The Autobiography of Goethe Truth and Poetry · Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
TWELFTH BOOK
But all these defects, whether later or earlier, arose from one only original source, the small number of persons. It was decreed that the assistants were to act in a fixed order, and according to a determined arrangement. Every one could know when the turn would come to him, and which of the cases belonging to him it would affect; he could work up to this point,--he could prepare himself. But now the innumerable arrears had heaped themselves up, and they were forced to resolve to select the more important cases, and to deal with them out of order. But with a pressure of important affairs, the decision as to which matter has the more weight, is difficult, and selection leaves room for favour. Now, another critical case occurred. The _Referent_ tormented both himself and the court with a difficult involved affair, and at last no one was found willing to take up the judgment. The parties had come to an agreement, had separated, had died, had changed their minds. Hence they resolved to take in hand only the cases of which they were reminded. They wished to be convinced of the continued obstinacy of the parties, and hence was given an introduction to the greatest defects, for he who commends his affairs, must commend them to somebody, and to whom can one commend them better, than to him who has them already in his hands? To keep this one regularly secret was impossible; for how could he remain concealed with so many subordinates, all acquainted with the matter? If acceleration is requested, favour may well be requested likewise, for the very fact that people urge their cause, shows that they consider it just. This will perhaps not be done in a direct manner, certainly it will be first done through subordinates; these must be gained over, and thus an introduction is given to all sorts of intrigues and briberies.
The Emperor Joseph, following his own impulse, and in imitation of Frederic, first directed his attention to arms and the administration of justice. He cast his eyes upon the Imperial Chamber; traditional wrongs, introduced abuses had not remained unknown to him. Even here something was to be stirred up, shaken, and done. Without inquiring whether it was his imperial right, without foreseeing the possibility of a happy result, he proposed a revival of the "visitation," and hastened its opening. For one hundred and sixty years no regular "visitation" had taken place; a monstrous chaos of papers lay swelled up and increased every year, since the seventeen assessors were not even able to despatch the current business. Twenty thousand processes were heaped up; sixty could be settled every year, and double that number was brought forward. Besides, it was not a small number of revisions that awaited the "visitators,"--they were estimated at fifty thousand. Many other abuses, in addition to this, hindered the course of justice; but the most critical matter of all was the personal delinquency of some assessors, which appeared in the background. [Side-note: The "visitation" at Wetzlar.]
When I was about to go to Wetzlar, the "visitation" had been already for some years in operation, the parties accused had been suspended from office, the investigation had been carried a long way; and because the masters and commissioners of German political law could not let pass this opportunity of exhibiting their sagacity and devoting it to the common weal, several profound, well-designed works appeared, from which every one, who possessed only some preparatory knowledge, could derive solid instruction. When on this occasion they went back into the constitution of the empire and the books written upon it, it was striking to me how the monstrous condition of this thoroughly diseased body, which was kept alive by a miracle alone, was the very thing that most suited the learned. For the venerable German industry, which was more directed to the collection and development of details than to results, found here an inexhaustible impulse to new employment, and whether the empire was opposed to the Emperor, the lesser to the greater estates, or the Catholics to the Protestants, there was necessarily always, according to the diversity of interest, a diversity of opinion, and always an occasion for new contests and controversies.
Since I had rendered all these older and newer circumstances as present to my mind as possible, it was impossible for me to promise myself much pleasure from my abode at Wetzlar. The prospect of finding in a city, which was indeed well situated, but small and ill-built, a double world; first the domestic, old traditional world, then a foreign new one, authorized to scrutinize the other with severity,--a judging and a judged tribunal; many an inhabitant in fear and anxiety, lest he might also be drawn into the impending investigation; persons of consideration, long held in respect, convicted of the most scandalous misdeeds, and marked out for disgraceful punishment;--all this together made the most dismal picture, and could not lure me to go deeper into a business, which, involved in itself, seemed so much perplexed by wrong.
That, excepting the German civil and public law, I should find nothing remarkable in the scientific way, that I should be without all poetical communication, I thought I could foresee, when, after some delay, the desire of altering my situation more than impulse to knowledge led me to this spot. But how surprised I was, when, instead of a crabbed society, a third academical life sprang towards me. At a large _table d'hôte_ I found a number of young lively people, nearly all subordinates to the commission; they gave me a friendly reception, and the very first day it remained no secret to me that they had cheered their noon-meetings by a romantic fiction. With much wit and cheerfulness they represented a table of knights. At the top sat the grand-master, by his side the chancellor, then the most important officers of the state; now followed the knights, according to their seniority. Strangers, on the other hand, who visited, were forced to be content with the lowest places, and to these the conversation was almost unintelligible, because the language of the society, in addition to the chivalric expressions, was enriched with many allusions. To every one a name with an epithet was assigned. Me they called "Götz von Berlichingen the honest."
