Of Goethe’s father we know only what the son himself has told us in his memoirs.  A man of austere presence, from whom Goethe, as he tells us, inherited his bodily stature and his serious treatment of life,—­

     “Vom Vater hab ich die Statur,
      Des Lebens ernstes fuehren.”

By profession a lawyer, but without practice, living in grim seclusion amid his books and collections; a man of solid acquirements and large culture, who had travelled in Italy and first awakened in Wolfgang the longing for that land; a man of ample means, inhabiting a stately mansion.  For the rest, a stiff, narrow-minded, fussy pedant, with small toleration for any methods or aims but his own; who, while 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 career was abandoned.