der's rather vulgar pun on his name (Göthe), made in college days, "Thou, the descendant of gods, or of Goths, or of gutters,"* was perhaps a little annoying for the time; but it clearly rankled in his mind; and he mentions it bitterly forty years later, after Herder's death, in the course of a very kindly criticism, as an instance of the sarcasm which rendered Herder often unamiable; characteristically adding this most true principle of etiquette, "the proper name of a man is not like a cloak, which only hangs about him, and at which one may at any rate be allowed to pull and twitch; but it is a close-fitting garment, which has grown over and over him, like his skin, and which one cannot scrape and flay without injuring him himself." As a small boy he is said to have walked in an old-fashioned way, in order to distinguish himself from his schoolfellows, and to have told his mother, "I begin with this. Later on in life I shall distinguish myself in far other ways." One cannot help thinking a little judicious whipping and nonchalance at home might at this period have been of great service to him. Yet the oracular' so entered into his nature, that one could ill spare it now from his essence. It gives a certain antique support to the light leaves of poetry that are twined round it. His minute self-observation early showed itself. The following recollection in his Autobiography is extremely characteristic: "We boys held a Sunday assembly, where each of us was to produce original verses. And here I was struck by something strange, which long caused me uneasiness. My poems, whatever they might be, always seemed to me the best. But I soon remarked that my competitors, who brought forth very lame affairs, were in the same condition, and thought no less of themselves. Nay, what appeared yet more suspicious, a good lad (though in such matters altogether unskilful), whom I liked in other respects, but who had his rhymes made by his tutor, not only regarded these as the best, but was thoroughly persuaded they were his own, as he always maintained in our confidential intercourse. Now, as this illusion and error was obvious to me, the question one day forced itself upon me, whether I myself might not be in the same state, whether those poems were not really better than mine, and whether I might not justly appear to those boys as mad as they to me? This disturbed me much and long; for it was altogether impossible for me to find any external criterion of the truth; I even ceased from producing, until at length I was quieted by my own light temperament, and the feeling of my own powers." He could not see then that what really distinguished him above them was not near so much, probably, the excellence of * In German "Koth," literally "mud." his verses, as the power of detecting and applying to his own case the general law of self-deception. Goethe was, as he intimates in Wilhelm Meister, in a passage well known to be in fact autobiographical, a very inquisitive child, and as unscrupulous as spoiled children are in gratifying his inquisitiveness. His childish fondness for the 'store-room' is rather universal and human than individual and personal. "More than any other of the young ones I was in the habit of looking out attentively to see if I could notice any cupboard left open, or key standing in its lock." There are few minuter bits of life in his writings than his description of the predatory excursion into the store-room one Sunday morning, when the key had not been withdrawn. "I marked this oversight," he says. He pilfered, however, with less than his usual self-possession; the cook made " a stir in the kitchen," and even Goethe was flurried. But he seems to have had no ordinary childish shame and selfreproach connected with the adventure-the loved puppets were always dearer to him because of the "French-plum" fragrance which they had acquired in the scene of theft. His delight in the theatre was the same through life. He liked the little mystery. He liked still better to have the key to the mystery. He was as quick as any child to find out "the man in the bear;" but it did not destroy his pleasure, especially if he was able to be "the man in the bear" himself; and besides, his heart was always in his eyes. But what mainly fascinated him in the theatre, we think, was its condensation and concentration of life into one consecutive piece. His imagination was wandering, digressive, microscopic, incoherent; he had the greatest difficulty in grasping in one vision a consecutive whole. He saw vivid points in succession, and saw the continuity and growth; but his sight was like the passing of a microscope over a surface,-it laid bare the transition, but did not give a connected vision. He saw too intensely and too far at each point to be able to sweep his eye quickly over the whole. The theatre helped to remedy this defect, and he was grateful to it. But for that very reason he never could write successfully for the theatre. The boy's passion for the theatre had one very bad effect. During the French occupation of Frankfort he (then a lad of ten to twelve years old) had a free admission to the French theatre, which he used daily, accompanied by no older friend. His mother unwisely obtained the reluctant permission of his father that he should go; and his consequent quick progress in French reconciled his father to the habit. The lad had constant access behind the scenes and in the greenroom along with his young French companions. Here we have little doubt the first delicacy of his mind was rubbed off. Pro bably he was constitutionally deficient in that element of mind which shame and reverence have in common (aidas, as the Greeks called it); and during the French occupation of Frankfort, at a most susceptible age, he was subjected to influences that would be likely to have endangered the most delicate of natures. He was too young, his friends imagined, for danger; but certainly he was not at all too young for that kind of curiosity about evil which is often more tainting than evil itself. Even in the late-written autobiographical recollections of his youth this is distinctly visible. At the age of fourteen he was a great tale-composer; and one of these tales, "The New Paris," full of the genius of his later years, he has preserved in his Autobiography. It is a most characteristic tale, brimming over with the self-importance of the boy, and full also of the fanciful grace, the mysterious simplicity, and the simple mysteriousness of his older compositions. It is far the most graceful of his short tales; and must, we think, have received some touches from his older hand. For our own parts, we greatly prefer it to the second part of Faust. But the childlike delight in puzzling his readers is the same. The scene of the fairy-tale, which is autobiographic, is laid in gardens discovered by him through the old wall of the city. The tale ends with the following charming mystery: "The porter did not speak another word; but before he let me pass the entrance, he stopped me, and showed me some objects on the wall over the way, while at the same time he pointed backwards to the door. I understood him; he wished to imprint the objects on my mind, that I might the more