Johan Wolfgang von Goethe (continued 17)

A firm character not easily controlled, a soul that sympathised and needed sympathy, a highly cultivated mind, fine acquirements and talents; some knowledge of languages and a ready pen—all these she possessed—so that if she had been more richly favored with outward charms, she would have been among the women most sought after in her day.

Besides all this there is one strange thing to be mentioned: there was not the slightest touch of sensual passion in her nature. She had grown up with me, and had no other wish than to continue and pass her life in this fraternal union. Since my return from the University we had been inseparable; with the most unreserved confidence we shared all our thoughts, feelings, and humors, and even the most incidental and passing impressions of every accidental circumstance. When I went to Wetzlar, the loneliness of the house without me seemed insupportable; my friend Schlosser, neither unknown nor repugnant to the good girl, stepped into my place. In him, unfortunately, the brotherly affection changed into a decided, and to judge from his strictly conscientious character, probably a first passion. Here there was found what people call as good a match as could be wished, and my sister, after having stedfastly rejected several good offers, but from insignificant men, whom she always had an aversion to, allowed herself to be, I may well say, talked into accepting him.

I must frankly confess that I have frequently indulged in fancies about my sister's destiny, I did not like to think of her as the mistress of a family, but rather as an Abbess, as the Lady Superior of some noble community. She possessed every requisite for such a high position, while she was wanting in all that the world deems indispensable in its members. Over feminine souls she always exercised an irresistible influence; young minds were gently attracted towards her, and she ruled them by the spirit of her inward superiority. As she had in common with me an universal tolerance for the good, the human, with all its eccentricities, provided they did not amount to perversity, there was mo need for seeking to conceal from her any idiosyncrasy which might mark any remarkable natural talents, or for its owner feeling any constraint in her presence; hence our parties, as we have seen before, were always varied, free, ingenuous, and sometimes perhaps bordering on boldness. My habit of forming intimacies with young ladies of a respectful and obliging nature, without allowing any closer engagement or relations to grow out of them, was mainly owing to my sister's influence over me. And now the sagacious reader, who is capable of reading into these lines what does not stand written in them, but is nevertheless implied, will be able to form some conception of the serious feelings with which I then set foot in Emmendingen.

But at my departure, after a short visit, a heavier load lay on my heart, for my sister had earnestly recommended not to say enjoined me, to break off my connection with Lili. She herself had suffered much from along-protracted engagement; Schlosser, with his spirit of rectitude, did not betroth himself to her, until he was sure of his appointment under the Grand Duke of Baden; indeed, if one would take it so, until he was actually appointed. The answer to his application, however, was delayed in an incredible manner. If I may express my conjecture on the matter, the brave Schlosser, able man of business as he was, was nevertheless on account of his downright integrity, desirable neither to the prince as a servant, immediately in contact with himself, nor to the minister, who still less liked to have so honest a coadjutor near to him. His expected and earnestly desired appointment at Carlsruhe was never filled up. But the delay was explained to me, when the place of Upper Bailiff in Emmendingen became vacant, and he was instantly selected for it. Thus an office of much dignity and profit was now intrusted to him, for which he had shown himself fully competent. It seemed entirely suited to his taste, his mode of action, to stand here alone to act according to his own conviction, and to be held responsible for everything, whether for praise or blame.

As no objections could be raised to his accepting this place, my sister had to follow him, not indeed to a Court-residence, as she had hoped, but to a place which must have seemed to her a solitude, a desert; to a dwelling, spacious to be sure, with an official dignity, and stately, but destitute of all chance of society. Some young ladies, with whom she had cultivated an early friendship, followed her there, and as the Gerock family was blessed with many daughters, these contrived to stay with her in turn, so that, in the midst of such privation, she always enjoyed the presence of at least one long-trusted friend.

These circumstances, these experiences, made her feel justified in recommending to me, most earnestly, a separation from Lili. She thought it hard to take such a young lady (of whom she had formed the highest opinion) out of the midst of a lively, if not splendid circle, and to shut her up in our old house, which, although very passable in its way, was not suited for the reception of distinguished society, sticking her, as it were, between a well-disposed, but unsociable, precise, and formal father, and a mother extremely active in her domestic matters, who, after the household business of the day was over would not like to be disturbed over some notable bit of work by a friendly conversation with forward and refined young girls. On the other hand, she in a lively manner set Lili's position before me; for, partly in my letters, partly in a confidential but impassioned conversation, I had told her everything to a hair.

Unfortunately her conception was only a circumstantial and well-meant completion of what a gossiping friend, in whom, by degrees, all confidence ceased to be placed, had contrived by mentioning a few characteristic traits to insinuate into her mind.

I could promise her nothing, although I was obliged to confess that she had convinced me. I went on with that enigmatic feeling in my heart, with which passion always nourishes itself; for the Child Cupid clings obstinately to the garment of Hope, even when she is preparing with long steps to flee away.

Schaffhausen—Zurich—Lavater.

The only thing between this place and Zurich which I now clearly remember, is the falls of the Rhine at Schaffhausen. A mighty cascade here gives the indication of the mountainous region which we designed to enter; where, each step becoming steeper and more difficult, we should have laboriously to clamber up the heights.

The view of the lake of Zurich, which we enjoyed from the gate of the "Sword," is still before me; I say from the gate of the tavern, for, without stopping to enter it, I hastened to Lavater. He gave me a cheerful and hearty reception, and was, I must confess, extremely gracious; confiding, considerate, kind, and elevating was his bearing, indeed, it would be impossible to expect anything else of him. His wife, with somewhat singular, but serene tenderly pious expression of countenance, fully harmonized, like everything else about him, with his way of thinking and living.

Our first, and perhaps only theme of conversation, was his system of Physiognomy. The first part of this remarkable work, was, if I mistake not, already printed, or, at least, near its completion. It might be said to be at once stamped with genius and yet empirical: methodical, but still in its instances incomplete and partial. I was strangly connected with it, Lavater wanted all the world for co-operators and sympathizers. During his travels up the Rhine, he had portraits taken of a great many distinguished men, in order to excite their personal interest in a work in which they were to appear. He proceeded in the same way with artists; he called upon every one to send him drawings for illustrations. The latter came, and many were not exactly suited for his purpose. So, too, he had copperplates engraved in all parts, which seldom tinned out characteristic copies. Much labor had been bestowed on his part; with money and exertions of all kinds an important work was now ready, and full honor was done to Physiognomy. But when in a great volume, illustrated by examples, Physiognomy, founded on doctrine, was to set up its claims to the dignity of science, it was found that not a single picture said what it ought to say; all the plates had to be censured or to be taken with exceptions, none to be praised, but only tolerated; many, indeed, were quite altered by the explanations. For me, who in all my studies sought a firm footing before I went further, I had now to perform one of the most painful tasks which industry could be set to. Let the reader judge. The manuscript, with impressions of the plates inserted was sent to me at Frankfort. I was authorized to strike out whatever displeased me, to change and put in what I liked. However I made a very moderate use of this liberty. In one instance he had introduced a long and violent piece of controversy against an unjust orator, which I left out, and substituted a cheerful poem about nature; for this he scolded me, but afterwards, when he had cooled down, approved of what I had done.

Whoever turns over the four volumes of Physiognomy, and (what he will not repent of) reads them, may conceive the interest there was in our interviews, during which, as most of the plates contained in it were already drawn and part of them had been engraved, we examined, and decided on those fit to be inserted in the work, and considered the ingenious means by which those, which did not exactly tally with its principles, might be made instructive and suitable.

Whenever at present I look through the work of Lavater, a strange comic, merry feeling comes over me; it seems as if I saw before me the shadows of men formerly known to me, over whom I once fretted, and in whom I find little satisfaction now.

The possibility, however, of retaining in some sort, much that otherwise would have been unsuitable, was owing to the fine and decided talent of the sketcher and engraver, Lips. He was, in fact, born for the free prosaic representation of the actual, which was precisely the thing wanted in this case. He worked under a singularly exacting physiognomist, and therefore was obliged to look sharp to approximate to the demands of his master; the clever peasant-boy felt the whole responsibility of working for a clerical gentleman from a city so highly privileged, and gave his best care to the business.

Living in a separate house from my companions, I became every day more of a stranger to them, without the least unpleasant feeling having arisen; our rural excursions were no longer made together, although in the city we still kept up some intercourse. With all the arrogance of young counts they had honored Lavater with a visit and appeared to the skilful physiognomist somewhat different from what they did to the rest of the world. He spoke to me about them, and I remember quite well, that, speaking of Leopold Stolberg, he exclaimed: "I know not what you all mean; he is a noble, excellent youth, and full of talent; but you have described him to me as a hero, as a Hercules, and I have never in my life seen a softer and more sensitive young man; nor, if need be, one more easily influenced. I am still far from having formed a clear physiognomical judgment of him, but as for you and all the rest, you are in a fog altogether."

Since Lavater's journey on the Lower Rhine, the public interest in him and his physiognomical studies had greatly increased; visitors of all sorts crowded upon him, so that he felt in some sort embarrassed at being looked upon as the first of spiritual and intellectual men, and the chief point of attraction for strangers. Hence, to avoid envy and all unpleasant feelings, he managed to remind and warn his visitors that they must treat other distinguished men with friendship and respect.

