ticism, biography, art and art-history,
literary scholarship, and half a dozen sciences, would show a
many-sidedness to which there is no modern parallel. Of all this mass
of writing only a few works of major importance can even be
mentioned here.

In 1796 appeared _Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship_, a novel which
captivated the literary class, if not the general public, and was
destined to exert great influence on German fiction for a generation
to come. It had been some twenty years in the making. In its earlier
form it was called _Wilhelm Meister's Theatrical Mission_.[3] This
tells the story of a Werther-like youth who is to be saved from
Werther's fate by finding a work to do. His "mission," apparently, is
to become a good actor and to promote high ideals of the histrionic
art. Incidentally he is ambitious to be a dramatic poet, and his
childhood is simply that of Wolfgang Goethe. For reasons intimately
connected with his own development Goethe finally decided to change
his plan and his title, and to present Wilhelm's variegated
experiences as an apprenticeship in the school of life. In the final
version Wilhelm comes to the conclusion that the theatre is _not_ his
mission--all that was a mistaken ambition. Just what use he _will_
make of his well-disciplined energy does not clearly appear at the end
of the story, since Goethe bundles him off to Italy. He was already
planning a continuation of the story under the title of _Wilhelm
Meister's Journeymanship_. In this second part the hero becomes
interested in questions of social uplift and thinks of becoming a
surgeon. Taken as a whole _Wilhelm Meister_ moves with a slowness
which is quite out of tune with later ideals of prose fiction. It also
lacks concentration and artistic finality. But it is replete with
Goethe's ripe and mellow wisdom, and it contains more of his intimate
self than any other work of his except _Faust_.

During this high noon of his life Goethe again took up his long
neglected _Faust_, decided to make two parts of it, completed the
First Part, and thought out much that was to go into the Second Part.
By this time he had become somewhat alienated from the spirit of his
youth, when he had envisaged life in a mist of vague and stormy
emotionalism. His present passion was for clearness. So he boldly
decided to convert the old tragedy of sin and suffering into a drama
of mental clearing-up. The early Faust--the pessimist, murderer,
seducer--was to