ABSTRACT
In the year before this article appeared Goethe was part of George Eliot's daily life as Lewes brought to completion his pioneer biography of the poet. In November, 1854, while she and Lewes were in Berlin to gather material for the Life, her Journal records that between the 8th and the 29th of the month they were reading Wilhelm Meister aloud in the evenings. A comparison between her article and Lewes's remarks in the Life on the question of the morality of Wilhelm Meister shows considerable similarity in the principles of the two discussions. Lewes, while conceding that 'Wilhelm Meister is not a moral story', appeals to the principle of realistic presentation: 'All that can be said is that the Artist has been content to paint scenes of life, without comment; and that some of these scenes belong to an extensive class of subjects, familiar indeed to the experience of all but children, yet by general consent not much talked of in society.' Though the book is 'in no respect a Moral Tale,' Lewes adds, 'I am bound to declare that deep and healthy moral meaning lies in it, pulses through it, speaking in many tones to him who hath ears to hear it. As Wordsworth says of Tam o' Shanter, "I pity him who cannot perceive that in all this, though there was no moral purpose, there is a moral effect." What each reader will see in it, will depend on his insight and experience.' 1
