Goethe's mother ...

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Catharine Elizabeth Goethe.

Introduction

Catharine Elizabeth Textor was born at Frankfort-on-the-Main, February the 19th, 1 73 1 . Her father's great-grandfather, Wolfgang Weber, had according to the fashion of his time, Latinized the humble name of Weber into Textor. Why, does not appear, unless we accept the reason Oilman, in " Goetz von Berlichingen," gave for changing his name into Olearius : " to avoid," he said, " the inappropriateness of that name on the title-page of my Latin writings." " You did well to translate it," rejoins Liebetraut ; " a prophet is without honor in his own country, and it might have fared even so with your name in your native tongue." Olearius : " That was not the cause." Liebetraut : " Everything has two reasons."

It appears from this that in Goethe's youth the Latinizing of proper names was getting to be laughed at, and made a subject for jest and merriment.

Her father was the Councillor, Doctor Johann Wolfgang Textor, later on Chief Magistrate of Frankfort. From him Goethe got his two Christian names, and he gives a graphic picture of him in his Autobiography. He lived in an old house, with a large old-fashioned garden, where he passed much of the time which was not taken up by his duties as magistrate. He attended with his own hand to the culture of the finer fruits and flowers, and grafted the xxii Introduction.

roses, for which he put on the ancient gloves which were yearly presented to him at the Piper's Court. Goethe says one day like another passed placidly along, and he never remembered to have seen his grandfather angry. The old gentleman was also gifted with prophecy : he saw in dreams what was to happen to himself. When he was junior councillor he dreamed that he should soon be alderman ; and it was not long before an alderman died of apoplexy, and Textor was promoted to the alderman's bench. He also foretold his elevation to the chief magistracy. When a Chief Magistrate died, the election of his successor was always made with as little delay as possible, for fear that the Emperor should assert his former right to appoint this officer. On the occasion when Textor was chosen, a messenger was sent round at midnight to give notice of an extraordinary session, and, as his lantern was going out, he asked for a candle's end. " Give him a whole one," said Textor ; " after all, he has all this trouble on my account. " The election was not decided by votes, but by drawing balls from a bag. Each candidate had his representative to draw for him, and their precedence was settled by lot. It so happened, on this occasion, that there were three candidates, and Textor's representative was by the lot made third and last ; but, as luck would have it, the first two drew each a silver ball, leaving the golden one at the bottom of the bag for Textor.

Of the wife of this worthy old gentlemen we know nothing. Her grandson makes no mention of her in his Autobiography, except that she was the confidant of her husband's dreams. Yet, on looking at

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her portrait, one finds that in personal appearance her daughter, and especially her grandson, so much ' resembled her that one cannot help supposing that they must have inherited from her many traits of character. Certainly, neither of them had much of the old Councillor's lake-like placidity, and in his old age the resemblance of Goethe to his grandmother Textor is very striking.

We can readily imagine that the daughter led an uneventful life in this antiquated dwelling, with its peaceful garden, where one day was like another. We know nothing of her until, in her eighteenth year, her hand is asked in marriage by the Imperial Councillor, John Caspar Goethe, whose suit was favorably received by her parents.

Rath Goethe, then in his thirty-ninth year, lived with his mother, the widow of Frederick George Goethe, in a large house in the Hirschgraben. Tne widow Goethe was wealthy, and had spared no pains on the education of her son, who had taken his degree of Doctor Juris, had travelled in Italy (a distinction in those days), and passed for a man learned in the law, and for a connoisseur in the fine arts.

The sentiments of Fraulein Textor, on leaving her father's house as the wife of Rath Goethe, on the 20th of August, 1748, were probably those of filial duty toward her parents, and of esteem toward the husband of their choice : nothing further was asked or expected of her. The first year of her married life she may be said to have been at school ; for her husband, having no outlet for the knowledge with which he had been crammed, and being of a very didactic turn of mind, seized upon her as a godsend, xx'w Introduction.

and set her all manner of tasks. She was kept busy with languages, composition, and music, and she only escaped from school by becoming a mother.

On the 28th of August, 1749, was born the son, Johann Wolfgang, who was to make her one of the happiest of mothers.

" The bed in which your mother brought you into the world," writes Bettina to Goethe (the translation, too, is hers), " had blue checkered hangings. She was then seventeen* years old, and one year married ; hereupon she remarked you would always remain young, and your heart would never become old, since you had the youth of your mother into the bargain. Three days did you consider about it before you entered the world, and caused your mother heavy hours. Through anger that necessity had driven you from your nature-home, and through the ill-treatment of the midwife, you appeared quite black, and without sign of life. They laid you in a butcher's tray, and bathed the pit of your heart with wine, quite despairing of your existence. Your grandmother stood behind the bed. When you first opened your eyes, she exclaimed, ' Daughter, he lives ! ' 1 Then awoke my maternal heart, and lived since then in continual enthusiasm to this very hour,'' said your mother to me in her seventy-seventh year."

