Goethe, the
patriarch of a new literature, after having painted in "Werther" the
passion which leads to suicide, traced in his "Faust" the most somber
human character which has ever represented evil and unhappiness. His
writings began to pass from Germany into France. From his studio,
surrounded by pictures and statues, rich, happy and at ease, he watched
with a paternal smile, his gloomy creations marching in dismal procession
across the frontiers of France. Byron replied to him by a cry of grief
which made Greece tremble, and suspended "Manfred" over the abyss as if
nothingness had been the answer of the hideous enigma, with which he
enveloped him.
Pardon me! O, great poets! who are now but ashes and who sleep in peace!
Pardon me; you are demi-gods and I am only a child who suffers. But while
writing all this I can not help cursing you. Why did you not sing of the
perfume of flowers, of the voices of nature, of hope and of love, of the
vine and the sun, of the azure heavens and of beauty. You must have
understood life, you must have suffered, and the world was crumbling to
pieces about you, you wept on its ruins and you despaired; and your
mistresses were false; your friends calumniated, your compatriots
misunderstood; and your heart was empty; death was in your eyes, and you
were the very Colossi of grief. But tell me, you noble Goethe, was there
no more consoling voice in the religious murmur of your old German
forests? You, for whom beautiful poesy was the sister of science, could
you with their aid find in immortal nature no healing plant for the heart
of their favorite? You, who were a pantheist, and antique poet of Greece,
a lover of sacred forms, could you not put a little honey in the
beautiful vases you made; you, who had only to smile and allow the bees
to come to your lips? And thou, thou Byron, hadst thou not near Ravenna,
under thy orange trees of Italy, under thy beautiful Venetian sky, near
thy dear Adriatic, hadst thou not thy well beloved? O, God! I who speak
to you and who am only a feeble child, I have perhaps known sorrows that
you have never suffered, and yet I believe and I hope, and yet I bless
God.
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