[Footnote 6:  (The following interpretation of the “Maerchen” is condensed from a later portion of this essay, and used here as a foot-note for the light it throws upon Goethe’s political career.)

In the summer of 1795 Goethe composed for Schiller’s new magazine, “Die Horen,” a prose poem known in German literature as Das Maerchen,—­” The Tale;” as if it were the only one, or the one which more than another deserves that appellation....

Goethe gave this essay to the public as a riddle which would probably be unintelligible at the time, but which might perhaps find an interpreter after many days, when the hints contained in it should be verified.  Since its first appearance commentators have exercised their ingenuity upon it, perceiving it to be allegorical, but until recently without success....  I follow Dr. Herman’s Baumgart’s lead in the exposition which I now offer.

“The Tale” is a prophetic vision of the destinies of Germany,—­an allegorical foreshowing at the close of the 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.