Page:Novalis Schriften - Volume 2.djvu/166

★ 156 ★ Everyone knows that the queen is thoroughly against superficiality. Therefore I do not understand how she can endure court life as it is. Her taste, which is closely at one with her heart, must be unable to bear its insipid monotony.

Barring room decorations now and then, one comes across almost no trace of taste in the drama and concert of a European court, and even with those exceptions, how often are they tastelessly enjoyed, how often will they not be tastelessly enjoyed? But how supremely varied could it be? Guided by the queen's taste, a brilliant master of ceremonies could make the court into an earthly paradise, could guide it through the simple theme of enjoying life through inexhaustible variations, and allow it to behold objects of common devotion in an always new, always stimulating milieu. For what feeling is is more heavenly than knowing that the ones you love are the truest enjoyment of life.

24. Any educated woman and any caring mother should have the image of the queen in her or her daughter's living room. What a beautiful, powerful reminder of the archetype that everyone would have set themselves to achieve. The character trait of the new Prussian woman, her national trait, would be similarity with the queen. A lovely being in a thousandfold forms. A meaningful ceremony of homage to the queen could easily be instituted with each wedding; and thus one ought to ennoble ordinary life through the king and queen, as the ancients otherwise did with their gods. There genuine religiosity arose through this constant integration of the world of the gods