Part 41

Much is thought of music here, and this in contrast to Italy, which reckons itself the "only saving Church." But the people here are really deeply cultured in music. It is true that they are pleased with everything, but only the best music survives. They listen gladly to a mediocre opera which is well cast; but a first-class work, even if not given in the best style, remains permanently with them.

Beethoven is extolled to the heavens, because he toils strenuously and is still alive. But it is Haydn who presents to them their national humour, like a pure fountain unmingled with any other stream, and it is he who lives among them, because he belongs to them. They seem each day to forget him, and each day he rises to life again among them.

III.--"Poetry and Truth"

Weimar, March 29, 1827. The completion of a work of art in itself is the eternal, indispensable requisite. Aristotle, who had perfection before him, must have thought of the effect. What a pity! Were I yet, in these peaceful times, possessed of my youthful energies, I would surrender myself entirely to the study of Greek, in spite of all the difficulties of which I am conscious. Nature and Aristotle would be my aim. We can form no idea of all that this man perceived, saw, noticed, observed; but certainly in his explanations he was over-hasty.

But is it not just the same with us to-day? Experience does not fail us, but we lack serenity of mind, whereby alone experience becomes clear, true, lasting, and useful. Look at the theory of light and colour as interpreted before my very eyes by Professor Fries of Jena. It is a series of superficial conclusions, such as expositors and theorists have been guilty of for more than a century. I care to say nothing more in public about this; but write it I will. Some truthful mind will one day grasp it.

Weimar, April 18, 1827. Madame Catalini has scented out a few of our extra groschen, and I begrudge her them. Too much is too much! She makes no preparation for leaving us, for she has still to ring the changes on a couple of old-new transmogrified airs, which she might just as well grind out gratis. After all, what are two thousand of our thalers, when we get "God save the King" into the bargain?

It is truly a pity. What a voice! A golden dish with common mushrooms in it! And we--one almost swears at oneself--to admire what is execrable! It is incredible! An unreasoning beast would mourn at it. It is an actually impossible state of things. An Italian turkey-hen comes to Germany, where are academies and high schools, and old students and young professors sit listening while she sings in English the airs of the German Handel. What a disgrace if that is to be reckoned an honour! In the heart of Germany, too!

Weimar, December 25, 1829. Lately by accident I fell in with "The Vicar of Wakefield" and felt constrained to read it again from beginning to end, impelled not a little by the lively consciousness of all that I have owed to the author for the last seventy years. It would not be possible to estimate the influence of Goldsmith and Sterne, exercised on me just at the chief point of my development. This high, benevolent irony, this gentleness to all opposition, this equanimity under every change, and whatever else all the kindred virtues may be called--such things were a most admirable training for me, and surely these are the sentiments which, in the end, lead us back from all the mistaken paths of life. By the way, it is strange that Yorick should incline rather to that which has no form, while Goldsmith is all form, as I myself aspired to be when the worthy Germans had convinced themselves that the peculiarity of true humour is to have no form.

Weimar, February 15, 1830. As to the title, "Poetry and Truth," of my autobiography, it is certainly somewhat paradoxical. I adopted it because the public always cherishes doubt as to the truth of such biographical attempts. My sincere effort was to express the genuine truth which had prevailed throughout my life. Does not the most ordinary chronicle necessarily embody something of the spirit of the time in which it was written? Will not the fourteenth century hand down the tradition of a comet more ominously than the nineteenth? Nay, in the same town you will hear one version of an incident in the morning, and another in the evening.

All that belongs to the narrator and the narrative I included under the word Dichtung (poetry), so that I could for my own purpose avail myself of the truth of which I was conscious. In every history, even if it be diplomatically written, we always see the nation, the party of the writer, peering through. How different is the accent in which the French describe English history from that of the English themselves!

Remember that with every breath we draw, an ethereal stream of Lethe runs through our whole being, so that we have but a partial recollection of our joys, and scarcely any of our sorrows. I have always known how to value, and use, this gift of God.

IV.--The Birth of "Iphigenia"

Weimar, March 31, 1831. I have received a delightful letter from Mendelssohn, dated Rome, March 5, which gives the most transparent picture of that rare young man. About him we need cherish no further care. The fine swimming-jacket of his genius will carry him safely through the waves and surf of the dreaded barbarism.

Now, you well remember that I have always passionately adopted the cause of the minor third, and was angry that you theoretical cheap-jacks would not allow it to be a donum naturæ. Certainly a wire or piece of cat-gut is not so precious that nature should exclusively confide to it her harmonies. Man is worth more, and nature has given him the minor third, to enable him to express with cordial delight to himself that which he cannot name, and that for which he longs.

