A passage of Quintilian, containing a concise outline of the history of

ancient art, also deserves to be pointed out as an important document in

this domain. In his conversations with Roman art lovers, Quintilian

must also have noticed a striking resemblance between the character of

Greek artists and Roman orators, and then have sought to gain more exact

information from connoisseurs and art-lovers. In his comparative

presentation, in which the character of the art is each time associated

with that of the age, he is compelled, without knowing or wishing it, to

present a history of art.

They say that the first celebrated painters whose works are visited not

by reason of their antiquity alone, were Polygnotus and Aglaophon. Their

simple color still finds eager admirers, who prefer such crude

productions and the beginnings of an art just evolving, to the greatest

masters of the following epoch--as it seems to me in accordance with a

point of view peculiar to themselves. Afterward Zeuxis and Parrhasius,

who lived at about the same period--at the time of the Peloponnesian

war--greatly promoted art. The former is said to have discovered the

laws of light and shadow, the latter to have devoted himself to a

careful investigation of lines. Furthermore, Zeuxis gave more content to

the limbs and painted them fuller and more portly. In this regard, as is

believed, he followed Homer, who delights in the most powerful forms,

even in women. Parrhasius, however, has such a determinative influence

that he is called the law-giver of painting, because the types of gods

and heroes which he created were followed and adopted by others as

norms.

Thus painting flourished from about the time of Philip to that of the

successors of Alexander, but with great diversity of talent. Protogenes

surpassed all inexactitude, Pamphilius and Melanthius in thoughtfulness,

Antiphilus in facility, Theon the Samian in invention of strange

apparitions called fantasies, Apelles in spirit and charm. Euphranor is

admired because he must be counted among the best in all the

requirements of art, and excelled at the same time in painting and

sculpture.

"The same difference is also found in sculpture. Kalon and Hegesias

worked in a severe style, like that of the Etruscans; Kalamis was less

austere; Myron more delicate still.

"Polyclitus possessed diligence and elegance above all others. By many

the palm is assigned to him; but that some fault might be ascribed to

him, it was said that he lacked dignity. For while he has made the human

form more graceful than nature reveals it, he does not seem to have been

able to present the dignity of the gods. Indeed, he is said in his art

to have avoided representing mature age, and never to have ventured

beyond unfurrowed cheeks.

"But what Polyclitus lacked is ascribed to Phidias and Alcamenes.

Phidias is said to have formed the images of gods and men most

perfectly, and to have far surpassed his rivals, especially in ivory.

One would form this judgment even if he had designed nothing else than

the Minerva of Athens or the Olympian Jupiter at Elis, the beauty of

which was of great advantage, as has been said, to the established

religion; so closely does the work approach the majesty of the god

himself.

"Lysippus and Praxiteles have, according to the universal opinion, most

nearly approached truth; Demetrius, on the other hand, is blamed because

he went too far in this direction, in that he preferred mere resemblance

to beauty."

LITERARY PROFESSION

Man is rarely fortunate enough to secure the aids for his higher

education from quite unselfish patrons. Even those who believe that they

have the best intentions only promote that which they love and know, or,

more readily still, what is of advantage to them. Thus it was literary

and bibliographical accomplishments which recommended Winckelmann

formerly to Count Bünau and later to Cardinal Passione.

The connoisseur of books is everywhere welcome, and he was even more so

at a time when the pleasure of collecting notable and rare books was

livelier than it now is, and the profession of librarian was more

restricted. A great German library resembled a great Roman library; they

could vie with each other in the possession of books. The librarian of a

German count was a desirable member of a cardinal's household, and

immediately found himself at home there. Libraries were real

treasure-houses, instead of being, as now, with the rapid progress of

the sciences and the useful and useless accumulation of printed

matter--nothing more than useful store-rooms and useless lumber-rooms.

So that a librarian has cause, now far more than before, to be informed

of the progress of science and of the value and worthlessness of

writings, and a German librarian has to possess attainments which would

be lost in other countries.

But only for a short time, and only as long as it was necessary to

secure a moderate means of support, did Winckelmann remain true to his

original literary occupation. He soon lost interest also in everything

that related to critical investigation, and was willing neither to

compare manuscripts nor to give information to German scholars who

wished to question him upon many subjects.

But even before this his attainments had served him as an advantageous

introduction. The private life of the Italians, especially of the

Romans, has, for many reasons, something of a secret character. This

secrecy, this isolation, if you will, extended also to literature. Many

a scholar devoted his life in secret to an important work, without

either desiring or being able to have it published. Here also, more than

in any other land, were to be found men who, with diverse attainments

and great insight, could not be moved to make them known, either in

written or printed form. The way to the society of such men Winckelmann

soon found opened. He mentions particularly among them Giacomelli and

Baldani, and speaks with pleasure of his increasing acquaintances and

his growing influence.

CARDINAL ALBANI

But his greatest good fortune was to become a member of the household of

Cardinal Albani. This prelate, possessed of a large fortune and wielding

a powerful influence, showed from his very youth a great love of art; he

had also the best opportunity of satisfying it and a luck in collecting

which verged upon the miraculous. In later years he found his greatest

pleasure in the task of placing this collection in worthy surroundings,

in this wise rivaling those Roman families who had at an earlier period

been cognizant of the value of such treasures. It was, in fact, his

chief pleasure to overload the assigned spaces, in accordance with the

manner of the ancients. Building crowded upon building, hall upon hall,

corridor upon corridor; fountains and obelisks, caryatides and

bas-reliefs, statues and vases were lacking neither in court-yard nor in

garden, while the greater or smaller rooms, galleries and cabinets

contained the choicest art specimens of all times.

We observed in passing that the ancients had in a similar manner filled

their palaces and gardens. The Romans so overloaded their capital that

it seems impossible that everything recorded could have found place

there. The Via Sacra, the Forum, the Palatine were so overloaded with

buildings and monuments that the imagination can hardly conceive of a

crowd of people finding room in any of them. Fortunately the actual

results of excavated cities come to our assistance, and we can see with

our own eyes how narrow, how small, how, so to speak, like architectural

models rather than real buildings these structures are. This remark is

true even of the Villa of Hadrian, in the construction of which there

were space and wealth enough for something extensive.

In such an overloaded condition was the villa of his lord and friend

when Winckelmann departed this scene of his highest and most gratifying

education. So also it remained after the death of the cardinal, to the

joy and wonder of the world, until in the course of all-changing,

all-dispersing time, it was robbed of its entire adornment. The statues

were removed from their niches and pedestals, the bas-reliefs were torn

from the walls, and the whole enormous collection was packed for

transportation. Through an extraordinary change of affairs these

treasures were conducted only as far as the Tiber. In a short time they

were returned to the possessor, and the greatest part of them, except a

few jewels, still remain in the old location. Winckelmann might have

witnessed the first sad fate of this Elysium of art and its

extraordinary return; but happily for him, death spared him this earthly

suffering for which the joy of the restoration would hardly have made

sufficient amends.

GOOD FORTUNE

But he also encountered many a good fortune upon life's journey. Not

only did the excavations of antiquities proceed energetically and

fortunately at Rome, but the discoveries at Herculaneum and Pompeii were

at that time partly new, or had remained partly unknown through envy,

secrecy and delay. He thus reaped a harvest which furnished work enough

for his mind and his activities.

It is a sad thing when one is compelled to consider the existing as

accomplished and completed. Armories, galleries and museums to which

nothing is added have something funereal and ghostly about them; the

mind is restricted in such a limited field of art. One becomes

accustomed to regard such collections as completed, instead of being

reminded of the necessity of constant acquisition and of the fact that,

in art as in life, nothing is completed but is constantly changing.

Winckelmann found himself in a fortunate position. The earth gave up her

treasures, and through a constant, active commerce in art many ancient

possessions came to light, passed before his eyes, aroused his

enthusiasm, challenged his judgment, and increased his knowledge.

No small advantage accrued to him through his relations with the heir

of the large Stosch collection. Not until after the death of the

collector did he become acquainted with this little world of art, over

which he presided in accordance with his best judgment and convictions.

It is true that all parts of this exceedingly valuable collection were

not treated with equal care; the whole of it deserved a catalogue for

the delectation and the use of later amateurs and collectors. Much was

squandered; but in order to make the excellent gems which it contained

better known and more marketable, Winckelmann undertook in conjunction

with the heir of Stosch to write a catalogue, concerning which

undertaking, its hasty but always able treatment, the surviving

correspondence furnishes remarkable testimony.

Our friend was thus intently occupied with the Stosch possessions before

their dispersal and with the ever increasing Albani collection; and

everything which passed through his hands, either for collection or

dispersal, increased the treasure with which he was storing his mind.

Even when Winckelmann first approached the study of art and learned to

know the artists in Dresden, appearing in this branch as a beginner, he

was fully developed as a writer. He had a comprehensive view of ancient

history and, in many ways, of the development of the various sciences.

Even in his previous humble condition he felt and knew antiquity, as

well as what was worthy in the life and in the character of the present.

He had already formed a style. In the new school which he entered, he

listened to his masters, not only as a docile pupil but as a learned

disciple. He easily acquired their special attainments, and began

immediately to use and to adapt to his purposes everything that he

learned.

