"At the age of 25 he writes to his friend Pfenniger: 'And so the word of man is the word of God to me . . . . and with ardent soul I embrace my brothers, Moses, the prophets, the evangelists, the apostles, Spinoza and Machiavelli. And to each one I may say: dear friend, you are like myself.'
"Goethe did not write for the chosen few. His work was not intended for a select circle of aesthetes or for men with surpassing intellectual endowments. He wrote for you and for me and for every man who feels within him the desire to give his life meaning and spiritual content . . . .
Goethe Had Mission in Life
"Goethe believed he had a mission in life. No man has ever accomplished anything, great and small, unless he believed in his mission. Goethe conceived his mission in life to be primarily ethical, not aesthetic. The poet, he says, is at the same time teacher, prophet, friend of gods and of men.
"There are two ideas running through Goethe's life and writings from beginning to the end, the ideas of work and renunciation . . . . We know that in Werther's sorrows Goethe portrayed his own inner struggles and sufferings, but Goethe acquired these two qualities, even in his youth, by the strictest self-discipline . . . . Work is the treasure of life and rest can be enjoyed only after hard work. You may call it a homely lesson, but Goethe knew no better.
"While self-culture with Goethe was primarily an affair of the inner man, he did not neglect the body. In his autobiography he tells us of how he overcame certain physical weaknesses during his student days in Strasbourg. Living before our mechanical age, he was not accustomed to loud noises, which jarred his nerves. He trained his nerves by standing close to the drummers of the French garrison every evening when they sounded tattoo, a rather violent method as he admits himself.
Falls in Love at 74
"The serene Olympian at Weimar' as been a favorite phrase applied to Olympus in his old age, as though Goethe, horned in Weimar, were like Zeus in Olympus, in serene calmness far removed from human cares in troubles. But what must we think of a man who, at the age of 74, falls passionately in involve with a girl of 19? . . . 'Passion rings suffering,' he wrote at that time. But the fruit of this passion was one of the deepest and most beautiful love poems ever written, 'The Elegy of Marienad.'
"Whoever takes up Goethe's works with any feeling of pruriency will be sadly disappointed. There are a hundred other poets and writers better suited for such a purpose. It is true in the 'Roman Elegies' Goethe has treated the joys of physical love, but he has done it with such consummate art and the illusion of the classical background is so complete that we can only marvel.
Goethe Craved Sympathy
"In the life of no poet have women played so important a part as in the life of Goethe. For this Goethe has been immeasurably censured. It is well to remember two facts. Nearly all the women whom Goethe loved and did not marry were later in life more or less happily married themselves. And none of the women when Goethe loved but did not marry ever spoke ill of him, so far as it is known, with the sole exception of Fran von Stein, who perhaps had least reason for doing so.
"Goethe's emotional nature craved the sympathy and love of woman, he needed the sympathy of love. Some of his greatest works were inspired by woman, though it is an absurd misconception of Goethe's nature and genius to maintain, as has been done, that he fell in love with the purpose of getting material and inspiration for his poetry.
Goethe Honored Women
"It is hard to understand how any one reading Goethe could ever get the idea that he had a low conception of woman. In his judgment of women he is sometimes critical, but never flippant. On the whole a profound respect of woman pervades his works.
"Goethe's philosophy of life or his practical religion he himself has summed up in two lines. They are the closing lines of a song written by Wilhelm Meisten in the Wanderiahre and sung by a company of artisan.
"And thine striving be't with loving.
And thy living, be't in deed."