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POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 OF GOETHE. 
 
 COMPRISING THE LECTURES AND EXTEMPORE DIS- 
 CUSSIONS BEFORE THE HULWAUKEE LITERARY 
 SCHOOL IN AUGUST, 1886. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 MARION V. DUDLEY. 
 
 
 CHICAGO; 
 
 S. C, GRIGGS AND COMPANY. 
 
 1887. 
 
^ H' -1 Z ^"S -S^ 
 
 /CORiMELL^S 
 LIBRARVy/ 
 
 copteight 1887. 
 Bt s. c. geiggs and COJIPANY. 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 This volume of lectures and extempore discussions is 
 
 offered to the public in the interests of higher literature in 
 
 the Northwest ; as an effort, secondary to that of the 
 
 "Milwaukee Literary School," to popularize the thought 
 
 of a great author through the interpretations of specialists 
 
 in German Literature. To emphasize the value of ideas ; 
 
 to stimulate profounder research ; to cultivate immortal 
 
 youth, is its earnest purpose. 
 
 Marion V. Dudley. 
 
 2J0 Martin Street, 
 
 Milwaukee, Wis. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 President John Johnston, - i 
 
 GOETHE'S WILHELM MEISTER. 
 Professor W. T. Hakujs, . - 12 
 
 GOETHE AS A SCIENTIST. 
 Mk. James MacAlister, . 38 
 
 GOETHE'S RELATION TO ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 Mr. F. B. Sanborn, 59 
 
 THE DIVINE COMEDY AND FAUST. 
 Mrs. Caroline K. Sherman, gg 
 
 MYTHOLOGY OF THE SECOND PART OF FAUST 
 Professor Denton J. Snider, 138 
 
 THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 
 Mrs. Maria A Shorey, - 180 
 
 WHAT IS MOST VALUABLE TO US IN GERMAN 
 PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE. 
 
 Profes.sor W. T. Harris, - 219 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 President Joh.v Johnston, i 
 
 GOETHE'S WILHELM MEISTER. 
 Professor W. T. IIarkis, 12 
 
 GOETHE AS A SCIENTIST. 
 Mr. James MacAlister, 38 
 
 GOETHE'S RELATION TO ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 Mr. F. B. Sanborn, 59 
 
 THE DIVINE COMEDY AND FAUST. 
 
 Mrs. Caroline K. Sherman, gg 
 
 «* 
 
 MYTHOLOGY OF THE SECOND PART OF FAUST 
 Professor Denton J. Snider, 138 
 
 THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 
 Mrs. Maria A Shorey, - 180 
 
 WHAT IS MOST VALUABLE TO US IN GERMAN 
 PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE. 
 
 Professor W. T. Harris, - 219 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 SOME BIRTHDAY TRIBUTES. 
 GOETHE AS A MAN. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 PRaFESsoR W. T. Hewitt, - - 252 
 
 GOETHE AS WRITER, SAVANT AND CITIZEN. 
 Mr. Horace Rublee, 259 
 
 AN INTERESTING LETTER. 
 Translated by A. K. Linderfelt, - - 269 
 
 ANNIVERSARY ODE TO GOETHE. 
 Professor Denton J. Snider, - - 273 
 
 THE ERL-KING. 
 
 Miss Aubertine Woodward, ... 283 
 
 GOETHE'S BIRTHDAY. 
 Mrs. Hattie Tyng Griswold, . . . - 299 
 
POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 ADDRESS OF WELCOME, 
 
 MILWAUKEE LITERARY SCHOOL, AUGUST 23, 1886. 
 
 By President John Johnston. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : The privilege of wel- 
 coming to our city so many illustrious guests, on such an 
 occasion as this, is as pleasant as it is rare. 
 
 Scarcely half a century has passed since the Potta- 
 watomies danced their last war dance on the ground 
 overlooking the beautiful bay, where the waters of the 
 Milwaukee, the Menomonee and the Kinnekinnic mingle 
 with those of Lake Michigan. 
 
 Those dusky denizens of the forest, with their neigh- 
 bors, the Chippewas, the Menomonees, the Winnebagoes, 
 the Outagamies and the Sauks, have melted away 
 
 " Before the tread of pioneers 
 Of nations yet to be, 
 The first low wash of waves where soon 
 Shall roll a human sea.'' 
 
 That human sea has rolled in from old England and 
 New England, swollen by a vast tide from the hive of 
 nations which submerged old Rome, and still further 
 strengthened by the descendants of the heroes of the 
 Netherlands, and the sons and daughters of the Vikings 
 
2 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 of the North, till probably there is no city of its size in 
 the world with a population of more composite origin 
 than is to be found in Milwaukee. 
 
 We have been busy these fifty years in building houses 
 to live in, in grading and paving streets to walk on, and 
 in making all the manifold and multifarious material 
 improvements essential to the bare comfortable existence 
 of civilized men. 
 
 We have now reached a point in our progress when 
 we need no longer devote every hour and effort to pro- 
 viding for the material necessities of life. 
 
 Our Art School, the rising walls of yonder magnifi- 
 cent Museum, the monument recently presented to our 
 city, the late Sangerfest, wherein "great music raised the 
 soul above all earthly storms," the very atmosphere of the 
 building in which we have met to-night, all proclaim the 
 fact that the citizens of Milwaukee are no longer slaves 
 to merely mercenary and sordid aims, but that many of 
 them have time, talent and money to devote to the pur- 
 suits and enjoyments of science, literature and taste. 
 
 The object for which we have convened here this 
 evening is a notable proof that we have advanced beyond 
 the merely utilitarian, and that, in some degree at least, 
 we have begun to appreciate and take delight in the 
 higher sources of progress and enjoyment to be found in 
 the realms of literature. 
 
 I can not forbear from alluding here to the fact that 
 the women of our city, in their efforts in this direction, 
 are far in advance of the men, and that both individually 
 and in their various classes and clubs, they have done and 
 are still doing far more than their husbands and brothers 
 to promote esthetic and intellectual culture in our midst. 
 
ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 3 
 
 To them are we indebted for the literary feast upon 
 which we enter to-night. 
 
 It toolc some courage to attempt to transplant the 
 studies, work and methods of Concord to the shores of 
 Lake Michigan, and if we can not at first equal New 
 England, we will not be discouraged. 
 
 We may well congratulate ourselves that we are 
 favored with the presence at this School of some of the 
 most successful teachers, the ablest writers and the most 
 profound thinkers of our country, at whose feet it will 
 be a rare and most memorable privilege to sit ; and I wish 
 that one more able and worthy had been called upon to 
 bid them welcome. 
 
 Of the distinguished writers and speakers who add 
 interest to this occasion, some are thoroughly Eastern, 
 while others are men and women of the West ; and we 
 have the representatives of still another class, not large 
 as yet, but destined to become larger and larger as our 
 country becomes older. I refer to those who were born 
 in the East, but who came West in their youth, and amid 
 Western influences attained a rank so high that they have 
 been summoned Eastward again, to a work for which no 
 man in the East was found so well fitted to perform. 
 The East may claim the honor of being the birthplace of 
 these men, but to the West belongs the credit of their 
 development. 
 
 To all, whether from the East or the West, whether 
 from the beautiful capital of Wisconsin, from the banks 
 of the Mississippi, from the city of Brotherly Love, or 
 from the classic hills of New England, to all, on behalf 
 of the citizens of Milwaukee, I bid you a most cordial 
 welcome — welcome to our hearts — welcome to our homes. 
 
4 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 I think that we are particularly fortunate in the theme 
 which has been selected as the basis of our discussions 
 during the session of this School ; fortunate, because of 
 the greatness of our author ; fortunate, on account of the 
 wonderful variety of ways in which that greatness has 
 manifested itself ; fortunate, also, in the very remarkable 
 diversity of opinions regarding his life, as well as in the 
 diversity of views and interpretations which his writings 
 have called forth, both in his own and other lands. 
 
 Few indeed of the sons of men have borne so lofty a 
 name, few indeed stand so high, " a light and landmark 
 on the cliffs of fame," as Johann Wolfgang Goethe. 
 
 Of the thousands of millions of men who have passed 
 across the arena of this mortal life, probably not more 
 than three can be deemed worthy of so high a place in 
 the temple of genius. 
 
 There is the grand old '' Bard of Chios' Isle," whose 
 fame, after the lapse of three thousand years, is brighter 
 at the present moment than ever before. The poets, 
 statesmen and scholars, both of the old world and the 
 new, vie with each other in expositions and translations 
 of his immortal lines. While seven cities claimed the 
 honor of his birth, ten times seven generations have been 
 moulded by the productions of his matchless genius. 
 The rage of Achilles, the pride of Agamemnon, the 
 cunning of Ulysses, the courage of Ajax, the generous 
 patriotism of Hector, the beauty of Helen, and the ten- 
 derness of Andromache, have become proverbial in every 
 civilized nation, age and tongue. The galleys of the 
 ancient mistress of the world, and the mighty war-ships 
 of the modern mistress of the seas, have alike been known 
 by the names of his heroes. 
 
ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 5 
 
 I think Homer can claim a seat second to none in the 
 temple of genius. It took twenty odd centuries to give 
 the world such another, when arose the immortal Floren- 
 tine, Dante, who gave to us "that mediaeval miracle of 
 song," the Divine Comedy, and, three centuries later 
 still, appeared the greatest dramatic genius that ever 
 lived, William Shakespeare. Two centuries later — almost 
 in our time — on the 28th of August, 1749, was born in 
 Frankfurt, he who, of all men, is worthy of a place with 
 the great triumviri of genius whom I have named, — 
 Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare. 
 
 Previous to the appearance of Goethe, Germany occu- 
 pied a peculiar position. While her soldiers, statesmen, 
 philosophers, and scholars, were famous, she had no 
 literature. Her students were known chiefly for the 
 plodding industry shown in huge Latin treatises on law 
 and theology, and ponderous tomes of annotations on the 
 classics. For a century the creative spirit seemed to 
 have departed, and the German Parnassus was a verita- 
 ble waste. 
 
 Little over a century ago, there were probably more 
 Persian than German scholars in the city of London. 
 Now, the fact that we are studying the life and works of 
 Goethe in the North-western States of America, shows how 
 changed is the position occupied by German literature. 
 The influence which the writings of Goethe has exercised 
 upon the thought of England, can hardly be measured. 
 The lustre of his genius soon penetrated the insular fogs, 
 and, although bewildering and poorly understood for a 
 time, soon made its influence felt in a notable degree on 
 the great minds of Coleridge, Scott, Byron, Carlyle, and 
 others. 
 
6 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 Carlyle wrote, sixty years ago, that it would be diffi- 
 cult to name two books which have exercised a deeper 
 influence on the subsequent literature of Europe than 
 Goethe's two earliest works. Sir Walter Scott's first 
 literary enterprise was a translation of " Goetz with the 
 Iron Hand," and we may, in some sense, call this work 
 of our author " the prime cause of ' The Lady of the 
 Lake ' and ' Marmion,' with all that followed from the 
 same creative hand." 
 
 While the greatness of the genius of Goethe makes 
 the study of his works desirable for such an occasion as 
 this, its wonderful versatility and universality make it 
 still more so. His muse was anchored to no single field, 
 but soared over the whole wide domain of poetry. Song, 
 epigram, ode, elegy, ballad, opera, comedy, tragedy, and 
 the mighty epic, all engaged his pen ; nay, more, he 
 undertook excursions into the realms of mineralogy, com- 
 parative anatomy, biography, optics, novels — both senti- 
 mental and philosophical — and the fine arts. It is not 
 strange, then, that our programme for the week presents 
 a remarkable variety and wealth of subject. I have often 
 thought how fortunate Goethe was in his longevity, for 
 he had fifty years of active life more than were accorded 
 to Byron or Burns. There is no estimating what grand 
 memorials of their genius the authors of " Childe Harold " 
 and " Tam O' Shanter " might have left, had they lived 
 but fifty years longer. The latter, as he walked, 
 
 ' ' in glory and in joy- 
 Behind his plough upon the mountain side, 
 I have sometimes believed was equal to , 
 Writing another Walpurgis' night." 
 
 The biographer is apt to make a hero of his subject, 
 
ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 7 
 
 magnifying his virtues and overlooking his faults, and I 
 am not sure but that, on an occasion like this, we are not 
 unlikely to lay ourselves open to the same criticism. Yet, 
 after all, is it not well that it should be so? 
 
 If it be our good fortune to show our guests our 
 beautiful city, we may take them to some commanding 
 eminence and point out to them the salient features of the 
 landscape. This may be compared to the work of the 
 historian, who treats merely of the great men and great 
 events, and the commanding characters of a given time. 
 But this will hardly satisfy our visitors ; we must bring 
 them down into the city and show them our beautiful 
 lawns and broad avenues and spacious streets ; they will 
 desire to see our schools, our homes, and our public 
 buildings. This is like the work of the biographer, who 
 introduces us not so much to the great features of an 
 era as to the habits, work, thoughts, feelings, motives, 
 aspirations and struggles, — in short, both the public and 
 private life of an individual. Now, as we, in showing 
 our city to our guests, can not be expected to take them 
 through the most uninviting streets, or to point out to 
 them for criticism our meanest building, in like manner 
 the biographei: or lecturer can not be desired to dwell on 
 any doubtful traits in the life or writings of his subject. 
 
 If, then, in these meetings we dilate on the great and 
 the good in Goethe, is it not wise and best, is it not most 
 elevating and instructive that we do so ? 
 
 That there is not a little room for criticism in his life 
 and works may be true, but of whom among the sons of 
 men has not'this been true ? 
 
 I am not sure but that the great prototype of our 
 author may be found in the wisest king of ancient Israel, 
 
8 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 both in the remarkable personality of his writings, the 
 character of his mental struggles and experiences, and in 
 the final outcome of the whole matter. It is the old, old 
 story, echoed along the centuries — the diapason of the ages. 
 
 Few men there have been who, at one time or other, 
 have not taken the Err-light as their guide, and made for 
 the heights of Brocken ; and, as the Great Teacher said, 
 " if the light which is in a man be darkness, how great is 
 that darkness.'' 
 
 Mephistopheles tells Faust that 
 
 " Sir Mammon for this festival 
 Grandly illumes his palace hall, 
 To see it were a luclcy chance 
 E'en now the boisterous guests advance.'' 
 
 Have we not more than once had our Walpurgis 
 Night in the business world, within the memory of us 
 all, to say nothing of the political world ? Have we not 
 seen credits more and more expanded, rising prices, 
 everybody trusting everybody, and all scrambling to be 
 rich ? New schemes and speculations born with every 
 rising sun, new banks, new railroads, new mines, new city 
 plats, trust funds invested in bubbles, fortunes made with- 
 out labor, splendid equipages and entertainments, 
 
 ' ' Upward the eddying concourse throng, 
 Thinking to push, thyself are pushed along." 
 
 When no one expects it, the illusion vanishes, and we see 
 merchants bankrupt, stagnation in every street, real estate 
 unsaleable, mortgages foreclosed, debtors abscond and 
 widows and orphans are ruined. 
 
 ' ' In fearful and entangled fall 
 
 One crashing ruin whelms them all." 
 
ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 9 
 
 The spirit in which our discussions will be conducted 
 is the spirit of intelligent and independent inquiry, ani- 
 mated by the sole desire of reaching the truth. Unlike 
 the disciples of the Academy and the Porch, we wrestle 
 not for the victory of our particular doctrines, but for the 
 attainment of that which is true. One of Homer's 
 stirring lines runs — 
 
 Aikv dpiariuiM^ xai ur^sipo^ov E/J.p.evat dXXcuv. 
 
 This maxim and motive may have been the highest pos- 
 sible three thousand years ago, but while the genius of 
 Christianity coincides with Homer in telling each one of 
 us that, in whatever we undertake, duty has but one 
 voice, " always excel," yet our motive should never be to 
 tower above the resf. That may be the result of excel- 
 lence ; it can not righteously be its incentive. So, in all 
 the deliberations of the coming week, let our desire not 
 be for the adoption of any preconceived notions of our 
 own, but let us excel in the search after what is true, " in 
 honor preferring one another." 
 
 It is a great pleasure to welcome our distinguished 
 guests on this occasion, not only on account of what they 
 are in themselves, but also for the somewhat selfish rea- 
 son that their stay among us will be of great benefit to 
 our city. I do not know that our merchants will sell any 
 more goods, or that there will be any immediate rise in 
 real estate in our city, on account of the eloquent words 
 and inspiring sentiments to which it will be our privilege 
 to listen during the session of our school, but I do most 
 earnestly hope that the result of this week's deliberations 
 will be to give an impetus to the study of literature in 
 our midst. 
 
 This age has been marked in a notable degree by the 
 
10 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 most wonderful achievements over the forces of nature, 
 but I doubt if we can compare with some which have gone 
 before, in the sphere of pure intellect. As an age of great 
 material activity, have we not failed in the production of 
 minds of the first order, " immortal teachers of man- 
 kind ? " 
 
 In the West especially, I fear that the cultivation of 
 the fruits of literature is pursued amid many adverse 
 environments. 
 
 For twenty years I have observed parents send their 
 sons to Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Ann Arbor, and 
 Madison, where many of them have graduated with the 
 highest honors. They return home full, it is to be sup- 
 posed, of that inspiration which is to be found in holding 
 converse with the mighty kings of intellect of past ages. 
 They engage in business pursuits, and, from that day, no 
 one would ever dream that they had received the benefit 
 of a university education, so far as can be judged from 
 their taking part in any public literary work, or doing 
 aught to indicate that they had participated in any but 
 the simplest public school education. 
 
 Is there anything in the pursuits of a merchant that 
 should crush out all literary tastes, or preclude the pursuits 
 of mental refinement ? Is there any reason why the be- 
 ginning of business should be the end of culture ? 
 
 He will be an abler and broader merchant and a hap- 
 pier and more independent man, who looks beyond the 
 tread-mill of the routine of the factory or the counting- 
 house, and keeps alive in after years those literary tastes 
 which it is to be supposed he acquired under the foster- 
 ing care of his Alma Mater. 
 
 How narrow and small must that man be who can not 
 
ADDRESS OF WELCOME. II 
 
 look beyond the pages of his ledger, or the walls of his 
 store, and how helpless he is when pressed with adver- 
 sity ; 
 
 " Unless a man he can 
 
 Above himself erect himself, 
 How poor a thing is man." 
 
 We may make great wealth in this world's goods in a 
 day, and lose it in an hour ; but, while in the cultivation 
 of our higher nature we must proceed by slow and weary 
 steps, what we do attain can not be taken from us by any 
 vicissitude of fickle fortune. 
 
 Ladies and gentlemen from abroad, I again welcome 
 you to our fair city, convinced that your advent here can 
 not fail to be an incentive to us all to pursue those things 
 which are high, and to be reaching more and more near 
 to the ideal of our author when he wrote — 
 
 " Like as a star 
 
 That maketh not haste, 
 That taketh not rest, 
 Be each one fulfilling 
 His God-given hest. 
 
GOETHE'S WILHELM MEISTER. 
 By Professor W. T. Harris. 
 
 The problems in the life of a people come to con- 
 sciousness in the minds of its great men. These great 
 men see the elements of contradiction in their age or 
 nation and choose their course or vocation in view of the 
 sublime vision. Some undertake the task of grasping the 
 problem in its abstract form and seek for it the highest 
 theoretic solution. Another class of great men seek to 
 correct the defect of the age by vast practical changes — 
 political or military movements which they direct and 
 control. A third order of men find their vocation in 
 setting forth the problem poetically as a work of art, and 
 in showing to their age the inconsistency of life as it is, 
 or the struggle that it involves, on the one hand, while 
 on the other hand they portray the unity and harmony of 
 conflicting interests in a new ideal of life. 
 
 Looking back into the history of Europe in the last 
 half of the eighteenth century, we can readily recognize 
 the problem of the age and the leaders in the movement 
 towards its solution. There was a conflict between the 
 individual and the social institutions under which he 
 lived, a readjustment of relations was required. Im- 
 manuel Kant offered the profoundest abstract or philo- 
 sophical solution; Napoleon directed the military-political 
 solution; and Goethe set forth the literary solution in 
 works to edify and enlighten all men. 
 
GOETHE'S WILHELM MEISTER. I3 
 
 The special tension that existed in France and Ger- 
 many had been caused in the first instance by long wars, 
 which apparently had for object the gratification of 
 personal ambition on the part of absolute monarchs. 
 Really, however, they had a deeper necessity in the new 
 adjustment of national powers which the protestant 
 movement in northern Europe demanded. New border- 
 lands arose everywhere between the old faith and the 
 new, and the boundaries had to be fixed by the court of 
 ultimate appeal — military strength. 
 
 The new distinction that arose in the religious con- 
 sciousness between true faith and corrupt practice, or 
 between the good old faith and the new heresy — each 
 side having learned by deadly struggle that it was forced 
 to tolerate the existence of its opposite — this distinction 
 penetrated all minds and gave birth to a prolific progeny 
 of new distinctions in regard to all social ordinations. 
 Appeal had been made to the right of private judgment, 
 as against established authority. This right had gained 
 for itself a place in which to exist. But its logical con- 
 sequences began to be seen in other spheres than reli- 
 gion. It produced an intensification of individuality, a 
 habit of independent decision in regard to all matters. 
 Religious differences had caused migrations into distant 
 lands. Colonization and commerce had begun. Me- 
 chanic invention had contributed the steam engine and 
 the power loom. The individual was becoming in all 
 ways conscious of his possibilities. 
 
 Great changes reveal great ideals. The stubbornness 
 of facts being overcome, the observing mind looks on 
 and forecasts complete revolutions. 
 
 To the radical mind of the French thinkers there came 
 
14 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 the vision of revolt against all authority of all kinds — 
 the authority of the state, the authority of custom and 
 established usage, as well as the authority of the church. 
 Protestantism had merely transferred authority from the 
 church to the authority of the Bible, as interpreted by 
 leading protestant theologians. Why not destroy all 
 authority and make an end of the slavery of the indi- 
 vidual at once ? 
 
 These ideas came to utterance in representative men 
 like Rousseau. The problem developed its conflicting 
 abstractions into discordance, and the French Revolution 
 was the product. The men who attacked all authority 
 were not great men in the highest sense. Rousseau and 
 Voltaire proposed to destroy one of the conflicting 
 elements. They did not propose to reconcile both 
 elements with each other. The social whole, the organic 
 unities which we call institutions, should go down before 
 the right of the individual to his own private judgment. 
 This was no true solution, but only a statement of the 
 contradiction. 
 
 It was Immanuel Kant who discovered a philosophic 
 solution to this question of the individual against author- 
 ity. Napoleon ended the French Revolution by "the 
 whiff of grape-shot," as Carlyle calls it. 
 
 It was Goethe who elaborated through a long life the 
 poetic works of art which show all phases of the problem 
 in their collisions and which reveal the ideal harmony in 
 which they are resolved. 
 
 The philosophy of Kant slowly leavened the thought 
 of Germany, and then passed over into the intellectual 
 life of other countries. It is still a rising tide in the phi- 
 losophy of all the Christian world. The French Revolu- 
 
GOETHE'S WILHELM MEISTER. 15 
 
 tion was seen and comprehended practically by all 
 surrounding nations. 
 
 But Goethe's solution has not yet come to its full 
 appreciation in lands outside of Germany, if, indeed, it 
 can be said to have become an education even for the 
 people of Germany. What word for Goethe in France, 
 or Italy, or Spain, has been uttered that shows an appre- 
 ciation of his significance as world-poet ? Even the 
 gifted insight of Castelar does not discover the poet of 
 the " Republican movement of Europe." The prophetic 
 voice of Thomas Carlyle proclaimed Goethe's rank as 
 world-poet fifty years ago. But there is only here and 
 there an English scholar who pretends to understand his 
 Faust, or even to believe that the second and greater part 
 of that work is anything but a literary puzzle produced in 
 the dotage of an old man. The clergy, leaders of popu- 
 lar opinion, and the literary critics, are mostly of the 
 opinion that Goethe's Wilhelm Meister is an immoral 
 book, and in this respect of the same class as " The 
 Elective Affinities." 
 
 Even Ralph Waldo Emerson, our greatest literary 
 light, found no true revelation in Faust — it was repug- 
 nant to his taste and view of the world. Look at the 
 recent verdict of our great American novelist, Howells, 
 for a reflection of the average result which American 
 readers get from the reading of Wilhelm Meister. 
 
 Goethe, indeed, if he be the great world-poet which I 
 have assumed him to be, has not yet arisen for other 
 nations than Germany. 
 
 I take for granted that the directors and members of 
 this Literary School form an exceptional class of readers, 
 who hold substantially my own belief in regard to the 
 
l6 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 claim of the greatest German ,poet to rank as one of the 
 greatest poets of the world. If I am not mistaken, you 
 all believe that Goethe has a future yet to come among 
 all peoples, a future as secure as the past is to Homer, 
 as secure as is the present recognition of Dante and 
 Shakespeare. It is surprising to think that even the uni- 
 versal recognition of Dante and Shakespeare is less than 
 fifty years old. 
 
 It was Goethe's own estimate of Shakespeare, as given 
 in his Wilhelm Meister, that contributed most of all to 
 procure for Shakespeare the rank he holds to-day among 
 Teutonic peoples. Dante's recognition outside of Italy 
 was very meagre until Carlyle placed him in his galaxy of 
 heroes to be worshipped, and English and American 
 poets translated him and commented on him, and a guild 
 of Dante's expounders arose in Germany — all within 
 the past fifty years. 
 
 In view of the tardy appearance of the universal 
 recognition of these great poets, there is still hopes of 
 Goethe among English and American readers, if we can 
 only get enthusiastic specialists to devote themselves to 
 his study and form, as it were, a Goethe guild, side by 
 side with the Dante guilds and Shakespeare guilds. 
 
 It is with the humble desire to aid this consummation, 
 although not a specialist in literature, that I bring my 
 contribution to-night, in the shape of a study on the form 
 and contents of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister. For I believe 
 that the wisdom of Goethe is the newest and most pre- 
 cious of all that we have inherited from literature, — 
 especially precious now to all thinkers on social and indi- 
 vidual problems of life, and daily growing more useful 
 and immediately practical. 
 
GOETHE S WILHELM MEISTER. 1 7 
 
 It is in Meister tliat we have the direct and emphatic 
 enunciation of his doctrine of culture. He calls out to 
 all individuals within whom has arisen the divinity of dis- 
 content with their lot : Devote yourself to the cultiva- 
 tion of your own powers. Make all life into an education. 
 Struggle to rise out of your finite limitations into a nobler 
 self-hood. Grow in wisdom and knowledge. Grow in 
 insight into the world, and especially into the world of 
 humanity. Perfect your taste for what is noble. By 
 these means convert whatsoever obstacles and hindrances 
 that you discover in your environment, into positive helps 
 to your culture. Let your lot in life which you despise, 
 be the object of your study, the problem of your investi- 
 gation, until you gain insight into its relation to life and 
 existence as a whole. Let its trials and temptations fur- 
 nish you a school of training for your will power, and for 
 the attainment of self-control over your passions, and for 
 your purification from selfishness. 
 
 By struggle for culture, interpreted in this way, one 
 sees that there is consolation to the individual for what- 
 ever defects he may discover in his worldly lot. But in 
 the abstract statement of the doctrine of culture, one 
 suspects an error. He finds no trace of the doctrine of 
 self-sacrifice for the sake of others. It is only self- 
 sacrifice for the sake of one's own culture. 
 
 But Goethe was the first to discover this defect in 
 abstract culture, and his immortal works are not the glo- 
 rifications of selfish culture, but rather the exhibition of 
 its inadequacy. Both Meister and Faust culminate in the 
 doctrine of unselfish devotion for others. But this doc- 
 trine of unselfish devotion for others is not abstract 
 unselfishness, like the Buddhist unselfishness which sacri- 
 
 3 
 
1 8 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 fices itself to be eaten by a hungry tigress. It rejects 
 equally abstract selfishness which seeks culture at the 
 expense of the happiness of others, and the abstract 
 unselfishness which does not hesitate to sacrifice its own 
 essential interests for the sake of aiding forward the 
 unessential interests of others — giving up one's life in 
 order to save a tigress from starvation. 
 
 Goethe is too clear-seeing to hold the doctrine of 
 selfish culture, or, on the other hand, to hold the oriental 
 doctrine of the annihilation of all individuality. While 
 Christianity says, get rid of selfishness, the Indian Yoga 
 says get rid of self-hood. 
 
 The Meister takes us over the entire ground of indi- 
 vidualism and altruism, discriminating the advantages 
 and defects of each phase. 
 
 I know that to Goethe is often attributed this doctrine 
 of selfish-culture, instead of the true doctrine of altruistic 
 culture. But here is evident the need of such labors as 
 your Goethe societies can bring. 
 
 While Faust shows us the conflict that belongs to the 
 age of science — the age of the struggle against author- 
 ity — in its highest aspects, Wilhelm Meister, on the other 
 hand, shows the same problem as it appears in'the prosaic 
 endeavors of ordinary talent which is moved by blind 
 aspiration. Faust is cultured, but is dissatisfied with the 
 results of culture ; Meister is not cultured, but aspires to 
 become so. The Faust is not the problem of culture, but 
 the problem of the collision between the selfish world- 
 principle and the Christian world-principle. The Meister, 
 on the other hand, is preeminently the problem of culture. 
 The formation of character could not be admitted into 
 the great world problem of Faust, and yet culture or 
 
GOETHE S WILHELM MEISTER. I9 
 
 education is utterly essential for the production of the 
 generation of individuals who are liable to be tempted by 
 Mephistopheles. It is equally essential to the individuals 
 of after ages who are to avoid that conflict. 
 
 In Wilhelm Meister we see everywhere unformed 
 characters struggling in the midst of petty complications 
 and acting and reacting on their narrow environments. 
 Their own freedom is the chief cause of their embarrass- 
 ments. They do not recognize their own deeds when 
 they see them returning on the doers in the shape of 
 inconvenient situations, sorrow and pain, or fettering 
 limitations. 
 
 Unconscious freedom is only the mere possibility of 
 freedom. Unformed characters often act in such a man- 
 ner as to undo the very purposes that they strive to 
 accomplish. It is only by degrees that they discover the 
 compass of their actions and learn the golden rule of 
 ethics — what you do to others you are doing to yourself. 
 
 The novel, Wilhebn Meister, deals with trifles that 
 show how the individual grows by the reaction of his 
 deed upon himself. And inasmuch as the growth of 
 human character is the most serious matter in this world, 
 it comes to pass that all these trifles are dignified by their 
 association. Their outcome and results are something 
 universal and permanent. 
 
 Culture contemplates something so fundamental that 
 it will provide against such world-collisions as the Faust 
 embodies. 
 
 Let us consider for a moment the elements of this 
 culture-process, or the formation of character. 
 
 There are three phases to the formative period of the 
 individual — choice of vocation, marriage, fixing the 
 
20 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHK 
 
 theoretic view of life. We may call this theoretic view of 
 the world the universal side of culture — it ought to be the 
 same in all individuals. However special a man may be 
 in his idiosyncrasy, in his marriage or in his vocation, it 
 is important that he shall attain to the just recognition 
 of the world-order as expressed in civilization and its 
 institutions, and that he widen continually his conception 
 of the world, and labor to gain a deeper insight into its 
 processes. On the other hand, in what is peculiar to him 
 as an individual he finds certain conditions which he must 
 respect in his choice of a partner for life, and in his selec- 
 tion of a vocation or province of industry. Goethe thinks 
 that this natural idiosyncracy must be definitely ascer- 
 tained and respected in each of these two matters. 
 Hence the peculiar educational maxims of the Abbe who 
 directs and supervises the education of the members of 
 the noble family whose fortunes form the chief subject in 
 the novel we are considering. 
 
 Says "The Fair Saint,'' speaking of this view of the 
 Abbe in her "confessions," "At first I could perceive no 
 plan whatever in this mode of education; till at last our 
 Doctor told me the Abbe had convinced my uncle that, 
 in order to accomplish anything by education, we must 
 first become acquainted with the pupil's tendencies and 
 wishes; that, these once ascertained, he ought to be trans- 
 ported to a situation where he may, as speedily as possi- 
 ble, content the former and attain the latter. And so, if 
 he have been mistaken, may still in time perceive his 
 error; and at last, having found what suits him, may hold 
 the faster by it, may the more diligently fashion himself 
 according to it." 
 
 "Of the Abb^ there might be much said," replies 
 
GOETHE S WILHELM MEISTER 21 
 
 Natalia to Wilhelm. " What I know best about him is 
 the influence which he exerted on our education. He 
 was, for a time at least, convinced that education ought, 
 in every case, to be adapted to the inclinations. His 
 present views of it I know not. He maintained that with 
 man, the first and last consideration was activity, and that 
 we could not act on anything without the proper gifts for 
 it, without an instinct impelling us to it." 
 
 Goethe represents the Abbe himself as saying, in 
 another place, " If we consider well, we shall find that 
 every capability, however slight, is born with us ; that 
 there is no vague, general capability in men. It is our 
 ambiguous, dissipating education that makes men uncer- 
 tain ; it awakens wishes when it should be animating 
 tendencies ; instead of forwarding our real capacities, it 
 turns our efforts towards objects which are frequently 
 discordant with the mind that aims at them. I augur 
 better of a child, a youth, who is wandering astray on a 
 path of his own, than of many who are walking aright 
 upon paths which are not theirs. If the former, either by 
 themselves or by the guidance of others, ever find the 
 right path, that is to say, the path which suits their 
 nature, they will never leave it ; while the latter are in 
 danger every moment of shaking off a foreign yoke, and 
 abandoning themselves to unrestricted license." 
 
 The Abb^, we are led to infer, has taken notice of the 
 element of aspiration in Wilhelm's character, and has 
 acted as a special Providence towards him, ever since he 
 met him a bright boy at the sale of his grandfather's col- 
 lection of works of art. He has carefully watched the 
 process of error and satiation that have succeeded one 
 another in Wilhelm's career, until finally he has noted the 
 
22 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 arrival of a crisis in this unconscious career of education. 
 The Abb6 has caused the "ghost" in Hamlet to leave 
 the veil, with the mysterious words, "Fly, youth, fly." 
 
 And so, too, in regard to the matter of marriage, the 
 fair-haired Friedrich is allowed a freedom in the devel- 
 opment of his caprices that at once astonishes and 
 shocks us. 
 
 Culture, however, as it relates to the theoretic survey 
 of the world of man and nature, does not respect what is 
 individual. On this side each must ascend into the com- 
 mon heritage of all, into the view of the world that is the 
 product of the aggregate experience of all mankind. 
 
 From the side of culture we accordingly have the first 
 occupation of the individual defined for us. It is a sort 
 of apprenticeship; the individual must first learn who and 
 what he is. 
 
 He learns to do by doing, as Comenius said. But he 
 learns little by his doing unless he constantly avails him- 
 self of the experience of his fellow-men as recorded in 
 books, and uses this as the commentary and interpreta- 
 tion which explain to him the significance of his own 
 doing. He must understand his own actions through the 
 commentary which his observation of the actions of 
 others furnish him. 
 
 Moreover, this " apprenticeship " in which he seeks 
 culture, has the form of imitation. The youth sees or 
 conceives a model or ideal in some department of con- 
 duct, and at once sets out to imitate it. This is the sig- 
 nificance of play. The infant begins to imitate the 
 employments of the older members of the family, and 
 gradually learns his own power of doing by seeing his 
 own results. He develops his individuality by the free- 
 
GOETHE S WILHELM MEISTER. 23 
 
 dom enjoyed in play; a freedom in which he is not dis- 
 turbed, and consequently acts from his own spontaneous 
 inclinations and impulses. 
 
 From this circumstance Goethe has introduced the 
 theatre in all its forms in the first part of Meister. It 
 furnishes the best possible opportunity to discuss the 
 irtxpersonation of character. The actor's business is 
 imitation ; he conceives a character and strives to 
 embody it in his acting. The growing youth, too, 
 assumes characters and special rdles. Sometimes he 
 imitates ideals that are injurious to him ; sometimes 
 ideals that emancipate him. Wilhelm Meister has, in 
 fact, proposed to himself the adoption of the vocation 
 of actor. 
 
 This is due, as Goethe lets us see in the first book 
 of the novel, to a false principle of education on the part 
 of Wilhelm's father. Pleasures should be dealt out to 
 youth with such a sparing hand, thought old Meister, 
 that the appetite for them is never sated, but always kept 
 fresh and sharp. The puppet show was to be mad^ a 
 perennial source of delight by carefully guarding it and 
 producing it only on rare occasions. 
 
 Such a view of education is utterly hostile to culture, 
 for culture can never come to pass unless one outgrows 
 what is childish and trivial, and moves forward to new 
 heights. Thanks to old Meister's policy the puppet play 
 made so deep an impression on Wilhelm that he pursued 
 a false tendency through youth and early manhood. We 
 see what bad company he is led into, and what moral 
 abysses yawn before him. He is sinned against, and he 
 sins himself ; but his earnestness and continual industry 
 
24 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 by and by render possible an escape from this false 
 tendency. 
 
 The player puts on and off an individuality or 
 character, or passes from one to another without losing 
 his own, but culture strives to assume an ideal character, 
 and assimilate it or make it one's own. Nobody wishes 
 to be limited by his natural individuality — as by a kind 
 of fate — he desires rather to possess some freedom in 
 laying aside the choosing an ideal type of character such 
 as he conceives in some lofty moment, or sees in some 
 rare personality which he encounters. 
 
 The hero of this novel, says Carlyle, is a milksop. 
 He begins at the bottom of the ladder, and is nothing 
 unless he shall grow or develop. He represents the type 
 of the common prose individual of society, just as Faust 
 is the titanic individuality of the born poet. 
 
 In the course of the novel we have presented to us 
 a series of colossal individualities — in the aggregate 
 entirely unparalleled in any other literary work. 
 
 What Goethe says of the characters in Shakespeare 
 applies with full force to his own : 
 
 " These, the most mysterious and complex produc- 
 tions of creation, here act before us as if they were 
 watches whose dial plates and cases were of crystal, 
 which pointed out according to their use the course of 
 the hours and minutes, while at the same time you could 
 discern the combinations of wheels and springs that 
 turned them." 
 
 If we were to take an inventory of the persons 
 represented in the novel, we should name first the Uncle 
 as the grandest and most completely cultured man to be 
 found in literature. He is undoubtedly Goethe's ideal. 
 
Goethe's wilhelm meister. • 25 
 
 Then there is the Abb^, the great special providence of 
 the story, and the one gifted with such clear ideas in 
 regard to human development, and such breadth and 
 toleration in carrying them out. He is represented as 
 from France, and a Catholic clergyman. Then there is 
 Lothario, the soldier, who has been in America helping 
 the colonists to win their independence — a sort of Baron 
 de Kalb. His character has serious defects, but we 
 must admire its noble impulses and the unflagging 
 energy which executes purposes for the amelioration of 
 the less fortunate classes of the population. Jarno we 
 like less at first, but admire sometimes as we go on, and, 
 finally, when his misanthropy is explained in the second 
 part of the story, we become reconciled to him. Theresa 
 and Natalia — what pure and lofty characters, and yet 
 what peculiarity and idiosyncrasy ! The beautiful 
 countess, and the sad Aurelia, are less well-balanced, 
 but spotless characters. 
 
 The Italian group is in strong contrast to the 
 Germans, whose marked characteristic is the possession 
 of an aspiration for culture. The former are ail fixed 
 characters, possessed of accomplishments, and the 
 capacity for polish, but entirely without inward mobility, 
 without the ability to pass from one state of character 
 to another. Mignon, her father Augustin, the harper, 
 Sperata the mother, and finally, the Marchese.who com- 
 municated the sad history, all are alike in this respect. 
 There is a sort of fate in each one of these characters. 
 It is as though time and space — the habitat — had 
 entered the character and given it an idiosyncrasy which 
 rendered it inflexible, and impossible to be moulded into 
 other ideals than those inborn in it. 
 
26 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 Hence we explain the longing for Italy which breaks 
 the heart of Mignon — a feeling that she can utter in 
 music, but not record as a matter of prose memory. In 
 the harper it is the root of his insanity. Fate is there ; 
 but human freedom on the culture plane has not yet 
 become possible to Mignon or to the Harper. While 
 northern characters develop themselves through the 
 conflict, we see these southern natures collide fiercely 
 with fate and go to pieces. 
 
 It was the happiest thought of Goethe to inweave 
 these pieces of fixed immovable human nature by the 
 side of his growing culture-loving Germans. 
 
 But we have many Germans in the novel who have 
 happen to them what naturalists call " arrested develop- 
 ment," or even retrogressive development. There is 
 Werner, who becomes a crystallized specimen of the 
 merchant — who is a merchant, but not a man. There 
 is Melina, the miserly manager. Old Boisterous and the 
 Pedant have played, each one character until it has 
 become a second nature, and they have passed into a 
 sort of enchanted life, and cease to grow in their own 
 individuality. Philina, Laertes, and Lydia, the Baroness, 
 " Alte Barbara," the Baron, the ill-fated but undeserving 
 Mariana, the Count — what depths of individual peculi- 
 arity, and what strange one-sideness is already developed. 
 In Serlo we see the complete actor. Goethe contrives 
 in one way or another to give us a glimpse of the history 
 of the development of each character on the sides that in 
 anywise present features for study. In Serlo's career 
 we have the education of a perfect actor. He must be 
 able to assume at will any character, and mimic it to 
 perfection, and, after all, have no character of his own. 
 
GOETHE S WILHELM MEISTER. 27 
 
 Like a wig-block, it may accord a support to any head of 
 hair, but really have no hair of its own. 
 
 In contrast to Serlo as the perfect actor, we are led to 
 think of Wilhelm Meister, who is so infatuated with the 
 belief that he was intended for the stage. He finally 
 succeeds in playing Hamlet with success. But he has 
 now to be told by Jarno that he is no actor, because he 
 can only play himself. He is a Hamlet in his own char- 
 acter, and can not feign any other, and therefore is not 
 the true actor, the professional wig-block. This is a most 
 humiliating piece of news to Wilhelm. He has seen all 
 the stages of mimetic art — puppets, amateur theatricals, 
 dumb show tableaux, acrobats, the strolling company 
 under Melina's management, which played at the castle 
 of the Count, and, finally, the excellent theatre of Serlo, 
 where he has gratified his ambition to produce Hamlet in 
 all its perfection. He is at last obliged to confess that 
 what he has sought in it is nowhere to be found in the 
 actor's trade. 
 
 He now. leaves the theatre forever. His last studies 
 in Serlo's company gave him an insight into the individu- 
 ality of the born nobleman, and he learned to assume his 
 air of free activity and classic repose of manner. He is 
 ready for a change, and now enters the circle of Lothario, 
 and the company of noblemen whose Special Providence 
 had for some time watched over his career. 
 
 It is interesting to note the threads of intercommuni- 
 cation that had been spun by degrees between Wilhelm 
 and the noble family. Goethe has concealed them so 
 completely in the early part of the novel, that we do not 
 recognize them as such until we have the revelations in 
 the last book, (i) The Abbe had seen Wilhelm, and 
 
28 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 noticed him as the only member of the family interested 
 in his grandfather's wonderful collection of art. (2) He 
 meets him in the village during the Mariana episode, and 
 holds a long and instructive conversation with him on 
 Destiny. (3) Next, in the sail on the river, the Abb6, in 
 another disguise, accompanies them and enters into their 
 games. He is at that time on the outlook for his charge, 
 Friedrich, the youngest son of the noble family, whose 
 erratic education he is watching over. Friedrich is infat- 
 uated with Philina, but has within a few days departed, 
 highly indignant at her behavior. (4) Then, at the Count's 
 castle the Abbe meets Wilhelm with Jarno. At that time 
 Wilhelm takes Friedrich (who seems not to be recognized 
 as belonging to the noble family) under his own care. 
 (5) Then Wilhelm is wounded by the banditti, who attack 
 the caravan of players, supposing it to be the cortege of 
 the noble family of the Uncle, who are removing from 
 proximity to the seat of war. Here Natalia interests her- 
 self in Wilhelm, as her sister, the countess, has done 
 already, and the network of relations to the family 
 thickens. (6) Then at Serlo's theatre the Abbe provides 
 the ghost for the play of Hamlet, and exhorts the youth 
 to Ry from this false tendency for the stage. (7) Then 
 Wilhelm visits Lothario; meets there Werner, his brother- 
 in-law, and a joint purchase of lands is effected which 
 binds together the families financially. He meets the 
 Abbe again and again, and finally is initiated into the 
 secret association of lUuminati (a branch of Adam Weiss- 
 haupt's IHuminati at one time ) now converted into a 
 sort of providential educational establishment, as it 
 appears. Those most wonderful insights into the devel- 
 opment of character, on the way to culture, are now 
 
GOETHE S WILHELM MEISTER. 29 
 
 given to us in the Indenture which is handed to Wil- 
 helm : 
 
 " To guard from error is not the instructor's duty, but 
 to lead the erring pupil ; nay, to let him quaff his error 
 in deep, satiating draughts — -this is the instructor's wis- 
 dom. He who only tastes his error, will long dwell with 
 it, will take delight in it as a singular felicity ; while he 
 who drains it to the dregs will, if he be not crazy, find 
 it out." * 
 
 "Steep regions can not be surmounted, save by wind- 
 ing paths ; on the plain, straight roads conduct from 
 place to place." 
 
 " The excellent is rarely found, more rarely valued. 
 The height charms us, the steps to it do not; with the 
 summit in our eye, we love to walk along the plain. It 
 is but a part of art that can be taught ; the artist needs 
 it all. Who knows it half, speaks much, and is always 
 wrong ; who knows it wholly, inclines to act, and speaks 
 seldom or late. The former have no secrets and no 
 force; the instruction they can give is like baked bread, 
 savory and satisfying for a single day ; but flour can not 
 be sown, and seed-corn ought not to be ground." 
 
 " No one knows what he is doing while he acts aright; 
 but of what is wrong we are always conscious. Whoever 
 works with symbols only is a pedant, a hypocrite, or a 
 bungler. " 
 
 "The true scholar learns from the known to unfold 
 the unknown, and approaching more and more to being a 
 master." 
 
 " The formation of his character is not the chief con- 
 
 * These and other extracts are taken from the translation by 
 Carlyle. 
 
30 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 cern with every man. Many merely wish to find a sort of 
 recipe for comfort, directions for acquiring riches, or 
 whatever good they aim at. All such, when they would 
 not be instructed in their proper duties, we were wont to 
 mystify; to treat with juggleries, and every sort of hocus- 
 pocus, and at length shove aside. We advanced none to 
 the rank of masters but such as clearly felt and recog- 
 nized the purpose they were born for, and had got 
 enough of practice to proceed along their way with a 
 certain cheerfulness and ease." 
 
 " He in whom there is much to be developed will be 
 later in acquiring true perceptions of himself and of the 
 world. There are few who at once have thought and the 
 capacity of action. Thought expands, but lames; action 
 animates, but narrows." 
 
 It is in the " Confessions of a Fair Saint " that Goethe 
 gives us a complete history of the noble family, while at 
 the same time he lets us study the development of the 
 soul of a religious mystic. 
 
 It is thoroughly after Goethe's method of literary art; 
 each new step in advance throws light on all that has 
 preceded. The ordinary method takes pains to put us in 
 possession of these keys by way of preparation, at the 
 beginning. Goethe lets us discover them as we go on. 
 Hence we have a double interest in reading the novel a 
 second and even a third time ; for it seems as though we 
 never ceased to discover new threads of relation that 
 existed in Goethe's conception of the whole, but which he 
 has nowhere explicitly stated. As in a work of nature, 
 we find the relations inexhaustible. 
 
 The Fair Saint's experience begins with immediate 
 communion with God, and passes over, after several 
 
GOETHE S WILHELM MEISTER. 3! 
 
 years, into the consciousness of sinfulness and inade- 
 quacy of the human heart. From this she rises to the 
 idea of the Incarnation of the Divine as an essential 
 requisite for the completion of Divine Grace. At this 
 point she describes her mystic vision in these words : 
 
 " At last I thought I saw, as by a gleam of light, that 
 what I sought was to be found in the Incarnation of the 
 Everlasting Word, by whom all things, even we ourselves, 
 were made. That the Eternal descended as an inhabit- 
 ant to the depths in which we dwell, which he surveys 
 and comprehends ; that he passed through our lot from 
 stage to stage, from conception and birth to the grave ; 
 that by His marvelous circuit he again mounted to those 
 shining heights, whither we too must rise in order to be 
 happy ; all this was revealed to me, as in a dawning 
 remoteness." 
 
 Insights into sin, grace, faith, good works, the mean- 
 ing of ritualism and the significance of the external 
 visible church — all these are touched upon. She passes 
 from mere quietism over to active interest in her fellow- 
 mortals, and completes an experience which is altogether 
 unique as a portrayal in literature. 
 
 It is in these " Confessions " that we obtain the 
 fairest picture of the Uncle whose lofty character we 
 have already mentioned as Goethe's ideal. Here are a 
 few of his words : 
 
 " When I become acquainted with a man, my first 
 inquiry is : with what does he employ himself and how, 
 and with what degree of perseverance ? The answer 
 regulates the interest I shall take in him for life." 
 
 " Man's highest merit always is, as much as possible 
 to rule external circumstances and as little as possible to 
 
32 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 let himself be ruled by them. Life lies before us as a 
 huge quarry lies before the architect ; he deserves not the 
 name of architect except when, out of this fortuitous 
 mass, he can combine with the greatest economy, and 
 fitness, and durability, some form, the pattern of which 
 originated in his spirit. All things without us, nay, I 
 may add, all things that belong to us, are mere elements; 
 but deep within us lies the creative force, which, out of 
 these, can produce what they were meant to be ; and 
 which neither leave us sleep nor rest, till, in one way or 
 another, without us or on us, that same have been pro- 
 duced." 
 
 " If we can conceive it possible," he once observed, 
 "that the Creator of the world himself assumed the form 
 of his creature, and lived in that manner for a time upon 
 earth, this creature must appear to us of infinite perfec- 
 tion, because susceptible of such a combination with its 
 Maker. Hence, in our idea of man, there can be no 
 inconsistency with our idea of God ; and if we often feel 
 a certain disagreement with him and remoteness from 
 him, it is the more on that account our duty, not like 
 advocates of the Wicked Spirit, to keep our eyes contin- 
 ually upon the nakedness and weakness of our nature, 
 but rather to seek out every property and beauty by 
 which our pretension to a similarity with this divinity may 
 be made good." 
 
 This literary method of Goethe, which inserts appar- 
 ently irrelevant matter at intervals in the story — giving 
 such intercalations the form of complete and independent 
 stories — has a double effect. Besides piquing our atten- 
 tion and interest, to discover the concealed relations, it 
 is a simple cjevice by which Goethe multiplies his novel 
 
GOETHE S WILHELM MEISTER. 33 
 
 into many, and makes it finally into an entire library of 
 novels. In the Apprenticeship we have the history of the 
 Harper and Mignon (told by the Marchese), besides the 
 Confessions of a Fair Saint. Both are complete works of 
 art by themselves, although they heighten the effect of 
 the novel into which they are inserted, in a remarkable 
 degree. 
 
 But this form of multiplying the novel into a sort of 
 library is continued in the Second Part — in The Travels 
 of Meister to such an extent as to cause that work to 
 appear more like a scrap-book than a genuine organic 
 unity. It is only on careful study that all of these stories 
 give evidence of the unity which lay at their foundation 
 in Goethe's mind. 
 
 On entering the Second Part, we find marriage and 
 the choosing of vocations the chief themes. 
 
 If the world has seemed insecure and all relations 
 fleeting, in the Apprenticeship, in the Travels all is secure 
 and substantial, even under the most active external con- 
 ditions. Every one is founding something, building an 
 ideal into a real. There are seen in the First Part of the 
 novel the evils of ill-chosen vocations and of ill-assorted 
 marriages. When Meister has finally found his ideal in 
 Natalia, the story comes abruptly to a conclusion. In 
 the Second Part, called the Travels, or Journey mans hip, 
 each one selects some special occupation in which he can 
 help his fellowmen. The story of St. Joseph, the Second, 
 furnishes a beautiful picture of family life — hinting of 
 the Holy Family and the foundation of all human insti- 
 tutions. Lothario and Therese, Friedrich and Philina, 
 Jarno and Lydia, Wilhelm and Natalia, form families. 
 
 In the story of St. Joseph we have indicated a sort of 
 3 
 
34 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 historic species of fate, — the name one is baptized with, 
 the legends of the place where one was born. Trivial 
 matters like these seem to assist in determining the char- 
 acter of the hero. 
 
 The key word to the second part of Meister is Renun- 
 ciation, "with which life, properly speaking, is said to 
 begin," thinks Goethe. Conflicts against the institutions 
 of civilization, and especially against the sacredness of 
 the family, are to be solved by renunciation, which is 
 rendered endurable by separation through travel. 
 
 Here we come to a deep meaning. " Wandering," in 
 the Goethean sense, is a departure, not merely from 
 home, but from one's old self, by means of culture. Rise 
 by development to a new stage of culture, and you have 
 conquered the bad tendency and also the pain of renun- 
 ciation itself. " To give room for wandering is it that 
 the world was made so wide." Wander from your old 
 self into your new self, developed out of an ideal. 
 " Leave thy low-vaulted Past." 
 
 Of the special novelettes. The Witless Wanderer 
 shows us the renouncing of a faithless lover. The Nut- 
 brown Maid shows how mere interest in the unfortunate 
 may deepen into love. This has to be tested by renun- 
 ciation, but seems to bear that test, and we should expect 
 to see Lenardo united with Susanna (who had been known 
 to us before under the name of Nachodina, the nut-brown 
 maid). Many wonderful characters enter the novel in 
 this story, and the picture of the division of labor among 
 the cotton spinners and weavers, a hint of calamity 
 which the invention of the power-loom brings with it, 
 affords occasion for important thoughts on the necessity 
 
Goethe's wilhelm meister. 35 
 
 of the readjustment of vocations by means of migration 
 to distant borderlands. 
 
 Who is the Traitor 7 shows us how mistakes of parents, 
 in arranging marriages for their children, may sometimes 
 be corrected by accident. 
 
 In the story of the Fisherman' s Son, we see how a 
 deep impression made on Wilhelm's mind in youth deter- 
 mines, long afterward, his vocation in life. He will 
 beco.me a surgeon. 
 
 But perhaps the most interesting part of the Travels 
 is The Pedagogic Province — evidently a pet scheme of 
 the Abb6. It is full of mysticism. Here is a sentence 
 that would just fit the new idea of college education now 
 beginning to prevail in this country : 
 
 " Now is the time of specialties. Happy he who 
 understands this and works for himself and others in that 
 spirit." 
 
 But a far deeper reason is given for this in what fol- 
 lows : " In all things, to serve from the lowest station 
 upwards, is necessary. To restrict yourself to a trade is 
 best. For the narrow inind, whatever he attempts is still 
 a trade ; for the higher, an art ; and the highest, in doing 
 one thing, does all; or, to speak less paradoxically, in the 
 one thing which he does rightly, he sees the likeness of 
 all that is done rightly." 
 
 Certain ceremonial forms are commented on thus : 
 "Three kinds of gestures you have seen; and we incul- 
 cate a three-fold reverence, which, when commingled and 
 formed into one whole, attains its highest force and effect. 
 The first is reverence for what is above us. That posture: 
 the arms are crossed over the breast, the look turned joy- 
 fully towards Heaven ; that is what we have enjoined on 
 
36 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 young children, requiring from them thereby a testimony 
 that there is a God above, who images and reveals him- 
 self in parents, teachers, superiors. Then comes the 
 second : reverence for what is under us ; those hands 
 folded over the back, and, as it were, tied together, that 
 down-turned smiling look, announce that we are to regard 
 the earth with attention and cheerfulness ; from the 
 bounty of the earth we are nourished ; the earth affords 
 unutterable joys ; but disproportionate sorrows she also 
 brings us. Should one of our children do himself external 
 hurt, blameably or blamelessly ; should others hurt him 
 accidentally or purposely; should dead, involuntary mat- 
 ter do him hurt ; then let him well consider it, for such 
 dangers will attend him all his days. But from this pos- 
 ture we delay not to free our pupil the instant we become 
 convinced that the instruction connected with it has pro- 
 duced sufficient influence on him. Then, on the contrary, 
 we bid him gather courage, and, turning to his comrades, 
 range himself along with them." 
 
 " Now, at last, he stands forth, frank and bold ; not 
 selfishly isolated ; only in combination with his equals 
 does he front the world. Further we have nothing 
 to add." 
 
 Here is the result of Goethe's culture. Activity on 
 the external world and combining with his fellow-men, is 
 the end of all culture. Combining theoretically, each one 
 shares in the accumulated results of all the scientific 
 activity in the world — • all the observation and all the 
 reflections. He in turn contributes his mite to the 
 whole. 
 
 Each one lives his own life, with its cares and sor- 
 
GOETHE S WILHELM MEISTER. 37 
 
 rows, but also at the same time lives the life of the race, 
 sharing the life experience of all vicariously. 
 
 The Marching Song of Meister expresses symbolically 
 and literally this journeying for culture : 
 
 ' ' Keep not standing, fixed and rooted. 
 
