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Maxims and Reflections By: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) |
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OF GOETHE
TRANSLATED BY BAILEY SAUNDERS WITH A PREFACE
NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1906 CONTENTS TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
LIFE AND CHARACTER
LITERATURE AND ART
SCIENCE
NATURE: APHORISMS
INDEX TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
I
The translation of Goethe's "Prose Maxims" now offered to the public is
the first attempt that has yet been made to present the greater part of
these incomparable sayings in English. In the complete collection they
are over a thousand in number, and not more perhaps than a hundred and
fifty have already found their way into our language, whether as
contributions to magazines here and in America, or in volumes of
miscellaneous extract from Goethe's writings. Some are at times quoted
as though they were common literary property. To say that they are
important as a whole would be a feeble tribute to a work eloquent for
itself, and beyond the need of praise; but so deep is the wisdom of
these maxims, so wide their reach, so compact a product are they of
Goethe's wonderful genius, that it is something of a reproach to
literature to find the most of them left untranslated for the sixty
years they have been before the world. From one point of view, the
neglect they have suffered is in no way surprising: they are too high
and severe to be popular so soon; and when they meet with a wide
acceptance as with other great works, much of it will rest upon
authority. But even for the deeper side of his writings, Goethe has not
been denied a fair measure of popular success. No other author of the
last two centuries holds so high a place, or, as an inevitable
consequence, has been attacked by so large an army of editors and
commentators; and it might well be supposed by now that no corner of his
work, and least of all one of the best, had remained almost unnoticed,
and to the majority unknown. Many of these maxims were early translated
into French, but with little success; and even in Germany it was only so
late as the year 1870 that they appeared in a separate form, with the
addition of some sort of critical comment and a brief explanation of
their origin and history.[1] But although to what is called the reading public these maxims are as
yet, no less in fact than in metaphor, a closed book, its pages have
long been a source of profit and delight to some of those who are best
able to estimate their value. What that value is, I shall presently
endeavour to explain. No one, I think, can perceive their worth without
also discerning how nearly they touch the needs of our own day, and how
greatly they may help us in facing certain problems of life and conduct,
some of them, in truth, as old as the world itself, which appear to us
now with peculiar force and subtlety. It was in this respect that they were warmly recommended to me some
years ago by my excellent friend, Professor Harnack, the historian of
Dogma, a writer with a fine and prudent enthusiasm for all ennobling
literature. It is to him that I owe the resolve to perform for the
maxims, as far as I could, the office of translator; a humble office,
but not, as I have good reason to know, without its difficulty, or, as I
venture to hope, without its use. Of many of them the language is hardly
lucid even to a German, and I have gratefully to acknowledge the
assistance I have received from the privilege of discussing them with so
distinguished a man of letters. To Professor Huxley I am also deeply indebted. I owe him much for
friendly encouragement, and still more for help of an altogether
invaluable kind; for in its measure of knowledge and skill, it is
admittedly beyond the power of any other living Englishman. The maxims
deal, not alone with Life and Character, where most of them are
admirable, but also with certain aspects of Science and Art; and these
are matters in which I could exercise no judgment myself, although I
understood that, while many of the maxims on Science and Art were
attractive, they were not all of great merit... Continue reading book >>
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