Иоганн Вольфганг фон Гёте
The Autobiography of Goethe
TWENTIETH BOOK
Kraus – Daemonic Influence – Heidelberg – Departure for Weimar
And so I got on rapidly with my "Egmont;" and while I found in this some alleviation of my wounded passion, the society of a clever artist also helped me through many wearisome hours. And thus, as had often before been the case, a vague desire of practical improvement brought me a secret peace of mind, at a time when it could scarcely be hoped for.
George Melchior Kraus, who had been born at Frankfort, but educated in Paris, having just returned from a short tour to the north of Germany, paid me a visit, and I immediately felt an impulse and a need to attach myself to him. He was a cheerful merry fellow, whose light joyous disposition had found its right sphere in Paris.
At that time Paris promised a pleasant welcome for Germans; Philip Hackert was residing there in credit and opulence; the true German style in which, both in oil and water-colors, he faithfully executed landscapes after nature, met with great favor, as contrasted with the formal mannerism into which the French had fallen. Wille, in high esteem as a copperplate engraver, supported and made German excellence more widely known. Grimm, already an artist of some influence, rejoiced to help his countrymen. Pleasant excursions, in order to take original sketches from nature were constantly undertaken, in which much of undoubted excellence was either executed or designed.
Boucher and Watteau, both of them artists born, whose works, though fluttering in the style and spirit of the time, were always highly respectable, were favorably inclined to the new school, and even took an active part in their excursions, though only for the sake of amusement and experiment. Greuze, living quietly by himself in his family circle, and fond of representing such domestic scenes, seemed delighted with his own works, held an honored and easy pencil.
All these several styles our townsman Kraus was able to take up and blend with his own particular talent; he formed himself in school after school, and was skilful in his portrait-like delineations of family and friendly gatherings; equally happy was he in his landscape sketches, which cordially commended themselves to the eye by their clear outlines, massive shadows, and agreeable coloring. The inward sense was satisfied by a certain naïve truth, while the admirer of artistic skill was especially pleased with the tact by which he arranged and grouped into a picture what he had copied singly from nature.
He was a most agreeable companion; a cheerful equanimity never failed him; obliging without obsequiousness, reserved without pride, he was everywhere at home, everywhere beloved, the most active, and, at the same time, the most manageable of all mortals. With such talents and of such a disposition, he soon won the favor of the higher circles; but he was especially well received at the castle of the Baron von Stein, at Nassau on the Lahn, whose accomplished and lovely daughter he assisted in her artistic studies, and in many ways enlivened the whole circle.
Upon the marriage of this excellent lady to the Count von Werther, the newly wedded couple took the artist with them to Thuringia, where the Count possessed a large estate, and thus he got to Weimar. His acquaintance was immediately sought, his talents were appreciated – and a wish expressed that he would fix his permanent abode there.
Obliging as he was to everybody, upon his return at this time to Frankfort, he stimulated my love of art, which had been contented with merely collecting, and to making practical essays. The neighbourhood of the artist is indispensable to the Dilettante, for the latter sees all that is wanting in himself supplied by the former; the wishes of the amateur are fulfilled in the artist.
By a certain natural talent, assisted by practice, I succeeded pretty well in an outline, and I could give the shape of all that I saw before me in nature; but I wanted the peculiar plastic power, the skilful industry, which lends a body to the outline by well-graduated light and shade. My copies were rather remote suggestions of the real form, and my figures like those light airy beings in Dante's Purgatory, which, casting no shadow themselves, fled affrighted at the shadows of actual bodies.
Lavater's fishing for physiognomical treasures – for so we may well designate the importunate urgency with which he called upon all men, not only to observe physiognomies, but also practically to make, be it artistic or most bungling attempts at copying faces, led me into the habit of taking the portraits of all my friends on grey paper, with black and white chalk. The likeness was not to be mistaken, but it required the hand of my artistic friend to make them stand out from the dark background.
Kraus the Artist.