Visit to Bodmer.

In this especial regard was had to the aged Bodmer, and, accordingly, we were compelled to visit him and pay our youthful respects to him. He lived on a hill, above the large or old town, which lay on the right bank, where the lake contracts its waters into the Limmat. We crossed the old town, and, by a path that became steeper and steeper, at last ascended the height behind the walls, where, between the fortifications and the old wall, a pleasant suburb had sprang up, partly in continuous and partly in detached houses, with a half country look. The house where Bodmer had passed his whole life, stood in the midst of an open and cheerful neighbourhood, which, the day being beautiful and clear, we often paused on our road to survey with the greatest pleasure.

We were conducted up a flight of steps into a wainscoted chamber, where a brisk old man, of middle stature, came to meet us. He received us with his usual greeting to young visitors; telling us that we must consider it an act of courtesy on his part to have delayed so long his departure from this world in order that he might receive us kindly, form our acquaintance, refresh himself with our talents, and wish us joy in our future career.

We, on the other hand, congratulated him that, as a poet belonging to the patriarchal world, he had yet in the neighbourhood of the most highly cultivated city, possessed during his whole life a truly idyllic dwelling, and, in the high free air, had enjoyed for so many long years such a wide and beautiful prospect to feed his eyes with unfading delight.

It seemed anything but displeasing to the old man when we asked permission to take a view from his window of the neighbouring scenery; and truly the prospect in the cheerful sunshine, and in the best season of the year, appeared quite incomparable. The prospect commanded much of the slope, from the great town down to the water's edge, as well as the smaller town across the Limmat, and the whole of the fertile Sihl-feld, towards the west. Behind us, on the left, was a part of the lake of Zurich, with its bright rippled surface, and its shores endlessly varying with alternating hill and valley and height after height in greater variety than the eye could take in, which, dazzled by this splendour, delighted to rest on the blue range of the loftier mountains in the distance, whose snowy summits man has been so far intimate with as to give names to.

The rapture of us young men at sight of the marvellous beauty which, for so many years, had daily been before him, appeared to please the old poet; he became, so to speak, ironically sympathizing, and we parted the best of friends, but rot before a yearning for those blue mountain heights had taken possession of our souls.

Now I am on the point of leaving our worthy patriarch, I remark, for the first time, that I have as yet said nothing of his form and countenance, of his movements, and his carriage and bearing.

In general, I do not think it quite right for travellers to describe every distinguished man, whom they visit, as if they wanted to furnish materials for advertising a runaway. No one sufficiently considers that he has only looked at the great man during the moment of introduction, and then only in his own way; and that according to the circumstances of the moment the host may or not be what he seemed, proud or meek, silent and talkative, cheerful or morose. In this particular case, however, I may excuse myself from the attempt, by saying that no verbal description of Bodmer's venerable person would convey an adequate impression. Fortunately there exists a picture of him by Graff, of Bause, which perfectly represents the man as he appeared to us, and, indeed, exactly preserves his peculiar penetrating and reflective look.

Passavant—Lavater.

A great, not indeed unexpected, but still highly coveted gratification awaited me in Zurich, where I met my young friend, Passavant. Of a respectable family of the reformed persuasion, and born in my native city, he lived in Switzerland, at the fountain-head of the doctrine which he was afterwards to proclaim as a preacher. With a frame not large, but active, his face and his whole manner promised a quick and agreeable resoluteness of character. His hair and beard were black, his eyes lively. On the whole, you saw in him a man of some sensitiveness, but of moderate energy.

Scarcely had we embraced one another and exchanged the first greeting, when he immediately proposed to me to visit the smaller cantons. Having himself already walked through them with great delight, he wished, with the sight of them, to awaken my rapture and enthusiasm.

While I was talking over, with Lavater, the most interesting and important points of our common business, until we had nearly exhausted them, my lively fellow-travellers had already sallied forth in various directions, and, in their own fashion, had examined the country. Passavant, receiving and welcoming me with hearty friendship, believed that he had gained thereby a right to the exclusive possession of my society, and, therefore, in the absence of my companions, contrived to entice me to the mountains, the more easily, since I was decidedly inclined to accomplish the long desired ramble in quiet and at liberty to follow my own whims. Without further deliberation, therefore, we stepped into a boat and sailed up the glorious lake, on a fine clear morning.

A poem inserted here may give the reader some intimation of those happy moments:

New draughts of strength and youthful blood, From this free world I've press'd; Here nature is so mild, so good— Who clasps me to her breast. The billows rock our little boat, The oars in measure beat, The hills, while clouds around them float, Approach our barque to meet. Eye, mine eye, why sink'st thou mourning? Golden dreams, are ye returning? Though thou'rt gold, thou dream, farewell; Here, too, life and love can dwell. Countless stars are blinking, In the waters here, On the mountains drinking Clouds of mist appear; Round the cool bay flying, Morning breezes wake, Ripen'd fruits are lying Mirror'd in the lake.

We landed in Richterswyl, where we had an introduction from Lavater to Doctor Hotze. As a physician, and a highly intelligent and benevolent man, he enjoyed great esteem in his immediate neighbourhood and in the whole country, and we can do no better honor to his memory than by referring to a passage in Lavater's Physiognomy, which describes him.

After a very hospitable entertainment, which he relieved with a highly agreeable and instructive conversation, describing to us the next halting-places in our journey, we ascended the mountains which lay before us. When we were about to descend again into the vale of Schindellegi, we turned round to take in once more the charming prospect over the lake of Zurich.

Of my feelings at that moment some idea may be gathered from the following lines, which, just as I wrote them down, are still preserved in a little memorandum book:

Dearest Lili, if I did not love thee, I should revel in a scene like this! Yet, sweet Lili, if I did not love thee, What were any bliss?

This little impromptu seems to me more expressive in its present context, than as it stands by itself in the printed collection of my poems.

St. Mary's Hermitage.

The rough roads, which led to St. Mary's hermitage, did not wear out our good spirits. A number of pilgrims, whom we had remarked below upon the lake, now overtook us and asked the aid of our prayers in behalf of their pious object. We saluted them and let them pass, and as they moved regularly with their hymns and prayers, they lent a characteristic graceful animation to the dreary heights. We saw livingly marked out the serpentine path which we too had to travel, and seemed to be joyously following. The customs of the Romish church are altogether significant and imposing to the Protestant, inasmuch as he only recognises the inmost principle, by which they were first called forth, the human element by which they are propagated from race to race; thus penetrating at once to the kernel, without troubling himself, just at the moment with the shell, the rind, or even with the tree itself, its twigs, leaves, bark, and roots.

We now saw rising a dreary, treeless vale, the splendid church, the cloister, of broad and stately compass, in the midst of a neat place of sojourn for a large and varied assembly of guests.

The little church within the church, the former hermitage of the saint, incrusted with marble, and transformed as far as possible into a regular chapel, was something new to me; something that I had not seen, this little vessel, surrounded and built over with pillars and vaults. It could not but excite sober thoughts to reflect how a single spark of goodness, and of the fear of God, had here kindled a bright and burning flame, so that troops of believers, never ceased to make painful pilgrimages in order to light their little tapers at this holy fire. However the fact is to be explained, it plainly points at least to an unbounded craving in man, for equal light, for equal warmth, with that which this old hermit cherished and enjoyed in the deepest feeling and the most secure conviction. We were shewn into the treasure chamber, which was rich and imposing enough, and offered to the astonished eye busts of the size of life, not to say colossal, of the saints and founders of different orders.

A very different sort of feeling was awakened at the sight of a closet opening upon this. It was filled with antique valuables here dedicated and honored. My attention was fixed by various golden crowns of remarkable workmanship, out of which I contemplated one exclusively. It was a pointed crown, in the style of former days, such as one may have seen in pictures on the heads of ancient queens, but of a most tasteful design and of highly elaborate execution. The colored stones with which it was studded were distributed over it or set opposite to each other, with great effect and judgment; it was, in short, a work of that kind which one would pronounce perfect at the first glance, without waiting to bring out this impression by an appeal to the laws of art.

In such cases, where the art is not recognised, but felt, heart and soul are turned towards the object, one would like to possess the jewel, that one might impart pleasure to others with such a gift. I begged permission to handle the little crown, and as I held it up respectfully in my hand, I could not help thinking that I should like to press it upon the bright, glittering locks of Lili, lead her before the mirror, and witness her own joy in it, and the happiness which she spread around her. I have often thought since, that this scene, if realized by a skilful painter, would be highly touching and full of meaning. It were worth one's while to be the young king to receive a bride and a new kingdom in this way.

In order to show us all the treasures of the cloister, they led us into a cabinet of natural and artificial curiosities. I had then but little idea of the value of such things; at that time geognosy, which is so commendable in itself, but which fritters away the impression produced by the earth's beautiful surface on the mind's eye, had not begun to entice me, still less had a fantastic geology entangled me in its labyrinths. Nevertheless, the monk who acted as our guide, compelled me to bestow some attention on a fossil, much prized as he said by connoisseurs, a small wild boar's head well preserved in a lump of blue fuller's clay, which, black as it was, has dwelt in my imagination ever since. They had found it in the country of Rapperswyl, a district which ever since the memory of man was so full of morasses, that it could well receive and keep such mummies for posterity.

