It had been Goethe's original intention to end his travels with the
visit to his sister, but, as their main object was as far off as ever,
he decided to rejoin his late companions and to accompany them to
Switzerland. By way of Schaffhausen they proceeded to Zurich, where
Goethe's first act was to seek Lavater. Their talk during his stay in
Zurich mainly turned on Lavater's great work on Physiognomy, to which
Goethe had continuously contributed by help and counsel, though from
the first he was sceptical of its scientific value. Their intercourse
was as cordial as it had been in the previous year, and Lavater was
subjugated more than ever by the personality of Goethe. "Who can think
more differently than Goethe and I," he wrote to Wieland, who was
still suspicious of his youthful adversary, "and yet we are devoted to
each other.... You will be astonished at the man who unites the fury
of the lion with the gentleness of the lamb. I have seen no one at
once firmer in purpose and more easily led.... Goethe is the most
lovable, most affable, most charming of fellows."[227]
[Footnote 227: Biedermann, _op. cit._ i. 59. Goethe made Lavater the
victim of one of the practical jokes which he was in the habit of
playing on his friends. Seeing an unfinished sermon of Lavater on his
desk, he completed it during the absence of Lavater, who, in ignorance
of the addition, preached the whole sermon as his own.--_Ib._ p. 58.]
In Zurich happened what Merck had foreseen. Goethe had grown tired of
his over-exuberant fellow-travellers, whose ways, moreover, did not
commend them to the sensitive Lavater. Goethe himself indeed was
capable of wild enough pranks, but behind his wild humours lay ever
the "serious striving" which was the regulative force of his nature,
and which Lavater had recognised from the beginning of their
intercourse. A lucky accident gave Goethe the opportunity of escaping
from his late comrades without an open breach. In Zurich he found a
friend whom he had looked forward to meeting there. This was a native
of Frankfort, Passavant by name, who was settled in Switzerland as a
Reformed pastor. Passavant was a man of intelligence and attractive
character, and when he proposed that they should make a tour together
through the smaller Swiss Cantons, Goethe jumped at the suggestion.
From Goethe's own narrative of his tour with Passavant we are to infer
that the distracting image of Lili was never absent from his mind, and
that all the glories of the scenery through which they passed were
only its background seen through the haze of his wandering
imaginations. And the testimony of the prose narrative in his
Autobiography is confirmed by the successive lyrics, prompted by the
intrusive image of Lili, which fell from him by the way. In the
following lines, composed on the Lake of Zurich on the first morning
of their journey, he clothes in poetical form the confession he had
made to Johanna Fahlmer from Emmendingen:--