Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 5.djvu/32

18 that he submitted to the cure, in order, on his return, to appear more free, more cheerful, and more handsome in the eyes of his half-betrothed, and to unite himself more certainly and indissolubly with her. However, he hastened away from Strasburg as soon as possible; and, since his stay had hitherto been as expensive as it was unpleasant, I borrowed a sum of money for him, which he promised to refund by an appointed day. The time passed without the arrival of the money. My creditor, indeed, did not dun me; but I was for several weeks in embarrassment. At last the letter and money came, and even here he did not act unlike himself: for, instead of thanks or an apology, his letter contained nothing but satirical things in doggerel verse, which would have puzzled, if not alienated, another; but it did not move me at all, for I had conceived so great and powerful an idea of his worth that it absorbed everything of an opposite nature which could have injured it.

One should never speak, publicly at least, of his own faults, or those of others, unless he hopes to attain some useful end thereby: on this account I will here insert certain remarks which force themselves upon me.

Gratitude and ingratitude belong to those events which appear every moment in the moral world, and about which men can never agree among themselves. I usually distinguish between non-thankfulness, ingratitude, and aversion from gratitude. The former is innate with men, nay, created with them; for it arises from a happy volatile forgetfulness of the repulsive as well as of the delightful, by which alone the continuation of life is possible. Man needs such an infinite quantity of previous and concurrent assistances for a tolerable existence, that if he would always pay to the sun and the earth, to God and nature, to ancestors and parents, to friends and companions, the thanks due