.. O friend, true happiness is
content, and everywhere content has enough." "O wise one," spoke the
eagle, and, moved to deep earnest, sinks more deeply into himself; "O
wisdom! thou speakest like a dove." In the other poem, _Kuenstlers
Erdewallen_ ("The Artist's Earthly Pilgrimage"), composed in the form
of a dialogue, we have equally a draft from Goethe's own experience.
To provide for his family needs, the artist is forced to prostitute
his genius by painting pictures for the vulgar _connoisseur_, and he
desponds at the prospect of a life spent under such conditions, but
the muse whispers consolation: "Thou hast time enough to take delight
in thyself, and in every creation which thy brush lovingly depicts."
It was a consolation which at this time and at other periods of his
life Goethe had to take home to himself.
CHAPTER X
_WERTHER_, _CLAVIGO_
1774
In his fortieth year Goethe wrote to Wieland: "Without compulsion,
there is in my case no hope."[150] So it was with him at every period
of his life; without some immediate impulse out of his own experience
or from the urgency of friends he was incapable of the sustained
inspiration requisite to the execution of a prolonged artistic whole.
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