Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/16

10 me. In it man does but ape Nature, who scatters her seeds everywhere; whereas man would choose that a particular field should produce none but one particular fruit. But things do not go on exactly so: the weeds spring up luxuriantly; the cold and wet injures the crop, or the hail cuts it off entirely. The poor husbandman anxiously waits throughout the year to see how the cards will decide the game with the clouds, and determine whether he shall win or lose his stakes. Such a doubtful, ambiguous condition may be right suitable to man in his present ignorance, while he knows not whence he came, nor whither he is going. It may, then, be tolerable to man to resign all his labours to chance; and thus the parson, at any rate, has an opportunity, when things look thoroughly bad, to remind him of Providence, and to connect the sins of his flock with the incidents of Nature.

So, then, I have nothing to joke Ferdinand about! I, too, have met with a pleasant adventure. Adventure!—why do I use the silly word? There is nothing of adventure in a gentle attraction which draws man to man. Our social life, our false relations—those are adventures, those are monstrosities; and yet they come before us as well known, and as nearly akin to us, as uncle and aunt.

We had been introduced to Herr Tüdou; and we found ourselves very happy among this family,—rich, open-hearted, good-natured, lively people, who in the society of their children, in comfort and without care, enjoy the good which each day brings with it, their property, and their glorious neighbourhood. We young folks were not required, as is too often the case in so many formal households, to sacrifice ourselves at the card-table in order to humour the old. On the contrary, the old people—father, mother, and aunts—gathered round us, when, for our own amusement, we