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peculiarities of taste and feeling which Goethe thinks distinguish the heathen from the Christian , such , for instance , as a stronger predisposition to friendship than to love ; and also made an apologetic statement of his utterly destitute condition , he thus proceeds under the rubric ' Catholicism . ' Winkelmann could not but feel , that in order to be a Roman in Rome , and become intimately incorporated with the mode of existence that there prevailed , and enjoy confidential intercourse , he must become a member of their community , adopt their usages , and acknowledge their creed ; and
the result showed that without this early resolution he could never have completely attained his object . But to himself the Catholic Teligion had no attractions . He saw in it merely a masquerade dress which he put on , and he expressed himself bitterly on the subject . Later in life he does not appear to have sufficiently adhered to their practices , and perhaps by free speech made himself
an object of suspicion to strict and zealous believers—at least we here and there remark some slight fear of the inquisition / And Goethe thus remarks on the state of public opinion upon conversions of every kind : ' Whoever changes his religion contracts , as it were , a stain from which it seems impossible to be purified . Men esteem above all things a constant will , more especially on those points on which they divide into parties , and are anxious
concerning their safety and their permanence . Neither feeling nor conviction are allowed to be conclusive . Men are expected to remain where fate rather than choice placed them . Hence unshaken attachment to a native town , a prince , a friend , a wifefor these to labour , and for these to endure privation ; this it
is which brings high honour , while apostasy is odious , and vacillation contemptible / On occasion of Winkelmann ' s connexion with Rome , the promised land of his aspirations , and the spot where his labours were executed , Goethe avails himself of the opportunity to give expression to his own ideas excited by that unique city ; aware that they would be deemed strange if not offensive , he thinks proper to ascribe them to another : — 4 Rome : A friend has ingeniously developed the strong
impression which the actual state of Rome is calculated to excite . Rome is the place in which , according to our view , all antiquity concentrates itself—and what we feel on reading the ancient poets , or studying the ancient political constitutions , all this we more than feel , we immediately behold , in Rome . As Homer cannot be compared with any other poet , so Rome and its environs will not admit of a comparison with any other city or any other environs .
Freundlich empfange das Wort laut ausgesprochner Verehrung-. Das die Parcee mir fast schnitt von den Lip pen hinweg . Kindly accept the ward of loudly spoken veneration That the Parcn had nearly cut from my lips . I please myself with thinking that . I may perhaps have thu » preserved though but an atom of the great poet ' s * nobifi $ cnti in $ empiici parole . —Aotc communicated .
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5172 Goethe ' s Works .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1833, page 272, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2612/page/56/
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