 Briskly venture, brislcly roam ; 
 Head and liand, where'er tliou foot it. 
 
 And stout heart, are still at home. 
 In each land the sun does visit 
 
 We are gay, whate'er betide ; 
 To give room for wandering is it 
 
 That the world was made so wide." 
 
GOETHE AS A SCIENTIST. 
 
 By Mr. James MacAlister. 
 {As Reported by the Milwaukee Sentinel^ 
 
 Mr. MacAlister was upon the programme for a paper 
 on " Goethe as a Scientist," and he made an interesting 
 presentation of this phase of Goethe's character, which 
 has not been appreciated at its full value, or rather, which 
 has been overshadowed by his reputation as a poet. In 
 opening, Mr. MacAlister said that the most striking char- 
 acteristic of Goethe was his universality. His many- 
 sided-ness is familiar to those persons who have never 
 made any special study of his works. Emerson says that 
 " He is the type of culture, the amateur of all arts and 
 sciences and events. From him nothing was hid, nothing 
 withholden ; " and in another place he speaks of him as 
 " the master of histories, mythologies, sciences and litera- 
 tures." But it will not do to stop with general state- 
 ments. Goethe was more than the possessor of a mind 
 richly cultivated in many directions. He was a colossal 
 man. He united in himself intellectual gifts that, if 
 divided up among a number of men, would have made a 
 world-famous poet, a novelist of the first rank, a great 
 scientific leader, an accomplished critic in art, a lawgiver 
 in the domain of literature. Goethe's range of knowl- 
 edge and accomplishments was peculiar to himself. A 
 man like him would not have been possible in an earlier 
 period of the world's history. Da Vinci and Michael 
 
 38 
 
GOETHE AS A SCIENTIST. 39 
 
 Angelo were men of extraordinary power of mind ; they 
 were great in many departments of learning and culture, 
 and Angelo especially, achieved great things in diverse 
 fields of labor. But they seem to have gained the pos- 
 session of their varied powers at the expense of that 
 perfect balance and harmony of mind and character so 
 characteristic of Goethe. In Goethe's case we perceive 
 that his universality is the result of culture, added to 
 natural gifts bestowed upon him more liberally than 
 upon any man of recent times. 
 
 Proceeding, Mr. MacAlister said that the task 
 assigned to him was to present the achievements of 
 Goethe in the domain of science, a department of his 
 work not very much studied or very generally known. 
 Goethe's work in science was of the most serious char- 
 acter. He was not an amateur in science. Some writers 
 speak of his scientific speculations as the product of his 
 leisure hours. He was a scientist just as much as he was 
 a poet and a novelist. There are two kinds of scientists. 
 There is the gatherer of scientific facts, and there is the 
 thinker in science, who avails himself of the labors of this 
 industrious and useful plodder, to seek out the mighty 
 laws which regulate the structure and order of the worlds 
 of matter and of life. Goethe belonged to the latter 
 class. Do not mistake him for a mere speculator in 
 science. He was not a metaphysician, who sought to 
 construct the universe out of his own consciousness. He 
 was a practical scientist, who used the rigid methods of 
 science in working out discoveries which greatly enlarged 
 the boundaries of botanical and zoological science. 
 
 It was surely no fault that he clothed his discoveries 
 in attractive form. His scientific writings are very simple 
 
40 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 and beautiful; they may be read with pleasure and under- 
 stood by persons with no scientific training. But Goethe 
 was a hard, methodical worker, and it was only by the 
 most persistent labor that he reached the generalizations 
 which rank him with the greatest naturalists that the 
 world has ever known. 
 
 Some people find it difficult to understand how 
 Goethe could unite in himself the qualities which go to 
 make up the scientist with the imaginative power of the 
 poet. But there is nothing irreconcilable in these appar- 
 ently diverse gifts. The scientific faculty consists very 
 largely in the power to perceive and express analogies, 
 and, in the deepest sense, this is also the " faculty divine " 
 of the poet. Grimm tells us that aptitude for science was 
 born in Goethe. We know that he had, from his earliest 
 days, an intense love for nature. Is it not true that " he 
 has said the best things about nature that ever weie said," 
 and may we not imagine that he is speaking for himself 
 when he makes Faust express the desire that he 
 
 " Might hear 
 Deep truths to others unrevealed." 
 
 And in another place, where he exclaims — 
 
 " Oh, for a glance into the earth ! 
 To see, below its darlc foundations, 
 Life's embryo seeds before their birth, 
 And Nature's silent operations." 
 
 The speaker then proceeded to give in detail an 
 account of Goethe's scientific work. He took up first 
 his theory of colors, and told what led to his optical 
 studies. His artist friends had no satisfactory ideas of 
 color. He was led to ask, What is color ? and not being 
 
GOETHE AS A SCIENTIST. 4I 
 
 satisfied with the answer, set about investigating for him- 
 self. Goethe concluded that color is not contained in 
 light, as in Newton's theory, but is the product of an 
 intermingling of light and darkness. He was pertina- 
 cious in maintaining his theory. The trouble was his 
 ignorance of mathematics. He contended that physics 
 could exist independently of mathematics. Here was his 
 mistake. Mathematics is the great instrument of physi- 
 cal research. It enables scientists to calculate, within a 
 moment of time, when an eclipse will occur many years 
 hence. It is in Goethe's ignorance of these important 
 scientific principles that we shall find the explanation of 
 the failure of his optical investigations. There have been 
 contradictory judgments as to the value of his theory of 
 color ; but scientific authority has been against him from 
 the first. The universal opinion of those entitled to 
 speak on such a subject is that all the work he did in this 
 department of science is worthless. I am speaking of its 
 scientific value, and not of the practical utility of the 
 theory to painters, of which there can be no question. 
 He had a good deal of bitter controversy on the subject, 
 and to the last refused to submit to the judgment of the 
 eminent physicists who opposed him. There can be no 
 doubt, however, that he was wrong ; and it is to be 
 regretted that he ever ventured into a field of labor for 
 which he was disqualified in more ways than one. His 
 theory of colors is the most disagreeable feature of 
 Goethe's intellectual labors with which the student of his 
 life has to deal ; and I have spoken of it first, that it 
 should not remain to jar upon our estimate of his labors 
 in another department of science, in which he was emi- 
 nently successful. 
 
42 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 The speaker then proceeded to another of Goethe's 
 scientific discoveries — the theory of the metamorphosis of 
 plants. The contrast between the history of his efforts 
 in optics and in botany, explains the scientific qualities 
 and defects of Goethe's mind. We can imagine with 
 what pleasure he took up this study. He speaks of flow- 
 ers as " the beautiful hieroglyphics of nature with which 
 she indicates how much she loves us." Some of the 
 happiest moments of his life must have been devoted to 
 botanical study. His theory was that the calyx, corolla, 
 bud, pistil and stamen are all modified leaves. Flower 
 and fruit are but modifications of one typical form, which 
 is the leaf. The real value of this discovery is not 
 affected by the fact that science has, since Goethe's time, 
 gone still further in explaining the genesis of the plant. 
 
 The speaker next referred to the anatomical discov- 
 eries, which occupy the first place in Goethe's- scientific 
 work. They have had great influence upon the progress 
 of science, and connect his name with the very greatest 
 naturalists. His object was to show the unity of nature 
 in the construction of animal forms. First in import- 
 ance was the discovery of the inter-maxillary bone. It 
 was known that all animals have a mid-jaw bone. Man 
 has incisor teeth. Goethe held that if man has incisor 
 teeth in common with animals, he must have this bone as 
 well. The anatomists said no. Goethe resorted to the 
 comparative method, and investigated the modifications 
 which the inter-maxillary bone undergoes in the animal 
 series. He found that the bone varied with the nutrition 
 of the animal and the size of the teeth. On close exam- 
 ination, it was actually found that in some animals the 
 bone was not separated from the jaw, and that in chil- 
 
GOETHE AS A SCIENTIST. 43 
 
 dren the sutures were traceable. Afterwards it was 
 shown that the sutures exist in the pre-natal skull of the 
 human being. 
 
 Lewes has pointed out that the important thing con- 
 nected with this discovery is the method pursued in 
 making it. It is one of the earliest instances of the 
 application of the comparative method to anatomy, and 
 had a most powerful influence in establishing that 
 method as the chief instrument of research in the natural 
 sciences. 
 
 Goethe was also the originator of the theory of types 
 in the organic world. Here Goethe was the creator of 
 the great ideas which have led to the doctrine of evo- 
 lution. He studied the metamorphosis of the osseous 
 forms of animals, and concluded that all forms are but 
 modifications more or less traceable of one and the same 
 type. This type is the vertebra. Every single bone is 
 either part of a vertebra or the appendix to a vertebra. 
 The first application of this law of unity, which rules 
 over the plurality of the skeleton forms, was to the 
 vertebral theory of the skull. All this leads to a great 
 law of unity in the animal world. It is but a step to the 
 theory of development out of which has come the doc- 
 trine of evolution, — a doctrine which must be accepted 
 as true science, whatever other objections we may choose 
 to make to it. There can be no doubt of Goethe's 
 services in connection with the establishment of this 
 great doctrine. He laid a broad and firm foundation 
 for it by his scientific discoveries. St. Hilaire, Von 
 Baer, Lamarck, and their successors, carried forward the 
 chain of investigation and discovery till Darwin arose 
 
44 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 to complete the work, by demonstrating how the devel- 
 opment of organic life has been carried forward. 
 
 The speaker went into considerable detail in explain- 
 ing the nature and scope of these discoveries, quoting 
 the words of many eminent naturalists to show the esti- 
 mate set upon Goethe's discoveries, and claimed that his 
 scientific achievements found their final outcome in that 
 great "silent philosophical revolution" which the immor- 
 tal Englishman has brought about in the science and 
 philosophic thought of the nineteenth century. 
 
 DISCUSSION. 
 
 Prof. W. T. Harris : I have been gratified to hear 
 Goethe placed so high as a scientist. I thoroughly agree 
 with the speaker in his opinion that Goethe was a very 
 considerable man in natural science. While I was listen- 
 ing to this able paper my thoughts wandered back to my 
 earliest studies in science. I was thinking — I hope you 
 will excuse the biographical turn of my remarks — of 
 my interest in physics or natural philosophy, as it is 
 called. One of the subjects which I found to be most 
 attractive was the theory of colors. I learned Newton's 
 explanation, and soon afterwards came to the undulatory 
 theory. You know, of course, that Newton held the 
 emanation theory, and that his explanation of light, as 
 made up of seven strands of color, is not tenable if one 
 adopts the undulatory theory. The latter theory holds 
 that color is produced by the rate of vibration of an 
 ether which is supposed to fill space and transmit light 
 through a series of waves, the impulses of the luminous 
 body. It supposes that over five hundred millions of 
 millions of waves enter the eye in one second, to pro- 
 
GOETHE AS A SCIENTIST. 45 
 
 duce yellow, for instance. It has calculated how many 
 waves per second it requires to produce the sensation 
 of red or green, or of blue, or of any other color. And 
 it is evident, according to this theory, that any variation 
 in the rate of vibration will cause a variation in the color 
 produced. Hence, there must be not seven colors, nor 
 seven hundred, but more than ten millions of them. 
 Yes, if each color varies from the next by one vibration 
 per second, there would be three hundred and fifty mill- 
 ions of millions of colors. Our eyes can not discriminate 
 so many, but there are shades of colors existing to the 
 amount of several millions, nevertheless. Some eyes, 
 gifted by nature, and especially trained by use, can dis- 
 criminate several hundred of them, but we may suppose 
 that ordinary eyes do not distinguish beyond forty or 
 fifty. 
 
 No one pretends to say, so far as I know, how many 
 waves per second are required for white light. The 
 analogy of sound suggested that variations of color were 
 occasioned by waves. But there is no pure sound cor- 
 responding to white light. Mingle all the waves of 
 sound and you produce harmonies and discords and a 
 neutralization of sound-waves into silence, but mingle all 
 the light-waves and you produce an intensification of 
 illumination into pure white light. If we take the cen- 
 tral portion of the spectrum as the brightest, and con- 
 sequently nearest the white light, we shall find that the 
 waves which come in the light-yellow region number 
 about five hundred and fifty millions of millions per 
 second, and from this it would seem that white light had 
 longer waves than the blue colors and shorter waves than 
 the red colors. 
 
46 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 According to the theory of Goethe, color is caused 
 by one of two circumstances, both of which produce a 
 dimming of light, or, so to speak, a mingling of light with 
 darkness. If you see a white light through a trans- 
 parent but slightly turbid medium, the brightness will 
 be dimmed so as to produce a yellow color, deepening 
 into red according to the degree of turbidness in the 
 medium. Look at the sun in the morning when the air 
 IS full of mist or smoke, and it will appear yellow or 
 reddish if the mist is dense. On the other hand, look 
 at a dark object through an illuminated medium, and 
 the object will appear blue. If the medium is only 
 slightly turbid, the black object will appear indigo or 
 violet in hue. If the medium is dense and strongly 
 illuminated, the object will appear light blue. Look at 
 a mountain on a clear day, and the illuminated air, 
 only slightly turbid, allows the black object to appear 
 of a dark blue. But if the air is hazy with vapors the 
 mountain will appear of a light-blue. 
 
 Again, let us take a prism and allow a pencil of light 
 to pass through it in a darkened room. The image of 
 light being elongated by unequal degrees of refraction, is 
 mixed with the dark tract that bounds it. The most 
 refracted portion corresponds to light over dark and 
 gives us light blue nearest to the center of the light 
 image, and dark blue nearest to the dark border. The 
 least refracted portion offers us dark over light, and 
 appears as yellow, shading into red near the dark border, 
 and into very light-yellow or straw color near the light 
 image If the prism we are using is a water prism, or 
 any prism of small refracting power, there will be a spot 
 of -pure white in the center of the image. If the prism 
 
GOETHE AS A SCIENTIST. 47 
 
 has more refracting power, the colored edges nearest the 
 center will approach and mingle, the light-yellow cov- 
 ering the light-blue and thus producing a light-green; or, 
 if the refraction is still greater, the dark green will be 
 produced. 
 
 Newton supposed that light came in rays of color so 
 combined that white light is produced. The prism was 
 supposed by him to separate the white light into its com- 
 posite rays, which were just seven rays, so simple, as he 
 assures us, that no further analysis is possible after 
 repeated experiments. According to Goethe, as we have 
 seen, the green color is composed of blue and yellow, and 
 he finds another composite color formed by mingling the 
 dark yellow with the dark blue. But the undulatory 
 theory should hold that each color is pure and deter- 
 mined by its rate of vibrations. Both the undulatory 
 theory and the Goethean theory agree in providing for an 
 indefinite number of colors, the one presupposing an 
 indefinite series of different rates of vibration, and the 
 other supposing an indefinite number of degrees of 
 admixture, or proportions of light and darkness. 
 
 There is, in fact, a greater affinity between the undu- 
 latory and the Goethean, than between either and the 
 Newtonian. I am not sure but Goethe's theory will fit 
 the theory of waves quite well, if it is supposed that the 
 pure light has about five hundred and fifty millions of 
 waves per second, while the colors in the direction of the 
 violet, produced by an illuminated medium, extended 
 over a dark object have more rapid vibrations and less 
 illumination ; and, on the other hand, that the colors in 
 the direction of red are slower vibrations produced by 
 extending a non-illuminated medium over a bright object. 
 
48 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 Goethe's theory explains how it is that a semi-trans- 
 parent turbid medium lilce smoke appears yellow, or even 
 red, against a light background, while it appears blue 
 against a dark background. There is a sort of delusion 
 prevalent among scientific men — I should call it a super- 
 stition — which supposes that any theory to which the 
 mathematical calculus can be applied, is of necessity a 
 scientifically proved one. Take the theory of elasticity of 
 gases as an example of mathematical speculation. Sup- 
 pose that gases are composed of hard atoms — hard, but 
 elastic. That is supposition number one. Then suppose 
 that these atoms are jumping or vibrating about in all 
 manner of directions, so as to collide with each other 
 constantly. This is the second hypothesis. Now, we 
 wish to calculate the weight and velocity of these atoms. 
 So we make another, a third hypothesis, and suppose 
 that the weight is a given quantity, which we set down in 
 figures, and then proceed to calculate the velocity by 
 dividing the measured pressure with the assumed weight 
 of the atom , — this will give us the velocity. But we have 
 made three hypotheses in the meantime. Now let us 
 make a supposition as regards the velocity, and we can 
 just as easily calculate the weight. 
 
 Under all these calculations there is only one morsel 
 of ascertained fact, and that is the observed quantum of 
 actual pressure — the weights of the atoms and their 
 veloci'y are all pure hypothesis, although expressed in 
 columns of figures which look very scientific. 
 
 So in the undulatory theory we have, as observed 
 phenomena, only variations of color and the rate of the 
 movement of light through space, together with sundry 
 phenomena of interference and double refraction and the 
 
GOETHE AS A SCIENTIST. 49 
 
 like. It is a supposition which places behind these facts 
 the ether as a bearer of light ; a second supposition 
 which, posits waves in the ether; a third supposition 
 which regards the rapidity of vibration or undulatiori as 
 the cause of variation in color. But having made these 
 three hypotheses, the physicist can now express his phe- 
 nomena all in numerical formulae and give them a very 
 accurate and scientific appearance. 
 
 If you say that the true method of science is to make 
 hypotheses and to proceed from them to theories by the 
 principle of verification, I do not object. But the verifi- 
 cation must be more than a translation of a quantitative 
 fact of observation into a numerical formulae equivalent 
 to it, and which adds nothing to it except three hypothe- 
 ses. The true verification will be able to predict 
 phenomena. It will be able to prescribe conditions, 
 under which results may be observed, which could not 
 have otherwise been foretold. It is no proof of the accu- 
 racy of the Copernican theory that we are able to predict 
 eclipses, because the Saros or Chaldean cycle of eclipses 
 wdl answer the purpose just as well, and, in fact, is the 
 original datum which determines the Copernican doctrine 
 of the moon's nodal revolution. Nor would I wish to 
 deny that these theories of gases and ether-undulations 
 may be true. I wish only to point out that they are not 
 true, simply because their results may be expressed in 
 figures. The figures will fit Goethe's theory quite as well 
 as if you add to it a quantitative supposition. The undu- 
 latory hypothesis will do with slight modification for the 
 mathematical basis of Goethe's theory. 
 
 For many years I have looked to find some criticism 
 of Goethe's theory of colors based on science. I was in 
 4 
 
so POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 great hopes, when I took up Professor Tyndall's criticism, 
 that he would do the subject justice, as I had regarded 
 him, and still regard him, as one of the fairest of men. 
 But I was sadly disappointed to find that he had not 
 understood the Goethean theory, even if he had read it 
 through — a matter of serious doubt, by reason of his 
 utter omission of all reference to the crucial experiments 
 of Goethe. I think that Tyndall was under the impres- 
 sion that the theory did not need a formal refutation, but 
 that it was still interesting to look at it as an exploded 
 vagary. 
 
 Now, Goethe's so-called theory is nothing but a state- 
 ment of facts observed by him, and capable of being 
 verified by any other person. The experiments with 
 lenses, which show chromatic dispersion, and the careful 
 observations upon objects seen through illuminated or 
 clouded media — all these give us such facts. Most 
 interesting are the experiments with the prism. He is 
 led by his experiments to conclude that color is light 
 modified by darkness, and this leads him to try the prism 
 with a dark or opaque stripe pasted across the middle 
 by which the order of color is reversed in the center of 
 the spectrum, — this he called an experimentum crucis as 
 against the theory of Newton. 
 
 I always sympathize with Goethe when I hear him 
 tell Eckermann that he cared less for his poetry than for 
 his theory of colors. He spent many painstaking years 
 of investigation on this subject, and after all this his 
 reward was hatred and contempt. People mentioned the 
 subject in his hearing much in the way that we talk of 
 insanity in the presence of those who have been insane. 
 He felt outraged at this, for he had conscientiously 
 
GOETHE AS A SCIENTIST. 5 1 
 
 observed and recorded facts of light and darkness and 
 their mutual influences. 
 
 Prof. W. T. Hewitt : It requires a great advocate 
 to answer his own argument ; and Mr. MacAlister has 
 refuted the statement with which he set out : that this is 
 a dry subject, by making it interesting to us all. 
 
 I want to call attention to a single thought. We hear 
 it discussed at the present day whether the progress of 
 science will be fatal to works of the imagination. I think 
 that in the life of Goethe there is an answer to this ques- 
 tion. We find the scientific spirit co-existing with the 
 poetical, and the poetical faculty remaining undimmed, 
 in all its vigor and freshness. And if we are to argue as 
 to the future of the world's intellectual life from the 
 example of Goethe, we may conclude that the progress 
 of science will not, in any respect, destroy the works of 
 the imagination. 
 
 There is one question which I have further, and that 
 is this : Whether, in every case, Goethe's method can be 
 called the strictly scientific method. The essence of the 
 scientific method is for the student to sit humbly and 
 question nature, and record her answers. Now, the ques- 
 tion arises, whether Goethe did not proceed at times, 
 possibly too often, from a preconceived theory, and then 
 endeavor to bring his facts into harmony; whether, in a 
 certain degree, he did not reverse the process of science, 
 and, instead of always sitting at her feet and questioning 
 her, lie did not at times proceed as a theorist from cer- 
 tain preconceived opinions. Now, the aim of all his 
 scientific works was to bring into harmony and give 
 unity to the laws of nature. The question has arisen, 
 whether Goethe has, in every case, been credited rightly 
 
52 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 with these discoveries; whether, in certain cases, they had 
 not been previously made; and we do find that Vicq d' 
 Azyr, a French scientist, in his worli upon Anatomy and 
 Physiology, had published the substance of Goethe's 
 theory of the existence of an inter-maxillary bone in man, 
 several years before the poet communicated his discovery 
 to Herder. 
 
 It can be clearly shown that Goethe had never 
 read this work, and that his own results were obtained 
 by his independent investigations. The French treatise 
 was long unknown to the German scientific world, and 
 only fully recognized after Goethe had announced his 
 discovery and it had been generally accepted. Questions 
 constantly arise regarding the priority of inventions and 
 discoveries. Many of these may be settled from this 
 point of view. There are men that have intuitions, or — 
 to avoid a philosophical term — that have glimpses of a 
 given truth, but it remains for him who states and enun- 
 ciates that truth to secure its credence and acceptance. 
 So with many of those who contest patents ; it will be 
 found that, while they had a certain conception of a truth, 
 they had not so enunciated the truth as to secure its 
 acceptance. And we may say of Goethe's scientific dis- 
 coveries, that he so stated certain truths, which were 
 based upon his independent investigations, and that by 
 the acceptance of his investigations the truth was estab- 
 lished. There is a controversy that has waged warmly 
 during these latter days, in which Haeckel, Virchow, and 
 others have taken part, whether Goethe was a precursor 
 of Darwin. 
 
 I regard this controversy as simply an illustration 
 of the tendency to place the label of a school or sect 
 
GOETHE AS A SCIENTIST. 53 
 
 upon a great man. We have seen how Goethe delighted 
 to estabhsh a general law, a universal truth, and that 
 he perceived the unity of the animal kingdom. In this 
 respect he was unquestionably a precursor of Darwin, and 
 of a theory which has received universal acceptation as 
 regards our physical structure. That he ever enunciated 
 the theory in such a way as Darwin has stated it, or that 
 he ever had more than an indistinct glimmering of what 
 Darwin afterwards discovered, I am not prepared to 
 accept. If we apply the same test to his discovery that 
 we apply to any invention, we may conclude that, while 
 he can not claim the merit of a discoverer, he was a fore- 
 runner in announcing the law of the essential unity of 
 the animal kingdom. 
 
 Mr. J. MacAlister : I desire to say just a word. 
 I knew very well I should call out my friend. Dr. 
 Harris, on the theory of colors, and I am very glad that 
 he was kind enough to present his views. You have 
 heard his very earnest presentation of the theory of 
 colors held by Goethe, and the statement of his belief 
 that it will stand good as against the Newtonian theory. 
 
 I merely want to say that on this question I must 
 stand with scientific authority. It is really a question of 
 method. Dr. Harris is quite right in saying that the 
 physicist must have certain hypotheses to start with. 
 Now the very constitution of Goethe's mind prevented 
 him from proceeding according to scientific method. He 
 would have nothing to do with hypotheses ; he would 
 have neither experiments nor mathematics. The few 
 experiments which he made were of the simplest kind, 
 and he considered mathematical reasoning, on a question 
 of this kind, to be an outrage upon nature. He insisted 
 
54 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 that the methods of biology were applicable to physics; 
 that all you had to do was to observe the facts, and from 
 these facts you could, by reasoning, deduce your conclu- 
 sions. The trouble is, that the laws of physics rest almost 
 wholly on mathematical demonstration, and can not be 
 established in that way. A single remark, also, with 
 regard to what was said by Prof. Hewitt. I am inclined 
 to think that in his biological discoveries, Goethe was not 
 simply a speculator who used the data gathered by others. 
 When it became necessary, he was an original investi- 
 gator. This was the case in his discovery of the inter- 
 maxillary bone. On the other hand, in working out his 
 theories of the metamorphosis of plants and animals, the 
 data were ready at hand, gathered by others — by many 
 mdustrious investigators ; and it was needless for him to 
 go over the ground again. In dealing with these data, 
 however, he pursued the correct scientific method — that 
 is to say, he used both deductive and inductive reason- 
 ing. Formerly it was supposed that the Baconian induc- 
 tion was sufficient for all scientific purposes. We have 
 long ago departed from that philosophical position. As 
 a matter of fact, there is not a physical or biological law 
 that is not very largely the result of deduction as well as 
 induction. In working out the doctrine of metamor- 
 phosis, Goethe proceeded in accordance with correct sci- 
 entific method. In the case of the inter-maxillary bone, 
 he first concluded, as has been fully explained in the 
 lecture, that there must be a middle bone in man's upper 
 jaw, as well as in that of the lower animals. Then he 
 went on to verify his deduction by actual observation and 
 demonstration. If he had stopped short in his proof, he 
 would have been simply a philosophical speculator. He 
 
GOETHE AS A SCIENTIST. 55 
 
 proceeded in this case exactly as all biologists do in their 
 investigation of the phenomena and laws of nature. 
 
 One word further. I think I was careful to state that 
 there is a dispute as to Goethe's relation to the develop- 
 ment theory. If time permitted, it would not be difficult, 
 I think, to show that the development theory was a very 
 natural deduction from the principles established by 
 Goethe in comparative anatomy and in biology. At the 
 same time, we must be on our guard against the positive 
 claims of Haeckel with respect to Goethe's position on 
 this doctrine. Haeckel is the most ardent champion of 
 natural selection in its widest acceptation. In seeking 
 to establish Darwin's doctrine, he is exceedingly anxious 
 to win over the cultured mind of Germany, and there 
 is no surer way of doing that than by showing that 
 Goethe and Darwin were of one mind on this great ques- 
 tion. Without going the length of Haeckel, it could, 
 I think, be legitimately proved, from Goethe's own 
 words, that, while he did not discover the law of natural 
 selection — the time was not ripe for that — he plainly 
 laid down the lines on which Darwin afterwards worked 
 out the conclusions that have had so momentous an influ- 
 ence upon the science and philosophic thought of our 
 time. 
 
 Prof. D. J. Snider : One of the most interesting 
 things in the life of Goethe is to compare his literary and 
 scientific activities, to see where they unite, where they 
 separate, and what they mean. They are intimately 
 related, they reacted on each other strongly; science led 
 him up to poetry, and poetry brought him back to sci- 
 ence. 
 
 His first important scientific treatise is the "Meta- 
 
56 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 morphosis of Plants," which shows transformation from a 
 typical form, that typical form in the plant being the 
 leaf. The leaf is ideally the whole plant, and can be 
 inetamorphosed into the various organs of the plant by 
 cultivation. The first stage is seen in the cotyledon 
 or seed-leaf, which is gradually transformed and purified 
 into the flower. Thus the plant shows a power of 
 unfolding itself into the highest it is capable of. This 
 treatise, which may be called the novel of plant-life, has, 
 on its literary side, great beauty, and may be compared 
 to the development seen in Meister. In the latter work, 
 a human soul is taken instead of a plant, and is shown, 
 unfolding, step by step, from the less perfect to the more 
 perfect, through error, until, finally, the man reaches 
 his vocation, reaches that which he can do best, and thus 
 becomes, comparatively, a complete man. There is no 
 doubt but that Goethe first beheld this process in the 
 plant, and then gradually transferred it to man and to 
 spiritual life. His ^^ Meister " seems to bloom out of his 
 " Metamorphosis of Plants; " though the former was 
 begun long before the latter, it could not be completed 
 till the latter had been written and had furnished the 
 guiding thread. Still stronger is this self-unfolding of a 
 germ seen in " Faust.'' In it the germ is denial, nega- 
 tion, which unfolds directly into Mephisto. 
 
 Another field of Goethe's scientific investigation was 
 the animal skeleton, in which his greatest discovery was 
 that of the inter-maxillary bone in man. It is very inter- 
 esting to watch his procedure in this case. The exist- 
 ence of this bone in man was denied by the anatomists of 
 the poet's time, though it was acknowledged to exist 
 in the lower animals. Goethe felt that this difference 
 
GOETHE AS A SCIENTIST. 57 
 
 was a great discord in nature, and, in fact, could not be ; 
 hence he asks : How can man have incisors (with the 
 lower animals), and yet have no jaw for their insertion 
 (such as the lower animals have) ? He went to work 
 to get rid of this scientific discord, as disagreeable to 
 him as any poetic discord, and the result was this dis- 
 covery. 
 
 The discovery is important, not so much on account 
 of the bone as on account of the method involved, which 
 meant the entire re-construction of the science of anat- 
 omy, giving rise to what is now called Comparative 
 Anatomy, which rests upon the thought that the animal 
 skeleton, from the lowest to the highest animal, is one 
 grand harmony. Here the poetic and scientific concep- 
 tions unite in a fundamental harmony of nature, which 
 the poet and scientist are to see and evolve, each in 
 his own way. 
 
 These views of Goethe, both in the vegetable and 
 animal kingdom, were rejected by the contemporary 
 scientists from the start. But after many years, they all 
 came round; the botanists accepted his theory of Meta- 
 morphosis of Plants and began to rebuild their science 
 upon it ; the anatomists, too, yielded, the last to give way 
 being the aged Blumenbach, after about forty years of 
 opposition. This hostility of scientific men to Goethe's 
 discoveries is, indeed, a lesson. Their senses can become 
 so ossified, to use one of Goethe's own expressions about 
 them, that they can not see the thing before their 
 very eyes. Scientific dogmatism can take the place of 
 free unprejudiced vision and destroy it. Scientists, 
 claiming to appeal solely to the senses, can become as 
 fantastic as any philosopher, and as dogmatic as any 
 
S8 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 theologian. In all these matters Goethe shows himself 
 one of the sanest, as well as broadest of men ; he did 
 not take the real and throw away the ideal, nor, on the 
 other hand, did he dwell in the purely ideal, cutting loose 
 from the real. 
 
GOETHE'S RELATION TO ENGLISH 
 LITERATURE. 
 
 By Mr. F. B. Sanborn. 
 
 When invited to lecture before the Milwaukee School, 
 I pleaded inability to write a new lecture on Goethe at so 
 short notice, and was kindly told by Mrs. Dudley that my 
 lecture of last year at Concord would be acceptable. I 
 have therefore revised and enlarged that paper, and sub- 
 mit it, with many misgivings, to an audience so well 
 deserving of something better, which it is sure to have 
 during each day of this week. 
 
 In speaking of Goethe's Relation to English Litera- 
 ture, we may consider either its influence upon him, or 
 his influence upon it. Both have been considerable ; but, 
 notwithstanding his study of Shakespeare and more 
 recent English authors, we must say that Goethe has 
 influenced English and American literature far more 
 than his genius was affected by both. Indeed, in 
 Goethe's formative period, from 1755 to 1785, American 
 literature did not exist ; although the American Revolu- 
 tion, with its great names of Franklin, Washington, and 
 Jefferson, made an impression upon his mind, as upon 
 the whole thought and life of his century, which was the 
 eighteenth, we must remember, and not our century, the 
 nineteenth. 
 
 In the early part of the eighteenth century we may 
 judge of the regard in which Germany was held by the 
 
 59 
 
6o POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 English, while considering this anecdote of England's 
 greatest prose-writer of that period : When Handel, the 
 German musician, went to Ireland about 1722, he carried 
 a letter of introduction to Dean Swift, then living near 
 Dublin. As .soon as Swift heard he was a German musi- 
 cian, he refused to see Handel ; but when his servant 
 added that the bearer of the letter was a "great genius," 
 Swift cried out, " What ! a German and a genius ! Show 
 him up this instant." Such was the reputation which the 
 intellectual character of the Germans inspired in Great 
 Britain, thirty years before Goethe was born ; and such 
 it continued through much of the lifetime of Frederic 
 the Great, who made Germany so respectable in matters 
 of war and state-craft. That singular and useful tyrant, 
 whose life Carlyle has so brilliantly related, had the 
 greatest contempt for his country's literature, which he 
 would not read, and for its clumsy language, which he 
 did not know how to spell. He had contracted this 
 prejudice in his youth, before Goethe was born, and he 
 Continued in it after Goethe, who, even more than Handel, 
 was "a German and a genius," had begun to publish his 
 youthful works. Goethe was born at Frankfurt, outside 
 of Frederic's dominions, in 1749; he published his first 
 important work, the play of " Gotz von Berlichingen," in 
 1773, and about this time Frederic wrote an " Essay on 
 German Literature," in which he said : 
 
 "To convince yourself of the little taste which pre- 
 vails in Germany, you need only go to our theatres; there 
 you will see the abominable works of Shakespeare exhib- 
 ited, in German translations, while the whole audience 
 almost die with delight, as they listen to ridiculous farces, 
 worthy of American barbarians. Shakespeare perhaps 
 
GOETHE'S RELATION TO ENGLISH LITERATURE. 6l 
 
 may be pardoned his caprices, because the birth of an art 
 is never its point of perfection ; but here we have a ' Gotz 
 von Berlichingen ' making his appearance, — a detestable 
 imitation of these wretched English productions. The 
 pit applauds, and enthusiastically demands a repetition of 
 such disgusting dullness." 
 
 Even in 1777, when "The Woes of Young Werther" 
 had captivated Europe, and "Faust " and " Iphigenia " 
 were begun by Goethe, who was then twenty-eight years 
 old, and at the height of his poetic creativeness, neither 
 Frederic nor the old Voltaire, who constantly wrote 
 letters compUmenting each other, valued this rising star 
 in the least degree. Frederic wrote to Voltaire, Decem- 
 ber 17, 1777 : "As to works of imagination, I am 
 convinced that we must get along with Homer, Virgil, 
 Tasso, Voltaire, and Ariosto ; for the human mind seems 
 to be withering in all countries, and no longer produces 
 either fruit or flowers." Of these poets thus named, the 
 Prussian King preferred Voltaire, to whom he had writ- 
 ten two years before : " You are the rival of Ariosto. We 
 do not know much about Homer's life, but Virgil was 
 nothing more than a poet. Racine did not write prose 
 well, and Milton was but the slave of his country's 
 tyrant. You alone have united talents so various." 
 
 Yet the great Frederic, with all this blindness to the 
 genius that was before his aged eyes, did finally predict 
 the triumph of German literature, which Goethe and 
 Schiller were to create. In one of his papers, which saw 
 the light after his death, in 1786, appear these prophetic 
 words : 
 
 " We shall have our classic authors ; our neighbors 
 will study German, and it will be spoken in the courts of 
 
62 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 princes. Our language, polished and improved, may 
 haply, in the books of great writers, extend over all 
 Europe. These summer days of German literature 
 approach. I foretell them, but shall not see them. Age 
 deprives me of this hope ; like Moses, I have a view of 
 the promised land, but may not enter it." 
 
 Frederic was, of course, as ignorant of Schiller's 
 genius as of Goethe's. In 1781, the year that Schiller 
 brought out his popular play, "The Robbers," which still 
 keeps the stage after a hundred years, the old King sent 
 to D'Alembert, in Paris, his " Essay on German Litera- 
 ture," already cited, and in his accompanying letter said : 
 " Our language does not deserve to be studied till good 
 authors have first rendered it famous ; and of these we 
 are entirely destitute. They will perhaps appear when I 
 am walking in the Elysian fields, where I intend to offer 
 to Virgil the idyls of a German named Gesner, and the 
 fables of Gellert." 
 
 But to return. Goethe, unlike Schiller, but in this 
 like Milton, whom he did not much read, drew more 
 from the Greek fountain than from Shakespeare's " well 
 of English undefiled" ; and his "Iphigenia," like Milton's 
 " Samson," follows closely in the steps of Greek tragedy, 
 while his "Faust" in no way resembles the "Dr. Faus- 
 tus " of Marlowe, who was Shakespeare's only brother in 
 English tragedy, but has a rich Gothic exuberance of its 
 own in the first part, and a broad philosophic conspectus, 
 broken by strains of lyric melody, in its long delayed and 
 strangely modified conclusion. In this change from his 
 first conception of the Faust story, as well as in that 
 conception itself, Goethe displays the depth and grasp of 
 his genius, and puts himself out of the class and above 
 
Goethe's relation to English literature. 63 
 
 the range of all those contemporaries — Schiller, Scott, 
 Byron, etc., with whom U was once the fashion to com- 
 pare him. In fact, the form of his Faust is no less 
 original, I might say individual, than his conception of 
 Satan ; who, as Mephistopheles, is as far as possible 
 from that sulphuretted Prometheus, the Satan of Milton ; 
 and, indeed, sets at naught every preconceived type of 
 the Evil One. 
 
 Goethe was born of a wealthy burgher family, in 
 Frankfurt, ten years before Schiller. Both grew to man- 
 hood at a time when England, through the elder Pitt 
 (who was the ally of Frederic the Great) and his son, the 
 rival of Fox and foeman of Bonaparte, had much to say 
 and do in the affairs of Germany. There was a religious 
 connection, also, between England and Protestant Ger- 
 many, and the Moravians of the one country had much 
 in common with the Methodists of the other. Jacob 
 Behmen, too, had his disciples in England ; and the 
 great scholars and scientific men of the two countries 
 quarreled and corresponded with each other on the usual 
 terms. Yet the connection of the two countries in 
 literary matters was of the slightest. 
 
 " Pathless the gulf of feeling yawns," — 
 
 and the great abyss that is fixed between the sentiments 
 and daily opinions of Germany and England was quite as 
 wide when England had a German king as it is to-day. 
 France was nearer spiritually, as well as geographically, 
 and we find the young Goethe far more affected by 
 French than by English books. He read Shakespeare 
 early, and felt his vast powers; he also read Richardson 
 and Goldsmith, and found pleasure, perhaps inspiration, 
 
64 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 in "The Vicar of Wakefield;" but the daily influence of 
 French thought and the French style did more to modify 
 the strong native impulses of Goethe than any impress- 
 ions that came to him from England. No sooner did he 
 begin to become known in England, however, than he 
 exerted an influence of his own on English literature, 
 which has been growing stronger ever since, and has had 
 some remarkable results, — chiefly by indirect radiation 
 through Carlyle, Emerson, Matthew Arnold, and a host 
 of lesser writers or tra,nslators. The first and most emi- 
 nent of his translators, until Carlyle appeared, was Walter 
 Scott, who, in 1799, published in Edinburgh a version of 
 " Gotz von Berlichingen," which Goethe himself had 
 published twenty-six years before. In itself this play is 
 of little value, as compared with the later works of 
 Goethe; but it has a peculiar significance, as the first of 
 those feudal romances, which, forty years afterward, in 
 the hands of Scott, became such an important part of 
 European literature, and had an effect, retrospective and 
 autumnal, as it were, even upon Goethe. 
 
 When Goethe began to study and to write, — and it 
 is hard to say which came first with him — the literatures 
 that lay before him as models were the Greek, the Latin, 
 the French, the Italian, and the English; in later years 
 he tasted something of the Oriental thought and litera- 
 ture. Of all these we should hold that English literature 
 was the greatest, when Shakespeare is taken into account, 
 — as he was, and very fully, by Goethe — yet the Greek, 
 the Latin, and especially the French, exercised apparently 
 a more potent sway over the young poet's mind, and 
 were better known to him. For it is difficult to find in 
 Goethe's fifty volumes any serious traces of English 
 
Goethe's relation to English literature. 65 
 
 influence from the literary side, although he read and 
 admired Shakespeare and Marlowe, knew something of 
 Bacon, Newton, and Milton, praised Goldsmith, and 
 extended a respectful patronage towards Byron. But it 
 is impossible to say that English literature impressed him 
 and moulded his own work as did the classical literature, 
 the Oriental, or even the French and Italian. In this 
 respect, as in so many others, he presents a contrast to 
 Schiller, who was deeply influenced in his dramatic forms 
 of expression by Shakespeare, as he was by Kant in his 
 philosophic theories and rules of criticism.* 
 
 If ever men are self-forgetful, it is when they are in 
 love, — at least for a brief period of that passion — and it 
 is the magnanimity thence proceeding which gives worth 
 and dignity to characters otherwise frivolous or brutal, 
 like those of Antony and Cleopatra, who, like Othello, 
 "loved not wisely but too well.'' Goethe, as Dr. Bartol 
 has said, loved not well enough, but too wisely; he lacked 
 that magnanimity which men and women much less gifted 
 have displayed in their affection, though himself mag- 
 nanimous in the other relations of life. And I must 
 accuse him of another great fault, which he never 
 
 * It should be remembered that Kant, the greatest of all the Ger- 
 man philosophical writers, was an older contemporary of Schiller and 
 of Goethe, having been born at Konigsberg in 1724, a quarter- 
 century before Goethe, and dying there in 1804, the year before 
 Schiller's premature death. There was another person of the same 
 name at Konigsberg earlier, whom Frederic the Great praised (in 
 1739) for his eloquence, and his graceful use of the awkward German 
 language, saying : "I confess I never heard better German, more 
 beautiful phrases, nor a style more flowing and embellished. M. 
 Kant is, past dispute, the first man in the kingdom for uttering 
 nonsense with dignity." See Frederic's letter to Jordan, August 
 3, 1739- 
 
 S 
 
66 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 learned of the English poets ; he would " kiss and 
 tell." Shakespeare has so well disguised his affairs of 
 the heart, that it will always remain a question, not only 
 whom he loved; but whether it was love or friendship 
 of which he wrote so wonderfully ; but Goethe has 
 related what he should not about Gretchen, and 
 Annette and Emilia, and Lucinda and Frederica, and 
 Heaven knows how many more. To be sure he has 
 given them an immortality thereby, and by idealizing 
 them in his plays and novels and poems; but even there 
 we feel that he has taken an unfair advantage of these 
 fair ones, by drawing their pictures for the world to see, 
 when they were turning their faces toward him alone. 
 I agree with Mrs. Howe on this subject, who has thus 
 spoken of Goethe's flirtations: 
 
 "He loves, but marries not. The first attractions 
 find him precocious in feeling, and mature enough in 
 judgment to distrust himself. It costs him bitter tears to 
 forsake his sweethearts. We can imagine that the tears 
 shed by them must have been more bitter, and can not 
 put out of sight the disadvantage suffered by these young 
 girls, when, after every appearance of serious intention, 
 the brilliant youth flits from them, and leaves them in (to 
 say the least) awkward isolation. The fact that he did 
 so leave them reminds me of a humorous device in 
 Offenbach's ' Orphee aux Enfers.' Jupiter, wishing to 
 make love to Pluto's fair bride, descends in the form of a 
 monstrous butterfly, and presently hands forward his 
 card, saying, ' Je suis le Baron de Jupiter.' The great 
 Goethe, on the contrary, comes like a lord and departs 
 like a butterfly." 
 
 Doubtless there has been no such poetical genius 
 
Goethe's relation to English literature. 67 
 
 since Shakespeare as this German dramatist and poet, 
 who is also novelist, art critic, man of science, and phil- 
 osopher. But his versatility, and the whole strain of his 
 genius, are not in the English manner, nor bred in 
 any English school. That inward vision of thought and 
 nature, — that profound conception of the world's sym- 
 bolism, — which is so wonderful in Shakespeare, and in 
 other English poets, exists in a less degree, is coupled in 
 Goethe's case with a plodding, patient, almost pedantic 
 research into the laws and methods, and even the small- 
 est details, of nature and of thought. Having flown to 
 his height of imagination on the wings of poesy, Goethe 
 must needs build a stairway therefrom downward to the 
 merest, most beggarly elements ; so that he and others 
 shall go up and down as they please, counting every step 
 of the way. Moreover, while Shakespeare and other 
 great poets content themselves with setting forth the 
 ideal, — flashing it out perhaps for a single moment upon 
 our mind's eye, — Goethe insists on realizing his ideal 
 in every form and institution of society. In this respect 
 he resembles Plato more than any of the moderns; yet 
 he does not resemble Bacon, that English truncated 
 Plato, except in some of those superficial points of simi- 
 larity which do not touch the real character of the two 
 men. Goethe, like Bacon, "took all knowledge to be his- 
 province; " like Bacon, he delighted in state and splendor, 
 in the completion of his theory until it should fill out and 
 touch at every point the circumference of man's, world ; 
 but then in that poet's eye which, with fine frenzy, 
 
 " Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,'' 
 
 Goethe excelled the English Chancellor even more than 
 
68 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE 
 
 he did in that terrestrial prudence or fortune which so 
 handsomely convoyed him through life, while Bacon 
 fell into digraces and belittled himself by complaints and 
 entreaties. Indeed, the good fortune of Goethe was 
 something almost appalling, and must have often made 
 him think of Polycrates and his ring ; it went beyond the 
 felicity of Shakespeare's life, which consisted partly in 
 his obscurity; while Goethe was at once conspicuous and 
 safe, — admired, and not ruined by admiration. Goethe 
 suffered spiritually from this good fortune, and I must 
 say that, when compared with the best English and 
 American authors, the finest aroma of our literature — 
 which proceeds from a magnanimous and adventurous 
 character, displayed now in love, now in war, now in the 
 heroism of private life or in the sanctities of religion — is 
 perpetually wanting in Goethe. I do not speak now of 
 Shakespeare, in whom this magnanimity had its widest 
 and highest range, but of lesser poets and prose writers, 
 who sometimes in very humble spheres of literature 
 display the same winning quality. It is this which gives 
 immortality to Sidney's youthful essays in verse and 
 prose, — which makes Herbert memorable, Marvell more 
 than a wit, and poor Dryden respectable even in his deg- 
 radations ; this gleams in Donne and Jeremy Taylor, 
 in Gray and Dr. Johnson ; in Wordsworth, Shelley, and 
 Byron ; in Burns and Carlyle among the Scotch, and 
 among Americans in Thoreau and Emerson, in Walt 
 Whitman, and others of less note. It is by virtue of 
 an untamable energy that English literature is capable of 
 rising so high, and sinking so low, and is capable of that 
 measured and deliberate excellence in which the books of 
 Plato and of Goethe are perhaps the best examples. 
 
Goethe's relation to English literature. 69 
 
 In the writings of Goethe, not less than in his life, we 
 see the limitations which egoism imposes, and which not 
 even his great genius could remove. " A man," said 
 Cromwell to the French Ambassador, " never rises so 
 high as when he knows not whither he is going." 
 Although Goethe would fain follow his intuitions, and 
 yield himself to the impulse of the moment, his very- 
 intuitions had prudence and self-love in them, so firmly 
 implanted that he could never escape from worldly 
 considerations. But the old belief of mankind is wisest, 
 which declares that the poet's inspiration is greater than 
 any worldly prudence, and that the oracles are sincere. 
 
 Goethe's relation to German literature was something 
 different from Shakespeare's relation to our own, of which 
 he is the head and front, but which he did not create, nor 
 did he sustain it in his own time. Without Shakespeare 
 there would still have been an important and universal 
 English literature, though it would be far less significant 
 and poetic than it is. Without Goethe, not only would the 
 literature of his fatherland be less poetic and less sig- 
 nificant, but it would not have extended so swiftly over 
 Europe, and led to that rapid extension of German phil- 
 osophy, and German science also, which our century, 
 now closing, has seen and profited by. Goethe lived 
 to be nearly as old as Voltaire, dying in 1832, at the age 
 of eighty-two; and his period of authorship covered more 
 than sixty of those years. His greatest work, " Faust," 
 was only completed in its present form a short time 
 before his death ; his next greatest book, " Wilhelra 
 Meister," was in fact left unfinished, although he had 
 been at work on it for thirty years. Besides these books, 
 which are everywhere known, he published more than 
 
70 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 forty other volumes ; while his letters and conversations, 
 printed since his death, and his manuscripts at Weimar, 
 soon to be published, will make twenty or thirty volumes 
 more. Hardly any author, even in Germany, has written 
 so much ; and no German author — not even Luther, 
 whose books are the foundation of German prose litera- 
 ture — is now so indispensable to those who would know 
 what Germany has "thought, or what modern culture is 
 and has been for the past hundred years. If not the best 
 dramatist (Schiller is that), he is by far the greatest poet 
 of Germany ; and he is one of the very few good prose- 
 writers in a language that does not readily lend itself, as 
 the French does, to graceful prose, or as the English 
 does, to vigorous and picturesque prose. Goethe's prose 
 is not always graceful nor even vigorous, but it never 
 fails to be picturesque, and there is a fulness and rich 
 completeness about it which leaves the mind satisfied, 
 even when the ear is not wholly delighted. Its faults are 
 those of the German language ; its many and great 
 beauties are Goethe's own. 
 
 Although Goethe was beyond question the foremost 
 literary man of his time, yet his real work was not to vary 
 the existing forms of literature, however much he might 
 do this ; but to inspire in all literature a deep conviction 
 of the unity of Nature and the activity of spirit. This, 
 once done, is nothing less than regeneration to the inner 
 life of literature, which may thenceforth take any form, 
 old or new, and yet be true to the inworking spirit. 
 Carlyle seems to have been the first of British writers 
 to seize this perception of Goethe's mission, and he 
 was certainly the first to enforce and insist upon it in 
 ways that soon wrought an actual, if incipient, revival in 
 
GOETHE S RELATION TO ENGLISH LITERATURE. 7 1 
 
 the English-speaking world of letters. With him was 
 soon associated our own Emerson, who, arriving at 
 the same insight, not through Goethe's illumination, but 
 by his own, nevertheless found his inward light extended 
 and clarified by the writings of both Goethe and Carlyle. 
 The period of Goethe's death (March, 1832) may be 
 taken as the time when Carlyle and Emerson distinctly 
 perceived that they stood at the opening of a new era ; 
 and it was not long afterwards, when they met at Craig- 
 enputtock, that they also became aware of the unity 
 existing between them upon vital issues, and that they 
 were appointed to carry forward Goethe's work in their 
 own lands, and with reinforcement of each other. What 
 Carlyle thought at Goethe's death he has left on record, 
 and we may be sure that in essentials Emerson would 
 have said the same things. Carlyle wrote in " The New 
 Monthly Magazine " for 1832 ; 
 
 " So then our Greatest has departed. That melody 
 of life, with its cunning tones, which took captive ear and 
 heart, has gone silent; the heavenly force that dwelt here, 
 victorious over so much, is here no longer ; thus far, not 
 farther, shall the wise man, by speech and by act, utter 
 himself forth. . . . Goethe, it is commonly said, 
 made a new era in literature ; a Poetic Era began with 
 him, the end or ulterior tendencies of which are yet 
 nowise generally visible. This common saying is a true 
 one ; and true with a far deeper meaning than, to the 
 most, it conveys. ... It begins now to be every- 
 where surmised that the real force, which in this world all 
 things must obey, is Insight, Spiritual Vision and Deter- 
 mination. The Thought is parent of the Deed, nay, is 
 living soul of it, and last and continual, as well as first 
 
72 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 mover of it; is the foundation, beginning, and essence, 
 therefore, of Man's whole existence here below. The 
 true sovereign of the world, who moulds the world, 
 like soft wax, according to his pleasure, is he who lov- 
 ingly sees into the world; the inspired thinker, whom 
 in these days we name Poet. The true sovereign is the 
 Wise Man." 
 
 Some years later, Emerson added his testimony as 
 follows : 
 
 " The Greeks said, Alexander went as far as Chaos ; 
 Goethe went, only the other day, as far; and one step 
 farther he hazarded, and brought himself back. He 
 has clothed our modern existence with poetry. Amid lit- 
 tleness and detail, he detected the genius of life, the old 
 cunning Proteus, nestling close beside us, and showed 
 that the dulness and prose we ascribe to the age was only 
 another of his masks. 
 
 ' His very flight is presence in disguise.' 
 
 Goethe, the head and body of the German nation, does 
 not speak from talent, but the truth shines through ; he 
 is very wise, though his talent often veils his wisdom. 
 However excellent his sentence is, he has somewhat 
 better in view. The old Eternal Genius who built the 
 world has confided himself more to this man than to any 
 other." 
 
 Emerson is not always to be construed literally, any 
 more than other poets are, — and he did not mean to say 
 that Goethe was nearer to the old Eternal Genius than 
 Shakespeare had been. His portrait of these two men, 
 side by side, was given to the world later (in 1867), in 
 
Goethe's relation to English literature. 73 
 
 those remarkable verses called " Solution," in which he 
 guesses the riddle of the Muse who asks : 
 
 ' ' Have you eyes to find the five 
 Which five hundred did survive ? " 
 
 Yes, says Emerson, the five great writers are Homer, 
 Dante, Shakespeare, Swedenborg, and Goethe ; and thus 
 he portrays the English and the German poet : 
 
 ' ' Seethed in mists of Penmanmaur, 
 Taught by Plinlimraon's Druid power, 
 England's genius filled all measure 
 Of heart and soul, of strength and pleasure, 
 Gave to the mind its emperor, 
 And life was larger than before ; 
 Nor sequent centuries could hit 
 Orbit and sum of Shakespeare's wit. 
 The men who lived with him became 
 Poets, for the air was fame. 
 
 " In newer days of war and trade, 
 Romance forgot and faith decayed, 
 When Science armed and guided war. 
 And clerks the Janus-gates unbar, — 
 When France, where poet never grew, 
 Halved and dealt the globe anew, — 
 Goethe, raised o'er joy and strife, 
 Drew firm the lines of Fate and Life, 
 And brought Olympian wisdom down 
 To court and mart, to gown and town ; 
 Stooping, his finger wrote in clay 
 The open secret of to-day." 
 
 Among the friends of Emerson, while he was study- 
 ing Goethe, none was more intimate than Mr. Alcott, 
 whose diaries preserve much that was common to the 
 thought of the two friends. I will therefore read from 
 the diaries of 1847 and later years some of his comments 
 
74 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 on Goethe as he read him from time to time. Mr. Alcott 
 writes (date uncertain) : 
 
 " Life is but a Werther's Sorrows to many, with an 
 end as tragical ; nor can it be otherwise till we come 
 forth from our woes to speak peace to the wailers. The 
 chaos about us is but the confusion within us ; first place 
 ourself, and all things then take place around us. Hith- 
 erto, for the most part, men have been bad economists of 
 life, and spendthrifts of themselves. Few have deserved 
 the epithet 'illustrious,' — and yet life itself might be a 
 lustre so dazzling that to have hidden its flame were 
 almost to quench it." 
 
 Mr. Alcott seems to have thrown out the remark in a 
 general way, while the idea of Goethe and his insight 
 was strongly on his mind. But on one or two other occa- 
 sions, as the diaries show, he made a particular study of 
 Goethe's chief work, the Faust, and has left on record 
 these striking passages concerning it. I take them from 
 the diaries for 1847 ^^^d 185 1,— the latter being written 
 when the memory of Daniel Webster's political downfall 
 was fresh in the memory of all the anti slavery men of 
 New England. Mr. Alcott says : 
 
 (1847.) "Goethe has treated the strife of the worst 
 for the best, in nature, more cunningly than either of his 
 predecessors, Moses or the author of the Uzzian Job. 
 And for this old-world fable he was better fitted than 
 any one of his time. He has an eye for subtleties. He 
 is a discerner of spirits, a draughtsman of guile. His 
 faith in nature was so entire that it held all fine gifts at 
 his service, nor could he, fortified and equipped as was 
 his genius, but render faithful copies of what he so 
 clearly saw and learned to portray. ' The demons sat to 
 
Goethe's relation to English literature. 75 
 
 him,' and we have before us the world he knew so well, 
 and also the one in which almost all are conversant. For 
 this demon of the temptation is as old as man, and thus 
 far the catastrophe has been disastrous to individuals in 
 conflict with multitudes. None has come off victorious 
 with his life ; the world-spirit, Mephistopheles, bribing 
 even the Faust, or the will, proffering the present 
 delights for the future pains as at first." 
 
