bly bound
up for him with that of the Seven Hills. Baedeker had not been born.
Tischbein would be a great saviour of time and trouble. Nor was this
hope unfulfilled. Tischbein was assiduous, enthusiastic, indefatigable.
In the early letters to Frau von Stein, to Herder and others, his name
is always cropping up for commendation. 'Of Tischbein I have much to
say and much to boast'--'A thorough and original German'--'He has always
been thinking of me, ever providing for my wants'--'In his society all
my enjoyments are more than doubled.' He was thirty-five years old (two
years younger than Goethe), and one guesses him to have been a stocky
little man, with those short thick legs which denote indefatigability.
One guesses him blond and rosy, very voluble, very guttural, with a
wealth of forceful but not graceful gesture.

One is on safer ground in guessing him vastly proud of trotting Goethe
round. Such fame throughout Europe had Goethe won by his works that it
was necessary for him to travel incognito. Not that his identity wasn't
an open secret, nor that he himself would have wished it hid. Great
artists are always vain. To say that a man is vain means merely that he
is pleased with the effect he produces on other people. A conceited man
is satisfied with the effect he produces on himself. Any great artist is
far too perceptive and too exigent to be satisfied with that effect, and
hence in vanity he seeks solace. Goethe, you may be sure, enjoyed the
hero-worshipful gaze focussed on him from all the tables of the Caffe'
Greco. But not for adulation had he come to Rome. Rome was what he had
come for; and the fussers of the coteries must not pester him in his
golden preoccupation with the antique world. Tischbein was very useful
in warding off the profane throng--fanning away the flies. Let us hope
he was actuated solely by zeal in Goethe's interest, not by the desire
to swagger as a monopolist.

Clear it is, though, that he scented fine opportunities in Goethe's
relation to him. Suppose he could rope his illustrious friend in as
a collaborator! He had begun a series of paintings on the theme of
primaeval man. Goethe was much impressed by these. Tischbein suggested
a great poem on the theme of primaeval man--a volume of engravings
after Tischbein, with running poetic commentary by Goethe. 'Indeed,
the frontispiece for such a joint work,' writes Goethe in one of his
letters, 'is already designed.' Pushful Tischbein! But Goe