times and lands. The Greek priestess | tonic principle of shape and plan, which who serves to illustrate woman's wrongs, alone reveals the true greatness of the and her consequent power, is but a master-builder. Perceiving the formthin disguise for the delicate lady, with whom the poet enjoyed for some years a peculiar intimacy. The purification of Orestes under her influence had also a parallel in his own life. In "Tasso" the personal element is even more distinct. The poet's art has been warped by the very seriousness with which he enforces his lesson. The drama is little more than a desert of good advice, but the lesson is the summarized result of toilsome experience. The Italian poet is shown as the type of character from which Goethe had succeeded in freeing himself the self-conscious, uncontrolled, and rather hysterical sort of person who has so frequently done duty for the ideal poet. The other side of Goethe's nature is represented by Antonio, the able, clear-headed man of affairs, who plays his part of satiric chastisement with such insistence that it is doubtful whether he or Tasso becomes the greater bore in the end. But as to Goethe's intention there can be no doubt; it was to prove that a poet of classic and universal quality can only be formed from the union of these two types the sane, active, and critical principle being always present to impose its limits on the passionate and fluent.

And

lessness of Germany in thought and
speech, her singular incapacity for
drama, her easy satisfaction with medi-
ocrity, and the comfortable barbarism
of her life, lulled into torpor by beer.
tobacco, and uninspired research, ho
turned to the Greek forms of art as the
surest weapon to stimulate the languid
and to constrain error. By examples of
the Greek method he hoped to instil
into his own people the Greek faculty
for clearness and form. He failed; but
his attempt was fully justified by the
subsequent history of German thought
and life up to the time when it was car-
ried on, late and partially, by the more
rapid and easier discipline of war.
such being his aim, it was natural for
him to think of Italy with an almost dis-
eased longing. For in Italy he sought
what relics might be left of the definite
and disciplined forms of Greek art, and
what tradition of the old Greek life might
still linger in a country so full of shadows
of the past. Winckelmann had been
dead not many years, and art-criticism
was but young. It is Goethe's entire de-
votion to the antique and its imitations,
his apparent incapacity even to perceive
the qualities of medieval art, which
perhaps puzzles and offends the En-
glish reader of the Italian Journey.”
But whether his opinion on matters of
art is in the abstract to be accepted or
not, it was the inevitable result of his
situation and mode of life. The same
causes urged him to his far more ques-
tionable attempts to constrain the Ger-
man language into the strict forms of
hexameter and elegiac. Many strenu-
ous natures are driven into extremes by
their own protest; and the formless-
ness and commonplace of German life
and art compelled him, through very
disgust, to seek a higher beauty under
the antique forms, which at least are
never vague or mean.

For the poet's biography the form of the dramas is no less significant. That the author of "Götz" should have complied with the supposed rules of Attic tragedy as followed by the French dramatists was naturally annoying to his contemporaries. People expect a writer to reproduce his early successes till they have the satisfaction of saying that he is written out. And in the case of dramas so essentially modern in tone, it might be maintained that the antique form often plays the poet false. But there was a further object in his choice. The form was to serve as a protest against chaos. In the midst of There is another side also from the shambling and unwieldy growths of which we may regard this farce of conthe new German literature, so vague, in-trast and contradiction as being in itself definite, and desirous of excess, Goethe | one of the main advantages in that was searching after the great architec- routine of practical life which seems to

--

many so unworthy of an artist. The After all, then, it would seem that contact with the outer world supplied Goethe's choice of action in life and his the needful salt, for lack of which many devotion for many years to the public lose the keen relish of higher things. service may be defended on other A man of affairs and active interest grounds than the general plea of usefuloften brings to the pursuit of knowl-ness to his fellow-men a plea once so edge, or the contemplation of beauty, acceptable, but now. of no avail. It not only a breadth and decisiveness of seems that the true value of all those judgment, but a reality of delight almost efforts lay, not in any external and forgotten by the professional student or obvious result, but mainly in the furthe poet, who, by long habit, has come therance of the poet's own mental to regard the universe as primarily discipline. So rigorous a training of created to be a theme for authors. It is this which gives a peculiar value to the criticisms of soldiers and statesmen. In contrast to the bare and often disgusting details of common life, every glimpse of beauty or of higher truth may appear endued with triple radiance. No constant priest in the service of the Muses can realize how sweet beyond measure it is from the midst of the court, the market-place, or the assembly, to remember that their temple still stands in its quiet place with open doors. We have been taught that when the Greek proclaimed contemplation as the highest good, he did not by the contemplative life understand an existence isolated and remote as in a hermitage, but rather a habit of mind to be cultivated by the patriot and man of business no less than by the strict philosopher; and so in Goethe's case it may be said that his association with every-day affairs kept alive in him the flame of enthusiasm for intellectual beauty, and thus became one of the means by which he was enabled to retain his freshness of interest in all the varying phases of mind and emotion, like a being endowed with immortal youth.1 On the other hand, it is, perhaps, significant that the years when, after his return from Italy, he gave up most of his public work in order to devote himself to art alone, were, in fact, the most barren of his life. When Schiller came, "like a second spring," to rouse him to new productiveness, he had almost ceased to be a poet.2

