"Faust "" may show signs of decay, but assuredly it is not prosaic. On the point of disappearance, this great orb of poetry is surrounded by a fantastic pomp of form and color. Nor, on the other hand, does he ever become a mere cold realist. If he accumulates details it is not in the spirit of a Defoe, or for the mere pleasure of producing illusion for the generalizing tendency, so far from being weak, is almost excessive in him; but because, like the inductive philosopher, he is eager for facts, and desires to have the broadest basis for his conclusions. relations of Tasso to the princess, we see a reflection of those of Goethe to Frau von Stein. In "Wilhelm Meister," it is known that the "Confessions of a Beautiful Soul" are substantially the memoirs of Fräulein von Klettenberg, to which Goethe has made some additions. Much of this novel also is autobiographical. In the first book there are many pages which might almost as well have appeared in "Dichtung und Wahrheit." The very name of the hero is explained when we find Goethe in his early period, and when his enthusiasm for Shakespeare was at its This taste for facts is not only to be height, harping upon William as the name perceived in the minuteness of particular of his guardian genius. When we find descriptions, but in the whole character his songs, in like manner, suggested in of his plays, novels, and poems, and it ex- almost every case by some real incident plains how they may often seem dull, and and some real feeling, we begin to persometimes may really be so. Seriousness ceive that Goethe regards poetry and litand dulness may easily in literature be erature generally in a way peculiar to mistaken for each other. What is unin- himself. He brings it into a much closer teresting as fiction may be highly inter- connection than other writers with actual esting when it is regarded as fact; and life and experience. We perceive the in Goethe's works much more is fact and full force of his own statement, that all much less is mere fiction than the reader his works taken together made up a great is apt to assume. His most famous work, confession. With this clue in their hands, "Faust," is not that which is most char- the commentators have traced the origin acteristic of his genius. He there revels of a vast number of incidents and characin quaint and audacious invention, quite ters which otherwise would have been contrary to the habit, contrary even to the held, as a matter of course, to have been cherished principles, of his mature life. invented by Goethe. Thus in the little The truth is that "Faust," though it was play, "Die Geschwister," we meet again finished and published late, is in its con- with the Frau von Stein. The story of ception a youthful work. He was long "Stella" has been traced to the circle of disposed to regard the commencement he Jacobi. In "Wilhelm Meister," numberhad early made as among the crudities less identifications have been made. The which in his second period he had out-prince in whose honor the players perform grown. For many years it lay untouched, the masque of "Peace," is Prince Henry of and when, in the closing years of the Prussia, the pedantic count is Count Wereighteenth century, he turned once more ther, the countess is the sister of Minister to "these northern phantoms," as he calls Stein, and so on without end. Such them, it is with misgiving and repugnance. identifications are unimportant in themBut a tide of medievalism set in, by selves, but they throw light upon the which, in spite of himself, he was carried working of Goethe's imagination. They away, and the first part of "Faust," pub- show us in what a singular degree real lished in 1808, was Goethe's concession life furnished him not only with material, to the romanticist fashion a sort of op- but with inspiration. He has himself told portunist abandonment of his mature con- us that his only way of getting rid of the victions and return to an earlier style experiences which pressed upon him, was which he had deliberately renounced. to put them in a book. Many poets set a Many misconceptions of Goethe have re- wide gulf between the real world and the sulted from the habit of estimating him by world of their imaginations; most, perthis exceptional work. In his other works haps, receive from life one or two strong it is a general rule that they are founded and fresh impressions, which they afterin a remarkable degree upon fact. "Götz "wards mix with a large amount of trais a dramatized memoir, so is "Clavigo." "Werther "" was constructed by combining what had passed between Goethe and Lotte Buff with the circumstances of Jerusalem's suicide. "Tasso" is a pic ture of court life at Weimar; and in the ditional commonplace; few but regard reality as an influence more or less adverse, more or less disenchanting. To Goethe, reality is the sole source of poetry; in his works so much poetry, so much experience. who try to reduce them to practice; precepts which are not merely earnest, but, what is so much rarer, serious. Only a very great genius can venture to be thus matter-of-fact, and the greatest genius will not always handle such a method successfully. He who habitually He makes his Tasso say of Clorinda, turns his own life into poetry, who lays Armida, Tancred, and the rest, what before the public whatever has chanced to sounds strangely when applied to them, make a deep impression upon himself, will "I know they are immortal, for they are." at times—especially when, like Goethe, (Ich weiss es, sie sind ewig, denn sie sind.) he is not writing for a livelihood-write Of Goethe's own characters this might what cannot possibly be interesting to very fairly be said, and it is a remarkable others; and Goethe has written many saying. He, one of the great poetic crepages tiresomely precise, which no one, if ators, hardly believes in what is called the they had been