In a higher sphere of action than was his at Dresden, in the nobler

world revealed to him at Rome, he remained the same. What he learned

from Mengs, what he was taught by his surroundings, he did not keep long

to himself; he did not let the new wine ferment and clarify; but rather

as we say that one learns from teaching, so he learned while planning

and writing. How many a title has he left us, how many subjects has he

not mentioned upon which a work was to follow! Like this beginning was

his entire antiquarian career. We find him always active--occupied with

the moment, which he seizes and holds fast as if it only could be

complete and satisfactory, and even so he let himself be instructed by

the following moment. This attitude of mind should be remembered in

forming an estimate of his works.

That they ultimately received their present form, printed directly from

Winckelmann's manuscript notes, is due to many often unimportant

circumstances. A single month later and we should have had works, more

correct in content, more precise in form, perhaps something quite

different. Just for this reason we so deeply regret his premature death,

because he would have constantly rewritten his works and enriched them

with the attainments of the (ever) later phases of his life.

Everything that he has left us, therefore, was written as something

living for the living, not for those who are dead in the letter. His

works, combined with his correspondence, are the story of a life; they

are a life itself. Like the life of most people, they resemble rather a

preparation for a work than the latter in its accomplishment. They give

cause for hopes, for wishes, for premonitions. If one tries to correct

them he sees that he must first correct himself; if he wishes to

criticize them, he sees that he might himself, upon a higher plane of

knowledge, be subjected to the same criticism; for limitation is

everywhere our lot.

PHILOSOPHY

With the progress of civilization, not all parts of human labor and

activity in which culture is revealed, flourish equally; rather in

accordance with the favorable character of persons and conditions, one

necessarily surpasses the other, and thus arouses a more general

interest. A certain jealous displeasure often arises in consequence,

among members of a family so varied in its branches, who often are the

less able to endure one another, the more closely they are related.

It is for the most part a baseless complaint, when this or that adept in

science and art complains that just his branch is being neglected by

contemporaries; for an able master has only to appear in order to

concentrate attention upon himself. If Raphael should reappear today, we

should bestow upon him a superabundance of honor and riches. An able

master arouses excellent pupils and their activities extend their

ramifications into the infinite.

From the earliest times philosophers especially have incurred the

hatred, not only of their fellow scientists, but of men of the world and

_bons vivants_, perhaps more by the position they assume than by their

own fault. For as philosophy in accordance with her nature must make

demands upon the universal and the highest, she must regard worldly

objects as included in and subordinated to herself.

Nor are these pretentious demands specifically denied; every man rather

believes that he has a right to take part in her discoveries, to make

use of her maxims, and to appropriate whatever else she may have to

offer. But as philosophy, in order to become universal, must make use of

her own vocabulary of unfamiliar combinations and difficult

explanations, which are in harmony neither with the life nor with the

momentary needs of men of the world, she is despised by those who cannot

find the handle by which she might easily be grasped.

Yet, if, on the other hand, one wished to accuse the philosophers

because they do not know how to translate doctrine into life, and

because they make the most mistakes exactly where all their convictions

should be converted into action, thereby diminishing their own credit in

the eyes of the world--no lack of examples might be found to verify such

accusations.

Winckelmann often complains bitterly of the philosophers of his day and

their widespread influence; but I think one can escape from every

influence by limiting oneself to his own line of work. It is strange

that Winckelmann did not attend the University at Leipsic, where, under

the direction of Johann Friedrich Christ, he might, without troubling

himself about a single philosopher in existence, have made much more

comfortable progress in his favorite study.

This is perhaps the proper place for an observation which we should like

to make, in view of recent events--that no scholar can afford to reject,

oppose, or scorn the great philosophical movement begun by Kant, except

the true investigators of antiquity, who by the peculiarity of their

study seem to be especially favored above all other men. For since they

are occupied with the best that the world has produced and only examine

the trivial and the inferior in their relation to the most excellent,

their attainments reach such fullness, their judgment such certainty,

their taste such consistency, that they appear within their own circle

most wonderfully, even astonishingly, cultured. Winckelmann also

attained this good fortune, in which indeed he was greatly assisted by

the influence of the fine arts and of life itself.

POETRY

Although Winckelmann in reading the ancient authors paid great attention

to the poets, an exact examination of his studies and of the course of

his life reveals no particular inclination to poetry; on the contrary,

an aversion occasionally appears. His preference for the old and

accustomed Lutheran church hymns and his desire to possess an uncensored

song book of this kind in Rome reveals the typical and sturdy German,

but not the friend of poetry.

The works of the poets of past ages appear to have interested him at

first as documents of ancient languages and literature, later as

witnesses for the fine arts. It is all the more wonderful and gratifying

when he himself appears as a poet, as an able, unmistakable one, in his

description of statues and in almost all of his later writings. He sees

with his eyes, he grasps with his mind, works indescribable, and yet he

feels an irresistible impulse to master them by the spoken and the

written word. The perfect master-work, the idea in which it had its

origin, the emotion that was awakened in him in beholding it, he wishes

to impart to the hearer or the reader. Reviewing the array of his

aptitudes, he finds himself compelled to seize upon the most powerful

and dignified expression at his command. He is compelled to be a poet,

whatever he may think, whether he wishes or not.

ATTAINED INSIGHT

As much value as Winckelmann placed upon the world's esteem, as much as

he desired a literary reputation, as much as he endeavored to present

his work in the best form and to elevate it by a certain dignified

style, he was nevertheless in no wise blind to its faults, but rather

was the first to observe them, as one would expect from a man of his

progressive nature, always seizing upon and working over new materials.

The more he had labored upon a subject, dogmatically and didactically,

had maintained and established this or that interpretation of a

monument, this or that explanation or application of a passage, the more

conspicuous did his own mistakes seem to him. As soon as he had

convinced himself of them by new data, the more quickly was he inclined

to correct them in any way possible.

If the manuscript was at hand, it was rewritten; if it had been sent to

the printer, corrections and additions were appended. Of all this

penance he made no secret to his friends, for his character was based

upon truth, straight-forwardness, frankness, and honesty.

LATER WORKS

A happy thought became clear to him, not suddenly but as the work

progressed--we mean his _Monumenti Inediti_. It is quite evident that he

was at first tempted by his desire to make new subjects known, to

explain them in a happy manner and to enlarge the study of antiquity to

the greatest possible extent; added to this was the interest of testing

the method once set forth in his history of art, by means of objects

which he laid before the eyes of the reader. For he had finally

developed the felicitous resolve, in this preliminary treatise, quietly

to correct, purify, compress, and perhaps even partly supplant, his

already completed work on the history of art.

Conscious of former mistakes which people who were not inhabitants of

Rome could scarcely have reproached him with, he wrote a work in the

Italian language, which he intended should be appreciated in Rome

itself. Not only did he devote to it the greatest attention, but he also

selected friendly connoisseurs with whom he carefully went over the

work, most cleverly using their insight and judgment, and thus created a

work which will go down as a heritage for all ages. Not only did he

write it, but he undertook its publication, achieving, as a poor layman,

that which would do honor to a well established publisher, or to

academies of large means.

THE POPE

Should so much be said of Rome without remembering the Pope, who had, at

least indirectly, conferred many, many benefits upon Winckelmann?

Winckelmann's sojourn in Rome fell for the most part under the

government of Benedict XIV. Lambertini, a gay and easy-going man, who

preferred letting others rule to ruling, himself; and so the different

positions which Winckelmann filled may have come to him rather through

the favor of his exalted friends than through the appreciation of his

services by the Pope.

Nevertheless, we find him on one important occasion in the presence of

the Head of the Church; he was honored by being allowed to read several

passages of the _Monumenti Inediti_ to the Pope, thus achieving also,

along this line, the highest honor which an author could receive.

CHARACTER

In the case of very many men, especially in the case of scholars, their

achievements seem the important thing, and in these their character

finds little expression. With Winckelmann the reverse was the case. All

that he produced is principally important and valuable because his

character is always revealed in it. As we have already expressed certain

generalities concerning his character under the headings, The Antique,

Paganism, Friendship, and Beauty, the more detailed account deserves a

place here, near the end of our essay.

Winckelmann was in all respects a character who was honest with himself

and with others. His native love of truth constantly developed, the more

independent and unhampered he felt, until he finally considered the

polite indulgence of errors traditional in life and in literature to be

a crime.

Such a nature could comfortably withdraw into itself; vet even here we

discover in him the ancient characteristic of always being occupied with

himself, but without really observing himself. He thinks only of

himself, not about himself; his mind is occupied with what he has before

him; he is interested in his whole being, in its entire compass, and he

cherishes the belief that his friends are likewise interested therein.

We, therefore, find everything mentioned in his letters, from the

highest moral to the most common physical need; indeed he directly

states that he preferred to be entertained with personal trifles rather

than with important affairs. At the same time he remains a complete

riddle to himself, and even expresses astonishment over his own being,

especially in consideration of what he was and what he had become. But

every man may thus be regarded as a charade of many syllables, of which

he himself can spell only a few, while others easily decipher the whole

word.

Nor do we find in him any pronounced principles. His unerring feeling

and cultured mind served him as a guide in morals as well as in

aesthetics. His ideal was a kind of natural religion, in which God

appears as the ultimate source of the beautiful and hardly as a being

having any other relation to man. His conduct was most beautiful in all

cases involving duty and gratitude.

His provision for himself was moderate, and not the same at all times.

