GOETHE'S ART OF LIVING AND WAYS OF LIFE. THE HE greatest name in literature is unquestionably that of Shakspeare, and it may well be contended that the second name in literature is that of Goethe. The creator of "Faust" may be reckoned as only second to the creator of "Hamlet." Of Shakspeare's personality and of his ways of living we know, unfortunately, very little. As Steevens puts it, "all that is known with any degree of certainty concerning Shakspeare is-that he was born at Stratford-upon-Avon-married and had children there-went to London, where he commenced actor, and wrote plays and poemsreturned to Stratford, made his will, died, and was buried." In the day of our Shakspeare biography scarcely existed, while autobiography was practically unknown. Boswells and Eckermanns had not yet been invented, and the contemporaries of the greatest of poets never thought of recording for posterity his doings or his sayings. In the case of Goethe we are as fortunate as in the case of Shakspeare we are most unfortunate. The great German lived in a literary day of spiritual hero-worship, and was surrounded by men competent to appreciate and capable of recording all that they saw or heard. Not only has Goethe rendered us the assistance of autobiography, in a work which records fact, and also depicts the ideals and the poetical truths which form an atmosphere around fact, but he has been most fortunate in zealous and able biographers and reporters. Indeed, the literature which deals with Goethe the man, apart from the author, as he lived, and moved, and had his being, is the most extensive ever called forth by the life of a man of genius. Diaries and correspondences exist, conversations are fully reported; and we are able to follow him throughout his long life, almost from day to day, we can become acquainted with his ways and habits of life, and we can realise his career as he lived, and worked, and thought. The study of his daily way of life is, of course, something quite apart from a critical examination of his creations or criticismns expressed through literature. However, his habits, likings, sayings, are of supreme interest; and in this restricted branch of study the long roll of his daily life is unfolded from youth to age, and we see in their fulness the forms of life which stretched from "Werther" to the Second Part of "Faust." In 1888 Herr Th. Vogel published Goethe's Selbstzeugnisse über seine Stellung zur Religion und zu religiös-kirchlichen Fragen, in zeitlicher Folge zusammengestellt. In this work Herr Vogel drew together, from all sources, including Goethe's works, every recorded opinion that he ever expressed, any thought he ever uttered in connexion with religion; and now Dr. Wilhelm Bode is rendering us a similar service in connexion with the day-to-day life of Goethe. He has just published, in Berlin, Goethe's Lebenskunst, a work in which he has gathered together from correspondence, conversation, diaries, every fact which can illustrate the daily life of his hero. Dr. Bode is intelligent and thorough in his work, and even if we know the separate sources of his information, we yet owe him a debt of gratitude for bringing together, in one volume, so many of the details which illustrate his theme. Naturally, the work begins to be full and detailed when, at the age of twenty-six, Goethe settled down into life in Weimar. Literature, when practised on the heights on which dwell "Hamlet" and "Faust," is the outcome of the highest capacity granted by God to man; study the daily life and ways of a and execute such towering work. the daily life led at Stratford, or at life led at Weimar ! Dr. Bode divisions of description : 1. Dwelling and property. and it is of fascinating interest to man who was gifted to conceive Would that we knew as much of Bankside, as we do of the stately divides his subject into thirteen 2. External appearance, and conduct towards strangers. 5. Health and illnesses. 6. Sociability. 7. Friendships with men. 8. The friend of women. 9. The husband. 10. Creation, or authorship. When Goethe first settled in Weimar, he inhabited, for seven years, the Gartenhäuschen, a very modest little dwelling, surrounded by meadows and by trees, and distinctively still and quiet. The little white high-roofed cottage, however, stood in a pleasant garden, and this feature greatly endeared the little property to flowerloving Goethe. Some time elapsed before Karl August presented the statelier town-house on the Frauenplan to his minister. A wellto-do tradesman of our day would have revolted at the mean rooms and poor accommodation of the tiny Gartenhäuschen, and the town residence would be thought mean, in the present time, by any banker, or respectable trader of the middle class. Goethe disliked splendour and showy furniture. After he had ceased to occupy this cottage regularly, he often took refuge in its lowly walls, either to be alone to think and write, or to escape the home perplexities caused by a wife or son. A smaller or simpler residence for such a man could scarcely be found; and Weimar itself was singularly suited to his contemplative nature, and to his art productivity. Amid sumptuous furniture he found himself lazy and inactive, and could think much better surrounded by plain and simple adjuncts. At one period, the literary kings of Weimar found themselves powerfully attracted by country and garden life: Schiller bought a garden near Jena, Wieland emigrated to Ossmannstädt, and in 1797 Goethe bought a little estate in Oberrossla, on the right bank of the Ilm. He there amused himself with farming, with studying the workings of nature, and with agriculture, but in 1803 he sold the property, which did not, in the long run, sufficiently interest him because the farm was a "half thing" only, and therefore did not satisfy him. He got rid of his purchase without money loss, and he subsided into the old Gartenhäuschen and his town-house. His town mansion became gradually full of art treasures of many kinds, and