Far different attractions was presented to me by a copperplate engraving of Martin Schön, which was kept under a glass frame, and represented the Assumption of the Virgin. True, only a perfect specimen could give an idea of the art of such a master; but then we are so affected by it, as with the perfect in every branch of art, that we cannot get rid of the wish to possess something in some way like it, to be able constantly to repeat the sight of it, however long a time may intervene. Why should I not anticipate and confess here, that afterwards I could not rest until I had succeeded in obtaining an excellent copy of this plate.

The Schwyzer-Haken.

On the 16th of July, 1775 (for here I find a date first set down), we entered upon a toilsome journey; wild stony heights were to be surmounted, and that, too, in a perfect solitude and wilderness. At a quarter before eight in the evening, we stood before the Schwyzer-Haken, two mountain peaks which jut out boldly, side by side, into the sky. For the first time we found snow upon our path, where on the lagged rocks it had been hanging since the winter. A primeval forest, with its solemn awe, filled the immense valleys, into which we were about to descend. Refreshed, after a short rest, we sprang, with bold and light step, from cliff to cliff, from ledge to ledge, down the precipitous foot-path, and arrived by ten o'clock at Schwyz. We had become at once weary yet cheerful, exhausted yet excited; we eagerly quenched our violent thirst, and felt ourselves still more inspired. Imagine the young man who but two years before had written Werther, and his still younger friend who still earlier had read that remarkable work in manuscript, and had been strangely excited by it, had transported in some respect without their knowing it or wishing it, into a state of nature, end there in the consciousness of rich powers, vividly recalling past passions, clinging to those of the present, shaping fruitless plans, rioting through the realm of fancy, and you will be able to form some conception of our situation then, which I should not know how to describe, if it did not stand written in my journal: "Laughing and shouting lasted until midnight."

On the morning of the 17th, we saw the Schwyzer-Haken from our windows. Around these vast and irregular natural pyramids, clouds rose upon clouds. At one in the afternoon we left Schwyz, on our way to the Rigi; at two we were on the Lawerzer lake, the sun shining brilliantly on it and on us all the while. For sheer delight we saw nothing. Two stout maidens guided the boat; that looked pretty, and we made no objection. We arrived upon the island, on which they say once lived the former lord of the castle; be this as it may, the hut of the anchorite has now planted itself amidst the ruins.

We climbed the Rigi; at half-past seven we stood at the foot of the "Mother of God" covered in snow; then passed the chapel and the nunnery, and rested at the hotel of the Ox.

On the 18th, Sunday morning early, we took a sketch of the chapel from the Ox. At twelve we went to Kaltenbad, or the fountain of the Three Sisters. By a quarter after two we had reached the summit; we found ourselves in the clouds, this time doubly disagreeable to us, since they both hindered the prospect and drenched us with mist. But when, here and there, they opened and showed us, framed as it were by their ever-varying outline, a clear, majestic sun-lit world, with the changing scenes of a diorama, we no longer lamented these accidents; for it was a sight we had never seen before and should never behold again, and we lingered long in this somewhat inconvenient position, to catch, through the chinks and crevices of the ever-shifting masses of cloud, some little point of sunny earth, some little strip of shore, or pretty nook of the lake.

By eight in the evening we were back again at the door of the inn, and refreshed ourselves with baked fish and eggs, and plenty of wine.

As the twilight and the night gradually came on, our ears were filled with mysteriously harmonizing sounds; the twinkling of the chapel bells, the splashing of the fountain, the rustling of changeful breezes, with the horns of the foresters in the distance;—these were blest, soothing, tranquillising moments.

William Tell.

At half-past six, on the morning of the 19th, first ascending then going down by the Waldstätter Lake we came to Fitznau; from thence, by water, to Gersau. At noon, we were in the hotel on the lake. About two o'clock we were opposite to Grütli, where the three Tells conspired; then upon the flat rock where the hero sprang from his boat, and where the legend of his life and deeds is recorded and immortalized by a painting. At three we were at Flüelen, where he embarked; and at four in Altorf, where he shot the apple.

Aided by this poetic thread one winds conveniently through the labyrinth of these rocky walls which, descending perpendicularly to the water, stand silently before us. They, the immovable, stand there as quietly as the side-scenes of a theatre; success or failure, joy or sorrow, merely pertain to the persons who for the day successively strut upon the stage.

Such reflections, however, were wholly out of the circle of the vision of the youths who then looked upon them; what had recently passed had been dismissed from their thoughts, and the future lay before them as strangely inscrutable, as the mountain region which they were laboriously penetrating.

On the 20th, we breakfasted at Amstäg, where they cooked us a savoury dinner of baked fish. Here now, on this mountain ledge, where the Reuss, which was at all times wild enough, was rushing from rugged clefts, and dashing the cool snow-water over the rocky channels, I could not help enjoying the longed-for opportunity and refreshing myself in the foaming waves.

At three o'clock we proceeded onwards; a row of sumpter-horses went before us, we marched with them over a broad mass of snow, and did not learn till afterwards, that it was hollow underneath. The snows of winter, that had deposited themselves here in a mountain gorge, which at other seasons it was necessary to skirt circuitously, now furnished us with a shorter and more direct road. But the waters which forced their way beneath had gradually undermined the snowy mass, and the mild summer had melted more and more of the lower side of the vault, so that now, like a broad arched bridge, it formed a natural connection between the opposite sides. We convinced ourselves of this strange freak of nature by venturing more than half way down into the broader part of the gorge. As we kept ascending, we left pine forests in the chasm, through which the Reuss from time to time appeared, foaming and dashing over rocky precipices.

At half-past seven we arrived at Wasen, where, to render palatable the red, heavy, sour Lombardy wine, we were forced to have recourse to water, and to supply, by a great deal of sugar, the ingredient which nature had refused to elaborate in the grape. The landlord showed us some beautiful crystals; but I had, at that time, so little interest in the study of nature and such specimens, that I did not care to burden myself with these mountain products, however cheaply they might be bought.

On the 21st, at half-past six, we were still ascending; the rocks grew more and more stupendous and awful; the path to the Teufelstein (Devil's Stone), from which we were to gain a view of the Devil's Bridge, was still more difficult. My companion being disposed for a rest, proposed me to sketch the most important views. My outlines were, perhaps, tolerably successful, but nothing seemed to stand out, nothing to retire into the distance; for such objects I had no language. We toiled on further; the horrors of the wilderness seemed continually to deepen, planes became hills, and hollows chasms. And so my guide conducted me to the cave of Ursern, through which I walked in somewhat of an ill humor; what we had seen thus far was, at any rate, sublime, this darkness took everything away.

But the roguish guide anticipated the joyful astonishment which would overwhelm me on my egress. There the moderately foaming stream wound mildly through a level vale surrounded by mountains, but wide enough to invite habitation. Above the clean little village of Ursern and its church, which stood opposite to us on a level plot, rose a pine-grove which was held sacred, because it protected the inhabitants at its foot from the rolling of the avalanches. Here we enjoyed the sight of long-missed vegetation. The meadows of the valley, just beginning to look green, were adorned along the river side with short willows The tranquillity was great; upon the level paths we felt our powers revive again, and my fellow-traveller was not a little proud of the surprise which he had so skilfully contrived.

The meadows produce the celebrated Ursern cheese, and the youthful travellers, high in spirits, pronounced very tolerable wine not to be surpassed in order to heighten their enjoyment, and to give a more fantastic impulse to their projects.

On the 22nd, at half-past three, we left our quarters, that from the smooth Ursern valley we might enter upon the stony valley of Liviner. Here, too, we at once missed all vegetation; nothing was to be seen or heard but naked or mossy rocks covered with snow, fitful gusts blowing the clouds backwards and forwards, the rustling of waterfalls, the tinkling of sumpter-horses in the depth of solitude, where we saw none coming and none departing. It did not cost the imagination much to see dragons' nests in the clefts. But, nevertheless, we felt inspired and elevated by one of the most beautiful and picturesque waterfalls, sublimely various in all its rocky steps, which, being at this time of the year enriched by melted snows, and now half hidden by the clouds, now half revealed, chained us for some time to the spot.

The Hospice.

Finally, we came to little mist-lakes, as I might call them, since they were scarcely to be distinguished from the atmospheric streaks. Before long, a building loomed towards us out of the vapour: it was the Hospice, and we felt great satisfaction at the thoughts of sheltering ourselves under its hospitable roof.

NINETEENTH BOOK.

Lavater—"Egmont"

Announced by the low barking of a little dog which ran out to meet us, we were cordially received at the door by an elderly but active female. She apologised for the absence of the Pater, who had gone to Milan, but was expected home that evening; and immediately, without any more words, set to work to provide for our comfort and wants. We were shown into a warm and spacious room, where bread, cheese, and some passable wine were set before us, with the promise of a more substantial meal for our supper. The surprise of the day was now talked over, and my friend was not a little proud that all had gone off so well, and that we had passed a day the impressions of which neither poetry nor prose could ever reproduce.

