he
appreciated the superior gifts of his son, was obstinately bent on
guiding them in strict professional grooves, and teased him with the
friction of opposing wills.

The opposite, in most respects, of this stately and pedantic worthy was
the Frau Raethin, his youthful wife, young enough to have been his
daughter,--a jocund, exuberant nature, a woman to be loved; one who
blessed society with her presence, and possessed uncommon gifts of
discourse. She was but eighteen when Wolfgang was born,--a companion to
him and his sister Cornelia; one in whom they were sure to find sympathy
and ready indulgence. Goethe was indebted to her, as he tells us, for
his joyous spirit and his narrative talent,--

"Von Muetterchen die Frohnatur
Und Lust zu fabuliren."

Outside of the poet's household, the most important figure in the circle
of his childish acquaintance was his mother's father, from whom he had
his name, Johann Wolfgang Textor, the _Schultheiss_, or chief
magistrate, of the city. From him Goethe seems to have inherited the
superstition of which some curious examples are recorded in his life. He
shared with Napoleon and other remarkable men, says Von Mueller, the
conceit that little mischances are prophetic of greater evils. On a
journey to Baden-Baden with a friend, his carriage was upset and his
companion slightly injured. He thought it a bad omen, and instead of
proceeding to Baden-Baden chose another watering-place for his summer
resort. If in his almanac there happened to be a blot on any date, he
feared to undertake anything important on the day so marked. He had
noted certain fatal days; one of these was the 22d of March. On that day
he had lost a valued friend; on that day the theatre to which he had
devoted so much time and labor was burned; and on that day, curiously
enough, he died. He believed in oracles; and as Rousseau threw stones at
a tree to learn whether or no he was to be saved (the hitting or not
hitting the tree was to be the sign), so Goethe tossed a valuable
pocket-knife into the river Lahn to ascertain whether he would succeed
as a painter. If behind the bushes which bordered the stream, he saw the
knife plunge, it should signify success; if not, he would take it as an
omen of failure. Rousseau was careful, he tells us, to choose a stout
tree, and to stand very near. Goethe, more honest with himself, adopted
no such precaution; the plunge of the knife was not seen, and the
painter's car