Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/264

240 to see in it, not so much what stood upon it, as what I had been thinking of at any time and hour when I drew. Thus plants and flowers of the commonest kind may form a charming diary for us, because nothing that calls back the remembrance of a happy moment can be insignificant; and even now it would be hard for me to destroy as worthless many things of the kind that have remained to me from different epochs, because they transport me immediately to those times which I like to remember, although not without melancholy.

But, if such drawings may have had anything of interest in themselves, they were indebted for this advantage to the sympathy and attention of my father. He, informed by my overseer that I had become gradually reconciled to my condition, and, in particular, had applied myself passionately to drawing from nature, was very well satisfied,—partly because he himself set a high value on drawing and painting, partly because gossip Seekatz had once said to him, that it was a pity I was not destined for a painter. But here again the peculiarities of father and son came into conflict: for it was almost impossible for me to make use of a good, white, perfectly clean sheet of paper; gray old leaves, even if scribbled over on one side already, charmed me most, just as if my awkwardness had feared the touchstone of a white ground. Nor were any of my drawings quite finished; and how should I have executed a whole, which indeed I saw with my eyes, but did not comprehend, and how an individual object, which I had neither skill nor patience to follow out? My father's mode of training me in this respect was really to be admired. He kindly asked for my attempts, and drew lines round every imperfect sketch. He wished, by this means, to compel me to completeness and fulness of detail. The irregular leaves he cut straight, and