The gentle girl, with heart of hope, And often, in a day of June, You lift yourself from off the wave, And with its cold, moist freshness lave You can be kind, I fain would crave There's nought but space within my purse, I've burnt my bootjack, robbed the floor, The lumbermen are stern; And now, I swear I've nothing more, Oh! therefore seek again the seas, And earn his thankful praise; Boston, April 1. APHORISMS ON GOETHE. FROM THE GERMAN OF GLASER. 1. He who has not, by repeated perusal and frequent meditation of Goethe's entire productions, fully familiarized himself with the mind and genius of their author who has not minutely and appreciatingly studied all his works so as to perceive and grasp their several and collective characteristics and peculiarities, is, in my opinion, not competent to form a correct judgment concerning any one of them. At least, such a man's judgment must inevitably be partial and defective. 2. There is nothing more delightful than to yield oneself up wholly to such a poet as Goethe; silently, calmly, and passively permitting his genius to operate on our feelings and engross our perceptions. Susceptible minds will readily experience and duly appreciate the exquisite delight attendant on, and consequent to, such submissiveness. 3. Powerful effects and peculiar results, as regards the German mind and character, are to be expected when Goethe's works come to be, in a more special sense, national property. That is, when they shall be generally diffused and thoroughly familiarized among the people — when their spirit shall have pervaded and imbued the public sentiment, and begin to operate on and through the general mass of mind, after having become intimately amalgamated and assimilated therewith. know no other poet who can satisfy, in so refreshing and instructive a manner, the poetic feeling and expectation of an educated modern. Our other poets (and they are numerous) have indeed furnished beautiful poetic productions, each excellent and admirable in its class; but his is the unrivalled and surpassing genius that grasps all the powers of the German muse, uniting them like radii in a common centre. 4. It seems as though Nature intended to produce in Goethe a poet who, disregarding dogmas and opinions, should, free and untrammelled, contemplate the external world and the various phases of active life from the inmost recesses of his mind and the depths of his genius— casting a new splendor around even the stale and the antiquated. He ever sedulously shunned common-place sentiments, trite expressions, and learning merely roted; and frequently neglected or rejected a subject when he found that he could not grasp it with assured power and discuss it with spirit and vigor. But when he could so seize and use his selected topic - when he felt within himself the poetic impulse, his progress was rapid and irresistible, and his perceptions were expressed in clear, forcible, and glowing language. 5. Goethe says of Raphael: "He uniformly did precisely what others wished to do." This remark holds equally true of himself. 6. Goethe is not a mere author. He constantly refers us to active life and actual experience-even in his more abstruse scientific investigations. He has proclaimed it, times without number, that Nature and Truth alone can be the bases of genuine Science and Poesy. All the other German poets were, in a greater or less degree, learned poets constantly drawing for illustration and embellishment on their fund of scholastic lore, instead of recurring to the treasures gathered by personal observation—and they are consequently, more or less, mere authors. 7. In perusing Shakspeare, who fathomed all the depths of human passion, we are induced to close our eyes and exclude the outer world, that the forms and images which he has "bodied forth" may act the more distinctly and intensively on our minds. But in reading Goethe, we, on the contrary, find ourselves constantly admonished and required to open them more widely to the splendor of the world which he presents to our view, and to the beauty of nature as depicted by him. 8. In Goethe we enjoy a second, a superior existence. He exhibits the world to us as in a mirror; and presents a rich, warm, glowing, and breathing representation of external life. All, indeed, mainly depends on the mind of the individual, which must be capable of embracing with lively interest even the most minute objects. He who once enters this enchanted enclosure, and wanders through the grounds over which the sorcerer has thrown his spell, must indeed be callous to impressions from external nature if he can easily tear himself away from the witcheries with which he finds himself surrounded. 9. Goethe's imagery remains for ever fixed in the mind, for it is genuine and true. The scenes and occurrences of real life perpetually remind us of his representations and descriptions; and while engaged in reading his works, all that we have observed and experienced is recalled to our recollection. In him we have a standard of life and action - let him be our faithful attendant, our instructor, our friend, our comforter. 10. I constantly enjoy Goethe's poetical productions, even when not actually engaged in perusing them because I exist wholly therein. Each of them has left on my mind an impression that can never be effaced. When, after a long lapse of time, I re-peruse one of his works, it appears to me familiar, yet new-because I have meanwhile extended and enlarged the sphere of my experience. But why do they make such an impression? Because they embody an infinitude of truths. 