GREAT MEN'S BODIES
"Personally the young Goethe made a most extraordinary impression. His bearing in his student days was reserved, and at times a little haughty; but the beauty of his countenance was so irresistible, and the impression of courage, independence, nobleness, and kindness so powerful, that when he entered an inn conversation would stop; and the guests look surprised at each other.
"In his youth, in spite of some occasional rashness and arrogance, he quite intoxicated people with the richness, originality, and grasp of his ideas; the wonderful freshness and enchanting enthusiasm of his feelings. Everybody expected that something great would come from him.
"Goethe was a man of noble bodily presence both in youth and age. His influence has affected every civilized people, and is still on the increase. His teaching has been styled the creed of self-culture."—Chambers's Encyclopedia.
At fourteen, probably, he "began lessons in fencing and riding; for this father would have his son early skilful in all bodily exercises. He, like the Duke (of Weimar), was content to sleep on a sheet spread over a straw mattress, with a light bed-covering. He loved cold-water bathing even in winter; thus we find him in February, 1779 (at thirty), bathing with Fran von Stein's boys. Then, too, he delighted in exercise, at first chiefly on horseback; afterwards on foot; and he did not neglect fencing, and other physical accomplishments."—Duntzer's Life of Goethe.
LORD ERSKINE (1750–1823)
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