From his
earliest youth, he tells us, he had "a passion for investigating
natural things"; and towards middle life his interest in physical
science became so absorbing as for many years to stifle his creative
faculty. But in the retrospect of his life as a whole he had no doubt
as to the supreme bent of his genius. The "laurel crown of the poet"
was the goal of his youthful ambition, and the last bequest he made to
posterity was the Second Part of _Faust_. Among the miscellaneous
intellectual interests of his boyhood poetry evidently held the chief
place, and, partly out of his own inspiration and partly at the
suggestion of others, he diligently tried his hand at different forms
of poetical composition. Yet, if we may judge from his most notable
boyish piece--_Poetische Gedanken ueber die Hoellenfahrt Jesu
Christi_--there have been more "timely-happy spirits" than Goethe.
Not, indeed, as we shall see, till his twentieth year, the age when,
according to Kant, the lyric poet is in fullest possession of his
genius, does his verse attain the distinctiveness of original creative
power.[14]
[Footnote 14: All Goethe's boyish productions that have been preserved
will be found in _Der junge Goethe, Neue Ausgabe in sechs Baenden
besorgt von Max Morris_, Leipzig, 1909.
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