Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/82

66 edge is of little use for avoiding evils, it is very serviceable so far as it qualifies us to understand our condition, and bear or even to overcome it.

And general remark will not be out of place here, which is, that, as the children of the cultivated classes grow up, a great contradiction appears. I refer to the fact, that they are urged and trained by parents and teachers to deport themselves moderately, intelligently, and even wisely; to give pain to no one from petulance or arrogance; and to suppress all the evil impulses which may be developed in them; but yet, on the other hand, while the young creatures are engaged in this discipline, they have to suffer from others that which in them is reprimanded and punished. In this way the poor things are brought into a sad strait between the natural and civilised states, and, after restraining themselves for awhile, break out, according to their characters, into cunning or violence.

Force may be warded off by force; but a well-disposed child, inclined to love and sympathy, has little to oppose to scorn and ill-will. Though I managed pretty well to keep off the assaults of my companions, I was by no means equal to them in sarcasm and abuse; because he who merely defends himself in such cases is always a loser. Attacks of this sort consequently, when they went so far as to excite anger, were repelled with physical force, or at least excited strange reflections in me which could not be without results. Among other advantages which my ill-wishers saw with envy, was the pleasure I took in the relations that accrued to the family from my grandfather's position of Schultheiss; since, as he was the first of his class, this had no small effect on those belonging to him. Once when, after the holding of the Piper's Court, I appeared to pride myself on having seen my grandfather in the midst of the council, one step higher than the rest, enthroned, as it were, under the portrait