Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/166

146 on a large scale. It is no longer flocks which are gained for himself from a father-in-law, but nations, with all their possessions, which he knows how to purchase for a king. Extremely graceful is this natural story, only it appears too short; and one feels called upon to paint it in detail.

Such a filling-up of Biblical characters and events given only in outline, was no longer strange to the Germans. The personages of both the Old and New Testaments had received through Klopstock a tender and affectionate nature, highly pleasing to the boy, as well as to many of his contemporaries. Of Bodmer's efforts in this line, little or nothing came to him; but "Daniel in the Lions' Den," by Moser, made a great impression on the young heart. In that work, a right-minded man of business, and courtier, arrives at high honours through manifold tribulations; and the piety for which they threatened to destroy him became, early and late, his sword and buckler. It had long seemed to me desirable to work out the history of Joseph; but I could not get on with the form, particularly as I was conversant with no kind of versification which would have been adapted to such a work. But now I found a treatment of it in prose very suitable, and I applied all my strength to its execution. I now endeavoured to discriminate and paint the characters, and, by the interpolation of incidents and episodes, to make the old simple history a new and independent work. I did not consider, what, indeed, youth cannot consider, that subject-matter was necessary to such a design, and that this could only arise by the perceptions of experience. Suffice it to say, that I represented to myself all the incidents down to the minutest details, and narrated them accurately to myself in their succession.

What greatly lightened this labour was a circumstance which threatened to render this work, and