Several children, born later, died in infancy, with the exception of the daughter Cornelia. She and Wolfgang grew up together, and their mother with them ; for the difference in age between herself and her husband brought her nearer to the children, and

* Eighteen.

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she was fond of saying, " My Wolfgang and I have always held together, and the reason is we were both young, and not so far from each other as Wolfgang and his father." She stood between the children and an affectionate yet stern and exacting father, and in this difficult position her true education may be said to have begun. She was the mediator and peacemaker, for which office she was especially fitted by her tact and " mother wit," her animal spirits, and her cheerful views. She possessed thoroughly, as her son said, and as may be seen everywhere in her letters, " the philosophy of a cheerful life."

Thus wrote Goethe of himself — that is, his stature and the earnest conduct of life he got from his father ; from dear little mother his joyous disposition and love of story-telling. His mother was an admirable story-teller. To this poetic gift of hers we shall find constant allusion in the following correspondence ; for instance, where Klinger tells of how he was " nailed to his chair" when listening to her ; and in many other places which we will not anticipate. While the father gave his attention to the serious training of his boy's intellect, the mother cultivated his imagination and poetic feeling by the creations of her fancy. " In general," says Vichoff,* " all the freshness, the wit and the humor we find in Goethe, all the depth of feeling and the poetry, were fore-

* Vichoff : " Goethe's Leben."

xx vi Introduction.

shadowed in his mother's character ; while from his father he had received only a few traits of character of a coarser kind, if I may so speak — for example, his strong love of order, his administrative talent, and the gravity he displayed in his later years."

Rath Goethe was, at first, very much disappointed at the course of life his son chose He had carefully educated him for the law, and when he returned from the University of Strasburg with a diploma as Doctor Juris, his father thought the fulfilment of all his hopes, was at hand. With a secretary for the manual part of the work, the father and son to put their heads together over the knotty points of the law, and with their intimate relations with the magistracy of Frankfort to put them in the way of business, Rath Goethe saw his way to great success.

But what born poet was ever made into an attorney ? The result soon was that the two silent partners had to look after the legal business, while the young attorney was writing " Goetz von Berlichingen," falling in love at Wetzlar with Lotte Buff, and immortalizing it in the " Sorrows of Werther" ; in short, was becoming all at once not only a famous and popular writer, but an epoch-maker in the literature of his country. Rath Goethe was very proud of his son's success, but it distressed him to see him putting literature before law.

It was the Storm and Stress period with Goethe. He wandered with his susceptible heart from Lotte to Maximiliane Brentano ; from the pretty Max to Lili Schonemann. He speaks of it afterward, in a letter to his mother, as a time of confusion and perplexity.

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To distract the young jurist still further, his newlywon fame brought visitors from every quarter to see the last literary lion ; at length, among them, came the Duke of Saxe-VVeimar, whose visit was followed by an invitation, which resulted in Goethe's going to Weimar to become to the Duke, councillor, minister, and bosom friend.

His father in vain opposed his departure, seeking out all imaginable proverbs and pithy sayings against court-life, to which the son would reply by as many in its favor. There was a brisk warfare of witty epigrams, but each one remained firm in his own opinion.

The disappointment of the father was not shared by the mother : there was no wavering in her faith. Ah ! of the many mothers who have believed their sons to have genius, how few have found that happy realization which fell to the lot of Frau Rath Goethe !

It is at this point that the following Correspondence begins, with the exception of the first two letters, to which we shall refer farther on. In the early letters the mother imparts to Goethe's various youthful friends the intelligence which she receives from Weimar ; then the interest of the Weimar circle in Goethe is extended to his mother. Wieland and the Duchess Amalia write to her, visit her, and vie with each other in their enthusiasm about her ; the odd little maid of honor, von Gochhausen, is delighted to be on the same planet with her, and so on. But we leave the letters to tell their own story.

The first two letters in the chronological order are to Lavater, and are important only as showing the xxviii Introduction.

deep impression made by Lavater on Goethe's mother — an impression which did not widely differ from that everywhere produced by this singular personage. Tall, easy, graceful, pale, with moonshine in his face (as one of his admirers expressed it), a large nose, and brilliant eyes, his friend Hegner applies to him the description of Fenelon by the Due de St. Simon :

" Le prelat etait un grand homme maigre, bien fait, pale, avec un grand nez, des yeux dont le feu et l'esprit sortaient comme un torrent, et une physionomie telle que je n'en ai point vue qui y ressemblat, et qui nese pouvait oublier, quand on ne l'aurait vue qu'une fois. Elle avait de la gravite et de la galanterie, du serieux et de la gaite."

