Old Fritz and the New Era Part 23

Goethe shoved aside the breakfast-table, straightened his delicate form, with his n.o.ble head proudly erect, and one foot in advance, extended his right arm, giving one loud hurrah! "Now, for once, a tumult and noise, that thought may turn about like a weatherc.o.c.k. This savage noise has already wrought its own benefit. I begin to feel a little better. Rage and expand, mad heart, quicken yourself in hurly-burly-burly-burly!"

[Footnote: From Klinger's tragedy "Sturm und Drang."]

"Bravo! bravo!" laughed the duke. "Is that Klinger, or who is it that refreshes himself in hurly-burly?"

"It is I who am every thing," replied Goethe, striding and swaggering up and down. "I was an a.s.sistant, in order to be something--lived upon the Alps, tended the goats, lay under the vault of heaven day and night, refreshed by the cool pastures, and burned with the inward fire. No peace, no rest anywhere. See, I swell with power and health! I cannot waste myself away. I would take part in the campaign here; then can my soul expand, and if they do me the service to shoot me down, well and good!" [Footnote: From Klinger's tragedy "Sturm und Drang."]

"Bravo! Wild, bravo!" cried the duke. "Hei! that thundered and rolled, and struck fire! It does me good to hear such vigorous words from an able rare genius in the midst of this miserable, starched elegance. The powerful Germans are healthy fellows. Something of the Promethean fire blazes forth in them. They were forced to come, those jolly, uproarious boys, after the affected cue period; they were the full, luxurious plants, and my Wolfgang, the favorite of my heart, my poet and teacher, is the divine blossom of this plant. Let them prevail, these 'Sturmer und Dranger,' for they are the fathers and brothers of my Wolfgang.

Do me the sole pleasure not to refine yourself too much, but let this divine fire burst forth in volcanic flames, and leave the thundering crater uncovered. Sometimes when I see you so simpering, so modest and ceremonious, I ask myself, with anxiety, if it is the same Wolfgang Goethe, who used to drink 'Smollis' with me at merry baccha.n.a.ls out of death-skulls?--the same with whom I used to practise whip-cracking upon the market-place hours long, to the terror of the good citizens?--the same who used to dance so nimbly the two-steps, and was inexhaustible in mad pranks. Now tell me, Herr Wolfgang, are you yourself, or are you another?"

"I am myself, and not myself," answered Goethe, smiling. "There still remains a good portion of folly in me, and it must sometimes thunder and flash, but I hope the atmosphere of my soul will become clearer, and over the crater a more lovely garden will spread out, in which beautiful, fragrant flowers will bloom, useful and profitable for my friends and myself. Sometimes I long for this as for the promised land; then again it foams and thunders in me like fermenting must, which, defying all covers and hoops, would froth up to heaven in an immense source of mad excitement!"

"Let it froth and foam, and spring the covers, and burst the old casks,"

cried the duke; "I delight in it, and every infernal noise you make, the prouder I am to recognize that from this foaming must will clear itself a marvellous wine, a delicious beverage for G.o.ds and men, with which the world will yet refresh itself, when we are long gone to the kingdom of shades--to the something or nothing. You know, Wolf, I love you, and I am proud that I have you! It is true that I possess only a little duchy, but it is large enough to lead an agreeable and comfortable existence--large enough for a little earthly duke, and the great king of intellects, Johann Wolfgang Goethe. Let us return to our dear home, for I acknowledge to you I sigh for Weimar. I long for the dear little place, where every one knows me and greets me, and even for my dogs and horses."

"And I," said Goethe, "I really mourn for my Tusculum, which I owe to the generous, kind duke; for the balcony of my little cottage, where, canopied by the blue, starry vault of heaven, I dream away the lonely May nights."

"Is there nothing else you sigh for but the summer-house at Weimar?"

"No!" cried Goethe, and an indescribable expression of rapture and delight was manifest in his whole manner.

