Schiller's great command is, "Keep true to the dream of thy youth." The great problem is how to make the dream real, through the exercise of the waking will.
This was not exactly the problem Gœthe tried to solve. To do somewhat, became too important, as is indicated both by the second motto to this essay, and by his maxim, "It is not the knowledge of what might be, but what is, that forms us."
Werther, like his early essays now republished from the Frankfort Journal, is characterized by a fervid eloquence of Italian glow, which betrays a part of his character almost lost sight of in the quiet transparency of his later productions, and may give us some idea of the mental conflicts through which he passed to manhood.
The acting out the mystery into life, the calmness of survey, and the passionateness of feeling, above all the ironical baffling at the end, and want of point to a tale got up with such an eye to effect as he goes along, mark well the man that was to be. Even so did he demand in Werther; even so resolutely open the door in the first part of Faust; even so seem to play with himself and his contemporaries in the second part of Faust and Wilhelm Meister.
Yet was he deeply earnest in his play, not for men, but for himself. To himself as a part of nature it was important to grow, to lift his head to the light. In nature he had all confidence; for man, as a part of nature, infinite hope; but in him as an individual will, seemingly, not much trust at the earliest age.
The history of his intimacies marks his course; they were entered into with passionate eagerness, but always ended in an observation of the intellect, and he left them on his road, as the snake leaves his skin. The first man he met of sufficient force to command a large share of his attention was Herder, and the benefit of this intercourse was critical, not genial. Of the good Lavater he soon perceived the weakness. Merck, again, commanded his respect; but the force of Merck also was cold.
But in the Grand Duke of Weimar he seems to have met a character strong enough to exercise a decisive influence upon his own. Gœthe was not so politic and worldly that a little man could ever have become his Mæcenas. In the Duchess Amelia and her son he found that practical sagacity, large knowledge of things as they are, active force, and genial feeling, which he had never before seen combined.
The wise mind of the duchess gave the first impulse to the noble course of Weimar. But that her son should have availed himself of the foundation she laid is praise enough, in a world where there is such a rebound from parental influence that it generally seems that the child makes use of the directions given by the parent only to avoid the prescribed path. The duke availed himself of guidance, though with a perfect independence in action. The duchess had the unusual wisdom to know the right time for giving up the reins, and thus maintained her authority as far as the weight of her character was calculated to give it.
Of her Gœthe was thinking when he wrote, "The admirable woman is she, who, if the husband dies, can be a father to the children."
The duke seems to have been one of those characters which are best known by the impression their personal presence makes on us, resembling an elemental and pervasive force, rather than wearing the features of an individuality. Gœthe describes him as "Dämonische," that is, gifted with an instinctive, spontaneous force, which at once, without calculation or foresight, chooses the right means to an end. As these beings do not calculate, so is their influence incalculable. Their repose has as much influence over other beings as their action, even as the thunder cloud, lying black and distant in the summer sky, is not less imposing than when it bursts and gives forth its quick lightnings. Such men were Mirabeau and Swift. They had also distinct talents, but their influence was from a perception in the minds of men of this spontaneous energy in their natures. Sometimes, though rarely, we see such a man in an obscure position; circumstances have not led him to a large sphere; he may not have expressed in words a single thought worth recording; but by his eye and voice he rules all around him.