Page:Novalis Schriften - Volume 2.djvu/134

★ 124 ★ 61. The German has long been the little boy, Billy. But he will soon become an adult, the William of all Williams. He is doing what many stupid children are supposed to do: he come into his own life and be wise when his early-bloomer siblings have long since rotted away and he is now the sole master of the house.

62. The best thing about scholarly knowledge is its philosophical ingredient, it is like life in the organic body. If one de-philosophizes this knowledge: what is left? Earth, air and water.

63. To be human is a humorous role.

64. Our old nationality was, it seems to me, really Roman. Naturally, we came into being just like the Romans

Naturally, since we came into being just in the same way as the Romans; the name, Roman Empire, would thus truly be a good coincidence rich in meaning. Germany is Rome as a country. A country is a big place with its gardens. Perhaps its Capitol could be determined by honking of geese before the Gauls. The instinctive universal politics and tendency of the Romans also lie within the German people. The best that the French have achieved in the Revolution is a bit of being German.

65. Courts of justice, theater, the royal court, church, government, public meetings, academies, colleges, etc., are, as it were, the special, internal organs of the mystical individual of the state.

66. All the coincidences of our life are materials from which we can make what we want. Whoever has much spirit makes much of his life. For the completely spiritual person, every acquaintance, every incident, would be the first link in an infinite series, the beginning of an infinite novel. 67. The noble merchant spirit, the real wholesale trade, only flourished in the Middle Ages and especially during the German Hanseatic League.