The Autobiography of Goethe

Himburg – The Piratical Bookseller.

And this suggests to me to mention in the present place a little incident, which however did not take place till some time after. When the demand for my works had increased and a collected edition of them was much called for, these feelings held me back from preparing it myself; Himburg, however, took advantage of my hesitation, and I unexpectedly received one day several copies of my collected works in print. With cool audacity this unauthorized publisher even boasted of having done me a public service, and offered to send me, if I wished, some Berlin porcelain by way of compensation. His offer served to remind me of the law which compelled the Jews of Berlin, when they married, to purchase a certain quantity of porcelain, in order to keep up the sale of the Royal manufacture. The contempt which was shewn for the shameless pirate, led me to suppress the indignation which I could not but feel at such a robbery. I gave him no reply; and while he was making himself very comfortable with my property, I revenged myself in silence with the following verses: —

Records of the years once dream'd away,Long fallen hairs, and flow'rs that shew decay,Faded ribbons, veils so lightly wove,The mournful pledges of a vanished love;Things that to the flames should long have gone,– Saucy Sosias snatches every one.Just as though he were the heir to claim,Lawfully the poets' works and fame.And to make the owner full amendsPaltry tea and coffee-cups he sends!Take your china back, your gingerbread!For all Himburgs living I am dead.

This very Nature, however, which thus spontaneously brought forth so many longer and smaller works, was subject to long pauses, and for considerable periods I was unable, even when I most wished it, to produce anything, and consequently often suffered from ennui. The perception of such contrasts within me gave rise to the thought whether, on the other hand, it would not be my wisest course to employ for my own and others' profit and advantage, the human, rational, and intellectual part of my being, and as I already had done, and as I now felt myself more and more called upon to do, devote the intervals when Nature ceased to influence me, to worldly occupations, and thus to leave no one of my faculties unused. This course, which seemed to be dictated by those general ideas before described, was so much in harmony with my character and my position in life, that I resolved to adopt it and by this means to check the wavering and hesitation to which I had hitherto been subject. Very pleasant was it to me to reflect, that thus for actual service to my fellow men, I might demand a substantial reward, while on the other hand I might go on disinterestedly spending that lovely gift of nature as a sacred thing. By this consideration I guarded against the bitterness of feeling which might have arisen when circumstances should force upon the remark that precisely this talent, so courted and admired in Germany, was treated as altogether beyond the pale of the law and of justice. For not only were piracies considered perfectly allowable, and even comical in Berlin, but the estimable Margrave of Baden, so praised for his administrative virtues, and the Emperor Joseph who had justified so many hopes, lent their sanction, one to his Macklot, and the other to his honorable noble von Trattner; and it was declared, that the rights, as well as the property of genius, should be left at the absolute mercy of the trade.

One day, when we were complaining of this to a visitor from Baden, he told us the following story: Her ladyship the Margravine, being a very active lady, had established a paper-manufactory; but the paper was so bad, that it was impossible to dispose of it. Thereupon Mr. bookseller Macklot proposed, if he were permitted to print the German poets and prose writers, he would use this paper, and thus enhance its value. The proposition was adopted with avidity.

Of course, we pronounced this malicious piece of scandal to be a mere fabrication; but found our pleasure in it notwithstanding. The name of Macklot became a by-word at the time, and was applied by us to all mean transactions. And, a versatile youth, often reduced to borrowing himself, while others' meanness was making itself rich upon his talents, felt himself sufficiently compensated by a couple of good jokes.

Children and youths wander on in a sort of happy intoxication, which betrays itself especially in the fact, that the good, innocent creatures are scarcely able to notice, and still less to understand, the ever changing state of things around them. They regard the world as raw material which they must shape, as a treasure which they must take possession of. Everything they seem to think belongs to them, everything must be subservient to their will; indeed, on this account, the greater part lose themselves in a wild uncontrollable temper. With the better part, however, this tendency unfolds itself into a moral enthusiasm, which, occasionally moves of its own accord after some actual or seeming good, but still oftener suffers itself to be prompted, led, and even misled.

