The Autobiography of Goethe

Dashed off "currente calamo," it was yet late at night before I had finished it and given it to a messenger with instructions to deliver it the next morning in Offenbach, precisely at ten o'clock.

Next day when I awoke, it was one of the brightest mornings possible, and, I set off just in time to arrive at Offenbach, as I purposed, precisely at noon.

I was received with the strangest charivari of salutations; the interrupted feast was scarcely mentioned; they scolded and rated me, because I had taken them off so well. The domestics were contented with being introduced on the same stage with their superiors; only the children, those most decided and indomitable realists, obstinately insisted that they had not talked so and so, that everything in fact went quite differently from the way in which it there stood written. I appeased them by some foretastes of the supper-table, and they loved me as much as ever. A cheerful dinner-party, with some though not all of our intended festivities, put us in the mood of receiving Lili with less splendor, but perhaps the more affectionately. She came, and was welcomed by cheerful, nay, merry faces, surprised to find that her staying away had not marred all our cheerfulness. They told her everything, they laid the whole thing before her, and she, in her dear sweet way, thanked me as only she could thank.

It required no remarkable acuteness to perceive, that her absence from the festival in her honor was not accidental, but had been caused by gossiping about the intimacy between us. However, this had not the slightest influence either on our sentiments or our behavior.

Intimacy with Lili.

At this season of the year there never failed to be a varied throng of visitors from the city. Frequently I did not join the company until late in the evening, when I found her apparently sympathizing; and since I commonly appeared only for a few hours, I was glad of an opportunity to be useful to her in any way, by attending to or undertaking some commission, whether trifling or not, in her behalf. And indeed this service is the most delightful which a man can enter upon, as the old romances of chivalry contrive how to intimate in their obscure, but powerful manner. That she ruled over me, was not to be concealed, and this pride she might well allow herself; for in this contest the victor and the vanquished both triumph, and enjoy an equal glory.

This my repeated, though often brief co-operation, was always so much the more effective. John André had always store of music; I contributed new pieces either by others or myself; so that poetical and musical blossoms showered down upon us. It was altogether a brilliant time; a certain excitement reigned in the company, and there were no insipid moments. Without further question it seemed to be communicated to all the rest. For where inclination and passion come out in their own bold nature, they encourage timid souls, who cannot comprehend why they should suppress their equally valid rights. Hence relations, which hitherto were more or less concealed, were now seen to intertwine themselves without reserve; while others, which did not confess themselves so openly, still glided on agreeably in the shade.

If, because of my multifarious avocations, I could not pass whole days out of doors with her, yet the clear evenings gave us opportunity for prolonged meetings in the open air. Loving souls will be pleased to read the following event.

Ours was a condition of which it stands written: "I sleep, but my heart wakes;" the bright and the dark hours were alike; the light of the day could not outshine the light of love, and the night was made as the brightest day by the radiance of passion.

One clear starlight evening we had been walking about in the open country till it was quite late; and after I had seen her and her friends home to their several doors, and finally had taken leave of her, I felt so little inclined to sleep that I did not hesitate to set off on another ramble. I took the highroad to Frankfort, giving myself up to my thoughts and hopes; here I seated myself on a bench, in the purest stillness of night, under the gleaming starry heavens, that I might belong only to myself and her.

My attention was attracted by a sound quite near me, which I could not explain; it was not a rattling, nor a rustling noise, and on closer observation I discovered that it was under the ground, and caused by the working of some little animal. It might be a hedge-hog, or a weasel, or whatever creature labors in that way at such hours.

Having set off again towards the city and got near to the Röderberg, I recognised, by their chalk-white gleam, the steps which lead up to the vineyards. I ascended them, sat down, and fell asleep.

When I awoke, the twilight had already dawned, and I found myself opposite the high wall, which in earlier times had been erected to defend the heights on this side. Saxenhausen lay before me, light mists marked out the course of the river; it was cool, and to me most welcome.

There I waited till the sun, rising gradually behind me, lighted up the opposite landscape. It was the spot where I was again to see my beloved, and I returned slowly back to the paradise which surrounded her yet sleeping.

On account of my increasing circle of business, which, from love to her, I was anxious to extend and to establish, my visits to Offenbach became more rare, and hence arose a somewhat painful predicament; so that it might well be remarked, that, for the sake of the future, one postpones and loses the present.

As my prospects were now gradually improving, I took them to be more promising than they really were, and I thought the more about coming to a speedy explanation, since go public an intimacy could not go on much longer without misconstruction. And, as is usual in such cases, we did not expressly say it to one another; but the feeling of being mutually pleased in every way, the full conviction that a separation was impossible, the confidence reposed in one another, – all this produced such a seriousness, that I, who had firmly resolved never again to get involved in any troublesome connexion of the kind, and who found myself, nevertheless, entangled in this, without the certainty of a favorable result, was actually beset with a heaviness of mind, to get rid of which I plunged more and more in indifferent worldly affairs, from which apart from my beloved I had no care to derive either profit or pleasure.

