"Have you never," said Jarno, taking him aside, "read one of
Shakespeare's plays?"
[Footnote 16: From "Wilhelm Meister." Translated by Thomas Carlyle.
This translation by Carlyle was published in Edinburgh in 1824 and was
contemporary with Carlyle's translation of "Legendre" and his "Life of
Schiller."]
"No," replied Wilhelm: "since the time when they became more known in
Germany, I have myself grown unacquainted with the theater; and I know
not whether I should now rejoice that an old taste and occupation of
my youth has been by chance renewed. In the meantime, all that I have
heard of these plays has excited little wish to become acquainted with
such extraordinary monsters, which appear to set probability and
dignity alike at defiance."
"I would advise you," said the other, "to make a trial,
notwithstanding: it can do one no harm to look at what is
extraordinary with one's own eyes. I will lend you a volume or two;
and you can not better spend your time than by casting everything
aside, and retiring to the solitude of your old habitation, to look
into the magic lantern of that unknown world. It is sinful of you to
waste your hours in dressing out these apes to look more human, and
teaching dogs to dance. One thing only I require--you must not cavil
at the form; the rest I can leave to your own good sense and feeling."
The horses were standing at the door; and Jarno mounted with some
other cavaliers to go and hunt. Wilhelm looked after him with sadness.
He would fain have spoken much with this man who tho in a harsh,
unfriendly way, gave him new ideas--ideas that he had need of.
Oftentimes a man, when approaching some development of his powers,
capacities, and conceptions, gets into a perplexity from which a
prudent friend might easily deliver him. He resembles a traveler, who,
at but a short distance from the inn he is to rest at, falls into the
water: were any one to catch him then and pull him to the bank, with
one good wetting it were over; whereas, tho he struggles out himself,
it is often at the side where he tumbled in, and he has to make a wide
and weary circuit before reaching his appointed object.
Wilhelm now began to have an inkling that things went forward in the
world differently from what he had supposed. He now viewed close at
hand the solemn and imposing life of the great and distinguished, and
wondered at the easy dignity which they contrived to give it. An army
on its march, a princely hero at the head of it, such a multitude of
cooperating warriors, such a multitude of crowding worshipers, exalted
his imagination. In this mood he received the promised books; and ere
long, as may be easily supposed, the stream of that mighty genius laid
hold of him and led him down to a shoreless ocean, where he soon
completely forgot and lost himself....
Wilhelm had scarcely read one or two of Shakespeare's plays till their
effect on him became so strong that he could go no further. His whole
soul was in commotion. He sought an opportunity to speak with Jarno;
to whom, on meeting with him, he exprest his boundless gratitude for
such delicious entertainment.
"I clearly enough foresaw," said Jarno, "that you would not remain
insensible to the charms of the most extraordinary and most admirable
of all writers."
"Yes!" exclaimed our friend: "I can not recollect that any book, any
man, any incident of my life, has produced such important effects on
me as the precious works to which by your kindness I have been
directed. They seem as if they were performances of some celestial
genius descending among men, to make them by the mildest instructions
acquainted with themselves. They are no fictions! You would think,
while reading them, you stood before the enclosed awful Books of Fate,
while the whirlwind of most impassioned life was howling through the
leaves, and tossing them fiercely to and fro. The strength and
tenderness, the power and peacefulness of this man have so astonished
and transported me that I long vehemently for the time when I shall
have it in my power to read further."
"Bravo!" said Jarno, holding out his hand, and squeezing our friend's.
"This is as it should be! And the consequences which I hope for will
likewise surely follow."
"I wish," said Wilhelm, "I could but disclose to you all that is going
on within me even now. All the anticipations I have ever had regarding
man and his destiny, which have accompanied me from youth upward often
unobserved by myself, I find developed and fulfilled in Shakespeare's
writings. It seems as if he cleared up every one of our enigmas to us,
tho we can not say, Here or there is the word of solution. His men
appear like natural men, and yet they are not. These, the most
mysterious and complex productions of creation, here act before us as
if they were watches, whose dial-plates and cases were of crystal,
which pointed out according to their use their course of the hours and
minutes; while at the same time you could discern the combination of
wheels and springs that turn them. The few glances I have cast over
Shakespeare's world incite me, more than anything beside, to quicken
my footsteps forward into the actual world, to mingle in the flood of
destinies that is suspended over it; and at length, if I shall
prosper, to draw a few cups from the great ocean of true nature, and
to distribute them from off the stage among the thirsting people of my
native land."