“Morgenstunde hat Gold im Munde.”
“Kein Faden ist so fein gesponnen,
Er kommt doch endlich an die Sonnen.”
“Jeder ist seines Glückes Schmied.”
Some lines which hung over my bed I have carried with me all through life, and I still think they are very true and very terse:
“Im Glück nicht jubeln und im Sturm nicht zagen,
Das Unvermeidliche mit Würde tragen,
Das Rechte thun, am Schönen sich erfreuen,
Das Leben lieben und den Tod nicht scheuen,
Und fest an Gott und bessere Zukunft glauben,
Heisst leben, heisst dem Tod sein Bitteres rauben.”
Still, all this formed a very small viaticum for a journey through life, and I often thought that a few more hints might have preserved me from the painful process of what was called rubbing off one’s horns. Again and again I had to say to myself, “That would have done very well at home, but it was a mistake for all that.” My social rawness and simplicity stuck to me for many years, just as the Dessau dialect remained with me for life; at least I was assured by my friends that though I had spoken French and English for so many years, they could always detect in my German that I came from Dessau or Leipzig.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] Johann Bernhard Basedow, von seinem Urenkel, F. M. M. (Essays, Band IV).
[7] That this was not only the case at Dessau, may be seen by a number of contemporary reviews of Goethe’s works republished some years ago and the exact title of which I cannot find.