The Autobiography of Goethe

These depressing reflections, as I was soon convinced, were only to be banished by activity; but of what was I to take hold? I had, indeed, much to make up for in many things, and to prepare myself, in more than one sense, for the university, which I was now to attend; but I relished and accomplished nothing. Much appeared to me familiar and trivial; for grounding myself, in several respects, I found neither strength within nor opportunity without; and I therefore suffered myself to be moved by the taste of my good room-neighbour, to a study which was altogether new and strange to me, and which for a long time offered me a wide field of information and thought. My friend began, namely, to make me acquainted with the secrets of philosophy. He had studied in Jena, under Daries, and, possessing a well-regulated mind, had acutely seized the relations of that doctrine, which he now sought to impart to me. But, unfortunately, these things would not hang together in such a fashion in my brain. I put questions, which he promised to answer afterwards; I made demands, which he promised to satisfy in future. But our most important difference was this, that I maintained a separate philosophy was not necessary, as the whole of it was already contained in religion and poetry. This he would by no means allow, but rather tried to prove to me that these must first be founded on philosophy; which I stubbornly denied, and at every step in the progress of our discussions, found arguments for my opinion. For, as in poetry a certain faith in the impossible, and as in religion a like faith in the inscrutable, must have a place, the philosophers appeared to me to be in a very false position who would demonstrate and explain both of them from their own field of vision. Besides, it was very quickly proved, from the history of philosophy, that one always sought a ground different from that of the other, and that the sceptic, in the end, pronounced everything groundless and useless.

History of Philosophy.

However, this very history of philosophy, which my friend was compelled to go over with me, because I could learn nothing from dogmatical discourse, amused me very much, but only on this account, that one doctrine or opinion seemed to me as good as another, so far, at least, as I was capable of penetrating into it. With the most ancient men and schools I was best pleased, because poetry, religion, and philosophy were completely combined into one; and I only maintained that first opinion of mine with the more animation, when the book of Job and the Song and Proverbs of Solomon, as well as the lays of Orpheus and Hesiod, seemed to bear valid witness in its favour. My friend had taken the smaller work of Brucker as the foundation of his discourse; and the further we went on, the less I could make of it. I could not clearly see what the first Greek philosophers would have. Socrates I esteemed as an excellent, wise man, who in his life and death might well be compared with Christ. His disciples, on the other hand, seemed to me to bear a strong resemblance to the Apostles, who disagreed immediately after their Master's death, when each manifestly recognised only a limited view as the right one. Neither the keenness of Aristotle nor the fulness of Plato produced the least fruit in me. For the Stoics, on the contrary, I had already conceived some affection, and even procured Epictetus, whom I studied with much interest. My friend unwillingly let me have my way in this one-sidedness, from which he could not draw me; for, in spite of his varied studies, he did not know how to bring the leading question into a narrow compass. He need only have said to me that in life action is everything, and that joy and sorrow come of themselves. However, youth should be allowed its own course; it does not stick to false maxims very long; life soon tears or charms it away again.

The season had become fine; we often went together into the open air, and visited the places of amusement which surrounded the city in great numbers. But it was precisely here that matters went worse with me; for I still saw the ghosts of the cousins everywhere, and feared, now here, now there, to see one of them step forward. Even the most indifferent glances of men annoyed me. I had lost that unconscious happiness of wandering about unknown and unblamed, and of thinking of no observer, even in the greatest crowds. Now hypochondriacal fancies began to torment me, as if I attracted the attention of the people, as if their eyes were turned on my demeanour, to fix it on their memories, to scan and to find fault.

I therefore drew my friend into the woods, and while I shunned the monotonous firs, I sought those fine leafy groves, which do not indeed spread far in the district, but are yet of sufficient compass for a poor wounded heart to hide itself. In the remotest depth of the forest I sought out a solemn spot, where the oldest oaks and beeches formed a large, noble shaded space. The ground was somewhat sloping, and made the worth of the old trunks only the more perceptible. Round this open circle closed the densest thickets, from which the mossy rocks mightily and venerably peered forth, and made a rapid fall for a copious brook.

