Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 5.djvu/21

Rh taking breath as without writing poetry and making presents; and, by helping needy talents of all kinds through earlier or later embarrassments, contributing to the honour of literature, he gained so many friends, debtors, and dependents, that they willingly allowed his diffuse verses to pass, since they could give him nothing in return for his rich benefits but endurance of his poetry.

Now, the high idea which these two men might well form of their own worth, and by which others were induced also to think well of themselves, has produced very great and beautiful results, both in public and private. But this consciousness, honourable as it is, called a peculiar evil down upon themselves, on those around them, and on their time. If, judging from their intellectual effects, both these men may without hesitation be called great, with respect to the world they remained but small, and, considered in comparison with a more stirring life, their external position was nought. The day is long, and so is the night; one cannot be always writing poetry, or doing, or giving; their time could not be filled up like that of people of the world, and men of rank and wealth; they therefore set too high a value on their particular limited situations, attached an importance to their daily affairs which they should only have allowed themselves amongst each other, and took more than reasonable delight in their own jokes, which, though they made the moment agreeable, could be of no consequence in the end. They received praise and honour from others, as they deserved; they gave it back, with measure indeed, but always too profusely; and, because they felt that their friendship was worth much, they were pleased to express it repeatedly, and in this spared neither paper nor ink. Thus arose those correspondences, at the deficiency of which in solid contents the modern world wonders; nor can it be blamed, when it