Such was the case with the youth of whom we are at present speaking, and if he appeared rather strange to mankind, still he seemed welcome to many. At the very first meeting you found in him a freedom from reserve, a cheerful open-heartedness in conversation, and in action the unpremeditated suggestions of the moment. Of the latter trait a story or two.

A Scene at a Fire.

In the close-built Jews' street (Judengasse), a violent conflagration had broken out. My universal benevolence, which prompted me to lend my active aid to all, led me to the spot, full dressed as I was. A passage had been broken through from All Saints' street (Allerheiligengasse), and thither I repaired. I found a great number of men busied with carrying water, rushing forward with full buckets, and back again with empty ones. I soon saw that, by forming a lane for passing up and down the buckets, the help we rendered might be doubled. I seized two full buckets and remained standing and called others to me; those who came on were relieved of their load, while those returning arranged themselves in a row on the other side. The arrangement was applauded, my address and personal sympathy found favor, and the lane, unbroken from its commencement to its burning goal, was soon completed. Scarcely, however, had the cheerfulness which this inspired, called forth a joyous, I might even say, a merry humor in this living machine, all of whose party worked well together, when wantonness began to appear, and was soon succeeded by a love of mischief. The wretched fugitives, dragging off their miserable substance upon their backs, if they once got within the lane, must pass on without stopping, and if they ventured to halt for a moment's rest, were immediately assailed. Saucy boys would sprinkle them with the water, and even add insult to misery. However, by means of gentle words and eloquent reproofs, prompted perhaps by a regard to my best clothes, which were in danger, I managed to put a stop to their rudeness.

Some of my friends had from curiosity approached, to gaze on the calamity, and seemed astonished to see their companion, in thin shoes and silk stockings – for that was then the fashion-engaged in this wet business. But few of them could I persuade to join us; the others laughed and shook their heads. We stood our ground, however, a long while, for, if any were tired and went away, there were plenty ready to take their places. Many sight-seers, too, came merely for the sake of the spectacle, and so my innocent daring became universally known, and the strange disregard of etiquette became the town-talk of the day.

This readiness to do any action that a good-natured whim might prompt, which proceeded from a happy self-consciousness which men are apt to blame as vanity, made our friend to be talked of for other oddities.

A very inclement winter had completely covered the Main with ice, and converted it into a solid floor. The liveliest intercourse, both for business and pleasure, was kept up on the ice. Boundless skating-paths, and wide, smooth frozen plains, swarmed with a moving multitude. I never failed to be there early in the morning, and once, being lightly clad, felt myself nearly frozen through by the time that my mother arrived, who usually came at a later hour to visit the scene. She sat in the carriage, in her purple-velvet and fur-trimmed cloak, which, held together on her breast by a strong golden cord and tassel, looked quite fine. "Give me your furs, dear mother!" I cried out on the instant, without a moment's thought, "I am terribly frozen." She, too, did not stop to think, and so in a moment I was wrapped in her cloak. Beaching half-way below my knees with its purple-colour, sable-border, and gold trimmings, it contrasted not badly with the brown fur cap I wore. Thus clad, I carelessly went on skating up and down; the crowd was so great that no especial notice was taken of my strange appearance; still it was not unobserved, for often afterwards it was brought up, in jest or in earnest, among my other eccentricities.

Leaving these recollections of happy and spontaneous action, we will now resume the sober thread of our narrative.

A witty Frenchman has said: If a clever man has once attracted the attention of the public by any meritorious work, every one does his best to prevent his ever doing a similar thing again.

It is even so: something good and spirited is produced in the quiet seclusion of youth; applause is won, but independence is lost; the concentrated talent is pulled about and distracted, because people think that they may pluck off and appropriate to themselves a portion of the personality.