his collection of such objects became very considerable. He was a man of property. He inherited a private fortune, and without that he could not have lived as he did in Weimar, since his pay was only 1,200 dollars at the beginning; was from 1781 1,400 dollars, rose in 1785 to 1,600, and finally, after 1816, when he became Prime Minister of the Duchy, attained to the sum of 3,000 dollars. His literary gains were for a long time very inconsiderable. From the Berlin theatre, Goethe received in twenty years 319 dollars, while Kotzebue was paid, during the same period, from the same source, 4,279 dollars. Goethe was driven to look sharply after his interests with his publishers-" Die Buchhändler sind alle des Teufels; für sie muss es eine eigene Hölle geben!" Indeed, he felt the need of a special hell for publishers. Between the years 17951832, Goethe received from Cotta 401,090 marks, and between 1832-1865, his heirs received 464,474 marks for the edition of hist collected works. Goethe was, indeed, never exposed to the bracing degradation of poverty. The calm of his lofty, generous nature was never fretted by petty irritative money cares, or by disturbing money anxieties. His fortune was commensurate with his character. Having thus glanced briefly at his dwellings and at his pecuniary means, we may pass on to his external appearance and relations with strangers. We possess many descriptions of his personal appearance. He was not really very tall, but his stately bearing gave an impression of height. His erect carriage, the head thrown back, and the hands clasped behind him, produced an impression of rare dignity; and in his best hours he wore the aspect, varying with his age, of Apollo and of Jupiter. He naturally made a very different impression upon different men. To many he was an ideal of manly intellectual beauty; to others he seemed stiff, cold, or arrogant. His expression was generally that of a man very much in earnest, but he also appeared benevolent and gracious. To an intelligent visitor he was full of grace and charm ; but a bore or a fool found him abrupt and unsympathetic. His eyes were extraordinarily large, dark, and brilliant. His nose was a little large for the face; but his voice was a charm. The theologian, Stickel, who visited Goethe in 1827, says, "Unconsciously I bowed before him more deeply than I have ever bowed to mortal." He cared nothing for fashion in dress, was sometimes attired very simply, and on other occasions wore elegant clothes. He received strangers like a monarch giving audience; he seemed to be half king, half father. Some complained of his coldness, while others were in raptures over his amiability. The able found him charming, the stupid felt that he was curt and stiff. During sixty years, he was one of the most celebrated men in Europe, and he could not always regard with complacency the interruption caused by visits which he did not seek, and which he did not desire. Many came out of the merest curiosity and in order to boast of having seen the great man, and he had to learn to deal with such people. He liked to travel incognito, or sheltered by a feigned name. In Italy, the Geheimer Rath merged into the bourgeois, and he gladly dropped the burden of his name. With an obnoxious visitor he could be very silent, dropping out occasionally, "hm! hm! so! so!" and he has even been known to go to bed in order to escape unwelcome visitors. He thought it an impertinence for strangers to call upon him without an appointment; and think how he must have been plagued. Every youth who had written a few verses, every traveller who passed by Weimar, thought it right to call, unannounced, upon the poet, even in his hours of work-and he worked every day-but his sorest trials came from women. Two anecdotic instances will not be out of place. Once he was on a visit to Frankfort on the Main, to the old paternal house in which his widowed mother lived. Goethe was looking out of window, his hands clasped behind his back, and talking with Frau von Kügelgen, when the door was flung open and a roomy matron-an entire stranger to Goethe-stormed in. She might be very rich, but was certainly very vulgar. She was of the dimensions of a tall stove, made of tiles, and was as hot as such a stove sometimes is. "Is Goethe here?" Assured on that point she exclaimed, “Goethe, ach Goethe, how long have I sought you! Was it nice to leave me in such anxiety ?" Goethe's features expressed less benignity than they sometimes did. She overwhelmed him with cajoleries and reproaches, till Frau von Kügelgen humanely interposed, and Goethe escaped. Another instance: the wife of Wilhelm von Humboldt burst in when Goethe was talking with Boisserée and examining works of art, and the lady, with widely extended arms, cried "Goethe!" "Do you know, madam," asked the poet, "how they catch salmon ? They are caught with dams and weirs; and I am now caught with such an arrangement. Take care you are not caught, and to avoid that be off at once!" She went away and Goethe said quietly to Boisserée, "No one else shall interrupt us." It sometimes happened that an uninvited caller was fortunate. If the visitor were able or learned, he was told, "We dine at two, and I shall be pleased if you will dine with us as my guest." The Geheimer Kirchenrath Schwarz did not come off very pleasantly. Goethe was accustomed to go early in the morning to the ruins of the old castle, there to think alone and undisturbed. One morning he found the pedant Schwarz already at the favourite seat, and the audacious blockhead began by asking Goethe what he had meant by his "Wilhelm Meister." "You must certainly have written the work for an education institute." Goethe regarded the man with his eyes, and with his grave composure, replied, "Up to the present moment I myself did not know that fact, but now I see it quite clearly. Yes, I did write 'Wilhelm Meister' for an educational institution, and I would beg you to make that circumstance known to all the world." |