Scarcely had I compelled my friend hither, who would rather have been in the open country by the stream, among men, than he playfully assured me that I showed myself a true German, he related to me circumstantially, out of Tacitus, how our ancestors found pleasure in the feelings which nature so provides for us, in such solitudes, with her inartificial architecture. He had not been long discoursing of this, when I exclaimed, "Oh! why did not this precious spot lie in a deeper wilderness! why may we not train a hedge around it, to hallow and separate from the world both it and ourselves! Surely there is no more beautiful adoration of the Deity than that which needs no image, but which springs up in our bosom merely from the intercourse with nature!" What I then felt, is still present to me; what I said, I know not how to recall. Thus much, however, is certain, that the undetermined, widely-expanding feelings of youth and of uncultivated nations are alone adapted to the sublime, which, if it is to be excited in us through external objects, formless, or moulded into incomprehensible forms, must surround us with a greatness to which we are not equal.

All men, more or less, feel such a disposition of the soul, and seek to satisfy this noble necessity in various ways. But as the sublime is easily produced by twilight and night, when objects are blended, it is, on the other hand, scared away by the day, which separates and sunders everything, and so must it also be destroyed by every increase of cultivation, if it be not fortunate enough to take refuge with the beautiful, and unite itself closely with it, by which both become equally undying and indestructible.

The brief moments of such enjoyments were still more shortened by my meditative friend; but when I turned back into the world, it was altogether in vain that I sought, among the bright and barren objects around, again to arouse such feelings within me; nay, I could scarce retain even the remembrance of them. My heart, however, was too far spoiled to be able to compose itself; it had loved, and the object was snatched away from it; it had lived, and life to it was embittered. A friend who makes it too perceptible that he designs to form you, excites no feeling of comfort; while a woman who is forming you, while she seems to spoil you, is adored as a heavenly, joy-bringing being. But that form in which the idea of beauty manifested itself to me, had vanished far away; it often visited me under the shade of my oak trees, but I could not hold it fast, and I felt a powerful impulse to seek something similar in the distance.

Drawing From Nature.

I had imperceptibly accustomed, nay, compelled my friend and overseer to leave me alone; for even in my sacred grove, those undefined, gigantic feelings were not sufficient for me. The eye was, above all others, the organ by which I seized the world. I had, from childhood, lived among painters, and had accustomed myself to look at objects, as they did, with reference to art. Now I was left to myself and to solitude, this gift, half natural, half acquired, made its appearance. Wherever I looked, I saw a picture, and whatever struck me, whatever gave me delight, I washed to fix, and began, in the most awkward manner, to draw after nature. In this I lacked nothing less than everything; yet, though without any technical means, I obstinately persisted in trying to imitate the most magnificent things that offered themselves to my sight. Thus, to be sure, I acquired a great attention to objects; but I only seized them as a whole, so far as they produced an effect; and, little as nature had meant me for a descriptive poet, just as little would she grant me the capacity of a draughtsman for details. Since, however, this was the only way left me of expressing myself, I stuck to it with so much stubbornness, nay, even with melancholy, that I always continued my labours the more zealously, the less I saw they produced.

But I will not deny that there was a certain mixture of roguery; for I had remarked that if I chose for an irksome study a half-shaded old trunk, to the hugely curved roots of which clung well-lit fern, combined with twinkling maidenhair, my friend, who knew from experience that I should not be disengaged in less than an hour commonly resolved to seek, with his books, some other pleasant little spot. Now nothing disturbed me in prosecuting my taste, which was so much the more active, since my paper was endeared to me by the circumstance that I had accustomed myself to see in it, not so much what stood upon it, as what I had been thinking of at any time and hour when I drew. Thus plants and flowers of the commonest kind may form a charming diary for us, because nothing that calls back the remembrance of a happy moment can be insignificant; and even now it would be hard for me to destroy as worthless many things of the kind that have remained to me from different epochs, because they transport me immediately to those times which I remember with melancholy indeed, but not unwillingly.