"No, why should I deny it, how could I? It would be treason to the Highest and most Glorious. No, I long for my muse, my mistress, my--"

"Beloved!" interrupted the duke. "I pray you not to be so prudish, so reserved. Have the courage to snap your fingers at this infamously deceitful moral code, and proud and distinguished as you are, elevate yourself above what these miserable earthworms call morality. For the eagle there is a different law than for the pigeon. If the eagle soars aloft through the ether to his eyry, bearing a lamb in his powerful claws, has he not a right to it--the right of superiority and power by G.o.d's grace? Has he not as much right to the lamb as the pigeon to the pea which she finds in the dust? If the pigeon by chance sees the eagle with his lamb, she cries, 'Zeter! mordio!' with the pea in her own bill, as if she were in a position to judge the eagle."

"A beautiful picture," cried Goethe, joyfully--"a picture that would inspire me to indite a poem."

"Write one, and call it for a souvenir 'The Eagle and the Dove.' Make it a reality, my eagle youth, bear off the white lamb to your eyry, and let the world, with its affected morality, say what it likes. How can you bear to see the one you love at the side of another man? Tell me, confess to me, is not the beautiful Charlotte von Stein your beloved?"

"Not in the sense you mean, duke, not in the vulgar sense of the word. I love her, I adore her, with a pure and holy sentiment. I would not that Charlotte should have cause to blush before her children on my account.

She would be desecrated to me if I, in my inmost soul, could imagine the blush of shame upon her cheek, or that her eye could brighten at other than great, beautiful, and n.o.ble acts. I adore her, and to me she is the ideal of the purest and sweetest womanhood. I rejoice that she is as she is, like clear mountain crystal--transparent and so brightly pure, that one could mirror himself therein. She stands above all other women, and to her belong all my thoughts, and would, even if I were wedded to another. To me she is the most beautiful of the beautiful, the purest of the pure, the most graceful of the graceful, and all my thoughts are in perfect harmony with hers. Now, duke, if it is agreeable to you, knowing my feelings, to call Charlotte von Stein my beloved, she is so in the most elevated sense of the word."

"Ah! you poets, you poets," sighed the duke, smiling.

"A streak of madness in you all, though I will grant that it is divine."

"Say rather that Whit-Sunday comes to us every day, and the divine Spirit descends daily upon us poets, and causes us to speak in unknown tongues."

"I will say that you are the G.o.d Apollo descended from heaven, and with G.o.ds one may not dare to dispute. They act differently in their sphere than we mortals upon earth. I will be contented if our ways cross from time to time, and we can once in a while walk on together a good piece the way of life in friendship and harmony. If it would please my Wolf, I propose to turn toward beloved Weimar, the dear place, half village, half city. For my part I am finished here, my business with General von Mollendorf is accomplished. As I told you previously, I have had made known to the king my refusal to allow recruiting in my duchy. I could not consent for the present. In short, I have spoken as my secretary Wolfgang Goethe has recorded.[Footnote: This memorial upon recruiting is found. "Correspondence of the Grand Duke Carl August and Goethe," part, i., p. 4.] General Mollendorf has waived his demand for the present--and to-day we have had the concluding conference, and if it is agreeable to my secretary, we might set off this afternoon and pa.s.s a day at Dessau, and then on to Weimar."

"Oh, gladly will I do it; it seems as if a star from heaven had twinkled to me to follow it, for at Weimar is centred all my happiness! I prefer a lowly cabin there to all the splendor and palaces of a city."

"Then you agree with me, that this magnificently vile Berlin does not enchain you in her magic net?"

"No, she holds me not, though it has been pleasant to take a peep into it (like a child into a curiosity-box). I have seen 'Old Fritz.' His character, his gold, and his silver, his marbles, his apes and parrots, and even his town curtains please me. It is pleasant to be at the seat of war at the very moment that it threatens to break forth. It has gratified me to witness the splendor of the royal city, the life, order, and abundance, that would be nothing if thousands of men were not ready to be sacrificed; the medley of men, carriages, horses, artillery, and all the arrangements. All are mere pins in the great clock-work, only puppets whose motion is received from the great cylinder, Fredericus Rex, who indicates to each one the melody they must play, according to one of the thousand pins in the rotary beam."[Footnote: Goethe's own words.--See Goethe's "Correspondence with Frau von Stein," part i., p.

