the, though
he was the most courteous of men, was not of the stuff of which
collaborators are made. 'During our walks together'--and can you not see
those two together, pacing up and down the groves of the Villa Pamphili,
or around the ruins of the Temple of Jupiter?--little Tischbein
gesticulating and peering up into Goethe's face, and Goethe with his
hands clasped behind him, ever nodding in a non-committal manner--'he
has talked with me in the hope of gaining me over to his views, and
getting me to enter upon the plan.' Goethe admits in another letter that
'the idea is beautiful; only,' he adds, 'the artist and the poet must be
many years together, in order to carry out and execute such a work'; and
one conceives that he felt a certain lack of beauty in the idea of being
with Tischbein for many years. 'Did I not fear to enter upon any new
tasks at present, I might perhaps be tempted.' This I take to be but the
repetition of a formula often used in the course of those walks. In
no letter later than November is the scheme mentioned. Tischbein
had evidently ceased to press it. Anon he fell back on a scheme less
glorious but likelier to bear fruit.

'Latterly,' writes Goethe, 'I have observed Tischbein regarding me; and
now'--note the demure pride!--'it appears that he has long cherished
the idea of painting my portrait.' Earnest sight-seer though he was, and
hard at work on various MSS. in the intervals of sight-seeing, it is
evident that to sit for his portrait was a new task which he did not
'fear to enter upon at present.' Nor need we be surprised. It seems
to be a law of nature that no man, unless he has some obvious physical
deformity, ever is loth to sit for his portrait. A man may be old,
he may be ugly, he may be burdened with grave responsibilities to the
nation, and that nation be at a crisis of its history; but none of these
considerations, nor all of them together, will deter him from sitting
for his portrait. Depend on him to arrive at the studio punctually, to
surrender himself and sit as still as a mouse, trying to look his best
in whatever posture the painter shall have selected as characteristic,
and talking (if he have leave to talk) with a touching humility and with
a keen sense of his privilege in being allowed to pick up a few ideas
about art. To a dentist or a hairdresser he surrenders himself without
enthusiasm, even with resentment. But in the atmosphere of a studio
there is something that entran