He is the
king of all scholars. In these days and in this country, where the
scholars are few and idle, where men read easy books and sleep after
dinner, it seems as if no book could so safely be put in the hands of
young men as the letters of Goethe, which attest the incessant
activity of this man to eighty years, in an endless variety of
studies with uniform cheerfulness and greatness of mind. They cannot
be read without shaming us into an emulating industry. Let him have
the praise of the love of truth. We think, when we contemplate the
stupendous glory of the world, that it were life enough for one man
merely to lift his hands and cry with St. Augustine, "Wrangle who
pleases, I will wonder." Well, this he did. Here was a man, who, in
the feeling that the thing itself was so admirable as to leave all
comment behind, went up and down from object to object, lifting the
veil from everyone, and did no more. What he said of Lavater, may
trulier be said of him, that "it was fearful to stand in the presence
of one, before whom all the boundaries within which nature has
circumscribed our being were laid flat.
Pages:
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77