It
is one of the pieces in "Wilhelm Meister's Travels." I read it through
many years ago; and, of course, I had to read into it very hard when
I was translating it (applause), and it has always dwelt in my mind
as about the most remarkable bit of writing that I have known to be
executed in these late centuries. I have often said, there are ten
pages of that which, if ambition had been my only rule, I would rather
have written than have written all the books that have appeared since
I came into the world. (Cheers.) Deep, deep is the meaning of what
is said there. They turn on the Christian religion and the religious
phenomena of Christian life--altogether sketched out in the most airy,
graceful, delicately-wise kind of way, so as to keep himself out
of the common controversies of the street and of the forum, yet to
indicate what was the result of things he had been long meditating
upon. Among others, he introduces, in an aerial, flighty kind of way,
here and there a touch which grows into a beautiful picture--a scheme
of entirely mute education, at least with no more speech than is
absolutely necessary for what they have to do.

Three of the wisest men that can be got are met to consider what is
the function which transcends all others in importance to build up
the young generation, which shall be free from all that perilous stuff
that has been weighing us down and clogging every step, and which is
the only thing we can hope to go on with if we would leave the world
a little better, and not the worse of our having been in it for those
who are to follow. The man who is the eldest of the three says to
Goethe, "You give by nature to the well-formed children you bring into
the world a great many precious gifts, and very frequently these are
best of all developed by nature herself, with a very slight assistance
where assistance is seen to be wise and profitable, and forbearance
very often on the part of the overlooker of the process of education;
but there is one thing that no child brings into the world with it,
and without which all other things are of no use." Wilhelm, who is
there beside him, says, "What is that?" "All who enter the world want
it," says the eldest; "perhaps you yourself." Wilhelm says,
"Well, tell me what it is." "It is," says the eldest,
"reverence--_Ehrfurcht_--Reverence! Honour done to those who are
grander and better than you, without fear; distinct from fear."
_Ehrfurcht_--"the soul of all religion