, Man, and for the Fall and Redemption. These speculations were connected with the study of alchemy, to which he was led by his doctor, who, like Fräulein von Klettenberg, was one of the Moravian Brethren. Goethe not only made many experiments in accordance with the rules of alchemy, but read all the old books on this subject on which he could lay his hands.
In the autumn of 1769 he received from Leipsic a volume consisting of some of his lyrics, with the melodies to which they had been set by Breitkopf. The volume gave him little pleasure, for he was now occupied with other interests. He was more deeply stirred by a glimpse he had of General Paoli, who passed through Frankfort on his way to England. Paoli’s noble and romantic career had kindled Goethe’s enthusiasm, as it had kindled that of Boswell, and, mainly through Boswell, that of Johnson and all the other members of the brilliant literary set with whom the Corsican hero was soon to be on pleasant terms in London.
Meanwhile, Goethe had learned that Annette had been betrothed to his friend Kanne. He was struck with dismay by this intelligence, and could not help hoping that something might at the last moment prevent their union, and that he himself might be able to take his friend’s place. Annette, however, did not share his wishes, and by and by both the joy and the torment that had so often been evoked by his love for her were for ever dispelled by her marriage.
Goethe’s father was most anxious that his study of law should as soon as possible be resumed. Accordingly, in April, 1770, having spent about a year and a half at home, he started for Strasburg, where, for various reasons, it had been decided that he should take his degree. He was now in his twenty-first year. He had not been restored to perfect health, but he was strong enough for the work that lay before him, and he had no longer any fear that he had been stricken by a mortal malady.
Alsace, although a province of the French monarchy, was still essentially German. Not until the time of the Revolution did the people cease to think of themselves as Germans, and begin to be proud of their connection with France. In entering Strasburg, therefore, Goethe had no feeling that he had come to a foreign town. It contained, indeed, a strong French element, but the mass of the inhabitants spoke his own language, and retained the manners and customs of their Teutonic forefathers. As in Frankfort, so in Strasburg, there were many survivals of former ages, and these at once attracted Goethe’s attention. He was of course especially impressed by the minster, by far the most splendid building he had yet seen. He studied it closely within and without, and became an enthusiastic admirer of Gothic architecture, which he had always heard decried. Often, especially at sunset, he mounted the tower to enjoy the wide and varied prospect visible from the top.
He had pleasant rooms in the old Fish-market, and dined at a table where he met many students whom he liked. At the head of this table sat Salzmann, a middle-aged actuary, a man of fine taste and cultivated intellect. He took to Goethe at once, discussed philosophy with him, and was able to give him useful hints as to the studies for his degree. Among the men whose acquaintance Goethe made at this table was Jung Stilling, who, at the age of thirty, trusting in Providence for the means of living, came to Strasburg to study medicine. Stilling always retained a vivid recollection of the first occasion on which he saw Goethe. He and his friend, Herr Troost, took their seats at the table before any one else had arrived. By and by the guests came in, and among them one who entered briskly, a young man “with large bright eyes, splendid forehead, and handsome figure.” This was Goethe. “That must be an excellent man,” whispered Stilling’s companion. Stilling was of the same opinion, but thought he might give them some trouble, as he seemed “a wild young fellow”—an impression which was afterwards found to be mistaken. On a later occasion one of the guests tried to raise a laugh at Stilling’s expense. He was sternly rebuked by Goethe, who now sought Stilling’s friendship, and became warmly attached to him.
Introduced by Salzmann, Goethe was welcomed at many houses in Strasburg. He was still to some extent under the influence of the mystical ideas which had taken so strong a hold of him during his illness, but they did not prevent him from enjoying to the full the social pleasures within his reach. Of dancing he never could have enough, for it had all the charm of novelty, dancing-parties being at that time unknown in Frankfort and Leipsic.
He had the pleasure of seeing the young princess, Marie Antoinette, as she passed through Strasburg on her way to Paris; and in June he enjoyed with a fellow-student, Weyland, a ride across the Vosges mountains to Saarbrück. On the way back, at Niederbronn, he was surprised and delighted to find fragments of ancient pillars, sculptured altars with inscriptions, and other Roman remains. These objects, lying about in farmyards, called up before his active imagination a vivid picture of the widespread civilization of Rome.
