Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/347

Rh endure anything worthy near it, know how to spoil, on occasion, the moral influence which Gellert might have had upon us. Now it was taken ill of him that he instructed the Danes of distinction and wealth, who were particularly recommended to him, better than the other students, and had a marked solicitude for them; now he was charged with selfishness and nepotism for causing a table d'hôte to be established for these young men at his brother's house. This brother, a tall, good-looking, blunt, unceremonious, and somewhat coarse man, had, it was said, been a fencing-master; and, notwithstanding the too great lenity of his brother, the noble boarders were often treated harshly and roughly: hence the people thought they must again take the part of these young folks, and pulled about the good reputation of the excellent Gellert to such a degree, that, in order not to be mistaken about him, we became indifferent toward him, and visited him no more; yet we always saluted him in our best manner when he came riding along on his tame gray horse. This horse the elector had sent him, to oblige him to take an exercise so necessary for his health,—a distinction for which he was not easily to be forgiven.

And thus, by degrees, the epoch approached when all authority was to vanish from before me, and I was to become suspicious,—nay, to despair, even—of the greatest and best individuals, whom I had known or imagined.

Frederick the Second still stood at the head of all the distinguished men of the century in my thoughts; and it must therefore have appeared very surprising to me, that I could praise him as little before the inhabitants of Leipzig as formerly in my grandfather's house. They had felt the hand of war heavily, it is true; and therefore they were not to blame for not thinking the best of him who had begun and continued