At length with the twilight, which did not here come on till late, the venerable father entered the room, greeted his guests with dignity but in a friendly and cordial manner, and in a few words ordered the cook to pay all possible attention to our wishes. When we expressed the wonder we could not repress, that he could like to pass his life up here, in the midst of such a perfect wilderness, out of the reach of all society, he assured us that society was never wanting, as our own welcome visit might testify. A lively trade, he told us, was kept up between Italy and Germany. This continual traffic brought him into relation with the first mercantile houses. He often went down to Milan, and also to Lucerne, though not so frequently, from which place, however, the houses which had charge of the posting on the main route, frequently sent young people to him, who, here at the point of passage between the two countries, required to be made acquainted with all the circumstances and events connected with such affairs.

Amid such varied conversation the evening passed away, and we slept a quiet night on somewhat short sleeping-places, fastened to the wall, and more like shelves than bedsteads.

Distant View of Italy.

Rising early, I soon found myself under the open sky, but in a narrow space surrounded by tall mountain-tops. I sat down upon the foot-path which led to Italy, and attempted, after the manner of dilettanti, to draw what could not be drawn, still less make a picture, namely, the nearest mountain-tops, whose sides, with their white furrows and black ridges, were gradually made visible by the melting of the snow. Nevertheless, that fruitless effort has impressed the image indelibly on my memory.

My companion stepped briskly up to me, and began: "What say you of the story of our spiritual host, last evening? Have not you as well as myself, felt a desire to descend from this dragon's height into those charming regions below? A ramble through these gorges must be glorious and not very toilsome; and when it ends with Bellinzona, what a pleasure that must be! The words of the good father have again brought a living image before my soul of the isles of the Lago Maggiore. We have heard and seen so much of them since Keyssler's travels, that I cannot resist the temptation."

"Is it not so with you too?" he resumed; "you are sitting on exactly the right spot; I stood there once, but had not the courage to jump down. You can go on without ceremony, wait for me at Airolo, I will follow with the courier when I have taken leave of the good father and settled everything."

"Such an enterprise," I replied, "so suddenly undertaken, does not suit me." "What's the use of deliberating so much?" cried he; "we have money enough to get to Milan, where we shall find credit; through our fair, I know more than one mercantile friend there." He grew still more urgent. "Go!" said I, "and make all ready for the departure, then we will decide."

In such moments it seems to me as if a man feels no resolution in himself, but is rather governed and determined by earlier impressions. Lombardy and Italy lay before me, altogether foreign land; while Germany, as a well-known dear home, full of friendly, domestic scenes, and where, let me confess it,—was that which had so long entirely enchained me, and on which my existence was centred, remained even now the most indispensable element, beyond the limits of which I felt afraid to step. A little golden heart, which in my happiest hours, I had received from her, still hung love-warmed about my neck, suspended by the same ribbon to which she had tied it. Snatching it from my bosom, I loaded it with kisses. This incident gave rise to a poem, which I here insert:—

Round my neck, suspended, as a token Of those joys, that swiftly pass'd away, Art thou here that thou may'st lengthen love's short day, Still binding, when the bond of souls is broken? Lili, from thee I fly; yet I am doom'd to feel Thy fetters still, Though to strange vales and mountains I depart, Yes, Lili's heart must yet remain Attached to my fond heart. Thus the bird, snapping his string in twain, Seeks his wood,—his own, Still a mark of bondage bearing, Of that string a fragment wearing. The old—the free-born bird—he cannot be again, When once a master he has known.

Seeing my friend with the guide, who carried our knapsack, come storming up the heights, I rose hastily and removed from the precipice, where I had been watching his return, lest he should drag me down into the abyss with him. I also saluted the pious father, and turned, without saying a word, to the path by which we had come. My friend followed me, somewhat hesitating, and in spite of his love and attachment to me, kept for a long time at a distance behind, till at last a glorious waterfall brought us again together for the rest of our journey, and what had been once decided, was from henceforth looked upon as the wisest and the best.

Of our descent I will only remark that we now found the snow-bridge, over which we had securely travelled with a heavy-laden train a few days before, all fallen in, and that now, as we had to make a circuit round the opened thicket, we were filled with astonishment and admiration by the colossal fragments of that piece of natural architecture.

My friend could not quite get over his disappointment at not returning into Italy; very likely he had thought of the plan some time before, and with amiable cunning had hoped to surprise me on the spot. On this account our return did not proceed so merrily as our advance; but I was occupied all the more constantly on my silent route, with trying to fix, at least in its more comprehensible and characteristic details, that sense of the sublime and vast, which, as time advances, usually grows contracted in our minds.

Küssnacht—Tell.

Not without many both new and renewed emotions and reflections did we pass over the remarkable heights about the Vierwaldstätter Lake, on our way to Küssnacht, where having landed and pursued our ramble, we had to greet Tell's chapel, which lay on our route, and to reflect upon that assassination which, in the eyes of the whole world, is so heroical, patriotic, and glorious. So, too, we sailed over the Zuger Lake, which we had seen in the distance as we looked down from Rigi. In Zug, I only remember some painted glass, inserted into the casement of a chamber of the inn, not large to be sure, but excellent in its way. Our route then led over the Albis into the Sihl valley, where, by visiting a young Hanoverian, Von Lindau, who delighted to live there in solitude, we sought to mitigate the vexation which he had felt some time before in Zurich, at our declining the offer of his company not in the most friendly or polite manner. The jealous friendship of the worthy Passavant was really the reason of my rejecting the truly dear, but inconvenient presence of another.

But before we descend again from these glorious heights, to the lake and to the pleasantly situated city, I must make one more remark upon my attempts to carry away some idea, of the country by drawing and sketching. A habit from youth upward of viewing a landscape as a picture, led me, whenever I observed any picturesque spot in the natural scenery, to try and fix it, and so to preserve a sure memorial of such moments. But having hitherto only exercised myself on confined scenes, I soon felt the incompetency of my art for such a world.

The haste I was in at once compelled me to have recourse to a singular expedient: scarcely had I noticed an interesting object, and with light and very sketchy strokes drawn the outlines on the paper, than I noted down, in words, the particular objects which I had no time to catch and fill up with the pencil, and, by this means, made the scenes so thoroughly present to my mind, that every locality, whenever I afterwards wanted it for a poem or a story, floated at once before me and was entirely at my command.

On returning to Zurich, I found the Stolbergs were gone; their stay in this city had been cut short in a singular manner.

It must be confessed that travellers upon removing to a distance from the restraints of home, are only too apt to think they are stepping not only into an unknown, but into a perfectly free world; a delusion which it was the more easy to indulge in at this time, as there was not as yet any passports to be examined by the police, or any tolls and suchlike checks and hindrances on the liberty of travellers, to remind men that abroad they are subject to still worse and more painful restraints than at home.

If the reader will only bear in mind this decided tendency to realize the freedom of nature, he will be able to pardon the young spirits who regarded Switzerland as the very place in which to "Idyllize" the fresh independence of youth. The tender poems of Gessner, as well as his charming sketches, seemed decidedly to justify this expectation.

In fact, bathing in wide waters, seems to be one of the best qualifications for expressing such poetic talents. Upon our journey thus far, such natural exercises had not seemed exactly suitable to modern customs, and we had, in some degree, abstained from them. But, in Switzerland, the sight of the cool stream,—flowing, running, rushing, then gathering on the plain, and gradually spreading out to a lake,—presented a temptation that was not to be resisted. I can not deny that I joined my companions in bathing in the clear lake, but we chose a spot far enough, as we supposed, from all human eyes. But naked bodies shine a good way, and whoever chanced to see us doubtless took offence.

Anecdote of the Stolbergs.

The good innocent youths who thought it nowise shocking to see themselves half naked, like poetic shepherds, or entirely naked, like heathen deities, were admonished by their friends to leave off all such practices. They were given to understand that they were living not in primeval nature, but in a land where it was esteemed good and salutary to adhere to the old institutions and customs which had been handed down from the middle ages. They were not disinclined to acknowledge the propriety of all this, especially as the appeal was made to the middle ages, which, to them, seemed venerable as a second nature. Accordingly, they left the more public lake shores, but when in their walks through the mountains, they fell in with the clear, rustling, refreshing streams, it seemed to them impossible, in the middle of July, to abstain from the refreshing exercise. Thus, on their wide sweeping walks, they came also to the shady vale, where the Sihl, streaming behind the Albis, shoots down to empty itself into the Limmat below Zurich. Far from every habitation, and even from all trodden foot-paths, they thought there could be no objection here to their throwing off their clothes and boldly meeting the foaming waves. This was not indeed done without a shriek, without a wild shout of joy, excited partly by the chill and partly by the satisfaction, by which they thought to consecrate these gloomy, wooded rocks into an Idyllic scene.

But, whether persons previously ill-disposed had crept after them, or whether this poetic tumult called forth adversaries even in the solitude, cannot be determined. Suffice it to say, stone after stone was thrown at them from the motionless bushes above, whether by one or more, whether accidentally or purposely, they could not tell; however, they thought it wisest to renounce the quickening element and look after their clothes.

