hes the poor youth with still more of that "false
tendency" which is his proper Satan. Moreover, by rushing headlong
toward consummation, and overleaping the bounds of prudential morality,
it brings both upon Mariana and himself sore retributions. Her, poor
child, it hurries to the grave; him it pushes to the grave's brink, and
stores even his recovered strength with anguish and a lifelong regret.

Goethe is accused of immorality. He does, indeed, depict grave errors
without exclaiming over them, without holding up his hands, or playing
any pantomime of horror. Moreover, a love pure in its essence, but
heedless in its procedure, he persists in naming pure, though heedless.
But he indicates, with a rigor that is even appalling, the retributions
which pursue levity and precipitation, not to mention things worse. I
have read many books which gave more moral _stimulation_ than "Wilhelm
Meister"; I have never read any which, while frankly acknowledging that
Nature's blessing goes more with noble essence than with decorous form,
yet indicates with equal power the iron nerve of moral law that runs
through and through the world.

And now, as third performer in this _real_ drama of growth, comes
forward a redoubtable figure, the Sense of Self. His reputation, indeed,
is not of the best. All, it is true, embrace him privately; but most
think it decorous to disavow him in public.

On the whole, _I_ is a very serviceable pronoun; and equally its
complement in consciousness is serviceable. Welcome, Ego, to your place!
The feeling of Self is the nominative, the _naming_ case, in the syntax
of consciousness. But, as, by the rules of grammar, the nominative is to
be made the _subject_ of a verb, so in the grammar of growth this
self-feeling is subjected to the grand _verbum_, the action and total
significance of one's existence.

Bring it out, then, clearly, pronounce it with due distinctness and
force, that it may be clearly and definitely subjected.

Nature attends to that. She secures the nominative in her spiritual
syntax. And so there is a period in earlier life when this feeling of
self is getting pronounced. _Very_ pronounced it is sometimes, a little
severe in its emphasis upon delicate ears. And, indeed, if it come
without adjective, without gentle qualification, almost any hearer must
confess that he has known sounds more musical.

In Wilhelm it is sweetly qualified with love and imagination. It appears
in luxuriant dre