Goethe had not forgotten that he had come to Strasburg to take a degree, and soon after his twenty-first birthday, having attended the proper courses of lectures at the university, he passed the necessary examinations. He then began to prepare his dissertation, choosing as his subject the doctrine that it is the duty of the State to establish a form of religion to which all citizens shall be obliged to conform. During the remainder of his stay he gave attention at the university chiefly to chemistry anatomy, and other sciences. He also devoted a good deal of time to the study of the antiquities of Alsace, his interest in which had been thoroughly aroused by the treasures at Niederbronn.
One day in September, 1770, Goethe accidentally met a young clergyman on the steps at the entrance to the inn, “Zum Geist.” He knew that Herder had just arrived at Strasburg, and could not doubt that this was he. Goethe greeted him respectfully, and Herder, attracted, like every one else, by the young student’s manly bearing and frank expression, responded pleasantly, and entered into conversation with him. This led to an intimate friendship, and the consequences were of the highest importance for Goethe. Herder was at this time only twenty-six years of age—that is, five years older than Goethe—but his character had been matured by hard discipline, and he had already made a good reputation as the author of two collections of essays full of energy and fresh thought. He was not one of the great creative spirits of the world, but he had an intellect of restless activity, endowed with an extraordinary faculty for the apprehension of far-reaching ideas. He had enthusiasm, too, and a noble, inspiring conception of the part that properly belongs to the individual mind in its relations to the world at large.
Having given up his work as preacher and schoolmaster at Riga, he had spent some time in France; and he had lately accepted the office of tutor to the young Prince of Holstein-Eutin, whom he had accompanied to Strasburg. This appointment he now resigned, having received a promise (which was soon fulfilled) of the chief pastorate at Bückeburg, where he proposed to marry Caroline Flachsland, to whom he had become engaged at Darmstadt. He remained, however, rather more than six months at Strasburg, mainly that he might be cured of an affection of the eyes, by which he was much troubled. A painful operation was performed, and recovery was less rapid than he expected. Goethe was one of his most constant visitors, and missed no opportunity of serving him. Even when his health was good, it was rather difficult for Herder’s friends to hit it off with him, for with all his excellent qualities he was irritable, and apt to be somewhat arrogant; and his temper was not improved by his sufferings. But Goethe, who recognized the essential greatness of his character, was not discouraged by his occasional rudeness, and was well rewarded for the fidelity with which he waited upon his new friend.
At this time the serious thought of Europe was passing through one of the most momentous revolutions the world has ever seen. Beyond all question the foremost figure in the movement was Rousseau. As a man of letters Rousseau was far inferior to Voltaire, and his knowledge was neither so wide nor so exact as that of Diderot. But his ideas corresponded to the deepest needs of the age, and he had the enthusiasm, the prophetic ardour that commanded for them the attention of mankind. The civilization of France he had shaken to its centre, and in Germany the impression he had produced had been hardly less profound. Everywhere generous minds were filled with discontent with the world as it actually existed. Everywhere they were revolting against forms and conventions, and crying out for a return to “nature,” for the free growth and expression of the innate qualities of humanity—qualities which, when not corrupted by unjust institutions, were, according to Rousseau, always pure and noble.
Herder, who had studied Rousseau closely, had appropriated all that was most vital in his teaching, and had applied his doctrines, not only in the criticism of life, but in his judgments of literature; and now he made Goethe a sharer of the intellectual wealth he had himself acquired. Goethe had already been a reader of Rousseau, but from this time, as we know from the characteristics of his early writings, his mind was deeply penetrated by the spirit of “La Nouvelle Héloïse” and “Émile.” Of still greater importance was the help he obtained in the comprehension of the full splendour of Shakespeare’s genius. Of all poets, Shakespeare, as Herder taught, was the one in whom nature had found her truest interpreter; and, returning in earnest to the study of his dramas, Goethe was impressed, as he had never been impressed before, by their power and beauty, and felt more and more strongly that it would be impossible for him ever to exhaust their meaning. Herder had also much to say about Swift, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, and Goldsmith; and to a circle of friends, of whom Goethe was one, he read “The Vicar of Wakefield,” the humour, pathos, and idyllic charm of which filled them with delight. Through Herder’s influence Goethe began the serious study of Homer; and even from “Hamlet” he did not receive a deeper inspiration than from the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey.” Macpherson’s rendering of Ossian had touched the imagination of Herder, and he communicated his enthusiasm for it to Goethe, who perceived in “Fingal” and “The Songs of Selma” many a trace of a great and entrancing primitive literature. From Herder, too, who was familiar with Percy’s “Reliques,” Goethe first learned that some of the finest manifestations of the poetic impulse are to be found in popular songs and ballads. This revelation gave him exquisite pleasure, and it led to his collecting folk-songs, the directness, freshness, and simplicity of which, but with a new and subtle delicacy, were reproduced in his own lyrics.