He always labored most diligently to secure a competence for his old

age. His means are noble; in his efforts to attain every end he shows

himself honest, straightforward, even defiant, and at the same time

clever and persevering. He never works after a fixed plan, but always

instinctively and passionately. His pleasure in every discovery is

intense, for which reason errors are unavoidable, which, however, in his

rapid progress are corrected as quickly as he sees them. Here also he

always maintains an antique principle; the certainty of the point of

departure, the uncertainty of the aim to be reached, as well as the

incomplete and imperfect character of the treatment as soon as it

becomes extensive.

SOCIETY

Little prepared by his early mode of life, Winckelmann did not at first

feel at ease in company, but a feeling of dignity soon took the place of

education and custom, and he learned very rapidly to conduct himself in

accordance with his surroundings. The gratification felt in association

with distinguished, wealthy and celebrated people and the pleasure of

being esteemed by them everywhere appears. As regards facility of

intercourse, he could not have found himself in a better place than

Rome.

He himself observes, that however ceremonious the Roman grandees,

especially the clerical, appeared in public, at home they were pleasant

and intimate with the members of their household; but he did not observe

that this intimacy concealed the oriental relation of lord and servant.

All southern nations would find it intolerably tiresome to have to

maintain the constant mutual tension in association with their

dependents which the northerners are accustomed to.

Travelers have observed that the slaves in Turkey behave toward their

masters with more ease than northern courtiers toward their princes, or

dependents with us toward their superiors. Yet, examined closely, these

marks of consideration have been really introduced for the benefit of

the dependents, who by these means always remind their superior what is

due them.

The southerner, however, craves for hours in which to take his ease, and

this accrues to the advantage of his household. Such scenes are

described by Winckelmann with great relish; they lighten whatever

dependence he may feel, and nourish his sense of freedom which was

averse to every fetter that might restrain him.

STRANGERS

Although Winckelmann was very happy in his association with the natives,

he suffered all the more annoyance and tribulation from strangers. It is

true that nothing can be more exasperating than the usual stranger in

Rome. In every other place the traveler can better look out for himself

and find something suitable to his needs; but whoever does not

accommodate himself to Rome is an abomination to the man of real Roman

sentiment.

The English are reproached because they take their tea-kettles

everywhere along with them, even dragging them to the summit of Mt.

Ætna. But has not every nation its own tea-kettle, in which its citizens

on their travels brew a bundle of dried herbs brought along from home?

Such hurrying and arrogant strangers, never looking about them, and

judging everything in accordance with their own narrow limitations, were

denounced by Winckelmann more than once; he vows never to show them

about, and yet finally allows himself to be persuaded to do it. He jests

over his inclination to play the schoolmaster, to teach and to convince,

and indeed many advantages accrued to him through the association with

persons important by reason of their rank and services. We mention only

the Prince of Dessan, the Crown Prince of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and

Brunswick, and Baron von Riedesel, a man who showed himself quite worthy

of our friend in his attitude toward art and antiquity.

THE WORLD

Winckelmann constantly sought after esteem and consideration; but he

wished to achieve them through real merit. He always insists upon

thoroughness of subject, of means, and of treatment, and is therefore

very hostile toward French superficiality.

He found in Rome opportunities to associate with strangers of all

nations, and maintained such connections in a clever, effective manner.

He was pleased with, indeed he sought after, honorary degrees of

academies and learned societies.

But he achieved greatest prominence by that great document of his

merits, over which he silently labored with great diligence--I refer to

his _History of Ancient Art_. It was immediately translated into the

French language, and made him known far and wide.

The real value of such a work is perhaps best appreciated immediately

after its publication: its efficiency is recognized, the new matter is

quickly adopted. The contemporaries are astonished at the sudden

assistance they obtained, while a colder posterity nibbles disgustedly

at the works of its masters and teachers, and makes demands which would

never have occurred to it, if the very men criticised had not

accomplished so much.

And so Winckelmann was recognized by the cultured nations of Europe at a

time when he was sufficiently established at Rome to be honored with the

important position of Director of Antiquities.

RESTLESSNESS

Notwithstanding his recognized and often vaunted happiness, Winckelmann

was always tortured by a restlessness which, as its foundations lay deep

in his nature, assumed various forms.

During the times of his early poverty and his later dependence upon the

bounty of a court and the favor of many a wellwisher, he always limited

himself to the smallest needs, that he might not become dependent or at

least not more dependent than absolutely necessary. In the meantime he

was always strenuously occupied in gaining by his own exertions a

livelihood for the present and for the future, for which at length the

successful illustrated edition of his Monumenti Inediti offered the

fairest hope.

But these uncertain conditions accustomed him to look for his

subsistence now here, then there; now to accept a position with small

advantage to himself--in the house of a cardinal, in the Vatican or

elsewhere; then, when he saw some other prospect, magnanimously to give

up his place, while looking about for something else and lending an ear

to many a proposition.

Further, one who lives in Rome is constantly exposed to the passion for

traveling to all parts of the world. He finds himself in the centre of

the ancient world, and the lands most interesting to the investigator of

antiquity lie close about him. Magna Græcia, Sicily, Dalmatia, the

Peloponnesus, Ionia, and Egypt--all of them are, so to say, offered to

the inhabitants of Rome, and awaken an inexpressible longing in one who,

like Winckelmann, was born with the desire to see. This is increased by

the great number of strangers on their passage through Rome making

sensible or useless preparations to travel in these lands, and who on

their return never tire of describing distant wonders and exhibiting

specimens of them.

And so Winckelmann planned to travel everywhere, partly on his own

responsibility, partly in company with such wealthy travelers as would

recognize the value of a scholarly and talented comrade.

Another cause of this inner restlessness and discomfort does honor to

his heart--the irresistible longing for absent friends. Upon this the

ardent desire of a man that otherwise lived so much in the present seems

to have been peculiarly concentrated; he sees his friends before him, he

converses with them through letters, he longs for their embraces, and

wishes to repeat the days formerly lived together.

These wishes, especially directed toward his friends in the North, were

awakened anew by the Peace of Hubertusbury (Feb., 1763). It would have

been his pride to present himself before the great king who had already

honored him with an offer to enter his service; to see again the Prince

of Dessau, whose exalted, reposeful nature he regarded as a gift of God

to the earth; to pay his respects to the Duke of Brunswick, whose great

capacities he well knew how to prize; to praise in person Minister of

State von Münchausen, who had done so much for science, and to admire

his immortal foundation at Göttingen; to rejoice again in the lively and

intimate intercourse with his Swiss friends--such allurements filled his

heart and his imagination; with such images was his mind so long

occupied that he unfortunately followed this impulse and so went to his

death.

He was devoted body and soul to his Italian lot to such an extent that

every other one seemed insufferable to him. On his former journey, the

cliffs and mountains of Tyrol had interested, yea, delighted him, and

now, on his return to the fatherland, he felt terrified, as if he were

being dragged through the Cimmerian portal and convinced of the

impossibility of continuing his journey.

DEPARTURE

And thus upon the highest pinnacle of happiness that he could himself

have wished for, he departed this earth. His fatherland awaited him, his

friends stretched their arms toward him; all the expressions of love

which he so deeply needed, all testimonials of public honor, which he

valued so highly, awaited his appearance, to be heaped upon him. And in

this sense we may count him happy, that from the summit of human

existence he ascended to the blessed, that a momentary shock, a sudden,

quick pain removed him from the living. The infirmities of old age, the

diminution of mental power, he did not experience; the dispersal of the

treasures of art, which he had foretold, although in another sense, did

not occur before his eyes. He lived as a man and departed hence as a

complete man. Now he enjoys in the memory of posterity the advantage of

appearing only as one eternally vigorous and powerful; for in the image

in which a man leaves the earth he wanders among the shadows, and so

Achilles remains for us an ever-striving youth. That Winckelmann

departed so early, works also to our advantage. From his grave the

breath of his power strengthens us, and awakens in us the intense desire

always to continue with zeal and love the work that he has begun.

[Illustration: GOETHE AND HIS SECRETARY J. J. Schmeller ]

MAXIMS AND REFLECTIONS OF GOETHE[5]

TRANSLATED BY BAILEY SAUNDERS

There is nothing worth thinking but it has been thought before; we must

only try to think it again.

How can a man come to know himself? Never by thinking, but by doing. Try

to do your duty, and you will know at once what you are worth. But what

is your duty? The claims of the day.

The longer I live, the more it grieves me to see man, who occupies his

supreme place for the very purpose of imposing his will upon nature, and

freeing himself and his from an outrageous necessity--to see him taken

up with some false notion, and doing just the opposite of what he wants

to do; and then, because the whole bent of his mind is spoilt, bungling

miserably over everything.

In the works of mankind, as in those of nature, it is really the motive

which is chiefly worth attention.

In Botany there is a species of plants called Incompletæ; and just in

the same way it can be said there are men who are incomplete and

imperfect. They are those whose desires and struggles are out of

proportion to their actions and achievements.

It is a great error to take oneself for more than one is, or for less

than one is worth.

From time to time I meet with a youth in whom I can wish for no

alteration or improvement, only I am sorry to see how often his nature

makes him quite ready to swim with the stream of the time; and it is on

this that I would always insist, that man in his fragile boat has the

rudder placed in his hand, just that he may not be at the mercy of the

waves, but follow the direction of his own insight.

If I am to listen to another man's opinion, it must be expressed

positively. Of things problematical I have enough in myself.

Piety is not an end, but a means: a means of attaining the highest

culture by the purest tranquility of soul. Hence it may be observed that

those who set up piety as an end and object are mostly hypocrites.

