Читать книгу The Greatest German Classics (Vol. 1-14) - Various - Страница 1520

Weimar, February 8, 1813.

With sincere thanks I recognize the fact that you have been able so quickly and so perfectly to fulfil your friendly promise. Your beautiful sketch has given me an entirely new impulse to studies of all sorts. It is no longer possible for me to collect materials; but when they are brought to me in so concentrated a form, it becomes a source of very real pleasure for me speedily to fill the gaps in my knowledge and to discover a thousand relations to what information I already possess.

As soon as I can spend a few quiet weeks at Jena in March, I shall get about my task, which, after your preliminary work, is in reality only a pastime. Bertuch has had some maps of Europe printed for me in a brownish tint. One of these is to be laid on a large drawing-board, and the boundaries are to be colored. I shall then indicate the main languages and, so far as possible, the dialects as well, by attaching little slips; and Bertuch is not unwilling then to have such a map engraved, an easy task in his great establishment which is provided with artists of every kind. Please have the kindness, therefore, to proceed and to send me the continuation at the earliest possible moment. A map of the two hemispheres is now ready and is to have the languages indicated in like fashion. From my inmost heart I wish success to your translation of Æschylus, which continually becomes more and more elaborate, and I rejoice that you have not let yourself be frightened away from this good work by the threats of the Heidelberg Cyclops[29] and his crew. At the present moment they menace our friend Wolf, who certainly is no kitten, with ignominious execution, because he also dared to land on the translation island which they have received from Father Neptune in private fief, and to bring with him a readable Aristophanes. It is written, "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord," but still more blessed are they who go mad over some conceitedness.

Our friend Wieland is blessed in the first sense; he has died in his Lord, and without particular suffering has passed over to his gods and heroes. What talent and spirit, learning, common sense, receptivity, and versatility, conjoined with industry and endurance, can accomplish, utile nobis proposuit exemplar. If every man would so employ his gifts and his time, what marvels would then take place!

I have passed my winter as usual, much distracted with my work, yet with tolerable health, so that it has gone quickly and not without profit. In November and December my plans were disarranged by theatrical preparations for the long-expected Iffland, who did not come till toward the close of the year, and also by preparations for his performances, which gave me great pleasure. In January and February there were four birthdays, when either our inventive genius or our collaboration was demanded; and thus much has been frittered away, willingly, to be sure, but fruitlessly.

What I have done meanwhile with pleasure and real interest has been to make a renewed effort to find among extant monuments a trace of those of which descriptions have come down to us. Philostrati were again the order of the day, and as to the statues, I believe that I have got on the track of the Olympian Zeus, on which so many preliminary studies have already been made, and also on that of the Hera of Samos, the Doryphorus of Polycletes, and especially on that of the Cow of Myron and of the bull that carried Europa. Meyer, whose history of ancient art, now written in a fair copy, furnished the chief inspiration, takes a lively interest, since both his doubt and his agreement are invariably well-founded.

And thus I shall now close for this time, in the hope of soon seeing something from your dear hand once more.

* * * * *