1. Aus meinem Leben, Wahrheit und Dichtung. GOETHE'S Sammtliche Werke. (Truth and Fiction from my Life; GOETHE's collected Works.) Vols. xx., xxi., xxii. 1840. 2. FREIEISEN (J. C.) Die beiden Friederiken in Sesenheim. (The Two Friederikas in Sesenheim.) 1838. 3. NäкE (A. F.) Wallfahrt nach Sesenheim, herausgegeben von VARNHAGEN VON ENSE. (Pilgrimage to Sesenheim, VARNHAGEN VON ENSE.) 1840. 4. PUDOR, über GOETHE'S Iphigenie, ein Esthetisch-literarischer Versuch. (On GOETHE'S Iphigenia, an Esthetic-literary Essay.) 1842. 5. F. LEWITZ, über GOETHE'S Torquato Tasso. 1839. 1839. 1840. Sämmtliche Werke. Bd. 12. 8. Characteristics of Women. By MRS. JAMESON. 2 vols. 1846. CARLYLE said, in his Hero Worship, that not attempt here to answer. In many resthe appreciation of Goethe in this country pects it may be that he still continues, to must be left to future times; and when he the majority of our reading public, as great made the remark, there seemed reason a mystery as he was before; and there are enough for it. We well remember ten or not a few points of view in which he is, and, fifteen years ago, the difficulty with which we believe, will continue to be, a mystery Goethe's very name was pronounced by to the Germans themselves. But although Englishmen. What was to become of the we may be disposed to dismiss a portion of h in the middle, or the e at the end, no one Goethe's writings as incomprehensible for could tell; and the diphthong was an ob- the present, and to regard other parts of stacle as insurmountable as the Pentogram- them as not without the need of those comma on the threshold of Faust's study. All mentaries which they have so largely receivthis, however, has been changed within the ed at the hands of his countrymen, both last few years, and there is not now a board- in the shape of lectures and of books,* we ing-school girl of fifteen, to whom the name of the great German bard is not as familiar as that of her own music-master. Whether much real progress has been made in penetrating the deeper nature of the profoundest of poets, is a question which we shall VOL. XIV. No. I. 1 *We give the following as a specimen of the industry with which the Germans have commented on the Faust alone :-Carus, Briefe über Goethe's Faust, 1836; Deyck's (F.) Andeutungen über Sinn Tragödie Faust, 1837; Däntzer, Goethe's Faust in und Zusammenhang des 1ten und 2ten Theils der seiner Einheit und Ganzheit dargestellt, 1836; Enk, 1. Aus meinem Leben, Wahrheit und Dichtung. GOETHE'S Sammtliche Werke. (Truth and Fiction from my Life; GOETHE'S collected Works.) Vols. xx., xxi., xxii. 1840. 2. FREIEISEN (J. C.) Die beiden Friederiken in Sesenheim. (The Two Friederikas in Sesenheim.) 1838. 3. NäкE (A. F.) Wallfahrt nach Sesenheim, herausgegeben von VARNHAGEN VON ENSE. (Pilgrimage to Sesenheim, VARNHAGEN VON ENSE.) 1840. 4. PUDOR, über GOETHE'S Iphigenie, ein Esthetisch-literarischer Versuch. (On GoETHE'S Iphigenia, an Esthetic-literary Essay.) 1842. 5. F. LEWITZ, über GOETHE'S Torquato Tass0. 1839. 6. LORING's Leben Goethe's. (Life of Goethe.) 1840. 7. Schiller über Egmont. (Trauerspiel von GOETHE.) 1839. 1846. 8. Characteristics of Women. By MRS. JAMESON. 2 vols. In many resto CARLYLE said, in his Hero Worship, that not attempt here to answer. the appreciation of Goethe in this country pects it may be that he still continues, must be left to future times; and when he the majority of our reading public, as great made the remark, there seemed reason a mystery as he was before; and there are enough for it. We well remember ten or not a few points of view in which he is, and, fifteen years ago, the difficulty with which we believe, will continue to be, a mystery Goethe's very name was pronounced by to the Germans themselves. But although Englishmen. What was to become of the we may be disposed to dismiss a portion of h in the middle, or the e at the end, no one Goethe's writings as incomprehensible for could tell; and the diphthong was an ob- the present, and to regard other parts of stacle as insurmountable as the Pentogramma on the threshold of Faust's study. All this, however, has been changed within the last few years, and there is not now a boarding-school girl of fifteen, to whom the name of the great German bard is not as familiar as that of her own music-master. Whether much real progress has been made in penetrating the deeper nature of the profoundest of poets, is a question which we shall VOL. XIV. No. I. 1 them as not without the need of those commentaries which they have so largely received at the hands of his countrymen, both in the shape of lectures and of books,* we *We give the following as a specimen of the industry with which the Germans have commented on the Faust alone:-Carus, Briefe über Goethe's Faust, 1836; Deyck's (F.) Andeutungen über Sinn und Zusammenhang des 1ten und 2ten Theils der Tragödie Faust, 1837; Däntzer, Goethe's Faust in seiner Einheit und Ganzheit dargestellt, 