But if such drawings may have had anything of interest in themselves, they were indebted for this advantage to the sympathy and attention of my father. He, informed by my overseer that I had become gradually reconciled to my condition, and, in particular, had applied myself passionately to drawing from nature, was very well satisfied – partly because he himself set a high value on drawing and painting, partly because gossip Seekatz had once said to him, that it was a pity I was not destined for a painter. But here again the peculiarities of the father and son came into conflict; for it was almost impossible for me to make use of a good, white, perfectly clean sheet of paper; grey old leaves, even if scribbled over on one side already, charmed me most, just as if my awkwardness had feared the touchstone of a white ground. Nor were any of my drawings quite finished; and how should I have executed a whole, which indeed I saw with my eyes, but did not comprehend, and how an individual object, which I had neither skill nor patience to follow out? The pedagogism of my father on this point, too, was really to be admired. He kindly asked for my attempts, and drew lines round every imperfect sketch. He wished, by this means, to compel me to completeness and fulness of detail. The irregular leaves he cut straight, and thus made the beginning of a collection, in which he wished, at some future time, to rejoice at the progress of his son. It was therefore by no means disagreeable to him when my wild, restless disposition sent me roving about the country; he rather seemed pleased when I brought back a parcel of drawings on which he could exercise his patience, and in some measure strengthen his hopes.

They no longer said that I might relapse into my former attachments and connexions; they left me by degrees perfect liberty. By accidental inducements and in accidental society I undertook many journeys to the mountain-range which, from my childhood, had stood so distant and solemn before me. Thus we visited Homburg, Kroneburg, ascended the Feldberg, from which the prospect invited us still further and further into the distance. Königstein, too, was not left unvisited; Wiesbaden, Schwalbach, with its environs, occupied us many days; we reached the Rhine, which, from the heights, we had seen winding along far off. Mentz astonished us, but could not chain a youthful mind, which was running into the open country; we were delighted with the situation of Biberich; and, contented and happy, we resumed our journey home.

This whole tour, from which my father had promised himself many a drawing, might have been almost without fruit; for what taste, what talent, what experience does it not require to seize an extensive landscape as a picture! I was again imperceptibly drawn into a narrow compass, from which I derived some profit; for I met no ruined castle, no piece of wall which pointed to antiquity, that I did not think an object worthy of my pencil, and imitate as well as I could. Even the stone of Drusus, on the ramparts of Mentz, I copied at some risk, and with inconveniences which every one must experience who wishes to carry home with him some pictorial reminiscences of his travels. Unfortunately I had again taken with me nothing but the most miserable common paper, and had clumsily crowded several objects into one sheet. But my paternal teacher was not perplexed at this; he cut the sheets apart, had the parts which belonged to each other put together by the bookbinder, surrounded the single leaves with lines, and thus actually compelled me to draw the outline of different mountains up to the margin, and to fill up the foreground with some weeds and stones.

If his faithful endeavours could not increase my talent, nevertheless this mark of his love of order had upon me a secret influence, which afterwards manifested itself vigorously in more ways than one.

Goethe's Sister.

From such rambling excursions, undertaken partly for pleasure, partly for art, and which could be performed in a short time and often repeated, I was again drawn home, and that by a magnet which always acted upon me strongly: this was my sister. She, only a year younger than I, had lived my whole conscious period of life with me, and was thus bound to me by the closest ties. To these natural causes was added a forcible motive, which proceeded from our domestic position; a father certainly affectionate and well-meaning, but grave, who, because he cherished within a very tender heart, externally, with incredible consistency, maintained a brazen sternness, that he might attain the end of giving his children the best education, and of building up, regulating, and preserving his well-founded house; a mother, on the other hand, as yet almost a child, who first grew up to consciousness with and in her two eldest children; these three, as they looked at the world with healthy eyes, capable of life, and desiring present enjoyment. This contradiction floating in the family increased with years. My father followed out his views unshaken and uninterrupted; the mother and children could not give up their feelings, their claims, their wishes.