 (1851.) "Dipped here and there into 'Faust' (Anna 
 Swanwick's translation), and am admitted more inti- 
 mately than b)' Hayward's or Anster's version into the 
 subtleties of the modern Satan, the world-spirit of the 
 nineteenth century. Our devil has partaken of the cos- 
 mopolitan culture ; he, too, is a scholar and a gentleman, 
 scarcely distinguishable in a crowd from any mortal else, 
 — his complexion sallower by a shade, perhaps, and, if 
 surveyed closely, some show of hoofs in his boots. . . . 
 Faust's dealings with him are infinitely suggestive and 
 profitable, and inclusive of the whole range of guile. 
 ' The demon sat gladly,' — the portrait is sketched by a 
 master, and is exhaustive of the subject. Goethe knew 
 too much to paint well anything else ; and this, his 
 masterpiece, remains as the last likeness, finished up to 
 the latest dates. Yet he lived too early to sketch this 
 Western democratic shape, some fifty or more years later. 
 Apropos of him, just now and here in this Western hem- 
 isphere everybody is putting down the dark Webster as 
 the latest and best devil, concrete and astir in space 
 perhaps, — certainly in these American parts, — clearly 
 responsible for the sins of cities. North and South, — a 
 Satan of national type and symmetry. 'T is a great pity 
 that Goethe should have come too soon. Head, should- 
 
76 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 ers, all, all of Webster should have gone into the picture, 
 and this legal, logical, constitutional Mephistopheles of 
 the States had justice done him by his master. . . . Per- 
 haps Goethe is the most remarkable instance in literature 
 of an intellect holding its eye coincident with the 
 plane of things, — endowed likewise with an aptitude to 
 seize at the nick of time every aspect of the demonic 
 forces, as these emerged from their hidings in Nature. 
 But he was held, by consequence, to the mundane plane 
 and the fatal moment, — an intellectual describer, but 
 never a partaker at heart of what he saw and sketched 
 so inimitably. His aloofness from life and from the 
 spirit of permanence ; his inability to identify himself 
 with the heart and whole of things, the soul of souls ; 
 the duplicity of his genius, one may say, left him the 
 sport of a cunning which partook, at once of the fate 
 that drives, and of the freedom that controls life's 
 motions. We feel that this eye, mighty as it is and 
 miraculous, escapes not the spell that holds it fixedly on 
 the features he is portraying. There is never the eleva- 
 tion of lid and fluency of light, telling of raptures and of 
 the world's saints, seen and felt, — the sure sign of 
 victories won from nature and one's self. Goethe was 
 cunning, but he was never wisely wise. Too noble for 
 mere prudence, he was coeval with fate ; but never mag- 
 nanimous and Fate's victor ; and as the Fates made, so 
 they slew him too, but by incantations soft, siren-like, 
 and prolonged, melodizing his muse, and intimating 
 (almost persuading us the while) his claim to a perpetuity 
 of genius which was not theirs to give. All he was his 
 Faust has taken and celebrates. Faust is admitted to 
 heaven as Goethe to mortality, without the fee of divinity 
 
GOETHE S RELATION TO ENGLISH LITERATURE. 77 
 
 which alone opens honestly the gates. So the clandes- 
 tine wins by defeats, from the begininng of evil till its 
 ending here." 
 
 (1851.) "There is adequate justification for Goethe's 
 treatment of Evil in his great poem, about which so much 
 has been said and written, — most of this quite wide of its 
 drift and province. It is one of the auspicious signs of 
 these latter times that men are beginning to canvass and 
 account for eveirything that turns up in the world. Noth- 
 ing remains unquestioned ; the popular inquiry is, ' Who 
 are you ? what are you here for ? Account for your 
 existence, — show us, on penalty of forfeiting it, what 
 right you have to be, — and away with you, if you can not 
 do it ! ' Even the Devil, his place and functions in the 
 world, are under discussion, and he too will have to show 
 what he is here for, or quit forthwith. That is a question 
 altogether new, first raised on its proper grounds and 
 poetically argued by Goethe in the ' Faust.' But now the 
 thinkers everywhere are fast hold of it ; and it must 
 render up its secret, so long hidden from the faith of 
 men. Modern judgments seem to be far more tolerant 
 of the Devil than at any former period of the world ; his 
 claims are fairly admitted, and his right to be here and 
 take part in mundane affairs is unquestionable. Toler- 
 ance is taking place of the old prejudices, and it is 
 becoming quite evident that his presence is indispensa- 
 ble. The most enlightened minds go still further, 
 entering fearlessly into the darker counsels of Provi- 
 dence, and relieving the old superstition by some sensible 
 and even religious reasons for his existence and place in 
 nature. Say what we will to the contrary, — and it is 
 creditable to the heart of man that it does doubt the final 
 
78 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 necessity of his existence and functions, and proves these 
 only transient and mediatorial, — the Devil is felt to be a 
 vast benefit to the present multitude, who could not get 
 on at all without him. The Lord needs and so suffers an 
 agent for the administiative ends of mortality, — a whip- 
 par in and secretary. The Devil is a friend in the guise 
 of an enemy. We need him to measure our strength and 
 weakness, to prove our virtue. Life, for thcmost part, is 
 a contest, a devil's duel, with seconds few or many to 
 provoke and stand sponsor for us, to each according to 
 his mettle and provocation. An imp or two, if no more, 
 is pitted against every one of us, — is one of us, if we 
 knew it. To some there are seven of them, we read, and 
 our merits and demerits are measured precisely by our 
 management of the enemy, whether one or many." 
 
 Goethe had studied the more profound poets of 
 Greece and Rome longer than he had studied Shake- 
 speare and his most perfect drama, the " Iphigenia in 
 Tauris," is, perhaps, the best result of this part of his 
 education. The classical interpolations and reminis- 
 cences in Faust have a certain value, but they are tame 
 and pedant in comparison with the fresh, youthful 
 strength of the Iphigenia. It would be impossible to 
 find in English literature so vivid a reproduction of the 
 antique spirit, reinforced by the veracity of the Teuton, 
 as this drama exhibits. Milton's " Samson," which in 
 some points may be compared with it, is so strongly 
 Hebraized that it little resembles in spirit the Greek 
 dramas on which its form was modelled ; while the 
 "Prometheus" of Shelley, the " Atalanta" of Swinburne, 
 and the pseudo-classical poems of Landor and of Brown- 
 ing, almost wholly lack the calm dignity of Goethe's 
 
GOETHE S RELATION TO ENGLISH LITERATURE. 79 
 
 "Iphigenia." As those who have preceded me have 
 made Uttle mention of this drama, I will quote a single 
 passage in the earliest American translation, that of Dr. 
 Frothingham of Boston, made some fifty years ago, when 
 Goethe was almost an unknown name in America. 
 
 SONG OF THE PARC^ IN "IPHIGENIA." 
 
 Iphigenia (soliloquizing). 
 
 Within my ears resounds tliat ancient song, — 
 
 Forgotten was it, and forgotten gladly. 
 
 Song of the Parcse, which they shuddering sang 
 
 When Tantalus fell from his golden seat. 
 
 They suffered with their noble friend, — indignant 
 
 Their bosom was, and terrible their song. 
 
 To me and to my sisters in our youth 
 
 The nurse would sing it, — and I marked it well. 
 
 THE SONG. 
 
 " The gods be your terror. 
 Ye children of men ! 
 They hold the dominion 
 In hands everlasting. 
 All free to exert it 
 As listeth their will, 
 
 " Let him fear them doubly 
 Whome'er they've exalted ! 
 On crags and on cloud-piles 
 The altars are planted 
 Around the gold tables. 
 
 " Dissension arises , 
 Then tumble the feasters 
 Reviled and dishonored 
 In gulfs of deep midnight ; 
 And look ever vainly 
 In fetters of darkness 
 For judgment that's just. 
 
8o POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 " But they remain seated 
 At feasts never failing 
 Around the gold tables. 
 They stride at a footstep 
 From mountain to mountain ; 
 Through jaws of abysses 
 Steams toward them the breathing 
 ^ . Of suffocate Titans 
 
 Like offerings of incense, — 
 A light-rising vapor. 
 
 " They turn — the proud masters — 
 From vifhole generations 
 The eye of their blessing, — 
 Nor will in the children 
 The once well-beloved 
 Still eloquent features 
 Of ancestors see." 
 
 So sang the dark sisters ' 
 The old exile heareth 
 That terrible music 
 In caverns of darkness — 
 Remembereth his children. 
 And shaketh his head. 
 
 The Greek doctrine of divine vengeance and of irre- 
 sistible destiny here set forth (but which is beautifully- 
 softened in the play by the devotion and truthfulness of 
 Iphigenia), has scarcely found an entrance into EngHsh 
 literature, where tragedy assumes a character more per- 
 sonal. The deepest sufferings of Shakespeare's heroes 
 grow out of their own acts, and are not the result of fore- 
 ordained or inherited guilt, as we may see in " King 
 Lear" and "Othello." Goethe also gives this personal 
 turn to all the tragedy which he brings forward ; but his 
 " Iphigenia," with its deep realization of the antique 
 tragic motives, may serve as a connecting link between 
 
Goethe's relation to English literature. 8i 
 
 ancient and modern tragedy. And so strong in his mind 
 was the ancient form of presentation, that he adopted it 
 to some extent in his next important work, his " Tasso," — 
 which was mainly written in Rome, in 1786-88, as the 
 " Iphigenia " was finished and privately brought out 
 there. His " Egmont," on the other hand, the most dra- 
 matic of his plays, but far from the best, has nothing 
 of the antique about it ; and still less has the first part of 
 " Faust," which, though dramatic in form, is rather a 
 succession of declamations, spectacles, and songs, than a 
 drama, strictly speaking. This fits it for operatic repre- 
 sentation, in which it is most successfully and constantly 
 given to the public. In itself, as a closet drama, or what 
 Mr. Snider calls-a "literary Bible," it is extremely foreign 
 to the EngHsh and American mind, and there is nothing 
 really akin to it in our literature, notwithstanding Mar- 
 lowe's " Dr. Faustus " and the octogenarian Philip 
 Bailey's " Festus," — which was "Faust" emasculated, 
 trimmed and scented and sent forth on a harmless round 
 among tlie circulating libraries, forty years ago. 
 
 Mr. Snider has so well set forth the origin and spirit 
 of the Faust legend, that I need only call attention to 
 the manner in which it burst forth in Enghsh litera- 
 ture, — a single flash and explosion of flame and smoke 
 from the Titanic cave of Christopher Marlowe's genius. 
 This man — who, if he had lived, might have disputed 
 Shakespeare's preeminence in dramatic poetry, as he was 
 in fact Shakespeare's teacher and coadjutor during their 
 hot youth in London — seems to have caught at the 
 Faust myth almost as soon as it appeared anywhere in 
 Europe in a printed form — though it had circulated 
 from mouth to mouth at universities and among the peo- 
 6 
 
82 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 pie for more than half a century, when, in 1587, there 
 appeared at Frankfurt the " History of Dr. Johann Faust, 
 the far-famed \weitbeschreiter] Sorcerer and Black Artist 
 \Schwartzkunstler\." From an English translation of this 
 book, made in 1592, Marlowe is supposed to have taken 
 his play, " The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus/' which 
 must have been written in 1592-93, since, in June, 1593, 
 Marlowe was slain in a tavern brawl. Although Shake- 
 speare was a friend and coadjutor of Marlowe, it does 
 not seem that the Faust legend attracted him at all ; nor 
 was this because he was averse to the introduction of 
 magic and sorceries upon the stage, as we see by his Pros- 
 pero and the Witches in Macbeth. The Satanic element, 
 which in Goethe's drama is constantly present in a 
 modern and realistic guise, is hardly introduced by 
 Shakespeare at all, save in " Othello," where lago may 
 stand for it. There is, indeed, little that is common 
 to both in the topics chosen by these two great poets, 
 Shakespeare and Goethe. The German philosophic poet 
 was, above all things, wise, and in nothing does his 
 wisdom appear more striking than in his estimate of 
 Shakespeare as far above himself, and in his fixed resolve 
 not to imitate one so unlike. He might almost have 
 used in this connection the pregnant query of Emerson, 
 " Why should I forego my own excellence to come short 
 of Shakespeare's ? " He had gifts of his own, many and 
 great ones, — but not those of Shakespeare, whose nature 
 was in so many points the opposite of his own. Ben 
 Jonson could not measure Shakespeare, but he saw him, 
 and in some particulars has well described him, in terms 
 that could never be applied to Goethe: 
 
 " The players have often mentioned it as an honor to 
 
Goethe's relation to English literature. 83 
 
 Shakespeare,'' says Jonson in his Discoveries, " that 
 he never blotted out a line. My answer has been: 
 would he had blotted a thousand! which they thought 
 a malevolent speech, who chose that circumstance to 
 commend their friend by, wherein he most faulted. He 
 was indeed honest, and of an open and free nature ; 
 had an excellent fantasy, brave notions, and gentle 
 expressions ; wherein he flowed with that facility, that 
 sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped. His 
 wit was in his own power: would the rule of it had been 
 so too." 
 
 It could never be said of Goethe that he had not the 
 rule of his own wit in his own power; for no man of 
 genius was ever so deliberate and methodical. Jonson 
 adds, — with that tone of patronage which the inter- 
 vening centuries have made so amusing to us, — "But 
 Shakespeare redeemed his vices with his virtues. There 
 was ever more in him to be praised than to be par- 
 doned." This mild encomium is increasingly true of 
 Goethe, as we withdraw more and more from the imme- 
 diate conditions of his life, and judge him by the stan- 
 dards of genius and of benefit to mankind. Tested by 
 these, Goethe must be greatly praised, and his influence 
 on English literature, whether indirect or direct, has been 
 every way salutary. For Goethe, even when he is pedan- 
 tic, is profound ; wherever he deals in small and trivial 
 concerns, there is something just and wholesome in his 
 method, and though he may check and discountenance 
 spontaneity, this can do little harm to our literature, 
 which is spontaneous rather than profound, except in 
 those rare examples like Chaucer, Shakespeare, and 
 Wordsworth, where it is both profound and spontaneous. 
 
54 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 I do not find that Goethe had any knowledge of 
 Chaucer ; yet of all English authors this ancient poet 
 was the nearest to Goethe's serene and tolerant temper, 
 and he rose too, as Goethe did in Germany, from a dead 
 level of mediocrity in his own age, to the very heights of 
 humor and insight. There is a just judgment on this 
 good old poet by Sir Philip Sidney which deserves to be 
 quoted, — written in 1581, and found in his " Defense of 
 Poesy." " Chaucer,'' says Sidney, " undoubtedly did 
 excellently in his Troilus and Cressida ; of whom, truly, 
 I know not whether to marvel more, either that he, in 
 that misty time, could see so clearly, or that we, in this 
 clear age, go so stumblingly after him." 
 
 One was soon to come who would no longer stumble 
 in following Chaucer, but would overtake and pass hini 
 by, so that even Shakespeare's contemporaries would 
 have no doubt what his rank was. An obscure poet of 
 that period, of whom we know almost as little as of 
 Shakespeare himself, William Basse by name, commem- 
 orated Shakespeare's death in 1616 by this elegy, which 
 is one of the best, though seldom quoted: 
 
 " Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh 
 To learned Chaucer; and, rare Beaumont, lie 
 A little nearer Spenser, to make room 
 For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb. 
 But if precedency in death doth bar 
 A fourth place in your sacred sepulchre. 
 Under this sable marble of thine own, 
 Sleep, rare tragedian, Shakespeare! sleep alone: 
 Thy unmolested peace in unshared cave 
 Possess as lord, not tenant of thy grave. 
 That unto us and others it may be 
 Honor hereafter to be laid by thee." 
 
Goethe's relation to English literature. 85 
 
 Here the elegist recognizes, what time has fully 
 attested, that Shakespeare is the lord paramount of 
 English literature, holding a rank higher than Beau- 
 mont's, or Spenser's, or Chaucer's. A similar rank must 
 be given, and has long been joyfully conceded, to 
 Goethe, among German writers. I do not agree with 
 Dr. Bartol in the comparison which he drew between 
 Schiller and Gosthe, so disparaging to the former ; but it 
 is in accord with that severe Scripture which says, " To 
 him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath 
 not shall be taken away." In the higher meaning of 
 poetic greatness, Schiller "hath not," and therefore must 
 surrender some part of his recent or present renown 
 to the more masculine and original Goethe. In one 
 respect, however, and an important one, he will always 
 be superior to his friend, — in his recognition of that 
 wholesome sexual morality which Goethe at all times 
 considered too lightly, and in his youth and middle 
 life so habitually transgressed. It will be long before 
 English and American literature becomes accustomed to 
 the tone of Goethe on this subject, — a coarse and 
 worldly habit of mind, which came to him partly by 
 nature, and partly from the French, Latin, and Greek 
 books which he read in his youth far more than he read 
 the better English or German authors. Indeed, there 
 were few good German authors before Goethe and acces- 
 sible to him ; while Ovid and Catullus and Martial and 
 the Greek poets, were open to him, and the amusing liter- 
 ature of France was in every German household where 
 books were read at all. Goethe brings it almost as an 
 accusation against Herder at Strasbourg, that he made 
 him think less favorably of Ovid than Goethe had been 
 
86 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 accustomed ; but the " Roman Elegies," written at the 
 age of thirty-eight, showed that Ovid was then his 
 model much more than Herder. There is a great charm 
 in the poetry of Ovid, and his themes and the manner of 
 handling them will always make him read by young men; 
 yet we should think better of Goethe had he in this 
 respect followed Shakespeare rather than Marlowe, who 
 translated into English verse some of the worst poems of 
 Ovid. Marlowe's own youtniui character, that of an 
 unbeliever and sensualist, was an exaggeration of 
 Goethe's, and they were both naturally drawn towards 
 the Faust myth. Goethe had some thought of translating 
 into German, Marlowe's vigorous version which, as mere 
 poetry, in its best passages surpasses Goethe's Faust. 
 Crabbe Robinson, who should always be mentioned with 
 respect, as the first Englishman who really read with 
 appreciation the great literature of Germany, both philo- 
 sophic and poetic, visited Goethe in 1829, and then read 
 to him Milton's " Samson " which Goethe then heard 
 of for the first time ; Robinson also mentioned Marlowe's 
 " Dr. Faustus." Goethe did not admire Milton so much 
 as Byron, but of Marlowe's play he said, bursting out 
 into an exclamation of praise, " How greatly is it all 
 planned ! " The Diary of Crabbe Robinson, and the 
 remarks and letters of Goethe after the visits of this inde- 
 fatigable Englishman in 1829, give some anecdotes and 
 remarks which will show how imperfect was Goethe's 
 knowledge of English authors. Robinson says : 
 
 " I took an opportunity to mention Milton, and found 
 Goethe unacquainted with ' Samson Agonistes.' I read 
 to him the first part, to the end of the scene with Delilah. 
 He fully conceived the spirit of it, though he did not 
 
Goethe's relation to English literature. 87 
 
 praise Milton with the warmth with which he eulogized 
 Byron, of whom he said that ' the like would never come 
 again ; he was inimitable.' Even Ariosto was not so 
 daring as Byron in the ' Vision of Judgment.' Goethe 
 preferred to all the other serious poems of Byron the 
 ' Heaven and Earth,' though it seemed almost satire 
 when he exclaimed, ' A bishop might have written it.' 
 He added: 'Byron should have lived to execute his 
 vocation, — to dramatize the Old Testament. What a 
 subject under his hands would the Tower of Babel have 
 been ! Byron was Indebted for the profound views he 
 took of the Bible to the ennui he suffered from it at 
 school.' . . . Goethe also said to Robinson, as after- 
 wards to Zeeter, " Samson's confession of his guilt is in a 
 better spirit than anything in Byron. There is fine logic 
 in all the speeches. Delilah's vindication of herself is 
 capital ; he has put her in the right." To one of Sam- 
 son's speeches he cried out, " O the parson ! " He 
 thanked Robinson for making him acquainted with the 
 "Samson," saying, "It gives me a higher opinion of 
 Milton than I had before ; it lets me more into the nature 
 of his mind than any other of his works." To Zeeter he 
 wrote that " in Samson we acquire knowledge of a prede- 
 cessor of Lord Byron who is as grand and comprehensive 
 as Byron himself ; but then the successor is as vast and 
 wildly varied as the other appears simple and stately." 
 Again he said, that " he never before met with so perfect 
 an imitation of the antique in style and spirit " as in the 
 " Samson." He told Robinson that Schiller's rendering 
 of the witch-scenes in Macbeth was " detestable," — " but 
 that was his way. You must let every man have his own 
 character." Byron's " Deformed Transformed," which 
 
88 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 was really an imitation of Faust, was praised by Goethe, 
 who also said that Byron's verses on George IV. were the 
 sublime of hatred ; he felt and enjoyed all the impudence 
 of Byron's satire. 
 
 It was not strange that the young men of Europe and 
 America should fall under the sway of Byron's peculiar 
 genius, as they did for twenty or thirty years, but I have 
 always thought it singular that the aged and wise Goethe 
 should praise Byron so heartily. But he admired strength 
 and originality, and Byron, as Landor once said, was "as 
 strong as poison and as original as sin." I do not find that 
 Goethe had much to say of Landor, the man of all England 
 who most resembled him in some traits, and who valued 
 highly and early, for an Englishman, the greatness of 
 Goethe. In 1819, Southey wrote to Landor that a con- 
 tributor to the county paper had spoken of Landor in 
 "The Westmoreland Gazette" as the English poet who 
 most resembled Goethe ; adding, " I do not know enough 
 of Goethe to judge how far this assertion may be right." 
 Considering that Southey was the poet-laureate of Eng- 
 land, and Goethe then seventy years old, the remark 
 indicates how far apart were the two countries when 
 Carlyle began to unite them by his translations and essays. 
 Goethe from the first recognized the genius of his Scotch 
 admirer, and predicted for him some part of the fame 
 which Carlyle has since acquired. He did not live to see 
 the genius of Emerson begin to accomplish the same 
 regeneration for America which Goethe had inspired in 
 Germany ; and it was one of the regrets of the youthful 
 Emerson, when he made his first visit to Europe in 1833, 
 that Goethe had passed away before he could look on 
 that noble front and that princely bearing which for more 
 
Goethe's relation to English literature. 89 
 
 than half a century had made the name of poet and 
 scholar as august as those of kings and warriors. But 
 from the period of Carlyle and Emerson the relation 
 of Goethe to English and American literature has been 
 well-nigh as close as that of any except the foremost 
 writers in our own tongue. For a time that influence 
 seemed to be waning, but it has now begun to show itself 
 more actively, and nowhere than in America, not even in 
 his own Germany, will the newly-found writing of Goethe 
 be more heartily welcomed or more eagerly read. 
 
 discussion. 
 
 Prof. Hewitt : The subject of this delightful and 
 instructive lecture was Goethe and English literature. 
 I can not see that the author has made, primarily import- 
 ant, or assumed as a province of his subject, to trace the 
 current of Goethe's literature, either in England or 
 America ; a subject of the highest interest in determin- 
 ing Goethe's place in modern thought. It is necessary 
 for us, in order to form any accurate opinion of the 
 influence of German literature upon English literature, to 
 bear in mind how recent German literature itself is. I 
 mean by that the literature of to-day ; not that which is 
 held to date from Luther's translation of the New Testa- 
 ment ; but I mean the period of literature in which we 
 live, and which had a beginning with Lessing. Lessing 
 was born in 1729, and he is a pioneer, not only in litera- 
 ture but in thought. Lessing's greatest writings were 
 published after 1760. This being the case, we must 
 remember that we have only a little over one hundred 
 and twenty-five years in which it is possible for German 
 literature to have affected English literature. Now, the 
 
90 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 first acquaintance which the English made with the Ger- 
 man literature, was through the imperfect French 
 translations. This is especially true of Goethe's works ; 
 the earliest writings of Goethe were published as trans- 
 lated from the French. It shows that the English of that 
 period were unacquainted with German literature at its 
 fountain head, notwithstanding the intimate connection 
 which had always existed since the accession of the 
 Georges to the English throne. Now, Goethe was influ- 
 enced during this period, as was natural, by French 
 models, and French tastes. Germany was dominated at 
 that time by the French idea. Every little capital of 
 Germany was at that time a miniature model, both in 
 morals and in society, of the French court. Frederick 
 the Great, although as appears from Mr. Sanborn's 
 paper, he was vouchsafed a glimpse of the future of Ger- 
 man literature, had a contempt for it. We know that the 
 major part of the writings of Frederick the Great were 
 written in French ; which he wrote about as imperfectly 
 in expression and in spelling, as he wrote German. Now 
 it remained for Herder, during Goethe's stay in Stras- 
 burg, to first call his attention to the importance of 
 English literature. Herder was a pioneer in German 
 thought. He was one of the first to break away from the 
 trammels of the French school and to hold out to Ger- 
 man ideas the masterpieces of English literature. 
 Herder, it may be remembered, read to Goethe, the Vicar 
 of Wakefield. He also called his attention to the popular 
 poetry as the fountain of natural, spontaneous expression 
 of feeling and sentiment. He called his attention also 
 to the stories which existed in earlier German, which 
 might afford material for the dramatist and the poet. 
 
Goethe's relation to English literature. 91 
 
 We may rightly assume that Goethe's " Gotz von Ber- 
 lichingen " was an inspiration from the study of Shakes- 
 peare's plays; and I can not admit or agree with the 
 estimate which Mr. Sanborn places upon its value, 
 among Goethe's dramas. He says it is of little value, 
 when compared with other plays of Goethe. In rapid 
 passion and action, I think it has never been surpassed. 
 It has a fire which carries us away, far more than any 
 of the classical plays of the period. Now, among those 
 who were influenced by German literature, Walter Scott 
 was one of the first who was influenced directly by 
 Goethe ; and there are passages in his Marmion, the 
 scene of which is largely derived from Goethe's " Gotz 
 von Berlichingen." Burger was afterwards greatly in- 
 spired by those ballads of Scotch life and of English life. 
 Coming down later, it seems to me that Coleridge is the 
 one who drank most deeply at the fountain of German 
 literature. You will remember that he translated quite a 
 number of Schiller's plays ; he translated Wallanstein so 
 admirably that perhaps every subsequent attempt to ren- 
 der it has only shown the admirable merit of Coleridge's 
 rendering. In some parts his translation is paraphrase ; 
 but it has been alleged that certain portions of Cole- 
 ridge's version have been re-translated into the German, 
 and have become part of the original play. 
 
 Carlyle is largely instrumental in introducing English- 
 men to German literature ; and if you recall how recent 
 in this century are his criticisms of German poems and 
 German writers, you will see how recent is our acquaint- 
 ance with German literature. 
 
 Now, when did this stream of Goethe and of Ger- 
 man influence first affect America ? John Quincy Adams 
 
92 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 is one of the first Americans whom I recall at this 
 moment who was educated abroad ; his father being a 
 minister at several foreign ports. He studied at the uni- 
 versity of Leiden and elsewhere in Europe. I am not 
 aware that we can trace in his writings, any influence of 
 the great masterpieces of German literature ; but he was 
 followed by Bancroft, who studied at the university of 
 Goettingen ; by Ticknor, whose delightful letters are 
 familiar to you ; and by Dr. Hedge. Dr. Hedge went to 
 Germany with Bancroft, when I think he was only eleven 
 years old, and went to one of those famous schools which 
 existed in Saxony ; schools which you recollect were 
 founded for protestant instruction, and founded and sup- 
 ported by the revenues of the ancient cloisters and mon- 
 asteries. Many of the most eminent men of Germany 
 have graduated from these schools. I think no one has 
 drank more deeply and with a truer appreciation, at the 
 fountain of German literature, than Dr. Hedge. And 
 when you consider this, you must consider the influence 
 which flowed from him and from his contemporaries in 
 tracing that mood which bore the name of "transcenden- 
 tal mood" in this country. Frothingham and Furness 
 and Parke Godwin were others. Mr. Longfellow was 
 Ticknor's successor to the professorship at Harvard, 
 and when Longfellow published his " Poetry of North- 
 ern Europe," it came as a new revelation of the riches of 
 literature, not merely of Germany, but of Scandinavia. 
 About this time, if I mistake not, the first work from 
 German literature to enter the departments of thought 
 was translated. That is Neander's "Church History," 
 which was translated by Professor Joseph Torrey, of the 
 University of Vermont. 
 
GOETHE S RELATION TO ENGLISH LITERATURE. 93 
 
 Now, who were the intermediaries in England in intro- 
 ducing German Hterature to the English? Crabbe 
 Robinson has been mentioned in Mr. Sanborn's paper as 
 occupying an honored place ; and you find the little 
 references in Crabbe Robinson's diary have a vividness 
 in portraiture which is of extreme interest and value. 
 There was another, or two others, who worked together, 
 who were instrumental in turning the attention of English 
 thought to the sources of German literature ; and these 
 were Augustus Hare, who was also educated in Germany 
 when a boy, and Thirlwall, who was Bishop of St. David's 
 in England. They engaged jointly in the translation of 
 Niebuhr from the German into English. 
 
 Among the later writers, one of the most devoted 
 students of German literature has been Mr. Bayard Tay- 
 lor. And I should mention, also, as one of the truest 
 and most enthusiastic students of German literature, as 
 well as one of the finest and most felicitous translators, 
 Mr. C. T. Brooks, ot Newport, whose translation of the 
 first part of Faust preceded Mr. Taylor's, and was of such 
 excellence Mr. Taylor himself said he abandoned his 
 intention of carrying forward his translation when 
 Brooks' translation appeared. Now there is a great work 
 to do to follow out the line of thought suggested by this 
 paper. We should trace in Byron's " Cain " the influence 
 of Faust, and in Shelley's Prometheus the influence 
 of Goethe. Mr. Sanborn falls into a mistake which I 
 may call almost universal, in his comparison of Goethe to 
 Schiller, especially with reference to his moral character. 
 Schiller has always been regarded as the poet of purity, 
 and as of the worth of woman ; but his life was not 
 elevated above the life of so many of his time, as regards 
 
94 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 his social relations. Therefore, it is a historical mistake 
 to compare him with Goethe to the disadvantage of 
 Goethe. This broadening stream of influence is now so 
 vast that we are approaching the time of what the 
 Germans love to call a "world of literature." The 
 community of nations, the brotherhood of humanity is 
 making all people akin, and is giving us as common 
 property the valuable works of the human race. In this 
 advance we are losing somewhat of the individual, 
 national features, but we are gaining in breadth and in 
 united purpose ; all of which is a part of the grand 
 advance of humanity. 
 
 DISCUSSION. 
 
 Mr. James MacAlister : I want to say a word 
 about the influence of Goethe upon American literature, 
 in addition to what has been said by Professor Hewitt. 
 He indicated to you the genesis of that influence in a 
 manner that can not help but be of great value to you in 
 your further study of the subject. I want to emphasize 
 the mention of one name, and that is George Bancroft. 
 I presume you are all aware, as Professor Hewitt has told 
 you, he is one of the great German scholars in this 
 country ; but perhaps it has not occurred to you how 
 strongly his history of the United States is marked by the 
 German influence. If you will just compare some pages 
 of that history with the treatment of the same periods by 
 John Fisk (you have heard Mr. Fisk present the subject 
 to you orally ; and some of his lectures have appeared in 
 '' Harper's Monthly," and in a little volume called " Amer- 
 ican Political Ideas " ), you will see how different is the 
 standpoint from which these two gentlemen view Ameri- 
 
Goethe's relation to English literature. 95 
 
 can history. That standpoint is governed by the influences 
 which have controlled these n:;en in the treatment of the 
 subject; The history of Bancroft has epic qualities. It 
 is one of those books that will have a perennial value ; 
 not because it is so minute in its historical criticism ; 
 not because it covers the whole field as to the details of 
 American history, but it has the epic quality, as I say ; 
 and in hundreds of years from now it will be valuable 
 because it gives that poetic view of our earlier history that 
 you will find in no other authority. And that is due to the 
 influence of German literature ; probably Mr. Herder's 
 influence more directly than Goethe's ; but Goethe's spirit 
 is manifest in all his views of the great eternal principles 
 which underlie our history, and have controlled its destiny. 
 You remember Mr. Bancroft treats of history as an evo- 
 lution, controlled by great laws ; great universal spiritual 
 laws ; whereas, Mr. Fisk treats history by the comparing 
 method, as we call it now. He is a disciple of the school 
 of Dr. Ferner, which teaches that history causes and 
 produces results in a purely scientific method, and purely 
 scientific spirit. 
 
 I want to add, in addition to what Professor Hewitt 
 indicated to you — and his suggestions are very valuable 
 to my mind — that the influence of Goethe upon Ameri- 
 can literature has been of the same character as that 
 upon English literature ; and that is, that it has been 
 upon the spirit of our literature more than its form. 
 Now the Sentinel did a great service to this school, 
 and to the public generally, by publishing a translation 
 of the elegant essay of Edmund Sherer in their Sunday 
 issue. At the same time, I take advantage of this op- 
 portunity to caution you against using that as a meas- 
 
96 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 ure by which to judge of Goethe's value and position in 
 the world of literature and thought. Sherer is a French- 
 man , writes from a purely French standpoint ; and 
 weighs and gauges life and work more with relation to 
 its artistic characteristics than its intrinsic and real value. 
 You will remember, you who have looked into it, that he 
 criticises, very severely, the literary form of Goethe's 
 work. Now, perhaps I am stating it too strongly, but 
 my judgment is, that Goethe's influence upon both 
 American and English literature, as to form, has been 
 almost nil. It has been very slight indeed. The great 
 value that has come to England and America from him 
 has been upon the change in the spirit of our literature, 
 and of our thought as embodied in it. The Professor 
 had come right down to the point where, it seems to me, 
 the influence of Goethe, aside from the influence of 
 German literature as a whole, invades our thought, our 
 philosophy, our literature. He touched upon the first 
 American scholars of German literature. I would like to 
 add Richter's name, and Margaret Fuller's. Of course, 
 he named Emerson. And I want simply to say a word 
 there, before I sit down. No one can doubt that Emer- 
 son was largely influenced by Goethe ; and you will find 
 all through his works, through every essay and through 
 every poem, the influence of the two great principles 
 which Mr. Sanborn named as exercising this influence 
 upon English literature : the continuity of nature, and 
 force of spiritual power in human nature. 
 
 Let me say here, — and you will pardon me for play- 
 ing the schoolmaster for a moment, — I think this 
 audience could find no better introduction to the study of 
 Goethe, as a whole, than in the admirable essay of Mr. 
 
GOETHE'S RELATION TO ENGLISH LITERATURE. 97 
 
 Emerson on Goethe and the representative men ; no bet- 
 ter introduction for an audience such as this; a cultivated 
 audience, who make no special study of Goethe. You 
 will there see, of course, in every sentence, how manifest 
 is the influence of Goethe upon Emerson. But I must 
 insist^ here — and here I should be justified by my friend 
 Dr. Harris, in spite of his intense devotion to Goethe, 
 because I think it is only excelled by his devotion to the 
 memory of his friend Emerson, — that Emerson, of all 
 the men which this country has produced, is purely 
 American ; and very much in his thought, very much 
 in his philosophy, that goes for German, is pure Yankee. 
 The three great men which our literature has produced, 
 or life has produced, to my mind, are Benjamin Franklin, 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. These 
 three men embody more fully, than any other men, the 
 pure American spirit. Benjamin Franklin, the practical 
 side of American life ; the thrifty side ; the bread and 
 butter side ; and, on the other hand, Emerson and Haw- 
 thorne, the impersonation of the genius of the American 
 people in all its power and its sweetness ; and, as I say, 
 you will find, I think, on a very close investigation, while 
 fully admitting the influence of German literature, and 
 especially of Goethe, that there stands over and above 
 this influence the pure American thought, especially 
 New England thought. That, to my mind, is the main 
 point to be brought out in speaking of the influence 
 of Goethe upon American literature. 
 
 Before I sit down I would just call your attention, in 
 
 connection with this essay of Emerson, to an essay of 
 
 Carlyle, which you will find in his miscellaneous writings, 
 
 written in 1828. I think you will find, by reading that 
 
 7 
 
gS POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 essay, perhaps a more masterful statement of what 
 Goethe has done for England than you will in any other 
 writing. It is the first word spoken to England, by a 
 voice it could listen to, upon Goethe. It was published, 
 in 1828, in the Quarterly Review, unless I have forgot- 
 ten. You will there find, also, as strong and helpful 
 an estimate of Goethe, as a man and a writer, as in any 
 single production. 
 
 I wish I had time to have spoken of the influence 
 of Goethe more in detail upon English literature, and to 
 point out that it was through Carlyle, and going through 
 Carlyle has been upon the soul and upon the spirit of the 
 literature more than any other side. Tennyson, to my 
 mind, shows but little or no influence of Goethe or Ger- 
 man thought. And I would like to caution my audience, 
 while admitting fully what I said about Carlyle, yesterday, 
 and while stating to you that I do not underestimate the 
 man's spiritual force which he carried into English 
 thought and English literature from Goethe, the great 
 master as he called him, — to caution you against giving 
 too great a place to this influence in English literature. 
 We shall have to go back to Johnson (?). We shall have 
 to go back to Shakespeare. We shall have to go back to 
 Cowper and Wordsworth, as their influence has shaped, 
 to a very large extent, the contents and the quality of the 
 best English literature of this century. But through it 
 all, and above it all, we find this great spirit to which 
 Professor Hewitt alluded. This spirit of all-iaclusive- 
 ness : and which comes from the spiritual insight of this 
 man ; this spirit of depth which so characterizes the liter- 
 ature of Europe and America at our time is, to a very 
 large extent, the product of the writings, and especially 
 of the poetry, of the great poet of Germany. 
 
THE DIVINE COMEDY AND FAUST. 
 By Mrs. Caroline K. Sherman. 
 
 The age in which we live might be characterized by 
 an interrogation point. In every department of science, 
 philosophy and theology we are confronted with doubts 
 and questionings. Heinrich Heine, speaking of the 
 Middle Ages, said : " Men in those times had convic- 
 tions, now we have only opinions." Heine's now was 
 some fifty years ago. If he were living to-day he would 
 say : " We have not even opinions, we have only ques- 
 tions." The marvellous advance which modern science 
 has recently made, instead of satisfying our thirst for 
 positive knowledge, has, on the contrary, filled us with 
 unrest, despondenc}', and sometimes with despair. Not 
 a few have been tempted to look back with sorrowful 
 longing on the days of unquestioning faith, and sweet 
 though blind submission. 
 
 Our time, so rich in all that material success affords, 
 so fruitful in opening up new realms of thought and 
 investigation, yet fails to give the satisfaction it promised, 
 and fails most perhaps where it promised fairest. We 
 complain that with all our endeavor and boasted attain- 
 ment 
 
 " We have not gained a real height, 
 Nor are we nearer to the light, 
 Because the scale is infinite." 
 
 99 
 
lOO POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 A sorry pessimism or blank agnosticism is the first result 
 of man's effort to know all and dare all, and in spite of 
 our wonderful material prosperity, which, in a measure, 
 hides the true state of affairs, the fact remains that our 
 age is a period of doubt, if not of absolute denial. 
 
 All this has come upon us with startling rapidity and 
 surprise. Scarcely a generation ago and the word Agnos- 
 tic would have had no meaning for us, while doubters 
 and skeptics were so few that we passed them .by in holy 
 horror, or silently prayed for them. How different to- 
 day, when the very air is rife with the spirit that denies, 
 and then questions the denial. 
 
 Yet all this was anticipated a century ago in Ger- 
 many by the great Immanuel Kant, who met these 
 philosophic and religious doubts, grappling them with a 
 strength worthy of gods rather than of men, and paving 
 the way for Schelling and Hegel, who dispelled them 
 with positive affirmations, and gave the most satisfactory 
 solution to the problems of our time. 
 
 And this we find to be everywhere and always the 
 special work of the philosopher, that he brings order out 
 of confusion, dispels anarchy and lawlessness from the 
 world of thought, and resolves all contradictions into a 
 higher harmony ; while the vocation of the philosopher 
 and the poet differ only in this, that the one solves the 
 difficult problems of life in dry logical abstractions, while 
 the other gives his answers in beautiful sensuous forms. 
 The students of philosophy and the lovers of poetry can 
 each say with Margaret : " Our priest says the same 
 thing, only in different Vords.'' 
 
 Goethe, no less than Kant and Hegel, foresaw the per- 
 plexing questions of our time, Instead of meeting them, 
 
THE DIVINE COMEDY AND FAUST. lOI 
 
 however, with a critique of pure reason or work on logic, 
 he gives us Faust, the representative poem of our time. 
 For, like Faust, our age is full of doubts and question- 
 ings. And it is like Faust, also, in this respect that it 
 can not rest satisfied with doubts. It demands, at least, 
 an approximate solution of the significance of life and its 
 manifold phenomena. 
 
 I do not mean to imply that the questions of to-day 
 are wholly new, for many of them are fundamental ques- 
 tions that must recur in every generation, but they thrust 
 themselves with new and wider significance under new 
 and enlarged conditions. The meaning of life, of God, 
 of freedom, is much broader in the nineteenth than it was 
 in the thirteenth century. The answer that was satisfac- 
 tory then fails to meet the needs of to-day. The Medie- 
 val Period had its fixed beliefs in theology, science and 
 philosophy. For questions asked there was the prompt 
 answer formulated with concise definiteness, and back of 
 all was the infallible authority of the Catholic Church. 
 There was no mistaking the right way. It was laid out 
 with exact precision. Any deviation would have been the 
 result of willful obstinacy, not of ignorance. " Man errs 
 so long as he strives," is the expression of modern senti- 
 ment, not of Mediaeval. The surrender of self and 
 individual will to the will of God, as revealed through the 
 church, relieved the individual at that time of further 
 responsibility. Implicit obedience was the way of salva- 
 tion, and salvation from sin was the highest significance 
 of life during the Middle Ages. As Faust is the repre- 
 sentative poem of modern times, so the Divine Comedy 
 is an exact picture of Mediseval life in all its aspects. 
 The Divine Comedy has the narrow limitations, the 
 
102 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 dogmatic reasonings, the tendency to other worldliness 
 which characterized that period. Its traditional concep- 
 tions of God, Heaven and Hell, which to the modern 
 idea are gratuitous and bigoted, represent, with singular 
 exactness, the honest, conscientious views prevailing at 
 that time. 
 
 We are sometimes inclined to censure Dante, that with 
 all his genius he should have condescended in any wise 
 to the dwarfing superstitions of his time, that with all his 
 respect for the sapient throng and his knowledge of Soc- 
 rates and Plato, and especially of Aristotle, " Master of 
 those who know," he was still fettered by the narrow 
 theology of a ruder period, and that, too, some twelve 
 hundred years after Jesus of Nazareth had given a better 
 dispensation ; but no man can wholly escape the limita- 
 tions of his time, and Dante could not have represented 
 so fully the age in which he lived if he had not been in 
 accord with its inmost spirit. He might have reflected 
 its external, reproduced its salient features with minute 
 exactness and given us an historical poem, but this would 
 have been no representative poem. It would not have 
 voiced, as the Divine Comedy does, the latent aspiration 
 and striving of a people who, even in their failures, give 
 evidence of a noble purpose. Dante is himself Mediaeval 
 as his poem is Medieval. He looked in his own heart 
 and wrote. His poem is no chance work, such as a Lope 
 de Vega might have written off hand. The writing of it 
 made him lean for many a year, he tells us, for it was 
 born of the travail of his soul, just as that other poem 
 Faust was wrought out of the sixty years of Goethe's 
 manifold experience. 
 
 At first glance there seems to be little in these two 
 
THE DIVINE COMEDY AND FAUST. I03 
 
 poems, The Divine Comedy and Faust, that suggests 
 parallels or contrasts. The one, with its scene of action 
 transferred to the next world, has about it an awful sense 
 of eternity ; the other is vital with worldly life, bent on 
 realizing to the full all that this life has to bestow. In 
 the one, the deeds of men are stripped of all complexity, 
 and are seen simply in relation to their final result, either 
 good or bad. In the other, there is the tangled web of 
 life, and the confused relation of sin with happiness, and 
 of innocence with misery. In the one we find every- 
 where the stern moralist, preaching with scathing words 
 the retribution of sin ; in the other, the man of the world 
 portraying all the seductions of sin, and never a word of 
 condemnation. 
 
 The one advocating self-abnegation, that the soul, 
 emptied of self, may be filled with God ; the other advo- 
 cating self-development and not hesitating to use even 
 the powers of darkness to gain that end. 
 
 Such, viewed on the surface, are the main differences 
 between The Divine Comedy and Faust, and a hasty ver- 
 dict would be that The Divine Comedy is in the highest 
 degree rigidly moral, but decidedly narrow and bigoted in 
 its religious ideas. On the whole, superannuated and not 
 at all adapted to the needs of to-day. While of Faust it is 
 argued that it has the lax morality of modern times — the 
 tendency to pessimism and agnosticism — a little of 
 Christian sentiment is introduced by way of poetic effect, 
 and a good deal of blind, tedious allegory, that may 
 mean something or nothing, just as the reader chooses. 
 In other words, where the book is not positively perni- 
 cious, it is decidedly dull. 
 
 Hasty comment like this obtains ready currency, for 
 
I04 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 it is inuch easier to condemn works of art than to esti- 
 mate them correctly. To pronounce their worthlessness 
 is but the work of a moment ; to enter into a full appre- 
 ciation of their merits may require years of study. This 
 does not, however, imply any lack of clearness on the 
 part of the writer, or dullness on the part of the reader. 
 Both Dante and Goethe embody the learning and culture 
 of their time. Physics, Metaphysics, Art, Society, Reli- 
 gion, scarcely anything pertaining to man was foreign to 
 them, and they have enriched their thought and expres- 
 sion from all these sources, and no reader can expect to 
 come into possession of that thought without somewhat 
 of the same intellectual activity. 
 
 Yet it may be asked, " Why use so much symbolism 
 and phantasmagoria ? Why not speak a plain, straightfor- 
 ward language ? Both Dante and Goethe use metaphor 
 and allegory so extravagantly as to hide rather than reveal 
 the thought." 
 
 There is that which poetry and symbolism convey 
 which transcends the limits of prose, just as music 
 expresses that which is too fine to be put into any mate- 
 rial grosser than air. The language of Dante's Paradise 
 is almost the language of music. I do not mean because 
 of any vague uncertainty, for Dante is never uncertain. 
 It is like music in that it expresses what is deepest and 
 highest in the soul of man, and which ordinary phrase- 
 ology would fail to express. So, too, in Faust — the 
 wealth of imagery is the wealth of thought — a word 
 stands for a volume — a name for a philosophic system. 
 
 We have spoken of these two poems as giving voice 
 to the deepest thought and highest aspiration of the 
 respective periods in which they were written — that is of 
 
THE DIVINE COMEDY AND FAUST. I05 
 
 the thirteenth and of the nineteenth centuries ; and that 
 the poems do not differ so much in the character of the 
 problems to be solved, as in the nature of the conditions 
 given to work out that solution. What is the chief end 
 of man? the meaning of man? the meaning of God? the 
 relation of man to God, and of God to man ? 
 
 These were the vital questions of the thirteenth as of 
 the nineteenth centuries. The same old questions that 
 have been handed down through the ages, and the 
 answer which Goethe gives does not differ essentially 
 from the answer which Dante gives ; that is to say, both 
 Goethe and Dante find the essential requisite of man's 
 nature to be freedom — freedom from sin. Man is not 
 himself when he is the slave of sin. He is truly himself 
 only when he has subordinated the lower to the higher 
 nature — gained possession of self by the conquest of 
 self. 
 
 So The Divme Comedy portrays the Mediaeval idea of 
 the process of the soul from sin to holiness, from death 
 to life, hell to heaven. And Faust gives the same process 
 according to the modern idea, of the soul making its way 
 from Fate to Freedom, from a narrrow individual selfish- 
 ness to the larger spiritual life that is one with man and 
 God. 
 
 As we all know, the conditions under which these two 
 poems were written yvere widely different. In Dante's 
 time the religious element, if not all in all, was at any rate 
 the dominant force. Art then flourished as its hand- 
 maid, philosophy thiived simply to give it logical 
 strength. Science, as yet, was not disposed to lift up any 
 contradictory voice, and all the learning of the time was 
 made subservient to its purpose. Even the wars and 
 
lo6 POETRV AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 violent strifes at that time were carried on chiefly in the 
 name of religion. It is little wonder, then, that the scene 
 of Dante's poem is shifted to the next world rather than 
 this ; that everything is viewed from a moral and reli- 
 gious standpoint, and that life should signify a prepara- 
 tion for death. 
 
 But what a moral and religious standpoint was that of 
 Dante ! And what kind of a preparation for death was 
 that which, to him, was the all important work of life ! 
 It was no easy-going, psalm-singing, penitential march. 
 No formal religion, devoid of morality and self-sacrifice 
 — nor was it an arbitrary, enforced system of discipline, 
 contrary to reason and at war with the best interests of 
 human welfare. More than all things else it signified to 
 Dante a self-purification — purification from sin. Dante 
 was inexorable in his denunciation of sin. He preached 
 as no other moralist has ever done, the revolting, disgust- 
 ing nature of sin. Other preachers may use abstract 
 terms, or cover the loathsomeness with figurative lan- 
 guage ; but Dante exposes it in all its vileness. He will 
 make men see it as it is, that they may sicken at the sight 
 of it. Other moralists may attempt to lure men from sin 
 by rich promises of future good, or by showing the ills 
 that follow wrong doing, but no one like Dante has 
 shown the withering curse of sin as such. I know of 
 nothing in all literature that expresses the blighting 
 nature of sin as that passage in the Inferno, where Dante 
 meets Capaneus, one of the Seven before Thebes. Capa- 
 neus is in the circle where the blasphemous are punished, 
 tormented with flakes of fire that are eternally showered 
 upon them ; but the insolent spirit so far from being sub- 
 dued is, if possible, still more defiant, and Dante sees in 
 
THE DIVINE COMEDY AND FAUST. I07 
 
 this fact, that his insolent spirit is still unchecked, a far 
 greater source of torment than the fiery rain to which he 
 is exposed. 
 
 Dante says to Virgil : 
 
 " ' Master 
 Who is that mighty one who seems to heed not 
 The fire, and lieth lowering and disdainful, 
 So that the rain seems not to ripen him ?' 
 And he himself, who had become aware 
 That I was questioning my guide about him. 
 Cried, ' Such as I was living, am I dead. 
 If you should weary out his smithy, from whom 
 He seized in anger the sharp thunderbolt. 
 Wherewith upon the last day I was smitten. 
 And if he wearied out by turns the others. 
 And shot his bolts at me with all his might. 
 He would not have thereby a sweet revenge.' 
 Then did my Leader speak with such great force 
 That I had never heard him speak so loud, 
 ' O Capaneus, in that is not extinguished 
 Thine arrogance, thou punished art the more. 
 Not any torments, saving thine own rage. 
 Would be unto thy fury pain complete.' " 
 
 Nor was this intense hatred of sin, which Dante every- 
 where manifests, expressed in a wholesale denunciation 
 of sin in general, without regard to any particular sin. 
 Dante never warred with abstractions. He denounces 
 the sins of the flesh, calling them by name, and giving 
 bold illustrations. So, too, of the sins of the intellect and 
 of the will, giving to these last, as they deserve, far greater 
 punishment than the first — unlike the later idea, as 
 expressed by Jonathan Edwards, who shows no discrim- 
 ination, but makes all sins, even the least, deserving of 
 the greatest punishment. In point of justice this falls far 
 below the Mediaeval idea. 
 
Io8 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 This intense hatred of sin, so pronounced in Dante, 
 was by no means peculiar to him. It is characteristic of 
 his time, notwithstanding the depravity which is every- 
 where so conspicuous. 
 
 We know well the weakness and corruption of the 
 time — the avarice, greed and licentiousness of the 
 priests and popes. There was abundance to condemn in 
 the church, as well as out of it. This is only too evident 
 and to be condoned ; but we can never know of the 
 internal conflicts, the lusts of the flesh that were subdued, 
 the passions that were quelled and the temptations over- 
 come. Removed, as these people were, by only a few 
 centuries from a half-civilized ancestry, the instincts 
 and unsubdued passions of a warlike people still survived 
 in them, and in serious conflict with the religion they 
 professed to accept. What wonder, then, that there were 
 failures and glaring incongruities ; the greater wonder is 
 the long list of those who gained the mastery— men like 
 St. Francis of Assissi, St. Paulo, and many another saint, 
 who wrestled with self as with demons, till spirit tri- 
 umphed over flesh. Well might Ozaman say: "If the 
 Middle Ages had the misfortune to know sin, it had the 
 merit of hating it." 
 
 Hatred of sin implies love of righteousness — love of 
 truth, and we find the soul that is emptied of self filled 
 with desire for God as the supreme good. What, then, 
 was Dante's conception of God ; or, in other words, what 
 was the highest Medieval conception of God ? We know 
 that the masses with childish faith worshipped as the 
 church prescribed — the church looking upon blind sub- 
 mission as far safer than that each man should be guided 
 by his own ignorance. The masses then reflected only 
 
THE DIVINE COMEDY AND FAUST. I09 
 
 very crudely the profound philosophic thought which 
 entered as constituent part of the Christian religion, and 
 especially of the conception of God. For just previous 
 to Dante's time there had been a great awakening in 
 philosophic thought and study. Men were turning to 
 Plato and Aristotle, as also to other Greek and Roman 
 philosophers, finding new and brilliant truths, and that, 
 too, supported by a logic and dialectic that seemed 
 invincible, so that the simple affirmations of Christianity 
 looked pale and weak in comparison. 
 
 Many pious souls were alarmed lest the new philos- 
 ophy should do violence to religion, just as to-day many 
 pious souls are apprehensive lest modern science and its 
 proud array of unquestionable facts shall do violence to 
 religion ; but there were many others, with far keener 
 insight, who saw that true religion and true philosophy 
 must, of necessity, be one, and that the wisdom of Plato 
 and Aristotle, as also their logic and dialectic, must be 
 converted to the use of the church. The consequence 
 was that at no period of the world's history has there 
 been closer intellectual combats over fundamental ques- 
 tions. 
 
 It is true that these combats were carried on chiefly 
 with a theological bias, though often, perhaps, uncon- 
 sciously ; for the doctors of the church were themselves 
 subject to authority, as were the ignorant below them. 
 The modern idea so epigrammatically stated by Lucretia 
 Mott, "Truth for Authority, not Authority for Truth," 
 was not comprehended by them. They did not see that 
 the Truth, which should make men free, must itself be 
 free. This explains in great measure the limitations we 
 find in The Divine Comedy, and especially the vain 
 
no POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 endeavors to fit the larger truth of religion into the nar- 
 rower theology of the time. 
 
 They who know Dante only by these limitations 
 accuse him of bigotry and of worshipping a God of Ven- 
 geance, who will have mercy on whom He will have 
 mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth. It is even 
 alleged that Dante, by force of his great genius, is 
 responsible for transmitting to our time the barbarous 
 conceptions of God so repugnant to the modern idea, 
 which, above all things, demands that the Judge of all 
 the earth shall be a righteous judge. They read Dante 
 to little purpose who see in these limitations the limits of 
 Dante's deepest thought. It is true that Dante does not 
 conceive of God as admitting the heathen to the joys 
 of heaven ; and, as I read Dante, there is no escape for 
 the sinners in the Inferno. Their torment is eternal. 
 We may attempt to give milder constructions to these 
 disagreeable statements, but, read in the light of the 
 scholastics and fathers, who were Dante's teachers, there 
 is little reason to question but that, on these points, 
 Dante meant just what he said. Doubtless it was as dif- 
 ficult for Dante as for us to reconcile, what seem to be 
 hard facts, with the goodness of God ; but where evi- 
 dence failed, Dante had recourse to faith, and, come 
 what might, Dante did not question the goodness of 
 God. This recourse to faith on the part of Dante is not 
 unlike the tendency of our modern scientists, who have 
 the obstinately hard facts of nature to deal with, — facts 
 which are about as difficult to reconcile with the good- 
 ness of God as were many of the dogmas handed down 
 by the Church. The scientist may refuse to admit the 
 existence of evil spirits, but he has to admit the existence 
 
THE DIVINE COMEDY AND FAUST. Ill 
 
 of evil. He may ignore Augustine and Calvin, but he 
 can not ignore the apparently unjust law of heredity, 
 which visits the sins of the fathers upon the innocent 
 children, or the awful doctrine of the survival of the 
 fittest, which by no means signifies survival of the best. 
 In this extremity the tendency of the scientist is, like 
 Dante, to have recourse to faith — to a " supreme act 
 of faith in the reasonableness of God's work." This 
 faith, in the reasonableness of God's work, is as rational 
 as that other faith of the scientist in the universality 
 of law and order in the physical world, or, as Professor 
 Royce expresses it, in a negative form, " Whoever aban- 
 dons the fundamental postulate of religion, viz., that 
 universal goodness is somehow at the heart of things, 
 then he ought consistently to cease from the fundamental 
 postulate of science, viz., that universal order - loving 
 reason is somehow the truth of things." 
 
 Dante's faith was not a childish naive trust accepted in 
 blind submission. It proceeded from inmost conviction. 
 It was the faith of the experienced, thoughtful man, who 
 made all possible use of reason, and when that came 
 short, rested with calm security on the authority of 
 the Church. 
 
