And the more strictly he clings to that which is central in man on the
one hand, and the more broadly and faithfully he embraces the existing
prosaic limitations on the other, the more his work answers to the whole
nature of his function. Goethe has done the latter thoroughly, his
accusers themselves being judges; that he has done the other, and how he
has done it, I have sought to show in a preceding paper. He looks on
actual men and actual society with an eye of piercing observation; he
depicts them with remorseless verity; and through and by all builds,
builds at the great architectures of spiritual growth.
Hence the difference between him and satirists like Thackeray, who
equal him in keenness of observation, are not behind him in verity of
report, while surpassing him often in pictorial effect,--but who bring
to the picture out of themselves only a noble indignation against
baseness. They contemn; he uses. They cry, "Fie!" upon unclean
substances; he ploughs the offence into the soil, and sows wheat over
it. They see the world as it is; he sees it, and through it.
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