Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/455

Rh resulting from this will not remain fruitless; and the judgment will, for once at least, be in a condition to exercise itself on these works with justice. Nay, this will be done most thoroughly if our active young friend, besides the monograph devoted to the cathedral of Cologne, follows out in detail the history of our mediæval architecture. When whatever is to be known about the practical exercise of this art is further brought to light, when the art is represented in all its fundamental features by a comparison with the Græco-Roman and the Oriental Egyptian, little can remain to be done in this department. And I, when the results of such patriotic labours lie before the world, as they are now known in friendly private communications, shall be able, with true content, to repeat that motto in its best sense, "Of whatever one wishes in youth, he will have enough in old age."

But if, in operations like these, which belong to centuries, one can trust one's self to time, and wait for opportunity, there are, on the contrary, other things which in youth must be enjoyed at once, fresh, like ripe fruits. Let me be permitted, with this sudden turn, to mention dancing, of which the ear is reminded, as the eye is of the minster, every day and every hour in Strasburg and all Alsace. From early youth my father himself had given my sister and me instruction in dancing, a task which must have comported strangely enough with so stern a man. But he did not suffer his composure to be put out by it: he drilled us in the positions and steps in a manner the most precise; and, when he had brought us far enough to dance a minuet, he played for us something easily intelligible in three-four time, on a flute-douce, and we moved to it as well as we could. On the French theatre, likewise, I had seen from my youth upwards, if not ballets, yet pas seuls and pas de deux, and had noticed in them various strange motions of the feet, and all sorts of springs.