168. Riemer, "Communications about Goethe," part ii., p. 60.]

"You are right to compare the great man to the chief cylinder in the machine of state," nodded the duke "He rules and sets all in motion, and cares not whether the rabble are suited or not. It has enraged me sometimes to hear the fellows curse him, and yet I acted as if I heard them not. Let us return to Weimar--mankind seems better there, Wolf."

"At any rate, more regardful of us than they are here, duke. The greater the world the uglier the farce; no obscenities and fooleries of the buffoon are more disgusting than the characters of the great, mediocre and insignificant, all mingled together. I prayed this morning for courage to hold out to the end, and to hasten the consummation. I am grateful for the benefit of the journey--but I pray the G.o.ds not to conduct themselves toward us as their image-man, for I should swear to them eternal hatred."[Footnote: Goethe's own words.--See Goethe's "Correspondence with Frau von Stein," part i., p. 169.]

"Then you are ready to depart, Wolf?"

"Almost, dear Carl, or, if you will it, quite ready. A few visits I would make, that the people shall not be too severe upon me and cry out against my pride and arrogance."

"Because they themselves are proud and supercilious, they are bold enough to suppose Wolfgang Goethe is like them. I hope you will not visit the very learned Herr Nicolai, the insipid prosaist, the puffed-up rationalist, who believes that his knowledge permits him to penetrate every thing, and who is a veritable a.s.s."

"No, I am not going to Nicolai, Rammler, or Engel, or, as they should be named, the wise authors of Berlin. I shall visit the artist Chodowiecki, good Karschin, occasional poetess, and the philosopher Mendelssohn.

Then, if it pleases you, we will set out this afternoon, shaking the sand of Berlin from our feet."

"I shall prepare whilst you make your visits. Will you take my carriage?

You know there is one from the royal stables always at my service, which stands at the door."

"Beware! they would shriek if I should drive to their doors in a royal carriage. They would accuse me of throwing aside the poet, and being only secretary of legation. I will go on foot; it amuses me to push my way through the crowd, and listen to the Berlin jargon."

CHAPTER XVII. GOETHE'S VISITS.

Taking leave of his ducal friend, Goethe betook himself the street, to commence his visits. Going first to Chodowiecki, the renowned delineator and engraver, whose fame had already spread throughout Germany. When Goethe entered, the artist was busy in his atelier, working upon the figures of the characters in the "Mimic," the latest work of Professor Engel. "Master," said he, smilingly, extending him his hand, "I have come to thank you for many beautiful, happy hours which I owe to you.

You paint with the chisel and poetize with the brush. An artist by G.o.d's grace."

"If the poet Goethe says that, there must be something in it," replied Chodowiecki, with a radiant face. "I have to thank you for the most beautiful and best hours of my life, and I am proud and delighted to have been able in the least to return the pleasure. The only blissful tears among many bitter ones that I have wept, were shed over the 'Sorrows of Werther.' 'Gotz von Berlichingen' so inspired me that he appeared to me in my dreams, and left me no peace until I rose in the night to draw Gotz, as he sat talking with brother Martin on the bench in the forest. Wait, I will show you the drawing; you must see it."

Goethe examined it attentively, and expressed his pleasure at the correctness and dramatical conception of the design, and did not remark, or perhaps would not, that the artist was busily occupied with crayon and paper. "How wonderfully you have reproduced my 'German Knight,'"

cried Goethe, after a long observation of it. "The middle ages entire, proud and full of strength, are mirrored in this figure, and if I had not written 'Gotz von Berlichingen,' I would have been inspired to it, perhaps, from this drawing. Oh! you artists are to be envied. We need many thousand words to express what a few lines represent, and a stroke suffices to change a smiling face into a weeping one. How feeble is language, and how mighty the pencil! I wish I had the talent to be a painter!"

