The life and work of Goethe, 1749-1832 / by J.G. Robertson.

  • John George Robertson
Date:
1932
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The life and work of Goethe, 1749-1832 / by J.G. Robertson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Goethe inherited that dualism of character which meets us at every turn of his life. From his father came staid¬ ness, order, balance—“ des Lebens ernstes Fuhren ”— and also that punctiliousness which, unfortunately, in later life degenerated into a chilling stiffness so dis¬ couraging to the younger generation; while all that made Goethe the poet—imagination, sensitiveness, alacrity of spirit—came, as is usually the case with men of genius, from his mother. Young enough herself to be almost a child with her children, Frau Rat was, one feels, the right kind of mother for a poet. She had not had much education, the defects of which her hus¬ band endeavoured to make good ; but her innate gaiety, her healthy naturalness and unwillingness to see the dark side of things, bathed her two children in sun¬ shine ; and the stories young Wolfgang listened to at her knee were the first stimulus of his imagination. From his mother Goethe received, indeed, his “ Frohnatur ”, his happy nature ; from her, too, came that inherent faith in the goodness of the world, tinged, it may be, with fatalism, a fatalism perhaps inherent in the pietism in which she had been brought up, which provided the foundation for the confident optimism of her son’s mature years. Her letters, ungrammatical and badly spelled as they are, are a delight to read; and one cannot but feel some resentment that Goethe should have so grudgingly repaid the debt he owed her. His visits to Frankfort in later life were few and far between. The education of the two children was the father’s affair; and it lacked nothing in manysidedness and thoroughness; but his methodical pedagogy was heavy-handed, Cornelia naturally suffering more under it than her brother, who in due time escaped to the university. As the children grew up, private tutors were engaged, but Rat Goethe did not give the reins out of his own hands ; he was determined that his son should not be contaminated by attending a public
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