 The special theological bias of the Divine Comedy is, 
 however, an unimportant, accidental part of the poem, 
 and by no means invalidates for us its moral and spiritual 
 worth. There never was a more profound or exalted 
 conception of God's justice, wisdom and love than that 
 expressed in the Divine Comedy. This is seen even in 
 the awful inscription over the gate of Hell, which 
 declares that it was supreme wisdom and primeval love 
 which impelled Divine power to create the Inferno — a 
 
112 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 place where men shall receive, to the full, the punishment 
 of their evil deeds. Revolting as this idea is to the shal- 
 low Optimist, who would have God's free pardon ignore 
 all man's weakness, it is fully in accord with the healthiest 
 moral sentiment which recognizes justice and even mercy 
 in the fact of the evil deed returning upon the transgres- 
 sor, compelling him through bitter agony to repentance 
 and self-purification. We have no reason to accuse 
 Dante of harshness in his agonizing pictures of the 
 Inferno and Purgatory. They are not drawn from his 
 imagination. They are taken from nature ; for no soul 
 can bound from sin to holiness. The upward course is 
 painful and slow, and the weight of sin is heavy, as every 
 one will testify who has ever attempted to rid his soul of 
 any besetting sin. It is only through purgatory or puri- 
 fication from sin that man can arrive at his true self, can 
 reach that height where duty and pleasure are one, that 
 is, at moral freedom, which means the freedom to do 
 right and to' enjoy the right, and by no means signifies 
 the lawlessness of individual caprice. 
 
 It is the freedom of being in accord with man and 
 God, in harmony with all that is, and this ultimate 
 harmony of the individual with the universal, or of man 
 with God, is with Dante the supreme destiny of man. 
 This is the burden of the Paradiso. Its full significance 
 is not open to the light of every-day experience. Only in 
 chance moments of rare spiritual insight can the soul 
 apprehend that glory which Dante saw when his vision 
 "lost not itself in vastness nor in height, but compre- 
 hended joy in all its fulness." In words that will not 
 admit of translation or separation from the context, 
 Dante has told how the perpetual thirst for that realm 
 
THE DIVINE COMEDY AND FAUST. II3 
 
 deiform did bear him on ; how he kept himself within the 
 Divine Will, which will is our peace — of the Eternal 
 Light that, only seen, enkindles love — -of the intelligence 
 profound, which, being untasted, is never comprehended; 
 and, finally, concluding the Paradiso with a metaphor 
 which, as Antonelli says, is a paragon of simplicity and 
 profound thought, showing in the regenerate soul the 
 perfect harmony of desire and will, of the heart and intel- 
 lect, of the lower and higher nature of man, and all in 
 harmony with the will of God, which is Eternal Love — 
 the love which impels the sun, the stars, together with 
 all the angelic host. 
 
 The Divine Comedy has been called an Epos of the 
 Soul, and Faust has been called A Soul Drama. In the 
 former, we have the calm narrative which reports the 
 soul as making a straight, upward course from the realm 
 of sensuality and sin to the life that is one with God. In 
 the latter, we have the confused, intricate plot of the 
 drama, perplexing mysteries, hard to unravel as is 
 life itself. As in the epos of primitive times, the gods 
 and fate are conceived as continually taking part in the 
 affairs of men, either to aid or thwart ; so, in the Divine 
 Comedy, there is continual recognition of supernat- 
 ural aid. 
 
 Divine Mercy comes to the rescue of the soul that 
 is deep in sin. Ministering angels lighten the way and 
 Divine Grace supplies the defects of human weakness. 
 In Faust, on the contrary, as in the modern drama, there 
 is no superhuman agency, for Mephistopheles is, as 
 every one can see, no power outside of Faust. It is the 
 demon within him — the lower self which he must 
 conquer and make subservient to the higher self — while 
 
114 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 all the witchcraft spirits of earth, air, etc., are only sym- 
 bols of so many forces in nature, or circumstances in the 
 life of man. 
 
 Goethe has happily chosen the form of the modern 
 drama for his Faust, inasmuch as he is to deal with the 
 problem of man and his relation to his fellow-man and to 
 God, independent of any will of God as revealed in the 
 Scriptures. He will treat the question in a purely scien- 
 tific and philosophic way. Dante rested satisfied with 
 tradition and authority, but Goethe asks the question, 
 which so many are asking in our time, " What, apart 
 from the authority of revelation are man's obligations to 
 himself, to his fellow-man and to God ? What is the des- 
 tiny of man, and in what consists his highest good ? " The 
 questions are solved after the modern scientific method 
 by Faust's own experience. Faust is compelled to work 
 out his own salvation, and to learn, by slow processes, 
 painful endeavors, repeated failures and glad successes, 
 what his true destiny is, and in what true beatitude con- 
 sists. 
 
 Faust, as every man, has two natures, each struggling 
 for possession. One clings persistently to the earth and 
 is of the earth earthy — the other aspires with "sacred 
 vehemence to purer spheres and fuller yieldings." 
 Hence, the dramatic collision — a collision which occurs 
 in every human life — the conflict with sin and tempta- 
 tion — the antagonism of nature and spirit, freedom and 
 necessity. With either nature alone^ animal or angel, — 
 man had doubtless gotten on very well. Mephisto says 
 to the Lord, 
 
 " Better he might have fared, poor wight 
 Hadst thou riot giver; bin} a gleam of heavenly light j " 
 
THE DIVINE COMEDY AND FAUST. II5 
 
 or, if the angelic nature alone were his, and existence 
 meant simply the glad contemplation of nature's perfec- 
 tions, then life would have been the easy flow of uninter- 
 rupted calm. 
 
 Both these thoughts come involuntarily to the mind of 
 man when he is painfully conscious of the contradictions 
 in his own nature, and while he revolts perhaps at the 
 idea of being pure animal, the thought suggests itself that 
 it would have been very easy for an Omnipotent God to 
 have created him holy from the start, and without 
 temptation to sin. If the objection be presented that 
 this would destroy man's freedom, the answer perhaps 
 comes, " I care nothing for freedom if I may have holi- 
 ness," or, as Huxley has so pointedly stated it, " I protest 
 that, if some great power would agree to make me always 
 think what is true and do what is right on condition of 
 being turned into a sort of clock and wound up every 
 morning before I got out of bed, I should instantly close 
 with the offer. The only freedom I care about is the 
 freedom to do right ; the freedom to do wrong I am 
 ready to part with on the cheapest terms to any one who 
 will take it of me." 
 
 But the question is not what man would have prefer- 
 red, or what God might have easily done, — Goethe 
 wastes no time in fruitless speculation. He takes the 
 facts of existence as they are, not as we might dream 
 them to be. He deals with man as he is, with the double 
 nature, one which aspires to heaven, the other clings to 
 earth. He carries him through the varied experiences of 
 life, compels him to work out his own salvation, earn his 
 own happiness and to acquire freedom only by daily 
 Striving after it. No easy task as any one will admit, 
 
Il6 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 who has ever tried it — a repetition of Dante's purga- 
 torial pains, only in another form. 
 
 For the composing of such a drama Goethe was 
 preeminently fit, both by nature and experience. With 
 all his gifts as poet, he had also the keen, practical sense 
 that is quick to discern the necessary adaptation of means 
 to ends. With all his ready intuition, he was the patient 
 toiler in every field of investigation. With his eagle-eye 
 fixed on the All, he saw none the less the minutest detail. 
 No question of art, philosophy, or science failed to interest 
 him. The latest phases of modern thought, which are 
 surprising us to-day, were anticipated by him. Stores of 
 wealth from all these sources were brought to enrich his 
 poem, as also that kind of culture which makes for char- 
 acter, and which means clearness of thought, firmness of 
 purpose, and purity of feeling. His life experience, too, is 
 there ; for Goethe was man not angel. He had the weak- 
 ness as well as the strength of a man. The gods did not 
 lift him over the dusty highways, or make for him an 
 easy, upward path. He, too, like the rest of mortals, had 
 to gain possession of self by the conquest of self, — had 
 to learn wisdom from painful experience. Sweet sins 
 were alluring and attractive to him as to other mortals, 
 resistance was no easier. The devious course of his own 
 life is seen in that of Faust, but there is also the same 
 upward aspiration. He retains his " Consciousness of 
 right even in the dire grasp of ill," and like Faust comes 
 off conqueror. 
 
 Faust, as. Goethe represents him, is the cultured man 
 of modern times. He has reached that point of attain- 
 ment, made sooner or later by the modern scholar and 
 thinker when he learns that the result of all his efforts to 
 
THE DIVINE COMEDY AND FAUST. II7 
 
 know is simply to know that he knows nothing — a senti- 
 ment that was frequently expressed by Socrates some four 
 hundred years B. C, but with quite another meaning. 
 Socrates only intended to convince his hearers of the nar- 
 row limits of the human understanding, as also to assume 
 an attitude of ignorance, in order to receive truth without 
 prejudice — a very different attitude from that of Faust, 
 the modern skeptic, as Goethe introduces him, who 
 denies the possibility of knowledge — that is, denies 
 man's ability to come to the knowledge of pure truth — a 
 knowledge of God, of freedom and immortality ; denies 
 the possibility of knowing his relation to God, and conse- 
 quently his obligations to God. Denying any obligation 
 to God, he has no ground of obligation to his fellow man, 
 and duty becomes nothing but an abstraction. Even 
 nature, whose secrets he had hoped to gain, he finds to 
 be a wondrous show ; but, alas, nothing but a show — 
 relativity everywhere, not the reality which he craves and 
 which alone can satisfy. Thrown back on himself, he 
 finds that he knows nothing of self, knows no more of 
 self than he does of God, or of nature or duty. This 
 dreary agnosticism leads Faust to pessimism, and we see 
 the man who once, with untiring zeal, had thought to 
 know all and dare all, now crushed with disappointment 
 and despair. He had aspired to be as gods. He finds 
 himself humbled as an earthworm, feeding on dust, and 
 like the earthworm, liable to be crushed at any moment 
 by any passing chance. It is no use to lament the fate. 
 A wail of agony elicits no pity. What joy comes is 
 merely an illusion. Tasted, it palls on the appetite. 
 Every phase of life looked at squarely is seen to be only 
 a continual transition from desire to disappointment. 
 
Il8 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 Even the aspirations which Faust had declared to be the 
 soul's genuine life, when analyzed, are found to be noth- 
 ing but the consciousness of limitation, want, pain. 
 
 It will be seen that this pessimism of Faust is no 
 passing melancholy that will vanish with the morning 
 sunshine — no impatient outburst because of a series of 
 disappointments that might well have been otherwise. 
 Neither is it the hasty verdict of the worldling giving his 
 testimony that all is vanity. It is the scholarly pessimism 
 of our time, deep-rooted and far spreading. It is the 
 conclusion, reached after honest effort, careful investiga- 
 tion and close reasoning. It may not be manifest on the 
 surface, for the sage pessimist will not increase the 
 world's misery by obtruding his individual grief, nor is he 
 so stupid as to cry aloud over the inevitable, but in 
 his heart is the utter hopelessness of gaining anything 
 that is really worth striving after. For, if he can not 
 arrive at a knowledge of truth, of duty, of the significance 
 of life, the meaning of pain and the value of discipline, 
 what is there then to make life worth living ? 
 
 Like Schopenhauer, he sees that progress brings with 
 it only a clearer consciousness of the misery of existence 
 and the illusion of happiness. He begins to look with 
 envy upon inferior grades of mind, who do not push 
 beyond externals, and who still cherish the belief that 
 things are what they seem — just as Faust half envied the 
 Philistine Wagner, who found heaven let down in dusty 
 parchments. Faust says to Wagner : " One impulse 
 thou art conscious of at best. Oh ! never seek to know 
 another." 
 
 And again, when he is alone, thinking of Wagner, 
 Faust says : 
 
THE DIVINE COMEDY AND FAUST. I19 
 
 " How he alone is ne'er bereft of hope 
 "Who clings to tasteless trash with zeal untired, 
 Who doth with greedy hand for treasure grope, 
 And finding earthworms is with joy inspired." 
 
 Of course, if life is not worth living, the next thought 
 is death, suicide, and we find the despairing Faust, who 
 sees no ground of obligation to God, or duty to his fellow 
 man, ready to welcome death as the only relief for the 
 ills of existence, and yet, even at this point, something 
 holds him to life. The hope that "springs eternal in the 
 human breast " makes him hesitate over the final act. 
 The soul can not hold to absolute negation. " Despair is 
 never quite despair.'' 
 
 Already in the Prologue in Heaven we have had the 
 hint thrown out that man has in his own breast the con- 
 sciousness of right, a consciousness that will persist, come 
 what may in the form of evil, and in the end will be 
 triumphant. That is to say, Goethe considers this agnos- 
 ticism and pessimism by no means final, only a transient 
 phase of thought that will lead to a conviction worth the 
 more for the severe test to which it has been put. Faust 
 will eventually come to an assurance of the reality of hap- 
 piness, truth and God. The struggle will be long and 
 hazardpus, for he is to have no superhuman aid, but must 
 do as best he can with natural means, and the dim 
 consciousness of right that is within his own breast. 
 
 The scholarly Faust is, of course, not ignorant of the 
 Bible and the light which that offers. He prizes espe- 
 cially the beauty and simplicity of the New Testament, 
 and in his yearning for positive truth he turns with strong 
 impulse to the Sacred Volume, which has been light and 
 joy to countless multitudes. His will is good to rest on 
 
120 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 this as authority ; but, alas ! beUef does not depend on 
 L'he will, and Faust can not accept the Scriptures as infal- 
 lible authority simply because he would like to have 
 them infallible. He knows, furthermore, that even were 
 they infallible, he must bring his own intelligence to 
 bear upon their interpretation, and that his intellect is by 
 no means infallible. 
 
 He is puzzled now quite as much as before, and his 
 conclusion is, that even the truth of scripture can be 
 known to be true only as it harmonizes with the truth of 
 human experience — that is to say, Goethe will have 
 Faust solve the problem as to the meaning of man and of 
 his final destiny without any supernatural aid, or any 
 explanation of the problem as given in the Scriptures. 
 
 Loathing, as Faust does in his present condition, every 
 kind of knowledge, and finding no satisfaction, either out- 
 side of himself or within himself, he decides to escape 
 all this dreariness of life by plunging into the depths of 
 sensual pleasure. He does not aim at happiness, for he has 
 already proved that happiness, like everything else, is a 
 delusion. His only craving is an excitement that may 
 help him to forget self. Hitherto he has kept aloof from 
 humanity, shut up in his study, living a recluse in his own 
 thoughts. Now he decides that he will give up his lofty 
 aspirations, and will accept the lot of ordinary mortals. 
 He will share their weal and woe, will bare his breast to 
 every human pang, will dilate his mind to that of the 
 common mass, and finally will share with them the gen- 
 eral shipwreck of mankind. 
 
 This rash decision, made in despair, is not without a 
 certain tendency in the right direction. There is here a 
 vague presentiment of the way of happiness, and that it 
 
THE DIVINE COMEDY AND FAUST. 121 
 
 lies, if anywhere, in sympathizing with humanity rather 
 than ignoring it. 
 
 This vague presentiment is but another echo of the 
 key note of the Faust Drama as given in the Prologue in 
 Heaven. 
 
 " A good man, in the direful grasp of ill, 
 His consciousness of right retaineth still." 
 
 It is true that his only thought is of self, and to be rid 
 of self, and he comes in contact with humanity at first 
 only on the sinful side, as this offers most illusion and 
 self-intoxication. The degraded form of sin, however, 
 fails to attract him. He is man as well as animal, and 
 purely animal gratifications soon become repulsive. He 
 has an instinct for something higher — a love of purity, 
 beauty and goodness, and these in the person of Mar- 
 garet will lead hira upward and onward ; but the progress 
 will be varied and slow, for it is always by the rugged 
 path of experience, and not the glorious superhuman way, 
 that Dante was borne from star to star by the radiant 
 light of Beatrice's eyes. 
 
 At first, in his relation with Margaret, Faust is half- 
 beguiled into the thought that now he has found 
 happiness ; that here is the satisfaction which his soul 
 had craved. A sweet sense of intoxication overpowers 
 him. In the excess of feeling he reels from craving to 
 enjoyment, and in enjoyment he languishes for desire. 
 Hardly conscious of what he is saying, he is ready to call 
 this delirium of feeling the glow of Heaven — the highest 
 satisfaction possible to the human soul. In a burst of 
 passion he exclaims, 
 
 " Call it bliss, heart, love, God !" 
 
122 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 This sensual pleasure does not afford the gratification 
 it promised, and Faust, when he comes to himself, will find 
 that it not only proves fatal to the happiness of the indi- 
 vidual, but destructive to the family relation and the 
 welfare of society. No such demoniac, self-destroying 
 power, then, as this, can be recognized as God and 
 acknowledged as supreme. The God to whom allegiance 
 shall be paid must not destroy, but promote the well- 
 being of humanity, and the life that shall be worth living 
 must be one that brings happiness, not pain, to the indi- 
 vidual. 
 
 Taught by this painful experience, Faust goes on his 
 weary way. In spite of himself he must solve the pro- 
 blem as to the meaning of life, and give a satisfactory 
 answer to the question : " Is happiness possible ? and, if 
 so, in what does true beatitude consist?" He has 
 proved that it is not to be found on the plane of selfish 
 gratification, and this is a long step forward. He has 
 learned that his own well-being is dependent on the well- 
 being of others, and that his own pleasure can never be 
 purchased at the expense of another. 
 
 Without entering into the various kinds of experience 
 by which Goethe makes his hero try, now one form of 
 enjoyment, now another, it is sufficient to say that Faust 
 goes on struggling, advancing, retreating, learning by 
 repeated failures, as well as glad successes, the direction 
 in which true happiness lies. With only a dim presenti- 
 ment of the right he gropes his way, continually coming 
 more and more into accord with the noblest sentiments 
 of humanity. Giving up gradually that individual self- 
 seeking which must necessarily end in a despairing 
 pessimism, he merges his own interests in the happiness 
 
THE DIVINE COMEDY AND FAUST. 123 
 
 of all mankind. Finally, he knows no individual will 
 apart from the highest well-being of the race. Then he 
 has solved his problem, for his soul has found the satis- 
 faction it craved — a harmony with the All. He has 
 learned the true significance of life — that man lives for 
 man, and that only so far as he comes into harmony with 
 the truest instincts of humanity can he fulfil his destiny 
 and find his own well-being. 
 
 This universal harmony, which is the glad consumma- 
 tion of Faust, is not unlike that other grand harmony 
 with which Dante closes the Paradise : " A harmony of 
 desire and ivill, of the heart and intellect, of the lower 
 and higher nature of man, and all in harmony with the 
 will of God which is eternal love." 
 
 There is no further need of asking the question, what 
 is God, or where is he ? What Faust had despaired of as 
 unknowable when he peered through the heavens in the 
 night watches has now become a reality in his own soul 
 
 The conclusion reached by Goethe, that man lives for 
 man and truly finds himself only by losing himself, is 
 nothing new. Jesus said the same thing eighteen centur- 
 ies ago, only in different words. " He that loseth his life 
 for my sake shall find it." Dante, resting on reason as 
 well as the authority of revelation, came to the same con- 
 clusion. Goethe, without divine inspiration or the 
 authority of revelation, proceeded by the experimental 
 method and gave his answer in words that fit the thought 
 of to-day. The three harmonize — Jesus, Dante and 
 Goethe, as inspiration, revelation and experience must 
 always harmonize. 
 
124 POETRY AND PHILOSOPav Of GOKTHE, 
 
 DISCUSSION. 
 
 Mr. James MacAlister : It is with some reluct- 
 ance that I say anything upon the admirable paper which 
 has just been read by Mrs. Sherman ; but as the few 
 remarks which I have to offer lie upon the surface of the 
 discussion, perhaps I had better present them now. All 
 I can hope to do is to put you in the right attitude to 
 what I may call the external history and criticism of the 
 Divine Comedy and Faust. Perhaps these two literary 
 works more fully represent their epochs than any others 
 which could be named. The Divine Comedy closes the 
 mediseval age. The thought, the feeling, the aspiration, 
 the achievements of this period are all summed up in it. 
 It also opens the modern age. Dante is the first Euro- 
 pean writer who looks forward into the future. After 
 him comes Petrarch, and Boccaccio, and the Renascence, 
 out of which grow the literature, the art, the philosophy, 
 the life of modern times. 
 
 In like manner, Goethe's Faust puts into permanent 
 form one of the legends which embodied some of the 
 most important aspects of thought and life in Germany 
 for centuries ; while, at the same time, the poem 
 expresses that desire for higher and better things which 
 characterizes the times in which Goethe lived. Goethe 
 stands between the formalism of the eighteenth century 
 and the spiritual freedom of the present age. So, also, 
 the culture of his time is more fully expressed in Faust 
 and some of his other works than in the writings of any of 
 his contemporaries. I would not be understood as 
 straining after any forced resemblance between Goethe 
 and Dante. No two great rnen could be more unlike, 
 
THE DIVINE COMEDY AND FAUST. 1 25 
 
 both in their personality and their work ; but each is the 
 supreme literary representative of his epoch, and must 
 stand for it for all time. 
 
 Another suggestion respecting these poems occurs to 
 me ; and that is, how strongly they represent the per- 
 sonality of their authors. All good literary work is the 
 expression of the heart and soul of its producer. That 
 is what makes a great poem. The only enduring litera- 
 ture is that which comes from the depth of the soul, from 
 the genuine experience of the heart. There is some- 
 thing to be gained, I think, from regarding the Divine 
 Comedy and Faust from this standpoint. What a con- 
 trast there is between Dante and Goethe in this respect ! 
 Dante was a most austere man. For him there was no 
 charm in life. It was the fault of his time and country ; 
 but his character suffered from the social and political 
 conditions amid which he lived, and his poem reflects 
 the limitations of his personal experience and personal 
 characteristics. On the contrary, we find Goethe to be 
 the complete representative of human nature in all its 
 fulness. His view of life is that completeness can only 
 be gained by cultivating every power and faculty of 
 man's being ; that man's experience should be limited 
 only by his capacity for improvement ; that man's happi- 
 ness is widened and deepened by the influences which 
 flow in upon him from every side of life and nature. It 
 is not surprising, therefore, to find every feeling of the 
 heart, every aspiration of the soul, embodied in Faust. 
 In conclusion, may I venture to offer a single word of 
 advice. In reading the Divine Comedy, do not stop 
 with the first canto ; in reading Faust, do not be satisfied 
 with the first part. It is a very great mistake, and, may I 
 
126 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 venture to say, a very common one, with even cultivated 
 readers, to rest contented with so much of these poems. 
 The benefits to be derived from the Purgatory and the 
 Paradiso of the Divine Comedy, and from the second 
 part of Faust, are so great, that it is worth any amount 
 of effort to read them, and to learn to appreciate them. 
 They contain a wealth of culture that can not be got 
 from the first portions. One can never say that one 
 knows Dante or Goethe who has not read the whole 
 of these works. The ability to understand and enjoy the 
 complete poems is a good test of the depth and extent of 
 our mental culture. There is nothing, to my mind, that 
 is more striking about Carlyle than the fact that he was 
 able to admire, with equal intensity, both Dante and 
 Goethe. There is nothing which indicates more fully the 
 breadth of his culture and points out his supreme 
 position in the literature of the present century, than the 
 fact that in his catholicity of mind and sympathy he was 
 able to place a higher value upon both of these great 
 writers than any other critic or thinker of his time. 
 
 Prof. W. T. Harris: After the excellent remarks 
 we have just heard from Mr. MacAlister, I want to share 
 in full the same reverence that he has expressed for the 
 greatness of Carlyle ; though not to follow out the line 
 he has so well traversed. I desire to add a word or two 
 on a parallel topic ; something else which was suggested 
 to me by the excellent lecture of Mrs. Sherman this 
 • morning. You recollect that in the course of the essay, 
 she had occasion to quote, for condemnation, a statement 
 of Huxley, that he would willingly give up freedom if he 
 could only get a perfect knowledge of truth. If he could 
 have his mind, as it were, screwed up in a vice, or in 
 
THE DIVINE COMEDY AND FAUST. I27 
 
 some way or other made to run iu grooves on the track 
 of truth, — if he could be made to perform a mental 
 function in some sort of automatic, mechanical manner, 
 and thus know truth, he would be content. For my part, 
 I should not value truth without freedom. I admire 
 exceedingly the insight of Dante into freedom. I believe 
 that of all men who ever lived on the face of this earth, 
 the vision of freedom was the clearest to Dante. Looking 
 up towards the heights of the universe, towards those ulti- 
 mate pre-suppositions of the existing fact which lies before 
 us in this world, he saw the nature of God as infinite 
 creative power, infinite self-activity, and therefore perfect 
 freedom ; and that perfect freedom not finite freedom, 
 but infinite freedom, seeing that God is love ; not love in 
 any passional sense, but that He is love in the sense of 
 the highest wisdom and power. Dante says, at the begin- 
 ning of his great poem, as he comes down to the entrance 
 of that terrible region, the Inferno, that he sees over the 
 gate of it, "Leave all hope, ye that enter." But he sees, 
 also, the words : " Highest wisdom made me ; Supreme 
 Power and Primal Love." Not only wisdom made me, 
 but Love. And he sees that Infinite Power, infinite 
 wisdom and infinite love are the same ; that they consti- 
 tute in their unity infinite freedom ; that the greatest fact 
 in this universe is freedom ; that mere matter, mere 
 external existence, time and space, is nothing except as it 
 is the condition of freedom ; the condition of the devel- 
 opment of freedom. Out, therefore, of the bosom of 
 Nature, up toward the summit of this universe, rises 
 continually what is unfolded into the individual, the 
 immortal soul ; the soul of you ; of me ; the finite soul ; 
 struggling upward ; but with the image of Qod upon it. 
 
128 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 Here is free will. Whatever this will does, it does itself. 
 If it sins, it puts itself, by the very act of sin, into the 
 atmosphere of the Inferno. What does that mean ? 
 And how is it that Dante says that Divine Love maae 
 Hell, which, " before all created things — (that is to say, 
 with the beginning of created things) — exists and eter- 
 nally shall endure." In what sense does the Inferno 
 have that eternal existence ? 
 
 In the sense, I reply, that God is not, as the Oriental 
 peoples claim, a formless God ; the God of pure being — 
 the Brahma of India ; pure nothing — -the Nirwana of the 
 Buddhists ; without any qualities, marks or attributes, no 
 consciousness — no me, no finitudes in it; to get rid 
 of finitude it has no qualities at all, and therefore no per- 
 sonality. You have heard it said, by the persons who 
 take the Oriental view — even the modern Theosophists 
 ■ — -that God has no personality, for to affirm his per- 
 sonality is to limit him, make Him a finite being. That 
 is the view of the Orient, but not of the Occident ; not 
 the view of Europe, nor is it the view of the Hebrew 
 civilization. You may say that the Hebrew nation is 
 charged with the revelation of the idea of God as Person 
 — instead of being formless He is infinite form. There 
 is such a thing as infinite form, and what is that ? Self- 
 activity, self-limitation, self-determination. Its infinite 
 form contains the element of formlessness, united to the 
 element of finite form, and the whole is perfect form 
 made by itself. That is self activity. The entire history 
 of human culture turns on that fact. All Orientalism 
 halts at the idea of the formless God ; all Occidentalism 
 asserts that God is infinite form and infinite personality. 
 Now Dante, seeing deeply and clearly, looks upon this 
 
THE DIVINE COMEDY AND TAUST. 1 29 
 
 true God as the Creator. The creative God does not 
 live in his eternal loneliness by himself, but makes crea- 
 tures, finite beings. What for? He wishes to see his re- 
 flection growing up out of the abyss of nothing; a creation 
 growing from the inorganic to the organic, from plant to 
 animal, crowned with man, to see this go on throughout 
 the entire process of the earth — the sole object of it all 
 is to create an individual soul which is immortal and per- 
 sonal, and knows itself, and therefore has come into the 
 image of the Divine, of God ; and has ascended, from 
 that which is under foot, which is mere matter, mere 
 externality and inorganic being, that does not move 
 itself, up towards freedom and self-movement. 
 
 God sees his reflection in this pure freedom. There- 
 fore he sees and rejoices in a universe that is growing 
 towards individual being; individual free beings that may 
 forever realize the divine in themselves. And what is 
 attained by doing that? You have holiness. Because 
 holiness itself is nothing but the flower and blossom of 
 perfect freedom. 
 
 On the other hand, when one arrives at the first step 
 of freedom, at the capacity for realizing the image of 
 God, and immortal consciousness, there is a possibility 
 that he will turn aside, and instead of forming himself in 
 the image of the Divine, he will form himself in the 
 image of inorganic matter and mere finitude. Mere fini- 
 tude is exclusion, limitation. What the rest of the 
 universe is, this is not, and what this is, the rest of 
 the universe is not. You see there is limitation ; there is 
 finitude. And God is not that. Freedom enables a 
 being to look outward, and make for himself, within his 
 mind, the determinations of all the rest of the universe, 
 9 
 
130 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 and thus to take up into himself, by culture, all other 
 beings and their productions, so that it cancels its finitude 
 of seclusion. While matter excludes, mind thus includes. 
 Suppose, however, that man puts on the form of external 
 matter and limits himself in that way, then he makes 
 himself exclusive, and instead of uniting by that Divine 
 synthesis within himself, the universe, he becomes selfish 
 and exclusive, and hates the rest of the world. God, 
 while He does not see His image in matter, but rather 
 sees that it is the opposite of Himself, allows it to be 
 only because it is a condition of making beings into His 
 image. It is created and sustained only for what may 
 come from it. When He sees a soul put on the form 
 of matter, and become exclusive, and hate. His attitude, 
 in the symbolic language of religion, is called the self- 
 sacrifice of God, His descent into the form of humanity. 
 His pain and suffering. His agony at hearing this fini- 
 tude, and holding it up. 
 
 Therefore, at the beginning of the Inferno, Dante 
 finds this doctrine, that Divine love upholds the Inferno. 
 If God's hand did not hold up the Inferno, it would not 
 exist ; its own contradiction would destroy it. And so, 
 if God did not uphold the sinner, the person who puts on 
 the form of matter and exclusion instead of putting on 
 the form of spirit, down he would go into annihilation. 
 But Dante sees that the soul, once coming into the divine 
 form, can come to no annihilation, it can only put itself 
 under the form of matter or of selfish exclusion, instead of 
 choosing its true form, that of spiritual life, which is the 
 participation, the taking up of all other being into itself. 
 The sinner can only see that exclusion and limitation 
 coming back upon himself in the form of pain ; and this 
 
THE DIVINE COMEDY AND FAUST. I31 
 
 soul that has arrived at the consciousness of pain has 
 begun to see the effect of its deed coming back upon it 
 in the form of an Inferno. And Dante, looking down 
 into the human soul as no poet has ever done before 
 or since, with regard to this matter of the will, sees that 
 there are three conditions, three attitudes of the will 
 towards the universe. The first attitude, that of the 
 Inferno, wherein the individual, instead of taking on the 
 form of love, that is, the form of the acceptance of 
 others, of participation in this life, and of recognition of 
 his own form in others, does not recognize his being in 
 others, but assumes the attitude towards them which is 
 implied in one of the seven mortal sins. There is lust, 
 gluttony or avarice; there is, fourthly, the sin of indo- 
 lence or slothfulness ; then there is anger ; and sixth 
 and seventh, the sin of envy and the sin of pride. He sees 
 precisely what constitutes these sins. Not because some- 
 body has willed them to be sins ; not because somebody 
 has arbitrarily forbidden them or placed them on a list of 
 sins ; but they are sins, because they prevent this indi- 
 vidual, who is not in the form of God, from achieving 
 the form of God in himself. They contradict his essen- 
 tial being — they limit his freedom. The limitation 
 makes him less able to see God, and less able to realize 
 God in himself. Therefore the Ihferno. 
 
 There is the sin of incontinency, including lust, glut- 
 tony, avarice and anger, that come as a limitation upon 
 the rational soul. And Dante shows us their effects 
 in these symbolic forms. The angry person, for instance, 
 how can he unite with his fellow-men.? How can he 
 recognize his large self ? He has two selves ; a little, 
 small self, the John or James, the little individual, and 
 
132 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 the large self of all humanity. He can not recognize his 
 higher self when he is angry against his fellow-men. 
 Dante pictures the angry man as sunk in a muddy pool. 
 Thick mud fills the eyes of his soul ; the angry soul can 
 not see the world of nature or the world of human 
 society when it is angry. 
 
 You will remember, in the' region of lust, there is 
 seen a long line of souls, like a flock of starlings flying 
 through the air, who were driven by a tremendous wind, 
 the wind of a lustful passion. They could not determine 
 themselves as rational beings, but they were swept away 
 by the appetites of the flesh, and all spiritual freedom 
 overthrown. 
 
 In the hell of gluttony, there were persons lying on 
 the ground and beat upon by a pitiless rain ; a rain of 
 water fell on them, and the ravenous beast, Cerberus, tore 
 them piecemeal. In this we have symbolized the results 
 of gluttony and intemperance, gout, delirium tremens 
 and dyspepsia. Their sufferings and inconvenience are 
 portrayed by these vivid images. When you come to 
 the place where envy is punished, you will find ten 
 ditches extending around the Inferno in which the ten 
 different kinds of fraud are punished. Envy is not pun- 
 ished directly as such, but it has ten different species of 
 fraud that it produces, and these are punished. What 
 wonderful symbolic work we find there, in studying the 
 kinds of fraud. One of the most striking symbols is the 
 punishment of those who foretold the future — the sooth- 
 sayers ; those persons who wished to draw away the veil 
 that hidesi from us the book of fate, and look into the 
 future. Some persons there are who would like to be 
 told what will happen to-morrow to them, and next week, 
 
THE DIVINE COMEDY AND FAUST. I33 
 
 and so on. What does Dante do with this class of 
 people who tell fortunes or have their fortunes told ? 
 He has their heads twisted around, piteously shedding 
 tears and looking to the rearwards, they walk backwards 
 always. Doleful people, they go slowly along through 
 this region, figuring exactly the spiritual state of mind of 
 fortune-tellers in this life. Those who suppose that they 
 foresee the future, turn the future into a " fact accom- 
 plished," as the French express it. They have turned 
 all the future into a past ; and this results in simply a 
 paralysis of the will. 
 
 When you look forward to the future and feel that 
 you possess the potency and energy by which you can 
 change what you are to-day, which is limited and defect- 
 ive, and that you can bring your soul into the image of 
 the god-like when you look upon the world as plastic to 
 your power, or will, then you are in a healthy, rational, 
 sane condition. But when you look upon the future as a 
 fact accomplished, it is done, and you can not change it ; 
 fate has determined it to be so. Will is no longer will ; it 
 is useless. It is the annihilation of that will. You see 
 Dante's wonderful insight into freedom in that figure. 
 All human life is turned into a past for the soothsayer. 
 His head is twisted around, looking back. He can no 
 longer look forward and guide his steps. 
 
 Pride, Dante thinks, is the lowest of the mortal sins, 
 envy next to the lowest. Why is pride the lowest ? I was 
 much struck by Mr. MacAlister's remark about Aphro- 
 dite. Dante saw in lust the limitation of the soul, which 
 arises from giving up to the fitful gusts of passion. But 
 he saw, also, the deeper depth of pride, which we Anglo- 
 Saxon people, of all the people in the world, think to be 
 
134 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 the least. Those who speak the Anglo-Saxon language 
 are fain to place pride among the most venial of sins, 
 and Aphrodite among the lowest and most deadly. The 
 German would not do this ; nor the Frenchman. No 
 European, except the English, would do it ; no Oriental 
 people would place pride above lust. Dante says that 
 the sins of incontinence, all of them, affect the individual 
 more than they strike against society, although they all 
 strike against society in a greater or less degree, and 
 have no right to be placed among the mortal sins unless 
 they do. The sins of incontinence are less harmful to 
 human society. But Dante sees that envy, with its ten 
 different kinds of fraud, attacks the bond that binds the 
 individual to society and makes society possible as a 
 whole. He sees, therefore, that this greater self of man 
 which exists for the individual in the form of the social 
 whole is undermined by means of fraud. Therefore he 
 puts fraud away down towards the bottom of the Inferno, 
 and he puts pride below it. Why pride below it ? While 
 envy says " I wish to deprive you of your good ; I wish 
 to have it myself ; I don't want you, but I want your 
 good," pride says " I don't wish you or your good, 
 either. I don't wish any reflection of my being in 
 another. I don't wish any reflection at all to come back 
 to me from the rest of mankind." That is far deeper. 
 Pride wishes to have nothing from others. Therefore 
 pride isolates itself and withdraws itself into that frozen 
 lake, Cocytus, at the bottom of the Inferno, because the 
 proud have no relation to the individual or the race. All 
 is isolated and frozen. I am not going to dwell on other 
 points ; the other attitudes of the human freedom. The 
 first attitude, that in which man as individual excludes 
 
THE DIVINE COMEDY AND FAUST. 13S 
 
 himself as society and produces an Inferno for liimself; 
 the second one, in which he feels that pain is the effect of 
 his deed, and his punishment becomes purgatory. In 
 the very essential nature of things, when a sinner discov- 
 ers that he is the cause of his own hell, when he sees that 
 in this frozen lake he is chilled by his own icy atmosphere 
 of pride, freezing him as it comes back from the rest of 
 the universe — when he sees it is coming back upon him 
 and preventing him getting the good of his greater self 
 by making avast abyss between him and it — when he 
 sees and comes to knov? this as truth, he says to himself 
 I have held a mistaken view of the universe ; this is all 
 wrong ; I repent of it, and the punishment and the pain 
 that comes to me I shall see as my own deed, and I am 
 glad of it. I am glad to have the pain. If some divine 
 being could benumb me in such a way that I could not 
 feel the pain of this, he would inflict a worse punishment 
 upon me ; he would destroy me ; he would drop me 
 forever from his hand instead of holding me in his hand. 
 I now see that God has been holding me in his hand all 
 the time, although his hand has burned me or frozen me. 
 His hand burns me because I rebel against my true 
 being, but he holds me in his loving grasp notwithstand- 
 ing. When the sinner sees this he welcomes pain as the 
 evidence that he himself, as an individual, is not allowed 
 to slip away from the guardianship of the divine being 
 into annihilation ; not allowed to drop into the depths of 
 nothingness but is held in the hands of God and is made 
 independent and responsible ; is made to live in relation 
 to his fellow-man, so that his deeds may be reflected 
 back upon him. He now loves his pain ; he sees how 
 that pain is the Divine blessing, a messenger of God sent 
 
136 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE 
 
 to him, in that it gives to him the means whereby he can 
 purify himself, and that he can use his freedom to ascend 
 into hohness and likeness to God. 
 
 He has now come into purgatory. Every punish- 
 ment that could possibly come to him now is a m?ans of 
 help ; it is God's hand reaching down to him in the form 
 of pain, and he can lift himself up by it. This plan, 
 therefore, he cherishes. You remember that Dante, in 
 describing those fires on the terrace of Purgatory, where 
 lust is purged away, represents the souls as keeping in 
 the flames, although he says that the heat of molten glass 
 is nothing compared with them ; notes the fact that the 
 souls are careful to keep within the flame, because they 
 love the purging of this fire. 
 
 A being in the Inferno with this freedom may change 
 himself into purgatory if he only gets an insight into the 
 fact that all his pain arises from his acts coming back 
 upon himself ; that he has a greater self ; that this pain 
 he has is the means of purifying himself. On another 
 terrace we are shown the punishment of envy ; the sin- 
 ners, through envy, have their eyelids sewn up with wire. 
 Envy prevents them from seeing the good of others. So 
 they proceed, each one's hands on the shoulders of the 
 next, instead of in mutual repulsion as in the Inferno. In 
 the Inferno they were each striking against the rest and 
 wishing only evil to come upon a fellow-man. In purga- 
 tory they see exactly what their sin means ; they see that 
 the eyes are sewn up with an iron thread by envy, and 
 they must correct this envious habit ; each one, there- 
 fore, puts his hands upon the shoulders of his fellow-man 
 and is supported in that way. 
 
 What is the form of the human will in the Paradiso ? 
 
THE DIVINE COMEDY AND FAUST. 137 
 
 The form of holiness, and therefore the form of perfect 
 freedom? No freedom without that ; no hoHness without 
 freedom. When the individual has learned the laws of 
 the universe, or as Mr. Brockmeyer expressed it, " when 
 he has found the walls of the universe and respects them, 
 so that his deed is made to be constructive with the 
 whole," when his deed is constructive with the whole, so 
 that what he does helps forward all the good, the total 
 good of the human race, then he has got into the 
 Paradiso. All the forms which belong constructively with 
 the whole, bind one individual with his fellow-man, with 
 the race, with the institutions of civilization, so that his 
 acts become institutional, then he comes into the Paradiso 
 because he sees his deed reinforced by the total positive 
 deed of humanity. All deeds done under the form of 
 righteousness, holiness, and the law of freedom, namely, 
 to choose the good of others, to mediate oneself through 
 the good of others, realize the form of the Paradiso, and 
 the soul rejoices because it finds its deed made infinitely 
 efficient. One man with God is a majority, said a noted 
 preacher. And if man feels that the whole universe rein- 
 forces his deed, he feels that his deed is successful, and 
 it is the only substantial thing in the world. Therefore, 
 in going up to the Paradiso, we pass through the circle 
 of the moon and that of the sun, up beyond the fixed 
 stars and into the empyrean where they see the vision of 
 the Trinity, the vision of God as the Creator, not God as 
 a formless entity, not even God as a mighty light, but 
 God as having in some way, says Dante, our own form ; 
 that is, the form of personality. 
 
MYTHOLOGY OF THE SECOND PART OF 
 FAUST. 
 
 By Prof. Denton J. Snider. 
 
 In the Second Part of " Faust," Mythology becomes 
 universal, both in its form and in its meaning. The 
 poem contains not a single Mythology of one time or 
 of one people, or a single mythus thereof, but has the 
 emphatic tendency to weave into its texture all Mytholo- 
 gies, of the most different times and peoples. But it 
 employs not Mythology alone ; it has also symbol, alle- 
 gory, personification, even down to the riddle, yet each 
 springs up in its own place and takes its part in the 
 grand poetical cosmos. Besides these multitudinous 
 forms transmitted to him, the poet frequently constructs 
 a Mythology of his own, at first hand from Nature, going 
 back to the original mythical fountain of the world, and 
 making it pour forth again its primal treasures. The first 
 myth-making faculty of the primitive race and the last 
 flower of human culture bloom here, side by side, or 
 rather they grow together into one colossal new product, 
 the oldest and newest mythical gift of man united into a 
 world-embracing poem. 
 
 The chief Mythologies of this poem are the Greek 
 and Teutonic, or Classic and Romantic. These have had 
 and still have the main influence upon the hearts and 
 imaginations of men ; they indicate also great epochs in 
 the World's History ; they still represent phases of indi- 
 vidual development, and remain its best poetic expression. 
 
 138 
 
MYTHOLOGY OF THE SECOND PART OF FAUST. 139 
 
 Faust is primarily the bearer of the Teutonic mythus, 
 upon which the classic mythus is to be engrafted, the 
 process of which takes place in this poem as it took place 
 in history, and as it takes place to a greater or less extent 
 in the culture of every individual. A reconstruction of 
 the world's development we have here in a new mythical 
 form, though its materials be old ; the mythus of all 
 culture it is, which unites the streams of the great 
 Mythologies into its own mighty mythical river, and thus 
 rises to the proportions of the World's Mythus. 
 
 But in these heathen elements of the poem we must 
 not forget the Christian Mythology, which is here too, 
 and is everywhere, playing into the work. The legends 
 of the Church take their place in the poet's whole, which 
 winds up in the supreme religious mythus, that of the 
 future state. Then the Devil, whose mythical origin is 
 directly deduced from Christianity in the poem itself, is 
 always present, and runs through the entire action with 
 his problem. By means of these Biblical influences a 
 Semitic thread is woven through the poem, in indissolu- 
 ble intimacy with its dominant Aryan elements. 
 
 The Second Part opens with the fairy Mythology 
 drawn out of Shakespeare, but modeled anew the poet 
 constructs a new order of mythus, or a mythologem, 
 such as Homunculus of Romantic, and Euphorion of 
 Classic, fable. Allegory undisguised steps in, as seen in 
 the Boy Charioteer ; then the poem speaks in abstract 
 personification, as in Hope, Fear, Prudence ; Symbols 
 cunningly constructed and bearing deep meanings move 
 through the picture, as we observe in that wonderful Ele- 
 phant of the Masquerade. Again the verse flows into 
 plain narrative. Showing its sense on the surface, or 
 
140 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 under the most transparent covering ; often it breaks into 
 an apothegm or proverb, or turns to abstract reflection. 
 Even Philosophy with its most abstruse forms is present, 
 as we can observe in the scene of the Mothers ; Religion, 
 too, is on hand, with its legends, and festivals and sym- 
 bols, as we have already noticed. What a broad 
 sympathy, whit a universal culture is demanded of the 
 reader of this poem ! Too great have been the demands 
 on this and on the poet's own generation ; the result 
 is, his work has not been understood. 
 
 And now we must fully comprehend the relation of 
 the poet to the mythus which he unfolds. Goethe is no 
 longer the myth-maker in the primitive sense ; he has 
 not the naive faith of early peoples who recount in mythi- 
 cal form supernatural wonders. He does not believe, 
 and he would not have his readers believe, in the literal 
 raising of treasures out of the earth, in the literal trans- 
 mutation of the base into the precious metals. The 
 ancient story of Helen he tells again ; but not with the 
 immediate faith of old Homer ; we feel that he has 
 another meaning, that there is an element of intention, of 
 conscious mythologizing which belongs to a new spiritual 
 time. Hence there is a loss of instinctive utterance, 
 of beautiful poetic childhood, but manhood, too, must 
 have its mythus, and Goethe is its best spokesman. 
 Accordingly there is a gain more than compensating for 
 the loss , indeed the old mythus can not mean much 
 to us, till it be transfigured into its modern form. 
 
 For instance, treasures are raised out of the earth by 
 the plow, by the various methods of agriculture. The 
 baser metals are transmuted into gold in mining and 
 manufacture ; the iron and copper flow into a golden 
 
MYTHOLOGY OF THE SECOND PART OF FAUST. I41 
 
 Stream by Industry. Thus the old magic ana alchemy are 
 transformed into the Mythus of Industry, of which they 
 are indeed the early half-articulate harbingers. We must 
 always feel this second intention in the mythical work 
 of Goethe ; the first intention of the simple legend has 
 long since passed away. In this second sense Goethe 
 believed in the mythus, and we believe in it for it is the 
 great reality before pur eyes. The interpreter, whose 
 only function is to help the reader do without an inter- 
 preter, has, for his brief duty, the task of pointing out 
 the second intention above noticed, as it unfolds out of 
 the old mythus into the new. 
 
 The attitudes of the mind toward the mythus, as 
 toward religion, are, in the main, three : ist. The time 
 of unquestioning credence, when the miraculous element 
 finds no mental obstacle. 2d. The time of doubt and 
 denial, when miracle, legend, and religion are regarded 
 as false, or largely as mere superstition. 3d. The time of 
 return to faith, not to the primal unconscious one, but 
 now to a conscious one, which sees the truth of the early 
 belief, yet sees, too, its imperfect form, which caused the 
 denial. Goethe, in this Second Part of " Faust," essen- 
 tially takes this third standpoint, rescuing for the cultured 
 world the mythus and restoring the same to a new faith, 
 which again becomes fresh in our hearts. He asks us 
 no longer to accept the literal word, but to probe to the 
 inner spirit; in fact, he rebuilds the mythus in accord 
 with this spirit, and wins it back from its long banish- 
 ment amid the realms of darkness. 
 
 To illustrate our meaning still further, let us take one 
 of the few mythical lines of American poetry ; it is writ- 
 
142 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 ten by Emerson upon the fight at Concord, in which the 
 embattled farmers stood, 
 
 And fired the shot heard round the world. 
 
 This line is not a mere image or poetic figure, but a little 
 national mythus, in which lies embosomed the meaning 
 of the American Revolution to the world. Yet Emerson 
 did not believe, nor expect us to believe, that there was 
 any gun whose report could be heard over the globe. 
 The particular fact of that shot is a lie, not credited by 
 any American, however great his patriotism ; but the 
 universal fact of it is truth, profoundly believed by every 
 American, and, indeed, by every thinking man. It is 
 clear that, unless we reach down to this universal fact, 
 we lose the poetry, and the line becomes not only prose 
 but a falsehood. The poet is consciously mythologizing 
 right out of the heart of his time ; no Greek or Teutonic 
 fable is this, but the most modern, the very mythus of 
 gunpowder, which is here made universal, the bearer 
 of an idea, so that its report is heard round the world. 
 An ideal report is this certainly, yet the truth and the 
 sole truth of the matter ; the rest is a lie. But it is easy 
 to comprehend a single line of this kind, we know ; what 
 if we have thousands of lines and a whole mythical 
 system, which seems all false and unintelligible, till we 
 behold the truth of it under its disguise ? 
 
 In some such way we are to study Goethe's mythical 
 procedure, for we may be sure that he is not simply nar- 
 rating a pretty story to amuse his reader. If the poet 
 has nothing better to do than that, let his book be burnt, 
 for it can not mean anything to an earnest man. Far 
 Otherwise is its lesson, as we gather it ; the poenj 
 
MYTHOLOGY OF THE SECOND PART OF FAUST. I43 
 
 preaches the deed and not amusement ; its object is to 
 fill, not to kill time ; and a part of its own heroic deed is 
 to read it. But why should the poet thus hide his mean- 
 ing under such a veil, why does he not speak out 
 plainly ? Reader, he does not hide it, it hides itself, if it 
 be hidden to thee ; whether it be hidden or not, depends 
 upon the vigor of thy eye-sight. All things spiritual 
 have a material time-garment, which may hide them to 
 some, but in reality is that which reveals them. The 
 mythus takes this little story or occurrence, a mere shell 
 of Time, hollow, even false, and fills it with an eternal 
 thing ; it transfigures the appearance, the lie, into truth. 
 Moreover, it corrects our material age by pointing to a 
 Beyond, and by excluding from its poetic sanctuary the 
 denier of spirit. 
 
 The connection between the First and Second Parts 
 of the poem is specially maintained in the two leading 
 characters, the natural and the supernatural, Faust and 
 Mephisto, representing the two great strands which are 
 wound together into the one work. The mythus of the 
 old Faust-books and puppet-plays is continued in the 
 Second Part, and adhered to even more rigidly than in 
 the First Part. For the mythus has to be given to 
 the poet by his people, he can not make it, though he be 
 the first to unfold it into its full significance. 
 
 The wonderful doings of Faust at the court of the 
 German Emperor, as they are transmitted in legend, are 
 the grand frame-work of this entire Second Part. That 
 is, Faust passes from his individual, domestic and social 
 sphere, in which he has been detained hitherto, into the 
 State, a higher institution, passes from a lesser into " the 
 greater world." This political setting will hold all of 
 
144 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 Faust's activity till the last scenes, when the religious 
 world enters, and the State with its Present yields to the 
 Church with its Future. 
 
 These miraculous doings of Faust at court may be 
 divided into four chief actions : the making of money, 
 the bringing of Helen, the winning of a battle, and the 
 final fight with the Devil. The Teutonic, Greek and 
 Christian mythologies have severally their places in these 
 four grand actions, which become, in Goethe's hands, 
 vast mythical reservoirs into which he pours the develop- 
 ment of the race, and the culture of the individual. 
 They must all be read with that second intention, to 
 which allusion has been made ; the outer letter of the 
 legend must be illuminated with the inner spirit, before it 
 can be truly seen. 
 
 For instance, the magic making of gold and raising of 
 treasures, become, by a poetic transmutation more magi- 
 cal than alchemy, the making of money in the modern 
 sense, the creation of wealth through material Industry ; 
 the bringing of Helen becomes the long training of the 
 man for his highest performance, or the Culture of the 
 Individual ; the winning of the victory for the State 
 shows- the trained individual Faust, applying the new 
 material resources of Industry and the spiritual results of 
 culture, first to the saving of the State, and then to its 
 regeneration ; the battle with the Devil, lost by the 
 Protestant Faust of the legend, is won by the new Faust 
 of Goethe, whereby we may see that his career is at bot- 
 tom in harmony with the religious movement of man. 
 These four grand actions, all-embracing in their sweep, 
 indicate likewise the four main divisions in the organism 
 ol the poem. 
 
MYTHOLOGY OF THE SECOND PART OF FAUST. I45 
 
 Thus the miracles of Faust are made to shadow forth 
 the miracles of our modern civilization ; yesterday's 
 magic is to-day's reality, and it may be to-morrow's 
 ruins. Wonderful is the sympathy of the poet who could 
 see and feel in this wild hocus-pocus of his Teutonic 
 ancestors an honest attempt to utter something deep in 
 themselves, something dark, which was struggling to be 
 born into the light of the sun. Often frantic, often 
 stupid, and always chaotic are these throes of the popu- 
 lar heart seeking utterance, hardly more than a cry or 
 short forced pulsations of voice; but the poet touches the 
 dark word, and it bursts into sunrise illuminating a world. 
 This Faust magic, so beloved of the people, was a 
 genuine thing to them, nay, to all time ; it was not to be 
 cast aside as mad fancy, or pure superstition, but was to 
 be set forth in a great poem, which truly brings to speech 
 the inarticulate fable. Magic is not now the wonder, but 
 magic realized in the world before our eyes, in railroad, 
 telegraph, telephone, all of which are legends more 
 miraculous than any yet told in folk-lore. 
 
 The poet's work is, therefore, not the making, but 
 the unfolding of the mythus into its true poetic flower. 
 The poet may be truly said to interpret the mythus to his 
 own age ; unless he has this power, he can have little 
 to say. Not merely to tell the story over again, as some 
 former time told it — what is the use of that? Not an 
 imitation his work must be, not a simple repetition or 
 transference ; with the gift of story-telling there must be 
 the gift of interpretation, of working the significance 
 of his own time into the legend, or rather of developing 
 the legend into his own time, out of its earlier germ. His 
 is the gift of poetic vision, which sees truth in fabulous 
 
 {0 
 
146 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 forms, and reveals it anew, still in fabulous forms, which 
 hold not the old but the new spirit. All this poem may- 
 be called a vast interpretation of the Faust mythus, yet in 
 a mythical form still ; as the perfect flower is but the 
 dark seed or germ unfolded to completeness in the light 
 of Heaven. 
 
 This Second Part is not specially remarkable for 
 imagery, or for those flowers which the reader expects to 
 pluck as he dallies along its avenues and sideways. He 
 must work into the conception, if he would find the true 
 image, which is the whole work given in one colossal 
 cast of the imagination. Too often with our poets the 
 theme is utterly prosaic, though it be strown with many 
 pretty posies; these do not grow as native flowers from 
 the soil of the subject-matter, but are exotics with a sickly 
 growth in an artificial environment ; or possibly parasites 
 clinging to a dead or even rotten trunk. Goethe is a 
 grand builder, and his material is the pure marble, out of 
 which he constructs his entire temple ; he puts no plaster 
 facings on it with an external marble glitter. Herein he 
 is more Greek than Romantic, more Homer than Shakes- 
 peare, the latter of whom swathes his grand poetic 
 conceptions in countless layers of images, one often 
 heaped on top of the other. 
 
 Nor can it command a dramatic interest in the ordi- 
 nary sense of the word, though it be a drama. It has no 
 knot, strictly ; it rests on no dramatic complications 
 which are all loosened at once by a solution. It is rather 
 a development and not an envelopment ; it takes as its 
 dramatic form the unfolding of man, and of the devil 
 also, the drama of the spiritual growth of the race. It 
 has thus the last and deepest of all forms, so comprehen- 
 
MYTHOLOGY OF THE SECOND PART OF FAUST. 147 
 
 sive that the name of drama hardly applies to it longer. 
 All Other dramas seem beside it certain small eddies, more 
 or less profound, in the Time-stream ; this is the river 
 itself in its everlasting sweep onward. It has well been 
 called a drama of ideas ; instead of characters we behold 
 ideas acting and enduring ; persons in it become what 
 they were on the old stage, a speaking mask, through 
 which the idea is voiced. Often we are in doubt whether 
 the person be a living reality or some spectral phantasm ; 
 but we need not be in doubt concerning the idea uttered 
 by him which truly is all there is of him, or indeed of 
 anybody or anything. 
 
 The difference between the First and Second Parts is 
 great, but the profounder and more important fact is 
 their harmony. They must be felt as one, the outflow of 
 the same poetic soul, though at many diverse periods of 
 life. The true discipline of the study of " Faust " is not 
 attained till this harmony be attained in thought and 
 feeling. The two parts show great diversities : the First 
 is more impulsive, the Second more reflective ; the First 
 has more joy in a sensuous fulness of expression, the 
 Second is more sober and of stricter form ; the First has 
 more passion, the Second more thought ; or, as the poet 
 himself declares, the one is more subjective, the other 
 more objective. The First Part moves in a limited, even 
 narrow sphere^ old Teutonic life, with scarcely a hint 
 of antiquity or of the great world stage ; the Second 
 moves at once to court, to the European current, into 
 which the classic world pours with a broad full stream, 
 and we behold a multifarious image of the History of 
 Europe. The First shows a descent from guilt to guilt ; 
 the Second shows the return, the grand palingenesis, 
 
148 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 chiefly through the Renascence. There are many other 
 points of distinction, which the reader will make for him- 
 self, but the greater fact is their unity, the fact toward 
 which the earnest student must always strive. Too 
 exclusive devotion to the First Part in its special diversi- 
 ties and peculiarities may beget an indifference to the 
 Second Part. When we hear a man praising the First 
 Part, at the expense of the Second Part, we may be 
 assured that he has not reached and felt the heart-beat 
 of the First Part which he is praising, for it is one with 
 the heart-beat of the Second Part. Again we must 
 affirm the profoundest fact of both is their unity. We 
 may be caught in the fervor, the brilliancy, the deviltry 
 of the First Part, or some other special phase ; then we 
 may find the Second Part unenjoyable, with its calmness, 
 its movement out of deviltry, its sententious form of 
 utterance. Broaden yourself till you can take in both, 
 else you will truly possess neither, for both have their 
 deep primitive fountain in the same poetic soul. 
 