No one got hit; they sustained no injury but the moral one of surprise and chagrin, and full of young life as they were, they easily shook off the recollection of this awkward affair.

But the most disagreeable consequences fell upon Lavater, who was blamed for having given so friendly a welcome to such saucy youths, as even to have arranged walks with them, and otherwise to shew attention to persons whose wild, unbridled, unchristian, and even heathenish habits, had caused so much scandal to a moral and well-regulated neighbourhood.

Our clever friend, however, who well knew how to smooth over such unpleasant occurrences, contrived to hush up this one also, and after the departure of these meteoric travellers, we found, on our return, peace and quiet restored.

In the fragment of Werther's travels, which has lately been reprinted in the sixteenth volume of my works, I have attempted to describe this contrast of the commendable order and legal restraint of Switzerland, with that life of nature which youth in its delusions so loudly demands. But, as people generally are apt to take all that the poet advances without reserve for his decided opinions, or even didactic censure, so the Swiss were very much offended at the comparison, and I, therefore, dropped the intended continuation, which was to have represented, more or less in detail, Werther's progress up to the epoch of his sorrows, and which, therefore, would certainly have been interesting to those who wish to study mankind.

Arrived at Zurich, I devoted my time almost exclusively to Lavater, whose hospitality I again made use of. The Physiognomy, with all its portraits and monstrous caricatures, weighed heavily and with an ever-increasing load on the shoulders of the worthy man. We arranged all as well as we could under the circumstances, and I promised him, on my return home, to continue my assistance.

I was led to give this promise by a certain youthful unlimited confidence in my own quickness of comprehension, and still more by a feeling of my readiness of adaptation to any subject; for, in truth, the way in which Lavater dissected physiognomies was not at all in my vein. The impression which at our first meeting, he had made upon me, determined, in some degree, my relation to him; although a general wish to oblige which was always strong, joined to the light-heartedness of youth, had a great share in all my actions by causing me to see things in a certain twilight atmosphere.

Lavater's mind was altogether an imposing one; in his society it was impossible to resist his decided influence, and I had no choice but to submit to it at once and set to work observing foreheads and noses, eyes and mouths, in detail, and weighing their relations and proportions. My fellow observer did this from necessity, as he had to give a perfect account of what he himself had discerned so clearly; but to me it always seemed like a trick, a piece of espionage, to attempt to analyse a man into his elements before his face, and so to get upon the track of his hidden moral peculiarities. I had more pleasure in listening to his conversation, in which he unveiled himself at will. And yet, I must confess, I always felt a degree of constraint in Lavater's presence; for, while by his art of physiognomy, he possessed himself of our peculiarities, he also made himself, by conversation, master of our thoughts, which, with a little sagacity, he would easily guess from our variety of phrases.

He who feels a pregnant synthesis in himself, has peculiarly a right to analyse, since by the outward particulars he tests and legitimizes his inward whole. How Lavater managed in such cases, a single example will suffice to show.

Lavater—His Character and Works.

On Sundays, after the sermon, it was his duty, as an ecclesiastic, to hold the short-handled, velvet, alms-bag before each one who went out, and to bless as he received the pious gift. Now, on a certain Sunday he proposed to himself, without looking at the several persons as they dropped in their offerings, to observe only their hands, and by them, silently, to judge of the forms of their owner. Not only the shape of the finger, but its peculiar action in dropping the gift, was attentively noted by him, and he had much to communicate to me on the conclusions he had formed. How instructive and exciting must such conversations have been to one, who also was seeking to qualify himself for a painter of men!

Often in my after life had I occasion to think of Lavater, who was one of the best and worthiest men that I ever formed so intimate a relation with. These notices of him that I have introduced in this work were accordingly written at various times. Following our divergent tendencies, we gradually became strangers to each other, and yet I never could bring myself to part with the favorable idea which his worth had left upon my mind. In thought I often brought him before me, and thus arose these leaves, which, as they were written without reference to and independently of each other, may contain some repetitions, but, it is hoped, no contradictions.

By his cast of mind, Lavater was a decided realist, and knew of nothing ideal except in a moral form; by keeping this remark steadily in mind, you will most readily understand this rare and singular man.

His Prospects of Eternity look merely for a continuance of the present state of existence, under easier conditions than those which we have now to endure. His Physiognomy rests on the conviction that the sensible corresponds throughout with the spiritual, and is not only an evidence of it, but indeed its representative.

The ideals of art found little favor with him, because with his sharp look he saw too clearly the impossibility of such conceptions ever being embodied in a living organization, and he therefore banished them into the realm of fable, and even of monstrosity.

His incessant demand for a realization of the ideal gained him the reputation of a visionary, although he maintained and felt convinced that no man insisted more strongly on the actual than he did; accordingly, he never could detect the error in his mode of thinking and acting.

Seldom has there been a man who strove more passionately than he did for public recognition, and thus he was particularly fitted for a teacher; but if all his labors tended to the intellectual and moral improvement of others, this was by no means their ultimate aim.

To realize the character of Christ was what he had most at heart; hence that almost insane zeal of his to have pictures of Christ drawn, copied, moulded, one after another; none of which, however, as to be expected, ever satisfied him.

His writings are hard to understand, even now, for it is far from easy to penetrate into his precise meaning. No one ever wrote so much of the times, and for the times, as Lavater; his writings are veritable journals, which in an especial manner require to be explained by the history of the day; they, moreover, are written in the language of a coterie, which one must first acquaint oneself with, before we can hold communion with them, otherwise many things will appear stupid and absurd even to the most intelligent reader. Indeed, objections enough of the kind have been made against this author, both in his lifetime and since.

Thus, for example, with our rage for dramatizing and representing under this form all that struck us, and caring for no other, we once so warmed his brain with a dramatic ardour, that, in his Pontius Pilate, he labored very hard to show that there is no more dramatic work than the Bible; and, especially, that the history of Christ's Passion must be regarded as the drama of all dramas.

In this chapter, and indeed throughout the work, Lavater appears greatly to resemble Father Abraham of Santa Clara; for into this manner every richly gifted mind necessarily falls who wishes to work upon his contemporaries. He must acquaint himself with existing tendencies and passions, with the speech and terminology of the day, and adapt them to his ends, in order to approach the mass whom he seeks to influence.

Lavater—His Character and Works.

Since Lavater took Christ literally,—as described by the Scriptures, and by most commentators,—he let this representation serve so far for the supplement of his own being, that he ideally incorporated the God-man into his own individual humanity, until he finally was able to imagine himself melted into one and united with him, and, indeed, to have become the same person.

This decidedly literal faith had also worked in him a perfect conviction that miracles can be wrought to-day as well as heretofore. Accordingly, since in some important and trying emergencies of his earlier days, he had by means of earnest and indeed violent prayer, succeeded in procuring an instantaneous and favorable turn of the impending calamity, no mere cold objections of the reasoning intellect would make him for a moment waver in this faith. Penetrated, moreover, by the idea of the greatness and excellence of Humanity as restored by Christ, and through Him destined to a blissful immortality, but, at the same time, fully sensible of the manifold requisitions of man's heart and mind, and of his insatiable yearnings after knowledge, and, moreover, feeling in himself that desire of expanding himself into the infinite to which the starry heavens seem so sensibly to invite us, he wrote under these feelings Iris "Prospects of Eternity," which must have appeared a very strange book indeed to the greater part of his contemporaries.

All this striving, however, all wishes, all undertakings, were overborne by the genius for physiognomy, which nature had bestowed upon him. For, as the touchstone, by its blackness and peculiar roughness of surface, is eminently fitted to distinguish between the metals which are applied to it; so that pure idea of humanity, which Lavater carried within himself, and that sharp yet delicate gift of observation, which at first he exercised from natural impulse occasionally only and accidentally, but afterwards with deliberate reflection and regularly, qualified him in the highest degree to note the peculiarities of individual men, and to understand, distinguish, and express them.

Every talent which rests on a decided natural gift, seems from our inability to subordinate either it or its operations to any idea to have something of magic about it. And, in truth, Lavater's insight into the characters of individuals surpassed all conception; one was utterly amazed at his remarks, when in confidence we were talking of this or that person; nay, it was frightful to live near a man who clearly discerned the nicest limits by which nature had been pleased to modify and distinguish our various personalities.

Every one is apt to believe that what he possesses himself may be communicated to others; and so Lavater was not content to make use of this great gift for himself alone, but insisted that it might be found and called forth in others, nay that it might even be imparted to the great mass. The many dull and malicious misinterpretations, the stupid jests in abundance, and detracting railleries, this striking doctrine gave rise to, may still be remembered by some men; however, it must be owned that the worthy man himself was not altogether without blame in the matter. For though a high moral sense preserved the unity of his inner being, yet, with his manifold labors, he was unable to attain to outward unity, since he did not possess the slightest capacity for philosophical method, nor for artistic talent.

