Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/142

122 weight,—this mysterious virtue had so excited my admiration, that for a long time I was pleased with merely staring at its operation. But at last I thought I might arrive at some nearer revelation by tearing away the external covering. This was done; but I became no wiser in consequence, as the naked iron taught me nothing further. This also I took off; and I held in my hand the mere stone, with which I never grew weary of making experiments of various kinds on filings and needles,—experiments from which my youthful mind drew no further advantage beyond that of a varied experience. I could not manage to reconstruct the whole arrangement: the parts were scattered, and I lost the wondrous phenomenon at the same time with the apparatus.

Nor was I more fortunate in putting together an electrical machine. A friend of the family, whose youth had fallen in the time when electricity occupied all minds, often told us how, when a child, he had desired to possess such a machine: he got together the principal requisites, and, by the aid of an old spinning-wheel and some medicine bottles, had produced tolerable results. As he readily and frequently repeated the story, and imparted to us some general information on electricity, we children found the thing very plausible, and long tormented ourselves with an old spinning-wheel and some medicine bottles, without producing even the smallest result. We nevertheless adhered to our belief, and were much delighted, when at the time of the fair, among other rarities, magical and legerdemain tricks, an electrical machine performed its marvels, which, like those of magnetism, were at that time already very numerous.

The want of confidence in the public method of instruction was daily increasing. People looked about for private tutors; and, because single families could not afford the expense, several of them united to attain