The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Vi Part 75

I dined at the hotel. My name had become known through my card and the report of my presence spread through the town, so that I made many acquaintances.

Toward evening I called on Goethe. In the reception-room I found quite a large a.s.semblage waiting for His Excellency, the Privy-councilor, who had not yet made his appearance. Among these there was a court councilor, Jacob or Jacobs, with his daughter, whom Goethe had entertained at dinner. The daughter, who later won a literary reputation under the pseudonym of Talvj, was as young as she was beautiful, and as beautiful as she was cultured, and so I soon lost my timidity and in my conversation with the charming young lady almost forgot that I was in Goethe's house. At last a side door opened, and he himself entered.

Dressed in black, the star[65] on his breast, with erect, almost stiff bearing, he stepped among us with the air of a monarch granting an audience. He exchanged a few words with one and another of his guests, and finally crossed the room and addressed me. He inquired whether Italian literature was cultivated to any great extent in our country. I told him, which was a fact, that the Italian language was, indeed, widely known, since all officials were required to learn it; Italian literature, on the other hand, was completely neglected; the fashion was rather to turn to English literature, which, despite its excellence, had an admixture of coa.r.s.eness that seemed to me to be anything but advantageous to the present state of German culture, especially of poetry. Whether my opinion pleased him or not, I have no means of knowing; I am almost inclined to believe it did not, inasmuch as he was at that very time in correspondence with Lord Byron. He left me, talked with others, returned, conversed I no longer remember on what subjects, finally withdrew, and we were dismissed.

I confess that I returned to the hostelry in a most unpleasant frame of mind. It was not that my vanity had been offended--on the contrary, Goethe had treated me more kindly and more attentively than I had antic.i.p.ated--but to see the ideal of my youth, the author of _Faust_, _Clavigo_, and _Egmont_, in the role of a formal minister presiding at tea brought me down from my celestial heights. Had his manner been rude or had he shown me the door, it would have pleased me better. I almost repented having gone to Weimar.

Consequently I determined to devote the following day to sightseeing, and ordered horses at the inn for the day following. On the morning of the next day visitors of all sorts put in an appearance, among them the amiable and respected Chancellor Muller, and, above all, my fellow-countryman Hummel, who for many years had been occupying the position of musical director in Weimar. He had left Vienna before my poetry had attracted attention, so that we had not become acquainted with each other. It was almost touching to witness the joy with which this ordinarily unsociable man greeted me and took possession of me. In the first place I probably revived in him memories of his native city, which he had left with reluctance; then, too, it probably gave him satisfaction to find his literary countryman honored and respected in Weimar, where he heard nothing but disparaging opinions regarding the intellectual standing of Austria. And, finally, he had an opportunity of conversing with a Viennese in his home dialect, which he had preserved pure and unadulterated while living among people who spoke quite differently. I do not know whether it was the contrast, or whether this really was the worst German I had ever heard in my life. While we were planning to visit some points of interest in Weimar, and while Chancellor Muller, who had probably noticed my depression, was a.s.suring me that Goethe's formality was nothing but the embarra.s.sment always displayed by him on meeting a stranger for the first time, the waiter entered and handed me a card containing an invitation from Goethe to dine with him the next day. I therefore had to prolong my stay and to countermand the order for the horses. The morning was pa.s.sed in visiting the places that had become famous through their literary a.s.sociations.

Schiller's house interested me most of all, and I was especially delighted to find in the poet's study, really an attic-room in the second story, an old man who is said to have acted as prompter at the theatre in Schiller's time, teaching his grandson to read. The little boy's open and intelligently animated expression prompted the illusion that out of Schiller's study a new Schiller might some day emerge--an illusion which, to be sure, has not been realized.

The exact order of events is now confused in my mind. I believe it was on this first day that I dined with Hummel _en famille_. There I found his wife, formerly the pretty singer, Miss Rockel, whom I could well remember in page's attire and close-fitting silk tights. Now she was an efficient, respected housewife, who vied with her husband in amiability.

I felt myself strongly drawn to the whole family and, in spite of his rather mechanical disposition, I honored and venerated Hummel as the last genuine pupil of Mozart.