In turning over and looking through the rich portfolio of drawings which the good Kraus had taken during his travels, we had most pleasant talk together when he came to the sketches of scenes and persons in and about Weimar. On such paintings I, too, was glad to dwell, and you may imagine that it must have been flattering to the young man, to see in so many pictures only the text which was to lead to a circumstantially repeated exclamation: they would be glad to see him there. With much grace he would imitate the different persons whose portraits he had taken and impersonate the greetings and invitations he had received. One very successful oil-painting represented the musical director, Wolf, at the piano, with his wife behind him preparing to sing; and this gave the artist opportunity to assure me in earnest terms, of the warm welcome this worthy pair would give me. Among his sketches were several of the wood and mountain scenery around Bürgel. Here an honest forester, more perhaps to please his pretty daughters than himself, had by means of bridges, railings, and mossy paths, opened pleasant and sociable walks through the rough masses of rocks, thickets, and plantations. In one of these beautiful promenades he had painted the fair damsels in white dresses, and not without their attendant cavaliers. In one of these you immediately recognized Bertuch, whose serious designs upon the oldest daughter were openly avowed; and Kraus was not offended if you ventured to refer a second youth to himself, and guessed his growing attachment to the sister.
Bertuch, as the pupil of Wieland, had so distinguished himself in science and in business, that already appointed private secretary of the Duke, he had the best possible prospects before him. From him we passed to Wieland and talked at length of his rectitude, and cheerfulness, and kindly disposition; his fine literary and poetical designs were dwelt upon, and allusions were made to the influence of the Merkur throughout Germany; many other names of literary, political, or social distinction were also mentioned, and among them. Musæus, Kirms, Berendis, and Ludecus. Of women, the wife of Wolf, and a widow Kotzebue, with a lovely daughter and a bright boy, were, among many others, characterized and extolled. Everything seemed to point to a fresh and active life of literature and art.
And so, by degrees, were exhibited all the various elements upon which the young Duke was, on his return, to work. His mother and guardian had prepared this state of things, while, as regarded the introduction of more important measures, all that, in accordance with the duty of such provisional governments, was left to the judgment and decision of the future sovereign. The sad ruin caused by the burning of the palace was already looked upon as furnishing occasion for new improvements. The mines at Ilmenau, which had stopped working, but which, it was asserted, might again be made profitable by going to the great expense of repairing the deep shaft; – the university at Jena, which was somewhat behind the spirit of the age, and was consequently threatened with the loss of some of its most able teachers, – and many other matters, roused a noble common interest. Already were looks cast around for persons, who, in the upward struggle of Germany, might be qualified to further such various designs for good, and the prospect seemed as fresh as the vivacity and energy of youth could desire. And if it seemed sad to bring a young princess not to a home, of a suitable princely dignity, but to a very ordinary dwelling built for quite a different object; still such beautifully situated and well contrived country-houses as Ettenburg, Belvedere, and other delightful pleasure-seats, gave enjoyment for the present, and also a hope that the life of nature thus rendered necessary, might lead to profitable and agreeable occupations.
In the course of this biography, we have circumstantially exhibited the child, the boy, the youth, seeking by different ways to approach to the Suprasensible first, looking with strong inclination to a religion of nature; then, clinging with love to a positive one; and, finally, concentrating himself in the trial of his own powers, and joyfully giving himself up to the general faith. Whilst he wandered to and fro, space which lay intermediate between the sensible and suprasensible regions, seeking and looking about him, much came in his way which did not appear to belong to either, and he seemed to see, more and more distinctly, that it is better to avoid all thought of the immense and incomprehensible.
He thought he could detect in nature – both animate and inanimate, with soul or without soul – something which manifests itself only in contradictions, and which, therefore, could not be comprehended under any idea, still less under one word. It was not godlike, for it seemed unreasonable; not human, for it had no understanding; nor devilish, for it was beneficent; nor angelic, for it often betrayed a malicious pleasure. It resembled chance, for it evolved no consequences; it was like Providence, for it hinted at connexion. All that limits us it seemed to penetrate; it seemed to sport at will with the necessary elements of our existence; it contracted time and expanded space. In the impossible alone did it appear to find pleasure, while it rejected the possible with contempt.