He was neither Thinker nor Poet; indeed, not even an orator, in the proper sense of the term. Utterly unable to take a comprehensive and methodical view, he nevertheless formed an unerring judgment of individual cases and these he noted down boldly side by side. His great work on Physiognomy is a striking proof and illustration of this. In himself, the idea of the moral or of the sensual man might form a whole; but out of himself he could not represent this idea, except practically by individual cases, in the same way as he himself had apprehended them in life.

That very work sadly shows us how in the commonest matter of experience so sharp-sighted a man, may go groping about him. For after spending an immense sum and employing every artist and botcher living, he procured at last drawings and engravings, which were so far without character, that he is obliged in his work to say after each one that it is more or less a failure, unmeaning and worthless. True, by this means, he sharpened his own judgment, and the judgment of others; but it also proves that his mental bias led him rather to heap up cases of experience, than to draw from them any clear and sober principle. For this reason he never could come to results, though I often pressed him for them. What in later life he confided as such to his friends, were none to me; for they consisted of nothing more than a collection of certain lines and features, nay, warts and freckles, with which he had seen certain moral, and frequently immoral, peculiarities associated. There were certainly some remarks among them that surprised and riveted your attention; but they formed no series, one thing followed another accidentally, there was no gradual advance towards any general deductions and no reference to any principles previously established. And indeed there was just as little of literary method or artistic feeling to be found in his other writings, which invariably contained passionate and earnest expositions of his thoughts and objects, and supplied by the most affecting and appropriate instances, what they could not accomplish by the general conception.

Abuse of the Term—Genius.

The following reflections, as they refer to those circumstances, may be aptly introduced here.

No one willingly concedes superiority to another, so long as he can in any way deny it. Natural gifts of every kind can the least be denied, and yet by the common mode of speaking in those times, genius was ascribed to the poet alone. But another world seemed all at once to rise up; genius was looked for in the physician, in the general, in the statesman, and before long, in all men, who thought to make themselves eminent either in theory or practice. Zimmerman, especially, had advanced these claims. Lavater, by his views of Physiognomy, was compelled to assume a more general distribution of mental gifts by nature; the word genius became a universal symbol, and because men heard it uttered so often, they thought that what was meant by it, was habitually at hand. But then, since every one felt himself justified in demanding genius of others, he finally believed that he also must possess it himself. The time was yet far distant when it could be affirmed, that genius is that power of man which by its deeds and actions gives laws and rules. At this time it was thought to manifest itself only, by overstepping existing laws, breaking established rules, and declaring itself above all restraint. It was, therefore, an easy thing to be a genius, and nothing was more natural than that extravagance both of word and deed should provoke all orderly men to oppose themselves to such a monster.

When anybody rushed into the world on foot, without exactly knowing why or whither, it was called a pass of genius; and when any one undertook an aimless and useless absurdity, it was a stroke of genius. Young men, of vivacious and true talents, too often lost themselves in the limitless; and then older men of understanding, wanting perhaps in talent and in soul, found a most malicious gratification in exposing to the public gaze, their manifold and ludicrous miscarriages.

For my part, in the development and the expression of my own ideas, I perhaps experienced far more hindrance and checks from the false co-operation and interference of the like-minded, than by the opposition of those whose turn of mind was directly contrary to my own.

With a strange rapidity, words, epithets, and phrases, which have once been cleverly employed to disparage the highest intellectual gifts, spread by a sort of mechanical repetition among the multitude, and in a short time they are to be heard everywhere, even in common life, and in the mouths of the most uneducated; indeed before long they even creep into dictionaries. In this way the word genius had suffered so much from misrepresentation, that it was almost desired to banish it entirely from the German language.

And so the Germans, with whom the common voice is more apt to prevail than with other nations, would perhaps have sacrificed the fairest flower of speech, the word which, though apparently foreign, really belongs to every people, had not the sense for what is highest and best in man, been happily restored and solidly established by a profounder philosophy.

In the preceding pages mention has been frequently made of the youthful times of two men, whose memory will never hide from the history of German literature and morals. At this period, however, we came to know them as it were only by the errors into which they were misled by a false maxim which prevailed among their youthful contemporaries. Nothing, therefore, can be more proper than with due appreciation and respect to paint their natural form, their peculiar individuality, just as it appeared at that time, and as their immediate presence exhibited itself to the penetrating eye of Lavater. Consequently, since the heavy and expensive volumes of the great work on Physiognomy are probably accessible to a few only of our readers, I have no scruple in inserting here the remarkable passages of that work, which refer to both the Stolbergs, in the second part and its thirtieth fragment, page 224:

Lavater's Sketch of the Stolbergs.

"The young men, whose portraits and profiles we have here before us, are the first men who ever sat and stood to me for physiognomical description, as another would sit to a painter for his portrait.

"I knew them before, the noble ones—and I made the first attempt, in accordance with nature and with all my previous knowledge, to observe and to describe their character.

"Here is the description of the whole man.—

FIRST, OF THE YOUNGER.

"See the blooming youth of 25! the lightly-floating, buoyant, elastic creature! it does not lie; it does not stand; it does not lean; it does not fly; it floats or swims. Too full of life, to rest; too supple to stand firm; too heavy and too weak, to fly.

"A floating thing, then, which does not touch the earth! In its whole contour not a single slack line; but on the other hand no straight one, no tense one, none firmly arched or stiffly curved; no sharp entering angles, no rock-like projection of the brow; no hardness; no stiffness; no defiant roughness; no threatening insolence; no iron will—all is elastic, winning, but nothing iron; no stedfast and searching profundity; no slow reflection, or prudent thoughtfulness; nowhere the reasoner with the scales held firmly in the one hand, and the sword in the other; and yet not the least formality in look or judgment! but still the most perfect straight-forwardness of intellect, or rather the most immaculate sentiment of truth! Always the inward feeler, never the deep thinker; never the discoverer, the testing unfolder of truth so quickly seen, so quickly known, so quickly loved, and quickly grasped.... Perpetual soarer, a seer; idealizer; beautifier;—that gives a shape and form, to all his ideas! Ever the half-intoxicated poet, seeing only what he will see;—not the sorrowfully languishing; not the sternly crushing; but the lofty, noble, powerful! who with 'thirst for the sun' (Sonnendurst), hovers to and fro in the regions of air, strives aloft, and again—sinks not to earth! but throws himself headlong to earth, bather in the floods of the 'Rock-stream' (Felsenstrom), and cradles himself 'in the thunder of the echoing rocks around' (Im Donner der hallenden Felsen umher). His glance—not the fire-glance of the eagle! His brow and nose—not the courage of the lion! his breast—not the stedfastness of the steed that neighs for battle! In the whole, however, there is much of the tearing activity of the elephant....

"The projecting upper lip slightly drawn up towards the over-hanging nose, which is neither sharply cut, nor angular, evinces, with such a closing of the mouth, much taste and sensibility; while the lower part of the face bespeaks much sensuality, indolence, and thoughtlessness. The whole outline of the profile shows openness, honesty, humanity, but at the same tune a liability to be led astray, and a high degree of that good-hearted indiscretion, which injures no one but himself. The middle line of the mouth bespeaks in its repose, a downright, planless, weak, good-natured disposition; when in motion, a tender, finely-feeling, exceedingly susceptible, benevolent, noble man. In the arch of the eyelids, and in the glance of the eyes, there sits not Homer, but the deepest, most thorough, and most quick feeling, and comprehension of Homer; not the epic, but the lyric poet; genius, which fuses, moulds, creates, glorifies, hovers, transforms all into a heroic form—which deifies all. The half-closed eyelids, from such an arch, indicate the keenly sensitive poet, rather than the slowly laboring artist, who creates after a plan; the whimsical rather than the severe. The full face of the youth is much more taking and attractive, than the somewhat too loose, too protracted half-face; the fore-part of the face in its slightest motion, tells of a highly sensitive, thoughtful, inventive, untaught, inward goodness, of a softly tremulous, wrong-abhorring love of liberty—an eager vivacity. It cannot conceal from the commonest observer the slightest impression which it receives for the moment, or adopts for ever. Every object, which nearly concerns or interests him, drives the blood into the cheeks and nose; where honor is concerned, the most maidenly blush of shame spreads like lightning over the delicately sensitive skin.

Lavater's Sketch of the Stolbergs.

"The complexion is not the pale one of all-creating, all-consuming genius; not the wildly glowing one of the contemptuous destroyer; not the milk-white one of the blond; not the olive one of the strong and hardy; not the brownish one of the slowly plodding peasant; but the white, the red, and the violet, running one into another, and so expressively, and so happily, blended together like the strength and weakness of the whole character. The soul of the whole and of each single feature is freedom, and elastic activity, which springs forth easily and is as easily repulsed. The whole fore-face and the way the head is carried, promise magnanimity and upright cheerfulness. Incorruptible sensibility, delicacy of taste, purity of mind, goodness and nobleness of soul, active power, a feeling of strength and of weakness, shine out so transparently through the whole face, that what were otherwise a lively self-complacency dissolves itself into a noble modesty, and most artlessly and unconstrainedly the natural pride and vanity of youth melt with the loveliness of twilight into the easy majesty of the whole man. The whitish hair, the length and awkwardness of form, the softness and lightness of step, the hesitating gait, the flatness of the breast, the fair unfurrowed brow, and various other features spread over the whole man a certain feminine air, by which the inward quickness of action is moderated, and every intentional offence and every meanness made for ever impossible to the heart; but at the same time clearly evincing that the spirited and fiery poet, with all his unaffected thirst for freedom and for emancipation, is neither destined to be a man of business, thoroughly persistent, who steadily and resolutely carries out his plans, or to become immortal in the bloody strife. And now, in conclusion, I remark, for the first time, that I have as yet said nothing of the most striking trait—the noble simplicity, free from all affectation! Nothing of his childlike openness of heart! Nothing of the entire unconsciousness of his outward nobility! Nothing of the inexpressible bonhommie with which he accepts and bears reproaches or warnings, nay, even accusations and wrongful charges.

