"The
Present will have its rights; the thoughts and feelings which daily press upon
the poet will and should be expressed. But, if you have a great work in your
head, nothing else thrives near it; all other thoughts are repelled, and the
pleasure of life itself is for the time lost. What exertion and expenditure of
mental force are required to arrange and round off a great whole! and then what
powers, and what a tranquil situation, to express it with the proper fluency!
If you have erred as to the whole, all your toil is lost; and further, if,
treating so extensive a subject, you are not perfectly master of your material
in the details, the whole will be defective, and censure will be incurred. Thus,
for all his toil and sacrifice, the poet gets, instead of reward and pleasure,
nothing but discomfort and a paralysis of his powers. But if he daily seizes
the present, and always treats with a freshness of feeling what is offered him,
he always makes sure of something good; and, if he sometimes does not succeed,
has at least lost nothing.
"...but
do people conform to the instructions of us old ones? Each thinks he must know
best about himself, and thus many are lost entirely, and many for a long time
go astray. Past is the time for blundering about--that belonged to us old ones; and what was the use of all our
seeking and blundering, if you young people choose to go the very same way over
again? In this way we can never get on at all. Our errors were endured because
we found no beaten path; he that comes later must not be seeking and
blundering, but should use the instructions of the old ones to proceed at once
on the right path. It is not enough to take steps which may some day lead to a
goal; each step must be itself a goal.
"Carry
these words about with you, and see how you can apply them ... If
at present you treat only small subjects, freshly dashing off what every day
offers you, you will generally produce something good, and each day will bring
you pleasure. Give what you do to the pocket-volumes and periodicals, but never
submit yourself to the requirements of others; always follow your own sense."
------
From "Conversations with Eckermann".
No comments:
Post a Comment