Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/280

256 ness of youth! — nay, of men in general, that they can, at every moment of their existence, fancy themselves finished, and inquire after neither the true nor the false, after neither the high nor the deep, but merely after that which is suited to them.

I had thus learned Latin, like German, French, and English, merely by practice, without rules, and without comprehension. Whoever knows the then condition of scholastic instruction will not think it strange that I skipped grammar as well as rhetoric; all seemed to me to come together naturally: I retained the words, their forms and inflexions, in my ear and mind, and used the language with ease in writing and in chattering.

Michaelmas, the time fixed for my going to the university, was approaching; and my mind was excited quite as much about my life as about my learning. I grew more and more clearly conscious of an aversion to my native city. By Gretchen's removal, the heart had been broken out of the boyish and youthful plant: it needed time to bud forth again from its sides, and surmount the first injury by a new growth. My ramblings through the streets had ceased; I now, like others, only went such ways as were necessary. I never went again into Gretchen's quarter of the city, not even into its vicinity: and as my old walls and towers became gradually disagreeable to me, so also was I displeased at the constitution of the city; all that hitherto seemed so worthy of honour now appeared to me in distorted shapes. As grandson of the Schultheiss I had not remained unacquainted with the secret defects of such a republic; the less so, as children feel quite a peculiar surprise, and are excited to busy researches, as soon as something which they have hitherto implicitly revered becomes in any degree suspicious to them. The fruitless indignation of upright men, in opposition to those who are to be gained and