The former I earned by the attention to the gallant German patriarch, the latter by my upright affection and devotion for the eminent men with whom I became acquainted. To the Count von Kielmannsegg I was much indebted during this residence. He was the most serious of all, highly clever, and to be relied on. There was Von Goué, a man hard to be deciphered and described, a blunt, kind, quietly reserved Hanoverian figure. He was not wanting in talent of various kinds. It was conjectured concerning him that he was a natural son; he loved, besides, a certain mysterious deportment, and concealed his most peculiar wishes and plans under various eccentricities, as indeed he was, properly speaking, the very soul of the odd confederation of knights, without having striven to attain the post of grand-master. On the contrary, when, just at this time, the head of the knighthood departed, he caused another to be elected, and through him exercised his influence. Thus he managed so to direct several little trifles, that they appeared of importance, and could be carried out in mythical forms.
But with all this no serious purpose could be remarked in him,--he was only concerned to get rid of the tedium which he and his colleagues, during their protracted occupation, necessarily felt, and to fill up the empty space, if only with cobwebs. For the rest, this mythical caricature was carried on with great external seriousness, and no one found it ridiculous if a certain mill was treated as a castle, and the miller as lord of the fortress, if the "Four Sons of Haimon" was declared a canonical book, and on the occasion of ceremonies, extracts from it were read with veneration. The dubbing of knights took place with traditional symbols, borrowed from several orders of knighthood. A chief motive for jest was the fact, that what was manifest was treated as a secret; the affair was carried on publicly, and yet nothing was to be said about it. The list of the whole body of knights was printed with as much importance as a calendar of the Imperial diet, and if families ventured to scoff at this, and to declare the whole matter absurd and ridiculous, they were punished by an intrigue being carried on until a solemn husband or near relation was induced to join the company and to be dubbed a knight; for then there was a splendid burst of malicious joy at the annoyance of the connexions.
I thus came into contact with those, who, young and hill of talent, held themselves together, and afterwards effected so much and in such various ways. The two Counts Stolberg, Bürger, Voss, Hölty, and others were assembled in faith and spirit around Klopstock, whose influence extended in every direction. In such a poetical circle, which more and more extended itself, was developed at the same time with such manifold poetical merits, another turn of mind, to which I can give no exactly proper name. It might be called the need of independence, which always arises in time of peace, and exactly when, properly speaking, one is not dependent. In war we bear the rude force as well as we can, we feel ourselves physically and economically, but not morally, wounded; the constraint shames no one, and it is no disgraceful service to serve the time; we accustom ourselves to suffer from foes and friends; we have wishes, but no particular views. In peace, on the contrary, man's love of freedom becomes more and more prominent, and the more free one is, the more free one wishes to be. We will not tolerate anything over us; we will not be restrained, no one shall be restrained; and this tender, nay, morbid feeling, appears in noble souls under the form of justice. This spirit and feeling then showed itself everywhere, and just because few were oppressed, it was wished to free even these from temporary oppression, and thus arose a certain moral feud, a mixture of individuals with the government, which, with laudable beginnings, led to inevitably unfortunate results.
By his _Hermann's-Schlacht_,[2] and the dedication of it to Joseph the Second, Klopstock had produced a wonderful excitement. The Germans who freed themselves from Roman oppression were nobly and powerfully represented, and this picture was well suited to awaken the self-feeling of a nation. But because in peace patriotism really consists only in this, that every one sweeps his own door, minds his own business, and learns his own lesson, that it may go well with his house,--so did the feeling for fatherland, excited by Klopstock, find no object on which it could exercise itself. Frederic had saved the honour of one part of the Germans against an united world, and every member of the nation, by applause and reverence of this great prince, was allowed to share in his victory; but what was to come of this excited, warlike spirit of defiance? what direction should it take, and what effect produce? At first it was merely a poetical form, and the songs ridiculous, were accumulated through this impulse,--this incitement. There were no external enemies to fight; so people made tyrants for themselves, and for this purpose princes and their servants were obliged to bestow their figures, first only in general outline, but gradually with particulars. Here it was that poetry attached itself with vehemence to that interference with the administration of justice, which is blamed above; and it is remarkable to see poems of that time written in a spirit by which everything of a higher order, whether monarchical or aristocratic, is abolished.
