SOME OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING IT GOETHE T is interesting to read the conflicting estimates of Goethe made by his contemporaries. In Germany he held a dictatorship in literature more absolute than that of any other author anywhere. Only a short time before, Voltaire had exercised a literary sovereignty of a like character over the entire continent, and Doctor Johnson, full of insular prejudices, had dominated, in much the same fashion, the literary thought of Great Britain. But neither of these men made a profound and lasting impression upon literature. They had both been great men of their time, but the admirers of Goethe judged rightly when they considered that his genius was not transitory but permanent, not local but universal, belonging to every race and every speech into which his thought could be translated. But if during 92 imitation of all that was wor lish drama. De Quincey, w edging the merits of Goethe, of his celebrated essay on the to a refutation of the extra of his admirers," and insi foundations of Goethe's reput his great age and literary fec official rank, and (3) the enign ter of much that he wrote. De Quincey, had mistaken hi ought to have confined hims poetry, of which Herman was so admirable a specimen. tion would surely decline. In the essay concerning ter, De Quincey criticises m sometimes with great justice, of the characters in the novel. have observed that no gentlem written Wilhelm Meister. of Goethe's friends is perha that it was written, not so 94 Protean Papers gentleman, as by a man; that the faithfulness of the portrait was the predominating principle. In fact, the keynote of all Goethe's writing is truth embodied in poetic form. Perhaps no man who ever lived was a more complete type of humanity than Goethe. Its reason, its passions, its strength, its weakness, its beauty, its deformities— he embodied them all. I know of no picture which more completely represents the complete man than the picture of Goethe. I know of no head which represents the fulness of human characteristics so well as Goethe's head in the statues and models which have come down to us. And it is not only his appearance and characteristics which seem to embody humanity, but his career itself. He had tried all things. His life was as complete as any recorded in history. He lived to a ripe old age, amid favorable surroundings. From his ancestors he acquired the traits which underlay his greatness: something of his father's sturdiness, but much more of his mother's serenity and cheerfulness. His education was such as would naturally contribute to the making of a many-sided man. It might be called desultory, but it was cer Concerning Goethe 95 tainly comprehensive. Besides his Latin, Greek, Italian, French, and English, he had a little chemistry and mathematics, a good deal of alchemy, a smattering of theology and law, interspersed with riding, fencing, dancing, drawing, and music. Thus he naturally acquired some knowledge of a great variety of subjects. His life flowed in an unbroken stream of prosperity. Goethe realized, perhaps more than any one else, the old pagan idea of blessedness—a sound mind in a sound body. His employment at the court of Carl August of Saxe Weimar was specially favorable to his literary life. The little German dukedoms and principalities, which were in many respects a curse to the land, were in one way an advantage. They formed nuclei of artistic and literary culture. Each of the petty princes became a Mæcenas to the poets and artists whom he attracted to his court. There were, it is true, some disadvantages in this. The love of liberty, one of the highest inspirations to poetry, was wanting. Adulation stood in the place of love of country. Goethe has been charged with lack of patriotism, and his service at court was perhaps responsible for this shortcoming. 96 Protean Papers But such service has also compensating advantages. It is not necessary for the poet to seek merely popular applause. The artist can be truer to his ideals. And thus it was with Goethe. He wrote many things which were not appreciated at the time by the public, and it was by such work that his influence upon the thought of Germany at last became so absolute. His literary productions were as manysided as his life. He has not done the best work in any one department of literature. In the drama, where he reached the highest point of his literary career, he is inferior to Shakespeare, as a poet he is behind Homer and Dante, as a novelist he is far below Thackeray, as a scientist his place is subordinate, as a philosopher he is often inconsistent and irrational, and yet he showed a catholic spirit, a power to be all things that man is capable of being, which is not found elsewhere in literature or in life. So multiform is his genius that his works. would hardly be attributed to one man if it were not known that Goethe was the author. There is Goetz von Berlichingen, strong, rugged, unfinished, an admirable portraiture of character, in which form and |