THE PROCREATION OF GENIUS 153 



the variation as well as the reproduction of species, 

 but in its search for truth it has unquestionably found 

 a clue, and Goethe's life and parentage are at least 

 full of suggestion to the inquiring mind. Goethe, 

 we may observe, if a genius at all in the proper sense 

 of the word, was not one of the Byronic type. He 

 was much more of a philosopher than a poet. Com- 

 mon sense was his main characteristic. As his 

 biographer Lewes has remarked, " His naked vigour of 

 resolution, moving in alliance with steady clearness 

 of intellect, produced self-mastery of the highest kind." 

 Well, how came this master-mind into existence? 

 On his father's side Goethe had an ancestry of tailors. 

 His grandfather, Frederick, the son of a furrier, was a 

 tailor, and married a tailor's daughter. All the child- 

 ren of this union died young, and their mother soon 

 followed them to the grave. Then Frederick married 

 Frau Schellborn, the daughter of another tailor, but a 

 widow and the keeper of a hotel. Of this union 

 was born Johann Caspar Goethe, father of the poet. 

 Johann Caspar was a lawyer — a cold, stern, formal, 

 pedantic, but truth-loving, upright-minded man. He 

 had a well-built frame and an erect carriage, and was 

 greatly respected if little loved. He married a girl 

 much younger than himself — Katharina Textor, the 



