ARD EVERETT HALE

(1749-1832)

[Illustration: Goethe.]

Johann Wolfgang Goethe was born on August 28, 1749, at
Frankfort-on-the-Main, one of the free cities of Germany. He died in
Weimar, in Saxony, at the age of eighty-two, on March 22, 1832.

In any classification of the men of his time it is impossible to rank
him, especially, among men of letters generally, or as a poet, or as a
naturalist. He is especially what our time is fond of calling "an
all-round man." But he differs from most men who are thus praised,
because he is the acknowledged leader of the thought of the first half
of the century. He does equally well all that he does. If in the year
1850 anyone had asked who was the first poet of the preceding half
century, Goethe would have been named by almost all who answered. If
you had asked who was the first man of letters, he would have been
named by all. It was certain that his philosophy of human life
affected the thought of the students and scholarly people of Europe
and America more than that of any other author of his time. Indeed, to
this hour, many an humble listener or reader receives suggestions,
from the pulpit or the newspaper, of which he does not know the
origin, but which are in truth born from some suggestion of Goethe.

It is natural to attempt to account for so remarkable a man, in a
measure at least, by tracing back his genealogy. Goethe himself gave
some attention to the study of his ancestry, and his biographers have
worked at it faithfully. But their work gives no confirmation to the
doctrines of heredity which are so well supported in other lives. His
father, Johann Caspar Goethe, was a respectable member of the city
government of Frankfort, with the title of imperial councillor. He had
a craving for knowledge, a delight in communicating it, a love of
order, and a certain stoicism, which appear in his son. But there is
no ray of genius apparent in him. His father was a respectable tailor
in the city of Frankfort, named Frederick. Frederick's father was a
farrier or blacksmith in Thuringia, named Hans Christian Goethe. In
neither of these ancestors is found any germ of the poet's genius.

On the other hand, the successful life of Wolfgang von Goethe is one
more instance, in a large number afforded in the history of the last
two centuries, which show that a good education under prosperous
circumstances, with the appliances which tend to health of body, mind,
and soul, is a very fort