Autobiography of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | Page 7

all thoughtful men of a
certain age were languishing: it paints the misery, it passionately utters
the complaint; and heart and voice, all over Europe, loudly and at once
respond to it. True, it prescribes no remedy; for that was a far different,
far harder enterprise, to which other years and a higher culture were
required; but even this utterance of the pain, even this little, for the
present, is ardently grasped at, and with eager sympathy appropriated in
every bosom. If Byron's life-weariness, his moody melancholy, and
mad stormful indignation, borne on the tones of a wild and quite artless
melody, could pierce so deep into many a British heart, now that the
whole matter is no longer new,--is indeed old and trite,--we may judge
with what vehement acceptance this /Werter/ must have been
welcomed, coming as it did like a voice from unknown regions; the
first thrilling peal of that impassioned dirge, which, in country after
country, men's ears have listened to, till they were deaf to all else. For
/Werter/ infusing itself into the core and whole spirit of Literature, gave
birth to a race of Sentimentalists, who have raged and wailed in every
part of the world, till better light dawned on them, or at worst,
exhausted Nature laid herself to sleep, and it was discovered that
lamenting was an unproductive labour. These funereal choristers, in
Germany a loud, haggard, tumultuous, as well as tearful class, were
named the /Kraftmänner/ or Power-men; but have all long since, like
sick children, cried themselves to rest. Byron was our English
Sentimentalist and Power-man; the strongest of his kind in Europe; the
wildest, the gloomiest, and it may be hoped the last. For what good is it
to 'whine, put finger i' the eye, and sob,' in such a case? Still more, to
snarl and snap in malignant wise, 'like dog distract, or monkey sick?'
Why should we quarrel with our existence, here as it lies before us, our
field and inheritance, to make or mar, for better or for worse; in which,
too, so many noblest men have, even from the beginning, warring with
the very evils we war with, both made and been what will be venerated
to all time?

A wide and everyway most important interval divides /Werter/, with its
sceptical philosophy and 'hypochondriacal crotchets,' from Goethe's
next Novel, /Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship/, published some
twenty years afterwards. This work belongs, in all senses, to the second
and sounder period of Goethe's life, and may indeed serve as the fullest,
if perhaps not the purest, impress of it; being written with due
forethought, at various times, during a period of no less than ten years.
Considered as a piece of Art, there were much to be said on /Meister/;
all which, however, lies beyond our present purpose. We are here
looking at the work chiefly as a document for the writer's history; and
in this point of view, it certainly seems, as contrasted with its more
popular precursor, to deserve our best attention: for the problem which
had been stated in /Werter/, with despair of its solution, is here solved.
The lofty enthusiasm, which, wandering wildly over the universe,
found no resting-place, has here reached its appointed home; and lives
in harmony with what long appeared to threaten it with annihilation.
Anarchy has now become Peace; the once gloomy and perturbed spirit
is now serene, cheerfully vigorous, and rich in good fruits. Neither,
which is most important of all, has this Peace been attained by a
surrender to Necessity, or any compact with Delusion; a seeming
blessing, such as years and dispiritment will of themselves bring to
most men, and which is indeed no blessing, since even continued battle
is better than destruction or captivity; and peace of this sort is like that
of Galgacus's Romans, who 'called it peace when they had made a
desert.' Here the ardent high-aspiring youth has grown into the calmest
man, yet with increase and not loss of ardour, and with aspirations
higher as well as clearer. For he has conquered his unbelief; the Ideal
has been built on the Actual; no longer floats vaguely in darkness and
regions of dreams, but rests in light, on the firm ground of human
interest and business, as in its true scene, on its true basis.
It is wonderful to see with, what softness the scepticism of Jarno, the
commercial spirit of Werner, the reposing polished manhood of
Lothario and the Uncle, the unearthly enthusiasm of the Harper, the gay
animal vivacity of Philina, the mystic, ethereal, almost spiritual nature
of Mignon, are blended together in this work; how justice is done to
each, how each lives freely in his proper element, in his proper form;

and how, as Wilhelm himself, the mild-hearted, all-hoping,
all-believing Wilhelm,