them is to be found in the published writings of Carlyle. There is, of course, no need to suppose that Carlyle was not keenly awake to the distinctively poetic side of Goethe's genius. We have seen that there is every reason to believe the contrary. But it is no accident that, in what professes to be a general estimate of the poet's powers, he should say so little about it. And it is clear that, on the whole, he was much less concerned with the form, than with the substance, of Goethe's writings; that he was much more interested to show what was the lesson which the poet had to teach to his generation than what were the springs, or even the noblest examples, of the imaginative delight to be drawn from his poetry.[1] That Carlyle did a great work in literary criticism, as in other fields, is not to be denied. But never was there a critic whose standards of judgement were, in the ordinary sense, so little literary.
What, then, was it that Carlyle conceived Goethe to have taught his generation? What was the 'open secret' which he believed the German poet to have once more revealed to those who had eyes to see it? Here again, the answer is not free from difficulties. Carlyle himself, it will be remembered, expressly declines to give it.[2] It is to be gathered, therefore, not from any explicit or formal statement, but from scattered hints, and by inferences that may fairly be
- ↑ 'My greatly most delightful reading is where some Goethe musically teaches me.' Extract from Journal, Life, i. 81.
- ↑ Miscellanies, i. p. 287 (Goethe).
outside of his Universe, and seeing it go' (Sartor, II. vii, The Everlasting No) may be an echo of
Was war' ein Gott der nur von aussen stiesse!
Im Kreis das All am Finger laufen liesse!
(Gott und Welt, Proœmion). It may be observed that a verse of Goethe's Künstlerlied—Wie Natur im Vielgebilde—is quoted in Miscellanies, i. p. 79 (State of German Literature). From other references—not so many as might have been expected—may be selected one to the well-known 'Im Ganzen, Guten, Schonen Resolut zu leben' (Generalbeichte) in the letter to John Carlyle of Feb. 16, 1832.