A Betrothal.

In this strange situation, the like of which many, no doubt, have with pain experienced, there came to our aid a female friend of the family, who saw through characters and situations very clearly. She was called Mademoiselle Delf; she presided with her elder sister over a little business in Heidelberg, and on several occasions had received many favors from the greater Frankfort commission-house. She had known and loved Lili from her youth; she was quite a peculiar person, of an earnest, masculine look, and with an even, firm hasty step. She had had peculiar reason to adapt herself to the world, and hence she understood it, in a certain sense at least. She could not be called intriguing; she was accustomed to consider distant contingencies, and to carry out her plans in silence: but then she had the gift of seeing an opportunity, and if she found people wavering betwixt doubt and resolution, at the moment when everything depended upon decision, she skilfully contrived to infuse into their minds such a force of character, that she seldom failed to accomplish, her purpose. Properly speaking she had no selfish ends; to have done anything, to have completed anything, especially to have brought about a marriage, was reward enough for her. She had long since seen through our position, and, in repeated visits, had carefully observed the state of affairs, so that she had finally convinced herself that the attachment must be favored; that our plans, honestly but not very skilfully taken in hand and prosecuted, must be promoted, and that this little romance be brought to a close as speedily as possible.

For many years she had enjoyed the confidence of Lili's mother. Introduced by me to my parents, she had managed to make herself agreeable to them; for her rough sort of manner is seldom offensive in an imperial city, and backed by cleverness and tact, is even welcome. She knew very well our wishes and our hopes; her love of meddling made her see in all this a call upon her good offices; in short she had a conversation with our parents. How she commenced it, how she put aside the difficulties which must have stood in her way, I know not; but she came to us one evening and brought the consent. "Take each other by the hand!" cried she, in her pathetic yet commanding manner. I stood opposite to Lili and offered her my hand; she, not indeed hesitatingly, but still slowly, placed hers in it. After a long and deep breath we fell with lively emotion into each other's arms.

It was a strange degree of the overruling Providence, that in the course of my singular history, I should also have experienced the feelings of one who is betrothed.

I may venture to assert, that for a truly moral man it is the pleasantest of all recollections. It is delightful to recall those feelings, which are with difficulty expressed and are hardly explained. For him the state of things is all at once changed; the sharpest oppositions are removed, the most inveterate differences are adjusted; prompting nature, ever warning reason, the tyrannizing impulses, and the sober law, which before kept up a perpetual strife within us, all are now reconciled in friendly unity, and at the festival, so universally celebrated with solemn rites, that which was forbidden is commanded, and that which was penal is raised to an inviolable duty.

The reader will learn with moral approval that from this time forward a certain change took place in me. If my beloved had hitherto been looked upon as beautiful, graceful, and attractive, now she appeared to me a being of superior worth and excellence. She was as it were a double person: her grace and loveliness belonged to me, – that I felt as formerly; but the dignity of her character, her self-reliance, her confidence in all persons remained her own. I beheld it, I looked through it, I was delighted with it as with a capital of which I should enjoy the interest as long as I lived.

There is depth and significance in the old remark: on the summit of fortune one abides not long. The consent of the parties on both sides, so gained in such a peculiar manner by Demoiselle Delf, was now ratified silently and without further formality. But as soon as we believe the matter to be all settled – as soon as the ideal, as we may well call it, of a betrothal is over, and it begins to pass into the actual and to enter soberly into facts, then too often comes a crisis. The outward world is utterly unmerciful, and it has reason, for it must maintain its authority at all costs; the confidence of passion is very great, and we see it too often wrecked upon the rocks of opposing realities. A young married couple who enter upon life, unprovided with sufficient means, can promise themselves no honey-moon, especially in these latter times; the world immediately presses upon them with incompatible demands, which, if not satisfied, make the young couple appear ridiculous.

Of the insufficiency of the means which for the attainment of my end, I had anxiously scraped together, I could not before be aware, because they had held out up to a certain point; but now the end was drawing nearer, I saw that matters were not quite what they ought to be.

The fallacy, which passion finds so convenient, was now exposed in all its inconsistency. My house, my domestic circumstances, had to be considered in all their details, with some soberness. The consciousness, that his house would one day contain a daughter-in-law, lay indeed at the bottom of my father's design; but then what sort of a lady did he contemplate?

The Realities of Life.

