Missouri Botanical Garden PETER H. RAVEN LIBRARY Pagination Note: Since many of the items lack a specific page number, the page number dispiayed oniine refers to the sequentiaily created number each item was given upon cataloging the materials. 01 234567 89 10 Missouri Botanical cm copyright reserved garden [32 CULTURE AND PROGRESS. GE0RG5£ CULTURE AND PROGRESS. Caton’s “Summer in Norway.’’* Mr. Caton is not our ideal traveler, but he pos- sesses some of those qualities which an ideal traveler could least of all afford to dispense with. He is an excellent observer, and his interest in the scenes he describes is singularly sincere and unaffected. His practical intelligence, unobscured by learned preju- dice, acts as an excellent reflector, representing the objects as they are, with the faintest imaginable tinge of individual coloring. A book of travel of this description is, naturally enough, not quite so enter- taining as it would have been if the author had dis- pensed his colors with a more lavish brush; but where the Horatian utile dulci is beyond realization, we would far rather renounce the superficial aesthetic pleasures of reading, if, as in the present case, we are to gain in exchange this supreme confidence in the author’s strict adherence to fact. And we appre- ciate this feature the more, because Norway has actually suffered so much in the past from the exag- gerations and misstatements of hasty travelers, that it is well if we may now at last acquire some reliable knowledge concerning the national character, and the industries and institutions of the country. Some thirty or forty years ago Harriet Martineau, probably with the very best intention, wrote her « Feats on the Fjord,” in which she handled the legends and traditions of the Norwegians with a poetic nonchalance which did more honor to her imagination than to her truthfulness; for even legends have their laws, which cannot be violated with impunity. The Norwegian peasants were by her represented as a chatty, nimble, and sentimental race, demonstrative in their emotions, and with choicely polished phrases always on their tongues’ ends. Since then English sportsmen have annually made their debut in literature by fantastically inac- curate extracts from the Norse Sagas, intermingled with strange popular legends and personal advent- ures, until at length it has become well-nigh a tradi- tion that every aspirant for literary laurels who is too shallow-brained to produce anything of inde- pendent merit, may, by indulging his unbridled fancy during a summer’s sojourn in Norway, gain an enviable distinction at his club, and moreover add to his name a faint aroma of authorship. The result of all this extravagant scribbling is, that Norway is to-day far less known, and more unfavorably known, than it deserves to be, and that regarding the national habits and characteristics, the most contra- dictory opinions find their way into our political Habits, Customs, and Peculia and Institutions of the Count Productions. Also an Accoi and Elk. By John Dean Ca the Supreme Court of the Sta McClurg & Co. With Notes on the Industries, ritles of the People ; the History •y, its Climate, Topography, and mt of the Red Deer, Reindeer, ton, LL.D., Ex-Chief-Justice of te of Illinois. Chicago: Jansen, papers, magazines, and even into the text-books used in our schools. Mr. Caton has evidently no theory to support about the peculiarities of Goth and Gaul, and, judg- ing from the straightforward and unphilosophical way in which he relates what he saw and heard, we should say that he has never read Taine. He saw no drunkenness in Norway, he says, although he traveled from one end of the country to the other. He is clearly not aware that the Goth, from imme- morial times, has got drunk, and that it must have been a deficiency in his eyesight if he did not dis- cover that the Norwegians were drunk when he saw them. Again, at the country inns, where he and his party spent the nights, they had clean bed-linen, and the inhabitants whom they visited, with the . exception of the Lapps, did not show any constitu- tional aversion to soap and water. Another lapsus lingu(E ; the uncivilized Goth has never been remark- able for cleanliness. These statements, however, are very easily recon- cilable with the accounts of Bayard Taylor and other travelers, whose observations seem to point in the opposite direction. It i§ a world-old tradition among the Norwegian peasantry that at weddings, funerals, and family festivals, it is quite respectable to be drunk ; and at the fishing seasons, when great num- bers of peasants are huddled together in miserable little sheds, and suffer from cold and wet, vast quan- tities of brandy are consumed; but, nevertheless, drunkenness is even then rare. The same observa- tion was made some twenty years ago by Mr. Charles Loring Brace, whose book, “The Norse-Folk,” is one of the best descriptions of Norway which we have ever read. We have praised Mr. Caton’s conscientious avoid- ance of hasty generalizations ; but, in spite of his good intentions, his book is not altogether free from blemishes. On page 289, for instance, he speaks of fast and slow stations, translating the Norwegian adjective fast by its English cognate; the Norse word, however, is only equivalent to the English in the sense of fixed, and can never mean rapid. Again, he interprets the Norwegian adverb saa as meaning assent or approval, while, like the German so, it is merely expressive of attention, and indicates that the person addressed is listening. Once, during a ramble along the Alten River, the author comes across a monument of that class which the natives call a Bautasten, and here indulges in a vague his- torical reverie which shows his ignorance of the actual historical facts. We should, on the whole, wish that Mr. Caton had contented himself with Norway of to-day, which he saw and knew, with- out essaying an ambitious flight into the remote Saga world. His historical notes are full of errors, and their inaccuracy mars an otherwise valuable record of travel. 