Читать книгу The Greatest German Classics (Vol. 1-14) - Various - Страница 1530

Weimar, October 30, 1808.

The world of art is just now too much run down for a young man to be able to realize exactly where he stands. People always search for inspiration everywhere but in the place where it originates, and if they do once catch sight of the source, then they cannot find the path leading to it. Therefore I am reduced to despair by half a dozen of the younger poetic spirits, who, though endowed with extraordinary natural talent, will scarcely accomplish much that I can ever take pleasure in. Werner, Ochlenschlaeger, Arnim, Brentano and others are still working and practising at their art, but everything they do is absolutely lacking in form and character. Not one of them can understand that the highest and only operation of nature and art is the creation of form, and in the form, detail, so that each single thing shall become, be, and remain something separate and important. There is no art in letting your talent go to suit your humor and convenience.

The sad part of it is that the humorous, because it has no support and no law within itself, sooner or later degenerates into melancholy and bad temper. We have been forced to experience the most horrible examples of this in Jean Paul (see his last production in the Ladies' Calendar) and in Görres (see his Specimens of Writing). Moreover, there are always people enough to admire and esteem that sort of thing, because the public is always grateful to every one who tries to turn its head.

Will you be obliging enough, when you have a quarter of an hour's spare time, to sketch for me, in a few rough lines, the aberrations of our youthful musicians? I should like to compare them with the errors of the painters; for a man must once for all set his heart at rest about these things, execrate the whole business, stop thinking about the culture of others, and employ the short time that remains to him on his own works. But even while I express myself thus disagreeably, I must, as always happens to good-natured blusterers, contradict myself immediately, and beg you to continue your interest in Eberwein at least until Easter; for then I will send him to you again. He has acquired great confidence in you, and great respect for your institution, but unhappily even that does not mean much with young people. They still secretly think it would also be possible to produce something extraordinary by their own foolish methods. Many people gain some comprehension that there is a goal, but they would like very much to reach it by loitering along mazy paths.

You have been sufficiently reminded of us throughout this month by the newspapers. It was worth much to be present in person at these events. I also came in for a share of the favorable influence of such an unusual constellation. The Emperor of France was very gracious to me. Both Emperors decorated me with stars and ribbons, which we desire in all modesty thankfully to acknowledge. Forgive me for not writing you more about the latest events. You must have already wondered when you read the papers that this stream of the great and mighty ones of earth should have rolled on as far as Weimar, and even over the battlefield of Jena. I cannot refrain from inclosing to you a remarkable engraving. The point where the temple is placed, is the farthest point toward the north-east reached by Napoleon on this tour. When you visit us, I will place you on the spot where the little man with the cane is shown parceling off the world.

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