far God influenced the great natures of
the present world in which we live?

"To hear people speak," said Goethe, "one would almost believe that they
were of opinion that God had withdrawn into silence since those old
times, and that man was now placed quite upon his own feet, and had to
see how he could get on without God, and his daily invisible breath. In
religious and moral matters a divine influence is indeed still allowed,
but in matters of science and art it is believed that they are merely
earthly and nothing but the product of human powers.

[Illustration: SCHILLER'S GARDEN HOUSE AT JENA Drawing by Goethe]

"Let any one only try, with human will and human power, to produce
something which may be compared with the creations that bear the names
of Mozart, Raphael, or Shakespeare. I know very well that these three
noble beings are not the only ones, and that in every province of art
innumerable excellent geniuses have operated, who have produced things
as perfectly good as those just mentioned. But if they were as great as
those, they rose above ordinary human nature, and in the same proportion
were as divinely endowed as they.

"And, after all, what does it all come to? God did not retire to rest
after the well-known six days of creation, but, on the contrary, is
constantly active as on the first. It would have been for Him a poor
occupation to compose this heavy world out of simple elements, and to
keep it rolling in the sunbeams from year to year, if He had not had the
plan of founding a nursery for a world of spirits upon this material
basis. So He is now constantly active in higher natures to attract the
lower ones."

Goethe was silent. But I cherished his great and good words in my heart.

_Early in March_.[23]--Goethe mentioned at table that he had received a
visit from Baron Carl Von Spiegel, and that he had been pleased with him
beyond measure.

"He is a very fine young man," said Goethe; "in his mien and manners he
has something by which the nobleman is seen at once. He could as little
dissemble his descent as any one could deny a higher intellect; for
birth and intellect both give him who once possesses them a stamp which
no incognito can conceal. Like beauty, these are powers which one cannot
approach without feeling that they are of a higher nature."

_Some days later_.--We talked of the tragic idea of Destiny among the
Greeks.

"It no longer suits our way of thinking," said Goethe; "it is o