Volume Ii Part 43 (1/2)

98.

SOMETHING LIKE BREAD.-Bread neutralises and takes out the taste of other food, and is therefore necessary to every long meal. In all works of art there must be something like bread, in order that they may produce divers effects. If these effects followed one another without occasional pauses and intervals, they would soon make us weary and provoke disgust-in fact, a long meal of art would then be impossible.

99.

JEAN PAUL.-Jean Paul knew a great deal, but had no science; understood all manner of tricks of art, but had no art; found almost everything enjoyable, but had no taste; possessed feeling and seriousness, but in dispensing them poured over them a nauseous sauce of tears; had even wit, but, unfortunately for his ardent desire for it, far too little-whence he drives the reader to despair by his very lack of wit. In short, he was the bright, rank-smelling weed that shot up overnight in the fair pleasaunces of Schiller and Goethe. He was a good, comfortable man, and yet a destiny, a destiny in a dressing-gown.(20)

100.

PALATE FOR OPPOSITES.-In order to enjoy a work of the past as its contemporaries enjoyed it, one must have a palate for the prevailing taste of the age which it attacked.

101.

SPIRITS-OF-WINE AUTHORS.-Many writers are neither spirit nor wine, but spirits of wine. They can flare up, and then they give warmth.

102.

THE INTERPRETATIVE SENSE.-The sense of taste, as the true interpretative sense, often talks the other senses over to its point of view and imposes upon them its laws and customs. At table one can receive disclosures about the most subtle secrets of the arts; it suffices to observe what tastes good and when and after what and how long it tastes good.

103.

LESSING.-Lessing had a genuine French talent, and, as writer, went most a.s.siduously to the French school. He knows well how to arrange and display his wares in his shop-window. Without this true art his thoughts, like the objects of them, would have remained rather in the dark, nor would the general loss be great. His art, however, has taught many (especially the last generation of German scholars) and has given enjoyment to a countless number. It is true his disciples had no need to learn from him, as they often did, his unpleasant tone with its mingling of petulance and candour.-Opinion is now unanimous on Lessing as ”lyric poet,” and will some day be unanimous on Lessing as ”dramatic poet.”

104.

UNDESIRABLE READERS.-How an author is vexed by those stolid, awkward readers who always fall at every place where they stumble, and always hurt themselves when they fall!