In the history of his time Lavater has two parts to play : the one as the author of the " Fragments of Physiognomy/' the other as a pastor and earnest propagator of extreme evangelical doctrines, running into mysticism. The interest excited by his " Fragments of Physiognomy," joined to the winning personality of its author, brought him into relations with all the thinkers of his day. But as the " Fragments of Physiognomy" remained always fragments, and even the author himself became at last aware that he was incapable of fulfilling his oft-repeated promise of evolving from them a systematic philosophy, the interest in Lavater died out, except among those who sympathized with his religious opinions.

The second letter was written while Goethe had gone with the Counts Stolberg to Switzerland, and in it Goethe's mother gives herself the title of Frau

Introduction. xxix

Aja, which she so heartily accepted, and by which she was known in her circle of friends.

In regard to her titles, that of Fran Rath is the only one by which she is universally known in Germany. Frau Rath or Frau R'athin, for the usage varies, is the title of a councillor's wife ; in literal English it would be Mrs. Councillor. Now there is no lack of councillors' wives in Germany, but Frau Rath Goethe has impressed her bright image so strongly upon the history of German literature that in speaking of her no surname is required : she is the Frau Rath par excellence in the heart of every cultivated German.

The two Counts Stolberg belonged to the phenomena of the period — young men of rank and fortune bursting with hatred for tyrants, and boiling over with enthusiasm for freedom. But the tyranny they hated was only the tyranny of custom and convention, and the freedom they thirsted for was the freedom to follow what they called the dictates of Nature. If Nature suggested that it was desirable to bathe by the wayside, in broad daylight, they eagerly followed her dictates, and they inveighed all the more loudly against tyrants when certain rude minions of conventionalism assailed them with stones and drove them ignominiously away.

Some years after this the Stolbergs went over to the Romish Church — a simple instance ; it would seem, of the well-known law, that the farther the pendulum is swung in one direction the farther it will swing in the other ; yet this circumstance created in Germany an excitement which at the present distance in time seems a veritable tempest in a teapot.

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Introduction.

Of the Stolbergs' visit Goethe says: "We had dined together but a few times before, enjoying one bottle after another, the poetical hatred of tyrants made its appearance, and there was manifested a thirst for the blood of such villains. My father smilingly shook his head ; my mother had scarcely in her life heard of tyrants ; however, she called to mind having seen such monsters represented among the copperplates in Gottfried's Chronicles — for example, King Cambyses triumphing in the father's' presence at having hit the son's heart with his arrow : this had still remained in her memory. To turn these and similar expressions, which were becoming continually more violent, back to something more cheerful, she betook herself to the cellar, where were deposited large well-cared-for tuns of the oldest wines. There were to be found there the vintages of 1706-19-28-48, which she had herself watched and tended, and which were but seldom broached except on solemn and important occasions. As she now set out the high-colored wine in a cut-glass decanter, she exclaimed, ' Here is the true tyrants' blood ! Rejoice yourselves in it ; but banish all murderous thoughts from my house.'

This scene is so similar to one in the " Legend of the Four Children of Aymon," that it gives the clew to the Frau Rath's title, Frau Aja. The original Frau Aja was, according to the legend, the sister of the Emperor Charlemagne, a personage whose deep impress upon his times is shown by the part he plays in so many legends. Frau Aja was the wife of Count Aymon, and the mother of four sons. One of the sons kills in a quarrel the son of the Emperor, and

Introduction. . xxxi

flies with his three brothers to the forest of Ardennes. The Emperor pursues them in vain, but takes Aymon prisoner, and compels him to an oath to deliver up his sons, should they fall into his hands. After many adventures and many years' absence, the four brothers are seized with a desire to revist their home, but are afraid to present themselves, on account of their father's oath. They therefore compel some pilgrims they meet to change clothes with them, and, appearing before the castle gate as pilgrims returning from Rome, beg for shelter and food. Frau Aja says, " Be content and of good cheer and I will give it you," and seated them at a table and gave them to eat and to drink. So they ate and drank and made merry ; at last Frau Aja went into the cellar, and, bringing up some of the best wine, poured out a silver cup full and gave it to Remold. In the end the mother recognizes them, and so on ; but with the rest of the legend we have nothing to do : it is only the similarity of this scene with the action of the Frau Rath in bringing the wine from the cellar which here concerns us. No doubt it recalled so vividly the scene in the legend, very well known in Germany, that the joyous group hailed her at once as Frau Aja.*

* Compare Diintzer : " Frauenbilder," page 456, and following.