01 234567 89 10 Missouri Botanical cm copyright reserved garden ^ s ^^X*- 2 ^ Sl-^jCit^ .^5^j2»c. ^ 2/ /i'£— vCCc^ vj 'Src^^ ^ - ■■-■ >■•:,■ ■- . /,..;^V ^V ■ Botanical cm copyright reserved garden PAPERS f 01 234567 89 10 cm copyright reserved Missouri Botanical Garden cm 6 7 8 9 10 copyright reserved I 57 /jr nOTAmCAi: (sARDES^ GE.^RG'; ENGELr4ANN PAPERS 01 234567 89 10 Missouri Botanical cm copyright reserved garden W\sso«w QfiORS® 6^R0£H P PAPERS. 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A ll i| s| A i 4 I A I A ■w^ I i I 1 '-i 4 1 sH&q A V '357 -|Q Missouri copyright reserved THE GOETHE HOUSE AT FRANKFORT In 1782, the Herr Rath died in his sev- enty-second year. For thirteen years the Frau Rath lived alone in the Casa Santa — nominally, at least, alone, for the stream of visitors was almost constant. ‘‘ I am much more fortunate than Frau von Reck,” she writes; “that lady must travel about in order to see Germany’s learned men, they all visit me in my house, which is by far more convenient — yes, yes, those to whom God is gracious. He blesses in their sleep.” * Our visit to Goethe’s early home termi- nates with the inspection of his own rooms on the fourth floor. We return to the con- sideration of what we have ventured to call the dramatis personcE of the home circle, and having already spoken of the father, we now come to the sister and the mother. The relations between Goethe and his sis- ter Cornelia were of the most intimate kind. There was but a year’s difference in their ages, and they were often taken to be twins. They shared together the joys and sorrows of childhood, and no new experience was complete until communicated to the other. The brother’s departure for the University of Leipsic was their first separation, and in W olf- gang’s absence, Cornelia led a weary life. All the father’s pedagogy was now exerted upon her. He left her no time for social pleasures or for associating with other young girls; an occasional concert was her only relaxation. Even the relation of mutual confidence between the brother and sister was entirely broken up, as all their letters passed through the father’s hands. It was therefore not strange when Goethe returned home after an absence of nearly three years, that he found the father and daughter living in a state of almost open hostility, and was himself made the confidant of his sister’s complaints, and of his mother’s anxieties in her position of mediator and peace- maker. Of his sister Goethe writes : “ She had by turns to pursue and work at French, Italian, and English, besides which he (the father) compelled her to practice at the harpsichord a great part of the day. Writing also was not to be neglected, and I had already remarked that he had directed * ja, wem ’s Gott gonnt giebt er ’s im Schlaf,” — an idiomatic phrase difficult to translate ; a similar one, “Gott giebt es den Seinen im Schlaf” (God blesses his own in their sleep), is in frequent use in Germany. “ Im Schlaf ” is used to express any- thing that has been obtained without personal effort ; for example, should any one become rich by inherit- ance or a sudden rise in values, the Germans would say,“Er ist reich geworden im Schlaf” (He has be- come rich in his sleep). 119 her correspondence with me, and commu- nicated to me his teachings through her pen. My sister was, and still continued to be, an indefinable being, the most singular mixture of strength and weakness, of obsti- nacy and compliance ; which qualities acted, now united, and now separated, at her own will and inclination. Thus she, in a man- ner which seemed to me terrible, had turned the hardness of her character against her father, whom she did not forgive, because dur- ing these three years he had forbidden or embittered to her many an innocent pleas- ure, and she would acknowledge no single one of his good and excellent qualities. She did all that he commanded or directed, but in the most unamiable manner in the world ; she did it in the established routine, but nothing more and nothing less ; out of love or favor she accommodated herself to noth- ing, so that this was one of the first things about which my mother complained in a private conversation with me.” Cornelia seems to have inherited many of her father’s traits of character, and the Herr Rath found his own inflexibility matched against the same quality, which had been transmitted to his child. On Wolfgang’s return from Leipsic the old confidential relations were resumed be- tween the brother and the sister. All their thoughts and feelings were shared ; Cornelia read his letters from his University friends, and went over with him his replies to them. These were the happiest days of Cornelia’s life; they amount, deducting Wolfgang’s absence for a year and a half at Strasburg, to about three years and a half. They are most interesting to us in connection with Cornelia’s influence upon the production of “ Goetz von Berlichingen,” as Goethe thus relates it : “ I had, as I proceeded, conversed cir- cumstantially about it with my sister, who took part in such matters with heart and soul. I so often renewed this conversation without taking any steps toward beginning