274 



GOETHE 



period. Kathchen was wooed and two years later 

 was won by the advocate Kanne. The friendship 

 which Goethe had for Oeser's delightful daughter 

 Friederike should not be classed among his loves. 



On September 3, 1768, Goethe was again in 

 Frankfort, seriously ill ; it was feared that his 

 lungs were affected. For the greater part of the 

 following year he remained an invalid, and during 

 this illness he sought religious consolation under 

 the direction of his mother's friend, Fraulein von 

 Klettenberg, one of the Moravian Brethren. Under 

 her guidance and that of his doctor he made a 

 study of alchemy, a subject not forgotten when he 

 afterwards wrote Faust. Gradually health returned, 

 and it was decided that he should complete his 

 studies at the university of Strasburg. In April 

 1770 he arrived at the old city and saw for the first 

 time its cathedral, which by-and-by made him a 

 deeply-interested student of Gothic architecture. 

 At the table where he dined he found lovers of 

 literature in Lerse and the actuary Salzmann, and 

 a man of a singular religious spirit in Jung Stilling. 

 Goethe's pietistic fervour declined as he earnestly 

 devoted himself to chemistry, anatomy, literature, 

 antiquities, and, as far as was necessary, to his 

 proper study, law. He had the good fortune to 

 come under the influence of Herder, already known 

 as an author, and through Herder he came to feel 

 the attraction of old ballad poetry, of Ossian, and 

 in a new and higher degree the power of Homel- 

 and of Shakespeare. Herder was well acquainted 

 with English writers of his own century, and Gold- 

 smith's vicar especially delighted Goethe. When 

 (October 1770) he made the acquaintance of Pastor 

 Brion's family at the village of Sessenheim, it 

 seemed to him that the Primrose household stood 

 before him. The pastor's beautiful daughter, 

 Friederike, eighteen or nineteen years old, and as 

 good a she was beautiful, filled his heart with a 

 new love, which she modestly yet ardently returned. 

 She was the inspiration of some of Goethe's loveliest 

 lyrics. But he would not or could not fetter his 

 freedom, and he parted from her not without some 

 sense of self-reproach. Having obtained his doctor's 

 degree, he returned ( August 1771 ) to his native city. 



Admitted an advocate, Goethe had no heart 

 in his profession. His creative genius was fully 

 roused, and when he read Shakespeare he felt him- 

 self moved to something like rivalry. In Goetz von 

 Berlichingen, the German champion of freedom in 

 the 16th century, he found a dramatic hero. He 

 completed his play of Goetz, in its earliest form, 

 before the close of 1771, and named it a dramatised 

 history rather than a drama. In the following 

 year he was engaged in critical work for the Frank- 

 furter gelehrte Anzeigen, edited by a friend recently 

 made, J. H. Merck of Darmstadt, a man of 

 line taste, somewhat cynical, and yet capable of 

 generous admiration for one whose genius he was 

 prompt to recognise. To this period belong the 

 strikingly-contrasted poems Der Wanderer and 

 Wanderers Sturmlied, the former telling of the 

 beauty of ruined classic art amid the ever-living 

 freshness of nature, the latter an improvisation of 

 tempest and the genius of man which can defy the 

 furv of the elements. 



To gain further knowledge of law procedure 

 Goethe settled for the summer (May-September) 

 of 1772 in the little town of Wetzlar, the seat of 

 the imperial courts of justice. His thoughts were, 

 however, more with Homer and Pindar than with 

 matters of the law. The months are memorable 

 chiefly for Goethe's love for Lotte Buff, daughter 

 of a steward of lands belonging to the Teutonic 

 Order of Knights. Her brightness, her ingenuous 

 goodness, her kind and graceful rendering of house- 

 hold duties charmed Goethe ; but she was the be- 

 trothed of Kestner, the Gotha Secretary of Lega- 



tion, and Goethe, as it has been described, ' saved 

 himself by flight.' 



Before returning to Frankfort he visited the 

 authoress, Frau von Laroche, near Coblentz, and 

 was interested in her dark-eyed daughter Maximi- 

 liane, soon to be the wife of the Italian Brentano. 

 When once more at home he occupied himself with 

 an essay on architecture, biblical studies, and the 

 design for a dramatic poem on Mohammed. Early 

 in 1773 he set himself to recast the Goetz, and this 

 great work was ready for the printer in March of 

 that year. Its fame was secured by the fact that 

 it expressed with the energy of genius much of the 

 passionate striving after freedom of thought and 

 action characteristic of his own time ; its romantic 

 revival of the past fell in with another tendency of 

 the age. A fervour of creation now possessed 

 Goethe. To 1773 belong works of the most varied 

 description, his majestic Prometheus, an important 

 group of satirical farces, the comedy of Erwin 

 und Elmire (finished June 1774, founded on Gold- 

 smith's Edwin and Angelina), and already he 

 was engaged on Faust and on Werther. He had 

 heard some time previously of the suicide of young 

 Jerusalem, a Wetzlar acquaintance, and weaving 

 the story of Jerusalem with that of his own love 

 for Lotte Buff, and adding something derived 

 from the character of the jealous Brentano, he pro- 

 duced his wonderful book Die Leiden des jitngen 

 Werthers (finished March 1774), which gives as in 

 an essence all the spirit of the 18th-century senti- 

 mental movement that movement of which the 

 most eminent French exponent was Rousseau. 

 The marriage of Goethe s sister and his first 

 acquaintance with Lavater are facts which also 

 belong to the year 1773. Through Lavater he 

 became much interested in the study of physiog- 

 nomy. 



In the spring of 1774 Goethe was at work on 

 Werther, and he hastily wrote his play of Clavigo, 

 a tragedy of faithless love, which was successful 

 both on the stage and in book -form. It is in part 

 founded on the Memoires of Beaumarchais. A few 

 scenes of Faust were written, and Goethe dreamed 

 of a somewhat kindred theme in the Wandering 

 Jew ; at the same time his farcical vein was 

 not exhausted. Eminent men were added to his 

 acquaintance ; among these were Klopstock and 

 the educational reformer Basedow. In company 

 with Basedow and Lavater he voyaged down the 

 Rhine ; and at Pern pelf ort he visited Fritz Jacobi, 

 who grew to be a friend of his heart. Among in- 

 fluences derived from books, the most powerful was 

 that of Spinoza's writings. The Ethics sustained 

 and calmed Goethe's spirit amid its various agita- 

 tions and helped to give a unity to his life. The 

 dramatic writings of 1775, excepting that Egmont 

 was begun, are of secondary importance a little 

 play with songs named Claudine von Villa Bella, 

 and the more celebrated Stella (suggested by 

 Swift's love perplexities with his Stella and 

 Vanessa). Fernando in Goethe's play by a happy 

 arrangement contrives to keep on terms with his 

 pair of wives ; in the author's recast of the play of 

 many years later the hero shoots himself and Stella 

 takes poison. Some of Goethe's most exquisite 

 lyrics belong to 1775, and are connected with hi=* 

 love for Lili Schonemann, orphan daughter of a 

 wealthy Frankfort banker, which led to an engage- 

 ment and almost to marriage. Lili was graceful, 

 accomplished, somewhat coquettish, and Goethe 

 was not always a contented lover. After a time it 

 was felt on both sides that a marriage would not 

 lead to happiness. In the summer Goethe visited 

 Switzerland in company with the two Counts 

 Stolberg. He would have passed into Italy but 

 that his love for Lili drew him back. A new life, 

 however, was in store for him ; in the autumn the 



