Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Life of Goethe, Vol. 1 of 3
There may have been others of clearer understanding, of greater energy, of deeper feelings, or of more vivid imagination, but it is quite certain that there never was an individual in whom all these faculties were united in such striking proportions. And, moreover, there has rarely been an individual of such highly developed powers of soul, whose physical life has so fully retained its independence and has so thoroughly permeated the spiritual. This wonder fully perfect amalgamation of Goethe's nature elevates it to the rank of the extraordinary, and, at the same time, accounts for its seemingly contradictory manifestations. But it is this seeming contradictoriness 1 that has made it so difficult for most people to obtain a correct and adequate idea of him.
He observes colour refractions like a physicist, examines bones and ligaments like an anatomist, and comments on bankrupt law like a jurist. Gifted with unusual clearness in the comprehension and analysis of men and things, his early appearance on the stage of action is marked by the wisdom and experience of a man of the world and a diplomat. And yet this same man writes poetry over?owing with imagination, goes about in the real world absorbed in dreams, sees many things and many people, not as they are, but in the light of his own fancy, is frequently incapable of making out a clear, understanding of objects and their mutual relations, and stands in the midst, of human activi ties a naive and often helpless child. This man at one time grasps the world in the warm embrace of a Faust and again he spurns it with the annihilating contempt of a Mephistopheles.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
