not a secret feeling spring up in our heart that we are
capable of doing the same? Does not the rush of blood coloring our
cheeks on hearing narratives of this kind proclaim that our modesty
trembles at the admiration called forth by such acts? that we are
confused at the praise which this ennobling of our nature must call down
upon us? Even our body at such moments agrees with the attitude of the
man, and shows clearly that our soul has passed into the state we admire.
If you were ever present, Raphael, when a great event was related to a
large assembly, did you not see how the relater waited for the incense of
praise, how he devoured it, though it was given to the hero of his
story,--and if you were ever a relater did you not trace how your heart
was subject to this pleasing deception? You have had examples, my dear
Raphael, of how easily I can wrangle with my best friend respecting the
reading aloud of a pleasing anecdote or of a beautiful poem, and my heart
told me truly on these occasions that I was only displeased at your
carrying off the laurels because these passed from the head of author to
that of the reader. A quick and deep artistic appreciation of virtue is
justly held to be a great aptitude for virtue, in the same way as it is
usual to have no scruple in distrusting the heart of a man whose
intelligence is slow to take in moral beauty.

You need not advance as an objection that, frequently, coupled with a
lively perception of a perfection, the opposite failing is found to
coexist, that evil-doers are often possessed with strong enthusiasm for
what is excellent, and that even the weak flame up into enthusiasm of
herculean growth. I know, for example, that our admired Haller, who
unmasked in so manly a spirit the sickly nothingness of vain honors; a
man whose philosophical greatness I so highly appreciated, that he was
not great enough to despise the still greater vanity of an order of
knighthood, which conferred an injury on his greatness. I am convinced
that in the happy moment of their ideal conceptions, the artist, the
philosopher, and the poet are really the great and good man whose image
they throw out; but with many this ennobling of the mind is only an
unnatural condition occasioned by a more active stirring of the blood, or
a more rapid vibration of the fancy: it is accordingly very transient,
like every other enchantment, disappearing rapidly and leaving the heart
more exhausted than before, and de