Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 5.djvu/92

78 excellent girl; and the time approached when I was to lose, perhaps for ever, so much that was dear and good.

We had quietly and pleasantly passed a long time together, when friend Weyland had the waggery to bring with him to Sesenheim "The Vicar of Wakefield," and, when they were talking of reading aloud, to hand it over to me unexpectedly, as if nothing further was to be said. I managed to collect myself, and read with as much cheerfulness and freedom as I could. Even, the faces of my hearers at once brightened, and it did not seem unpleasant to them to be again forced to a comparison. If they had found comical counterparts to Raymond and Melusina, they here saw themselves in a glass which by no means gave a distorted likeness. They did not openly confess, but they did not deny, that they were moving among persons akin, both by mind and feeling.

All men of a good disposition feel, with increasing cultivation, that they have a double part to play in the world,—a real one and an ideal one; and in this feeling is the ground of everything noble to be sought. The real part which has been assigned to us we experience but too plainly; with respect to the second, we seldom come to a clear understanding about it. Man may seek his higher destination on earth or in heaven, in the present or in the future: he yet remains on this account exposed to an eternal wavering, to an influence from without which ever disturbs him, until he once for all makes a resolution to declare that that is right which is suitable to himself.

Among the most venial attempts to acquire something higher, to place one's self on an equality with something higher, may be classed the youthful impulse to compare one's self with the characters in novels. This is highly innocent, and, whatever may be urged against it, the very reverse of mischievous. It amuses