Forster, a little nervous, alert, and piquant man, with gravity written
on his forehead, perspicacity in his eye, and love around his lips,
conquered me completely. I spoke to him of everything except his
journeys; but the traveler showed himself full of unmistakable humanity.
He seemed to me the cosmopolitan spirit personified. It was as if the
world were present when I was alone with him.
We talked about his friend Jacobi, about the late King of Prussia, about
the literature of Germany, and about the present Pole-high standard of
taste. I was much pleased to find in him the art critic I sought. He
said that we must admire everything which is good and beautiful, whether
it originates West, East, South, or North. The taste of the bee is the
true one. Difference in language and climate, difference of nationality,
must not affect my interest in fair and noble things. The unknown repels
the animal, but should not repel the human creature. Suppose you say
that Voltaire is animal in comparison with Shakespeare or Klopstock, or
that they are animal in comparison with him: it is a blunder to demand
pears of an apple-tree, as it is ridiculous to throw away the apple
because it is not a pear. The entire world of nature teaches us this
aesthetic tolerance, and yet we have as little acquired it as we have
freedom of conscience. We plant white and red roses in the same bed, but
who puts the 'Messiah' and the 'Henriade' on the same shelf? He only
who reads neither the one nor the other. True religion worships God;
true taste worships the beautiful without regard of person or nation.
German? French? Italian? or English? All the same! But nothing mediocre.
I was flushed with pleasure; I gave him my hand. "That may be said of
other things than poetry!" I said.--"Of all art!" he answered.--"Of all
that is human!" we both concluded.
Deplorable indolence which clothes our mind in the first heavy cloak
ready to hand, so that all the sunbeams of the world cannot persuade us
to throw it off, much less to assume another! The man who is exclusively
a nationalist is a snail forever chained to his house. Psyche had wings
given her for a never-ending, eternal flight. We may not imprison her,
be the cage ever so large.
He considered that Lessing had wronged the great representative of the
French language; and the remark of Claudius, "Voltaire says he weeps,
and Shakespeare does weep," appeared to him like the saying, "Much that
is new and beautiful has M. Arouet said; but it is a pity that the
beautiful is not new and the new not beautiful,"--more witty than true.
The English think that Shakespeare, as the Germans think that Lessing,
really weeps; the French think the same of Voltaire. But the first weeps
for the whole world, it is said, the last only for his own people. What
the French call "Le Nord" is, to be sure, rather a large territory, but
not the entire world! France calls "whimpering" in one case and
"blubbering" in another what we call weeping. The general mistake is
that we do not understand the nature of the people and the language, in
which and for whom the weeping is done.
We must be English when we read Shakespeare, German when we read
Klopstock, French when we read Voltaire. The man whose soul cannot shed
its national costume and don that of other nations ought not to read,
much less to judge, their masterpieces. He will be looking at the moon
by day and at the sun by night, and see the first without lustre and the
last not at all.