The magic of moonlight began to be felt. Mirtilla
perceived his old father slumbering in the moonbeams.... Mirtilla stood long contemplating him, and his eyes rested fondly on the old man except when he raised them toward heaven through the glistening leaves of the vine, and tears of filial love and joy bedewed his cheeks.... How beautiful! how beautiful is the landscape! How bright, how clear appears the deep blue of heaven through the broken clouds! They fly, they pass away, these towering clouds; but strew a shadow as they pass over the sunny landscape.... Oh, what joy overwhelms my soul! how beautiful, how excellent is all around, what an inexhaustible source of rapture! From the enlivening sun down to the little plant that his mild influence nourishes, all is wonderful! What rapture overpowers me when I stand on the high hill and look down on the wide-spread landscape beneath me, when I lay stretched along the grass and examine the various flowers and herbs and their little inhabitants; when at the midnight hour I contemplate the starry heavens!... Wrapt in each other's arms, let us contemplate the approach of morning, the bright glow of sunset, or the soft beams of moonlight; and as I press thee to my trembling heart, let us breathe out in broken accents our praises and thanksgivings. Ah! what inexpressible joy, when with such raptures are blended the transports of the tenderest love.
Many prosaic writings of a different kind shew how universally feeling, in the middle of the eighteenth century, turned towards Nature.
The æsthetic writer Sulzer (1750) wrote On the Beauty of Nature. Crugot's widely-read work of edification, Christ in Solitude (1761), shewed the same point of view among the mystical and pietist clergy; and Spalding's Human Vocation[[9]] (written with a warmth that reminds one of Gessner) among the rationalists, whom he headed. He says:
Nature contains numberless pleasures, which, through my great sensitiveness, nourish my mind... I open eye and ear, and through these openings pleasures flow into my soul from a thousand sides: flowers painted by the hand of Nature, the rich music of the forest, the bright daylight which pours life and light all round me.... How indifferent, tasteless, and dead is all the fantastic glamour of artificial splendour and luxuriance in comparison with the living radiance of the real beautiful world of Nature, with the joyousness, repose, and admiration I feel before a meadow in blossom, a rustling stream, the pleasant awesomeness of night, or of the majesty of innumerable worlds. Even the commonest and most familiar things in Nature give me endless delight, when I feel them with a heart attuned to joy and admiration.... I lose myself, absorbed in delight, in the consideration of all this general beauty, of which I hold myself to be a not disfigured part.
Klopstock, the torch-bearer of Germany's greatest poets, owed much of his power of the wing to religion. He introduced that new epoch in the literature of his country which culminated in Goethe. As so often happens in mental development, the reaction against prevailing conditions and the advance to higher ones, in the middle of the eighteenth century, led first of all to the opposite extreme--balance was only reached by degrees. What chiefly made Klopstock a literary reformer was the glowing enthusiasm and powerful imagination which compelled the stiff poetic forms, clumsy as they were, to new rhythm and melodious cadence. And although his style degenerated into mannerism in the Messias, for the youthful impetus which had carried his Pegasus over the clouds to the stars could not keep it there without artificial aid, the immense value of his influence remained. He is one of the most interesting representatives, not only of his own, but of all similar periods of exaggerated feelings and ideals. Despite his loftiness of thought and speech, and his seraphic raptures, he was not without a full share of sensuous development, and women's eyes, or a girl's rosy lips, would draw him away from the finest view in the world.
A mind so intent upon the noble and beautiful was sure to be enthusiastic about Nature; his correspondence is the best witness to this, and at the same time throws side-lights upon the period.
It is difficult to-day to understand the influence which the Messias had upon its readers; even Friedenkende spent happy hours reading it with pious tears of delight, and young and old were of the same opinion.
There is a pretty letter from Gustchen Stolberg[[10]] to Klopstock, which runs thus:
UETERSEN, 25 April 1776.
In the garden. Yes, in the garden, dearest Klopstock! I have just been walking about, it was so beautiful: the little birds were singing, violets and other flowers wafted their fragrance to me, and I began thinking very warmly of all whom I dearly, dearly love, and so very soon came to my dear Klopstock, who certainly has no truer friend than I am, though perhaps others express it better ... Thanks, thanks, for your very delightful little letter--how dear to me I don't tell you--can't tell you.