Under these circumstances it was natural that brother and sister should attach themselves close to each other, and adhere to their mother, that they might singly snatch the pleasures forbidden as a whole. But since the hours of solitude and toil were very long compared to the moments of recreation and enjoyment, especially for my sister, who could never leave the house for so long a time as I could, the necessity she felt for entertaining herself with me was still sharpened by the sense of longing with which she accompanied me to a distance.

And as, in our first years, playing and learning, growth and education, had been quite common to both of us, so that we might well have been taken for twins, so did this community, this confidence, remain during the development of our physical and moral powers. That interest of youth, that amazement at the awakening of sensual impulses which clothe themselves in mental forms, of mental necessities which clothe themselves in sensual images, all the reflections upon these, which obscure rather than enlighten us, as the fog covers over and does not illumine the vale from which it is about to rise, the many errors and aberrations springing therefrom, – all these the brother and sister shared and endured hand in hand, and were the less enlightened as to their strange condition, as the nearer they wished to approach each other, to clear up their minds, the more forcibly did the sacred awe of their close relationship keep them apart.

Reluctantly do I mention, in general terms, what I undertook to set forth, years ago, without being able to accomplish it. As I lost this beloved, incomprehensible being, but too soon, I felt inducement enough to make, her worth present to me, and thus arose in me the conception of a poetic whole, in which it might be possible to exhibit her individuality: but for this no other form could be devised than that of the Richardsonian novels. Only by the minutest detail, by endless particularities which bear vividly all the character of the whole, and as they spring up from a wonderful depth give some feeling of that depth; – only in such a manner would it have been in some degree possible to give a representation of this remarkable personality: for the spring can be apprehended only while it is flowing. But from this beautiful and pious design, as from so many others, the tumult of the world drew me back, and nothing now remains for me but to call up for a moment that blessed spirit, as if by the aid of a magic mirror.

Goethe's Sister.

She was tall, well and delicately formed, and had something naturally dignified in her demeanour, which melted away into a pleasing mildness. The lineaments of her face, neither striking nor beautiful, indicated a character which was not and could not be at union with itself. Her eyes were not the finest I have ever seen, but the deepest, behind which you expected the most; and when they expressed any affection, any love, their brilliancy was unequalled. And yet, properly speaking, this expression was not tender, like that which comes from the heart, and at the same time carries with it something of longing and desire; this expression came from the soul, it was full and rich, it seemed as if it would only give, without needing to receive.

But what in a manner quite peculiar disfigured her face, so that she would often appear positively ugly, was the fashion of those times, which not only bared the forehead, but, either accidentally or on purpose, did everything apparently or really to enlarge it. Now, as she had the most feminine, most neatly arched forehead, and moreover a pair of strong black eyebrows, and prominent eyes, these circumstances occasioned a contrast, which, if it did not repel every stranger at the first glance, at least did not attract him. She early felt it, and this feeling became constantly the more painful to her, the further she advanced into the years when both sexes find an innocent pleasure in being mutually agreeable.

To nobody can his own form be repugnant; the ugliest as well as the most beautiful has a right to enjoy his own presence; and as favour beautifies, and every one regards himself in the looking-glass with favour, it may be asserted that every one must see himself with complacency, even if he would struggle against the feeling. Yet my sister had such a decided foundation of good sense, that she could not possibly be blind and silly in this respect; on the contrary, she perhaps knew more clearly than she ought, that she stood far behind her female playfellows in external beauty, without feeling consoled by the fact that she infinitely surpassed them in internal advantages.

