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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=418643" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Hermann And Dorothea - III. Thalia</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">THE BURGHERS.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">THUS did the prudent son escape from the hot conversation,<br>But the father continued precisely as he had begun it<br>What is not in a man can never come out of him, surely!<br>Never, I fear, shall I see fulfill'd my dearest of wishes,<br>That my son should be unlike his father, but better.<br>What would be the fate of a house or a town, if its inmates<br>Did not all take pride in preserving, renewing, improving,<br>As we are taught by the age, and by the wisdom of strangers?<br>Man is not born to spring out of the ground, just like a mere mushroom,<br>And to rot away soon in the very place that produced him!<br>Leaving behind him no trace of what he has done in his lifetime.<br>One can judge by the look of a house of the taste of its master,<br>As on ent'ring a town, one can judge the authorities' fitness.<br>For where the towers and walls are falling, where in the ditches<br>Dirt is collected, and dirt in every street is seen lying,<br>Where the stones come out of their groove, and are not replaced there,<br>Where the beams are rotting, and vainly the houses are waiting<br>New supports; that town is sure to be wretchedly managed.<br>For where order and cleanliness reign not supreme in high places,<br>Then to dirt and delay the citizens soon get accustom'd,<br>Just as the beggar's accustom'd to wear his cloths full of tatters.<br>Therefore I often have wish'd that Hermann would start on his travels<br>Ere he's much older, and visit at any rate Strasburg and Frankfort,<br>And that pleasant town, Mannheim, so evenly built and so cheerful.<br>He who has seen such large and cleanly cities rests never<br>Till his own native town, however small, he sees better'd.<br>Do not all strangers who visit us praise our well-mended gateways,<br>And the well-whited tower, the church so neatly repair'd too?<br>Do not all praise our pavements? Our well-arranged cover'd-in conduits,<br>Always well furnish'd with water, utility blending with safety,<br>So that a fire, whenever it happens, is straightway extinguish'd,--<br>Is not this the result of that conflagration so dreadful?<br>Six times in Council I superintended the town's works, receiving<br>Hearty thanks and assistance from every well-disposed burgher.<br>How I design'd, follow'd up, and ensured the completion of measures<br>Worthy men had projected, and afterwards left all unfinish'd!<br>Finally, every man in the Council took pleasure in working.<br>All put forth their exertions, and now they have finally settled<br>That new highway to make, which will join our town with the main road.<br>But I am greatly afraid that the young generation won't act thus;<br>Some on the one hand think only of pleasure and trumpery dresses,<br>Others wont stir out of doors, and pass all their time by the fireside,<br>And our Hermann, I fear, will always be one of this last sort.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Forthwith to him replied the excellent sensible mother<br>'Father, you're always unjust whenever you speak of your son, and<br>That is the least likely way to obtain your wishes' fulfillment,<br>For we cannot fashion our children after our fancy.<br>We must have them and love them, as God has given them to us,<br>Bring them up for the best, and let each do as he listeth.<br>One has one kind of gift, another possesses another,<br>Each one employs them, and each in turn in his separate fashion<br>Good and happy becomes. My Hermann shall not be upbraided,<br>For I know that he well deserves the wealth he'll inherit;<br>He'll be an excellent landlord, a pattern to burghers and peasants,<br>And, as I clearly foresee, by no means the last in the Council.<br>But with your blame and reproaches, you daily dishearten him sadly,<br>As you have done just now, and make the poor fellow unhappy.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then she left the apartment, and after her son hasten'd quickly,<br>Hoping somewhere to find him, and with her words of affection<br>Gladden his heart, for he, the excellent son, well deserved it.<br>Smilingly, when she had closed the door, continued the father<br>'What a wonderful race of people are women and children.<br>All of them fain would do whatever pleases their fancy,<br>And we're only alow'd to praise them and flatter them freely.<br>Once for all there's truth in the ancient proverb which tells us:<br>He who moves not forward, goes backward! a capital saying!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Speaking with much circumspection, the druggist made answer as follows<br>'What you say, good neighbour, is certainly true, and my plan is<br>Always to think of improvement, provided tho' new, 'tis not costly.<br>But what avails it in truth, unless one has plenty of money,<br>Active and fussy to he, improving both inside and outside?<br>Sadly confined are the means of a burgher; e'en when he knows it,<br>Little that's good he is able to do, his purse is too narrow,<br>And the sum wanted too great; and so he is always prevented.<br>I have had plenty of schemes! but then I was terribly frighten'd<br>At the expense, especially during a time of such danger.<br>Long had my house smiled upon me, decked out in modish exterior,<br>Long had my windows with large panes of glass resplendently glitterd.<br>Who can compete with a merchant, however, who, rolling in riches,<br>Also knows the manner in which what is best can be purchased?<br>Only look at the house up yonder, the new one: how handsome<br>Looks the stucco of those white scrolls on the green-colour'd panels!<br>Large are the plates of the windows--how shining and brilliant the panes are,<br>Quite eclipsing the rest of the houses that stand in the market!<br>Yet at the time of the fire, our two were by far the most handsome,<br>Mine at the sign of the Angel, and yours at the old Golden Lion.<br>Then my garden was famous throughout the whole country, and strangers<br>Used to stop as they pass'd and peep through my red-colourd palings<br>At my beggars of stone, and at my dwarfs, which were painted,<br>He to whom I gave coffee inside my beautiful grotto,<br>Which, alas! is now cover'd with dust and tumbling to pieces,<br>Used to rejoice in the colour'd glimmering light of the mussels,<br>Ranged in natural order around it, and connoisseurs even<br>Used with dazzled eyes to gaze at the spars and the coral.<br>Then, in the drawing-room, people look'd with delight on the painting,<br>Where the prim ladies and gentlemen walked in the garden demurely,<br>And with pointed fingers presented the flowers, and held them.<br>Ah, if only such things were now to be seen! Little care I<br>Now to go out; for everything needs to be alter'd and tasteful,<br>As it is call'd; and white are the benches of wood and the palings;<br>All things are simple and plain; and neither carving not gilding<br>Now are employ'd, and foreign timber is now all the fashion.<br>I should be only too pleased to possess some novelty also,<br>So as to march with the times, and my household furniture alter.<br>But we all are afraid to make the least alteration,<br>For who is able to pay the present charges of workmen?<br>Lately a fancy possess'd me, the angel Michael, whose figure<br>Hangs up over my shop, to treat to a new coat of gilding,<br>And the terrible Dragon, who round his feet is entwining;<br>But I have left him all brown; as he is; for the cost quite alarm'd me.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Johann+Wolfgang+von+Goethe">Johann Wolfgang von Goethe</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=418643" data-title="Hermann And Dorothea - III. Thalia de Johann Wolfgang von Goethe" data-description="THE BURGHERS.

THUS did the prudent son escape from the hot conversation,
But the father continued precisely as he had begun it
What is not in a man can never come out of him, surely!
Never, I fear, shall I see fulfill'd my dearest of wishes,
That..."></div>
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