Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 5.djvu/74

60 By such recitals, which cost me nothing, I made myself beloved by children, excited and delighted youth, and drew upon myself the attention of older persons. But in society, such as it commonly is, I was soon obliged to stop these exercises; and I have thereby lost but too much of the enjoyment of life and of free mental advancement. Nevertheless, both these parental gifts accompanied me throughout my whole life, united with a third; namely, the necessity of expressing myself figuratively and by comparisons. In consideration of these peculiarities, which the acute and ingenious Doctor Gall discovered in me according to his theory, he assured me that I was, properly speaking, born for a popular orator. At this disclosure I was not a little alarmed; for if it were well founded, whatever else I might have undertaken would have proved a failure, from the fact that among my nation there was nothing to harangue about.