If a lady can be recompensed for the want of beauty, then was she richly so by the unbounded confidence, the regard, and love which all her female friends bore to her; whether they were older or younger, all cherished the same sentiments. A very pleasant society had collected around her; young men were not wanting who knew how to insinuate themselves; nearly every girl found an admirer; she alone had remained without a partner. Indeed, if her exterior was in some measure repulsive, the mind that gleamed through it was also rather repelling than attractive; for the presence of any excellence throws others back upon themselves. She felt this sensibly, she did not conceal it from me, and her love was directed to me with so much the greater force. The ease was singular enough. As confidants to whom one reveals a love-affair actually by genuine sympathy become lovers also, nay, grow into rivals, and at last, perchance, transfer the passion to themselves, so it was with us two: for, when my connexion with Gretchen was torn asunder, my sister consoled me the more earnestly, because she secretly felt the satisfaction of having gotten rid of a rival; and I, too, could not but feel a quiet, half-mischievous pleasure, when she did me the justice to assure me that I was the only one who truly loved, understood, and esteemed her. If now, from time to time, my grief for the loss of Gretchen revived, and I suddenly began to weep, to lament, and to act in a disorderly manner, my despair for my lost one awakened in her likewise a similar despairing impatience as to the never-possessings, the failures, and miscarriages of such youthful attachments, that we both thought ourselves infinitely unhappy, and the more so as, in this singular case, the confidants could not change themselves into lovers.

The Sister's Lover.

Fortunately, however, the capricious god of Love, who needlessly does so much mischief, here for once interfered beneficially, to extricate us out of all perplexity. I had much intercourse with a young Englishman who was educated in Pfeil's boarding-school. He could give a good account of his own language, I practised it with him, and thus learned much concerning his country and people. He went in and out of our house long enough without my remarking in him a liking for my sister, yet he may have been nourishing it in secret, even to passion, for at last it declared itself unexpectedly and at once. She knew him, she esteemed him, and he deserved it. She had often made the third at our English conversations, we had both tried to catch from his mouth the irregularities of the English pronunciation, and thereby accustomed ourselves not only to the peculiarities of its accent and sound, but even to what was most peculiar in the personal qualities of our teacher; so that at last it sounded strangely enough when we all seemed to speak as if out of one mouth. The pains he took to learn as much German from us in the like manner, were to no purpose, and I think I have remarked that even this little love-affair also, both in speaking and writing, was carried on in the English language. Both the young persons were very well suited to each other; he was tall and well-built, as she was, only still more slender; his face, small and compact, might really have been pretty, had it not been too much disfigured by the small-pox; his manner was calm, precise, one might often have called it dry and cold; but his heart was full of kindness and love, his soul full of generosity, and his attachments as lasting as they were decided and controlled. Now this serious pair, who had but lately formed an attachment, were quite peculiarly distinguished among the others, who, being already better acquainted with each other, of more frivolous character, and careless as to the future, roved about with levity in these connexions, which commonly pass away as the mere fruitless prelude to subsequent and more serious ties, and very seldom produce a lasting effect upon life.

The fine weather and the beautiful country did not remain unenjoyed by so lively a company; water excursions were frequently arranged, because these are the most sociable of all parties of pleasure. Yet whether we were moving on water or on land, the individual attracting powers immediately showed themselves; each couple kept together, and for some men who were not engaged, of whom I was one, there remained either no conversation with the ladies at all, or only such as no one would have chosen for a day of pleasure. A friend who found himself in this situation, and who might have been in want of a partner chiefly for this reason, that with the best humour he lacked tenderness, and with much intelligence, that delicate attention, without which connexions of this kind are not to be thought of; – this man, after often humorously and wittily lamenting his condition, promised at the next meeting to make a proposal which would benefit himself and the whole company. Nor did he fail to perform his promise: for, when after a brilliant trip by water, and a very pleasant walk, reclining on the grass between shady knolls, or sitting on mossy rocks and roots of trees, we had cheerfully and happily consumed a rural meal, and our friend saw us all cheerful and in good spirits, he, with a waggish dignity, commanded us to sit close round him in a semicircle, before which he stepped, and began to make an emphatic peroration as follows: —