Great writers are equally indebted to their powers of observation. Of the men of genius whom the world delights to honor, probably no one watched his inner development more closely than Goethe. He gives us the following account of how his works were produced:
Goethe.
“To each one of my writings a thousand persons, a thousand things have contributed. The learned and the ignorant, the wise and the foolish, childhood and age have all a share therein. They all, without suspecting it, have brought me the gifts of their faculties, their thought and experience. Often they have sown, and I have reaped. My works are a combination of elements which have been taken from all nature and which bear the name—Goethe.”
Human nature.
Human nature furnishes as much room for observation as all the rest of nature. The hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows, the trials and struggles, the thoughts and beliefs, the aspirations and achievements, the motives and deeds of the men and women whom we meet in our daily life and on the pages of history and fiction (such as is true to life) offer a field for observation as vast, as interesting, and as important as all the rocks and soils, the bugs and beetles, the insects, birds, beasts, and fishes that dwell beneath or above or on the surface of the earth. The larger proportion of the books taken from free libraries are works of fiction,—a fact which shows that the interest of most of those who read is centred upon the things of the human heart and in the observation of human life.
Goethe’s views of originality are these:
Originality.
“We are always talking about originality, but what do we mean? As soon as we are born the world begins to work upon us, and this goes on to the end. After all, what can we call our own except our energy, strength, and will? If I could give an account of all that I owe to great predecessors and contemporaries, there would be little left of my own.”
Observation.