He made no explanation of his words, but his wife had well understood him, and also understood his intention when, after a short interval, he smilingly observed that he would now go to see Schiller, and take a walk with his dear friend.
When her husband had left the room she looked down at the pale child, who was slumbering in her arms. Tears gushed from her eyes, and she folded her hands over her boy’s head:
“Give us all peace, Thou who art the Spirit of Eternal Love! Give us wisdom to discern truth and strength, to make any sacrifice in its behalf!”
On the evening of this day, after a long walk which Schiller had taken with Charlotte’s husband, and during which they had conversed on the highest intellectual topics only, Schiller wrote to his bosom friend Körner, in Dresden: “Can you believe me when I assert, that I find it almost impossible to write anything concerning Charlotte? Nor can I even tell you why! The relation existing between us, like revealed religion, is based on faith. The results of the long experience and slow progress of the human mind are announced in the latter in a mystical manner, because reason would have taken too long a time to attain this end. The same is the case with Charlotte and myself. We commenced with a premonition of the result, and must now study and confirm our religion by the aid of reason. In the latter, as in the former case, all the intervals of fanaticism, skepticism, and superstition, have arisen, and it is to be hoped that we will ultimately arrive at that reasonable faith that is the only assurance of bliss. I think it likely that the germ of an enduring friendship exists in us both, but it is still awaiting its development. There is more unity in Charlotte’s mind than in my own, although she is more changeable in her humors and caprices. Solitude and a peculiar tendency of her being have imprinted my image more firmly in her soul, than her image could ever be imprinted in mine. Her husband treats me precisely as of yore, although he is well aware of the relation existing between us. I do not know that his presence will leave me as I am. I feel that a change has taken place within me that may be still further developed.”[34]
CHAPTER VIII.
GOETHE AND MORITZ.
“Cheer up, my friend! Grumble no longer! Rejoice in life and throw off the burden of your cares! Open your eyes and behold the beauties of the world created by the Almighty Spirit of the Universe! We have studied and worshipped the immortal gods and immortal arts in Rome—we have been living with the ancients; now let us live for a few days with eternal youth, with ever-fading, ever-blossoming Nature! Let us live like God’s children in His glorious world!”
It was Goethe who spoke these words—not Goethe, the secretary of legation, who, at the end of the year 1786, had secretly withdrawn from his friends, and even from his beloved Madame von Stein, and fled to Italy, the land he so ardently desired to visit. No, it was not that Goethe, who, during the last months of his sojourn in Weimar, had eschewed his youthful exuberance of feeling, his exaggerated manner, and his Werther costume, and had assumed the grave dignified air which he deemed becoming in a high official! No, he who spoke these words, was the poet Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, the poet who was once more himself, now that he sojourned under Italy’s glorious skies—the poet whose soul glowed with enthusiasm, and on whose lips inspiration trembled—the poet who sought the essence of the Divinity in the least flower, and who saw the glory of his Maker reflected in the countenance of each human being.
This Goethe it was who spoke these cheering, encouraging words. He addressed them to Philip Moritz, with whom he had been living in Rome, and other parts of Italy, for the last two years, and with whom he had rejoiced and sorrowed in many pleasures and vicissitudes. They had both come to Italy to make new men of themselves. Goethe, to become himself again—to become the original, creative genius. Moritz, to heal his heart-wounds, and refresh his mind with the wonders of art and nature that abound for every man, who has eyes to see, in Italy—this land of art and poetry. Philip Moritz had eyes to see, and the woman he loved had begged him not to close them, not to shut out from his vision the treasures which the God of creation and the gods of art had so plentifully bestowed upon this favored land.