For my own part, I continued to make poetry the expression of my own whims and feelings. Little poems like the "Wanderer" belong to this time; they were inserted in the _Göttingen Musenalmanach._ But from whatever of the above-mentioned mania had worked itself into me, I shortly endeavoured to free myself in _Götz von Berlichingen_, since I described how in disordered times this brave, well-thinking man resolves to take the place of the law and the executive power, but is in despair when, to the supreme authority, which he recognises and reveres, he appears in an equivocal light, and even rebellious. By Klopstock's odes, it was not so much the Northern mythology as the nomenclature of the divinities, that had been introduced into German poetry; and although I gladly made use of everything else that was offered me, I could not bring myself to use this, for the following causes: I had long become acquainted with the fables of the Edda, from the preface to Mallet's _Danish History_, and had at once made myself master of them. They belonged to those tales which, when asked by a company, I most willingly related. Herder put Resenius into my hands, and made me better acquainted with the heroic _sagas._ But all these things, worthy as I held them, I could not bring within the circle of my own poetic faculty. Nobly as they excited my imagination, they nevertheless entirely withdrew themselves from the sensuous perception, while the mythology of the Greeks, changed by the greatest artists in the world into visible, easily imagined forms, still existed before our own eyes in abundance. Gods in general I did not allow' often to appear, because, at all events, they had their abode out of the Nature, which I understood how to imitate. What now could have induced to substitute Woden for Jupiter, and Thor for Mars, and instead of the Southern, accurately described figures, to introduce forms of mist, nay, mere verbal sounds, into my poems? On the one side, they were related to the equally formless heroes of Ossian, only they were ruder and more gigantic; on the other, I brought them into contact with the cheerful tale; for the humoristic vein which runs through the whole Northern mythus, was to me highly pleasing and remarkable. It appeared to me the only one which jests with itself throughout,--wondrous giants, magicians, and monsters opposed to an odd dynasty of gods, and only occupied in leading astray and deriding the highest persons during their government, while they threaten them, besides, with disgraceful and inevitable destruction.
I felt a similar if not an equal interest for the Indian fables, which I at first learned to know from Dapper's _Travels_, and likewise added with great pleasure to my store of tales. In subsequent repetitions I succeeded especially with the Altar of Ram; and notwithstanding the great number of persons in this tale, the ape Hannemann remained the favorite of my public. But even these unformed and over-formed monsters could not satisfy me in a true poetic sense; they lay too far from the truth, towards which my mind unceasingly strove. [Side-note: Taste for Homer.] But against all these goblins, so repulsive to art, my sense for the beautiful was to be protected by the noblest power. Always fortunate is that epoch in a literature when the great works of the past again rise up as if thawed, and come into notice, because they then produce a perfectly fresh effect. Even the Homeric light rose again quite new to us, and indeed quite in the spirit of the time, which highly favoured such an appearance; for the constant reference to nature had at last the effect, that we learned to regard even the works of the ancients from this side. What several travellers had done for explanation of the Holy Scriptures, others had done for Homer. By Guys the matter was introduced; Wood gave it an impulse. A Göttingen review of the original work, which was at first very rare, made us acquainted with the design, and taught us how far it had been carried out. We now no longer saw in those poems a strained and inflated heroism, but the reflected truth of a primeval present, and sought to bring this as closely to us as possible. At the same time we could not give our assent, when it was maintained that in order rightly to understand the Homeric natures, one must make oneself acquainted with the wild races and their manners, as described by the travellers in new worlds; for it cannot be denied that both Europeans and Asiatics are represented in the Homeric poems as at a higher grade of culture,--perhaps higher than the time of the Trojan war could have enjoyed. But that maxim was nevertheless in harmony with the prevailing confession of nature, and so far we let it pass.
With all these occupations, which were related to the knowledge of mankind in the higher sense, as well as most nearly and dearly to poetry, I was nevertheless forced every day to experience that I was residing in Wetzlar. The conversation on the situation of the business of the "Visitation," and its ever-increasing obstacles, the discovery of new offences, was heard every hour. Here was the holy Roman Empire once more assembled, not for mere outward forms, but for an occupation which penetrated to the very depths. But even here that half-empty banqueting-hall on the coronation-day occurred to me, where the bidden guests remained without, because they were too proud. Here, indeed, they had come, but even worse symptoms were to be seen. The want of coherence in the whole, the mutual opposition of the parts, were continually apparent; and it remained no secret that princes had confidentially communicated to each other this notion, that they must see whether, on this occasion, something could not be gained from the supreme authority. What a bad impression the petty detail of all the anecdotes of neglects and delays, of injustices and corruptions, must make upon a young man who desired what was good, and with this view cultivated his mind, every honest person will feel. Under such circumstances, where was a reverence for the law and the judge to arise? Even if the greatest confidence had been placed in the effects of the "Visitation,"--if it could have been believed that it would fully accomplish its high purpose,--there was still no remedy to be found here for a joyous, inwardly-striving youth. The formalities of the proceeding all tended towards delay; if any one desired to do anything, and to be of any importance, he was obliged to serve the party in the wrong--always the accused--and to be skilled in the fencing-art of twisting and evading.
