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ture. The scene I refer to has probably roused more indignation against the Wahlverwandtschaften than all the rest of the book.

It is a painful story. Two of the actors represent Passion in its absorbing, reckless, irresistible fervour, rushing onwards to the accomplishment of its aims. The two other actors represent with equal force, and with touching nobleness, the idea of Duty. Eduard and Ottilie love rapidly, vehemently, thoughtlessly. Not a doubt troubles them. Their feeling is so natural, it so completely absorbs them, that they are like two children entering on a first affection. But, vividly as they represent Instinct, Charlotte and the Captain as vividly represent Reason; their love is equally profound, but it is the love of two rational beings, who, because they reason, reason on the circumstances in which they are placed; recognise society, its arrangements and its laws; and sacrifice their own desires to this social necessity. They subdue themselves; upheld by Conscience they face suffering; Conscience dictates to them a line of conduct never dreamt of by the passionate Eduard, and but vaguely apprehended by Ottilie.

Eduard no sooner knows that he is loved than he is impatient for a divorce, which will enable him to marry Ottilie, and enable Charlotte to marry the Captain. Unfortunately Charlotte, who has hitherto had no children by Eduard, feels that she is about to be a mother. This complicates a position which before was comparatively simple. Childless, she might readily have consented to a divorce; she cannot now. Every argument fails to persuade Eduard to relinquish the one purpose of his life; and he only consents to test by absence the durability of his passion.

He joins the army, distinguishes himself in the field, and returns with desires as imperious as ever. Meanwhile the Captain has also absented himself. Charlotte bears her fate, meekly, nobly. Ottilie in silence cherishes her love for Eduard, and devotes herself with intense affection to Charlotte's child. This child, in accordance with a popular superstition (which, by the way, physiology emphatically discredits), resembles in a striking manner both Ottilie and the Captain, thus physically typifying the passion felt by Eduard for Ottilie, and the passion felt by Charlotte for the Captain.

Charlotte, who is strong enough to bear her fate, never relinquishes the hope that Eduard will learn to accept his with like fortitude. But he remains immovable. Opposition only intensifies his desire. At length the child is drowned while under Ottilie's charge. In the depth of her affliction a light breaks in upon her soul; and now, for the first time, Ottilie becomes conscious of being

wrong in her desire to be Eduard's wife. With this consciousness comes a resolution never to be his. The tragedy deepens. She wastes away. Eduard, whose passion was his life, lingers awhile in and then is laid to rest by her side.

mute sorrow,

Such, in its leading motives, is the terribly tragic drama which Goethe has worked out with indefatigable minuteness in Die Wahlverwandtschaften. The story moves slowly, as in life, through various episodes and circumstances; but if slow, it is always intelligible.

We need only a hint of the origin of this story to read in it how Goethe has represented himself under the two different masks of the impulsive Eduard, and the reasonable strong-willed Captain. These characters are drawn from the life, drawn from himself. Considered only as characters in a novel, they are masterly creations. Eduard— weak, passionate, and impatient--still preserves our interest even in his weakest moments. How admirable a touch is that where, in the early uneasiness of his position, he hears of the Captain's having criticised his flute playing, and "at once feels himself freed from every obligation of duty"! It is precisely these passionate natures which leap at any excuse, no matter how frivolous, that they may give them the semblance of justification. Charlotte and the Captain stand as representatives of Duty and Reason, in contrast with Ottilie and Eduard, who represent Impulse and Imagination; in the two reasonable personages Goethe has achieved the rare success of making reason lovable.

Rosenkrantz has noticed how well the various forms of marriage are represented in this novel. Eduard and Charlotte each tried mariage de convenance; they then tried a marriage of friendship; if the former was unhappy, the latter was not sufficing: it was not the marriage of love. Moreover, in the liaison of the count and the baroness, we see marriage as it is so often found in the world—as a mere convention conventionally respected. Hence the count is painted as a frivolous careless man of fashion, who plays with St. Simonian theories, and thinks marriage ought to be an apprenticeship terminable every five years.

