Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/349

Rh Here men know nothing of one another. They scarcely observe that others are also going on their way, side by side with them. They run all day backward and forward in a paradise, without looking around them; and, if the neighbouring jaws of hell begin to open and to rage, they have recourse to St. Januarius.

To pass through such a countless multitude, with its restless excitement, is strange, but salutary. Here they are all crossing and recrossing one another, and yet every one finds his way and his object. In so great a crowd and bustle I feel more calm and solitary than on other occasions: the more bustling the streets become, the more quietly I move.

Often do I think of Rousseau and his hypochondriacal discontent; and I can thoroughly understand how so fine an organisation may have been deranged. Did I not myself feel such sympathy with natural objects; and did I not see, that, in the apparent perplexity, a hundred seemingly contrary observations admit of being reconciled, and arranged side by side, just as the geometer by across line tests many measurements, I should often think myself mad.

March 18, 1787. We must not any longer put off our visit to Herculaneum, and the Museum of Portici, where the curiosities which have been dug out of it are collected and preserved. That ancient city, lying at the foot of Vesuvius, was entirely covered with lava, which subsequent eruptions successively raised so high that the buildings are at present sixty feet below the surface. The city was discovered by some men coming upon a marble pavement, as they were digging a well. It is a great pity that the excavation was not executed systematically by German miners; for it is admitted that the work, which was carried on at random, and with