Autumn VII. Goethe + Historical dates

Intro & Preface & Contents

Previous: Autumn VI. School of hard knocks

This morning’s sunshine faded amid slow-gathering clouds, but something of its light seems to linger in the air, and to touch the rain which is falling softly. I hear a pattering upon the still leafage of the garden; it is a sound which lulls, and tunes the mind to calm thoughtfulness.

I have a letter to-day from my old friend in Germany, E. B. For many and many a year these letters have made a pleasant incident in my life; more than that, they have often brought me help and comfort. It must be a rare thing for friendly correspondence to go on during the greater part of a lifetime between men of different nationalities who see each other not twice in two decades. We were young men when we first met in London, poor, struggling, full of hopes and ideals; now we look back upon those far memories from the autumn of life. B. writes to-day in a vein of quiet contentment, which does me good. He quotes Goethe: “Was man in der Jugend begehrt hat man im Alter die Fulle .” [It turns out there is a major controversy about this quote -- both about the correct wording and what it means. Here is something Goethe himself wrote about it in his autobiography Dichtung und Wahrheit source here :

I knew, indeed, very well that against this honest, hopeful, old German saying: “what one wishes in youth, one has abundance of in old age,” much contrary experience may be brought forward, much trivial comment made; but much also may be said in favour of it, and I will declare what I think on the matter.

Our wishes are presentments of the capabilities that lie in us, harbingers of that which we shall be in a condition to perform...   

What I find amazing here, being mostly familiar with Goethe in connection to Faust, is that he explained himself at all.

These words of Goethe’s were once a hope to me; later, they made me shake my head incredulously; now I smile to think how true they have proved in my own case. But what, exactly, do they mean? Are they merely an expression of the optimistic spirit? If so, optimism has to content itself with rather doubtful generalities. Can it truly be said that most men find the wishes of their youth satisfied in later life? Ten years ago, I should have utterly denied it, and could have brought what seemed to me abundant evidence in its disproof. And as regards myself, is it not by mere happy accident that I pass my latter years in such enjoyment of all I most desired? Accident -- but there is no such thing. I might just as well have called it an accident had I succeeded in earning the money on which now I live.

From the beginning of my manhood, it is true, I longed for bookish leisure; that, assuredly, is seldom even one of the desires in a young man’s heart, but perhaps it is one of those which may most reasonably look for gratification later on. What, however, of the multitudes who aim only at wealth, for the power and the pride and the material pleasures which it represents? We know very well that few indeed are successful in that aim; and, missing it, do they not miss everything? For them, are not Goethe’s words mere mockery?

Apply them to mankind at large, and perhaps, after all, they are true. The fat of national prosperity and contentment implies, necessarily, the prosperity and contentment of the greater number of the individuals of which the nation consists. In other words, the average man who is past middle life has obtained what he strove for -- success in his calling. As a young man, he would not, perhaps, have set forth his aspirations so moderately, but do they not, as a fact, amount to this? In defense of the optimistic view, one may urge how rare it is to meet with an elderly man who harbours a repining spirit. True; but I have always regarded as a fact of infinite pathos the ability men have to subdue themselves to the conditions of life. Contentment so often means resignation, abandonment of the hope seen to be forbidden.

I cannot resolve this doubt.

Alpha.

Nor can I. I’m going to forgive Gissing for not translating the German quote, since this section is so meaty I’ve included it all.

What are the wishes of our youth? Like Ryecroft, stated in general terms, my wishes had to do with learning and understanding, quite literally philosophy (from philo- "loving" + sophia "knowledge, wisdom,"). So far Goethe and I are as close as a poodle and his fleas. But, again like Ryecroft, I have reason to believe I am not typical in my wishes. I rather suspect that many young people with specific, goal oriented wishes, might, in their later years, find they had cursed themselves if Goethe’s saying proved true.

Honestly, I don’t know how older people feel about their lives. Since so many of their life choices never made any sense to me, I imagine them, in “retirement” second guessing themselves -- but probably I am wrong. Either they are sincerely attached to the hard-won symbols of their life’s work, or they are determinedly clinging to their illusions. As far as I can tell, my (much older) Realtor cousin is as attached to the trappings of his commercial success as ever before. He is one of that cult devoted to the lives of their grandchildren and there’s little to be said against that. Even on philosophical grounds I have to support it as it favors, rather than denies, life. I do wonder how many of the people who deny our primate ancestry live their lives about as self-consciously as rats or rabbits.

The complete Ryecroft.

I’ve run into another online edition of The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft divided into sections, like I’m doing.

Historical dates.

I have a problem placing all the people and events in the centuries before the 20th so I came up with this list of dates and such for the 14th through 19th centuries. There is an updated version of this at the bottom of the Introduction.

