For, say what you will, the public has no sense for
excellence, and therefore no notion how very rare it is to find men
really capable of doing anything great in poetry, philosophy, or art,
or that their works are alone worthy of exclusive attention. The
dabblers, whether in verse or in any other high sphere, should be
every day unsparingly reminded that neither gods, nor men, nor
booksellers have pardoned their mediocrity:
_mediocribus esse poetis
Non homines, non Di, non concessere columnae_.[1]
[Footnote 1: Horace, _Ars Poetica_, 372.]
Are they not the weeds that prevent the corn coming up, so that they
may cover all the ground themselves? And then there happens that which
has been well and freshly described by the lamented Feuchtersleben,[1]
who died so young: how people cry out in their haste that nothing
is being done, while all the while great work is quietly growing to
maturity; and then, when it appears, it is not seen or heard in the
clamor, but goes its way silently, in modest grief:
"_Ist doch"--rufen sie vermessen--
Nichts im Werke, nichts gethan!"
Und das Grosse, reift indessen
Still heran_.
_Es ersheint nun: niemand sieht es,
Niemand hoert es im Geschrei
Mit bescheid'ner Trauer zieht es
Still vorbei_.
Pages:
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106