In the evening I attended the theatre with Chancellor Muller, where an unimportant play was being given, in which, however, Graff, Schiller's first Wallenstein, had a role. I saw nothing particularly remarkable in him, and when I was told that, after the first performance, Schiller had rushed upon the stage, embraced Graff, and exclaimed that now for the first time did he understand his Wallenstein, I thought to myself--how much greater might the great poet have become had he ever known a public and real actors! It is remarkable, by the way, that Schiller, who is not at bottom very objective, lends himself so perfectly to an objective representation. He became figurative, while believing himself to be only eloquent--one more proof of his incomparable genius. In Goethe we find the exact opposite. While he is ordinarily called objective and is so to a great extent, his characters lose in the actual representation. His figurativeness is only for the imagination; in the representation the delicate, poetic tinge is necessarily lost. However, these are reflections for another time; they do not belong here.

At last the momentous day with its dinner-hour arrived, and I went to Goethe. The other guests, all of them men, were already a.s.sembled, the charming Talvj having departed with her father the morning after the tea-party and Goethe's daughter-in-law being absent from Weimar at the time. To the latter and to her daughter, who died when quite young, I later became very much attached. As I advanced into the room Goethe came toward me, and was now as amiable and cordial as he had recently been formal and cold. I was deeply moved. When we went in to dinner, and Goethe, who had become for me the embodiment of German Poetry and, because of the immeasurable distance between us, almost a mythological being, took my hand to lead me into the dining-room, the boy in me manifested itself once again and I burst into tears. Goethe took great pains to conceal my foolish emotion. I sat next to him at dinner and he was more cheerful and talkative than he had been for a long time, as the guests a.s.serted later. The conversation, enlivened by him, became general, but Goethe frequently turned to me individually. However, I cannot recall what he said, except a good joke regarding Mullner's _Midnight Journal_. Unfortunately I made no notes concerning this journey, or, rather, I did begin a diary, but as the accident I had in Berlin made it at first impossible for me to write and later difficult, a great gap ensued. This deterred me from continuing it, and, besides, the difficulty of writing remained, even in Weimar. I therefore determined to fill in what was lacking immediately after my return to Vienna, while the events were still fresh in my memory. But when I arrived there some other work demanded immediate attention, and the matter soon escaped my mind; and therefore I retained in my memory nothing but general impressions of what I had almost called the most important moment of my life. Only one occurrence at dinner stands out in my memory--namely, in the ardor of the conversation I yielded to an old habit of breaking up the piece of bread beside me into unsightly crumbs.

Goethe lightly touched each individual crumb with his finger and arranged them in a little symmetrical heap. Only after the lapse of some time did I notice this, and then I discontinued my handiwork.

As I was taking my leave, Goethe requested me to come the next morning and have myself sketched, for he was in the habit of having drawings made of those of his visitors who interested him. They were done in black crayon by an artist especially engaged for the work, and the pictures were then put into a frame which hung in the reception-room for this purpose, being changed in regular rotation every week. This honor was also bestowed upon me.

When I arrived the next morning the artist had not yet appeared; I was therefore directed to Goethe, who was walking up and down in his little garden. The cause of his stiff bearing before strangers now became clear to me. The years had not pa.s.sed without leaving some traces. As he walked about in the garden, one could see that the upper part of his body, his head and shoulders, were bent slightly forward. This he wished to hide from strangers, and hence that forced straightening-up which produced an unpleasant impression. The sight of him in this unaffected carriage, wearing a long dressing-gown, a small skull-cap on his white hair, had something infinitely touching about it. He looked like a king, and again like a father. We walked up and down, engaged in conversation.

He mentioned my _Sappho_ and seemed to think well of it, thus in a way praising himself, for I had followed fairly closely in his footsteps.

When I complained of my isolated position in Vienna he remarked what we have since read in his printed works, that man can do efficient work only in the company of likeminded or congenial spirits. If he and Schiller had attained universal recognition, they owed it largely to this stimulating and supplementing reciprocal influence.

In the meantime the artist had arrived. We entered the house and I was sketched. Goethe had gone into his room, whence he emerged from time to time to satisfy himself as to the progress of the picture, which pleased him when completed. When the artist had departed Goethe had his son bring in some of his choicest treasures. There was his correspondence with Lord Byron; everything relating to his acquaintance with the Empress and the Emperor of Austria at Karlsbad; and finally the imperial Austrian copyright of his collected works. This latter he seemed to value very highly, either because he liked the conservative att.i.tude of Austria, or because he regarded it as an oddity in contradistinction to the usual policy pursued in literary matters by this country. These treasures were wrapped separately in half-oriental fashion in pieces of silk, Goethe handling them with reverence. At last I was most graciously dismissed.

In the course of the day Chancellor Muller suggested my visiting Goethe toward evening; he would be alone, and my visit would by no means be unwelcome to him. Not until later did it occur to me that Muller could not have made the suggestion without Goethe's knowledge.

