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THE GOETHE HOUSE AT FRANKEORT 
room to which some obscure tradition was 
attached as having been Goethe’s room. 
The Roessings accepted this tradition with- 
out investigation, and, thus, for thirty-five 
years, it was the custom to conduct visitors 
at once to this little attic and point it out to 
them as Goethe’s chamber where he had 
written his earlier works. Of course, it was 
not long before it got the name of the 
Werther-Zimmer, and Bettina von Arnim 
unconsciously added to the apocryphal 
character of her book (“ Goethe’s Corre- 
spondence with a Child”), by having a 
view of the Werther-Zimmer engraved as 
a frontispiece to it. So striking a confir- 
mation of the supposed fondness of the 
Muses for garrets could not fail to be 
noted, and many a sage visitor doubtless 
dwelt upon the coincidence that the rich 
man’s son must go to the garret to mount 
his Pegasus. But the whole romance of 
the Werther attic has been crumbled in the 
dust by Dr. G. H. Otto Volger, who, with 
true German patience and industry, has so 
thoroughly investigated every point in con- 
nection with the Goethe mansion. It is not 
necessary to follow Dr. Volger into all the 
details of his proof. The chief points are : 
I St. That the so-called Werther room is 
not in the gable, and has no rooms commu- 
nicating with it. 2d. That it never has a ray 
of morning sun. In regard to the first point, 
Goethe constantly speaks of his room as a 
gable room (Giebelzimmer), having other 
rooms communicating with it. In regard 
to the second point, the fact that Goethe’s 
room had the morning sun is established by 
the poet’s well-known account of his morn- 
ing sacrifice to the Almighty, after the Old 
Testament fashion, when the rays of the 
morning sun, concentrated through a burn- 
ing-glass, were made to light the pastilles on 
the, boy’s extemporized altar. Dr. Volger 
selects the long celebrated attic as the 
place where the silk-worms were kept, and 
where the engravings were bleached, as so 
circumstantially described in the Autobiog- 
raphy. 
Passing by the Werther room, which is 
directly to the right on reaching the top of 
the staircase, and crossing the antecham- 
ber, similar to those on the other floors, one 
comes to the poet’s rooms. The central one 
is a pleasant and spacious reception-room, 
where the son of the house could receive 
with dignity, and without apology, the friends 
and the visitors of distinction whom the suc- 
cess of “ Goetz ” and of “Werther ” attracted 
to him from every quarter. It stands at pres- 
ent bare and cheerless, but we can picture 
to ourselves the simple furniture, the books, 
the pictures, the casts from the antique — 
heads of the Laocoon group, and of Niobe 
and her children — and the minerals, and the 
natural curiosities which bore witness to the 
mental activity and versatility of its occu- 
pant. The house directly opposite is the 
only one in the Hirschgraben, except the 
Goethe mansion, which remains unchanged, 
so that, in looking from the poet’s window, 
the outline and general effect of the opposite 
house are precisely what they were when the 
boy-worshiper stood in the early morning 
light waiting for the sun to peer over its roof 
and kindle his altar-fire. This house, in the 
Goethes’ time, was occupied by the family 
Von Ochsenstein, whose sons were Wolf- 
gang’s playmates. 
The last years of Goethe’s residence at 
home, before he accepted the invitation of the 
Grand Duke of Saxe- Weimar, were those 
of his early fame as the author of “ Goetz ” 
and “ Werther,” and his growing reputation 
brought many new elements into the family 
life. Everybody of distinction, especially 
of literary distinction, who came to Frank- 
fort, sought the acquaintance of Goethe, 
and the stately house in the Hirschgraben 
was enlivened by visitors of many qualities, 
who were received with a formal but gener- 
ous hospitality. The old Rath did his best 
to preserve a polite silence when sentiments 
were uttered which shocked all his precon- 
ceptions, while the mother won all hearts by 
her good-nature, jollity, and sound common 
sense. The departure of the poet for Wei- 
mar made no very great change in this re- 
spect; the admirers of the poet came to 
pay their respects to his parents, and a visit 
to Goethe’s mother, especially, was looked 
forward to as an honor and a pleasure. 
The house came to be generally known 
among Goethe’s friends as the Casa Santa, 
a name it probably first received from Wie- 
land. 
In 1779, the poet came himself, bringing 
with him his friend, the Grand Duke of Saxe- 
Weimar. Nobles, trades-people, and hotel- 
keepers were open-mouthed with wonder at 
seeing a Grand Duke dwelling in a simple 
citizen’s house. But the disappointment of 
the father that his son had not followed the 
path of a jurist, for which he had drilled him 
during his boyhood, was, perhaps, amply 
made up for when the son returned home 
a Privy-Councillor ( Geheim-Rath ), and 
brought a Grand Duke to Frankfort as his 
guest. 
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