Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/24

18 the river and the road; here, again, broad masses lie piled one over another, while close beside stands a line of sharp-pointed crags. Wide clefts run yawning upward; and blocks, of the size of a wall, have detached themselves from the rest of the stony mass. Some fragments of the rock have rolled to the bottom: others are still suspended, and by their position alarm you, as also likely at any moment to come toppling down.

Now round, now pointed, now overgrown, now bare, are the tops of these rocks, among and high above which some single bald summit boldly towers; while along the perpendicular cliffs, and among the hollows below, the weather has worn many a deep and winding cranny.

The passage through this defile raised in me a grand but calm emotion. The sublime produces a beautiful calmness in the soul, which, entirely possessed by it, feels as great as it ever can feel. How glorious is such a pure feeling when it rises to the very highest, without overflowing! My eye and my soul were both able to take in the objects before me; and as I was preoccupied by nothing, and had no false tastes to counteract their impression, they had on me their full and natural effect. When we compare such a feeling with that we are sensible of when we laboriously harass ourselves with some trifle, and strain every nerve to gain as much as possible for it, and, as it were, to patch it out, striving to furnish joy and aliment to the mind from its own creation, we then feel sensible what a poor expedient, after all, the latter is.

A young man whom we have had for our companion from Basle said his feelings were very far from what they were on his first visit, and gave all the honour to novelty. I, however, would say, when we see such objects as these for the first time, the unaccustomed soul has to expand itself; and this gives rise to a sort of