certainly find the door which had unexpectedly closed behind me. I now took good notice of what was opposite to me. Above a high wall rose the boughs of extremely old nut-trees, and partly covered the cornice at the top. The branches reached down to a stone tablet, the ornamented, border of which I could perfectly recognise, though I could not read the inscription. It rested on the corbel of a niche, in which a finely-wrought fountain poured water from cup to cup into a great basin, that formed, as it were, a little pond, and disappeared in the earth. Fountain, inscription, nut-trees, all stood directly one above another; I would paint it as I saw it. Now, it may well be conceived how I passed this evening and many following days, and how often I repeated to myself this story, which even I could hardly believe. As soon as it was in any degree possible, I went again to the Bad Wall, at least to refresh my remembrance of these signs, and to look at the precious door. But, to my great amazement, I found all changed. Nut-trees, indeed, overtopped the wall, but they did not stand immediately in contact. A tablet also was inserted in the wall, but far to the right of the trees, without ornament, and with a legible inscription. A niche with a fountain was found far to the left, but with no resemblance whatever to that which I had seen; so that I almost believed that the second adventure was, like the first, a dream; for of the door there is not the slightest trace. The only thing that consoles me is the observation, that these three objects seem always to change their places. For in repeated visits to the spot, I think I have noticed that the nut-trees have moved somewhat nearer together, and that the tablet and the fountain seem likewise to approach each other. Probably, when all is brought together again, the door, too, will once more be visible; and I will do my best to take up the thread of the adventure. Whether I shall be able to tell you what further happens, or whether it will be expressly forbidden me, I cannot say. This tale, of the truth of which my playfellows vehemently strove to convince themselves, received great applause. Each of them visited alone the place described, without confiding it to me or the others, and discovered the nut-trees, the tablet, and the spring, though always at a distance from each other; as they at last confessed to me afterwards, because it is not easy to conceal a secret at that early age. But here the contest first arose. One asserted that the objects did not stir from the spot, and always maintained the same distance: a second averred that they did move, and that too away from each other: a third agreed with the latter as to the first point of their moving, though it seemed to him that the nut-tree, tablet, and fountain rather drew near together: while a fourth had something still more wonderful to announce, which was, that the nut-trees were in the middle, but that the tablet and the fountain were on sides opposite to those which I had stated. With respect to the traces of the little door they also varied. And thus they furnished me an early instance of the contradictory views men can hold and maintain in regard to matters quite simple and easily cleared up. As I obstinately refused the continuation of my tale, a repetition of the first part was often desired. I was on my guard, however, not to change the circumstances much, and by the uniformity of the narrative I converted the fable into truth in the minds of my hearers." How vividly this reminds us of his mysterious conduct to Eckermann with regard to some portions of the second part of Faust. In that dark composition Faust asks Mephistopheles to show him Helena; and Mephistopheles tells him it can only be managed by application "to goddesses who live sublime in loneliness, but not in space, still less in time-of whom to speak is embarrassment"the mothers;' a glowing tripod'* is to as'a sure him that he has attained the deepest point of all, and by its shining he is to see the mothers. But there is no way there, as there can be no way into the "untrodden and untreadable," where he is to be surrounded by "lonelinesses." On hearing the mothers' mentioned, Faust starts back shuddering; and when asked why, only replies, "Die Mütter! Mütter! 's klingt so wunderlich." *The passage is, it seems to us, a satire upon the Hegelian practice of deducing every thing out of "the pure nothing," by what may be called the tripartite cork-screw philosophy, which does every thing in logical triplets, but winds itself a little higher at each repetition. Poor Eckermann had been set to read this remarkable scene, and was, naturally, a good deal puzzled. But he shall tell his own story. "This afternoon Goethe did me the great pleasure of reading those scenes in which Faust visits the mothers. The novelty and unexpectedness of this subject, with his manner of reading the scene, struck me so forcibly, that I felt myself translated into the situation of Faust, shuddering at the communication from Mephistopheles. Although I had heard and felt the whole, yet so much remained an enigma to me, that I felt myself compelled to ask Goethe for some explanation. But he, in his usual manner, wrapped himself up in mystery, looking on me with wide open eyes, and repeating the words, 'Die Mütter! Mütter! 's klingt so wunderlich.' 'I can betray to you no more, except that I found in Plutarch that in ancient Greece the mothers were spoken of as divinities. This is all for which I am indebted to tradition; the rest is my own invention. Take the manuscript home with you, study it carefully, and see to what conclusion you come."" The good childlike Eckermann conscientiously tasked himself to find the riddle out quite as anxiously as Goethe's boyaudience did about the door in the old wall; perhaps it was even less worth while. He elaborated a most complex and difficult 'view' on the subject of these mothers; but Goethe let nothing further transpire. Indeed it might fairly wait at least till the nut-trees, and the fountain, and the tablet in the old Frankfort wall, had drawn together again. There is one other slight incident of his boyhood so characteristic of the man that it is worth mentioning. The calm, unabashed, self-fortified boy appears in it the very image of the man. Coming out of the theatre, he remarked ponderingly to a companion, with reference to one of the young actors, "How handsomely the boy was dressed, and how well he looked! Who knows in how tattered a jacket he may sleep to-night!" The mother of the lad happened to be beside him in the crowd, took great umbrage, and read Goethe a long lecture. "As I could neither excuse myself nor escape from her, I was really embarrassed; and when she paused for a moment said, without thinking, 'Well, why do you make such a noise about it?--today red, to-morrow dead.'* These words seemed to strike the woman dumb. She stared at me, and moved away from me as soon as it was in any degree possible." This was not meant to give pain; it was only that he habitually cut short what annoyed him, without caring much how. He had the nerve and the presence of mind, and of other results he thought little. * "Heute roth, morgen todt,”- -a German proverb. S |