Thanks to the influences under which he was brought by Herder, Goethe, during his residence at Strasburg, experienced a great intellectual awakening. He did not accept any body of doctrines as a complete and final expression of truth. On the contrary, the supreme service done to him by Herder was that in regard to things of the mind he was delivered from subservience to external authority. He now began to look out upon the world with his own eyes, and to test opinions by the free exercise of his own judgment. He had met Herder at the very moment when he needed, and was capable of responding to, the stimulus of an original mind at a stage of development more advanced than his own. When he parted from his teacher, it was no longer necessary for him to sit at the feet of a master. He had learned that great achievements were possible only if, like the poets into whose secrets he was penetrating, he brought himself into direct contact with the facts of the world, and trusted absolutely to the inherent impulses and laws of his own intellectual and imaginative powers.
During the period in which he was deriving fresh ideal impulses from Herder, Goethe was drinking deep draughts of the sweetest joys of the actual world. In the autumn of 1770 he rode with his friend Weyland to the pretty Alsatian village, Sesenheim, where Weyland wished to visit Pastor Brion, whose wife was related by marriage to one of his half-sisters. As they approached the quaint old parsonage, standing with its quiet garden in a well-wooded country, Goethe’s restless spirit could not but feel the soothing influence of a scene at once so beautiful and so peaceful. Pastor Brion, a most amiable and hospitable clergyman, had four daughters, one of whom was married, while three lived with their parents. There was also a son about eight years old. A simpler, happier family did not exist, and we cannot wonder that Goethe (not, as he afterwards thought, on his first visit, for he then knew nothing of Goldsmith) sometimes compared it to the family of the Vicar of Wakefield. Some whim made him present himself in disguise, but he soon appeared in his real character; and as he was pleasantly received, he at once felt at home. The youngest daughter was not old enough to interest Goethe. The others were Salomea, who was about his own age, and Frederika, who was in her nineteenth or twentieth year. Frederika had a slender, graceful figure, with rich masses of fair hair, dark-blue eyes, and finely modelled features. She was rather delicate, but had a fresh appearance, due to the sweet, wholesome air of the country. Behind her coy and maidenly manner were hidden possibilities of deep and passionate devotion, and her charm was made all the more alluring by the contrast she presented to her robust and outspoken elder sister.
In his autobiography Goethe gives a matchless description of his relation to this lovely girl. It is impossible to trust the details of the picture, some of which are known to be inaccurate; but there is no reason to doubt that in its main outlines it reproduces faithfully what actually happened. At any rate it is certain that he loved Frederika with all his heart; not as he had loved Gretchen and Annette, for their influence had never gone far below the surface; but with a love full of romance, with a passion that glowed and flamed with ever-increasing intensity. And Frederika—how was it possible for her to resist the young poet’s wooing? He had come to her suddenly, like some radiant being out of an unknown world, and in response to his fervour her heart throbbed with love, and pride, and joy.
Immediately after his first visit he wrote to her to say that never had Strasburg seemed to him so empty. Many other letters followed, but unfortunately they were afterwards burned by Frederika’s sister. He repeatedly visited Sesenheim, and shortly after Easter, 1771, Frederika came to Strasburg with her mother and sister. While she remained, Goethe and she had some happy hours together; yet somehow she did not seem quite herself in a town; he felt that they were in perfect sympathy only in the country, where they could be all in all to one another, with nature around them reflecting their happiness.
At Whitsuntide he went again to her home, intending to return to his studies after a short visit. But she was not very well, and day after day, week after week passed, and he was still at Sesenheim. During this visit he made himself highly popular in the village, and occupied himself in all sorts of ways, learning how to make basket work, painting the pastor’s carriage, and planning the reconstruction of the parsonage. He went on, too, with his study of Homer, and read to Frederika a translation he had made of “The Songs of Selma.” And all the time the passion of the lovers grew and struck its roots deeper in their hearts.