11. It is probably not the case with any other poet than Goethe, that his productions are perpetually rendered more clear and comprehensible by an active participation in the business and bustle of life, and the constant exercise and improvement of the mind. In his poetical effusions the original, infantile, simple, and paradisiacal innocence of Poesy, is combined with the most intimate, mature, and circumspect knowledge of the world. As his conceptions and descriptions embrace a perfect range, from the patriarchal ages to modern times, so the pe culiar sentiments and modes of thought pertaining to the various periods are correctly mirrored in his works. Compare, for instance, many of his songs and ballads, breathing wholly the innocent naivity of popular poesy, with that production of his later years the "Wahlverwandschafter." 12. For a man accustomed to solitude, and who feels little incentive or impulse to mingle in the bustle of active life, Goethe is the best and most fitting companion. He sets in lively motion all that is sluggish and stagnant in our composition, and, indeed, as regards this effect, operates on us like Nature itself. 13. It is worthy of remark, that the greater part of Goethe's works sprung into existence and succeeded each other by a kind of necessity, like the productions of nature. Each was so produced at a particular period, that it manifestly could not have been produced at any other. With every effort Goethe could not have written "Werther" at the period of the "Lehrjahre," and vice versa. Each of his works was conceived and produced in a distinct and specific period of his life; and each must be judged of with constant reference to this fact. BY NOVALIS (HARDENBERG.) 1. Goethe is altogether a practical poet. His productions are like British fabrics, extremely neat, simple, convenient, and durable. He has done for German literature what Wedgwood did for British arts and manufactures. He possessed naturally, like the English, an economic taste, improved by practical good sense-for the two are compatible, and have, in chemical phrase, a close affinity. His scientific and philosophic studies and essays render it very manifest that it was his ruling disposition rather to finish a trifle, by imparting to it the highest polish and perfection whereof it was susceptible, than to project a world or commence an undertaking which, it might easily be foreseen, would never be completed, but must ever remain crude, clumsy, and imperfect being essentially and intrinsically of a nature forbidding all hope of displaying masterly skill in its treatment. 2. Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre is a work essentially prosaic and unspiritual. The romantic is therein sacrificed without scruple, as is also that poetry of nature, the wonderful. The work treats merely of common-place worldly affairs. Nature and mysticism are wholly disregarded and repudiated. It is a poetic story of social and domestic Jife, in which the wonderful is treated expressly as, and substituted for, poetry and enthusiasm. An atheism of Art constitutes the spirit of the book; and remarkable, indeed, is the economy wherewith it is made to produce a poetic effect by the employment of materials cheap and essentially prosaic. 3. Wilhelm Meister is in reality a Candide aimed against poetry. The work is in a high degree unpoetical in spirit, however poetic be its execution. After the fervor, the madness, and the wild depicturings in the first moiety of Part Third, the "Confessions" are a relief to the reader. The Abbe's supervision is tedious and ludicrous; the tower of Lothario's castle is grossly incongruous, and the muses are converted into female comedians, while Poetry supplies the place of Farce. It may be questioned which loses most nobility, because associated with poetry, or poetry because personated by nobility. The introduction of Shakspeare produces an effect almost tragical. The hero prevents the triumph of the system of economy, and ultimately the economy of nature alone survives. 4. Singular as it may seem to many, there is, nevertheless, nothing more true than that the manner of treating a subject, the external form imparted, and the melody of style, constitute the chief attraction in reading- the fascination which chains us to this or that particular book. Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre are a powerful proof of this magic of manner of this insinuating flattery of smooth, flowing, simple, yet diversified language. He who possesses this art of gracefully discussing and presenting his topics, never fails to charm his reader, to fix his attention, and win his admiration and applause. Even when he relates the most insignificant tale we find ourselves attracted and entertained. This spiritual unity is the true soul of a book, that causes it to appear to us personified as it were, and confers on it an influence powerfully operative on the public mind. EPIGRAM. QUINTUS asks, with much surprise, Why all his dreams prove false and light. What marvel! since in telling lies He spends the day, it were unwise To hope to dream the truth at night! |