Reading ought to mean understanding; writing ought to mean knowing

something; believing ought to mean comprehending; when you desire a

thing, you will have to take it; when you demand it, you will not get

it; and when you are experienced, you ought to be useful to others.

The stream is friendly to the miller whom it serves; it likes to pour

over the mill wheels; what is the good of it stealing through the valley

in apathy?

Theory is in itself of no use, except in so far as it makes us believe

in the connection of phenomena.

"_Le sens common est le génie de l'humanité_." Common-sense, which is

here put forward as the genius of humanity, must be examined first of

all in the way it shows itself. If we inquire the purpose to which

humanity puts it, we find as follows: Humanity is conditioned by needs.

If they are not satisfied, men become impatient; and if they are, it

seems not to affect them. The normal man moves between these two states,

and he applies his understanding--his so-called common sense--to the

satisfaction of his needs. When his needs are satisfied, his task is to

fill up the waste spaces of indifference. Here, too, he is successful,

if his needs are confined to what is nearest and most necessary. But if

they rise and pass beyond the sphere of ordinary wants, common-sense is

no longer sufficient; it is a genius no more, and humanity enters on the

region of error.

There is no piece of foolishness but it can be corrected by intelligence

or accident; no piece of wisdom but it can miscarry by lack of

intelligence or by accident.

Justice insists on obligation, law on decorum. Justice weighs and

decides, law superintends and orders. Justice refers to the individual,

law to society.

The history of knowledge is a great fugue in which the voices of the

nations one after the other emerge.

If a man is to achieve all that is asked of him, he must take himself

for more than he is, and as long as he does not carry it to an absurd

length, we willingly put up with it.

People whip curds to see if they cannot make cream of them.

Wisdom lies only in truth.

When I err, every one can see it; but not when I lie.

Before the storm breaks, the dust rises violently for the last time--the

dust that is soon to be laid for ever.

Men do not come to know one another easily, even with the best will and

the best purpose. And then ill-will comes in and distorts everything.

In the world the point is, not to know men, but at any given moment to

be cleverer than the man who stands before you. You can prove this at

every fair and from every charlatan.

Not everywhere where there is water, are there frogs; but where you have

frogs, there you will find water.

In the formation of species Nature gets, as it were, into a cul-de-sac;

she cannot make her way through, and is disinclined to turn back. Hence

the stubbornness of national character.

Many a man knocks about on the wall with his hammer, and believes that

he hits the right nail on the head every time.

Those who oppose intellectual truths do but stir up the fire, and the

cinders fly about and burn what they had else not touched.

Those from whom we are always learning are rightly called our masters;

but not every one who teaches us deserves this title.

It is with you as with the sea: the most varied names are given to what

is in the end only salt water.

It is said that vain self-praise stinks in the nostrils. That may be so;

but for the kind of smell which comes from unjust blame by others the

public has no nose at all.

There are problematical natures which are equal to no position in which

they find themselves, and which no position satisfies. This it is that

causes that hideous conflict which wastes life and deprives it of all

pleasure.

Dirt glitters as long as the sun shines.

He is the happiest man who can set the end of his life in connection

with the beginning.

A state of things in which every day brings some new trouble is not the

right one.

The Hindoos of the Desert make a solemn vow to eat no fish.

To venture an opinion is like moving a piece at chess it may be taken,

but it forms the beginning of a game that is won.

Truth belongs to the man, error to his age. This is why it has been said

that, while the misfortune of the age caused his error, the force of his

soul made him emerge from the error with glory.

I pity those who make much ado about the transitory nature of all things

and are lost in the contemplation of earthly vanity: are we not here to

make the transitory permanent? This we can do only if we know how to

value both.

A rainbow which lasts a quarter of an hour is looked at no more.

Faith is private capital, kept in one's own house. There are public

savings-banks and loan-offices, which supply individuals in their day of

need; but here the creditor quietly takes his interest for himself.

During a prolonged study of the lives of various men both great and

small, I came upon this thought: In the web of the world the one may

well be regarded as the warp, the other as the woof. It is the little

men, after all, who give breadth to the web, and the great men firmness

and solidity; perhaps, also, the addition of some sort of pattern. But

the scissors of the Fates determine its length, and to that all the rest

must join in submitting itself.

Truth is a torch, but a huge one, and so it is only with blinking eyes

that we all of us try to get past it, in actual terror of being burnt.

The really foolish thing in men who are otherwise intelligent is that

they fail to understand what another person says, when he does not

exactly hit upon the right way of saying it.

One need only grow old to become gentler in one's judgments. I see no

fault committed which I could not have committed myself.

Why should those who are happy expect one who is miserable to die before

them in a graceful attitude, like the gladiator before the Roman mob?

By force of habit we look at a clock that has run down as if it were

still going, and we gaze at the face of a beauty as though she still

loved.

Dilettantism treated seriously, and knowledge pursued mechanically, end

by becoming pedantry.

No one but the master can promote the cause of Art. Patrons help the

master--that is right and proper; but that does not always mean that Art

is helped.

The most foolish of all errors is for clever young men to believe that

they forfeit their originality in recognizing a truth which has already

been recognized by others.

It is much easier to recognize error than to find truth; for error lies

on the surface and may be overcome; but truth lies in the depths, and to

search for it is not given to every one.

No one should desire to live in irregular circumstances; but if by

chance a man falls into them, they test his character and show of how

much determination he is capable.

An honorable man with limited ideas often sees through the rascality of

the most cunning jobber.

Against criticism a man can neither protest nor defend himself; he must

act in spite of it, and then criticism will gradually yield to him.

The masses cannot dispense with men of ability, and such men are always

a burden to them.

If you lay duties upon people and give them no rights, you must pay them

well.

I can promise to be sincere, but not to be impartial.

Word and picture are correlatives which are continually in quest of each

other, as is sufficiently evident in the case of metaphors and similes.

So from all time what was said or sung inwardly to the ear had to be

presented equally to the eye. And so in childish days we see word and

picture in continual balance; in the book of the law and in the way of

salvation, in the Bible and in the spelling-book. When something was

spoken which could not be pictured, and something pictured which could

not be spoken, all went well; but mistakes were often made, and a word

was used instead of a picture; and thence arose those monsters of

symbolical mysticism, which are doubly an evil.

The importunity of young dilettanti must be borne with good-will; for as

they grow old they become the truest worshippers of Art and the Master.

People have to become really bad before they care for nothing but

mischief, and delight in it.

Clever people are the best encyclopædia.

There are people who make no mistakes because they never wish to do

anything worth doing.

A man cannot live for every one; least of all for those with whom he

would not care to live.

I should like to be honest with you, without our falling out; but it

will not do. You act wrongly, and fall between two stools; you win no

adherents and lose your friends. What is to be the end of it?

If a clever man commits a folly, it is not a small one.

I went on troubling myself about general ideas until I learnt to

understand the particular achievements of the best men.

The errors of a man are what make him really lovable.

As in Rome there is, apart from the Romans, a population of statues, so

apart from this real world there is a world of illusion, almost more

potent, in which most men live.

Mankind is like the Red Sea; the staff has scarcely parted the waves

asunder before they flow together again. Thoughts come back; beliefs

persist; facts pass by never to return.

Of all peoples, the Greeks have dreamt the dream of life the best.

We readily bow to antiquity, but not to posterity. It is only a father

that does not grudge talent to his son. The whole art of living consists

in giving up existence in order to exist.

All our pursuits and actions are a wearying process. Well is it for him

who wearies not.

Hope is the second soul of the unhappy.

At all times it has not been the age, but individuals alone, who have

worked for knowledge. It was the age which put Socrates to death by

poison, the age which burnt Huss. The ages have always remained alike.

If a man knows where to get good advice, it is as though he could supply

it himself.

A man must pay dear for his errors if he wishes to get rid of them, and

even then he is lucky.

Enthusiasm is of the greatest value, so long as we are not carried away

by it.

Error is related to truth as sleep to waking. I have observed that on

awakening from error a man turns again to truth as with new vigor.

Every one suffers who does not work for himself. A man works for others

to have them share in his joy.

Common-sense is born pure in the healthy man, is self-developed, and is

revealed by a resolute perception and recognition of what is necessary

and useful. Practical men and women avail themselves of it with

confidence. Where it is absent, both sexes find anything necessary when

they desire it, and useful when it gives them pleasure.

All men, as they attain freedom, give play to their errors. The strong

do too much, and the weak too little.

The conflict of the old, the existing, the continuing, with development,

improvement and reform, is always the same. Order of every kind turns at

last to pedantry, and to get rid of the one, people destroy the other;

and so it goes on for a while, until people perceive that order must be

established anew. Classicism and Romanticism; close corporations and

freedom of trade; the maintenance of large estates and the division of

the land--it is always the same conflict which ends by producing a new

one. The best policy of those in power would be so to moderate this

conflict as to let it right itself without the destruction of either

element. But this has not been granted to men, and it seems not to be

the will of God.

A great work limits us for the moment, because we feel it above our

powers; and only in so far as we afterward incorporate it with our

culture, and make it part of our mind and heart, does it become a dear

and worthy object.

There are many things in the world that are at once good and excellent,

but they do not come into contact.

When men have to do with women, they get spun off like a distaff.

It may well be that a man is at times horribly threshed by misfortunes,

public and private: but the reckless flail of Fate, when it beats the

rich sheaves, crushes only the straw; and the corn feels nothing of it

and dances merrily on the floor, careless whether its way is to the mill

or the furrow.