 We see in this poem the idea of Development raised 
 to the supreme literary form, which becomes one with 
 the movement of mankind. This idea was caught by 
 Goethe distinctly from his study of Nature, out of which 
 he transported it into Literature. But it has been the 
 driving-wheel of all Occidental civilization in corttrast 
 with Oriental fixity. Its first expression is in the Greek 
 Theogony, in which time after time, a system of higher 
 Gods supplants a system of lower Gods, so that in oldest 
 Hellas Theology was a progressive science, which it has 
 hardly been since. But its completest spiritual expres- 
 sion is found in German Philosophy, from Leibnitz to 
 Hegel, to the last of whom, verily the last German 
 
MYTHOLOGY OF THE SECOND PART OF FAUST. 149 
 
 Philosopher, this idea was the all-in-all, the soul of his 
 dialectic, and the world was simply the unfolding of the 
 idea into reality. Hegel is indeed in many ways the 
 philosophic counterpart of Goethe. It is true Goethe 
 disclaimed being a philosopher, and declared that he had 
 " no philosophical organ ; " still, as W. Von Humboldt 
 told him, and as Schiller intimates, he was a philosopher, 
 only his manner of philosophizing was different from the 
 ordinary way, and the abstract metaphysical method was 
 repugnant to him. Who can read his books and not see 
 that he is a great thinker and is occupying himself with 
 the profoundest problems of thought ? Metaphysical 
 cobwebs, spun for the sake of spinning, or to catch some 
 wandering insect he took no delight in, nor does any 
 earnest healthy human soul. He is the poet of culture 
 by virtue of his thought ; he is no Burns, singing native 
 wood melodies like the bird on the branch, which sounds 
 so delightful to the ear of the passing traveler ; but one 
 gets tired of bird-music, however sweet, and in fact one 
 has not the time to listen to it long. Far different is the 
 Faust strain of Goethe, it is the choral anthem of the 
 Universe, to whose music your life must be set, if you 
 wish to live harmoniously. His poetry is not, let it be 
 repeated, to amuse your vacant hour, or to rest your 
 tired moments ; you must give to him your best hour, if 
 you will understand him ; he rejects the off-scourings of 
 your busy day, he will have your highest moment, and 
 not once but many times. Your supreme vocation for 
 the time being must be to understand him. The reason 
 why he refuses to open his treasures to so many people, 
 is, that they bring as their sacrifice to his altar, the offals 
 of their intelligence. If you devote to Mammon the best 
 
150 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 of your labors, no true God or no true man is going to 
 accept the remaining refuse of your life, he will keep out 
 of your company. 
 
 In this sense of a continuous unfolding, the poem 
 is to be read and construed. We must see the genesis of 
 part out of part, the subtle transition must be closely 
 watched in all its connecting threads. An interpretation 
 has this business in the main ; it is altogether the most 
 difficult matter for the reader, and for the interpreter, 
 which, if he does not get, he can not reach the heart 
 of the book. Philological, historical, mythologic diffi- 
 culties are small in comparison ; indeed they can be 
 carried along unexplained often with little detriment, if 
 one is borne deeply in the thought of the poem. But if 
 the thought be not gained or be lost, what have you got- 
 ten ? Here is the grand mistake of most editors and 
 commentators. They seem to take for granted that 
 the thought of the poem and its structure are plain to 
 every reader, while this little mythologic allusion or that 
 little grammatical solecism is unintelligible, often it may 
 remain unintelligible without much loss ; but the thought 
 and structure must be seized, if we wish to possess the 
 work. 
 
 The conception of Faust Goethe writes in 1832, goes 
 back more than sixty years ; in this first conception was 
 included much of what is found in the Second Part at 
 present. Particularly the elaboration of the " Helena " 
 occupied him in this early period, and it must have been 
 a constituent element of the first written plan or scheme. 
 Such a plan of the continuation of Faust we find by the 
 conversations of Eckermann, Goethe intended to insert 
 in his autobiography for the year 1775. 
 
MYTHOLOGY OF THE SECOND PART OF FAUST. 151 
 
 But Margaret supplanted Helen in the First Part ; 
 one grand stage of Faust's development had in conse- 
 quence to be carried over into a new realm. The idea of 
 a Second Part must have already dawned on Goethe in 
 1797, when he wrote the Prologue in Heaven ; Schiller 
 speaks of it in the " Correspondence," as a matter deter- 
 mined. The two women of the poem, the German and 
 the Greek, Nature and Culture, could not be well brought 
 together ; they are centers of the two different Parts, and 
 probably first compelled the division of the poem. 
 
 In 1824, Goethe aged seventy-five years, was giving 
 what he thought to be the final revision of his works — 
 well might he think so ! when he took in hand again 
 his Autobiography (Dichtung and Wahrheit). Three 
 parts of this work had appeared in the years 1811-14; 
 the fourth part with which he had formerly been unable 
 to proceed, was taken in hand, and the attempt was 
 made to bring it to completion. It contained the events 
 of the year 1775, and in it the plan of the continuation of 
 Faust, as conceived at that time, was to be inserted. So 
 much we learn from the faithful Eckermann. 
 
 But Eckermann, who was his literary assistant and 
 counselor, urged him to lay hold of the plan, and to 
 complete it poetically. To this sympathy and encourage- 
 ment of Eckermann we owe the Second Part, as Goethe 
 has himself declared. Of course all the fuel was there, 
 only the lighted shaving was wanted to kindle it. This 
 was Eckermann's gift, he could stir the old conception 
 " of more than sixty years,'' could rouse the aged man to 
 one final concentrated act of will running through seven 
 years, till the work was done ; then the hand fell and the 
 old bard was dead, with his long swan-song ended. 
 
152 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHK 
 
 Thus the Second Part in the circumstances of its 
 composition differs from the First Part in two important 
 regards. First, the Second Part is one great outflow, 
 belonging to one period, whereas the First Part is scat- 
 tered through forty years, is the product of very different 
 periods, has more inequality, has great leaps in it, and in 
 certain points is more difficult to understand. There 
 is an evenness and symmetry in the Second Part, while 
 the First Part has ruggedness, irregularity, more changes 
 in style. 
 
 The second fact is that the Second Part was written 
 in Goethe's old age, after life had given him all its expe- 
 rience, and had put into his hands nearly every literary 
 form^ and had calmed his passion into wisdom. In a 
 sense, there is more variety than in the First Part, but 
 this variety is mastered, it has no tendency to become 
 independent. Nearly every kind of marble on the earth 
 goes into the temple, but it is all hewn and fitted into its 
 place, and is made to express one note in the grand har- 
 mony, being dominated fully by one idea, one ultimate 
 form. All colors are here, still they belong to the Whole, 
 and are subdued to its central thought. 
 
 It is not a product of senile weakness, as has been 
 often charged, but of senile vigor, and just for this 
 reason has a peculiar flavor among all written books. 
 Yes, there is old age here, but an old age which has 
 resumed and digested a long life, indeed, an old age 
 which takes up and lives the life of mankind in its own 
 life. No youth, no man of middle age could do this ; the 
 work is the purest crystallization of turbulent youth, stu- 
 dious and active middle age ; the old man's imagination 
 becomes a poetical universe. The sympathetic reader 
 
MYTHOLOGY OF THE SECOND PART OF FAUST. 153 
 
 will feel the advantages of Age in this book as in old 
 wines ; doubtless, too, with certain disadvantages thereof. 
 The poetic process of Goethe is essentially the same 
 in the Second Part as in all his works. He does not 
 necessarily begin with the idea and incorporate it with an 
 image ; he rather begins with the image, and expands 
 and fills it with an idea. Neither side is wanting; it were 
 no true poetry if image or idea should be absent. He 
 looks at an object, becomes one with it, sinks into one 
 with it, till he lives in an unconscious condition with its 
 inmost nature, till he sees and feels its growth, germ, 
 development, till its idea dawns upon his soul, not as an 
 abstract thought, but as the very picture of the object. 
 This condition is what he often calls his "dumpfheit," or 
 period of poetic hybernation ; moreover, he speaks of 
 himself as a sort of somnambulist, doing many wonderful 
 feats unconsciously, what he would not dare attempt 
 when awake. This power he has, of becoming one with 
 Nature, and feeling her secretest throb, then uttering the 
 same in song, so he tells what the bird is singing, what 
 the animal is doing, what Nature is saying. In like 
 manner he treats the historic event, he sinks into it, lives 
 with it till he hears its voice, what it says and means, 
 which is the voice of the future. The affair of the 
 Diamond Necklace in which he saw a sign and heard a 
 voice, is an example ; it was a symbol in his use of the 
 work. 
 
 In this sense he says that " everything that happens is 
 a symbol." It has an outer phenomenal side, which, how- 
 ever, is but the expression of the soul of the event, its 
 idea. The poet seizes the image of the event and makes 
 it transparent with the idea, not always with intention, 
 
154 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 perhaps, but because he can not do otherwise. He says 
 somewhere " all our knowledge is symbolical ;" this is to 
 know a thing truly, to see its idea in the event or fact. 
 "Alles Vergengliche ist nur ein Gleichniss," declare the 
 same thing ; what is phenomenal and transitory is only a 
 likeness in which is imagined the eternal. Reading his 
 Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship in his old age, he finds 
 it " symbolical," and in his sense it is. 
 
 Two opposite errors are here possible : We must not 
 consider Faust as an image merely, a series of events or 
 pictures ; it is also an idea. But it is not some abstract 
 idea merely, illustrated by a story or legend ; the legend 
 is the very form and speech of the idea, and the idea has 
 its truest reality in the legend. The intuitive and the 
 intellectual standpoints are united in the supreme poetic 
 act ; our thought may separate them for a moment for 
 definitions, but must never leave them separated. The 
 highest appreciation of " Faust " unites image and idea 
 into one poetic flash, and thus approaches the original 
 creative act of the poet. 
 
 Everywhere, even in his scientific writings, Goethe 
 sees forms, and fills them ; in the sky among the clouds, 
 forms, forms ; on the earth below, in its deep caverns, 
 forms, forms ; in the kingdom of flowers, forms, forms ; 
 in the animated world, forms, forms. He seems to have 
 stood in more intimate relation to this formative energy 
 of Nature, than any other recorded man ; he turned to it, 
 was happy only in contemplating it. But not only did he 
 contemplate it ; he sank into it with feeling and instinct, 
 was absorbed into the object, became one with its soul, 
 slept with it in unconscious hybernation, yet wandered 
 
MYTHOLOGY OF THE SECOND PART OF FAUST. 155 
 
 about as a poetical somnambulist, when he began to sing. 
 A sort of insensible sense was his state of poetic activity. 
 
 He is the greatest poet of these late centuries, not 
 because he has used the most images or the most beauti- 
 ful images, but because he makes his image tell its 
 deepest truth, makes it speak the profoundest and best 
 idea to men. A sensuous indulgence in images, which 
 float before the mind as shows, is not his poetic method ; 
 many a lesser poet surpasses him in brilliancy, color, 
 vividness. But he makes his event or fable or other 
 image tell its last story, speak its truest word ; verily he 
 appreciates appearances better than other writers, since 
 he sees so much more in them. To the humblest trope 
 he gives great honor, making it reflect its true soul or 
 thought, and transforming it into a bearer of profound 
 wisdom. 
 
 If the Second Part takes up and utilizes every species 
 of poetic form, as parable, myth, symbol, even the riddle, 
 in like manner it embraces almost every kind of meter, 
 ancient and modern. Rhyme and rhyt.hm, long and 
 short verses, with every variety of harmonious intona- 
 tions, play through the musical phantasmagory, yet under 
 law always. In this respect the Second Part has often 
 been compared to a symphony, with its ranks of instru- 
 ments, wood, metal, string ; each has its place, its peculiar 
 tone-color, its solos, when it sinks back into the harmoni- 
 ous blending of the whole. Flute, vioHn and horn, in 
 many shades we hear ; still it is one harmony, and 
 organic. It may be said that the metrical work of the 
 Second Part is of itself a most prodigious effort, by the 
 greatest master of versification ; in this respect alone it 
 must remain a mine for all future poets. Herein it 
 
156 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 differs from the other greatest poets ; Homer and Dante 
 have but one measure, Shakespeare mainly one, with 
 delicate lyrical snatches here and there. 
 
 Faust, too, has in the main but one measure, the free 
 doggerel, whose lines vary from two to six feet, with con- 
 secutive, alternate, or remoter rhymes. This measure is 
 very pliable in the hands of the poet, it drops at times 
 almost into prose, and then rises into a rapturous flight ; 
 a light, easy garment at all times, borrowed, it is said, 
 mainly from genial old Hans Sachs, the shoemaker and 
 poet of Nuremberg. In the Second Part the metrical 
 treatment is rather more strict than in the first part, more 
 of a classic reserve, and often breaking into gnomic terse- 
 ness, a style much cultivated by Goethe in his later years. 
 Then comes the infinite movement of his lyric forms, the 
 rainbow playing over the waters, till even the doggerel 
 passes into the purest sculpturesque serenity of the 
 Classic iambs of Sophocles, with rhythmic measures of the 
 Greek chorus. To hear all this music is indeed a great 
 training. It is a Wagnerian strain which overwhelms at 
 first and which can be conquered only by time and much 
 effort. 
 
 Herein Goethe has shown the true way of metrical 
 procedure, his " Faust " resumes all meters to a degree, 
 it is the very bloom of the measured speech of the world, 
 and just therein is original in the supreme sense. Goethe 
 does not have to fling himself out of the traces of Time 
 to be original ; the great lines of culture he keeps within 
 while advancing them ; the Universe is large enough for 
 his originality. Never odd, he is still original in 
 being the most human of humanity ; every man may see 
 in him nothing bizarre, but rather his own true self 
 
MYTHOLOGY OF THE SECOND PART OF FAUST. 157 
 
 Hence, Goethe never, with one or two possible excep- 
 tions in youth, quit the principle of measured speech for 
 poetry, a principle laid down by old Homer at the begin- 
 ning of literature ; his respect for it increases with age, 
 in the Second Part of " Faust " its sway is absolute. 
 Whitman is, perhaps, the most notable instance of the 
 opposite tendency ; maddened by the narrow and sense- 
 less restraints of English verse, and wearied to death by 
 its eternal iambic shuffle, he seizes the edifice which 
 holds him a prisoner, like another Samson, and tears it 
 asunder in a fit of mighty wrath, and reaches liberty, but 
 just therein destroys himself. He takes no free old 
 measures, makes no free new measures, but substantially 
 throws away all measured speech, and thereby aban- 
 dons the first architectonic principle of poetry, without 
 which can never rise a beautiful structure out of prose. 
 There must be proportion, measurement, symmetry, 
 which always make harmony possible ; there must be a 
 recurrence of the beat after a fixed interval, which must 
 be felt to be coming, else there is a jar in the strain. 
 Whitman has been called the Poet of Democracy with its 
 measureless ocean ; but we protest, freedom is not law- 
 lessness in politics or poetics ; more freedom we must 
 have, but with it a more profound law ; America is not 
 outside the world's history, but inside of it, a resump- 
 tion of it all, and its final perfect bloom, or to be such. 
 Originality without oddity is the true originality, and the 
 great man does not destroy the old, but transfigures it 
 into the new. 
 
 This metrical treatment is a true image of Faust in all 
 his career, especially his political ; he fights for the 
 ancient realm of the Emperor, and saves it from revolu- 
 
IS8 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 tion ; but at the same time out of the unrestrained sea he 
 raises a new land, with new inhabitants, free men upon a 
 free soil, which comes, not by destroying, but by preserv- 
 ing the old ; from this new point he transforms all the 
 world into freedom, not by destruction, but by recon- 
 struction. In a similar spirit the poet has preserved the 
 old meters, but out of them made a new music, and built 
 a new harmony, which has not destroyed, but really pre- 
 served and rejuvenated the measured speech of men. In 
 this fact we see Goethe himself as the universal man of 
 our time, the man who takes in the past, and foreshadows 
 the future ; the most conservative of men, called an aris- 
 tocrat often, with much truth, yet the most progressive, 
 nay, most radical of men, so devoted to humanity that he 
 will not let one of its acquired treasures be lost, nor per- 
 mit it to be cramped from free development by its most 
 sacred institutions. 
 
 The grand episode of Helen, which, first and last, is 
 more than half of the entire Second Part, is thrown into 
 the world-movement of the poem, especially into its insti- 
 tutional movement. This is distinctively the Helenic 
 portion in all phases from the first origin in Homer to its 
 final extinction. It gives what is called the Renascence 
 or New Birth of Time, which occurs at different periods 
 in the History of Culture. It arises when the shackles of 
 custom and convention begin to cramp the human spirit, 
 it opens a world of intellectual freedom, followed often 
 by political regeneration. It comes from a new study 
 and spiritual taking-up of ancient fresh sources of inspi- 
 ration, chiefly from those of Hellas. There was a Roman 
 Renascence in the time of Augustus, in which Greece 
 gave a sort of spiritual glory to a declining political 
 
MYTHOLOGY OF THE SECOND PART OF FAUST. 159 
 
 world. There was a mediEeval Renascence, slight, but it 
 gave Dante. There was the great Renascence, properly 
 so-called, that gave us Luther in the North, Michael 
 Angelo and Raphael in the South, culminating in the 
 mighty poetic voice of the Renascence, William Shake- 
 speare. Then there was the recent German Renascence, 
 begetting modern German Literature, in which Goethe is 
 the central figure. This process of the Time-Spirit, the 
 renovation of the decadent soul through a new culture, is 
 imaged in the total " Helena," not merely in the Third 
 Act. Faust, of course, has to go through this regenerat- 
 ing process before he can transfer it to his country and 
 to his age. 
 
 The grand significance of a Renascence in the devel- 
 opment of the race is here imaged. The poet himself 
 participated in it, nay, he studied and took up into his 
 own culture all previous Renascences. Besides going to 
 the fountain head, ancient Homer and the Greek Poets, 
 he worked into the Roman Renascence with deepest 
 sympathy, the least of them all, because he gave no prac- 
 tical regeneration to the Roman world. Ovid and 
 Horace, wild Martial, and even little Propertius, mostly 
 Greek transfusions into Latin, wrought upon Goethe pro- 
 digiously, he imitated them and became more original 
 than his Originals. The Italian Renascence, chiefly 
 through its Art, its best manifestation, makes an epoch in 
 his life through his visit to Italy. The German Renas- 
 cence of the sixteenth century furnished him his 
 grandest theme, this Faust, who is a product of it, and 
 through whom the twin German Renascences of the six- 
 teenth and nineteenth centuries are joined together 
 poetically, being cognate in so many points. 
 
l6o POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE, 
 
 Here again Goethe's whole activity is a resumption 
 and new unfolding of the world's activity in this line ; his 
 works are a commentary and fresh edition of all the 
 Renascences from the Roman down ; this is again his 
 true originality, to be as great as the world and as broad 
 as humanity, as old as the Past, as new as the Present. 
 A commentary on Time in his works, giving an image 
 thereof ; the part of Helen is, as it were, this image, and 
 this double image, the process of the new Birth unfold- 
 ing all the while, yet mirroring itself in this process, even 
 to making new pictures of former pictures of itself. The 
 Culture of the Individual it shows, yet this culture is also 
 shadowed forth as the movement and soul of a period. 
 The " Helena," placed in the institutional frame-work of 
 a German State, is German in outer form and speech, yet 
 it tells the tale for the future, and in its way prophesies 
 the American Renascence, also to spring out of the ancient 
 Greek fountain head, and outlines in a general way all 
 succeeding Renascences. Not simply Art and Literature 
 does Helen influence, she goes into the practical world, 
 and transforms it ; her goal is not merely humanism, but 
 humanity. 
 
 It was long thought that this Second Part of " Faust " 
 could not be put upon the stage, being quite unpresenta- 
 ble to the outer eye. The poet never saw it on the 
 boards, yet he must have thought that some day it might 
 be produced, as he has arranged the scenes for stage- 
 effect, and given numerous stage-directions. He saw it 
 as a drama, it moved before his inner vision as a grand 
 world-action, quite beyond the possibilities of the theatri- 
 cal arrangements of the time. But here, too, he was a 
 prophet, and wrote for the future. Our own age has 
 
MYTHOLOGY OF THE SECOND PART OF FAUST. l6l 
 
 witnessed repeated representations of it, with great, even 
 popular, effect in Germany. Many important points are 
 brought out in the scenic interpretation otherwise hid- 
 den ; the newest and best commentary on it has been the 
 acting of it. The report goes that many enjoy it in the 
 representation, who can not read it beyond the first 
 scenes. 
 
 Here again it prophesies the new Drama, the Drama 
 of ideas, and a new histrionic Art. Doubtless the 
 operatic innovations of Wagner paved the way ; indeed, 
 there are many cognate points between Wagner's Trilogy 
 and Goethe's Faust, in their demands upon the theater 
 and upon the audience, as well as in their significance. 
 Even Shakespeare felt the limits of the old stage, and 
 chafed against them ; his best play in many respects, 
 " Tempest," is quite unrepresentable in the old fashion. 
 It, too, is a Drama of Ideas, moving upon an inner stage, 
 that of the Imagination ; when those Ideas, Caliban, 
 Ariel, even Prospero, are placed upon the outer boards, 
 there seems some vast loss. Yet the new theatrical art 
 may yet recover the loss ; indeed, the tendency is leading 
 thither. The presentation of Wagner's operas has left 
 Germany on a tour round the world ; we may expect 
 Goethe's "Faust," the whole of it, to follow in the wake. 
 
 But the acting of Faust can never supplant the read- 
 ing of it ; indeed, it can not be well understood on the 
 stage, till after a thorough reading ; it is like Hamlet, a 
 good theatrical presentation is a sort of commentary to 
 help the reader, rather than the spectator. A great play 
 is one which can not have its resources exhausted in a 
 mere visual scenic production ; thus they are only sug- 
 gested, and provoke the spectator to read it, if he has not 
 
l62 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 read it. No wonder Shakespeare's plays were printed 
 surreptitiously in his own time, they drove the public 
 naturally to read them. Some actors, with professional 
 narrowness, would have us believe that the only way of 
 understanding Shakespeare is by seeing him acted. Not 
 so ; it is but a side and that, too, the external side of 
 him ; it is but a commentary, very valuable, but not the 
 most valuable ; hundreds read him to one who sees him. 
 These are drawbacks to a scenic presentation, it may be 
 poor or perverted, it may give a false idea, and always 
 runs the danger of emphasizing too strongly the sensuous 
 visual element in Shakespeare. 
 
 It would, indeed, require an ideal combination in a 
 theatre to produce "Faust." A manager who would 
 direct all his histrionic forces, nay, his mechanical effects, 
 to bring out the Whole ; an actor who would become 
 truly a mask for the idea, a mask of flesh and blood, 
 imagining and uttering only the spirit within, abjuring 
 all outer sensational appeals ; in fine, the idea must act 
 and speak always, a supersensible world dropping for a 
 moment into the senses. Such a theater will yet be, 
 indeed, in supreme Art always has been ; but it is now to 
 become our permanent and conscious possession. 
 Goethe, who was Manager, Poet, and even Actor in one, 
 was well aware of the difficulty with the modern stage ; 
 in his " Prelude on the Stage " he has introduced the 
 three characters speaking ; there the Manager and Actor 
 seem quite intractable to the idea of the Poet, they scorn 
 his whole, and turn to the immediate reward of sensuous 
 effects ; but the Poet persists, and writes his drama any- 
 how, appealing prophetically to the Future. 
 
 The drama of Faust, the drama of the soul, must 
 
MYTHOLOGY OF THE SECOND PART OF FAUST. 163 
 
 chiefly appeal to the single human soul reading and 
 studying it. For the reader can go backward, forward, 
 fast or slow, can stop and think, or even wait for a little 
 growth over night. After all, the stage is really the inner 
 one, not bound to Space or Time, and chiefly not bound 
 to these few hours' representation in a given spot. The 
 dramatic form can not be dropped, for this is inherent ; 
 but the drama has gone inside and is playing there ; you 
 have a theater and company all to yourself. In fact, it 
 is your own play, the play of your life, or you must make 
 it such. 
 
 The reading of Faust, then, must continue the main 
 communication with it ; as a printed book it is to per- 
 form its function in the world. The study of it has 
 already become a chief element in education, especially 
 in the education of grown people, who derive their intel- 
 lectual nourishment from the Literary Bibles. In 
 Germany, of course, it is at home ; schools study it, uni- 
 versities lecture upon it, a vast literature has grown 
 around it. 
 
 Still in Germany the Second Part is by no means 
 universally accepted as a Great Book. The literary 
 critics as a class are against it. But of these German 
 critics there is one who deserves special mention, we 
 allude to Loeper. His two Introductions in his edition 
 of "Faust" (Berlin, Hempel) contain some of the best 
 words yet said upon the poem, and foreshadow its final 
 acceptance by literary Germany, in its full compass and 
 greatness. The old statement, almost a popular com- 
 mon-place in Germany, that the Second Part was a 
 product of Goethe's old age and poetic second child- 
 hood, will vanish at least out of cultured circles. 
 
164 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 Loeper's temper and spirit are most admirable, he is 
 always a genial companion as well as a wise teacher ; his 
 sympathies are broader than those of any other critic 
 within our knowledge, while his learning and accuracy 
 surpass even his pains-taking countrymen, two other 
 qualities rarely united he has : philosophic insight and 
 poetic appreciation. 
 
 The present attitude of France is not favorable to 
 anything German, and we shall probably have to wait 
 awhile before the French critical judgment, naturally 
 well-balanced, will regain its poise in matters over the 
 Rhine. M. Edmond Scherer has written an elaborate 
 criticism of Goethe, in which we always feel the sly 
 poison of revenge, in spite of the author's strong efforts 
 at self-suppression, and we can not help thinking that 
 his essay would have turned out differently, if the Franco- 
 Prussian war had turned out differently. M. Scherer 
 praises the First Part of " Faust," but considers it only 
 a series of detached scenes, while for the Second Part he 
 has nothing but censure, having a mortal horror of sym- 
 bols, allegory, and reflective poetry. But altogether, the 
 profoundest insight of French criticism is that of M. 
 Henri Favre, who declares that the Second Part of Faust 
 is the " poetic protocol " which heralds the recent defeat 
 of France and the triumph of Germany. Yes, that is 
 what it is — the war-song of the Teutonic race, and still 
 better, the peace-song of the same, conquering for cul- 
 ture and industry untamed continents and even the sea. 
 
 The great English critic of the present generation, 
 Mr. Matthew Arnold, has done much for the appreci- 
 ation of Goethe, particularly in the line of what he calls 
 the criticism of life. He says, however thqt the First Part 
 
MYTHOLOGY OF THE SECOND PART OF FAUST. 165 
 
 of Faust is " the only one which counts," that is, counts 
 for Mr. Arnold. He, too, has a horror of " symbol, 
 hieroglyphic, mystification," which seem to be all that 
 he can see in the Second Part of the poem. It is mani- 
 fest that Mr. Arnold has his own pre-established scheme 
 for a poetic work, which must fit the same or be rejected. 
 His frame is too small for "Faust," but he is mistaken if 
 he thinks " Faust " must go, it is rather his frame which 
 must be cast away or re-modeled. Furthermore, Mr. 
 Arnold prefers " the immense Goethe literature of letter, 
 journal, conversation," to Goethe's poetry, which judg- 
 ment seems to indicate a defect of sympathy with the 
 soul of the great German, which seeks always a poetic 
 expression, while " letter, journal and conversation " are 
 more or less external in comparison. 
 
 Faust, with the other Literary Bibles, is sure to travel 
 round the world with the European race, as one of its 
 chief spiritual treasures ; we may ask how the book is 
 faring on its journey. It is certainly beginning to strike 
 deep roots in North America, whither its countrymen 
 have carried it, and its atmosphere as well as its problem. 
 The German-American often keeps his connection with 
 Fatherland through Goethe (and Schiller, too), long after 
 every other tie is severed; and he finds in the Fourth and 
 Fifth Acts of the Second Part, — Faust's conquest of sea 
 and land — the last bloom of Teutonic spirit in its 
 Western movement, rising from its Germanism into 
 Americanism. Even the Mythus of Faust, with its 
 weird Gothic scenery, has followed the emigrant. 
 Brocken with its witches and ghostly company has 
 crossed the ocean, and if rumor be credited, has re-ap- 
 peared among the hills of the Osage. The German 
 
l66 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 commentator, too, has emigrated , several works on 
 " Faust," written by Germans in their native tongue, 
 have appeared in America. The Anglo-American, also a 
 Teuton, of one or one hundred removes backward in 
 time, and speaking still Teutonic speech, essentially, has 
 not been behind his German-American brother in appre- 
 ciating " Faust." Indeed, there is probably more earnest 
 study of the poem in American than in German circles of 
 this country, it being read much in schools, colleges and 
 private clubs, both in the original and in translation. 
 
 DISCUSSION. 
 
 Prof. W. T. Harris : I was asked a minute ago by 
 a gentleman here the distinction which we make between 
 the mythus and the allegory. According to our gram- 
 mars, a similitude is a comparison. A continued simili- 
 tude is an allegory. Our stock example of the allegory 
 is the Pilgrim's Progress. As we read the allegory, we 
 look down into its depths and see both meanings — its 
 literal and its figurative — and carry them along with us. 
 When we come to the mythus, we come to something 
 that is made up of a whole world of similitudes and alle- 
 gories, so that the allegory, elevated to a high potence, 
 might be called a mythus. The invention of a mythus 
 requires the very highest imaginative faculty, and it is 
 usually the product of the creative faculty of a whole 
 people ; it is unconsciously built up through a slow pro- 
 cess extending through ages. Mr. Snider has not stated 
 the Faust story very fully, expecting, perhaps, that Mr. 
 Brockmeyer would develop it in his lectures. I think 
 that it is well, always, in these studies of literature, to 
 hold together the beginning and end of a story. There- 
 
MYTHOLOGY OF THE SECOND PART OF FAUST. 167 
 
 fore I will take a few minutes, with your permission, 
 to call attention to the great outlines of this Faust story. 
 The beginning of it, the First Part of Faust, very little 
 has been said about that. I expected last evening that 
 the lecturer would take up the First Part, but he began 
 with the Second Part, pre-supposing a complete knowl- 
 edge of the First Part in as much as a thorough interpre- 
 tation of it had been given by that gentleman in his 
 " Letters on Faust," a very remarkable series of studies 
 which were published a number of years ago. There- 
 fore, I take the liberty to remind you of the beginning 
 of this poem. 
 
 Faust, in his university, has studied theology, juris- 
 prudence, philosophy and medicine, and at last knows 
 that nothing can be known. Goethe undertakes in the 
 first scenes to show us the steps by which Faust has 
 reached this conclusion, that is, to show the grounds of 
 it. What are these grounds ? There was a time in the 
 thirteenth, fourteenth and even in the fifteenth centuries, 
 when men studied Pantheism ; it had become rife in 
 universities, especially where Aristotle was taught, men 
 sought an intellectual vision into things, and chemistry, 
 curiously enough, led them towards this vision. You 
 know, that if you busy yourself with any particular thing, 
 you soon get your mind into a habit of thinking about 
 everything from its point of view. What does the study of 
 chemistry — the habit of analyzing things, get you to do? 
 You learn through chemistry that the immediate form of 
 anything is not the ultimate reality, but that you can 
 change its form and resolve the substance back into ele- 
 ments. Transferring this mode of view to other things, 
 you come to look upon every object as a mere form that 
 
l68 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 conceals behind it a hidden reality. Look down into the 
 elements, oxygen and hydrogen, and the ultimate 
 abstractions of matter, with the chemist, and you soon 
 begin to disbelieve in the immediate truth of things. If 
 you examine objects you expect to find them to be com- 
 posed of elements which do not resemble those objects 
 but are something else ; you find that things are com- 
 posite. Now suppose that you stop at this point and 
 make a philosophy on the basis of the chemical principle, 
 what will it be ? It will be the philosophy of the alche- 
 mists, those curiously speculative people who had 
 doctrines of life and of God which they put under forms 
 of chemical study, pretending to investigate minerals and 
 materials in order to find the Philosopher's Stone ; in 
 order to find something or other that would turn all base 
 metals into gold. Their philosophical doctrine was 
 always this : that anything that has form is finite and 
 transitory, and that the true basis of things, down under- 
 neath, is formless. At once you have Paatheism, which 
 holds that the fundamental world principle is formless. 
 That is the basis of agnosticism. Faust, as Goethe lets 
 us see, turns over the leaves of the book of Macrocosm. 
 The alchemists wrote books under that name, looking at 
 the world from the point of view of the formless Abso- 
 lute. The Church, whenever it could find one of these 
 books, put it hands on it and burnt it up. These alche- 
 mists, however, continued to write their doctrines in a 
 very mysterious style, as though treating of the transmu- 
 tation of metals, and gloried among themselves in under- 
 taking the esoteric meaning of it, which amounted to 
 this : there is no ultimate form, and all things are finite 
 and will pass away. Well, Faust looks into this book 
 
MYTHOLOGY OF THE SECOND PART OF FAUST. 169 
 
 of the Macrocosm. If you wish to know a thing, to 
 examine it, you find you can not get it wholly before 
 you ; you find it is tied to something else, by relations of 
 dependence. As the poem says, there is a golden chain 
 that holds things together. As all things are relative 
 and they can not be known out of their relations, he has 
 to give up knowing them because the relations go from 
 thing to thing to the ends of the universe. We can not 
 find the end of this chain ; therefore we can not find the 
 truth. If each thing was not relative, if each was a 
 a whole, we could find out all about it. Seeing it is rela- 
 tive, we can never find the end of the relation. Tracing 
 it on through the world, it is impossible to know it. 
 That is the theory of agnosticism. Now looking with 
 this theory at individual aspirations, we have the contrast 
 between the particular and the universal. He shuts the 
 book of the Macrocosm and opens another. Faust 
 feels, as he looks into the Macrocosm, into the world of 
 humanity, that he can know something about man, 
 although he can not know anything about nature as a 
 whole." Then he summons before him the spirit of 
 Macrocosm ; the spirit of the little world of humanity, of 
 the world of spirit. It is the Erd-geist ; the spirit of all 
 humanity. " If I can not know Nature, I can know 
 man, because I know that by looking down into my own 
 soul I can see all mankind." But engaged in examining 
 humanity in general, he is reminded that he is a particu- 
 lar being ; he is not all humanity ; he is a particular 
 being who occupies a particular time and place, while 
 humanity includes billions of men in the present and the 
 past. In despair, Faust collapses and asks, " What am I 
 then if not equal to thee ? " Goethe explains all this 
 
170 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 in first scene, and shows how Faust has arrived at his 
 conviction that nothing can be known, and how it is that 
 he feels so bitter. After the rebulce of the earth-spirit, 
 he falls back upon himself and considers this matter all 
 over again. " I can not know anything at all, and at 
 that rate life is not worth living. I thought I might 
 know something. My endeavor was to know the real 
 truth, and to satisfy this immense heart hunger within 
 myself. It is all in vain. But one thing I can do ; I can 
 use this knowledge of chemistry I have, and concoct a 
 wonderful poison that will put an end to me. If I can 
 not know truth and be a real being, I can at least put an 
 end to this shadow of a being that I am. I can go 
 out of this form into something else." Therefore, he lifts 
 the vial of poison to his lips ; but hark ! hear the Easter 
 bells ring ! It was the night before Easter. What does 
 this festival celebrate ? The immortality of the soul; the 
 fact that the individual soul is substance, is not a mere 
 form which loses substance and passes out into the form- 
 less. Those bells remind him of his religious experience 
 in youth. "Here I, the great Faust, have gone through 
 all knowledge, and know everything, and yet life is 
 not worth living. Those bells remind me of the time 
 of my youth when I went out into the world and felt that 
 life was worth living, when I believed in that super- 
 stition," as he calls the Christian religion. And now life 
 is not worth living. That is very strange ; very strange 
 that so much knowledge of the truth will make life 
 not worth living. He thinks : " I will examine that 
 question over again and look into this matter of religion, 
 as I can poison myself to-morrow just as well as to-day; 
 I will postpone the suicide until I investigate again 
 
MYTHOLOGY OF THE SECOND PART OF FAUST. I7I 
 
 the power of religion to satisfy the aspiration for truth. 
 So he goes out on Easter morning; he is going to notice 
 what people find to make life worth living. He listens 
 to the students at the city gate and hears one say, 
 'Where are you going?' 'Going up to Burgdorf.' " 
 What is that ? thinks Faust. Is that an object worth 
 living for ? He listens again. " What are you going to 
 do ? " " We are going up to the mill or the hunter's 
 lodge, and we are going to drink beer and smoke strong 
 tobacco." He listens to that and shakes his head ; 
 thinks that is hardly worth living for. He listens to 
 the old gentlemen who talk about wars in Turkey and 
 congratulate themselves on peace at Rome and bad luck 
 to their enemies. He listens to the women and the 
 soldiers, to this character and to that character, each one 
 telling what he finds in life worth living for. This crowd 
 goes out of the city on Easter morning and feels in a happy 
 frame of mind. Life seems to be worth living to them. 
 Faust don't know what to do about it. As he draws 
 up close to the crowd who are having a good time under 
 a tree, suddenly the people recognize him and take off 
 their hats. "Here comes Dr. Faust," one says, "here 
 comes the doctor who cured us when the pestilence 
 was here ; he and his father walked through the village 
 and bravely entered the houses of the stricken and saved 
 them ; therefore, hurrah for Faust ; let us drink to his 
 health." Warner looks up at him and thinks that it is a 
 great thing to receive such honor. He wishes that he 
 were Faust. Faust beckons and says " Come this way ; 
 I want to tell you something. Come up to this hill. My 
 father was an alchemist ; he and I compounded all sorts 
 of poisons, and we experimented on the people ; we went 
 
172 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE, 
 
 from house to house, and we were a great deal worse 
 than the pestilence ; killed more people. Shameless 
 murderers that we were, experimenting on the people ! 
 Now, do you think I take any pleasure in hearing the 
 shameless murderers that we were, praised ? Nothing 
 of the kind." But a second thought occurs to him ; "we 
 can not know truth, and here I was about poisoning 
 myself. But there is something I might do ; I can not 
 know truth, but I can enjoy myself, perhaps, sensuously. 
 We have senses and appetites for pleasure; why shouldn't 
 I defer this poisoning of myself awhile, now ? There is 
 no such thing as knowing truth ; no higher life for me. 
 But why couldn't I live for the sake of sensual pleasure?" 
 And just at that time he sees the dog, as Mr. Brockmeyer, 
 the commentator, reminds us. The dog is this thought 
 in his mind : that if life is not worth living for something 
 higher, but if life is lived simply for itself, that is the life 
 of a dog ; a dog does that. This would be a dog's life. 
 The dog comes into his mind and grows to Mephisto- 
 pheles afterwards. He takes this dog question home 
 to examine in connection with that question of revelation. 
 He wishes to know whether, if we can not know truth 
 with our intellects we can have it revealed to us relig- 
 iously. And what part of the Bible would he take for 
 his investigation ? He would take that part which 
 reveals the fact that God is not formless, but infinite, 
 eternal form, the logos or creative word. God is infinite 
 form or infinite thought and infinite creative power. 
 "In the beginning was the Word;" the Word made all 
 that is in the world. Here the Absolute is asserted to 
 be an affirmative, creative principle. But what shall this 
 word logos mean to Faust ? Because, if something can 
 
MYTHOLOGY OF THE SECOND PART OF FAUST. 1 73 
 
 be revealed to you, it means that it can be communicated 
 to you in words, and that you can think over it and 
 understand it. " In the beginning was the logos." What 
 does it mean ? Does it reveal anything to you ? Logos. 
 He looks in the dictionary, and finds it rendered as 
 " Word." But here he is in difficulty because a word 
 is a means of expression of a thought, an opinion, or 
 something. Could a means of expression be the first 
 creative beginning of the universe ? A word must, of 
 course, always be after the thought which it expresses. 
 It would not be a word if you had it before the thought. 
 If no thought is before it, it can have no meaning, 
 and must be only a sound of the voice. Thought is 
 before its expression, therefore I must translate : " In 
 the beginning was the thought.'' But there might be 
 a thought sometime before there was any creation. In 
 order to be a creation, in order to make this thought into 
 some reality, there must be power. Therefore I must 
 say : " In the beginning was the power." But the power, 
 too, might be there without action and nothing take 
 place. There must be an act in order that anything 
 shall be. Therefore I must say : " In the beginning 
 was the deed ; " and I see now very clearly that is 
 the way to translate it. The revelation must mean 
 " deed " by logos. Meanwhile, the dog is getting very 
 uneasy. While this internal debate goes on the dog 
 keeps barking. That dog is the feeling or conviction 
 that it is not any use to live, or, if you are going to live, 
 it isn't any use to try to live according to morals and 
 religion and higher life, because there is no possibility of 
 a higher life. The Absolute Being is formless, and we 
 individuals are going down into an infinite death, after 
 
174 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 this life. That dog is very uneasy ; he has noticed that, 
 if a revelation is to be made, the mind to whom it is to 
 be revealed has to be active in the receiving of it, and 
 therefore must be able to see and recognize the truth 
 If the mind can not see truth, it can not receive a revela- 
 tion, because it can not understand the words that the 
 revelation is conveyed in. All this reasoning is expressed 
 dramatically in that wonderful scene. As his conviction 
 becomes complete, the dog changes into Mephistopheles. 
 The dog represents that life which merely lives for the 
 sake of living, and does not live for anything higher than 
 mere eating and drinking. That which lives for the sake 
 of living is not yet Mephistopheles, but will become that 
 demon, when you say " I will live at the expense of all 
 others ; the whole world shall be my oyster ; I will use 
 all the good of other people for my own sensual pleasure, 
 because they have no hereafter, and I have no hereafter, 
 and there is no responsibility, and I simply live for my 
 selfish gratification " 
 
 Faust goes to work to see whether he can be happy 
 on that basis. He finds in the end that he can not. He 
 does not like the drinking saloon nor the idle people that 
 he finds there. He is disgusted with it and wishes to 
 leave it. Next he does not like the witches' kitchen 
 of humanity, the mere fashionable life, the ball-room, and 
 to live simply for the sake of putting on and wearing 
 clothes, being a clothes-horse ; and he comes then to the 
 Margaret-episode, a great collision in the family. Life, 
 at the expense of others, making the world one's oyster, 
 is a principle of mere selfish pleasure, and destroys 
 the family. In the Second Part of Faust, as we have 
 had it described to-night, there is the collision with 
 
MYTHOLOGY OF THE SECOND PART OF FAUST. 1 75 
 
 the State and with the province of art. You see art 
 developed from this low stage in which animal and 
 human forms are united, up to the time when art can 
 conceive the divine in its true form ; that is to say, 
 the purely human form. And with an insight into the 
 progress of art, Faust learns that the divine is not 
 formless. 
 
 And now let us consider briefly the final act ; Where 
 does Faust arrive, at the close of this great drama. He 
 began with the belief that the highest is formless and that 
 there can be no possible future for anything finite, 
 because it will have to lose its form ; have to pass 
 through the infinite mutations and changes of nature. 
 That no individual can live, not even a species can 
 live, so far as it has form ; but everything goes down. 
 He has looked through the world and found no hap- 
 piness with this conviction. His nature is not formed 
 for such a faith, evidently. He finally comes to the con- 
 viction, which is symbolically expressed by Goethe, >in 
 that plan of recovering land from the North Sea. 
 Goethe had seen that spiritual phenomenon in the low 
 lands. The Dutch took in large portions of the shal- 
 lows of the sea, pumping them dry, and thus preparing 
 fertile lands for farms and for great cities. Faust has 
 come to a new thought. He sees that what he is doing is 
 contributing to the future good of humanity beyond 
 his life. In the thought of that, he finds his first and 
 only true pleasure, the only true moment of happiness he 
 has had in his life, he enjoys the feeling that he is doing 
 something which will go to the benefit of his fellow-man; 
 not to their benefit in the sense of ease and luxury, but 
 a benefit which goes to make the people active and intel- 
 
176 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 ligent. They must be always alert to keep out the ocean, 
 combining their efforts and feeling that their strength 
 lies in their unity. He helps men to help themselves. 
 In this thought he has his happiest moment, and dies. 
 And now comes the final scene of Faust. We see 
 Pater Ecstaticus representing the whole first stage of 
 Christianity, wherein the hermits, in order to live holy 
 lives, went away from the cities ; they could not live 
 Christian lives if they lived in the cities full of heathen- 
 ism; then came that great Saint Benedict, who took them 
 out of their isolation in the caves, wherein they had 
 almost degenerated into animals. He brought them 
 together into communities and founded monasteries ; the 
 early monastic life, too, in this Pater Ecstaticus, who 
 wishes to attain for himself what is holiest ; but he 
 does not try to raise himself to the divine by helping his 
 fellow-man. Pater Ecstaticus represents the first epoch, 
 lasting, perhaps, five or six hundred or the first thousand 
 years of Christianity. Then a wonderful change came. 
 Then came Saint Francis and Saint Dominick, the latter 
 the founder of that order of monks who copied manu- 
 scripts and made possible the revival of learning — the 
 former the founder of the order of preaching monks. 
 Here is the second stage of Christianity, which sees 
 the Divine Being made this world of men and nature. 
 All the early centuries of Christianity believed that 
 nature was devilish and Satanic ; but Pater Profundus, 
 representing Saint Dominick, taught that if man sees into 
 the mediation of nature, he sees that these apparently 
 demoniac things, are in reality blessings in disguise. 
 God purifies the air by thunder-storms and lightnings, 
 fhere is a divine grace in it. Then comes next Pat^r 
 
MYTHOLOGY OF THE SECOND PART OF FAUST. 177 
 
 Seraphicus, representing Saint Francis, a more advanced 
 form, as Goethe would th'nk, and as you and I would 
 think. Saint Francis goes out and -preaches the love of 
 God to the lowest humanity. He does not shut himself 
 up in a monastery in order to keep the world out, but he 
 goes to the beggars and even to the offscouring of human- 
 ity, and preaches God to them. " God has died for you 
 and wishes to bring you up to share with him his blessed- 
 ness." And he preaches that Nature comes direct from 
 the hand of God. Dante has placed his praises in the 
 mouth of Saint Thomas Aquinas in the Paradiso — " Saint 
 Francis wedded to Poverty, who had been a widow 
 twelve hundred years." Poverty means humility : 
 "Blessed are the poor in spirit." Christ was the perfect 
 example of that poverty, according to Dante. He 
 had humility ; and Saint Francis is the second great 
 exemplar of humility, for he stoops to the lowest in 
 order to bring them up. After these three paters Goethe 
 brings in another one, a Doctor. Dr. Marianus, who 
 unites, as it were, all the elements represented by these 
 three. Goethe may have thought that this was the 
 church of the future ; the Christian Church, in its fulness 
 and completeness. The worship of the Virgin is brought 
 in here as Queen of Heaven. What does that signify ? 
 If you wish to represent the Divine Being, not as form- 
 less, nor as a jealous Earth-spirit which says " Get away; 
 you are not like me; you are like that which you can con- 
 ceive down there in the earth, but not like me; " not like 
 such a being, but to represent the highest idea of the 
 divine, you will come to the idea of God as infinite 
 tenderness and grace, creating the world and bringing 
 things up out of an abyss of nothingness and giving 
 12 
 
178 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 them his being, allowing them to participate in him. 
 The Catholic Church recognizes this element in God, 
 and in order to represent it fully in all its tenderness, it 
 likens it to mother-love, because the mother takes care of 
 the human being when he is too immature to be rational, 
 and yet for the sake of the reasonable being that may 
 develop, she endures pain, and trouble, and worry, and 
 patientl) nurtures him. He has not arrived at the point 
 of responsibility where you can deal with him on the 
 plane of justice. The mother treats him on the principle 
 of grace, and so Goethe, looking into the universe all 
 these eighty years of his life, concludes at the end that 
 there is no selfish principle at the bottom of the universe, 
 but that the principle at the bottom of the universe is 
 divine grace, infinite tenderness, that nurtures the world 
 towards individuality more and more, with infinite 
 patience and infinite love, drawing it up towards itself. 
 This Goethe symbolizes by mother-love. So, at the close 
 of the Second Part of Faust, out of the heavens comes 
 down to us that mystic chorus : " All things that are 
 transient and pass away, are only symbols; " that is, they 
 are that through which the Divine speaks to us. " That 
 which is incomplete here goes on and grows towards per- 
 fection." That is to say, in the divine world there is 
 something which is drawing the incomplete and the finite 
 towards perfection. " The Eternal-womanly draweth us 
 on." The divine is the Eternal- womanly. The feminine 
 element is the special element of grace. God is divine 
 grace. With that idea, Goethe ends his work. That 
 is his final opinion of the world, after looking into it with 
 all the skeptical science of his age ; thinking of it from 
 youth and wrestling with it ; grappling with the sphinx- 
 
MYTHOLOGY OF THE SECOND PART OF FAUST. 1 79 
 
 riddle whether there is a Pantheistic principle, in which 
 we lose our individual being, or whether we go on in 
 infinite growth ; towards true individuality, towards per- 
 sonality ; towards retaining our independent selves and 
 yet obtaining the divine. 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 
 
 By Mrs. Maria A. Shorey. 
 
 Seeking the largest and most inclusive characteri- 
 zation of the modern novel, we may regard it as a 
 literary study, more or less artistic and skillful, of the 
 relations of the sexes. Indeed, some phase of this rela- 
 tion, with its mystery, its potent charm, its pathetic 
 and tragic crises, constitutes the underlying theme in 
 nearly all that can be called creative in literary art. 
 Remove Helen of Troy from your thoughts and fancies 
 and you may have the lists of ships and genealogies of 
 heroes, vivid pictures of the days and deeds of warriors 
 fighting and feasting on the Trojan Plains ; " Achilles 
 sulking in his tent," or " Priam weeping over Hector 
 slain ; " but where is the Iliad of your boyhood's Homer ? 
 In the Greek drama it is often the passions of the 
 gods, or the incitations of vengeful fates, rather than 
 human life and love, or human love in life, by which the 
 actors are moved ; yet, even there, we have an immortal 
 picture of conjugal affection and tender self-sacrifice, 
 unto death ; and the tragic fate of a Hercules through 
 the unwitting schemes of a jealous wife. In the Shake- 
 spearian drama, dealing with human life in all its varied 
 aspects, the passion of love plays its full part, even when 
 its demands and its tragic episodes do not, as in Othello 
 and Romeo and Juliet, constitute the principal " motif " of 
 the dramatic action, Turning to the nineteenth century, 
 
 j8o 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 161 
 
 beside the world of novels already alluded to, as studies 
 of the passion of love, the most cursory survey will show 
 how fruitful of poetic inspiration this theme has been. 
 And has not one of our own wisest men declared that " all 
 the world loves a lover, and wishes him ' God speed ' in 
 his wooing ? " And who in actual life has not observed 
 that even good men and women will often wish the lover a 
 success in his wooing quite beyond any rational estimate 
 of his deserts, and quite inconsistent with any just con- 
 sideration for the happiness of the maiden he is beguiling? 
 Were we only wise enough we should doubtless find 
 a deep significance in all this, and in the fact that, of dis- 
 course upon the relations of men and women, and upon 
 the passion of love which leads to them, mankind is never 
 really weary. It is true that many of us have little inter- 
 est in the crude works so abundant about us, in which 
 the loves of a beautiful damsel in tearful distress and of 
 the gallant young hero with dark passionate eyes and 
 herculean strength, who comes so opportunely to her res- 
 cue are portrayed, with much intricate ingenuity of plot 
 and much wealth of thrilling circumstance, inwoven in 
 the tale. Indeed, it may be admitted that other and 
 much higher forms of treatment of this theme may lack 
 power to charm people who have, fortunately or unfor- 
 tunately, outgrown all illusions concerning it ; or, who 
 have analyzed its origin and place in the economy of 
 human existence, and so have taught themselves to look 
 with no more sympathetic interest upon the simple 
 "shepherd teUing his tale under the hawthorn in the 
 dale," than upon the twitterings and love-makings of the 
 birds in the branches at pairing time. To the absorbed 
 student of biology the bitter rivalries, mad jealousies, 
 
162 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 and all the tragic play of passion in the lives of m.en 
 seeking the love of woman, may be phenomena for scien- 
 tific study and analysis as are the fierce contests of the 
 male salmon on the gravelly banks of cool, fresh streams, 
 over the ova beds of their species, yet interesting only as 
 is the study of any portion of the subtle yet majestic play 
 of forces in the economy of organic life. But, admitting 
 all this, it is probable that alike in the man of science 
 or the man or woman of the world and of affairs, a 
 sufficiently artistic and well-told story of some phase of 
 that " old sweet madness " might surprise the most 
 enlightened, the most disciplined or withered heart, into 
 a responsive throb of sympathetic delight, or waken dim 
 echoes of a half-regretted pain. 
 
 Such a story told by the master in literary art, whose 
 genius and work and life we are here to study, we have 
 in the " Elective Affinities " of Goethe. Unique in the 
 phase of the theme selected as well as in its treatment, 
 this book has been much misunderstood, and much con- 
 demned ; but, like all true works of art, has been steadily 
 gaining in the appreciation of thinkers and of careful 
 students of human life and its possibilities. For this is 
 no every-day tale of the fresh young loves of a youth and 
 maiden kept apart by a web of complicated circumstance 
 and condition ; no pathetic story of the woes of young 
 hearts rushing to their delights heedless of the demands 
 and safeguards of social well being, and ending in the 
 pitiable death of one and the life-long sorrow of the 
 other, like the love of Wilhelm Meister and Mariana ; no 
 sad tale of a hopeless yet yearning heart wearing a beau- 
 tiful life into the death of despair like that of Werther ; 
 or no charming picture of honest and noble love trium- 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 183 
 
 phant over difficulty like that of Hermann and Dorothea. 
 Elective Affinities has neither the charms nor the lessons 
 of any of these. A somber tale of unhappy, because 
 unlawful love, it has its own peculiar tragic power, its 
 special appeals to the heart of the reader. The events 
 flow on to the final catastrophe with the inexorableness 
 of law, while, as we watch their unresisting course 
 towards their impending doom, we are touched with a 
 half celestial pity for the pair who have the courage to 
 die but not to conquer their passion for each other. It 
 would be a curious and interesting experiment to sketch 
 roughly the plot of this book to a few intelligent discip- 
 lined people of healthy yet noble sensibilities, who had 
 never read it, and to listen to their comments. 
 
 A middle aged man of fortune, Edward the hero, has 
 been twice married, and is, at the time the story begins, 
 living comfortably with his second wife, Charlotte, a 
 noble woman, who had been the object of his youthful 
 affection before his first marriage with a bride selected 
 for him by his father ; yet he conceives a profound pas- 
 sion for Ottilie, a shy, timid school-girl, the niece of his 
 wife, and her ward. He wins Ottilie's love under the 
 very eyes of his wife, at the same time that he does all in 
 his power to favor the development of a sincere regard 
 existing between his wife and his friend, the Captain, into 
 a passion like his own for Ottilie, hoping that he may 
 then ultimately secure a divorce and marry the niece, 
 while the divorced wife will be free to unite herself with 
 her affinity, the Captain. But Charlotte awakes to a 
 realization of the immoralities of the situation, and after 
 some bitter struggles with herself, decides that the 
 unlawful loves of all must be denied. She resolutely 
 
184 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 sends the Captain from her side to woo and, as she 
 hopes, marry a woman she believes suitable for him. She 
 causes the temporary separation of Edward and Ottilie, 
 and while her own heart is suffering, strives with unselfish 
 wisdom to so occupy the mind of the young girl that she 
 may find the healing peace that often flows from whole- 
 some and beneficent activities, for herself seeking only to 
 win Edward back to his proper allegiance to her as his 
 wife and to their unborn child, and so to gain for her 
 wretched household domestic peace and loyalty, if not 
 the domestic happiness it has lost. All this she does, 
 with the final result that, Ottilie, the pure and innocent 
 maiden, dies of inward remorse and despair at her ina- 
 bility to conquer her unhappy passion for Edward ; while 
 Edward, broken hearted at her death, follows her to the 
 tomb, leaving Charlotte in her loneliness to lay the pair 
 tenderly and forgivingly side by side in the family vault. 
 Such is the tale stripped of unessential incidents and 
 embellishment. And how unreal it all sounds ! To what 
 a world of perplexing problems, growing out of undiscip- 
 lined and ill-regulated emotions, it introduces us ! 
 And is it really true, that among civilized people it is 
 unsafe for a married pair in middle life to introduce to 
 their home a young school girl, a relative of the wife ? 
 Or for the husband to admit to their domestic intimacy a 
 valued and life-long friend ? And how closely also it 
 touches upon the ridiculous ! We have all heard, apd 
 some of us have wept over, tales of youths and maidens 
 who have died of unhappy or unrequited love. But this 
 story of a comfortable middle-aged man of the world, 
 " fat, fair and in the forties," who has been twice married 
 and is still a husband, yet assumes the role of a raw and 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 1 85 
 
 tender swain, dying of an unhappy passion, might, it 
 would seem, move any stray imp of Satan to laughter, 
 but wring tears from eyes of man or woman ? neve?-. Just 
 here, however, lies the masterly art of Goethe ; for, as 
 we read the book, we do not feel that it is unreal, or 
 untrue ; on the contrary, we feel that it is very real, and 
 as a picture of the tragic possibilities of human life only 
 too sadly true ; while the pathos of its closing chapters 
 excites our sympathy, even for the hero whose weakness 
 we despise. 
 
