Volume XIV. Tuesday, October 12, 1886. THE OBERLIN REVIEW. Vol. XIV. } OCTOBER 12, 1886. PUBLISHED BY No. 2. Number 2. may not appear so obvious, and it is reasonable to suppose that they will not. Experience is a great teacher in this matter as in any other. The literary society is a permanent institution in Oberlin. It is an important factor in THE UNION LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, our training here and no one should think of BOARD OF EDITORS. J. B. HENDEE, '87, Editor-in-Chief. F. E. REGAL, 87, Associate Editor. C. T. FAIRFIELD, '87, Financial Manager. completing the course without availing himself of the advantages which an early connection. with one or another of these societies is sure to bring. The art of public speaking is to be acquired only by persistent and repeated effort and no more favorable place for making this C. S. PATTON, 88, Assistant Manager.effort is to be found than in our society halls. SOCIETY EDITORS. ANNA M. VETTER, '81, L. L. S. FANNY B. SHELDON, '87, Aelioian, F. B. CARPENTER, '88, Phi Delta. ONE YEAR $1.50. E. R. ATWATER, '87, Phi Kappa Pi. SINGLE COPIES 10 CENTS. FOR SALE AT REGAL'S BOOKSTORE, The opportunity for free and full discussion on all topics of vital interest is such as can be found in no other department of our work. The regular college duties should be made second to no other, yet he who defers entering society til the Sophomore or Junior year, on the plea that he will have more time for literary work at that period of the course, will in all probability find year. Students and graduates are cordially invited to contribute himself mistaken. The demands of the society are not burdensome. It seems to us that no one can be so crowded with work but that, by a Entered at the Post Office at Oberlin, Ohio, as second class mail little judicious economizing of his time, the requirements of society can be fully met. By all means make the attempt. The societies need The REVIRw is issued each alternate Tuesday of the College articles, letters and Alumni notes. Communications pertaining to Subscriptions or Advertising should be addressed to C. T FAIRFIELD, Box. 1048. matter. EDITORIAL. S THE superior advantage afforded by our lit-you. You need all that they have to bestow. erary societies is something of which every EVERAL improvements have been made in Oberlin student may justly feel proud. We the U. L. A. Library this fall. As it is are glad to know that this feeling does not necessary that the librarian should have a thorgrow less as men finish their work here and ough knowledge of the new system of catatake up the more active duties of life. It is of-loguing, it seemed best to engage Miss Brackett ten an incitement to new activity and effort on permanently for that purpose. This will be an our part, when an alumnus appears upon our advantage, since no temporary librarian could society floor and reviews for us the work of our ever give his full attention to the work, and he society in the past, what it has done as well as had scarcely time to become acquainted with what it may hope for the future. To the col- the books before the year was out. Most of the lege man or woman, who has had the oppor-books have now been catalogued and the cards tunity of judging, these advantages must be will soon be ready for use. The new arrange obvious and the society with its work needs no ment on the shelves causes a little confusion words of commendation from us. But to the at first, yet no one can fail to see the advantage. new student just about to enter upon a four Distinct labels mark the division into history, years' course of training here these advantages biography, fiction, &c., of each country, so that with a little practice, every one will soon be countries in common, was deeply indebted to able to find what he wants. To avoid many of him. There was a hardness and narrowness, the fiues, which accrue simply from the fact like that which characterized the religious that the drawing date was forgotten, as each beliefs of the early Puritans or Scottish Covebook is drawn the date on which it is due will be stamped on the fly leaf. The moving and re-cataloguing have kept the library in rather an unsettled state for a year and a half, so that it will seem pleasant to get into regular working order. nanters, interwoven with the very vitals of German life and character. The movement of human nature was impeded by this obstacle. Prejudices hemmed it within narrow boundaries. It breathed with difficulty. It was for Frankfort's Apollo to loosen influences that would instill into the life and character of this age an IE Continental method of Latin pronunci- element which would yield to the action of exation has been substituted this fall for the ternal forces, and to break asunder the iron fetEnglish. For several years, it has been seen ters which hindered human nature from that this change must be made, but believing breathing in a