Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1880-01-09
Ehild.Life Of Goethe.

Child-Llfe or Goethe.
Our next view of the boy is from a
little account his mother has written Of
her method of teaching and amusing
her children by inventing stories for
them. She writes:
Air, fire, earth, water, repre-
sented under the forms of princesses,
and to all natural phenomena gave q
meaning. As we thought Of the paths
which led from star to star, and that
we should, perhaps, one day inhabit the
stars, and thought of the great spirits
we should meet there, l was as euger
for the hours of storytelling as the
children themselves; was quite curl
Gus about the future course of my own
improvisation, and any invitation which
interrupted these evenings were disa-
greeable. There l sat, and there Wolf
gang held me with his large black
eyes; and wnen the fate OF one of his
favorites was not according to his
fancy, l saw the angry veins swell on
his temples, l saw him repress his
tears. He often burst in with, But,
mother, the princess won't marry the
horrid tailor, even if he does kill the
giant And when | made pause for
the night, promising to continue it on
the morrow, l was certain that he
would, in the interval, think it out for
himself. When turned the story ac-
cording to his plan, and told him he
had found out the ending, then he was
all fire and flame, and one could see
his little heart beating underneath his
dress His grandmother, who made a
great pet of him. was the confidant of
all his ideas as to how the story would
turn out; and, as she repeated these to
me, and turned the story according
to these hints, 1 had the pleasure of
continuing my story to the delight and
establishment of my hearers, and Wolf
gang saw with glowing eyes the fulfill
ment of his own conceptions, and lis
tened with enthusiastic applause"
This was when he was three and four
years old. He soon learned to read
and write, and at six years of age, not
only wrote quite well in German, but
also in Lutln. When he was eight
years old, he wrote original compost
tions-and very good ones-in &c. man,
French, italian, Latin and Greek He
| was ACb tuukuV 4UuAlauS O0u PAShCu ~ ny
from hearing it taught to his sister.
He was truly wonderful child. And
he did not love study because he was
weak and sickly, and could not do any
thing else; for he was generally
healthy, and very bright, active boy
ut play, and as 1 said before, always
ready for frolic. He Was born with
an eager desire for knowledge, and the
capacity 10 acquire it, as well as with
the genius to invent stories and poems.
There was an old man who kept u
books stall in q street near by the
Goethe houss, and here Wo fga1g
often used to stop, when out walk
ing with his sister, to pore over the
old aud curious books, which other
boys of his age would never think of
reading.
1 have said that the house was
thrillingly suggestive OF ghost sto
ries; aud l am sorry to say that,
as they grew older, Wolfgang and
Cornelia read great many such stories,
and the consequence was. they they
became very nervous, aud full of silly
fenls. Their father was resolved thak
they should overcome such fears, and
made them go to bed in the dark, and
sleep in room by themselves. There
they would lie shaking with terror,
poor little souls and every sound
heard III the stiffness of night would
seem to them o terrible noise, and
cause them to start and shudder, and
hide under the feather-bed covering
until they could bear it no longer, and
they would creep out of bed to seek
refuge with some kind old servant who
pitied them. But their fathers watch
tul ears were sure to hear the little
culprits, and they would be at once
sent back into the dreadful darkness
ard loneliness again. Mamma Goethe
saw how wretched and unhappy the
children were under this treatment;
and yet she knew that their father was
right in trying to make them get rid of
their fears; and so she managed to
make them all happy and cOntented,
first, by showing the children gently
and kindly that there was no occasion
for their fright and misery, and then
by promising that every morning after
they had lain quietly whole night
without allowing themselves to become
frightened, they should have as many
plums as they could eat. The reward
was so entlcing that the children tried
very hard not to get frightened; and
when people try very hard to do
thing they usually succeed. And in
this way, the young Goethes overcame
their fear of ghosts. J ought to add
that they we're very little children
when this happened, for, if they mad
been older, they would have been
wiser. So you see, boy may be able
to read in five different languages, and
yet be so foolish as to believe in
ghosts !-St. Nicholas.
Wonderful Feats With Bees.
His Royal Highness. the Prince of
Wales, who manifested so much inter-
est in the honey recently exhibited at
the Kilburn Show. has been presented
with an American beehive. To Mr..
Hoge who explained the method of CD
Grating the hive. the Prince expressed
an opinion that the stories recorded of
Mr.. Wildman's command over bees
must to o great extent have been myth.
| ical INIT Mr. Houo uasurol Lilo pal