“And, after all, what does it all come to?  God did not retire to rest after the well-known six days of creation, but, on the contrary, is constantly active as on the first.  It would have been for Him a poor occupation to compose this heavy world out of simple elements, and to keep it rolling in the sunbeams from year to year, if He had not had the plan of founding a nursery for a world of spirits upon this material basis.  So He is now constantly active in higher natures to attract the lower ones.”

Goethe was silent.  But I cherished his great and good words in my heart.

Early in March.[23]—­Goethe mentioned at table that he had received a visit from Baron Carl Von Spiegel, and that he had been pleased with him beyond measure.

“He is a very fine young man,” said Goethe; “in his mien and manners he has something by which the nobleman is seen at once.  He could as little dissemble his descent as any one could deny a higher intellect; for birth and intellect both give him who once possesses them a stamp which no incognito can conceal.  Like beauty, these are powers which one cannot approach without feeling that they are of a higher nature.”

Some days later.—­We talked of the tragic idea of Destiny among the Greeks.

“It no longer suits our way of thinking,” said Goethe; “it is obsolete, and is also in contradiction with our religious views.  If a modern poet introduces such antique ideas into a drama, it always has an air of affectation.  It is a costume which is long since out of fashion, and which, like the Roman toga, no longer suits us.

“It is better for us moderns to say with Napoleon, ’Politics are Destiny.’  But let us beware of saying, with our latest literati, that politics are poetry, or a suitable subject for the poet.  The English poet Thomson wrote a very good poem on the Seasons, but a very bad one on Liberty, and that not from want of poetry in the poet, but from want of poetry in the subject.”

“If a poet would work politically, he must give himself up to a party; and so soon as he does that, he is lost as a poet; he must bid farewell to his free spirit, his unbiased view, and draw over his ears the cap of bigotry and blind hatred.

“The poet, as a man and citizen, will love his native land; but the native land of his poetic powers and poetic action is the good, noble, and beautiful, which is confined to no particular province or country, and which he seizes upon and forms wherever he finds it.  Therein is he like the eagle, who hovers with free gaze over whole countries, and to whom it is of no consequence whether the hare on which he pounces is running in Prussia or in Saxony.

“And, then, what is meant by love of one’s country?  What is meant by patriotic deeds?  If the poet has employed a life in battling with pernicious prejudices, in setting aside narrow views, in enlightening the minds, purifying the tastes, ennobling the feelings and thoughts of his countrymen, what better could he have done?  How could he have acted more patriotically?