Now I committed my second blunder in Weimar. I was afraid to be alone with Goethe for an entire evening, and after considerable vacillation decided not to go. Several elements combined to produce this fear. In the first place, it seemed to me that there was nothing within the whole range of my intellect worthy of being displayed before Goethe. Secondly, it was not until later that I learned to place the proper value upon my own works by comparing them with those of my contemporaries, the former appearing exceedingly crude and insignificant in contrast with the works of my predecessors, especially here in the home of German poetry.

Finally, as I stated before, I had left Vienna with the feeling that my poetic talent had completely exhausted itself, a feeling which was intensified in Weimar to the point of actual depression. It seemed to me an utterly unworthy proceeding to fill Goethe's ears with lamentations and to listen to words of encouragement for which there seemed to be no guarantee of fulfilment.

Yet there was some method in this madness after all. Goethe's aversion at that time for anything violent and forced was well known to me. Now I was of the opinion that calmness and deliberation are appropriate only to one who is capable of introducing such a wealth of thought into his works as Goethe has done in his _Iphigenia_ and _Ta.s.so_. At the same time I held the opinion that every one must emphasize those qualities with which he is most strongly endowed, and these in my case were at that time warmth of feeling and vividness of imagination. Occupying, as I then did, the viewpoint of impartial observation, I felt that I was far too weak to defend against Goethe the causes of such divergence from his own views, and I had far too much reverence for him to accept his exposition with pretended approval or in hypocritical silence.

At all events I did not go, and that displeased Goethe. He had good cause to feel astonished that I should display such indifference to the proffered opportunity of enlightening him concerning my works and myself; or else he came nearer to the truth, and imagined that _The Ancestress_ and my predilection for similar effusions, which were repugnant to him, were not entirely quenched within me; or perhaps he divined my entire mood, and concluded that an unmanly character was bound to ruin even a great talent. From that time on he was much colder toward me.

But as far as this unmanliness is concerned, I confess, as I have previously done, to falling a prey to this weakness whenever I find myself confronted with a confused ma.s.s of sensations of lesser importance, especially with goodwill, reverence, and grat.i.tude. Whenever I was able to define the opposing factors sharply to myself in the rejection of the bad as well as in the perseverance in a conviction, I displayed both before and after this period a firmness which, indeed, might even be called obstinacy. But in general it may safely be a.s.serted: Only the union of character and talent produces what is called genius.

On one of these days I was also commanded to appear before the grand duke, whom I met in all his simplicity and unaffectedness in the so-called Roman House. He conversed with me for over an hour, and my description of Austrian conditions seemed to interest him. Not he, but most of the others, hinted at the desire of acquiring my services for the Weimar theatre--a desire that did not coincide with my own inclination.

When on the fourth day of my stay I paid my farewell visit to Goethe, he was friendly, but somewhat reserved. He expressed astonishment at my leaving Weimar so soon, and added that they would all be glad to hear from me occasionally. "They," then, would be glad, not he. Even in later years he did not do me justice, for I do consider myself the best poet that has appeared after him and Schiller, in spite of the gulf that separates me from them. That all this did not lessen my love and reverence for him, I need scarcely say.

BEETHOVEN AS A LETTER WRITER

BY WALTER R. SPALDING, A.M.

a.s.sociate Professor of Music, Harvard University

The first musician to whom a place among the representative masters of German literature may justly be a.s.signed is Beethoven, and this fact is so significant and so closely connected with the subsequent development both of music and literature that the reasons for such a statement should be set forth in detail. Although Haydn kept a note-book, still extant, during his two visits to London, and although Mozart wrote the average number of letters, from no one of the musicians prior to Beethoven have we received, in writings which can be cla.s.sed as literature, any expression of their personalities. Their intellectual and imaginative activity was manifested almost exclusively in music, and their interest in whatever lay outside the musical horizon was very slight. In the written words of neither Haydn nor Mozart do we find any reference to the poetical and prose works of Germany or of other nations, nor is there any evidence that their imaginations were influenced by suggestions drawn from literature. Famous though they were as musicians by reason of their sincere and masterful handling of the raw material of music, there is so little depth of thought in their compositions that many of them have failed to live. Neither Haydn nor Mozart can be considered as a great character and we miss the note of sublimity in their music, although it often has great vitality and charm. Beethoven, however, was a thinker in tones and often in words.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BEETHOVEN]

