Here, rather than in the long-drawn aisles of Westminster, the memorial of the poet appears appropriate; but, indeed, he needs no monument. As long as the mountains stand and the lakes brighten the dales which once he celebrated, and with which now his name is imperishably associated, he needs no other monument than his own immortal verse, which he has bequeathed to all who can appreciate and love what is pure and good, and beautiful and holy—a κτῆμα ἐς τὸ ἀεί.
TWO DAYS IN WEIMAR.
“German Weimar” is Matthew Arnold’s picturesque phrase, summing in one word the many characteristics of the modern Athens. The modern spirit, the spirit of scoffing and fast travelling, has been so much diffused, even over Germany, though accepted only in a limited sense as regards speed on railways and still resisted by eilwagen, that few towns retain that idyllic aspect we are accustomed to call German. No town, to me, retains it so completely as Weimar; and it is fit that simplicity, which lingers last with great men, should plant its extrema vestigia on their long abode and resting-place.
When I woke in the morning, and went out into the streets, I felt as one who wanders through Pompeii, and expects at each turn to meet a resuscitated ancient who has slept through time. The streets looked like rows of toy-houses. The absence of all movement, the listless air of the town, confirmed the impression. And when, turning a corner, I came on a statue looking as much at home on its pedestal as if it had stepped up there, with an air of unconsciousness, not posé as all other street statues, it seemed as it would step down and resume life, or that statues walked in the streets of Weimar like men. I stopped unprompted before a white house in one of the first squares I passed, nor knew till later it was Goethe’s house. Something there must be in all that belonged to Goethe to make it stand apart from all else of its age. Why should I look at his house first, before churches or palaces, without knowing it was his? Why should I select a small low cottage in the park, and say it was, what it actually proved, his Garten-haus, unless there is some cachet, some stamp of distinctiveness impressed on his dwellings, just as there is on his works?
Neither of Goethe’s houses are to be seen, save a part of his town-house once a week. Schiller’s house is always open. It is a low cottage of two storeys, with a shop on the ground floor, and on the upper floor the room he occupied. His bed, the bed he died in, is still there; his desk, which he could raise or lower at pleasure, as he could raise or lower the mind, and some other relics,—little pianoforte, some of his writing, and a few books,—are all that remain in his house. If you want to see more of him, go into the world. Ask the first German you meet, or the tenth of any other nation. Go on the 10th of November, and see all cities on the continent uniting to celebrate his name—enthusiastic crowds in every theatre assembled to fête him. In front of the theatre is a group recently erected of Goethe and Schiller together, each holding one side of a wreath with one hand, Goethe’s other hand placed on his brother’s shoulder. Schiller looks up, as befits an idealist; Goethe looks straight before him, as suits the man who united all views, idealist and realist, as he united art and science. There is something friendly, something unstudied in the group, that makes it come home to the heart more than Schwanthaler’s majestic Goethe at Frankfort or Thorwaldsen’s musing Schiller at Stuttgardt.
What else I saw may be summed up in very few words. A beautiful bust of Goethe when young in the Library, realising all the reports of the beauty that made men look at him and stop eating when he entered a room; a large statue of him in a building in the park, called the Temple Salon; and the coffins of Goethe and Schiller in the Fürstengruft, that is, Princes’ Vault. The two poets lie side by side, a little removed from the obscurer princes, their coffins covered with bay-leaves. Karl August, the friend of Goethe and Grand Duke of Saxe Weimar, wished his coffin to be placed between the two poets, but courtly etiquette forbade. It is better, much as one respects a prince who could protect such great men, that he should derive no adventitious honour from being buried in a higher place than befitted him. He might befriend them while they lived, while fortune placed them lower than him, but to sleep between them in death is no more allowed him than to patronise them in their new sphere.
The Park of Weimar was my great resort. Laid out by Goethe, changed from unreclaimed wild to a shady pleasance, with winding walks under the boughs, open spaces of meadow grass and flowers, and a concert of singing-birds in this young summer weather, it tempted to stroll slowly through the cool alleys, or sit under the shade and muse. Schiller’s Walk was written in this park; and the poet might often be seen wandering in it alone with his muse, turning down unfrequented paths to avoid interrupters. Here it was that Goethe, walking in that majestic pose with his hands crossed behind his back, his secretary following with the work he had broken off in-doors to continue in the air, had to move out of the path to avoid a labourer who stood gazing at him in mute amazement. The river Ilm that runs through this park, in which Goethe bathed day and night, to the horror of well-regulated German minds, did not tempt me; it seemed dirty and small, more of a ditch than a river.
One by one I called up my scattered recollections, the thoughts which made the name Weimar more familiar to me than any place that had been my home. I wondered which square of the town had seen the strange sight of Goethe and Karl August, the young poet and the young prince, cracking dray-whips by the hour. But the earlier days, the genialische zeit, had not so strong a hold over me as the later time when Goethe had developed from the wild youth into the serene man, when he gave laws to the world.