Home Life of Great Authors.
GOETHE.
In an old, many-cornered, and gloomy house at Frankfort-on-the-Main, upon the 28th of August, 1749, was born the greatest German of his day, Wolfgang Goethe. The back of the house, from the second story, commanded a very pleasant prospect over an almost immeasurable extent of gardens stretching to the walls of the city, but the house itself was gloomy, being shut in by a high wall. Over these gardens beyond the walls and ramparts of the city, stretched a long plain, where the young Wolfgang, serious and thoughtful, was wont to wander and to learn his lessons. He had the sort of superstitious dread which is usually the inheritance of children with a poetic nature, and suffered greatly in childhood from fear. He was obliged by his father, who was a stern and somewhat opinionated old man, to sleep alone, as a means of overcoming this fear; and if he tried to steal from his own bed to that of his brothers, he was frightened back by his father, who watched for him and chased him in some fantastic disguise. That this did not tend to quiet his nerves may well be imagined, and it was only through time and much suffering that he overcame his childish terrors. His mother was a gay, cheerful woman, much younger than his father, and as she was only eighteen years old when Wolfgang was born, always said that they were young together. She had married with little affection for her elderly husband, and it was in her favorite son that she found all the romance and beauty of her life. She was a woman of strong character, and presents one of the pleasantest pictures in German literature. With a warm, genial nature, full of spirit and enthusiasm, she retained to the last days of her life an ardent interest in all the things which delighted her in youth. She read much, thought much, and observed much, for one in her sphere of life, and many great people who came to know her through her son learned to value her very highly for herself alone. She corresponded long with the Duchess Amalia, and her letters were much enjoyed at the Court of Weimar. Princes and poets delighted to honor her in later life, and her son was enthusiastic in his devotion to her till the last. She comforted him through his rather fanciful and fantastic childhood as much as she could without directly interfering with the discipline of the didactic father. Goethe and his mother were both taught by this father, who considered her almost as much of a child as the boy himself. She was kept busy with writing, playing the clavichord, and singing, as well as with the study of Italian, in which the father much delighted; and the boy had grammar, and the Latin classics, and a geography in memory-verses. The boy soon got beyond his teacher, but without being well-grounded in anything, and learned, as such children are apt to do, much more from his own desultory reading than from any instruction which was given him. In the library were the beautiful Dutch editions of the Latin classics and many works relating to Roman antiquities and jurisprudence. There were also the Italian poets, and many books of travel, and many dictionaries of various languages, and encyclopædias of science and art. Through all these the boy searched for himself, and took what was suited to his taste, astonishing the slow father very much by his readiness, and soon becoming famous in the neighborhood for his acquirements. Of course he wrote poetry from the earliest age, and of course many people predicted his future greatness. Most of all, his mother believed in him, and watched him with adoring solicitude. His love for art showed itself very early, and he made friends with artists, and visited their studios frequently when a mere boy. His father had a fondness for pictures, and had some good views of Italian scenery and art in his own house; and it was probably from him that the boy derived his earliest liking for such things. His passion for the theatre also made itself known at the earliest age, and gave him his most intense youthful pleasures.
His taste for natural science was also very strong in early childhood, and he analyzed flowers, to see how the leaves were inserted into the calyx, and plucked birds to see how the feathers were inserted in the wings, when a mere infant, as it appeared to his mother. Indeed, all the strong tastes of the man showed themselves in a decided manner in this precocious child, and his hap-hazard training allowed his genius to develop along its own natural lines in a healthy manner.
He even exhibited at a very youthful period his fatal facility for falling in love, and naturally enough, with a girl older than himself, named Gretchen. He was cured of his first passion only by finding out that the girl regarded him as a child, which filled him with great indignation. He says:—
"My judgment was convinced, and I thought I must cast her away; but her image!—her image gave me the lie as often as it again hovered before me, which indeed happened often enough.
"Nevertheless, this arrow with its barbed hooks was torn out of my heart; and the question then was, how the inward sanative power of youth could be brought to one's aid. I really put on the man; and the first thing instantly laid aside was the weeping and raving, which I now regarded as childish in the highest degree. A great stride for the better! For I had often, half the night through, given myself up to this grief with the greatest violence; so that at last, from my tears and sobbing, I came to such a point that I could scarcely swallow any longer; eating and drinking become painful to me; and my chest, which was so nearly concerned, seemed to suffer. The vexation I had constantly felt since the discovery made me banish every weakness.
"It seemed to me something frightful that I had sacrificed sleep, repose, and health for the sake of a girl who was pleased to consider me a babe, and to imagine herself, with respect to me, something very like a nurse."