At last, when June was far advanced, he was forced to drag himself away, for it was time that he should proceed to his degree, the taking of which had been too long delayed. The university authorities were scandalized by some of the opinions advanced in his dissertation, but admitted his ability, and directed him to take part in a public disputation. The order was obeyed, and he afterwards received a licentiate’s degree.
In company with some friends, Goethe now enjoyed a short tour in Upper Alsace. On his return he paid a farewell visit to Sesenheim, and in August he was once more at home in Frankfort.
In the last interview with Frederika nothing was said to indicate that the parting was final. Nevertheless, Goethe knew that it was so; and eight years passed before they saw one another again, and then they met simply as old friends. Frederika had never doubted that he proposed to make her his wife, and this had also been assumed by her family. At first the idea of marriage did not occur to Goethe. He thought only of the rapture he felt in her presence, of her sweetness, her grace, and her beauty. When at last he could not avoid reflecting on the consequences of having won a maiden’s affections, a prolonged and bitter struggle went on in his mind. That Frederika, if he had been prepared to marry, would have made him truly happy, he loved her too well to question; and he can hardly have supposed that it would have been very difficult to induce his father to welcome her as a daughter-in-law. But the thought of marriage was repugnant to him. What! bind himself for life at the very time when he was becoming conscious of his destiny—when it was essential to the unfolding of his genius that his individuality should have free play! Deeply as he loved Frederika, strongly as he felt the duty he owed her, this consideration gained the day. He must have freedom, let it cost what it might.
Goethe never sought to justify his treatment of Frederika. For many a day he suffered the pang of a wounded conscience. His ultimate decision was right, for he had not reached a stage at which a happy marriage would have been possible; but he well knew that in a matter of such vast importance he ought not to have created an expectation that, from the nature of the case, was doomed to be disappointed. It can only be said that to a poet of his ardent temperament the power which had cast its spell over him was all but irresistible. Frederika herself, although she seemed to lose all in losing her lover, did not permanently resent the severance of the bond that connected them. She seems to have felt that deep causes had led to their separation. All her life she had a vivid remembrance of the beautiful romantic world in which they had for a while wandered together; and when attempts were made by new wooers to win her hand, her answer is said to have been, “The heart that Goethe has loved cannot belong to another.”
His love for Frederika exercised as powerful an influence over him in one direction as contact with Herder had exercised in another. In his meeting with her, and in his parting from her, he had sounded some of the profoundest depths of joy and suffering; and he had passed through a conflict in which his strongest feelings had been arrayed against one another. And in response to the touch of love his genius had sprung into free activity. He had written various lyrics giving utterance to his passion, and to this period also belongs “Heidenröslein,” in which he presented in a new form an old popular song. These perfect lyrics, slight as they are, are the earliest of his achievements in which we find the really characteristic qualities of his poetry. They do not, like his first efforts, bear the stamp of traditional rules, but are the direct expression of his own inward life. For five centuries—from the time when, at mediæval courts, Walther von der Vogelweide had sung his splendid verses—no poetic note of such mingled power and sweetness had been struck in Germany. In these early poems we feel the stirring of the forces of a new spring-time. They are full of a passionate delight in the beauty of the earth and the sky; in every line breathing of love they have the accent of sincerity; and they produce the impression of having flowed without effort from a mind which found the most natural outlet for its feelings in stanzas of noble and flawless melody.
Yet another great conception stirred Goethe’s imagination at Frankfort—the conception of “Faust.” With the Faust legend he had long been familiar, and in “Die Mitschuldigen” he had made one of the characters compare himself with Dr. Faust. During his residence at Leipsic, however, he was too inexperienced to have even a faint conception of the deep meanings that lay hid beneath the surface of the story. It was at Strasburg that he began to realize the vast possibilities of the subject. There he thought of it often and profoundly, and it continued to fascinate him after his return to Frankfort. In 1774—or perhaps 1773—he began to write the drama with which, of all his works, his name is most intimately associated. He worked at it, at intervals, until he quitted Frankfort; he made several references to it in his letters; and to some of his friends he read passages in which he thought they might be interested.