freer and more genial atmosthat the English pronunciation gives students phere. HE a clearer idea of the derivation of the English It is said by Goethe's biographers that he from the Latin, they have used it here longer maintained the doctrine that everything natural than in the majority of colleges. Although we was true so far as it was beautiful; a sentiment cannot ascertain the correct Roman pronuncia- that Macdonald, the eminent Scotch novelist tion, yet without doubt the Continental meth- and theologian, makes prominent in his writod comes far nearer it than the English. Un-ings. Thus he broke into real life with an issue der the old method, there being no fixed rules, which was new to Germany's theologians and every one roamed at his own sweet will and very philosophers, and it may be, new to the foreign few attained a correct pronunciation. The Con- world. tinental has several rules, which are always applicable, thus making it easy to attain perfection. The majority of high schools as well as colleges of this country have adopted this method and Oberlin could not afford, in so small a matter, to be on the off side. LITERARY. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe. T. R. M'ROBERTS, '88. "This view," continues his biographer, "of human life, composed of merely two agents-nature giving the force, and beauty giving the law, is the key to that grand phenomenon in the history of mankind, which is called Goethe." Because of singular views he held, some very irregular actions in the life of the German poet may find a reasonable explanation; such an action as deserting Frederika, whose affections for him were intense, and so pathetically expressed in a letter she addressed him; also, the method to which he resorted for the purpose of deciding forever, whether he should devote himself to art or not. But his belief was as the rising sun, whose rays warmed and made to spring up the seeds of freedom and progress. "Curbed and all but mutilated under the tyrannical constraints of pedantic prejudices," this view, sincerely followed by Goethe himself, All Germany mourned for him, and every though more than once it cost him almost nation bore its part of that sorrow. And well unendurable suffering, had an effect upon the they might mourn such a man; for civilized people which was wondrous. "Thou hast learned the woes of all the world And all men hail thee with loud cheers." Almost half a century has passed away since the dead Goethe was placed side by side with his friend, the duke Charles Augustus, in the ducal burial vault at Weimar. life in Germany in particular, with all foreign It was natural then, that when Goethe's life breathed itself to a close, he was placed in the world as an almost perfect model. His star ducal burial vault with the Duke, who, through glistens brighter and still brighter in the heaven so many years, had been his friend. Not pride of literature, not outshone by those of Homer, alone reared that costly monument in Frank- Dante, or our own English Shakespeare. fort, but Love and Thankfulness. Nor is it Goethe's works have about them a fascination strange that the high spot of ground near the irresistible, a vividness almost startling, and a river, where he was wont to sit and watch the courageous truthfulness; while, if Taylor's, slow-flowing waters of the Main, and admire the Brooks' and other English translations are true prospect of his native town, should be to the original, the lesson taught him by Oeser, marked by a beautiful tower as an all but hal- viz., that simplicity and repose is the ideal of lowed spot. beauty, is characteristic of his poems. Even in In youth, the verses of Goethe were pleasant the obscurest passages, childish simplicity of to read; in maturer years they yielded a mighty language is employed as best expressing and influence; while long before his hairs were translating the original. whitened by age they had become authority. Among a certain class of readers, the works of Goethe are ignored and shunned as coming from a man wholly unworthy of study; an author who wrote for the time in which he One cannot study this poet without having Eckerman says of him, when he was a little clearer conceptions of his own nature, and unpast middle life: "He makes his existence benev-derstanding the workings of his own soul more olently felt, but only as a God, without yielding thoroughly. His poems are fragments from his himself." own life, breathed from his own personal exWhen he became acquainted with Schiller, perience. Descriptions which he draws take the latter constituted a factor in his life; the the reader with them until the pictured becomes two souls, as their conversations and correspon-reality. dence show, bound together by reason of their greatness. They were like two stately trees standing side by side, whose roots, planted in the same soil, are twined among each other, until they are no more individual, but are lost and