At the end of our third part, the reader made the acquaintance of the gentle, dear, intelligent, beautiful, and talented maiden, so always like herself, so affectionate, and yet so free from passion; she was a fitting key-stone to the arch already built and curved. But here, upon calm unbiassed consideration, it could not be denied that, in order to establish the newly acquired treasure in such a function, a new arch would have to be built!

However this had not yet become clear to me, and still less was it so to her mind. But now when I tried to fancy myself bringing her to my home, she did not seem somehow to suit it exactly. It appeared to me something like what I had myself experienced, when I first joined her social circle: in order to give no offence to the fashionable people I met there, I found it necessary to make a great change in my style of dress. But this could not be so easily done with the domestic arrangement of a stately burgher's house, which, rebuilt in the olden style, had with its antique ornaments, given an old-fashioned character to the habits of its inmates.

Moreover, even after our parents' consent had been gained, it had not been possible to establish friendly relations or intercourse between our respective families. Different religious opinions produced different manners; and if the amiable girl had wished to continue in any way her former mode of life, it would have found neither opportunity nor place in our moderate-sized house.

If I had never thought of all this until now, it was because I had been quieted by the opening of fine prospects from without, and the hope of getting some valuable appointment. An active spirit gets a footing everywhere: capacities, talents create confidence; every one thinks that a change of management is all that is needed. The earnestness of youth finds favour, genius is trusted for, everything, though its power is only of a certain kind.

The intellectual and literary domain of Germany was at that time regarded as but newly broken ground. Among the business-people there were prudent men, who desired skilful cultivators and prudent managers for the fields about to be turned up. Even the respectable and well established Free-Mason's lodge, with the most distinguished members of which I had become acquainted through my intimacy with Lili, contrived in a suitable manner to get me introduced to them; but I, from a feeling of independence, which afterwards appeared to me madness, declined all closer connection with them, not perceiving that these men, though already bound together in a higher sense, would yet do much to further my own ends, so nearly related to theirs.

I return to more personal matters.

In such cities as Frankfort, men often hold several situations together, such as residentships, and agencies, the number of which may by diligence be indefinitely increased. Something of this sort now occurred to me, and at first sight it seemed both advantageous and honorable. It was assumed that I should suit the place; and it would, under the conditions, certainly have succeeded, if it could have commanded the co-operation of the Chancery triad already described. We thus suppress our doubts; we dwell only on what is favorable, by powerful activity we overcome all wavering; whence there results a something untrue in our position, without the force of passion being in the least subdued.

In times of peace there is no more interesting reading for the multitude than the public papers, which furnish early information of the latest doings in the world. The quiet opulent citizen exercises thus in an innocent way a party spirit, which in our finite nature we neither can nor should get rid of. Every comfortable person thus gets up a factitious interest, like that which is often felt in a bet, experiences an unreal gain or loss, and as in the theatre, feels a very lively, though imaginary sympathy in the good or evil fortune of others. This sympathy seems often arbitrary, but it rests on moral grounds. For now we give to praiseworthy designs the applause they deserve; and now again, carried away by brilliant successes, we turn to those whose plans we should otherwise have blamed. For all this there was abundant material in those times.

Frederick the Second, resting on his victories, seemed to hold in his hand the fate of Europe and the world; Catherine, a great woman, who had proved herself every way worthy of a throne, afforded ample sphere of action to able and highly gifted men, in extending the dominion of their Empress; and as this was done at the expense of the Turks, whom we are in the habit of richly repaying for the contempt with which they look down upon us, it seemed as if it was no sacrifice of human life, when these infidels were slain by thousands. The burning of the fleet in the harbor of Tschesme, caused a universal jubilee throughout the civilized world, and every one shared the exultation of a victory, when, in order to preserve a faithful picture of that great event, a ship of war was actually blown up on the roads of Leghorn, before the studio of an artist. Not long after this, a young northern king, to establish his own authority, seized the reins of government, out of the hands of an oligarchy. The aristocrats whom he overthrew were not lamented, for aristocracy finds no favor with the public, since it is in its nature to work in silence, and it is the more secure the less talk it creates about itself; and in this case the people thought all the better of the young king, since in order to balance the enmity of the higher ranks, he was obliged to favor the lower, and to conciliate their good will.

American Revolution.

The lively interest of the world was still more, excited when a whole people prepared to effect their independence. Already had it witnessed a welcome spectacle of the same effort on a small scale: Corsica had long been the point to to which all eyes were directed; Paoli, when despairing of ever being able to carry out his patriotic designs, he passed through Germany to England, attracted and won all hearts; he was a fine man, slender, fair, full of grace and friendliness. I saw him in the house of Bethmann, where he stopped a short time, and received with cheerful cordiality the curious visitors who thronged to see him. But now similar events were to be repeated in a remote quarter of the globe; we wished the Americans all success, and the names of Franklin and Washington began to shine and sparkle in the firmament of politics and war. Much had been accomplished to improve the condition of humanity, and now, when in France, a new and benevolent sovereign evinced the best intentions of devoting himself to the removal of so many abuses and to the noblest ends, – of introducing a regular and efficient system of political economy, – of dispensing with all arbitrary power and of ruling alone by law and justice; the brightest hopes spread over the world, and confident youth promised itself and to all mankind a bright and noble future.