In the matter of knowledge, it has happened to me as to one who rises

early and in the dark impatiently awaits the dawn and then the sun, but

is blinded when it appears.

People often say to themselves in life that they should avoid a variety

of occupation, and, more particularly, be the less willing to enter upon

new work the older they grow. But it is easy to talk, easy to give

advice to oneself and others. To grow old is itself to enter upon a new

business; all the circumstances change, and a man must either cease

acting altogether, or willingly and consciously take over the new rôle.

To live in a great idea means to treat the impossible as though it were

possible. It is just the same with a strong character; and when an idea

and a character meet, things arise which fill the world with wonder for

thousands of years.

Napoleon lived wholly in a great idea, but he was unable to take

conscious hold of it. After utterly disavowing all ideals and denying

them any reality, he zealously strove to realize them. His clear,

incorruptible intellect could not, however, tolerate such a perpetual

conflict within; and there is much value in the thoughts which he was

compelled, as it were, to utter, and which are expressed very peculiarly

and with much charm.

Man is placed as a real being in the midst of a real world, and endowed

with such organs that he can perceive and produce the real and also the

possible.

All healthy men have the conviction of their own existence and of an

existence around them. However, even the brain contains a hollow spot,

that is to say, a place in which no object is mirrored; just as in the

eye itself there is a little spot that does not see. If a man pays

particular attention to this spot and is absorbed in it, he falls into a

state of mental sickness, has presentiments of 'things of another

world,' which are, in reality, no things at all, possessing neither form

nor limit, but alarming him like dark, empty tracts of night, and

pursuing him as something more than phantoms, if he does not tear

himself free from them.

To the several perversities of the day a man should always oppose only

the great masses of universal history. That we have many criticisms to

make on those who visit us, and that, as soon as they depart, we pass no

very amiable judgment upon them, seems to me almost natural; for we

have, so to speak, a right to measure them by our own standard. Even

intelligent and fair-minded men hardly refrain from sharp censure on

such occasions.

But if, on the contrary, we have been in their homes, and have seen them

in their surroundings and habits and the circumstances which are

necessary and inevitable for them; if we have seen the kind of influence

they exert on those around them, or how they behave, it is only

ignorance and ill-will that can find food for ridicule in what must

appear to us in more than one sense worthy of respect.

Women's society is the element of good manners.

The most privileged position, in life as in society, is that of an

educated soldier. Rough warriors, at any rate, remain true to their

character, and as great strength is usually the cover for good nature,

we get on with them at need.

No one would come into a room with spectacles on his nose, if he knew

that women at once lose any inclination to look at or talk to him.

There is no outward sign of politeness that will be found to lack some

deep moral foundation. The right kind of education would be that which

conveyed the sign and the foundation at the same time.

A man's manners are the mirror in which he shows his portrait.

Against the great superiority of another there is no remedy but love.

It is a terrible thing for an eminent man to be gloried in by fools.

It is said that no man is a hero to his valet. That is only because a

hero can be recognized only by a hero. The valet will probably know how

to appreciate his like--his fellow-valet.

Fools and wise folk are alike harmless. It is the half-wise, and the

half-foolish, who are the most dangerous.

To see a difficult thing lightly handled gives us the impression of the

impossible.

Difficulties increase the nearer we come to our aim.

Sowing is not so painful as reaping.

If any one meets us who owes us a debt of gratitude, it immediately

crosses our mind. How often can we meet some one to whom we owe

gratitude, without thinking of it!

To communicate oneself is Nature; to receive a communication as it is

given is Culture.

Contradiction and flattery make, both of them, bad conversation.

By nothing do men show their character more than by the things they

laugh at.

An intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, a wise man hardly

anything.

A man well on in years was reproved for still troubling himself about

young women. "It is the only means," he replied, "of regaining one's

youth; and that is something every one wishes to do."

A man does not mind being blamed for his faults, and being punished for

them, and he patiently suffers much for the sake of them; but he becomes

impatient if he is required to give them up.

Passion is enhanced and tempered by avowal. In nothing, perhaps, is the

middle course more desirable than in confidence and reticence toward

those we love.

To sit in judgment on the departed is never likely to be equitable. We

all suffer from life; who, except God, can call us to account? Let not

their faults and sufferings, but what they have accomplished and done,

occupy the survivors.

It is failings that show human nature, and merits that distinguish the

individual; faults and misfortunes we all have in common; virtues belong

to each one separately.

It would not be worth while to see seventy years if all the wisdom of

this world were foolishness with God. The true is Godlike; we do not see

it itself; we must guess at it through its manifestations.

The real scholar learns how to evolve the unknown from the known, and

draws near the master.

In the smithy the iron is softened by blowing up the fire, and taking

the dross from the bar. As soon as it is purified, it is beaten and

pressed, and becomes firm again by the addition of fresh water. The same

thing happens to a man at the hands of his teacher.

What belongs to a man he cannot get rid of, even though he throws it

away.

Of true religions there are only two: one of them recognizes and

worships the Holy that, without form or shape, dwells in and around us;

and the other recognizes and worships it in its fairest form. Everything

that lies between these two is idolatry.

The Saints were all at once driven from heaven; and senses, thought and

heart were turned from a divine mother with a tender child, to the grown

man doing good and suffering evil, who was later transfigured into a

being half-divine in its nature, and then recognized and honored as God

himself. He stood against a background where the Creator had opened out

the universe; a spiritual influence went out from him; his sufferings

were adopted as an example, and his transfiguration was the pledge of

ever-lastingness.

As a coal is revived by incense, so prayer revives the hopes of the

heart.

From a strict point of view we must have a reformation of ourselves

every day, and protest against others, even though it be in no religious

sense.

It should be our earnest endeavor to use words coinciding as closely as

possible with what we feel, see, think, experience, imagine and reason.

It is an endeavor which we cannot evade, and which is daily to be

renewed.

Let every man examine himself, and he will find this a much harder task

than he might suppose; for, unhappily, a man usually takes words as mere

make-shifts; his knowledge and his thought are in most cases better than

his method of expression.

False, irrelevant, and futile ideas may arise in ourselves and others,

or find their way into us from without. Let us persist in the effort to

remove them as far as we can, by plain and honest purpose.

Where I cannot be moral, my power is gone.

A man is not deceived by others; he deceives himself.

Laws are all made by old people and by men. Youths and women want the

exceptions, old people the rules.

Chinese, Indian and Egyptian antiquities are never more than

curiosities; it is well to make acquaintance with them; but in point of

moral and æsthetic culture they can help us little.

The German runs no greater danger than to advance with and by the

example of his neighbors. There is perhaps no nation that is fitter for

the process of self-development; so that it has proved of the greatest

advantage to Germany to have obtained the notice of the world so late.

The greatest difficulties lie where we do not look for them.

The mind endowed with active powers and keeping with a practical object

to the task that lies nearest, is the worthiest there is on earth.

Perfection is the measure of heaven, and the wish to be perfect the

measure of man.

When a great idea enters the world as a Gospel, it becomes an offense to

the multitude, which stagnates in pedantry; and to those who have much

learning, but little depth, it is folly.

You may recognize the utility of an idea, and yet not quite understand

how to make a perfect use of it.

_Credo Deum_! That is a fine, a worthy thing to say; but to recognize

God where and as he reveals himself, is the only true bliss on earth.

Kepler said: 'My wish is that I may perceive the God whom I find

everywhere in the external world, in like manner also within and inside

me.' The good man was not aware that, in that very moment, the divine in

him stood in the closest connection with the divine in the Universe.

What is predestination? It is this: God is mightier and wiser than we

are, and so he does with us as he pleases.

Toleration should, strictly speaking, be only a passing mood; it ought

to lead to acknowledgment and appreciation. To tolerate a person is to

affront him.

Faith, Love and Hope once felt, in a quiet sociable hour, a plastic

impulse in their nature; they worked together and created a lovely

image, a Pandora in the higher sense, Patience.

'I stumbled over the roots of the tree which I planted.' It must have

been an old forester who said that.

Does the sparrow know how the stork feels?

Lamps make oil spots, and candles want snuffing; it is only the light of

heaven that shines pure and leaves no stain.

If you miss the first button-hole, you will not succeed in buttoning up

your coat.

A burnt child dreads the fire; an old man who has often been singed is

afraid of warming himself.

It is not worth while to do anything for the world that we have with us,

as the existing order may in a moment pass away. It is for the past and

the future that we must work: for the past, to acknowledge its merits;

for the future, to try to increase its value.

Let no one think that people have waited for him as for the Savior.

Character in matters great and small consists in a man steadily pursuing

the things of which he feels himself capable.

Can a nation become ripe? That is a strange question. I would answer,

Yes! if all the men could be born thirty years of age. But as youth will

always be too forward and old age too backward, the really mature man is

always hemmed in between them, and has to resort to strange devices to

make his way through.

The most important matters of feeling as of reason, of experience as of

reflection, should be treated of only by word of mouth. The spoken word

at once dies if it is not kept alive by some other word following on it

and suited to the hearer. Observe what happens in social converse. If

the word is not dead when it reaches the hearer, he murders it at once

by a contradiction, a stipulation, a condition, a digression, an

interruption, and all the thousand tricks of conversation. With the

written word the case is still worse. No one cares to read anything to

which he is not already to some extent accustomed; he demands the known

and the familiar under an altered form. Still, the written word has this

advantage, that it lasts and can await the time when it is allowed to

take effect.

