Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 5.djvu/45

Rh We approached a small house, not inconvenient for a dwelling, and found Herr Stauf, who immediately recognised my friend, and received him with lamentations about the new government. Indeed, we could see, from what he said, that the alum-works, as well as many other well-meant establishments, on account of external and perhaps internal circumstances also, did not pay their expenses, with much else of the sort. He belonged to the chemists of that time, who, with a hearty feeling for all that could be done with the products of nature, took delight in abstruse investigations of trifles and secondary matters, and, with their insufficient knowledge, were not dexterous enough to do that from which properly economical and mercantile profit is to be derived. Thus the use to which he hoped to turn that scum lay very far in the distance: thus he had nothing to show but a cake of sal-ammoniac, with which the Burning Mountain had supplied him.

Ready and glad to communicate his complaints to some human ear, the lean, decrepit little man, with a shoe on one foot and a slipper on the other, and with stockings hanging down and repeatedly pulled up in vain, dragged himself up the mountain to where the resin-house stands, which he himself had erected, and now, with great grief, sees falling to ruins. Here was found a connected row of furnaces, where coal was to be cleansed of sulphur, and made fit for use in iron-works; but at the same time they wished also to turn the oil and resin to account,—nay, they would not even lose the soot: and thus all failed together, on account of the many ends in view. During the lifetime of the former prince, the business had been carried on in the spirit of an amateur, and in hope: now they asked for the immediate use, which was not to be shown.

After we had left our adept to his solitude, we hastened—for it was now late—to the glass-house in