"But who can find an end, who will undertake to tell all that he sees or feels in a good man, in whom there is so much pure humanity?"

DESCRIPTION OF THE ELDER STOLBERG.

"What I have said of the younger brother—how much of it may be said also of the elder! The principal thing I have to remark is the following:—

"This figure and this character are more compact and less diffuse than the former. There all was longer or flatter; here all is shorter, broader, more arched, and rounded; there all was vague; here everything is more precise and sharply defined. So the brow; so the nose; so the breast: more compressed, more active, less diffuse, more of concentrated life and power! For the rest, the same amiableness and bonhommie! Not that striking openness, rather more of reserve, but in principle, or rather in deed, the same honorable tone. The same invincible abhorrence of injustice and baseness; the same irreconcilable hatred of all that is called cunning and trickery; the same unyielding opposition to tyranny and despotism; the same pure, incorruptible sensibility to all that is noble, and great, and good; the same need of friendship and of freedom, the same sensitiveness and noble thirst for glory; the same catholicity of heart for all good, wise, sincere, and energetic men, renowned or unrenowned, known or misunderstood,—and the same light-hearted inconsiderateness. No! not exactly the same. The face is sharper, more contracted, firmer; has more inward, self-developing capacity for business and practical counsels; more of enterprising spirit—which is shown especially by the strongly prominent and fully rounded bones of the eye-sockets. Not the all-blending, rich, pure, lofty poet's feeling—not the ease and rapidity of the productive, power which marks the other—but yet he is, and that in profounder depths, vivacious, upright, ardent. Not the airy genius of light floating away in the morning red of heaven, and fashioning huge shapes therein—but more of inward power, though perhaps less of expression! more powerful and terrible—less of elegance and finish; though his pencil nevertheless wants neither coloring nor enchantment. More wit and riotous humor; droll satire; brow, nose, look—all so downward, so over-hanging—decidedly what it should be for original and all-enlivening wit, which does not gather from without, but brings forth from within. Above all in this character every trait more prominent, more angular, more aggressive, more storming! No passive dullness, no relaxation, except in the sunken eyes, where, as well as in the brow and nose, pleasure evidently sits. In all besides—and even in this very brow, this concentration of all—in this look indeed—there is an unmistakable expression of natural, unacquired greatness; strength, impetuosity of manliness; constancy, simplicity, precision!"

After having in Darmstadt conceded to Merck the justice of his opinions and allowed him to triumph, in his having predicted my speedy separation from these gay companions, I found myself again in Frankfort, well received by every one, including my father, although the latter could not conceal his disappointment that I had not descended by the pass to Airolo, and announced to him from Milan my arrival in Italy. All this was expressed by his silence rather than his words; but above all he did not show the slightest sympathy with those wild rocks, those lakes of mist, and dragons' nests.

At last, however, by an incidental remark, by no means intended for a reproach, he gave me to understand how little all such sights were worth: he who has not seen Naples, he observed, has lived to no end.

My Meeting again with Lili.

On my return I did not, I could not, avoid seeing Lili; the position we maintained towards each other was tender and considerate. I was informed that they had fully convinced her in my absence, that she must break off her intimacy with me, and that this was the more necessary and indeed more practicable, since by my journey and voluntary absence, I had given a sufficiently clear intimation of my own intentions. Nevertheless, the same localities in town and country, the same friends, confidentially acquainted with all the past, could scarcely be seen without emotion by either of us—still and for ever lovers, although drawn apart in a mysterious way. It was an accursed state, which in a certain sense resembled Hades, or the meeting of the happy with the unhappy dead.

There were moments when departed days seemed to revive, but instantly vanished again, like ghosts.

Some kind people had told me in confidence, that Lili, when all the obstacles to, our union were laid before her, had declared that for my love she was ready to renounce all present ties and advantages, and to go with me to America. America was then perhaps, still more than now, the Eldorado of all who found themselves crossed in the wishes of the moment.

But the very thing which should have animated my hopes, only depressed them the more. My handsome paternal house, only a few hundred steps from hers, offered certainly a more tolerable and more attractive habitation than an uncertain and remote locality beyond the ocean; still I do not deny, that in her presence all hopes, all wishes sprang to life again, and irresolution was stirring within me.

True, the injunctions of my sister were very peremptory and precise; not only had she, with all the shrewd penetration of which she was mistress, explained the situation of things to me, but she had also, with painfully cogent letters, harped upon the same text still more powerfully. "It were very well," said she, "if you could not help it, then you would have to put up with it; such things one must suffer but not choose." Some months passed away in this most miserable of all conditions; every circumstance had conspired against the union; in her alone I felt, I knew, lay the power which could have overcome every difficulty.

Both the lovers, conscious of their position, avoided all solitary interviews; but, in company, they could not help meeting in the usual formal way. It was now that the strongest trial was to be gone through, as every noble and feeling soul will acknowledge, when I have explained myself more fully.

It is generally allowed, that in a new acquaintance, in the formation of a new attachment, the lover gladly draws a veil over the past. Growing affection troubles itself about no antecedents, and as it springs up like genius with the rapidity of lightning, it knows nothing either of past or future. It is true, my closer intimacy with Lili had begun by her telling me the story of her early youth: how, from a child up, she had excited in many both a liking and devotion to herself, especially in strangers visiting her father's gay and lively house, and how she had found her pleasure in all this, though it had been attended with no further consequences and had lead to no permanent tie.

Lili's Old Lovers.

True, lovers consider all that they have felt before only as preparation for their present bliss, only as the foundation on which the structure of their future life is to be reared. Past attachments seem like spectres of the night, which glide away before the break of day.

But what occurred! The fair came on, and with it appeared the whole swarm of those spectres in their reality; all the mercantile friends of the eminent house came one by one, and it was soon manifest that not a man among them was willing or able wholly to give up a certain claim to the lovely daughter. The younger ones, without being obtrusive, still seemed to claim the rights of familiar friends; the middle-aged, with a certain obliging dignity, like those who seek to make themselves beloved, and who in all probability might come forward with higher claims. There were fine men among them, with the additional recommendation of a substantial fortune.

The older gentlemen, with their uncle's ways and manners, were altogether intolerable; they could not bridle their hands, and in the midst of their disagreeable twaddle would demand a kiss, for which the cheek was not refused. It was so natural to her, gracefully to satisfy every one. The conversation, too, excited many a painful remembrance. Allusion was constantly made to pleasure parties by water and by land, to perils of all kinds with their happy escapes, to balls and evening promenades, to the amusement afforded by ridiculous wooers, and to whatever could excite an uncomfortable jealousy in the heart of an inconsolable lover, who had, as it were, for a long time drawn to himself the sum of so many years. But amid all this crowd and gaiety, she did not push aside her friend, and when she turned to him, she contrived, in a few words, to express all the tenderness which seemed allowable to their present position.

But let us turn from this torture, of which the memory even is almost intolerable, to poesy, which afforded, at least, an intellectual and heartfelt alleviation of my sufferings.

"Lili's Menagerie" belongs somewhere to this period; I do not adduce the poem here, because it does not reveal the softer sentiment, but seeks only, with genial earnestness, to exaggerate the disagreeable, and by comical, and provoking images, to change renunciation into despair.

The following song expresses rather the sweeter side of that misery, and on that account is here inserted:

Sweetest roses, ye are drooping, By my love ye were not worn; Bloom for one, who past all hoping, Feels his soul by sorrow torn. Oh, the days still live in thought, love, When to thee, my angel, bound; I my garden early sought, love, And for thee the young buds found. All the flowers and fruits I bore thee, And I cast them at thy feet; As I proudly stood before thee, Then my heart with hope would beat! Sweetest roses, ye are drooping, By my love ye were not worn; Bloom for one, who past all hoping, Feels his soul by sorrow torn.

The opera of "Erwin and Elvira" was suggested by the pretty little romaunt or ballad introduced by Goldsmith in his "Vicar of Wakefield," which had given us so much pleasure in our happiest days, when we never dreamed that a similar fate awaited us.

I have already introduced some of the poetical productions of this epoch, and I only wish they had all been preserved. A never failing excitement in the happy season of love, heightened by the beginning of care, gave birth to songs, which throughout expressed no overstrained emotion, but always the sincere feeling of the moment. From social songs for festivals, down to the most trifling of presentation-verses—all was living and real and what a refined company had sympathized in; first glad, then sorrowful, till finally there was no height of bliss, no depth of woe, to which a strain was not devoted.

