Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/13

Rh enjoyment, wherefore, then, am I not able to seize it? I lately had a present of a basket of fruit. I was in raptures at the sight of it, as of something heavenly,—such riches, such abundance, such variety, and yet such affinity! I could not persuade myself to pluck off a single berry: I could not bring myself to take a single peach or a fig. Most assuredly this gratification of the eye and the inner sense is the highest and most worthy of man: in all probability it is the design of Nature, when the hungry and thirsty believe that she has exhausted herself in marvels merely for the gratification of their palate. Ferdinand came and found me in the midst of these meditations. He did me justice, and then said, smiling, but with a deep sigh, "Yes, we are not worthy to consume these glorious products of Nature: truly it were a pity. Permit me to make a present of them to my beloved?" How glad was I to see the basket carried off! How did I love Ferdinand! How did I thank him for the feeling he had excited in me, for the prospect he gave me! Ay, we ought to acquaint ourselves with the beautiful: we ought to contemplate it with rapture, and attempt to raise ourselves up to its height. And, in order to gain strength for that, we must keep ourselves thoroughly unselfish: we must not make it our own, but rather seek to communicate it, indeed, to make a sacrifice of it to those who are dear and precious to us.

How sedulously we are shaped and moulded in our youth! how constantly we then are called on to lay aside now this, now that, bad feeling! But what, in fact, are our so-called bad feelings, but so many organs by means of which man is to aid himself in life? How people worry a poor child in whom but a little spark of vanity is discovered! and yet what a poor miserable creature is a man who has no vanity at all! I will now tell you what has led me to make all these