[695]. I can give one very egregious example of this. The famous phrase, “Ueber allen Gipfeln ist Ruh,” has been seen from a very early period to have an allegorical, as well as a literal, interpretation. Indeed, in the Latin original (for the words are a translation, as genius translates, of Lucan, ii. 273, Pacem summa tenent) the context is perfectly unmistakable. I had myself fallen in love with Ueber allen Gipfeln when I got the Gedichte as a school-prize in the year 1860, and both the possible interpretations had struck me. Yet a very few years ago, for giving the poetical application, I was solemnly warned by a reviewer that there was nothing disgraceful in my not knowing German, but that to pretend to do so, and to give an impossible meaning to well-known words, was quite intolerable.
[696]. Gespräche mit Goethe (3 vols., Stuttgart), i. 50.
[697]. i. 66. It has been urged, not without justice, that this intense craftsmanship must fairly be taken into account in estimating his criticism. He is always identifying himself with the worker rather than the spectator-reader, thinking of the process rather than of the result.
[698]. i. 70.
[699]. i. 102.
[700]. Or at least “opponents”—Gegner, i. 104, 105.
[701]. i. 116.
[702]. i. 118.
[703]. i. 120.
[704]. 1824.