Goethe’s Last Letter

GOETHE'S LAST LETTER • Barker Fairley The last letter Goethe wrote was dated March 17, 1832, and was addressed to Wilhelm von Humboldt. Humboldt, by this time well known as diplomat, man of letters, and founder of Berlin University, had been a close friend of Schiller's before the tum of the century and had been in correspondence with Goethe ever since that time, chiefly on literary topics. The circumstances attending their final exchange of letters are not unknown and can be quickly recalled. In a previous letter to Humboldt, three and a half months earlier, on December 1, 1831, Goethe had allowed himself to be drawn out on the subject of his Faust, which he had just completed, or at any rate brought as near to completion as he was able to bring it, and which he had sealed up and put away, not intending to break the seal. It is true that he had published Part I of Faust in fragmentary form in 1790 and then in full in 1808, but he felt that Part II was ahead of his readers, as it proved to be, and had better wait till after his death for publication. What he said or hinted briefly was that he had recently written parts of Faust with an awareness of mind that he had not experienced before in his creative life. This seemed so important to Humboldt that he copied out the passage and sent it back some five weeks later, asking Goethe to say more on this vital topic. The letter lay unanswered for over two months and then, on March 17, the reply went off. Here it is in a translation which, whatever liberties it takes, strives to be true to the meaning of the original: I am writing on the spur of the moment notwithstanding the long wait, which I could not help. Let me begin as follows: The ancients used to say: Animals are instructed by their organs. I will add: Men are too, but they have the advantage of being able to instruct their organs in their turn. For the performance of any act and so for the exercise of any talent something innate is required which functions of itself and unconsciously supplies the necessary predisposition or aptitude, by virtue of which it neither hesitates nor stops and may even reach the point of running on without aim or purpose, although it has the rule inside it. 1 2 BARKER FAmLEY The sooner a man realizes that there is an art or a that will enable him to and his natural in a controlled way. the he be. comes to without can hurt the he was born The best-endowed mind is the mind that apl)ropriate amrthl.n2. without in the sngnre,s[ perSOtl21rty but it and brnlgulg It is here the int~:::rn~lation many forms. Think of a musician prC,"-:'lr.. you sent me. The idea of Faust was present in mind more in a clear. whole sequence have intention at the back of my head worked out scenes that to interest me in II which had to be in without the interest decline. was at this that the arose of means of determination and moral Vorsatz what to be left to nature to unforced. But if this not prove after a life as and as ""f"iUAllu ....flA"h""'" as mine. I do not it will be easy to old from new or from late. We will leave it to future readers to I can assure you it would me the to dedicate this very serious and reand to let them is in such absurd and honest I have bestowed on this curious structure would be rewarded and it would drift ashore to lie a wreck for the sands of time to cover for the present. . . . This is a of that has been much more scrutinized. student of Goethe knows dwelt on it or asked the:IDs,elVles pas:saE~e admits of three ,gerlenilizatic>Ds, pas~)age is all GOETHE'S LAST LETTER 3 Second, the passage is all about the mind of the poet writing Faust. We may prefer to call this...