“Sir, people are quite accustomed to see me in a strange costume, and the most of them think me crazy.”
“You are aware that insane people believe that they only are sane, and that reasonable people are insane. You will grant me that it is much more like a crazy person to strew his hair with flour, and tie it up in that ridiculous cue, than to wear it as God made it, uncombed and unparted, as I do my beautiful hair, and for which they call me crazy! But, for Heaven’s sake, where are you going?” asked Goethe, struggling to retain him.
“I am going to trumpet through every street in Berlin that the author of ‘Werther,’ of ‘Clavigo,’ of ‘Gotz von Berlichingen,’ of ‘Stella,’ of the most beautiful poems, is in my humble apartment. I will call in all the little poets and savants of Berlin; I will drag Mammler, Nicolai, Engel, Spaulding, Gedicke, Plumicke, Karschin, and Burman here. They shall all come to see Wolfgang Goethe, and adore him. The insignificant poets shall pay homage to thee, the true poet, the favorite of Apollo.”
“My dear Moritz, if you leave me for that, I will run away, and you will trouble yourself in vain.”
“Impossible; you will be my prisoner until I return. I shall lock you in, and you cannot escape by the window, as I fortunately live on the third story.”
“But I shall not wait to be looked in,” answered Goethe, slightly annoyed. “I came to see you, and if you run away I shall go also, and I advise you not to try to prevent me.” His voice resounded through the apartment, growing louder as he spoke, his cheeks flushed, and his high, commanding brow contracted.
“Jupiter Tonans!” cried Moritz, regarding him, “you are truly Jupiter Tonans in person, and I bow before you and obey your command. I shall remain to worship you, and gaze at you.”
“And it may be possible to speak in a reasonable manner to me,” said Goethe, coaxingly. “Away with sentimentality and odors of incense! We are no sybarites, to feed on sweet-meats and cakes; but we are men who have a noble aim in view, attained only by a thorny path. Our eyes must remain fixed upon the goal, and nothing must divert them from it.”
“What is the aim that we should strive for?” asked Moritz, his whole being suddenly changing, and his manner expressing the greatest depression and sadness.
Goethe smiled. “How can you ask, as if you did not know it yourself. Self-knowledge should be our first aim! The ancient philosophers were wise to have inscribed over the entrances to their temples, ‘Know thyself,’ in order to remind all approaching, to examine themselves before they entered the halls of the gods. Is not the human heart equally a temple? only the demons and the gods strive together therein, unfortunately. To drive the former out, and give place to the latter, should be our aim; and when once purified, and room is given for good deeds and great achievements, we shall not rest satisfied simply to conquer, but rise with gladness to build altars upon those places which we have freed from the demons; for that, we must steadily keep in view truth and reality, and not hide them with a black veil, or array them in party-colored rags. Our ideas must be clear about the consequences of things, that we may not be like those foolish men who drink wine every evening and complain of headache every morning, resorting to preventives.”