Besides such points, the critic will note admiringly how the characters present themselves in thought, speech, and act, without any description or explanation from the author. The whole representation is so objective, so simple, and the march of the story is so quiet, moving amid such familiar details, that except in the masterpieces of Miss Austen, I know not where to look for a comparison. And if English and French readers sometimes feel a little wearied

by the many small details which encumber the march of the story, and irritate the curiosity which is impatient for the dénouement, no such weariness is felt by German readers, who enjoy the details, and the purpose which they are supposed to serve. A dear friend of mine, whose criticism is always worthy of attention, thinks that the long episodes which interrupt the progress of the story during the interval of Eduard's absence and return, are artistic devices for impressing the reader with a sense of the slow movement of life; and, in truth, it is only in fiction that the denouement usually lies close to the exposition. I give this opinion, for the reader's consideration; but it seems to me more ingenious than just. I must confess that the stress Goethe lays on the improvements of the park, the erection of the moss hut, the restoration of the chapel, the making of new roads, etc., is out of all proportion, and somewhat tedious. Julian Schmidt calls attention to the inartistic device of dragging in pages of detached aphorisms and reflections on life under the pretence of their being extracts from Ottilie's journal. The pretence of a connection—namely, the "red thread"—which is to run through these extracts, and exhibit the development of her feelings, is entirely lost sight of, and instead of the feelings of an impassioned girl, we have the thoughts of an old man. The original intention was simply to write a novelle, a little tale; and for that there was abundant material. In expanding the novelle into a novel, he has spoiled a masterpiece. Indeed, I must frankly say that, either from want of constructive instinct, or from an indolent and haughty indifference towards the public, his novels are quite unworthy of a great artist in point of composition. He seems to have regarded them as vehicles for the expression of certain views, rather than as organic wholes.

The style of Die Wahlverwandtschaften is greatly admired by Germans; Rosenkrantz pronounces it classical. We must remember, however, that Germany is not rich in works written with the perfection which France and England demand; we must remember, moreover, that most German opinions on Goethe are to be received with the same caution as English opinions about Shakspeare; and bearing these two facts in mind, we shall lend a more willing ear to those native critics who do not regard the style of the Wahlverwandtschaften as classical. It is a delicate point for a foreigner to venture on an opinion in such a case; and if I wrote for Germans, I should simply quote the current verdict; but writing for Englishmen who read German, there may be less temerity in alluding to the signs of age which the style of this novel betrays. Englishmen

comparing this prose with the prose of his earlier works, or with the standard of admirable prose—and so great a writer must only be measured by the highest standards—will find it often weak, cold, mechanical in the construction of its sentences, and somewhat lifeless in the abstractness of its diction. There is also a fatiguing recurrence of certain set forms of phrase. Passages of great beauty there are, touches of poetry no reader will overlook. The last chapter is a poem. Its pathos is so simple that one needs to be in robust mood to read it. The page also where Charlotte and the Captain are on the lake together under the faint light of appearing stars, is a poem the music of which approaches that of verse.

CHAPTER V.

POLITICS AND RELIGION.

MINNA HERZLIEB, to whom we owe the Wahlverwandtschaften, lived to be a happy wife. Goethe long carried the arrow in his heart. In 1810, he once more gave poetic expression to his experience in an erotic poem, setting forth the conflict of Love and Duty. The nature of this poem, however, prevented its publication, and it still exists only as a manuscript. In this year also he commenced his Autobiography, the first part of which appeared in 1811. The public, anxious for autobiography, received it with a disappointment which is perfectly intelligible; charming as the book is in every other respect, it is tantalising to a reader curious to see the great poet in his youth.

Before writing this Autobiography he had to outlive the sorrow for his mother's death. She died on the 13th of September, 1808, in her 78th year. To the last, her love for her son, and his for her, had been the glory and sustainment of her happy old age. He had wished her to come and live with him at Weimar; but the circle of old Frankfurt friends, and the influence of old habits, kept her in her native city, where she was venerated by all.

A volume would be required to record with anything like fulness the details of the remaining years. There is no deficiency of material in his letters, and the letters of friends and acquaintances, will be found an ample gleaning; but unhappily the materials are abundant precisely at the point where the interest of the story begins to fade. From sixty to eighty-two is a long period; but it is not a period in which persons and events influence a man; his character, already developed, can receive no new direction. At this period biography is at an end, and necrology begins. For Germans, the details to which I allude, have interest; but the English reader would receive with mediocre gratitude a circumstantial narrative of all Goethe did and studied; all the excursions he made;

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