“But now let anyone only attempt with human will and human capabilities to produce something comparable with the creations that bear the names of Mozart, Raphael, or Shakespeare.  I know right well that these three noble men are not the only ones, and that in every department of art innumerable excellent minds have laboured, who have produced results as perfectly good as those mentioned.  But, if they were as great as those, they transcended ordinary human nature, and were in just the same degree divinely gifted.”

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

* * * * *

THOMAS GRAY

Letters

Thomas Gray, the poet and author of the “Elegy written in a Country Churchyard,” was born on December 26, 1716, in London, and was the only survivor of twelve children.  At Eton he formed friendships with Horace Walpole, Thomas Ashton, and Richard West, who were later his chief correspondents.  At Cambridge, where Gray took no degree, he began to make experiments in poetry.  In 1739 and 1740 he travelled in Europe, and in 1742 he had established himself at Peterhouse, Cambridge, without University position or recognition of any kind.  Here he plunged into the study of classical literature, and began to work on the “Elegy,” which was published in 1751.  He was a shy, sensitive man of very wide learning.  Couched in graceful language, the letters are typical of the best in the best age of letter-writing, and not only are they fascinating for the tender and affectionate nature they reveal, but also for the gleam of real humour which Walpole declared was the poet’s most natural vein.  He died on July 30, 1771.

I.—­The Student’s Freedom

TO RICHARD WEST

Peterhouse, December, 1736. After this term I shall have nothing more of college impertinences to undergo.  I have endured lectures daily and hourly since I came last, supported by the hopes of being shortly at liberty to give myself up to my friends and classical companions, who, poor souls, though I see them fallen into great contempt with most people here, yet I cannot help sticking to them.

Indeed, what can I do else?  Must I plunge into metaphysics?  Alas!  I cannot see in the dark.  Nature has not furnished me with the optics of a cat.  Must I pore upon mathematics?  Alas!  I cannot see in too much light.  I am no eagle.  It is very possible that two and two make four, but I would not give four farthings to demonstrate this ever so clearly; and if these be the profits of life, give me the amusements of it.  The people I behold all around me, it seems, know all this, and more, and yet I do not know one of them who inspires me with any ambition of being like him.  Surely it was of this place, now Cambridge, but formerly known by the name of Babylon, that the prophet spoke when he said, “The wild beasts of the desert shall dwell there, and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures, and owls shall build there and satyrs shall dance there.”  You see, here is a pretty collection of desolate animals, which is verified in this town to a tittle.