 The truth of Elective Affinities, like that of all the 
 products of the genius of Goethe, lies probably in the 
 fact that it is in its essence a transcript from suggested 
 possibilities in his personal experience and observation. 
 For the art of Goethe was the blossoming of his individ- 
 ual life. His philosophy its fruit. With him the ideal 
 was reached only by a subtle, yet entirely conscious pro- 
 cess of elimination from and intensification of the actual 
 in personal experience and observation. When once 
 asked what he had been doing in literature he replied, 
 " Nothing in black and white, but I have felt several 
 poems recently." And again he tells us that he "can 
 form no mental pictures of heavenly delights that are 
 not drawn from experiences of earth." Whatever seems 
 unnatural to the average reader in Goethe's art is due, 
 not as in the case of the Shakespearian drama to the 
 wanton play of an exuberant fancy, but rather to the fact 
 that his nature, both in its capacities and weaknesses, was 
 exceptional. To the average man the exceptional always 
 seems unnatural, until by a mental compulsion not 
 entirely agreeable, he has brought himself to grasp and 
 classify it as in nature's order. This man, Goethe, who 
 
l86 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 for fifty years dwelt mainly at a little German court, and 
 conscientiously occupied himself with its petty etiquette 
 and trivial interests ; who never visited a large city, and 
 whose outlook upon life would seem to a man of culture 
 of our time so narrow and commonplace that it would 
 be folly to expect from it any important outcome, yet 
 ranged so far and wide in thought upon the things he 
 learned ; entered so sympathetically into the deepest 
 experiences of those with whom he came in contact ; so 
 sounded all the heights and depths of thought and feel- 
 ing in his own nature, that it seems to us now as we turn 
 to him, that we find in him suggestions of all life's possi- 
 bilities. Indeed, I think it will sometime be admitted 
 that he often grasped intellectually, if he could not con- 
 tinuously hold, the underlying principle of all progress 
 from the slime, up through the struggling, teeming ranks of 
 life, to that half-poetic, half-prophetic dream (which haunts 
 us all) of a race of men and women whose souls, purified 
 by the discipline of the generations into harmony with 
 celestial currents, know at last neither sorrow nor striv- 
 ing, but exist in peace, stirred only by the ebb and flow 
 of the mighty ocean of divine desire and happy attain- 
 ment. 
 
 I have said, and would emphasize, that the art of 
 Goethe was essentially a product of personal experience ; 
 but by this I do not by any means mean that the com- 
 pletest knowledge of his life and surroundings would 
 give us the originals of all his heroines, or would discover 
 actual facts in the events he portrays. The highest art 
 is not so simply photographic in .its essence. " Paint me 
 a picture of a perfect rose," I cry to a master in pictorial 
 art, and I search my garden for specimens, that he may 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 1 87 
 
 copy one. He takes them all, the more the better; 
 studies them all, but if he be a master, and not a mere 
 slavish tyro, the rose from which he paints at last is an 
 ideal of his inward vision formed by a mental elimination 
 of all the imperfections and the heightening and regroup- 
 ing of all the beauties of the myriads of roses he has 
 studied. This grasp of the ideal by means of fullest 
 study of the actual, is the end of all high art worthy to 
 be so called. And this, consciously or unconsciously, is 
 fundamentally the method of its attainment and interpre- 
 tation by all artists whose works live to be the joy of the 
 world. And this, again, simple as it seems, when 
 boldly stated, is the underlying reality in much of the 
 vague talk around us of "truth to nature in art" by 
 one school and of " the ideal in art " by another, which 
 seems, sometimes, a very Babel of confusion to one who 
 would think at all clearly upon the subject. 
 
 To return : When Goethe describes so vividly and 
 with such simple pathos the passionate loves of Edward 
 and Ottilie, I would not .regard it as a disguised confes- 
 sion of his own relations to Minna von Herzlieb, except 
 upon the very fullest evidence. That it may possibly 
 have been such has been asserted, and can not now 
 be positively denied. But I deprecate even the effort to 
 prove or make it seem probable that it was so. Why 
 should we rake over the conduct and surroundings of 
 a man of genius who is gone from us, to learn just how 
 near he came to falling from his own far heights of 
 insight and aspiration. When still young, Goethe gave as 
 an ideal of conduct towards women the rule that a man 
 should never by word or look or deed, seek to win the 
 love of a woman unless certain he could give her a place 
 
1 88 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 by his side as his life companion. We know that, to 
 rightly rule himself in his relations with women, was 
 one of the severest tasks of his life from youth to man- 
 hood, and perhaps on into old age. From his struggles 
 and failures in that task, came some of his bitterest 
 sorrows. This much he has allowed us to understand. 
 Why should we seek further to lift the veil of silence and 
 oblivion which he thought right to throw over them ? 
 
 But I am myself convinced that, in this case, when he 
 met Minna, who had left him a child, and returned after 
 four years of absence a beautiful young woman, he 
 found in the depths of his heart the possibilities of a pas- 
 sion which he saw at once could bring nothing but 
 sorrow to both of them, and to which, therefore, he would 
 not yield. We are told by Minna, herself, that there 
 never was any word of love between them. Later, he 
 transferred those possibilities in imagination to a man 
 less disciplined and with fewer intellectual resources for 
 self healing than his own, and gave us Edward as the 
 result. That Ottilie was suggested to his mind by 
 Minna, seems upon all the evidence quite probable ; but 
 as I have intimated, Ottilie is Minna, with some traits 
 eliminated and others intensified and added ; so that 
 to speak of Ottilie as a literary portrait of Minna is a 
 treachery to the art of Goethe and a wrong to the his- 
 toric Minna and those who still cherish her memory. 
 
 It is a little curious in this connection that no prying 
 gossip has pointed out the original of Charlotte, and that 
 no one seems to care to know. Surely it is a strange 
 perverseness in the human heart that would find Char- 
 lotte less interesting than Ottilie. Let any one try to 
 itnagine how a perfectly true and noble woman would 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 1 89 
 
 conduct herself under the circumstances in which Char- 
 lotte was placed as the story progresses, and he will 
 begin to realize what a masterly creation Goethe has here 
 given us ; and by what simple touches the whole impres- 
 sion is produced. With what wifely loyalty and fine tact 
 she entertains Edward's friends. How she uses her skill 
 as a pianist to conceal her husband's faulty flute playing. 
 With what grace and sweetness she meets Edward's 
 coarse reproof, when she has committed the fault of look- 
 ing over his shoulder upon the book from which he is 
 reading aloud to her about the chemical affinities from 
 which the story takes its name ! And how perfect she is, 
 when some months later Edward, having become infatu- 
 ated with Ottilie, not only permits the young girl to 
 commit the same fault unreproved, but actually changes 
 his position, and lingers at the foot of the page, that 
 Ottilie's eye may fall upon the words he is uttering, while 
 Charlotte observes it all, but with no word of sarcasm 
 or reproach. Notice how constantly through all the 
 vicissitudes of the story she preserves her tender care 
 of Ottilie ; truly and unselfishly anxious for her welfare, 
 and never feeling the slightest bitterness towards the 
 young girl who, a dependent upon her bounty, has come 
 into her home to destroy its peace ; none the less surely 
 because it was so unwittingly done ; and who, through an 
 accident which could never have happened but for 
 Ottilie's disregard of her wishes, caused the death, by 
 drowning, of her and Edward's child. Nor is Charlotte 
 any unreal paragon of impossible perfection, coldly and 
 mechanically adhering to conventional standards of duty 
 and propriety, since she is so thoroughly natural and 
 human that, after some months, during which her hug- 
 
190 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 band, absorbed by his passion for Ottilie, has left her 
 entirely to the society of the Captain, whose observant 
 sympathy, though unexpressed in words, has been a con- 
 stant balm to her wounded sensibilities as a wife, she 
 finds her heart turning to this household friend, and that 
 she is no longer indifferent to the man between whom 
 and herself there is the pure, strong affinity of noble 
 minds and disciplined natures, as well as the affinity of- 
 simple passional attraction to which Edward and Ottilie 
 are so weakly yielding. And, finally, with what clear 
 womanly insight and right feeling she decides uj)on 
 her course after the scene upon the lake, when she tells 
 the Captain that what they have just learned they feel for 
 each other, she can never forgive in herself, or him, 
 except they have the courage to part at once and forever; 
 then takes his arm in silence to return to her home, 
 where, when once again in her own room, she throws 
 herself upon her knees and renews her vows as Edward's 
 wife. To some it will perhaps seem that Charlotte fails 
 in womanly perfection when, more than a year later, she 
 temporarily yields to Edward's renewed demands for a 
 divorce. But let us remember the situation. It is the 
 morning after the death of her child. She has passed 
 the night in silence watching by its little body, holding 
 Ottilie's head in her lap and anxious only not to disturb 
 the heavy slumber into which the suffering girl, pros- 
 trated by her mental agony, had fallen. She sees clearly 
 that Edward's absence of a year from Ottilie and his 
 home has been of no avail to cure their passion for each 
 other. Both are suffering intensely, Edward declaring 
 the situation to be too unnecessarily cruel to be longer 
 gndured. Her child is dead ; and v?ith it, it seemed tO 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. I9I 
 
 her, her last hope of her husband's allegiance. She 
 reviews the past, and with her noble tendency to look for 
 the cause of their misery in some shortcoming of her 
 own, rather than in Edward's undisciplined nature, she 
 thinks she perceives that her husband has never loved 
 her, and that she should have known it before their mar- 
 riage ; and cries out " Oh, why could I not see when he 
 so persistently besought me to marry him that it was 
 merely a man's obstinacy in seeking what he believed 
 had been unjustly denied him rather than real love, that 
 impelled him." Then a wave of superstitious feeling 
 comes over her, which, foreign as it is to her usually 
 clear intelligence, is yet quite natural at that time of 
 intense emotion. She will no longer struggle against 
 destiny ; her divorce shall be the expiation of her mis- 
 take, and she gently says : " Tell Edward I consent. I 
 leave everything to be arranged. I have no anxiety for 
 my own future condition ; it may be what it will. I will 
 subscribe whatever paper is submitted to me, only he 
 must not require me to join actively. I can not have to 
 think about it, or to give advice." 
 
 I have dwelt thus much upon the mere character 
 delineation of the book, because it is there that its art is 
 most manifest. But closely interwoven with its dramatic 
 action, though not interfering with its simplicity, is much 
 that would be valuable in itself, independently of its 
 connection. The extracts from Ottilie's diary are unques- 
 tionably an artistic defect, since they seem rather pearls 
 of wisdom from a mind calm in its maturity than the 
 reflections of a morbid school girl made wise beyond her 
 years by passion and suffering ; yet even these contain 
 gems of thought w^ would not miss. In the converse- 
 
192 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 tions of the assistant and the architect, young men in 
 Charlotte's employ during Edward's absence, are many 
 valuable suggestions upon art and architecture, upon the 
 education of youth, the relations of parent and child, and 
 other subjects. With a few light touches, Edward's cas- 
 tle, Charlotte's summer pleasure house, the old mill, the 
 forest paths, and the little lake are set as pictures before 
 us ; and are so true to the atmosphere of their locality, 
 that upon reading the book recently, I found myself actu- 
 ally identifying them with a castle and summer pleasure 
 house among the hills above it, reached by a zig-zag 
 forest path passing an old mill, with its now seldom 
 moving wheel, turned by an upland stream on its descent 
 to a little lake below, where I had myself passed delight- 
 ful hours three summers ago ; and it was only by 
 instituting a chronological investigation of the subject 
 that I convinced myself that Goethe could not have had 
 in mind one of the royal residences of Saxony, as it now 
 exists near Pillnitz. 
 
 I have said that this book has been much condemned 
 on moral grounds ; and the question naturally arises of 
 the justice of such condemnation. It is confessedly a 
 tale of unlawful love. Its tragedy and pathos have their 
 sources in undisciplined, ill-regulated affections, and their 
 antagonism with social law and order. Its artistic truth- 
 fulness is unquestioned ; and whatever immorality there 
 is about it pertains to the theme itself, rather than to its 
 treatment. There are many who believe that any treat- 
 ment of such a theme in literature is likely to be 
 unwholesome in its influence upon the mind of the 
 average reader : and it is certain that there is much to be 
 said in favor of that belief Just at present the teaching, 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. I93 
 
 that art may demand as its rightful province the whole 
 world of phenomena and experience, upon the sole con- 
 dition for justification of its claim that it shall be true to 
 nature, is very much in vogue. But I think it may be 
 shown that art, and very especially literary art, has other 
 limits which it should not pass. There are hideous mal- 
 formations, foul festering sores, indeed many functional 
 activities and conditions of animal and human existence 
 which may be interesting and proper subjects of investi- 
 gation by the scientific specialist, but which are neither fit 
 nor pleasant for the average observer ; and so whatever 
 skill might be brought to their representation they would 
 remain unsuitable themes for the art of the poet, painter, 
 or sculptor. At a Paris salon exhibition some years ago, 
 there was a masterly canvas of a scene in a dissecting- 
 room. All the marvelous resources in technique of the 
 most advanced French schools were displayed in it. It 
 was nearly faultless in coloring, grouping and realistic 
 power ; but after careful and patient study of it, most 
 persons turned from it certainly with admiration for the 
 skill of the painter, but with a vague haunting disgust ; 
 and I maintain that it is a wrong that people who seek 
 the refining and elevating influences of art in a picture 
 gallery should have a section of a dissecting-room thrust 
 upon their notice. On another wall of the same salon 
 hung a picture of a cottage interior at sunset. 
 
 A sun-browned, toil-worn peasant woman, in the garb 
 of a French peasant, sat upon a coarse stool, rocking a 
 cradle with her foot, while the rough, large-jointed 
 fingers held her string of beads, and her lips moved with 
 her evening prayer. This also was a fine painting, mas- 
 terly in its treatment of every detail, but it was also art 
 13 
 
794 
 
 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 in its best sense, since simple and commonplace as was 
 the subject, it touched some of the finest chords of feel- 
 ing, even in those who had no sympathy with the 
 devotion of the subject. 
 
 In literary art, meaning thereby the novel and poem 
 which deal mainly with human emotion in the social rela- 
 tions, I can not believe that those monstrous and hideous 
 developments of morbid character and feeling which 
 occasionally crop out in our highest social life, or those 
 remnants of the beast which cower in their unloveliness 
 amid the dregs of our civilizations, can be ennobled or 
 made ennobling to the mind by any mere truth of repre- 
 sentation. Most decent people shun personal relations 
 with them in actual life, except at the imperative call of 
 duty. Their most perfect analysis belongs to a treatise 
 upon scientific psychology for the use of the specialist. 
 In literary art such analysis produces a sense of pain and 
 disgust in the reader, unless he be exceptionally robust 
 or possibly exceptionally depraved by a taste so culti- 
 vated to enjoyment of perfection of realistic representa- 
 tion that he is indifferent to the higher aims of art. No, 
 there must be something more than "sublime truth to 
 nature " in literary treatment of these unwholesome 
 phases of human development. There must be also in 
 every line, truth and loyalty to a lofty ideal, which has 
 grown up in the soul of the author, through and with the 
 study and experience which are the sources of his power 
 of realistic truth ; without this, however true to nature 
 the novel or poem may be, it is not worthy the name of 
 art, and is likely to be immoral in its tendency. It is 
 this truth and loyalty to his ideal conception of marriage 
 and its sacredness which relieves the Elective Affinities 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 1 95 
 
 of Goethe from the charge of immorality. Goethe him- 
 self, in a conversation with Eckermann, intimated that he 
 had a didactic purpose in writing this book. It is plain 
 that not only through his personal experiences, but 
 through observation of society all over Germany, in his 
 day, questions concerning the relations of the sexes and 
 the grounds of dissolution of marriage, had much occu- 
 pied his mind. I can not here and now attempt even 
 the most cursory survey of German society at that time ; 
 but let us remember that Goethe lived in the generations 
 succeeding Louis the XIV, and old August of Sax- 
 ony, with his brilliant Court deserted by its queen and 
 presided over by Aurora von Konigsmark and her 
 numerous successors. That the custom of morganatic 
 marriages prevailed quite generally among all those Ger- 
 man princelings who, hospitably receiving Protestant 
 refugees from France, had been led by those recipients 
 of their bounty, and other influences, into ideas of mar- 
 riage quite different from those of the olden days, when 
 Tacitus gave such glowing accounts of the conjugal fidel- 
 ity of the German race. Nor were the newer teachings 
 that passion has its rights ; that a love so strong as to be 
 uncontrolled by reason obeys its own higher law, sancti- 
 fying whatever it demands, and all the pitiful errors 
 that grew out of or accompanied the social strivings of 
 the eighteenth century, confined to the nobility alone, 
 since we learn that one of the Professors at Jena, while 
 Goethe was writing this book, was happy with a third 
 wife, the other two still living. 
 
 From personal experience, Goethe knew how it would 
 be possible for an unmarried man or woman to form an 
 attachment with one of a married pair, without any direct 
 
196 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 evil intent, through simply and perhaps at the outset 
 unconsciously yielding to a natural affinity. For this 
 was precisely the situation in his own relations with the 
 von Steins, which probably in its beginning was, on his 
 part at least, as unconsciously and innocently entered 
 upon, as was that of Ottilie and Edward. Possibly 
 Goethe, in his very early years, shared in the poetic 
 superstition still dear to the hearts of maidens in middle 
 class German life, that for each individual man or woman 
 there is somewhere in the world a predestined affinity, 
 and that only by a union of such affinities can a perfect 
 marriage be attained ; so that a marriage formed by two 
 persons mistaking their affinities, not only makes perfect 
 happiness impossible for themselves, but prevents 
 another pair somewhere from forming a happy union. 
 But it is certain that when Goethe wrote Elective Affini- 
 ties, his scientific and other studies had taught him the 
 absurdity of any belief that these affinities between the 
 sexes have other basis or origin than the mere greater 
 temperamental and passional attraction between some 
 men of a generation and some of its women ; and that, 
 and this is a point of special import, this affinity is but 
 one, and by no means the only essential factor in a happy 
 marriage. 
 
 If we ask why in the story the characters are so delin- 
 ated and the situation so developed that the relation 
 between Edward and Ottilie could have no outcome, 
 artistically and ideally satisfying, except the tragic one, we 
 shall catch a glimpse, I think, of the didactic purpose 
 Goethe had in mind in writing the book. The affinities 
 between men and women whose natural result is the pas- 
 sion we call love, and whose completest satisfaction is the 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 1 97 
 
 union of marriage, have in themselves no sanctity above 
 any other physical appetite, but should be guided, guarded 
 and restrained by an intelligent reason at the first indica- 
 tion of their existence, and through its entire continuance. 
 The interests, or demands of the passion of love must 
 always be subordinate and subservient to the universal 
 interests of the race, which, at any given period of human 
 development, or in any given state of society, are more 
 likely to be represented by established laws and social 
 customs and usages than by the emotional demands of any 
 single pair, however imperious these may be, or however 
 great the seeming injury to the highest well-being, of 
 those suffering from antagonism to the non-universal 
 interests. Note with what wonderful art Goethe makes 
 the nature of the shy, timid school girl blossom out into 
 womanly grace and perfection under the charm and sun- 
 shine of her love for Edward, until she is capable of that 
 lofty, though not highest grace of human character, even 
 death, to preserve her ideal of right. In Elective Affini- 
 ties, the situation is artistically freed from the common- 
 place embarrassments of sympathy excited for a wronged, 
 deserted wife by Charlotte's own nobler affection for the 
 Captain. In the story, persistently refusing the dissolu- 
 tion of the marriage bond in her own interests, Charlotte 
 at last consents to the divorce in the interest of Edward 
 and Ottilie. But note that the tragedy does not depend 
 upon her consent or refusal. Higher than her or their 
 interests were involved ; and the pair which could not or 
 would not, sacrifice their love to those higher interests, 
 must sink into the ignominy of crime, or perish. 
 
 These truths and their full significance I think Goethe 
 learned quite late in life, when he had conquered his love 
 
198 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 for the Frau von Stein, and was striving to rule himself 
 by the highest truths he could reach ; and these, through 
 much travail of heart and brain, I think he sought to 
 give to the world in the artistic guise of Die Wahlver- 
 wandschaften. 
 
 But he did not label his work a lesson in ethics, or 
 tack an explanatory legend at the end announcing its 
 moral. Nor does he give direct solutions of the many 
 problems suggested. For these or for aids to the solu- 
 tions in his own mind we must search his other works, 
 and apply the principles we find there. And first, as 
 pertinent to the subject, let us observe how very specially 
 Goethe is the poet of women. No other poet has given 
 us so many types of womanly perfection and grace. In 
 no other masculine writer do women find so clear and 
 delicate a perception of their difficulties in their relations 
 with men, which largely grow out of the fact that through 
 past necessities and conditions of humanity, and possibly 
 still earlier types of life, from which the human race has 
 come, it has grown to be an instinct in man to regard 
 woman as created for, and only of worth in that one rela- 
 tion, which, confessedly the highest, is yet not all of life, 
 must not even in the future interests of the race be all of 
 life for women. What masculine poet but Goethe could 
 have given us that line in Hermann and Dorothea so 
 marvelous in its insight. " Ungerecht ist der mann, die 
 zeiten der Liebe vergehen." A pregnant confession from 
 the manliest of men, that through, and perhaps because 
 of, the very magnanimities of love, men have failed to 
 attain that instinct of justice in their relations with 
 women which is primal and fundamental in their relations 
 with each other. 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. I99 
 
 But while recognizing and never denying this, Goethe 
 is also very especially the poet who gives women most 
 hope for better conditions as the generations pass. Since 
 through him we may learn that there is no instinct in the 
 heart of man that is not the product of past conditions 
 and experience, and may not be modified by other condi- 
 tions in the future. So that woman, who has patiently, 
 helpfully and humbly stood by man's side through all 
 the vicissitudes of the generations that are passed, thus 
 establishing her claim of equality with him as one of the 
 human pair, may hope at last in new conditions of human 
 existence to find man, not indeed more generous to the 
 individual woman whom he loves, but more just to those 
 women whom he can not love, and more ready to recog- 
 nize their right to that fullest development and untram- 
 melled exercise of all their powers, which he claims and 
 maintains for himself. 
 
 DISCUSSION. 
 
 Prof. Denton J. Snider : I am interested in this 
 novel in many ways, but chiefly because it unfolds in 
 completeness what may be called the tragedy of the 
 family, and more particularly the tragedy of husband 
 and wife, unfolding it in the form of a novel, with the 
 environment of a society. The question has been sprung 
 whether this is a suitable theme for a novel. It shows 
 unlawful love, and there are some unlawful things which 
 ought not to be put down in works of art. But is this 
 one of them? 
 
 Probably no great work of art exists which has not 
 something which is unlawful or wrong in it. And the 
 very object of a work of art is to show the unlawfulness. 
 
2O0 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 the violation overcome, or to show it punished. Pray, 
 what is a work of art, unless it tells you something ? The 
 goody-goody kind, which portrays only saints and angels, 
 is well enough, but that makes a Sunday-school book 
 and we give it into the hands of children. But grown 
 people must have a work of flesh and blood, which 
 shows all the temptations of flesh and blood, and shows 
 their consequences. That gives us a book which means 
 something. So we must look at that essential fact in 
 a work of art which is called collision, not a collision 
 between two external things, material matters, but a 
 collision in the spiritual world, between the higher and 
 the lower. Such a collision .is always in every work of 
 art worthy of the name. So we are not going to avoid 
 unlawfulness ; when it comes to a true theme, there must 
 be shown some violation. There must be a collision, in 
 a novel, between the higher and the lower, in some form. 
 If it be a true work of art, it is going to show the 
 triumph of the spiritual element, and the punishment 
 of the . lower, or the reconciliation of the lower, in 
 some form, to the higher. But that is not the only 
 collision possible, even in a novel. For instance, we 
 may have humanity versus the family, or the family 
 versus the State. Take the case of Antigone, how noble, 
 pure and true is her character ; but there is a violation 
 which causes her death. The same way with Cordelia ; 
 she, too, is noble and pure, yet she is guilty of a violation 
 which causes her death. So we must look and see what 
 the collision is, and how the poet works out his theme 
 upon that basis ; it speaks to you always in that way, 
 and in that way alone. I would fully concur with our 
 lecturer that the painting of the hospital, to which she 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 201 
 
 alluded, was not a work of art, as it portrays merely a 
 scene of horror and pain without any collision. But 
 it is not such on account of the pain alone, not on 
 account of the blood and horror. These may come into a 
 work of art. I can conceive of a painting, a battle for 
 instance, in which there is as much pain and horror and 
 blood as in a hospital scene, yet still it may be in a work 
 of art, if there is a conflict of two principles. And we 
 look on and we recognize that all the pain, suffering and 
 horror, is, at it were, transfigured into something higher. 
 We are not going to get rid of what we call destruction, 
 or even the ugly in art ; they must not remain such, but 
 must be, as it were, transformed by the treatment of the 
 theme. And now we come to the Elective Affinities, 
 which shows substantially the violations which occur 
 in the family, especially between husband and wife, 
 giving a spiritual history thereof in its completeness. 
 Mark the situation ; here are two pairs, a married and an 
 unmarried. The married have reached what we may call 
 the rational stage of life. The unmarried are in the 
 emotional. Now, instead of the two unmarried finding 
 an affinity to one another, the unmarried woman and the 
 married man begin to find an affinity, and the unmarried 
 man and the married woman. Let us look for a moment 
 into the elements involved in the solution. The family, 
 composed of man and woman, has two elements in it, the 
 emotional and the rational. Now, the institution, the 
 family, is above either of its two individuals in their emo- 
 tional relations. We all accept that. But if one or the 
 other begins to give validity to emotion contrary to 
 this rational element of the family, then the tragedy sets 
 in, and that is what is unfolded in the present novel. 
 
202 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 First, is the inclination of Edward for a woman, not his 
 wife ? Does he suppress it ? No ; he excuses it, lets it 
 run on. That means tragedy. Mark it ; I tell every 
 man here that it means tragedy. There are not many 
 men here, but they can take that lesson to heart, every 
 one of them. It means you are to suppress, as a rational 
 being, such an emotion, because it is violating what is 
 infinitely higher. And while I tell that to men, I can 
 turn to the other side. Ottilie, the unmarried woman, 
 feels this violation, feels its growth. She does not stem 
 it, put it down, any more than Edward does, and the 
 consequence is, it carries them forward, and pray tell me 
 what is the outcome of it? What is the result for 
 Edward and Ottilie ? Do they live, survive, as they 
 sometimes do in the French novels ? Survive because 
 they live just in that way? Not in Goethe's novels. 
 You may read there, I may say written almost in the 
 tragic drops of the heart, that such conduct means death. 
 And that is the beginning of it and the end of it. But 
 now take the other pair, which is the counterpart, Char- 
 lotte and the Captain. In them, too, the emotion rises, 
 resistance follows. And after a time the Captain, at 
 least, finds resistance impossible, finds that the emotion 
 is too strong ; and what does he do ? Runs. That is 
 the only rational thing he can do. Runs for his life ; 
 and, of course, he is saved, because he flees from the 
 devil, though most assuredly it would have been better to 
 have put him down on the spot. Nevertheless, Edward 
 confesses his weakness in that way, and he does the next 
 rational thing. And thus at the end, who are the two 
 persons who have escaped ? Those who have recognized, 
 in that relation, the rational element, or those who have 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 203 
 
 not recognized it, but followed the emotion? This has 
 been called free love. Is it free love ? Isn't it an utter 
 denial of everything of that kind ? But it is strange how 
 many people think that this novel is immoral. I have 
 often asked myself how does it come, that this book, 
 which seems to me to be written with such an intensely 
 warm, ethical glow, seems to be just the opposite to 
 others. One lady, I recollect, after a very animated 
 polemic against the whole novel, as well as against 
 Goethe and his works, says " I will venture to say that 
 the Captain and Charlotte came together afterwards and 
 were married, after the deaths of the other two. I could 
 only reply, "Well, I hope they did," because the other 
 obstacles being out of the way, and they being free, they 
 were the people who had the best right to enter into such 
 a relation. They had proved their fidelity to the tie. 
 Now, I am going to try to give the reason, as it seems to 
 me, why this has created such an impression on the 
 public. It is because there is an absence of all moral 
 reflection in it. The thing is portrayed. It moves 
 forward as life moves forward, in rigid sequence to the 
 conclusion. The movement is objective, is artistic. But 
 the ordinary novel, particularly the moral novel, if it ever 
 touches a collision, begins and ends with moralizings. 
 This novel goes home to every man and woman, and says 
 to them, beware of that emotional nature in yourself. 
 With it are coupled all the joys and delights of life, but 
 with it is coupled also all the tragedy of life. 
 
 Mrs. Maria A. Shorey : I must protest, in justice to 
 myself, against Prof. Snider's imputation, that I belong to 
 the school of those who would only permit the goody- 
 goody subjects. I think I must have been very 
 
204 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 unfortunate in my statement upon the point, whicli is 
 tiiis : I believe there are some things in the world which 
 are not and never can be made, or are not likely to be 
 made, fit subjects for art. But there are many things 
 that are morbid, unwholesome and immoral in the 
 human life, that when treated by an artist — and these are 
 the words in my paper — who has in his soul a lofty idea 
 which he carries along with his treatment of the subject, 
 and which has grown out of his actual experience, that 
 experience being the source of his realistic power, then 
 any unwholesome subject in morals may be treated ; and 
 that is precisely what Goethe did. He had reached, 
 through his experience in life, partly with the Frau von 
 Stein, and in other ways, a perception of all the senti- 
 ments of established law and usage upon those questions, 
 the affinities that come up between the sexes. And he, 
 in this novel, put them before us with all possible power, 
 and gave them to us. It could be nothing but a moral 
 lesson. 
 
 Prof. W. T. Harris : I have had occasion, with the 
 rest of the company, to admire the delicacy and truth 
 with which this subject has been treated this morning ; it 
 was an admirable treatment of a delicate subject. 
 
 I do not know that I have anything to add to the dis- 
 cussion of the subject proper, but I have accompanying 
 reflections which I will speak of. The works of Goethe 
 are suggestive, above the works of all other works. They 
 give you little glimpses ; they open the door as it were, 
 and permit you to look out upon a new and interesting 
 vista. Long afterwards, when your mind gets active on 
 the subject, you follow out thoughts that Goethe has 
 suggested, and you enter rich fields of truth. This work, 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 205 
 
 Elective Affinities, as has been pointed out by the great 
 German critic, Rosenkranz, might have been a novelette, 
 one of the novels in the second part of Wilhelm Meister. 
 But he is not quite right in his suggestion. All those 
 novels which Goethe has put into the second part of Wil- 
 helm Meister, treat of the conquering of lawless passions 
 through renunciation ; that is by the wandering or going 
 away from temptation. In the true and higher sense, 
 wandering means the separation of individuality from the 
 place and environment which begins to put its hand upon 
 the person with the grasp of Fate. It signifies rising to 
 a new plane. That double meaning of the word wander- 
 ing, or rather those two meanings, give the solution 
 which Goethe prescribes for social collisions, and he 
 admits nothing into the Second Part of Meister that 
 describes thraldom to lawless passion. Everything shows 
 conquest over it. Everything moves towards complete 
 institutions, and the perfecting of character, and the 
 building of it on the basis of moral law. In this novel 
 of the Elective Affinities, he undertakes to present us the 
 negative solution of the problem. We have the positive 
 solution in Meister. The negative solution, of course, 
 must show persons yielding to these passions, but show 
 also the negative that is in the deed, its consequences 
 coming back upon the individual, to destroy him. The 
 most wonderful thing in the art-form of this novel is the 
 exhaustiveness with which he treats the subject in all its 
 possible phases. It is not unusual in Goethe's works, but 
 it is unusual, I think, in general literature. Goethe 
 wishes to look on all sides of a subject, and to set the 
 whole matter before us. He takes it in its wholeness and 
 presents it to us. Consider for a moment how exhaust- 
 
206 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 ive a novel the Elective Affinities is, in bringing every 
 possible phase you can have, all into one problem. Here 
 in the first place, they have the marriage of convenience 
 (as the French call it). Edward has married somebody 
 for property-reasons, and Charlotte has done the same 
 thing. Both had been attracted towards each other in 
 earlier life, and thought they loved each other ; but 
 external interests had determined them to marry, each 
 some person who could help build up a fortune. This we 
 are told in the story. We do not have that early life 
 brought before us. There is nothing in all that which can 
 interest us very much, because it does not touch this matter 
 of elective affinity. Death has made them single. again, and 
 they have now come together, and we are led to expect a 
 quiet and peaceful union. The problem of life seems 
 solved. An ordinary novel would end just where this 
 one begins. But Goethe sees that just here the problem 
 may begin. This matter of elective affinities is a relative 
 affair. Nature is great. You know that was the doctrine 
 preached by Rousseau, and which spread all over the 
 continent of Europe, but into England only slightly. 
 England had been through its revolution. But the rest of 
 Europe was poisoned with this theory of going back to 
 nature, this trying to find the immediate impulse of 
 nature, on which to base marriage and such alliances. 
 Goethe had seen in his life that the natural impulse was 
 a relative matter, that he would find an impulse, an 
 attraction, but that this affinity was no security against 
 his finding a stronger one ; on the contrary, one impulse 
 would lead him on to find a stronger one. And Goethe had 
 also seized this great solvent word of the age, " culture," 
 to solve the difficulties. He had found that on one plane 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 207 
 
 there would be one affinity, but as soon as a person began 
 to grow he found another. So that if two persons found 
 their elective affinity at one time, there was no security that 
 it would last. If one grew in culture faster than the other 
 the affinity weakened, and all human institutions would 
 become unstable, if founded on such capricious founda- 
 tions, because the attraction on one plane of culture 
 would be cancelled as soon as its possessor ascended to 
 another plane of culture ; there could not be any 
 guaranty that two persons would grow with the same 
 rapidity, or develop in harmony. Goethe had seen, 
 therefore, that the social collision did not rest in the mar- 
 riage of convenience, but that the real problem came 
 after a marriage based on a real affinity. If one adopts 
 the principle that he must marry his affinity, he is liable 
 to meet a more complete one than he has married, and 
 hence must be divorced and marry again. Charlotte and 
 Edward come together, and seemed to meet their affinity 
 in each other. They undertake, as it were, to make the 
 family life the totality of human life. They invite Ottilie 
 and the Captain, and now discover, to their horror, and to 
 the boundless horror of the spectator, that they walk on the 
 edge of a deep abyss that yawns beneath them. Affinities 
 begin to develop ; the affinity of Charlotte for the Cap- 
 tain, the affinity of Ottilie for Edward, and Edward for 
 Ottilie. At first we have a childless marriage ; and 
 then a child is born, and the situation becomes complex. 
 Then we have the story differentiated by and enriched 
 by peculiar characters ; a nature like Ottilie, a person 
 that is plastic, pervaded throughout by one great passion, 
 which rules the soul and makes for itself an intellect, just 
 as if a blind passion had wished to see and put forth eyes 
 
2o8 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 for itself. Then we have Edward, another peculiar 
 nature ; then Charlotte and the Captain, both in a .sense 
 rational beings, beings who hold nature in subordination. 
 The group is differentiated, therefore, by various charac- 
 teristics, by various degrees of culture, and by various 
 degrees of the possible growth of culture and develop- 
 ment, so that we have all of the phases of capacity and of 
 growth. Luciana, the daughter of Charlotte, comes home 
 a giddy person, altogether a contrast to Ottilie. We 
 have a glimpse, perhaps, of the basis of the passion that 
 arose between the Captain and Charlotte, in very early 
 life, given us in the story of the two strange children. 
 Goethe gives such mysterious hints in his stories, which 
 we may follow out just as we study real life, because his 
 works are all written with an imagination which conceives 
 every thing just as really and fully as nature makes 
 things. And his works are the only works in modern 
 time, except Shakespeare's, that will bear to be studied 
 in that way. It would seem as though Charlotte, in her 
 earlier life, had been like her daughter Luqiana in charac- 
 ter, and had had a passion for the Captain. We leave them 
 in that novelette ready to be married, and hear nothing 
 more of the matter. We look through that window, 
 as it were, and see a piece of life. We concentrate 
 our minds on the plot of the Elective Affinities as if it 
 was a tragedy, as if we looked on one of those plastic 
 tragedies of Sophocles, in which all deeds and events 
 combine and rush together, and the fated persons of the 
 drama go down into the abyss together. What is our 
 conclusion about this novel ? We have all heard of its 
 immorality. But Goethe asserted that it is the only liter- 
 ary work that he ever wrote that bad a moral purpose. 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 209 
 
 It is interesting to inquire, perhaps, what the critic calls 
 moral. He thinks, perhaps, Goethe should come out, 
 have taken off his hat and said at every opportunity, to 
 the people, " Now, my friends, this is very wrong, indeed, 
 and it ought not to go on." This is not the Bible 
 method of teaching morality. The Bible shows to you 
 immoral characters, and it shows their evil deeds coming 
 back upon them, so that they get the fruits of their own 
 sins. And Goethe lets those who do not conquer their 
 elective affinities in this novel go down. Think of the 
 pathos of that character of Ottilie, who, when her con- 
 science is aroused, and she begins to see the moral laws 
 of the universe, she attempts to renounce. And finding 
 that this passion of hers is too deep, and that there is still 
 a possibility of its volcanic upheaval, if Edward insists, 
 as he does, on breaking her commands, she decides upon 
 passive suicide, and refuses to eat more food ; simply 
 dies of starvation ; and Edward himself dies. We see 
 that if man chooses to let himself be an elective 
 affinity and indulges a chemical quality that belongs 
 to matter, a property altogether below the attributes of 
 plant life, he will not find himself able to live in human 
 society. Man chooses to put himself under the form of 
 matter, and this is what happens to him. He goes to 
 pieces. That is Goethe's opinion about it. If anybody 
 thinks that such a presentation of the case is immoral, he 
 differs from me. That novel, in my opinion, is one of the 
 richest works in suggestions that relate to human society. 
 Goethe does not bring heterogeneous matter together, but 
 his critics have supposed so, when they have read the 
 diary of Ottilie, or the account of those wonderful 
 insights into education given by the assistant at Ottilie's 
 14 
 
2IO POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 school. Goethe puts his wisest views into the mouth of 
 a side character, as, for instance, the Fair Saint never 
 comes before us in the Meister. We only read her auto- 
 biography ; and we never see the Uncle, the grandest 
 person in all literature. We get little glimpses of him, 
 as it were, away off on the horizon. And so in this 
 novel, the Assistant gives us, in a few words, the clearest 
 and deepest views of education that are to be found in 
 any writings whatever, and especially with reference to 
 the difference between the education of women and that 
 of men. I have found it the wisest educational book 
 that I have ever read, and it gave me an insight into 
 what is called the woman's right's problem in our day. 
 Goethe had looked upon that problem, and had seen 
 what is coming, even with the slight indications of it 
 before him in his time. Our problems gave only sHght 
 indications of their importance in the last century. 
 Goethe was so wide-seeing that he found all of them, and 
 has treated of them in one place or another in his works. 
 The problem of readjustment of vocations is treated in 
 the Second Part of Meister long before it was thought of 
 in the practical circles of Europe. So this one of 
 woman's rights is treated in the little novelette of " The 
 Good Women." What are women going to do ? This 
 question determines their education. An answer to it is 
 given by the Assistant. But the Assistant's solution is 
 for the epoch, the present, but we see where, under a 
 certain change of conditions, it would apply to the future. 
 He says that in educating a boy, we must educate him to 
 a specialty ; therefore, we should put a uniform on him. 
 The boy should be taught to do special things, and 
 narrow down his whole life and concentrate all his earn- 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 211 
 
 estness upon one burning-point, so as to succeed in that 
 specialty. The boy is calculated for civil society, for a 
 particular trade, and must have special education. But 
 the woman has a certain kind of wholeness or totality in 
 her life. She stands at the head of the family, accord- 
 ing to Goethe. The family requires that the woman 
 shall have a little knowledge of cooking, of clothes- 
 making, and of a great variety of similar branches ; 
 where the man would devote himself to a single trade, 
 and be a tailor, or a baker, or some other particular 
 laborer. The woman has supervision of all, and the man- 
 agement of a -vast variety of things. Therefore, Goethe 
 says that you must be very careful in her education. Do 
 not give her a specialty, but train her to be versatile and 
 to deal with this total, so that she is able, by directive 
 power, to co-ordinate things, and manage a complex 
 whole. A very wonderful hint. I thought of it when I 
 had the management of schools and had all those pro- 
 blems coming up. Ought we to have a girl's high school 
 and a boy's high school ? This question of co-education 
 was in the air. Dr. Clarke was writing books upon it. 
 What is the true solution of all that ? According to 
 Goethe's views we ought to have, not co-education, but 
 separate education. That would be the solution of " The 
 Assistant," who talks so wisely in this novel. But why ? 
 What is the principle upon which the answer is based ? 
 You know that a change of conditions will change the 
 operation of a principle. After much study I arrived at 
 this conclusion : there are three phases in the history of 
 civil society. Goethe showed the first and second, and 
 then gave us a glimpse of the third one in the Second 
 Part of Meister, and also in the novelette of The Good 
 
212 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 Women ; but he did not himself draw the conclusion and 
 describe the education of the future. The first stage of 
 civil society is that of the savage. In the savage state of 
 society, inasmuch as the tribes have small territories and 
 the boundaries are everywhere near at hand, all their 
 land is border-land. The men devote themselves to the 
 affairs of society. Their duties are in the line of war. 
 They attend only to such matters in civil society as are 
 of the nature of a preparation for war, such as hunting 
 or overcoming wild beasts, which is very much like over- 
 coming a tribe at war with them. In this condition of 
 affairs, woman has not only the family institution to take 
 care of, but she has also civil society. She must plant 
 the corn and gather it, chop the wood, and in general do 
 the work necessary to provide food and clothing. 
 Woman rules in two or three institutions in that case. 
 She is the head of the family, and also of civil society, 
 and man confines himself wholly to the State, and what 
 there is of religion. In the course of time, when the 
 tribes are united by great wars, there arises a great sov- 
 ereignty that removes the border-line, from near at hand, 
 and pushes it off hundreds of miles or more distant from 
 the center. If you have a territory thirty miles square, 
 there will be one hundred and twenty miles border to 
 nine hundred square miles. Thus each seven square 
 miles interior will have one mile of border-land. When 
 you make it three hundred miles square, there will be only 
 one one -hundredth as much border-land to the square 
 mile. Hence, when you come to more than one thousand 
 miles on the side, like the Chinese monarchy, the amount 
 of border-land is relatively very small — and China is the 
 first monarchy that conquered and united all its tribes 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 213 
 
 into a brotherhood on such a moral basis as Confucius 
 teaches, and gave ninety-nine one-hundredths of her 
 men business, not as warriors, but as producers in the 
 industries. When men leave war and enter the arts, then 
 the division of labor takes pLice. When the division of 
 labor takes place, man goes into civil society and devotes 
 himself to its trades and occupations, and crowds 
 woman out of that department back upon the family. 
 She retains the latter institution, while man holds 
 as his provinces the civil society and the State. 
 This is where our problem of woman's rights arises. 
 Goethe says that since man devotes himself to civil 
 society, with its division of labor, that fact should be 
 recognized in his education and he should have special- 
 ties ; but that woman should attend to the family and 
 keep within that circle, and have totality there, and her 
 education should prepare her for it. But the third phase 
 is not provided for in this novel. The third phase is 
 that of machinery. The first epoch of machinery gives 
 us instruments that are cumbrous and costly, and require 
 great strength to manipulate them. The second epoch 
 of machinery is that wherein several machines are united 
 into one ; while the first kind of machines require the 
 physical strength of men to attend them, the second 
 kind of machines dispense with the physical strength 
 more and more, so that an individual only needs an alert 
 intelligence and not great strength to tend them. You 
 remember that the work of Dr. Clarke, on the Education 
 of Women, laid great stress on the fact that woman pos- 
 sesses alertness and versatility ; whereas, man has persist- 
 ence and strength The age in which we are moving 
 now, makes machines that require the qualities of women 
 
214 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 rather than those of men — they require not persistence 
 and strength, the quahties of man, so much as alertness 
 and versatility the qualities of woman. Therefore, every 
 groand of separation for women, every ground that the 
 Assistant lays down in this novel for his division of educa- 
 tion, disappears ; all need alertness and versatility. 
 Woman comes out of the family, shares with man this 
 work in civil society more than formerly, and must do so 
 more and more as civilization goes on, because this 
 development of machinery emancipates her from this 
 necessity for isolation. One by one, the occupations of 
 the family are made special trades, and machinery is 
 brought in to aid in the manual labor. Weaving and the 
 making of clothes, even much of the preparation of food, 
 is done outside the family. Experience has shown that 
 woman is as well fitted for the highest education as man, 
 and that when only man is educated in the family, there 
 is great loss in the educative power in the family. The 
 children do not get educated by associating with an 
 ignorant mother. When the women are educated, the 
 children absorb the finest results of education in the 
 family before they come to the school. A wise American 
 statesman that I know told a Frenchman, who asked him 
 how our co-education worked and what was its influence 
 on the women, that " so long as you educate the male sex 
 only, your country is bound to be left behind by the one 
 that educates both sexes, because you see if you educate 
 only one, you will transmit from generation to generation, 
 only about one-third of your culture ; but where you 
 educate both sexes, the educative influence is twice as 
 strong." 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 215 
 
 Prof. W. T. Hewitt : I want to express my delight 
 at the interpretation, from a pure and beautiful woman- 
 hood, of this novel, and at the same time I want to 
 express also my pleasure in the protest which was made 
 as regards the legitimate, healthful and natural province 
 of art. There is much that is true and there is much 
 that is artistic, that is not edifying or inspiring or culti- 
 vating, from either a moral or an aesthetic standpoint. It 
 is only when nature is idealized and permeated with a 
 higher spirit, that these depictions of actuality become in 
 any degree healthful, or are wholesome. Now, there is a 
 natural basis for what is called the doctrine of affinity. 
 You will remember that at the close of the First Part of 
 Faust, Margaret dies, and, as she is borne aloft, her voice 
 descends to Faust, and he would fain grasp and retain 
 her. But he can not upon earth. It typifies that the 
 only true union is the spiritual union. So that those 
 who are led to the doctrine of elective affinities should 
 have this element of truth with which to start. Thus, 
 the highest union is a spiritual union. Now, it is diffi- 
 cult for us to understand why Goethe should have 
 written this story, a novel which would hardly be pos- 
 sible in America, and in our present modes of thought. 
 We must recollect that the German nature possesses 
 an exuberance of sentiment which does not exist in our 
 colder and more practical American natures. We must 
 recollect, too, that at the time of its composition, the sins 
 depicted in this novel were the sins of every-day life. 
 No one can attempt to analyze the psychological rela- 
 tion which existed between Schiller and the two sisters 
 Von Lengefeld. It is at times impossible to determine 
 which one of them is his choice; to which one of them his 
 
2l6 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 letters are addressed, without inquiring respecting the 
 morbid and arid psychology which prevailed at that time. 
 Now, Goethe was above all else, an objective poet. His 
 stories were not feigned. His loves of life were not imag- 
 inary. They all sprang from his contact with life. They 
 all sprang from his own experience. So that the study 
 of Goethe's life forms the key to an intelligent acquaint- 
 ance with his works. And when we dwell upon his life 
 and upon the separate chapters in his life, we find that 
 his relations to individuals, his relations to places, become 
 sources of inspiration in his writings. Thus it is that 
 Goethe's life becomes in the highest degree helpful, from 
 the frankness with which it unfolds itself. Its own 
 defects, its own struggles, and the processes of its own 
 growth in intellectual culture. Now we must bear in 
 mind, in the study of this novel, and in the study of any 
 great work of art, that the author is not in every char- 
 acter and in the utterances of every character which 
 he represents. We are too apt to suppose that, because 
 Goethe places certain words or feelings in the mouths 
 of his characters, that therefore these represent his own 
 ideas and are true to his own nature. That would be 
 a great mistake. His characters are true to themselves. 
 They are true to their own sphere of feeling and of 
 action ; and when we say, because Goethe describes cer- 
 tain characters therefore he is the individual described, 
 we must interpose this limitation. I remember an emi- 
 nent philosopher who said " we are all Shakespeares " ; 
 that is, within us there is that feeling which comprehends 
 Shakespeare, the germ of the vision which was in Shake- 
 speare. So the possibilities which Goethe saw in his own 
 nature, and which he saw depicted in the lives of others, 
 
THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES. 217 
 
 he sought to represent in his works of the imagination. 
 Now, we ought always to remember that, during the life 
 of Goethe, the Romantic School sprang up ; the Roman- 
 tic School which directed the German nation to its past ; 
 to its stores of poetry and mythology, and thus led the 
 way for those great pioneers of thought, the Grimms. 
 We must remember that this school, which exercised such 
 a beneficial influence, was also, in a large degree, in 
 many cases extravagant. It depicted, as Professor Har- 
 ris has said, the view that nature is the highest life. The 
 story of the two friends of Goethe, the StoUbergs, who, 
 when attempting to renounce the conventionalities of 
 society by bathing in- a public square, were stoned by 
 small boys, and thus restored to reason, indicates the 
 extravagance of this sentiment when carried to an 
 extreme. Now, Goethe's healthful, sound nature, pos- 
 sessed all the merits of that Romantic School, without 
 any of its extravagancq or exuberance. It is easy for us 
 to trace the characters with whom Goethe was familiar 
 and who might have been the sources of suggestion as 
 regards the characters in this novel. We remember his 
 dawning affection for Charlotte when he was a law 
 student at Wetzlar, and we remember that wise prudence 
 and restraint on her part, which, without a word, and yet, 
 by its own dignity and poise, restrained him. We see 
 that Charlotte, in this novel, bears the very name of Lot- 
 tie, the Lottie who was betrothed to Kestner. We can 
 see, also, in the case of the Frau von Stein, how ardent 
 were his expressions of affection, and the reserve and 
 restraint with which she repelled and kept in check 
 those advances. We thus find in Goethe's life, experiences 
 which suggested the incidents of his novel. In the case 
 
2l8 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 of the daughter of the Frau von La Roche, Frau Bren- 
 tano, the mother of Bettina von Armin, he became 
 personally familiar with unhappy domestic relations. 
 Goethe acted the part of the adviser of the daughter 
 of his friend, who was in trouble. But it seems to me 
 that the lesson of all this, is, that there is no true affinity 
 save as there is first affinity with truth. And only as the 
 soul is in unison with that which is highest and noblest, 
 can there be any true affinity. All this fancied likeness 
 or similarity, till the soul is first yielded to principle and 
 honor, and to the loftiest ideas, is fanciful and visionary 
 and defective, just as character must be defective when 
 these are lacking. 
 
WHAT IS MOST VALUABLE TO US IN GER- 
 MAN PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE. 
 
 By Professor W. T. Harris. 
 
 This day, August 28, one hundred and thirty-seven 
 years ago, was born at Frankfurt-on-the-Main the great 
 German poet, Goethe. 
 
 On this occasion it is fitting that our Literary School 
 take note of the event by gathering up in its memory 
 some of the considerations which cause the world to 
 rejoice at the birth of a true poet, and in this instance of 
 a German poet. 
 
 For my part in this festival, allow me to bring for- 
 ward some meditations upon the significance of the 
 labors of Germany for the culture of mankind, or, to 
 be more precise in my language, let me ask you to con- 
 sider what Germany has done for other nations in the 
 line of philosophy, literature and art. 
 
 Each nation has its own individuality in the brother- 
 hood of nations in the world. In each family there 
 are peculiarities among its members, John differing from 
 Paul, and Mary differing from Rachael. So each nation 
 has its peculiar idiosyncrasy and differs in some respect 
 from other nations in its spiritual endowments, as it 
 differs from others in the climate, soil, and natural char- 
 acteristics of its land. 
 
 Through this fact, it happens that there is a diversity 
 of gifts among nations, and each one contributes to 
 the aggregate spiritual possessions of mankind, its own 
 2ig 
 
220 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 special product, and, as a consequence of this, we see the 
 interest that is growing among all civilized peoples to 
 gain a knowledge of all others. Even the savage tribes 
 of Africa and the islands of the South Sea are studied 
 with the painstaking care of modern science, and a flood 
 of light is thrown upon the institutions of the highest 
 civilization by this investigation into the first steps of 
 human culture. There occur, as you know, in everything 
 organic, instances of what is called arrested development 
 or survivals of stages of development belonging to a 
 former epoch. These survivals we learn to understand 
 by these special studies into primitive culture. From 
 insight into the origin and behavior of organic growths, 
 it is needless to say we derive the eminently practical 
 knowledge which enables us to deal with such cases 
 of survival or arrested development. 
 
 The same insight into the nature of the special gifts, 
 which contemporary nations are endowed with, helps 
 us to appreciate their science, literature and art, and 
 to draw from them the strength we lack by reason of our 
 one-sided development. In other words, this compara- 
 tive study of nationality tends to enrich each nation 
 by adding to it the perfections of all. 
 
 One very important source of this international 
 culture in this, the last quarter of the nineteenth century, 
 is the popular novel. Turgenieff in Russia, Freytag in 
 Germany, Dickens in England, Howells in America, each 
 writing out studies of character relating to his own 
 countrymen, make it possible for any one of these nations 
 to become acquainted, in the most agreeable way, with 
 the manners and customs and internal character of the 
 people of any other. Comprehending what is peculiar in 
 
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE. 221 
 
 that people through insight into their view of the world 
 and their surrounding circumstances, all nations learn to 
 sympathize with their deeds and aspirations, and there 
 arises a cosmopolitan tone of thinking and feeling. The 
 individual of one nation feels akin to the individual of 
 another 
 
 But this cosmopolitanism has its negative side, as 
 we here in America know to our cost. For here, 
 especially in the great central plain of the continent, 
 we see the intermingling of peoples upon the largest 
 scale. Each immigrant brings hither the moral customs 
 and habits of his own nation differing in slight particu- 
 lars from those of any other nation. Each one learns, 
 however, to respect, or at least to tolerate the moral 
 customs and habits of his neighbors, and relaxes, to some 
 extent, the punctilios upon which he has been taught 
 to insist with great stress. The Puritan from New Eng- 
 land meets here the Scandinavian, the German and 
 the Irishman, and dwells with them in peace and cooper- 
 ation. Toleration and- mutual respect fuses all nation- 
 alities into a new civilization unlike any of its ingredients. 
 But, in the process of assimilation, there is much 
 weakening of the moral character. When you pull up 
 the weeds in your garden, many useful plants will get 
 uprooted at the same time. So, in suppressing some 
 bigoted prejudice that has got in among the moral 
 virtues, genuine virtue itself often suffers. 
 
 Our present civilization is not an original one like 
 that of China, or India, or even Greece and Rome. It is 
 a composite and derivative civilization. Three strands 
 unite to form its texture. These are the Greek, the 
 Roman and the Jewish, each of them an original civiliza- 
 
222 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 tion, and each the bearer of a national idea of the most 
 weighty importance. 
 
 The Greek contributes to the world — first, the ideal 
 standards of the beautiful ; secondly, the theoretic meth- 
 ods of science and philosophy. The Roman contributes 
 the forms of the will —also two-fold ; on the one hand, 
 negative — -the criminal code of laws and the criminal 
 processes of the courts ; on the other hand positive, the 
 forms of organization which incorporate the social aggre- 
 gate into municipalities, states, and nations, and which 
 furnish all the forms for the holding and transfer of 
 property. The Jewish people contribute to modern 
 civilization, not the theoretic forms of science and 
 sesthetic art, nor of the practical forms of the will, but 
 the spiritual forms of religion, the contemplation of the 
 first principle of the universe as an absolute Personal 
 Might. Hence, from Judea, we receive the fundamental 
 directive impulse that unites and governs our civilization. 
 
 Every great modern State that ranks as a civilized 
 power is thus dependent on the three-fold heritage of 
 culture from Greece, Rome and Judea — science and art, 
 judicial and municipal forms, the idea of God and the 
 religious ceremonial. Our art and science employ Greek 
 forms and use Greek nomenclature ; our civil forms are 
 described in words derived from the Latin language ; our 
 religion expresses its conceptions in language borrowed 
 from the sacred books of Judea. 
 