1 Cf. Heine: Buch der Lieder. Preface to second edition, 1837.

Annalen, 1794; Goethe's and Schiller's Correspondence, Jan. 6, 1798.

mind and body by the daily cares of active life, far from numbing the sense of beauty, tended rather to stimulate it and to purify. Thus preserved from the lethargy and intellectual satiety of his predecessors, he was also enabled to avoid the insanity which so often clouded the careers of his early comrades in revolt. It is a point not to be overlooked, now that the old relationship between madness and genius is again argued, and some are tempted to show evidence of madness in the hope that an illogical inference may be drawn. To the open activity of his public life may be attributed his unfaltering sanity, and the sense of proportion which made him so indifferent to the opinion of others. By association with responsible men, and with people whose contact with the primal realities of life was sharp and continuous, the natural seriousness of his mind was deepened, and his energy was directed to labor strictly in the search for truth alone, whether in art or science, or the conduct of life. Hence was acquired the strong fibre of his best work, the masculine tone of thought and style, rare among modern poets, and in Germany almost unknown. To the same cause might be traced his belief in whole-heartedness and strenuous endeavor as the ultimate test of morality. For to be half-hearted is to be halfdead; and, as he says: "The important thing is, not what we do, but the spirit in which it is done.” 4 If we

3 Cf. "Generalbeichte" and "Faust," part ii., act v.

"Wer immer strebend sich bemüht,
Den können wir erlösen."

4 Sprüche in Prosa.

3

life.

"I do think I look a hundred ! "" she exclaimed.

north-country abbreviation for Marion.

"Don't I, now?" proceeded the speaker, after a moment's pause. "Don't I, Bella? Don't I, Janet ? You know I do. You would never think it was me, would you? You would think it was some one ever so much older-quite old-as old as either of you? I should, if I met it," turning round to view the mirror's reflection. "If I met it," continued the rosy lips, nodding at the rosy face," I should say: 'Oh, that is quite an old girl one of the Miss Lauders-one of the older Miss Lauders - Miss Lauder herself, I dare say.' I should never dream for & moment of its being only little Mysie," with a laugh of pleasure, in which the bystanders good humoredly joined.

compare such a temperament and char- be a very pretty bonnet. It was the acter as his, when he reached maturity, first bonnet she had ever worn in her with the mood so frequent in the biographies of other poets and authors the diseased nervousness, the ravenous vanity, the absorption in self, the ridic- Obviously to look a hundred was to ulous sensitiveness, as of creatures born score a point in her young history, and without a skin - we shall, at all events, triumph glistened in every feature of cease to regret that he did not follow the baby face which Mysie Lauder the life of the ordinary man of letters. turned first on one sister, then on an"The scholar,” said one of the truest other, confidently demanding their corlovers of classic style; "the scholar roboration and sympathy. Mysie is a may be sure that he writes the tougher truth for the calluses on his palms." 1 Goethe was born too early to serve as an actual example of the paradox; but it is significant that in the myth of the life of Faust, who from first to last remained a scholar at heart, he depicts as the fairest moment of his existence, not the capture of Helena's ideal beauty, but the drainage of a stretch of seawashed sand, an undertaking which any unpoetic engineer of our fens would have set about with a laugh. Through action alone Faust attains, not only to the ordinary advantages of benevolence, such as they are, but to the clearness of vision and purity of thought which are the scholar's aim and highest reward. Like the sea of Euripides, action purges the ills of all mankind,2 and for some scholars and poets it intensifies their peculiar faculty of catching and revealing in more permanent form the fleeting patterns which the earth spirit has woven, and still unceasingly weaves, upon the loom of time. So, at all events, it seems to have been in Goethe's case, and that was his true justification. He himself would have been the last to suppose that there was any obligation for others to follow his HENRY W. NEVINSON.

course.

1 A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.

By H. D. Thoreau. P. 113. (Riverside Press.) 2 Iphigeneia in Tauris, 1193.

From Longman's Magazine.
MYSIE.

THE TALE OF A BONNET.

SHE really had a very pretty face, and she had on what she considered to

Bella's merriment, however, suddenly ceased.

"Why, child-goodness gracious!" exclaimed she, laying hold of the plump shoulders in front; "let me see what you have done. Turn to the light. There! I thought so! Tied your bonnet-strings wrong side out ! That looks like a nice, grown-up, accustomed-tobonnets young lady, doesn't it? Can't even tie her own strings properly ! " pulling out the large bow of soft silk such as framed in the faces of thirty years ago. "Oh! you are a very clever and experienced Miss Lauder, no doubt," proceeded the speaker, rearranging with deft fingers, "but I don't fancy you will take people in quite so easily as you seem to imagine. You have got your way, and here you are; and Janet and I are just two big fools to give in to you as we do; but if you don't make a mess of yourself some way or other before the next hour's

through, you are not the Mysie Lauder | to the homely face of the sister who had I have known for the last nineteen been to her mother and more from her years, and who from a baby would al- motherless babyhood, "and so Bella ways splash and tear more pinnies in a shan't suffer. That's how I must put week than would have lasted Janet or it to myself. 'Here you, Mysie Lauder, me for a twelvemonth." don't spill your tea on your bonnetstrings, or Bella will suffer. Don't trail your lace sleeves through your plate, or Bella will suffer.'"

