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want to act out of the limits of the demands and the capacities of the circle in which God and Nature have placed him . Everything precipitate is injurious ; it is not wholesome to overleap intermediate steps ; and yet now-a-days almost everything is precipitate , and almost every
one is inclined to advance by leaps . Let every one only do the right in liis place , without troubling himself about the turmoil of the world ( which , far or near , consumes the hours in the most unprofitable manner ) , and like-minded men will soon attach themselves to him , and confidential interchange of thoughts , and growing insight into things , will of themselves form ever-widening circles .
' Damit das gute wirke , wachse , fromme , Damit der tag des edlen endlich komme . ' *—vol . ii . p . 289 , &c . That such language as this might be a cover for selfishness or cowardice , is quite certain ; as also that it might ( unconnected by other equally just notions ) occasion an abandonment of duty . It is enough here to exhibit this as a striking feature in the character of this very remarkable man ; we add an illustrative note by a friend . ' You are aware that in 1804 there was a turn-out among the Jena buroshe ( students ) ; strike , 1 believe , is now the word among your operatives . It ended in the departure of several hundred students , and the
university never recovered the fatal blow . I waited on Goethe , to solicit his interference : nothing could exceed his courtesy or good humour , lie admitted the truth of all my allegations- The students , he said , are quite right in their pretensions—that is , in their position as students they feel and act very naturally ; but then the Duke is , after all , sovereign , and he sees matters from a different point of view . 4 i So geht es immer ^ Lie her I in diesoi Polizei-sachenwo jedermanrecht hat "— " It is always so in these matters of police , in which all parties are in the right . "
Others would have said—where all are in the wrong . But it amounted to as much , and silenced me ; for when all I said was allowed to be true , I liad no excuse for going on with my argument . Not to kick against the pricks , not to fret at disappointments , but to make the best of things as they are , in this not the best , nor the worst , of possible worlds , were the p lain , practical , unheroic , and undignified rules of conduct which Goethe practised through life . In this , as in all similar matters , he would not interfere . '
We cannot dismiss this discourse without extracting a short passage , on account of its orig inality , beauty , and significance . It is part of a letter to the Grand Duchess Louisa . * The smallest production of Nature lias the circle of its completeness within itself ; and I have only need of eyes to see with , in order to
discover the relative proportions . I am perfectly sure that within this circle , however narrow , an entirely genuine existence is enclosed . A work of art , on the other hand , has its completeness out of itself ; the best lies in the idea of the avtist , which he seldom or never reaches ; all the rest lies in certain conventional rules , which are , indeed , derived ? So that the ^ ood may work , may grow , may profit , So that the day of the just may come at length .
Untitled Article
Characteristics of Goethe . 185
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1834, page 185, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2631/page/25/
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