I cannot like Goethe: he has little soul. His understanding of love, religion, duty, patriotism, is paltry and even shocking. He lacks an ardent generosity. A central dryness, an ill-cloaked egoism show through his supple and rich talent. True, this selfishness of his at least respects everyone's liberty and applauds all originality; but it helps no one, troubles itself for no one, bears no one's burden; in a word, it lacks charity, the great Christian virtue. To his mind perfection lies in personal nobility, and not in love. His keynote is æsthetic and not moral. He ignores sanctity, and has never so much as reflected on the terrible problem of evil. He believes in the opportunity of the individual, but neither in liberty nor in responsibility. He is a stranger to the social and political aspirations of the multitude; he has no more thought for the disinherited, the feeble, the oppressed, than Nature has.
The profound disquiet of our era never touches Goethe; discords do not affect the deaf. Whoso has never heard the voice of conscience, regret and remorse, cannot even guess at the anxiety of those who have two masters, two laws, and belong to two worlds, the world of Nature and the world of Liberty. His choice is already made; his only world is Nature. But it is far otherwise with humanity. For men hear indeed the prophets of Nature, but they hear also the voice of Religion; the joy of life attracts them, but devotion moves them also; they no longer know whether they hate or adore the crucifix.
Nothing New Under the Sun
Jealousy is a terrible thing; it resembles love, but is in every way its contrary; the jealous man desires, not the good of the loved one, but her dependence on him and his triumph over her. Love is the forgetfulness of Self; but jealousy is the most passionate form of egoism, the exaltation of the despotic, vain and greedy Self, which cannot forget and subordinate itself. The contrast is complete.
The man of fifty years, contemplating the world, finds in it certainly some new things; but a thousand times more does he find old things furbished up, and plagiarisms and modifications rather than improvements. Almost everything in the world is a copy of a copy, a reflection of a reflection; and any real success or progress is as rare to-day as it has ever been. Let us not complain of it, for only so can the world last. Humanity advances at a very slow pace; that is why history continues. It may be that progress fans the torch to burn away; perhaps progress accelerates death. A society which should change rapidly would only arrive the sooner at its catastrophe. Yes, progress must be the aroma of life, and not its very substance.
To renounce happiness and think only of duty; to enthrone conscience where the heart has been: this willing immolation is a noble thing. Our nature jibes at it, but the better self will submit to it. To hope for justice is the proof of a sickly sensibility; we ought to be able to do without justice. A virile character consists in just that independence. Let the world think of us what it will; that is its affair, not ours. Our business is to act as if our country were grateful, as if the world judged in equity, as if public opinion could see the truth, as if life were just, and as if men were good.
The Only Art of Peace and Rest
Few people know of our physical sufferings; our nearest and dearest have no idea of our interviews with the king of terrors. There are thoughts for which there is no confidant, sorrows which may not be shared. Kindness itself leads us to hide them. One suffers alone; one dies alone; alone one hides away in the little apartment of six boards. But we are not forbidden to open this solitude to our God. Thus the soliloquy of anguish becomes a dialogue of peace, reluctance becomes docility, suffocation becomes liberty.
Willing what God wills is the only art of peace and rest. It is strange to go to bed knowing that one may not see to-morrow. I knew it well last night; yet here I am. When one counts the future by hours, and to-night is already the unknown, one gives up everything and just talks with oneself. I return to my mind and to my journal, as the hare returns to its form to die. As long as I can hold pen and have a moment of solitude I will recollect myself before this my echo, and converse with my God. Not an examination of conscience, not an act of contrition, not a cry of appeal. Only an Amen of submission ... "My child, give Me your heart."