mentary on these poems, which are real expressions of what he has thought and felt: Spät erklingt was früh erklang, Glück und Unglück wird Gesang. Even when, as in the ballads, or in poems such as the exquisite Idyl of Alexis and Dora, he is not giving utterance to any personal experience, he is scarcely ever feigning. Many of the smaller poems are treasures of wisdom; many are little else than the carollings of a bird'singing of summer in full-throated ease.' But one and all are inaccessible through translation; therefore I cannot attempt to give the English reader an idea of them; the German reader has already anticipated me, by studying them in the original. BOOK THE SEVENTH. SUNSET. 1085 to 1832. Ως εύ ισθι ότι εμοιγε όσον αἱ αλλαι αἱ κατα το σωμα ήδοναι απομαραίνονται, τοσουτον αύξονται αἱ περι τους λογους επιθυμίαι τε και ήδοναι. — PLATO, Rep. i. 6. 'Le Temps l'a rendu spectateur. 30* MAD. DE STAEL. BOOK THE SEVENTH. CHAPTER I. THE BATTLE OF JENA. THE death of Schiller left him very lonely. It was more than the loss of a friend; it was the loss also of an energetic stimulus which had urged him to production; and in the activity of production he lived an intenser life. During the long laborious years which followed, years of accumulation, of study, of fresh experience, and of varied plans, we shall see him produce works of which many might be proud; but the noonday splendor of his life has passed, and the light which we admire is the calm effulgence of the setting sun. As if to make him fully aware of his loss, Jacobi came to Weimar; and although the first meeting of the old friends was very pleasant, they soon found the chasm which separated them intellectually, had become wider and wider, as each developed in his own direction. Goethe found that he understood neither Jacobi's ideas nor his language. Jacobi found himself a stranger in the world of his old friend. Alas! this is one of the penalties we pay for progress: we find ourselves severed from the ancient moorings; we find our language is like that of foreigners to those who once were dear to us, and understood us. Jacobi departed, leaving him more painfully conscious of the loss he had sustained in losing Schiller's ardent sympathy. During the following month, Gall visited Jena, in the first successful eagerness of propagating his system of Phrenology, which was then a startling novelty. All who acknowledge the very large debt which Physiology and Psychology owe to Gall's labors (which acknowledgment by no means implies an acceptance of the premature, and, in many respects imperfect, system founded on those labors), will be glad to observe that Goethe not only attended Gall's lectures, but in private conversations showed so much sympathy, and such ready appreciation, that Gall visited him in his sick-room, and dissected the brain in his presence, communicating all the new views to which he had been led. Instead of meeting this theory with ridicule, contempt, and the opposition of ancient prejudices as men of science, no less than men of the world, were and are still wont to meet it Goethe saw at once the importance of Gall's mode of dissection (since universally adopted), and of his leading views; although he also saw that science was not sufficiently advanced for a correct verdict to be delivered. Gall's doctrine pleased him because it determined the true position of Psychology in the study of man. It pleased him because it connected man with Nature more intimately than was done in the old schools, showing the identity of all mental manifestation in the animal kingdom.* * Gall's assertion that Goethe was born for political Oratory more than for Poetry, has much amused those who know Goethe's dislike of politics; and does not, indeed, seem a very happy hit. |