Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 14.djvu/34

18 l8 LIFE AND WORKS OF GOETHE

sneers of some who think a poet has nothing better to do than to rhapsodise. They tolerate his enthusiasm for Palladio, because Architecture is one of the Arts ; and forgive the enthusiasm which seized him in Vicenza and made him study Palladio's works as if he were about to train himself for an architect ; but they are distressed to find him in Padua, once more occupied with " cabbages," and tormented with the vague con- ception of a Typical Plant, which will not leave him. Let me confess, however, that some cause for disap- pointment exists. The poet's yearning is fulfilled ; and yet how httle Hterary enthusiasm escapes him! Italy is the land of History, Literature, Painting, and Music; its highways are sacred with associations of the Past ; its byways are centres of biographic and artistic interest. Yet Goethe, in raptures with the chmate, and the beauties of Nature, is almost sHent about Literature, has no sense of Music, and no feeling for History. He passes through Verona without a thought of Eomeo and Juliet; through Ferrara with- out a word of Ariosto, and scarcely a word of Tasso. In this land of the Past, it is Present only which allures him. He turns aside in disgust from the pic- tures of crucifixions, martyrdoms, emaciated monks, and all the hospital pathos which makes galleries hid- eous; only in Raphael's healthier beauty, and more human conceptions, can he take delight. He has no historic sense enabling him to qualify his hatred of superstition by recognition of the prinful religious struggles, which in their evolutions assumed these superstitious forms. He considers the pictures as things of the present, and because their motives are hideous he is disgusted ; but a man of more historic feeling would, while marking his dislike of such con- ceptions, have known how to place them in their serial position in the historic development of mankind.

It is not for Literature, it is not for History, it is