Florence said: “We spoke of the thinker’s influence lately, at home. But I always thought of those great men, not as poets, but as philosophers.”
“Yes,” I answered, “they often were. But they were poets, too. The greatest artist—as I showed you—is a scientist and philosopher as well. Goethe to me seems the best example of such a complete man. His life was so many-sided, and yet so artistic, so definite in its aim; it might stand as an example of the artistic life.”
Now, what the children seemed to know of Goethe was that he had a great many love affairs, and did not behave well in any of them. Marian and Henry had a clearer idea, and knew this was not the whole or the chief part of his life, nor quite so faulty as represented. Henry said: “He could appreciate the good points in a woman without always falling in love with her.”
When Ruth said she didn’t know anything of Goethe but his lover’s weakness, Marian turned on her with: “Now, isn’t it a shame to know that of him, and nothing else!”
I told them again that as every work of art was a symbol of completeness, so every self, being a self, symbolized the complete self of understanding and unity; every man was a symbol of completeness, of the Divine Self.
Before we went on to enumerate for ourselves the laws of art, now that we all agreed they would be one with the laws of life, I wished to read aloud some slips from a Ruskin calendar, which Ruth had brought me two weeks before. The most fruitful of conversation were the following:
“All are to be men of genius in their degree—rivulets or rivers, it does not matter, so that the souls be clear and pure.”
This, they said, was exactly our idea of genius in all.
“Good work is never done for hatred, any more than for hire—but for love only.”
Surely, then, not for controversy, we said.