Goethe forbade the publication of Der Ewige Jude, and we can understand his reason for the prohibition.[175] To many persons for whose religious feelings he had a genuine respect—to his mother among others—the poem would have been a cause of offence of which Goethe was not the man to be guilty. Moreover, a continuous work in such a vein was alien to Goethe's own genius. As we have them, the fragments are but another specimen of that "godlike insolence" which, in his later years, he found in his satires on Herder, Wieland, and others.

CHAPTER XII

GOETHE IN SOCIETY

1774

The publication of Götz von Berlichingen in the spring of 1773, we have seen, had made Goethe known to the literary world of Germany, and a figure of prime interest to its leading representatives. Hitherto, nevertheless, with the exception of Herder, he had come into personal contact with no men of outstanding note who might hold intercourse with him on anything like equal terms. In the summer of 1774, however, when Clavigo and Werther were on the eve of publication, he was brought into contact with three men, all of whom had already achieved reputation in their respective spheres; and all of whom had visions as distinct from each other as they were distinct from Goethe's own. As it happens, we have records of their intercourse from the hands of three of the four, and, taken together, they present a picture of the youthful Goethe which leaves little to be desired in its fidelity, in its definiteness, in its vividness of colour. During the greater part of two months (from the last week in June till the middle of August) he comes before us in all the splendour of his youthful genius, with all his wild humours, his audacities, his overflowing vitality.

The first of these three notabilities who came in Goethe's way was one of whom he himself said, "that the world had never seen his like, and will not see his like again." He was Johann Kaspar Lavater, born in Zurich in 1741, and thus eight years older than Goethe. Lavater had early drawn the attention of the world to himself. In his sixteenth year he had published a volume of poems (Schweizerlieder) which attained a wide circulation, and a later work (Aussichten in die Ewigkeit) found such acceptance from its vein of mystical piety that he was hailed as a religious teacher who had given a new savour to the Christian life. At the time when he crossed Goethe's path he was engaged on the work on Physiognomy with which his name is chiefly associated, and it was partly with the object of collecting the materials for that work that he was now visiting Germany. But the personality of Lavater was more remarkable than his writings. By his combination of the saint and the man of the world he made a unique impression on all who met him, on Goethe notably among others. That his religious feelings were sincere his lifelong preoccupation with the character of Christ as the great exemplar of humanity may be taken as sufficient proof. To impress the world with the conception he had formed of the person of Christ was the mission of his life, and it was in the carrying out of this mission that his remarkable characteristics came into play. With a face and expression which suggested the Apostle John, he exhibited in society a tact and address which, at this period at least, did not compromise his religious professions. Next to his interest in the Founder of Christianity was his interest in human character, and his divination of the working of men's minds was such that, according to Goethe, it produced an uneasy feeling to be in his presence. Be it added that Lavater was in full sympathy with the leaders of the Sturm und Drang as emancipators from dead formalism, and the champions of natural feeling as opposed to cold intelligence. Such was the remarkable person with whom Goethe was thrown into contact during a few notable weeks, and who has recorded his impressions of him with the insight of a discerner of spirits. As time was to show, they were divided in their essential modes of thought and feeling by as wide a gulf as can separate man from man, and in later years Lavater's compromises with the world in the prosecution of his mission drew from Goethe more stinging comments than he has used in the case of almost any other person.[176] In the passages of his Autobiography, where he records his first intercourse with Lavater, though his tone is distinctly critical, of bitterness there is no trace, and there is the frankest testimony to Lavater's personal fascination and the stimulating interest of his mind and character.

Relations between the two had begun a year before their actual meeting. Lavater had read Goethe's Letter of the Pastor, and his interest in its general line of thought led him to open a correspondence with its author. The reading of Götz, a copy of which Goethe sent to him, convinced him that a portent had appeared in the literary world. "I rejoice with trembling," he wrote to Herder; "among all writers I know no greater genius." Before they met, indeed, Lavater was already dominated by a force that brought home to him a sense of his own weakness to which he gave artless expression. In some lines he addressed to Goethe he takes the tone of a humble disciple, and prays that out of his fulness he would communicate ardour to his feelings and light to his intelligence. Yet in Lavater's eyes Goethe was a brand to be plucked from the burning, and, born proselytiser as he was, he even made the attempt to convert Goethe to his own views of ultimate salvation. In response to his appeal Goethe wrote a letter which should have convinced Lavater that he was dealing with a son of Adam with the ineradicable instincts of the natural man.[177] "Thank you, dear brother," he wrote, "for your ardour regarding your brother's eternal happiness. Believe me, the time will come when we shall understand each other. You hold converse with me as with an unbeliever—one who insists on understanding, on having proofs, who has not been schooled by experience. And the contrary of all this is my real feeling. Am I not more resigned in the matter of understanding and proving than yourself? Perhaps I am foolish in not giving you the pleasure of expressing myself in your language, and in not showing to you by laying bare my deepest experiences that I am a man and therefore cannot feel otherwise than other men, and that all the apparent contradiction between us is only strife of words which arises from the fact that I realise things under other combinations than you, and that in expressing their relativity I must call them by other names; and this has from the beginning been the source of all controversies, and will be to the end. And you will be for ever plaguing me with evidences! And to what end? Do I require evidence that I exist? evidence that I feel? I treasure, cherish, and revere only such evidences as prove to me that thousands, or even one, have felt that which strengthens and consoles me. And, therefore, the word of man is for me the word of God, whether by parsons or prostitutes it has been brought together, enrolled in the canon, or flung as fragments to the winds. And with my innermost soul I fall as a brother on the neck of Moses! Prophet! Evangelist! Apostle! Spinoza or Machiavelli! But to each I am permitted to say: 'Dear friend, it is with you as it is with me; in the particular you feel yourself grand and mighty, but the whole goes as little into your head as into mine.'"

On June 23rd Lavater arrived in Frankfort, where during four days he was entertained as a guest in the Goethe household. The news of his coming had created a lively interest in all sections of the community, and during his stay he was besieged by admiring crowds, especially of women, who insisted even on seeing the bedchamber where the prophet slept. "The pious souls," was Merck's sardonic comment, "wished to see where they had laid the Lord"; but even Merck came under the prophet's spell. The meeting of Lavater and Goethe was characteristic of the time. "Bist's?" was Lavater's first exclamation. "Ich bin's," was the reply; and they fell upon each other's necks. On Lavater's indicating "by some singular exclamations" that Goethe was not exactly what he expected, Goethe replied in the tone of banter which he maintained throughout their personal intercourse, that he was as God and nature had made him, and they must be content with their work. "All spirit (Geist) and truth,"[178] is Lavater's comment on Goethe's conversation at the close of their first day's meeting.