Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Unfortunately Behrisch, and we through him, had a certain other propensity for some girls who were better than their reputation, — by which our own reputation could not be improved. We had often been seen in their garden; and we directed our walks thither, even when the young count was with us. All this may have been treasured up, and at last communicated to his father: enough, he sought, in a gentlemanly manner, to get rid of the tutor, to whom the event proved fortunate. His good exterior, his knowledge and talents, his integrity, which no one could call in question, had won him the affection and esteem of distinguished persons, on whose recommendation he was appointed tutor to the hereditary prince of Dessau, and at the court of a prince, excellent in every respect, found a solid happiness.

  The loss of a friend like Behrisch was of the greatest consequence to me. He had spoiled while he cultivated me; and his presence was necessary, if the pains he had thought good to spend upon me were in any degree to bring forth fruit for society. He knew how to engage me in all kinds of pretty and agreeable things, in whatever was just appropriate, and to bring out my social talents. But as I had gained no self- dependence in such things, so when I was alone again I immediately relapsed into my confused and crabbed disposition, which always increased, the more discontented I was with those about me, since I fancied that they were not contented with me. With the most arbitrary caprice, I took offence at what I might have considered an advantage; thus alienated many with whom I had hitherto been on a tolerable footing; and on account of the many disagreeable consequences which I had drawn on myself and others, whether by doing or leaving undone, by doing too much or too little, was obliged to hear the remark from my well-wishers, that I lacked experience. The same thing was told me by every person of sound sense who saw my productions, especially when these referred to the external world. I observed this as well as I could, but found in it little that was edifying, and was still forced to add enough of my own to make it only tolerable. I had often pressed my friend Behrisch, too, that he would make plain to me what was meant by experience? But, because he was full of nonsense, he put me off with fair words from one day to another, and at last, after great preparations, disclosed to me, that true experience was properly when one experiences how an experienced nvan must experience in experiencing his experience. Now, when we scolded him outrageously, and called him to account for this, he assured us that a great mystery lay hidden behind these words, which we could not comprehend until we had experienced …and so on without end, — for it cost him nothing to talk on in that way by the quarter of an hour, — since the experience would always become more experienced and at last come to true experience. When we were about to despair at such fooleries, he protested that he had learned this way of making himself intelligible and impressive from the latest and greatest authors, who had made us observe how one can rest a restful rest, and how silence, in being silent, can constantly become more silent.

  By chance an officer, who came among us on furlough, was praised in good company as a remarkable, sound-minded, and experienced man, who had fought through the Seven Years’ War, and had gained universal confidence. It was not difficult for me to approach him, and we often went walking with each other. The idea of experience had almost become fixed in my brain, and the craving to make it clear to me passionate. Being of a frank disposition, I disclosed to him the uneasiness in which I found myself. He smiled, and was kind enough to tell me, as an answer to my question, something of his own life, and generally of the world immediately about us; from which, indeed, little better was to be gathered than that experience convinces us that our best thoughts, wishes, and designs are unattainable, and that he who fosters such vagaries, and advances them with eagerness, is especially held to be an inexperienced man.

  Yet, as he was a gallant, good fellow, he assured me that he had himself not quite given up these vagaries, and felt himself tolerably well off with the little faith, love, and hope which remained. He then felt obliged to tell me a great deal about war, about the sort of life in the field, about skirmishes and battles, especially so far as he had taken part in them; when these vast events, by being considered in relation to a single individual, gained a very marvellous aspect. I then led him on to an open narration of the late situation of the court, which seemed to me quite like a tale. I heard of the bodily strength of Augustus the Second, of his many children and his vast expenses, then of his successor’s love of art and of making collections; of Count Brühl and his boundless love of magnificence, which in detail appeared almost absurd, of his numerous banquets and gorgeous amusements, which were all cut off by Frederick’s invasion of Saxony. The royal castles now lay in ruins, Brühl’s splendors were annihilated, and, of the whole, a glorious land, much injured, alone remained.

  When he saw me astonished at that mad enjoyment of fortune, and then grieved by the calamity that followed, and informed me that one expects from an experienced man exactly this, that he shall be astonished at neither the one nor the other, nor take too lively an interest in them, I felt a great desire still to remain a while in the same inexperience as hitherto; in which desire he strengthened me, and very urgently entreated me, for the present at least, always to cling to agreeable experiences, and to try to avoid those that were disagreeable as much as possible, if they should intrude themselves upon me. But once, when the discussion was again about experience in general, and I related to him those ludicrous phrases of my friend Behrisch, he shook his head, smiling, and said, “There, one sees how it is with words which are only once uttered! These sound so comical, nay, so silly, that it would seem almost impossible to put a rational meaning into them; and yet, perhaps, the attempt might be made.”

