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Updated: May 8, 2025
Do not isolate yourself. Be among men and among things, and among troubles, and difficulties, and obstacles. You remember Goethe's words: "Talent develops itself in solitude; character in the stream of life." Talent develops itself in solitude the talent of prayer, of faith, of meditation, of seeing the unseen; character grows in the stream of the world's life.
The local Goethe-cult, so he wrote to Koerner, was characterized by a proud, philosophic contempt of all speculation and investigation. This 'child-like simplicity of mind', this 'resigned surrender to the five senses', seemed to him a sort of affectation. Besides this he was irritated by Goethe's prosperity and lordly independence. At the same time he could not help admiring him as a poet.
Nothing could be more really subversive of the foundations on which the old European order rested; and it may be remarked that no persons are so radically detached from this order, no persons so thoroughly modern, as those who have felt Goethe's influence most deeply.
A great many works of art besides Goethe's, not merely of lyric poetry, but also of the novel and drama, among them some of the greatest, like the Divine Comedy, so far as they spring intimately from the life of the artist, are "fragments of a great confession," and have had the sanitary value of a confession for their creators.
The highly successful translation of Goethe's dramatic works, by Stapfer, was noticed by Monsieur J. J. Ampere in the Parisian Globe of last year, in a manner no less excellent, and this affected Goethe so agreeably that he very often recurred to it, and expressed his great obligations to it. "Ampere's point of view is a very high one," said he.
Translator, etc., s. of a merchant, travelled on the Continent, learned German, and became an enthusiastic student of German literature, which he was one of the first to introduce to his fellow-countrymen. He translated Bürger's Lenore, Lessing's Nathan, and Goethe's Iphigenia. He also wrote Tales of Yore and English Synonyms Described .
This will also have been Goethe's opinion, as he was generally the source from which Riemer drew his observations. And, indeed, Rousseau's maxim applies to every line that is printed. Would a man in a mask ever be allowed to harangue a mob, or speak in any assembly; and that, too, when he was going to attack others and overwhelm them with abuse?
There are no analphabets to be found among them; all the more, however, of those who, besides their rifle, have their Goethe's "Faust," their "Zarathustra," a work of Schopenhauer's, the Bible, or their Homer in their knapsacks. And even those who have no book in the knapsack know that they are fighting for a hearth at which every guest is welcome.
My eyes wandered over the wilderness of ancient roofs upon which the windows of Goethe's house looked out, and discovered a small spot where the blue mountain-peaks appeared. "Why, there is a distant horizon!" I involuntarily exclaimed. "Ah, but even that is so near!" replied Frau von Goethe, smiling.
Families were divided upon this question against families, and often against themselves; feuds, begun in private, issued often into public violence; and, according to Goethe's own illustration, the streets were vexed by daily brawls, as hot and as personal as of old between the Capulets and Montagues.
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