Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/453

Rh see men by perseverance attain to earthly wealth. They surround themselves with riches, splendour, and external honour. Others strive yet more certainly after intellectual advantages, acquire for themselves a clear survey of things, a peacefulness of mind, and a certainty for the present and the future.

But now there is a third direction, which is compounded of both, and the issue of which must be the most surely successful. When a man's youth falls into a pregnant time; when production overweighs destruction, and a presentiment is early awakened within him as to what such an epoch demands and promises,—he will then, being forced by outward inducements into an active interest, take hold now here, now there, and the wish to be active on many sides will be lively within him. But so many accidental hinderances are associated with human limitation, that here a thing, once begun, remains unfinished: there that which is already grasped falls out of the hand, and one wish after another is dissipated. But had these wishes sprung out of a pure heart, and in conformity with the necessities of the times, one might composedly let them lie and fall right and left, and be assured that these must not only be found out and picked up again, but that also many kindred things, which one has never touched and never even thought of, will come to light. If, now, during our own lifetime, we see that performed by others, for which we ourselves felt an earlier call, but had been obliged to give it up, with much besides, then the beautiful feeling enters the mind that only mankind combined is the true man, and that the individual can only be joyous and happy when he has the courage to feel himself in the whole.

This contemplation is here in the right place; for when I reflect on the affection which drew me to these antique edifices, when I reckon up the time which I devoted to the Strasburg minster alone, the attention