Opponents fancy they refute us when they repeat their own opinion and

pay no attention to ours.

It is with history as with nature and with everything of any depth, it

may be past, present or future: the further we seriously pursue it, the

more difficult are the problems that appear.

Every phenomenon is within our reach if we treat it as an inclined

plane, which is of easy ascent, though the thick end of the wedge may be

steep and inaccessible.

If a man would enter upon some course of knowledge, he must either be

deceived or deceive himself, unless external necessity irresistibly

determines him. Who would become a physician if, at one and the same

time, he saw before him all the horrible sights that await him?

Literature is a fragment of fragments: the least of what happened and

was spoken, has been written; and of the things that have been written,

very few have been preserved.

And yet, with all the fragmentary nature of literature, we find

thousandfold repetition; which shows how limited is man's mind and

destiny.

We must remember that there are many men who, without being productive,

are anxious to say something important, and the results are most

curious.

Some books seem to have been written, not to teach us anything, but to

let us know that the author has known something.

An author can show no greater respect for his public than by never

bringing it what it expects, but what he himself thinks right and proper

in that stage of his own and others' culture in which for the time he

finds himself.

That glorious hymn, _Veni Creator Spiritus_, is really an appeal to

genius. That is why it speaks so powerfully to men of intellect and

power.

Translators are like busy match-makers; they sing the praises of some

half-veiled beauty, and extol her charms, and arouse an irresistible

longing for the original.

My relations with Schiller rested on the decided tendency of both of us

toward a single aim, and our common activity rested on the diversity of

the means by which we endeavored to attain that aim.

The best that history gives us is the enthusiasm it arouses.

We really learn only from those books which we cannot criticise. The

author of a book which we could criticise would have to learn from us.

That is the reason why the Bible will never lose its power; because, as

long as the world lasts, no one can stand up and say: I grasp it as a

whole and understand all the parts of it. But we say humbly: as a whole

it is worthy of respect, and in all its parts it is applicable.

There is and will be much discussions as to the use and harm of

circulating the Bible. One thing is clear to me mischief will result, as

heretofore, by using it fantastically as a system of dogma; benefit, as

heretofore, by a loving acceptance of its teachings.

I am convinced that the Bible will always be more beautiful the more it

is understood; the more, that is, we see and observe that every word

which we take in a general sense and apply specially to ourselves, had,

under certain circumstances of time and place, a peculiar, special and

directly individual reference.

If one has not read the newspapers for some months and then reads them

altogether, one sees, as one never saw before, how much time is wasted

with this kind of literature.

Shakespeare's Henry IV. If everything were lost that has ever been

preserved to us of this kind of writing, the arts of poetry and rhetoric

could be completely restored out of this one play.

Shakespeare's finest dramas are wanting here and there in facility: they

are something more than they should be, and for that very reason

indicate the great poet.

The dignity of Art appears perhaps most conspicuously in Music; for in

Music there is no material to be deducted. It is wholly form and

intrinsic value, and it raises and ennobles all that it expresses.

It is only by Art, and especially by Poetry, that the imagination is

regulated. Nothing is more frightful than imagination without taste.

Art rests upon a kind of religious sense; it is deeply and ineradicably

in earnest. Thus it is that Art so willingly goes hand in hand with

Religion.

A noble philosopher spoke of architecture as frozen music; and it was

inevitable that many people should shake their heads over his remark. We

believe that no better repetition of this fine thought can be given than

by calling architecture a speechless music.

In every artist there is a germ of daring, without which no talent is

conceivable.

Higher aims are in themselves more valuable, even if unfulfilled, than

lower ones quite attained.

In every Italian school the butterfly breaks loose from the chrysalis.

Let us be many-sided! Turnips are good, but they are best mixed with

chestnuts. And these two noble products of the earth grow far apart.

In the presence of Nature even moderate talent is always possessed of

insight; hence drawings from Nature that are at all carefully done

always give pleasure.

A man cannot well stand by himself, and so he is glad to join a party;

because if he does not find rest there, he at any rate finds quiet and

safety.

It is difficult to know how to treat the errors of the age. If a man

oppose them, he stands alone; if he surrender to them, they bring him

neither joy nor credit.

There are some hundred Christian sects, every one of them acknowledging

God and the Lord in its own way, without troubling themselves further

about one another. In the study of nature, nay, in every study, things

must of necessity come to the same pass. For what is the meaning of

every one speaking of toleration, and trying to prevent others from

thinking and expressing themselves after their own fashion?

We more readily confess to errors, mistakes and short-comings in our

conduct than in our thought. And the reason of it is that the

conscience is humble and even takes a pleasure in being ashamed. But the

intellect is proud, and if forced to recant is driven to despair. * * *

This also explains how it is that truths which have been recognized are

at first tacitly admitted, and then gradually spread, so that the very

thing which was obstinately denied appears at last as something quite

natural.

Ignorant people raise questions which were answered by the wise

thousands of years ago.

Our advice is that every man should remain in the path he has struck out

for himself, and refuse to be overawed by authority, hampered by

prevalent opinion, or carried away by fashion.

Every investigator must, before all things, look upon himself as one who

is summoned to serve on a jury. He has only to consider how far the

statement of the case is complete and clearly set forth by the evidence.

Then he draws his conclusion and gives his vote, whether it be that his

opinion coincides with that of the foreman or not.

The history of philosophy, of science, of religion, all shows that

opinions spread in masses, but that that always comes to the front

which is more easily grasped, that is to say, is most suited and

agreeable to the human mind in its ordinary condition. Nay, he who has

practised self-culture in the higher sense may always reckon upon

meeting an adverse majority.

What is a musical string, and all its mechanical division, in comparison

with the musician's ear? May we not also say, what are the elementary

phenomena of nature itself compared with man, who must control and

modify them all before he can in any way assimilate them to himself?

Everything that we call Invention or Discovery in the higher sense of

the word is the serious exercise and activity of an original feeling for

truth, which, after a long course of silent cultivation, suddenly

flashes out into fruitful knowledge. It is a revelation working from

within on the outer world, and lets a man feel that he is made in the

image of God. It is a synthesis of World and Mind, giving the most

blessed assurance of the eternal harmony of things.

A man must cling to the belief that the incomprehensible is

comprehensible; otherwise he would not try to fathom it. A man does not

need to have seen or experienced everything himself. But if he is to

commit himself to another's experiences and his way of putting them, let

him consider that he has to do with three things--the object in question

and two subjects.

If we look at the problems raised by Aristotle, we are astonished at his

gift of observation. What wonderful eyes the Greeks had for many things!

Only they committed the mistake of being overhasty, of passing

straightway from the phenomenon to the explanation of it, and thereby

produced certain theories that are quite inadequate. But this is the

mistake of all times, and still made in our own day.

Hypotheses are cradle-songs by which the teacher lulls his scholars to

sleep. The thoughtful and honest observer is always learning more and

more of his limitations; he sees that the further knowledge spreads,

the more numerous are the problems that make their appearance.

If many a man did not feel obliged to repeat what is untrue, because he

has said it once, the world would have been quite different.

There is nothing more odious than the majority; it consists of a few

powerful men to lead the way; of accommodating rascals and submissive

weaklings; and of a mass of men who trot after them, without in the

least knowing their own mind.

When I observe the luminous progress and expansion of natural science in

modern times, I seem to myself like a traveler going eastward at dawn,

and gazing at the growing light with joy, but also with impatience;

looking forward with longing to the advent of the full and final light,

but, nevertheless, having to turn away his eyes when the sun appeared,

unable to bear the splendor he had awaited with so much desire.

We praise the eighteenth century for concerning itself chiefly with

analysis. The task remaining to the nineteenth is to discover the false

syntheses which prevail, and to analyze their contents anew.

A school may be regarded as a single individual who talks to himself for

a hundred years, and takes an extraordinary pleasure in his own being,

however foolish and silly it may be.

In science it is a service of the highest merit to seek out those

fragmentary truths attained by the ancients, and to develop them

further.

Nature fills all space with her limitless productivity. If we observe

merely our own earth, everything that we call evil and unfortunate is so

because Nature cannot provide room for everything that comes into

existence, and still less endow it with permanence.

The finest achievement for a man of thought is to have fathomed what may

be fathomed, and quietly to revere the unfathomable.

There are two things of which a man cannot be careful enough: of

obstinacy, if he confines himself to his own line of thought; of

incompetency, if he goes beyond it.

The century advances; but every individual begins anew.

What friends do with us and for us is a real part of our life; for it

strengthens and advances our personality. The assault of our enemies is

not part of our life; it is only part of our experience; we throw it off

and guard ourselves against it as against frost, storm, rain, hail or

any other of the external evils which may be expected to happen.

A man cannot live with every one, and therefore he cannot live for every

one. To see this truth aright is to place a high value upon one's

friends, and not to hate or persecute one's enemies. Nay, there is

hardly any greater advantage for a man to gain than to find out, if he

can, the merits of his opponents: it gives him a decided ascendency over

them.

Every one knows how to value what he has attained in life; most of all

the man who thinks and reflects in his old age. He has a comfortable

feeling that it is something of which no one can rob him.

The best metempsychosis is for us to appear again in others.

It is very seldom that we satisfy ourselves; all the more consoling is

it to have satisfied others.

