Novalis: His Life, Thoughts, and WorksA.C. McClurg, 1891 - 246 pages |
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æsthetic ages animated artist attraction Augsburg beauty body calm cavern charm cheerful child daughter death delighted devotion dream Duke of Thuringia earth earthly Eisenach Eros eternal everything eyes Fable fairy tale faith fancy father feeling felt Fichte flowers fresh friends Ginnistan glorious Goethe hand happy Hardenberg heart heaven heavenly Heinrich Heinrich's mother hermit higher Holy ideal influence intellect King Klingsohr light lived looked Ludwig Tieck lute maiden marriage marvellous mathematics Matilda merchants merry mighty mind mysterious mystic nature never night noble Novalis numbers old miner Osterdingen passed peace philosophy poet poetic poetry Princess reflection rejoiced religion returned rise rocks rose round sang Schwaning scribe seemed song soon Sophia Sophie von Kühn sorrow soul spirit stars stood strange Suabia tarantulas thoroughbass thou thought Tieck took true truth voice weary Weissenfels Wittenberg wonderful words youth
Popular passages
Page xviii - Sorrow,' he comes before us as the most ideal of all Idealists. For him the material Creation is but an Appearance, a typical shadow in which the Deity manifests himself to man. Not only has the unseen world a reality, but the only reality: the rest being not metaphorically, but literally and in scientific strictness, 'a show'; in the words of the Poet, ' Schall und Ranch umnebelnd Himmels Gluth, Sound and Smoke overclouding the Splendour of Heaven.
Page xv - Novalis, a man of the most indisputable talent, poetical and philosophical ; whose opinions, extraordinary, nay altogether wild and baseless as they often appear, we not without a strict coherence in his own mind, and will lead any other mind, that examines them faithfully, into endless considerations ; opening the strangest inquiries, new truths, or new possibilities of truth, a whole unexpected world of thought, where, whether for belief...
Page xix - He loves external Nature with a singular depth ; nay, we might say, he reverences her, and holds unspeakable communings with her: for Nature is no longer dead, hostile Matter, but the veil and mysterious Garment of the Unseen; as it were, the Voice with which the Deityproclaims himself to man.
Page xx - If they feel, with us, that the most profitable employment any book can give them, is to study honestly some earnest, deep-minded, truthloving Man, to work their way into his manner of thought, till they see the world with his eyes, feel as he felt, and judge as he judged, neither believing nor denying, till they can in some measure so feel and judge, — ihen we may assert, that few books known to us are more worthy of their attention than this.
Page xvii - Nay perhaps, if attempted by the means familiar to us, an impossible task: for Novalis belongs to that class of persons, who do not recognise the ' syllogistic method' as the chief organ for investigating truth, or feel themselves bound at all times to stop short where its light fails them. Many of his opinions he would despair of proving in the most patient Court jf Law; and would remain well content that they should be disbelieved there.
Page xvii - ... he calls it natural or revealed, you know he has made up his mind beforehand. The most powerful teacher of the spirituality of things religious in England during the last century was Carlyle, who, writing in the year 1829, said of Novalis: He belongs to that class of persons who do not recognise the syllogistic method as the chief organ for investigating truth, or feel themselves bound to stop short where its light fails them. Many of his opinions he would despair of proving in the most patient...
Page xix - In discussing his works, it is impossible not to notice his singular style. Odd as it is, we think it may be accounted for without charging him with affectation. It appears to us that a writer inculcating such opinions, who says, — "I will...
Page 240 - ... exceeding that of Day. They see far beyond the most distant of those countless hosts; they need no light to perceive the unfathomable depth of that loving Spirit who fills boundless space with happiness. All hail, Queen of the Earth! thou herald of holier worlds, thou revealer of holy love ! Much-loved sun of the night, thou art her gift. My whole being awakes. I am thine, and thou art mine. Night has aroused me to life and manhood.
Page 241 - ... Sleep! shed thy blest balm on the hallowed Night of this earthly sphere. Only fools fail to understand thee, and know of no other sleep than the shades which the actual night casts over us in kindly pity. They see thee not in the purple blood of the grape, in the golden oil of the almond, in the dusty sap of the poppy. They guess not that it is thou who hoverest around the tender maiden, making her heart the temple of Heaven; nor dream that it is thou. heavenly messenger, who bearest the key...
Page 246 - ... waters and the quaking earth; countless were the tears shed by those who loved him; the secret of the grave was made clear, and heavenly spirits rolled away the heavy stone from the tomb. Angels watched by the slumbering Form: rising in new godlike glory, he soared to the heights of the newly made world, buried the old earthly shape in the depths of a cavern, and laid his mighty hand on it, so that no power might ever move it. The loving ones still wept by his grave, but they wept tears of emotion...