Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 1.djvu/18

viii of the enticements of Circean madness. He was ready for the great career which his good genius whispered to his inner consciousness was to open out before him. The pictures that he drew of his double self were eminently characteristic, but one can see at a glance which one he felt was the real portrait. The carnival Goethe was to be put away with other discarded trumperies of youth. It had served its purpose.

It may be supposed that all men's experiences and their environment go to form them; at all events, that would seem to be the mission of the discipline of life. But the material to be formed has to be possessed of some quality, else the fire burns it out, the stress breaks its fibres, the mould fails to leave any impress, the file spoils it. One cannot polish putty, or mould molasses, or twist wood, or refine granite.

Goethe superbly illustrates the man made by his circumstances; external conditions answering to the inherent qualities. He had all the chances of being ruined; they were offered him freely. A pedantic martinet of a father insisted that he should conform his talents to a preconceived course; gay and dissipated friends helped him to waste his energies; beautiful girls were dazzled by his manly beauty and his brilliant powers of entertaining; an easy-going code of morals prevailed in the circles in which he mingled; he was freed from the necessity of strenuous labour; a tendency to procrastination and the easy-going current of dilletantism conspired to make him grow bright leaves instead of fruit; a petty court for his home and a pleasure-loving duke for his patron might easily have undermined his independence.

But the stuff of the man was too genuine to be disintegrated by such destructive forces. He was subjected to them, but when he found them working against him he withdrew, as the wise man can, as only the fool will not. Late hours, overindulgence in unwholesome food and intoxicants, the more insidious vices of a university town, brought him face to face with the possibility of an early death. He learned his lesson in time, and became a model of abstemiousness and regularity. That is proved by the colossal amount of work