154 MARRIAGE AND HEREDITY 



descendant of a long line of civic functionaries and 

 lawyers. This was Goethe's mother, and she was a 

 woman of a simple, hearty, joyous, affectionate nature, 

 -at the same time possessed of much of that shrewd- 

 ness and knowledge of character which goes by the 

 name of mother-wit. Nothing could be more emi- 

 nently respectable or middle -class than Goethe's 

 parentage. What there was in the union of the 

 hard, unsympathetic lawyer and the bright, expansive, 

 sunny-natured girl, his wife, that it should produce 

 one of the greatest intellects of the world, it is hard 

 to tell. Goethe himself believed that he had inherited 

 his father's physique and judgment, in conjunction 

 with his mother's happy disposition and love of story- 

 telling ; and his biographers have affected to trace 

 nearly all gifts to one or other of his parents. The 

 fact remains that Goethe was the offspring of a 

 couple whose union could not per se be regarded as 

 especially advantageous. Certain abnormal circum- 

 stances in the case claim attention. The natures 

 of the poet's father and mother were wholly dis- 

 tinct. Were they complementary or antagonistic 

 to each other? Goethe's mother was married at 

 seventeen to a man whom she did not love, her 

 distinguished son being born a year after. What 



