Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 5.djvu/33

Rh to them, he would have neither time nor feeling left to receive and enjoy new benefits. But, if the natural man suffers this volatility to get the control in and over him, a cold indifference gains more and more the ascendency, and one at last regards one's benefactor as a stranger, to whose injury, perhaps, anything may be undertaken, provided it be advantageous to ourselves. This alone can properly be called ingratitude, which results from the rudeness into which the uncultivated nature must necessarily lose itself at last. Aversion from gratitude, however, the rewarding of a benefit by ill-natured and sullen conduct, is very rare, and occurs only in eminent men, such as, with great natural gifts, and a presentiment of them, being born in a lower rank of society or in a helpless condition, must, from their youth upwards, force themselves along step by step, and receive at every point aids and supports, which are often embittered and repulsive to them through the coarseness of their benefactors, since that which they receive is earthly, while that which, on the other hand, they give, is of a higher kind; so that what is, strictly speaking, a compensation, is out of the question. Lessing, with the fine knowledge of earthly things which fell to his share in the best years of his life, has in one place bluntly but cheerfully expressed himself. Herder, on the contrary, constantly embittered his finest days, both for himself and others, because he knew not how to moderate, by strength of mind in later years, that ill-humour which had necessarily seized him in youth.

One may well make this demand of himself; for to a man's capability of cultivation, comes, with friendly aid, the light of nature, which is always active in enlightening him about his condition: and generally, in many moral points of culture, one should not construe the failings too severely, nor look about after the most serious and remote means of correcting them; for cer-