Miscellaneous Travels of J. W. Goethe: Comprising Letters from Switzerland; The Campaign in France, 1792; The Siege of Mainz; and A Tour on the Rhine, Maine, and Neckar, 1814-15G. Bell and Sons, 1884 - 424 pages |
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Miscellaneous Travels of J. W. Goethe: Comprising Letters From Switzerland ... Johann Wolfgang von Goethe No preview available - 2015 |
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able acquainted already amid appeared army arranged artist attention beautiful become belonging Bingen Boisserée brought carriage chapel church Coblenz collection Cologne Cologne Cathedral colours crowd danger district Duke Duke of Brunswick enjoy everything excellent excited favourable feeling fire Frankfort French friends Furca further garden German Goethe Goethe's Hanau hand hill honour hope horses hussars interest kind Leukerbad Longwy looked Lower Rhine Mainz Marienborn melancholy mind morning mountains natural night objects obtained ourselves paintings passed Pempelfort persons picture piece pleasant possession present Prince Prussian quarters reached Realp regiment remarkable Rhine river road rocks round Rüdesheim Saint scarcely scene seemed seen side SIEGE OF MAINZ soon spirit Städel stood strange things thought tion took town Trèves Valais valley Vaulion Verdun village walls Weimar whole wine wished young
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Page 117 - In the midst of these circumstances, I was soon able to remark that something unusual was taking place within me : I paid close attention to it, and still the sensation can be described only by similitude. It appeared as if you were in some extremely hot place, and at the same time quite penetrated by the heat of it, so that you feel yourself, as it were, quite one with the element in which you are. The eyes lose nothing of their strength or clearness ; but it is as if...
Page 117 - I had now arrived quite in the region where the balls were playing across me : the sound of them is curious enough, as if it were composed of the humming of tops, the gurgling of water, and the whistling of birds. They were less dangerous by reason of the wetness of the ground ; wherever one fell it stuck fast. And thus my foolish experimental ride was secured against the danger at least of the balls rebounding. In...
Page 251 - This time I said : From this place and from this day forth commences a new era in the world's history, and you can all say that you were present at its birth.
Page 173 - Frankfort graduates. My mother had been commissioned to ask me whether I would accept the office of councillor if I were chosen one of those to be balloted for, and the golden ball should fall to me. Such a question could not, perhaps, have arrived at a more singular time than the present ; I was taken by surprise, and thrown back upon myself; a thousand images started up before me, and prevented me from forming any connected conclusion.
Page 216 - To me, as a landscape painter, this appeared very evident, as my particular department of art was in direct communication with Nature. But since that time, I have observed things with more assiduity and eagerness than I had previously done, and not merely noted uncommon and remarkable natural objects and phenomena, but felt myself more full of love for all things and all men.
Page 84 - XVI. were handed over quite civilly to their proprietors, and their woolly favourites were slaughtered at their feet by the impatient and hungry soldiers, I confess that my eyes and my soul have seldom witnessed a more cruel spectacle, and more profound manly suffering in all its gradations. The Greek tragedies alone have anything so purely, deeply pathetic.
Page 174 - ... with the antiquarian gloves, delivered up as tribute by tax-freed cities ; like the noble Laertes, — all but in his longings and his sorrows. Afterwards I saw him in his mayor's robes, with gold chain, sitting on the throne-seat under the Emperor's portrait ; then, last of all, alas ! in his dotage, for several years in his sick chair ; and, finally, in his grave ! On my last journey...
Page 90 - ... poems. But they must all be occasional* poems; that is to say, reality must give both impulse and material for their production. A particular case becomes universal and poetic by the very circumstance that it is treated by a poet. All my poems are occasional poems, suggested by real life, and having therein a firm foundation. I attach no value to poems snatched out of the air.
Page 152 - I had already found among the diplomatic corps some genuine and valuable friends, I could not refrain, so often as I saw them in the midst of these great movements, from making some odd comparisons which forced themselves irresistibly upon my mind : they appeared to me as so many playhouse directors, who choose the pieces, distribute the parts, and move about unseen ; whilst the actors, doing their best and well prompted, have to commit the result of their exertions to fortune and the humour of the...
Page 215 - ... grace, and a peculiar, narrow kind of selfishness was strongly apparent throughout. When he had finished, he asked hastily what I now thought, and whether such a paper did not deserve, nay, demand, an answer ? Meanwhile I had obtained a clearer insight into the young man's deplorable state of mind; he had never taken cognisance of the outward world, but had, on the contrary, cultivated his mind by multifarious reading, and directed all his powers and interests inwards; and, not finding any productive...