In the early
letters to Frau von Stein, to Herder and others, his name is always
cropping up for commendation. `Of Tischbein I have much to say and
much to boast'--`A thorough and original German'--`He has always been
thinking of me, ever providing for my wants'--`In his society all my
enjoyments are more than doubled.' He was thirty-five years old (two
years younger than Goethe), and one guesses him to have been a stocky
little man, with those short thick legs which denote indefatigability.
One guesses him blond and rosy, very voluble, very guttural, with a
wealth of forceful but not graceful gesture.
One is on safer ground in guessing him vastly proud of trotting Goethe
round. Such fame throughout Europe had Goethe won by his works that it
was necessary for him to travel incognito. Not that his identity
wasn't an open secret, nor that he himself would have wished it hid.
Great artists are always vain. To say that a man is vain means merely
that he is pleased with the effect he produces on other people. A
conceited man is satisfied with the effect he produces on himself. Any
great artist is far too perceptive and too exigent to be satisfied
with that effect, and hence in vanity he seeks solace. Goethe, you may
be sure, enjoyed the hero-worshipful gaze focussed on him from all the
tables of the Caffe` Greco.
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