All these internal feelings and outward doings, so far as they were likely to vex and pain my father, were by my mother's bustling prudence skilfully kept from him. Although his hope of seeing me lead into his house, that first one (who had so fully realised his ideas of a daughter-in-law) had died away, still this "state-lady," as he used to call her in his confidential conversations with ms wife, would never suit him.

Nevertheless he let matters take their course, and diligently occupied himself with his little Chancery. The young juristic friend, as well as the dexterous amanuensis, gained continually more and more of influence under his firm. As the absentee was now no longer missed there, they let me take my own way, and sought to establish themselves firmly upon a ground on which I was not destined to thrive.

Fortunately my own tendencies corresponded with the sentiments and wishes of my father. He had so great an idea of my poetic talents, and felt so personal a pleasure in the applause which my earliest efforts had obtained, that he often talked to me on the subject of new and further attempts. On the other hand, I did not venture to communicate to him any of these social effusions and poems of passion.

Plan of Egmont.

As, in Götz von Berlichingen, I had in my own way mirrored forth the image of an important epoch of the world, I now again carefully looked round for another crisis in political history of similar interest. Accordingly the Revolt of the Netherlands attracted my attention. In Götz, I had depicted a man of parts and energy, sinking under the delusion that, in times of anarchy, ability and honesty of purpose must have their weight and influence. The design of Egmont was to shew that the most firmly established institutions cannot maintain themselves against a powerful and shrewdly calculating Despotism. I had talked so earnestly with my father about what the piece ought to be, and what I wanted to do, that it inspired him with an invincible desire to see the plan which I had already worked out in my head, fairly set down on paper, in order to its being printed and admired.

In earlier times, while I still hoped to gain Lili's hand, I had applied myself with the utmost diligence to the study and practice of legal business, but now I sought to fill the fearful gulf which separated me from her, with occupations of more intellect and soul. I therefore set to work in earnest with the composition of Egmont. Unlike the first Götz von Berlichingen, however, it was not written in succession and in order; but immediately after the first introduction I went at once to the main scenes without troubling myself about the various connecting links. I made rapid progress, because my father, knowing my fitful way of working, spurred me on (literally and without exaggeration) day and night, and seemed to believe that the plan, so easily conceived, might as easily be executed.

TWENTIETH BOOK.

Kraus—Daemonic Influence—Heidelberg—Departure for Weimar

And so I got on rapidly with my "Egmont;" and while I found in this some alleviation of my wounded passion, the society of a clever artist also helped me through many wearisome hours. And thus, as had often before been the case, a vague desire of practical improvement brought me a secret peace of mind, at a time when it could scarcely be hoped for.

George Melchior Kraus, who had been born at Frankfort, but educated in Paris, having just returned from a short tour to the north of Germany, paid me a visit, and I immediately felt an impulse and a need to attach myself to him. He was a cheerful merry fellow, whose light joyous disposition had found its right sphere in Paris.

At that time Paris promised a pleasant welcome for Germans; Philip Hackert was residing there in credit and opulence; the true German style in which, both in oil and water-colors, he faithfully executed landscapes after nature, met with great favor, as contrasted with the formal mannerism into which the French had fallen. Wille, in high esteem as a copperplate engraver, supported and made German excellence more widely known. Grimm, already an artist of some influence, rejoiced to help his countrymen. Pleasant excursions, in order to take original sketches from nature were constantly undertaken, in which much of undoubted excellence was either executed or designed.

Boucher and Watteau, both of them artists born, whose works, though fluttering in the style and spirit of the time, were always highly respectable, were favorably inclined to the new school, and even took an active part in their excursions, though only for the sake of amusement and experiment. Greuze, living quietly by himself in his family circle, and fond of representing such domestic scenes, seemed delighted with his own works, held an honored and easy pencil.

All these several styles our townsman Kraus was able to take up and blend with his own particular talent; he formed himself in school after school, and was skilful in his portrait-like delineations of family and friendly gatherings; equally happy was he in his landscape sketches, which cordially commended themselves to the eye by their clear outlines, massive shadows, and agreeable coloring. The inward sense was satisfied by a certain naïve truth, while the admirer of artistic skill was especially pleased with the tact by which he arranged and grouped into a picture what he had copied singly from nature.

He was a most agreeable companion; a cheerful equanimity never failed him; obliging without obsequiousness, reserved without pride, he was everywhere at home, everywhere beloved, the most active, and, at the same time, the most manageable of all mortals. With such talents and of such a disposition, he soon won the favor of the higher circles; but he was especially well received at the castle of the Baron von Stein, at Nassau on the Lahn, whose accomplished and lovely daughter he assisted in her artistic studies, and in many ways enlivened the whole circle.

Upon the marriage of this excellent lady to the Count von Werther, the newly wedded couple took the artist with them to Thuringia, where the Count possessed a large estate, and thus he got to Weimar. His acquaintance was immediately sought, his talents were appreciated—and a wish expressed that he would fix his permanent abode there.

Obliging as he was to everybody, upon his return at this time to Frankfort, he stimulated my love of art, which had been contented with merely collecting, and to making practical essays. The neighbourhood of the artist is indispensable to the Dilettante, for the latter sees all that is wanting in himself supplied by the former; the wishes of the amateur are fulfilled in the artist.

By a certain natural talent, assisted by practice, I succeeded pretty well in an outline, and I could give the shape of all that I saw before me in nature; but I wanted the peculiar plastic power, the skilful industry, which lends a body to the outline by well-graduated light and shade. My copies were rather remote suggestions of the real form, and my figures like those light airy beings in Dante's Purgatory, which, casting no shadow themselves, fled affrighted at the shadows of actual bodies.

Lavater's fishing for physiognomical treasures—for so we may well designate the importunate urgency with which he called upon all men, not only to observe physiognomies, but also practically to make, be it artistic or most bungling attempts at copying faces, led me into the habit of taking the portraits of all my friends on grey paper, with black and white chalk. The likeness was not to be mistaken, but it required the hand of my artistic friend to make them stand out from the dark background.

Kraus the Artist.

In turning over and looking through the rich portfolio of drawings which the good Kraus had taken during his travels, we had most pleasant talk together when he came to the sketches of scenes and persons in and about Weimar. On such paintings I, too, was glad to dwell, and you may imagine that it must have been flattering to the young man, to see in so many pictures only the text which was to lead to a circumstantially repeated exclamation: they would be glad to see him there. With much grace he would imitate the different persons whose portraits he had taken and impersonate the greetings and invitations he had received. One very successful oil-painting represented the musical director, Wolf, at the piano, with his wife behind him preparing to sing; and this gave the artist opportunity to assure me in earnest terms, of the warm welcome this worthy pair would give me. Among his sketches were several of the wood and mountain scenery around Bürgel. Here an honest forester, more perhaps to please his pretty daughters than himself, had by means of bridges, railings, and mossy paths, opened pleasant and sociable walks through the rough masses of rocks, thickets, and plantations. In one of these beautiful promenades he had painted the fair damsels in white dresses, and not without their attendant cavaliers. In one of these you immediately recognized Bertuch, whose serious designs upon the oldest daughter were openly avowed; and Kraus was not offended if you ventured to refer a second youth to himself, and guessed his growing attachment to the sister.

Bertuch, as the pupil of Wieland, had so distinguished himself in science and in business, that already appointed private secretary of the Duke, he had the best possible prospects before him. From him we passed to Wieland and talked at length of his rectitude, and cheerfulness, and kindly disposition; his fine literary and poetical designs were dwelt upon, and allusions were made to the influence of the Merkur throughout Germany; many other names of literary, political, or social distinction were also mentioned, and among them. Musæus, Kirms, Berendis, and Ludecus. Of women, the wife of Wolf, and a widow Kotzebue, with a lovely daughter and a bright boy, were, among many others, characterized and extolled. Everything seemed to point to a fresh and active life of literature and art.

And so, by degrees, were exhibited all the various elements upon which the young Duke was, on his return, to work. His mother and guardian had prepared this state of things, while, as regarded the introduction of more important measures, all that, in accordance with the duty of such provisional governments, was left to the judgment and decision of the future sovereign. The sad ruin caused by the burning of the palace was already looked upon as furnishing occasion for new improvements. The mines at Ilmenau, which had stopped working, but which, it was asserted, might again be made profitable by going to the great expense of repairing the deep shaft;—the university at Jena, which was somewhat behind the spirit of the age, and was consequently threatened with the loss of some of its most able teachers,—and many other matters, roused a noble common interest. Already were looks cast around for persons, who, in the upward struggle of Germany, might be qualified to further such various designs for good, and the prospect seemed as fresh as the vivacity and energy of youth could desire. And if it seemed sad to bring a young princess not to a home, of a suitable princely dignity, but to a very ordinary dwelling built for quite a different object; still such beautifully situated and well contrived country-houses as Ettenburg, Belvedere, and other delightful pleasure-seats, gave enjoyment for the present, and also a hope that the life of nature thus rendered necessary, might lead to profitable and agreeable occupations.