paternal book education, and began another kind of tuition,—that of life and manners. The perpetual marching through the streets, the brilliant parades, the music, the "pomp, pride, and circumstance" were not without their influence. Moreover, he now gained conversational familiarity with French,[1] and acquaintance with the theatre. The French nation always carries its "civilisation" with it,—namely, a café and a theatre. In Frankfort both were immediately opened; and Goethe was presented with a "free admission" to the theatre, a privilege he used daily, not always understanding, but always enjoying what he saw. In tragedy the measured rhythm, slow utterance, and abstract language enabled him to understand the play better than he understood comedy, wherein the language, besides moving amid the details of private life, was also more rapidly spoken. But at the theatre, boys are not critical, and do not need to understand a play in order to enjoy it.[2] A Racine, found upon his father's shelves, was eagerly studied, and the speeches were declaimed with more or less appreciation of their meaning.
The theatre, and acquaintance with a chattering little braggart, named Derones, gave him such familiarity with the language, that in a month he surprised his parents with his facility. This Derones was acquainted
- ↑ He says that he had never learned French before; but this is erroneous, as his exercises prove.
- ↑ Well do I remember, as a child of the same age, my intense delight at the French theatre, although certainly no three consecutive phrases could have been understood by me. Nay, so great was this delight, that although we regarded the French custom, of opening theatres on Sunday, with the profoundest sense of its "wickedness," the attraction became irresistible: and one Sunday night, at Nantes, my brother and I stole into the theatre with pricking consciences. To this day I see the actors gesticulating, and hear the audience cry bis! bis! redemanding a couplet (in which we joined with a stout British encore!); and to this day I remember how we laughed at what we certainly understood only in passing glimpses. Goethe's ignorance of the language was, I am sure, no obstacle to his enjoyment.