The Daemonic – Egmont.
To this principle, which seemed to come in between all other principles to separate them, and yet to link them together, I gave the name of Daemonic, after the example of the ancients and of those who, at any rate, had perceptions of the same kind. I sought to screen myself from this fearful principle, by taking refuge, according to my usual habits, in an imaginary creation.
Among the parts of history which I had particularly studied with some care, were the events which have made the United Netherlands so famous. I had diligently examined the original sources, and had endeavoured, as far as possible, to get my facts at first hand, and to bring the whole period vividly before my mind's eye. The situations it presented appeared to me to be in the highest degree dramatic, while, for a principal figure, around whom the others might be grouped with the happiest effect, there was Count Egmont, whose greatness as a man and a hero was most captivating.
But for my purpose it was necessary to convert him into a character marked by such peculiarities as would grace a youth better than a man in years, and an unmarried man better than the father of a family; and one independent, rather than one, who, however freely disposed, nevertheless restrained by the various relations of life.
Having thus, in my conception of Egmont's character, made him youthful, and set him free from all domestic restraints, I ascribed to him unlimited enjoyment of life and its pleasures, boundless self-reliance, a gift of drawing all men to himself, and consequently also of winning the favor of the people, and which, while it inspired a princess with a silent, and a young child of nature with an avowed passion, won for him the sympathy of a shrewd statesman, and even the loving admiration of the son of his great adversary.
The Daemonic Influence in Life.
The personal courage which distinguishes the hero is the foundation upon which his whole character rests, the ground and soil from which it sprung. He knows no danger, and willingly is blind to the greatest when it is close at hand. Surrounded by enemies, we may, at any rate, cut our way through them; the meshes of state policy are harder to break through. The Daemonic element, which is in play on both sides, and in conflict with which the lovely falls while the hated triumphs; and, above all, the prospect that out of this conflict will spring a third element, which will answer to the wishes of all men this perhaps is what has gained for the piece (not, indeed, immediately on its first appearance, but later and at the right time), the favor which it now enjoys. Here, therefore, for the sake of many beloved readers, I will anticipate myself, and as I know not whether I shall soon have another opportunity, will express a conviction which, however, I did not form till a considerable period subsequent to that of which I am now writing.
Although this Daemonic element can manifest itself in all corporeal and incorporeal things, and even expresses itself most distinctly in animals, yet, with man, especially does it stand in a most wonderful connexion, forming in him a power which, if it be not opposed to the moral order of the world, nevertheless does often so cross it that one may be regarded as the warp, and the other as the woof.
For the phenomena which it gives rise to there are innumerable names: for all philosophies and religions have sought in prose and poetry to solve this enigma and to read once for all the riddle which, nevertheless, remains still unriddled by them.
But the most fearful manifestation of the Daemonical, is when it is seen predominating in some individual character. During my life I have observed several instances of this, either more closely or remotely. Such persons are not always the most eminent men, either morally or intellectually, and it is seldom that they recommend themselves to our affections by goodness of heart; a tremendous energy seems to be seated in them, and they exercise a wonderful power over all creatures, and even over the elements; and, indeed, who shall say how much farther such influence may extend? All the moral powers combined are of no avail against them; in vain does the more enlightened portion of mankind attempt to throw suspicion upon them as deceived if not deceivers – the mass is still drawn on by them. Seldom if ever do the great men of an age find their equals among their contemporaries, and they are to be overcome by nothing but by the universe itself; and it is from observation of this fact that the strange, but most striking, proverb must have risen: Nemo contra Deum nisi Deus ipse.
From these lofty reflections I return to the littleness of my own life, for which strange events, clothed at least with a daemonical appearance, were in store. From the summit of Mont Gotthard, I had turned my back upon Italy, and returned home, because I could not make up my mind to go to a distance from Lili. An affection, which is grounded on the hope of possessing for life one dearly beloved, in an intimate and cordial union, does not die away all at once; on the contrary, it is nourished by a consideration of the reasonable desires and honest hopes we are conscious of cherishing.
