But the educated public is
no sooner set right in this, than the honor which is due to genius
degenerates; just as the honor which the faithful pay to their saints
easily passes into a frivolous worship of relics. Thousands of
Christians adore the relics of a saint whose life and doctrine are
unknown to them; and the religion of thousands of Buddhists lies more
in veneration of the Holy Tooth or some such object, or the vessel
that contains it, or the Holy Bowl, or the fossil footstep, or the
Holy Tree which Buddha planted, than in the thorough knowledge and
faithful practice of his high teaching. Petrarch's house in Arqua;
Tasso's supposed prison in Ferrara; Shakespeare's house in Stratford,
with his chair; Goethe's house in Weimar, with its furniture; Kant's
old hat; the autographs of great men; these things are gaped at with
interest and awe by many who have never read their works. They cannot
do anything more than just gape.
The intelligent amongst them are moved by the wish to see the objects
which the great man habitually had before his eyes; and by a strange
illusion, these produce the mistaken notion that with the objects they
are bringing back the man himself, or that something of him must
cling to them. Akin to such people are those who earnestly strive to
acquaint themselves with the subject-matter of a poet's works, or to
unravel the personal circumstances and events in his life which have
suggested particular passages.
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