Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/748

Rh Sesen- heim. 724 made him his intimate friend. Goethe was soon drawn by the studies of his companions to desert his own. A note- I GOETHE But the attractions of Frederike were a great interruption to his labours. In the spring Herder went away. The book of this date is preserved, which gives us a full account ﬁne weather drew him still more strongly to Sesenheim. of his studies and employments. He attended lectures on anatomy, on midwifery, and on chemistry. His own studies were chiefly devoted to the last science; and he did not forget his favourite alchemy. Strasburg introductions to pietistic circles, and this made He had brought with him to ' him at ﬁrst somewhat staid and retired in his pleasures, and ' disinclined for general society. This soon wore off, and the natural eheerfulness of his genial nature returned to him. Two songs, Bl incle K-11]: and Slirbt clcr Fuchs so gilt cler Balg, refer to the social life of this period. He went on picnics, he wrote French poetry, he took dancing lessons, he learnt the violoncello. The table of the Fréiulein Lauth received some new guests. Among these was J ung-Stilling, the self- educated charcoal—burner, who in his memoir has left a ' Goethe injustice. Picnics, water parties, games, dances, illuminated by en- thusiasm for literature, ﬁlled up the weeks. As his time for leaving Strasburg came nearer, he felt that this love was merely a dream, and could have no serious termination. Frederike felt the same on her side. A visit of the mother and daughters to Strasburg in July made this appear more clearly. On August 6 Goethe took his degree as doctor of law. Shortly afterwards he bade adieu to Sesenheim, and the tears stood in Frederike’s eyes as he reached out his hand from horseback. From Frankfort he wrote his ﬁnal farewell, and it was then, as he tells us, that he found from her answer for the first time how deeply she had loved him. The account of this love episode in the autobiography does There is nothing in the letters or the graphic account of Goethe’s striking appearance, his broad I poems of the time to show that he had wantonly trifled brow, his ﬂashing eye, his mastery of the company, and his ' generosity of character. Another was Lerse, a frank open character who became Goethe’s favourite, and whose name is immortalized in Got: von ])’erl2'clzin_r]en. Goethe did not desert his studies in art. He learnt from the constant study of the cathedral of Strasburg the effect of Gothic architecture, and he shuddered when he saw the reception- rooms of the youthful Marie Antoinette hung with tapestries which represented the marriage of Jason and Medea, and l seemed to forebode the coming doom. His diary also shows that he spent much time in philosophical speculation. the most important event of his Strasburg sojourn was his acquaintance with Herder. He was ﬁve years older than Goethe. Herder was then travelling as tutor to the young prince of Holstein-Eutin, but was obliged to spend the whole winter of 1770-71 in Strasburg on account of an affection of his eyes. Goethe was with him every day, often all day. Herder, who was a pupil of a more original genius, Hamann, taught him the true value of nature in art, and the principles of what we should now call the romantic school. He made Ossian known to him, and the wealth of popular poetry in all nations which the publication of Ossian revealed; he enchanted him with the idyllic simplicity of the Vicar of ll'alr-qﬁelrl ; but, above all, he shook his sensi- bility to the roots by revealing to him the power of the mighty Shakespeare. He now saw how far superior Homer was to his Latin imitators, and how false were the canons of French art. Goethe’s spirit was liberated from its trammels, and Géitz and Faust and Wilhelm Jlleister became possible to his mind. At a later period he forged for him- self fetters of a different kind. Goethe’s stay at Strashurg is generally connected still more closely with another circumstance,——his passion for Frederike Brion of Sesenheim. The village lies about twenty miles from Strasburg, and her father was pastor there. Goethe was introduced by his friend Weyland, an Alsatian, as a poor theological strident. Fresh from his study of Goldsmith, he found the Vicar of l-Valcqﬁelcl realized. The father was a simple worthy man, the eldest of the three daughters was married, the two younger remained,— Maria Salome, whom Goethe calls Olivia, and Frederike, to whom the poet principally devoted himself. She was tall and slight, with fair hair and blue eyes, and just sixteen years of age. Goethe gave himself up to the passion of the moment; what he felt and suffered is known to us by his songs. At least ten songs are addressed to her, and several others were written for her. During the winter of 1770, in the intervals of his conversations with Herder, Goethe often rode over to Sesenheim. Neither storm, nor cold, nor darkness kept him back. He should have been busy with his dissertation for the degree of doctor. The subject he had chosen was the duty of providing an established church. But ' l with her affections. Eight years afterwards, on his way to Switzerland, he spent a night with the Brions at Sesenheim, and was received with the utmost kindness. He was shown the arbour where he had sat, the songs he had written, the carriage he had painted. He left tl1em in the morning with content. Frederike lived till 1813, well known for her works of charity. She never married : the heart that Goethe had loved, she said, should never love another. Goethe’s return to Frankfort is marked by a number of net songs, of which the “Wanderer’s Sturmlied" is the most t_"1 remarkable. He found his Frankfort existence more intoler- able than before. He had outgrown many of the friends of his youth. Those with whom he felt most sympathy were the two Schlossers and his sister Cornelia. He found in her one who sympathized with all his aspirations. He cared nothing for his profession; he was more determined than ever to devote himself to letters, and not to law. ll‘l(' found in the neighbouring town of Darmstadt a literary circle which Frankfort did not supply. The landgravine Caroline set a good example, and had collected round her a number of kindred spirits, men and women. Among them were Venck, and Petersen, and Caroline Flachsland, who was afterwards to marry Herder. But the soul of the literary circle was Merck, now thirty years of age, attached to the war oﬂice. Goethe has represented him in the autobio- graphy as a cold and unfeeling cynic, a spirit who always said no, a prototype of Mephistopheles. History represents him otherwise as a man of cultivated and chastened judg- ment, a represser of enthusiasm, a respecter of the rules of art, anxious to hold the balance between the old school and the new. Goethe had dominated over all his other friends 2 Merck dominated over him. He has left but little of his own writings. He was one of those who inspire genius in others, and whose truest picture lives in the recollections of their friends. These months were full of literary activity. To them belong an oration on Shakespeare, delivered at Frankfort, an essay on Erwin von Steinbach, the builder of the Strasburg cathedral, two theological treatises of a neologistic character on the commandments of Moses and the miraculous tongues of Pentecost, and a number of reviews written for the Franlgfurter (}'cl¢lu'le .-ln:€z'[/er, which had been founded by Merck. But the work into which he threw all his genius was the dramati'/.ation of the history of the imperial knight of the Middle Ages, Gottfried or Giitz von Berlichingen. suddenly receives his sight. The unities of time and place vanished into nothing. The true form of art was seen to be that which holds the wayward impulses together by an invisible bond, just as in the life of man necessity is wedded The immediate (Iii! cause of this enterprise was his enthusiasm for Shakespeare. 13"" After reading him he felt, he said, like a blind man who“'”'