It lies in the nature of the thing, that in such cases the maiden should be consoled before the youth. To these beautiful children, as descendants of Pandora, is granted the enviable gift to charm, attract, and (more through nature and of half purpose, than through design or of malice) to gather admirers around them; and thus, like the Magician's Apprentice, they are often in danger of being frightened by the crowd of their adorers. And then at last a choice must be made from among them all; one must be exclusively preferred; one must lead home the bride.
And how often does accident determine the choice and sway the mind of her who has to make the selection! I had renounced Lili from conviction, but love made me suspect my own reason. Lili had taken leave of me with the same feelings, and I had set out on a beautiful tour in order to distract my mind, but it had produced the opposite effect.
As long as I was absent I believed in the separation, but did not believe in the renunciation. Recollections, hopes and wishes, all had free play. Now I came back, and as the re-union of those whose happy love is unopposed, is a heaven so the meeting again of two lovers who are kept apart by cold calculations of reason, is an intolerable purgatory, a forecourt of hell. When I again entered the circle in which Lili still moved, all the dissonances which tended to oppose our union, seemed to have gained double force; when I stood once more before her, the conviction that she was lost to me, fell heavy upon my heart.
Accordingly I resolved at once on flight, and under this impression there was nothing which I desired more, than that the young ducal pair of Weimar should come from Carlsruhe to Frankfort, in order that, complying with old and new imitations, I might follow them to Weimar. Their Highnesses had always maintained towards me a gracious and confidential manner, for which I on my part returned the warmest thanks. My attachment to the Duke from the first moment I saw him; my respect for the princess whom by reputation I had so long known; a desire to render personally some friendly service to Wieland, whose conduct had been so liberal, and to atone upon the spot for my half-wilful, half-unintentional improprieties, were motives enough to induce and even to force the assent of a youth, who now had no attachment to detain him. Moreover, from Lili I must fly, whether to the South, where my Father's enthusiasm was daily depicting to me a most glorious heaven of Art and Nature, or to the North, whither so distinguished a circle of eminent men invited me.
The young princely pair now reached Frankfort on their way home. The Duke of Meiningen's suite was there at the same time, and by him, as well as by the Privy Counsellor von Dürkheim, who accompanied the young prince, I was received in the most friendly manner possible. But now, to keep up the fashion of my youth, a strange incident was not wanting: a little misunderstanding arose to throw me into an incredible but rather laughable perplexity.
A Little Perplexity.
Their Highnesses of Weimar and Meiningen were living in the same hotel. I received one day an invitation to dinner. My mind was so preoccupied with the Court of Weimar, that I did not think it necessary more particularly to inform myself, especially as I had not the presumption to imagine that any notice would be taken of me by the Duke of Meiningen. Accordingly I go full dressed to the "Roman Emperors," and making my way to the apartments of the Weimar family find them empty; being informed that the Duke and his suite are with his Highness of Meiningen, I betake myself thither, and am kindly received. Supposing that this is only a morning visit, or that perhaps the two Dukes are to dine together, I await the issue. Suddenly, however, the Weimar suite sets itself in motion, and I of course follow; but instead of returning to their own apartments they go straight down stairs and into their chariots, and I am left alone in the street.
Now, instead of inquiring into the matter, and adroitly and prudently seeking some solution of it, I, with my usual precipitancy, went straight home, where I found my parents at supper. My father shook his head, while my mother made every possible excuse for me. In the evening she told me in confidence, that after I had left the table, my father had said, that he wondered very much how I, generally acute enough, could not see that in that quarter they only wished to make a fool of me and to laugh at me. But this did not move me: for meanwhile I had met with Herr von Dürkheim, who in his mild way brought me to book with sundry graceful and humorous reproaches. I was now awakened from my dream, and had an opportunity to express my most sincere thanks for the favor intended me contrary to my hope and expectation, and to ask forgiveness for my blunder.
