Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 1.djvu/19

 Rh which he produced. The collected writings of Goethe, voluminous as they are, fail of completeness. It is reckoned that he penned no less than ten thousand letters, and most of them were of the detailed length which a high postal rate always imposed a century ago, and not a few in doggerel rhyme or more serious verse. Multitudes of magazine articles and reviews of every kind, hundreds and hundreds of poems and songs, dozens of comedies and plays, proceeded from that indefatigable worker. Moreover, he was deeply interested in scientific researches, several of which resulted in discoveries of permanent value; he had general and autocratic disposition of the stage in Weimar; his participation in the councils of the duke was no less real and time-consuming because the duchy was but small. He learned the value of time and shared it wisely with those who also knew its value and his.

Napoleon's laconic comment, "Voilà un homme!" sums up Goethe. The titles and the much-worshipped German particle "von" which beckoned to him like that morning star which he early chose for his armorial designation now seem insignificant and petty. It is Goethe, just as it is Shakespeare and Æschylus and Homer.

Yet he was the product of his age and of his country. The air he breathed and the food he ate no more made his brain and brawn, than the ideas which were then in vogue made his mind. He was fortunate in being the pioneer in an era. All the pioneers of eras are fortunate, for they help to make their native literature and art and science and politics. They set the key for the symphony that is to come. Still more fortunate are the pioneers when they are also men of commanding genius: the Palestrinas, the Bachs, the Beethovens, the Homers, the Shakespeares, the Marlowes, the Goethes.

At the same time, they have all the disadvantages of pioneers,—the uncertainty of their direction, the perils of the unknown, the likelihood of being misunderstood or not believed.

There was Goethe, the many-sided, in peril of being made the mere impresario of a puppet-show for a picayune