This is the true Rest of man; no stunted unbelieving callousness, no
reckless surrender to blind Force, no opiate delusion; but the
harmonious adjustment of Necessity and Accident, of what is changeable
and what is unchangeable in our destiny; the calm supremacy of the
spirit over its circumstances; the dim aim of every human soul, the
full attainment of only a chosen few. It comes not unsought to any;
but the wise are wise because they think no price too high for it.
Goethe's inward home has been reared by slow and laborious efforts;
but it stands on no hollow or deceitful basis: for his peace is not
from blindness, but from clear vision; not from uncertain hope of
alteration, but from sure insight into what cannot alter. His world
seems once to have been desolate and baleful as that of the darkest
sceptic: but he has covered it anew with beauty and solemnity, derived
from deeper sources, over which Doubt can have no sway. He has inquired
fearlessly, and fearlessly searched out and denied the False; but he
has not forgotten, what is equally essential and infinitely harder,
to search out and admit the True.
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