lived. Goethe portrayed naked truth in all its exist only as one. Schiller once wrote to majestic loveliness and repulsive ugliness. MarGoethe, "Since you left me I feel as if there was garet, the lovely, and Mephistopheles, the something wanting in the element in which I have to live." While Carlyle, in substance, says of these two German writers: "We see two high, creative, truly poetic minds, unweariedly advancing from one measure of strength and clearness to another, whereby, to such as travel, Our minds with Truth's first rays are stupefied." we say not on the same road, for few can do Men see in his writings, as it were in a mirthis, the richest psychological and practical | ror, their hearts laid open, and their secrets lessons are laid out, from which men of every thrust upon their dazzled senses. They shudder intellectual degree may learn something, and and shut their ears to what might be the voice he that is of the highest degree, intellectuaily. of warning; for there are great moral truths in will probably learn most. But of the two, his writings, especially in his best creation, Goethe must be considered the greater poet. "Faust." Whether Goethe wrote for this end He was versed in jurisprudence, philosophy and or not, I would not venture to say, but certainly the natural sciences, and it was from the latter, would not deny so boldly, as some who study his he himself acknowledged, that he understood life and works. human nature so perfectly. Other branches of In all Goethe's works there is an element knowlege had their attractions for him, but characteristic of his personages which is akin it is only as a poet that he stands out to the to the poet's own distinctive qualities. hateful, the angel and the devil of "Faust," Our conceptions of the man would not be very clear esting, because they are undoubtedly connected and are the outgrowth in a measure of their writer's own life. Goethe and Faust are one-the man and his were we but to read the memoirs written by his numerous biographers; his poems are the successive years of his life. What made his boyhood poems so attractive to the reader we can work. What would the name Goethe convey, trace in his productions of later years, though they have developed to more unwavering forms. With him the child was father to the man. separated from the name Faust? What, on the other hand, would it be, separated from all else save Faust? As immortal as the stars, undying as the sun, methinks. His name would die when the mountains which shield Jerusalem should crumble away, and when the waters Faust may Of Goethe's early poems, "Jesus Christ's Descent into Hell," seems a very masterly composition for a lad sixteen years of age, yet it does not bear a like analysis with his later produc- should leave the ocean beds dry. tions. This style of writing, very seldom well be classed with the greatest efforts of the attempted by him, is void of the intense interest greatest men. Unlike the Aeneid, Odyssey, which enchants the reader of his other works. "Paradise Lost," or "Divina Comedia," yet it is As a whole, the early poems of Goethe were one of that family, and here the learned have written when love, rather than pure reason or decreed that it shall forever abide. character, held possession of his genius. There This was Goethe's life work, begun when a were exceptions, certainly, and noble ones. mere lad. His whole life work, it may be said, These words, addressed to a present Lilie had was wrapped up in this one play, which he was given him, show how love had twined itself continually remodeling and re-arranging, about his heart: "O thou, token loved of joys now perished, Art thou stronger than our spirit bond so cherish'd, adding to and taking from. All the genius which possessed the man is centered in this creation. "The mysterious relation, says a writer, In the poet's old age we trace something of which exists between this world and that of this sentiment running through his verses. His spirits, has ever furnished the ground work for mind wanders back to Gretchen, Lilie and literary productions of the highest rank." This Frederika; he seems loth to drop the characters which would necessitate wiping from his mind their memories, or the days when he wrote "Röslein, Röslein, Röslein roth. Röslein auf der Haiden.' ་་ ་ I believe is true with works of the past, and I do not pretend to prophesy when I say that Goethe's "Faust" is probably the last work of its nature which will come from the brain of so true a poet. A graveyard opens out before his imagination, The play is partially founded upon an old the moon is full and lights the graveyard, German fable of one Doctor Johann Faust, who which glows like noonday. One by one the in his youth enjoyed an immense fortune, and graves open. Men and women step forth and gave himself to a life of licentiousness, that soon whirl about in frantic dance. The church deprived him of his fortune. He then