The complete prose works of Walt Whitman

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1872 Excerpt: ...ideal." 22 Feb. Goethe is never carried away by his theme--he is always Master. He is the head person, saying to a pupil: Here, see how well this can be done. Carlyle vaunts him as showing that a man can live even these days as an "Antique Worthy." This vaunt Goethe deserves--he is indeed a cultivated German aristocrat, physically inextricable from his age and position, but morally bent to the Attic spirit and its occasions two thousand and more years ago. That is he, such are his productions. The assumption that Goethe passed through the first stage of darkness and complaint to the second stage of consideration and knowledge and thence to the third stage of triumph and faith--this assumption cannot pass, cannot stand amid the judgments of the soul. Goethe's was the faith of a physical well being, a good digestion and appetite, it was not the faith of the masters, poets, prophets, divine persons. Such faith he perhaps came near and saw the artistical beauty of--perhaps fancied he had it--but he never had it. Goethe is the result of a well-ordered, polished, learned state, not physically great, acknowledging etiquette,--of moving mainly among gentlemen and ladies of culture, and taking it for granted that there is nothing better needed than culture. The educated mind has pleasure in Goethe's works this passage was first written: The mind has almost boundless pleasure in Goethe's works--in many, perhaps all of them. Still questions arise: Why do uneducated minds also receive pleasure from Goethe? Is he really an original creator or only the noblest of imitators and compositors? Would or could he have written anything without the studies of the antiques? Vol. ix.--a. 113 Is a man or woman invigorated, made cleaner, grander, sweeter, by his poems...