Now the soul understands the wail of the nightingale and the smile of the new-born babe; the significance of the flowers and the mysterious hieroglyphics of the starry sky; the holy import of life as well as the beautiful language of Nature. All things speak to it, and everywhere it sees the lovely spirit through the delicate envelope. On this gaily decorated floor it glides through the light dance of life, innocent, and concerned only to follow the rhythm of sociability and friendship, and not to disturb the harmony of love. And during it all an eternal song, of which it catches now and then a few words which adumbrate still higher wonders. Ever more beautifully this magic circle encompasses the charmed soul, and that which it forms or speaks sounds like a wonderful romance of childhood's beautiful and mysterious divinities--a romantic tale, accompanied by the bewitching music of the feelings, and adorned with the fairest flowers of lovely life. APHORISMS By FRIEDRICH SCHLEGEL From the _Lyceum and the Athenæum_ (1797-1800) TRANSLATED BY LOUIS H. GRAY Perfect understanding of a classic work should never be possible; but those who are cultivated and who are still striving after further culture, must always desire to learn more from it. If an author is to be able to write well upon a theme, he must no longer feel interest in it; the thought which is to be soberly expressed must already be entirely past and must no longer personally concern the writer. So long as the artist invents and is inspired, he is in an unfavorable situation, at least for communicating his concepts. He will then wish to say everything--a false tendency of young geniuses, or an instinctively correct prejudice of old bunglers. In this way he mistakes the value and the dignity of self-restraint, although for the artist, as for the man, this is the first and the last, the most needful and the highest. We should never appeal to the spirit of antiquity as an authority. There is this peculiarity about spirits: they cannot be grasped with the hands and be held up before others. Spirits reveal themselves only to spirits. Here, too, the briefest and most concise course would doubtless be to prove, through good works, our possession of the faith which alone gives salvation. He who desires something infinite knows not what he desires; but the converse of this proposition is not true. In the ordinary kind of fair or even good translation it is precisely the best part of a work that is lost. It is impossible to offend a man if he will not be offended. Every honest author writes for no one or for all men; he who writes that this one or that one may read him, deserves not to be read at all. In the poetry of the Ancients we see the perfection of the letter: in that of the moderns we divine the growth of the spirit. The Germans are said to be the foremost nation of the world as regards artistic sense and scientific genius. Very true, only--there are very few Germans.