Specially associated with _Goetz von Berlichingen_, but associated also
with Goethe's general development at this time, was another of those
mentors whose counsel and stimulus were necessary to him at all
periods of his life. This was Johann Heinrich Merck, the son of an
apothecary in Darmstadt and now Paymaster of the Forces there. Of
Merck Goethe says that "he had the greatest influence on my life," and
he makes him the subject of one of his elaborate character sketches in
his Autobiography. To men of original nature, however discordant with
his own, Goethe was always attracted. We have seen him in more or less
close relations with Behrisch, Jung Stilling, and Herder, from all of
whom he was divided by dissonances which made a perfect mutual
understanding impossible. So it was in the case of Merck, as Goethe's
references to him in his Autobiography and elsewhere clearly imply. In
Merck there was apparently a mixture of conflicting elements which
made him a mystery to his friends, and his suicide at the age of fifty
points to something morbid in his nature. Of his real goodness of
heart and of his genuine admiration for what he considered worthy of
it, his own reported sayings and the testimony of others leave us in
no doubt. Recording his impression of Goethe after a few interviews,
he wrote: "I begin to have a real affection for Goethe. He is a man
after my own heart, as I have found few." On the other hand, there
were traits in him which Goethe did not scruple to call
Mephistophelian--an opinion shared even by Goethe's mother, whose
nature it was to see the best side of men and things. His variable
humour and caustic tongue made him at once a terror and an attraction
in whatever society he moved, and it is evident from the tone of
Goethe's reminiscences of him that his intercourse with Merck was a
mixed pleasure. But, as we have seen, it was an abiding principle of
Goethe to be repelled by no one who had something to give him, and
Merck possessed qualities and accomplishments which were of the first
importance to him in the phase through which he was now passing. Merck
was keenly interested in literature, especially in English literature,
and had all Goethe's enthusiasm for Shakespeare. Though his own
original productions were of mediocre quality, he had an insight into
the character and genius of others which Goethe fully recognised and
to which he acknowledges his special obligation. His general attitude
in criticism was "negative and destructive," but this attitude was
entirely wholesome for Goethe at a period when instinct and passion
tended to overbear his judgment. With admirable penetration he saw how
Goethe during these Frankfort years occasionally wasted his powers in
attempts which were unworthy of his gifts and alien to his real
nature. It was in reference to these futile tendencies that Merck gave
him counsel in words which subsequent critics have recognised as the