In all these events, however, I only took part so far as they interested society in general; I myself and my immediate circle did not meddle with the news of the day; our affair was to study men; men in general we allowed to have their way.

The quiet position of the German Fatherland, to which also my native city had now conformed for upwards of a hundred years, had been fully preserved in spite of many wars and convulsions. A highly varied gradation of ranks, which, instead of holding the several classes apart, seemed to bind them the more closely together, had promoted the interest of all, from the highest to the lowest – from the Emperor to the Jew. If the sovereign princes stood in a subordinate relation to the Emperor, still their electoral rights and immunities thereby acquired and maintained, were a full compensation. Moreover, the highest nobility belonged exclusively to the Agnates of the royal houses, so that in the enjoyment of their distinguished privileges, they could look upon themselves as equal with the highest and even superior to them in some sense, since, as spiritual electors, they might take precedence of all others, and, as branches of the sacred hierarchy, hold an honorable and uncontested rank.

If now we think of the extraordinary privileges which these ancient houses enjoyed, not only in their old patrimonial estates, but also in the ecclesiastical endowments, the knightly orders, the official administration of the Empire, and the old brotherhoods and alliances for mutual defence and protection, we can vainly conceive that this great body of influential men feeling themselves at once subordinated to and co-ordinate with the highest, and occupying their days with a regular round of employments, might well be contented with their situation, and would without further anxiety seek only to secure and transmit to their successors the same comforts and prerogatives. Nor was this class deficient in intellectual culture. Already for more than a century the decided proofs of high training in military and political science had been discernible in our noble soldiers and diplomatists. But at the same time there were many minds who, through literary and philosophical studies, had arrived at views not over favorable to the existing state of things.

State of Germany.

In Germany scarcely any one had as yet learned to look with envy on that monstrous privileged class, or to grudge its fortunate advantages. The middle class had devoted themselves undisturbed to commerce and the sciences, and by these pursuits, as well as by the practice of the mechanic arts, so closely related to them, had raised themselves to a position of importance which fully balanced its political inferiority; the free or half-free cities favoured this activity, while individuals felt a certain quiet satisfaction in it. The man who increased his wealth, or enhanced his intellectual influence, especially in matters of law or state, could always be sure of enjoying both respect and authority. In the Supreme Courts of the empire, and indeed in all others, a learned bench stood parallel with the noble; the uncontrolled oversight of the one managed to keep in harmony with the deepest insight of the other; and experience could never detect a trace of rivalry between them; the noble felt secure in his exclusive and time-hallowed privileges, and the burgher felt it beneath his dignity to strive for a semblance of them by a little prefix to his name.73 The merchant, the manufacturer, had enough to do to keep pace with those of other nations in progress and improvement. Leaving out of the account the usual temporary fluctuations, we may certainly say that it was on the whole a time of pure advance, such as had not appeared before, and such as, on account of another and greater progress both of mind and things, could not long continue.

My position with regard to the higher classes at this time was very favorable. In Werther, to be sure, the disagreeable circumstances which arise just at the boundary between two distinct positions, were descanted upon with some impatience; but this was overlooked in consideration of the generally passionate character of the book, since every one felt that it had no reference to any immediate effect.

But Götz von Berlichingen had set me quite right with the upper classes; whatever improprieties might be charged upon my earlier literary productions, in this work I had with considerable learning and cleverness depicted the old German constitution, with its inviolable emperor at the head, with its many degrees of nobility, and a knight who, in a time of general lawlessness, had determined as a private man to act uprightly, if not lawfully, and thus fell into a very sorry predicament. This complicated story, however, was not snatched from the air, but founded on fact; it was cheerfully lively, and consequently here and there a little modern, but it was, nevertheless, on the whole, in the same spirit as the brave and capable man had with some degree of skill set it forth in his own narrative.

The family still flourished; its relation to the Frankish knighthood had remained in all its integrity, although that relation, like many others at that time, might have grown somewhat faint and nominal.

Now all at once the little stream of Jaxt, and the castle of Jaxthausen, acquired a poetical importance; they, as well as the council-house at Heilbronn, were visited by travellers.

It was known that I had the mind to write of other points of that historical period; and many a family, which could readily deduce its origin from that time, hoped to see its ancestors brought to the light in the same way.