GOETHE IS CLEAREST AND MOST HELPFUL THINKER OF MODERN TIMES, SAYS WALZ

"Goethe was the clearest, the largest, the most helpful thinker of modern times", said Professor J. A. Walz, Professor of the German Language and Literature, discussing Goethe, on whom he recently lectured.

"It was not easy for Englishmen and Americans in the middle of the nineteenth century," continued Professor Walz, "to do justice to this phenomenon in the world of letters; it had been difficult for Goethe's own countrymen. Whatever has been urged against Goethe,--his supposed lack of moralty, his irreligious, his coldness and selfishness, his disregard of others, his inconstancy,--you may find it all in the works of Borne and Wolfgang Menxel and in other German writers preceding them.

Goethe's Heaven "Vault of Ice"

"His genius was recognized but his character was aspersed. The objections of Englishmen and Americans may be found in a nutshell, as it were, in a letter of John Sterling addressed to Carlyle in 1837:

"'I have been looking at Goethe much as a shying horse looks at a post. In truth, I am afraid of him. . . . There must, as I think, have been some prodigious defect in his mind to let him hold such views as his about women and some other things; and in another respect, I find so much coldness and hollowness as to the highest truths that I feel the Heaven he looks up to is but a vault of ice. . . .

"'This goes far to convince me that he was a profoundly immoral and irreligious spirit. . . . All this may be mere goody weakness and twaddle on my part, but it is a persuasion I cannot escape from.' . . .

"The most outstanding characteristic of Goethe is his humanity. Of him, more perhaps than of any other man, it may be said that nothing human was foreign to him. . . . He liked to associate with persons of every class and kind, brain workers and hand workers, for they all were human, and from all he could learn . . . . A natural total depravity of the human heart was to him inconceivable . . . .

Humanity Shines in Work

"Goethe's humanity shines brightly in his written works. He does not lead us into a fairyland where we may find luxurious rest and aesthetic enjoyment in the contemplation of inane beauty, but presents to us plain reality.

"He followed with astounsing keenness the development of poetry, science, and general culture in other countries.

"It was this interest in the spread of human culture that in 1819 prompted him to carry out a suggestion of a Harvard graduate, Joseph George Coggswell and a wish previously expressed to him in a letter by Edward Everett, to send to the library of Harvard College a set of his collected works.

"In an accompanying note he wrote that the works are presented to the library of the University of Cambridge in New England as a mark of deep interest in its high literary character, and in the successful zeal it has displayed through so long a course of years for the promotion of solid and elegant education.

Scores Chauvinism

"Goethe's humanity did not prevent him from loving his own nation, but it made it impossible for him to hate other nations. In this, Goethe proved himself greatly superior to many professed Christians of our own day. Chauvinism or anything resembling it was utterly foreign to his nature and not a trace of it may be found in any of his works. There is no finer testimony to this aspect of Goethe's character than the words of the great Italian, Benedetto Croce, in the preface to his recent book on Goethe. 'During the sad days of the World War', Croce writes, 'I reread Goethe's works and gained deeper consolation and greater courage from him than I could have gained perhaps in equal measure from any other poet.'"

"No charge ever brought against Goethe is less well founded than the charge of irreligion. The truth is that Goethe is the most religious of modern poets. To be sure, if you understand by religion merely the acceptance of the dogmas, Goethe was not religious, for he did not accept dogmas. Like Jacob of old he wrestled with the Lord and did not let go.

"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."