THOMAS MANN THREE ESSAYS _Translated from the German by H. T. Lowe-Porter_ NEW YORK · ALFRED · A · KNOPF 1929 COPYRIGHT 1922, 1925 BY S. FISCHER VERLAG, BERLIN COPYRIGHT 1929 BY ALFRED · A · KNOPF · INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE THIS BOOK OR PARTS THEREOF IN ANY FORM PUBLISHED OCTOBER, 1929 SECOND PRINTING NOVEMBER, 1929 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AS _Friedrich und Die Grosse Koalition_ IN REDE UND ANTWORT AND AS _Goethe und Tolstoi_ and _Okkulte Erlebnisse_ IN BEMÜHUNGEN MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CONTENTS I · GOETHE AND TOLSTOY · 3 II · FREDERICK THE GREAT AND THE GRAND COALITION · 143 III · AN EXPERIENCE IN THE OCCULT · 219 I GOETHE AND TOLSTOY GOETHE AND TOLSTOY At the beginning of our century a man was still living in Weimar, Julius Stötzer by name and schoolmaster by calling, who, as a sixteen-year-old student, had dwelt under the same roof with Dr. Eckermann and only a few steps away from Goethe’s door. Young Stötzer and a schoolmate and fellow-lodger would now and again, with beating hearts, catch gleams and glimpses of the hallowed form as the old man sat by his window. But the lads were possessed by a desire to see him for once close at hand and get a good look at him. They applied to his famulus, their house-mate, and implored him by some means or other to procure them this boon. Eckermann was a kindly soul. One summer day he let the boys in by the back gate to the garden of the illustrious house; and there, hugely confused, they stood and waited for Goethe; who, to their consternation, did actually appear. He was strolling about the garden in a light-coloured house-coat--very probably the famous flannel dressing-gown we wot of--and catching sight of the lads went up to them. There he stood, wafting odours of eau-de-Cologne, with his hands, of course, on his back, and his abdomen to the fore; with that air of a city father beneath which, so we are told, he hid his self-consciousness--and asked the youths their names and what they wanted. Probably all in one breath; which indeed, if it thus happened, so added to the austere effect that they could scarcely get out an answer. However, they stammered something; whereupon the old man bade