Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/397

Rh go there. I am too little versed in these matters, and a mere curiosity-mongering traveller is thoroughly detested by all true connoisseurs and scholars. But as one must in every case make a beginning, I made myself easy on this head, and have derived both gratification and profit from my visit. What a satisfaction, even cursorily, to glance at the fact that the old world was thickly sown with cities, the smallest of which has bequeathed to us in its precious coins, if not a complete series, yet at least some epochs, of its history of art. Out of these cabinets, there smiles upon us an eternal spring of the blossoms and flowers of art, of a busy life ennobled with high tastes, and of much more besides. Out of these form-endowed pieces of metal, the glory of the Sicilian cities, now obscured, still shines forth fresh before us.

Unfortunately, we in our youth had seen none but family coins, which say nothing, and the coins of the Cæsars, which repeat to satiety the same profile,—portraits of rulers who are to be regarded as anything but models of humanity. How sadly had our youth been confined to a shapeless Palestine, and to a shape-perplexing Rome! Sicily and Nova Græcia give me hopes again of a fresh existence.

That on these subjects I should enter into general reflections, is a proof that as yet I do not understand much about them; yet that, with all the rest, will in degrees be improved.

This evening a wish of mine was gratified, and in a very singular fashion. I was standing on the pavement of the principal street, joking at the window with the shopkeeper I formerly mentioned, when suddenly a footman, tall and well-dressed, came up to me, and quickly poked a silver salver before me, on which were several copper coins and a few pieces of silver.