written by an ordinary creative imagination at all. According to writer, would care to read, and many more him, if a character is to be such as will which, if not wholly unimportant, seem at bear examination, it must not be invented, least not important enough. More usu- but transferred from real life. The very ally he is not in reality dull; but he is, in play from which the maxim is taken illus his prose writings at least, what those who trates it. Tasso at Ferrara is in reality read lightly and for mere amusement call Goethe at Weimar, not indeed Goethe as dull. Such readers can make little, for in- | he was, for he had precisely the balance stance, of "Wilhelm Meister," a novel of character which Tasso wants, but as he with few incidents and only one or two was tempted to be, as he feared in the strongly marked characters ("a menage- first years of his court life to become. rie of tame cattle," Niebuhr called it), How consistently in all his works he but full of discussion, strangely labored acted on the same maxim his commentaand minute, on matters more or less practi- tors have shown, and those who assume to cal. It is as uninteresting to most plain be his critics should be careful to remempeople as Wordsworth's "Prelude," and ber. Perhaps Goethe does not impress much more prosaic. Goethe has not in us quite as Shakespeare does, whose plays this instance made a mistake; he has only are so full of latent thought, who reveals given the rein to his realistic and serious so much on close examination which is genius. But the majority of mankind are wholly unsuspected by the ordinary reader, not serious, and if they enjoy realism, it that an experienced student of him gives is not realism of this kind. He aims at no up fault-finding in despair. Goethe, on illusion, and his minute descriptions are the other hand, seems quite capable of seldom humorous. He appears as a phil- making mistakes; still there is such a osophic realist, studying life that he may fund of reality and of actual fact in his become wise, and describing it that he so-called fiction that criticism of it may may make his readers wise. Alas, for easily be rash. Thus Coleridge, in the ninety-nine out of every hundred of them! curious passage which is his sole mani. If he had not once or twice, especially festo on the subject of the greatest writer in " Faust," had the good luck to light of his age, finds fault with the character upon a fable interesting to all the world, of Faust, which he calls dull and meanand so once or twice charmed, like Shake-ingless. It is indeed not quite easy to speare, the many and the few at once, understand Faust, as it is not easy to Goethe would have remained, at least out- understand Hamlet. But Coleridge himside Germany, a writer little known and self more earnestly than any one forbids only prized by a curious reader here and us to lay the blame of the obscurity there. As it is, his universal fame brings of Hamlet's character on Shakespeare. into notice pieces which have no superfi- And there is at least a probability that cial attractions, and makes men study Faust's character too will bear examinaclosely other pieces which they would tion, because Faust is no mere imaginary, have passed over lightly. Once admitted being, but is in fact Goethe himself. If as a classic, he reaps all the benefit of inconsistency has crept in, it.is the conse his seriousness. For his works bear ex-quence of a questionable practice which amination if only they can attract it. Those who read them at all will read them over and over. Here is literature which nourishes; here are books which may be. come bosom friends. Here are high views put forward modestly, grand and large ideas which will not disappoint those Goethe had of keeping his designs so long by him that his hand altered during the progress of the execution. Goethe then is not in the same class as Scott, first, because he wants the rich fund of traditional sentiment which came to Scott by right of birth; secondly, be cause he has a much more abundant supply of what may be called new poetry that is, poetry derived at first hand from nature, which is as a spring chillingly cold, yet so pure and refreshing! He is not like Scott, but rather like Wordsworth and Shakespeare compounded together. But before our conception of him can be complete, we must recognize another great quality that he possesses. Goethe is a perfect Solomon for proverbs; they pour from him in floods. He has such an abundance of them to communicate, that he is often at a loss where to find room for them, and puts them recklessly into the mouths of personages who cannot reasonably be credited with such a rare talent for generalization - the practical Therese, the tender and unhappy Ottilie. The knack of coining pregnant sentences is so remarkable in him, that when we see it so strangely combined with a lyrical talent and a love of natural science, we are irresistibly reminded of the ancient description of Solomon, which says that he "spake of trees, from the cedar which is in Lebanon to the hyssop which springeth out of the wall; also he spake three thousand proverbs, and his songs were a thousand and five." He is a sage as truly as he is a poet, and never, unless in Shakespeare, has such another combination of the generalizing with the imaginative faculty been witnessed. But when we examine his wisdom, we find that it is much more than a mere instinctive habit of observation combined with an unrivalled power of expression. His sentences are not mere detached fragments, or momentary flashes, of insight. They are the coherent aphorisms of a sort of system of philosophy. He is not merely a sage, he is even a philosopher. His wisdom, though it is not presented in scholastic form, has unity about it, and is calculated to influence, nay, has deeply influenced, philosophic students. We have had, in recent