work, that she at length, impatient and inter- ested, begged me earnestly not to be ever talking into the air, but once for all to set down on paper that which was so present to my mind. Determined by this impulse, I began one morning to write, without hav- ing first sketched out any draft or plan. I wrote the first scenes, and in the evening they were read to Cornelia. She greatly applauded them, yet qualified her praise by the doubt whether I should so continue ; indeed she expressed a decided unbelief in THE 120 at Prankfort. my perseverance. This stimulated me only the more. I went on the next day and the third ; hope increased with the daily com- munications, and everything, step by step, gained more life as I became thoroughly master of the subject. Thus I kept myself uninterruptedly at the work, which I pursued straight onward, looking neither backward nor to the right or the left, and in about six weeks I had the pleasure of seeing the manuscript stitched.” Cornelia’s memory is still further asso- ciated with her brother’s first success by the discovery of her portrait sketched by Goethe in pencil on the margin of a proof- sheet of “ Goetz.” A copy of it is given by Professor Otto Jahn in his collection of ‘‘ Goethe’s Letters to his Leipsic Friends.” ‘ The resemblance to Goethe is strongly marked in the prominent nose, and, above all, in the large eyes, of which he wrote : Her eyes are not the finest I have ever seen, but the deepest, behind which you expected the most ; and when they expressed any affection, any love, their brilliancy was unequaled.” The face is interesting, but one that would be ordinarily classed among the very plain. Cornelia became early con- scious of this, and tormented herself with the conviction that no woman without per- sonal beauty could expect to inspire any man with love. It does not seem to have occurred to her that mental accomplishments might make up for the lack of beauty. Probably she had liftle idea of her own mental qualities, the state of isolation in which she was brought up having deprived her of the means of comparing herself with other girls of her own age, and kept her in ignorance of her superiority — a superiority due, first, to her own mental powers, and, secondly, to her father’s unflagging instruc- tions. In her diary, which is given in Pro- fessor Jahn’s book, she indulges at ^eat length in these self-tormenting reflections. Hapless Cornelia! the world reads this diary, which was her one secret from her brother, and which she wrote in French, perhaps with the idea that, should it be mislaid, the foreign tongue would keep it secret from many. It is addressed to one of her female friends. She has been reading “ Sir Charles Grandison,” and thus gives utterance to her feelings in school-girl French : “ Je donnerais tout au monde pour pouvoir parvenir dans plusieurs annees k imiter tant soit peu I’excellente Miss Byron. L’imiter? Folle que je suis ; le puis-je ? Je m’estimerais assez heureuse d’avoir la vingtieme partie de r esprit et de la beaute de cette admirable dame, car alors je serais une aimable fille ; c’est ce souhait que me tient au coeur jour et nuit. Je serais k blame si je desirais d’etre une grande beaute ; seulement un peu de finesse dans les traits, un teint uni, et puis cette grace douce qui enchante au pre- mier coup de vue ; voilk tout. Cependant ga n’est pas et ne sera jamais, quoique je puisse faire et souhaiter; ainsi il vaudra mieux de cultiver I’esprit et tdcher d’ ^tre support- able du moins de ce c6te-la.” Further on : ‘‘Vous aurez dej^ entendue que je fais grand cas des charmes exterieures, mais peut- etre que vous ne savez pas encore que je les tiens pour absolument necessaires au bonheur de la vie et que je crois pour cela que je ne serai jamais heureuse. * * * Epouserai-je un mari que je n’aime pas ? Cette pensee me fait honeur et cependant ce sera le seul parti qui me reste, car oil trouver un homme aimable qui pensdt k moi ? Ne croyez pas, ma chere, que ce soit grimace : Vous connaissez les replis de mon coeur, je ne vous cache rien, et pourquoi le ferais-je ? ” These words show by what sentiments she was actuated in accepting the hand of John George Schlosser. Her brother’s ab- sence at Strasburg had brought back again to her the wearisomeness of her home life. Goethe had now returned from Strasburg a Doctor-at-Law, but was soon to leave again for Wetzlar in continuation of his juristical studies, as marked out years before by his father. Cornelia saw the world opening to her brother, and felt that her only happiness was slipping from her grasp. Her life at home without Wolfgang was intolerable to her, and to escape from it she accepted the offer of marriage. J ohn George Schlosser was an early friend of her brother. He was ten years older than Goethe, and when he visited Leipsic during Goethe’s stay there, the difference in age caused the latter to look up to Schlosser as in many respects his superior. Schlosser afterward edited a literary journal at Frank- fort, to which Goethe contributed, and the intimate relations with the brother led to the acquaintance with the sister. The bride^oom had been promised an appointment in the Grand Duchy of Baden, and expected to be placed at Carlsruhe, the capital. But hardly had the newly mar- ried pair reached Carlsruhe, when they learned that they were to reside in Emmen- dingen, a little village on the borders of the Black Forest, where Schlosser was to fill the M. W. Comer Eaaton and Garrison .due’s . S9 7I 01 234567 89 10 Missouri Botanical cm copyright reserved garden MiSSOUf?! eOTMN’!Cfl-L GARDOf gfORgl ENSti-MANN PAPERS