The original “Faust”—the “Faust” written at Frankfort—contains all that is most essential in the First Part as ultimately published.1 The Faust legend served only as a suggestion for Goethe’s drama. From being little more than a tale of magical wonders, it became, in passing through the alembic of his imagination, a conception pregnant with thought and passion—a conception in which were embodied all the most vital elements of the intellectual life of his century. Faust, as Goethe presents him, is a man of magnificent intellect, endowed originally with the purest and loftiest aspirations of humanity. When the drama opens, he has devoted many a year to study; but, sitting alone in his Gothic chamber at midnight, he feels sadly and bitterly that his labour has been in vain. Dry, abstract knowledge he has in abundance, but it does not satisfy him; it seems to him but a mockery of the knowledge for which he has always yearned. He pants for something infinitely grander than his books can tell him of. A Titan of the spirit, he would mount the very heavens, and snatch from the universe its inmost secrets. And so, despairing of finding truth by ordinary means, he has recourse to supernatural methods. Opening his book of magic, he sees the symbol of the Macrocosmos; and at once the scales fall from his eyes; he is confronted directly by the secret forces of nature working together in glorious harmony. At last, for a moment, joy wells up in his heart; he asks himself whether he has not become a god. But suddenly it flashes upon him that he is but a spectator, and he longs for so much more than can come to him by mere vision! To drink at the infinite sources of existence, to feel his soul quickened by contact with the very essence of life—nothing short of this can give him a rapture corresponding to his needs. Looking again into his book, he finds the symbol of the earth-spirit; and through all his being thrills a consciousness of energy and courage. There is no achievement of which he does not feel himself capable; he has an impulse to go out into the world, to experience all its delights and woes, and even in the crash of shipwreck to exult in his strength and freedom. The earth-spirit itself he must see, and it responds to his summons. But it scoffs at his claim of equality, and, as it disappears, leaves him once more in despair.
Baffled in his ideal aspirations, Faust gives himself up to the enjoyment of such pleasures as may be accessible through the senses. After the first monologue, and before the introduction of Gretchen, we find in the original “Faust” only Faust’s first dialogue with Wagner; the scene, afterwards considerably modified, in which Mephistopheles mystifies the ingenuous student; a draft, chiefly in prose, of the scene in Auerbach’s cellar; and a few lines, ultimately struck out, indicating the perplexity of Mephistopheles as he passes a cross by the wayside. Goethe was apparently in haste to reach the tale of love and sorrow, in which the destiny of Faust was to be interwoven with that of Gretchen, and the full meaning of his repudiation of the law of his spiritual being was to be disclosed in its tragic consequences.
After the accidental meeting of Faust and Gretchen in the street—when, struck by her beauty, he offers her his arm, and she escapes from him—there are wanting “Wald und Höble” and “Walpurgisnacht;” the part to be played by Gretchen’s brother, Valentin, is only indicated; immediately before “Trüber Tag” there is a dialogue between Faust and Mephistopheles which was afterwards omitted; and the last scene of all, the scene in the prison, is in prose. In other respects this part of the drama received at Frankfort what was essentially its final form. When the work was to be published, some lines and expressions were altered; but these changes did not vitally affect the conception as it had originally taken shape in Goethe’s mind.
Of all the products of Goethe’s genius, his presentation of the story of Gretchen is the finest; and, if we exclude Shakespeare, it would be hard to find anywhere in modern dramatic literature an equally noble achievement. The original of Gretchen, as a fresh, simple, happy maiden, with a heart overflowing with love and confidence, was Frederika Brion; and it may be that in depicting the early scenes in which she talks with Faust Goethe was recalling what had actually happened at Sesenheim. Frederika, for instance, must often have been astonished and rather dismayed by strange opinions expressed by her lover, and it is likely enough that she questioned him about religion, and that his answer was in spirit akin to the matchless lines in which Faust makes confession of his faith. But Goethe never seeks in his poetry simply to reproduce his personal experience. He transports us into an ideal world in which all that he has to show us stands out clearly, stripped of the accidental qualities which in actual life so often obscure our vision and disturb our judgment. Gretchen is not merely Frederika; she is the living representative of an enduring type of character and feeling.
Unlike Frederika, Gretchen is tempted to stain the purity of her spirit, and is brought within the sweep of forces that work her destruction; but she is never allowed to pass beyond the range of our sympathies, and in the end we are made to feel that in a deeper sense than that of theological dogmas she is “saved.” The last scene, as afterwards rendered in verse, has a more ideal character than it possesses in the original prose, yet in the process of transformation it lost some elements of tragic depth and force. In this great scene Goethe concentrates, with absolute truth to nature, all that is saddest and most terrible in human destiny.