 Now, it is of first importance at this point to inquire 
 what is the fundamental idea of our civilization, the idea 
 that unites and harmonizes these three national contribu- 
 tions. It is the idea of the sacredness of individual 
 personality. From Judea we receive the revelation that 
 
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE. 223 
 
 the absolute is a perfect individual Personality. From 
 Greece we learn that physical nature is a symbolic 
 expression of spiritual individuality, and therefore art 
 and literature embody in material forms and images this 
 metaphorical expression of the insight that nature and 
 man have the same spiritual origin. Greek science and 
 philosophy rise from nature as subject to rational order 
 up to the absolute reason as the creator and governor 
 of the world ; and in this respect Greek philosophy 
 reaches the same doctrine as that revealed in Judea. 
 From Rome we learn the forms of justice — the forms in 
 which freedom is possible. We borrow the civil ordinan- 
 ces which make possible such a combination of man with 
 men as that the deed of each man reinforces the deeds of 
 all his fellow-men, and does not contradict them and 
 result in zero. 
 
 This is the principle of justice, and its presupposition, 
 like that of Greece, is that of individual personality 
 as the absolute. Hence Rome agrees with Judea. It 
 was the outcome of Rome to conquer all nations and 
 discipline them with Roman Law. It destroyed the 
 special idiosyncrasy of nations, and assimilated them by 
 forcing upon them its yoke. All people became Romans, 
 and Language, for the first time, expressed the idea of 
 the human race as a whole. Genus Romanum expressed 
 in Latin this Roman idea, all international jealousy had 
 been overcome, and the unity of all peoples had been 
 realized. 
 
 After the process of assimilating Roman Law had 
 been completed, new centres arose outside of Rome, and 
 the unity of the Roman Empire was broken. This pro- 
 cess is usually called the " decline and fall " of Rome. 
 
224 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE, 
 
 But instead of a retrogressive metamorphosis it is rather 
 a progressive one — a moving forward of the empire into 
 a system of empires, a multiplication of the eternal city 
 into a system of cities, all of which were copies of Rome 
 in municipal organization. For the new retained what 
 was essential in the old. London and Paris, Cologne 
 and Vienna, Naples and Alexandria — these and a hun- 
 dred other cities were indestructible centres of Roman 
 laws and usages. When an inundation of barbarism 
 moved out of the Teutonic woods and swept over 
 western and southern Europe, the cities were left stand- 
 ing out above the floods like islands. The conquerors 
 were prevailed upon by means of heavy ransoms to spare 
 the cities, and even to confirm their municipal self-gov- 
 ernment by charters. A city with a Roman organization 
 was a complete personality, and could deliberate and act, 
 petition and bargain with the utmost facility. A city is 
 a giant individuality which can in one way or another 
 defend itself against any conqueror, — sometimes by suc- 
 cessful war — but oftener by purchasing its peace with 
 the conqueror. For the city has the wealth of the land 
 and the power to dazzle with its gifts the eyes of the 
 invader. No matter how much it gives him in money, it 
 can soon recover it all by way of trade. All the com- 
 merce of the land passes through the cities. They can 
 levy toll on all that is collected and on all that is distri- 
 buted. Any article of luxury that the conqueror needs 
 must be had from the city. After he has received the 
 heavy ransom from the city, and confirmed its charter, 
 he must return thither to expend his wealth and furnish 
 himself with luxury. The city has the power, therefore, 
 peaceably to recover all that it has paid for its preserva- 
 
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE. 225 
 
 tion. It is soon as rich as before, and its liberty of 
 self-government is confirmed. But the most important 
 circumstance is to be found in the fact that the city is a 
 perennial fountain of law, civil and criminal, as well as a 
 model on which newly arising centres of population may 
 form their local self-government. Indeed, no sooner is 
 the new conqueror firmly seated in the province than 
 martial law begins to yield place to the civil code. He 
 divides the land among his followers, but the cities retain 
 their self-government, although they pay heavy subsidies. 
 The new property-holders in the rural districts begin to 
 need the aid of law in settling their disputes and to pro- 
 tect their newly acquired rights. Accordingly laws are 
 borrowed and courts are set up to administer them. 
 Thus it happens that the sacred Vesta fires of Roman 
 law left burning in the cities, lend of their flame to light 
 the torches of justice throughout all the land, and civili- 
 zation, only partially quenched by the inundation, is all 
 relighted again. 
 
 Thus it is that Rome, in furnishing the forms of mun- 
 icipal government and the laws that, govern the rights of 
 private property, never has declined or fallen, but has 
 only multiplied and spread. Every new town rising upon 
 the far-off borders of European or American civilization 
 to-day lights its torch of self-government and jurispru- 
 dence at the Roman flame. It borrows the forms of 
 older cities which have received them from Rome through 
 a long line of descent. 
 
 But the Teutonic waves which deluged Europe were 
 
 not the wild barbarians that we have heard them 
 
 described to be. The Roman armies were filled with 
 
 men from all the border-lands of its immense domain. 
 
 15 
 
2 25 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 The Germanic tribes had five hundred years of tutelage 
 in the Roman art of war before they took possession 
 of the empire of the west. The tutelage of the army was 
 the best initiation into Roman laws and institutions. 
 The so-called conquerors of Rome had already become 
 Romans, or nearly so, and they completed their adoption 
 of Roman civilization through the influence of the cities 
 which they found in the conquered countries. Even the 
 famous Hermann or Arminius, who defeated the Roman 
 legions in the Teutoburger forest, had been an officer in 
 the Roman army. Even in that early day the Germans 
 had learned to profit by the Roman art of war, and the 
 chiefs sent their sons as volunteers into the Roman 
 army. 
 
 This study of the mode and manner of the rise of 
 modern states out of the old Roman Empire is essential 
 if we would understand how it is that we have united 
 into one the three strands of civilization, and how it is 
 that even now, after two thousand years, we can so easily 
 distinguish in modern civilization the derivative and 
 composite elements and refer them to their respective 
 sources. 
 
 Inasmuch as the historical process of the first eight 
 centuries of our era was one of planting many Romes in 
 place of one Rome, and we note that it consisted sub- 
 stantially in movements against the German border-lands 
 on the part of Rome, and a counter movement on the 
 part of the German people, it follows that the next centre 
 of interest, after the one just discussed — that of the sur- 
 vival of Roman laws — is that of the peculiarity of the 
 Germanic peoples themselves. There was first the great 
 wave of Gothic peoples, which interfused itself through- 
 
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE. 227 
 
 out the three southern peniasulas of Europe, and overrun 
 the Roman territories of northern Africa. The Celto- 
 Italic races of Roman civilization mingled with the 
 Teutonic. Afterwards came the incursion of the more 
 northern Germanic tribes — the lowland Germans who 
 founded the kingdom of the Franks — a German king- 
 dom in northern France. By the Hunnic invasion the 
 Romanic, Celtic and Germanic peoples were united and 
 consolidated through the necessity of self-preservation. 
 And later, under Charlemagne, the northern Germanic 
 influence became dominant throughout the west. The 
 migrated Germans were all Romanized and Christianized. 
 In the eighth century a still further consolidation had 
 been brought on by the necessity of defense against the 
 Moslem power. Charles Martel fixed a limit to Saracen 
 conquest, and provided the means by which Charlemagne 
 turned eastward and fixed the marches of Christian 
 power fsr in the east. Charlemagne made impossible 
 the further inundation of Europe by German tribes, by 
 conquering the Saxons and the Lombards. Only spora- 
 dic incursions of the Norsemen continued after this. 
 Europe settled down gradually into its Roman-Chris- 
 tian type of civilization, and wealth and luxury increased; 
 the Greek influence of art and science began to rise and 
 shine with stronger and steadier light. 
 
 We have characterized the principles of the Greeks 
 and Romans and that of Judea as being varieties of the 
 principle of individual personality — a principle which 
 presupposes personality in the absolute, and likewise a 
 derivative and participative personality in man. 
 
 Now the Teutonic people, among whom the three 
 forms of this doctrine of individual personality are to 
 
2 28 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 take root and mould the new civilization, are character- 
 ized by a different phase of this same principle. The 
 Teutonic character demands for itself the recognition of 
 its immediate personality as private individual without 
 any external consideration for it. The German does not 
 demand recognition for science and art, for justice, for 
 religion or piety — nor for any external possession or 
 accomplishment. He demands recognition purely and 
 simply for his individual self. He is the first of the 
 human race to do this. Hence the Germanic individu- 
 ality seemed in ancient times to the other peoples — the 
 Celts, the Romans and Greeks — to have something 
 demoniac about it. He did not care to have or possess 
 so much as to be. He manifested a new sense of per- 
 sonal honor. He was chivalrous. 
 
 Now, this sort of individual personality, which is felt 
 as an immediate quaUty of the self, is the root of the 
 most stubborn manhood that the world had ever seen. 
 But without forms of civilization corresponding to it, it 
 could only manifest itself in the duel, the tournament, the 
 braving of the sea, the adventure of the pirate or robber. 
 
 The old Norse Edda, in its second or heroic portion, 
 paints for us the essential character of this phase of 
 human spirit. Its supreme necessity is to make good its 
 demand for personal recognition by the hand to hand 
 contest of life and death. 
 
 Tacitus, in his immortal picture of the Germans as 
 they dwelt in their ancient forests, has brought out this 
 trait of their character. The Germans, he says, are 
 "securi adversus homines, securi adversus deos." They 
 cared not for man, nor even for the gods. They insisted 
 on Lheir own immediate personality as the supreme, sub- 
 
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE. 229 
 
 stantial thing in this world. It seemed a surprising and 
 unaccountable idiosyncrasy to the Roman observer. But 
 to us it is not so strange. We only see the fourth and 
 last of the forms in which the principle of individual per- 
 sonality could manifest itself. 
 
 We must bear in mind always that this principle is 
 not common to the people of the older civilizations of 
 Europe, nor to the savage tribes of any other part of the 
 world. It is peculiar to the Teutonic race, and runs in 
 our own veins. It is the dimly discerned stuff of all our 
 impulses and aspirations. It lies deep down at the bot- 
 tom of our characters — usually covered up by the 
 network of customs and usages, of etiquette and cere- 
 monial, of faith and culture, which we call our civilization. 
 But place any of our people on the border-land, beyond 
 the influence of our established usages, and the old basis 
 of our national character appears again quite visible to 
 everybody. 
 
 The cow-boys of the plains, the miners of Poker Flat, 
 the hunters and trappers of the northern wilderness — 
 manifest the same chivalrous personality. It demands 
 unconditional recognition. It will risk its life without 
 the slightest hesitation for this motive. 
 
 But although this is the radical basis of Teutonic char- 
 acter, yet it is not sufficient of itself to form a civiliza- 
 tion. It is rather the supremest realization of savagery 
 and barbarism. For it enters constantly the death-strug- 
 gle which is resolved only in death itself, or in personal 
 thraldom. Its first approximation to civilization is in 
 the form of feudalism, whose constituents are master and 
 slave. 
 
 When the Teutonic tribes emerge from the night 
 
230 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 of pre-historic times, they are seen to live in a sort of 
 communistic fashion — a village community. In this 
 they resemble all savage peoples. But the communistic 
 form is not adapted to the unfolding of individual 
 personality. It represses it and clogs its manifestation, 
 loading each man with the limitations of his fellows. 
 Each communist must act out, not his own free impulse, 
 but his impulse as hampered by the impulses of each .and 
 all of his community. 
 
 The Roman forms of jurisprudence, the Roman laws 
 of property and citizenship, are what is needed for the 
 high development of individual personality. Individual 
 ownership of land is essential to it. The Greek forms of 
 science or free thinking, are likewise essential. Finally, 
 the religious form derived from Judea is also essential. 
 The individual personality can not attain to repose upon 
 itself, and to the enjoyment of the fruits of its aspiration, 
 except in the consciousness of a divine world — order 
 presided over by a personal absolute. It must feel, 
 moreover, that it stands in immediate personal relation to 
 this absolute, and that its own infinitude is recognized. 
 Such recognition, indeed, is expressly stated in the 
 doctrine that God condescends infinitely towards his 
 creatures, and even permits himself to be put to death as 
 a malefactor, out of love for the souls of men. 
 
 Here we see the only recognition of this heart-hunger 
 of the Teutonic nature, that can meet its demands. This 
 is the only world-principle that can fully satisfy it. 
 
 Before it enters these three forms of free thought, 
 of obedience to the law of private right, of religious 
 worship of Divine Personality, the German can live only 
 
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE. 23 1 
 
 in constant deadly feuds. After it assumes these forms 
 its growth in civilization is unbounded. 
 
 It seems, therefore, as though the Greek, the Roman, 
 and the Judean principles were developed, not for their 
 own people, but for a people that should possess the 
 ethnic idiosyncrasy of the German. 
 
 The Germanic blood flows in all European peoples — 
 the ruling stocks of Russia and Sclavonic populations are 
 Teutonic — grafts from the extreme northern branch, the 
 Scandinavian. 
 
 But there has developed in the course of history on 
 this basis of Teutonic stock, distinctions of an important 
 character. There is a National character for Spain ; 
 another for Italy ; still another for France ; others for 
 England, Scotland, Germany, Russia, Scandinavia, etc. 
 
 Germany and Great Britain develop historically in a 
 sort of antithetic relation to each other — like the two 
 poles of a magnet. They suggest the old opposition 
 of Greece and Rome. Greece, as we have seen, mani- 
 fested its love of individual personality by revealing the 
 phenomenal appearance of individuality in works of art, 
 and finding its essence in free thought. But Rome has 
 neither of these forms. It seeks individual personality 
 in the legal forms that define what kind of action is 
 free action — free, because it reenforces and assists all 
 other free action, and does not contradict it. 
 
 In a certain sense the modern German people is 
 aesthetic and theoretic, while the Anglo-Saxon is a will- 
 power. 
 
 Of course one would not mean to say that the Ger- 
 mans lack will or that the English lack intellect. To 
 understand the real difference in character one must con- 
 
232 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 sider the consequences of placing one of those attributes 
 before the other. The tendency of the German is to 
 think before he acts while the tendency of the Anglo- 
 Saxon is to act before he thinks. Or the one acts first, 
 internally, and then proceeds to the external perform- 
 ance, while the other acts first on the external and 
 follows it by internal activity 
 
 The English character learns through doing — it uses 
 its will, therefore, rather than its intellect, in the attain- 
 ment of knowledge. This is called empiricism, knowledge 
 by experience. One knows by experience only what one 
 has found to be really extant by testing it with one's will- 
 power. This method inventories the world and learns 
 the existences in their peculiarities and transient con- 
 ditions. It knows the objects of the world as they are, 
 and not as they ought to be. 
 
 But the German, on the other hand, makes up his 
 mind first and acts afterwards. His mental habit is to 
 take a general survey of his object, seeing it in the light 
 of all that is already known, and by this to discover what 
 is demanded in the case before him. He settles the 
 object to be attained and the means to be used, and then 
 proceeds to act in accordance with his deliberate plan, 
 and thus performs a rational deed. 
 
 This is the German character as distinguished from 
 the Anglo-Saxon. But it is no absolute or fixed differ- 
 ence. It is rather a distinction from which we must 
 always start in order to comprehend the methods and 
 results of the two peoples. There are obvious elements 
 of weakness in both of these methods, also elements of 
 strength. 
 
 The weakness of placing thought before action is 
 
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE. 233 
 
 seen in undue procrastination, and even in the failure 
 to act at all. Its strength is to be found in the advanta- 
 ges of prevision. It saves useless labor, it makes the 
 actor strong in the fact that, when he performs his task, 
 he is on the alert for new contingencies that may arise, 
 having already foreseen them in a thought of the whole. 
 
 The weakness of placing action before thought lies in 
 this : There will be very much waste in useless experi- 
 ment that might have been saved by reflection ; and the 
 actor is always in danger of being routed in confusion by 
 the sudden appearance of unexpected conditions — by a 
 flank movement on the part of the object, as it were. 
 But its strength consists in the fact that it gains time 
 in the face of its obstacles; and does not fall into the 
 habit of indolence or inaction through distrust of itself or 
 balancing of motives. Moreover, in the very process 
 of acquiring its knowledge, it gains that steadiness and 
 self-assurance of will-power which is obtained only from 
 trial in the presence of danger and from the habit of 
 acting under all possible circumstances. Hence comes 
 the coolness and alertness of the Anglo-Saxon in danger, 
 and his invincible courage. 
 
 From the reaction of these characteristics upon his 
 life, the Anglo-Saxon manifests some traits of individ- 
 uality that resemble those of ancient Germans and 
 Norsemen. He makes an excellent sailor, and an equally 
 good pioneer on the border-lands. He is the readiest 
 man for a difficult emergency that the world has yet pro- 
 duced. 
 
 On the other hand, the native of Germany who has 
 not yet left his ancient home, retains his old character- 
 istics in a transfigured form, so to speak. He is the man 
 
234 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OP GOETHE. 
 
 of all men who can retire deepest into the recesses of his 
 own spirit. He can yield external fortress after fortress 
 and yet hold inexpugnable the citadel of his innermost 
 consciousness. 
 
 It is not accidental that the German invented and 
 proclaimed the right of private judgment in matters of 
 conscience and religion, teaching this to other peoples 
 who arrive at his grade of insight. He has discovered 
 new depths of conscience. His special national char- 
 acteristic as a race has been defined by a great thinker as 
 heart (Gemiith) emotion not directed towards any 
 particular object, but held back as an internal fullness of 
 sentiment. In this feature share also the Anglo-Saxon, 
 and, to a less degree, the Gothic-Roman peoples. While 
 the Germans have given to the world the two elementary 
 arts of printing and gunpowder, the Anglo-Saxons have 
 invented the steam engine, the power loom, the telegraph 
 and the daily newspaper. All of these arts go to the 
 production of individual personality. Printing enables 
 each man, no matter how humble his calling, to have 
 constant access to the recorded wisdom of all mankind. 
 Gunpowder cancels differences in physical strength, and 
 makes all men alike, tall and swift. The steam engine 
 increases the laboring power of each man by the multi- 
 plier of one thousand. The power loom, and its 
 numerous progeny, the labor-saving machines in every 
 department of human industry, free mankind from want 
 of food, clothing, and shelter, giving him luxury and 
 leisure and the mastership over nature. The telegraph 
 and railroad give him omnipresence, and through the 
 daily newspaper, enable him to summon before him, 
 every morning, a practically minute survey of the entire 
 
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE 235 
 
 world. Where once he only knew the village gossip when 
 he resorted to the tavern at night, he now knows the 
 colossal movements of national affairs all round the 
 globe, and lives an epic life in this contemplation. 
 
 In consequence of the habit of the German to retire 
 into the depths of his individuality, it is he of all men 
 who can think deepest and arrive at the most universal 
 thoughts. His practical and scientific creations bear the 
 stamp of universality. When he makes a book he aims 
 to exhaust the subject. He collects all possible phases 
 of his subject, and after finding the principle that unites 
 them, arranges all in a systematic order from first to last. 
 He is impatient at fragmentary reflections and at incom- 
 plete investigations. In his practical matters — it is the 
 same. His code of laws must be consistent throughout, 
 and perfectly systematic. To him the English seem 
 whimsical. Their system of law is full of exceptions and 
 special privileges, which are absurd to the German 
 mind. But the Anglo-Saxon began with the Teutonic 
 love of logical simplicity, and then was thrown into situa- 
 tions of strenuous contest for a thousand years with Celt 
 and Dane and Norseman, gaining a victory at last only 
 by dint of his unparalleled stubbornness. His victory is 
 limited in all directions with compromises that he was 
 forced to make as a condition of peaceable existence with 
 his antagonist. Hence the laws and constitution of Great 
 Britain, full as they are of legal fictions and unwritten 
 but inviolable conventions of procedure, are sacred to the 
 Anglo-Saxon as representing a concrete balance of inter- 
 ests, which have cost the most precious blood his island 
 has produced. His code represents the actuality of his 
 will, but not a theoretically consistent whole. 
 
236 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 For this reason the Anglo-Saxon is the inventor of 
 local self-government — itself a system of compromises 
 between the universal interest and the particular interest, 
 between the centre and periphery, between the state and 
 the individual. Local self-government furnishes the 
 principle on which the Anglo-Saxon can reduce his laws 
 and privileges to a consistent whole. The most general 
 government shall regulate only such matters as appertain 
 to the interests of the whole. Subordinate centres of 
 government shall direct interests that concern themselves 
 locally. The minutest subdivision of the commonwealth 
 shall govern itself in all matters that do not concern its 
 neighbors. If neighbors are concerned, the government 
 must be a joint directive power, for no department shall 
 govern another. Finally, the individual is the plenum of 
 power and enjoys all rights not defined as concern- 
 ing his neighbor or the state. The individual, by a 
 fiction, is spoken of as the source of power, but obviously 
 he is the plenum of rights only as thus endowed by the 
 state or nation, and not of his own natural right. 
 
 In contrast to this, the German has lived under pater- 
 nal governments, and has not as yet succeeded in 
 obtaining, to any great extent, local self-government, 
 although he is one of the most peaceable and law-abiding 
 citizens in the world. This fact is due to his theoretic 
 proclivity, and to that habit of mind which shrinks from 
 the resistance of the external world and retires before its 
 rude contact within the depths of his inaccessible person- 
 ality. The matter of civil government he has treated 
 somewhat in this way. The object of government is the 
 realization of justice in human affairs. What is right 
 can be best ascertained by the wise and good and disin- 
 
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE. 237 
 
 terested. These are presumably the rulers who have 
 given life-long attention to these matters, and who are, 
 by hereditary descent, most apt to have special gifts for 
 the work of governing. 
 
 The very statement of his principle : " The object of 
 government is to secure justice," makes it seem indiffer- 
 ent as to who secures this justice, provided it gets 
 secured at all. But the Anglo-Saxon, who lays so much 
 stress on the will of the individual personality, sets up a 
 different principle. He says in effect : " The object of 
 government is to secure the greatest degree of self- 
 government to each and to all." It is obvious that this 
 principle is a more concrete and advanced one, measured 
 by the great underlying idea of all modern civilization — 
 the idea of individual personality. 
 
 But this very defect of German character, on its will 
 side, is favorable to its supremacy on the side of thought 
 and science. The German alone, of all peoples, really 
 knows what science means. Other people investigate and 
 inventory, but they do not co-ordinate and subordinate 
 into systematic wholes, their results. It is the German 
 who invented the scientific art of specializing. It 
 becomes possible only through a logical division and 
 subdivision of a subject descending from the idea of the 
 whole towards an exhaustive classification of its pro- 
 vinces. The special province thus reached, the 
 investigator may confine himself to it, and patiently com- 
 plete an exhaustive inventory of all the realities that it 
 contains. Having completed this inventory and studied 
 each element in all its relations, the investigator knows 
 that province perfectly, and then may make his contri- 
 bution to science for the benefit of all others. Division 
 
238 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 of labor thus makes it possible to exhaust all special 
 departments in like manner. If the specialist has not 
 first gone through the process of comprehending the 
 general science as a whole, and made his a priori survey 
 and classification, he can not, by any possibility,- define 
 his special province, and hence can never tell where its 
 boundaries are. In consequence of this defect, he will 
 continually wander beyond his province, and can never 
 exhaust it. When a province is exhausted, the knowl- 
 edge of experience which is only provisional knowledge 
 up to this point — suddenly is converted into necessary 
 knowledge, and the knowing becomes a priori. Agassiz 
 has exhausted the subject of fishes to such a degree that 
 his knowing activity becomes chiefly a priori. He looks 
 at the scale of a fish that he never saw before, and at a 
 glance the whole fish is before his mind. He has 
 reached the nature of fishes in general. Cuvier could 
 draw the whole skeleton from one of its bones — he had 
 reached the archetype of animal life. Lyell could read 
 the history of its vicissitudes in a pebble. Winckelmann 
 could recognize the whole statue from a small fragment 
 discovered in the ruins of a Greek temple. The angle 
 of opening of the eyelids told him whether a statue was 
 Diana or Venus or Juno. 
 
 It is of interest to note here Goethe's wonderful 
 scenes of the classical Walpurgisnacht, introductory to 
 his Helena in the Second Part of Faust. In order to 
 bring back the past in its verity and make it real to us, 
 the method of specialization had been applied and 
 Goethe had enjoyed the works of Winckelmann and 
 profited exceedingly by them. The man who wrote the 
 fatuous work on Greek accidence, but regretted on his 
 
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE. 239 
 
 dying bed that he had not devoted his whole life to the 
 dative case is the ideal of the specialist, as Goethe con- 
 ceives him. The figure of Hornunculus does not 
 represent the man, the specialist himself, but rather the 
 province of industry, thus cut off from all others by the 
 patient prosaic activity of the Wagners of science. 
 
 The limited space of the province is hinted at by the 
 bottle in which Hornunculus is confined. The animation 
 and illumination of the manikin hints at the fact that 
 when any provmce of science is exhausted one can see 
 the whole of it in any one of the parts, and that each 
 part throws light on all others. The definition of life is 
 this : Life is an organism, within which every part is 
 alike means and end for all the other parts. Hence each 
 part in a living organism reflects the whole. Thus the 
 specialist exhausts his subject so far as to be able to see 
 the law of the whole in each fragment, and hence it sug- 
 gests the illustration of a living being, created not by 
 generation, but by prosaic, mechanical industry — such 
 as Wagner's process of inventorying- with endless 
 patience the dry details of his subject — his "dative 
 case." 
 
 It is a remarkable instance of Goethe's catholicity, 
 that he though a poet still recognizes the fact that by 
 specialization even the prosaic unimaginative man may 
 reach a living insight comparable to that of a poet. The 
 dazzling light which Hornunculus rays out in all direc- 
 tions suggests the light which such special investigations 
 throw over the whole subject. Goethe's pet idea of see- 
 ing art in its history was realized through the labors of 
 specialists. In the classical Walpurgisnacht, Goethe 
 gives us a sort of poetic history of the progress of art 
 
240 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 from its lowest stages, wherein it represents its idea of 
 the divine in forms half animal, half human, up to the 
 highest stage, wherein the perfectly beautiful Galatea — 
 the prototype of Venus — is conceived as the divine. 
 The Rhodian master-workmen, the Telchines, were the 
 first to mould the images of the high gods in the form of 
 man, thus adumbrating a most important thought, 
 namely, that God is not formless, nor a mere brute force, 
 but an individual personality like man. 
 
 It is a wonderful example of Goethe's myth-making 
 power, — this whole episode of Homunculus, the embodi- 
 ment of the specializing activity of science in its entire 
 scope. For Goethe makes Homunculus long for freedom 
 and struggle to escape from his bottle, — in other words, 
 he longs for unconditional existence, for general insight 
 into all provinces. Special study should be supple- 
 mented by special study, so that the whole subject 
 becomes alive. Homunculus is not the embodiment of 
 the beautiful, but Galatea is ; so is Eros, who makes his 
 appearance when Homunculus breaks his imprisoned 
 vial. The. principle of Eros is that of the universal in 
 nature, and it is the poet's insight which recognizes 
 everywhere the whole in the part. The specialist strug- 
 gles to attain poetic insight, and when the principle of 
 analogy really becomes active in him he changes his pro- 
 saic Wagnerian nature and attains poetic insight. 
 
 This episode is to our purpose in studying the char- 
 acter of German science as compared with the science of 
 other nations. 
 
 The French, for example, strive to give their exposi- 
 tions interest by striking modes of expression and 
 illustration. The English are painstaking and accurate. 
 
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE. 24I 
 
 and careful to avoid in all ways the vitiating of their 
 observations by prejudice and such one-sided tendencies 
 as are liable to come in through previous anticipations. 
 The danger from system especially is guarded against by 
 the English. With a cut and dried system, say they, 
 one is apt to look forward and find what he had expected 
 to find, whether it is there or not. 
 
 But the English habit, while it has great merits in this 
 respect, does not protect it from greater errors that creep 
 in from other quarters. It is especially liable to rever- 
 ence any hypothesis as soon as it is capable of being 
 used mathematically. It is very liable, too, to confound 
 one province with another through neglect of definition. 
 The German, while he may sometimes force his observa- 
 tions, in order to follow out what his system demands, 
 yet need not thus vitiate the character of the investiga- 
 tions, but may find his system of the greatest use in 
 helping him interpret his'results as he goes along. He 
 may thus keep a critical eye on his observations, thereby 
 preventing him from wandering out of the subject before 
 him into other provinces. 
 
 German industry has given us philology as a science. 
 The profoundest laws of the mind are exhibited by it in 
 the structure of language, which is its instrument of 
 expression. It has created the science of comparative 
 history, giving us an insight into the sum total of the 
 strivings of each nation that has flourished on earth. It 
 has reenforced the department of comparative civil history 
 by comparative history of religion, comparative history 
 of art, comparative history of jurisprudence, and all these 
 by comparative psychology. Whereas, there might be a 
 mistaken observation in an isolated field or province, it is 
 16 
 
242 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 very likely to get corrected when one comes to see all 
 similar fields in the comparative history of the subject. 
 Still more sure are we in several comparative histories of 
 analogous departments to correct the stubborn errors 
 that have still survived previous critical revisions. 
 
 The great principle of analogy which thus becomes 
 alive, is the transfigured Homunculus — transfigured into 
 Eros, the principle of Love — or of recognition of Reason 
 in Nature, for this is the principle that inspires the great 
 poet. 
 
 Besides these wonderful structures of comparative 
 history of human culture, which include beside philology, 
 art, religion, philosophy, jurisprudence, civil history, 
 mythology, folklore, and such matters, there are also 
 branches which it cultivates like other people — such as 
 logic, psychology, anthropology, phenomenology of con- 
 sciousness, and ethics. The comparative studies in the 
 sphere of nature, indeed, are more successfully cultivated 
 by other nations — but those in the sphere of man, with 
 the single exception of the sphere of anthropology, are 
 almost entirely in the possession of Germany up to the 
 present day. German philosophy is strongly in contrast 
 to Greek philosophy on this point ; the latter is ontologi- 
 cal in its method, while German philosophy is psycho- 
 logical in its method. The Greek attains a direct insight 
 into the objective conditions of Being, while the German 
 has seen equally profoundly into the conditions of know- 
 ing. Nature and the human mind are from one source. 
 It is to be expected, therefore, that a profound and 
 exhaustive glance into either province will reveal the 
 same general results. Such is the case. While Plato 
 and Aristotle arrived at the idea of Reason as the Creator 
 
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE 243 
 
 of the world, Kant and Hegel arrive at the conviction 
 that the moral law of freedom presupposes the idea of 
 iridividual Personality in the absolute. While Kant lays 
 stress on the psychological aspect of this doctrine, and is 
 careful to deny any ontological use of this idea, Hegel, on 
 the other hand, who is the discoverer of the comparative 
 History of Religion, Art, Philosophy, and civil history, 
 recognizes the identity of this result with the ontological 
 results of Aristotle, and thus unites in one the Greek and 
 German movements in the theoretical survey of the 
 worid. 
 
 The defect m the Greek ontology lies in the fact that 
 it does not eomprehend the psychology of method. 
 Plato sets up the dialectical method, but does not com- 
 prehend its ne essity. Aristotle explains it rather as a 
 system of illusion. Kant takes this up psychologically, 
 and shows this system of illusion to be based on the very 
 nature of the human understanding. Hegel looks fur- 
 ther, and discovers the law of the finite as dialectic, 
 and sees logic as a whole system of dialectical 
 categories. For these categories presuppose one the 
 other and constitute a whole of intellectual definition in 
 the highest idea. 
 
 To the Greek ontological thought corresponded Greek 
 art. The beautiful appeared in the graceful form : perfect 
 control of the body by the soul. The Greek beau- 
 tiful is the external beautiful, which appeals to the eye. 
 It is an ontological beauty, while the German beautiful 
 is a psychological beauty — it is the beautiful in music. 
 As the Greek Pheidias and his pupils realized the most 
 divine forms in sculpture that the world has yet seen, so 
 
244 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 in music Beethoven and his followers have revealed the 
 divine in music. 
 
 At first it would appear that music addressed to the 
 ear could not reach the portrayal of individuality. It 
 would seem as though the Germans, who have the deep- 
 est internality and individuality of all peoples, had 
 selected the form of art farthest removed from the 
 expression of individual personality. But, although 
 music, when it is seized without counterpoint, or with 
 simple counterpoint alone, is not capable of portraying 
 individuality, except in a very abstract manner, yet when 
 it is carried by Bach and Beethoven up to double coun- 
 terpoint, it becomes a more adequate vehicle for the 
 expression of the very movements of the soul, and in this 
 surpasses all other arts. The abiding phase of character, 
 for example, which characterizes Odin in the Norse 
 Mythology, is indicated by a certain musical phrase in 
 Wagner's Ring of the Nibelungen, and every gust of 
 passion, every reflection or idea that moves him — 
 whether as reflections on external circumstances or inter- 
 nal motives and passions, is described by characteristic 
 phrases brought in in the form of counterpoint, and the 
 musical reader translates the music at once into forms 
 visible to his imagination, and sees the blue-cloaked 
 monarch of the sky moved now by love and now by wrath 
 — impelled by a great idea, or restrained by a haunting 
 fear. The " Music of the Future " will express perfectly 
 this deepest determination of individual personality in 
 the form of character as the permanent, moved by tem- 
 porary accidents of passion, finite motives, or developed 
 through eternal ideas. 
 
 The German in solving his problem of subjectivity by 
 
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE. 245 
 
 means of philosophy, at the same time became conscious 
 of the true solution of his defect in will. Frederick the 
 Great and his ancestry began to correct it by deliberate 
 exhaustiveness in military preparation, i, e., by reinforc- 
 ing the will by intellectual precaution, and solving its 
 problems of practical life in advance of their execution. 
 This has been happily consummated in late years by the 
 victory of the Prussian arms and the establishment of the 
 Empire. 
 
 To apply the German principle of specialty to the 
 ma,nagement of war — suppose that during peace the 
 German War Bureau should measure accurately and map 
 out every foot of ground in all the neighboring countries 
 with which it could be at war — study out all their strong 
 points — master all the strategical points in fact. Then 
 it should prepare campaigns in such a manner that the 
 commander-in-chief could assemble within a week the 
 entire fighting force of the nation at any point selected 
 for attack on the enemy — say with twice the rapidity 
 that the other nation could do the same thing. Know- 
 ing with absolute accuracy the entire ground, it would be 
 easy for the Prussian to assemble all his apparatus and 
 exactly what apparatus he needed, on the ground, so that 
 he could not be surprised by any unexpected emergency, 
 but could out-manoeuvre the enemy at every step of the 
 campaign. Prepared in this way, he could defeat Austria 
 completely in a six weeks' campaign, having overwhelmed 
 her allies in the meantime, and France as completely 
 in three months. 
 
 Here we see intellect turned into will-power. Just 
 as the English turn will into intellectual power, so Ger- 
 many has turned intellect into will. 
 
246 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 In conclusion, I would say that we can profitably 
 learn from Germany its scientific method, its philosophic 
 method, and its wonderful art of music, which reveals to 
 us the depths of our souls. 
 
 In Goethe, I need not say how these elements are 
 united into a great poetic art, because if the labors of the 
 past week in this Literary School have not demonstrated 
 it, it is beyond any power of mine to make it clearer 
 or more evident. The German literature previous to 
 Goethe, in its Klopstocks, Wielands, Lessings and Her- 
 ders, led up to Goethe. Since Goethe, it has been 
 collecting itself for another great world poet who will 
 come in due time. 
 
 DISCUSSION. 
 
 Mr. James MacAlister : The subject has been 
 treated in so able a manner that all we can do is to seize 
 upon a point here and there, and emphasize it to some 
 extent. This discourse itself, in its elaborateness and 
 completeness, was an admirable illustration of the influ- 
 ence of German culture. 
 
 You can not, I think, have failed to discover in what 
 was said, the great law toward which the whole lecture 
 pointed, — that is the law of continuity in human history; 
 a law which, for many reasons, may be regarded as one of 
 the most important generalizations that have been 
 reached in the domain of philosophic thought. In the 
 progress of knowledge we first attained to the idea of 
 continuous development in the organic world. It is only 
 in our own time that we have begun to realize that 
 the same principle operates as well in human society. 
 The school books still insist on treating history under 
 
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE. 247 
 
 three divisions, — ancient, mediaeval, and modern. 
 Nothing could be more misleading than this statement 
 of social progress. From the first dawn of civilization 
 on the banks of the Nile, to the present hour, there is no 
 break in history. The progress of man has been contin- 
 uous, and the time will soon come when history will 
 be written upon this principle. We have an excellent 
 illustration of this continuity of development in the 
 German race. Most of you are, no doubt, familiar with 
 the works of Dr. Freeman, the distinguished English 
 historical scholar. You will remember how he proves 
 the essential unity of the German race through the 
 continuous changes it has undergone — first, in its origi- 
 nal home, then in England, and, finally, in our own 
 country ; and how it has successively been modified by 
 its environment in each of these countries. We see 
 the same characteristics of mind and character under- 
 going continuous development in these three homes of 
 the German people. We Americans are essentially Teu- 
 tonic, just as the English people are. One of the first 
 writers to elaborate this idea of continuity in human 
 history, was Herder, the thinker who exercised sp large 
 an influence upon the growth and development of 
 Goethe's mind. Hegel, another great German philoso- 
 pher, has written an important work upon the same 
 subject. Herbert Spencer has worked at the problem, 
 and, although he approaches it from a different stand- 
 point, reaches a similar conclusion. 
 
 A word or two upon the principle of individualism, 
 which was so fully treated by Dr. Harris. The chief 
 characteristic of the Greek race was its individuality. 
 Their art, their literature, was the product of this charac- 
 
248 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 teristic. In Athens, the state existed for the individual ; 
 the state was subordinate to the individual. In Rome, 
 on the contrary, the individual existed for, and was 
 absorbed by, the state. But it is the union of these two 
 principles in the Germans, as was pointed out by Dr. 
 Harris, which has given them so large a place in the 
 world's history. Is not the coordination of these same 
 principles in the. American mind and character, the best 
 reason on which to found our hope for the greatness 
 of this nation in the future ? 
 
 I have never heard the peculiarities of the English 
 mind more satisfactorily treated than in this paper. 
 While we draw our lineage directly from England, we 
 have a good deal that is German in our composition. 
 The blood of this country has been enriched, to a con- 
 siderable extent, by the large infusion of the German 
 element which has come to us in recent years. The 
 result will doubtless be a different type of man, a dif- 
 ferent type of mind, in America, from what exists in 
 the Old World. I will venture to say that the fact 
 that the mass of German emigration has found its way to 
 the Mississippi valley, points to it as the region where 
 this new national type is to be looked for. The future of 
 America lies neither on the Atlantic nor on the Pacific 
 slope, but in this great Central Plain, where the fusion of 
 all the various elements of race represented in our com- 
 plex life is to take place. We have only to look at such 
 cities as Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Milwaukee, to see in 
 how many ways the German element, which forms so 
 considerable a part of their population, manifests its 
 presence. Am I mistaken in thinking that the plastic 
 arts and music are finding their way more rapidly into 
 
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE. 249 
 
 the culture and life of the people in these places than 
 in the older portions of the country ? 
 
 I will detain you but a moment longer in calling 
 attention to another point alluded l;o by Dr. Harris, the 
 growing conviction that the great art of the future for all 
 civilized nations is to be music. The plastic art of 
 Greece exists only for the despair of mankind. We shall 
 never see produced again such forms of beauty and grace 
 as the chisels of her masters carved in the little city of 
 Athens, not for the Greeks only, but for all ages and all 
 lands. The painter's art does not afford that fuller 
 means of spiritual expression which is becoming more and 
 more the necessity of civilized man. It would seem that 
 it is in music that we are to find artistic expression for 
 our highest thought and purest sentiment. 
 
 Prof. W. T. Hewitt : The paper of Professor 
 Harris has led to this inquiry : What is the product of 
 this intellectual life and this German spirit, which is 
 helpful for us ? What is there in German art or Ger- 
 man literature which has a voice which speaks to our 
 inmost life and the future of the world ? We are amply 
 prepared now, having considered the characteristics of 
 the Germanic spirit, and the processes of the varied steps 
 in its education, to ask, how has this spirit found expres- 
 sion ? And, first of all, the question which we need to 
 ask as a school, with reference to our future culture at 
 German sources, is, what has German literature to say to 
 us ? What voices speak with the clearest accents of truth? 
 We may look at this in two ways. We may look at it, 
 first, in those voices which are the direct expression of 
 the German spirit ; we may look at it, secondly, and in a 
 way which I think is not often considered, in the fact 
 
250 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 that the Germans are the most varied and the most 
 exhaustive scholars. It is the German nation which has 
 appropriated the treasures of modern and of ancient 
 literature. The German nation is thus becoming an 
 intermediate agency in interpreting the literature and the 
 science of all nations throughout the world. Goethe has 
 some striking thoughts upon the value of a literature 
 which consists exclusively of translations, which repro- 
 duces the spirit of a foreign literature in modern form, 
 and makes it an instrument of culture to 'other nations. 
 Now, if we should ignore this latter agency, this subordi- 
 nate office of German intellectual activity, we should 
 ignore a most important and most essential influence 
 which Germany is exerting, and will exert, in holding 
 sway over the intellect of the world. Now, we are not 
 wrong in our study of German literature to seek to dis- 
 tinguish the influence which has affected the German 
 people. If you survey English literature, I think you 
 can not recollect any one, or two, or three dramatic 
 writers of the present century who have had a prevailing 
 and universal influence in the education of the English 
 or American people. But if we turn to Germany, we 
 find that Goethe and Schiller, and Lessing, have a living 
 influence which is still speaking to the German people 
 and educating them. If we thus follow that which is 
 becoming the educating force to the Germans themselves, 
 we shall not far mistake the sources of their strength, 
 and the highest sources of inspiration in German litera- 
 ture. Now, there is another force or direction manifest 
 in German literature, and that is, in reproducing in 
 works of the imagination the scenes of the German past. 
 You are all familiar with the works of Mrs. Muhlbach, 
 
GERMAN PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE. 251 
 
 in reproducing the scenes of the courts of Germany, and 
 German history. But the greatest of all masters in this 
 direction, and I think the greatest of living German nov- 
 elists, is Freytag, who has reproduced the scenes of the 
 German past with a vividness which has made his novels 
 epics. There is a voice in German literature which is as 
 potent in the character of the author and in his influence 
 on German thought as it is in matters of pure literature, 
 and that is the voice of Lessing, which is still heard 
 in every conflict, and to which Germans constantly 
 appeal in discussion of living, political questions. His 
 Nathan der Weise, as a dramatic poem, has exercised a 
 political influence which I can ascribe to no other drama. 
 There is a power in German lifS which I think is not 
 adequately appreciated, and that is the Hebrew element 
 in modern German literature. Professor Harris has 
 spoken of the Judean spirit and element as a contribution 
 to German culture ai^d to our own culture. Many of the 
 most gifted men of Germany, at the present day, in 
 literature, sculpture, painting, and music, are Hebrews. 
 I might dwell longer upon the different elements of criti- 
 cism which may guide us in forming our literary 
 judgments, especially of German authors. But I desired 
 simply to call your attention to these two respects in 
 which Germany is reigning supreme, or is attaining intel- 
 lectual supremacy. And I ought to add, perhaps, that 
 the reason that Germany has become the teacher of the 
 world, is because the German nature and German educa- 
 :ion exhibits a capacity for patient, laborious work and 
 discipline, which we might well imitate, and through 
 which victory is alone attained. Thus they become the 
 natural teachers of the world. 
 
SOME BIRTHDAY TRIBUTES. 
 
 August 28, 1886. 
 
 GOETHE AS A MAN. 
 By Prof. W. T. Hewitt. 
 
 Every author is greater than his works. The per- 
 sonality of a great writer is a gift to the world, often 
 of higher worth than anything which he has produced. 
 Of Goethe it was said,- by Jean Paul : "Goethe's heart, 
 which few knew, was as great as his intellect, which 
 all men knew." Letters and life can not be separated. 
 The world looks beyond the writings of a man and 
 asks regarding his character: what legacy has he left 
 of himself ? 
 
 The study of later German literature goes back until 
 it centers in one man. In him the new world of modern 
 thought was united with classical culture. In Goethe's 
 youth the intellectual spirit of his country was morbid 
 and servile ; it was morbid, for it was filled with the 
 vague unrest and the lack of faith which pervaded 
 Europe, and was unconscious of its mission. It was ser- 
 vile, for it lacked true manliness and independence, and 
 worshipped a false classicism ; it admired the empty phil- 
 osophy of French wits, and the superficial drama which 
 dominated the Parisian stage. He rose above both these 
 tendencies. Only a nature of rare independence can 
 assert itself against the sway of established opinions. It 
 
 252 
 
GOETHE AS A MAN. 253 
 
 was equally difficult to withstand the license and the 
 turgid sentiment of the writers of his early manhood. In 
 his healthy nature there was a standard of taste and criti- 
 cism which caused him to revolt against that which 
 was false and artificial. He discerned the excellencies of 
 all the literatures of his time. He helped the German 
 world to understand Shakespeare, and guided it to the 
 wholesome fountains of English thought. He studied 
 what was best in the French classical writers. The 
 scenes of the vigorous German past became real and 
 vivid in his depiction. His view swept the whole range 
 of literature, and science and practical questions received 
 his thoughtful attention and investigation. But we turn 
 from the contemplation of the wide range of his literary 
 activity, to question its nature ; Was the sum of his 
 influence quickening and enlarging to the human intel- 
 lect? Did the human mind, through him, come to 
 respond more largely to the truths of nature, of art, and 
 of life ? And here we must remember that there are 
 many elements in the world's growth to its highest devel- 
 opment. 
 
 A new inheritance of language and literature prepared 
 the way for a common national feeling. Patriotism 
 becomes possible only when a community of feeling gives 
 common interests ; then a national legacy becomes a 
 sacred trust. It is said that Goethe did not write a 
 patriotic song, and in the life and death struggle of his 
 country, he uttered no appeal, no ringing voice to give 
 courage and hope against the public enemy. But he 
 wrote Hermann and Dorothea, whose beautiful, idyllic 
 verse is full of the purest patriotism, and of lofty sacri- 
 fice for liberty. 
 
254 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 He prepared the German people for freedom, yet, 
 it is said, he was not patriotic. He accompanied his 
 sovereign in a campaign against the French, but he did 
 not care for the success of his country's arms. Shalce- 
 speare did not write hymns, nor an appeal to the English 
 nation to take up arms against the Spaniards, and yet his 
 genius stands serene and unquestioned. To every nature 
 is given its mission. Some are prophets, who, with 
 clear vision, look through the present to the future. 
 Goethe saw that the true greatness of his nation must 
 rest in its advancement in knowledge. He pursued his 
 studies in science and in art, and in literature, amid the 
 smoke of battle. One was an incident in the life of a 
 nation ; the other, the permanent source of national 
 growth and enlightenment ; one would cease, the other 
 would be a perpetually active principle, contributing to 
 the intellectual and moral well-being of his people. True 
 liberty did not consist in preserving the integrity of the 
 states of a few arbitrary and unconstitutional rulers, but 
 in the growth of the nation in knowledge and self-control. 
 Time has vindicated the truth of his vision, and the 
 history of Europe, since his time, reveals how illusory the 
 empty name of liberty may be. Goethe admired Napo- 
 leon. The spectacle of a man of real power among weak 
 and selfish rulers, destroying effete traditions, and forms 
 which were an obstacle to progress, awakened his respect. 
 His nature was not local, but cosmopolitan. His view 
 was not the estimate of the moment but the calmer esti- 
 mate of history. 
 
 As a literary man his life touched humanity and was 
 not in any sense apart from it. He devoted years to the 
 laborious duties of official position ; he relinquished his 
 
GOETHE AS A MAN. 255 
 
 calling as an author that he might worthily fill the duties 
 of his office. He sought to develop the resources of the 
 dukedom that he might increase the prosperity of the 
 people. He possessed power and influence, but he never 
 used his power for his own aggrandizement. He was 
 never accused of an ignoble ambition in the exercise of 
 authority. He was a courtier and the companion of 
 kings, but he never lost his manly independence. His 
 association with the court did not destroy his intellectual 
 life nor weaken the ardor with which he prosecuted 
 the most- laborious and exacting investigations. He was 
 catholic toward all schools of thought and welcomed 
 every new discovery, but he was not indifferent to truth. 
 He rose above envy, and his gifts and influence were 
 at the service of all earnest scholars. All who came 
 in contact with him felt the energy of his life, and were 
 impelled to a higher pursuit of knowledge. His man- 
 hood was shown in rising above the temptations of office, 
 of wealth, and of popular esteem. He attained victory, 
 not at once, as no man overcomes all opposing forces 
 with a single effort. His words in Tasso characterize the 
 spirit of his life. 
 
 " We should every deed perform as grandly, 
 As it looks after long years, when from age to age 
 The poet's swelling song has rolled it on, — 
 While what we do, is as it was to them, 
 Toilsome and incomplete." 
 
 He has been called the selfish apostle of culture, and 
 yet he said, " The highest culture is wisdom, wisdom is 
 only in truth, truth is God." 
 
 He believed man's highest virtue to be in ruling 
 external circumstances, and in not being ruled by them, 
 
256 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 Few lives have discerned their true goal and pursued 
 it more unwaveringly than he. He recognized the dilet- 
 tanteism of men of culture, whose recreations, though 
 pure, lacked earnestness and a lofty aim ; and his stan- 
 dard of judgment was : " In the measure with which 
 you seek to do your duty, learn to know yourself ; " and 
 again : " It is an article of my faith that, only by firm- 
 ness and fidelity in our present situation, do we become 
 worthy and capable of the higher step of a subsequent 
 position, whether it be here, in time, or there, in 
 eternity." 
 
 Every man, in his view, was an independent and 
 sacred personality, and the highest success was only to 
 be found in an activity corresponding to his nature. 
 
 Character was the chief concern of life, and ■ he 
 emphasized that quality which would not permit the criti- 
 cal inspection of the conduct of others, unless it was 
 for the purpose of benefiting them. A selfish isolation 
 could not produce character. Character must be wrought 
 out in action, and religion is the love of the holiest 
 emblem, and around us, rising to the love of the Perfect 
 above us, and that which had received a divine embodi- 
 ment on the stage of humanity could not retreat or be as 
 though it had not been. Feeling was to him as divine in 
 its origin as reason, and its voice could interpret God as 
 well as the cold intellect. The steps of his own spiritual 
 growth interpret the march of the world's thought, and 
 unconsciously suggest philosophies which are, as yet, 
 only in part formulated. 
 
 His genius was not narrow or limited by the horizon 
 of his age or nation. In a time in which the glamour 
 of political interest caused statesmen to serve temporary 
 
GOETHE AS A MAN. 257 
 
 instead of enduring interests, he remained free from the 
 fickle judgments of his time and sought in history and 
 philosophy the secret of a nation's true greatness. Seclu- 
 sion and strenuous study cost sacrifice, and the worlcs 
 of the human intellect, which the world admires, can 
 only be the product of a clear and lofty purpose. Char- 
 acter is not accidental, neither is a commanding influence 
 in the intellectual life of a nation, the fortuitous product 
 of a dilettante and dreamer; Goethe is one of the great 
 teachers of his century, by virtue of his character as well 
 as his writings. He had faith in the future of humanity, 
 and believed that its "progress is a search for God; even 
 the life-tendency of each individual is the same, — either 
 through an impulse for knowledge of the external world 
 and its relations, or through a search in one's own spirit." 
 He interpreted his own history and hopes in that letter 
 which he wrote in advanced years to the friends of his 
 youth: "I have meant honestly all my life, both with 
 myself and others, and always looked upward to the 
 Highest. Let us continue thus to work while the light of 
 day is left to us ; for others, another sun will shine, by 
 which they will work, while for us, a brighter light will 
 surround us." 
 
 He was brave and patient in bearing personal loss, 
 and rested in serene confidence in the wisdom and benefi- 
 cence of universal laws. That is no less faith which 
 grasps eternal principles than that which is exercised 
 in their isolated and individual application. He was 
 rich in all the gifts of friendship and gave to others out 
 of the treasures of a rare nature. Does not heart match 
 intellect when we behold the youth of rare self-control 
 conceiving of duty as his highest guide? He was the 
 17 
 
258 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 author who sought to embody in his works the enduring 
 principles of nature and of art. He was free from false 
 sentimentality, and separated the pure gold of truth from 
 all that was insincere and artificial. He was independent 
 against the influence of literary cliques and the fickle 
 fashions of a school or sect. In an age of formality, 
 he sought the spirit rather than the letter, and separated 
 the essential and abiding from the accidental and the 
 transient. With wealth and rank and his sovereign's 
 favor, he remained true to his high calling as the educa- 
 tor of his nation. His culture was never selfish, but the 
 gathering of all forces that he might attain to the perfec- 
 tion of his own being, and give that he might enrich 
 others. 
 
 Letters and life find in him their rare union, and 
 poetry fulfils its divine mission to bless humanity. 
 
GOETHE AS WRITER, SAVANT AND CITIZEN. 
 
 By Horace Rublee. 
 
 Keats, in one of his most familiar sonnets, wrote : 
 " Much have I traveled in the realms of gold, and many- 
 goodly states and kingdoms seen, round many western 
 islands have I been, that bards in fealty to Apollo hold." 
 Adopting this figure, I may say that I have made some 
 hasty excursions into that goodly state in the golden 
 realms of poesy ruled over by the great German whose 
 birthday anniversary we here commemorate. But they 
 have been the holiday excursions of a tourist, rather than 
 the leisurely journeys of a careful, thorough and syste- 
 matic explorer. I have no new discoveries, therefore, to 
 report, and am in danger of imitating the traveling cor- 
 respondent in Europe, who reproduces the substance of 
 his guide-books in letters to the home newspaper. After 
 all that has been said and written of Goethe, there is 
 small opportunity of saying anything new of the man or 
 his works. By common consent he is regarded as one of 
 the most interesting figures among the great men of 
 modern times. In letters, he is the foremost man which 
 Germany, prolific of great writers, has produced. His 
 "Faust" is the great modern poem, standing apart from 
 all others, and doubtless destined to hold an enduring 
 place in literature by the side of the " Iliad," the " Divine 
 Comedy," and the " Paradise Lost." By that, and by his 
 exquisite songs and ballads and the charming idyl of 
 
 259 
 
26o POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 " Hermann and Dorothea," his high rank as a poet is 
 fixed. His genius as a poet was essentially lyrical and 
 not dramatic. His dramas are for the closet rather than 
 the stage. They abound in fine passages, in wisdom and 
 insight and poetry, but are wanting in movement, in pas- 
 sion, and dramatic characterization. But when he chose 
 he was master of the lyre. He first demonstrated the 
 full power of the German language as a medium of poetic 
 expression. It had been condemned as harsh and guttural 
 — the language of horses, Charles V called it. In his hand 
 it became an instrument, " melodious as when unshorn 
 Apollo sings to the touch of golden wires," and capable 
 of voicing harmonies " more subtle-winded than Pan's 
 flute-music." Heine said of his songs : " The harmonious 
 verses wind round your heart like a tender mistress; the 
 word embraces you while the thought imprints a kiss." 
 In prose, Goethe exhibited no such mastery ; he was 
 sometimes diffuse and feeble, and has been surpassed, in 
 grace and vigor of expression, by later writers in his own 
 tongue. But the marvelous thing about this man, which 
 distinguishes him among the great poets, was the variety 
 of subjects in which he was interested, and his capacity, 
 shown in the most dissimilar fields of inquiry and investi- 
 gation. He was not only a poet, a dramatist and a 
 novelist, but he was a man of affairs, a scientist, an anti- 
 quarian, an art-critic, and I know not what else. His 
 mental development was so rounded and complete, that 
 he took a vivid interest in nearly every direction of 
 human inquiry. He studied anatomy, botany, physics, 
 architecture, art, as well as languages and literatures. 
 He practiced drawing, painting and engraving. He 
 wrote tender love verses, and treatises on optics and the 
 
GOETHE AS WRITER, SAVANT AND CITIZEN. 261 
 
 inter-maxillary bone. Happily endowed with a physical 
 frame as perfect and vigorous as his intellectual faculties, 
 his long life was a ceaseless search after knowledge and 
 wisdom, impelled by a never-sated curiosity, like a star, 
 without haste, without rest. After the boisterous period 
 of youth, he became a type of serene and disciplined 
 mental energy. His intellectual activity was so great, 
 the subjects that interested him so varied, that he flitted 
 from one to another, and no writer perhaps has left so 
 many fragmentary works. In his later years, his poetic 
 genius was chilled by too much reflection, and he fell 
 into allegory, symbolism and didacticism. The second 
 part of " Faust," mostly the work of his old age, is a vast 
 riddle. It contains exquisite passages ; it may contain, 
 in symbolic form, the blossom and the fragrancy of all 
 human wisdom ; but to the average man and brother, 
 with its mythologic and mediseval characters, its 
 "mothers," and "gray women," its Homunculus and 
 Euphorion, its holy Anchorites, blessed boys, angels, 
 younger angels, and more complete angels, it is a burden 
 and a mystery. When the allegorical Helen embraces 
 Faust and vanishes, leaving only her empty clothing, we 
 are told that it typifies what must happen when the 
 defunct Classical embraces the living Romantic, the 
 resuscitated past, the living present. But, if it be 
 important to convey such information, the average man 
 and brother, who is doubtless a Philistine, would prefer 
 to be told in more direct language. There is a class of 
 minds that delight in groping after meanings in a welter 
 of allegory and mysticism. These revel in the second 
 part of "Faust," and in some others of Goethe's later 
 writings. But as their interpretations are various, less 
 
262 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 transcendental intellects can not fully share their pleas- 
 ure. One's confidence is shaken in the absolute certainty 
 of most of their elucidations by observing the facility with 
 which an ingenious person can find profound esoteric 
 significance in almost any narrative. Thus a writer in an 
 English magazine, not long ago, sought to show that the 
 story of " The Pickwick Papers " is an allegory of Her- 
 bert Spencer's theory of evolution. Mr. Pickwick, he 
 ingeniously argued, represents the ingenuous, undiscip- 
 lined spirit of inquiry. Sam Weller stands for the 
 doctrine of evolution. His action on the plot illustrates 
 the change from an " indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to 
 a definite, coherent heterogeneity." He gradually separates 
 Mr. Pickwick's true friends from the indeterminate, hom- 
 ogeneous mass of humanity, which was molten together 
 by the rays of his benevolence. The elder Mr. Weller 
 represents the older and rougher empiricism. His over- 
 turning of the Eatanswill coach typifies the retrograde 
 nature of experiment without hypothesis. The ready 
 alliance of rude empiricism with pietistic sensibility is 
 typified by the marriage of Weller, Sr., to his "widder,'' 
 etc. All this seems plausible enough, but another man, 
 equally ingenious, will fit the characters and incidents of 
 " The Pickwick Papers " to a totally different lesson. 
 