Mysie giggled. "How you talk! You talk as if I were nine, instead of nineteen ! And as if I could splash and tear myself at the moderator's breakfast!

"As she did after the christening party," parenthetically from Janet.

"Hold your fine long skirts out of the dust, or Bella will suffer,' proceeded the spoilt child, mincing in front of the glass with unaffected enjoyment of the scene. "Don't sit down all of

a heap upon your new muslin flounces, or Bella will suffer.'”

"One comfort is, she can't give you the gown off her back," interpolated Janet again.

"Why not?" Mysie wheeled round upon the speaker, as though resenting the limitation. "She can't? Why

not?"

"It would hang in folds upon you." "It could be taken in."

"Taken in!" echoed Janet, with a pretended groan. "Taken in! Of course it could-I never thought of that. So poor Bella has not even that safe. If she had only been the little one, and Mysie the big one! As it is, 'tis past praying for; and there is nothing for it but for Bella to get every single thing she needs for herself ugly and bad, so that her thievish sister ""

"Now, now," interposed Bella hastily; now, now, no more talk. This is all nonsense."

66 "adopting the vernacular of her native country.

"But still she is not that senseless," cried Mysie, redoubling the emphasis, and affecting sudden virtue. "She knows it is her one bonnet, and her one pair of pink kid gloves, and that if anything were to happen to either of them

"It would be Bella who would suffer," said Janet significantly.

"Yes, it would be Bella who would suffer," repeated Mysie, turning with a new and softened look in her dewy eyes

'Ay, that's what you always say; you try to turn it off by calling it nonsense; but if father knew

Are you

"There is father calling us. both ready? Now then, come along. And, Mysie dear," in an undertone, "you will be careful? You know I have spent all I have upon you, and I could not ask father for more, even if he had got it to give. Father has been so kind Then aloud, in the cheerful voice which every one at the Manse of Mains liked so well to hear: "Here we are, father! All in our new

finery! Here's Mysie," thrusting for- | were all to come to Edinburgh for the ward the younger with instinctive ap- General Assembly, you know I told you preciation of Mysie's being of the first what it would cost us in clothes, and consequence. "Well?" drawing a long you gave me the sum I asked for. I breath and awaiting an outburst. hope you think we have laid it out "Well, father ? Here's Mysie, you properly ?" see?" The tone added: "And did you ever see anything like Mysie before?" The Rev. David Lauder surveyed Mysie.

"My dear," repeated her father hastily, "you see, I—I am no judge." He was staring at Mysie through his spectacles as he spoke.

and the Assembly Hall, and even for Princes Street, than the hats she is used to wear. I hope you think we have bought her a pretty bonnet, father?" Her voice quavered a little as she spoke. All the doubts and fears and thought and care that had been bestowed upon that pink and green bonnet for Mysie rose before her eyes, and happily betrayed themselves in her accent. It had been on the tip of her father's tongue to allege for the third time that he was no judge of such feminine matters, when a glimmer of the underlying truth stole upon his mind, and he paused.

A ghost of bygone color faintly suf- "We thought Mysie ought to have a fused his cheek as he did so. He was a bonnet," proceeded Miss Lauder, with tall, thin, grey-headed clergyman, with a kind of solemn elation. "It is her a long Scotch nose. He was in the first entrance into the world. A bonhabit of giving his parishioners two net seemed more suitable for church discourses of a highly orthodox character every Sunday, and of administering much sound advice on minor topics connected with their welfare during the week; but every one knew he spoiled Mysie all the same. Mysie had come into the world long after his other children even after the two sons whose short lives had intervened between her and the elder girls-so that Bella was a motherly little woman of twelve, while Janet was ten, when to their care was left the newborn babe whose birth had cost its mother's life. All three had united in worship of the little one, and an impartial bystander might now have perceived in Bella's air of pride, and Janet's assumed nonchalance, whilst awaiting the dictum of their parent, something even more rare and lovely than in the fresh, dimpling charms of the young girl whose hand they held.

Janet was in reality quite as anxious to win approval for Mysie as was Bella, only it behoved her not to let this be apparent. It was her role to scold the one and upbraid the other, the while she secretly wounded her own conscience many a time and oft on behalf of each. Now, albeit her own apparel was fresh from the dressmaker and milliner, and she was pleasantly secure of its fashion and fit, it was on Mysie that her eye was bent.

But what was he to say?

The plain truth was that Mr. Lauder did not in his heart of hearts very greatly admire the elaborate erection upon his little daisy-faced daughter's head. Mysie bareheaded, with blowing curls flying this way and that way

Mysie, in her old straw hat, demurely peeping from beneath its broad brim

"Ahem!" quoth Mr. Lauder mildly; roguish curl of the soft hair which used “I— I am no judge."

66

to besprinkle the fair forehead was carefully smoothed out of sight, was Mysie, to his mind, spoiled.

Mysie herself, however, came to the

rescue.