Faust, as Goethe conceives the character, retains our interest through all the phases of his development; for we are often reminded that his was originally a noble nature, and that at the bottom of his heart there are still many survivals of humane and generous impulse. He is never a merely vulgar sensualist; he is an idealist who, having demanded of the universe more than it is capable of yielding, has given way to a mood of bitter and reckless spiritual despair. Mephistopheles is a creation not less remarkable in his own way than Faust, and upon the stage he is by far the more effective of the two, the outlines of his character being more distinct than those of his restless, wavering, unhappy comrade. In the Second Part, written long afterwards, his name is little more than a symbol for an abstract principle; but in the First Part, and especially in the scenes conceived at Frankfort, Mephistopheles has all the freshness and vigour of thorough individuality. It would be impossible to imagine a more striking contrast to the struggle incessantly going on in Faust’s mind than the settled purpose, the frank cynicism, and the grim humour of Mephistopheles. The character was suggested to Goethe by some qualities of his friend Merck. Merck, although honourable and good, had moods in which he took anything but an amiable or cheerful view of life; and his scoffs and sneers (as we may see from the description of him in “Dichtung und Wahrheit”) produced a more lasting impression on Goethe than his better characteristics. Although suggested by Merck’s cynical outbursts, Mephistopheles is not the less, of course, to be regarded as in the main a free creation of the imagination.
In “Faust” Goethe’s art reached the highest level it was capable of attaining during the early part of his career; and from a biographical point of view it is even more deeply interesting than “Goetz von Berlichingen” and “Die Leiden des jungen Werthers.” Goetz and Werther each represented a particular phase of his character in the course of its development. Faust represented his character as a whole just as it was about to enter upon a new stage of its growth. Goethe had not, indeed, allowed his will to be subdued by passion; but he had all the vehement cravings, all the restless aspirations, the disappointment of which is the secret cause of Faust’s gnawing misery. Goethe at this time enjoyed many a hearty laugh with his friends, and wrote many a bright and genial letter; but beneath the surface he suffered from a profound agitation of spirit, often longing for he knew not what, and feeling that there was no anodyne for the pain of a yearning that the world, as he conceived it, could not still. In this respect also Goethe may be taken as a representative of his period. For the men of the “Sturm und Drang” nothing in the actual universe seemed to be good enough. Not institutions, not social conventions only, but the very conditions of life itself appeared to them to be unjust and injurious limitations of free individuality; and with all their might they kicked against the pricks, and cried out angrily against the tyrannous order that would not bend or break at their bidding. It was inevitable that Goethe should feel the full power of the dominant influences of his epoch, and to the fact that he felt it, was due, in the springtime of his life, the splendid efflorescence of his genius.
It so happened that at the time when Goethe was striving to relieve his overburdened spirit in “Werther” and “Faust,” the “Ethics” of Spinoza came into his hands. This was an event of great importance in his life, for Spinoza introduced him to a higher order of thought than he had yet known. He never accepted Spinoza’s system of doctrine as a whole, yet the “Ethics” exercised a powerful influence over him, and for many years he returned to it again and again, always finding in it something that came home to him, and that he could make his own. Indeed, Spinoza was the only purely philosophical writer by whose teaching he ever largely and permanently benefited.
Apart altogether from the particular truths he learned from Spinoza, it was almost inevitable that in his restless and unhappy mood the “Ethics” should have for him a strong fascination. He, whose poetic temperament led him always to think with feeling and through the imagination, could not but be impressed by the calm and stately progress of an argument presented in passionless, abstract terms, and by means of an unswerving logical method. Again, it consoled Goethe to find that the philosopher who, of all others, had most completely stripped his mind of prejudice, could look at life steadily, and yet think of it, not in a spirit of resignation merely, but with hope, cheerfulness, and courage. Most earnestly, too, did he respond to the idea that while the ultimate powers of the universe reveal themselves in a vast and inexorable order, the individual mind can bring itself into harmony with that order only by remaining for ever true to the laws of its own being. The noble generosity of Spinoza’s temper also, as Goethe himself explains, was one of the sources of his charm. “Whoso rightly loves God must not ask that God shall love him in return.” That was a saying after Goethe’s own heart. Did not he himself afterwards write, “If I love you, how does that concern you?”
During his residence at Frankfort Goethe did not attain, or nearly attain, to a position at which he could say that he was reconciled to himself and to the world. But Spinoza’s teaching was to him like cool water to parched lips. Communion with this serene and lofty spirit put him on the track that was to lead to inward self-control and to the harmonious development of his powers.