His symphonies are human doc.u.ments, and even had he not written a single note of music we have sufficient evidence in verbal form to convince us that his personality was one of remarkable power and that music was only one way, though, to be sure, the foremost, of expressing the depth of his feeling and the range of his mental activity. In distinction from his predecessors, who were merely musicians, Beethoven was a man first and a musician second, and the lasting vitality in his works is due to their broad human import; they evidently came from a character endowed with a rich and fertile imagination, from one who looked at life from many sides. Several of his most famous compositions were founded on works of Shakespeare, Goethe, and Schiller, and the Heroic Symphony bears witness to his keen interest in the momentous political changes of his time and in the growth of untrammeled human individuality. No mere manipulator of sounds and rhythms could have impressed the fastidious n.o.bility of Vienna to the high degree chronicled by contemporary testimony. Beethoven wished to be known as a _Tondichter_, i.e., a first-hand creator, and his whole work was radically different from the rather cautious and imitative methods which had characterized former composers. It was through the cultivated von Breuning family of Bonn that the young Beethoven became acquainted with English literature, and his growing familiarity with it exerted a strong influence upon his whole life and undoubtedly increased the natural vigor of his imagination, for the literature of England surpa.s.sed anything which had so far been produced by Germany. Later, in 1823, when the slavery debates were going on in Parliament, he used to read with keen interest the speeches of Lord Brougham.

In estimating the products of human imagination during the last century, a fact of great significance is the relationship of the arts of literature and of music. Numerous examples might be cited of men who were almost equally gifted in expressing themselves in either words or musical sounds--notably von Weber, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Spohr, Schumann, and Mendelssohn, this dual activity reaching a remarkable climax in Richard Wagner, who was both a great dramatic poet and an equally supreme musician. The same tendency is manifested by leaders of thought in other nations. Thus the French Berlioz and St. Saens are equally noted as composers and men of letters; the Italian Boito is an able dramatist as well as composer; and, among modern instances, Debussy, d'Indy, and Strauss have shown high literary as well as musical ability. To turn to the other side of this duality, allusions to music in works of both prose and poetry have become increasingly frequent during the nineteenth century, and the musical art is no longer considered a mysterious abstraction entirely divorced from the outward world of men and events.

It is a long step from Goethe, who was entirely unable to grasp the meaning of Beethoven's symphonies, to such men as Heine, who has made some very illuminating comments on various composers and their music; Max Muller, a highly cultivated musical amateur; Schopenhauer, whose esthetic principles so deeply influenced Wagner; and Nietzsche, a musician of considerable technical ability. To these names should be added that of Robert Browning who, together with Shakespeare, has shown a truer insight into the real nature of music than any other English writers have manifested.

With Beethoven, then, music ceases to be an opportunity for the display of mere abstract skill and takes its place on an equality with the arts of poetry and painting as a means of intense personal expression. If the basis of all worth in literature is that the writer shall have something genuine to say, Beethoven's letters are certainly literature, for they are the direct revelation of a great and many-sided personality and furnish invaluable testimony as to just what manner of man he was--too great indeed for music wholly to contain him. The Letters are not to be read for their felicity of expression, as one might approach the letters of Stevenson or Lamb; for Beethoven, even in his music, always valued substance more than style, or, at any rate, kept style subservient to vitality of utterance. In fact, one modern French musician claims that he had no taste! He was not gifted with the literary charm and subtlety of his great follower, Hector Berlioz, and had no practise as a journalist or a critic. As his deafness increased after the year 1800 and he was therefore forced to live a life of retirement, he committed his thoughts more and more to writing, and undoubtedly left to the world a larger number of letters than if he had been taking a normal part in the activities of his fellowmen.

Particular attention is called to the variety of Beethoven's correspondents and to their influential position in the artistic and social life of that period. In the Will, number 55, a most impa.s.sioned expression of feeling, Beethoven lays bare his inmost soul, and with an eloquence seldom surpa.s.sed has transformed cold words into living symbols of emotion. The immortal power contained in his music finds its parallel in this doc.u.ment. He who appeals to our deepest emotions commands for all time our reverent allegiance. In addition to the letters there is an extensive diary and also numerous conversation books. All these writings are valuable, not only for themselves, but because they confirm in an unmistakable way certain of the salient characteristics of his musical compositions. With Beethoven we find in instrumental music, practically for the first time, a prevailing note of sublimity. He must have been a religious man in the truest sense of the term, with the capacity to realize the mystery and grandeur of human destiny, and numerous pa.s.sages from the letters give eloquent expression to an a.n.a.logous train of serious thought. (See letters 1017 and 1129.) One of his favorite books was Sturm's _Betrachtungen uber die Werke Gottes in der Natur_ ("Contemplations upon the Works of G.o.d in Nature"), and from his diary of 1816 we have the quotation which was the basis of his creed--"G.o.d is immaterial, and for this reason transcends every conception. Since he is invisible He can have no form. But from what we observe in His work we may conclude that He is eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent."