Weimar, November 23, 1831. To begin with, let me tell you that I have retreated into my cloister cell, where the sun, which is just now rising, shines horizontally into my room, and does not leave me till he sets, so that he is often uncomfortably importunate--so much so that for a time I really have to shut him out.

Further, I have to mention that a new edition of the "Iphigenia in Aulis" of Euripides has once more turned my attention to that incomparable Greek poet. Of course, his great and unique talent excited my admiration as of old, but what has now mainly attracted me is the element, as boundless as it is potent, in which he moves.

Among the Greek localities and their mass of primeval, mythological legends, he sails and swims, like a cannon-ball on a quick-silver sea, and cannot sink, even if he wished. Everything is ready to his hand--subject matter, contents, circumstances, relations. He has only to set to work in order to bring forward his subjects and characters in the simplest way, or to render the most complicated limitations even more complex, and then finally and symmetrically, to our complete satisfaction, either to unravel or cut the knot.

I shall not quit him all this winter. We have translations enough which will warrant our presumption in looking into the original. When the sun shines into my warm room, and I am aided by the stores of knowledge acquired in days long gone by, I shall, at any rate, fare better than I should, at this moment, among the newly discovered ruins of Messene and Megalopolis.

* * * * *

Poetry and Truth from My Own Life

As "Werther" and "Wilhelm Meister" belong to the earlier and to the middle periods of Goethe's literary activity, so the following selections fall naturally into the last division of his life. The death of Schiller in 1805 had given a blow to his affections which even his warm relationship with other friends could not replace, and hereafter he begins to concentrate more and more upon himself to the completion of those works which he had had in mind and preparation through so many years, the greatest of which was to be the "Faust." In "Poetry and Truth from My Own Life," which appeared in 1811-14, he was actuated by the desire of supplying some kind of a key to the collected edition of his works that had been published in 1808; and whatever faults, or errors, it may contain as a history, as a piece of writing it is finely characteristic of the ease and simplicity of his later style.

I.--Birth and Childhood

On August 28, 1749, at midday, I came into the world at Frankfort-on-Maine. Our house was situated in a street called the Stag-Ditch. Formerly the street had been a ditch, in which stags were kept. On the second floor of the dwelling was a room called the garden-room, because there they had endeavoured to supply the want of a garden by means of a few plants placed before a window. As I grew older, it was there that I made my somewhat sentimental retreat, for from thence might be viewed a beautiful and fertile plain.

When I became acquainted with my native city, I loved more than anything else to promenade on the great bridge over the Maine. Its length, its firmness, and fine aspect rendered it a notable structure. And one liked to lose oneself in the old trading town, particularly on market days, among the crowd collected about the church of St. Bartholomew. The Römerberg was a most delightful place for walking.

My father had prospered in his own career tolerably according to his wishes; I was to follow the same course, only more easily and much further. He had passed his youth in the Coburg Gymnasium, which stood as one of the first among German educational institutions. He had there laid a good foundation, and had subsequently taken his degree at Giessen. He prized my natural endowments the more because he was himself wanting in them, for he had acquired everything simply by means of diligence and pertinacity.

During my childhood the Frankforters passed a series of prosperous years, but scarcely, on August 28, 1756, had I completed my seventh year, when that world-renowned war broke out, which was also to exert great influence upon the next seven years of my life. Frederick II. of Prussia had fallen upon Saxony with 60,000 men. The world immediately split into two parties, and our family was an image of the great whole. My grandfather took the Austrian side, with some of his daughters and sons-in-law; my father leaned towards Prussia, with the other and smaller half of the family; and I also was a Prussian in my views, for the personal character of the great king worked on our hearts.

As the eldest grandson and godchild, I dined every Sunday with my grandparents, and the event was always the most delightful experience of the week. But now I relished no morsel that I tasted, because I was compelled to listen to the most horrible slanders of my hero. That parties existed had never entered into my conceptions. I trace here the germ of that disregard and even disdain of the public which clung to me for a whole period of my life, and only in later days was brought within bounds by insight and cultivation. We continued to tease each other till the occupation of Frankfort by the French, some years afterwards, brought real inconvenience to our homes.

The New Year's Day of 1759 approached, as desirable and pleasant to us children as any preceding one, but full of import and foreboding to older persons. To the passage of French troops the people had certainly become accustomed; but they marched through the city in greater masses on this day, and on January 2 the troops remained and bivouacked in the streets till lodgings were provided for them by regular billeting.