"And I," cried Chodowiecki, "would throw all my pencils, brushes, and chisels to the devil, or sell him my soul, if I could cope with the genius and intellect of the poet, Wolfgang Goethe. What a man! What a profile the G.o.ds have given him! There! look--have you ever seen a man with such a face?" He handed Goethe the drawing, which proved to be a speaking profile-portrait of himself, dashed off with a few strokes full of genius.

Goethe looked at it with the air of a critic. "It is true," said he, perfectly serious, "there are not many such profiles, but I am not of your opinion that the G.o.ds fashioned it. Those sharp features look as if the joiner had cut them out of oak, and they lead me to infer a very disagreeable character. I naturally do not know who the picture represents, but I must tell you, master, that this man could never please me, although I could swear it is a speaking likeness. This sharp, bowed nose has something impudent, self-sufficient in it. The brow is indeed high, which betokens thought, but the retreating lines prove that the thoughts only commence, and then lose themselves in a maze. The mouth, with its pouting lips, has an insupportable expression of stupid good-nature and sentimentality; and the well-defined, protruding chin might belong to the robber-captain Cartouche. The great wide-open eyes, with their affected pa.s.sionate glances, prove what a puffed-up dandy the man must be, who perhaps imagines all the women in love with his face.

No, no, I am still of the opinion that the original could never please me, and if the physiognomist Lavater should see it, he would say: 'That is the portrait of a puffed-up, quaint, powerful genius, who imagines himself something important, and who is nothing! The likeness of a bombastic fellow, with an empty head behind the pretentious brow, and meaningless phrases on the thick lips.'"

"If Lavater says so, he is a fool and an a.s.s," cried Chodowiecki, furiously, "and he can hide himself in the remotest corner of the earth. Lichtenberg of Gottingen is quite right when he says that this empty-headed Lavater has made himself ridiculous throughout Germany with his wonderful physiognomy of dogs' tails and his profiles of unknown pigtails. If Lavater is really so narrow-minded as not to be able to distinguish a crow from an eagle, it is his own affair; but he shall never presume to look at this portrait, and you, too, are not worthy, you scorner, that I should get angry with you. The likeness is so beautiful that Jupiter himself would be satisfied to have it imputed to him. It is so like, that you need not pretend you do not know that it represents Wolfgang Goethe. As you insult it, and regard it with scorn and contempt, I will destroy it."

"For mercy's sake do not tear it," cried Goethe, springing toward Chodowiecki, and holding him fast with a firm grasp. "My dear good man, do not tear it; it would be like splitting my own head."

"Ah, ah!" shouted Chodowiecki, "you acknowledge the likeness?"

"I do acknowledge it, with joy."

"And will you admit that it is the head of a n.o.ble, talented poet, a favorite of the Muses? Say yes, or I will tear it, and you will have terrible pains in your head your life long!"

"Yes, yes! all that you wish. I am capable of saying the most flattering things of myself to save this beautiful design. Give it to me, you curious fellow!"

"No," said Chodowiecki, earnestly, "I will not give it to you. Such a portrait is not made to be put in a dusty portfolio, or framed for the boudoir of your lady-love. All Germany, all the world should enjoy it, and centuries later the German women will still see Wolfgang Goethe as he looked in his twenty-ninth year, and hang an engraving on the wall in their parlor, and sighing and palpitating acknowledge--'There never was but one such G.o.dlike youth, and there never will be another. I wish that I had known him; I wish he had loved me!' So will they speak centuries later, for I will perpetuate this drawing in a steel engraving of my most beautiful artistic work." [Footnote: This engraving from the artist Chodowiecki still exists, and the author of this work possesses a beautiful copy, which Ottille von Goethe sent her. It is a bust in profile, the most beautiful of his youth.]

"You are a splendid fellow, and I must embrace you, and rejoice to be immortalized by you, for this portrait pleases me exceedingly. I might well be proud that this head with the rare profile is a counterpart of my own. Now we are good friends. Before I say farewell, let me see the work at which I just disturbed you upon entering."