times, several literary men, who, without being philosophers in the academic sense, yet claim to have something to say and to contribute something original to philosophic discussion. And the most specialized philosophers may well listen with respect, as Mill listens to Wordsworth, to men of exceptional sensibility, who see the universe in a light peculiar to themselves, even when such men are without learning, and cannot command the proper philosophic expression for their thoughts. Goethe looks at the discussions of the school from the outside, and regards them rather with derision than respect, as the readers of "Faust" do not need to be reminded. He continued through life to regard the new systems which sprang up around him with something of the same sceptical indifference which he had shown in youth to the Collegium Logicum. Of all the great philosophers, perhaps, only Spinoza produced much impression on him. Yet he is a philosopher in a higher degree than any other literary man, and has produced a deeper impression than any literary man upon thinkers and students. Though in the modern sense we hesitate to call him a philosopher, yet in the old sense, and in the highest sense of the name, few of the recognized philosophers have nearly so good a title to it as he. For to him philosophy is not merely a study, but a life; it is not summed up in thinking and classifying and constructing systems, but extends to all departments of activity. And it would be difficult to name the philosopher who has devoted himself with more methodical seriousness than Goethe to the problem of leading, and then of teaching, the best and most desirable kind of life. He conceives the problem in its largest possible extent. From prudential maxims in the style of Johnson, he rises to more general precepts on the choice of a vocation, pouring out a fund of wisdom peculiarly his own on the mistakes men make about their own aptitudes; then he dwells more particularly on the life of the artist, a subject till then scarcely noticed by moralists, but treated by Goethe with the greatest comprehensiveness; then he rises to morality and religion. On all subjects alike he is serious; on all subjects perfectly unfettered. He has the advantage of a vast experirience, for he has practised every art, tasted every literature, informed himself about every science, turning away only from quite abstract studies, mathematics, logic, and metaphysics; and beside all that can be acquired from study, society, and travel, he has managed a theatre and governed a small State. He has the coolness and shrewdness of the most practical men; but he has none of the narrowness, none of the hardness, to which practical men are liable. On the contrary, he is full of tender sympathy, and he has also infinite good-humor. Had Goethe appeared as a thinker and philosopher only, he would have been similar to Bacon. Can we say that he would have been at all inferior? His observation extends over wider provinces of life; he is more honest, more kindly. A FUGITIVE IN BROAD DAY. THE fugitive was not Sir William, he stayed on at Whitehills as if he meant to stay there for the rest of his life. He had given up his scheme of emigration, and after his short scandalous outbreak and his wife's death, settled down as he had done on his arrival in the neighborhood. But though he had made no inroads to speak of on his fortune during his brief prodigal madness, he took no steps to reorganize or replenish the ranks of his household, which had fallen into still further What an imposing total do we arrive at if we add together all the qualities that have been enumerated! The creator of the literature of his country, the author of the freshest lyrics, and of one of the grandest dramas, the high-minded literary re-disorder, and been diminished to the last former, disdainful of popularity, who kept his works free from rhetorical falseness, the unrivalled critic and observer; this man is also the teacher, and at the same time the example, of a great system of practical philosophy. degree in the prospect of Sir William and Lady Thwaite's leaving the country. In fact Sir William's establishment now consisted of an old woman, with a girl to help her, and Bill Rogers. With this the master of the house appeared satisfied, leading as he did the life of a recluse. Scarcely any man has been to any na tion all that Goethe has been to Germany. This went on for nearly two years. Mr. When we think what he did, we are irre- Mills came down on business occasionsistibly led to inquire what he was. He, ally, and tried to prove his client's reforhimself, in Dichtung und Wahrheit," mation and his own trust in its perma. showed that the key to his writings is to nency, by seeking to draw out Sir William be found in his biography. His country. afresh, and by endeavoring to interest him men have taken the hint with German in county matters, and in his duties as a docility, and followed it up with German landlord. So far as that went Sir William industry. It has been said that the life of was amenable to influence. While he Louis XIV. might almost be written from read more than ever, he strove harder to day to day, and we begin to know Goethe's lay himself open to every source of intel life with the same minuteness. The rev-ligent observation and occupation around elation certainly heightens our sense of his greatness. If we look merely at the fulness of his life, at the quantity of action, sensation, and thought comprised in it, if we try merely to reckon up how much work he did, we are lost in amazement, and admire more than ever the rare quality, the freshness and exquisiteness of so much of that work. Our conception of Goethe is completed when we add to all the numerous and various excellencies shown in his writings, that in the man himself as he lived and moved, there was a spring of vitality so fresh ("a heart as