It was owing to this that I received a great many invitations, or, rather, not exactly invitations: a Mend, an acquaintance would propose, with even more than urgency, to introduce me here or there.

The quasi stranger, now described as a bear on account of his frequent surly refusals, and then again like Voltaire's Huron, or Cumberland's West Indian, as a child of nature in spite of many talents, excited curiosity, and in various families negotiations were set on foot to see him.

Introduction to Lili.

Among others, a friend one evening entreated me to go with him to a little concert to be given in the house of an eminent merchant of the reformed persuasion. It was already late; but as I loved to do everything on the spur of the moment, I went with him, decently dressed, as usual. We entered a chamber on the ground floor, – the ordinary but spacious sitting-room of the family. The company was numerous, a piano stood in the middle, at which the only daughter of the house sat down immediately, and played with considerable facility and grace. I stood at the lower end of the piano, that I might be near enough to observe her form and bearing; there was something childlike in her manner; the movements she was obliged to make in playing were unconstrained and easy.

After the sonata was finished, she stepped towards the end of the piano to meet me; we merely saluted, however, without further conversation, for a quartet had already commenced. At the close of it, I moved somewhat nearer and uttered some civil compliment; telling her what pleasure it gave me that my first acquaintance with her should have also made me acquainted with her talent. She managed to make a very clever reply, and kept her position as I did mine. I saw that she observed me closely, and that I was really standing for a show; but I took it all in good part, since I had something graceful to look at in my turn. Meanwhile, we gazed on one another, and I will not deny that I was sensible of feeling an attractive power of the gentlest kind. The moving about of the company, and her performances, prevented any further approach that evening. But I must confess that I was anything but displeased, when, on taking leave, the mother gave me to understand that they hoped soon to see me again, while the daughter seemed to join in the request with some friendliness of manner. I did not fail, at suitable intervals, to repeat my visit, since, on such occasions, I was sure of a cheerful and intellectual conversation, which seemed to prophesy no tie of passion.

In the meantime, the hospitality of our house once laid open caused many an inconvenience to my good parents and myself. At any rate it had not proved in any way beneficial to my steadfast desire to notice the Higher, to study it, to further it, and if possible to imitate it. Men, I saw, so far as they were good, were pious; and, so far as they were active, were unwise and oftentimes unapt. The former could not help me, and the latter only confused me. One remarkable case I have carefully written down.

Jung or Stilling.

In the beginning of the year 1775, Jung, afterwards called Stilling, from the Lower Rhine, announced to us that he was coming to Frankfort, being invited as an oculist, to treat an important case; the news was welcome to my parents and myself, and we offered him quarters.

Herr von Lersner, a worthy man advanced in years, universally esteemed for his success in the education and training of princely children, and for his intelligent manners at court and on his travels, had been long afflicted with total blindness; his strong hope of obtaining some relief of his affliction was not entirely extinct. Now, for several years past, Jung, with much courage and modest boldness, had, in the Lower Rhine, successfully couched for the cataract, and thus had gained a wide-spread reputation. The candor of his soul, his truth fulness of character, and genuine piety, gained him universal confidence; this extended up the river through the medium of various parties connected by business. Herr von Lersner and his friends, upon the advice of an intelligent physician, resolved to send for the successful oculist, although a Frankfort merchant, in whose case the cure had failed, earnestly endeavored to dissuade them. But what was a single failure against so many successful cases! So Jung came, enticed by the hope of a handsome remuneration, which heretofore he had been accustomed to renounce; he came, to increase his imputation, full of confidence and in high spirits, and we congratulated ourselves on the prospect of such an excellent and lively table-companion.

