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and with his happiness his health . On his recovery from a dangerous illness , his mistress is fled , and he is left with his spirits broken , and unfit for the duties of his station ; he is sent from home on the pretence of commercial business , but he feels himself at liberty to pursue his vagrant taste * His amour had connected him with actors , and he had already formed the
notion that he had talents both for dramatic poetry and the stage . He falls in with a company of strollers , with whom he associates , half patron , half companion . His passion for the lost Marianne had not rendered him unsusceptible of kindred attractions , and he is easily drawn on to accompany his new friends to the chateau
of a Count ; here he becomes connected with a noble family , among the females of which he has the felicity of contemplating every variety of female excellence of the nobler class , as among the actresses no attraction of a lower kind was wanting . The individuals of this noble family , and a corps drarnatique , ( with whom he for a time condescends even to associate as a member , )
are his instructors ,, by means of whom he is taught his own unfitness for the stage , and , at the same time , is allowed to enter the . career of domestic life as a man of formed character and varied endowments . Romantic incidents are supplied , by means of which he is , at the end of his apprenticeship , dismissed with the prospect i of felicity , though whether he even at last attain it , is somewhat ! doubtful ; our author being singularly indifferent to what constitutes
> the charm of a novel to its sympathizing readers , —the denouement So much for the story . Among the episodes , the excellence I of which has been acknowledged by those who find the mpst M *> censure in the work , deserve especial mention , * The Confessions' ( einer schonen seele ) * of a beautiful Soul , of which we have already spoken , vol . vi . p . 294 . Our orthodox friends will understand us at once when we inform them that it is an cxperience 9 but let them by no means , therefore , run to the next
library for a copy . It will not gratify the admirers of either Mrs . Hannah More , Mr . Cunningham , or Mr . Ward . Though she has been led by the hand of Providence to reject her earthly lover , and had been brought to ' feel the sweetest enjoyment of all her vital powers in intercourse with the invisible friend , ' yet there is one feature in her character which distinguishes her from all the heroines of our pious romancers . With every desire and even effort to be alarmed for her future condition , it was out
of her power ; it was impossible for her to imagine either a place of torment or a tormentor ; nor could she contemplate God any otherwise than as an object of affection . The want of the love of God appeared to her its own sufficient punishment . —• I scarcely remember a command . Nothing appears to me under the form of a law . It is an impulse which conducts me , and always aright . I follow my sentiments freely , and know as little of restraint as of repentance * God be praised that 1 know to
Untitled Article
186 Goethe ' s Works .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1833, page 186, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2610/page/42/
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