We look back upon our life only as on a thing of broken pieces, because

our misses and failures are always the first to strike us, and outweigh

in our imagination what we have done and attained.

Nature! We are surrounded by her and locked in her clasp--powerless to

leave her, and powerless to come closer to her. Unasked and unwarned she

takes us up into the whirl of her dance, and hurries on with us till we

are weary and fall from her arms.

We live in the midst of her and are strangers. She speaks to us

unceasingly and betrays not her secret.

We are always influencing her and yet can do her no violence.

Individuality seems to be all her aim, and she cares naught for

individuals. She is always building and always destroying, and her

work-shop is not to be approached.

Nature lives in her children only, and the mother, where is she? She is

the sole artist--out of the simplest materials the greatest diversity;

attaining, with no trace of effort, the finest perfection, the closest

precision, always softly veiled. Each of her works has an essence of its

own; every shape that she takes is in idea utterly isolated; and yet all

forms one.

She plays a drama; whether she sees it herself, we know not; and yet she

plays it for us who stand but a little way off.

She has thought, and she ponders unceasingly; not as a man, but as

Nature. The meaning of the whole she keeps to herself, and no one can

learn it of her.

She rejoices in illusion. If a man destroys this in himself and others,

she punishes him like the hardest tyrant. If he follows her in

confidence, she presses him to her heart as if it were her child.

Her children are numberless. To no one of them is she altogether

niggardly; but she has her favorites, on whom she lavishes much, and for

whom she makes many a sacrifice. Over the great she has spread the

shield of her protection.

She spurts forth her creatures out of nothing, and tells them not whence

they come and whither they go. They have only to go their way; she knows

the path.

The drama she plays is always new, because she is always bringing new

spectators. Life is her fairest invention, and Death is her device for

having life in abundance.

She envelops man in darkness, and urges him constantly to the light. She

makes him dependent on the earth, heavy and sluggish, and always rouses

him up afresh.

She creates wants, because she loves movement. How marvelous that she

gains it all so easily! Every want is a benefit, soon satisfied, soon

growing again. If she gives more, it is a new source of desire; but the

balance quickly rights itself.

She lets every child work at her, every fool judge of her, and thousands

pass her by and see nothing; and she has her joy in them all, and in

them all finds her account.

Man obeys her laws even in opposing them; he works with her even when he

wants to work against her.

Speech or language she has none; but she creates tongues and hearts

through which she feels and speaks.

Her crown is Love. Only through Love can we come near her. She puts

gulfs between all things, and all things strive to be interfused. She

isolates everything, that she may draw everything together. With a few

draughts from the cup of Love she repays for a life full of trouble.

She is all things. She rewards herself and punishes herself; and in

herself rejoices and is distressed. She is rough and gentle, loving and

terrible, powerless and almighty. In her everything is always present.

Past or Future she knows not. The present is her Eternity. She is kind.

I praise her with all her works. She is wise and still. No one can force

her to explain herself, or frighten her into a gift that she does not

give willingly. She is crafty, but for a good end; and it is best not to

notice her cunning.

She is whole, and yet never finished. As she works now, so can she work

forever.

She has placed me in this world; she will also lead me out of it. I

trust myself to her. She may do with me as she pleases. She will not

hate her work. I did not speak of her. No! what is true and what is

false, she has spoken it all. Everything is her fault, everything is her

merit.

ECKERMANN'S CONVERSATIONS WITH GOETHE[6]

(Extracts from the Author's Preface.) TRANSLATED BY JOHN OXENFORD

This collection of Conversations with Goethe took its rise chiefly from

an impulse, natural to my mind, to appropriate to myself by writing any

part of my experience which strikes me as valuable or remarkable.

Moreover, I felt constantly the need of instruction, not only when I

first met with that extraordinary man, but also after I had lived with

him for years; and I loved to seize on the import of his words, and to

note it down, that I might possess them for the rest of my life.

When I think how rich and full were the communications by which he made

me so happy for a period of nine years, and now observe how small a part

I have retained in writing, I seem to myself like a child who,

endeavoring to catch the refreshing spring shower with open hands, finds

that the greater part of it runs through his fingers.

* * * * *

I think that these conversations not only contain many valuable

explanations and instructions on science, art, and practical life, but

that these sketches of Goethe, taken directly from life, will be

especially serviceable in completing the portrait which each reader may

have formed of Goethe from his manifold works.

Still, I am far from imagining that the whole internal Goethe is here

adequately portrayed. We may, with propriety, compare this extraordinary

mind and man to a many-sided diamond, which in each direction shines

with a different hue. And as, under different circumstances and with

different persons, he became another being, so I, too, can only say, in

a very modest sense, this is _my_ Goethe.

* * * * *

[Illustration: GOETHE'S STUDY]

My relation to him was peculiar, and of a very intimate kind: it was

that of the scholar to the master; of the son to the father; of the poor

in culture to the rich in culture. He drew me into his own circle, and

let me participate in the mental and bodily enjoyments of a higher state

of existence. Sometimes I saw him but once a week, when I visited him in

the evening; sometimes every day, when I had the happiness to dine with

him either alone or in company. His conversation was as varied as his

works. He was always the same, and always different. Now he was occupied

by some great idea, and his words flowed forth rich and inexhaustible;

they were often like a garden in spring where all is in blossom, and

where one is so dazzled by the general brilliancy that one does not

think of gathering a nosegay. At other times, on the contrary, he was

taciturn and laconic, as if a cloud pressed upon his soul; nay, there

were days when it seemed as if he were filled with icy coldness, and a

keen wind was sweeping over plains of frost and snow. When one saw him

again he was again like a smiling summer's day, when all the warblers of

the wood joyously greet us from hedges and bushes, when the cuckoo's

voice resounds through the blue sky, and the brook ripples through

flowery meadows. Then it was a pleasure to hear him; his presence then

had a beneficial influence, and the heart expanded at his words.

Winter and summer, age and youth, seemed with him to be engaged in a

perpetual strife and change; nevertheless, it was admirable in him, when

from seventy to eighty years old, that youth always recovered the

ascendancy; those autumnal and wintry days I have indicated were only

rare exceptions.

His self-control was great--nay, it formed a prominent peculiarity in

his character. It was akin to that lofty deliberation (_Besonnenheit_)

through which he always succeeded in mastering his material, and giving

his single works that artistical finish which we admire in them. Through

the same quality he was often concise and circumspect, not only in many

of his writings, but also in his oral expressions. When, however, in

happy moments, a more powerful demon[7] was active within him, and that

self-control abandoned him, his discourse rolled forth with youthful

impetuosity, like a mountain cataract. In such moments he expressed what

was best and greatest in his abundant nature, and such moments are to be

understood when his earlier friends say of him, that his spoken words

were better than those which he wrote and printed. Thus Marmontel said

of Diderot, that whoever knew him from his writings only knew him but

half; but that as soon as he became animated in actual conversation he

was incomparable, and irresistibly carried his hearers along.

* * * * *

1823

_Weimar, June 10.[8]--I arrived here a few days ago, but did not see

Goethe till today. He received me with great cordiality; and the

impression he made on me was such, that I consider this day as one of

the happiest in my life.

Yesterday, when I called to inquire, he fixed today at twelve o'clock as

the time when he would be glad to see me. I went at the appointed time,

and found a servant waiting for me, preparing to conduct me to him.

The interior of the house made a very pleasant impression upon me;

without being showy, everything was extremely simple and noble; even the

casts from antique statues, placed upon the stairs, indicated Goethe's

especial partiality for plastic art, and for Grecian antiquity. I saw

several ladies moving busily about in the lower part of the house, and

one of Ottilie's beautiful boys, who came familiarly up to me, and

looked fixedly in my face.

After I had cast a glance around, I ascended the stairs, with the very

talkative servant, to the first floor.

He opened a room, on the threshold of which the motto _Salve_ was

stepped over as a good omen of a friendly welcome. He led me through

this apartment and opened another, somewhat more spacious, where he

requested me to wait, while he went to announce me to his master. The

air here was most cool and refreshing; on the floor was spread a carpet;

the room was furnished with a crimson sofa and chairs, which gave a

cheerful aspect; on one side stood a piano; and the walls were adorned

with many pictures and drawings, of various sorts and sizes.

Through an open door opposite, one looked into a farther room, also hung

with pictures, through which the servant had gone to announce me.

It was not long before Goethe came in, dressed in a blue frock-coat, and

with shoes. What a sublime form! The impression upon me was surprising.

But he soon dispelled all uneasiness by the kindest words. We sat down

on the sofa. I felt in a happy perplexity, through his look and his

presence, and could say little or nothing.

He began by speaking of my manuscript. "I have just come from _you_,"

said he; "I have been reading your writing all the morning; it needs no

recommendation--it recommends itself." He praised the clearness of the

style, the flow of the thought, and the peculiarity that all rested on a

solid basis and had been thoroughly considered. "I will soon forward

it," said he; "today I shall write to Cotta by post, and send him the

parcel tomorrow." I thanked him with words and looks.

We then talked of my proposed excursion. I told him that my design was

to go into the Rhineland, where I intended to stay at a suitable place,

and write something new. First, however, I would go to Jena, and there

await Herr von Cotta's answer.