 While Goethe's intellectual superiority is conceded by 
 his countrymen, he has not so warm a place in their 
 hearts as his great contemporary Schiller. The one had 
 the gift of enthusiasm, and shared deeply in the spirit 
 and ideas of his time ; the other was calm, observant, but 
 apparently indifferent in the midst of the great historic 
 events and the political and social revolutions of the age 
 in which he lived. There is no lack of evidence that 
 
GOETHE AS WRITER, SAVANT AND CITIZEN 263 
 
 he was capable of warm friendship, of sympathy with 
 individuals, and of profound grief, but he accepted the 
 inevitable calmly when it came. The period of his mature 
 manhood, from forty to sixty-five, witnessed the outbreak 
 of the French revolution, the most stupendous event in 
 modern history, — the political convulsion of the whole 
 continent, — the diffusion of the democratic ideas which 
 have radically changed the social and political structure 
 of nearly all governments, — and the rise and fall of 
 Napoleon. He saw Germany overrun again and again 
 by the armies of France. He saw it trampled under foot 
 and outraged by Napoleon. He witnessed the uprising 
 of the national spirit, unconquerable, out of the depths of 
 humihation and defeat. He witnessed the great social 
 and political reforms, begun and carried out by Stein and 
 Hardenberg, by which serfdom was abolished in Prussia, 
 and the foundations of the future greatness of Germany 
 securely laid. He heard the clarion notes of other Ger- 
 man singers fanning the sacred flame of hope and 
 patriotism in the breasts of the people. In the midst of 
 these great events he maintained his Olympian calm, like 
 a god, careless of mankind. In his voluminous works 
 there is nothing to show that his pulse was quickened by 
 them. He wrote no "armored sonnets," he sounded no 
 trumpet call, 
 
 " Sign of nigh battle, or got victory," 
 
 to stir the blood of his countrymen and to raise their 
 spirits to heights of noblest temper in their war for deliv- 
 erance from the invader. On the contrary, almost the only 
 direct reference to the events of the period in his writ- 
 ings is contained in a poem addressed to the Empress of 
 
■264 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 the French in 181 2, written in a strain of abject adula- 
 tion. She is referred to as chosen by Napoleon to be a 
 mediatress, after the manner of the gods, and is invoked 
 to employ her influence, that "he, who is all powerful, 
 may be inclined to give Europe peace." Hettner, in his 
 history of German literature, where the genius and high 
 qualities of Goethe are fully recognized, admits that one 
 can not now read this poem without a painful feeling of 
 disgust. While Germany was prostrate under the foot of 
 the conqueror, her greatest poet and author diverted his 
 thoughts from the calamities of the time by studying Per- 
 sian, by writing love verses in imitation of Hafiz, by 
 collecting and studying old German pictures and draw- 
 ings. 
 
 Much has been ingeniously written in extenuation of 
 this seeming want of patriotism. Goethe was a man of 
 the old regime. He was past fifty before the serious 
 troubles of his country began. He had long been in the 
 personal service of one of the petty German princes. 
 He was a conservative by nature, and he had little or no 
 sympathy with popular movements. The character of 
 his mind and the nature of his studies disqualified him 
 from feeling an interest in political affairs. Germany 
 was so divided into petty states that it seemed doubtful 
 if a true national spirit could be developed. Goethe was 
 a cosmopolite rather than a German in feeling. He 
 looked for the amelioration of society by a slow process 
 of evolution, and by the culture of the individual, rather 
 than by sudden revolutions born of momentary enthusi- 
 asm. The destinies of individuals interested him more 
 than those of states "All that is violent, all that is 
 
GOETHE AS WRITER, SAVANT AND CITIZEN. 265 
 
 accomplished by sudden leaps," he said, "is offensive to 
 me, because it is contrary to nature." 
 
 Great as he was, he was not superior to circum- 
 stances. He was a son of the eighteenth century in 
 Germany, and cherished the profoundest deference for 
 rank. The small German princes were to him a superior 
 order of beings, regardless of their personal qualities. 
 Referring to the published correspondence between him 
 and Charles Augustus, the Grand Duke of Weimar, Hett- 
 ner says : " How wonderfully hearty, natural and 
 human is the tone of the Grand duke's letters to Goethe, 
 and how stiff and formal, beyond all measure, are 'those 
 of Goethe." At the celebration of his birth-day in 1827, 
 the King of Bavaria was present, and conferred on him 
 the Bavarian Grand Cross of the Order of Merit. He 
 wrote that he was almost overcome by so great an honor. 
 " His majesty, the King," he wrote, " honored me, just as 
 I found myself in the circle of my friends, with his highest 
 presence. — 'Ihre hoechsten Gegenwart.'" As the old 
 poet turned to the Grand Duke of Weimar to ask for 
 the requisite permission to accept a foreign order, and, 
 with an obeisance, said : " If my gracious prince per- 
 mits," Charles Augustus seems to have been struck 
 with the absurdity of the situation — the great man over- 
 whelmed by a compliment from the cranky King — and, 
 laughingly, exclaimed : " Old fellow, don't make a fool 
 of yourself ! " 
 
 This, however, is a matter easily excusable. The awe 
 and fear of kings was a traditional sentiment in the Ger- 
 many of that period. Goethe was simply actuated by 
 what Schiller calls "the ingrained instinct of old rever- 
 ence, the holy habit of obediency," which custom had 
 
266 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 nurtured for generations among his people. For his atti- 
 tude towards Napoleon it is not so easy to give an excuse. 
 It reflects upon his perspicacity as a man in public affairs. 
 No one can withhold wonder and admiration for the 
 genius of the conqueror, but no one who has properly 
 studied his history, can fail to execrate him as a monster 
 of selfishness, perfidy, and falsehood, whose career was 
 stained with the blackest crimes. Above all, it would 
 seem that no German could have forgiven him after the 
 ruthless outrages he committed on that country. Yet 
 Goethe appears to have felt no resentment towards him, 
 and to have had no conception of the inevitable collapse 
 that was the necessary consequence of inordinate ambition, 
 coupled with the absence of every moral quality. He even 
 contemplated, with complacency, the prospect of an uni- 
 versal empire, and a federation of the peoples, with a Napo- 
 leonic dynasty at its head. When Napoleon met the 
 Emperor of Russia at Erfurt in 1808, to give eclat to the 
 occasion, he summoned the princes of Germany to be 
 present, and surrounded himself with courtiers who were 
 kings. "This reunion,'' says Lanfrey, "was, above all, to 
 demonstrate to the German idealogues the vanity of their 
 dreams. By the side of these potentates of the earth, 
 happy in their subjection, and proud to be the courtiers 
 of the king of kings, what could the poor conspirators of 
 the Tugendbund hope to accomplish?" "A more cruel 
 defection still, the kings of intelligence came in their turn 
 to do homage to Caesar. Goethe and Wieland were pre- 
 sented to Napoleon, and made their glory serve to orna- 
 ment his triumph. German patriotism had to endure rude 
 trials at Erfurt, but of all their humiliations, that which 
 Germans felt most profoundly, was to see their greatest 
 
GOETHE AS WRITER, SAVANT AND CITIZEN. 267 
 
 literary genius adorn himself with the favors of the 
 oppressor of their country." The historian continues : 
 " It is certain that a genius of this order renders as great 
 services to humanity in producing works which honor 
 and elevate the human mind as in enrolling himself 
 in the most legitimate of insurrections. He who acquits 
 his debt as a thinker may be dispensed from acquitting it 
 as a soldier. But in invoking this species of exoneration 
 one recognizes that he would be yet greater who was 
 able to accomplish both tasks. Yet while this plea 
 accords amnesty to abstention and neutrality, it does not 
 excuse connivance. One may dispense the poet from 
 acting as a patriot but not from having the sentiments of 
 a patriot, unless he is reduced to the lowest rank of vir- 
 tuosos. Now, Goethe coming to salute Napoleon, and 
 receiving from him the decoration of the Legion of 
 Honor, in the presence of humiliated Germany, was 
 neither indifferent nor moved by curiosity ; it was an act 
 of adhesion ; he abandoned that attitude of passive resig- 
 nation in which he has said he wished to find refuge; he 
 gave a painful blow to those who were preparing to com- 
 bat for the deliverance of their country. He has himself 
 related, in a detailed note, the flattering reception 
 accorded to him by Napoleon. After having considered 
 him for some moments in silence, the Emperor said : 
 ' You are a man, Monsieur de Goethe.' Certainly the 
 eulogy was great and merited. But in recognizing that 
 Goethe was indeed a man, in the highest acceptation of 
 the word, one must add that, on this occasion, he was 
 only a chamberlain." 
 
 One feels assured that Schiller, if he had been living, 
 would neither have gone to Erfurt nor worn the decora- 
 
268 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 tion of the conqueror. One thinks, by contrast, of the 
 English Milton with his sightless eyes, sustained and 
 comforted in darkness and defeat, with dangers com- 
 passed round, by the consciousness of having " lost them 
 overplied in Liberty's defense," and of his proud words : 
 
 " This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask, 
 Content though blind, had I no other guide." 
 
 I have dwelt more on what seems to me the defective 
 side of Goethe's character and genius than I should have 
 done but for what has appeared to me a tendency here to 
 exalt him to a perfection above that of humanity. The 
 best portraiture does not flatter and idealize without limit. 
 I add a few warts and wrinkles to give the picture an air 
 of reality, for this orbed intellect was, after all, not a 
 perfect sphere. Goethe was a man, and not an angel 
 or a demi-god. But if there be passages in his history 
 which his warmest appreciators find it difficult to excuse, 
 the general outcome of his life-work was such as to place 
 his name conspicuous among the benefactors and in- 
 structors of mankind. If at times he seemed deficient 
 in patriotism and wanting in sympathy with his people, 
 they yet justly cherish his memory as one of their 
 proudest national glories. His writings have been an 
 active and potential element among the forces which 
 have regenerated Germany, united its people, and raised 
 it to a foremost place among the great powers of the 
 world. Luther is said to have created the German lan- 
 guage of literature by his translation of the Bible; Goethe, 
 more than any other, was instrumental in introducing it 
 to the world at large. 
 
AN INTERESTING LETTER. 
 
 Translated by A. K. Linderfelt. 
 
 The following letter was written by Goethe to Thomas 
 Carlyle, in response to the request of the latter for a com- 
 mendatory word of him, for a professorship of Moral 
 Philosophy in a university. The letter was forwarded to 
 Mrs. Dudley, the Secretary of the Milwaukee Literary 
 School, by Prof. Max Miiller, President of the London 
 Goethe Society, with his "best wi.shes'' for the success of 
 the western school. It was read at the previous celebra- 
 tion of the London Society, for the first time in public, 
 and again in Milwaukee on the 28th of August, the 
 anniversary of the birth of the immortal poet. 
 
 Weimar, 17 March, 1828. 
 To Mr. Carlyle, Edinburgh. 
 
 True conviction proceeds from the heart ; the moral 
 nature the real seat of conscience, judges as to what is 
 and what is not permissible far more infallibly than 
 the intellect, which certainly perceives and determines 
 many things without hitting the mark. 
 
 A well-disposed, self-criticizing person, who wishes to 
 respect and live in peace with himself, and yet must be 
 aware of many imperfections which disturb his inner 
 being, has to bewail many a fault which compromises him 
 outwardly, whereby he thus finds himself troubled and 
 harassed in both directions, will strive in every way to 
 free himself from such annoyances. 
 
 But if now these discordant conditions are conquered 
 269 
 
270 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 with true perseverance, if a man has recognized the fact 
 that it is possible to recover from suffering and misfor- 
 tune only through struggle and deed, that for every 
 shortcoming a merit (are indeed merit and compensation 
 synonymous ?), for every fault a compensation must be 
 sought and found, then he feels satisfied, like a new 
 man ! 
 
 Then, however, an inborn benevolence drives him at 
 once to alleviate and prevent similar pains, similar 
 troubles, to enlighten his fellow-men as to the inner 
 nature and the outer world, to show whence the contra- 
 dictions spring, how they are to be avoided and 
 compensated. But at the same time he recognizes that, 
 notwithstanding all this, in the course of our life the 
 internal and the external continue in a ceaseless conflict, 
 and that therefore it is necessary to prepare for engaging 
 daily in such a battle. 
 
 Since now it may be said without presumption, that 
 German literature has accomplished much in this humane 
 direction, that it is pervaded by a morally psychological 
 tendency, not in ascetic anxiety, but leading to a free, 
 natural culture and joyful conformity to law, I have with 
 pleasure observed Mr. Carlyle's wonderfully profound 
 study of German literature, and noticed with interest that 
 he not only understands how to find the beautiful and the 
 human, the good and the great in us, but also has con- 
 tributed of his own in full measure and endowed us with 
 the treasures of his mind. It must be admitted that he 
 possesses a clear judgment of our aesthetically moral 
 authors and, at the same time, opinions of his own, 
 whereby he demonstrates that he stands on an original 
 
AN INTERESTING LETTER. 271 
 
 foundation, and is able to evolve out of himself the 
 requirements of the good and the beautiful. 
 
 In this respect I am justified to consider him as a 
 man who would occupy a chair of moral philosophy with 
 simplicity and purity, with effect and influence, since he 
 would, according to his own self-formed views, inborn 
 ability and acquired knowledge, enlighten the youth con- 
 fided to him as to their true duties, make it his object to 
 induce and arouse their minds to moral activity, and 
 thereby continually lead them to religious reflection. 
 
 To the preceding I take the liberty of adding a few 
 observations from my own experience. 
 
 As to the principle from which morality may be 
 deduced, no perfect agreement has ever been reached. 
 Some have supposed self-interest to be the mainspring of 
 all moral action ; others would make the desire for enjoy- 
 ment and happiness the sole factor, while still others put 
 the apodictic law of duty above everything, and none of 
 these hypotheses has been generally admitted; it was 
 finally considered the most advisable to evolve the moral, 
 as well as the beautiful out of the whole complex of 
 healthy human nature. 
 
 In Germany we had already, sixty years ago, an 
 example of a great success of this kind. Our Gellert, 
 who made no pretensions to be a professional philoso- 
 pher, but was, it must be conceded, a thoroughly good, 
 moral and sensible man, gave in Leipzic, with the great- 
 est satisfaction and best results, a very largely attended 
 course of lectures on a code of morals, in the highest 
 degree pure, quiet, sensible and intelligible, which was 
 adapted to the needs of his time, and did not become 
 accessible in print for a long time after. 
 
272 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 The opinions of a philosopher very often make no 
 impression on the period ; but a sensible, well-disposed 
 man, free from precoriceived ideas, with his eyes open 
 for the shortcomings of his time, will, out of his feelings, 
 experience, and knowledge, impart just that which, in the 
 epoch in which he lives, introduces the youth surely and 
 consistently into an active and busy life. 
 
 J. W. Goethe. 
 
ANNIVERSARY ODE TO GOETHE. 
 
 By Denton J. Snider. 
 
 I. 
 
 A crescent white is lying on the lake, 
 
 It swims afar, and bends in glassy waters, 
 A sunny fleck, a snowy flake, 
 A form that seems a thousand forms to take 
 
 Of sea-nymphs or old Ocean's daughters. 
 Outlooking from my distant buoyant boat 
 I see them float, 
 
 And from a rippling line of blue uprise , 
 Then lie along the shelving shore in rote 
 To music's note. 
 
 Just where the trembling lips of wavelets kiss the skies 
 The vessel flaps its swan wings in full might. 
 
 Flies nearer, nearer to the port, my goal, 
 A sky-told story bright 
 Moves into sight, 
 
 The golden clouds turn a celestial scroll. 
 
 That doth in stately domes and palaces unroll. 
 And to a city fair dissolves the crescent white. 
 
 II. 
 
 Above that city melodies are heard. 
 
 Which pour an unseen tuneful river 
 Through its full heart, to music deeply stirred 
 That every ripple breaks into a happy word, 
 
 And tunes all souls unto its dulcet quiver : 
 
 What is the strain, and who the giver ? 
 A poet is the hero of the hour, 
 
 Who strikes the key-note of all harmony 
 
 On land and sea. 
 And charms our human life into his magic bower. 
 
 In the far-off golden age 
 
 His high poetic rage 
 
 l§ 273 
 
274 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 Could start the rooted forest trees, 
 And make them lift their heayy trunks with ease, 
 To dance along his lyre's melodious breeze. 
 In that old time his song could build the tower, 
 Rear the Cyclopean granite wall — 
 The Poet's massive masonry 
 To keep his city free : 
 Could lift the mountain stone by music's power. 
 And charm it to its sacred place 
 In fane or pillared hall, 
 There let it fall, 
 Imbreathed with gentle maiden grace. 
 Its everlasting dower ; 
 
 The bard could out the quarries lofty temples call, 
 As well as pluck the pretty wayside flower. 
 But now, methinks he hath a higher part. 
 Though still he tune the fitful floundering heart 
 
 To minstrelsy divine ; 
 A builder still, but in a nobler art. 
 He builds the man harmonious, true, 
 The deed to do — 
 
 The fairest temple of the last design. 
 Which holds himself and brother too. 
 That in its sacred closure both be free. 
 And men in limit of the Gods find liberty. 
 
 III. 
 
 We fain would trace the lines of that great plan 
 Which holds and guides the mighty man, 
 
 And thrones him high among the sages ; 
 Not the land where first he saw the light. 
 Not the speech that he may speak and write. 
 
 Will always show his deepest kinship with the ages ; 
 Perchance his next of blood 
 Are found beyond the flood. 
 Whose billows crash against Europa's old-world strand 
 
 And we must seek our elder brother, 
 
 Not in our own home, but in another. 
 Across the sea in ancient Saxon Fatherland. 
 
 Whilst we were being born a nation, 
 
ANNIVERSARY ODE TO GOETHK. 275 
 
 Torn from our English mother 
 In bloody throes, 
 Thou, Poet, hadst thy fiery consecration, 
 For thou wert being born a man, 
 
 Whose birth-war, waged against embattled woes. 
 Called up the demons as thy foes, 
 Tormenting only as the wild tormentors can, 
 Sent down to vex the soul into a new creation 
 And then whilst we 
 Beyond the sea 
 Were planting stroke on stroke 
 Through battle smoke. 
 To free us of a foreign yoke, 
 Thou, too, wast in a fight 
 Upholding all the man in valiant might. 
 To save him from an inner subjugation. 
 
 The fervid stars above shone down their luck. 
 The hour had struck 
 
 The stressful hour of birth 
 For all the Earth ; 
 A rising dawn, a rosy light, 
 Played on the sphere of night. 
 And showed a coming world to sight, 
 Wherein the man would snap his ancient tether. 
 Which long had chained his very soul 
 And taken body, too , as tithe and toll — ■ 
 The Poet new and nation new were born together. 
 One marched and fought to music's golden chime. 
 And sang his war into a measured tuneful time, 
 The other charged a line of fire to the red rhyme 
 Of cannon roar and musketry's wild rattle ; 
 One fought the foe within 
 Man's destiny to win, 
 The other fought the foe without 
 To new-born nation's shout, 
 America and Goethe waged one battle ; 
 Both on one side. 
 In one great cause allied. 
 In the World's deep Reason unified, 
 Both in one mighty fermentation, 
 One soul by Time upcast, 
 
276 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 Though held within two bodies fast 
 And in two continents harassed, 
 Seeking one hberty at last. 
 One truth, one hope, and one salvation. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Most worthy to be sung thou art 
 
 By us beside the Lakes to-day, 
 To token our melodious part. 
 
 Though from thy birth-land we be far away. 
 
 Beside the Lakes, which must forever play 
 The driving beats within our country's breast, 
 That sends the iron of its life-blood to the rest 
 Of our dear land, to make it best. 
 Most worthy to be wrought into our heart 
 
 Of all the men of Europe's lettered host. 
 
 Who have an outlook cast upon our coast. 
 Our truest counterpart, 
 
 Giving in song the meed. 
 
 In word the creed 
 
 Of that which is our deed ; 
 To thee what title shall we give ? 
 
 Symbol of the Age, 
 
 Poet, Sage, 
 Who dared set down in writ what he did live ; 
 
 No special pleader of a phrase 
 
 That rose and lived and died in ancient days, 
 
 And then from lip to lip is rolled 
 
 A thing dissouled. 
 Yet if I could select thy very name. 
 And crush into one word thy highest claim, 
 To crown thee with it as the greenest wreath of fame, 
 
 Thee would I hail the Liberator, 
 
 Not breaking one strong chain 
 
 To put us in another just as strong again. 
 
 Not saving us from one fell curse 
 
 To leave us in another worse. 
 But freeing all the captive spirit from its trances. 
 Unto the cycle whole of its inheritances, 
 
 As if thou wert its second great creator. 
 
ANNIVERSARY ODE TO GOETHE. 277 
 
 V. 
 Goethe, in truth the aristocrat, 
 Has done just that. 
 
 Although he meantime served a throne ; 
 Freedom was his life-long stake 
 For his whole race's sake. 
 
 While for his own 
 He has the broadest battle-field, 
 
 The subtlest, strongest foe. 
 
 The demons who deny, yet know ; 
 The mightiest weapon he doth wield, 
 
 The keen, poetic word 
 
 That flashes out the brightest, sharpest sword. 
 Tempered in heart's blood, in his spirit steeled. 
 Look ! he has forced our inner prison 
 
 And let us out. 
 
 Not unto license and wild rout. 
 
 But unto law, 
 
 That not against but with the Gods we draw 
 No longer rebels, but to freemen risen. 
 
 And he hath helped to free us of the base, 
 Which cramps our common life 
 Into an everlasting strife 
 
 With its own earthy case. 
 Not half, but his whole ransom we must see, 
 For he has also freed us to be free 
 Of too much liberty. 
 Scan it, his spirit's clear horizon scan : 
 
 From bondage of the word 
 
 In life and art, in thought and creed, 
 
 In whatsoever tongue it may be heard. 
 Wherever we may enter 
 In Europe's center. 
 To the Orient's rear, in the Occident's van 
 
 Thou hast us freed. 
 Until one great republic has become thy deed ; 
 
 Goethe, thou art a true American. 
 Thou didst begin as once the world began, 
 
 In its new days. 
 
 And fiercely battle with the Gods ; 
 
 Thy youthful back felt more than once their rods, 
 
278 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 Till thou at last didst learn their plan, 
 And follow in their ways. 
 
 To break the boundary of things, 
 Thy early poem sings; 
 To thy young eye the world so old was wrong. 
 To set it right again thy heart felt strong; 
 What is forbidden 
 Hath in itself a demon hidden. 
 Who lures the free aspiring soul 
 Into the Law's trangression 
 Till through the gods' own stern repression 
 Man finds his inner self-control. 
 
 VI. 
 
 To force the fortress of high Heaven, 
 Like Titan old. 
 Thy Hero bold 
 Beyond this lower world has striven: 
 Knowledge has no curb or bit. 
 Earth no restraint; 
 With courage never faint, 
 He has at once assaulted it. 
 No interdict for him is found in evil, 
 Straightway he steps to the other side 
 To see what that may hide, 
 And strikes a bargain with the Devil. 
 This, too, he will in all its depths fulfil 
 Whatever may betide of ill ; 
 Denial 
 Is his trial, 
 
 And by the hellish fires 
 Enkindled in his own desires 
 He has to burn the dross out of his heart ; 
 His day, his year, may once be mad. 
 His life, his cycle, must be glad. 
 And rounds its course complete on the celestial chart; 
 The hero's half is bad, 
 A fragment ever sad. 
 His whole is good, and maketh full the faulty part. 
 
ANNIVERSARY ODE TO GOETHE. 279 
 
 VII. 
 
 So, too, the poet's life was round. 
 When all of it is taken, it is sound; 
 It may have shown disease 
 Here and there. 
 And, perchance, elsewhere. 
 If you take it as you please. 
 At some wrecked moment mid the smiting seas 
 Of that long Oceanic roll of eighty years; 
 Though Fate might prick him with her thousand little pins, 
 And make him dance his turn to captivating sins, 
 Wiih all their ups and downs and outs and ins. 
 She never could cut to his heart with her long shears; 
 Though oft she made him sit up in his bed with tears. 
 She never could control 
 The man, the Whole. 
 For still the germ of him was health 
 Outgiving all its secret wealth, 
 Healing the wound wherever found. 
 Carrying off the blot 
 From every stained spot. 
 And filling out with tissue new the old decay 
 In life's free play, 
 To the music of a roundelay. 
 So the great oak, struck by some fearful blow. 
 The parts will wilt and foul and fall. 
 Until they hear an inner hidden call 
 Whose spirit voice they seem at once to know; 
 It is the oak's own mighty heart. 
 Sending new wood and sap and rind. 
 Which it within itself doth always find. 
 By its own native art. 
 
 As if it had a touch of human mind, 
 With faith and hope in its own fallen kind, 
 Whereby without delay it had to start 
 Its very life to medicine the stricken part. 
 Goethe, German oak, has done so over and over; 
 His heart is whole. 
 He has completeness in his soul. 
 He always will himself recover; 
 
28o POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE, 
 
 And then for self the Healer, 
 For others is Revealer. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The poet looks upon a little thing. 
 
 An unseen flower, 
 
 At once it takes new power, 
 And starts his very song to sing 
 
 Which then becomes its fairest dower. 
 The place unknown, the village small. 
 Responsive to the music of his call, 
 Is soon transfigured into all, 
 
 Receiving from his tongue a new baptism, 
 It turns an image consecrate, 
 
 Which hath from him the holy chrism, 
 With heavenly aureole incoronate. 
 Weimar was a little dot. 
 
 Of human life but one more little prison; 
 Out of its limit whirled, 
 
 Into an universal being risen. 
 It holds great cities in its narrow spot, 
 Having all they have, all they have not. 
 
 Through thee it has become a world. 
 And thou, to movement of thy magic quill. 
 Hast wrought the earth and skies and stars to do thy will. 
 And in the words that flood the courses of thy pen. 
 Thy feature turns to be the feature of all men; 
 
 I can behold it change and yet remain, 
 
 Can hear the outer voice, the inner strain, 
 As in thy face I scan 
 
 A transformation of thy joy and pain, 
 And see the universal man, 
 
 IX. 
 
 Who in the spirit hears thy word. 
 
 The harmony of spheres has heard; 
 
 He listens to the Siren's song 
 
 Without a harm. 
 And lightly bears the Fates of Life along 
 Lulled in a charm. 
 
ANNIVERSARY ODE TO GOETHE. 281 
 
 Thy word becomes each day a deed, a thousand deeds 
 
 Scattered over the Earth, 
 It fills the air with wind-borne, winged seeds. 
 Ready to begin their birth 
 Into a myriad-living worth. 
 Flung through all time, 
 To be a life and not alone a rhyme. 
 
 Thy might of speech is to tranform itself to act. 
 
 Which sloughs the shell of speech; 
 Thy airy voice incorporates itself to fact 
 
 Its flesh and blood to reach. 
 Thy sentence has become a weird amulet 
 Which we must bind. 
 Not merely on the wrist 
 In some fantastic serpent-twist, 
 But we must wear it in the mind, 
 To ban the sly demonic set 
 That harass human kind. 
 The spell of thy enchanted wit has caught the Devil, 
 
 And put him in its prison small. 
 Seized at the top of all his maddest revel, 
 
 No more the master but the thrall. 
 Thy magic speech to ages is the great foreteller, 
 A sibyl sitting on thy tongue, 
 Hath out thy pictured soul the future sung; 
 Thy little word becomes the mighty queller. 
 It drives the glaring destinies 
 Out of the skies 
 And heralds thee to men the Fate-compeller. 
 
 X. 
 
 Upon thy lofty Gothic arch 
 
 Thrown back between the sunlight Now and twilight Then, 
 The world can march 
 
 To see its early noblemen. 
 To know what once it was, 
 And find itself in its own primal cause. 
 
 Mighty hands have ever stayed it. 
 
 The world is just what its best men have made it, 
 And thou art one, 
 
 He who well knows the rest; 
 
282 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 Of all that they have done 
 
 Thou hast within thyself the test. 
 Our hand in thine, we can go back, 
 Move on the devious sunken track 
 
 Of our instructive ancestry; 
 Through dark primeval forests ramble, 
 And up the early mountains scramble, 
 
 In the wild company 
 Of our Teutonic eldest brother; 
 
 And e'en a subtle strand 
 
 Leads out thy deft poetic hand 
 And binds us to the bosom of our primal Aryan mother. 
 
 Thou hast made, too, a way 
 Along the mind's illuminated Past 
 
 For us to travel to the rising day 
 The Suu's lit path back to the sources of the Sun, 
 The very bridge of Helius thou hast won. 
 
 That joins the first of light and last. 
 We go with thee to, Italy, to Rome, 
 Our Europe's elder home; 
 
 In spirit with thee back to Hellas fair. 
 
 And in thy temple dwell the Greeks' full cycle there, 
 To the Orient, then, we pass in glee. 
 Hear Persian Hafiz sing through thee; 
 
 E'en into China we peep for a little while, 
 
 And tarry with thy clear poetic smile. 
 Then ask. Where next ? To Heaven : 
 That is the new realm to thee given; 
 
 The orbit of thy race thou has completed. 
 
 Its limit here on Earth thou hast all meted; 
 Where next? Thou fliest to the skies. 
 And joinest other harmonies. 
 
THE ERL-KING. 
 
 By AuBERTiNE Woodward. 
 (Auber Forestier.) 
 
 Georg Brandes, the Danish critic, called by many the 
 Northern Taine, and often declared to possess keener 
 vision and a broader horizon than Taine, states in his 
 essay on the relations of the German poet, Goethe, to 
 Danish literature, that this same Goethe is the most 
 richly-equipped mortal, the most comprehensive poetic 
 genius European literature has known since the days 
 of the Renascence. In the rare cargo of endowments 
 with which the life-ship of this " favorite of gods and 
 men " was laden, nothing more nearly concerns our pres- 
 ent subject than the love of nature, which served alike 
 for compass and chart, and which grew in magnitude 
 through constant employment. 
 
 At a very early age Goethe had become familiar with 
 nature, and you all remember how once in childhood he 
 erected a fantastically prepared altar, in his father's gar- 
 den, and burned incense upon it to the God of Nature, 
 whose glowing image was mirrored in his own young 
 soul, and who was a Being far grander and more glorious 
 than the God of Theology offered for his acceptance by 
 his spiritual guides. A legend written by him in his boy- 
 hood and reproduced in his autobiography, " Truth and 
 Poetry " (Wahrheit und Dichtung), represented him as 
 lured in a vision into the bosom of the earth where he 
 was brought face to face with hidden mysteries, and may 
 
 283 
 
284 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 be considered a preparation for the "Erl-king," 
 althougli the youthful poet had not yet made the 
 acquaintance of the ballad on which this poem Is based. 
 ' He had, however, become acquainted with many a mystic 
 form, many a weird personation of the incomprehensible 
 forces about him, and his love of the mysteries of life, as 
 well as his love of nature, was fostered and cherished by 
 the gifted mother to whom he owed so much. Through 
 his father's unremitting watchfulness and carefully- 
 matured plans, the young Goethe was educated with 
 an intensity that would terrify the children of to-day ; 
 but his mother, one of the most sparkling figures in Ger- 
 man literature, brought relief and another kind of culture 
 by means of her sympathetic companionship and her 
 wondrous faculty for story-telling. 
 
 Frau Goethe was young with her boy ; she did not 
 attain intellectual maturity, herself, until he was grown 
 up, and she exercised her charming gift for his delight 
 and her own. She tells us about it herself. " Air, fire, 
 earth and water," she says, " I represented under the 
 forms of princesses; and to all natural phenomena I gave 
 a meaning in which I believed almost more devoutly than 
 my little hearers. As we thought of paths leading from 
 star to star, and that we should one day inhabit the stars, 
 and thought of the great spirits we should then meet, 
 I was as eager for the hours of story-telling as the chil- 
 dren themselves. I was quite curious about the future 
 course of my own improvisation.s, and any interruption to 
 these evenings was disagreeable to me. There I sat, and 
 there Wolfgang held me with his large, black eyes ; and 
 when the fate of one of his favorites was not according to 
 his fancy, the angry veins would swell on his temples 
 
THE ERL-KING. 285 
 
 and I would see him repress his tears. He often burst 
 in with, ' But, mother, the princess mustn't marry that 
 hateful tailor, even if he does kill the giant.' And when 
 I made a pause for the night, promising to continue 
 on the morrow, I was certain he would, meanwhile, 
 think it out for himself, and thus he often stimulated my 
 imagination. When I shaped the story according to his 
 plan, and told him that he had found out the denoue- 
 ment, he became all fire and flame, and one could see his 
 little heart beating underneath his dress ! His grand- 
 mother, who made a great pet of him, was the confidante 
 of all his ideas as to how the story would turn out, 
 and as she repeated these to me, and I wove my romance 
 in accordance with them, there was a little diplomatic 
 secrecy between us which we never disclosed. I had the 
 pleasure of continuing my story to the joy and aston- 
 ishment of my hearers, and Wolfgang beheld, with 
 glowing eyes, the fulfilment of his own conceptions, and 
 testified his appreciation with enthusiastic applause." 
 
 A charming glimpse, indeed, of the intercourse 
 between this mother and son ! It gives us, moreover, 
 the key-note to Goethe's relations with the three women 
 who exercised the most marked influence on his budding 
 genius, namely, his mother, his grandmother, and his 
 Sister Cornelia, who was the little hearer that shared with 
 him the witching flights of fancy led by the mother, and 
 who was Goethe's earliest juvenile companion and friend. 
 Happy little genius to be ministered to by three such 
 guardian spirits ! What wonder that the man Goethe 
 recognized and revered the woman soul, the feminine 
 element in all things, and knew that its mission was to 
 guide and to inspire. 
 
286 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 Two influences were needed in Goethe's life before 
 his love of nature and his love of the mysterious ripened 
 into that power of expression which made him the great- 
 est of literary landscape painters. In 1770, when he was 
 twenty-one years old, the girl Frederika, and the man 
 Herder, came into his life, and a new, vigorous influence 
 was given to heart and brain. Already, at the age of 
 fifteen, his youthful pulses had fluttered with the first 
 gentle foreboding of the divine passion; but to the 
 exquisite woman Frederika, whose idylic presence is so 
 familiar to every reader of the Autobiography, it was 
 given to lead him into the higher realm of the emotions. 
 What Herder was to him may be judged from a letter 
 written by Goethe to this friend who was five years his 
 senior, and who was decided, clear and pedagogic in his 
 views, while the younger man was yet a dreamer. " Her- 
 der, Herder,'' writes the youthful poet, "be to me what 
 you are. If I am destined to be your planet, so will I be, 
 and willingly and truly, a friendly moon to your earth. 
 But you must feel that I would rather be Mercury, the 
 last, the smallest of the seven, to revolve with you about 
 the sun, than the first of the five which turn around 
 Saturn ! " 
 
 What though the pupil soon outstripped the master in 
 the race for the goal, this sense of having found a master 
 and the tendency given by this chosen master stimulated 
 and directed all the intellectual faculties at an important 
 period of existence, and too high an estimate can never 
 be placed on Goethe's debt to Herder and to Fred- 
 erika. 
 
 AVhen the infant Johann Wolfgang Goethe lay in his 
 cradle beneath the paternal roof, in the busy town of 
 
THE ERL-KING. 287 
 
 Frankfurt-on-the-Main, in the year 1749, Jean Jacque 
 Rousseau, the apostle of nature, was flourishing in the 
 brilliant circle of M'me d' Epinay, in Paris, and declaim- 
 ing eloquently on the sacredness of all natural laws. It 
 was Rousseau who first represented man as in ever- 
 constant dependence upon the elementary powers, and he 
 may be said to have introduced nature into modern 
 literature. The magnetism of Rousseau's glowing words, 
 with its delicate current, passed into the soul of the Ger- 
 man philosopher. Herder, and through him reached 
 Goethe, who might not otherwise have come into contact 
 with it. •■' The poet should go back to nature," was the 
 application Herder made of Rousseau's teachings, and 
 by this he meant that the creative power of genius could 
 only be rightly developed by heeding the still, small voice 
 within. From Herder, then, Goethe, on the threshold of 
 manhood, learned the secret of trusting to his instincts, 
 and thus found expression for his most intimate com- 
 munings with nature. 
 
 The earlier efforts of our poet had been aimless 
 attempts; the beginning of his real productiveness dates 
 from the period when these new influences surrounded 
 him. Herder pointed out the way, and intuitively the 
 young poet recognized the right course for him to take. 
 It was now possible for Goethe to produce " Gotz von 
 Berlichingen ; the Man with the Iron Hand," a creation 
 for which he had already gathered materials, but which 
 assumed vastly different proportions than those it would 
 have gained under other circumstances. It was hence- 
 forth possible for him to grapple with " Faust," the germ 
 of which already lay implanted in his soul. It was hence- 
 forth possible for him to paint with ease those marvelous 
 
288 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 pen-pictures that enable his readers to enjoy with him 
 the view from his window in the gable chamber into 
 his father's garden, with its cool, plashing fountain and 
 shady trees, and to watch the floating clouds his eyes fol- 
 lowed. It was henceforth possible for him to lead his 
 readers to analyze with him the atmosphere in which he 
 moved and breathed, and to hearken with him to the 
 roar of the sea across which Iphigenia sought her distant 
 home. 
 
 It was during the charmed days at Weimar and fasci- 
 nating intercourse at Jena, amid renewed communion 
 with nature in glorious Thuringia, in fondly-cherished 
 parks, garden and grove, and on the banks of musical 
 rivulet and alder-fringed stream, that Goethe conceived his 
 famous " Erl-king," which may be said to contain the 
 concentrated essence of his most secret musings on the 
 mysteries of life and its strange environments. The 
 poem was written in 1781, at the celebrated Jena inn. It 
 is founded on a Scandinavian tradition that was trans- 
 planted into Germany by Herder through a free transla- 
 tion of an ancient Danish ballad, " Sir Olaf and the 
 Erl-king's daughter," but this tradition was invested by 
 Goethe with a new meaning. It became in his hands 
 a vehicle of thought, through which was communicated 
 to the world a profound spiritual truth that had been 
 revealed to him during his most sacred reveries. 
 
 The Erl-king is the monarch of those'spirits of wood- 
 land, meadow, mountain and air, those personifications of 
 the elementary, chaotic forces of nature that have occu- 
 pied so prominent a place in the workings of man's 
 imagination in many ages and many climes. The word 
 Erlkonig or Erlenkonig, from which our Erl-king is 
 
THE ERL-KING. 289 
 
 derived, was created by Herder, and is supposed to be a 
 corruption of the Danish word Elleiikongen, elfin monarch, 
 supposed, in its turn, to be a corruption of the word 
 Ellenkonen, or elf-woman. Another theory regarding the 
 word is that Herder had in mind the alder trees and mis- 
 took Ellenkongen, the king of the elves, for Erlenkongen, 
 or king of the alders. Be that as it may, the word Erl- 
 king is now iirmly established with us as the title of 
 the king of the elves, who is often closely associated with 
 the alders. 
 
 In the many lair nomesteads of the celestial regions 
 of Norse Mythology is one named Alfheim, and here 
 dwell the beings called the elves of light, but the elves of 
 darkness lurk within the bowels of the earth. The elves 
 of Teutonic legendary lore are beings that have been 
 thrust out of heaven and have fallen into an abiding 
 place midway between heaven and hell. The eyes of 
 of these elves glitter like stars, their hair is of the finest 
 spun gold, and they delight in combing it; their garments 
 are white and radiant. They are fair of face, light of 
 foot, graceful and bewitching of form, yet their comeli- 
 ness is but a semblance, for they are as hollow as a 
 bread-trough. Their language is a low whisper, resem- 
 bling the sighing of the wind, and they frequently assume 
 the voices of children. Their favorite nourishment is the 
 dew, but they also love sweet milk, cream and the crumbs 
 of white bread. Their hidden retreats are in the subter- 
 ranean recesses of the earth, within mountain cave, or 
 cliff wall, and, like other hill-folk, their longing to lure 
 mortals into their midst is very great, because they know 
 that through a union with humanity alone they may hope 
 for redemption. 
 19 
 
290 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 They haunt the green meadows where the grass grows 
 the highest, and the verdure-clad wild-wood; beyond all 
 else they rejoice when the earth is carpeted with flowers. 
 By moonlight, in summer, they dance in circles the live- 
 long night, and in the morning the spot they have 
 trodden is yellow and wet with dew. The music to 
 which they dance is like a sorrowful wail, or a plaintive 
 moan. The elves possess the gift of making themselves 
 invisible ; they are so marvelously swift in their move- 
 ments that they can leap, in the twinkling of an eye, 
 from one mountain height to another ; they can assume 
 any shape whatsoever, can see to a great distance, and 
 can foretell the future. If thwarted they are exceedingly 
 dangerous. Is it not always thus with the thwarted 
 forces of nature ? A swift blow dealt by one of them, 
 even their breath, may cause blindness, illness, or death. 
 Merely by gazing upon them mortals are rendered liable 
 to contract disease or insanity. And woe betide the 
 bridegroom that joins in their dances ! The allurements 
 of the elf-woman are peculiarly hard to withstand, for she 
 carries a musical instrument, which, when touched by her 
 fingers, takes every heart captive. 
 
 The Norwegians call one class of these elf women 
 hulder folk, and their music hulder tunes. It is in a 
 minor key, and is of a mournful, plaintive sound. Elves 
 also are known in Norway and Sweden, and the elf-king 
 is the ruler and the most potent agency of these mystic 
 folk. There is a tune known as the elf-king's tune in 
 the tradition of all Scandinavian countries, which, when 
 heard, compels both young and old, even inanimate 
 objects, to dance to'tfs measure, and it is the terror of 
 fiddlers, for when once begun it can not be stopped. 
 
THE ERL-KING. Zgi 
 
 unless some one walks up behind the player and cuts his 
 fiddle strings, or unless he has sufficient strength of mind 
 to play the tune backward. 
 
 Like the great giants and trolls of Norse mythology 
 and tradition, these elves and hulders, these untamed 
 forces of nature, may be transformed into beneficent 
 powers, if rightly handled ; but they can never be shorn 
 of their mystery. The low murmuring music of their 
 voice or musical instrument, is the voice of the wind, the 
 myriad-tongued voice of nature. It is the harp of 
 Hermes, or that of Orpheus, or that of the Finnish 
 WainamOinen, or the strange instruments of the Pied 
 Piper of Hamelin, that may charm and soothe, or may 
 lead onward to destruction. The being who plays upon 
 this harp is the Master Thief, who may be shaken in the 
 arms of Phosbus Apollo, as the babe Hermes, yet who 
 may rise in his or her might and produce sad havoc 
 among oxen and men. 
 
 Throughout the Scandinavian countries numerous 
 ballads are found, of a nature similar to the one which 
 was the stepping-stone to Goethe's " Erl-king." A bride 
 sits in her lofty bower, surrounded by her maidens, in anx- 
 ious expectation. The bridegroom rides forth from his 
 mother's hall, on his proud grey steed, to fetch home his 
 waiting bride, or to summon the wedding guests. Some- 
 times he pauses to lay his ear on the elfin mound, 
 entrancing music overpowers him, his eyelids close, and 
 he becomes an easy prey to the maidens that soon trip 
 forward, their tale to tell. Sometimes the comely youth 
 is espied by an elfin maid, perchance the Erl-king's 
 daughter herself, who, becoming charmed with his 
 beauty, bids him join her in the dance. If he ever turn 
 
292 POETRY AND PHILOSOPftY OF GOETHE. 
 
 back to his bride it is with cheeks pale and wan, and only 
 to die. In some of the many northern ballads, which are 
 the bearers of different versions of the tradition, the gal- 
 lant youth is lured to his ruin by the bewitching voices of 
 the elf-father, the elf-mother and the elf-sister, as well as 
 by the tender tones of the fair charmer, who urges him 
 to join her in the giddy maze. 
 
 The Danish ballad transplanted by Herder into Ger- 
 man soil, when transplanted into our midst from its 
 native land, reads as follows : 
 
 Sir Olaf rides forth, with heart light and gay ; 
 
 He will bid his friends to his wedding day. 
 Then sounds of music smite on his ear, 
 And ring through the greenwood, far and near. 
 
 The elves have come forth from their cavern home.. 
 
 Till the morning dawns they abroad will roam. 
 Then sounds of music smite on his ear, 
 And ring through the greenwood, far and near. 
 
 They dance in a circle, a sprightly band. 
 And the Erl-king's daughter holds out her hand. 
 Then sounds of music, etc, 
 
 " O, welcome. Sir Olaf ! But why this speed ? 
 Come join the circle, the dance we'll lead." 
 Then sounds of music, etc. 
 
 " I dare not dance, I dare not stay. 
 To-morrow will be my wedding day." 
 
 " Two swift, strong boots will I give to thee, 
 I prithee. Sir Olaf, come dance with me. ' 
 
 ' ' I dare not linger, I dare not stay. 
 To-morrow will be my wedding day. " 
 
 ' ' A silken shirt will I give to thee, 
 
 I prithee. Sir Olaf, come dance with me ; 
 
 ' ' A silken shirt, so white and so fine — 
 
 'Twas bleached by my mother in moonbeams' shine." 
 
THE ERL-KING. 293 
 
 " I dare not hearken, I dare not delay, 
 To-morrow will be my wedding day." 
 
 " A helmet of gold will I give to thee, 
 I prithee, Sir Olaf, come dance with me." 
 
 " Thy helmet of gold I would gladly wear, 
 But to dance with thee I should never dare." 
 
 ' ' And dost thou scorn to dance with me. 
 May sickness and blight ever follow thee." 
 
 Between his shoulders a blow she dealt. 
 The like Sir Olaf had never felt. 
 
 And she set him again on his horse astride, 
 Crying, " Hie thee hence to thy tender bride." 
 
 Sir Olaf rode home to his mother's gate. 
 Where the anxious dame for her son did wait. 
 
 " O, tell me, Sir Olaf," she cried, " my son. 
 Why are thy cheeks so pale and so wan ?" 
 
 ' ' Dear mother, well may my cheeks be white. 
 For I've seen the elf-maid dance to-night." 
 
 " O, tell me. Sir Olaf, my joy and my pride, 
 What word shall I bear to thy fair young bride ?" 
 
 " Say her lover rode to the shady grove. 
 There a while with his horse and his hound to rove " 
 
 And when the morning broke o'er the plain, 
 The bride came forth with her bridal train. 
 
 They poured out the mead, and they poured out the wine. 
 But " Where is Sir Olaf, that bridegroom of mine ?" 
 
 " Sir Olaf rode to the shady grove. 
 There a while with his horse and his hound to rove.'' 
 
 But the bride raised a mantle of flaming red ; 
 There lay Sir Olaf, and he was dead. 
 
 When dawned again the beaming morn. 
 From the bridal hall three corpses were borne. 
 
 For dead, alas ! was Sir Olaf's bride, 
 His mother, too, of her grief had died. 
 
294 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 But the Erl-king's daughter dances still 
 When moonbeams and music blend on the hill. 
 
 Yes, she dances still for those who lend an ear to the 
 ravishing music by which her lithe movements are 
 swayed. Goethe hearkened to the weird strains, and her 
 light footfall smote upon his ear, her luminous form daz- 
 zled his eye. True, she could work death and destruc- 
 tion, but she was also life-giving ; she reanimated, she 
 restored, even though she had wrought woe. How many 
 wondrous variants the ancient ballad must have assumed 
 in our poet's mind, as he roamed through the romantic 
 Thuringian scenery, with its shady groves, its mysterious 
 alders and willows, peopled by his fancy with the strang- 
 est forms of legendary lore, and with its marvelous 
 music, the music of nature. And the ballad, with all that 
 it and nature had suggested, assumed grand proportions 
 in his mind. It is no longer a bridegroom sallying forth 
 to meet his bride that is presented to Goethe's inner 
 vision as bewitched by the elfin monarch's daughter, it is 
 a father and son to whom she appears, with a new, hith- 
 erto undiscovered meaning. Greenwood, meadow, 
 river-side and grove, thrill with our poet's own creations, 
 and his "Erl-king" is the result. The poem has been 
 translated many times into English, but I feel moved to 
 give it to you in my own translation, which represents 
 it as it speaks to me. I have faithfully endeavored to 
 preserve the spirit and rhythm of Goethe's original, and 
 have prepared my English version especially in view of 
 having it sung to Schubert's music. Here it is : 
 
 Who rides forth to-night, through storms so wild ? 
 
 A father, bearing his tender child ; 
 
 He fondly clasps the boy in his arm, 
 
 From danger shields him and keeps him warm. 
 
THE ERL-KING. 295 
 
 " My son, why cover thy face thus in fear ?" 
 "Ah, father, see, the Erl-king is near ! 
 
 The elfin monarch, with crown and trail." 
 " My son, 'tis mist, yon flutt'ring veil.'-' 
 
 " Thou lovely child, come, go with me ! 
 Delightful games I'll play now with thee ; 
 Our strand is laden with flow'rs untold. 
 And my mother's robes are fashioned of gold." 
 
 "My father, my father, and canst thou not hear 
 What Erl-king whispers so low in my ear ?" 
 
 " Be quiet, hush, my child, it is the breeze. 
 That stirs the withered leaves of the trees," 
 
 ' ' Thou pretty boy, will thou go with me ? 
 Come, my daughters gently shall wait on thee. 
 Round the mystic ring ev'ry evening they sweep, 
 They'll rock thee, and dance thee, and sing thee to sleep." 
 
 " My father, my father, ah ! canst thou not see 
 
 The Erl-king's daughters beguiling me ?" 
 " My son, I see, be calm now, I pray, 
 
 It is but the willows, trembling and gray." 
 
 " I love thee well, thy beauty entrances me so. 
 That art thou not willing I'll force thee to go." 
 
 " My father, my father, he's grasping my arm. 
 The Erl-king surely hath wrought me harm." 
 
 The father shudders, he speeds o'er the plain. 
 The child he is holding is moaning with pain. 
 His home is reached, mid fear and dread, 
 And in his arras, lo ! the child is dead. 
 
 What a marvelous picture of life and death, of youth 
 and age, of immaturity and maturity, of mystery and 
 majesty ! The child draws very near to nature, count- 
 less voices appeal to him, he sees a spirit-form in every 
 bush, every grove, the Erl-king and the Erl-king's 
 daughter entrance him, and he is often overpowered by 
 forces he fails to comprehend. The man has learned to 
 
296 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 exercise his reason, he sees natural causes for everything 
 that comes within his ken, and he does well to use the 
 reason with which he is endowed. At first he may fail to 
 realize that the more mysteries he solves, the greater the 
 mysteries he will find lying beyond them, but sooner or 
 later he will be compelled to admit that he stands but on 
 the threshold of the realm he has proudly believed him- 
 self to have conquered. Lo ! the child in his arms is 
 dead. Wise as he is he can not grasp the solution of the 
 problem that confronts him, and he rides swiftly home- 
 ward, overwhelmed with emotion. 
 
 It is as though the poet asked, " When we have cast 
 aside superstition, shall we lose awe and reverence too ?" 
 and triumphantly answered, " No, a thousand times no ! 
 Let us go to science, let us learn all she can teach us, it 
 is far more delightful to be taught by her than to sport 
 idly with the Erl-king and the Erl-king's daughters. 
 The better acquainted we become with the majesty of 
 nature's laws, the more profound will be our reverence 
 for the power beyond, which we can not understand, 
 which we can not define." 
 
 Goethe's Erl-king has travelled through many lands 
 and thrilled many hearts, as the companion of Schubert's 
 noble song, inspired by it. Franz Schubert was born in 
 1797, and died in 1828. His intimate friend, Josef 
 Spaun, calling on him one afternoon, in the year 1816, 
 found him in a state of intense excitement over Goethe's 
 " Erl-king," which the young musician was reading for 
 the first time. Before he slept that night, Schubert, — 
 then but nineteen years old, it will be observed, — had 
 committed to paper the music he had instantly conceived. 
 
THE ERL-KING. 297 
 
 Five years later it served to introduce him to the notice 
 of the world. 
 
 It is a well-known fact that Goethe failed to appre- 
 ciate the matchless setting to his poem until late in life, 
 when he heard the music sung by the great artist, 
 Schroeder-Devrient. Then he is reported to have 
 exclaimed : " Had music, instead of words, been my 
 instrument of thought, it is thus I should have framed 
 the legend. I once heard this composition in my earlier 
 life, and did not think it agreed with my views of the 
 subject. But executed as you execute it, the whole 
 becomes a complete picture." 
 
 The " Erl-king " is one of the most magnificent of 
 Schubert's dramatic songs, — indeed, it may be said to 
 have no peer, unless perhaps " The Wanderer," by the 
 same composer. In it may be heard the tramp of the 
 horse galloping wildly through the night, like the swift 
 flight of time, or of fancy ; the excited tones of the child 
 that ring out on the tempest-laden air, in an agony of 
 terror ; the deep tones of the father's voice, that strove 
 to calm the boy, and the seductive whispers of the spirit- 
 voice that allure and entrance. There are two manuscript 
 versions of the composition extant ; one is in the Berlin 
 Royal Library, the other is in the possession of M'me 
 Clara Schumann, and is identical with the song as known 
 to us. The piano paraphrase of this wonderful compo- 
 sition by the master Liszt, who has but lately been borne 
 to his rest, is like a glowing commentary on words and 
 music. 
 
 In London, at the inaugural celebration of the Goethe 
 society, of which Prof. Max Muller is president, Schu- 
 bert's "Erl-king" was sung by Mr. George Henschel, 
 
298 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 who is well-known in musical circles of Boston, New 
 York, Chicago and elsewhere, and who now officiates in 
 the post long held by M'me Jenny Lind Goldschmidt at 
 the London Royal Academy of vocal art. It is fitting 
 that this music should be heard by all lovers of Goethe's 
 poem, to which it is so gloriously mated. 
 
GOETHE'S BIRTHDAY. 
 
 Hattie Tyng Griswold. 
 
 Master, we say, and bowing low 
 We lay our offerings at his feet ; 
 Master, in many lands and climes 
 Low voices will repeat. 
 For still the world doth own the spell 
 That kings and courtiers knew of old, 
 The thrall of genius grows more strong 
 As the great years are told. 
 
 The little great, who walked beside 
 This man of common birth and name, 
 How have they perished from the earth. 
 How soon hath passed their fame. 
 Courtiers and kings live for a day. 
 Then the deep grave oblivion gives. 
 The circling years may pass and pass, 
 But still the poet lives. 
 
 Homer outlasts the walls of Troy, 
 Dante will live though Florence die. 
 And royal Shakespeare, though his kings 
 In graves forgotten lie. 
 And when from Scottish speech and song 
 Each name of lord and king is gone, 
 Poor Burns will live, and through the years 
 His deathless songs sing on. 
 
 Wordsworth will walk at Windermere, 
 And Shelley sing by Spezzia's shore, 
 When even the name their monarch owned 
 No man remembers more. 
 And poor blind Milton's helpless hands 
 Shall hold a place through written word. 
 His Cromwell strove, but strove in vain. 
 To gain through dripping sword. 
 2qq 
 
300 POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF GOETHE. 
 
 And higher than the highest things 
 
 By patriots or by statesmen wrought, 
 
 Are those things wrought and wrought alone 
 
 By the great poet's thoughts. 
 
 Then not in vain we bow to-day 
 
 Before the Poet, not the king, 
 
 For men may make a man to rule, 
 
 God makes a man to sing. 
 
 Fiwrs.