he eighteenth century of what
Germany was yet to become, and has in great part already become. A
position is predicted for her like that which she occupied from the time
of Charles the Great to the time of Charles V.,--a period during which
the Holy Roman Empire of Germany was the leading secular power in
Western Europe. That time had gone by. Since the middle of the sixteenth
century Germany had declined, and at the date of this writing (1795) had
nearly reached her darkest day. Disintegrated, torn by conflicting
interests, pecked by petty rival princes, despairing of her own future,
it seemed impossible that she should ever again become a power among the
nations. Goethe felt this; he felt it as profoundly as any German of his
day ... and he characteristically went into himself and studied the
situation. The result was this wonderful composition,--"Das Maerchen." He
perceived that Germany must die to be born again. She did die, and is
born again. He had the sagacity to foresee the dissolution of the Holy
Roman Empire,--an event which took place eleven years later, in 1806.
The Empire is figured by the composite statue of the fourth King in the
subterranean Temple, which crumbles to pieces when that Temple,
representing Germany's past, emerges and stands above ground by the
River. The resurrection of the Temple and its stand by the River is the
_denouement_ of the Tale. And that signifies, allegorically, the
rehabilitation of Germany.]

It is true, his writings contain no declamations against tyrants, and
no tirades in favor of liberty. He believed that oppression existed only
through ignorance and blindness, and these he was all his life long
seeking to remove. He believed that true liberty is attainable only
through mental illumination, and that he was all his life long seeking
to promote.

He was no agitator, no revolutionist; he had no faith in violent
measures. Human welfare, he judged, is not to be advanced in that way;
is less dependent on forms of polity than on the life within. But if the
test of patriotism is the service rendered to one's country, who more
patriotic than he? Lucky for us and the world that he persisted to serve
her in his own way, and not as the agitators claimed that he should. It
was clear to him then, and must be clear to us now, that he could not
have been what they demanded, and at the same time have given to his
country and the world what he did.

As a courtier and favorite of Fortune