At last, after a preparatory course of medicine, the cataract upon both eyes was couched. Expectation was at its height. It was said that the patient saw the moment after the operation, until the bandage again shut out the light. But it was remarked that Jung was not cheerful, and that something weighed on his spirits; indeed, on further inquiry he confessed to me that he was uneasy as to the result of the operation. Commonly, for I had witnessed several operations of the kind in Strasburg, nothing in the world seemed easier than such cases; and Stilling himself had operated successfully a hundred times. After piercing the insensible cornea, which gave no pain, the dull lens would, at the slightest pressure, spring forward of itself; the patient immediately discerned objects, and only had to wait with bandaged eyes, until the completed cure should allow him to use the precious organ at his own will and convenience. How many a poor man, for whom Jung had procured this happiness, had invoked God's blessing and reward upon his benefactor, which was now to be realized by means of this wealthy patient!

Jung confessed to me that this time the operation had not gone off so easily and so successfully; the lens had not sprung forward, he had been obliged to draw it out, and indeed, as it had grown to the socket, to loosen it; and this he was not able to do without violence. He now reproached himself for having operated also on the other eye. But Lersner and his friends had firmly resolved to have both couched at the same time, and when the emergency occurred, they did not immediately recover presence of mind enough to think what was best. Suffice it to say, the second lens also did not spontaneously spring forward; but had to be loosened and drawn out with difficulty.

How much pain our benevolent, good-natured, pious friend felt in this case, it is impossible to describe or to unfold; some general observations on his state of mind will not be out of place here.

To labor for his own moral culture, is the simplest and most practicable thing which man can propose to himself; the impulse is inborn in him; while in social life both reason and love, prompt or rather force him to do so.

Stilling could only live in a moral religious atmosphere of love; without sympathy, without hearty response, he could not exist; he demanded mutual attachment; where he was not known, he was silent; where he was only known, not loved, he was sad; accordingly he got on best with those well-disposed persons, who can set themselves down for life in their assigned vocation and go to work to perfect themselves in their narrow but peaceful sphere.

Such persons succeed pretty well in stifling vanity, in renouncing the pursuit of outward power, in acquiring a circumspect way of speaking, and in preserving a uniformly friendly manner towards companions and neighbors.

Frequently we may observe in this class traces of a certain form of mental character, modified by individual varieties; such persons, accidentally excited, attach great weight to the course of their experience; they consider everything a supernatural determination, in the conviction that God interferes immediately with the course of the world.

With all this there is associated a certain disposition to abide in his present state, and yet at the same time to allow themselves to be pushed or led on; which results from a certain indecision to act of themselves. The latter is increased by the miscarriage of the wisest plans, as well as by the accidental success brought about by the unforeseen concurrence of favorable occurrences.

Now, since a vigilant manly character is much checked by this way of life, it is well worthy of reflection and inquiry, how men are most liable to fall into such a state.

The things sympathetic persons of this kind love most to talk of, are the so-called awakenings and conversions, to which we will not deny a certain psychological value. They are properly what we call in scientific and poetic matters, an "aperçu;" the perception of a great maxim, which is always a genius-like operation of the mind; we arrive at it by pure intuition, that is, by reflection, neither by learning or tradition. In the cases before us it is the perception of the moral power, which anchors in faith, and thus feels itself in proud security in the midst of the waves.

Such an aperçu gives the discoverer the greatest joy, because, in an original manner, it points to the infinite; it requires no length of time to work conviction; it leaps forth whole and complete in a moment; hence the quaint old French rhyme:

En peu d'heureDieu labeure.

Outward occasions often work violently in bringing about such conversions, and then people think they see in them signs and wonders.

Stilling.

Love and confidence bound me most heartily to Stilling; I had moreover exercised a good and happy influence on his life, and it was quite in accordance with his disposition, to treasure up in a tender grateful heart the remembrance of all that had ever been done for him; but in my existing frame of mind and pursuits his society neither benefited nor cheered me. I was glad to let every one interpret as he pleased and work out the riddle of his days, but this way of ascribing to ail immediate divine influence, all the good that after a rational manner occurs to us in our chanceful life, seemed to me too presumptuous; and the habit of regarding the painful consequences of the hasty acts and omissions of our own thoughtlessness or conceit, as a dime chastisement, did not at all suit me. I could, therefore, only listen to my good friend, but could not give him any very encouraging reply; still I readily suffered him, like so many others, to go his own way, and defended him since then, as well as before, when others, of too worldly a mind, did not hesitate to wound his gentle nature. Thus I never allowed a roguish remark to come to his ears, made by a waggish man who once very earnestly exclaimed: "No! indeed, if I were as intimate with God as Jung is, I would never pray to the Most High for gold, but for wisdom and good counsel, that I might not make so many blunders which cost money, and draw after them wretched years of debt."