  And, when I pressed him, he replied in his intelligent, cheerful manner, “If you will allow me, while commenting on and completing your friend’s observations, to go on after his fashion, I think he meant to say, that experience is nothing else than that one experiences what one does not wish to experience; which is what it amounts to for the most part, at least in this world.”

  EIGHTH BOOK.

  Another man, although infinitely different from Behrisch in every respect, might yet be compared with him in a certain sense: I mean Oeser, who was also one of those men who dream away their lives in a comfortable state of being busy. His friends themselves secretly acknowledged, that, with very fine natural powers, he had not spent his younger years in sufficient activity; for which reason he never went so far as to practise his art with perfect technicality. Yet a certain diligence appeared to be reserved for his old age; and, during the many years which I knew him, he never lacked invention or laboriousness. From the very first moment he had attracted me very much: even his residence, strange and portentous, was highly charming to me. In the old castle Pleissenburg, at the right-hand corner, one ascended a repaired, cheerful, winding staircase. The saloons of the Academy of Design, of which he was director, were found to the left, and were light and roomy; but he himself could only be reached through a narrow, dark passage, at the end of which one first sought the entrance into his apartments, having just passed between the whole suite of them and an extensive granary. The first apartment was adorned with pictures from the later Italian school, by masters whose grace he used highly to commend. As I, with some noblemen, had taken private lessons of him, we were permitted to draw here; and we often penetrated into his adjoining private cabinet, which contained at the same time his few books, collections of art and natural curiosities, and whatever else might have most interested him. Every thing was arranged with taste, simply, and in such a manner that the little space held a great deal. The furniture, presses, and portfolios were elegant, without affection or superfluity. Thus also the first thing which he recommended to us, and to which he always recurred, was simplicity in every thing that art and manual labor united are called upon to produce. Being a sworn foe to the scroll-and- shell style, and of the whole taste for quaintness, he showed us in copper-plates and drawings old patterns of the sort contrasted wi
th better decorations and simpler forms of furniture, as well as with other appurtenances of a room; and, because every thing about him corresponded with these maxims, his words and instructions made a good and lasting impression on us. Besides this, he had an opportunity to let us see his opinions in practice; since he stood in good consideration, both with private and with official persons, and was asked for advice when there were new buildings and alterations. He seemed in general to be more fond of preparing things on occasion, for a certain end and use, than of undertaking and completing such as exist for themselves and require a greater perfection; he was therefore always ready and at hand when the publishers needed larger and smaller copper-plates for any work: thus the vignettes to Winckelmann’s first writings were etched by him. But he often made only very sketchy drawings, to which Geyser knew very well how to adapt himself. His figures had throughout something general, not to say ideal. His women were pleasing and agreeable, his children /naive/ enough; only he could not succeed with the men, who, in his spirited but always cloudy, and at the same time foreshortening, manner, had for the most part the look of Lazzaroni. Since he designed his composition less with regard to form than to light, shade, and masses, the general effect was good; as indeed all that he did and produced was attended by a peculiar grace. As he at the same time neither could nor would control a deep-rooted propensity to the significant and the allegorical — to that which excites a secondary thought, so his works always furnished something to reflect upon, and were complete through a conception, even where they could not be so from art and execution. This bias, which is always dangerous, frequently led him to the very bounds of good taste, if not beyond them. He often sought to attain his views by the oddest notions and by whimsical jests; nay, his best works always have a touch of humor. If the public were not always satisfied with such things, he revenged himself by a new and even stranger drollery. Thus he afterwards exhibited, in the ante-room of the great concert-hall, an ideal female figure, in his own style, who was raising a pair of snuffers to a taper; and he was extraordinarily delighted when he was able to cause a dispute on the question, whether this singular muse meant to snuff the light or to extinguish it? when he roguishly allowed all sorts of bantering by-thoughts to peep forth.