14th century

Edward I of England - Plantagenet (1272-1307)

Edward II of England - Plantagenet (1307-1327)

Black Death (1346–53)

Renaissance begins in Italy, to 17th century

Little Ice Age begins, to 19th century

Edward III of England - Plantagenet (1327-1377)

Richard II of England - Plantagenet (1377-1399)

15th century

Petrarch, Coluccio Salutati (1331–1406)

Henry IV of England and Ireland - Lancaster (1399-1413)

Printing - Age of Discovery

Henry V of England - Lancaster (1413-1422)

Hundred Years' War (1337-1453)

Constantinople falls to the Turks 1453

Henry VI of England - Lancaster (1422-1461)

Johannes Gutenberg (1398-1468)

Edward IV of England - York (1461-1483)

Richard III of England - York (1483-1485)

16th century

Henry VII of England and Ireland - Tudor (1485-1509)

Protestant Reformation begins

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)

Martin Luther (1483-1546)

Henry VIII of England and Ireland - Tudor (1509-1547)

Edward VI of England and Ireland - Tudor (1547-1553)

Mary I of England and Ireland - Tudor (1553-1558)

John Calvin (1509-1564)

Richard Hooker (1554-1600)

17th century

Elizabeth I of England and Ireland - Tudor (1558-1603)
Shakespeare (1564-1616) - His career brackets 1600 as Goethe’s does 1800.

Age of Enlightenment - continues into late 18th

Plymouth Colony established 1620

James I of England and Ireland (1603-1625) James VI of Scotland - Stuart (1567-1625)

Francis Bacon (1562-1626)

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

English Puritanism - theaters closed by mid-century.

Eighty Years' War, or Dutch War of Independence (1568–1648)

Thirty Years' War (1618–1648)

Peace of Westphalia 1648 - Worst of Wars of Religion over - new Catholic-Protestant status quo in Europe

Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland - Stuart (1625-1649)

English Civil War and Commonwealth (1642-60)

René Descartes (1596-1650)

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669)

John Milton (1608–1674)

Johannes, Jan or Johan Vermeer (1632-1675)

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677)

Izaak Walton (1594-1683)

Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland - Stuart (1649-1685) actually (1660-1685)

James II of England and Ireland - Stuart (James VII of Scotland) (1685-1688) 

Glorious Revolution 1688 (Last British RC King deposed)

Nine Years' War (1688–97)

18th century

William III of England and Ireland - Orange-Nassau (William II of Scotland) (1689-1702) 
also Willem III Stadtholder of Dutch Republic (1672-1792)

John Locke (1632–1704)

Friedrich I of Prussia (1657–1713)

Anne of England, Scotland and Ireland - Stuart (1702-1714)

War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714)

Louis XIV of France (1638–1715)

Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646–1716)

John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough (1650-1722)

George I of Great Britain and Ireland - Hanover (1714-1727)
also Duke and Prince-Elector of Hanover (1698-1727)

Isaac Newton (1643–1727)

Laurence Sterne (1713-1768)
George II of Great Britain and Ireland - Hanover (1727-1760)

also Duke and Prince-Elector of Hanover (1727-1760)

Goethe starts work on UrFaust 1770s

American Revolution 1776

Romantic period (1770?-1850?)

Voltaire (1694–1778)

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

French Revolution 1789

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (17561791)

Steam power commercialized

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)

19th century

Goethe completes Part One of Faust 1808

Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815)

The “Year without a summer” 1816

James Watt, FRS, FRSE (1736–1819)
George III of Great Britain and Ireland - Hanover (1760-1820)

also Duke and Prince-Elector of Hanover (1727-1814) King of Hanover (1814-1820)

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821)

Henri Saint-Simon (1760-1825)

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
George IV of Great Britain, Ireland, and Hanover - Hanover (1820-1830) 
Prince Regent (1811-1820)

July Revolution 1830

Goethe completes Part Two of Faust 1831

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

William Godwin (1756-1836)
William IV of Great Britain, Ireland, and Hanover - Hanover (1830-1837)

J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851)

Mary Shelley (née Wollstonecraft Godwin; 1797-1851)

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769-1852)

Crimean War (1853-1856

Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)

Auguste Comte (1798-1857)

The Great Stink 1858

Pre-Raphaelites (1848-?)

Electromagnetic radiation understood - unified theory of electricity, magnetism and light

American Civil War (1861-1865)

Michael Faraday (1791–1867)

Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871)

James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879)

Charles Darwin, FRS (1809-1882)

Karl Marx  (1818-1883)

Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary (1858-1889)

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
Victoria of Great Britain and Ireland - Hanover (1837-1901)
Empress of India (1876-1901)

Next: Autumn VIII. Port Royal and the Jansenists + Illness 2.