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 dreams of the poet's life,--of him who is not merely a pen-poet, but a living lyric, a poet in heart and soul. "And this life of true glory," cries the heart of Wilhelm, "may be mine, _mine_!" A gentle and magnanimous egoism, but still an egoism. But the due subjection of this self-feeling will come duly; in the qualifications that even now make it lovely the sure promise of that is contained. Fourth in order appears a much prettier figure, namely, Philanthropy, the loving desire to serve man. It is, indeed, at first, sufficiently sweeping and ambitious. No half-way work, no boy's play here! He will regenerate the race; he will ennoble humanity, without sparing one caitiff of them all; he will establish it on some perpetual mount of transfiguration; and all by the magic of stage effect. No boy's play! All this, too, is noble and vital. With exquisite appreciation Goethe depicts it, seeing well how vital it is in essence,--seeing, too, how vapory it is in form. Who knows better than he that to crave service, and to crave it in love, and to crave it without limit, is of the very substance of all that enriches man? To whomsoever this divine longing is foreign all the profound uses of life are foreign; he is barren as beach-sand. Humanity, however, is not swung away from its mud-moorings so easily; probably would only go adrift and come to wreck, if it were: witness the French Revolution. Sing, bird, in the tree-tops! but when you fly, think not to make the pines fly with you! It is only by slow vital assimilations that man is ameliorated. We do our best in digging and fertilizing a little about the roots, or in bearing pollen, like bees, from flower to flower. We do our best by a little meek furtherance of Nature. And this meekness of labor is no less necessary for ourselves than for those we would serve. Ambitious world-mending is, on one side, self-flattery. Meanwhile horrible tragedies of charlatanism, or terrible tragedies of disgust and despair await an incontinent enthusiasm for the _rôle_ of Providence. Wilhelm's nature has now been greatly enriched. But all that has enriched has also imperilled. Imagination, love, self-feeling, and philanthropy have stored his breast with golden wealth; but they are one and all making over that wealth to a false tendency. Long before this, however, Goethe has brought in chastening, tempering forces, by which these riches may be economized.