strong as a mountain river"), that the mere story of his life without any help from strange adventures, the mere narrative of his undertakings, travels, plans, conversations, loves, and friendships, is fascinating. J. R. SEELEY. him, and to comply with all the obligations that could reasonably be required of him. He began to rebuild the half-finished houses, he dabbled in the allotment system, he showed interest in the decisions of the justices. He met his neighbors again on public occasions, and displayed to them something of the dearly bought obliviousness and blunt superiority to manners and fashions generally, which were partly the results of passing a second time through the fires of remorse and unappeasable regret. But Sir William's complacence ended there, though the most of his neighbors would have been well enough pleased to have granted him further grace, even venturing to re-admit him to the sanctuary of their homes. These magnates were coming round to the conclusion that Sir William had sown his wild oats in one crop; that it was all the result of his mis- | erable marriage; but now that he had got a deliverance from his low-born wife, he was living once more as quietly and so. berly as a judge. He had escaped with the skin of his teeth from all his perils, and it was the duty of every good Christian and good neighbor, after a sufficient interval had passed to test his reforma tion, to welcome back the prodigal, and encourage him in the way he should go. But Sir William declined every social overture, not so much rudely as with a calm persistence that foiled and wore out the most persevering endeavors. He did not even make the exceptions he had allowed himself three years before. Lady Thwaite, Sir John's widow, had returned from Rome long ago; but though Sir William's carriages and the produce of his hothouses were once more at her disposal, no little notes, clever manœuvres, or frank advances would induce him either to go to her at Netherton, or to authorize her interference in the domestic economy of Whitehills. The cool overtures which old Lady Fermor made to Sir William to renew his intercourse with Lambford fared still worse. There was a rumor that he not only declined all her invitations, but passed her carriage with a bow, though its mistress hailed him in a voice which might have been heard a mile off. What better could have been expected from the plain man with whom she had played like a wicked, hoary-headed enchantress, whom she had beguiled with lures which her granddaughter disowned? Sir William was never seen within the rectory, though he had resumed his attendance at church, had gone to vestry meetings, and was ready with help for the parish poor when it was called for. Lady Fermor reverted shamelessly to the shameful passages in her own life, in the hearing of the pure ears that tingled with horror and affront. She dwelt on hereditary taints and hereditary spotted reputations until Iris grew sick with loathing at the infamy in which she felt hopelessly entangled, in spite of her utter revolt against its foulness and baseness. She cried day and night to the God of righteousness, who has declared it is not his will that because the fathers have eaten sour grapes the children's teeth shall be set on edge. Lord, thou wilt hold me up. Thou wilt sooner send the Angel of Death to set me free," prayed the poor girl. 66 Lady Fermor's last, deliberate, wellnigh insane sin against the granddaughter thus in her power was that she threw Iris in the way of Major Pollock, who continued after Lord Fermor's death the one constant male habitué of the house. All her life long Iris had experienced an extreme repugnance and positive dread of this man. He was a disgrace to the town of Knotley, which yet tolerated the blackleg because of the prestige of his original rank, his supposed knowledge of the great world (on the evil side), and his connection with such a house as Lambford. There was hardly a redeeming trait to be discovered among his leers and sneers, his cheatery, effrontery, and profanity. Iris's recoil was the instinctive shrinking of good from unmixed evil over which it has no power. Yet it was for this man, old enough to be Iris's father, brutalized by a lengthened career of vice and debauchery, impoverished by such riot as was within his reach, that Lady Fermor now affected to destine her grandchild! The mistress of Lambford, as it seemed, half in cruel jest, half in more cruel earnest, in the frenzy which had taken possession of her, ceased to encourage any other visitor at the house. She refused to let Iris go to Lady Thwaite at Netherton, or to the Actons at the rectory, compelling her to sit and talk with the worst of companions, and to make herself conspicuous by walking, riding, and driving with this reprobate, till the girl was half mad with fright and disgust. If Sir William enjoyed the respite from neighborly visiting, there was another person, the last he would have exposed to suffer on his account, who was punished for his remissness. Old Lady Fermor, who had formerly simply neglected Iris, and who had shown some capacity of toleration where what the girl's grandmother classed as fanaticism and obstinacy of temper were concerned, now set upon her granddaughter day after day, taunted her There are exhausted states of the bodwith barbarous taunts, vouchsafed the ily constitution which medical men assert agreeable information that Iris's father are favorable to the sowing of the seeds had ended by despising and detesting her of disease. In the same way there are mother, and added to it the comfortable depressed conditions of the mind after it sequel that the Hon. Mrs. Compton had has been subjected to prolonged trial, cared nothing for her child, and had when it loses its capacity to balance probthrown it a dead weight upon her mother. | abilities, and readily falls a victim to |