deterwarder picks up one of the shrouds and hastens mined to devote himself to the study of magic, to the church for safety. The dancers again bent upon regaining his wealth and enjoyments. put on their shrouds. But one of them stumbles After a mastery of the secret sciences he made and shuffles about; soon he scents his shroud a compact with Satan, according to which the in the air; he runs to the church and the latter was to serve Faust for twenty-four years. warder's doom is decreed. The bell thunders When that time expired Satan was to possess loudly the midnight one, while the skeleton his soul. The contract contained these five falls, crushed to atoms. provisions: "Hermann and Dorothea," "The Lover's 1st, He shall renounce God and all celestial Quarrel" and other poems, are especially inter-hosts. 2d, He shall be an enemy of all mankind. 3d, He shall not obey priests. an intense longing after knowledge, truth for truth's sake. He was of a kind disposition. 4th, He shall not go to church and partake of In these two particulars he was the Faust of the holy sacraments. 5th, He shall hate and shun wedlock. to eternal torment. his play. Herder was cruel in his sarcasm, and his bitterness, which deprived him of other Mephistopheles, who liked to live among men, friends, only drew the poet to him, though half was given him as companion. Together they contemptuously he looked upon the powers of roamed over the land, Faust enjoying every Goethe. Yet, 'tis said, Herder loved him and kind of pleasure, and astonishing those before delighted in his presence. Here is an element whom he performed his feats of magic. But in Faust's companion, Mephistopheles. the hour came when the fatal debt was due. Let us look at the play. Mephistopheles Satan appeared in the most hideous forms imag-draws Faust to him, though the latter is unconinable, and in the midnight, hour finished scious of the fact. Faust hates him, but seems Faust's earthly career, and bore away his soul to seek his companionship; for in Mephistopheles is a fountain of knowledge. He communHowever far Goethe has wandered from his icates with spirits of the mystic world and can model, and purposely he has wandered very with Faust what he wills. Faust allows his far, he has sought to convey something of that, influence to envelope him, and seeks the aid of moral lesson for which the German semi- the "Noble Knight of the Cloven Foot" for mythical tale was intended, viz.: the tendency certain purposes; and further when Margaret to sacrifice the future, precious as it may be, nay confesses that her heart gives way in his presfurther, to lose salvation, for present enjoyment ence, Faust tries to defend the man whom all and gratification. In the play there are distinct the hatred in his soul cannot hate enough. voices warning those who are attempting to Yet his love for Margaret is passionate. "Thou fathom the mysteries of the supernatural, and wast always a sophist and a liar," are the words fingers beckoning those who are walking in which greet Mephistopheles' ears. The scene paths of vice to return, and these warnings in the witch's kitchen, as Taylor says, closes cannot be unheeded by the readers of Faust. what may be called the legendary portion of the "Alas!" cried Faust in despair, "that impulse play, and the reader is introduced to the loveliest then, must I obey? Our very deeds, and not of women, in the character of Margaret. All our sufferings only, how do they hem and that is pure, holy and lovely in woman burns choke life's way!" within her soul and shines through her counte"Care builds her nest far down in the heart's'nance. She saves Faust from being a weird recesses. There broods o'er dark, untold dis. thing, shunned as tainted of hell and witches. tresses. Restless she sits, and scares thy joy In reality she is the Gretchen of Goethe's youth, and peace away. She puts on some new mask the quiet, unassuming creature who first kindled with each new day." in his breast the flames of love, who loved him that she might be a sister to him. Not like the gods am I, Too deep that truth is thrust! But like the worm that wriggles; through the dust." Herder, whom some critics think the skeleton Faust sees a beautiful girl on the street. They meet; it is Margaret; something in each at this first glance has drawn them of Mephistopheles, was a personal companion together, and here Mephistopheles steps in. of Goethe. He was a man who drew Goethe to The drug she gives her mother, for Faust's sake, Unsuspecting she yields to deceit, yes to infamy. him through his great wisdom, and through this alone. Herder was a clear and decided has borne her to an endless sleep. And all the man, who had a deep sense of his own impor agony a gentle soul can endure, Margaret tance and who loved, beyond all things else, to suffers. Before an image of Mater Dolorosa impart his knowledge. Goethe yearned with she offers her agonizing prayer for forgiveness. |