1836; Enk, should do little justice to the many-sided-ters, to which they do not willingly make an ness which so remarkably characterizes him exception Poets and romancers, on the if we forgot that, whilst he is the deepest other hand, and all that class of men whose and the most abstruse, he is also the most aim is happiness rather than knowledge, popular of all modern poets. He has a are usually, almost entirely, the creatures language for the many as well as for the of impulse-their converse is with the affew; and the avenues which lead to the fairs of the heart-they are dragged hither temple in which he has preserved the hid- and thither by their passions-they cannot den treasures of his genius, are strewed with live without sympathy-and even hatred is the fairest and the tenderest flowers. Whilst less intolerable than indifference. As examwe are marvelling at the almost prophetic ples of this class, Rousseau and Byron at sagacity with which he enters into the feel- once suggest themselves. Under neither ings of a learned misanthrope, in whose of these categories can Goethe be ranked, eyes knowledge has become worthless from for, in truth, he belonged almost equally to its very familiarity, we are, by a gradual both. With the single exception of his and insensible transition, led to weep over profession, which was the Law, there was, the sorrows of a village maiden who has we believe, no department of mental exerstumbled on the very threshold of life and tion, even the most unpoetical, in which he enjoyment. In one page we have matter had not labored vigorously during some which may give pause to the most thought- period or other of his long life. ful-the next transports us from the region In these multifarious occupations he enof intelligence into the very innermost re- gaged, not as the impulse of the moment cesses of the natural heart. It would be might direct, but as he considered most no easy task to determine with which of suitable for the preservation of his mental these two departments of our nature Goethe equanimity. Thus, on the occasion of was most thoroughly conversant. In the Schiller's death, he shut himself up in his general case we find that men who have house, and for days applied himself to scicultivated to a very great extent their in- entific research. Even his works of imatellectual faculties, either in order that they gination were engaged in, less with a view may apply them to some department of to the gratification than to the government learning or science, or that, as metaphy- of his passions. Werther's Leiden, it is sicians, they may make them the subject of well known, were written for the purposetheir own contemplations, have done so to and had the effect of forcing the mind of the almost entire exclusion of their affec- the author from that morbid sentimentality tions and their passions. They are for the so characteristic of many of his countrymen. most part, amiable, and even kind-hearted; In his Wahrheit und Dichtung, he mentions for this simple reason, that, giving them- that so early as during his residence in selves little trouble about the love or the Leipsic, he formed the habit of turning hatred of others, and their evil propensities whatever exalted or depressed him, or being curbed by their continual occupa- otherwise much affected him, into a picture tions, the kindlier feelings which prepon- or poem in order, he says, as it were to derate in most natures are left to a free and balance accounts with his own mind-to set unconscious exercise. They seldom mingle himself to rights with the external world. at all in the affairs of life, because they His aversion to violent emotions he is said take little interest in them either one way to have inherited from his mother; but or another; and if they do so it is general- whencesoever it came, the mode which he ly on the side of friendship, because it is adopted to preserve the mastery over his less troublesome, on the whole, to do a feelings, whilst it proved their strength, kindness than an injury-the latter can always be omitted with advantage, and the "laissez aller" is their rule in such mat shows, at the same time, how little he was disposed to be their slave. His whole life indeed, seems to have been a series of mental observations and psychological experiBriefe über Goethe's Faust, 1837; Falk, Goethe ments; and his own emotions he regarded im persönnlichen Umgange; Lucas (Dr.) Ueber den dichterischen Plan von Goethe's Faust; Rauch, only as the means of enabling him to beVorlesungen über Goethe's Faust, 1832; Schönborn come more intimately acquainted with what (Dr. G.), Zur Verständigung über Goethe's Faust, he wished to study, and to portray. His 1838: Schubarth, Vorlesungen über Goethe's Faust, true position was that of an observer; and 1830; Weisse (C. H.), Kritik und Erläutungen des Faust, 1837; Rotzcher, Der Zweite Theil des Goe- the duties belonging to it he was equally ready