Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 5.djvu/159

Rh saving-boxes; men and women, the higher and the middle classes, contributed to this holy offering; and perhaps a thousand subscribers, all paying in advance, were collected. Expectation was raised to the highest pitch, and confidence was as great as possible.

After this, the work, on its appearance, was to experience the strangest result in the world: it was, indeed, of important value, but by no means universally interesting. Klopstock's thoughts on poetry and literature were set forth in the form of an old German druidical republic: his maxims on the true and false were expressed in pithy, laconic aphorisms, in which, however, much that was instructive was sacrificed to the singularity of form. For authors and littérateurs, the book was and is invaluable; but it was only in this circle that it could be useful and effective. Whoever had himself been thinking followed the thinker; he who knew how to seek and prize what was genuine, found himself instructed by the profound, honest man; but the amateur, the general reader, was not enlightened,—to him the book remained sealed; and yet it had been placed in all hands; and, while every one expected a perfectly serviceable work, most of them obtained one from which they could not get the smallest taste. The astonishment was general; but the esteem for the man was so great, that no grumbling, scarcely a murmur, arose. The young and beautiful part of the world got over their loss, and now freely gave away the copies they had so dearly purchased. I received several from kind female friends, but none of them have remained with me.

This undertaking, which was successful to the author, but a failure to the public, had the ill consequence, that there was now no further thought about subscriptions and prepayments; nevertheless, the wish had been too generally diffused for the attempt not to be renewed. The Dessau publishing-house now offered to