What the ancients had said on these important subjects I had read industriously for some years, by skips, at least, if not in regular order. Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, Longinus--none were unconsidered; but this did not help me in the least, for all these men presupposed an experience which I lacked. They led me into a world infinitely rich in works of art; they unfolded the merits of excellent poets and orators, of most of whom the names alone are left us, and convinced me but too well that a great abundance of objects must lie before us ere we can think upon them; that one must first accomplish something oneself, nay, fail in something, to learn to know one's own capacities, and those of others. My acquaintance with so much that was good in those old times, was only according to school and book, and by no means vital, since, even with the most celebrated, orators, it was striking that they had altogether formed themselves in life, and that one could never speak of the peculiarities of their character as artists, without at the same time mentioning the personal peculiarities of their disposition. With the poets this seemed less to be the case; and thus the result of all my thoughts and endeavours was the old resolution to investigate inner and outer nature, and to allow her to rule herself in loving imitation.
For these operations, which rested in me neither day nor night, lay before me two great, nay, monstrous materials, the wealth of which I had only to prize, in order to produce something of importance. There was the older epoch, into which falls the life of Götz von Berlichingen, and the modern one, the unhappy bloom of which is depicted in _Werther._ Of the historical preparation to that first work I have already spoken; the ethical occasions of the second shall now be introduced. The resolution to preserve my internal nature according to its peculiarities, and to let external nature influence me according to its qualities, impelled me to the strange element in which _Werther_ is designed and written. I sought to free myself internally from all that was foreign to me, to regard the external with love, and to allow all beings, from man downwards, as low as they were comprehensible, to act upon me, each after its own kind. Thus arose a wonderful affinity with the single objects of nature, and a hearty concord, a harmony with the whole, so that every change, whether of place and region, or of the times of the day and year, or whatever else could happen, affected me in the deepest manner. The glance of the painter associated itself to that of the poet, the beautiful rural landscape, animated by the pleasant river, increased my love of solitude, and favoured my silent observations as they extended on all sides.
But since I had left the family circle in Sesenheim, and again my family circle at Frankfort and Darmstadt, a vacuum had remained in my bosom which I was not able to fill up; I therefore found myself in a situation where the inclinations, if they appear in any degree veiled, gradually steal upon us, and can render abortive all our good resolutions. And now, when the author has attained this step of his undertaking, he for the first time feels light-hearted in his labour, since from henceforward this book first becomes what it properly ought to be. It has not been announced as an independent work; it is much more designed to fill up the gaps of an author's life, to complete much that is fragmentary, and to preserve the memory of lost and forgotten ventures. But what is already done neither should nor can be repeated, and the poet would now vainly call upon those darkened powers of the soul, vainly ask of them to render present again those charming circumstances, which rendered the period in Lahnthal so agreeable to him. Fortunately the genius had already provided for that, and had impelled him, in the vigorous period of youth, to hold fast, describe, and with sufficient boldness and at the favourable hour publicly to exhibit that which had immediately gone by. That the little book _Werther_ is here meant, requires no further indication, but something is to be gradually revealed, both of the persons introduced in it and the views which it exhibits.
Such persons are not too much occupied with themselves; they have time to consider the external world, and patience enough to direct themselves according to it, and to adapt themselves to it; they become shrewd and sensible without exertion, and require but few books for their cultivation. Such was the bride.[3] The bridegroom, with his thoroughly upright and confiding turn of mind, soon made many whom he esteemed acquainted with her; and as he had to pass the greatest part of his day in a zealous attention to business, was pleased when his betrothed, after the domestic toils were ended, amused herself otherwise, and took social recreation in walks and rural parties with friends of both sexes. Lottie--for so we shall call her--was unpretending in two senses; first, by her nature, which was rather directed to a general kindly feeling than to particular inclinations; and then she had set her mind upon a man who, being worthy of her, declared himself ready to attach his fate to hers for life. The most cheerful atmosphere seemed to surround her; nay, if it be a pleasing sight to see parents bestow an uninterrupted care upon their children, there is something still more beautiful when brothers and sisters do the same for each other. In the former case we think we can perceive more of natural impulse and social tradition; in the latter, more of choice and of a free exercise of feeling.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.