After I had on good grounds determined to accept their friendly offers, the following arrangement was made. A gentleman of the Duke's suite who had stayed behind in Carlsruhe, to wait for a landau which was building in Strasburg, was to be by a certain day in Frankfort, and I was to hold myself in readiness to set off directly with him for Weimar. The hearty and gracious farewell with which the young sovereigns took their leave of me, the friendly behaviour of the courtiers, made me look forward most anxiously to this journey, for which the road seemed so pleasantly to smoothe itself.
But here, too, accidents came in to complicate so simple an arrangement, which through my passionate impatience became still more confused, and was almost quite frustrated. Having announced the day of my departure, I had taken leave of everybody, and after packing up in haste my chattels, not forgetting my unprinted manuscripts, I waited anxiously for the hour which was to bring the aforesaid friend in the new landau, and to carry me into a new country, and into new circumstances. The hour passed, and the day also; and I since, to avoid a second leave-taking and the being overrun with visits, I had given out that I was to depart early in the morning, I was obliged to keep close to the house, and to my own room, and had thus placed myself in a peculiar situation.
But since solitude and a narrow space were always favorable to me, and I was now compelled to find some employment for these hours, I set to work on my "Egmont," and brought it almost to a close. I read over what I wrote to my father who had acquired a peculiar interest in this piece, and wished nothing more than to see it finished and in print, since he hoped that it would add to his son's reputation. He needed something of this sort to keep him quiet, and to make him contented; for he was inclined to make very grave comments on the non-arrival of the carriage. He maintained that the whole affair was a mere fiction, would not believe in any new landau, and pronounced the gentleman who stayed behind to be a phantom of the air. It was, however, only indirectly that he gave me to understand all this; but he only tormented himself and my mother the more openly; insisting that the whole thing was a mere piece of court pleasantry, which they had practised upon me in consequence of my former escapades, and in order to sicken and to shame me, had put upon me a disgraceful mockery instead of the expected honor.
As to myself, I held fast to my first faith, and congratulated myself upon these solitary hours, disturbed by neither friends nor strangers, nor by any sort of social distraction. I therefore wrote on vigorously at "Egmont," though not without inward mortification. And this frame of mind perhaps suited well with the piece itself, which, agitated by so many passions, could not very well have been written by one entirely passionless.
A Disappointment.
Thus passed eight days, and I know not how many more, when such perfect imprisonment began to prove irksome. Accustomed for many years to live under the open sky, and to enter into society on the most frank and familiar terms, in the neighbourhood too of one dearly beloved, from whom indeed I had resolved to part, but from whom, so long as I was within the circle of her attraction, I found it difficult to absent myself – all this begun to make me so uneasy, that there was danger lest the interest of my tragedy should suffer, and my inventive powers be suspended through my impatience. Already for several evenings I had found it impossible to remain at home. Disguised in a large mantle, I crept round the city, passing the houses of my friends and acquaintances, and not forbearing to walk up to Lili's window. Her house was a corner one, and the room she usually spent her evenings in was on the ground floor; the green shades were down, but I could easily remark that the lights stood in their usual places. Soon I heard her singing at the piano; it was the song, Ah! why resistless dost thou press me? which I had written for her hardly a year before. She seemed to me to sing with more expression than ever; I could make out every word distinctly; for I had placed my ear as close as the convex lattice would permit. After she had sung it through, I saw by the shadow which fell upon the curtain that she got up and walked backwards and forwards, but I sought in vain to catch the outline of her lovely person through the thick curtains. Nothing but the firm resolve to tear myself away, and not to afflict her with my presence, but actually to renounce her, and the thought of the strange impression which would be made by my re-appearance, could have determined me to leave so dear a neighbourhood.