In truth, it was no time for such jests. Between hope and fear several more days passed away; with him the latter grew, the former waned, and, at last, vanished altogether; the eyes of the good patient man had become inflamed, and there remained no doubt that the operation had failed.

The state of mind to which our friend was reduced hereby, is not to be described; he was struggling against the deepest and worst kind of despair. For what was there now that he had not lost! In the first place, the warm thanks of one restored to sight – the noblest reward which a physician can enjoy; then the confidence of others similarly needing help; then his worldly credit, while the interruption of his peculiar practice would reduce his family to a helpless state. In short, we played the mournful drama of Job through from beginning to end, since the faithful Jung took himself the part of the reproving friends. He chose to regard this calamity as the punishment of his former faults; it seemed to him that in taking his accidental discovery of an eye-cure as a divine call to that business, he had acted wickedly and profanely; he reproached himself for not having thoroughly studied this highly important department, instead of lightly trusting his cures to good fortune; what his enemies had said of him recurred again to his mind; he began to doubt whether perhaps it was not all true? and it pained him the more deeply when he found that in the course of his life he had been guilty of that levity which is so dangerous to pious men, and also of presumption and vanity. In such moments he lost himself, and in whatever light we might endeavour to set the matter, we, at last, elicited from him only the rational and necessary conclusion that the ways of God are unsearchable.

My unceasing efforts to be cheerful, would have been more checked by Jung's visit, if I had not, according to my usual habit, subjected his state of mind to an earnest friendly examination, and explained it after my own fashion. It vexed me not a little to see my good mother so poorly rewarded for her domestic care and pains-taking, though she did not herself perceive it, with her usual equanimity and ever bustling activity. I was most pained for my father. On my account he, with a good grace, had enlarged what hitherto had been a strictly close and private circle, and at table especially, where the presence of strangers attracted familiar friends and even passing visitors, he liked to indulge in a merry, even paradoxical conversation, in which I put him in good humor and drew from him many an approving smile, by all sorts of dialectic pugilism: for I had an ungodly way of disputing everything, which, however, I pertinaciously kept up in every case so long only as he, who maintained the right, was not yet made perfectly ridiculous. During the last few weeks, however, this procedure was not to be thought of; for many very happy and most cheering incidents, occasioned by some successful secondary cures on the part of our friend, who had been made so miserable by the failure of his principal attempt, did not affect him, much less did they give his gloomy mood another turn.

Stilling's Jew Patient.

One incident in particular was most amusing. Among Jung's patients there was a blind old Jewish beggar, who had come from Isenburg to Frankfort, where in the extremity of wretchedness, he scarcely found a shelter, scarcely the meanest food and attendance; nevertheless his tough oriental nature helped him through and he was in raptures to find himself healed perfectly and without the least suffering. When asked if the operation pained him, he said, in his hyperbolical manner, "If I had a million eyes, I would let them all be operated upon, one after the other, for half a Kopfstück."72 On his departure he acted quite as eccentrically in the Fahrgasse (or main thoroughfare); he thanked God, and in good old testament style, praised the Lord and the wondrous man whom He had sent. Shouting this he walked, slowly on through the long busy street towards the bridge. Buyers and sellers ran out of the shops, surprised by this singular exhibition of pious enthusiasm, passionately venting itself before all the world, and he excited their sympathy to such a degree, that, without asking anything, he was amply furnished with gifts for his travelling expenses.