Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/183

Rh asparagus were planted and tended with great care. Scarcely a day passed in the fine season in which my father did not go there; and as on these occasions we might generally accompany him, we were provided with joy and delight from the earliest productions of spring to the last of autumn. We now also acquired a knowledge of gardening matters, which, as they were repeated every year, became in the end perfectly known and familiar to us. But, after the manifold fruits of summer and autumn, the vintage at last was the most lively and the most desirable; nay, there is no question, that as wine gives a freer character to the very places and districts where it is grown and drunk, so also do these vintage-days, while they close summer and at the same time open the winter, diffuse an incredible cheerfulness. Joy and jubilation pervade a whole district. In the daytime, huzzas and shoutings are heard from every end and corner; and at night rockets and fire-balls, now here, now there, announce that the people, everywhere awake and lively, would willingly make this festival last as long as possible. The subsequent labour at the wine-press, and during the fermentation in the cellar, gave us also a cheerful employment at home; and thus we ordinarily reached winter without being properly aware of it.

These rural possessions delighted us so much the more in the spring of 1763, as the 15th of February in that year was celebrated as a festival day, on account of the conclusion of the Hubertsburg peace, under the happy results of which the greater part of my life was to flow away. But, before I go farther, I think I am bound to mention some men who exerted an important influence on my youth.

Von Olenschlager, a member of the Frauenstein family, a Schöff, and son-in-law of the above-mentioned Doctor Orth, a handsome, comfortable, sanguine man. In his official holiday costume he could well have per-