to exercise upon himself and upon thischen Faust, 1840. others. Had the emotional part of his others, and enabled him to reproduce their nature been less powerful than it was, the feelings within himself, he could enter so range of his observation would have been thoroughly into an imaginary character, as narrowed; had it been less under subjec- to say with something little short of certion, the power of observing would have tainty, what his or her mental state in any been lost. As it was, he had the faculty given circumstances would be. In working of immediately converting the subjective out a tragedy, therefore, he drew less upon into the objective; and the marvellous his fancy than upon his positive knowledge; truth of the latter is no doubt in a great the data being given or assumed, he posmeasure to be attributed to the intensity of sessed within his own mind the means of arthe former. In him we have the singular, riving at a certain and infallible result; and, we believe, unparalleled phenomenon, and thus it is, that in perusing his work, of the enthusiastic temperament of a poet we feel not as if it were giving us the fruits united with the faculties of a cool and dis- of his imagination, but as if it were relating passionate observer. It is no doubt diffi- to us what had positively been. He does cult to conceive the union of elements usu- not create to us beings who might have exally so antagonistic; and to those who isted had man been differently organized, are partially acquainted with the works or more highly endowed; but he places beof Goethe, but who have devoted little at- ings, such as do exist, in imaginary cir tention to the study of his most singular cumstances, and then he lays open before character, it will seem incredible that beings us the whole workings of their hearts. We so perfectly natural, often so childlike in are astonished, not at meeting with new and their simplicity as the imaginary characters unknown natures, but at seeing the whole whom we everywhere meet in his pages, instead of the half of that nature with should be the creations of an observer. which we are already familiar. The difficulty lies in continually bearing in From these observations it will be seen, mind, that whilst he observed he also sym- that we are disposed to regard Goethe in pathized. If he had been a mere vulgar the light of what may be called a poetic observer, one, that is, who is continually realist. His first endeavor seems ever to on the watch for phenomena, he would, like have been to obtain the most intimate posmost men of that character, have made few sible union with the person who for the discoveries, for the very simple reason, that time had awakened his enthusiasm to enhe would have had little to observe; while ter into his very nature, and to live his life. on the other hand, if he had been a man of When thus saturated as it were with the emotion and passion merely, his characters feelings of a real character, his marvellous like those of Byron, would have been color- objectivity came immediately to his aid, ed by the medium of his own imagination, and the imaginary being rose like an exhathrough which, and through which alone, lation from his own mind. This we shall he would have seen them. But, uniting in scarcely illustrate better, than by tracing himself the apparently incompatible ele- the origin of a few of the most celebrated ments of the one character and of the of his female characters. other, the seeming paradox was explained, From the perfect candor with which and what he felt intensely, he saw and Goethe has laid before us the history of his painted in the light of nature alone. We early loves, we are enabled not only to dismay picture to ourselves Goethe the philo- cover how it was that he contrived to besopher, sitting serene upon a rock, looking quietly down upon the troubled sea which agitated the heart of Goethe the man. come so thoroughly acquainted with every shade of womanly feeling in general, but also to trace, for the most part, the sources from which his individual characters were derived. In some cases he has given us direct information on this point-in others he has left the resemblance to be traced It is to this double nature, if we may so speak, and to the unwearied perseverance with which he availed himself of the advantages which it gave him, that we have to ascribe the wonderful truth of Goethe's by the ingenuity of his readers. imaginary characters. From the minute In poets and in painters, and perhaps in knowledge which he had acquired of the men who are neither the one nor the other, workings of his own mind in every possible it is tolerably certain that the object of condition, from indifference up to the most their first sincere attachment furnishes not violent emotion, and from the intense sym- a few of the elements which go to make up pathy which opened to him the minds of the character which continues through life, |