CHAPTER VII.

MANY-COLORED THREADS.

HITHERTO our narrative of this Weimar period has moved mainly among generalities, for only by such means could a picture of his life be painted. Now, as we advance further, it is necessary to separate the threads of his career from those of others with which it was so inwoven.

It has already been noted, that he began to tire of the follies and extravagancies of the first months. In this year, 1777, he was quiet in his Garden-house, occupied with drawing, poetry, botany, and the one constant occupation of his heart love for the Frau von Stein. Love and ambition were the guides which led him through the labyrinth of the court. Amid those motley scenes, amid those swiftly-succeeding pleasures, Voices, sorrowing Voices of the Past, made themselves audible above the din, and recalled the vast hopes which once had given energy. to his aims; and these reverberations of an Ambition once so cherished, arrested and rebuked him, like the deep murmurs of some solemn bass moving slowly through the showering caprices of a sportive melody.

The quiet influence exercised by the Frau von Stein is visible in every page of his letters. As far as I can divine the state of things, in the absence of her letters, I fancy she coquetted with him; when he showed any disposition to throw off her yoke, when his manner seemed to imply

less warmth, she lured him back with tenderness; and vexed him with unexpected coldness when she had drawn him once more to her feet. You reproach me,' he writes, with alternations in my love. It is not true; but it is well that I do not every day feel how utterly I love you.' Again: 'I cannot conceive why the main ingredients of your feeling have lately been Doubt and want of Belief. But it is certainly true that one who did not hold firm his affection might have that affection doubted away, just as a man may be persuaded that he is pale and ill.’ That she tormented him with these coquettish doubts is but too evident; and yet when he is away from her, she writes to tell him he is become dearer! Yes, my treasure!' he replies, "I believe you when you say your love increases for me during absence. When away, you love the idea you have formed of me; but when present, that idea is often disturbed by my folly and madness. I

...

love you better when present than when absent: hence I conclude my love is truer than yours.' At times he seems himself to have doubted whether he really loved her, or only loved the delight of her presence.

With these doubts mingles another element, his Ambition to do something which will make him worthy of her. In spite of his popularity, in spite of his genius, he has not subdued her heart, but only agitated it. He endeavors, by devotion, to succeed. Thus Love and Ambition play into each other's hands, and keep him in a seclusion which astonishes and pains several of those who could never have enough of his company.

In the June of this year, his solitude was visited by one of the agitations he could least withstand the death of his only sister, Cornelia. Sorrows and Dreams, is the significant entry of the following day in his Journal.

It was about this time that he undertook the care of

Peter Imbaumgarten, a Swiss peasant boy, the protégé of his friend, Baron Lindau. The Baron dying, left Peter once more without protection. Goethe, whose heart was open to all, especially to children, gladly undertook to continue the Baron's care; and as we have seen him sending home an Italian image-boy to his mother at Frankfurt, as Wilhelm Meister undertakes the care of Mignon and Felix, so does this 'cold' Goethe add love to charity, and become a father to the fatherless.

The autumn tints were beginning to mingle their red and yellow with the dark and solemn firs of the Ilmenau mountains, and Goethe and the Duke could not long keep away from the loved spot, where poetical and practical schemes occupied the day, and many a wild prank startled the night. There they danced with peasant girls till early dawn; the net result of which was a swelled face, forcing Goethe to lay up.

On his return to Weimar, he was distressed by the receipt of one of the many letters which Werther drew upon him. He had made sentimentality poetical; it soon became a fashion. Many were the melancholy youths who poured forth their sorrows to him, demanding sympathy and consolation. Nothing could be more antipathetic to his clear and healthy nature. It made him ashamed of his Werther. It made him merciless to all Wertherism. To relieve himself of the annoyance, he commenced the satirical extravaganza of the Triumph der Empfindsamkeit. Very significant, however, of the unalterable kindliness of his disposition is the fact, that although these sentimentalities had to him only a painful or a ludicrous aspect, he did not suffer his repugnance to the malady to destroy his sympathy for the patient. There is a proof of this in the episode he narrates of his

Harz Journey, made in No

vember and December of this year.* Most readers know his poem, Die Harzreise im Winter. The object of that journey was two-fold; to visit the Ilmenau Mines, and to visit an unhappy misanthrope whose Wertherism had distressed him. He set out with the Duke, who had arranged a hunting party to destroy a great thing of a boar,'† then ravaging the country round Eisenach; but, although setting out with them, he left them, en route, for purposes of his own.

Through hail, frost and mud, lonely, yet companioned by great thoughts, he rode along the mountainous solitudes, and reached at last the Brocken. A bright sun shone on its eternal snows as he mounted, and looked down upon the cloud-covered Germany beneath him. Here he felt the air of freedom swell his breast. The world with its conventions lay beneath him; the court with its distractions was afar; and the poet stood amidst these snowy solitudes communing with that majestic spirit of Beauty which animates Nature. There,

'high above the misty air

And turbulence of murmuring cities vast,'

he was lost in reveries of his future life:

Dem Geier gleich

Der auf den schweren Morgenwolken,

Mit sanftem Fittig ruhend,

Nach Beute schaut

Schwebe mein Lied.

* And not in 1776, as he says; that date is disproved by his letters to the Frau von Stein.

The expression is classical, dear reader! It is to be found in Herodotus, if not in severer writers, and seems felicitously to ex- . press the sort of wondering horror with which the peasants regarded the monster. See Clio, xxvi. 'Ω βασιλεῦ ὑος Χρῆμα μέγιστον ἀνεφανη,

2. T. 2.

Wordsworth.

This image (I adopt his own explanation) of the hawk poised above the heavy morning clouds looking for his prey, is that of the poet on those snowy heights looking down on the winter landscape, and with his mind's eye seeking amidst the perplexities of social life for some object worthy of his muse.

Writing to his beloved, he speaks of the good effect this journeying amid simple people (to whom he is only known as Herr Weber, a landscape painter) has upon his imagination. It is like a cold bath, he says. And à propos of his disguise, he remarks how very easy it is to be a rogue, and what advantages it gives one over simple honest men, to assume a character that is not your own.

But now let us turn to the second object of his journey. The letter of the misanthrope just alluded to was signed Plessing, and dated from Wernigerode. There was something remarkable in the excess of its morbidity, accompanied by indications of real talent. Goethe did not answer it, having already hampered himself in various ways by responding to such extraneous demands upon his sympathy; another and more passionate letter came, imploring an answer, which was still silently avoided. But now the idea of personally ascertaining what manner of man his correspondent was, made him swerve from his path; and under an assumed name he called on Plessing.

On hearing that his visitor came from Gotha, Plessing eagerly inquired whether he had not visited Weimar, and whether he knew the celebrated men who lived there. With perfect simplicity Goethe replied that he did, and began talking of Kraus, Bertuch, Musäus, Jägemann, etc., when he was impatiently interrupted with 'But why don't you mention Goethe?' He answered that Goethe also had he seen; upon this he was called upon to give a description of that great poet, which he did in a quiet way,