Goethe asked whether I had acquaintance in Jena. I replied that I hoped

to come in contact with Herr von Knebel; on which he promised me a

letter which would insure me a more favorable reception. "And, indeed,"

said he, "while you are in Jena, we shall be near neighbors, and can see

or write to one another as often as we please." We sat a long while

together, in a tranquil, affectionate mood. I was close to him; I forgot

to speak for looking at him--I could not look enough. His face is so

powerful and brown! full of wrinkles, and each wrinkle full of

expression! And everywhere there is such nobleness and firmness, such

repose and greatness! He spoke in a slow, composed manner, such as you

would expect from an aged monarch. You perceive by his air that he

reposes upon himself, and is elevated far above both praise and blame. I

was extremely happy near him; I felt becalmed like one who, after many

toils and tedious expectations, finally sees his dearest wishes

gratified.

_Thursday, September_ 18.--"The world is so great and rich, and life so

full of variety, that you can never want occasions for poems. But they

must all be occasional[9] poems; that is to say, reality must give both

impulse and material for their production. A particular case becomes

universal and poetic by the very circumstance that it is treated by a

poet. All my poems are occasional poems, suggested by real life, and

having therein a firm foundation. I attach no value to poems snatched

out of the air.

"Let no one say that reality wants poetical interest; for in this the

poet proves his vocation, that he has the art to win from a common

subject an interesting side. Reality must give the motive, the points to

be expressed, the kernel, as I may say; but to work out of it a

beautiful, animated whole, belongs to the poet. You know Fürnstein,

called the Poet of Nature; he has written the prettiest poem possible,

on the cultivation of hops.

"I have now proposed to him to make songs for the different crafts of

working-men, particularly a weaver's song, and I am sure he will do it

well, for he has lived among such people from his youth; he understands

the subject thoroughly, and is therefore master of his material. That is

exactly the advantage of small works; you need only choose those

subjects of which you are master. With a great poem, this cannot be: no

part can be evaded; all which belongs to the animation of the whole, and

is interwoven into the plan, must be represented with precision. In

youth, however, the knowledge of things is only one-sided. A great work

requires many-sidedness, and on that rock the young author splits."

[Illustration: THE GARDEN AT GOETHE'S CITY HOUSE WEIMAR After a Water

Color by PETER WOLTZE]

I told Goethe that I had contemplated writing a great poem upon the

seasons, in which I might interweave the employments and amusements of

all classes. "Here is the very case in point," replied Goethe; "you may

succeed in many parts, but fail in others which refer to what you have

not duly investigated. Perhaps you would do the fisherman well, and the

huntsman ill; and if you fail anywhere, the whole is a failure, however

good single parts may be, and you have not produced a perfect work. Give

separately the single parts to which you are equal, and you make sure of

something good.

"I especially warn you against great inventions of your own; for then

you would try to give a view of things, and for that purpose youth is

seldom ripe. Further, character and views detach themselves as sides

from the poet's mind, and deprive him of the fulness requisite for

future productions. And, finally, how much time is lost in invention,

internal arrangement, and combination, for which nobody thanks us, even

supposing our work is happily accomplished.

"With a _given_ material, on the other hand, all goes easier and better.

Facts and characters being provided, the poet has only the task of

animating the whole. He preserves his own fulness, for he needs to part

with but little of himself, and there is much less loss of time and

power, since he has only the trouble of execution. Indeed, I would

advise the choice of subjects which have been worked before. How many

Iphigenias have been written! yet they are all different, for each

writer considers and arranges the subject differently; namely, after his

own fashion.

"But, for the present, you had better lay aside all great undertakings.

You have striven long enough; it is time that you should enter into the

cheerful period of life, and for the attainment of this, the working out

of small subjects is the best expedient."

_Sunday, October_ 19.--Today, I dined for the first time with Goethe. No

one was present except Frau von Goethe, Fräulein Ulrica, and little

Walter, and thus we were all very comfortable. Goethe appeared now

solely as father of a family, helping to all the dishes, carving the

roast fowls with great dexterity, and not forgetting between whiles to

fill the glasses. We had much lively chat about the theatre, young

English people, and other topics of the day; Fräulein Ulrica was

especially lively and entertaining. Goethe was generally silent, coming

out only now and then with some pertinent remark. From time to time he

glanced at the newspaper, now and then reading us some passages,

especially about the progress of the Greeks.

They then talked about the necessity of my learning English, and Goethe

earnestly advised me to do so, particularly on account of Lord Byron;

saying, that a character of such eminence had never existed before, and

probably would never come again. They discussed the merits of the

different teachers here, but found none with a thoroughly good

pronunciation; on which account they deemed it better to go to some

young Englishman.

After dinner, Goethe showed me some experiments relating to his theory

of colors. The subject was, however, new to me; I neither understood

the phenomena, nor what he said about them. Nevertheless, I hoped that

the future would afford me leisure and opportunity to initiate myself a

little into this science.

* * * * *

_Thursday, November_ 13.--Some days ago, as I was walking one fine

afternoon towards Erfurt, I was joined by an elderly man, whom I

supposed, from his appearance, to be an opulent citizen. We had not

talked together long, before the conversation turned upon Goethe. I

asked him whether he knew Goethe. "Know him?" said he, with some

delight; "I was his valet almost twenty years!" He then launched into

the praises of his former master. I begged to hear something of Goethe's

youth, and he gladly consented to gratify me.

"When I first lived with him," said he, "he might have been about

twenty-seven years old; he was thin, nimble, and elegant in his person.

I could easily have carried him in my arms."

I asked whether Goethe, in that early part of his life here, had not

been very gay. "Certainly," replied he; "he was always gay with the gay,

but never when they passed a certain limit; in that case he usually

became grave. Always working and seeking; his mind always bent on art

and science; that was generally the way with my master. The duke often

visited him in the evening, and then they often talked on learned topics

till late at night, so that I got extremely tired, and wondered when the

duke would go. Even then he was interested in natural science.

"One time he rang in the middle of the night, and when I entered his

room I found he had rolled his iron bed to the window, and was lying

there, looking out upon the heavens. 'Have you seen nothing in the sky?'

asked he; and when I answered in the negative, he bade me run to the

guard-house, and ask the man on duty if he had seen nothing. I went

there; the guard said he had seen nothing, and I returned with this

answer to my master, who was still in the same position, lying in his

bed, and gazing upon the sky. 'Listen,' said he to me; 'this is an

important moment; there is now an earthquake, or one is just going to

take place;' then he made me sit down on the bed, and showed me by what

signs he knew this."

I asked the good old man "what sort of weather it was." "It was very

cloudy," he replied; "no air stirring; very still and sultry."

I asked if he at once believed there was an earthquake on Goethe's word.

"Yes," said he, "I believed it, for things always happened as he said

they would. Next day he related his observations at court, when a lady

whispered to her neighbor, 'Only listen, Goethe is dreaming.' But the

duke, and all the men present, believed Goethe, and the correctness of

his observations was soon confirmed; for, in a few weeks, the news came

that a part of Messina, on that night, had been destroyed by an

earthquake."

_Friday, November_ 14.--Towards evening Goethe sent me an invitation to

call upon him. Humboldt, he said, was at court, and therefore I should

be all the more welcome. I found him, as I did some days ago, sitting in

his armchair; he gave me a friendly shake of the hand, and spoke to me

with heavenly mildness. The chancellor soon joined us. We sat near

Goethe, and carried on a light conversation, that he might only have to

listen. The physician, Counsellor Rehbein, soon came also. To use his

own expression, he found Goethe's pulse quite lively and easy. At this

we were highly pleased, and joked with Goethe on the subject. "If I

could only get rid of the pain in my left side!" he said. Rehbein

prescribed a plaster there; we talked on the good effect of such a

remedy, and Goethe consented to it. Rehbein turned the conversation to

Marienbad, and this appeared to awaken pleasant reminiscences in Goethe.

Arrangements were made to go there again, it was said that the great

duke would join the party, and these prospects put Goethe in the most

cheerful mood. They also talked about Madame Szymanowska, and mentioned

the time when she was here, and all the men were solicitous for her

favor.

When Rehbein was gone, the chancellor read the Indian poems, and Goethe,

in the meanwhile, talked to me about the Marienbad Elegy.

At eight o'clock, the chancellor went, and I was going, too, but Goethe

bade me stop a little, and I sat down. The conversation turned on the

stage, and the fact that _Wallenstein_ was to be done tomorrow. This

gave occasion to talk about Schiller.

"I have," said I, "a peculiar feeling towards Schiller. Some scenes of

his great dramas I read with genuine love and admiration; but presently

I meet with something which violates the truth of nature, and I can go

no further. I feel this even in reading _Wallenstein_. I cannot but

think that Schiller's turn for philosophy injured his poetry, because

this led him to consider the idea far higher than all nature; indeed,

thus to annihilate nature. What he could conceive must happen, whether

it were in conformity with nature or not."

"It was sad," said Goethe, "to see how so highly gifted a man tormented

himself with philosophical disquisitions which could in no way profit

him. Humboldt has shown me letters which Schiller wrote to him in those

unblest days of speculation. There we see how he plagued himself with

the design of perfectly separating sentimental from _naive_ poetry. For

the former he could find no proper soil, and this brought him into

unspeakable perplexity."

"As if," continued he, smiling, "sentimental poetry could exist at all

without the _naive_ ground in which, as it were, it has its root."

"It was not Schiller's plan," continued Goethe, "to go to work with a

certain unconsciousness, and as it were instinctively; he was forced, on

the contrary, to reflect on all he did. Hence it was that he never could

leave off talking about his poetical projects, and thus he discussed

with me all his late pieces, scene after scene.