Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 13.djvu/226

 196 LIFE AND WORKS OF GOETHE the world. Aud now see how far I am envious, and must be so. For either I am a fool, which is dillicult to believe, or she is the subtlest deceiver, or then — Lotte, the very Lotte of whom we are speaking." A few days afterward he writes : " My poor existence is petrified to barren rock. This summer I lose all. Merck goes. My sister too. And I am alone." The marriage of Cornelia, his much-loved sister, was to him a very serious matter, and her loss was not easily supplied. It came, too, at a time when other losses pained him. Lotte was married, Merck was away, and a dear friend had just died. Nevertheless, he seems to have been active in plans. Among them was most probably that of a drama on "Mahomet," which he erroneously places at a later period, after the journeys with Lavater and Basedow, but which Schäfer, very properly, restores to the year 1773, as Boie's " Annual " for 1774 contains " Mahomet's Song." Goethe has narrated in full the conception of this piece, which is very grand. He tells us the idea arose within him of illustrating the sad fact, noticeable in the biographies of genius, that every man who attempts to realise a great idea comes in contact with the lower world, and must place himself on its level in order to influence it, and thus compromise his higher aims, and finally forfeit them. He chose Mahomet as the illus- tration, never having regarded him as an impostor. He had carefully studied the Koran and Mahomet's life, in preparation. " The piece," he says, " opened with a hymn sung by Mahomet alone under the open sky. He first adores the innumerable stars as so many gods ; but as the star god (Jupiter) rises, he offers to him, as the king of the stars, exclusive adoration. Soon after, the moon ascends the horizon, and claims the eye and heart of the worshipper, who, refreshed and strengthened by the dawning sun, is afterward stimu- lated to new praises. But these changes, however