  But the building of the new theatre, in my time, made the greatest noise; in which his curtain, when it was still quite new, had certainly an uncommonly charming effect. Oeser had taken the Muses out of the clouds, upon which they usually hover on such occasions, and set them upon the earth. The statues of Sophocles and Aristophanes, around whom all the modern dramatic writers were assembled, adorned a vestibule to the Temple of Fame. Here, too, the goddesses of the arts were likewise present; and all was dignified and beautiful. But now comes the oddity! Through the open centre was seen the portal of the distant temple: and a man in a light jerkin was passing between the two above-mentioned groups, and, without troubling himself about them, directly up to the temple; he was seen from behind, and was not particularly distinguished. Now, this man was to represent Shakespeare, who without predecessors or followers, without concerning himself about models, went to meet immortality in his own way. This work was executed on the great floor over the new theatre. “We often assembled round him there, and in that place I read aloud to him the proof-sheets of “Musarion.” As to myself, I by no means advanced in the practice of the art. His instructions worked upon our mind and our taste; but his own drawing was too undefined to guide me, who had only glimmered along by the objects of art and of nature, to a severe and decided practice. Of the faces and bodies he gave us rather the aspect than the forms, rather the postures than the proportions. He gave us the conceptions of the figures, and desired that we should impress them vividly upon our minds. That might have been beautifully and properly done, if he had not had mere beginners before him. If, on this account, a pre-eminent talent for instruction may be well denied him, it must, on the other hand, be acknowledged that he was very discreet and politic, and that a happy adroitness of mind qualified him very peculiarly for a teacher in a higher sense. The deficiencies under which each one labored he clearly saw; but he disdained to reprove them directly, and rather hinted his praise and censure indirectly and very laconically. One was now compelled to think over the matter, and soon came to a far deeper insight. Tims, for instance, I had very carefully executed, after a pattern, a nosegay on blue paper, with white and black crayon, and partly with the stump, partly by hatching it up, had tried to give effect to the little picture. After I had been long laboring in this way, he once came behind me, and said, “More paper!” upon which he immediately withdrew. My neighbor and I puzzled our heads as to what this could mean; for my bouquet, on a large half-sheet, had plenty of space around it. After we had reflected a long while, we thought, at last, that we had hit his meaning, when we remarked, that, by working together the black and the white, I had quite covered up the blue ground, had destroyed the middle tint, and, in fact, with great industry, had produced a disagreeable drawing. As to the rest, he did not fail to instruct us in perspective, and in light and shade, sufficiently indeed, but always so that we had to exert and torment ourselves to find the application of the principles communicated. Probably his view with regard to us who did not intend to become artists, was only to form the judgment and taste, and to make us acquainted with the requisites of a work of art, without precisely requiring that we should produce one. Since, moreover, patient industry was not my talent, for nothing gave me pleasure except what came to me at once, so by degrees I became discouraged, if not lazy; and, as knowledge is more comfortable than doing, I was quite content to follow wherever he chose, after his own fashion, to lead us.

  At this time the “Lives of the Painters,” by D’Argenville, was translated into German: I obtained it quite fresh, and studied it assiduously enough. This seemed to please Oeser; and he procured us an opportunity of seeing many a portfolio out of the great Leipzig collections, and thus introduced us to the history of the art. But even these exercises produced in me an effect different from that which he probably had in mind. The manifold subjects which I saw treated by artists awakened the poetic talent in me: and, as one easily makes an engraving for a poem; so did I now make poems to the engravings and drawings, by contriving to present to myself the personages introduced in them, in their previous and subsequent condition, and sometimes to compose a little song which might have suited them; and thus accustomed myself to consider the arts in connection with each other. Even the mistakes which I made, so that my poems were often descriptive, were useful to me in the sequel, when I came to more reflection, by making me attentive to the differences between the arts. Of such little things many were in the collection which Behrisch had arranged, but there is nothing left of them now.

  The atmosphere of art and taste in which Oeser lived, and into which one was drawn, provided one visited him frequently, was the more and more worthy and delightful, because he was fond of remembering departed or absent persons, with whom he had been, or still continued to be, on good terms; for, if he had once given any one his esteem, he remained unalterable in his conduct towards him, and always showed himself equally friendly.

  After we had heard Caylus pre-eminently extolled among the French, he made us also acquainted with Germans of activity in this department. Thus we learned that Professor Christ, as an amateur, a collector, a connoisseur, a fellow-laborer, had done good service for art, and had applied his learning to its true improvement. Heinecken, on the contrary, could not be honorably mentioned, partly because he devoted himself too assiduously to the ever-childish beginnings of German art; which Oeser little valued, partly because he had once treated Winckelmann shabbily, which could never be forgiven him. Our attention, however, was strongly drawn to the labors of Lippert, since our instructor knew how to set forth his merits sufficiently. “For,” he said, “although single statues and larger groups of sculpture remain the foundation and the summit of all knowledge of art, yet, either as originals or as casts,
they are seldom to be seen; on the contrary, by Lippert, a little world of gems is made known, in which the more comprehensible merit of the ancients, their happy invention, judicious composition, tasteful treatment, are made more striking and intelligible, while, from the great number of them, comparison is much more possible.” While now we were busying ourselves with these as much as was allowed, Winckelmann’s lofty life of art in Italy was pointed out, and we took his first writings in hand with devotion; for Oeser had a passionate reverence for him, which he was able easily to instil into us. The problematical part of those little treatises, which are, besides, confused even from their irony, and from their referring to opinions and events altogether peculiar, we were, indeed, unable to decipher; but as Oeser had great influence over us, and incessantly gave them out to us as the gospel of the beautiful, and still more of the tasteful and the pleasing, we found out the general sense, and fancied, that, with such interpretations, we should go on the more securely, as we regarded it no small happiness to draw from the same fountain from which Winckelmann had allayed his earliest thirst.