of institutions. And as he did not look forward to a change in institutions, his views and his very morality rested on the assumption of a state of society in many respects miserably bad.
But the effect of this aberration upon Goethe’s character as a teacher and upon his influence has been most disastrous. And inevitably, for as it has been the practice in the Christian world to lay all the stress of morality upon that very virtue which Goethe almost entirely repudiates, he appears not only to be no moralist but an enemy of morality. And as he once brought a devil upon the stage, we identify him with his own Mephistopheles, though, in fact, the tone of cold irony is not by any means congenial to him. He has the reputation of a being awfully wise, who has experienced all feelings good and bad, but has survived them, and from whose writings there rises a cold unwholesome exhalation, the odor of moral decay. It is thought that he offers culture, art, manifold intellectual enjoyment, but at the price of virtue, faith, patriotism.
If I have taken a just view, the good and bad characteristics of his writings stand in a different relation. It is not morality itself that he regards with indifference, but one important section of morality. And he is an indifferentist here, partly because he is a man formed in the last years of the old régime, partly because he is borne too far on the tide of reaction against Catholic and monastic ideas. Nevertheless, he remains a moralist; and in his positive teaching he is one of the greatest moral teachers the world has ever seen. In his life he displayed some of the greatest and most precious virtues, a nobly conscientious use of great powers, a firm disregard of popularity, an admirable capacity for the highest kind of friendship. His view of life and literature is, in general, not ironical and not enervating, but sincere, manly, and hopeful. And his view of morality and religion, if we consider it calmly and not in that spirit of agonized timidity which reigns in the religious world, will perhaps appear to be not now very dangerous where it is wrong, and full of fresh instruction where it is right. The drift of the nineteenth century, the progress of those reforms in which Goethe took so little interest, have tended uniformly to the elevation of woman, so that it seems now scarcely credible that at the end of the last century great thinkers can seriously have preferred to contemplate her in the half servile condition in which classical poetry exhibits her. On this point at least the world is not likely to become pagan again. On the other hand Carlyle himself scarcely exaggerated the greatness of Goethe as a prophet of new truth alike in morals and in religion. Just at the moment when the supernaturalist theory, standing alone, seemed to have exhausted its influence, and to be involving religion in its own decline, Goethe stood forth as a rapt adorer of the God in Nature.39 Naturalism in his hands appeared to be no dull system of platitudes, no empty delusive survival of an exploded belief, but a system as definite and important as Science, as rich and glorious as Art. Morality in his hands appeared no longer morbid, unnaturally solemn, unwholesomely pathetic, but robust, cheerful, healthy, a twin-sister of happiness. In his hands also morality and religion appeared inseparably united, different aspects of that free energy, which in him was genius, and in every one who is capable of it resembles genius. Lastly, his bearing towards Christianity, when he had receded from the exaggerations of his second period, was better, so long as it seemed hopeless to purge Christianity of its other-worldliness, than that of the zealots on either side. He entered into no clerical or anti-clerical controversies; but, while he spoke his mind with great frankness, did not forget to distinguish between clericalism and true Christianity, cherished no insane ambition of destroying the Church or founding a new religion,40 and counselled us in founding our future society to make Christianity a principal element in its religion, and not to neglect the “excellent collection of sacred books” left us by the Hebrews. —Contemporary Review.
BYGONE CELEBRITIES AND LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS
I. Daniel O’Connell – Serjeant Talfourd – Robert Carruthers
The three gentlemen whose names appear at the head of this chapter of my reminiscences, breakfasted together at the table of Mr. Rogers, along with our host and myself, in the summer of 1845. They were all remarkable and agreeable men, and played a part more or less distinguished in the social life of the time. Mr. O’Connell called himself, and was called by his friends, the Liberator, but was virtually the Dictator, or uncrowned king, of the Irish people. Serjeant, afterwards Judge, Talfourd, was an eminent lawyer – a very eloquent speaker, and a poet of some renown. Mr. Robert Carruthers was the editor of the Inverness Courier, a paper of much literary influence; a man of varied acquirements and extensive reading, particularly familiar with the literature and history of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and more especially with the writings of Pope, his contemporaries and predecessors. Whenever Mr. Macaulay, while engaged on the “History of England,” which, unfortunately, he did not live to complete, was in doubt about an incident, personal or national, that occurred during the reigns of James II., William and Mary, or Queen Anne, and was too busy to investigate for himself, he had only to appeal for information to Mr. Carruthers, and the information was at once supplied from the abundant stores of that gentleman’s memory. I was well acquainted with all of these notables, but had never before met the three together.
Mr. O’Connell had long passed his prime in 1845 – being then in his 70th year – but appeared to be in full bodily and mental vigor, and in the height of his power, popularity, and influence. He had for years been extravagantly praised by one half of the nation and as extravagantly blamed and denounced by the other, and his support had been so absolutely necessary to the existence of the Whig and Liberal Ministry in England, that when this support seemed to be of doubtful continuance, or any indications of his present lukewarmness or future opposition were apparent, the baits of power, place, or high professional promotion were constantly dangled before his eyes, to keep him true to the cause to which he had never promised allegiance, but to which he had always adhered with more or less of zeal and consistency. For upwards of a quarter of a century his name figured more frequently in the leading columns of all the most prominent journals of London and the provinces than that of any statesman or public character of the time. As he jocularly but truly said of himself, he was the best abused man in the country; but though he did not choose to confess it, he was, at the same time, the most belauded. He was a man of a fine personal presence, of a burly and stalwart build, with quick glancing eyes full of wit, humor and of what may be called “rollicking” fun; and of a homely, persuasive, and telling eloquence, that no man of his day could be truly said to have equalled. The speeches of his great contemporary and countryman, Richard Lalor Shiel, were more elegant, scholarly, and ambitious; but they were above the heads of the commonalty, and often failed of their effect by being “caviare to the general,” and sometimes tired or “bored” those who could understand and even appreciate them, by their great length and too obvious straining after effect. No exception of the kind could be taken to the speeches of Daniel – or, as he was affectionately called, “Dan” O’Connell. They were all clear as day, logical as a mathematical demonstration, and warm as midsummer. If he had many of the faults he had all the virtues of his Celtic countrymen, and even in his strongest denunciations of his political opponents there was always a touch of humor that forced a laugh or a smile from the persons he attacked. He once, in Parliament, spoke of the great Duke of Wellington as “a stunted corporal with two left legs,” and the Duke of Wellington, who was said to be proud of his legs, remarking to Lucas, the artist who had painted his portrait, pointing to his legs – without taking notice of the facial likeness – “those are my legs,” had sense enough to laugh. The description, however, was not quite original, inasmuch as Pope, more than a hundred years previously, had applied the same epithet to Lintot the bookseller. Daniel O’Connell could excite at will the laughter or the indignation of the multitude, and was not in reality an ill-tempered or an ill-conditioned man, though he often appeared to be so when it suited his purpose. But though choleric he was never malicious.
On this occasion the conversation was almost entirely literary. O’Connell’s voice was peculiarly sweet and musical, and in the recitation of poetry, of which he had a keen and critical appreciation, it was impossible to excel, and difficult to equal him, in either comic or
“Was kann der Mensch im Leben mehr gewinnen,
Als dass ihm Gott-Natur sich offenbare?”
“Von der Société St. Simonien bitte Dich fern zu halten;” so he writes to Carlyle.
