dimension, through spaces beyond Space and times beyond Time.

If this old ball on which we are carried be no apple of Sodom, but sound
and sweet to the core, insight must be confidence and satisfaction. In
the beginning of thought we enjoy mere glimpses and guesses, our hopes
are rather wishes than hopes; we mount into flame when they come, we
sink into ashes when they burn out and desert us. The first glimmerings
only beget a noble discontent. Children are tired of matter before they
know where to seek their own power; they seem to be cheated of
themselves, their worthiness is unrecognized and unfed. Companions,
tasks, prospects are insufficient, they are bored and isolated, they
sigh and mope; yet they are proud of this lukewarm longing, which does
not quite avail, and keep diaries to record with protest the dulness of
every day. Sentimentality is initial genius. Its complaint seems to
contradict the cheerfulness of wisdom, yet it enjoys complaining; though
life be not worth having on these conditions, it bottles every tear. A
weak sadness fills great space in literature, stocks the circulating
library, and counts its Werthers by the thousand in every age. Now we
expect this malady, as we look for mumps and measles in the growing
child. It is feminine,--unwilling to be weak, yet not able to stand and
go. The strong quickly leave it behind.

In his first novel Goethe burned out for himself this girlish
green-sickness, and by a more vigorous demand began to take what he
wanted from the world. To the young, life seems splendid but
inaccessible. Its remoteness is the theme of every complaint; but when
these windy wishes grow stern, inexorable, when a man will no longer
beg, but gets on his feet to try a tussle with the world, he throws
resolute arms around the Greatest, and finds in his bosom all that was
so vast and so far.