THE PROCREATION OF GENIUS 155 



was the precise effect of this apparently ill-assorted 

 relationship upon the constitution of the cliild's mind ? 

 These questions we might have been able to answer 

 had the poet's five brothers and sisters lived to fur- 

 nish us with an opportunity of comparing their dis- 

 positions and aptitudes. Strange to say — and this is a 

 fact of some significance — they all died young. Cor- 

 nelie Goethe saw her twenty-seventh year, but another 

 sister succumbed at two years ; and of Goethe's three 

 brothers, Herman Jacob died at seven, Johann Maria 

 at three, and George Adolf at twelve months. Was 

 this extraordinary mortality of the family the result 

 of certain abnormal conditions of mind or physique 

 which by a happy and fortuitous combination in his 

 one case made Goethe the man he was ? Perhaps. 

 Cornelie, the cause of whose sudden death is not 

 recorded in the family letters, was peculiar in man- 

 ner and appearance. Goethe in his autobiography 

 describes her as an *' incomprehensible being," with 

 wonderfully brilliant eyes, while " the lineaments of 

 her face, neither striking nor beautiful, indicated a 

 character which was not and could not be at union 

 with itself." Finally we have to note that Goethe's 

 mother died of apoplexy — a common accompaniment 

 of the neuropathic condition. 