Several more days passed away, and my father's suggestion seemed daily to become more probable, since not even a letter arrived from Carlsruhe to explain the reasons of the delay. I was unable to go on with my poetic labors, and now, in the uneasiness with which I was internally distracted, my father had the game to himself. He represented to me, that it was now too late to change matters, that my trunk was packed, and he would give me money and credit to go to Italy; but I must decide quickly. In such a weighty affair, I naturally doubted and hesitated. Finally, however, I agreed that if, by a certain hour, neither carriage nor message came, I would set off, directing my steps first of all to Heidelberg and from there over the Alps, not, however, going through Switzerland again, but rather taking the route through the Grisons, or the Tyrol.
Strange things indeed must happen, when a planless youth who of himself is so easily misled, is also driven into a false step by a passionate error of age. But so it is both with youth and the whole of life. It is not till the campaign is over that we learn to see through its tactics. In the ordinary course of things such an accident were easy enough to be explained; but we are always too ready to conspire with error against what is naturally probable, just as we shuffle the cards before we deal them round, in order that chance may not be deprived of its full share in the game. It is precisely thus that the element arises in and upon which the Daemonical so loves to work; and it even sports with us the more fearfully, the clearer are the inklings we have of its approach.
The last day for my waiting had arrived, and the next morning was fixed for my setting out on my travels; and now I felt extremely anxious to see my friend Passavant again, who had just returned from Switzerland, and who would really have had cause to be offended if, by keeping my plans entirely to myself I had violated the intimate confidence which subsisted between us. I therefore sent him an anonymous note, requesting a meeting by night at a certain spot, where I was the first to arrive enveloped in my mantle; but he was not long after me, and if he wondered at the appointment, he must have been still more surprised to meet the person he did. His joy, however, was equal to the astonishment; conversation and counsel were not to be thought of, he could only wish me well through my Italian journey, and so we parted. The next day I saw myself by good time advancing along the mountain road.
Heidelberg – Mademoiselle Delf.
I had several reasons for going to Heidelberg; one was very sensible and prudent, for I had heard that my missing Weimar friend must pass through Heidelberg from Carlsruhe; and so, when we reached the post-house, I left a note which was to be handed to a cavalier who should pass through in the carriage described; the second reason was one of passion, and bad reference to my late attachment to Lili. In short. Mademoiselle Delf, who had been the confidante of our love, and indeed the mediator with our respective parents for their approval of our marriage, lived there; and I prized it as the greatest happiness to be able, before I left Germany, to talk over those happy times with a worthy, patient, and indulgent friend.
I was well received, and introduced into many families; among others, the family of the high warden of the forests, Von W – , particularly pleased me. The parents were dignified and easy in their manners, and one of the daughters resembled Frederica. It was just the time of vintage, the weather beautiful, and all my Alsacian feelings revived in the beautiful valley of the Rhine. At this time, however, my experience, both of myself and others seemed very strange; it was as yet quite vague and undigested in my mind, no deliberate judgment upon life had shaped itself before me, and whatever sense of the infinite had been awakened within me served only to confuse and perplex me the more. In society, nevertheless, I was as agreeable and entertaining as ever, and possibly even still more so. Here, under this free air of heaven, among joyous men, I sought again the old sports which never lose their novelty and charm for youth. With an earlier and not yet extinguished love in my heart, I excited sympathy without seeking it, even though it sought no utterance of itself, and thus I soon became at home in this circle, and indeed necessary to it, and I forgot that I had resolved, after talking away a couple of evenings, to continue my journey.
Mademoiselle Delf was one of those persons who, without exactly intriguing, always like to have some business in hand, and to keep others employed, and to carry through some object or other. She had conceived a sincere friendship for me; and prevailed the more easily on me to prolong my visit as I lived in her house, where she suggested all manner of inducements for my stay, and raised all manner of obstacles to my journey. When, however, I wanted to turn the conversation to Lili, she was not so well pleased or so sympathizing as I had hoped. On the contrary, she said that, under the circumstances, nothing could be wiser than our resolution to part, and maintained that one must submit to what is unavoidable, banish the impossible from the mind, and look around for some new object of interest in life. Full of plans as she always was, she had not intended to leave this matter to accident, but had already formed a project for my future conduct, from which I clearly saw that her recent invitation to Heidelberg had not been so disinterested as it sounded.