Although some modern critics have doubted whether music without the a.s.sociation of words can express humor, the introduction of this element into symphonic music is generally considered one of Beethoven's greatest achievements. While it is true that if any one listening to the scherzos of the Third and Eighth symphonies a.s.serts that they mean nothing humorous to him no one can gainsay him, we know that Beethoven intended these movements to be expressions of his overflowing humorous spirits and the suggestive term "scherzo" is his own invention. In music, as in literature, much hinges upon the definition of humor, and there is the same distinction in each art between wit--light and playful, and humor--broad, serious, and, at times, even grim. A genuine humorist is always a deep thinker, one who sees all sides of human nature--the great traits and the petty ones. The poet Lowell has defined humor as consisting in the contrast of two ideas, and in a Beethoven scherzo the gay and the pathetic are so intermingled that we are in constant suspense between laughter and tears. A humorist, furthermore, is a person of warm heart, who looks with sympathetic affection upon the incongruities of human nature. In fact, both the expression and the perception of humor are social acts, as may be seen from the development of this subject by the philosopher Bergson in his brilliant essay _On Laughter_. That Beethoven the humorist was closely related to Beethoven the humanist, and that the expression of humor in his music--something quite different from the facile wit and cleverness of the Haydn minuet--was inevitable with him, is clearly proved by the presence of the same spirit in so many of the letters. Too much stress has been laid by Beethoven's biographers upon his buffoonery and fondness for practical jokes. At bottom he was most tender-hearted and sympathetic; his nature, of volcanic impetuosity, a puzzling mixture of contradictory emotions. In but very few of his great works is the element of humor omitted, and its expression ranges all the way from the uproariously comic to the grimly tragic. Some of his scherzos reveal the same fantastic caprice which is found in the medieval gargoyles of Gothic architecture.

Beethoven's letters, then, are to be considered as the first distinct evidence we have of that change in the musical sense which has brought about such important developments in the trend of modern music. Just as in Beethoven's works we generally feel that there is something behind the notes, and as he is said always to have composed with some poetical picture in his mind, so the music of our time has become programmistic in the wide sense of the term, no longer a mere embodiment of the laws of its own being but charged with vital and dramatic import, closely related to all artistic expression and to the currents of daily life.

Familiarity with the selection of letters here published cannot fail to contribute to a deeper enjoyment of Beethoven's music, for through them we realize that the universality of the artist was the direct consequence of the emotional breadth of the man. All art is a union of emotion and intellect, and their perfect balance is the paramount characteristic of this master.

BEETHOVEN'S LETTERS[66]

TRANSLATED BY J.S. SHEDLOCK

NO. 8

TO DR. FRANZ WEGELER IN VIENNA

(Between 1794-1796)

My dearest, my best one!

What a horrid picture you have drawn to me of myself. I recognize it; I do not deserve your friendship. You are so n.o.ble, so kindly disposed, and now for the first time I do not dare to compare myself with you; I have fallen far below you. Alas! for weeks I have given pain to my best, my n.o.blest friends. You believe I have ceased to be kind-hearted, but, thank heaven, 'tis not so! It was not intentional, thought-out malice on my part, which caused me to act thus; but my unpardonable thoughtlessness, which prevented me from seeing the matter in the right light. I am thoroughly ashamed for your sake, also for mine. I scarcely venture to beg you to restore your friendship. Ah, Wegeler! _My only consolation is that you knew me almost from my childhood_, and--oh! let me say it myself--I was really always of good disposition, and in my dealings always strove to be upright and honest; how, otherwise, could you have loved me! Could I, then, in so short a time have suddenly changed so terribly, so greatly to my disadvantage? Impossible that these feelings for what is great and good should all of a sudden become extinct! My Wegeler, dear and best one, venture once again to come to the arms of your B. Trust to the good qualities which you formerly found in him. I will vouch for it that the pure temple of holy friendship which you will erect on them will forever stand firm; no chance event, no storm will be able to shake its foundations--firm--eternal--our friendship--forgiveness--forgetting--revival of dying, sinking friendship. Oh, Wegeler! do not cast off this hand of reconciliation; place your hand in mine--O G.o.d!--but no more! I myself come to you and throw myself in your arms, and sue for the lost friend, and you will give yourself to me full of contrition, who loves and ever will be mindful of you.

BEETHOVEN.

I have just received your letter on my return home.

NO. 27